Quirks & Kinks

by Laurel Ulen Curtis

  “Can you imagine the day he dropped this bomb years ago?” Ashley asked, sinking into the arm chair, sitting sideways, and throwing her legs over the arm.

  Laying back into the couch, I giggled, changing my voice to as deep of a timber as I could manage. “Well, uh, Abby, you see, I’m um . . . Well, I’d really love it if you’d honk my nose and call me Bozo.”

  “You want me to what?!” Ashley shrieked dramatically, playing along as the part of Abby.

  “She obviously got over it,” I remarked, watching the screen with a sort of detached attention as a white-faced Ryder pretended to sink between my legs. We’d evidently missed the rest of the intro and Ryder’s lead in to Red Nose Day while we were having a little reenactment of our own.

  “Understatement of the century.”

  We watched in silence for several seconds before Ashley’s eyebrows made an attempt to climb into her hairline. “Did he just—”

  “No,” I lied, reliving the moment when Ryder had run his stupid red nose up the line of my sex and inhaled. It hadn’t been for show, but I wasn’t certain he was doing it because he genuinely wanted me either. He just seemed to get some sort of sadistic pleasure out of making me the epitome of uncomfortable.

  Of course, I hadn’t exactly let it slide, getting mine back by threatening to maim the next seven generations of his family with ragged shards of glass and “bumping” an elbow directly into his balls as soon as Howie had yelled cut.

  There was a necessary level of intimacy when you were shooting scenes like that. And then there was a flagrant abuse of that necessity. Ryder’s actions fell well within the latter scenario.

  Airing on a network like TLE (The Learning Experience), it wasn’t unexpected to have a show that pushed the boundaries in both subject matter and propriety, but this wasn’t that.

  Major editing did a great job of making everything feel real without making it necessary to move to a network like Skin-e-max, but my personal experience made things easier to notice. And I’d noticed that Ryder’s actions made me look appropriate.

  I watched as we portrayed the day that Mike had approached Abby about his desire to take their show on the road, making love (as clowns, of course) on a remote piece of property he owned. How the thought of her as a pregnant clown only heightened his excitement.

  I could see my cynicism in the face of trying to be understanding of the man I loved. Which, from talking to Abby, pretty much nailed how she was feeling when he’d actually approached her that day. But she’d gone through with it, hoping not only to please Mike, but knowing that once the baby came there would be a significant decrease in their role playing opportunities.

  Unable to watch Ryder’s smarmy attempt at compassion during childbirth, I grabbed the remote and forced the screen to black.

  “Hey!” Ashley snapped, surprised at the abrupt ending.

  “Sorry,” I semi-apologized. “I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

  She chuckled. “He’s not exactly convincingly sincere, is he?”

  “No,” I agreed. “He’s much more plausible as a creepy clown.”

  “Well,” she murmured into the crickets of our silent apartment. “What do you want to do now?”

  “Sleep,” I said simply. “I’m going to go to sleep.”

  Tomorrow would be another long day with Ryder.

  “I’m going to expect my itinerary under my door by six AM.”

  “Ha!” she laughed. “Let me know how that goes.”

  Great. Tomorrow would be another mysteriously long day with Ryder. I couldn’t wait.

  “I’m having the hardest time with the one with the beady eyes,” I told Ashley during our brief break from shooting.

  Anytime Howie called “cut” I added the words “and run” and got as far away from my co-star as possible. He’d already touched me several times today, and with the show we were shooting, there wasn’t even a pretense of necessity to hide behind.

  “Not the one that looks like it’s watching you constantly?”

  “Shit!” I panicked. “Which one is that?”

  I hadn’t noticed one that followed my every move. They were coming at me from every angle!

  “The one in the corner, by the one in with the buck teeth.”

  “Cripes. I hope this isn’t their actual collection.”

  “It’s not,” Ashley said, making me feel at least a little better about the situation. “Their kids are in school.”

  “Oh.” Teased with an inkling of comfort, only to have it ripped savagely away.

  “Yeah.”

  Today’s show featured more of a quirk than a kink, and for that, I was thankful. But it was outside of my usual realm of normal, and if I was honest, it was creeping me out even worse than the clowns.

  Frank and Lisa Hendross were a seemingly normal middle-aged couple. They’d been married going on twenty years, and the sight of them together was heartwarming. Very obviously in love, they actually looked at one another when speaking and touched more than necessary.

  It was the kind of thing you rarely saw in today’s world of smartphones and stupid social media.

  But they hadn’t been able to conceive children, something that devastated Lisa. Frank’s melancholy bloomed as a consequence of hers, and that led them to their circumstances today.

  Proud owners of one of the most extensive doll collections in the country, each of which they treated as though it was an actual living and breathing child.

  First confronted with the story line, I’d cringed. But when I saw the sadness in Lisa’s eyes—the truth behind the madness—and Frank’s willingness to do anything to stop it, I’d shed a few tears of my own.

  In the privacy of my dressing room with no one around to hear, of course.

  But I’d held onto that frame of mind, Frank and Lisa’s sadness haunting my every move until I’d arrived on set and seen the first doll.

  Beady-eye McGee. That’s what I’d named him.

  “Come on, guys,” Howie called. “Time to go again.”

  “Good luck,” Ashley said, sending me off with a wink.

  Evil. She was pure evil.

  Enemies starting to outnumber me, I did my best to avoid two freaky dolls and one freaky man, but I only had so many eyes for watching my back.

  Figuring the dolls were more dangerous than the man, I turned my back to Ryder as Howie called us to action.

  Sadness clung to my chest as I combed the strawberry blond hair of a doll named Belinda and wished for a life within her that would never be.

  Something about this show caused a twinge of longing, the idea that I too had no prospects for having children whispering softly at the back of my mind.

  I pushed it away, focusing on the task as Ryder recited his line at my back.

  “Did Belinda have her breakfast this morning?”

  “No. She wasn’t hungry. I hope she’s not coming down with something,” I answered, resisting the urge to mention that she probably wasn’t eating because she couldn’t.

  Leaning in closer, Ryder’s back brushed mine.

  I stiffened slightly, but relaxed quickly, telling myself I had to get over the aversion to our tight proximity. It was bound to continue for the entirety of the show, and the sooner I could school myself to accept it, the better off I’d be.

  It only took five seconds for my new zen outlook to evaporate.

  Wandering fingers descended the line of my side, and then, after only a brief pause, sought the inside of my thighs, brushing against the apex and making me jump enough to break the scene completely.

  “Cut!”

  Thankful for the reprieve, even if it meant I was the cause of the screw-up, I jumped to my feet and turned to face my offender.

  “Touch me again and I’m going to slice a mouth into your penis, cut off your balls, and then feed them to it like a game of fucking Hungry Hungry Hippos.”

  “Howie,” I heard Larry call. “Let me know when you’re done here. I need to see Ryder in h
is dressing room.”

  “We’re done,” he responded, making me turn to him in question.

  He shook his head slightly before looking to Ryder.

  “Your dressing room with Larry. Go now.”

  After one last lingering dirty look, Ryder was gone and so were the others. Left with nothing to do and no one to ask for answers, I followed them off the set, headed for my dressing room right across the hall from Ryder’s.

  “VIEWERS DON’T THINK YOU’RE genuine, Ryder.” I could just make out Larry’s muffled voice through the door.

  Of course, Ryder’s screaming reply was much easier to hear clearly. “Fucking genuine? I’m pretending to be someone else!”

  Uncomfortable listening, I cringed, turning away from the door and running straight into Howie. His face was knowing but not censorious. If anything, he looked mildly amused.

  Still, I felt the need to defend myself.

  “Howie! I was just—”

  “Eavesdropping.”

  My shoulders slumped in defeat. “Yeah.”

  His lips curled into a smile and slightly coffee-stained teeth dug into his bottom lip before coughing out one dry chuckle. “It’s okay, Easie. The viewers don’t like him, sure, but neither do I.”

  “You don’t?” I questioned as innocently as possible. I hadn’t said one word to anyone about my run-ins with Ryder. I didn’t want to start problems. Now that I’d started to get money, I didn’t think the show was such a joke anymore.

  “Easie,” he said softly, shaking his head. “I hear everything he says to you. The microphones pick it up.”

  As I thought back to all the things Ryder had said, my cheeks heated with embarrassment. Howie noticed.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” he commanded softly. “Listen, he’s been harassing you, plain and simple. If I’d thought you couldn’t handle yourself or he’d put you in a truly uncomfortable place, I would have done something about it sooner. These first few shows are really important for the future of the show—”

  “Howie, I understand. I would never expect you to—”

  “Easie. Let me finish.”

  I gave him a nod of understanding and a prompt to continue.

  “As I said, the first few shows are important for the future of the show, but I know that the future of the show is important for you. That said, so is maintaining a professional environment. Especially on a show that walks such a thin line with subject matter like this one does. That’s why when Larry approached me about the viewership statistics and Ryder’s unfavorable perception in our own viewer survey, I agreed wholeheartedly that it was time to give the asshole the boot.”

  I couldn’t stop a small grateful smile from creeping onto my face. I’d been in this business for seven years now, and I’d never met someone this honest and ethical. Howie really was like a Hollywood version of dear old dad.

  “But I’ll be honest,” he whispered conspiratorially, “I was kind of enjoying listening to you put him in his place.” He paused and smirked just slightly. “Creatively.”

  The sound of wood splintering rang out like a gunshot as the door to Ryder’s dressing room swung open and slammed into the wall no more than a foot from my body.

  Instinctively, I jumped away, bumping into Howie and nearly knocking him down. I bent to help him recover, but didn’t get the chance for long. Before I knew it, Ryder had me pinned to the wall behind me with a fierce, bruising grip on both of my arms. His fingertips pulled at my skin and crushed painfully into the muscle and bone underneath.

  “What’d you say to them, you fucking bitch?!” he spat in my face, his own features contorted into a sincerely ugly, rage-driven version of themselves.

  Thankfully, I didn’t have enough time to really panic—to understand what was actually happening to me or the very real danger I was in.

  “Fuck!” Larry swore from behind him, jumping into the fray and pulling Ryder off of me. “Call security!” he yelled, pinning Ryder to the opposite wall with some assistance from Howie. Howie may have looked inconspicuous, but watching him and Larry subdue Ryder together, it was clear neither of them were lacking in brute strength.

  I noticed Ashley for the first time, her face stricken with fear as she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed the number for help at the opposite end of the hall.

  We didn’t have to wait long for security to arrive, but there was no doubt in my mind they were coming from the studio next door. There was no way in hell our fledgling show was paying for security.

  Ryder’s eyes scorched me, cutting through the people between us and spewing all of the world’s hate.

  Okay, maybe not the entire world’s hate, but trust me, it was a lot.

  I tried to look away, but couldn’t seem to physically manage it until Howie got directly in my face and forced my eyes to him.

  “Do you want to press charges?”

  “No.”

  “Easie.”

  Look, I know. I should have pressed charges, but honestly, I was over it. I wanted Ryder to be gone, and I wanted to figure out if there was a way to salvage the show. Charges meant hours of questions and disruption.

  A glance down the hall had me finding Ashley in Larry’s arms, but for once, I wasn’t weirded out. I was just happy she had the comfort.

  “No, Howie. Thanks, but there aren’t even visible bruises on my arms,” I told him, flashing them in front of his face as evidence. I had always been a delayed bruiser. “I’m fine.”

  “Alright.” He didn’t like it, but alright. As much as I liked Howie, he wasn’t anything more to me than a director. Maybe, if I really pushed it, a friend. So he didn’t have the proprietary clout needed to change my mind.

  “What are we going to do?” Ashley asked Larry as security hustled an embarrassed looking Ryder past them.

  “We’re gonna dig out the old casting resumes, and we’re gonna get someone else in here. This episode’s a wrap, so it will air as planned. Any future episodes will feature someone else.”

  “Were there any other guys you seriously considered casting?” I asked in an effort to be helpful.

  Larry speared me with a look conveying he didn’t want any of my help. Hard eyes, hunched shoulders, laser beams scorching through an imaginary bullet hole right between my eyes. You know the one.

  Right.

  Widening my eyes comically at Howie, I opted for the road much less traveled. You know, not poking the bear. Apparently getting slammed against a wall by a psychopath had me off of my game.

  “Your dressing room. Now,” Larry commanded, addressing me directly but meaning everyone.

  “Whoa. Hold on there, compadre,” I said with the palm of my right hand up and out toward him. “I understand your desire for expediency here, but I’ve got a deeper need for nicotine. I’ll be in my dressing room in ten minutes.”

  Rattled by violence and rare work-related physical activity, Larry conceded to my needs quickly and without too much attitude. “Fine. You have ten minutes to char the inside of some of your most vital organs.”

  A smile formed on my face, cloaked in a cloud of laughter. I couldn’t help it. For one of the first times on record, I’d actually found something Larry said funny rather than annoying. Go figure.

  “I’ll come with you,” Ashley offered, and it was at that point I knew just how shaken up she was. She never offered to come with me when I smoked. Something about wanting to live to be one hundred and fifteen years old just so she could be on the news.

  I’d told her it’d be much easier, and you know, efficient if she’d just go into acting now. She was bound to make it on TV at some point prior to aging a million years.

  She’d laughed in my face. I’d given her the finger.

  That was how things usually went down.

  I didn’t need her to come with me, but I also wasn’t about to deny her whatever relaxation she was seeking.

  “Well come on then,” I called, ducking into my dressing room to grab my smokes ou
t of my purse and heading straight down the narrow hall toward the outside.

  Bright sunshine sank deep into my skin, cutting through the chill of the indoors and warming me from the inside out. I loved the reliability of Southern California weather. As much as I complained about the people and traffic, I could never find it in me to complain about the weather.

  The flint of my lighter struck true at the first flick of my thumb, and the heat ate the paper back at the end of my cigarette instantly. Sounds of traffic bleated in the distance as I touched the tip to my lips and inhaled, but it didn’t last long. My lungs surrendered to the weight of the ingested smoke immediately, and my brain turned off.

  Nothing mattered but that moment, that hit of nicotine, and the ease of knowing my sister was safely at my side after one hell of an encounter.

  “So . . .” she ventured slowly, wrecking all of that hard-earned calm with one, useless word. “What the hell was that about?”

  “You know how it is. Larry fired Ryder, and he didn’t take it well. Most men have mastered the skills it takes to cover their Neanderthal with makeup, but not all of them.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Oh?” I asked, studying the flecks of orange and ash as the end of my cigarette dwindled to nothing.

  “Easie. What the hell happened between the two of you that he thought his being fired was your fault?”

  “Ash—”

  “No, E. Answer me.”

  “God, you’re a demanding little bitch these days.”

  “Yeah,” she quipped, “You must be rubbing off on me.”

  “Ah, fuck, Ash. You know it’s nothing,” I avoided. “You know I can’t get along with anyone.”

  “No,” she disagreed strongly. “I don’t know that. That’s just what I tell you when I’m in the mood to throat punch you but I can’t.”

  “Hah,” I huffed in a chuckle. “Well, that’s a creative way to torture me.”

  “Stop avoiding the subject, and tell me what the fuck is going on.”

  “Look. I’m telling you, it’s nothing. Ryder was giving me a little bit of a hard time, and I was giving him one back. Honestly, it’s nothing more than normal.”