by Victoria Fox
‘What?’
‘That story.’
Pascale faced her in the dark. ‘Does it matter?’
‘I suppose not.’
They lay in silence for a bit. ‘Tell me about when you were a child,’ said Pascale, pushing herself up on one elbow. ‘Tell me a story like that.’
Aurora thought about it. She was conscious that her youth had been one excess after another. Tom and Sherilyn had never taken her away, the three of them, somewhere where they just chilled out away from it all. Come to think of it, they had never done much as a family.
‘I don’t have any,’ she admitted. The words hung between them in the darkness, hollow and sad, and Aurora thought about qualifying it but she didn’t have anything else to say.
‘Do you ever wonder what life would be like if they weren’t your parents?’
The question was so unexpected, and Aurora so exhausted, that she felt tears prick her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
The rain had started up again. They could hear it pattering on the tent.
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘No—go on.’
‘Just that yours is kind of a messed-up life.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t be sensitive. All I mean is that it’s hard to be you—just you, for what you are—because you’re Tom Nash’s daughter. You’ll always be Tom Nash’s daughter, all your life.’
Aurora hadn’t thought of it like that before. Now she did, she felt horribly claustrophobic.
‘So?’
‘So you have to be your own person.’
‘I know that.’
‘And make your own choices.’
‘I do make my own choices,’ snapped Aurora. ‘No one tells me what to do.’ But she knew that for all her proclamations of independence she lived the life she did solely because of her parents’ status. Tom Nash was a world-famous A-list performer. Sherilyn Rose was the darling of the country scene. Aurora Nash was … well, she was their kid. Nothing more. She never would be. She’d never be exciting and original like Pascale.
Pascale’s voice dropped. ‘Have I upset you?’
‘No.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ Aurora bit her lip. She had always been content with her cars and cash and clothes, her status as Hollywood princess, but her friendship with Pascale was widening her horizons. Maybe there was more to life than album sales and wild parties and boys. She was lucky, right? So lucky, just like everyone said. Why, then, did she feel empty? A salty teardrop slid down her cheek.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Pascale.
‘I’m cold.’
‘Come to me.’ Pascale reached out and put her arm round Aurora. She unzipped their sleeping bags so their bodies were touching, warmer in the embrace. The French girl smelled clean, like violets, her hair touching Aurora’s cheek.
The wind was picking up, tugging at their canvas shelter. Pascale began stroking Aurora’s skin, at first over her tank top and then, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, slipping her hand beneath it. Aurora didn’t breathe. Pascale’s touch was light, barely there, her fingers small, the nails long. She traced over Aurora’s stomach, slowly, affectionately, and then, almost by accident, it became something different, her touch creeping up, finding the crescent swell of Aurora’s left breast, following it till she met the bud of her nipple. It didn’t occur to Aurora to object. She hardened under Pascale’s touch, moved her position ever so slightly, without really meaning to, so she filled Pascale’s palm.
‘Can I kiss you?’ Pascale whispered, her accent stronger in the dark and with the quiet.
Aurora was aware of every hair on her body, every pore. ‘Yes.’
Pascale’s lips were soft and yielding, her tongue inquisitive. She was wearing gloss and the girls’ mouths locked, their tongues entwined in sweet curiosity. Gently Pascale bit Aurora’s bottom lip. It sent a charge of desire through Aurora and she found herself reaching for the other girl’s body. Pascale lifted her T-shirt and peeled it off, then her knickers, revealing a smooth-skinned body that shone whitish in the moonlight. Between her legs, a bush of dark hair, two pale nipples high on her chest. Aurora took one in her mouth and tentatively kissed it. It was a new sensation but at the same time oddly familiar, as if she were loving her own body and knew all its contours and pleasure points. Carefully she bit the tip. Hearing the French girl’s sigh, she pulled harder, till Pascale was holding her and drawing her close.
Aurora had never made out with a girl before. Pascale had skin like silk, her touch tender but firm, fragile but strong. Overcome, she felt for the other girl’s wetness, sliding once into it, then raising her fingers to Pascale’s mouth and between her lips, feeling her tongue wrap around. Aurora kissed her again, more passionately this time. She felt like she was imitating the boys she’d been with, not sure why she assumed the role of the man. Not that there had to be a man. In fact, the way she felt right now, there had never been need of boys and never would be again.
‘I am going to show you something,’ Pascale whispered, manoeuvring Aurora on to her back. Moving her head lower, she kissed Aurora’s stomach and then the ridges of her hips, till she reached the band of her knickers. Peeling the material to one side and kneeling between her legs, she inserted one small finger, then two. A thin sound escaped Aurora’s mouth. She shivered, hot and cold, raising her hips, pushing herself on to the other girl, marvelling at the exactitude of Pascale’s touch. The French girl ran a thumb over that sensitive swell, then the very tip of her tongue. Without warning Aurora crashed over waves of pleasure. It was the quickest, and most intense, orgasm of her life.
Afterwards they lay together, their foreheads touching.
Pascale dressed and rolled over. ‘Night,’ she said, as if nothing momentous had occurred.
‘Night,’ said Aurora. She stared into the dark and listened to the rain outside.
20
Stevie
Ben Reiner, Bibi’s nineteen-year-old brother, was a pain in the arse to live with. Stevie had been patient at first—he was broke, he’d split up with his girlfriend, his esteem had taken a knock: she knew from her own younger siblings it’d get better—but since arriving at the apartment all he seemed to do was sit around getting stoned, eating chicken drumsticks and watching internet porn. Ben had little if anything in common with his sister, especially where work ethic was concerned. After appearing in a couple of anti-zit adverts that he complained made him look like a ‘chump droid’, he seemed to have given up. Still, she abided him for Bibi, and if that meant picking up balls of discarded socks, turning the telly off late at night when Ben forgot to (invariably still set on the Adult Hardcore channel) and occasionally thinking he was dead because it was three o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon and he still hadn’t surfaced from his room, then so be it.
One thing Ben had been useful for, however, was in the resolution of her situation with Will Gardner. Coupled with the fact they were living in different cities and scarcely saw each other, Will hadn’t taken kindly to the fact that Stevie was about to let a bum teenager into her house, who, despite the Bibi connection, he stated she hardly knew. His attitude over the whole thing had been cheap and ungenerous. It had been the push she needed to make the break. Marty King was pleased. Now she was free and single, Stevie could throw herself into the publicity circuit unencumbered—and the timing couldn’t be better. Things were taking off with the wrap of Lie to Me. Critics were calling it ‘a shatteringly truthful portrayal of friendship and the many shades of love’, while her performance was hailed ‘a stunning debut’. It felt as if she’d walked straight into someone else’s life—which, in a way, she had. It never left her mind that the role of Lauren was meant to belong to someone else, and she vowed that one day she would find a way to repay her good fortune.
Bibi herself arrived in LA towards the end of the month. Stevie dropped several hints about Ben taking one of the rooms in Linus Posen’s sprawling Beverly Hills pad,
but, according to Bibi, the timing was never quite right: ‘Sorry, Steve, you know what it’s like—new relationship and all! Could he crash with you just a little bit longer?’ Reading between the lines, Stevie decided that Linus had no intention of helping Bibi or her family and had likely vetoed the idea, serving only to confirm her bad instincts about the man. Try as she might, Stevie couldn’t shake the impression that there was more to the director than met the eye. She didn’t trust him.
Though she’d had plans with another friend tonight, she had cancelled on hearing about Bibi’s housewarming. Bibi and Linus were throwing an extravagant party to mark his relocation and Bibi had made her promise to be there.
‘Cool,’ Ben had grunted when she told him. He was permanently attached to his phone, reclining as he was now on the sofa, examining what he said were football scores but would just as likely be downloaded filth: he was obsessed. ‘You can get me talking to some people.’
Stevie tried not to let it get to her. Ben was always demanding to trail her around and get introduced to as many influential faces as possible, but then did little to establish or nurture those relationships. She found it awkward: it wasn’t that she didn’t want Ben accompanying her to parties, exactly, more that she felt it a liberty to constantly be appearing to pioneer an out-of-work actor in need of a break. Nevertheless, she kept reminding herself, this was a favour to Bibi. Wasn’t she riding on one humongous favour herself?
She and Ben shared a car to the Posen mansion. Ben had harped on about accompanying her in for the benefit of the paps but she had refused, saying speculation would be rife once it was revealed he was Linus’s sort-of-brother-in-law (which she suspected was exactly what he wanted). Now, predictably, he was sulking. Stevie glanced at him on the back seat. The only physical similarity he had with Bibi was the hair, which was curly and gingerish. He was getting chubby around the chin and was struggling to cultivate a beard. She’d seen pictures of Ben when he was young and he’d been cute then, but cuteness often didn’t translate into adulthood.
The paparazzi were out in force. Ben was first to enter the fray and attracted a minor flurry when the association with Linus’s new girlfriend was revealed. He hovered about a bit once the cameras had done their thing then loped off in search of a drink.
Stevie’s reception was at the other end of the scale. Clad in a white Stella McCartney number (she was always advised to wear British) cut short at the thigh, she emerged to a cacophony of exclamations and demands for her attention. Bulbs glittered in an almost continuous stream of light. The glasses were long gone and the hair was let loose, tumbling in gentle deep-red waves to her shoulders. She possessed a Mona Lisa smile that sent the paps wild.
Inside, Bibi found her straight away. ‘I’m so happy to see you, Steve, I’ve missed you sooo much! Can you believe the reception you got? I suppose you’re used to it by now, but wow! You look amazing, by the way. Do I look OK? I wasn’t sure about the dress but it is my party, you know, so I figured I should stand out.’
Stevie liked Bibi’s dress but the rest of her looked bad. Her green eyes were glassy and there were dark rings beneath them that she had tried to conceal with foundation. Her hair, that reddish frizz once so charmingly shambolic, was bluntly cut and dyed a severe, waxy blonde. There were still shades of the old Bibi, but it was as if a light, a vital one, had gone out. ‘It’s gorgeous, B,’ said Stevie, kissing her friend on the cheek. She fought the urge to wrap a blanket round her and bundle her home where she could take care of her. She looked like she hadn’t eaten in a week. ‘I haven’t seen Linus. Where is he?’
‘Oh—’ Bibi flapped her hands ‘—he’s about. Is Ben here? How’s it going?’
Stevie turned round. Ben was making small talk with a nonplussed Scottish-born actor and drinking too quickly. She was about to say something evasive like, You know what teenagers are like, then realised that made her sound about fifty.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘He’s settling in.’
The Posen mansion was outlandishly decorated. Crystal chandeliers dazzled from lofty ceilings; plaid chaises longues studded the marble floor of the entrance hall accompanied by faux-Regency three-legged tables; huge gilt mirrors hung on the walls. Artwork from Linus’s greatest movies was dotted around: action-shot stills of gorgeous actresses, all running from some point of menace. It was elegant, if you liked that sort of thing, but strangely void of character.
‘There he is!’ Bibi had spotted her aged, overweight boyfriend as he weaved through the crowd of assembled faces, flinty eyes scanning the guests. Stevie hadn’t seen Linus since they’d been introduced in New York, and she was reminded of how physically off-putting she found him. He’d got fatter in the intervening months, and his white hair was now cut brutally short, military-style, which emphasised the pink fleshiness of his cheeks.
‘Stevie Speller,’ he greeted her with a damp kiss, ‘I always knew you’d be going places. Didn’t I say so when we first met?’
She couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said but it hadn’t been that. In a flash she recalled the card he’d handed her, a matching one to Bibi’s.
‘Make an old man happy,’ he said, licking his lips as his eyes scoped her body, ‘and promise you’ll work with me some day …’
Ben joined them. Bibi’s haunted expression was immediately replaced by a happier one.
‘Little bro!’ She had to reach up to hug him, she was so tiny. ‘How’s it living with my best friend?’
‘’S OK.’ He shrugged.
Unfortunately Linus took the opportunity to step closer to Stevie.
‘I mean it,’ he said quietly. ‘Dirk tells me you’re the business. The offer’s there whenever you want it.’
She hadn’t a clue what he was doing speaking to Dirk Michaels about her. It stood to reason they’d compare notes, but the way Linus was going on was unsettling, as if they’d been discussing her behind her back.
‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ she replied, though she had no intention of doing so. Linus returned by placing a heavy hand on the small of her back and instantly she moved away.
‘Can you believe we’re all here?’ Bibi was exclaiming, though her wholehearted enthusiasm was matched only by Ben’s lack of interest and Stevie’s unease, as the print from Linus’s touch seared into her.
Linus looked momentarily thrown, as though he’d forgotten all about his girlfriend. He glanced down at Bibi, as if she were a pet.
‘Run along, darling, our guests need seeing to.’
An uncomfortable silence ensued. Stevie was shocked at the director’s rudeness, and even more shocked by her friend’s response. The old Bibi would never have cowed to such misplaced authority. This one nodded meekly and moved away.
Bibi Reiner went straight upstairs to one of the guest bedrooms—she had taken to sleeping there recently. She couldn’t stand it. Her head was spinning and she had a dry, sick taste in her mouth. Shakily, she fished about in a drawer and found what she was looking for. She unscrewed the cap and poured the dark liquid down her throat.
Before she’d met Linus Posen she had never drunk. These days, forget it.
Damn Linus. Damn him! Bibi oscillated between needing him desperately—alone, panicking, What am I without him?—and loathing the man with every fibre of her being. He had promised her the world: the moon, the stars and everything in between. Instead he had fed her into a different, sordid game. One she felt powerless to get out of.
Linus Posen ran a lucrative sideline in the porn industry. By day he directed surefire Hollywood blockbusters; by night he directed movies called things like The Girl Who Couldn’t Say No and Six in a Bed. He’d been doing it for years. Oh, it wasn’t the money—he’d made his fortune long ago—but he liked it. It gave him a kick. His favourite hobby.
Bibi closed her eyes, surrendered to a shudder. The things he had made her do … with men, with women, with objects—ever since she had foolishly taken his card. Stevie had told her not to call, but had she listened? No
. She’d met Linus the following week, dazzled by his guarantees of fame and celebrity, willing to do anything he asked. Initially he’d been pissed that she’d come alone, he’d wanted the girls as a package: Bibi with her wild hair and huge innocent eyes and Stevie with her cool, slender beauty. She’d been forced to give him head as ‘compensation’. Even if she had wanted to confide in her friend, she couldn’t: she hadn’t been able to talk right for days afterwards.
That episode had set the tone for their working relationship—and now it was degradation of the highest, or lowest, order. Before Bibi realised what was happening, Linus had drawn her in, dangling the carrot of stardom and having her follow it blindly into a long dark tunnel. By the time she wanted out, it was too late: she turned, looked back the way she had come, searching, searching, and could no longer see the light.
Some days, the good days, she believed she was on a necessary journey. Linus promised her she was a natural and that the camera loved her: she was born to do this. Bibi would beg—when could she star in just one of his other movies? And he kept making that vow, just this last gig, just this last time, and then he’d get her the breakthrough audition…
It never came. Meanwhile just about everything and everyone else did, in her mouth, in her hair, on her body, between her legs. She’d thought when she became Linus’s official girlfriend, the way out would be clear: he wouldn’t want to risk people seeing her in that context, would he? It had to stop. But Linus had a solution for everything. Instead he capitalised on it, engineering movies more sordid and perverse than ever, introducing her to the underground scene as ‘The Faceless Vixen’, forcing her body into every unthinkable position but always severing the headshot. It was a double strike for the Posen empire: a host of new devotees who got off on the anonymity; and for him, supreme protection.
Somehow the very worst thing was sleeping with Linus himself. He was away a lot of the time, Bibi could only guess at where or with whom, but each night he returned it always went the same way. He’d be drunk, and he always sweated when he drank. Bibi, anticipating his arrival, would get stoned out of her head. It was how she got through sex on-set—that and more coke than she knew what to do with. For Linus’s pleasure she would be required to get changed into something school-girlish; they’d engage in the first part of a role play that involved her getting on all fours and having her ass spanked while he whacked off, then he’d be so drunk he dived straight in, rutting her from behind with a half-limp dick. She supposed it was some small mercy (and it was small) not to be forced to face him, but as she accommodated his heaving bulk, suit pants round his ankles, shoes still on, grunting and wheezing as he ploughed into her for ages and ages, making her dry, making her sore, she wondered when the hell it had gone so wrong.