by Grey, Parker
“I’m here to see Nolan. I mean, Mr. Maddox.”
The receptionist shakes her head.
“He’s not in.”
“Do you want to check my name on the list?”
“What’s your name?”
“Emma Frankel.”
She scrolls through the names. “Oh, it says he left something for you.”
She reaches under her desk and takes out an envelope with my name written on it in compressed capital letters. Must be Nolan’s handwriting.
Maybe this envelope is the last thing I’ll get from him. Maybe this is our last interaction.
I can’t believe I thought he actually liked me. Why would he? He doesn’t need to like me, he can get any woman he wants.
Maybe I just happened to be closest at hand.
And my photos. Was he lying about liking those too?
“Can I talk to him?”
The receptionist looks annoyed.
“Like I said, he’s not here,” she huffs.
“His car is parked out front.”
The big wooden doors at the center of the room swing open.
It’s Nolan, perfectly buttoned into a killer suit, standing with his arms outstretched, holding the doors open. My heart leaps in my chest, my palms instantly sweaty.
“Emma,” he says to me. “That’s okay. Come on in.”
His office is bright with sunlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows, but as I walk in I feel the room darken around me. The sound behind me tells me why, the clasp of the heavy doors closing behind us.
I’m nervous about this conversation, but I’m still excited to be alone with Nolan. I turn away from the window, maybe hoping to find him inches from me, ready to throw an arm around me and pull me close, but instead he’s already leaning back in his office chair, with what seems like a mile of desk between us.
I swallow hard, trying to still my heart and not be disappointed.
“Have a seat.”
Nolan points to the comfy looking chair across from his desk.
I shake my head.
“Nah, I won’t bother you long. I just wanted to…”
What did I want?
“I wanted to talk to you at least one more time,” I say, the words rushing out of my mouth.
Nolan’s eyes flick up from his computer screen.
“I told you I would talk to you again. You didn’t believe me?”
“I did,” I said. “I do. I just…”
Just what? Just wanted it to be sooner than twenty-four hours later?
Just was hoping that I’d come in here and by now you’d have bent me over your desk while you pulled my hair, whispering rough words in my ear?
I feel a blush start to creep up my neck. I try to think about birds. Salads. Anything to distract myself.
“Well,” Nolan sighs. “Things have gotten a little complicated.”
What the fuck does that mean?
There are too many things I want to say, and I can barely pick any of them up off the floor of my brain, and so I find myself saying nothing at all. Until I see Nolan’s eyes flick back to his computer screen.
“So was it all fake yesterday?”
At last his eyes come off his screen.
“What? No. What do you mean?”
“Do you actually like my work?”
My work? I ask myself. All the problems swirling in my life, my work, my money, those seem easier to deal with now than this.
This new thing. This heartache. I ask him about my work because I can’t bring myself to ask the question that’s really on my mind.
Do you care about me at all?
“Your work?” His eyes flick back to his screen. “Ah. I’m sorry, I wanted to deal with this thing before I talked to you.”
I hear the printer whirring up behind me. Nolan gets up and walks past me and starts rifling through the pages. I guess that’s my cue to leave. I get up and head for the door.
“Wait.” Nolan grabs my arm. “Some things came up last night. It’s going to be hard for me to work with you again. And I have to go off on a trip for a few weeks.”
“Fine.”
At this point I’m embarrassed I even came in here. I could have just taken my check and left without seeing him, because it’s obvious that Jen was right. Women who sleep with Nolan never do it twice, and it’s by his choice.
“This is for you.”
He hands me a stack of papers. I look through them. I’m not sure what I’m looking at.
Email addresses, phone numbers, some printed out messages.
Nolan keeps talking.
“I sent your pictures to a few friends around town. All of these people want you to take pictures for them.”
I look again. I recognize the names. I couldn’t tell you who they are, but I know I’ve seen their names in newspapers, on billboards, on award shows. I’m taken aback.
“I don’t want you to feel stuck with me because you need the work,” Nolan says.
My heart drops, because I know what’s happening. He’s buying me off. I guess I should be grateful that he feels even that much toward me.
“I want more photos,” Nolan says, and pauses.
“Great,” I say, my voice coming out flat and deadpan.
“…and I want more of you,” he finishes. “But for now, I have to go. Can’t put this trip off. I’ll see you when I get back.”
He pauses, and I look up at him. I don’t know what to think, but now I can’t think at all, because he’s close enough for me to smell his soap. He smells good.
It must be all over my face, because Nolan laughs at me.
“Don’t worry,” he says.
Then he leans in and kisses me. His stubble prickles against my cheek, and I lean into it, feeling him against me.
Then he’s moving away, his hand at the door.
“When are you coming back?” I ask.
“A few days. Maybe a week.”
He pauses one more time. He stops, like he’s wrestling with something, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the studio lot behind.
Suddenly, he looks back at me, his mind obviously made.
“You know, I’m not supposed to do this, but I really could use a photographer on this trip. How quickly can you pack?”
“Right now?” I stammer. “Uh, I’ll have to drive home, pack, and drive back, and it’s rush hour. So… three hours?”
“No,” Nolan says bluntly. “I’m not waiting three hours. Let’s go now. Don’t bother packing. I’ll call ahead and make sure there are some clothes for you when we get there.”
“Get where?” I ask, but he’s already out the door.
Chapter Eight
Nolan
No sooner do I step into the hallway than I hear a voice calling up at me.
“Maddox! Good news!”
Marwin, of course. I look him over as he hustles down the hallway to me, ignoring the receptionists and security.
“I’ve signed that new young thing, Kitty whatever,” he tells me as he hits the button on the elevator.
“That’s fine,” I say. “I hope it works out well for you two.”
His eyes flash behind me.
“Who’s this?” he asks, looking at Emma but talking to me.
My skin prickles with annoyance as Emma follows behind me in her professional slacks and blouse. She doesn’t seem to realize how her slacks pull tight across her ass when she walks, or how the buttons on her blouse allow the fabric to peek open when she turns.
Emma doesn’t notice, but Marwin does, and I can feel my blood pressure rising.
“What’s your name?” he asks her when I don’t respond to his question.
“Emma Frankel,” she answers, holding out her hand. He just looks at it like she’s a polite alien.
I remember the blonde on his computer screen last night, and wonder if he’s ever bothered speaking to a woman before, or if he only ever speaks at them.
“Well, we’ll have to change th
at. We’ll have to change a lot of this.” Marwin waves at Emma dismissively. “But I think there’s something we can work with here.”
I interrupt him.
“She’s not an actress,” I say, taking Emma’s arm protectively in mine. I bite back the words you aren’t changing shit, old man.
“Then what is she?”
Emma starts to answer, but I squeeze her arm and speak for her before she can say something that might get her fired.
“She’s my new location scout.”
The elevator dings and opens. Marwin holds the door for us.
“Is that right?” he asks, his eyes squinting at me. “I want to hear about that.”
He gestures towards the elevator. Emma starts to step in, but I grip her wrist.
“Not our elevator.” I say. “We’re going up, not down.”
“Oh,” Marwin says, flustered. “The board approved that?” he asked with an accusatory glance.
“They always do,” I say. “One of the advantages of making movies that hit, not flop.”
The doors close, sealing Marwin away from us at last.
“Come on,” I say, my grip still tight on Emma’s arm. I pull her towards the stairwell.
“What was that about?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “I’ll explain it later, when we have more time.”
“How can we be going up?” She’s still asking questions, even as I throw open the door to the stairs. “I thought we were on the top floor.”
“We are,” I say. “These are the stairs to the roof.”
“The roof?” Emma asks as I lead her up the stairs.
I throw open the heavy metal door and lead Emma out to the helipad, where the helicopter is waiting for us, blades already spinning. While she’s looking in awe at the helicopter, I’m looking at her.
But I can’t stand still for long. I load my bag into the helicopter, then I reach to help Emma climb in, but she’s not there. I look behind me and see her several yards back, camera out, taking a photo of the helicopter. I call her back to me with a flick of my wrist. She crouches and ducks as she walks under the helicopter’s blades, even though they’re twelve feet off the ground.
When she reaches me, she says something to me, although the words are lost to the sound of the helicopter. So I ignore it, put my hands around her waist, and lift her into the helicopter.
Once we’re inside with the doors closed, we can hear each other better.
“You’re here,” I say, hitting the right-hand seat. She sits down, and I run the strap across her chest and into the buckle against her ass, strapping her in place.
Then I throw a leg over the control stick, sit down in the pilot seat, and wrap my hands around the joystick between my thighs. Turn the throttle and we’re rising.
“I was trying to ask,” she shouts from beside me, “is this thing safe?”
I turn my eyes away from the windshield and lock onto her amazing brown eyes, now wide and a little afraid. I give her my most reassuring smile.
“It’s fast.”
We buzz over the hills of Hollywood, and I can’t help but notice how Emma’s body clenches as we cross the peak and the wind lifts us up.
I feel a pang. I don’t want her to feel terrified. But it turns out I’m over-reading, because soon we’re flying over the Mojave Desert, all dry and empty, stretching ahead for miles.
Before too long she’s fast asleep. Guess she does trust my skills.
I just hope I’m not leading her into trouble. There’s no reason for Marwin to know that she’s the Emma who Kitty hates, but he’s not a nice man. In fact, he’s the kind of man who can’t handle having his authority questioned at all — meaning if he finds out that I’ve brought her along after he wanted her gone, I might be in big, big trouble.
Even though I make him millions of dollars every year. Marwin isn’t necessarily known for being rational. Not when he thinks he’s in a dick-measuring contest instead of the movie business.
I’m drawn out of my thoughts by a bolt of rising wind. I wrestle the stick in place until the machine submits to me, and start the climb up the rugged and wild mountain range of the Sierras.
This is a tricky part. Nothing but forest-filled valleys and steep cliff sides below me, nowhere to land in a storm. And as we near the end of the flight, we don’t have enough fuel to turn back.
I have to stay strong, stay on top of things. Can’t make a mistake. I need focus.
Too bad for me, then, that the girl in the seat next to me has woken up. She raises her elbows up over her head, stretching, and her breasts rise up and forward in her shirt.
She shifts in her seat and her hips cock at a new angle.
“Where are we?” she asks, looking down at the granite cliffs and evergreen trees far below us, with white patches of snow beginning to appear in the shadowed slopes. The higher up the range we rise, the more snow we see on the ground.
I tear my eyes away from her and back to the earth below.
“In this part of the movie, the lovers are on the run, looking for somewhere to hide, away from the evil forces closing in on them. They escape to the snowy woods. It looks like paradise but it’s more dangerous than they can imagine.”
She’s watching the ground below us, her beautiful eyes crawling over every craggy mountain and valley.
“Our job is to find that paradise.”
She’s got the camera out again, taking pictures out the window. She points it at me, but I can’t take my eyes off what I’m doing to pose for a picture.
The sun is getting low, glaring in my eyes. It reminds me of the last sunset, what Emma and I did as the sun went down. This time the sun is causing me trouble. But in the dimming light, I can see the glow of buildings in a snowy mountain valley below us.
“Oh my god,” Emma says. “It’s beautiful.”
I press the stick and lower us down the slope until we can see the pointed roofs of big buildings and bigger estates poking up among the trees. At last we come to the place, a wide meadow with a river running through the center. At its edge, I fly over the wild overgrown architecture of the Redwoods Retreat.
In back, I find what I need. A helipad. A look at the fuel gauge tells me we’re just in time.
We touch down and the staff are already there, opening up the doors to the helicopter as if they were valets at a restaurant. They unload my bag for me and take it without a word. It will be waiting for me in the cabin.
Emma shivers when the cold air hits her. “I didn’t even bring a coat.”
The staff on her side hands her one. “We have some other choices waiting for you in Mr. Maddox’s cabin, too,” he tells her.
“What is this place?” Emma asks.
“A place to meet up with friends,” I tell her. “Sometimes to do a little business. Sometimes not.”
We walk the path past the main complex of the Redwoods Retreat, the pools and tennis courts and ballrooms and lodges, to my private cabin on the grounds. My luggage is waiting on the doorstep, but all the staff have disappeared, leaving me and Emma alone.
“You call this a cabin?” Emma asks.
I shrug. “Why not?”
“It’s three stories tall,” Emma says.
“It’s a big cabin.”
I open the door and bring her inside. The central fireplace is already aflame, and behind it, the huge windows look out on the meadow and down the river.
“Are you hungry?”
Emma looks around the first floor, out the window, through the stocked open kitchen, at the books on my bookshelves.
“No,” she says, “not particularly.”
“Good,” I say, grabbing her wrist, spinning her towards me, until she’s pressed up against my chest, with my arm wrapped tight around her.
“Because you’re going to be busy for quite a while.”
Chapter Nine
Emma
He’s not wrong.
We’re circling that massive fireplace like plane
ts orbiting a star. One moment I’m leaning back against the wood walls, drawing my face into his, feeling the strength in his shoulders, then we’re on the couch, our shoes flying off as we roll onto it, then we’re clutching each other in front of those massive windows, the river powering past below us.
I stand on one foot as I pull off my socks, lose my balance and catch myself against the window, leaving a big handprint smudge on the perfectly clear glass.
“Sorry,” I say breathlessly.
Nolan puts his hands firmly on my hips.
“You’re going to have to make it up to me,” he says.
He lifts me up and sits me on the kitchen counter — when did we move into the kitchen? — and slides my pants off effortlessly. I yank off his jacket while he unbuttons my blouse.
Suits are complicated. There are so many parts to them. He’s got me in my underwear on the cold countertop and I can’t even get his tie undone.
“Having trouble?” Nolan smirks. He snakes his left hand around my ass, and with his right slides a thumb below the waistband of my panties.
“Better hurry up,” he taunts.
I try frantically to pull apart the knot of his necktie, but as he explores me I gasp and let it fall from my hand. I catch my breath and start to pick at it again, trying to pull the strands of fabric from each other, but then he brushes across my clit, and my body arches.
It’s all I can do to hold onto him to keep from sliding onto the floor.
He’s playing with me, letting me regain focus, only to take it away again. He’s teasing me, toying with me.
And I love it. Finally, I give up and hold onto his shoulders, feeling the muscles in his back flex as his hands build a rhythm.
He slides his fingers inside me and grips me with his free hand. The rhythm building, and I’ve lost all sense of time.
Oh, fuck, that feels good.
Did I say that out loud? I don’t know, all I know is his hands, and the cold countertop on my ass, and his back beneath my palms.
Don’t stop.
I pull him close to me and look past him, the fire flickering as my eyes lose focus, logs tumbling, glowing embers exploding, as the feeling spreads from my pussy to my core and out to my fingers and toes, a growing, a tightening that builds and builds and builds.