Comfort 4: Command Performance

by Annabel Joseph

  It was too late now. He should have known better. Even here he should have known better than to do all those things with open doors and open windows. He’d read somewhere that a person was never more than six feet from a spider. He thought he was probably never more than six yards from a photographer.

  “What’s going to happen?” she asked. “There are pictures of us out there? From...here?”

  “Of us on the beach, yes. They’ve been sold. They’ll probably be published in a thousand papers with our private parts blurred out.”

  “But who took them? Who sold them?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll find out. We’ll sue the shit out of someone and we’ll win, but that doesn’t matter now. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said, just as he knew she would. He couldn’t argue with her tonight. He couldn’t spend his rage on her, because one thing was certain. It wasn’t her fault.

  “Please, don’t worry.” He stroked her face and squeezed her again. “Let’s go to bed. Let’s put it out of our minds and worry about it in the morning. Today was such a great day. I don’t want it to be ruined now.”

  “Nothing could ruin it,” she said staunchly. “Nothing could ruin this day for me. Everything will be okay.”

  He wished he believed her. They huddled together—under the covers now—and Mason wished for everything to be okay, but he had a sinking feeling it wouldn’t be. He’d tried to use the press for his purposes, and now it was backfiring on him. He’d thought he could manipulate them with no repercussions on his end. Play the fame game and not get burned by it.

  He supposed the hardest thing was that, in some way, this invasion of privacy felt deserved.

  Chapter Eleven: At Risk

  Mason slouched down in the back of the studio car, exhausted. It had only been a month since their getaway to Cap Camil, but it seemed like forever. He needed another goddamn vacation—uninterrupted this time. He needed Miri. Miri waited at home for him, available, open and sweet.

  And unhappy.

  Miri was unhappy. She tried not to show it, but she was. He couldn’t solve the problem, couldn’t fix it, so it remained there, one more stress on top of everything else. He was back on set in another film, but Miri wasn’t getting work, and it was probably his fault. The papers had grown increasingly unkind over the past month, smearing her as a gold digger and career opportunist. The naked photos hadn’t helped. Their trip away was painted as a kinky sex slave initiation, with the two of them cavorting naked on the beach. So much for cleaning up his image.

  The agency responsible for the photos settled quickly and privately for a large amount of money, which Mason funneled to charity. It was the only positive thing about the whole debacle. It didn’t make the photos go away or anything. The uncensored versions still floated around online and probably would forever.

  Miri moved into his place so they could spend time together outside the spotlight, but their romance felt a lot less like forever and a lot more like, let’s try to survive this. The sex was good, and they cared for each other, but some part of their relationship still felt like a performance. They rarely went out anymore because they didn’t want to face the paps and act happy when...well...they weren’t. Mason kept his head down and worked, and used sex to cling to her, but how long was that going to sustain them?

  Miri didn’t even have work to prop her up.

  He should have broken up with her weeks ago. It would have been the merciful thing to do. He should have let her go after the nude photo disaster sent things skidding sideways. It would have been kinder to her. It would have allowed her to distance herself from him and regroup. He knew Miri’s father was pushing her to break up with him. Shane Greenberg called him every day and told him to break up with her, that she was dragging him down.

  So why hadn’t he broken up with her?

  It wasn’t just for the sex, the comfort. He tried to convince himself of that. He really did like her. Maybe he loved her. God, he didn’t know. There were too many other things going on with them to figure out how they felt about each other. Add in the professional jealousy she felt—he didn’t blame her at all for that—and they had a nearly untenable situation.

  Still, he couldn’t seem to let her go.

  And she didn’t go. Every day he came home and expected her to be gone. Things weren’t going to get any easier. When this film wrapped, he had two more on the schedule, projects he’d lined up before he’d even met her. There were premieres, junkets, special events, awards ceremonies scheduled through summer and into fall.

  “Mason,” she told him once as they lay in bed together. “I feel like I’m losing myself a little more every day.”

  She said stuff like that but then she backtracked. She’d make calls, get out there and go to auditions. Then there’d be the letdown. You’re not right for this part. We’ll be in touch for our next project. Mason remembered how wrenching that rejection felt and he hated seeing her go through it. He commiserated with her, but he also felt at fault. Why couldn’t he get her good parts? Why couldn’t he promote her?

  Because his own stock in Hollywood was more and more at risk.

  He needed to talk to someone. He thought of Jeremy Gray, but he didn’t want to drag him into this. Satya? It was late. She’d be annoyed, but once he got home, he headed over to her house. Satya would help him sort through all this, because she was direct and insightful and she wasn’t afraid of hurting his feelings by telling him the god-awful truth of things. He hadn’t talked to her in so long. In a way, he’d felt too embarrassed to talk to her. He was embarrassed to tell her, or any of his friends, how fucked up his life had become. Even now, he didn’t know what he would tell her.

  He rang the bell and waited, rubbing at the tension in his neck. Satya took one look at his face and let him in, no questions asked.

  “Would you like a drink or would you like to sober up?” she asked, leading him into her living room. He collapsed on her sofa.

  “I’m not drunk.”

  “You look like hell then. Did the Virgin Miri finally leave you?”

  Mason shot her a look. “She hasn’t been a virgin in a while.”

  “I just like calling her that.” Satya narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll make some coffee then, while you tell me what’s wrong. And get your feet off my couch,” she called over her shoulder as she bustled to her kitchen.

  Mason kicked off his shoes and, at Satya’s glare, carried them to the mat by the door. He joined her in the kitchen, sitting on a bar stool at the counter. He rubbed his face and raked his hands through his hair. “Sats, I’m all fucked up.”

  She watched him for a moment. “I could say something really mean.”

  “Don’t. I’m sure it won’t be anything I haven’t already said to myself.”

  “This is what you get for trying that obnoxious stunt with Mireille Durand. You should have laid low and let the gossip die out.”

  “It’s too late now, isn’t it?”

  Satya frowned, bracing a hand on her hip. The coffee machine clucked and perked in the silence between them. “You like her, huh? That must complicate things.”

  Mason shook his head in frustration. “I should have left her by now. Made her leave me. We’re like a train wreck that keeps wrecking and wrecking and wrecking and wrecking again.”

  “Yeah, that’s why the tabloids love you. Trainwreck couple. Now we’re all waiting for the breakup, which isn’t happening...why? Because you like her. You like her that much?” Her amber eyes bored into his, ferreting out his secrets. “You’re falling in love with her, aren’t you?”

  He sighed. “I think we’ve already fallen in and out of love. Now we’re like those bitter married couples keeping it together for the kids.”

  “Is it really like that?”

  “Well, no. We have a lot of great times.”

  “Translation: We have a lot of great sex.”

  Mason scowled at Satya, but it was pointl
ess. She knew the truth. She waved a hand at him, pouring coffee into cups. “You’re a pig, Mason. I’ve told you this before. The sad thing is, you drag these women down with you.”

  “Oh, I drag them down?”

  “Yes, you do. You need to grow up. You need to stop doing things because they feel good, for appearance’s sake or for your career, and start doing the right thing.”

  “It’s not the right thing to break up with her. It will hurt her.”

  But even as he said the words, he knew they weren’t true. It would hurt at the beginning, sure, but if she hung in there she’d end up in a better place. It would look good, her separating herself from him. It would restore a little of her respectability anyway, make her look like an independent woman rather than a fame whore.

  “She’s not a fame whore,” he blurted out.

  Satya eyed him, passing across a cup of coffee. “Uh, I don’t remember saying she was.”

  Mason stirred some sugar into his cup. He was losing it. “People think she’s some bimbo riding my coattails, but she’s not. I can’t stand the way she’s being judged. I like her. I want her to be with me. Why does my entire life have to be lived at the public’s behest, just because I’m this celebrity figure?”

  He looked at Satya, but she didn’t have the answers. They’d discussed this many times before. The price of celebrity, the blurring of public and private lives. It never got any easier, but the alternative—ducking out of the game—wasn’t attractive either. He gave a frustrated groan and took a swig of coffee.

  Satya walked around to sit beside him, squeezing his shoulders as she passed. “I hate to see you this way, hon. I wish I knew what to tell you. If you like her that much, if you want to be with her, then follow your heart. Forget the rest and let the pieces fall where they may.”

  He gazed over at her, appreciating her words even if they didn’t solve his issues. His privileged, spoiled-movie-star issues. No wonder she was so snarky to him sometimes. He took her hand and sighed.

  “How are things with you? How are things in the human rights trenches?”

  “They’re not bad. That money you gave me last year for the schools in Nepal and India is really starting to pay off.” Her eyes took on a familiar zealous glow as she outlined her foundation’s strategy to improve the lives of third world women through schools, early intervention, community education. The goal was to reduce child marriages, sex trafficking, and other practices that exploited women. She showed him pictures of the schools and the kids his money was helping. It was just what he needed. Eventually he turned the conversation back to her.

  “You’ve been so busy doing this important work,” he said. “But how are you?”

  It was like she’d been waiting for him to ask. Her face lit up. She became almost giddy, which for Satya was really weird.

  “I’m still seeing the guy in New York.”

  “Oh yeah? That’s great. You look pretty happy about it.”

  “I am happy. This guy is...” She looked away, shaking her head. Mason felt a pang of jealousy. “This guy is amazing,” she said. “He’s really one of the most amazing guys I’ve ever met.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “He’s a doctor. An orthopedist in New York. He was doing volunteer work for Doctors Without Borders while I was in the Sudan.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Another fucking hero. I’ll never live up to these men,” he said with a snort of disgust.

  Satya took a sip of coffee and put her cup down. “You know what? Sometimes I think this guy might really be the one.” She looked kind of scared as she said it. This was Satya, independent, confident Satya.

  “Do you love him?” he asked with a sense of dread.

  “I’m falling in love with him. Yes.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Rob.”

  Mason frowned. “Rob? What kind of name is that? His name is an actual crime. I disapprove.”

  He thought it was a pretty good joke, but Satya didn’t laugh. She played with the rim of her coffee cup. “I’ve been thinking about moving out there. You know, to be closer to him.”

  Wow. No. This wasn’t a joke. The idea of Satya moving across the country startled him. He’d come to depend on her so much, as a friend, as a confidante. He was going to lose her. One more thing to depress and worry him.

  He tried to keep his voice light. “So Dr. Rob is robbing you away from us? You’ll move to New York to be with him?”

  “I should have moved to New York ages ago, you know. All my work is there, and this is what I need to get me going. I’ll miss you, but I’m looking forward to being with him there.”

  “So you’ve already decided to move.”

  Her gaze pleaded with him to understand. To wish her well. “This is what we wanted, Mace. What we wished for on New Year’s Eve, remember?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, of course. God, I’m really excited for you. This is definitely a good thing.”

  “And I wished happiness for you. I still wish that. There’s still half the year to go. New Year’s wishes...they have to come true, right?”

  Mason nodded again, numbly. “Sure. I’ll get through this. I can’t be unhappy forever, can I?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but Mason was very afraid the answer was yes. Yes, you can be unhappy forever.

  Even more unhappy than you are right now.

  *** *** ***

  Miri took a deep breath. Damn sadistic undergarments. Damn movie premiere.

  In the beginning she’d enjoyed going out with Mason to these glitzy industry events. Yeah, that was before she became the butt of a joke.

  She told herself she didn’t care what the papers and celebrity bloggers said about her. She didn’t care if she was Mason’s secret sex slave or Mason’s clinging coat-tail rider, or Mason’s failed-actress-turned-arm-candy. She told herself she didn’t care, but it was hard to pretend when people were constantly sneering and poking fun at her.

  Shane Greenberg wore a scowl as they exited the limo. Mason’s publicist had tried to convince him to walk the red carpet alone, but what Shane had yet to figure out was that the fastest way to get Mason not to do something was to tell him to do it. Now Miri was being dragged along under the scrutiny of cameras and news stations in her sleazy black dress with a big slit up the side. Even his stylist was dressing her to the part. She wanted to cry, but she smiled instead. She did it for him.

  Mason cared for her. She knew he did. She knew he was tormented and torn in two directions. The problem was, he wasn’t picking one, and she wasn’t either. She didn’t want to lose him. She couldn’t imagine a life without Mason, without his warmth and his smile, and his silly jokes. His burnt toast in the morning. His perverse kinks and pleasures in bed. He was the perfect man, so why weren’t things working out?

  Because you don’t deserve him. He’s more successful than you. You’re an albatross around his neck. That’s what everyone thought. The public had approved of Jessamine. In their eyes, she’d been a wife of his caliber, and he’d squandered that to go slumming with a loser like her. Miri wished he’d break up with her and date someone more appropriate before his own career was irreparably damaged, but he wouldn’t do it, and she was too selfish and weak to break up with him herself.

  He smiled over at her now, patted her hand as reporters shouted to him for photos. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Ugh, see? Those were the things that killed her. He really was glad she was there. His friend Satya had recently moved to New York, and his friends Kai and Jeremy were busy with their own partners and families and projects. She knew he felt alone and frustrated. In the end, she thought it was better to stay with him until everything shook out. Besides, leaving him would mean a return to her old life, to her room in her father’s house, and she wasn’t quite ready for that.

  Once inside the theater, once his film was under way, they snuck out a back door and into a car. No one cared. Most actors did that. They’d already been to a premi
ere in London, Paris, New York, whirlwind trips that took up a day, and then home again so he could go back to the set. Once this movie was done, there was another lined up, with several development deals in process. He worked so hard, and with her dragging down his rep, he probably felt pressure to work even harder.

  In the back of the car, Mason pushed up the hem of her dress, tugged aside the gusset of her panties and fingered her pussy. She sighed and leaned back in the seat. At least they had this. He leaned close, whispered in her ear.

  “I’m going to fuck you at home, baby. I’m going to fuck you right out of this dress.”

  Excitement stirred to life in the midst of her melancholy mood. She tried to relax, to give herself up to the pleasure of his possessive touches. His fingers parted her, stroked her boldly, then strayed up to finger her ass. The old her would have freaked out and pulled away. The new Miri sat very still and let him touch. “Good girl,” he whispered. “You let me do what I want, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  The driver looked up in the rearview mirror at that moment. She knew he couldn’t hear them through the Plexiglass privacy barrier, or see what Mason was doing to her, but she blushed anyway. Mason went on fingering her, oblivious, his face buried against her neck.

  “Oh, Mason,” she breathed. “Please...”

  Please... She meant please fuck me, and he would. He fucked her whenever he had time to be with her. She lived for it like a drug. He breathed in against her skin and then blew warm kisses against her neck. “When we get home, I’m going to fuck your ass. It’s time. Past time. Don’t you think?”

  Miri sat very still, feeling scared and pressured and hotter than ever for him.

  “No answer.” He chuckled. “I understand, but that doesn’t change things. I’m going to push my cock right into your tiny asshole, and it will hurt you, but you’ll beg for more. More cock, more pain. You’ll be begging for your two favorite things.”