Gia nodded. “Thanks.”
She closed the door and the Prius hummed away.
***
Gia punched the code, but was one button off. She nearly dumped both dinners trying to pull the handle to the locked door. She growled at it and punched the code again. When she wasn’t thinking about it, she got it right.
She climbed the stairs and braced the dinners between her body and the wall as she dug her key out of her purse. Inside, she set the dinners on the table and kicked the door closed behind her with her heel. The apartment did not have the onion smell, but it was stuffy. She went into the bedroom and pulled the window open accepting the smell in exchange for a cooler breeze.
She stepped back from the window and set her open purse on the vanity. Her phone slid out at an angle. Gia slid her arms out of her dress and pushed it down past her hips to the floor. She stepped out of it wearing just her silver thong and bra with high heels. She unhooked the bra in the back and let the straps hang loose at the curve of her shoulders with the cups barely covering her nipples as she faced the window.
She thought that if any of the photographers had followed her Uber home they might get some nice shots now. Gia muttered to her apartment. “No bad publicity – just Hollywood bullshit.”
She wondered what the purple devil with the eyebrows would title the picture and post, if he got a shot of her now. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be flattering.
She looked down in time to see that a line of text had lit up on the screen of her phone. It vanished before she could read it or identify it. She slid her phone out of her purse as her bra slid down to her elbows exposing her breasts. It was nothing people couldn’t pay a few bucks to see in the theater or to own at home.
She pressed her left thumb to the button at the bottom of the phone and the device prompted her to try again. She switched for her right thumb and the icons jumped up in a rainbow wash of colored squares with curved corners.
“Don’t want to hurt anyone with a sharp corner, right?”
Her bra dropped down around her wrists and made her think of having her hands tied in one of the scenes from her movies. She had done that more than once. Never in real life though.
Gia scrolled through text messages and saw that Don had added nothing to his brief apology. She tapped through social media not finding what had prompted the notice. Then, she saw a red dot on the thread from Jack. She felt like she should have known that was who it would have been. Her fiancé had left her buzzing and alone. Now she was standing in her apartment by an open window in nothing but a thong and heels and she had messaged a drooling fan to proposition him. But proposition him for what exactly?
Gia let her bra fall from her wrists to the floor.
She tapped the screen and realized she was excited to read Jack’s response. She whispered, “What’s wrong with me?”
Her empty apartment had no answer for her.
Jack’s message read: “What did you have in mind?”
She shook her head leaning over her vanity staring down past her hard nipples at her phone. “Congratulations, Gina from Dark Orchard, Kentucky, you have managed to make your stalker fanboy seem like the sane one. Unlock the ‘all new low’ level.”
She lifted her fingers into the air above the screen and they danced just above the little grey letters on the virtual keyboard. It was as if her fingers desired to type something. She knew she was going to answer one way or the other, but she was afraid to discover what, so she left her fingers in the air away from the letters for a moment longer.
She asked herself the question to see if she had answer. “What do you have in mind, Gia?”
***
Chapter 3:
Bad Day on the Slut Set
“Reset,” the assistant director growled. “It looks like we are filming a tampon commercial in the sun. Fix the lighting like I told you.”
Gia could see the crew ready to tear into the man like a pack of zombies. This seemed to be how second unit was going and unfortunately more of her scenes were getting shot second unit. If she had any doubts about how far down the cast list she was, having her calls end up on second unit drove that home.
As she watched the exchange, someone from make-up came by and sprayed her with a film of gel that made her look sweaty. She wasn’t sure why her real sweat wasn’t doing the trick, but now she felt sticky and gooey.
“We are outside in the sun, sir.”
Now it was the A.D. that looked like he was ready to tear into someone. “You can use reflectors to change the quality of the light to give me what I need for the scene. You know. Like the way you are supposed to do … for your job.”
“Reflectors will add light. We are using natural light. If you want it darker, we need to be inside or wait for the sun to start going down or filter it in editing.”
“Everyone break for a few minutes while I explain to the crew what I need and why they need to give it to me.”
Others hollered back the order for a break even though everyone had already been fully focused on the unprofessional behavior and heard it. Gia was pretty sure taking this project was a mistake. It was probably a coin flip whether she was getting paid for this either and she was taking the film because she needed to get paid. It was definitely a step down even if her popular horror work was considered a step up by some standard. Big budget pictures were not knocking down her door, so she could keep pretending to be a rising star as she starved to death, if she wanted to.
Gia moved off away from the set and sat down in the open door of a cabinet that was rebuilt to look like an outhouse for another setup earlier in the day. It had the crescent moon cut into the door and the amusement park weathering on the boards around the sides. She wasn’t sure how it looked on camera, but it looked cheesy as hell in real life.
The movie had the working title of Southern Sluts vs. the Lizard Kings of Hillbilly Creek. The script was put together with the same ham-fisted care that the outhouse had been made. It felt like a title the writer/director and roommate of the asshole A.D. had lived with for a while and wouldn’t be convinced to change. The movie was destined to go straight to Blue Ray followed by straight into the bargain bend along with her career. That was if the movie didn’t end up straight to YouTube.
She probably shouldn’t have been hanging out in a set piece. Even if others were unprofessional, she should keep her own standards, but she didn’t have a trailer or even a tent canopy for shade, so she had claimed her spot.
***
Gia took out her phone from a pocket in her cutoff jean shorts. She shouldn’t have had that on her either. The sluts in the film had lost their cell phones several scenes ago. If it showed up in outline against her ass in one of the later scenes, anyone watching the movie for anything besides “T&A” would point it out online – especially the ones watching for “A.” The crew hadn’t noticed, so even they were bored with the project.
She was afraid to leave it laying around in this patch of woods off the highway with no trailer for her stuff. If she had a car, it would probably be stolen by the time they got back to the road. She had ridden in with one of the other girls who was killed off by a lizard king earlier in the day and left without Gia. If she had to ride back with the A.D., she was going to walk home.
She scrolled through the messages and clicked on her new thread for Jack she had labeled: “My New Game.” Gia licked her lips. This was an escape she needed now more than ever.
I’m back, she typed. Please, take me away from all of this.
The pause was brief as if Jack was waiting by his phone for her to call on him whenever she wanted. Gia didn’t really believe that’s what he was doing, but it made her feel good that someone was that attuned to her needs. She was a B movie actress, so she could pretend and lie to herself that things were good.
Jack typed back; “Bad day on the Slut set?”
“I don’t want to talk about it”, she typed as she leaned out to be sure no one was coming. “Tell
me what you would do to me, if you were here with me right now.”
Is it a private spot? Jack asked.
Gia licked her lips again and felt her heart thudding in her chest. “It’s a secluded spot, but I’m inside an open set piece. Someone will walk by any time and catch us. We need 2 hurry.”
“I’ll start with my fingers”, he typed. “Are you wearing a slutty little mini skirt for me?”
“I have on Daisy Duke shorts cut up 2 my crotch.”
Gia frowned. “Crotch” was probably not as sexy as she could have written that. This script was going to be as bad as Southern Sluts Vs. was.
“Can I even fit my fingers in there without tearing your dirty girl shorts?”
Gia responded, “Probably not …”
Jack typed back, “Then you unzip them and pull them down for me.”
“OK.”
Gia unzipped the shorts and folded them open before sliding her hand down inside.
“Don’t cheat”, Jack typed.
Gia froze and her eyes went wide. She thought about Don.
Jack typed a second message. “Leaving your shorts on is cheating in our game. I said to pull them down, so that anyone that walks by sees what a dirty, naughty girl you really are.”
Gia bit her lip. This was so bad. She was humming from every nerve. It was forbidden and it all belonged to her.
She used her hand that was slid down into her shorts and panties to slide them down past her knees. Her bare ass was against the rough wood. The shorts and lacy, red panties held her ankles together. She folded her knees apart and spread herself with her fingers feeling the air against her exposed skin. She was so wet as she touched herself.
Anyone could walk by. She could hear the arguments on the set in the distance.
She held her phone with one hand and typed with one thumb as she worked herself with the other hand.
“OK.”
“Are the panties down too? No cheating.”
Gia’s eyes were hanging half open and she was breathing through parted lips as she typed, “They R down around my ankles & I’m spread 4 U.”
“Good”, Jack typed. “I know you are already touching yourself because you are such a naughty, little girl.”
“I am”, she typed back. “I so am. I’m sorry.”
“Pretend like they are my fingers.”
“They R UR fingers, Jack. UR doing this 2 me.”
He typed, “Lift your shirt up. Take your tits out for me.”
Gia set down her phone and pulled up her shirt past her breasts. She grabbed the phone back up.
“OK.”
“If I was there, I would be using my tongue and my cock to torture you with pleasure. You would do everything I said and you’d love it, you dirty, dirty girl.”
Gia’s fingers moved faster. She typed, “U R torturing me, Jack. Look what U R doing 2 me.”
“I see it”, he typed. “I’m right there taking you for myself right now.”
“I’m going 2 CUM!!!”
She dropped the phone using both hands. Her chest heaved causing her breasts to shake. Her face tightened and went red. She tried to hold it in, but a groan and a squeak escaped her as she shook hard enough the rattle the fake outhouse above her.
She collapsed touching herself more slowly as she gasped for air. Her real sweat had run through her fake gel sweat, so make-up was going to have to spray her down again.
“Back to set.” The voice was close.
Gia said, “Oh, shit.”
She pulled her shirt up and jerked back up her shorts and panties. “I’m coming. Just a minute.”
I really am cumming, she thought.
The voice was already moving away calling everyone else back to set.
She took another deep breath and picked up her phone again.
Jack had typed, “Are you still there?”
“I am”, Gia typed back. “That was intense.”
“I’m glad”, Jack wrote. “Now tell me what you would do to me.”
Gia sighed.
She typed, “I have to go back to set. I’ll do you during my next break. Sorry.”
Jack sent a sad face. He typed, “I want to do more than sexting during your breaks.”
Gia chewed at the inside of her mouth. She sent, “What do you have in mind?”
“IDK”, came back almost immediately.
Gia found her fingers hovering above the keyboard on her screen with the same hesitation she had felt before she took things to the next level with Jack the Liker the first time. If any of this got out – ever – she would be embarrassed in public. Of course, how embarrassed could a co-star of Southern Sluts vs. the Lizard Kings of Hillbilly Creek really get from a sexting scandal? Don would not like it at all, she supposed.
This was another moment of decision. It was probably a bad decision. How could it be anything else? Her life was a trail of bad decisions leading all the way across the country from Dark Orchard to Hollywood.
“Why stop now?” Gia whispered.
“Back to set!” The shout came again.
The startling voice set her fingers into motion more than any real conscious choice.
She typed, “Do you want to play another new game with me, Jack?”
“Tell me”, he typed back right away.
***
Chapter 4:
Play My Game
Gia couldn’t find her phone anywhere. She stood in the middle of her living room and looked around at the magazine covered surfaces. Clean laundry from a week ago still sat in a basket on the end of the couch. It had tipped onto the cushion spilling out. A few clean socks fell onto the carpet mixing with the dirty ones.
“The sheep and the goats are mixing,” she said to the room. She couldn’t remember where the reference was from or what it really meant.
The two dirty to-go boxes from the restaurant where she and Don had fought were still on the table. The juices inside were growing fuzz. If she got too close she could smell them like a rancid reminder of the rot underneath the surface of her life. She had spoken to Don twice on the phone since that night, but had not seen him.
Was that a week? Two weeks? She couldn’t remember. If she counted forward from the premier, then she could figure it out, but her head hurt from not eating today and she couldn’t find her phone.
Don had sent her half the money that he owed her. It was exactly half down to the penny. If it had been rounded off, that would be one thing, but he quite specifically paid her half and only half. She was reluctant to thank him because he was already late and she did not want him to believe that only paying her half of what he owed was good enough. She had not called him since it hit her Paypal and she wasn’t sure when she would.
“This should be easier,” she said. “Dating your director never is.”
She lifted the magazines again and knew she had not found the phone the other times she had looked. She also knew that she had not read the magazines since last time she had known where the phone was, but still she looked. A couple spilled into the floor losing her place in articles that she did not remember reading.
She turned around in a full circle again and looked at all the same disaster areas of her living room. “The definition of insanity.”
She did not have a house phone so she could call herself. Gia did not know any of her neighbors to ask either.
She left the living room and returned to her bedroom. The breeze through the window felt good, but reminded her of how sweaty she was under her tee shirt and tight shorts with the word SCREAMER printed across the ass. The curve of her cheeks gave the word two sloping peaks through the letters that was casually sexy. Her fiancé lived on the beach and wasn’t calling, so there was no one there to appreciate the view.
Gia got down on her hands and knees and looked at old exercise equipment folded under the bed. The layer of dust told her there was no use in moving anything to look for the phone.
***
The light in the window ch
anged. She thought about clouds and then a stray thought passed through her mind. She thought, remove the starlet with big boobs from her phone; isolate her in a world that is globally connected.
She was thinking about the fight over Don’s phone that could have ended in sex. When she rose up to her knees and saw the man crouched on her open window sill, everything else was driven from her mind. It was such an odd sight that she saw the shadow of his body instead of the details and at first her brain refused to understand and believe. She slowly registered that he was wearing black jeans and a black long sleeved shirt. In this weather? She thought.
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