I thought I was overacting at times, but the camera kept rolling. The crew watching us fell away into the ether, and it was just me and Mason again.
He looked at me in that same vulnerable way that he had the night before. His blue eyes were on mine.
I forgot about everything and the world fell away. We kissed again, and it was every bit as real as it had been the night before.
Even though part of me despised Mason and thought he was a complete scumbag for how he’d treated me the night before, I couldn’t help but cling onto the small shred of a belief that this was real. That the intimacy, the chemistry we shared was enough to carry us.
The scene progressed, and I kept waiting for Reese to yell “cut,” halting this magic and making us try again. But nothing happened; the crew was enraptured.
As Mason kissed down my neck again, I wondered how far Reese was going to let this go. It was getting borderline pornographic.
I just let Mason carry on, and my body kept moving naturally against his.
I couldn't’ deny that I was hungry; hungry for that genuine connection I felt with him last night. I wanted to cling to that vulnerability; let it stitch us together.
Mason kissed down my neck, leaving footprints of sensation that traced down to my collarbone. I moaned and arched my back, my body hungry for this second helping of Mason.
Don’t look at the camera, don’t look at the camera… I thought to myself. Though, it was surprisingly easy as I got lost in Mason.
Before I knew it, our shirts were both off and we were skin to skin. I could feel his ab muscles graze against my own as he rubbed his chest on mine.
My cock was aching so much, building up so much pressure that I thought it would explode. Thankfully, there was a blanket on top of me so no one could see my hardness.
But I knew Mason could feel it; I could feel his hardness against my leg too, pushing against me.
I let my body take over, longing for him.
Everything else about this scene may have been fake; may have been trying to convince the audience that we were these characters doing these sexual things.
But we couldn't’ fake the chemistry. That was undeniably real.
Right when I thought I couldn’t take any more, Reese cried, “Cut!”
And suddenly, Mason rolled off of me.
He still wouldn’t look me in the eye. No congratulations, no words of encouragement, no acknowledgment that I was anyone at all. He simply turned to the crew and smiled. “We got it all in one take?” he asked.
“Yeah, you did,” Reese said breathlessly.
I could tell from the way the corner of his mouth was burrowing deeper into his face that he couldn’t believe it himself.
Mason got off the bed and high-fived the cameraman in a self-congratulatory way. Even though he was going around the room and chatting with the crew members, telling them that we couldn’t have done it without them, I knew that he was secretly praising himself.
He thought he’d carried the scene.
I sat up from the bed and pulled my clothes back on.
Everyone in the room’s eyes were on Mason, just like he wanted.
Everyone except Reese. He was looking at me with this weird glint in his eye, as if he was seeing me for the first time.
“Charlie,” he said, approaching me on the bed. “Can I speak to you alone for a second?”
The smile that had been creeping onto my face faltered. I’d screwed everything up; I’d ruined it. Reese no longer needed me, now that he’d gotten that scene out of me.
“Sure,” I said, standing up. Then I followed him out of the room to face my doom.
Chapter Seventeen
I followed Reese out of the room and out into the hall, the dread swirling in my gut.
He was being weirdly twitchy; that same kind of nervousness from earlier that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
He swung a right into an empty room. This one was an empty ancient room in the castle, and hadn’t been touched by the set designers.
Once the door shut behind us, I held my breath.
“Charlie, can I be honest with you?” Reese asked, those gray eyes boring into me.
“Y-yes?” I answered meekly. I was steeling myself, preparing to get fired. In my head, I was already making plans to move back to L.A., to try to get an apartment in the same area I used to live, to figure out how to beg for my old job at the salon back…
“I’ve never seen anything like the performance I just saw,” Reese said breathlessly.
I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. “Wait, r-really?” I said, not daring to believe it. “Like, you’ve never seen anything so bad?”
Reese smiled, a little bit of that old magic coming back into his eyes. “No, I’ve never seen anything so good,” he said.
“You’re joking,” I said, searching his face for any sign of pulling my leg.
“I’m quite serious,” he said. “I’ve never seen a natural like you.”
“Mason carried the scene,” I doubted.
“Mason looked like nothing more than a prop next to you,” Reese said. “Please tell me you’ve been acting for a long time,”
“Um… no? I mean, I acted in high school theatre a little…” I trailed off.
Reese shifted, eyeing me like a hawk. “That’s a load of rubbish. You’re an experienced actor.”
All I had done was just feel that same chemistry from last night flow through me and pretended the cameras weren’t there. But I seemed to have tricked Reese into thinking I had some kind of talent.
“You can’t tell me,” he said leaning in closer, one of his dark eyebrows quirking up, “That this entire time, you’ve been doing hair for a living?”
“I have,” I said, still scanning his face for any kind of cruel joke that might be lurking there.
He ran one of his palms over his face, then muttered something that sounded like, “Wasted…”
Then he blinked a few times and met my eyes again. “We need you in more scenes. I don’t care what it takes — we’ll find a way to get you into the script.”
“I… I—”
“No, Charlie. I know talent when I see it. I’ve been in this business for twenty-two years now, and I’ve never seen this kind of magic happen in a scene.”
I felt like he must be joking. There was no way that someone as insignificant and… and ordinary as myself was able to do what Reese was describing. He had to be talking about someone else.
“Are you sure you two haven’t shagged already?” Reese said.
My gut twisted at the truth, but I shook my head. “No…” I said, the lie coming out through my teeth.
“You could have fooled me and everyone in that room,” Reese said with a look of wonder on his face. “The chemistry is nothing short of magnetic, and the camera picks up on that. The audience will too.” His eyes were glimmering as if he’d struck gold.
“Are you open to doing more scenes?” Reese asked.
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. Then I thought about it for a second and asked, “Wait, which character am I going to play? Still that village guy?”
Reese looked far away for a moment and then nodded. “We’ll give him a bigger part going forward.”
“But that goes away from the original script,” I said, thinking of angry letters and comments online from fans of The Black Castle. They’d say I ruined the show, that my character was there for no reason, that I took away from the plot…
But all of these thoughts were put to rest as soon as Reese put his hands on my shoulders.
“We’ll weave you into the story, and by the end, every fan will want more from you,” he assured me. “They’ll wish you were written into the main script in the first place.”
I was lost for words. Warmth was flooding through Reese’s hands through my shoulders, and there was this strange tingling in the air.
Reese seemed to pick up on it too, because he removed his hands from my shoulde
rs and looked away.
“Well, when am I needed next?” I asked. “And am I still going to do Alina’s hair?”
“That’s up to you,” Reese said. “As for when you’re needed next, just watch your inbox. I have a meeting with the production company over VC tonight, and we’ll get things figured out.”
There was an unhinged giddiness coming off of him as if he were a small boy who’d unwrapped exactly what he’d wished for on Christmas morning.
As the rest of the day wore on, I could barely contain my excitement. I was going to be a bonafide star in The Black Castle.
Hazel was right. My life was changing big time.
Though, there was still plenty of room for things to go wrong. Oliver, who I previously thought was my ally, was out to sabotage me. He saw me as an enemy. When Mason found out about this, I could only predict how he’d react to the news: He’d see me as encroaching on his fame; he’d see me as a threat.
Leo… I couldn’t think of how he’d react. He was very hard to read. But there was a part of me that longed to tell him; that longed to tell him everything. I thought of how we were alone together in the bathroom yesterday, and how he’d given me that bandaid.
He was more observant than most. Hell, he probably already knew what was going down by watching Reese’s face.
Reese... He was over the moon, since he’d orchestrated the whole thing. However, he was acting weird today. Maybe he’d change his mind and take this opportunity away as quickly as he’d given it to me?
But I knew in my gut that he wouldn’t. Just like that first night on the beach, he’d found something that he liked, and was reaching out to snatch it with his hand. On some deep level, I knew that he’d do everything in his power to keep me on the set.
Even if he saw something in me that was probably just a mirage.
Could I replicate the performance I gave earlier without Mason? I mean, I wasn’t that good of an actor, I thought. All I was doing was repeating what me and him had done last night, going at each other like animals.
Without him, could I pretend to be something I wasn’t?
Then I thought of Alina. I couldn’t wait to tell her the news.
It only took a few minutes to locate her and her stark white hair on the set. She stood out like a beacon; not only because of her hair, but because of that glowing star quality about her that was impossible to miss.
Did I have a fraction of that? Is that what Reese had seen in me?
Alina was getting ready to shoot a scene, sitting with her legs crossed in a chair while another stylist braided her hair.
“Alina!” I cried, making a beeline to her.
The hesitation in her smile when she looked at me told me that her head was already under some type of storm cloud.
“Charlie!” she said, her face brightening. When she smiled it was like the sun came out.
Unable to resist anymore, I told her everything.
To my surprise, her face fell. “Wait, so, they’re doing a rewrite?” she asked, her black eyebrows coming together.
My smile faltered. Couldn’t she be happy for me? “I guess so, or at least, that’s what Reese was getting at,” I said.
She looked down at her hands. “That’s great and all for you Charlie, but this might completely change around my scenes.”
My brow knitted in confusion. This wasn’t the reaction that I was expecting from her.
This wasn’t my Alina.
“Boo, what’s up?” I asked.
Alina looked up at me, then glanced at the stylist braiding her hair.
The stylist took the hint, nodded, and excused herself.
Alina looked around, made sure the coast was clear, then said in a low voice, “She’s here.”
“Who?” I asked, matching her volume.
“Rachel,” she whispered back.
I made a conscious effort not to look around for her. “So? Aren’t you two a thing?”
“We are,” she said, the stress making a small line appear between her eyebrows. “But she brought her husband.”
“No!” I said, my eyes going wide. I remembered the conversation at dinner last night — how Rachel’s husband had completely lost it last season and punched Leo in the jaw. “But didn’t she promise not to bring him? Isn’t he not allowed on the set?”
Alina nodded. “He’s not allowed on the set, but he’s still in the town somewhere…” she said.
I sighed.
“You’ll see her. Act like nothing is up. Please do this for me, Charlie,” she begged, her eyes wide.
I squeezed her hand. “Anything for you.”
“And still, please don’t tell anyone. We had… some kind of fight. Things are sorta weird between us now,” she said, her eyes darting around.
“How so?” I asked, though on some level I already knew.
She raised an eyebrow at me and said, “Come on, Charlie, put two and two together! She brought her husband!”
I sighed through my nose. “And let me guess, you’re trying to convince her to leave him, and she won’t do it, right?”
Alina’s face shifted to a look of contempt.
“Well? What is it then?” I asked, feeling out of the loop.
Alina pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s just really hard for me, okay?”
I put my hands on her shoulders. “We just need to get through today.”
Anger flashed in her eyes and she wiggled away from my grasp. “It’ll be the same tomorrow,” she said cooly.
I was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out what her problem was. “Alina, just because you’re stressed doesn’t mean you can take it out on me,”
She shut her eyes tight and ran one of her manicured hands through her soft white locks. “You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s just that everything is going so well for you, and my life is completely falling apart—”
“Everything is not going so well for me,” I said. “I know it looks that way on the surface since I’m going to get a larger role in The Black Castle, but that’s like… the only thing that’s going right.”
“What do you mean? That’s the only thing that needs to go right,” she said. “All these guys, this drama, it doesn’t matter as long as your career is going well. That’s one of the first things I learned about show business. As long as you have the part, the fame, the money, everything else is secondary.”
“I could give you the same advice,” I said. “You’re getting caught up in this drama with Rachel. It doesn’t affect your career at all.”
“But it will!” she said, her eyes pleading. “Rachel’s husband is here, and you heard from dinner yesterday that he was involved with the show in season one…”
I blinked at her.
“The reason they never pressed charges for what happened in the first season was because he has something on Reese.”
I froze, rooted to the spot. I remembered the conversation I overheard between Oliver and his ex-boyfriend in the alleyway. The rumor was that Reese had a reputation. “You mean that he and Mason used to be a thing? That he’s got some kind of reputation for sleeping with actors he works with?”
Alina shook her head. “No, worse. He’s got something… awful on Reese. So much so that he can blackmail him whenever he wants.”
I raised my eyebrow at her. “What could he possibly have on someone like Reese?”
“I don’t know that much,” she admitted. “But what I do know is that now he has something on me.”
“Oh please Alina, you don’t have to be afraid—”
She showed me her phone screen. It was open to her messaging app. There was a grainy photo of Alina still with her dark hair, looking about ten years younger, getting plowed by some guy on a bed.
“Alina, what is this?” I asked, my eyes going wide.
“Blackmail. From her husband,” she said gravely.
“…is that you?” I asked, examining the photo.
She looked down in shame. “Yes…”
&nbs
p; “You did porn?!” I exclaimed.
“Maybe a little bit,” she admitted.
“Wh—”
“I was young, okay? And whatever, pretty much everyone in Hollywood does it.”
As much as I willed it not to, the image I had in my mind of Alina was rapidly shifting into something I didn’t recognize. I tried to remain non-judgmental.
“Then… if everyone in Hollywood does it, why are you afraid of it getting out?”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she looked up at me and said, “I don’t even know how he found it… but if this gets out, it’ll end my acting career.”
“Why?” I asked. “Everyone has a sex tape, like you said.”
“Not one like this,” she said.
Something heavy was in her voice now. My face fell.
“What do you mean?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.
“That guy in the tape… that’s the director from the Netflix show that made me a household name.”
My heart was beating fast as I put the pieces together. “So you slept with your boss…” Normally, that wouldn’t have bothered me, but I was doing the math in my head. Her first-ever Netflix show starred her playing a fifteen-year-old. “Alina… how old were you?”
“Seventeen,” she said breathlessly.
There was silence between us for a moment as that sunk in. She looked younger than seventeen in that photo, but I wasn’t going to ask any more questions about it. I didn’t want to know.
“That’s under the legal age in California,” I said.
“I know,” Alina said.
“Why did you do it?” I asked.
She was quiet for a moment, then said, “I was from a poor family in Michigan, using the last of my savings to visit a friend in L.A. I was invited to an afterparty after some art show and met the director there. Rumor had it that he was about to begin casting for a new Netflix series. I saw my chance and I took it.”
I could relate to the lure of fame. When I was younger and still trying to get into acting, I got a few offers to do porn, but they all seemed super sketchy. But then again, I’d never been that desperate like Alina had.
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