“The model needs something to react to. Or someone.”
Justin nodded sagely, coming to stand beside her. “He isn’t the only one.”
“Justin, please. Not now. Soon, though,” she amended. “Do you think we can reshoot this?”
He gave a nonchalant wave. “And go $500,000 over budget? Sure. What the hell. Let’s go for broke. The client will scream, but who cares, right?”
“Be serious.”
“I could bring it up at the next storyboard meeting, I guess. But give me something visual to go on. Blue Blazes isn’t going to pay for a reshoot unless we make it crystal-clear that our new direction is a big improvement.”
Beth fiddled with various images, shrinking the model and bringing in a few sultry females from an image-bank folder. She did a quick-and-dirty collage and Justin nodded, concentrating on the screen.
“See what I mean? Even though I’m just slapping this together, he looks a lot more alive now.”
“You’re right.”
Beth felt excited about this campaign. “If you put the right woman in there, you’ll have a sign that will make everybody stop and stare. Men and women.”
“I see what you’re saying, but go on.”
“It’d be like a romantic movie. A hot romantic movie. And you could make it a little different every day, so people don’t know what to expect.”
“Got it. That’s great. We could post clips on YouTube and try to get it to go viral.”
“And we could track who was watching it online with Adzilla or Phorm. But the original sign in the Times Square location is key. You’d get repeat views. Traffic would come to a standstill.”
“Yeah. This is really good, Beth. I think our client is going to eat this up.”
Two days later, they were in the middle of a studio photo shoot that involved a rusty old pickup, a bale of hay, and amber waves of fake wheat, lightly stirred by a plastic fan.
The models actually did seem hot for each other, at least at first. They acted like there wasn’t even a camera on them. In fact, there were fourteen cameras in all, still and movie. He was really into her and their chemistry came across.
Hours and hours of footage were shot the first day, and hours more were shot on the second day. The models pouted and posed and panted at each other until they got sick of it.
“So much for their chemistry,” Justin whispered in Beth’s ear when a playful tussle turned into a vicious slapping match.
“Great stuff!” the director shouted. The female model burst into unphotogenic tears and stormed off, refusing to return. The director finally called it a day after a few more close-ups of the male model tensing his abs and unbuttoning his fly until he couldn’t take it any more and stormed off too.
“That’s a wrap,” the director said, like he’d planned it that way all along. The production assistants ran around, frantically breaking down the set and issuing orders to each other.
“Now what?” Beth said. She was exhausted. Her whole body was stiff and her mind echoed with the endlessly repeated dialogue. Making a movie, even a three-minute-long movie, was utterly unglamorous. All she wanted to do was to get out of there.
“Gil and the film editor shut themselves up in a dark room and make movie magic on a digital console. We’re not going to see them for days.”
“Thank God. I’m sick of looking at them. And everybody else on this set. Moviemaking is boring,” she said crossly.
“You’re just tired. Come on. I’ll take you out for a burger.”
“You’re on,” Beth said. “Fries and ketchup.”
“That’s my girl.”
“Maybe I am at that,” she said.
Justin looked at her curiously. “Would you mind telling me what’s gotten into you?”
She blew out an exasperated breath. “All this fake lust. It worked in reverse. At first I couldn’t take my eyes off them. And then I started watching you. And I wanted the real thing, even though you’re not really real. And then they started fighting and I thought about the way you make me feel—”
“Which is?”
She scowled at him. “Lighthearted. Happy.”
“So why are you making that face at me?”
“Because I really, really need to blow off steam. I want to get physical. Does that make sense?”
“No, but I can work with it.”
He looked around for someone from SpectraSign and realized they were the last two from his company there. He didn’t even have to make an excuse. They could just go. Then he hustled her out the door of the studio, into her coat and down to the street, where he hailed a cab.
“Where to?” the driver said as they got in.
“Just drive through Central Park, please. We’re still trying to figure that out.”
“Okay, boss. Whatever you say.” The driver started the meter and the red numbers started running.
“So you want to fool around,” Justin whispered. “You’re tired and frantic and you need release. That definitely calls for oral. Hmm. May I put my hand on your leg while I think about it?”
“Are you going to ask permission for every little thing?”
“No.”
“Good.” Beth wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, rumpling his hair and half-crawling into his lap.
“Mrmmf. Yeah,” he said thickly. “More of that. I suggest we check into a hotel. Before you change your mind.”
She didn’t.
They got checked in and headed for the elevator, eyeing each other heatedly. Once inside the suite, he got her naked in record time and had her spread out on the squooshiest, most luxurious bed ever. But he didn’t take his clothes off. He didn’t waste a second. That long tongue of his got to work, licking her clit and gently pushing between her labia.
Holy…wow. She had never been tongue-fucked. The sensation was amazing. Tender and lingering. She could concentrate just on what she was feeling. Her nervous tension was eased away as he sexed her down like a pro. She could go with this flow forever. Oh yessss…yesyesyes.
Justin Watts was a master of this, too. She surrendered to his expertise, running her fingers through his hair, pushing his head down between her legs so he could make her come…and come…and come…
“That was unbelievably excellent,” she said when he had her cuddled up. She was still naked and he was still wearing every stitch of clothing he’d had on, but not shoes. “I can’t believe you’re still dressed.”
“Had no choice. I would have rammed up inside you right away,” he said. “No, this is fine for a while. It’s probably good for my character.”
“Oh, please.” She reached down and unzipped him. “Allow me to return the favor.”
And she did.
5
A month later…
Beth was awfully glad she’d given in. He was right about the oral sex not causing her to turn different colors. His magic tongue could practically dissolve her and vice versa, but that was okay. The glow they experienced was no different from a standard-issue postcoital glow.
She’d been just fine afterward, thank you. And she was still fine. Humming as she walked down the street, a relaxed bounce in her walk, she was pretty much walking on air these days. In contrast to everyone else at SpectraSign, now that they were rushing through the last phases of completing the massive sign.
It was being installed under wraps, on top of the building where she’d had the panoramic view of Times Square. Justin spent most of his time there.
He was—the thought made her hesitate—not doing so great. His inexhaustible energy was being drained by his insistence on attending to every detail personally.
Late at night, wrapped in his arms, she would whisper the sweet word, “Delegate,” in his ear, hoping he would hear it subliminally while he slept. It didn’t seem to help.
His sleep was restless and he usually woke up in a bad mood. Not like him. Not like him at all.
Justin had finally offered an explanation.
“It’s the sunspot cycle,” he explained. “Every twelve years, there are suddenly a lot more of them and it changes everything. My energy level goes haywire. Up. Down.” He seesawed a hand through the air. “I get a little manic and I don’t sleep well.”
“Is it just you? I thought that happened to everyone in New York.”
He’d shrugged. “Could explain a lot of things. It’s not all bad, you know. Way up north, the aurora borealis goes crazy—it’s much more intense. Turbocharged ions howling in from outer space, woo hoo, and all that. The colors are stronger and the patterns get wilder and it just doesn’t stop.”
He was talking faster and faster, not seeing her worried look.
“We could go up to Alaska. Or Sweden. Hang out and watch the northern lights and forget all about this crazy sign for a while. Something about it is getting to me. Maybe I wasn’t born to sell blue jeans. What do you think? I really want to know.”
But he hadn’t even listened to her answer. She’d vetoed the all-expenses-paid trip to the tundra he’d proposed and pointed out that she didn’t think it was the sign that was making him crazy. He had a whole company full of dedicated geeks and visual freaks to help make that happen.
No, he had to be right about the sunspots. And he was more than a little manic. Beth wasn’t happy about that. She was having second thoughts. Even third, fourth, and fifth thoughts. She really couldn’t imagine introducing him to her father while he was in this state, although Dave Danforth, mild-mannered cartoonist, probably would be thrilled to have a son-in-law who could harness all the energy in the known universe when he wanted to.
Son-in-law?
Where the hell had that ominous phrase come from?
The great day came. The wraps came off. He didn’t want her to see it before it was dark and he insisted on being the one to put it through its paces. The project team from SpectraSign had left him to it, at his insistence.
He stood at a high table in front of the sign, looking a lot like a conductor at a podium. The laptop that controlled the special effects of the enormous sign was on the table and he rested his hands by it, a minute away from switching on the sign. The fact that he hadn’t combed his hair for a few days added to the messy air of genius.
“It’s finished. My magnum opus,” he sighed. “What do you think?”
“I haven’t seen it yet.”
He started typing on the laptop. The screen lit up and she saw that it was a miniature of the giant sign. Whatever he did on the laptop would be instantly replicated above him.
He summoned up colors first, in shifting, swirling patterns. Then random things. Flying taxis. Sharks in sunglasses. Motifs appeared and disappeared with dizzying speed.
“Fun, huh?” he murmured. His eyes were glowing.
A breeze whipped her hair up around her face and she pushed it away. “Wow,” was all she said, looking up at the sign.
In its final, complete stage, it was forty feet high, composed of hundreds of vid screens that fit together like a mosaic. Justin pushed a button. “Enough of that.” The sign went dark. “Here comes the Blue Blaze man.”
The multiple vid screens shimmered to life again, each showing a piece of the jeans-clad male model for the ad campaign, as if someone had taken scissors and cut up an old photo, then blown it up to building size.
The pieces of the photo came together as the male model strode slowly across the field of waving wheat toward the battered 1930s pickup.
Tinged with sepia, the familiar scene they’d seen being shot in bits and pieces came to coherent life. Edited, it was compelling. It seemed to have come from an authentic old movie, rich with atmosphere and poignant longing.
“What is he supposed to be doing again?” Beth asked Justin. The theme music swelled and reached a crescendo when the male model stopped and looked toward the horizon.
“I forget. Searching for America. Or true love.”
“Here she comes now.”
The long-legged female model walked toward him, her jeans a more feminine version of his. The camera came in tight on his crotch, then hers.
The models caressed each other’s bodies with lingering strokes that the final edit made the most of by repeating endlessly. The result was actually quite erotic.
Beth ran to the edge of the roof and looked down at Times Square to see if anyone was watching.
It was working. There was a knot of people craning their necks and commenting.
She ran back to Justin, who was entering keyboard commands into the laptop that controlled the gigantic array of screens. He played with the color, with the movement of the models, freeze-framing moments and wiping others away in an instant.
There was a rhythm to his improvising that was very sensual and he worked fast. Then faster, intensifying it. Beth went back to the roof’s edge. The crowd below had grown much larger in just a few minutes and was oohing and aahing appreciatively.
The images of the Blue Blaze jeans campaign changed constantly, but the concept—a man, a woman, a truck—was so simple to begin with that the effect of the rapid changes was hypnotic. At least Justin seemed to be a little hypnotized. His fingers stayed on the keyboard while he looked up at the sign, as if he was creating music only he could hear out of thin air. He was riveted to what he was doing, his glittering eyes reflecting the brilliance of the display.
Beth tugged at his sleeve. “I think you should stop.”
“No,” he said without looking at her, “this is a blast.”
“But Justin—”
“No,” he said again and shrugged her off.
Beth studied his profile, alarmed now by his degree of absorption. It was like she wasn’t there at all. It was like he was drunk. On light. On color. The sunspots, millions of miles away, were most definitely getting to him.
“Let’s take a trip,” he said again without looking at her. He reached a hand sideways, fumbling for hers and missing. “This is great. Yowza. Shazam.” He jabbed a button. “Look what I can do. I’m on a sunspot high and I don’t want to come down. Everything’s moving. I want to move with it. I want to jump right in there. C’mon.”
“Nothing doing. I’m staying right here.”
“Okay, I’ll go in alone.” He put both hands on the keyboard and keyed in commands so fast she couldn’t tell what he was doing.
And then, in less than a second, he was sucked into the laptop screen…and suddenly reappeared in the sign, forty feet high.
“Justin, come back!” she screamed.
He looked down at her, oddly flattened out but very much himself. The models in the movie had vanished. Justin strode through the waving wheat and propped his foot on the bale of hay, having a great time in his own personal movie.
“How do I look?” he asked her, laughing hugely.
“Way too big! Come back here!”
He frowned. “I don’t want to.” He unbuttoned his shirt and whipped it off. “Women of the world, check me out!” He grinned down at Beth. “Feels good to be gorgeous.”
“Don’t you think you’re getting a little carried away with yourself?”
“I like getting carried away. Being forty feet tall is great. Hey, guess how long my dick is—”
“Be quiet, Justin!” She hoped the crowd hadn’t heard that. SpectraSign could kiss the Blue Blazes account good-bye forever if she couldn’t shut him up and get him out and calm him the fuck down. “I don’t really want to know!”
He stayed inside the sign while she looked at the laptop and tried a few keys. She tapped one, not familiar with the keyboard commands he used to control the enormous sign. Nothing happened.
She tapped another and the sign went completely black. She gasped in horror. What the hell had just happened?
“Beth?” It was just his voice. Disembodied. She looked around wildly but he was nowhere on the roof.
“Beth?” he said again. He sounded kind of nervous. “Where are you? Where am I?”
Oh no. He had to be trapped in that godd
amn sign. She had to get him out.
The breeze carried the voices of the crowd below, dispersing. “Show’s over.” “That was cool.” “Who was that guy at the end?”
If you only knew, she thought despairingly. Beth looked up at the black mosaic of screens and wondered if there was a way in.
Suddenly she realized it wasn’t just the Blue Blazes sign that had gone black. All around her the signs of Times Square were fading out one by one, some popping off, some fading away.
The streetlights faded out. The ever-present rumble of New York City died away, because the subway trains had stopped on the tracks. The lights in all the buildings winked out.
Somehow, his fooling around with the laptop had started a chain reaction in the city’s electrical grid. Justin had caused a blackout. A big one.
The mutters she could hear from the street below confirmed it. All five boroughs involved. No power. Nothing. People stuck in elevators, trains. Traffic lights gone dark. No red, no green, no yellow. Just nothing. Times Square could have been a dark canyon in the middle of nowhere.
Except for the tiny, lit-up screens of thousands of cell phones bobbing in the crowd below, the greatest intersection in the world was plunged into blackness.
“Beth?” Justin said quietly. “You there?”
She looked up. His voice was coming from the screen above her. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m still here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You oughta be, Justin Watts. And when I get you out of there, you’re going to be even sorrier.”
“Call Wind,” his disembodied voice said.
“How?” she snapped. “I don’t have a cell phone. And every line out of New York is already jammed. Can’t you hear what people on the street are saying?”
She held up a hand to hush him just in case he could see her from inside the screen. “Then listen.”
Apparently he was calm enough to obey. They both heard the complaints of no service and the occasional jubilant shout when someone got a call through.
“That’s not what I meant,” Justin whispered. “Just call him. He’ll come, I swear.”
Everlasting Bad Boys Page 32
