by Mimi Strong
“Not even. I might have enjoyed that. He was fucking the couch cushions. And, by the way he was going to town on them, I had to wonder if it was even the first time.”
“No!”
“Yes. He stopped kissing me and started french-kissing the throw pillows.”
Mitchell smacked my arm. “No he didn’t, you fibber.”
I continued, “I sensed that he was getting close to, you know, closing the deal with the sofa. So, I started to fake having an orgasm. Heavy breathing, moaning, thrashing around in ecstasy. Keep in mind I’d never actually had one before with a guy, so I was doing the movie version.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Not really. You see, he shifted his position on the couch, so his hip bone was, you know, in a very nice place. After a few minutes, my cries became real.”
“Shut up.”
“We came together. Just like that. Gasping and sweating in each other’s arms, me in my hiked-up prom dress and him with his rented trousers down around his ankles, his bow-tie slightly askew.”
Mitchell fanned his face. “I’m a little turned on right now.”
“I reached down and pulled him out of the crack in the cushions, so he wouldn’t realize what had happened, and you know what?”
“What?”
“He did have a really big dick, as it turned out.”
Mitchell pointed his finger at me. “That was a good one, but it wasn’t a horror story.”
“The story’s not over yet.”
He leaned in.
“So all four of us run out to the limousine, because both of us girls have to be home by two o’clock. We get in the back of the limo, and Chantalle’s being awfully quiet. I ask her what’s wrong, and she opens her mouth and barfs all over me. This gross, watery barf that smells like wine, and it’s in my cleavage, and I can feel it dribbling down inside my dress. So, Chantalle, who is pretty drunk, turns to Kevin and says, ’See, I told you if I swallowed your spunk I’d throw it back up again.’”
Mitchell began to hyperventilate.
I said, “So, yeah. That happened.”
Mitchell’s jaw dropped open and he rolled forward, off the couch and onto the concrete floor of the studio, where he laughed and laughed until I begged him to stop.
Finally, he wiped the tears from his eyes and said, “That was the perfect mix of horror and humor.”
“Not for me. The barf-spunk mixture got into my panties, and I had to buy pregnancy tests for the next month, because I was worried some of Kevin’s swimmers had, you know, gotten in there.”
“I love you, Peaches Monroe.” Mitchell threw his arms around me and kissed my cheek. “I fucking love you.”
I hugged him back and smiled, because I’d been waiting a long time for a guy to say those words to me, and even from a platonic friend, it still felt good to be loved.
We wrapped up shooting for the day, and Mitchell wouldn’t let me take a cab to Keith’s, so he gave me a ride in his Miada. We stopped by a bakery along the way, where I bought a six-pack of cupcakes, including two special men’s cupcakes with smokey bacon sprinkles and maple icing. Mitchell ate one of those in the car while driving, while I had a miniature vacation of the coconut variety.
I walked into Keith’s apartment, all excited about the bacon cupcake. He was sitting on the sofa reading on a tablet. He looked up at me, then shook his head and turned back to his reading.
“Rough day at work?” I asked. “Having issues getting everyone ready for your departure?”
“Business is fine,” he said curtly.
“So, are you having your period?”
He didn’t even crack a grin.
I continued, “I thought today might be a heavy flow day for you, so I brought you home a cupcake. Let me know where your hot water bottle is and I’ll get you set up.”
“You were kissing Dalton Deangelo.”
CHAPTER 24
I set everything down on the kitchen counter with a thump, then got myself a glass of tap water. I called out from the kitchen, “Oh, you heard. No, I wasn’t kissing him. I had to ride a bicycle past him and say one line of dialog. My thighs were rubbing together so bad on the bike, but I was a good model. No complaining, except to Mitchell.”
I took a seat next to him on the sofa and passed the water his way. “Want some?”
He pushed the water back, splashing it all over my lap. I opened my mouth to let out a few choice words, but then I saw the photo on his tablet: me, kissing Dalton just outside the restaurant where we’d had brunch on Friday. Thundernuts! I’d forgotten all about that, in my hungover haze.
Keith did not look happy at all. Heavy flow day, indeed.
“I got you a bacon cupcake,” I said.
“Are you just stringing me along for fun, and him, too? I actually feel sorry for the guy.”
“Okay, I can explain. Dalton found me and Mitchell hitch-hiking in Malibu, for reasons that are perfectly logical and not at all illegal, and we had brunch. There were some photographers outside, and he suggested we give them a little something to get free publicity.” I pointed to the short blond fellow at the edge of the image. “See, there’s Mitchell. I was never alone with Dalton, not even for a second, I swear.”
Keith frowned and wiggled his lips back and forth, as though goofy facial movements helped his brain process information.
“I’m sorry,” I said, which is what I should have led with. I’m sorry. Why don’t I lead off with that particular phrase more often? Pride, I suppose. I always think I can use my big mouth to talk myself out of trouble, but I should just try that whole begging-for-forgiveness thing more often.
“Now I’m the jealous asshole,” he said, still frowning.
“Bacon cupcake?”
“I don’t like how I’m feeling right now.”
“If you don’t like bacon, there’s a pink cherry one, with those weird silver sprinkles that look like ball bearings.”
He shook his head. “What time is your flight to Washington on Wednesday?”
“Nice!” I said angrily, getting up from the couch in a huff. “Real nice, Keith. Don’t worry, you’ll be rid of me soon enough.”
He didn’t say anything.
I felt the crazy coming. It swirled up around me like a toxic cloud—like the black eels that swoosh around Ursula the sea witch in The Little Mermaid.
I had one little in-public peck on the lips with a friend, and now Keith wanted to throw me out like yesterday’s coffee grounds and banana peels? Nice. Real nice.
The crazy swirled. A big, dark, inky cloud of crazy. I curled my lips around my teeth like a mummy in a horror movie, then I grabbed the box of cupcakes and stomped to the spare bedroom and slammed the door.
The door didn’t bang shut very loud, so I pulled it open and did it again, with a much more satisfying crack.
I flicked on the TV, turned it to a music channel, and cranked the volume. Sitting on the bed, I stuffed the entire bacon-maple cupcake into my mouth, pulled out my phone, and sent a message to Shayla.
Me: The honeymoon is over! Keith Raven is a cheese-fucker, and LA is hot and smelly and would you just slap some sense into me if I ever consider leaving town again?
Shayla: I went by Peachtree Books today. Adrian completely changed the window displays.
Me: Someone is going to die.
Shayla: The windows look nice, actually. Your father was there, building some custom shelves.
Me: I hate everyone and everything.
Shayla: *Hugs.*
Me: *Goes limp. Receives hug begrudgingly.*
Shayla: Didn’t you have the commercial shoot today? How did that go?
Me: I guess it was okay. Tomorrow is a shorter day, and I get to sit on a trapeze thing for a bit before plunging to my death, which will be a welcome relief.
Shayla: Send photos.
Me: Anything else?
Shayla: The refrigerator finally broke, and the landlord got us a new one that makes ice cubes.
Me: OHMYGOD.
Shayla: I know, right?
I shuffled off the bed and put the remaining cupcakes inside an empty dresser drawer, then got down to the serious business of discussing our new windfall, which also filtered and chilled water.
An hour later, I had simmered down, and ventured back out of the room.
Keith was in the kitchen, chopping onions and grating ginger for something that smelled interesting.
“I may have overreacted,” he said.
“Apology accepted.”
He gave me a crooked grin, looking very boyish with his dark hair falling down over his forehead as he peeled garlic cloves.
I asked if I could help with dinner, and he gave me some simple tasks, starting with peeling potatoes.
We made dinner together, then ate while sitting at the counter, side by side.
We were friends again, but things weren’t like before. Words had been said, and doors slammed. I thought of a parable I’d once read in an advice column about anger—thoughtless words were like nails pounded into a fence, and you could remove the nails, but holes would remain, weakening the fence forever.
That night, we climbed into bed together like two roommates, he in his shorts and me in a long nightshirt. After the lights went out, I thought about reaching for him, but after all the bike-riding and the stress plus tedium of shooting a commercial (“hurry up and wait” is the key phrase of the film industry for a reason), sleep had more appeal. I lay on my back with my hands crossed over my ribs, like how vampires sleep in movies. The room was so quiet, I swore I could hear Keith’s eyes blinking, and his thoughts. Two more sleeps. Two more sleeps, and I’d be gone.
Sleep eluded me, because I couldn’t shake the sensation that I could see the future, and tomorrow was going to be anything but ordinary. Out of all the props in the world, why did it have to be a trapeze?
Despite being cool to me the night before, Keith gave me a ride to the studio Tuesday morning, the commute almost starting to feel routine.
We arrived early, parked, and ate Egg McMuffins in the van. I was surprised Keith ate McDonalds, but he pointed out that he’d skipped the deep-fried hash brown patty.
As the time ticked down, my stomach started to flutter with performance anxiety jitters. “Does modeling ever feel normal?” I asked. “Like a regular job, where you just show up and make the required effort as you wait out the clock?”
He sighed.
“So, that’s a no?” I asked.
“You could measure the amount of work a model does by only counting the clicks of the shutter—the time where light is reflecting into the camera, being recorded. Looking at the time that way, most of us have extremely short careers. Maybe an hour if we’re lucky.”
I gave him a sidelong look, not sure if he was joking or not. He didn’t have his usual amused and light-hearted expression on. He looked serious, and he looked scared.
“You’re telling me I should shut up and make the most of this opportunity,” I said.
“Enjoy yourself.” He kept staring straight ahead, out the window, at something beyond the industrial buildings in the area. “Like flowers in the spring, nothing beautiful is permanent.”
I unbuckled my seat belt in preparation for getting out of the vehicle. My parents had me well-trained as a kid, and even as an adult, I don’t feel right in a vehicle if I don’t have the belt on, not even parked and eating food. Keith still had his seat belt on, too, so I guessed his parents had been the same way.
I said, “Hey, I want to take you out tonight. It’s my last night in the city, and we’ll go anywhere you like, my treat.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to, and it’ll give me something to look forward to during today’s shoot.”
“You’re done around when? Three o’clock? How about I come pick you up and we go for a drive along the coast before dinner?”
“Sounds great!” I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“Break a leg.”
“Not a good thing to say to someone who’s going on a trapeze today, but thanks anyway.” Grinning, I shut the door, waved goodbye, then started toward the studio.
Strangely enough, I was already at the door! Ah, that would be my beautiful stunt double/stalker. The nerve of her, walking around looking like me. Why did it chap my ass so much? I didn’t know.
Once inside, keeping a safe distance from my double, I checked into makeup and zoned out while all of the stuff happened to my body. It’s odd how quickly you can get used to something as unsettling as a stranger putting on your mascara. The makeup girl had a long shirt over her jeans, and without seeing her lower back tattoo, I couldn’t figure out if she was the same girl who’d done my makeup the day before. This girl had short hair and a nose ring. Did yesterday’s girl have a nose ring? Not knowing itched at me, like a scratchy tag inside a new shirt.
“My new tattoo’s feeling hot,” I said, reaching to my inner hip for a light scratch. “How long will it take to heal?”
She stared at me like I was a moron. “There’s this website. It’s called Google.”
Right. No, this was not the same makeup girl from yesterday. She was nice, and this one… well, I’d have her fired if only I was more powerful. Hmm. Something to aspire to in life: having bitches fired.
I didn’t have long to ponder my revenge, and I was off to wardrobe, getting stuffed into underwear. The funny thing about the bras and panties was they weren’t the actual product. They were locally-made prototypes, as the line was only just going into production, mostly* overseas.
*When a company says their production is mostly overseas, that means it’s entirely outsourced to another country, and you might find things like dried-out husks of scorpions inside the boxes of clothing.
The sample underwear I had on for the shoot was well made and beautiful, but not quite complete. Thank goodness for safety pins and double-sided tape.
After having strangers handle my peaches for the first part of the morning, getting on a trapeze didn’t seem as unpleasant. As I did a series of simple shots leading up to the trapeze, I actually looked forward to something more challenging.
We broke for lunch, I had some yummy granola and yogurt, and got excited about the final shots.
My enthusiasm evaporated when I saw the heavy-duty winch, and exactly how high they were planning to hoist me before gently “floating” me down toward the camera. At least the trapeze was more like a kid’s playground swing than a skinny bar you could grip with a closed hand, which was probably better than having a thin bar disappear in my pillowy flesh. No complaints there.
I watched as they did a test shot with the stand-in. She did look cute spinning in the air, descending like an angel, if you ignored the tractor-like noises of the winch. There was no audio on this shot, which was understandable, as you’d never hear anything over the machinery.
Mitchell walked me over to inspect the safety net, and told me to just “go limp” if I happened to fall. I made a joke about wetting myself and ruining an underwear sample. Mitchell got a serious look and told me it wouldn’t be the first time for such an accident around there.
My stand-in wandered off to go reflect light elsewhere, and I got onto the swing to be hoisted up.
Now.
I’ve mentioned the height and I’ve told you about the netting. You’re probably expecting me to have some hilarious malfunction and fall onto the net. Honestly, part of me expected the same thing, but it didn’t happen.
What did happen was something else I found troubling.
They winched me up, and there I sat, way up high, waiting. That part of the studio was like a gymnasium, and the view from my perch was impressive. I could see every person moving around—like my own personal video game. A guy came in the door from the hallway, and I squinted to get a better look, because he had a Dalton Deangelo aura about him. Was it the stand-in from the day before? No, it couldn’t be, because this guy was actually cute.
Time had flown by that day, and I wondered if Keith was already there to pick me up.
I waved, but the dark-haired guy didn’t see me, because a person doesn’t walk into an enormous room and scan the ceiling area for people he might know. After a minute of watching him walk around the room and talk to various people, I had no doubt it wasn’t Keith, but Dalton Deangelo. I’d know that vampire swagger anywhere.
He walked up to my stand-in, who wore a white robe over underwear similar to mine. Seeing him approach her made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, despite the heat I was in, up near the rafters.
The winch continued to rumble away, blocking all sound I might want to hear.
I watched the scene below, my mouth dropping more and more open, as Dalton chatted with the not-Peaches girl, doing flirty things like sweeping the blond hair from her face.
Holy shit, did he think he was talking to me? My eyes are blue, and that girl had brown eyes and a gap between her front teeth. But… he seemed to be staring more at her peaches than at her face, so perhaps he hadn’t noticed. They moved closer to a wall, where his body language got extremely flirty. With one palm on the wall, he leaned in over her, their faces close enough to kiss. Un-fucking-believable.
I nearly fell off my trapeze, but my survival instincts kicked in and I clutched the ropes. I couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the equipment, but I just knew my evil double was giggling like crazy as smooth-talking Dalton fed her cheesy lines about being future old friends or stardust or whatever.
I tore my gaze off them, thoroughly annoyed, and spotted a clock on the far wall. Time had really flown by, and we were running behind, because it was already three o’clock. Keith would be arriving soon, and—
Movement below caught my eye.
Actually, Keith was already there, striding in through the side door. Striding over to where Dalton was talking to not-Peaches. Punching Dalton in the face.
NO!
I shrieked, leaning forward and nearly falling out and down to the netting.
Someone honked an air horn. I looked straight down at Mitchell, who gave me the thumbs-up, just as my trapeze began to twirl.
