Hollywood Sins

by N. K. Smith

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  About the Author

  Hollywood Sins

  By

  N.K. Smith

  First published by The Writer’s Coffee Shop, 2014

  Copyright © N.K. Smith, 2014

  The right of N.K. Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  All characters and events in this Book – even those sharing the same name as (or based on) real people – are entirely fictional. No person, brand, or corporation mentioned in this Book should be taken to have endorsed this Book nor should the events surrounding them be considered in any way factual.

  This Book is a work of fiction and should be read as such.

  The Writer’s Coffee Shop

  (Australia) PO Box 447 Cherrybrook NSW 2126

  (USA) PO Box 2116 Waxahachie TX 75168

  Paperback ISBN- 978-1-61213-252-5

  E-book ISBN- 978-1-61213-253-2

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the US Congress Library.

  Cover Images - © depositphotos.com / prometeus,

  © depositphotos.com / redshinestudio

  Cover Artist - Jennifer McGuire

  www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/nsmith

  Fame and Tranquility can never be bedfellows.

  —Michel de Montaigne

  Chapter 1

  One day my father told me that I could do anything. He said I was talented and beautiful. I remember thinking that if my dad thought I was beautiful, I must be. The next day my mother took me to an audition and the casting director and producer didn’t hide the fact that they were evaluating my appearance, weighing the pros and cons of my skin and hair color, height, and percentage of body fat. I was seven. I didn’t get the part, but the little girl I’d sat next to out in the lobby did. I hadn’t known that day that the little girl would become one of my lifelong friends, but more importantly, I hadn’t known that my faith in my father’s opinion would never recover. And I didn’t know that day would be the day I thought of the most when I looked in the mirror seventeen years later.

  ***

  God these pants are tight. I keep thinking I’ll put a no tight pants clause in my contract, but I never do.

  “I don’t get it,” I say to Elsie. “How is my character a kick-ass superhero in pants this flippin’ tight?”

  Elsie snubs out her cigarette before running her manicured fingers through her sparkling brown hair. I think she pays more money for those honeyed highlights than she does on her mortgage. “Adra, sweets. I’ve been your manager since you were six, and you know as well as I do, people will pay big bucks to see your cute ass in tight pants.”

  I frown and shift dramatically as I pull the crotch down as much as I can. “I’ve told you this before, I’m twenty-four. I should start dictating what I wear during these—”

  “The producers and directors dictate what you wear.” Elsie rummages around in her oversized, shimmering golden handbag. “Trust me, if you start trying to put clauses in your contract about clothes or, heaven forbid, nudity, you’ll start losing parts. And you know what else you’ll lose.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Money. I know.” I watch my manager pull out a bottle of her skinny pills, pour two out onto her palm, and then pop them into her mouth. She doesn’t even need water to get them down anymore.

  Elsie holds the bottle out to me, but I shake my head. She clucks her tongue and jiggles the bottle until a little until a pill drops down into her palm. With two steps, she’s next to me and pinching my sides. “Come now, Adra. I can tell you’ve gained a little, and like you said, those pants are tight. Too tight to hide an extra pound or two.”

  I turn to the full length mirror and wish I could punch the woman staring back at me. I can do anything. That’s what my father said, but he failed to tell me the rest. What he should have said that I could do anything as long as I looked right.

  Without saying a word to Elsie, I hold my hand out, and she gives me the pill, and then my bottle of water. I watch my reflection down the pill I’m pretty sure I don’t need.

  At five foot nine I’m already skinny at a hundred and twenty-five pounds, but the camera adds chub where there is none. There’s nothing like going to a premiere and finding a twelve foot tall version of yourself with a double chin and twenty pounds of back fat.

  Who is that person in the mirror anyway? Encased in black polyester and spandex and wearing stilettos? It can’t be me. I mean, not the real me. Sure, it’s supposed to be my character, Ilaera, princess of Anam, defender of her enslaved people, but I look like a Mistress in a B porn film.

  I sigh. Maybe that’s my next role.

  “Elsie?”

  “Yeah, baby doll?” She turns and wipes her nose. I guess she needed a little white energy blast while I wasn’t looking.

  “Do you think you could tell Megan I’d like her to look for a script that doesn’t involve latex, leather, or Lycra?” I know I could call her up myself. She’s my agent and all, but sometimes I worry that I’m bothering her. Unlike Elsie, she has tons of other clients. While Megan has never made me feel like I’m bugging her, I’d rather Elsie do it. They speak the same language anyway. Even though Elsie’s my manager now, she was an agent once.

  “Megan’s looking for projects that will make you rich, girl. Sometimes you have to wear tight clothes and shake your tits to earn the big bucks.”

  “I’m not a stripper.”

  Elsie is lost inside her head for a moment. It’s either a genius thought or she’s about to come up with a cocaine-fuelled
idea that involves us doing something stupid. If she wasn’t the person who sheltered me after the fallout with my parents, I would have ditched her by now. Well, that and the fact that she’s a brilliant manager who, despite her own dips into drugs and seedy Hollywood schemes, has guided me to fame and fortune.

  “Actually,” she says as she comes out of her head, “I’ve found a script. And—”

  “You’ve found it? Meg didn’t send it to you?”

  Elsie sighs like she can’t believe she has to answer these annoying questions. “No. It was sent straight to me.” I give her a look that tells her I know what she’s doing, but she dismisses it with a wave. “Megan will still get her slice, okay? I’m not trying to cut her out, but when someone sends you a primo script, you jump on it. And since we’re talking about shaking tits already, it’s timely. It’s about a stripper.”

  “No.” I open the trailer door and step down into the bright day. The black top pavement makes the California heat seem twenty times hotter. It feels like a sauna in this suit. Maybe that’s its second function, to make me sweat away any water weight I’m carrying. “I’m not playing a stripper.”

  She links her arm with mine and nudges me with her slender hip as we walk toward the set. “Come on, Adra, sweets. It’s a lot of money.”

  “No. I’m not going to be that actress, you know? In fifty years, I don’t want to be remembered as—”

  “Guess who the leading man is?”

  “Well, unless it’s Devon Maddox, I don’t want to hear about it.”

  Elsie’s laugh is bordering on wild. Guess the coke’s kicking in. “It’s better than Devon Maddox. Besides didn’t your little friend, Josephina or whatever, date him? Why would you want to work with him after what she said?”

  “You know damn well her name is Liliana, and I want to work with him because he’s gorgeous and he won the SAG award last year. Everything he’s in turns to gold.”

  “Well, what would you say if I told you Maxwell Lang is the lead?”

  “Maxwell Lang is going to be in a movie about strippers? I find that highly doubtful.” My voice is layered with my disbelief. Lang won an Emmy for playing an alcoholic doctor on television and an Oscar for his turn as Nikola Tesla. Maybe Elsie’s just saying whatever she can to get me to do this film. “Bullshit.”

  “It’s true, and the best part is he wants you.”

  I shake my head even though my heart pumps a little faster at that little tidbit. “Strippers take their clothes off. I don’t want to—”

  “You should read the script. If Max is in it and Lenny Waters is directing it, damn, girl, I think we could have an Academy Award.”

  I stop before we get too close to the crew and director and turn to Elsie. Maybe she’s right. But, the too-confident expression she’s wearing makes me wonder if she’s telling me the truth or just blowing smoke up my ass. “So if I show my tits again, you think I’ll get an award?”

  She pulls one side of her mouth up into a smile and looks down at my chest. “Sweets, those tits should win awards all on their own, but with your acting and your tits out? You’re bound to sweep the Best Actress category during the award season.”

  “So it’s a serious role?” Jesus, I can’t believe I’m letting myself even ask questions about it. I don’t want to play a stripper. I don’t want to see trailers and promos with me half-naked. I don’t want to further solidify the image that I only take roles with lots of skin. But Lenny Waters and Max Lang, and potential awards? “The nudity isn’t everything, right? It’s just there to support the story?”

  Her eyes brighten even more “Totally legit, sweets. I told you. A-list actor and director, and it’s written by the guy who wrote From Here to There.” Elsie pauses as if to drive home what a great opportunity it could be. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

  “No.” Of course she hasn’t. I mean, I’m twenty-four years old and a multimillionaire. Sometimes I wish she’d focus less on making money since I have so much of it and focus on cementing me as a Hollywood heavyweight. Money is nice, but recognition for good work is better.

  But she’s right. Max Lang is Hollywood elite, Lenny Waters only directs movies that are destined for awards, and From Here to There won Best Screenplay at the Oscars years ago but people still talk about it.

  “Set up a read,” I say. Winning awards means being sent better scripts in the future. It might be a risk playing a stripper but the payoff could be huge if it works.

  Elsie nudges me with her hip again. I don’t think her smile could be any bigger even if she did another line. With a deep breath, I turn back to the set and prepare to become a fantasy superhero, ready to liberate her people.

  Chapter 2

  Getting ready to talk to Peter. Jesus, you wouldn’t think talking to him would be the highlight of my fabulous, glamorous Hollywood day, but it is. Sometimes I wish things were different. Sometimes I think about those stolen moments when we were just kids and I’d just stare at him. I used to imagine us kissing. It was stupid, I know. Our friendship is better than any of my relationships, and besides, he never made a move. Not then, for a pure, chaste kiss, and not now, for anything more than what we have. What we have is awesome, though.

  Anyway, I have Danny, who is funny and I think genuinely cares for me. But sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I wonder if I’m only with him because Peter never made a move. I shouldn’t think like that. I know I shouldn’t, but still . . . no, Peter’s my friend. My friend who is going to ask if I got that part I read for a month or so ago. I was vague when I told him about it, but he’ll want details today.

  ***

  It takes a moment to get used to the light as my computer screen goes from a gentle blue to a harsh glaring white. Even though it’s only three in the afternoon, I’m in the darkest room of my house. It has a window, but I like keeping it shut with the curtains drawn. In here, the whole world disappears for a bit.

  Most days I come in here to type into my journal. I know most people use actual pens and cursive writing in beautiful bound books or simple composition notebooks, but I’ve almost always kept my journal within a secured folder in my computer. My mother only had to find my handwritten thoughts once to convince me to never allow anyone access to my emotions. She’d read a passage I’d written about how much I hated her control over me; how much I wished she would just back off and let me have a little bit of access to the money I earned instead of using it to fly to exotic places while I shot another movie.

  Mom had flipped her shit. She’d destroyed almost everything in my room and told me I was a spoiled brat so there was no way she’d be giving me more money to blow. I was twelve. All she did was make me count the days until I was old enough to petition the court to be emancipated. When I told Peter, he gave me the idea to make an electronic journal. He was right, too. Secured digital files were the only way to keep my thoughts private. That was when I came up with the craziest password I could think of to keep my mother from snooping into my very personal thoughts.

  ShitdickandFuckertits147896325523698741 has been my trusty password for twelve years.

  But today, I’m not in here just to write in my journal. I turn on the video chat and click on the name Truelove. The synthesized ring sounds and then a drowsy Peter fills my screen. It’s early where he is, but not too early.

  “Morning, sleepy.” I wave.

  “Hi.” Peter’s dusty brown hair is messy and out of place, just the way I like it. Most of the time he’s so polished and ready for pictures to be snapped at every turn, but when it’s just us, he looks like a regular guy. He digs the tips of his fingers into his eyes and wipes away the exhaustion. “How’s California?”

  “The same. How’s Hong Kong?”

  I watch him take in a deep breath. “Busy and loud. I can’t believe I let you talk me into waking up so early on my first day off in three weeks.”

  It’s nice to hear his voice, even if it’s groggy. The deep, husky rumble isn’t something I get to hear often
while he’s filming. “Well, you’re the one who wanted to do a kung fu movie. How’s that going, by the way?”

  “It’s kicking my ass. I mean, I’m a fit dude, right?” He lifts his arm and flexes his bicep muscle.

  “Yeah, your body’s okay, I guess,” I say with a laugh.

  “But shit, Adra, this is hardcore.”

  “You’re not doing your own stunts are you?”

  Peter smiles. “Are you worried?”

  “Of course I am. Remember when we filmed Right Away Afar? You tore your rotator cuff when you—”

  “I was thirteen.” It’s quite endearing how his face softens when we talk about our pasts. Sometimes I think I live for moments like these.

  I laugh. “I still can’t believe they let you try that stunt.”

  He chuckles with me. “Well, it wasn’t much of a stunt was it? I’d done that ollie a million times before. I still think it was that damn skateboard. Something wasn’t right with those trucks.”

  “You can blame whatever part of the board you want; all I know is that you landed hard.”

  “Yeah, I should’ve tucked my arms in. I would’ve spared myself a lot of pain, but I guess I stuck ’em out on instinct.” He rolls his shoulder forward and then back as if he still feels the pain.

  It would suck if he got hurt. I’m all for getting a killer close-up of some action, but not if it means him being in pain again. He tried so hard not to cry that day, because at thirteen, no guy wants to cry in front of girls. But I saw the tears as he bit his lip trying to keep the agony inside.

  “But you’re being safe, right?”

  “Of course. We’ve got the best safety guys in the world, and the choreography is tight. No worries, little Adra. What about you, Miss Alien Warrior Princess Woman? How’s the shoot going for you? Getting to kick a little ass?”

  I roll my eyes in such a dramatic fashion that Peter laughs. “Yeah. Kicking ass in tight-ass pants that make me feel like I’m doing permanent damage to my intestines, and don’t even get me started on what the seam is doing to my girl-parts.”

  “Ouch. But it’s got to be sort of cool, right? I mean, you’re used to all those movies where you have to cry a lot or fall in love. At least this one you’re a super-hot chick who gets to pierce bad guys’ hearts with six-inch heels.” Peter is fully awake now, and his voice holds all the excitement it does when he talks about storytelling and acting. He loves this stuff. I think he could do it all—writing, acting, directing, producing. I’m envious of that. I’d like to write something one day, and sometimes I think about directing a film, but the truth is all that makes me tired. Maybe I should reconsider though—working behind the scenes means I won’t have to wear tight bodysuits anymore.