Baby and the Beast

by Taylor Holloway

  “But what about the others? And what about the production?” Isabelle asked. “I hate Ashton Radley as much as you do, but he still has scenes to shoot.”

  “Yeah, he’s gonna’ have to die in the big werewolf battle. I talked to the director. He’s going to have to do a few reshoots, but we’ll just make the current supporting character the lead instead. What’s that actor’s name? Mark? Radley can go down heroically in the final battle.” I looked at Isabelle. “You can make that happen with practical effects, right? I mean, once we’re all in the fur suits, we don’t actually need Radley to do the acting. Or do we need to up the CG budget?”

  Isabelle hissed in her breath as if she were offended that I’d suggested it. “Oh, I can make it look like he got eaten.” She frowned at me. “I do not need your CG nonsense for that.”

  I smirked at her. “I didn’t think so.”

  “You know,” Isabelle said. “I think Mark Rodgers is actually pretty good. I’ve seen him here and there, and I’ve been impressed.”

  I nodded. “He is good. I actually think he’s very good. It was my nephew Peter who suggested him. He wanted Mark to play Radley’s role initially. But we cast him as a supporting character so we could put Radley on top billing. Clearly that was a mistake. It’ll take some script rewrites, but we might actually end up with a better movie this way.”

  I should have listened to my nephew in the first place. Mark Rodgers had a star quality that Ashton Radley never had, even when he was playing second fiddle. I was looking forward to seeing the film get reshot with an actually good actor doing most of the acting.

  “What about you?” Isabelle asked.

  “What about me?” I replied. Isabelle was looking at me sidelong and there was significant look on her face that made me feel nervous.

  “Are you going to do a big transformation scene at the end now? Come out of your werewolf makeup and show the world that Connor Prince is back?”

  I looked at her sideways. “Were you listening to me on the phone earlier when I was talking to the director? I thought you were asleep.”

  She shrugged. “I was asleep. Mostly.”

  I sighed. “So much for my big surprise.”

  “Well, you might not get to surprise me,” Isabelle said. “But I think the world is going to be pretty shocked. Connor Prince hasn’t shown his real face on film in a while.”

  Thirteen years. It had been thirteen years, going on fourteen now, since I’d appeared in a movie without something obscuring my face and voice. I’d been monsters, aliens, robots, disfigured axe murderers, you name it. But nobody had ever known it was me.

  I nodded though. Isabelle was right. “It’ll definitely be a change. Although after the 24/7 Entertainment segment tonight, hopefully people won’t want to riot when they see me.”

  Isabelle smiled. “Speaking of which. We need to get you over to the barber. I promised Luc that I’d make sure you were clean shaven for the interview.”

  I groaned. I hadn’t seen my whole face in years. What if I was ugly now? What if Isabelle didn’t like the way I looked without the beard? Insecurity struck me but I managed to nod impassively.

  Tonight, my life would change. I could only hope that it would change in a good way. Isabelle was looking at me hopefully, but I could see a shadow of doubt on her features. She was worried, and I understood why. If this didn’t work, if I wasn’t able to convince the world that I was a different, better man than they thought I was, we’d never be free.

  This scandal would continue to haunt us forever. It was like Elaine had told me a few days ago. Someday, some little snot nose kid was going to ask my daughter how she felt about the fact that her father was a monster. I knew I wasn’t one, but I’d be damned if I hadn’t been playing one for the last thirteen years. If I wanted to protect Isabelle and my daughter, it was time to stop playing a monster and turn back into a man in real life. It was one thing to do it at the end of Night Stalker. It was another thing entirely to do it in real life.

  53

  Isabelle

  The Transformation

  As Connor was inside the barbershop being fixed up for his live, televised interview, I stepped outside for some air. It wasn’t ten minutes before two strangers walked up to me. There was a man with a camera and a very beautiful woman in full makeup and a pretty dress. She shoved a microphone in my face and smiled like the devil.

  “Isabelle Schmidt,” the woman said. “I’m Meg Butler from Access Elite. Is it true you’re pregnant with Connor Prince’s baby?”

  What the fuck? Who… crap. Ashton Radley, of course. He was really a pain in the ass. I bet his one call wasn’t even to his lawyer. It was probably to Access Elite.

  Access Elite was the trashiest tabloid site on the web right now. Unfortunately, they were also one of the most well-funded and successful. I should have put on some makeup.

  “No comment.” Insecurity about my naked face aside, I was fresh out of fucks to give this afternoon. Meg Butler could take her microphone and shove it where the sun don’t shine. “No comment about anything.”

  “But you are seeing him, aren’t you?”

  “No comment.”

  “How did you two meet?”

  “No comment.”

  Meg Butler frowned at me. She had persistence alright, but she must have no shame whatsoever. I wondered distantly what it must be like to have her job. Going around, digging up trash and then putting it out in the world. It must be hard for her to even look at herself in the mirror. Then again, she was really pretty. Maybe that helped mitigate some of the self-disgust.

  “Do you have any thoughts on the news about Connor Prince?” she tried next.

  “No comment.”

  Luc and Connor had warned me this might happen, but I didn’t think it would happen this fast. How’d she even find me today? We came straight here from the studio.

  “Do you have any comment on Ashton Radley’s arrest?” Meg asked. “My sources say that he was framed by Prince in order to divert publicity away from his scandal.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Yeah right. Still, I’d been trained to say exactly one thing to anyone who shoved a microphone in my face. “No comment. Still no comment. Forever no comment.”

  I turned around and went back inside. Thankfully, Connor was in the back of the shop where she couldn’t see him. Meg stared at me through the glass, but I knew I’d given her the opposite of what she wanted. I pulled the blinds down and the camera man lowered his camera. I stuck my tongue out at her. She winked at me. I flicked the blinds’ direction so she couldn’t see inside anymore.

  I’d have to learn to play this game now, Connor had warned me. The press would be a part of our lives. It wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t glamorous, but it was a fact. Luc had prepared me with my one sentence reply, at least, and promised me that he’d do his best to keep me out of the public view. I texted him that his plan had already failed, and my phone immediately rang.

  “Don’t worry, I shut the bitch down,” I said proudly. “I told her just what you said. She’s camped outside, but she can’t get in.”

  “Um, what?” came the feminine reply. “This is, uh, Cindy. From West Hollywood Specialty Cleaners? I’m calling for Isabelle Schmidt.”

  “Oh!” I shook my head. “I’m so sorry. It’s been kind of a crazy day. Are you calling about the fur suits?”

  The voice on the other end of the line laughed. She sounded relieved. “Yes. Your suits are cleaned and ready. Do you want me to deliver them today?”

  I took a deep breath in and out. Regardless of everything else that was going on, I still had a movie to help make. “Yes. I’m not at the studio, but you can leave them in the workshop.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I found something in one of the fur suits, by the way. It was a gym membership card belonging to Rocco Echeveria.”

  “I can get that back to Rocco,” I told her. “At least now I know what happened to my fur suits.”

  So, Rocco was the one be
hind the fur suit desecration. He wasn’t a thief, but he definitely had a secret. It must have been Rocco’s furry sex party that Ashton Radley heard on the day that he came down and stole from the safe. Gross, but whatever. Nobody needed to know about that but me and Rocco. He still needed to work in the industry. He was going to get an invoice from the studio for the cleaning though. I had a hunch he wouldn’t dispute it.

  The thing about Hollywood is that everybody here has secrets. Some are little and benign, like the fact that my dad, master of horror, was loving his new job working on kids shows. Some are medium sized, like Rocco’s sexual predilection for men wearing full body werewolf suits. Some are big, like Ashton Radley’s gambling problem. And some, like Connor Prince’s, are fucking huge.

  As for me, I’d never really cared for secrets. I didn’t mind surprises as long as they were good, but secrets were a lot of work. I was glad that Connor was finally coming clean about the truth of what happened to him fifteen years ago in Iraq. It would be good for him. It would also be good for us. Because I couldn’t see myself long term with a man who hid from the truth. And Connor was too good, too strong, and too capable a man to stay in the shadows forever.

  The sound of someone clearing their throat made me snap out of my introspection.

  My mouth dropped open.

  Connor Prince was standing in front of me. He’d always been handsome—tall, well built, and with the bone structure that made casting directors dart across shopping malls. I even liked the beard and the long hair, well, once it got cleaned up anyway. But there was good looking and then there was movie star good looking. Connor was the second kind.

  His hair had been cut down again, not just chopped to the shoulders with a pair of kitchen scissors, but actually styled. The shorter style highlighted the gray at his temples, but I liked it. It made him look distinguished.

  And the beard was totally gone. I knew he was worried about losing it, he said it felt like part of him now. I’d actually quite liked it myself. I thought it was sexy. But Connor’s publicist, Elaine, and Luc agreed that he needed to look as much like the Connor Prince of public memory as possible. He needed to remind the world of who he was. There was no doubt about it now.

  “Wow,” I breathed. “You look great.”

  He ran his hand through his shorter hair, visibly uncomfortable. “I feel like a sheep that just got shorn.”

  “How would you know what that felt like?” I challenged.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just feel naked.”

  I looked him up and down. My unstoppable attraction to him flared. “We can arrange that.” Was I ever going to return to regular levels of sex drive? I had no idea. I almost hoped that I didn’t. It was fun to be this horny.

  He smirked. “Yes, we certainly can, but not right now.”

  I glanced down at my watch. He was right. It was time to head over to the 24/7 Entertainment studio.

  “Alright,” I grumped. I could really use some sex right about now, but it would just have to wait. “Let’s go save Night Stalker, your career, and our future. But then we’re definitely having sex.”

  Connor smiled at me. “Deal.”

  54

  Connor

  The Interview

  The soundstage where 24/7 Entertainment was shot was a lot less polished and luxurious in person than it had looked on television. For some reason, that comforted me. It was just your average television studio, with a battered desk, a green screen, and a lot of parlor tricks with lighting and angles to make it look good.

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Prince,” the production assistant said to me when I arrived with Luc, Jimmy, Elaine, and Isabelle. “Let’s go ahead and get you ready.”

  I nodded, dutifully settling down in a makeup chair. It felt halfway familiar to me, getting done up like this. I’d spent a lot of time in makeup chairs in the last decade. But when the makeup artists pulled out powder and hair gel instead of a latex mask, reality set in. I wasn’t going to be hiding any more. It was going to be my face and my voice on display tonight.

  The interview was going to be live, both because that was more marketable and because we didn’t have time to record it beforehand and I wanted this information out immediately. Now that I’d made my decision to go public with my story, I was all in. There was no need or reason to hold back.

  Octavia Reynolds, the dark-haired woman who headlined 24/7 Entertainment, dropped by to say hello just before I went on. I’d learned a little bit more about her in recent days. She had a decent journalistic background and a huge hard-on for justice. Hopefully, she was going to be willing to listen to me tonight. If she really cared about the truth as much as she said she did, I had a hope. If she didn’t, this might be a train wreck.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said formally, shaking my hand. “Thank you for coming on the program.”

  I nodded coolly back at her. It was hard not to hate her. I knew she was just doing her job and reporting on the things she thought were important, but her pseudo gossip-news combo program rubbed me the wrong way. I wanted to hold out for a more reputable program to share my side of things, but Elaine insisted we address this head-on. That meant dealing with 24/7 Entertainment and its self-important anchor.

  “I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to set the record straight,” I told her. “Have your fact checkers received everything they needed from my people.”

  “They have,” she said. “Yes. We’re just going through the last of it now.”

  “And?”

  “And this is going to be an interesting segment,” she said. Her face wasn’t giving anything away. “See you on the air.”

  Isabelle was watching our interaction with skepticism. She looked like she wanted to say something, probably a few choice words to Octavia about her prior coverage of me, but she didn’t. She just glared. Octavia took one look at Isabelle’s expression and made herself scarce.

  “Good evening,” Octavia said to the cameras a few minutes later. “I’m here tonight with Connor Prince. Since our last program, some new information has come to light and I’m pleased to give Mr. Prince the opportunity to tell his side of the story.” She took a deep breath. “First, let me take a moment and make a few corrections to our prior coverage.”

  Off to the left of the cameras, I could see Isabelle watching Octavia angrily. She clearly didn’t trust her. But for my part, I felt calm. I knew the facts. If Octavia here wasn’t willing to tell the truth, I’d just find someone else that would.

  “First of all,” Octavia said, “I want to clarify that Quintin Rodriguez was not a captain in the army as he first asserted. He was a second lieutenant, two ranks below captain. I also want to clarify that Lt. Rodriguez’s unit, which included Private Palczynski, aka Connor Prince, was not assigned to guard the drugs that were recovered from Saddam’s palace in the summer of 2003. They were, however, stationed at the same facility where the drugs were kept. Finally, I want to clarify that Quintin Rodriguez was granted disability after returning home to the United States and being honorably discharged from the military. His divorce proceedings indicate that his ex-wife actually alleged infidelity and domestic violence as the grounds for separation, not financial troubles. His medical files do not indicate that he sustained a traumatic brain injury as a result of his assault by Connor Prince. Since returning home from Iraq, Rodriguez has been arrested a total of one dozen times. It has also come to our attention that Ashton Radley, another Hollywood actor, paid Quintin Rodriguez to come on our program and share his version of events. It appears that Radley was looking to blackmail Prince, and he’s recently been arrested in connection with that plot and the recent theft of several million dollars from Mr. Prince’s production company. Given the very large number of inconsistencies in Rodriquez’s story, I think it’s important that Mr. Prince set the record straight.”

  Progress. Not much progress, but some.

  Octavia blinked into the camera. “Although some in th
e news media may think we’re just a gossip program, we take our journalistic integrity very seriously on 24/7 Entertainment. We leave it to tabloids like Access Elite to print lies. Here we report on facts.” She turned to me. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Prince. Let’s start with the biggest question. Did you assault Quintin Rodriguez?”

  “Yes, I did.” There was no shame in my voice, because even now, I didn’t regret it. I’d do it again.

  “Why did you assault him?”

  “I walked in on him attempting to rape a civilian.”

  Luc and Elaine had walked me through the likely interview questions beforehand. So far, this was exactly what we expected.

  Octavia nodded like my answers were what she expected as well. “Why did you admit to assaulting him over the drugs?”

  “At the advice of counsel, I was informed that fighting the United States military was a losing battle, that I was better off taking my settlement and avoiding further scrutiny into my case. I was also advised that the woman involved had disappeared. I feared for her safety if the military was attempting to cover up what really happened.”

  “I want you to know,” Octavia told me. “That our program has located the woman involved that night. Her name is Fatima. We’re withholding her last name to protect her identity, but she has confirmed your version of the events. She told us that she was grateful for your intervention that night. She told us that you saved her life and she was saddened to hear that you’d been punished for it.”

  I froze. Seriously? That was unexpected.

  “Is she alright?” I asked. I’d never known what happened to her.

  Octavia nodded. “She’s well. She and her husband and three children fled to Europe not long after you saw her that evening. She did not want to appear on camera, but she was able to provide evidence to our producers that proves she was paid off by the US military.”