by Judy Nunn
Alain was nodding thoughtfully. No, he didn’t want a new charismatic star. He already had one in Jane. No point in giving her too much competition too soon. Little did Jim and Chris know that Evan Ryan’s storylines, written under protest but nevertheless brilliant, had Jane’s character well and truly in the ascendant. He’d sworn Evan to secrecy under the pretext of the damage it would do if future storylines were leaked to the press but, having launched the series on Edwina’s name, Alain couldn’t wait to get rid of the woman. The prospect appealed to him far more than the normal pleasure of manipulation. He hadn’t enjoyed their early negotiations. She was too cool, too remote, too in command of the situation. Edwina was the only performer who had ever given Alain the impression that he was the one being manipulated and he didn’t like that one little bit.
Now he looked at Jim and Chris, who were both waiting expectantly for his answer. ‘All right. Paul Sorell it is. But you two had better play minders. If his cock gets the better of him again the network’s not covering. He’s out, and the press can have a field day.’
The girl ripped Paul’s underpants down to his knees and giggled delightedly when his penis flipped back and hit her on the chin. She was seated on the dressing room sofa in front of him and now grabbed greedily at his erection and shovelled him into her mouth.
‘Mind the teeth!’ Paul hissed painfully. God, what had he let himself in for? She’d been to the shopping centre for each of his four scheduled appearances and waited outside his dressing room after every show. She was all of nineteen and he’d tried to resist, he really had. But hell, he was only human. Today, when she’d grabbed him on the cock publicly he’d had to whisk her into the dressing room if only to tell her to stop. But when she’d stripped and stood demandingly before him, what could he do? In actual fact very little — she was only too willing to do it all herself.
Despite his healthy erection (Paul always had a healthy erection) he found her a little off-putting. Paul was proud of his prowess as a lover. He had excellent self-control and liked to take his time. His main pleasure was hearing the woman orgasm at least three times. Then he’d let himself go in an explosion of ecstasy, aware that it had been a job well done.
He withdrew his penis from the girl’s mouth and started to ease her head down onto the cushions. This would have to be one of his rare quickies.
But the girl wedged herself up on one elbow, closely inspecting his erection. ‘You’ve got tissue paper on your dick.’ With thumb and forefinger, she painfully pinched a piece of fluff from his knob.
Paul stifled a scream as he gently forced her back on to the sofa and covered her mouth with his own to shut her up. She tasted of chocolate. It was a matter of pride that he make love to her now but she sure as hell wasn’t making it easy. And he really must remember to inspect himself after his masturbatory visits to the bathroom, particularly as they were becoming so regular in his attempt to remain faithful to Barbie.
Underneath him, the girl moaned in mock ecstasy. Well, to Paul it was mock. She was really only ecstatic about being fucked by Paul Sorell, not by his performance. Paul felt a grim satisfaction at the moans she’d denied herself by not allowing him to make love to her properly. She gave a howl of orgasmic anguish and Paul allowed himself to let go. A couple of perfunctory thrusts and it was all over. He should have told the girl to go home. He should have made another trip to the bathroom.
The phone rang and the girl lay panting loudly as Paul rose to answer it. It was Mal.
‘I think I boobed, old buddy. I just rang home.’
‘Oh, shit!’
‘Exactly. Barbie said she thought you were with me.’
Behind him, the girl’s panting was louder and Paul turned to find her, eyes closed, playing with herself and muttering, ‘More, more’. Bloody nymphomaniac, he thought.
‘I think you’d better go, honey. I’ve got a business call here.’
‘Oh.’ The girl’s eyes opened and she gazed at him in disappointment. ‘I thought we could … ’
‘No. I’m afraid not. Off you go, there’s a good girl.’
‘But … ’
‘Maybe another time.’ Over my dead body, he thought, as she started dressing.
‘Getting rid of her, are we?’ Mal’s voice at the end of the line was snide.
‘Lay off, Mal. I’ve been pretty good lately.’
‘Not good enough, boyo. You’re gonna have to do better than that if you want Barbie to … ’
‘OK, OK.’ Sometimes Mal overstepped the agent-friend mark, Paul thought. ‘Let’s keep it to business.’ But he knew that it was guilt making him snap. He respected Mal’s friendship. He relied upon Mal’s friendship.
‘All right, business.’ Mal wasn’t offended. Even over the phone he recognised Paul’s guilt. Poor bloke, he thought, he can’t help being ruled by his libido and even when he tries to lay off the extramarital sex, women won’t leave him alone. ‘Get rid of her and take a seat, Paul. You’ll want to hear this one on your own.’
Paul was suddenly nervous. ‘Good one or bad one?’
Mal felt a surge of sympathy. Beneath the professional confidence, Paul was so vulnerable. ‘Good one, mate. One of the best.’
The girl was dressed and parked by the door as if awaiting a reprieve. Paul gave her a little wave.
‘After the show next week?’ she called.
‘Sure.’
The door closed behind her. He made a mental note to duck out the back way straight after next week’s performance. It was his last scheduled appearance anyway.
‘OK.’ He sat down. ‘What is it?’
‘Big new series for Channel 3. It’s been kept under wraps till now. Already sold to the UK.’
‘Presale? Without a pilot?’
‘Yep.’
‘How come?’
‘Edwina Dawling’s playing the lead.’
‘Shit!’
‘Precisely. And guess who’s playing opposite her?’
‘Who?’
‘You, mate, that’s who! Edwina Dawling and Paul Sorell!’
Ten minutes later, when Paul put the phone down he couldn’t remember much of his conversation with Mal. Edwina Dawling … A twelve month contract … The King!
The King wanted him! He couldn’t believe it. Alain King had sworn he’d never work with Paul again. That awful business with the sixteen-year-old girl during the run of ‘Family and Lovers’. She’d been playing his daughter — what would the press have made of that! Of course she’d told Paul she was nineteen but they’d never have believed him.
Paul sat down at the dressing table and started tissuing off his make-up. Christ, when he’d started out as a teenage star they’d had chaperones and tutors, and you were brought up to know what was jailbait. Nowadays fifteen-year-olds looked thirty and were allowed to behave accordingly. Too bad if you took them up on it and got caught out.
When the kid’s father had threatened to go public, the network had paid out a fortune to keep it from the press. Not as a favour to Paul, of course. His character was the most popular in the series and he was mid-contract — they couldn’t afford to lose him. Which was lucky for Paul. Exposure would have meant the end of his marriage and the end of his career. It hadn’t altered the situation much when it turned out the kid’s father was really her pimp. They still had the photos to prove it and the kid certainly looked sixteen.
Even without the headlines, his career had taken a dive. He’d been sure Alain had put the word around not to use him; he hadn’t had a television offer for over a year. Thank God for his loyal fans, who still flocked by the thousands to his personal appearances.
Paul crossed to the sink and washed off the remnants of make-up. Maybe Alain hadn’t put the word out, though. After all, here he was wanting Paul for the role of the season. Maybe it had just been one of those runs of bad luck other actors seemed to cop regularly. It had frightened Paul. He hadn’t been out of work since the ‘Snowy’ series had made him one of the first Aust
ralian stars at the age of eighteen.
He finished towelling his face, sat down at the dressing table and reached for the Clarins. To hit the downward slide when you were looking forty in the face was midlife crisis with a vengeance. He’d been terrified. Was he over the hill? And was that all the other side had to offer? What else could he do? Acting was all he knew. In fact, he wasn’t even too sure about the acting. It was the industry he knew. He knew how to be a star, he knew how much warmth and charm the public wanted. And he worked diligently: his camera technique was perfect, he took direction, he made sure he got on with the crew and his fellow actors. (Well, there was the rare actress who didn’t welcome his attentions.) What more did they want? He’d agonised over it — was Alain wrecking his career, or was it just that he was turning forty? Was he still leading man material, or was he now destined to hang around till his face caved in and he was ideal character casting?
Paul copiously applied the Clarins rejuvenation cream and grinned with relief. No more. It was over. Alain wanted him. He’d turned forty and the other side looked great. He tissued off the excess cream and inspected the face. It was ageing well. The wrinkles were rugged and masculine and not too plentiful. The teeth? He flashed himself a confident grin. Yes, never a problem there. Paul’s dental perfection was a trademark; in fact, some were unkind enough to say he abused it. The hair? Well, it was greying around the temples but surely that would be the look they wanted. After all, Edwina was no spring chicken. She had to be in her late thirties, touching forty. Yes, he’d better not have the hair highlighted until he’d checked with the designer, make-up and hair departments. He had a good tan, too, and it was only spring. He’d look great by the time the show was into production.
He stood up and reached for his underpants on the sofa, checking his torso in the mirror as he did. Deep chest, good shoulders, but there was a definite thickening around the waistline. It wouldn’t show up in clothes but they’d be bound to want some bare-chested stuff. He’d better start pumping iron as soon as possible.
The drive home from the western suburbs seemed interminable to Paul. He couldn’t wait to tell Barbie the news and he dodged the heavy Parramatta Road traffic with an uncharacteristic lack of caution. He took the Hunters Hill turn-off at the Gladesville Bridge and felt the day’s tension start to ease as it always did a few blocks from home.
It was a leafy, green suburb with beautiful old stone houses, expensive as all hell — this last year it had been a constant struggle to maintain the mortgage payments but Paul told himself that it was worth it. The store promotions, the TV panel appearances, the product endorsements — all the things he’d once sworn he’d never stoop to — were all worth it. Barbie deserved the best, the kids deserved the best and he’d milk every last reserve of his star status to give it to them.
He turned into the private drive that wound down the hill to the three waterside mansions. Theirs was at the very bottom, its swimming pool jutting out into the harbour. And the house — Paul loved it! Two storeys, five bedrooms of beautiful old ivy-covered sandstone with a spacious balcony overlooking the water.
Jamie was giving the twins a tennis lesson on the grass court beside the pool. He looked good, Paul thought with a surge of pride. At fifteen he looked exactly as Paul had at that age.
Adam and Vanessa had been a surprise pregnancy six years ago. Medical examination showed no reason for their infertility but, after Jamie, it seemed impossible that Barbie and Paul would conceive again. Then out of the blue, twins — just like that. It had certainly saved their foundering marriage. Barbie had taken all she could of Paul’s philandering and had been on the brink of walking out. The twins changed all that. During her pregnancy, she and Paul became closer than they’d ever been before. Paul even managed to be faithful to her for the full nine months. Of course there had been the quick hot fuck with the next-door neighbour on her bathroom floor while Barbie was in hospital, but that didn’t count. The neighbour’s husband was away, Paul’s wife was away, they were both as horny as hell — and it was just a form of masturbation, wasn’t it? It was only a release.
Paul had honestly tried to curb his sexual appetite, but it wasn’t just that temptation was always there and that his libido responded to it — there was something else. Paul had absolutely no moral sense where sex was concerned. His adventures had no relevance whatsoever to his love for Barbie and he could not, in all honesty, understand why they should upset her.
The one thing he had learned, though, was discretion. He had a feeling Barbie still suspected the occasional lapse but, if he was discreet, she was not going to allow it to wreck her marriage. Thank God the studio had covered for him over the sixteen-year-old, though — that one she would never have forgiven.
Vanessa and Adam had seen him and were racing up the hill to meet him at the front door. He got out of the car, lifted them up, one under each arm, and gave them both a resounding kiss on the top of the head.
‘Come and play whales, Daddy. Play whales.’
‘OK, OK. But I want to talk to Mummy first. You go and hop into your bathers and meet me down at the pool.’
The twins raced inside. Paul waved to Jamie, who was practising his lethal McEnroe serve and then followed the twins into the house.
Barbie was already pouring his Scotch and water. She had given up a successful modelling career when she married Paul, and at thirty-eight she was still a beautiful woman.
‘Thanks, honey.’ He nuzzled her neck as he took the drink but she didn’t nuzzle back as she usually did and she looked a little subdued.
‘What’s up?’
‘I thought you were having lunch with Mal.’
Oh shit! He’d forgotten about the little groupie. ‘No, I stayed back in the dressing room to read through a couple of new scripts.’ It was glib and flowed off the tongue so easily. ‘I spoke to him, though. He rang after he’d phoned here. And wait for it, Barbie doll, wait for …!’ He put the glass down, struck a leading man pose and flashed the irresistible teeth. ‘Just who do you think you see before you?’
Barbie was forced to smile. What could you do with such a disarming peacock? He probably had been reading scripts, she told herself. She was just letting her paranoia get the better of her. ‘I give up. Just who do I see before me?’
‘Only Edwina Dawling’s leading man in The King’s new big-budget series, that’s who.’
Barbie stared at him, open-mouthed.
Paul dropped the stance and took her by the hands. ‘It’s true. A twelve-month contract and it’s already sold overseas.’
‘Oh Paul!’ she shrieked and threw her arms around him. He lifted her off the ground and whirled her about, sending the Scotch glass spinning to the other side of the room.
‘We’re headed back to the top, honey. Right back to the top.’
He kissed her tenderly. ‘Right back where we belong, Barbie Doll.’
It took Alain no time at all to reach a decision about Greg MacNeil. He didn’t even need Jim’s suggestion — ‘Alain, I’ve come up with the perfect “Billy” ’ — but cut him short with smug satisfaction.
‘I know, don’t tell me. Greg MacNeil. Get him.’
But with Greg safely contracted, there arose the problem of casting the crucial role of Jodie opposite him. Where did one find a fresh young sixteen-year-old face that would marry well with the eighteen-year-old Latin lover looks of Greg? Not that Greg was eighteen, of course. He was twenty-seven, but the public didn’t know that. Just as the public didn’t know that the idol of the Australian teenage market was a homosexual and a highly promiscuous one at that. It was one of the best known facts within the industry and one of the best kept secrets out of it. Everyone liked Greg. He was great fun to work with, always sending himself up, professional, efficient and a good actor to boot. Even the gutter journalists saw no reason to threaten his career with ‘star’s double life’ tabloids. Besides, there was no longer any mileage in poofter actor stories.
There had been
several incidents at the height of the AIDS scare when actresses had refused to kiss him in the love scenes but Greg himself had quickly rectified that. He collected every bit of information available from the Health Education Department, sat the troubled actresses down and gave them a detailed lecture on the AIDS virus and the fact that it couldn’t be contracted through an exchange of saliva.
‘Nevertheless, pet, I promise there’ll be no tongues.’ Hands in the air, a mock-solemn oath. ‘No tongues, I swear!’
Needless to say, he won them over every time and spent the next several days assuring the concerned women that yes, he did practice safe sex, and no, he really didn’t feel he was at risk.
It was a lie. Greg was secretly terrified. One of his lovers had died of AIDS three years before and although, at the time, Greg’s own test was negative, he’d refused to undergo a further one since. If he had the virus he didn’t want to know. He was always honest with his lovers, many of whom were in the same situation. They had learned to live with it. They had to.
The only true complication in Greg’s life was his family — he’d managed to contain even that complication by simply extending his ‘straight’ public performance.
An only child, he’d always worshipped his parents and it came as a shock to discover that his ‘difference’ might be something which would make them ashamed of him. Well, certainly his father. Pat MacNeil was a boxer and a good one. He’d held several titles in his native Scotland and when he came to Australia he opened his own gymnasium and a successful manager/trainer business. His Australian wife, Jill, adored him. A highly capable woman, she ran both the gym and her husband with a firm and loving hand and when their only son was born, their life seemed idyllic. The boy would take over the business and the name MacNeil would become a boxing byword for generations to come.
It was when Greg was ten that he realised he was ‘different’ and that his father’s boxing world was not for him. But he pretended for five years. He worked hard at his father’s mandatory training sessions and at fifteen was a worthy sparring partner for Pat’s younger protégés.
