by Tia Siren
“Rae, hun, why did that sound exactly like Casey Denning?”
“It is Casey Denning.”
“So you make a movie with him, and now he shows up at our door?”
“I guess so,” Rae said with a laugh, and then their conversation was cut short because there was a knock at the door right next to them.
“Best behavior,” Rae said, and Gillian nodded a solemn but silent promise. Then Rae opened the door, and Casey was standing there in a suit and tie, and Gillian screamed and threw her arms around the man she didn’t even know.
“Casey Denning!” she screamed. “I’ve seen every movie you’ve made!”
Casey laughed and patted Gillian’s back. “It’s a pleasure, Miss…” he said, trailing off.
“That’s my roomie, Gillian, and she said she was going to be on her best behavior.
Gillian backed off sheepishly. “That was my best behavior.”
“Relax, I’m used to surprise hugs,” Casey said. “I’m just glad this time it was a woman.”
The girls laughed, and Casey looked to Rae. “I was hoping you hadn’t eaten yet,” he said.
Rae glanced back to the pizza on their table, and then looked to her roommate and friend. She didn’t want to ditch her, but Gillian was pushing her out the door. “She hasn’t,” she said.
“Let me get dressed at least,” Rae argued, looking down to her sweatpants and tee shirt.
“Right,” Gillian said.
“Come in,” Rae said to Casey, and the man nodded, and the girls shut the door behind him. Rae turned and rushed into her small bedroom, pushing the door shut. Gillian stood staring at Casey.
They made small talk while they waited, mostly with Casey speaking and Gillian giggling and fawning. Before long Rae came out of her room, and Casey turned to her and his breath caught in his throat. She was absolutely stunning, he knew that already, but standing there in a dress with a floral print, the hem of which fell breezily past her knees, and black pumps, she looked like nothing he had ever seen.
Even Gillian appreciated it. “Wow,” she said.
“Shut up,” Rae whispered with a laugh, and then Casey whisked her out of her apartment. Parked in the small parking lot, taking up entirely too much room, was a stretch limo, gleaming and black.
“This is your car?” Rae asked before she could stop herself.
“One of them,” Casey said, and he held the door for her. As she climbed in, he laughed. “I’m just kidding, I rented it. I thought we could go to dinner, and then think of something else. A night out on the town.”
“You tease too much,” Rae said, hutting her bottom lip out in a pout, but she smiled when he sat next to her and leaned over and bit her protruding lip.
“It’s one of my many character flaws,” Casey said with a grin.
“Where are we going?”
“Where would you like to go?”
“Oh, I don’t know anything about this. I think your Los Angeles and mine are a lot different.”
Casey nodded softly. “I know just the place,” he said, and he leaned forward to speak to the driver. Afterward, the driver raised tinted glass between the back and the front, and Casey pulled a bottle of champagne out of a nearby bucket of ice and poured two glasses.
“I’ve never drunk alcohol in a car before,” Rae said, and Casey laughed.
“I don’t often, as long as you don’t pay attention to the lies they write about me in those rags.”
Rae smiled. “I didn’t think you’d come see me,” she said as she took her glass.
“I thought we had something special going on back in Toronto,” the movie star said to the young woman. And then he smiled and took a sip from his glass.
The restaurant Casey took Rae to was a posh place called Jackknife, a strange name Rae though, but once inside she knew it was the kind of place she would never be able to afford, even with the considerable sum she had made from the movie.
The lighting was dim, and the tables and chairs were dark, rich mahogany. They were seated right away, even though there was a long line at the door.
“Wow,” Rae said, and the night went on from there. The food was amazing, and the conversation telling, and non-stop. The two lovers really got to know one another. Rae told Casey about her struggles as a young actress and spoke of her mother. Her eyes slicked with tears when she spoke about her mom, and told Casey that they didn’t often speak, ever since her mother moved back to Cincinnati, and left by telling Rae she would never make it. She spoke of how hard it was to be a black woman in Hollywood, and how she lost so many roles to lesser actresses who were white.
Surprisingly, Casey opened up as well. His father had been a drunk, and abusive, hitting both Casey, his mother, and Casey’s younger brother. Rae didn’t even know he had a younger brother, and when she pressed the movie star his voice lowered, and he told her she had killed himself decades ago. Then Casey’s eyes were watery too, and as Rae saw the tears roll down his cheek, she fell in love with the man.
After dinner, they climbed back into the limo and drank more champagne. Casey told the driver to simply drive, and then he turned and began kissing on Rae’s neck.
“There’s a man up there,” she moaned as the actor slipped his hand down the front of her dress, and cupped her bare breast. Her nipple hardened at his touch.
“He can’t see anything,” Casey murmured, as he took her hand and put it on his crotch. Beneath his pants his cock was hardening, pulsing as it grew. She gripped it and began to jerk him through the material of his pants.
“I missed you,” he said, and she grinned.
“You just want to fuck my tits again,” she said, and they laughed.
They kissed, their tongues dancing together, their hands exploring. Her dress came off; his pants did the same. He was sucking on her nipple, pinching in between his teeth while the tip of his tongue flicked back and forth over it, and she had a hand gripped on his bare cock, jerking him slowly up and down.
He pushed her back, and she stretched out on the long couch at the back of the limo. He crouched down and put his head between her knees. She spread her legs and he ran a finger up her wet slit, and then his tongue replaced the finger. The tip of his tongue found her clit, and treated it the same way he had treated her nipple. Flicking back and forth at a furious pace. Before she could stop herself, she was coming, and her juices ran freely, running down his chin. He backed away and she took him by the shoulders and pulled him up, planting her lips on his, and tasting herself. It drove him wild, and Casey took her by the hips and turned her around. He pulled her down so her knees were on the floor of the limo, and her elbows were propped on the seat. He held himself while he entered her from behind, and then filled both of his hands with her ass cheeks, watching and feeling them bounce as he pushed in and out of her at a quick pace.
Casey leaned down and planted a trail of kisses along the back of her neck and downward as far as he could reach. His hands were like vice grips on her flesh, gripping her ass cheeks, moving to her hips. As his breathing became labored Rae pulled away from him, and had him sit on the seat. She knelt in front of him, and gripped the base of his cock in her right hand, and then lowered her mouth onto his rigid member.
She took him deep into her throat, and he was close, arching his hips up and holding the back of her head, so she had nowhere to go. Her eyes watered, and she gagged on his cock, but he didn’t let up, and she didn’t want him to.
She was sliding her hand up and down behind her lips, and it was too much for the man to bear. He came, his hot sticky load bursting forth from the tip of his cock and into the back of her throat. She let him finish, lifting himself up and down as he shot wad after wad of semen into her mouth. When he was done she pulled her lips from his cock and closed her mouth, smiling as she swallowed.
“Fuck, I missed you,” Casey said, and she nodded.
4
For the next month and a half, Rae was in a constant state of bliss. It seemed as thoug
h Casey wanted to spend every waking moment with her, and she was glad to oblige the movie star. She began staying at his massive mansion most nights, and he took her to the most amazing restaurants and clubs. They never waited in lines. He took her shopping, and they didn’t even make him pay. It was enough for the clothes to be seen on or around him.
And the sex, it was like nothing the young woman had ever experienced. Some nights they fucked, some nights they made love, sometimes both. He fucked her hard one afternoon by his pool, her bikini bottoms pulled to the side by eager fingers, his cock pulling out of her and spraying its load all over her back. That night they took a bath together, entwining their limbs in the warm water as they rocked slowly back and forth.
The man was surprisingly sweet, and he showered her with gifts, both extravagant and small. She would wake up and he would have breakfast made and ready for her, bringing it up on a tray so she could eat in bed. One morning she laughed.
“Did you make this?” she asked.
“I asked Caroline to make it,” he said with a grin. She was his personal chef, and she came over in the morning, and left at night. He had maids, a driver, all kinds of people. It was strange for Rae, but Casey seemed used to it all.
She was once shopping for groceries with Gillian since she still tried to sleep at her old apartment once or twice a week. The two women were checking out when a group of men dressed smartly came into the store and singled out Rae and then began singing to her. They sang in French, and she couldn’t understand a word, but it was the most beautiful song she had ever heard. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment, and Gillian laughed and laughed. Her friend would break into fake French singing for the next two weeks, nearly every time they saw each other.
It was hard to go out, though. It was one thing to go to posh restaurants, but even going from the car to the front door was a nightmare. There’d be a number of men with cameras, and they’d all push forward to get their shots. Even when Rae wasn’t with Casey, they began to show up.
Once Casey attempted to take her to the zoo, but they left after twenty minutes because the paparazzi was disturbing them and everyone around them. Rae had never experienced anything like it. She realized that Casey had lived that sort of life for years. Decades really, and it made her admire him even more. He never complained, he never raised his voice to the paparazzo’s. He never threatened to hit them. He just went about his day as best as he could, and sometimes when it became almost overbearing he would stop, and smile, and let them take his picture. Rae loved that about him. She knew he was annoyed, she knew he was angry, but he didn’t let them know. If anything, he knew that flying off the handle would make for better pictures, and his face would be red and angry and yelling silent screamed from the cover of every magazine in the country. So he didn’t do that. He would speak softly to them, and they would fall quiet to hear him.
“Go ahead,” he would say, and then he would smile. “Do your worst.”
And the men with cameras would love him for it. “Hey thanks, Casey,” they would say. “Love the suit.” And he would smile and nod his head in thanks, and go on his way until he ran into another group of the parasites further down the block.
Rae had read about Casey, and she worried it could end at any moment. It always seemed to do so with him. She was just one in a long line of young starlets. Their movie was close to wrapping post production, and it would be out in only weeks. They had been spotted together by the paparazzi, and her name was going around town, and the nation. She landed a new film herself, a science fiction action flick where she would be playing a woman in the galactic army, intent on taking down invading aliens. She began working out for the role, hoping to look a little tougher in her uniform, which of course would be ripped by an alien claw to show off her toned stomach. There were no more commercials for her. She even managed to get Gillian a small role in the film, and her friend was ecstatic.
And then it all came crashing down. Rae had missed a period, and she began feeling sick throughout the day. She worried she was pregnant, but she put off taking the test until she missed a second one. She went back home, huddled around the bathroom sink with Gillian after peeing on the little white plastic stick, and they watched as it revealed that she was going to have a baby.
Rae went to see Casey that night.
“I can’t have a kid,” he said, shaking his head and catching her off guard.
“What?” Rae asked.
“I can’t have a kid. I can’t. We aren’t married, and… I… the press, the public, they just… I can’t.”
“Well, I’m not going to get rid of it!’ Rae said, feeling hot tears stinging her eyes.
“I never said that!” Casey said, standing up. They were in his spacious living room, on the ground floor of his massive mansion. “And keep your voice down, the cook might hear you.”
“Oh, the cook? Of course the cook is here. Why wouldn’t he be? You’re too rich to take care of yourself, right? How long is it going to be until you find another me? One without your child growing in her belly?”
“What are you talking about? Casey asked, coming forward and trying to take her arms, but she stepped out of his reach.
“Forget it,” Rae said, and she didn’t know why she was so angry, or so hurt, but she turned around and hurried out of the man’s home. He had bought her a car, and she felt horrible driving in it, but she had no way to get back home, so she did so.
Days passed, and Casey tried to call her, and when she wouldn’t answer he showed up at her apartment, but Gillian told him to go away and he did so. Rae spent most of her time crying, and the days turned into weeks.
The day before the big premiere of Rae’s first movie, she and Gillian sat on her bed, talking. Already, Rae was showing, her stomach pushing against her shirt uncomfortably.
“I’m here for you, girl, but I don’t understand… why…” Gillian said, but she didn’t know how to finish her sentence.
“Why I’m keeping it?”
“I guess… I didn’t want to say it like that, but yes.”
“I don’t know. I would be a good mom, you know? I will be a good mom. Like my mom was. She came out here with me. But now we hardly talk. I haven’t even told her about this, but… I just want to do right. You know, I have this cousin, and she didn’t live where I lived. She didn’t have the same opportunities, and as hard as it is, as hard as it was, and has been, to get work here, as much as I was overlooked, she came from somewhere else. She was pregnant at fourteen, the dad was just some kid, she was just some kid, and she didn’t keep it. And she acted tough, you know? She had to, living where she lived. But it killed her. I could see it in her eyes. I don’t have to do that. I don’t have to act tough. If Casey doesn’t want to do it with me, to raise this kid, then fine. But I can’t give up on him. Or her.”
Gillian smiled softly, and she hugged her friend. “I’m here for you. Remember that.”
Rae smiled, and then she began to cry, as she so often did.
5
The premiere of When Love Speaks was another point on the long list of things Rae had never thought she would experience. There was a red carpet, and she was let out of a limo along with Gillian, her plus one. They posed for pictures, smiling and laughing, intent of having a good time. There was a group where people stood, simply fans of movies, or fans of celebrities. Some of them called Rae’s name, and it was shocking, but it delighted her. She went to see them, the normal people, and she felt terrible that she thought of them that way. She signed anything they pressed into her hand, and she leaned close to the railing that separated them from her, smiling into cell phone after cell phone as she took thirty selfies. They neared the historic theater where the premier was taking place, and Rae froze in her tracks. There was Casey, smiling with Amelia Stevens, who was dressed as nicely as Rae was, and who looked a little bored. She had done a premier a hundred times. She wasn’t excited anymore, but Rae was sure she had been once.
Seeing Casey bro
ught a painful twinge to Rae’s chest, as if her heart was literally breaking. He saw her, his eyes flickering over to her, but then the people taking pictures were calling his name, and he was smiling again and looking at them. Bright bulbs flashed.
“Rae, go have a picture with your co-stars,” one man with a camera yelled out after noticing her. Rae forced a smile on her face, and went to do so. She stood next to Amelia, pointedly putting her between Casey and herself. But the older actress soon tired of the charade, and she smiled to Rae.
“He’s all yours, sweetie,” she said, and she headed into the theater. Rae hesitated, but Casey moved over and put his arm around her, smiling for the camera men as they took a hundred photos. Rae smiled too, but she wasn’t sure how she was managing to. She put a hand protectively on her stomach as the bright lights blinded her.
“Are you two still together?” one man asked. “No one has seen you together in months!”
Rae didn’t want to answer him, was going to ignore him, but Casey stepped forward, and he held his hands up.
“I’d like to address that head-on,” he said, and the cameras stopped clicking. Some nearby reporters hurried over and held digital voice recorders up. A camera crew and reporter from television hurried up as well.
The months I’ve spent with Rae Coleman have been the greatest months of my life,” Casey said, and Rae didn’t know what to think. Was he going to lie about their relationship? Why was he so concerned what people thought about him? The man went on, and she listened.
“I have to say, I can get caught up in all of this,” Casey said. “There're all of these rules; there’s all of these things. Focus groups tell us what they like in movies, and what they don’t. I get hung up on them, and I think about them in real life. Everything I do is scrutinized. It’s exhausting, but it’s part of the game. It’s what I do, and it’s what affords me a privileged life. So I do it.”
