by Noelle Adams
Jane checked her watch. It was one-fifteen and she was only on page three of the twenty two page document. She blinked a few times, forced herself to focus on the script for the pilot episode of the sitcom they were hoping to get on the fall schedule. Somehow she managed to get through the script, though the act of reading and formulating intelligent comments seemed to take a Herculean effort.
Everything did these days. From getting out of bed in the morning, figuring out what to wear, forcing herself to respond to critical calls and emails. Somehow she’d made it through awards season, though every event was like running an ultra marathon. The only good thing about the hopeless funk she’d fallen into was that for the first time ever even eating felt like an unbearable chore.
As a result the 15 pounds that she couldn’t seem to run, spin, or yoga off had finally disappeared. But that was the only outward sign of her distress and Jane was determined to keep it that way. No way in hell would she let on in public that she was in any way shape or form depressed. They would ascribe it to Ryan and Katya, and Jane had had it up to her neck with people feeling sorry for her because of him.
And of course, she didn’t want Deck to have any clue that she might be upset about his disappearance from her life. If he even thought of her at all…
Focus, Jane, she scolded herself and forced herself to finish reading through the script. She managed to make it through the writers’ meeting and offer semi-intelligent feedback, but by the time he meeting was over she felt like she’d been run over by a truck.
She followed Aria back to their office, her feet feeling like they weighed a hundred pounds each.
“Okay, so we need to brainstorm solid outlines for at least six more episodes,” Aria said. “And I’m still not happy with the B story in the pilot. I think we could do a lot more with Eddie’s character—” She was talking a mile minute, making quick, punctuated gestures with her hands. Jane had always appreciated how energetic her partner was, her brain racing with so many ideas she couldn’t express them fast enough.
Working with Aria was exciting, invigorating.
And today, absolutely exhausting.
Jane held her hand up, but Aria continued on, oblivious. She had to say Aria’s name three times before she got her attention.
She stopped mid-sentence, snapping her focus on Jane. “What?”
“Aria, we have another month before production starts, and I’m really not feeling it right now.”
“Not feeling it right now? You were a rock star in there, throwing out jokes, and you hit the nail on the head with Ginger’s backstory. Let’s keep going while the juices are flowing.”
Jane supposed she should be happy she’d put on a good enough performance to fool even her friend. But the truth was her juices were flowing about as quickly as the silt on the bottom of the Mississippi. “Thanks, but the truth is, I’m kind of worn out—I was up really late last night and I think I might be coming down with something.” She lowered her lashes and did her best imitation of an emphysema patient.
As she knew she would, Aria immediately backed away, waving her arms in front of her as though that would dissipate any germs floating her way, then pulled the collar of her shirt up so it covered her nose and mouth. “Oh my god, why didn’t you say anything?” Though her voice was muffled by her shirt, there was no mistaking the accusatory tone in Aria’s voice. “You know I just got over West Nile virus like a week ago!”
“I’m sorry,” Jane said, feeling a pinch of guilt for exploiting her friend’s hypochondria. The truth was, Aria’s “West Nile virus” had been nothing more than a mild case of the flu. The fact that the mosquitoes that carried the disease weren’t even active in Southern California this early in the spring hadn’t been enough to dissuade her. Jane cleared her throat, grimacing for effect. When she spoke she tried to make her voice as raspy as possible. “It’s just it took us so long to get this meeting on the calendar and this project is so important to us—” She broke off with another fit of coughing.
Aria scrambled to gather up all of her stuff. “You know whooping cough has been going around, right? And adults can get it if they don’t get their booster shots. Oh, my God, I’ve got to get out of here and have the cleaning staff sanitize the office.” She headed for the door.
“I’ll work on some stuff at home, I promise,” Jane called after her as she gathered up her own notes and computer.
“Don’t worry about work,” Aria called, already heading full speed down the hall, away from Jane. “Just get better!”
If only getting better was as simple as eating some chicken soup and getting some extra rest, Jane thought glumly as she headed home. Though all she wanted to do was flop down on the couch and numb herself out with a glass of good red wine and a reality television marathon, she was determined to make good on her promise to Aria. Instead of heading for the couch, she headed for her office.
She could hear Hailey behind the closed door next to the door to the office, and she popped her head in to let her assistant know she was back.
Settled at her own desk, she unpacked her laptop, trying to think up ways to flesh out the male lead’s character and come up with a story arc that could carry through the first season should the show be picked up. For nearly an hour she typed in fits and starts, writing, deleting. Mostly deleting.
She found herself distracted by the sound of Hailey on the phone next door.
Even with the door closed, she could hear her assistant’s slightly nasal tone, punctuated by the staccato machine gun laugh that had once made Jane reflexively laugh in response but now just got on her nerves.
She let out a frustrated sigh and dug her earbuds and iPhone out of her purse. She turned on Pandora and selected a station that played the trance music that sometimes helped her concentrate. For good measure, she moved from her desk to the armchair that faced out the window to the view looking over the pool, hoping a slight change in scenery would provide inspiration.
Within a few minutes she was finally on a roll, her fingers flying on the keyboard as the ideas finally started to flow.
Then, just as she was outlining the episode involving the female lead’s ex-fiancé, the cursor froze on the screen and she got the endlessly spinning pinwheel of death. Cursing, she forced the computer to restart. Fortunately the autosave function prevented her from losing all of her work, but the file was open only a few minutes before it froze again.
She’d just had the system upgraded with more memory and the damn thing was already crashing.
She made a mental note to have Hailey take it in to be serviced.
After another restart, she went to reopen the document. As the arrow settled over her brainstorming document, her attention snagged on a folder titled simply “stories.”
As though with a will of its own, her index finger slipped down the trackpad until the arrow hovered over the folder. Before she could stop herself, she’d clicked it open.
The folder contained several files, all innocuously named with roman numerals. There were seven in all. Though she knew it was one of the worst ideas she’d had since sleeping with Deck in the first place, she opened the one labeled IV.
It had been so long—over a year—since she’d looked at any of them, she couldn’t remember the details of each scenario.
He strips me naked and turns me against the wall, his hard warrior’s hands running down my sides. He holds my hips hard so I can’t move. I can feel his cock against my ass. Rock hard and so big I wonder if it will hurt when he pushes inside me.
But how can it hurt when I’m so wet I can feel drops of my own juice sliding down my thigh. He’s barely touched me and I’m going crazy, dying to have him fuck me.
Heat rushed to her cheeks as she read her own words as a similar heat rushed between her thighs at the memory of the inspiration for that fantasy.
She’d been on set with Ryan while he was shooting a movie about the Robert the Bruce. It had been a particularly challenging time in what had
already proven to be a challenging marriage, as Ryan had decided to go “method” for his role as a hardened Highland warrior.
Suddenly Ryan who showered twice a day and never went out of the house without his hair perfectly moussed and gelled, let his hair grow long and forgot how to use a comb. Showering would make him “soft,” so instead he turned off their pool heater and “bathed” with a once or twice a week swim, insisting that it was just like the Highlanders swimming in an icy loch.
Between the BO and the fake brogue, Jane was at her wit’s end before they even started shooting.
Still, at the time Jane was actively trying to conceive, so she visited him on the set with Deck in tow. She hung out on the set, the cheerful, supportive spouse as she watched Ryan trail with the weapons consultant on set. She listened with half an ear to Ryan earnestly tell the weapons expert about how now that he’d trained with the swords, he felt like his hands had actually changed.
“I feel like I have a warrior’s hands now,” he’d said.
As he said it, Jane’s gaze was fixed on Deck, who had wandered a few feet away and casually picked up one of the swords. Unlike the lightweight prop sword that Ryan held, this was a heavy piece, the weapons master had explained to her, meant to be used as a set decoration, not for the actors to wield on camera
Nevertheless, Deck picked it up like it weighed nothing, and the ease of his grip made it seem like an extension of his arm.
“You want warrior’s hands you should look at Deck,” Jane blurted out before she could stop herself. Ryan, ever affable, had nodded enthusiastically and motioned Deck over so he could see if he could give him any additional pointers.
Deck shrugged and walked over and even had the consultant direct him through moves so Ryan could observe. All the while her husband was completely oblivious to the fact that Jane’s hungry gaze was fixed not on him, but on Deck, imagining those big, scarred, warrior’s hands running intimately over her body, holding her still to take his hard, deep thrusts as he took her without gentleness or finesse but pure, uncontrollable hunger.
Soon after, she retreated to her hotel room, and with Ryan still on set and Deck right next door, Jane had taken out her computer and added this to the collection.
The collection had started at the urging of her therapist, though when she’d first suggested the exercise Jane had balked.
“I don’t think I’d be comfortable putting my fantasies down on paper.” Even that word “fantasies” conjured up an internal “ew.” It was one of those words that evoked cheesy dialogue like you’d find in a skinemax movie.
“But the issue is that what’s been comfortable hasn’t been working for you and Ryan. “
“Well, it seems to be working for Ryan as far as I know, but no, it’s not working for me.” It had taken a lot for her to admit to her therapist that she’d felt very little sexual attraction to her husband for nearly a year. “Even before I was trying to get pregnant it was starting to feel like a chore,” Jane said guiltily. “Now we’re supposed to be doing it all the time, and I feel like it’s all I can do to just grit my teeth and get through it. “
Dr. Grandy had helped her come up with ways to try to solve the problem, like being more clear about what she wanted and needed both in and out of the bedroom to help strengthen her bond with Ryan and stoke her libido.
For his part, Ryan couldn’t have been more accommodating, a fact that never failed to spark a twinge of guilt in Jane’s gut. He’d tried so hard, asking what she wanted, exactly how she wanted it. They had what seemed like thousands of conversations that went something like this:
Ryan: “How’s this?”
Jane: “Fine.”
Ryan: “Just fine? Should I go harder? Softer? How do I make it great?”
Jane: “It’s great, really great. Just keep doing exactly what you’re doing.”
What she didn’t have the heart to tell him was that she didn’t think it could ever be great. Not between them. And while sex with Ryan devolved into what felt like dry, clinical analyses of what might get Jane off, Jane got so tired of being asked what she wanted it got to the point that she had to force herself not to snap, “figure it out!” at waiters when they asked her if she wanted bubbly or still water.
Because in her deepest heart of hearts, she didn’t want to be constantly asked what she wanted. She wanted someone who just knew, who would take her and give her exactly what she wanted.
Someone who wasn’t her husband.
“Is there something you need to express, Jane?” Dr. Grandy had asked when, after Jane had tearfully confessed that despite her being more open with Ryan and his heroic attempts to please her, the sex not only hadn’t improved, it had gotten to the point where Jane was regularly faking orgasms just to get things over with.
Haltingly, without naming any names, Jane admitted that she was harboring a powerful, unwanted attraction for another man. “When I think about him, when I’m, you know, by myself, I have no problem…” she trailed off uncomfortably.
“Achieving orgasm?”
“Yes,” Jane replied, red cheeked.
“Then maybe we can take a different approach, maybe explore your attraction to this other person.”
“You don’t mean, like sleep with him, do you?”
Dr. Grandy shook her head with a little laugh. “While some couples thrive in a more open relationship, no, I wouldn’t advocate infidelity. What I’m saying is, without guilt, without judging yourself, allow yourself to explore your fantasies about this other person. Rather than trying to stifle them, nurture them. Write them down if you want, refer back to them to help them jump start your libido.”
The idea of having sex with her husband while actively thinking about Deck made her extremely uncomfortable, and she told Dr Grandy so.
Dr. Grandy had pinned her with an assessing stare. “Do you think that Ryan thinks of you and only you when you’re intimate? When he’s masturbating?”
It wasn’t something Jane had ever really thought about. “I guess not.”
Her therapist nodded. “Most married people fantasize about people other than their spouse. It’s not unusual at all. And it only becomes unhealthy if the fantasy crosses the line into infidelity.”
Jane had done exactly as Dr. Grandy had suggested, and miraculously it had worked. By writing down her fantasies, no matter how outlandish or politically incorrect, Jane had been able hold them in her head, keep them at the ready. It was her deepest, darkest secret, that the mere thought of Deck could turn her on more than her husband’s touch ever did.
Ryan walked around looking even more self-satisfied than usual, his walk a little cockier now that he was regularly getting his wife off without having to ask every fifteen seconds if what he was doing felt good to her.
“You don’t think it’s a problem, that I can only come while thinking of another person? A specific person?” she’d asked Dr. Grandy a few weeks later. In that time she’d had more orgasms with Ryan than she’d had in the prior two years of her marriage. She’d also become exceedingly uncomfortable in Deck’s presence. When she was around him she was like a teenager in the throes of her first crush. Giddy, her stomach in knots, stumbling over her words to the point she stopped talking to him unless absolutely necessary.
Deck, oblivious to her turmoil, treated her with the same unwavering professional courtesy.
Yet as torturous as it was to be around him with all of these thoughts of him not just in her head but saved on her hard drive, it would be even more torturous not to see him on a regular basis. He was like her drug, his presence infusing her with energy.
Dr. Grandy had assured her that there was nothing inappropriate or problematic as long as Jane continued to keep the fantasies to herself and remain sexually faithful to her husband. “In the next few weeks or months, you can try inserting Ryan in these scenarios, and work on fading out this other person.”
But Jane knew it wasn’t about the scenarios, it was about the person. It was a
bout Deck. And, she realized, with an ever-growing sense of guilt, that one of the main reasons she didn’t act on her attraction to Deck was because not once, in the years he’d worked for her, had he given the slightest indication that he saw her as anything but a client. Another body to keep safe.
Had Ryan somehow sensed it? Not about Deck specifically, but had he felt the disengagement she tried so desperately to overcome? He’d never said anything, but when, six months later, he’d left her for Katya, Jane hadn’t considered herself without guilt. Though the press—thanks in part to Hal’s machinations—painted her as the hapless victim of a philanderer and a homewrecker, Jane herself had never openly blamed Ryan or Katya for what happened.
Despite his faults, Ryan was a good person who had tried to be a good husband to her, and she genuinely loved him—she just wasn’t sure she was ever really in love with him. It wasn’t his fault that she’d gotten caught up in the whirlwind of the media frenzy surrounding their relationship. Hollywood’s Golden Couple! Tinsel town Fairytale!
It was like a crazy ride she hadn’t been able to get off until it was too late.
“Sometimes in marriage, people change and want different things,” Jane had said when Oprah had asked her point blank what had gone wrong in their marriage. “I know Ryan didn’t do this to hurt me.”
Her only regret, she’d admitted, was their inability to have a baby. She wasn’t naive enough to believe having a child together would have saved their relationship. It was selfish, she knew, that she wanted to have a baby with Ryan even though she knew—and maybe he did too—their relationship wasn’t one hundred percent stable.
Even if they split up, she had more than enough means to take care of a child, and Ryan would be an attentive, affectionate father, even if he wasn’t around all of the time.
It would be more than Jane had had.
A tap on her shoulder startled her from her thoughts and made her jump out of her chair. Jane whipped around and saw Hailey standing behind her, a concerned look on her face. Her mouth moved, but Jane couldn’t make any sense of it. “What?”
