by Susan Lewis
She turned to face him. Distantly she was aware of the nervousness quaking inside her, the fear that he would say no. That he was happy to flirt with her, to be there for her when she needed him, but that he was married and he loved his wife. But then he looked up from the Lagniappe he was flicking through and when he saw the look in Kirsten’s eyes he dropped the magazine and went to her.
‘Christ, Kirstie,’ he murmured as he folded her in his arms. ‘What is it?’
‘I want you, Jake,’ she whispered. ‘I want you very much.’
She looked up into his deep, brown eyes. His thick blond hair fell over his brow briefly touching the jet black curves of his eyebrows. His mouth looked hard, yet inviting, the dark shadow around his jaw leant it a strength to which she could feel herself responding. As he lowered his lips to hers Kirsten’s hands moved into his hair, twisting it around her fingers as she pressed herself against him.
‘Are you sure about this?’ he whispered.
‘I’m sure,’ she answered, pulling his mouth back to hers.
As his hands touched her breasts the memory of Laurence touching her that way flickered through her mind. She pushed it away and lowering her hands to the buttons at the neck of her dress she started to undo them. Jake took a step back, watching her with eyes that were his, then Laurence’s, then his again. Slowly she peeled off her dress until she was standing before him in her bra, her panties and gartered stockings. Jake groaned and closed his eyes as his arms went round her again, pulling her to him as he unfastened her bra. He ran his hands over her back, stroking it, caressing it and losing his fingers in her hair as his tongue found hers and he kissed her with a tenderness that seemed to turn her heart to liquid. This was what she had longed for from Laurence, the tenderness that would take the edge from the lust. Again she forced down the shutters in her mind and made herself think of Jake. Gently she pushed him away and pulled the straps of her bra down over her arms allowing her breasts to fall free.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Jake murmured looking down at the most beautiful breasts he had ever seen. He reached out a hand and ran a thumb lightly over her achingly hard nipples, then suddenly he jerked her against him and buried his tongue deep into her mouth. She could feel his erection pressing against her, was aware of deep and bitter sensations pouring through her veins. As he struggled to remove his shirt Kirsten’s fingers were fumbling with his zip. He lifted her hands, lowered the zip himself and as he pulled his jeans to his knees Kirsten removed her panties.
Taking her by the waist he turned her around and laid her back on the bed. As he knelt between her legs she lifted her knees and moaned softly as he ran his hands over her inner-thighs. Her eyes were closed, her head was rolling from side to side and in her mind she was seeing Laurence, feeling his fingers stroke her, tease her and torment her. She forced her eyes open, looked up at Jake then held her arms out to him.
‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘I want you now.’
He lowered his body to hers, taking her lips between his and gently rotating his hips seeking the point of penetration. It was at that moment that the telephone rang,
‘Fucking hell,’ Jake muttered. ‘Just leave it,’ he growled as Kirsten reached out to answer it.
‘I can’t,’ she said, then groaned as he started to push his way inside her.
The telephone kept on ringing until Kirsten reluctantly pulled herself away and turned to lift the receiver. ‘Hello,’ she murmured.
‘Hi. You OK? You sound kind of sleepy.’
At the sound of Laurence’s voice Kirsten’s heart twisted so painfully it took her breath away. Her eyes moved to Jake who had sulkily flung himself down on the bed beside her. She looked in dismay at his erection, straining towards his navel, then suddenly she turned away.
‘No, I’m fine,’ she said into the receiver.
‘That’s good.’ She could hear the smile in Laurence’s voice and suddenly the need for him was so strong she could feel it filling her as though it might suffocate her. ‘What can I do for you?’ she whispered, wondering what had happened to her anger and confusion and why it was she could still want him so much after what he had done, after what she had seen.
‘I’m calling to apologize for not telling you Campbell was here. I didn’t know until a few minutes ago that Helena hadn’t told you either.’
‘What’s he doing here?’ Kirsten mumbled, then swung her legs to the floor as Jake reached out for her breasts.
‘Well, to tell you the truth,’ Laurence began, ‘I got this crazy notion in my head when we were back in England to invite him on to the set so’s he could see for himself how well you were doing. I thought maybe then he’d let up on you. He turned me down at the time, but he called me a couple of days ago and said he wanted to take me up on the offer. He was already here in New Orleans, so I agreed to meet up with him tonight to discuss it.’
‘Don’t you think you should have consulted me first?’ Kirsten said.
‘Yeah, I guess I should have . . . But Kirstie, you’ve been so damned unapproachable lately . . .’
‘No one else seems to be having that problem with me, Laurence,’ she interrupted. ‘But you do what you want. You’re the producer, you make the decisions.’
‘Kirsten, don’t take it that way. Don’t you see –’
‘I’ve seen all I needed to see,’ Kirsten said.
‘Look, for Christ’s sake, I can’t do anything about him being here. It’s a free world, he can go wherever he wants. But I can stop him going to the set . . .’
‘Don’t bother. I’ve got nothing to hide.’
‘Look, Kirstie, can we talk about this? Let me come over there.’
‘No! I don’t want to discuss this any more, Laurence. You know how I feel about that man, you know Dyllis Fisher won’t rest until she’s got me where she wants me, so you go right ahead and help them. I can’t stop you.’
‘Kirsten! Listen to me. I’m on your side, goddammit! Maybe it’s your friend Helena you should be speaking to, it was her who invited him over here.’
‘I’d already guessed that. I didn’t know that you had as well, though, until now. I don’t know what you’re all playing at Laurence, but whatever it is I just hope you’re getting some kind of kick out of it.’
‘Kirstie, we got to get this sorted. We’ve got to talk, you and me . . .’
‘Good night, Laurence,’ she said.
As she replaced the receiver Kirsten leaned forward against the bedside table, pressing a hand to her mouth.
‘Hey, remember me?’ Jake said taking her shoulder and trying to pull her back on to the bed.
Kirsten turned away. ‘Can you go, please?’ she said her voice strangled by tears. ‘I need to be . . .’
‘Go? What, are you crazy?’ Jake laughed.
Kirsten turned to look at him, her chest starting to heave. ‘Jake, I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I just can’t go through with it. I thought I could, but . . .’
‘Hey come on,’ he said. ‘You’re not pulling that one on me. You wanted it five minutes ago, you got me all fired up . . .’
‘No, Jake!’ she cried as he pulled her down on to the bed. ‘Jake, for God’s sake! I made a mistake. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lead you on . . . No!’ she screamed as he pushed his legs between hers.
‘Listen,’ he growled, ‘you wanted my cock, now you’re going to get it!’
For a moment Kirsten was so dazed she couldn’t move. This couldn’t be the same man as the one who’d been making love to her just a few minutes ago. The man who stood at her side throughout the day . . . The man she thought was her friend . . .
With a strength she hardly knew she possessed she threw him off her and leapt up from the bed. ‘Just go!’ she shouted. ‘Please, just get out of here!’ and before he could say any more she ran into the bathroom and turned the key in the lock.
Seconds later she jumped as the door slammed behind him, then wrapping herself in a towelling robe she sank down on to th
e edge of the bath and leaned her head against the wash basin.
She was shaking so hard that when she reached out for the taps she could barely make her fingers turn them. It was her own fault, she shouldn’t have done that to Jake, but she was so confused, so disoriented by all that was happening she barely knew what she was doing.
As the basin filled with icy water she splashed it over her face, taking deep breaths in an effort to calm herself. But everything was crowding in on her. The betrayal was like a stone in her heart, obstructing her breath, expanding the pain.
God, she hated this place. She wanted to leave, to get as far away from it as she could. Nothing was normal here, people behaved in strange, uncharacteristic ways . . . Everyone around her was changing . . . She could feel herself being sucked into a void of interminable confusion. She didn’t have it in her to cope with this . . . She’d tried to make herself believe she did, but she didn’t.
Dry, racking sobs convulsed her body as she thought of Helena and Campbell. The deceit was almost as hard to bear as Laurence’s love for Anna.
She squeezed her eyes tightly and pressed her hands to her face as though to block out the gathering faces that seemed to be closing in on her. Ruby, with her fears of insanity. Jake, whose gentleness had suddenly turned to violence. Helena, whose friendship was as false as her word, and Laurence . . . Dear God, Laurence . . . How maliciously the memory of his hands touching Anna’s body tortured her mind. Yet how desperately she yearned to feel his arms around her now, soothing the pain, trying to take it from her. She needed him so much, yet she could feel herself reaching into darkness. He wasn’t there. None of them were there. She was alone, so terrifyingly, bewilderingly alone . . .
22
Kirsten rose early the next morning, showered, dressed, had coffee sent to her room and sat down with the scenes she was shooting that night. She hadn’t slept well, her eyes were gritty and slightly swollen, but her mind was centred totally on the task ahead. Later in the day the construction team would be going off to Scout Island to complete the set, the crew would join them a couple of hours later and start rigging. Costume and make-up trailers, personal trailers, location caterers, props trucks, generators, the whole fleet of transport was already there, parked just inside the gates of City Park. The make-up call for the cast was at ten that evening, on set at midnight. Extra make-up artists and dressers had been drafted in to deal with the support cast, two more film crews had been employed to man the other cameras. Tonight was the most expensive night of shoot so naturally everyone was going to be on edge and Kirsten wanted to see to it that everything went as smoothly as possible.
Alison’s plans and storyboard were spread out across the desk beneath the script as Kirsten checked over every shot, every movement, every lighting change, every sound source and every line of the French dialogue to be chanted by Helena throughout the ritual.
She had a diversion on her telephone, relaying all internal calls to reception, who were also taking messages from all external calls. Every hour or so she rang down to see if there was anything urgent, but there was nothing that couldn’t wait. In fact most of the messages were from either Helena or Laurence. Kirsten got Vicky to contact them to find out whether the calls were anything to do with the movie and as they weren’t she didn’t reply. Both had tried knocking on her door, but Kirsten had informed them that she had a lot to get through and didn’t want to be disturbed.
As the day progressed she was aware of the nervousness building up inside her. The idea of staging a voodoo ritual in the dead of night while she was surrounded by people she felt she didn’t know any more was disturbing her more than she wanted to admit. She might have been able to get a better grip on it though were it not for the strange telephone calls she had been receiving ever since she’d arrived in New Orleans. Whether or not they were connected to the baby chimes she had heard in London was impossible to say, but somehow she felt they were. Though there was no way of being certain about that, since whoever the caller was she only ever uttered Kirsten’s name in a breathy, halting sort of way that suggested she could be crying. And a crying woman, in the dead of night, whispering no more than her name, was as chilling as Kirsten suspected Dyllis Fisher intended it to be.
She hadn’t mentioned the calls to anyone and she was sure she wouldn’t have been giving them any thought now were it not for the fear that somehow Dyllis had managed to get to Laurence and to Helena in the same way she had to Campbell and that they were all now in some kind of conspiracy against her. But that was absurd, she was allowing her paranoia to get out of hand, because Laurence would never do anything to jeopardize the movie even if Helena and Campbell would – though still, even now, she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe that Helena would.
She knew, deep down inside, that she felt very frightened, very alone, but she had to keep it suppressed. She wished with all her heart that she hadn’t made that stupid mistake with Jake for he would have been the sole comforting presence on the unit that night, but it was too late now, she had allowed herself to act irresponsibly and she had no choice but to face the consequences. She couldn’t imagine that Jake would behave unprofessionally, but she dreaded seeing him and feeling the rift she knew there would be between them.
It was around the middle of the afternoon when Kirsten tensed as someone knocked on her door for the first time in over an hour. She turned to look at it, willing whoever it was to go away. As the director, she had the right to shut herself away without being questioned and as a crew they must respect that. It was only when she heard Jane’s timid voice calling out to her that Kirsten relaxed. Jane was someone she would see, even wanted to see, because Jane was as innocent and as guileless as she, Kirsten, was paranoid. It would do her good to take her mind off things for a while and discuss Jane’s budding romance.
‘Hi,’ Kirsten said, pulling the door open.
‘Hello,’ Jane smiled, almost pulling back as though she was expecting to be sent away. ‘I thought . . . Well, I wondered, if perhaps you’d like some company. I mean, I expect you’re too busy, but I just . . .’
‘Come in,’ Kirsten smiled. ‘Unless of course Laurence has sent you.’
‘Laurence has gone out to location,’ Jane said. ‘He’s taken Tom with him so I’ve got a bit of time on my hands.’
‘Billy out at location too, is he?’ Kirsten asked, closing the door and waving Jane towards a round based armchair.
Jane nodded.
‘So how are things there?’ Kirsten asked.
‘Oh, they’re OK. I mean, I don’t suppose we’re setting the world on fire, but we seem to be making everyone laugh.’
Kirsten’s eyes narrowed as she studied Jane’s face. ‘I imagine you find that pretty hurtful,’ she said.
Jane’s answering smile was one of resignation. ‘It doesn’t really matter,’ she said. ‘Actually, I didn’t come here to talk about him. Well, I did, at least I wanted to, but . . .’ A fierce blush started to seep into her cheeks. ‘I know this is none of my business,’ she went on, ‘but . . . well, I can’t help being aware of what’s going on . . . You know, with Laurence and with Helena and Dermott Campbell, and I thought, well, I wondered if you might need a friend.’
‘Oh Jane!’ Kirsten laughed, wanting to hug her.
‘I expect I’m just being silly, really,’ Jane rushed on. ‘I mean, you’re the director and everything and you’ve probably got so much to think about that you’re not a bit bothered by what’s happening.’
‘Jane,’ Kirsten stopped her, ‘I might be the director, but I’m still a person and I am bothered about what’s going on. I know I shouldn’t be, but I can’t help it.’
Jane’s face was imbued with happiness at receiving such a confidence. ‘I don’t expect there’s anything I can do,’ she said, ‘except listen, if you want to talk, that is.’
‘I do want to talk, but not about that. Let’s talk about you and Billy, eh?’
Jane seemed uncertain. ‘Well, if y
ou want to,’ she said. ‘But, I thought it might be a good idea if you . . .’
‘If I what?’ Kirsten prompted.
‘Nothing,’ Jane said, looking away.
‘Come on, out with it,’ Kirsten smiled.
‘Well,’ Jane began hesitantly, ‘if you realized that I can be quite a good listener and I’m only guessing, but I thought you might be feeling a bit let down by Helena . . . well, and by Laurence I suppose and I didn’t want you to think you had no one.’
This time Kirsten didn’t resist the urge to hug her. ‘Well now I know that’s not true, don’t I?’ she said, squeezing her. ‘So where do you want me to begin?’
‘Oh, wherever you like,’ Jane said.
Kirsten sat herself down on the bed and drew her legs in under her. Then she started to laugh. ‘Are you sure about this?’ she said.
‘Absolutely sure!’
‘Then let me see. Why don’t we start with what’s really bothering me today?’
Jane nodded.
Kirsten had just drawn breath when there was an urgent knocking on the door.
‘Kirstie! Kirstie!’ Vicky called out. ‘The choreographer’s downstairs, says he’s got to see you now.’
Kirsten looked at Jane and rolled her eyes. ‘It’ll be about the dance routines for tonight,’ she explained. ‘He’s a bit of a panicker, I’m afraid, but I’ll have to see him.’
‘Oh that’s all right,’ Jane insisted. ‘We can talk later if you like. Or any time. Just as long as you know that I’m there and that if there is ever anything I can do for you you only have to say.’
