Mindgasm - A Bad Boy Romance With A Twist (Mind Games Book 3)
Page 17
I was struck by how well-spoken she was. While I knew that most people on this project were already second or third year students, I suddenly felt a flash of intimidation. A brand new copy of Myth and Archetype in Theatre sat on my bedside table, still in its Amazon Packaging. Shit.
“This term we’re thinking about creating a real sense of intimacy on stage,” she continued, “and so everything is geared to reflect that. The dialogue should be tight. The set comfortable. The lighting close and evocative. We had some trouble last year getting that really organic feeling, so we kept it small this term, and I really want to see you guys coming through with that. It has to just flow…”
I nodded along with everyone else in the hall, circled loosely round a small table, finger sandwiches waiting in the wings. This was it. I was finally doing it. Grown up stuff. Serious stuff.
I flicked through my copy of the outline and found the set design tab. I’d be meeting with Tamara once a week to explain my concepts, and once every day for rehearsals, but other than that, I was on my own. My ballet flats began to pinch.
Bluebeard was an all right story, I guess. A beautiful but stupid peasant girl is lured by a wealthy aristocrat who woos her and ask her to be his wife. Even though his beard is an eerie blue color, and he’s big and scary looking, she goes for it. He takes her to his massive castle, they consummate the marriage, but in the morning he tells her he has to go away to do something or other, but will return. In the meantime, she can access any room in the castle – and he hands her a set of keys.
The problem is that she is forbidden from opening just one door. He leaves, she invites her sisters round, and they all get curious and start to try to open the forbidden door. When they do, they discover something too awful for words: the room is filled to bursting with the bloody corpses of all Bluebeard’s previous wives. They’ve been chopped and mutilated and stashed there in secret. The girl shuts the door and locks it, but a small drop of blood falls onto the key.
She is shaken. And she can’t clean the drop off the key. Bluebeard returns, and she knows the drop of blood will let him know that she disobeyed him. He comes home. He sees the drop. He tells her that now she will be beheaded and go into the room along with all the other women. But, just in time, the peasant girl’s father and brothers comes to her rescue, kill Bluebeard and save her. Seemed like a bit of a simple story to base a whole play around, but whatever.
“If there are no questions, well, there are lots of new faces so we’ll just be get to know each other today, and I’ll come around and schedule some meetups with people individually, OK?”
Everyone nodded and stood up to mingle or head for the refreshments. And that was that. It had all seemed easy enough. Maybe being a stuck-up adult wasn’t nearly as hard as aunt Lila had made it out to be.
Not quite knowing what to do with myself next, I flicked through the script, slightly alarmed at how many scene changes there were. I’d have my work cut out for me. Just as I was turning the page, the doors banged and someone flew in, scarf tails flapping and hair windswept.
“Sorry, sorry I’m late, I’m here now!” he said, and every head in the room turned to look. My eyes shot to Tamara, who was scowling and looking him up and down.
“Congratulations Mr. Morgan, that’s really quite the feat …managing to turn up a full,” she looked at her watch, “a full 40 minutes late. Lovely. At least you’re here now, though.” The sarcasm was overwhelming.
The guy broke into a goofy grin and walked over into the crowd, the people there loosely stepping aside to make room for him as he walked over to her.
“Tamara, my apologies, I was …held up this morning, really I was. Couldn’t be helped,” he said breezily, and as he unwound his long scarf from his neck I could see that he was quite the imposing figure; tall, muscular, his strong limbs moving with a kind of energy and menace that I’ve only ever noticed in those who choose, shall I say, the dramatic life. I couldn’t help but stare. And it seemed like I wasn’t alone – everyone else in the room fell silent and just …watched him. He was mesmerizing, and I couldn’t tell why.
“Here’s the outline. Let’s not have a repeat of last time, if you can manage it,” Tamara said in clipped tones.
She handed him a folder and he took it carefully from her, then made a show of curtseying as she turned to carry on her conversation. The crowd tittered. This must be the notorious Adam Morgan, an actor known on campus for being just as likely to earn the college accolades as he was to need an emergency fundraiser to bail him out of jail on opening night.
I had heard a few rumors about him, even from aunt Lila, but nobody had mentioned …well, nobody said how absolutely hypnotic his eyes were. They had their own gravitational field. Something about them just trapped you. His eyes caught mine and I blushed hard.
Shit.
“Hey, do I know you?” he asked, waltzing right up to me. My face instantly felt on fire.
I cleared my throat. “Um, I don’t think so?”
I was alarmed at how close he was suddenly standing to me, how swiftly he had glided across the floor and landed right there in front of me, his eyes on me like a laser, like I was his next meal. Tamara ogled him out the side of her eye as she carried on talking to another woman.
“That’s Nyx Westling, she’ll be doing our set design for Bluebeard,” she said, not turning to face us.
Adam’s face lit up and he tilted his head. “Westling? Huh. Are you related t--?”
“Norman Westling. Yes, he was my father.”
He jumped back and grinned at me. “That must be it!” he said. “That must be why I recognize you!”
He was so incredibly animated. Not larger than life, exactly …but sparklier somehow.
“I don’t think we’ve met, though,” I said. If I had known such a hot guy would be giving me the third degree like this I wouldn’t have worn such a somber dress, that’s for sure.
Then, he did something so unexpected my heart nearly burst out of my chest. He reached out, easy as you please, took my chin in his hands and turned my head side to side, as though I was a race horse he was examining or a vase he was checking for cracks.
I gulped. He was so close I could smell him. Like rain. If rain was sexy. God, I don’t know, my brain was in a total scramble.
“I never said anything about meeting before…” he said in a low growl, and I suddenly felt glued to the spot, like he had frozen me there with a spell. He was over six foot tall, dark-haired and with eyes that felt indecent to look into too long.
“What I meant was that I recognize these features… you take after your father, I think. But only as he was in that Cesar play, of course,” he said, and released me again. I think I had stopped breathing.
“Well, um, that’s…” I bumbled, but he was speaking again.
“Tell me why you aren’t performing in this feature? It’s a sin not to act. You have the most glorious cheekbones I’ve ever seen and you’re hiding away doing costume design.”
“Set design,” Tamara corrected, somewhere behind him. I felt I was going to die blushing.
Did that ever happen? Did people die of massive blood flow to the cheeks? Probably. ‘Glorious’ cheekbones? I didn’t know whether to laugh or run and hide under the refreshments table.
“Still, those are features built for the stage, anyone can see that,” he said. “You have acting in your blood, you have it in your face. I’m sure it kills your father to see such good genes squandered, no?” He smiled mischievously at me.
“Actually, my father’s already dead. He passed away in a car accident two years ago.”
Almost imperceptibly, the crowd hushed and though nobody turned to look, I could feel their ears swivel towards us like satellite dishes. The grin fell from his face.
“A car accident. Oh shit,” he said. He suddenly seemed to shrink by half.
“Oh don’t worry, you didn’t know, it’s nothing really …you didn’t know, so don’t worry about it…” I star
ted blabbering, but before I knew it, the world in front of me went wet and wobbly and all of a sudden, great, hot tears were rolling down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them.
“Oh shit, oh God I’m sorry, I’m such an enormous twat,” he was saying, but through my tears he blurred away and I put my head in my cupped hands, trying to regain my composure. This was certainly not how I intended any of this to go. I heard Tamara’s voice as she chastised him in a loud whisper, and she was joined by the others in the crowd, also whispering loudly.
“Really, it’s no big deal, please don’t worry.”
But then his hands were on my shoulders. I did that ugly thing that people do when they cry, I heaved and snorted through my nose trying to stop my sobs, and ended up making them worse. I suddenly wished with all my heart that he never, ever peeled his hands off of me.
“Come, let’s go outside for some fresh air,” he said, and before I knew it a firm hand was on the small of my back and he was steering me out of the theatre.
I didn’t resist. I was still trying to quiet the jagged breaths in my chest, worried that my tears were washing away my good start to the term already, and that any second now I’d have a snot bubble on my nose, just precisely when I wanted to look put together for this irritatingly handsome guy.
Mercifully, I found a tissue and dabbed at my wet face, and then we were outside, and he closed the big doors behind us, thrust his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forward on his heels as he looked over at me.
“I’m sorry, that was very awkward,” I said.
The memory of my father was usually something that I only took out late at night, once I had thought of absolutely everything else and there was nothing else to do and still so many hours of night left to go. It was a secret. Crying about him was something I did when I was alone, in the dark, so in the morning I could half pretend it was only a dream. But now I had burst into tears in public. For the rest of the term, I would be remembered as the fragile girl who cried in the first term meeting.
He rocked back and forward on his feet, then peered up thoughtfully at the sky. When he looked back down at me, it nearly took my breath away.
“I’m kind of sad you’ve stopped crying,” he said.
“What?”
“Your face …you have the most exquisitely expressive face.”
I squirmed a little and tried to think of where to put my eyes. I could vaguely hear the people inside talking through the closed doors. I stood awkwardly, wondering what the hell was supposed to happen now.
“See! Look at that, beautiful,” he said, and leaned in closer.
“I don’t …what do you mean?”
He gave me a wild look, one I couldn’t decipher. He seemed permanently on the brink of jumping up into the air, or bursting into song. He was, I think, the most remarkable person I had ever met. Part magician, part acrobat. He was the very picture of ‘animal magnetism’ …but I hadn’t decided if the animal in question was a dangerous one or not.
He took a step towards me and examined my face.
“There, on your face. You have a strange openness in your features, a way of moving your eyes, it’s really …it’s really something. Just there, your face collapsed a little. You were the picture of doubt. Beautiful.”
Who the hell was this guy? He was so intense. Too much. My expressions were beautiful? Perhaps he just had some …colorful ways of hitting on people.
I cleared my throat and thanked him and made as if to go back into the theatre.
“Hey, I’m sorry about sticking my foot in it, with your dad…” he said. I turned around, fingers on the door handle.
“It’s OK.”
“Is it really?”
I looked at him. Yes, it was ‘OK’. Could anyone bring my parents back? Would being sad do anything at all? Then there was no use in crying. I had to be realistic now. There was work to do.
“Yes, really.”
“Really though …are you sure?”
“Yes…”
“Really?”
I flashed him an angry look.
“What the hell do you mean really?”
He clapped his hands and grinned.
“There! There it is again! Your face is a miracle, you know that? You’re almost better at angry than you are at sad. I could watch it forever.”
I blinked and looked at him, then smiled despite myself. All at once he was close up to me again, and I was pinned to my spot again, held fast to that patch of ground like his gaze was a kind of sorcery pinning me there. He dropped his voice, tilted his head to the side and looked at me. My face was hot.
“No, I changed my mind. That’s the best one yet,” he said, voice so quiet it almost felt like he was about to share a secret.
“Which one would that be…?” I asked, laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole situation.
“Oh, the one you have right now. It’s too subtle to be embarrassment …but it’s getting there. It’s a subtle one. You’re very good at that, you know?”
I laughed. “Good at being embarrassed?”
“No, you’re good at looking embarrassed. You’re an artist. Your tool is your face.”
Without thinking, I laughed again and playfully slapped his arm.
“OK, OK, you can stop with the compliments now, I forgive you for mentioning my dad. We should probably get back inside and arrange our schedules with Tamara…”
His gaze was unrelenting.
“I want to see all your faces,” he said, as though he hadn’t heard me at all.
“What?”
The air between us was electric. My heart was beating loudly in my ears and my palms had started sweating. I had only known this guy for ten minutes and he had already thrown my world into a strange, hot chaos. I liked it. I liked him. Or at least, I couldn’t tear myself away. My hand was still on the door, but I was stuck. Spellbound and wondering what he would say next.
“You’re a natural performer. I’d like to see what you’re capable of,” he said, suddenly sounding very serious.
“Well, you’ve already made me cry, and then you made me angry, so can we tick those off the list?” I blurted, and he smiled at this.
“Deal. There’s one I haven’t seen, though.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s than then?”
“Pleasure.”
I swallowed hard. He was flirting with me. Was I going to flirt back? I laughed again and trilled my fingers on the door handle. His eyes were dark and penetrating and completely, utterly inappropriate. It was broad daylight. I had only just met him. We were humans and not animals – how could he give me a look like that?
“Maybe …uh, maybe later,” I mumbled and blushed furiously, then opened the door to go inside. I sensed him walking closely behind me as we went back into the theatre. My shoes were killing me. I felt him behind me, felt his presence prickling the hairs at the back of my neck, but I couldn’t turn around, couldn’t risk blushing and blubbering like an idiot again. I didn’t know what the hell had just happened but I was determined to get a finger sandwich and get on with my proper, organized, adult day. I wasn’t here to flirt.
“Don’t let him rattle you.”
I spun around to see Tamara standing behind me. With a pang of disappointment, I realized that Adam had already melted back into the crowd.
“Who? Adam? Oh, it’s all right. He didn’t mean anything. I usually don’t cry like this. To be honest, I must be a little stressed or something.”
She tightened her lips and her eyes lost their focus for a moment.
“Yes, well,” she said, ”Adam certainly has a way of bringing out the chaos wherever he goes.”
Chapter 4
Three thousand five hundred pounds.
Just thinking of that amount of money made me break out into a cold sweat. Three thousand five hundred pounds to build a set, from scratch, by little old me.
I sneezed and tried to look around in the dust.
“I’m pretty sure I saw loads and loads of chipboard in here from last term,” Nicky said for the hundredth time that afternoon. “Maybe look at the back …right at the back.”
I stifled another sneeze, stepped over some cardboard boxes and rolls of fabric, and tried to navigate to the back of the storeroom. She stood near the front, peeling some plastic wrappers off ball gowns and fancy dress and having a look.
Nicky was the costume designer and I was glad that we got to work closely together. She was relaxed and kind and didn’t think that ‘electric beige’ was a stupid way to describe anything. We liked each other. She was effortlessly artsy, unconventionally attractive and all-round full of good ideas. One of those good ideas was to come here first, to see if either of us could resurrect any old bits and pieces from last year’s production.
I rummaged through an old pile of dowel rods and spied some paint sitting in the corner. It was a dream come true, really. All this was here for our disposal. I picked up a knotted shopping bag filled with tinsel. Underneath it was a solid pile of painted chipboard, clearly some kind of background foliage for a play long finished.
“Ooh… this might work,” I said.
Nicky was busy rubbing the satin bodice of a nightdress between her fingers. “I told you they’d have good stuff here!” she said.
We hunted and poked around in silence for a moment. Three thousand five hundred pounds. A fair wad of cash. Enough money, in fact, that I wouldn’t have any excuse not to do well. An intimidating amount. If I failed, it would be down to me, and not because I didn’t have the money to do things properly. I ran my fingers over the dusty chipboard and tried to decide whether it was worth salvaging.