He tried the usual tricks – first, of course, he tried to charm her. He offered to wine and dine her, offered to take her to Europe with him while he was filming a new movie, offered her a starring role in every prestigious picture he put out. He told her that, with his track record of winning Oscars, she was a shoe-in for best actress of the year in one of his period dramas. He had some really well-regarded pictures that were coming out that year, and he offered Addison the leading role in every single one of them. All she had to do was sleep with him, and these roles were hers.
She, of course, didn’t go for Jackson’s attempts to bribe her. She didn’t need to sleep with anybody to get starring roles in well-regarded critical darlings during those days. Everybody wanted to hire her, so she didn’t have to go the extra mile to get a part. She informed him, in no uncertain terms, that there was no way in hell that she was going to sleep with him. She told him that sleeping with somebody for a part was not something that she did. She never had to do that, and she was never going to do that. She told him that she thought that the casting couch was a disgusting concept, and that he was a disgusting man in her eyes.
She put him down and made him feel worthless. Humiliated him. Embarrassed him.
So he stepped it up. He threatened to have her blackballed. He tried to wield his power to tell her that she was never going to work for any studio again, once he got through with calling all of his powerful studio-head friends. He had ruined the lives and careers of more than one actress that way. Addison knew his track record. She knew several of the actresses whose careers were ruined because of one phone call that he would make, so she had to have known that he wasn’t bluffing. He meant what he said.
Again, however, Addison basically laughed in his face. She was on top. There was no way that other movie studios weren’t going to give her parts just because Jackson told them so. She knew that her name carried much more cachet around this town than his. He was powerful, but she was moreso.
So, in the end, he did something that he wasn’t too proud of. He knew that he had to have her, but everything he did wasn’t going to get her into his bed. He also knew that she was having issues with drugs. He wondered if the one thing that would work for Addison would be if he managed to get her over to one of his parties, invite her into a private room where people were snorting heroin, and give her a special dose that would make her pass out. He did his research, and found out that, with the right dosage of Propofol, she would pass out. He would sneak the Propofol into her heroin, make her pass out, then he could go ahead and have his way with her.
That’s what he did. She came to a party at his house, because Addison might not have liked him as a person, but she knew that his parties were among the best in the industry. Everybody who was anybody would come to these parties – A-list actors and actresses, A-list directors and producers, even powerful political figures. Senators, congressmen, heads of industry, CEOs - they all would come to his parties. Addison was usually a regular at these soirees as well, and this shindig was no exception.
She came to the huge bash, and then at 3 o’clock in the morning, after most people had already left, he lured her into a private room with the promise of some high-grade heroin that he had scored from his dealer, who got the stuff straight from Afghanistan. He knew that Addison would jump at that, and she did.
Just like he planned, he cut her dose with some Propofol, and, just like that, she passed out. Hard. There was no way that she was going to be waking up for many hours, so he went ahead and got his cheerleading uniform out and dressed her in it. He scored the uniform through the costume department of one of his movies.
The uniform fit like a glove, just like he knew that it would. Addison looked so beautiful in that uniform. So exactly like Charlotte White. He was amazed when he took off her clothes about how perfect her body was. It wasn’t just that she was fit and trim – other actresses were just as fit and trim as she was. In fact, it was a requirement around this town. Actresses had to stay slim and trim, unless being overweight was part of their schtick, like Melissa McCarthy and Chrissy Metz. But if being overweight was not part of their persona, actresses had to stay extremely skinny, and Addison was no different in that regard – she looked like she’d worked out just about every day of her life.
What really got him going was the fact that her breasts were perfect. And they were real, which was, in his book, a rarity in this town. He had known plenty of actresses who had a beautiful rack, but, when he slept with them, it turned out that the rack was as phony as a three-dollar bill. That was always a disappointment to him. They just didn’t feel the same as real breasts. And then there were the actresses who didn’t get a boob job. These actresses were usually rather flat-chested, as skinny women tended to be. It was just a fact of life that if your body fat is going to be below 20%, your breasts are probably going to be small, which is the reason why so many actresses got boob jobs.
Addison was different. She was one of the lucky few who actually had very little fat on her body, but yet had natural D-cup breasts.
Nothing excited Jackson more than Addison in that cheerleading uniform. Her luscious ripe body, her dark hair, her full lips and blue eyes, her perfect face – it was just like him sleeping with Charlotte White, only much better. He was finally fulfilling his high school fantasy. The fact that she was passed out while he was having his way with her barely factored into his mind. All that he knew was that he’d finally conquered Addison Wentworth, and, in his mind, he’d finally conquered Charlotte White as well. Charlotte was no longer going to be the woman who got away. He couldn’t have Charlotte herself, because she’d died in a car accident two years before. He could have Addison, and it was just as good.
He got her back to her house before she ever woke up.
Of course, she knew what he did. She came to his house and confronted him with it. He denied it, of course. He told her that she was delusional and that she had no idea what she was talking about. She knew differently. He told her that it was his word against hers, and that nobody was ever going to believe her, because she was a druggie. Never mind the fact that she was an A-list actress. She was a drug abuser, and everybody knew it. He wasn’t a drug abuser. He always had drugs at his house as party favors, but he never actually did them himself. That was something that was well-known in this town as well.
He was going to threaten her again and tell her that he was going to have her blackballed if she said a word. But that threat didn’t work before, so he didn’t see why it would work then. He just told her that nobody was ever going to believe her, and that nobody was going to take her side.
He then heard word that she was going around talking to her friends about what had happened, but that she couldn’t get anybody on her side. Just like he said. After all, Jackson still had the power to make or break actresses, and these actresses were less powerful than Addison. So, when Addison tried to get her other actress friends to rally to her side, they refused to do it. They all told her that they wouldn’t support her if she decided to go against him. They were all too afraid about what Jackson would do.
So, with no support from anybody she knew, Addison decided to go ahead and just let the whole incident go.
At least, until now. He had to admit that the #MeToo movement scared the living daylights out of him. He saw one powerful executive after another go down in this movement. It started with Harvey Weinstein and then made its way down to prominent actors, comedians, talk show hosts, newscasters, journalists, and the head of CBS. Some huge whales had been brought down in this movement, people who he thought, up until now, were untouchable.
No doubt about it, the movement had sent shockwaves through Hollywood. Every man he knew was looking over his shoulder, at least the ones who were doing the things that he was doing. Anybody who had a casting couch was a terrified man. Even men who didn’t do the things that he was doing, and for the record, he thought that nothing that he ever did was wrong, including what he did to Addiso
n, were scared.
Suddenly, the women had the power in this town. They had all decided that they were no longer going to accept the way that men were treating them. They were no longer going to accept having their careers ruined because they wouldn’t sleep with this studio head or that director. They were no longer going to accept sexual assault. The movement was a powerful thing, it was taking down powerful people, and he was quite frankly scared that he was next.
On the other hand, he was confident that he could weather the storm. There was nothing that he did to those women that would cause his head to be put on a pike like the others. Everything that had happened between him and various up-and-coming actresses was consensual. He made a lot of careers for women who slept with him, and he personally thought that the #MeToo movement was a bad thing for women, because he knew that there were a number of actresses who counted on the casting couch to get a leg up on the competition. There were many women who actually wanted the casting couch to be in existence, because they were willing to do things that other women wouldn’t do. Now that the #MeToo movement had come, the playing field was more level, and Jackson personally thought that was a bad thing for up-and-coming starlets. He felt that the casting couch was a way of weeding out those who really wanted it, as opposed to those who weren’t willing to do anything and everything to make their career.
Jackson thought that, for the most part, there wasn’t much bad that could be said about him. Yes, he had a casting couch, but so did everybody. That was a part of Hollywood, from the very beginning. Everyone knew about it. Everyone accepted it.
But Addison… She might be a different story. He thought in his mind that what he did to her wasn’t wrong. He justified it by thinking to himself that he wouldn’t have had to resort to having sex with her while she was unconscious, if only she would have given into him when he asked her to. He asked her nicely. He tried to blackmail her. Nothing worked, so he felt that he did what he had to do. He was going to have her no matter what - it was going to be either the easy way or the hard way, but he was going to have her.
He didn’t regret what he did. If he had the choice to do it all over again, he would do it in a heartbeat. That was probably the single best night of his life, having Addison Wentworth in his bed. Putting that cheerleading outfit on her, then taking it right back off, and seeing her luscious body splayed all over his 6,000 thread-count sheets – these were memories that would still get him hard when he thought about them. He could just close his eyes, and see Addison that night, and that would do it for him. If he ever had trouble performing with a woman in his bed, all he had to do was think about Addison and the way that she looked that night, and that would get his juices going again.
No doubt about it, what he did with Addison was something that he would always cherish. There was nothing in his mind that could ever tell him that it was wrong.
However, he was also a realist. He knew that even though he felt that what he did to Addison wasn’t wrong, he also knew that it was against the law. What had happened to Bill Cosby was the only reason why he knew that having sex with a passed-out person was illegal. In his mind, it wasn’t a rape. He thought of a rape as being something that was forcible. You hold the woman down and you just do it to her while she screams. That was something that he would never, ever do. To him, this was something different – there was no screaming the word “no.” There was no violence. There weren’t even threats involved. It was a sensual and romantic night for him. Nothing that had happened could ever convince him that what he did to her wasn’t right.
Yet he couldn’t escape the fact that Bill Cosby was going to prison for a number of years, for doing exactly the same thing that he did to Addison. So he knew, intellectually, that he was in legal jeopardy. He knew that if Addison Wentworth made a credible witness against him that he could possibly be going to prison. Maybe for a long time.
It was also a problem that she had told people at the time what had happened. He was hearing rumors through the grapevine that Addison, after the #MeToo movement got going, once again started talking to her girlfriends about what Jackson had done to her. Her girlfriends had changed their tune from before. They, too, felt empowered by the national movement. It was a different atmosphere, a different climate, than it was before. Women were understanding their power, and they were banding together.
His assistant found out that Addison was seriously thinking about going to the authorities about what he had done. That scared the living crap out of him. In the #MeToo era, the woman accuser was always going to be believed. It was a witch hunt, as far as Jackson was concerned, but he was realistic. If Addison made the accusation against him, it would be completely over. At the very least, he would be run out of Hollywood and would be a made a complete and total social pariah. At the worst, he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison. Everything that he worked so hard for would be up in smoke, even if a jury acquitted him at trial.
All of his Oscars wouldn’t matter - when he died, he would be “Jackson Anderson, sex offender.” Just like Bill Cosby wouldn’t be remembered for his ground-breaking television series, his successful years of stand-up comedy, or even for Get Smart. He wouldn’t be remembered for the $20 million he gave to the historical black college Spellman. He wouldn’t be remembered for his foundation that was focused on increasing educational opportunities for underprivileged youth and his support for numerous other charities. No, he wouldn’t be remembered for any of that. He would simply be “Bill Cosby, rapist.” That same thing was going to be Jackson’s fate if Addison had her way.
Ever since he heard word that Addison was thinking about turning him into the cops, he had stopped sleeping. He had dropped weight, which he could ill afford to do, and he knew that he was looking even more skeletal than before. He had stopped eating, and started smoking one cigar after another. He would never smoke cigarettes – not after he found out that cigarettes contain cyanide and arsenic in them. But a good cigar - that was something that he could indulge in, and he did. He had an entire humidor full of Cuban cigars, which were illegal for years but no longer were because the embargo against Cuba had been lifted. The fact that they were currently legal actually made them less attractive to Jackson, but no matter, he needed them. They were a crutch for him.
He was crazed. He couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that if Addison could credibly tell the story about what happened that night, he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. He had spent days talking to the people who were at that party, asking them what they remember. There were quite a few people who told him that they remembered that he and Addison had a private party behind closed doors. In fact, there were several other people doing drugs with them, in that same room – and he had gotten rid of them, one by one, after Addison passed out. That meant that there were witnesses who could testify that Addison was unconscious when they left. He remembered that there were a couple of people who asked him why it was that she was unconscious. They didn’t quite understand how it was that a woman like Addison, who was used to using heroin, would lose consciousness after just a few snorts.
If Addison went to the authorities, and there was a trial, she would subpoena all of the witnesses. They would all be able to corroborate what she was saying. They would all be able to say that they were doing drugs with her and Jackson, and then she mysteriously passed out. And that, after she passed out, everybody was asked to leave the room.
On an intellectual level, he knew that his goose was going to be cooked if Addison ever went and told people about what he did. If he was ever arrested for raping her, he was going to not only lose everything he had in Hollywood, but he was going to lose his freedom as well.
Because of his crazed state, he couldn’t stop thinking about how it was that he was going to stop her. She was more vulnerable now than she was the back then. She had made quite a few box office stinkers in the past few years, so her star had faded quite a bit. Because of that, he felt fairly confident that he could
get her to be quiet if he could just convince her that he would give her a plum part in his next movie, but only if she swore her loyalty and silence to him. He was now more powerful than she was, and that was a good thing.
Yes, that’s what I’ll do, he thought. I’ll make a movie, with a role tailor-made for her. She was still hot. She was still beautiful. She just needed the right vehicle to shine, and everybody would remember why they loved her so much in the first place.
And if she didn’t go along with it….
He was going to have to think of some other way to keep her quiet.
Chapter 10
Emerson - August 25. Four days after Addison goes missing
I went back to the jail to see Carter. I was going to have to tell him what had happened with my job and give him the choice between staying with me and staying with the firm.
He appeared about 20 minutes after I got into the room where I was going to talk to him. He looked slightly better than he did before. His head was up, as opposed to drooping down, and, when he saw me, he had a smile on his face. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon,” he said to me. “But I’m really happy that you came back.” He nodded his head.
“Well, you might not be too happy after I tell you what I need to tell you.” I took a deep breath, not wanting to see his hopeful face. I knew that he and I had established a rapport already. There was a small bond between us. To a criminal defendant, that rapport with his or her attorney was everything. I didn’t know if he was going to have that same kind of bond with the next attorney, but I hoped that he would.
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