Deep Inside (16 page)

Rebecca watched from the stage as the audience turned in their seats and murmured. She watched as her mother left the auditorium.

 

Rebecca shut
the door to her hotel room and threw her purse on the bed. She was determined not to let the incident send her into a tailspin. But all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and stay there.

Her cell phone rang. She glanced at the number and saw that it was Andrew. She picked up the call.

“How'd it go?” he asked.

“My mother was there,” she said. “We had a confrontation in front of everyone.”

“Oh no,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“It was humiliating,” Rebecca said. “I suddenly realized that it was a complete mistake to come here!”

“I'm sorry, Becca. I tried to warn you. I know what we should do. We'll have a double session as soon as you get back,” Andrew said.

“I should have stayed away,” she cried.

“Are you going to be okay tonight?” he asked.

“I'll be fine,” she insisted.

“I'm here if you need me,” Andrew said.

She said good night. She didn't want to talk to Andrew. She knew what she needed. She turned off her cell phone and wandered over to the full-length mirror. She studied herself, then pulled off her T-shirt, and removed her jeans. She ran her hands over her bra, then put her hand inside the left cup and caressed her breast.

Rebecca watched her image blur in the mirror. It took her a moment to realize she was crying. She went over to the mahogany minibar and got out a chilled bottle of Absolut. She opened it, took a sip, and removed her bra. She spilled some of the vodka onto her breasts, and caressed them.

She brushed tears away, then moved her right hand down into her thong and gently touched her clit. She shut her eyes. She tried to visualize the evening with her thief-lover. She tried to remember the night in the alley. But no matter how hard she worked her imagination, she couldn't see anything.

Then she heard a deep male voice that she neither remembered nor imagined.

“It's time you had a real lover.”

“Who are you?” Rebecca asked.

“The one who is really in charge. And it's time you submitted to my power. But you must close your eyes before we can begin.”

Rebecca kept her eyes open. She didn't even blink.

“Why can't I see you?”

“You will when it's time,” the voice told her, “but for now, you'll see only what I want you to.”

There was a white flash, then a whirl of colors and shapes. Rebecca couldn't make anything out. She felt dizzy, then everything came into focus.

She was sitting in her parents' living room over twenty years ago. How sad their little house had been with its yellow, peeling wallpaper, the beige rug still stained from her father spilling booze on it.

Her brothers and sisters were sitting around with her parents. They were all watching the TV. It was a religious show, with a choir of well-scrubbed kids singing. Rebecca saw that her parents were only a little older than she was now. And she knew that she must be five years old.

She could feel it all come back to her. The way her body itched that day.

“You must touch yourself,” the voice ordered.

“No!” Rebecca cried out. “I don't want to!”

“Oh, but you do want to touch yourself,” the voice laughed. “Don't you remember? You're only five years old. But you know what feels good.”

“Please don't do this,” Rebecca said.

But she was powerless. She saw herself as a child, scratching her thighs underneath her nightie. She felt the stirrings in her crotch, just the way she had back then. She felt the tingling as she continued to play with herself. And she heard herself moan, the way she had back then.

“That's right,” the voice told her. “That's how you did it.”

Rebecca felt her body coursing with pleasure. She saw the choir of singing angels and they seemed happy with her. And then…

“Oh my God!” her mother was saying. Her mother's face stared at her, then she turned away, and said, “Look what she's doing. And in front of our TV show!”

Rebecca saw her father's drunken face. He wasn't angry like her mother. She knew that what he was feeling was worse than fury, but she was confused.

“I'll handle this,” he said.

And suddenly she was being dragged away from her brothers and sisters, pulled down the basement stairs by her father….

He locked the door to the upstairs. He took off his belt.

“You bad little girl,” he said. “You're going to do the nasty stuff you did up there while I whip you.”

And Rebecca felt her father's blows again and again.

“What did I do wrong?” she cried.

“You know what you did,” her father said.

“No,” Rebecca insisted. “I don't know.”

But that only made him whip her harder.

And then her father and the basement disappeared. She was back in her hotel room. She sat on the bed, drawing her arms around her. She could still feel her father's lashings.

“And now you're ready for my love,” the voice said.

“But I can't see you. Where are you?” Rebecca asked.

“You'll find me. Just go to the bar downstairs.”

“What?” Rebecca said. “You're going to meet me in the real world?”

“That's right,” the voice masterfully laughed. “You're ready for a lover who exists outside your imagination.”

Rebecca saw
him from outside the hotel bar. It was late, he was alone. He was wearing a suit, sitting alone with a scotch, pretending to be a businessman relaxing after a day of travel and meetings. But she knew it was him.

She waited until the bartender went into the back room for a few minutes. Then she entered, moving swiftly to where he sat.

Their eyes connected. He offered to buy her a drink. She suggested they go to his room instead. He put down a twenty and they left together.

 

“You were
wrong,” Rebecca said to Andrew during their double session. “It really did turn out to be a good experience in St. Louis. I did heal. And you know what? I fucked a guy, Andrew. I had sex with a man.”

“You mean a real person?” Andrew said. Sweat immediately broke out on his forehead.

“Yes,” Rebecca said. “And it was really good.”

She leaned forward and flashed her eyes at her therapist. She liked the way she made him uneasy with this information. She saw him look down in an attempt to maintain his professional boundaries.

“That's excellent news.” Andrew tried to sound his usual calm self, but he was stammering. “So now you feel good about your success as a masturbation author?”

“Yes,” she said. “I now realize I deserve all the success I've gotten. It's just that…” Her voice drifted off. She cocked her head and tossed her light brown hair back and stared at Andrew. “Well, masturbation isn't a topic that interests me much anymore. I like fucking actual guys.”

“That's terrific,” Andrew said, his voice getting hoarse.

She saw the flicker of jealousy, knew he must be considering whether or not to make a pass at her.

As Andrew nervously talked away, congratulating himself for having healed her, Rebecca thought about the night in St. Louis.

Once inside the man's hotel room, it'd been easy. He'd been drunk. She'd worn black leather gloves to tie him up. He'd thought she was going to fuck him. Instead she'd strangled him. She'd come so quickly without even touching herself. Just watching the life go out of him…

“Yes, Andrew,” she brightly agreed. “You did a good job. The fact is, I want to have sex now with another man.”

She stared right at him and watched him squirm. She relished his guilty lust. And she looked forward to the night when he would be her next real, live lover.

Interior. Bedroom.

I'm going down on Tyler Beaumont. Yes, that Tyler Beaumont. Long-limbed, impossibly beautiful, with the blond hair and perfect breasts—I know these are banal descriptions, but I'm Stacy Dickerson, producer. I don't have to be a writer. And Tyler is beautiful and she is perfect, and if I need fresh words to describe her I'll hire someone to come up with them.

The Venetian blinds of our bedroom cast shadows on her tawny skin. I glance in the full-length mirror at Tyler's perfect features. A million young wannabe actresses have them. Yet there's something lusciously retro about Tyler's looks that should work perfectly for the mass audience.

The moment I saw Tyler in
Werewolf High
three years ago, I knew she could be a major star. Her TV show was, of course, hugely popular with the
Buffy
crowd. But it was still a cult thing, and I knew I could move her onto the movie A-list, up there with Cameron Diaz and Julia Roberts.

I finagled a meeting with her on location.

Tyler was in her werewolf-hunting uniform—a tank top and a black leather mini. Blood streaked her arms and thighs from a battle scene she'd just shot on a downtown street.

At that time, I had my name on a few indie films but Tyler hadn't heard of me. Still, the words
producer
and
movie project
worked their magic. She listened intently to my proposals, batted her big eyes. Moments later we were making a visit to her trailer, entangled, wet, and hot.

I've had my share of models and actresses, but Tyler was good and she was fast. I offered her a joint and a few lines of coke. But Tyler and I were tonguing each other before I could even take the product out of my purse.

She wasn't wearing any panties, and she'd groomed her pubic hair into a perfect tiny triangle.

I pushed Tyler onto the sofa in her tiny trailer, throwing aside a pile of ratty stuffed animals as I slid a long finger up her cunt.

She screamed as she came. I wondered what the crew outside must be thinking, and whether our lovemaking would find its way into the tabloids, and as I thought about the press I started moaning and coming myself.

Afterwards, we shared a joint. I told Tyler it wasn't her glitz that turned me on. I was turned on by the raw talent that I could see she had, and I could tell that she was perfect to do the quality indie film that was my pet project. The one that I'd dreamt of forever. Tough, independent, meaningful.

She curled up happily. Within a month we moved in together and formed our own production company, just her and me for the moment.

Right now, present tense and three years later, Tyler is languorously spread-eagled on our four-poster bed. Her wrists are tied to the posts, and I've got my mouth in her exquisitely salty folds.
Exquisite
—another trite word. It's not up to me to find a better adjective.

She's writhing happily. Yet I just can't get turned on.

This is a problem lately. I'm obsessed with worry, of the career and financial sort.

We're not where I thought we'd be at this point. I had no idea how impulsive and hard to control Tyler could be. I was helpless to keep her from choosing a string of girlfriend parts in action movies that went nowhere.

I know the movie we need, and I always have. It's my dream project. Not only will it get the press attention and the industry attention, it'll express my deepest beliefs. Like I said: tough and meaningful.

As my tongue swirls around Tyler's clit, her hips begin to wriggle slowly. I envy her ability to set everything aside and get into the moment. It's what makes her so perfect a heroine for the American public.

I slip a wet finger up her ass to help her along.

“How about more of that,” she says dreamily and greedily, and I slip a second finger up her ass. For someone who claims to have grown up in poverty, Tyler's become awfully good at ordering up exactly what she wants.

“Can I raise something we need to talk about?” I say.

“Oh, shut up and just let me come on your face,” she gasps. So I oblige with some enthusiastic tongue thrusts.

After she finishes twinging and crying out, I untie her and settle down beside her. A long postcoital kiss lets us share the taste of her happiness.

She runs her hand over my nipples, but I'm not yet into it. I imagine my Yale classmates seeing me in bed with Tyler Beaumont. It almost always gets me hot, but today even that image isn't turning me on.

I'm blocked, with a dull, insistent fury over what's become of our careers.

I glance through our window at the pale camellia bushes lining our house. They're overgrown. We haven't paid the gardener in so many months that he's stopped coming. And then there's our mortgage. Or rather mortgages, plural. Two fat loans on our little Hollywood Hills bungalow that we should have traded in for a spread in Silver Lake long ago.

I pull away from Tyler and turn on my side. “I really do need to talk to you,” I say.

Tyler exhales loudly. “Do you ever get your mind off career, career, career? My career specifically?”

“Our career,” I rebuke her.

She grabs her ratty old bear from the pile of mangled stuffed animals on her side of the bed. She sits up, legs wrapped around a mahogany poster. She's pouting.

“Sweetie,” I murmur, “you know very well we're partners in this. And we are so close to getting where we've always planned to be.”

“Where you've planned for us to be!” Tyler says. She pulls viciously on the ears of her stuffed animal.

We're headed into one of our arguments.

“I thought you wanted out of
Werewolf High,
” I say.

“I still get a lot of fan mail for that TV show. Young girls write that I empowered them. Thanks to me, they, too, can kick ass just the way guys can. You're the one who thought it was garbage.”

“Let's face it, honey, you have terrible taste.”

She throws the bear across the room and looks away.

“And,” I say insistently, “let's do some math. You begged for the lead in a low-budget
Matrix
rip-off. It played in three theaters for two days. Then you did back-to-back slasher pics. Bombs, both of them. And you even let not one, but both directors talk you into a lot of nudity! Christ almighty, Tyler! Couldn't you have held out? All the shrewd actresses know to save the extended nudity for the prestige art pics. Titties for the trashmeisters, sure. But save the pussy for David Lynch! Jesus!! You're taking us straight to DVD.”

Tyler thinks about it, if only for a second.

“I know you're right,” she mutters, then brightens. “But I've heard a rumor that Michael Bay is thinking of me for his next movie—how bad is that?”

“Michael Bay is going to have you play another girlfriend part while cars crash and blood splatters around you. You can do better than that. We can do better than that. You could be the next Charlize Theron.”

Tyler bursts into tears.

“Let's face a few facts here,” I say consolingly. “We're in debt, baby. And your career has stalled because you've gone with your impulses. We need to think.”

She jumps up, glares at me through red eyes. “I am not impulsive!” she blurts.

She storms to the closet and yanks out her suitcase. As she opens the door, I gasp.

The closet's bursting with leather pants, leather jackets, sheer things, and the gleam of expensive dresses I don't recognize. Tyler's been on one of her shopping sprees again.

Stay collected and in control, I tell myself. Focus on what's important.

So I say in a soft but necessarily cruel voice, “Need I remind you that you're twenty-five? And that there are armies of seventeen-year-olds eager to push you out of the way? Three more years and you'll be stuck with mommy roles.”

That does it.

“Not mommy roles,” she wails, and the tears start to flow again. She pulls herself together. “But I don't care about money or things the way you do, because I never had them in my childhood the way you did. I didn't get to grow up in Westchester. I didn't get to go to Yale. And I am not too old!”

“Well, you certainly like the goodies now,” I say.

Tyler starts flinging clothes into the suitcase.

“I don't know why I stick around for your abuse,” she says.

I'd like to throttle her. Or just let her walk out and see how far she gets without me. But if Tyler and I break up now, I know it'll be another two days before I'll be able to win her back. We've been through this cycle enough times already. And, frankly, I don't have time to lose.

I walk over and put my arms around her.

“Sweetie, you stay because we both know we're a hot team,” I say. “There's nobody like us.”

I gently take the suitcase from her and set it down.

“I don't really care about being in debt,” Tyler says.

“I know you don't,” I say. Time for a strategic lie. “It's part of what makes you such an exciting person to live with.”

I steer Tyler over to the bed and look her deep in the eyes. “And it's why I love you. I'm so cautious where money's concerned.”

“You're tight in a lot of ways,” she says bitterly.

“You're right, I know that. But where the money's concerned, baby, you just piss it away. You know you do.”

Tyler narrows her eyes, trying to figure out if I'm ragging on her.

“I'm praising you, sweetie,” I say. “You're spontaneous and free. You're what this business loves and needs. And that's why I've gone to all the trouble to line up a project just for you.”

Tyler's still wary, but she touches my lips with a gentle finger.

“It's not one of those serioso films of yours, is it?” she says.

Of course it's serious, you bitch-idiot, I want to say. I'm Stacy Dickerson, quality filmmaker. But I've got to package the idea so Tyler will go for it.

“Remember the night Charlize Theron won the Oscar for
Monster
?” I say. “And how we both said it should be you up there on the stage getting the award?”

“Oh no,” Tyler says. “You're not going to try to talk me into playing a serial killer again—”

But I don't allow Tyler to finish.

“Oscar, darling. Focus on Oscar,” I murmur. She relents, and I raise her hands and run my tongue around her nipples. After I hear appreciative moaning, I raise my head and say, “You know how much it means to me to make a plea for women in prison. I've even found the perfect murderer to do the movie about. Think of it this way: it's going to make us both legit. And it's going to take both of us to the next level.”

She scrunches up her adorable nose and winces in pleasure as I tug at her nipples. “I don't want to talk about it. You've got me all horny. I don't know why I put up with you. But you can make it up to me if you put on our dildo. And if you fuck me with it while we play that old videotape of mine.”

It isn't one of her old movies. Tyler's referring to a tape she made at fourteen back in Alabama with a junior high school boyfriend. On it, she gives one of the most expert blow jobs I've ever seen, and I've watched a lot of professional porn.

Her old boyfriend blackmails us from time to time, and I pay him off so the footage won't go on the Internet. When I raise it with Tyler, though, she claims not to be worried.

“Screw him,” she says. “Let him post it. Who cares if it's out there for everyone to download. I'm hot in it!”

Tyler likes to watch the tape and have a lot of mirrors around the bed. Talk about a narcissist. And yes, the tape does get me off, too. Who wouldn't want to watch Tyler having sex? Even watch her having sex with one of those damned stuffed animals of hers?

And yes, I do enjoy fucking her with a strap-on and spanking her for having done the video. It's part of our very positive routine.

I strap on the dildo and waggle it around.

“Tyler, you promised we would do my film,” I say, taunting her with the device. “And that was three years ago. The cause of women in prison hasn't gotten better in that time. It's gotten worse. There are more women on death row today than ever before.”

“That's because women are kickin' ass!” Tyler says. I frown at her. “Oh, don't be such a stick-in-the-mud. I don't know why you're so fixated on women in prison anyway. Sometimes I think it's just because you hated your suburb so much,” she says.

But she moves up and fondles the dildo. “I like the way the leather straps cut into your hip,” she whispers to me. “Anyway, I don't want to play some dumpy chick. And I really don't want to wear hideous makeup the way Charlize did. What's wrong with a little glamour? Why can't I be an old-style femme fatale?”

By this time, the video's on, Tyler's mouth on the screen is around her boyfriend's dick, and I'm pumping my dildo in and out of my in-person starlet's cunt.

“Glamour doesn't get you the Oscar,” I say, dropping the “O” word again.

Tyler gives a quiver. I'm getting to her now. Her lips are pursed in a pout, and she's running her tongue around them.

“I don't know why they can't give the Academy Award for fun, glamorous action roles,” she murmurs.

I turn her over so we're face to face, and lay into her as I make the key point. “Glamour is for when you're on the red carpet, baby.”

“Do me, sugar,” she says.

It's time to sew up the deal. “Glamour's great. But there's a time and a place for it. The real stars know that. Look at Nicole Kidman. Look at Renée Zellweger. At the premieres and at the awards ceremonies, they're sparkling and showing cleavage in designer clothes. But how did they get there? They did roles where they looked terrible.”

I sink my tongue intimately into her mouth and whisper to her, “C'mon, you're always telling me you want the Oscar.”