Ricochet (17 page)

"Fuck me sideways with a dildo!" she

screeched, and the entire set burst out laughing.

Estelle's salty language had made Matt blush when

he first acted with her, but now they were all used

to her 'Estelle-isms' as they called them, and had

even taking to using some of her more insane ones

as catchphrases.

Rick got up from where he was crouching

with the twins, shielding them from the expected

bomb blast. "Let's go again," he growled.

"Sorry, my darlings!" Estelle called, as

everyone went back to the starting positions.

They had nearly made it all the way through

when one of the twins tripped over Daniel's leg

and went crashing into Rick, knocking him into the

edge of a computer console.

"For fuck's sake!" Rick roared, pulling up his

tee shirt to reveal a nasty red mark.

"Oh Rick, I'm so sorry!" the guilty twin said,

throwing herself into his arms.

"I'm sorry too, Rick," her sister said, also

throwing herself into his arms even though it hadn't

been her fault. The twins had a tendency to act as if

they were one person which had startled Matt at

first but he was used to that now too.

"Sorry, Rick! Sorry!" They smothered his

face with little kisses, and old Rick would have

lapped up the attention of two pretty, squealing

subs throwing themselves at him and making a fuss

of him, but new Rick shoved them away.

"Could we just do the scene?" he said stiffly,

returning to his mark and offering up his face to

Tim the make-up artist, who was hovering nearby.

"Oh Rick," Casey sighed.

"Oh Rick," Cara echoed.

"What?" he demanded.

"Nothing," they trilled in unison, turning to

Matt with sad eyes.

"Let's go again," the director said, and by this

time you could cut the atmosphere in the room with

a knife.

They managed to get through the scene

without anyone screwing up this time, much to

everyone's relief when the director called "cut".

"Thank fuck for that," Rick said, raising his

hand to wipe some of the fake blood from his nose.

"We are sorry, Rick," Casey said. "Please

don't be mad at us."

"I'm not mad at you. I screw up enough in

scenes, so I've got no right getting mad at anyone

else for doing it," Rick replied with a shrug.

"Not anymore. You're always word perfect

these days," Daniel said.

"Yes, you are, Rick! You never get a line

wrong, but…" Casey began. Then she hesitated,

blushing.

"But?" Rick raised an eyebrow.

"It's just… we liked you better before," Cara

said, and then she clapped her hand over her

mouth.

"But we did," Casey continued. "We miss our

Rick; the one who gave us hugs, and tickled us, and

told us really bad jokes."

"We do. We miss him," her sister confirmed.

"It's not the same now. It's not fun anymore. You're

not fun anymore, Rick."

Matt held his breath, wondering what would

happen next. Rick might explode - or he might slip

into the goofy, fun-loving persona that they all

preferred.

He did neither. Instead, he stuck his hands

into his pockets and gazed at them all moodily.

"Look, I'm sorry. I'm not angry with any of you. I

guess I can either be the Rick who is always late

and goofs off, or I can be the Rick who turns up on

time, remembers his lines, stays out of trouble, and

isn't much fun. It looks like I can't be both."

"But Rick, there must be a way," Casey said.

"We hate seeing you so unhappy."

"I already told the kid he needs to get laid,"

Estelle chimed in from where she was standing

between Daniel and Karl.

"It's not that! Not completely anyway. It's

more complicated than that. It's this - see these

hands?" He held his hands out, waving them

around. There was an insane gleam in his eyes, and

Matt knew that whatever he said next was either

going to be very profound or very ridiculous. As

this was Rick, he had a fair idea which it'd be….

"These hands were made for spanking, my

friends!" Rick announced dramatically. Matt

sighed and buried his face in his hands. "Do you

know how long it's been since I last spanked a

beautiful, round, soft ass? Since I put my hand on a

sweetly curving butt and took some sub high into

sub-space?" Rick demanded.

Matt parted his fingers and peeked at Rick

through them, wondering just how far into the

ridiculous his friend was going to take this and

whether he could bear to watch.

"I'm guessing, a few weeks?" Daniel

ventured, looking like he was having a hard time

not laughing.

"Yes! And it's driving me nuts! Sex is good - I

love sex - but spanking is something else! It's like

telling a pianist he can't play the piano, or an artist

that she can't paint."

Matt saw Karl shoving his fist into his mouth

and turning away, his shoulders shaking as he tried

to control a fit of giggles.

"You could pay someone to… uh… oblige?"

Daniel suggested.

"Richard O'Shea has never paid a sub in his

life, and he's not starting now," Rick snapped.

"Oh Rick!" Casey threw herself at him.

"Rick!" Cara joined in.

"That's so sad. It's the saddest thing I ever

heard," they cooed.

"It's the funniest thing I ever heard," Karl

muttered to Daniel who had to pretend he was

having a coughing fit in order to hide his snort of

laughter. Karl patted him helpfully on the back.

"If we're done here…" Rick had a pained

look on his face. "I have lines to learn," and he

stalked off the set.

"Oh dear," the twins said mournfully. "Poor

Rick!"

"That was classic," Karl sighed, wiping away

little tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes. He

held up his hands. "These hands were made for

spanking!" he proclaimed dramatically.

"Don't mock Rick," Casey said reproachfully.

"We love Rick!"

"Yes, my dears, we do," Estelle said,

gathering them in her arms and fixing Karl with a

stern glare. "Karl, you're new here, my love, and

you have to understand - Rick is the heart of this

show and right now he's struggling. He's always

been there for us - each and every one of us - and

now I think we need to be there for him."

The smile faded immediately from Karl's

face. "I'm sorry, Estelle," he said contritely, and

Matt noticed him flashing a furtive glance at

Daniel, to see whether he'd screwed up with him

too.

"Estelle has a point," Daniel agreed. "Rick

was pretty over the top, but then that's Rick, and I

have to say…" He paused, looking thoughtful. "I

can't speak for all of you, but work hasn't been as

enjoyable for me since Petra put him on his best

behavior."

"I agree," Matt said quietly. "Rick isn't Rick

unless he's being annoying. I…" He flushed, as he

always did when speaking about anything

personal, but then he decided it was worth saying,

so he ploughed on. "I'm not always very confident

during big scenes," he admitted. "I get really

nervous, but that's never a problem when Rick's

around. He calms me down with his teasing and

stupid jokes. I didn't realize until this happened

what a difference he makes to my performance."

"How very true, my dear Matthew," Estelle

said. "I don't think any of us realized how much

Rick brightens up our lives with his energy and

sense of fun. As you all know, I've worked on a

great many sets with a great many true acting

legends, but I can honestly say I've never enjoyed a

set as much as this one - and Rick is a large part of

that."

"Yes, he is." Daniel nodded firmly.

"He totally is," the twins agreed, hanging on

to each other, their eyes swimming with tears.

"Then we must find a way to bring him back,"

Karl said, stepping forward. All trace of mockery

was gone, and there was now a determined look in

his brown eyes. Matt had the sudden realization

that Karl was the kind of person who instinctively

led and who others instinctively followed.

"What would you suggest, Karl?" Daniel

asked.

"I have an idea - I just need to think it through.

Meet me in my trailer in half an hour, and I'll

explain it to you then."

Rick was sitting in his trailer, strumming on

his guitar moodily, when there was a timid knock

on the door.

"Rick?"

"Door's open, Matty."

Matt pushed the door open and stood there,

looking anxious. "Do you want me to go? Only I'm

worried about you, and everyone's freaked out and

kind of scared of upsetting you, so if you'd rather

be alone…"

"Scared of upsetting me? Shit. I didn't know."

Rick put his guitar to one side. "Look, I'm sorry,

Matty. The only person who should be upset with

me is me; I know I was just a total dick."

"Well… yeah. Kind of." Matt closed the door

behind him and came into the trailer.

"I saw this magazine article," Rick blurted,

much to his own surprise. He hadn't realized he'd

been brooding on that so much.

"Which one?" Matt sat down on the couch

beside him.

"Torn between two doms?" Rick raised an

eyebrow.

"Oh, that one!"

"You knew about it?"

"Yeah - I read it earlier when I was in make-

up. What a load of shit."

"You didn't say anything to me. I mean, you

didn't bring it in like last time, and rant about it."

"Well, like you said, it's all crap, isn't it? I

don't know how they make this stuff up. I didn't

even know anyone had taken a photo of me and

Karl at his birthday thing. We had a good laugh

about it earlier."

Rick frowned. "You had a good laugh with

Karl about the article?"

"Yeah. He liked being described as a smooth

and sexy Brit or whatever it was they said about

him."

"I bet he did." Rick felt absurdly annoyed

about that. "Why didn't you show it to me, Matty?"

"Well…" Matt hesitated, making a face. "I

was going to, but… to be honest, Rick, I wasn't

sure you'd see the funny side of it. You're so on

edge these days, and I didn't want to make things

worse for you. I know life's getting you down at

the moment. With the… you know… lack of

spanking and all." He bit on his lip as he said that,

and Rick had a suspicion that he was being

mocked.

"Okay. Whatever. Look, I need to learn my

lines so…" Rick grabbed his script.

"Oh. Right. Okay." Matt patted his arm

awkwardly. "So, we're good?"

"Sure, buddy." Rick didn't look up from his

script as Matt left.

"What the fuck was that about?" He growled

to himself after Matt had gone. "
Why didn't you

show it to me, Matt?
" he mocked in a whiny

voice. "For fuck's sake, Rick! Get a grip! You're

turning into a total asshole."

He got up and gazed at himself in the mirror.

His reflection gazed back, looking sad and

wounded with one fake bruised eye.

Rick sighed. How the hell was he going to

make it all the way to hiatus?

The others were already crammed into Karl's

trailer when he arrived, and Matt had the sense that

the party had started without him. They all looked

around when he came in, and Karl glanced at

Daniel, who nodded.

"Am I late?" Matt asked, frowning. He

glanced at his watch. "You said half an hour, didn't

you?"

"Come in, Matt. I was just explaining my idea

to the others," Karl said, beckoning him over.

Matt squeezed himself into a tiny gap between

Estelle and the twins.

"We think it's a great idea," Cara said.

"Totally awesome!" Casey added.

"Sure - I mean, it's completely crazy, but what

the hell?" Estelle took a long drag on her cigar,

blew out a cloud of smoke into Matt's hair, and

grinned. "I like crazy!"

"Let me explain," Karl said to Matt. "I thought

that as Rick's issue seems to be a lack of a

spanking partner…" Karl kept his face completely