Shooting Star (Beautiful Chaos) (8 page)

T
HIS WAS THE PART I fucking hated. Sitting around in a circle, feeling self-conscious and having to bloody “share.” So far, I’d managed to avoid it but this was my sixth meeting so people were beginning to eye me up with expectation. I took a breath and said, “Hi, my name’s Jason and I’m a sex addict.” I cringed at my words—still didn’t quite believe them. But here I was—proof that I had to turn my life around for the better.

“Hi Jason, so glad to have you here,” said an old hippy type with round glasses and stringy gray hair. Not the sort of person I had imagined being here, but of course being a sex addict isn’t really about sex; it goes deeper than that.

“Hi Jason,” several people mumbled, smiling hopefully.

“I . . . um . . . well, I just thought I’d say that I’ve been abstinent for two weeks and—” I paused, wondering what the fuck I should tell them. That I was climbing the walls? That giving up sex was a thousand times worse than not drinking, not smoking, not taking drugs, all rolled into one? That having Star in my house was like having the Devil as your best mate, when you were training to take your vows as a priest? “Well, hello everyone,” I concluded awkwardly, feeling like a prize jerk.

A gangly woman who must have been about thirty said, “Thank you for sharing.” And then everyone chanted in unison, “It works if you work it. Thank you for sharing.” I looked at them and then back at her and thought how incongruous she looked in this setting. You’d think sex addicts would be sexy. But people looked “normal”—boring, really—and definitely not sexy. Luckily. The last thing I needed was more temptation. We weren’t in the more glamorous West Hollywood branch, no. I wasn’t that stupid. I knew that most of that sex addict lot went purposefully to hook up, and to the AA and NA meetings specifically to do movie deals. I was anonymous here in the Valley. Or so I hoped.

I wasn’t lying when I said my name was Jason—it
is
my real name but nobody calls me that except my mother and a few old friends. SAA—Sex Addicts Anonymous or, as some call it, SLAA, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. But “love” wasn’t my problem. I’d never been in love. Love didn’t come into it. It was like being a wild cat hunting for prey and women were my dinner. If I saw a pretty woman somehow it felt wrong not to make a play for her. I needed a weekly conquest—sometimes even daily—to keep myself functioning. Sex was my drug. No prostitutes. No excessive porn. No—I wanted the real thing, not some fake image on a screen and I sure as hell never needed to pay for it. It was easy for me. Stunning women were at my beck and call. Perks of being a movie director. I was rich. Most people described me as good looking. Sex for me was like brushing my teeth—something that was necessary. Easy.

Often I wondered what it was, exactly, that gave me my high. I think it was the intensity. The adrenaline of the chase. And the thrill of having someone so into me. Yeah, yeah, my shitty childhood didn’t help my self-esteem issues. Been there, done that. Done the whole shrink thing, the mother abandonment issues, the father-beat-the-shit-out-of-me saga, the little boy sexually abused at boarding school. The lonely lost boy who needed love and affection, seeking it the only way he knew how: through sex.

But the bottom line was—for whatever bullshit reason—here I was, needing more.

More, more,
more
.

It was as if my dick had a brain of its own. Not a very intellectual one (no kidding) but a force that propelled me to do things, even when logically I knew it was crazy. Fucking women in public places, having pretty women I “needed” flown out to me on private jets while I was on location, just to get my fix—the list went on and the bills piled up. Dinners, transport, jewelry, cars. I may have been a “love-em-and-leave-em” bastard but I was a generous one. But it got to the point that it was affecting my career—compromising my work by hiring actresses for their fuckability, not their talent.

Being an addict is expensive. You’re ruled by a more powerful force and you’re out of control. You convince yourself you’re calling the shots but no, it’s your cock. Dick has you as his slave, his minion, dancing to his horny tune that blares in your ears twenty-four seven.

And each time I—the lion—caught his catch, I always found myself plummeting to a low like a come-down after drugs, and the only thing that would set me right again was seeking a new thrill—jumping back on the roller coaster, all over again. Over and over. And now I was fucking burnt out.

I’d pushed myself to my limit and had to stop.

And then I met Star bloody Davis.

And all I could think of since I first set eyes on her—twenty-four hours a day—was when, and how, I’d fuck her.

S
TAYING IN JAKE’S HOUSE was less fun than I had imagined. The big wild partygoer licking coke off nubile starlets’ navels, two at a time? Dancing on tables? Not a bit of it. He was quiet and reserved. Brooding even. Most of the time he was talking on the phone or working on his laptop—completely ignoring me. Yet if I strayed toward the front door—his eyes on his work—it was as if he had a sixth sense. “Where-the-fuck-d’you think you’re going?” he’d say without looking at me. It didn’t matter what I did—walk round half naked in a skimpy bikini, not wear a bra, sit with my legs wide apart so he could see right through my panties (
if
he’d paid attention)—or even “accidentally” bump into him when I was naked after a shower—he’d brush past me as if I were a slightly irritating little sister or something.

Sure, I had the run of the house and he was treating me well in that way—my own suite, with a huge bedroom and a beautiful view to the pool area, where lemon trees, lush palms and tropical green foliage spilled onto a mossy lawn. It was like a wall of vegetation—very private, no neighbors could see in—which suited me perfectly. So far, I’d out foxed the paparazzi. At least, there wasn’t the usual crowd of them hovering around. But the place was eerily silent except for maybe music or the tweeting of birds, or the mumble of Jake’s voice as he made his pre-production calls to his crew or producers.

I was lonely.

His house was grand; enormous, with polished Spanish tiled floors stretching across huge, echoey hallways. I took to going barefoot so my shoes wouldn’t make clicking sounds. There were elegant arched windows, a sweeping staircase, and oil paintings looming big on every wall. One was of a beautiful 1920s flapper with cropped black hair, holding a cigarette in a silver holder, and looked like an original Tamara Lempicka. In the garage behind the house were not just one, but two, classic cars: an old silver Rolls Royce from the 1950s and a navy blue Bugatti sports car. Jake had opulent but unusual taste.

With nothing to do but learn my lines, I made friends with Jake’s dog, a huge Rhodesian Ridgeback with golden eyes and, like his namesake, he had a permanent ridge of hackles that stuck up along his backbone. His name was Fierce but he was a sweetheart and we quickly became close.

Jake ignored members of my staff as they came and went: my masseuse, my chef, my hairdresser, who passed by to touch up my highlights. Jake was polite but reserved. Never once did he berate me for having so many people invading his home, and for the first time I became self-conscious—aware that having a team fluttering about me wasn’t really normal; not the way most people lived. Jake had money but he didn’t seem to need an entourage to support him, to cater to his every whim. I had indulged myself too much and now it was beginning to dawn on me that privacy—having moments completely to myself with just the dog, for instance—was actually a good thing.

There was a magical peace in Jake’s house that I hadn’t experienced before. A calming experience. Jake was there physically but also benignly absent—an old married couple who no longer spoke to each other—that’s what it felt like between us. At least to me. I still couldn’t work out what his game plan was—if he had one. Every so often, I’d catch him observing me. A flicker of a second, a dart of the eyes, but then he’d go back to pretending I hardly existed.

The more he ignored me, the more I wanted his attention.

After a couple days of this (we were about to start filming in two days’ time) Jake finally broke the silence.

“You know all your lines or just the first few scenes?” he asked out of the blue.

“I always like to learn the whole script so I know it backwards.”

“Good girl.”

“I’m not a girl, I’m a woman, if you hadn’t noticed.” But when he said “good girl” my heart skipped a beat. He had just come out of the pool, trailing water as he walked into the living room, and his dirty blond hair was slicked back wet, a white towel carelessly slung about his hips, accentuating that manly V, his body bronzed—and for the first time I got to see how beautiful the contours of his muscles were: his arms taut and strong, his chest wide, narrowing beautifully down to a segmented stomach. Not bulky or thick—but lean like a tennis or soccer player—somebody muscular because of sport, not because of weights. It was the first time he’d had a swim since I’d been here—usually he was in the main living room, his head buried in a huge great art book, gleaning inspiration for a scene or watching old movies with the blinds drawn, freeze-framing and snapping a shot with his iPhone or sketching a new idea for his storyboards. Then he’d be on the phone forever, talking to producers or location managers, or with Leo about the shooting schedule, changing things up at the last minute. Pre-production details. Cool, calm, on top of things.

In this instant I had him to myself, as I drank in his body, admiring him the way you might a Greek marble statue at the Met or some Italian fountain in Rome.

“I like to be flexible,” he told me, his eyes flickering for just a millisecond to my breasts before he settled back on my eyes. Water was dripping from his body like raindrop crystals. Everything seemed in slow motion—freeze-framed for me as I blinked like a camera lens to take in the shot—to save the image for later. I swear I could feel the electricity charging between us but then he looked away (upward to the right, funnily enough) squinting his gray eyes in thought, and I understood it was my imagination that had had him wanting me, desiring me. Because never had a guy ignored my come-ons so much as Jake. Never. My nipples were poking through a see-though top—I too had been swimming earlier, my hair still damp—and the air conditioning in the room had chilled them into little peaks. All for nothing! I could have been a chair or a table as far as he was concerned—so little did I matter to him, except as a tool for his movie.

“I thought we could do a few acting exercises,” he said. “Not the scenes themselves but a bit of improvisation.”

I loved improv. Some indie directors did whole films by way of improvisation; practically ignoring the script or making it up it as they went along—letting their actors come up with ideas to shape the scenes.

Jake wasn’t looking at me when he asked, “You’re into the Method, I hear?”

I nodded. “It’s the only way I know how to work—to get into character. Except I can’t exactly go around
killing
people so I guess for
Skye’s The Limit
I’ll have to actually
act
and forget the Method.” I thought he’d laugh but he didn’t.

“There’s the sex scene,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “and I don’t know how we should go about shooting it. I’ve been worrying about it for days. Have you got any ideas, Star? Of Skye’s motivation in this scene?”

“It’s all about control,” I answered. Skye and I were so similar in many ways—I really identified with this part. “She wants to get her way so she’s using sex as a weapon.”

“You see, I don’t see it as black and white as that. I think she’s yearning for attention—to be loved. A need for love is driving this scene, not control. She’s using sex as a way to get close to men, as it’s the only way she knows. I think this scene is pivotal; its when the audience needs to realize how alone she is. It’s imperative that the audience fall in love with her at this point.” He looked up and his penetrating eyes locked with mine. I felt myself tingle all over. But I also wondered if there was some message—a personal one for me—buried in his words.

“You look cold, Star. I’ll turn off the air con.” As he said this, his eyes ran down to my breasts again. Double messages, dammit. Then he walked over to the wall switch and flicked off air con, meanwhile dimming the lights. A beam of late afternoon sunlight shot through a crack in the blinds leaving a golden ray across the dark wooden floor but apart from that we were in semi darkness. I was hoping he’d want to enact the scene from the movie with me, when I seduce the prison guard.

“Shall we do that scene?” I asked eagerly, “when I kiss the—”

“No kissing, Star. Just . . . let’s pretend you want to dance with me—you can take this scene in any direction you want; it doesn’t have to be dancing—that’s just an idea. But you need to persuade me—get my attention.” He sat down in a chair and picked up a book, ignoring me the way he had for the past few days.
Get his attention?
So far it had been impossible and I’d been working on it, practically around the clock.