Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) (78 page)

“Why would he go to Vivian’s work now? And
why would he go without us?”

Damen still stared at the note, feeling the
jealousy growing in his veins, having Julienne there to help feed
the fire. As he looked up at her, she saw a labyrinth of confusion
to his eyes, wanting to know why Jose went to Vivian’s work, this
early in the morning, this close to their flight schedule, and
alone, without them? “I don’t know. I thought we said our goodbyes
to Vivian yesterday?”

“We did, we all said ‘goodbye’ to her last
night.”

“Come on, let’s go,” he spoke with panic,
opening up the door to the hotel room. Damen then noticed their
plane tickets, sticking out of Julienne’s pocket of her coat. “Wait
a second, why are you taking the plane tickets with? Why don’t you
just leave them here?”

She looked at the tickets, then gazed at him,
saying with massive hesitation, “Oh, um, because, it’s just in case
the maids come in here and, um, accidentally throw them away.”

“Oh, alright, let’s go.” Damen ran out of the
hotel room with Julienne behind him, her being prepared for what
they would see when they reached the studio, and having Damen
clueless still to the outcome that he would reach exceedingly
soon.

Chapter Sixty-Three

So many thoughts, so many plans, so much
confusion that had a mask to another’s eyes, but they all still
pushed forward with their missions and attempted to make them
complete to their own satisfaction.

Damen and Julienne rushed over to Vivian’s
work while Jose was doing a little exhibition of his own. He sat in
Vivian’s dressing room and told her about how Damen kissed
Julienne. Trying to get the major part of Julienne’s and his plan
over with, he began rushing a little bit, because he knew Julienne
and Damen would be showing up very soon. It was a race against
precious time, confessing to Vivian about Damen’s hanky-panky with
Julienne, he didn’t have any duration to slowly prolong, to start
out with having a short conversation with her, and then build it up
to telling her about it. He had to cut right to the chase, right to
the main reason of why he was present, in her dressing room, hours
before his plane left. Of course she didn’t believe him, the way he
got to that subject so quickly, it looked as if he was surely
lying, draping the real truth of why he’s here, with a ridiculous,
non-believable story like this; but the thing is, then why was he
there? That was the question that she had to think of, wondering
around in her confused, denial-filled mind, showing and shoving
different reasons for him being present, to her thoughts, but never
adding up to a satisfied answer.

He was panicking, looking at the clock, on
her dressing room wall, and then gazing at her image again, trying
to converse as fast as possible, about the wrongdoing that Damen
exercised toward his girlfriend, Julienne Wells. So he grabbed onto
his pager, knowing when it beeps, Damen was nearby, and began to
explain, over and over again, the situation that Damen put Julienne
in; the situation that he didn’t know was fabricated and nothing
but a lie.

“Vivian, he did do that, I swear to you he
did,” Jose pleaded, seeing Vivian walking around her dressing room
with tears in her eyes.

She was aggravated, still not wanting to
believe in Jose’s words of truth, when they were only lies. Jose
started to rush things along, widening his eyes to her, waiting for
her to say that she does believe Damen did that. He was in a rush
for time, listening to Vivian saying with sadness, “Listen, I don’t
believe that Damen would ever do that to me. How do you know he
kissed Julienne and messed around with her?”

“Because, Julienne told me.”

Knock.

A man came to her dressing room door, and
knocked once on its timber, hardwood frame. “Who is it?” she
questioned with anger, still wondering if Jose was telling the
truth or not.

“Surprise.” The man opened up the door and
held a bouquet of roses in his hands. “Happy Anniversary,
baby.”

“Mike, I thought you weren’t getting back
until next week?” she spoke after Mike gave her a big kiss on the
lips. Vivian saw Jose looking at her in an astounded manner,
observing the situation, filled with suspicion at her kiss to Mike.
What is going on with her, thought Jose. After she noticed the look
he was giving toward her, she added with nervousness to her tone,
“Um, Mike, this is Jose.” She wanted to play it off like Mike was
just a friend, just an acquaintance that worked with her on the
show.

Shaking Jose’s hand, Mike said, “Oh, pleased
to meet you.”

“Yeah, likewise.” Jose formed a small grin as
Mike walked back to Vivian. She saw the small grin upon Jose’s
face, and she knew he realized the situation that she was in at
that moment. Vivian couldn’t accept any more kisses or pecks from
Mike’s lips, it was getting too obvious to Jose’s sight, showing
Mike was more than a friend. Jose’s thoughts were racing.

Vivian then went over to her door, opened it,
and asked with pensive and utter seriousness “Mike, could you
excuse me and Jose for a few minutes?”

“Sure, I’ll be in my room.”

As soon as he exited her dressing room, Jose
turned to Vivian, smiled vividly, and questioned, “So ... you’ve
been cheating on Damen?”

He was very rude, obnoxious for accusing her
so abruptly, without even discussing any plausible explanation for
her actions. To Vivian, Jose was treating the situation as if it
was a game to him, catching her in the act and then finding it
humorous. “Listen, me and Mike just started dating. He’s my
director,” she explained in a defensive fashion, watching Jose
walking over to the bouquet of flowers and looking at the card.

She started to bite her lip, squinting her
eyes, tapping her right foot on the ground, seeing Jose looking up
from the card, knowing that he read it thoroughly. To her, the
words on the card proved her guilty in the pursuit of discovering
she was cheating on Damen. “Well, Vivian, it says six-month
anniversary on here. Now, are you lying, or is the card?”

“Listen you son of a--” She then calmed down,
sedated her anger, numbed her exasperation, seeing that Jose found
this situation funny, but not wanting him to tell Damen about it.
So she paused, gathered her worries, her thoughts, and pleaded,
“Alright, listen to me, please don’t tell Damen, I don’t want him
to know. I really care for Damen, but I needed this role.”

Beep, beep, beep.

Jose’s pager went off, revealing that it was
Julienne’s signal that she was near. He then looked at Vivian
closely, saying with a strong, powerful attitude, “Oh, I get it,
you began dating him because you wanted to be in this soap opera,
am I right?”

“Listen, we met while I was auditioning for
this show. If I didn’t date him, then I’m almost positive that I
wouldn’t be on this soap opera.”

Jose deputed his feelings on this matter by
starting to laugh at her tears, her pleas, her explanation with
such defense to it, and chuckled out with craziness, “Vivian, I
don’t really care. As a matter of fact, I don’t give a damn if
you’re cheating on him or not.”

She became confused, disoriented about the
circumstance, wondering why he was laughing, and why he was so
snotty to her when he discovered her secret relationship. She knew
he had something up his sleeve, under his mind, inside his heart
that she didn’t know of yet. So now she was scared, frightened
about Jose’s reason for laughing. Vivian still didn’t believe that
Damen messed around with Julienne Wells, but became overwhelmed,
puzzled by why he was here in the first place, and why he was
laughing at this situation that was so terrifying to her thoughts
and eyes. “So that means you won’t tell him?”

He noticed that her voice was trembling, her
hands were shaking, and her words had fear in them. So he shone,
scintillated a horrid grin toward her, and announced with evil, “I
won’t tell Damen, but first you have to do something.”

“What?”

She was nervous as to what he wanted her to
do, to act, to perform for him, or to him. Tom Fryer used to always
begin with the same, almost similar, words, before he would rape
her; abuse was going through her thoughts when she stared at
Jose.

He laughed a bit, stopped his chuckle, and
explained with calmness, “You have to kiss me, and I mean really
kiss me.”

She yelled, “Hell no.”

He started laughing again, walked over to the
door in an unhurried rhythm, and threatened, “Well then, I guess
I’m going to have to tell Damen the truth.”

“Why do you want me to kiss you?”

He stopped dead in his tracks, feeling his
pager going off again, knowing that she had to perform this lustful
task to him very soon. Jose glared at her eyes, then continued
walking toward the door, answering, “I don’t know, maybe because I
just feel like it.”

Vivian paused for a second and thought,
visioned about herself kissing him. She figured out he was
blackmailing her, a small blackmail compared to her experience, she
thought, but in actuality of titanic size. Vivian then ran in front
of him, while he stood outside, in the hallway, and said to him
with apprehension, “Alright, damn it, I’ll kiss you. But if I kiss
you, you have to swear to me that you won’t tell Damen about Mike.
You swear?”

“Yeah, sure, just as long as you kiss
me.”

She walked back into her dressing room while
Jose followed, stepping up to her mirror, and looking at his
reflection.

It’s just a kiss.

Those thoughts rambled around her head,
shooting to all corners of her conscience, raping her mind from the
calm situation that she was used to; having Mike as a secret. She
then gawked at his reflection more, and spoke, “Alright, get it
over with, Jose.”

Jose grabbed her and turned her around to
face him, exaggerating this moment by caressing her face, and
actually enjoying the warmth of her flesh. He began kissing her,
feeling her buttocks at the same time, rubbing her breasts in a
medium habit, circling his hands around them, like he was touching
a football, or feeling an orange to see if it was ripened. As he
was doing this lustful, yet sinister act to her, he grabbed the
flowers without Vivian noticing, and placed them in his right hand,
for his own reasons. The judging of fate was soon to be heard, soon
to be seen, perceiving in his mind that the next step to the plan
was just about to enter into the present. At that moment, the door
flew open and a voice came out, shouting, “What the hell is going
on here?”

Vivian unlocked her lips from Jose’s and
looked around the room, trying to get her sight in focus, after
having them closed, and squeezing her lids tight against each
other, because of the uncomfortableness she felt. The spots
vanished from her sight, obstruction was gone, and in her view was
Damen Schultz. She didn’t know what to say. That’s when she replied
in a serious, but overwrought manner, “Damen, I can explain.”

Deceit ran through Damen’s arteries, filled
with massive jealousy, but hurt gave it flow. The pain was
unbearable, showing tears of utterly pain, glaring at Jose and
Vivian, asking why, in his mind, why would Jose do this to him? But
the anger overpowered his mind, thoughts, his reason for feeling
hurt, and he yelled out, “Explain? Explain what? You’re kissing one
of my best friends.” He turned his head to face Jose and began to
feel a pain in his chest, hurt from Jose’s actions toward Vivian.
His bitter indignation, anger, resentfulness grew inside of his
head and was ready to blow out of him through his fists hitting
Jose’s face, aiming for his nose.

He walked up to him slowly and added in an
angry, but hurt fashion, “And you, I thought you were my friend.
How could you do this?” Damen was trying to come up with any
explanation, in his mind, of why Jose was kissing her. Firstly, he
came up with: maybe Jose was saying goodbye to her, but then again,
it was a very passionate kiss. After that, he came up with: Why
would Jose do this to him, when he already had Julienne Wells as
his woman? There had to be some other deep meaning, that Damen’s
intellect couldn’t focus in on yet, only because anger, rage,
misery, distraught, nervousness, tears of confusion, and a
labyrinth of jealousy and resentfulness was obstructing his mind’s
eye from seeing and perceiving the real truth and reason. Suddenly,
to make matters worse, Damen saw a little grin on Jose’s face, so
the hurt that he was feeling went away and the anger took over.
“You asshole,” he yelled out, punching Jose in the mouth and
causing him to fall to the ground. Damen looked at Jose’s bloody
face, adding in a yell, “So, that’s what you wanted to talk to me
about?”

“Listen, Damen, he asked me to kiss him,”
Vivian pleaded.

Damen grabbed the roses from Jose’s grip,
reading the note and saying, “Oh really, Vivian? Well it says
six-month anniversary on here. That means you’ve been cheating on
me with my friend for six months?”

Julienne walked to the room and saw Jose
lying on the ground, hearing Vivian frantically answering, “No,
those are from Mike, not Jose.”

“Mike? You’ve been cheating on me with Jose
and a guy named ‘Mike’?” he asked, not realizing that Julienne took
his wallet out from his coat pocket.

As they argued back and forth, Jose and
Julienne managed to sneak away from them. Tiptoeing down the
hallway, past the guard, and to the huge doorways, they ran to the
outside and got in a taxi that took them straight to the
airport.

After an hour of tears, not resolving the
confusion, Damen ended the arguing by saying in a low pitch, “It’s
over, Vivian, have a nice life.”

“Please, Damen, I swear to you, Jose told me
to kiss him,” she yelled out.

He threw the roses on the ground and exited
the room, still feeling that she was lying to him, not knowing the
real truth, and really not desiring to. He then stopped in the
doorway, without facing her, and stated in hurtfulness, “Yeah, even
if he did, you still cheated on me with some Mike guy.”