The Girl Who Can't Say No: Bound To The Billionaire (Part One) (A BDSM Erotic Romance Novelette) (2 page)

"Oh, no, sorry, I'm fine, thank you to meet
you - Uhh! - I mean -"

The man to his right - a fellow with fine,
graying hair, and yet not a single wrinkle upon his face - snorts
quietly with laughter, before finding eye contact with me and
smiling graciously. The man on the left doesn't move an inch,
looking down upon a sheet of papers stacked neatly upon their desk.
I wouldn't even know he was there, if not for the shiny silver suit
jacket he wears, immediately grabbing my easily-distracted
attention in a room of otherwise dull colors.

"Chloe," says the baseball-capped man, "try
to relax."

Fuck, there they are. The words no actor in
their right fucking mind wants to hear. I've been here for seven
seconds and I've already blown my chances.

"Yes," I answer despondently, rolling my
shoulders, before picking myself up with a deep breath and finding
a proud posture yet again, "I will."

"Shall we begin?"

He nods to a single, solitary sheet of paper
at the foot of his table. I guess those are the lines. Without
saying another word to further incriminate myself, I make up the
ten feet or so separating me and the script, pick it up briskly,
and saunter back to my spot on the creaky floorboard, clutching the
sheet before me tightly, hiding both my face, and my trembling
hands.

The lines are standard-fare, vaguely dramatic
stuff. I flick through them quickly to get a feel for it, before
dropping them to my hip, and engaging my panel of judges with my
eyes once again.

"Well, whenever you're ready for a simple
reading, Chloe. If I may call you Chloe?"

He's satisfied by a simple nod.

"Good. We're assessing voice clarity, and
quality. Don't worry about misspeaking, or misreading, just do your
best."

Do my best. Right
. I clear my mind,
cleaving all anxious worries and paranoid pretensions asunder, and
focus on the first sentence.

"Jack, what a loathsome name, I've never
liked it."

So far so good; not a single waver in my
voice, despite my inner compulsion to tremor wildly in fear. I open
my mouth to speak the next line, when I'm startled from my train of
thought by the graying man on the right of the table, holding a
similar sheet aloft and speaking deep and solemnly.
Oh
, I
guess I’m reading alongside him.

"What do you care?" he reads from the next
line, "You don't have to work with him like I do. You don't have to
deal with him. And what does his name have to do with
anything?"

Trying to shake the notion that these lines
don't make any particular sense, I catch another glimpse of the
third judge - yet to speak, or even look at me - content simply to
sit slouched in his chair, following us line by line, and raising
the occasional eyebrow.

"I'm just not comfortable with it, that's
all,” I read aloud, trying my hardest to pronounce each word
clearly, and ignoring the overbearing eyes watching me from all
directions. "I mean, you can surely read a person by their name. I
believe that."

"You believe all sorts of bullshit."

With every break in the script, I put my eyes
back upon the man on the left, sitting completely motionless,
almost as if he were trying to appear invisible. A shock of
immaculately styled black hair makes him stand out from the other
two like a sore thumb, and a set of small, expressive eyes scan
each line of script aggressively. If only I weren't standing so far
away, I might just be able to see what color they are.

"Don't belittle me, you're constantly - be,
uhm, - belittling me."

My little mistake strikes the fear of failure
into me once again, and I feel my heart drop to somewhere around my
stomach, before rising back between my lungs with a reddening,
blood-curdling rush of nerves. The anonymous man on the left raises
an eyebrow. The man in the cap and sunglasses sits forward in his
chair, and his partner on the right shoots me another self-assured
smile, doing very little to ease my fears.

"I don't like being spoken to like that."

"I'm sorry, I just want us to be happy, I
don't want any of this any more."

I narrow my eyes at the text before me. This
script goes fucking
nowhere
. Only after straining my eyes at
the words one final time do I realize it's not supposed to. They're
assessing my emotional response, after all.

"Good," my co-reader announces, splitting the
warm air with his thundering depth, "I'd hate for you to make this
into a big deal."

"I know," I say, allowing my voice to croak a
little, trying to feel something other than shuddering, eclectic
nerves. "I love you."

In the corner of my eye, I see the man to the
left drop his script to the table, crossing his arms, and looking
sideward to the baseball-capped guy, without uttering a single
word. I look up, dutifully waiting for the next line. It doesn't
come.

"Chloe, thank you," says the baseball cap and
sunglasses. I widen my eyes, furrowing my brow, and open my mouth
to make some futile protest, before his graying companion repeats
his words.

"Thank you, Chloe. We'll be in touch."

That's it
? That was barely two fucking
minutes! With a clattering of steel chairs, the three of them climb
to their feet, averting their eyes from me, apparently trying to
pretend I no longer exist. One week of body-shattering nerves, half
an hour of being cooked alive beneath the glowing aura of a room of
blonde, gorgeously tanned stunners, and three minutes of jolted,
stilted dialogue later, and I'm back below the fucking poverty
line. I can already imagine my frantic chat to my sister, begging
for enough money for this month's noodles.

I guess this is the point where I leave the
room. Yet, strangely, I'm still here. My right leg trembles
nervously beneath me; my lungs quickly dispersing of breath. I feel
my face radiating to a lustrous crimson, and my fingers
subconsciously furl themselves into my knuckles, tightening
assertively. As much as I'm caught between a disheartening desire
to run out of the building, and a childlike need to fly back to my
calm place, I'm still standing here.

"Chloe," he repeats, finally noticing I'm
still blighting their vision, "you can leave now."

"Look," I immediately bark back, in a voice
so forceful I didn't even know I had it. "I can give a lot to this
part. I'm ready, I can do it. You just need to give me a
chance."

"We'll be in touch" he repeats, in a tone
more annoyed than gracious.

"One chance!" I shout, losing all semblance
of self-control, casting my nervous inhibitions to the fires of
seething, raging disappointment. "Just one chance,
please
!"

Finally, I manage to tease something other
than stern-faced anonymity out of that black-haired,
silver-jacketed guy on the left; he smiles wryly, contorting the
side of his mouth into a smug, sadistic grin. No-one says anything.
No-one has to, I think I've made a big enough fool out of myself;
any more agitation on their part would just be cruel.

I don't even remember pushing the doors
aside, or the receptionist calling my name in a vain effort to calm
me down. I fight back the tears that begin to well-up in my eyes,
straining my vision and dulling the majestic brightness of the sun
through the blinds, and pace straight out of the building. Even
when I get outside I don't stop racing, relenting only when I throw
myself into my car, slamming the door behind me. My hands shake, my
mouth is dry; my head throbs from within like someone stabbed a
freezing cold dagger into the back of my neck, and my heart beats
loudly and unyieldingly, providing the percussive drum chorus to my
seething break-down.

"Fuck, don't even fucking think about it
Chloe, don't even fucking do it!"

Wrapping my knuckles around the steering
wheel, and grasping it so tightly my knuckles turn white, I'm in
almost the same place as last night, working myself into a frothy
stupor over the bathroom sink. I strain my eyes, narrowing them
gingerly, trying to avoid bawling my eyes out at all costs.

"Don't be fucking
weak
now!"

I listen to myself in disgust, bellowing
orders to my nervous subconscious from the comfort of my own car.
Then the thought occurs to me that I'm only the latest in a long,
long list of aspiring actors to do the same, and the feeling of
flooding, rushing tears in the corner of my eyes subsides. I let go
of the steering wheel, and feel my knuckles cramp up; the skin of
my palms burning slightly. My worst fucking audition: at least in
the past I've had the presence of mind not to beg for clemency and
then storm out.

I start the car, and begin the long drive
back home, with a sullen, throbbing head ache.

***

"So," she asks tactlessly, with what sounds
like a mouthful of popcorn. "How did it go?"

I should have known she was on the phone; I
haven't earned my way out of an obligatory shout-down for last
night's mirrored theatrics yet. I close the back door behind me
with a pointed slam, doing my best to alert her to my presence,
before dourly stumbling through the kitchen - complete with dirty
pans and dishes piled as high as I stand - and make my way to the
living room. Jesus, this place isn't any fucking better; packets of
potato chips littering the carpet, plates and dishes scattered
asunder, and a giant, admittedly enticing tub of ice-cream, the
undeniable centerpiece within the room. I guess she did well in her
finals then.

"Great! Excellent! I'm so glad!" she shouts
at the top of her lungs, looking at me with unknowing eyes. I look
back at her for a moment, lying leisurely upon the couch; a mirror
image of myself, my identical twin sister. Her black hair is swept
behind her shoulders in unkempt, matted clumps, and her pale skin
reflects the golden sunlight radiantly. And then I find I can't
stop looking at her. She's a picture of everything I should be this
afternoon: thrilled with life, care free, without another worry in
the world. I should be the one surrounded by ice-cream and popcorn,
celebrating my new fucking film role. We should be celebrating
together.

"Hey, ya know, I gotta go, my sister's back.
I'll catch you later, yeah."

And with that, she hangs up, dropping the
cell phone to the floor, lost amongst the garbage. Focusing two
judgmental eyes on me, I can already tell what's coming.

"You know its no thanks to you that I did so
well today. Despite trying your best to keep me up last night, I
fucking did it. I passed."

"Congratulations," I reply, using every last
bit of my acting talents to appear sincere, whilst keeping the
swelling, burgeoning shame of failing my own personal test hidden
within me. "You must be thrilled."

Carissa turns her head from me, looking up to
the ceiling, balancing some invisible object on the end of her nose
triumphantly. She shuffles across the couch, sitting herself down
at the other end, allowing me the space to sit with her if only I
can navigate my way past the various articles of trash that litter
the path. I do so, and she finally looks back at me.

"In one year's time," she says with pompous
relish, "I'll have passed my bar, and I'll be a fully fledged
entertainment attorney!"

I'm happy for her. I truly am, even though I
don't feel it. She's worked hard. Almost as hard as I have. And
duly, she's going to be rewarded. And of course, my reward for
diverging from the well-worn family path of law school is to watch
her succeed where I fail. Can't you tell I've had enough?

"How about you," she finally adds, after a
few more moments of incessant legal rambling, the likes of which
I've heard a thousand times before from her. "How did it go for you
today?
The big audition
?"

"I'm quitting acting," I sternly reply, more
to myself than my sister, and without a second thought about the
subject. "I've had enough. I quit."

"That bad huh?"

She has a way of making light of every
situation, a strange talent for a lawyer. It's a fun attribute, and
yet one I don't wish to suffer right now. She picks up the carton
of popcorn with one deft movement, placing it into my hand, before
looking back into me and narrowing her eyes, cunningly.

"You'll feel different in the morning."

How could we share the exact same genes, and
yet be so different? Up until high school, we were never apart.
She'd wear red, and I'd wear blue, and that's the only way we could
be told apart. Today, it's much easier; she's the one wearing the
carefree, giddy grin, and I'm the one looking far more morose. An
easy identification if ever there was one.

"Look, Carissa," I bark at her, averting my
eyes from hers, and holding the palm of my hand toward her, ready
to defend myself from an avalanche of well-wishes and patronizing
taunts. "I won't feel different. I haven't felt any different for
six months. I'm sick of living like this, constantly worrying my
way from audition to audition, wondering where the next paycheck is
coming from. I'm done."

She's unrelenting, staring into me with the
same, formidable blue eyes I have, fluttering her long black
eyelashes at me in a show of unrelenting petulance.

"I'm telling you Chloe, you'll feel different
in the morning."

I feel it once more; the rising, pointedly
shameful fury that rushes through my muscles, aided of course by
the mental image of that anonymous face - jet black hair and silver
jacket - grinning slyly at the public spectacle I've become.

"Carissa!
I'm done!
Congratulations
for you and everything, but we can't all be as relaxed about these
things as you are."

"Hey, wait, listen to me!" she yells back at
me as I spring to my feet, and try my hardest to dramatically storm
off. But of course, I really am terrible at feigning anger. I can't
go through with it, instead turning back around to meet her
waiting, judging eyes, and listen to what she has to say. "What I'm
trying
to tell you is that someone called. Someone from the
audition."