The Movie (23 page)

Oh great, Megan thought. He probably wants me to up his lines by fifty per cent as well. This should be good!

‘Zach,’ ‘Sam Kendrick prompted. ‘You were telling us earlier about touring, some of the script ideas that maybe couldn’t really work.. :’

Zach Mason looked across at Megan Silver, his tongue suddenly stuck in lockjaw. It was easy enough to tell the suits where they got off-he’d been doing that all his life. It was easy enough to order SKI about, too. David Tauber was a good agent, so was Sam Kendrick, that was why he was with them, but agents were just suits that worked for you. Twenty per cent and all out for their own glory. He knew what they were like - thought all the stars were scum to be bought and sold, but still laboured under the delusion that they were stars themselves. He didn’t trust any one of the bloodsucking assholes. It was just business, all the way down the line.

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Megan was different.

Now he took a closer look at her, she was actually quite pretty. Soft chestnut hair that fell to her shoulders in gentle, natural curls, intelligent-looking brown eyes, and large breasts hidden away under her voluminous cotton sweater. OK, she had puppy fat, but she’d lost weight since that bullshit flesh-pressing party. Anyway, the weight kind of suited her. Made her real.

Zach Mason wasn’t used to real women, and he certainly wasn’t used to intelligent ones. The groupies that made it through Dark Angel’s military-style security were hardened cases, bleached-blonde bitches ready to screw anything that had got within ten paces of Rolling Stone magazine, and to do half the crew on the way in for the privilege. Then there were the others, bored wives of record company execs, Hollywood starlets who wanted to double their chances of getting written about, models who wanted to ‘date’ a rock star because that was fastbecoming the tradition. In fact, Zach had more respect for the groupies. At least they were honest about what they were looking for. But all of them were dumb and starstruck and greedy, all of them were tradingsex for fame.

And that could make you bitter. That could make you hate. Mason had seen normal guys turn into woman hating pigs after six months on the road, the kind who’d fuck a groupie and then kick her out into a hotel corridor stark naked. The kind who insisted they put on a show for thirty members of the crew before they earned the privilege of giving a musician head. In public. And the sick thing was, the girls almost always agrbed. He’d seen guys try to outdo each other in inventing new degradations for women, and yet there was always at least one of the bitches around for whom there was nothing, absolutely nothing, too gross. It could dehumanize you.

Zach hadn’t let himself slide into hatred. He didn’t care enough to hate. He just packed a gross of condoms and

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fucked his way around the world - pliant groupies, fame hungry actresses, they all wanted that fake image. Zach Mason, lead singer of the world’s biggest band, the prophet, the spokesman, the superstar. And he wanted sex. So every encounter was a trade: cold, insulated lonely.

Zach didn’t know how to talk to someone like Megan. She’d been to college. He knew all this, because the See . the Lights script had just blown him away; it was more than

a movie, it was beautiful and exciting and poignant and romantic. It was brilliant. It took his breath away. And then to find that the kid who wrote it was younger than he

was …

Some of the words Zach had had to look up in a dictionary. That made him feel small, in awe of the writer’s learning. He himself had started Dark Angel at sixteen, got a deal at seventeen, and when his classmates graduated high school he was out on the road. When they graduated college he was out on the road. When they graduated business, law and medical school, he was out on the road. He had never had a proper education, and it bothered him.

Most of the time that was no great problem-the record industry wasn’t exactly packed with university graduates. It wasn’t William Morris, where you needed a college degree even to sort the mail. No, the music business was full of talents and gangsters and street-smart hustlers who paid armies of lawyers to do their thinking for them. But sometimes, just somemes, he’d meet a real intellectual - CliffBumstein, say, DefLeppard’s manager, Tom Silver man of Tommy Boy Pecords, or tkowena Krebs from. Musica, and he wouldn’t know what to say. He’d grunt monosyllables, and nobody even cared. What else would you expect, from a dumb-ass musician? And so what if all the magazines called him intelligent, profound, astute? They analysed his lyrics as though he were Voltaire, and though those lyrics came right from his heart, Zach knew they would kiss his butt anyway. After all, if they didn’t,

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Yolanda would just have denied them access to the band. And what music paper could sell copies without Dark Angel? So their opinions meant nothing. They were bought.

‘Some oft he stuffyou have in there couldn’t possibly happen,’ he said.

Megan shrugged. ‘OK. You tell me what’s wrong and I’ll change it.’

Why did I ever think somebody would actually like my work? Zach Mason doesn’t like it. He thinks it’s unrealistic and stupid.

Zach heard the reserve in her voice. ‘The warm-up scene with the other guys in the band,’ he said coldly. ‘It would never happen like that. If I’m playing Jason, the audience is still going to assume the picture is about me,

and if this is roman d clef-‘

Megan-giggled.

‘What the fuck are you laughing at?’ Zach snapped. ‘Roman c clef. It’s French. You pronounce it “clay”, not “cleft’ - the word means “key”, not clef like a treble clef,’ Megan explained, smiling.

Zach Mason went purple with rage and humiliation. Jesus Christ, the bitch was fucking laughing at him. ‘It’s French.’ Like she was so fucking smart, and he was just an idiot with a guitar.

‘Yeah? Well you just ftx it,’ he snarled.

‘I’ll do my best,’ Megan said, shrinking back in her chair. ‘You’ll fucking succeed. Or you’re offthis movie,’ Zach Mason told her, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

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‘Come on, honey, you can do it.’

David’s voice was sweet and encouraging, urging her on. Megan could imagine the cheerleading expression on his handsome face as he stood behind her, pushing her on. ‘Just ten more. Let’s go.’

, Every nerve in her legs seemed to be screaming for mercy, but she obeyed him, her breath coming ragged and strained. Madonna was pumping from the stereo, but her tortured body had drowned out the music. All she was aware of was the floor and her elbows.

‘Eight… nine…’

You have to. You have to.

Wearily she forced herself down and back up again. ‘Ten! That’s great, Megan. Just great. Now hit the showers,’ David said, throwing her a towel as she staggered to her feet. ‘I’ll bet you feel great.’

She caught sight of her face in the wall mirror-red as a beef tomato and shiqing with sweat, her hair plastered wedy to her forehead, her mouth open like a fish, gulping weakly for air.

‘Yeah,’ she managed, trying for a smile. ‘I feel terrific.’.

‘You look terrific,’ her agent said, as she stumbled towards her bathroom.

Megan peeled offher Lycra leggings and Tshirt, both of which were clinging to her skin as if someone had thrown a bucket of water over them - nice - and chucked them in the laundry basket. Tentatively she climbed .on the

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electronic scales David had bought for her last month. hundred thirty-one pounds. Well, she was getting ther, As she stepped gratefully into the shower and let powerful jets of warm water hammer her aching should, muscles, Megan felt a small glow of achievement. She st hated seeing herself naked, hated weighing herself, bl every day the mirrors were a little less insulting, the electr tally a touch less traumatic. She could see the Changes in h, body - the growing definition around her chin, tl disappearance of the fat pockets above her knees. It w working. And she had David to thank for it. As he he telling her, if he didn’t show up to supervise her workor she’d never have had the will-power to keep them up.

He was more than an agent; he was her dietitia nutritionist, stylist, beauty adviser and personal traine And as th! work on See the Lights got harder and har& David was there, always fighting her corner. She kne Zach and loxana both wanted her fired, as did Mr Kelle but David was in there, arguing for her, defusing eve body’s anger.

She owed him her house. She owed him her job. She owed him everything.

‘Would you like some decaff?.’ David called from t kitchen.

‘Yes, thanks,’ she yelled back.

Oh good, that meant he’d stay for a cup of coffe Megan knew she should tell him-to skip it and get back SKI - poor David was always so overworked-but she w just too selfish to do that. Preproduction had gone in overdrive, and thanks to David’s efforts she was still t] sole writer. But the Artemis team changed their rail about something every single day, and it seemed that s] was always working flat out to change something, the scrubbing it all the next day and starting again. Meg:

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thought of herself as LA’s Alice through the Looking

Glass, running her heart out just to stay in the same place. So she never got out. Who had the time? Never - unless David took her out.

Those were the nights that made it all worthwhile, when Tauber would show up in his cherry-red Lamborghini right outside her apartment and tell her he was taking her to dinner, and then she’d grab one of the outfits he’d told her to buy - oh yes, she should add personal shopper to his list of roles in her life - and drive her to Spago’s or Morton’s or Le D6me, where the maitre d’ would invariably greet David by name and show them to a good table, and they’d eat something low-fat, and then later he’d

take her along to the toxbury or the Viper R.oom, where

‘ the club doormen always ushered them past the queue and David would lead her directly into the VIP area. He was so powerful. And he knew everyone. ‘Hello, Brad.’ ‘Hi, Shannon.’ ‘How’s it going, Keanu?’

When Megan spent the evening with David Tauber, she seemed to spend most of her time blushing and trying not to stare.

He was the perfect gendeman, too, always driving her home and seeing her into her apartment building with a peck on the cheek, or kissing her hand. Megan knew it was ridiculous to hope for anything more - hadn’t David done enough for her already? But she couldn’t help herself. He was the proverbial knight on the white charger, rescuing her first from her mundane existence and then from herself. He had the power to open any door for her-he’d told her that often enough.

And he was so, so, so damn gorgeous. At least when he put her through this agonizing workout three times a.week Megan could be sure that he practised what he preached. His lean, mean body, muscles rock-hard and gleaming with health, was a testament to that. His thick hazel hair shone with a natural vitality only gained from the ideal

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diet. Even his perfectly shaped teeth were whiter than her own, whether Megan was using one of the expensive cosmetic pastes or not.

Since the second he’d turned up at Mr Chicken with her contract, Megan had been daydreaming about him. But lately, those dreams had been getting more detailed. More frequent.

Shaking her head to try to clear the familiar twitch between her legs, the warm flush of desire creeping across her thighs, Megan towelled herself off and got dressed, picking a flowing Indian-print skirt and tight black T-shirt top, pulled on over a 34C-cup Ultrabra.

‘Coffee’s ready,’ David called from the kitchen.

Her silhouette didn’t look at all bad; the sweep of cotton forgave her hips a lot of their sins and in a push-up bra her

breasts were impressive, even by Hollywood standards. Megan-pulled her top down tighter. ‘Coming,’ she said.

tkoxana Felix was sobbing.

Her hands gripped the cool marble of the balustrade fence that surrounded her hilltop garden, manicured nails and tanned, slender fingers wrapped tightly around it like a drowning man clutching a raft. Her body was raised horizontally, parallel to the ground. In front of her she could see halfway to the ocean, the Hollywood Hills giving way to Los Angeles’s busy grid, peaceful as ever from this height. The blazing sun sparkled off the tiny cars, logjammed on the freeway in the morning rush hour. All around her, birds were chirping and tWittering, and the air was fragrant with roses and orchids and the honeysuckle wound into the tall, protecting hedges.

Her slender body bucked again as he crashed into her. Her long black hair, normally so sleekly coiffured, fell tousled about her shoulders and back, strands of it brushing against her pendant breasts. Her skin was ho.t and aroused,’

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fight with wanting. Her nipples were almost painfully erect. She was close to orgasm.

‘Had enough?’ he asked, teasing her, deliberately slowing his rhythm.

R.oxana squirmed against him, her knuckles white against the marble, urging him on. She could feel his large, strong hands under her thighs and belly, supporting her. She knew he could feel her heat, the blood warm under the skin, her stomach slick with sweat from her desire. His hands were on her. He was holding her.

The thought sent a spasm of lust fight through her. ‘Please,’ she said.

‘Say it again.’ She could feel his cock leap inside her. This was turning him on, too. His voice was rough with

sex.

‘Please. Please. Don’t stop. Just do it,’ she moaned, pushing the firm globes of her butt back against him, her vaginal muscles tightening around him and then relaxing again. He wasn’t the only one who knew how to please, she thought, and hearing him groan l&oxana had a vague axcareness oftfiumph through the hot mist of arousal that was consuming her.

He started to thrust, and thrust, and thrust, every time going a little deeper, every time a little harder, telling her how good she felt, telling her how hot she was, asking if she liked it, if she liked what he was doing, and loxana sobbed yes, yes, and b-is rhythm was perfect, and suddenly there was a new sensation in her belly and she was climbing a great wall of ecstasy, she blocked out everything except his voice and his cock, all she could feel or know was herself impaled on his cock, moving with him, and he was getting more urgent and thicker inside her all the time, and deeper, and suddenly she could feel him fight down inside her, hitting that exquisite, melting spot on her vaginal wall. Jesus Christ, the g-sp’ot, and she felt the world go black and explode in blinding pleasure, breaking and shattering