Yeah, I was fucked.
Chapter Five
Winnie
Christmas music was playing from the TV as I cuddled a bottle of wine to my chest like a teddy bear and screwed up my courage to move my index finger. I was inside my usual room at the Edelweiss Inn, the plaid-wallpapered establishment that had hosted me for every Hope Channel movie I’d ever made here in Vermont. Hosting that came complete with a welcome basket of my favorite Vermont treats: maple sugar candy, flannel pajamas, and Darn Tough socks. It wasn’t something the Hope Channel arranged, just the owner of the Edelweiss Inn, and it was a nice touch, even if the maple sugar candy was mostly already gone.
Filming was set to begintomorrow.
Tomorrow, and I still hadn’t done any research yet!
With a sigh, I looked out the window to the flurry-bitten darkness outside. Even though I couldn’t see a thing, I already knew what I’d see once the sun came up tomorrow. A clump of forested mountains kissing the sky with a cluster of chimney-topped houses and gas streetlamps nestled below. I used to love coming to Christmas Notch to work; I loved the unfiltered, shameless happiness of a place where it was Christmas all year long. But maybe that hadn’t been the only thing I’d loved about it, because I’d always known exactly who I needed to be in Christmas Notch, precisely the role I needed to play. Like I’d told Kallum back in LA, there was something comforting about all the moves being choreographed ahead of time, and Old Winnie’s life was nothing if not completely choreographed.
But now the new dance moves were just Be the New Winnie, and I was failing at it, because I didn’t know how. It was one thing to sit in my therapist’s office and say confidently that purity culture was bad, but it was another thing entirely to be in a sexy movie, publicly (and forever-on-streaming-ly) putting my money where my mouth was.
Or I supposed in this case... the other way around?
I looked back to where my finger hovered over the clickpad of my laptop, and then with a strangled groan, I slammed it shut and jumped to my feet and started pacing. I was still cuddling my bottle of wine.
The idea of getting aroused on purpose, oftouchingmyself, was so embarrassing, even after a week of thinking about it. But even more embarrassing was faking an orgasm in front of Jack and Kallum and realizing I looked like I’d had a narcoleptic sleep attack right there in the office. We hadn’t even really startedthis movie, and I was already a giant, ridiculous failure, and maybe that meant this new post-Michael, post-people-pleasing version of myself was a failure too—
Ugh. No.
No, I wasn’t going to go there. I deserved better than that kind of talk about myself, even if it was from myself, and I was too old to pretend I didn’t know the difference between pushing myself and punishing myself.
But I was also too old to pretend I didn’t know the difference between giving myself some grace and also maintaining a status quo that had stopped working for me years ago.
That status quo was about to end now, dammit.
I set my shoulders and marched back to the knotty pine desk in the corner of my very plaid, very green-carpeted room. With a determinedplonk, I set the wine bottle down, dropped into my chair, and woke up my laptop screen.
There, in softly side-lit glory, was Kallum. A single screenshot of Kallum from two years ago, a bowtie hanging loosely around his neck as he stood in front of what was clearly a hotel bed. His hands were at the fly of his tuxedo pants, and his eyes were directly on the camera. I knew that he was looking at the person holding the camera, but it felt like he was looking at me... like those dark eyes and parted lips were for me and me alone.
Maybe that was why this tape had blown up when it first leaked. Not because Kallum was postered all over teenage walls a decade ago—but because he made the people watching the video feel like they were in the room with him, shoved backward onto a bed and given his full, avid attention.
Heat curled in my chest and tied itself into a knot. I knew it would be smarter to watch some other video, I knew there was an entire internet of pornography out there that I could choose instead. But I told myself that this would bedoubleresearch, because surely knowing how Kallum had sex would help us during our takes? Surely it would be good for me to know how he acted in bed, what sorts of little touches and sounds he might make when we were filming a love scene?
I mean, really, this was the smartest way to go about this whole sexifying project, and anyone who knew all the facts would agree with me, and it obviously had nothing to do with his big, strong-looking hands or his Scottish log-throwing body. It had nothing to do with the fact I kept wondering what that body would feel like on top of me, his stomach and heavy thighs pressing me into the mattress while he—
Nope. Nothing to do with that. Of course I wasn’t having those thoughts about the person who once accidentally ruined my entire life with a single picture!
And so with a deep, determined, and very professional breath, I clicked once, twice, and then a final time.
I was officially the owner of Kallum Lieberman’s now-fully-authorized sex tape.
The first day of real work was surprisingly familiar. Yes, we were about to make a movie about Santa getting it on. And yes, the director and screenwriter were new to me—along with a very dramatic costume designer named Luca—but so much else felt the same. Same adorable town, with its snowy town square and twinkling lights, same harried production assistantCammy trying to keep an entire movie on schedule. Same routine of wake up, makeup, shiver in the snow while you drink coffee through a straw so you don’t mess up your movie-ready lips.
In fact, maybe it was too much the same, even down to staying in the same room. It was screwing with my head, doing something so familiar, and then flipping down to tomorrow’s pages and seeing the wordssleighandfingeringon the same line.
After filming two scenes at a small petting zoo outside of Christmas Notch (my character, Holly, was a reindeer conservationist), the late February sun was sinking, and I hadn’t seen Kallum around once. I didn’t care, of course; he wasn’t set to shoot anything today, and it wasn’t like I needed his input on scenes where I discussed the benefits of reindeer milk, but it still felt a little lonely to be kicking off this wild, weird movie by myself. Like I was the only one who showed up to a game with my uniform on or something.
Gretchen Young, the director, and Pearl Purkiss, the screenwriter, were dreams to work with, however, and by the time I finished with the day’s shoot, I was almost hopeful that I could do this. I could be Holly Jollee, reindeer-saving sexpot and the future Mrs.Claus. All I needed now was to learn what it felt like when I had an orgasm so I could mimic it on-screen.
And I’d beenso closelast night. I mean, if we definedso closeas actually having bought a pornographic video before deciding it was far too late to watch it and going to bed instead. But I could get closer tonight.
In fact, tonight I was going to go all the way (with myself), and I knew exactly how to make it happen.
After the crew van dropped me off at the Edelweiss Inn, I marched straight to the front desk, where Stella, the simultaneously harried-looking and slow-moving proprietor, stood folding hand towels with bells sewn to the corners.
