Istood in front of the mirror in my trailer, fully in costume. Leather pants and heavy boots, shirtless with elaborately painted tattoos winding around my chest and arms, a massive fur cloak draped around my shoulders—a beast I’d supposedly slain with my bare hands. It was impossible not to feel like a badass motherfucker in a cloak.
I was staring at my reflection trying to block out all the noise of my personal life and find an isolated place in my head where I could become the character, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Elena’s eyes would light up when she saw me fully transformed into Lucas Steel. He didn’t wear suspenders, but I was willing to bet once I put his leather gloves on she didn’t stand a chance. I hoped these tattoos didn’t smudge easily.
It was the last day of our fake relationship. Tonight, we had to make a choice.
As though I’d summoned her with that thought, there was knock on my trailer door. I quickly pulled the gloves on for maximum effect, but when I flung the door open with a flourish, it was Max standing there instead of Elena.
“You ready to do this, Lord Steel?” He slapped a hand on my shoulder.
“Yeah, you ready for me now?”
“No, we’re having some lighting issues. I’ll have someone come get you.” He sat on a chair, so I did the same. “Just hadn’t had a chance to make sure you were okay personally. We haven’t had much time to talk lately. I don’t wanna get in your head, but wanted to check on you after all the rumors I’ve been hearing.”
I assumed he meant the cheating rumors about Elena that we’d been ignoring. We hadn’t started them, but it always happened when I started dating someone. He knew that, so I was surprised he was giving them credence.
“Yeah, it’s the usual bullshit. No truth to it.”
He looked surprised. “You sure? Seems like she’s finally showing her true colors with you…”
“What do you mean?” I asked carefully, dread coiling in my stomach.
“I don’t know if this is my place. I’ve been thinking about giving you a heads-up, but didn’t want to cross a line.”
He took my silence as an invitation to keep talking. He sighed and spread his hands open. “She did a number on me too, man. I hope she isn’t toying with your head too bad. I’ve talked to some of her other former clients and this is her pattern with men. She manipulates your feelings. Makes you feel like there’s something special between you, something real. Then she twists it on you and leaves you out to dry. She gets off on the power she holds over people, making them fall in love with her.” He shook his head disgustedly.
I sat there staring at him, incapable of forming a sentence. It was like he’d just spoken my worst fears aloud and my brain was spinning too quickly to assemble my thoughts.
“So you knew her from before? You were one of her clients?”
“Yeah, man. Years ago. A producer friend recommended her after my divorce and I got in way over my head with her. She manipulated the hell out of me. Convinced me to start seeing her outside of the dungeon.”
He held up his phone with a selfie of them in cocktail attire in a restaurant. Elena said she’d never dated a client.
I was clenching my fists with the effort it took not to jump up from the couch.
“She didn’t tell you we had a history, did she?” he asked, looking smug.
I shook my head.
“Can’t trust whores, man. They’re only ever in it for themselves. It’s for the best that you found out what she’s really like sooner than later.”
Don’t hit your director. Don’t hit your director.
My mouth was moving, but I was detached from whatever vague thing I was saying and couldn’t remember the rest of our conversation. He eventually left, giving me a few minutes to compose myself before I had to be on film.
Things between us were different. I wasn’t just another client like Max.
But why hadn’t she told me? I thought she trusted me. She’d had so many chances to be honest about it and chose not to.
When we first started the contract, I would’ve believed what Max was describing, thinking she was too good to be true and had to be manipulating me. Now, I had a hard time reconciling that image of her with the woman I’d spent the last few weeks with. It couldn’t all be an act…could it?
I kept picking up my phone to call Elena and putting it back down. I needed to think or I was going to screw everything up. And I had a job to do. Now certainly wasn’t the time to have that conversation.
Was all of this a lie?
I didn’t believe that. Couldn’t believe that.
I have no idea how I got through that day of shooting. I tried to feed my turmoil into the character, letting my feelings come out as his intensity, but it was brutal to be there acting out a scene I’d done with Elena, when all I wanted to do was get answers from her.
