Chapter One
“CUT!”
Jacob turned at the call. Cut? God damn right! Those lines by the other character lacked everything. Feeling, depth, everything. He hid his scowl. This would go to another retake he knew this for sure.
“It’s a pickup,” the director called out.
Jacob felt some relief at this announcement. Usually, this referred to a shot which only had part of the dialog or action. Then they would reshoot only part of it again. As he waited for the action call, he looked around. Yes, everyone on the set look tired. Funny, he felt like he just got started. ‘The first one on the set and the last to leave,’ his PA once said with a chuckle. At the time, he had wondered why it was something she thought to be so damn funny. Like a joke. No, none of this was a joke. This was his achievement. His rise to the top. He intended to make it the best film possible.
The problem with this aspiration was all the people standing in between him and that goal. An actor only had so much say in a film. He had tried hard to keep his opinions and frustrations to himself. For him, this wasn’t a real test or challenge, he dealt with emotions like they were any other tool, he used them for his roles.
Handling the real thing, in his own life? This was almost an impossible feat. He didn’t do real life emotion well. He couldn’t even stay with a relationship for very long. He wasn’t ready for any emotional drama. It wasted his energy. Energy he needed for the parts. It was all about priorities at any rate.
He knew his craft though and had studied hard to be able to hold his own and excel.
“Okay,” the director called out, “Last looks!”
Jacob rolled his eyes. He didn’t need a bloody touch up. He huffed a bit and again, hid his real emotion behind a blank expression. His frustration during filming would build and he would have to give in and grab a woman. His only release against the overkill of his emotions. He had to keep on an even keel.
Reining his thoughts in, he headed to the makeup chair.
“Hey Jacob,” Lynn greeted him.
“Hey,” he replied as he sat. “Just light, alright?”
She laughed. “Yes, I know. I have to agree that you do not need a touch up.”
He smiled at her. The girl was sweet. He didn’t meet many who were in this business. In fact, his main rule about dating was they couldn’t be in the business at all.
“So, that interview this morning…” She buffed his cheeks lightly.
“Yes?”
“It was exciting right?” She put her brush down and stared closely at his face.
He shrugged. “Yes. A rather well known syndicated mag.”
“Just that?” she asked with disbelief in her voice. “Rich & Single is a staple in every nail parlor, day spa and ladies room.” She picked up a highlighter brush.
“Well, let it never be said I was too afraid to be read over the toilet.”
The makeup artist snickered. “You have the most wonderful sense of humor.” She picked up a small brush.
The interview that he had pretended to be relaxed for this morning had made him nervous at one point…when Dahlia Lloyd had asked about his family. That was a deep dark hole he would’ve rather not fall into or he may never crawl back out. He let out a breath. “Yes, kind of big, I suppose?”
Lynn rolled her eyes at his downplaying of such a huge event and tilted her head to the side as she continued her perusal of his face. “You are amazing, ya know?”
He blinked his eyes with fake surprise. “In which of a hundred ways?”
Shaking her head, she let out another laugh. “You have been here since like what…dawn? And just look at you!”
He leaned forward, towards the mirror, concerned about bags or any signs of distress on his visage.
Laughing harder, Lynn set a hand on his shoulder. “No, silly. You still look so fresh, like you just got here!”
He released a sigh and dramatically put his hand over his heart in faux hysterics. “Damn it, woman. You scared me!”
Tilting her head back, her laughter rang out.
Some of the crew on the set looked over.
She then halted her amusement and bit at her lip. “Sorry. Drew attention.”
He shrugged. “I’m used to that.”
At his joke, she again, laughed. “You are the sweetest star I have ever met.”
Raising his brows, he paused. Star? He mentally shook his head. Not a big enough one yet.
“There…it’s a wrap on your beautiful face,” she announced.
He couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks.”
“Oh, I am sure you are used to hearing that,” she teased.
He chuckled at her comeback joke then got up.
“Back in!” someone called on the set.
Jacob headed back to the set and stood at his set point to await the call.
“Abby Singer!” the assistant to the director called out.
Again, Jacob had to refrain from rolling his eyes at the AD. Yes, the term for the last shot and the irony of the saying was not lost on him. It always meant…Next to the last and never the last. Maybe the other actor would get his tone right this time.
Entering his penthouse, Jacob sighed as he dropped his keys by the door and moved through the huge open space. His home was different than most. It was all one big flat as they called them back in England. His living space as he referred to it was actually 5,000 square feet of living. When he had first purchased it, the interior decorator had actually gaped at him when he had said, “Tear it all out.”
He smiled again while remembering the expressions on the faces of the decorator’s staff. It had originally been done in all modern tones and expensive lines. The design was ultra-modern and ultra-American. Jacob did not care, as he had his own preferences, not that his attitude and ideals were anti anything. It was all about what he’d envisioned for years while being poor and putting himself through acting school.
Those were the years that got him to where he was today. Hunger, Steward used to say. Steward was his father in all respects. Took him in at fifteen and raised him. Before that time…Jacob halted. There wasn’t anything before that, he told himself yet again.
He immediately toed off his shoes, tugged a sock off, then the other and walked across the cool marbled floor. Yes, he had them put in marble flooring. Cold to the bare feet and glimmering with smooth, yet calm elegance. His decorators had again, worn startled looks at his choice, 300 dollars a square foot, so his flooring for just the living room had cost what most people made in a year.
He headed towards his relax room, as he thought of it. All while disrobing and leaving a trail of clothing behind him as he neared the space he’d longed for, then he slowed his steps, as if preparing himself for the change he was about to feel. His pent up emotions were unsettling, he needed to get back to being calm and in control.
He then entered the last entryway at the end of the long hallway. His bare feet took him into the place he’d thought of all the way home. Steam room, massage room, and a garden bathtub that itself, took up 500 feet of space. Ivy plants climbed the walls, as a skylight above lit up the space. The walls were waterproof, and soundproof.
SaJacob released a heavy breath as he entered and sat on one of the warming benches.
He sat back, closed his eyes, and sighed.
A small noise reverberated along his ears. He knew what it was…who it was.
“Jacob san,” a musical voice greeted him.
Opening his eyes, he stared at a beautiful face. Her Asian features and her voice always seemed to calm him.
Bowing, she lowered her head.
“Airi.” He bowed his head.
She held his clothes that he’d left in a trail.
He smiled. Of course, she did.
She gracefully turned and walked out to hang them up.
Jacob knew this was what she would do. He let out a sigh and stood up, making his way to the table. To await her return.
Yes, he knew what anyone would think had they been here in this room with him. That he had his own Geisha Girl. Not that any male in their right mind would chide him for having one. What healthy male would not want one for himself?
Well, maybe there was one—him.
She stayed in an apartment below the penthouse. She cleaned and cooked for him.
Steward had sent her a year ago. Jacob had been appalled at the time when she had shown up on his doorstep. He had called him up in England and told him he did not need a concubine or whatever bloody hell they were called. Steward had laughed himself just about silly, much to Jacob’s irritation.
“She doesn’t have to do that for you!” Steward had exclaimed his voice full of amusement. “Unless you want her to.”
“It isn’t right,” Jacob had seethed into the phone. “I cannot seem to get through to her that she is free to leave. That I am not her master.”
Again, a belly full of laughter was all he got in reply.
It seems that Steward had rescued her from a slave ring. She had no family and no one in the world. She had been ‘trained’ in pleasing a man. Steward sent her to Jacob to help him ‘keep house,’ as he’d called it.
Furious at first, Jacob tried to convince her to leave, saying he would even pay for her travel. That she could go back home to Japan and live a normal life.
This had only confused her and she had cried.
Jacob had felt bad and thought maybe after a while he could make her see how wrong it was for him to have her serving him.
That had been a year ago. He had set her up with her own bank account, and made sure she had a Work Visa in place. He paid her a salary and only as a maid.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t beautiful…she was, in fact. He just did not feel it was right. Plus, having a public image, it would look like he thought he could actually get away with owning a…sex slave. He rolled his eyes. If the press ever got a hold of it, he would be skewered publicly.
Oh yes, there had been nights when she tried to…He had refused. Tempted yes, but he would seek females elsewhere.
He’d made sure she had two days a week off and in fact, he had a translator tell her that it was an actual order. She could not even come into the Penthouse at all for those two days. She finally relented to it. He would then make sure if he brought a woman to his place, Airi would not be there at all. Not even allowed up on his floor, she had been specifically instructed. He then hired a Japanese American driver to take her anywhere she needed to go in town and he doubled as her bodyguard as well. Los Angles could be a dangerous city. It would be too ironic and even sad to have her be taken or worse, raped after escaping the nightmare life she’d been raised in before she came here.
At one point, he had even tried to help her to find friends and groups that spoke Japanese. She spoke a little English, but he felt she needed people around her that were from her own culture.
As far as he knew, she never took to it.
Airi came back in and walked over to where he laid on the massage table.
He closed his eyes and sighed as she rubbed him down. Yes, this was one thing she insisted on doing after she had actually chased his regular masseuse out the first week she’d been here. He smiled a little at the memory. Always shy and head bowed, he’d never seen her angry before or since. The poor woman he did have as a masseuse had left screaming while Airi had chased her with a skillet out the front door.
So, he’d relented to the massages. He never let it get sexual and she had stopped expecting him to use her in that way.
The only problem then was…her complete adoration for him. He didn’t know what to do or how to think of it, when he first noticed this semi-worship of him. Yes, he’d wanted adoring fans and fame, but not this. It made him more than uncomfortable for a long time. He then thought about it. All her adult life she’d been a slave girl to the sexual whims of men. It was all she knew. Then, now she served a man that did not want any part of that. He supposed that made him an honorable man in her eyes?
So, he’d given in to a point. He almost had no choice. Steward had told him once that if he sent her away and refused her services, she might take her own life due to the failing and dishonor this would bring to her.
Her skilled hands worked out the kinks in his back neck and shoulders. He never allowed her to touch the front of his body or his ass. She had yelped in fear the first time she tried to massage his bare cheeks. Jacob had grabbed a hold of her hands and told her NO.
Now, he had almost fallen asleep when she had stopped her massage.
“Jacob san?” she asked in that mere whisper of a voice.
He let out a long breath and gave a slight nod of his head. Yes, he supposed it was time to get into the tub.
Airi then did as she’d been taught by him. She left while he bathed.
He got up and walked over.
Airi had already set everything he needed where he could reach it. Shampoo, body wash, loofah. He stepped down the steps and floated out. All the tension he had when he had come home was nearly gone. He drifted on his back and stared up at literally, the sky. The stars were beginning to appear here and there. A storm yesterday had cleared out some of LA’s notorious smog.
Jacob pushed everything from his mind and allowed himself to just be.