Chapter Twenty-Six
Hannah
“Lights… camera… action!” the director shouted from his chair as I stood behind the scenes, watching Ezra’s first lines. The first shot of the movie had him positioned outside in the backyard, shooting hoops with one of his good friends. His shirt was off, and they sprinkled water on him before the scene began to make it look like he and his friend were sweating while they were in an intense game of basketball. Each time he slammed the ball into the cement, I daydreamed of the way he slammed me on the mattress while we were having sex. Each time his body banged against his opponent, I thought of his body pressed against mine as our legs were entwined together like strands of DNA.
He was a natural, and I was surprised that it took him this long to land a major deal. The director stood up from his chair and examined the scene closer as the two actors volleyed their lines to each other. Suddenly, Ezra took the ball and floated it into the air until he slammed it through the hoop. I didn’t know he was that athletic. The way he handled the ball. The way he took control of the scene and barked out his lines flawlessly sent a rush to my clit and caused the inside of my panties to soak with moisture. “Hannah,” the makeup artist said as she tapped me from behind.
I placed my hand over my mouth to keep my scream silenced. I would have hated to have been on the director’s bad side on the first day of shooting. I spun around and greeted her with a smile as she spoke. “I am ready for you in your trailer.”
“OK.”
I followed her to the side of the house where my trailer was positioned. The inside of it was like a small apartment, complete with running water, a sofa, and a small bed, along with a TV. It was fully air conditioned, and as we stepped inside, the cool air swirled around like an arctic wind. “My goodness, it is freezing in here! What did I put the air conditioner on?”
The makeup artist walked to the thermostat. “Honey, it is on 64. Do you want me to leave it alone?”
“No. Turn it off, please. Give it a chance to go back to a normal temperature. I think I forgot to turn it off before I left the room earlier.”
She flipped the thermostat off, then guided me to the vanity mirror. The circular light bulbs outlined the mirror like small spaceships as she sat me on one of the chairs just to the side. She grabbed her bag and pulled out her equipment, then started applying the makeup to my face. I closed my eyes as she used the makeup brush to knock any loose dirt off my face before she began. “I am so nervous,” I said as I sat still with my eyes closed.
“Nervous? Why is that?”
“This is my first major movie, and from what I heard, the director can be an asshole if you are not performing the way he expects.”
She laughed as she slid the brush into her bag and pulled out the foundation. “Well, yeah, he can be. I’ve witnessed him chew out a few actors and actresses myself. He is ruthless sometimes, but it is only because he is a perfectionist. He doesn’t put up with foolishness on the set or anything like that. He likes professionals, so I am kind of surprised that he chose to work with new talent for this movie.”
“He doesn’t work with new talent often?” I asked, slowly opening my eyes. She was a beautiful blonde woman. Thin with hazel eyes and a long, but cute nose. Her eyebrows were arched perfectly above her eyes, and her curly hair was pulled back into a ponytail with a few strands hanging loose on her forehead. Her lips were coated with a thin layer of gloss as she dabbed the foundation with one of her pads, then applied it to my cheeks.
“I’ve been with Leonard for a few movies now, and he always has established talent or somebody who has at least two feature films under their belt. I was surprised when he chose you and Ezra, but hey, all that means is that he saw something in the both of you from the beginning. I heard he shut the casting down early when he saw you. He didn’t look at anybody else after that. That says a lot,” she dabbed more foundation onto the pad and gently rubbed it onto my cheek. Her words sent a nervous shock through my body as my heart thumped like rabbit’s feet, racing across the grass in a wide field.
“But I wouldn’t worry, though. Do you know your lines front to back?”
“Yes. I’ve had my lines memorized for about two weeks now.”
“Well, shoot, that is the hard part. Now, all you have to do is perform. I don’t know what you did during your audition, but if you can replicate that, then everything will go just fine. It seems that you are a natural, and from what I hear, the chemistry between you and Ezra is something to behold.” She put her finger on the bottom of my chin and lifted my face closer to the light. “Hold still right there for me. But yeah, you and Ezra. That chemistry is strong and just play towards that. Make sure that everyone believes that he is your man and you are his woman, but more importantly, be yourself. That is the reason you are in this position right now. Don’t go up there trying to be Hayden Panettiere, Scarlett Johansson, or any of those other young actresses. They did what they had to do to make it to where they are; now you have to do you. As long as you get that, you’ll be fine. Golden.”
I inhaled, then slowly released the air from my lungs as I closed my eyes and allowed her to finish her job in peace. The way I saw Ezra knock his scene out didn’t do anything but give me more confidence about handling my scene when it came. I felt like we were in this together, even when we weren’t going to be on set at the same time. I was a representation of him, and just like that, he was a representation of me. It took her almost 40 minutes to finish my makeup, and once she was finished, she spun me around in my chair and let me see her creation. “Wow,” I said as I leaned forward in my chair. “I look like a completely different person. I look… I look way sexier than I did before you started,” I said with a chuckle.
“Oh, please, Hannah. You were already beautiful, and if you ask me, the makeup takes a little away from that. I prefer women to flaunt their natural beauty, but the movie business calls for makeup all the time. If it didn’t, I think I would be out of a job.” She laughed as she stood and packed her things. Minutes later, one of the stage directors knocked on my door.
“It’s open.”
He twisted the handle and stuck his head inside. “You are due on set in 10 minutes.”
“All right. I’ll be there.”
He shut the door as I stood up and paced the room, rehearsing the first few lines in my head as I went back and forth. I knew I had everything, but I just hoped that nothing would slip my mind once the lights turned on. “You’re going to be fine, Hannah. Absolutely fine. You will stun the director, stage crew, cameramen and everyone else who catches you out there. I believe in you, and you are going to do great.”
“Thank you…” I squinted my eyes, trying to recollect a name that she had never given me.
“Rachel,” she said as she shook my hand. “Rachel. I’m sorry, I think I was just so focused on getting your makeup done that I forgot to formally introduce myself to you.”
“No, it’s quite all right. Well, Rachel, thank you for everything you’ve said to encourage me today, and I know we will see each other more throughout the filming.”
“Absolutely. Knock them dead, Hannah.”
She winked at me, then left me alone in my trailer. I looked at my watch. Three minutes had gone by since I’d gotten the news that I had to be on set, so I slid my feet into my house shoes and headed out of my trailer. “Hannah,” he said as soon as I opened my door. “I was just coming to get you.”
“Ezra! Wow. I had caught a little of your scene before I had to come back here and get ready to shoot mine. You did,” I looked at his chest, “an amazing job.”
“Thank you. We had to redo it twice because we kept missing shots that we were supposed to make, but that was the only reason. Leonard was OK with that because we nailed our lines without any hiccups.”
“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I am up next. Wish me luck?”
He kissed me on the lips. His touch soothed me like a hot cup of coffee on a cold day. His lips gave me more confidence, and his aroma sent me into zones that no amount of liquor could have come close to. “You don’t need luck, baby. You are the luck.”
“All right, we need everyone on set! Places, people! Places!” Leonard barked out directions, prompting me to head to my spot inside the house.
“I’ll be watching you,” Ezra said as I headed to my spot. I blew another kiss at him before he was out of sight.
I headed upstairs inside the mansion to the master bedroom as Leonard had just positioned himself in his chair. “Ahh, Hannah, you look lovely. All right, remove the robe, please. Let me see you.” I looked around the room. There were a handful of men in there with me with and one woman just to the right, assisting one of the cameramen. My hands felt as though they were glued to the front of my housecoat as Leonard clapped his hands together. “Come now, Hannah. Time is money. Please, remove your robe.” Finally, I removed the robe and let it fall to the ground, exposing my undergarments. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Spin around?”
I twirled slowly like a ballerina inside of a jewelry box, catching a glimpse of everyone in the room. The fact that they weren’t paying attention to me made me feel a little better. It didn’t seem like I was putting on a private show for everyone in the room. “Perfect! Perfect! Now, go ahead and climb into bed. Charlie,” he said, looking to his left, “make sure you zoom in once I give you the sign, all right? Great.” He glanced at me. “All right, now, position yourself in the bed, but do not get beneath the covers.”
I did as he asked, knowing that the first scene was going to be the hardest for me. I was used to playing with myself alone, but not in front of a group of strangers. At the same time, if I could make it through this scene, I knew I would have no problem making it through the rest. Just before the scene began, Ezra had snuck into the room and positioned himself near the back wall. A rush of calm blanketed me as soon as we made eye contact. He smiled, and with that, I knew it was going to be easy for me to do what I had to do in my opening scene.
“All right. Are we ready? Lights, camera… action!”
I caught one last glimpse of Ezra, then closed my eyes and slid my finger down to my vagina, slowly toying with it on the outside of my panties. I slowly licked my lips as my eyes were closed tight, imagining Ezra making his way on top of me. In moments, I had blocked out everyone in the room until it was just me alone on the bed, in pitch black darkness, fantasizing about what I wanted Ezra to do to me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ezra
One week had gone by since we first started shooting the movie, and things were going off without a hitch. Hannah and I were taking turns knocking our scenes out in one take, and in the process, Leonard had become extremely impressed with our professionalism. None of the sex scenes had been filmed yet, but we were slowly leading up to them. I stood by Leonard right before he was ready to shoot another one of Hannah’s scenes. “You two are doing great,” he said with a cup of coffee in his hand. “I knew I was taking a chance on the both of you, but I am elated that I went out on a limb here. You two have been impressive from the first shoot, and I am anxious to see how you two handle the sexual scenes we have coming up soon.”
“Yeah,” I said as Hannah strolled past us with one of her castmates. She made eye contact with me momentarily before she continued towards the set. “I just wanted to make sure that we did our part. I know you were taking a chance on me, well, on us. I didn’t want to disappoint.”
“Disappoint? No. I will hear none of it!” he said, slamming his foot into the ground as if he were offended. “The very last thing you two are doing right now is disappointing me. I’ll tell you this, I had A-list actors in mind to fill these roles, and as of right now, I don’t see a difference between the two of you and any of them.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “I am not just filling your head with nonsense. You are good, Ezra.” He looked at Hannah, “And she is brilliant, as well. Yes,” he said, a smile appearing on his face as if he were filling his mind with lustful images of her. “That woman right there is brilliant. Not only is she a good actress, but she is easy on the eyes. She is perfect for this kind of work.”
“Ezra,” he said, looking directly at me. “Ezra, I have another company as well. One outside of this one that not many people know about. If this movie goes off well, I think there will be a spot for you,” he looked at Hannah, “actually, for the both of you. However, she is perfect for it. She is a natural. Her shape. The way she is in tune with her body, you know? The way she carries herself.” He sipped his coffee with a lustful eye and a mischievous grin.
“Um,” I said, breaking his gaze, “well, we can talk more about it later, I guess. I’d like to hear more about it.”
“What? Oh, right, yeah, we can do that. We can do that,” he said as he kept his eyes on Hannah. “We can definitely do that. All right,” he said, handing me his coffee as if I were his assistant. “Places, everyone! We must get this scene filmed so we can wrap the shoot up for the day. Everyone is doing an excellent job! Hannah, dear,” he said, approaching her. They were too far away from me to hear the conversation, but I saw his hand fall to the small of her back. To me, he was becoming too comfortable with her. The way he spoke about her body and how he looked at her with a seductive glance. Not many people knew that we were an item, and we preferred it to be that way to keep that chatter down, but that didn’t stop my anger from rising each time someone tried to hit on her, and it happened often.
From cameramen to the stage crew and now, the director. We hadn’t even gotten to the sex scenes yet, and I didn’t think the attention would be on her this heavy in the beginning. I placed his cup of coffee on the counter as he laughed and joked with Hannah with his hand still on the small of her back. I watched him closely as my fist balled up. It took everything in me not to charge onto the set and punch him squarely in the face for allowing his hands to wander around on her body. Ezra, relax. Calm down. They are just talking. I closed my eyes and exhaled a few times to slow my heart rate, and once I opened them, Leonard was seated in his director’s chair with the loudspeaker in his grasp. “All right, places! Places! Let’s get this out of the way so we can go home! Are we ready? Excellent. Lights, camera, action!”
After the scene had wrapped up, Leonard called the shooting for the day. “Excellent job, everyone! Beautiful! Now, we will start again tomorrow at 10 am and not a second after. I need my two stars ready for the day, so you two can come in by 12. We have some prep work to do, and I want to make sure that you two are rested before we begin shooting the first major sex scene. Get rested, and more importantly, do what you need to do to relax. Tomorrow is when the fun starts,” he said with a grin as he clapped his hands together.
He climbed out of his chair and headed to the back area with a few members of the film crew as Hannah walked towards me. “Good job,” I said as I enveloped her in my arms. The rest of the film crew started breaking down the cameras as we walked away from the nightclub scene. I put my arm around her and walked her to her car in the middle of the parking lot beneath the bright streetlights above. “So, how do you think things are going so far?”
She sighed. “Well, so far, so good. The only thing I really had to endure was the opening scene where I was playing with myself in the bed. I mean, it was weird being in the room with a group of strangers, but after I saw you, I was OK.”
“Yeah,” I said, laughing. “I nearly left the room and started jackin’ off myself.”
“Oh, shut up. You did not!”
“Seriously. I got hard while you were going to work on yourself. I probably wasn’t the only one, though.”
“Ugh, Ezra!” she said, elbowing me in my side. “See, things like that make me get even more nervous about our scene tomorrow! I don’t want to think guys are doing that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said as we strolled through the parking lot. “I know, but it’s the truth. Hell, I know some guys will probably jack off to our scene once the movie hits DVD.” She lowered her eyes and glared at me. “What?” I said with a smile. “Come on, now, Hannah. That scene was crazy, and besides that, I always thought Halle Berry was fine! Shit, that was the closest thing I could come to actually having sex with her, so I did it.”
She removed my arm from her shoulder and walked ahead of me. “Well, I guess now, since you are becoming a well-known actor, you may have the chance.”
“Come on, Hannah,” I said, tugging at her arm, “Babe, that was years ago. Besides, I have something better now. I have the woman that all of the other guys will dream of getting their hands on. That was then; this is now. If I had the chance to shoot a sex scene with you or Halle Berry, guess who I am choosing.” She put her hand on the door and raised one eyebrow above the other, waiting for my response. I thought to joke around with her and say Halle, but I felt that I had already pushed her the wrong way. “Baby, you. It’s you, no question. You are the object of my affection right now, all right? No question about it. None.”
She rolled her eyes, “Yeah, that better had been your response, Ezra.”
“Hey, I’m no fool,” I said, laughing, as I opened her car door. “Speaking of, have you heard from that stalker of yours? It’s been almost a week.”
“I’ve gotten calls and hang-ups, but nothing other than that. I was thinking of changing my number, but I didn’t know if somebody involved in this movie might try to contact me. It would be a bad look if I just changed my number and they couldn’t get in touch, so I think I’ll just do it after we are done filming.” She stood near her car door as a slight breeze blew her hair in the wind. The strands fluttered as if they were waving goodbye as I stood next to her.
“All right. Are you ready for tomorrow?”
“I guess. I mean, I really don’t have a choice, do I? But honestly, that first scene helped me relax a little bit, and since you are going to be on the set with me this time, I think it won’t be as hard.”
“Oh, it’s going to be hard. Trust me,” I said, laughing. “It is going to be ROCK hard.”
“Oh, goodness. You are a fucking hornball, Ezra.”
“Me? If anything, you match me completely.” I scanned the parking lot to see if anybody was watching. We were the only ones among a pond of idle cars. The cameramen and other members of the crew were still inside wrapping up their gear. Above, the moon’s glow illuminated everything beneath it. Another breeze blew against our bodies and sent her perfume right into my nose. I took a step closer to her as she put her hand on my chest.
“Wait. What are you doing?”
“I am taking a kiss from my girl. What are you doing?”
“I am stopping you before someone sees us,” she said, looking around. “I don’t want people to start trying to mess things up between us, because once they know we are an item, that is when the rumors start swirling around. I’ve seen the way some of these women here look at you. All it takes is one or two rumors to get in your ear about this or that, and then what we have is wrecked.”
“Oh, you’ve seen them look at me?” I asked with a grin.
“Yes. More than a few times, Ezra. That’s why I just want to keep things cool until we are done with this. Then maybe we can go public, you know? Turn into a power couple or something like that.”
I laughed. “Shit, that doesn’t sound bad. But about the other thing, I understand. I mean, I’ve seen some guys looking at you, too. Hell, even the director.”
“Oh, my God. That creep. He is a certified creep, no doubt about it. I appreciate him giving me this opportunity, but he is a weirdo.”
“He could be related to your stalker.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
I pulled her close and stole a kiss anyway. I couldn’t resist the urge to press my lips against hers. She was mine, and I didn’t care who saw it, but for her sake, I was willing to keep it quiet for now. I hoped she wasn’t trying to play a different angle with me, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Before I met her, she was a private person, so I didn’t expect things to change. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow, though. I wanted every man involved in this movie to see me make love to the woman they wanted.