A Monster and a Gentleman

Dedication

For the ladies of Heat Wave—Maria, Fedora, Jo, Deb, Susan, other Susan, Billi Jean, Sherry, Linda, Jenn, Rhonda, Casey, Kitty Kelly, Gigi, Ivy, Drea, Michelle, and anyone I’ve missed. Thanks for all the fun chats.

Chapter One

Cali and Seling

The street was deserted, bathed in the yellow glow of aging security lights. Chain-link and razor wire protected the warehouses that lined the street, the massive signs advertising their purposes—metal fabrication, distribution, appliance production—dark at this time of night. The woman hurried down the sidewalk, her shoes scuffing. She wore jeans and a jacket with the hood pulled up. A car turned onto the street and she slowed her steps, hunching her shoulders. The car passed and when she looked up, her face was visible in the moonlight. Her caramel skin was bleached a light toffee, but her eyes were wide, dark pools—as black as the rope of braided hair hanging against her chest.
 

She hurried forward until she reached an alley between the buildings. Piles of wood pallets, large plastic drums and other debris turned the otherwise wide alley into a snaking urban canyon. She waited at the mouth, wavering at the idea of going on.

Deep in the alley, something moved. A pile of rubble shifted, pulling away from the rest until it was a hulking form. It came towards the woman, who was silhouetted at the mouth of the alley. The shapeless mass resolved itself into a creature. Inky-black wings unwrapped from the body, rising into the night like those of a great bat. It slid in and out of the darkest shadows, seeming to melt away only to reappear in the next patch of moonlight.
 

Red eyes glowed in the dark, two feet higher than any human’s would be.

The woman jerked, falling back a half step before she straightened. On the edge of the line of light, where the yellow glow from streetlamp cut across the mouth of the alley, the creature stopped. One foot—a massive thing, tipped in claws—broke the line, coming forward into the light.

“Padma.” The name rumbled out of the darkness.

“You’re here.”

“I said I would be.”

“Let me see you.”

The thing moved out of the darkness. As it stepped into the light, its skin changed from black to a pale blue. Color swirled along the surface of its skin like ink retreating from oil. Glowing red irises changed to bright purple. An eight-foot-tall pale blue monster with bat-like wings stood in the mouth of the alley. Simple pants hugged the creature’s muscled waist, ending at its knees, which faced backwards like the rear legs of a horse.

The girl looked it up and down, her hands slowly falling to her sides.
 

“Ebon.” There was no fear in her voice, only joy. “I’ve missed you.”

The woman threw herself at the monster, who caught her up, then bent and kissed her.

Cali pulled off the headset and darted out of the trailer.
 

“We need the kissing shot again. It looks like he’s trying to eat Akta,” she barked at the AD. The woman scuttled off, snapping orders into her headset. Cali looked up at the moon, judging the light. It was nearly three a.m., and soon they’d lose the light—meaning the sun would come up and this night shot would be ruined.
 

Within moments, the little film set encampment around her had come to life. They were in an industrial area south of L.A. and had an assortment of trailers and trucks parked at odd angles across the street. The cluttered alley—which they had to declutter before the warehouses opened for business at five a.m.—was surrounded by lights, reflector screens and a long line of camera track, which she’d used to shoot Akta walking down the street.

Lights were turned on, the cameras were uncovered and reassembled and someone handed her a new headset battery pack. She plugged it in, leaving the headset around her neck and tuning out the production crew’s chatter.

A sleepy-looking Akta wandered over, a zip-up hoodie on over her costume. Cali—real name Mercedes—had been friends with Akta since college. Akta was the lead actress on this film and had acted in a few of the student movies Cali had made while attending the country’s most prestigious film production program. In the production program with her were two other girls, both producers on this movie. Margo and Lena weren’t on set for this night shoot. They got up early each day to work with the location coordinator, Nell, to make sure locations were ready before the cast and crew showed up later in the day.
 

Together, Cali, Lena, Margo, Akta and another friend and screenwriter, Jane, were Calypso Productions, a small production house with a few indie movie credits to its name.
 

That wouldn’t be true much longer. The movie they were filming was not a small production and had the crew, budget and release date to prove it.
 

And whether the movie was good or bad, Cali was sure that no one would ever forget it.

Their other lead actor emerged from his trailer, which was actually a refrigerated semi they’d turned into an air-conditioned lounge. At over eight feet tall with a twenty-foot wingspan, there was no way Henry could use one of the regular trailers.
 

The monsters in this movie weren’t CGI or motion capture. They were real.

And this movie was their coming-out party.

Henry yawned, his wings flexing. “We’re shooting the kissing scene again?”

“Yes, it looks like you’re going to eat her.” Cali gathered her actors, pulling them out of the path from the equipment trailers to the location so the crew could work without obstruction. “Let’s rehearse, see if we can get this to feel more natural.”

Akta and Henry both nodded. They were trained actors—Akta with a slew of movie credits and a few awards under her belt, and Henry a revered performer among his people. His people, the monsters.

And yet they looked as awkward as high school juniors in a production of
Romeo and Juliet
when they tried to kiss. Cali resisted the urge to smack them both upside the head and demand that they go in a trailer and fuck until they got it out of their systems. It was painfully obvious that they liked each other, and despite all the time they’d know each other, which was almost a year, they were still trying to pretend that they didn’t have feelings for each other.

“Henry, what would you do, normally, if you wanted to kiss a woman shorter than you?”

“I’ve never kissed a human woman.”

“Well, you’ve kissed Akta through five takes, so yes, you have, but that’s not what I’m asking. Surely you’ve kissed someone, something, that’s shorter than you.”

Henry paused, then nodded.
 

“Good. How?”

Henry wrapped one massive, three-fingered, clawed hand around Akta’s waist. The wing on that same side swept around, urging her forward. His hand slid to her ass and he lifted her, his wing supporting her back. Akta grabbed his shoulders.
 

“Hold there.” Cali circled them, examining the pose. From one side there was an odd view of Akta’s legs, which were braced awkwardly against Henry’s waist. That was the only bad angle. She could shoot over either of their shoulders or from the side where Henry’s wing hid Akta’s lower body.

“This looks good. Thanks, Henry.”

Henry carefully set Akta down. She tugged at the hem of her sweatshirt, looking everywhere but Henry. These two were a mess.

“Let me show you something.”

Cali led them to the editing trailer. Normally, dailies—all the footage from the day—were viewed offset at after the shooting was done. Because filming real monsters was totally new, Cali had the editor on-site with her, in a trailer rigged up as a crude editing bay. What looked good on camera while shooting didn’t always translate. Almost every department had needed to go back to the drawing board and relearn their craft with the added element of the monsters. Lighting had to rig up new filters so the monsters’ skin wouldn’t look either flat or too shiny. Special effects and special effects makeup had developed entirely new products that worked with their skin and hair, and wardrobe had gone to town creating clothing.
 

Every person on the set had been hired because they were good at what they did—and because they’d accepted that the monsters were real. The first few weeks had been rough, with several people having to leave to get themselves under control when the monsters shifted from their real bodies to their human forms. The process was messy and disgusting.

Now no one even stopped to stare.

Cali had forgotten that Henry wouldn’t be able to enter the trailer. As she and Akta climbed in, there was the sound of popping bone from outside. A moment later Henry, now human, entered, holding up the too-large and too-long pants.

“Sorry about that,” she told Henry, who shrugged.

As a human, Henry was slender but muscular, with pale skin and a mop of brown hair. He looked arty and cool, like a British indie musician or a hipster sculptor. He was tall, over six-foot. Akta, at five-foot-four, was a little short for him on screen, but that was an easy solution—heels and small platforms made up the difference. There were much greater challenges with the physical acting than Akta’s lack of height.
 

“Oren, can you key up Scene 19 again?”

A mid-forties man with salt-and-pepper hair turned in his chair. He was handsome, with laugh lines around his eyes that would have made a woman look old, but on him they looked good. He was tan and trim. A bottle of iced tea rested on the floor, away from the equipment.

“Akta, Henry,” Oren said pleasantly. Oren had been one of the best editors in the business. After a rather spectacular implosion that had taken him out of the game for ten years, he was back. His past hadn’t made him Cali’s first choice, but he was the best they’d been able to get. His lack of experience with the new technology that had developed in the past few years actually made him an asset. He knew how to edit and was proficient with the more basic visual effects they’d be using.

Oren swung his chair around to the mini editing bay. The editing set up was where the bed should be. Cabinets and kitchen equipment had been stripped out too. In their place was a floor to ceiling corkboard with strips of paper with the scene number and a description pinned in neat rows, outlining the entire movie.

A few taps to his keyboard and the scene popped up on the three monitors, each showing a different angle. Cali heard Akta sigh behind her as she watched. When the footage ended, returning to the AVID editing screen, Cali turned to face the actors.
 

They both looked depressed.

Cali bit back the need to say “see?” Normally brusque, with no filter between her thoughts and her mouth, the only time Cali watched what she said was when she was with actors. As the director, it was up to her to place them in the moment, give them the emotional tools they’d need in the scene—not to tell them when they were being dumbasses.

“You both look beautiful,” she said. “The shot is good, but it could be great. What I’m not seeing a lot of is passion.”

Henry nodded while Akta toyed with the hem of her sweatshirt.
 

“Why don’t we go outside and take a few minutes to get to a different emotional place?”

Cali thumped the back of Oren’s chair as a way of saying goodbye as she followed her actors out the door. Akta was leading them to an area between the talent trailers, where they were a protected from the bustle of the set.

“Cali!”

Seling was ambling across the parking lot where they’d parked the equipment trucks. He had the easygoing stride of a good-looking guy who knew he was good-looking. He looked vaguely Asian, with black hair and a creamy gold skin tone that made Cali crave caramel-filled Ghirardelli chocolates.
 

He was also a monster.

“Seling.” Though the need to go work with Akta and Henry was tugging at her, Cali couldn’t ignore the little pulse of pleasure deep in her belly. Seling was hot, charming and easy to talk to. She’d wanted touch him, and be touched by him, since she first saw him, which was saying something because when she’d first seen him he’d been a fire-breathing monster. Literally.

Now he was another of her actors, and it was a sweet torture getting to see him naked several times a day as he changed between bodies. “What can I do for you?” she asked, keeping her tone professional.