Arturo brought some much-needed comic relief to our uptight little family with his broad smile and endless supply of jokes. It didn't seem to matter to him that we didn't understand a word of them. Jeremy was a ball of stress as the end of the shoot neared, and Kyle and I continued to be awkward around each other since Jeremy had outed his crush on me. But Arturo was all goodness and light. He was fun and pure of both heart and soul.
Also, Arturo was in the dark about our true relationship. He assumed Jeremy and I were a typical loving couple, engaged to be married, just not yet choosing a date. Of course, since we didn't speak Italian and he didn't speak English, explaining what confused even us would have been hard.
It should have been a relief that Arturo didn't know, I guess, but I found it grated on me. Jeremy still trumped up his evil little punishments, but now they were carried out in secret, for Arturo's sake. So I'd find myself fidgeting through a day with a toy in my ass or tacks in my bra or a rope knot against my clit, and it was made all the worse because I had to hide it from Arturo.
But when Jeremy returned each night, Arturo left, and then things were comfortingly routine. Kneel in front of the couch, release his cock, suck it, take a break to eat dinner or not, and retire to the bedroom for more cock sucking or ass fucking or getting tied up or bending over for punishment, or whatever Jeremy wanted to do. I still wore his ring and flashed it obediently in public, although we never discussed it privately and certainly never made any plans for a wedding. I finally had to face the fact that it truly was only for show.
At the same time, he still insisted that he loved me. He whispered it in my ear every night when there were no cameras or reporters to convince. He still bought me too much, spent too much money taking me to expensive restaurants, and procured a ridiculous amount of mythology books to replace the ones he'd destroyed. And he still dominated me, as he always had. Lovingly. He had dominated me lovingly from the start.
He was so caring, so
careful
, to give me just a little more pain than I thought I could take, but never, ever too much. He almost always permitted me to find my own pleasure. In fact, his eyes shone with the deepest lust not when he lost himself to orgasm, but when I was moaning in his arms. The way he kissed me, there was no doubt in my mind that he felt
love
, whatever
love
meant to Jeremy Gray in his strange, perverse mind.
And yes, of course, I loved him more every day.
* * *
In the middle of January we left Italy and Arturo behind to fly to Los Angeles for the Golden Globes. It was to be a short trip, a couple of days before we returned to Greece to finish the shoot. I sat beside Jeremy on the plane and felt, as always, like I was flying blind. What was I to Jeremy? Who was Jeremy to me? My employer? My lover? A friend? Something more? A pretend fiancé, that much was sure. I was staring down at my ring when Jeremy took my hand and leaned close to me.
“Whenever we fly at night, I remember that first flight to Thailand,” he said in the darkness of the first-class cabin. “You were so quiet and scared.”
“Yes, I was,” I said. “I barely knew you then.”
“I know. That's what was so amazing about it. It was kind of thrilling, knowing how scared you were, and that you were sitting there beside me anyway, flying halfway across the world.” He fell silent. I supposed now that thrill was gone.
“Are you getting tired of me, Jeremy?” I asked before I could stop the words.
He scrutinized me. Could he see my insecurity? My fear? He squeezed my hand. “No, I'm not tired of you. Not at all. Why would you think that?”
“What happens when we leave Greece? When your shoot is over?”
“Oh Jesus, Nell. What do you want to happen?”
“I don't know.” I cloaked my distress in apathy. I picked at my cuticles, then shrugged. “I guess it's all up to you.”
“I thought you wanted to go to school.”
I did want to go to school. Now I just want to be with you. I'll sign another contract. I'll do whatever it takes.
“I guess,” was all I said out loud. He squeezed my hand again.
“Listen, I want you to be prepared. Things will be wild in LA. The paparazzi are horrible there. You can't throw a rock without hitting one. You'll need to think about your security. You're not to go anywhere alone. And we'll stay in a hotel, just for added safety. I don't want you at the house.”
“The stalker? She's in LA?”
“She might be. They can track her movements when she leaves the country, but she can move around the US, and we don't really know where she is.”
“Have you been tracking her?” I asked. “It's that serious?” His silence unnerved me. “Has she actually left the country looking for you?”
“She was in Thailand, yes,” he said finally. “And Portugal for a while. And she's not looking for me, Nell. She's looking for you. I'm not saying that to scare you, just to let you know that you need to be safe. You can't go anywhere alone. You can't just run off when you feel like it.”
I looked down at the ring, twisting it.
“If I weren't so selfish, I would make you go.” He gave me a look so guilty, it was heartbreaking. “If I weren't so selfish, I would have let you go as soon as all this stalker craziness began.”
“You can't let one woman change how you live your life,” I said.
“But it's not just my life. You're involved too.”
“Am I?”
He scowled and shifted beside me. “We won't have much time in LA, but I'll find time to beat your little ass if you piss me off enough.”
* * *
And time did fly. As soon as we arrived at the hotel, Jeremy ran off to do some interviews or something while Kyle let in a stylist from the studio with a rack full of designer dresses and three suitcases of makeup, jewelry, and fake hair. He tried out “looks” on me, some of which made me want to laugh, some of which made me want to cry. Kyle's smirk was in overdrive as Leonard remade me again and again. At Leonard's urging, I finally decided on an ivory dress that was simple yet elegant, embellished with rhinestones and pearls.
Jeremy got in late from his movie-star activities and woke me from a sound sleep just to turn me over his knee. I chalked the brief but painful spanking up to either stress or frustration. It hurt, but I figured it was my job to help him unwind, and I felt inordinately pleased with my work when he fell into a deep sleep minutes afterward. He still woke up to fuck me at some point during the night.
He was gone again in the morning when Leonard arrived, bright and cheery, to give me the spa treatment from head to toe. It was tricky to hide the bruises from the spanking when he was dressing me, but I did my best. If he noticed them, he was circumspect about it. I'm sure a studio stylist like him had seen it all.
“So lovely,” he said when I was dressed and ready to go. “All that's missing is your smile.”
I faked a smile for him that hurt my cheekbones. Kyle arrived just as Leonard was preparing to leave with his many suitcases full of stuff.
“God,” Kyle said as he closed the door behind the stylist. “Just…wow. Look at you, Nell. God.”
“What?”
“Look in the mirror.” He led me over to the bathroom, and I looked in the mirror at the elegant stranger standing there. Ivory gown, sparkling diamond earrings and choker, perfectly made-up face.
“It doesn't look like me,” I said, frowning.
“Maybe. But it's still pretty,” Kyle said. “Come on.”
He drove me to the Golden Globes preparty. Jeremy met me just inside the door, acting the solicitous fiancé in love. I smiled back and accepted his awkward kiss for the photographers. He left me alone then and went off to chat with some of the many other actors and luminaries crowding the room. For God's sake, what the hell was I doing here? I hid in the bathroom as long as I could, then slunk around behind the coatroom, then drifted over by the stairs before Jeremy came to find me.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I shrugged.
“I want you to stay where I can see you—”
“Jeremy! Nell!”
I turned from Jeremy and found myself clasped to Jessamine Jackson's bountiful breasts. She let go of me and hugged Jeremy. Mason winked at me from behind her back.
“We're sitting together. I arranged it! Nell, you look awful.” Jessamine frowned. “For God's sake, have a drink. You should be shit-faced by this point. Everyone else is.”
I blinked. “It's only four o'clock.”
They all laughed like I was hilarious, and Mason squeezed my hand. “It's so good to see you again, Nell.” I didn't miss his subtle glance in Jeremy's direction, or the fact that Jessamine still had her hands on Jeremy, practically squeezing his ass.
“Four o'clock,” said Jeremy, looking at his watch. “Ready to go?”
The red carpet was terrifying. It was the same yelling and persistent camera flashing as the paparazzi on the street, only now we had to actually cooperate with them. Even worse, there were bleachers and crowds of yelling fans everywhere I looked.
She could be anywhere.
I looked down at my rhinestone-encrusted bodice and thought about the Romanov girls, who couldn't be killed because the bullets kept bouncing off the diamonds hidden under their dresses. But they'd been killed eventually. Their murderers found a way.
“What's wrong?” asked Jeremy, lifting my chin.
“I feel like I'm going to die.” I don't know why I said that. He pursed his lips and held my elbow hard.
“Just look happy,” he said.
My face grew sore and tired from smiling as Jeremy dragged me here and there. I stood and posed like a mannequin beside him with his arm around my waist. Kyle steered us from interview to interview, engineering everything with subtle nods and gentle shoves. I declined to answer any questions, made Jeremy jump in and make stuff up whenever they asked about the ring. It was his lie. Let him chat to the reporters about it. I stared into space while I showed the ring off.
Going into the ballroom for the awards broadcast was a huge relief after the scary press of fans and photographers outside. The event was supposed to be a dinner, but everyone just socialized and drank. The Hollywood diet. I was long since desensitized to rubbing shoulders with the stars, so I didn't gawk very much, but I listened in to the conversations around our table and to the awards presentations, once they began. I felt Mason and Jessamine looking at me.