Authors: Bebe Wilde
After I introduced him, the producer, who saw a star in the making, found him a role in one of his movies, just a small role but with a little meat to it. It was about a submarine or something and Kier became the breakout star of the film. And then he, as they say, “blew up.” He was suddenly everywhere, wanted in everything. He was an A-Lister in less than a year. But, hey, it was Hollywood and things like that do happen. They don’t happen every day or to everyone, but occasionally, they do happen. And they happened to Kier. He went from just being this cool dude who occasionally modeled or had a walk-on on some TV show, to a worldwide star.
Yes, just like that, he was a star.
He was so grateful to me that he took his first paycheck and bought me a beautiful diamond ring, one to replace the other, smaller diamond he’d given me when he’d proposed. I was bowled over at such a romantic gesture. He was everything I’d ever wanted and more. There was so much to him, so much between us, I envisioned many good years together. I envisioned growing old with him. I envisioned just me and just him and just us and our future children. It was a wonderful fantasy but that’s all it was. Reality was soon to set in.
After a while, of course,
Kier’s
fame eclipsed us as a couple. It became this big thing, always surrounding us. We couldn’t go out to eat without some sort of hassle from paparazzi. We didn’t take vacations as he never had the time and if we did there were always photographers there watching us and snapping pictures. Yes, he took over the mortgage on the house and eventually just paid it off, but there was a price to pay. And the price to pay was
us
, the only thing that really mattered.
And so, just like that, I lost my man. My love came in second to his fame, second to his fans. He drifted off into his career and I watched helplessly from the sidelines. I was foolish enough to think it wouldn’t happen. And I never regretted introducing him to that producer. But when I look back at it, I had no idea he would get as big as he did. I thought that he’d work, of course, as I wanted him to. I just didn’t think he’d take over the world.
It was a rude awakening, but soon I found that I was suddenly not the most important thing in his life. I was suddenly on the backburner. Just like I was no longer the only one interested in my husband’s career, I was suddenly not the only one sleeping with him, either.
I know that due to his fame, the cheating was inevitable. When I first found out about it, I was in shock for days. I didn’t confront him on it, though, looking back, I wished I had. I wished I’d just laid it out on the table and said, “It’s either them or me.” But I didn’t. I had been scared he’d pick them over me. And I couldn’t handle that at the time. I was still head over heels in love with him and being married to a gigantic movie star doesn’t suck. There were a lot of perks that came with it, like the best tables in the best restaurants. Like the swag. Like the comps at Vegas hotels and beach resorts when we did get to go.
Like flying first class.
Like affording to live in a beautiful home.
Like the bigger and better listings I got. Like the designer gowns that were sent over with stylists to prepare me for his premiers or award shows. But, eventually, I stopped going. When you’re as big as he was, women literally throw themselves at you. And they threw themselves at Kier. I stopped going out with him because of this. I couldn’t handle it.
But I especially couldn’t handle the cheating. Maybe cheating went along with it, but it began to gnaw at me and I felt sick to my stomach most of the time. I’d think about him, about his hands on other women, the things he’d do to them, then come home and do them to me. It felt awful, to say the least, like I was some old shoe he returned to after his newer ones had left blisters. I was, somehow, his comfort though what he was doing was making me as uncomfortable as hell. And yet he’d been doing this for a while. But, as they say, the wife is the last to know and I was the last. It was a whole other level of mortification, to say the least.
With no one to talk with, I called the one person I knew who’d gone through the same thing, my mother. When I complained about the women throwing themselves at Kier, she scoffed, “What do you expect him to do? Kick them away? It’s part of his job.”
“Yeah, but cheating on me isn’t.”
“No, that’s your job as his wife.”
I gasped. “How could you say that to me?”
“I know all about it,” she said. “Your daddy was a very good looking man, too. I put up with a lot of shit because of that. When you get the really good looking ones, they’re nothing but trouble,
Teagan
. When you’re that damned good looking, you can do anything you like.”
She was right. It did make it a little harder, didn’t it? When they’re that good looking? It’s like this odd possession things takes over and you
must
keep them for yourself. Maybe it had something to do with biology or whatever it’s called. Maybe it was because we want them to father our children; we want the good genetics for ourselves. I didn’t know but I found myself in a jealous fit many times over him. I didn’t admit to myself that I was jealous. I called it something else, like he was acting stupid over some woman. Or he’d forgotten to call;
he
was being insensitive, which he was, obviously. I hated myself when I acted like that and once I realized I was doing it, I cut it out. It was hard but I couldn’t let him know how much what he was doing was affecting me. I should have and things might have gotten better but I couldn’t bring myself to. But it got so bad that none of that mattered. I just couldn’t handle it anymore.
“But you left Daddy,” I told her.
“No,” she replied. “He left
us
. But I put up with it for years because I loved him. Well, I didn’t exactly put up with it. I was jealous. I took it out on him. It hurt, I won’t lie,
it
hurt what he did to me.”
“Of course it did,” I said.
“It did,” she said. “But being without him was worse. But when he left, it did get better after a while.”
I rolled my eyes. Talking to her was like going to a fun house at a carnival. You never knew what you were going to get! I suddenly wished I hadn’t called her and instead had gone to a therapist who might be able to tell me what to do because she, obviously, couldn’t. I said, “You’re talking out both sides of your mouth.”
“Let it go,
Teagan
,” she said. “That boy loves you. It comes with the territory with a man as famous and as good looking as him. What’s important is that he comes home to you. So what if he screws around a little? Every man on earth would do the same if given the chance. It’s in them to do it.
It’s
part of their biological makeup or whatever it’s called. I read about it on the internet. I have the internet. I look stuff up.”
She was out of her damned mind. But as much as I hated to admit it, she was right.
“If you ever came home, I’d show you my new computer,” she said.
“Mom, I don’t have time,” I said. “Besides, I am in crisis mode here. My husband is cheating on me.”
“Let it go,
Teagan
,” she told me. “He won’t do it forever, you know. Stay the course. It’s part of life. He’s married to you, not those other hussies.”
Hussies?
I rolled my eyes at her terminology and said, “I won’t live like this.”
“You won’t find another Kier,” she replied. “Believe his lies, honey. Be happy. Just make sure he uses a condom.”
I groaned, wondering why I had to get the crazy mother.
“I mean it; make sure he wears a condom.”
“Mom, please,” I said and groaned. “I just don’t know if I can do this.”
“Well, none of this would have happened if you would have listened to me and stayed in school.”
I groaned louder. She always had to bring this up, didn’t she?
“Moving out to California,” she kept on, probably shaking her head. “What were you thinking? You could have met you a nice young man here, a normal one, and been a happy woman. I told you that you shouldn’t have moved out there.”
And she always had to have the last word, too. I let her have it and started to hang up. “Mom, I have to go.”
“You should have listened to me!”
“Bye, Mom,” I said and hung up.
* * * * *
Naturally, after his philandering got out, I became fodder for the tabloids: “
Kier’s
poor wife. How will she cope?”
Oh, how that killed me.
Even though I was in the dark for a long time, it was well known in the industry that he was cheating on me before the rumors began to surface. Even so, Kier had a great publicist and the proverbial shit did not hit the fan until I actually filed for a divorce. Then all hell broke loose. Yes, there had been reports in tabloids about it, but I turned a blind eye to it, mainly because I thought most of it was hogwash. It was Hollywood, after all. Besides, I was still very career-focused myself. I had other things on my mind, like listing and selling houses.
So, I thought when he was working late he was doing just that. When you’re on set, it can go over; time can get away from you. You’re there to work and when it’s time to work, you have to work. I knew that. I accepted it. I just didn’t know that while you waited for the lighting to get fixed or the sound to be adjusted, you could be in your trailer fucking an extra. Or, even, your gorgeous, big-
boobed
co-star.
He was a hound dog, it was that simple. And, being a man, he took his opportunity to spread it around. The fact that women threw themselves at him didn’t help things either. I was the one who ended up with egg on her face. It was so humiliating, what he did to me. And it wasn’t just once, or a few times; it was with many, many women over the four-years that we were married. It was so embarrassing, humiliating. He was going to be my future children’s father. He was
mine.
But they took him and didn’t give me anything in return.
Like I said, when I first found out, I was in shock. I did what I thought was right, though, and pretended nothing was happening. I played the good wife and I tried to figure out what I could do. The problem was that there wasn’t much I could do. Nothing much but confront him and get on with it but I couldn’t do that. I was afraid of the aftermath, of what would be left of us once we had said what needed to be said.
However, even though I did my best to ignore it, it still ate at me. It was inevitable that it would get to the point that I
had
to confront
him, that
I could no longer pretend I didn’t know what he was doing. And, of course, it was one incident that pushed it over the top. There was one time he finally crossed the line and did something that I couldn’t overlook.
One time where he forced my hand and put me in a position where I could no longer ignore what he was doing.
I’d been at an open house checking out a potential property for a client when he strolled in. Kier never came to these things, so I was shocked when he showed up. He gave me a quick kiss and said we should go to dinner. I had agreed, telling him that after I was done we’d go. I went upstairs to look at the bedrooms and master bath and, when I came back down, he was chatting with the listing agent, a woman a few years older than me who I could barely stand. She thought she and I were in the same league, which we were not, and saw me as her greatest competition. She was an idiot and I only put up with her when I had to. She was always trying to take my listings and clients, doing things to make my life miserable. She was my hater, as they say. But I put up with her professionally because that’s what you do. There was always someone like her trying to usurp you. Competition was fierce but if you couldn’t play, you never won. I liked to win.
A lot.
Kier knew how much I hated her and this was why he was making a show of talking to her. He was throwing it in my face, that’s what he was doing. The thought of him and her having sex did scurry across my mind but I shut it out, as it was unthinkable.
But what if they had?
I shuddered. I didn’t think I could handle that. But I was a professional. I squared my shoulders and walked right up to them and said, “It was a beautiful house, Miranda, but not quite right for my client. Thank you for showing it to me.”
She gave me a tight smile as her face was overly
Botoxed
. “Well, thanks for coming.”
I gave her a quick nod and ignored Kier, like I didn’t even know who he was, and walked out. He came after me, hollering something about dinner. I didn’t answer and got into my car and drove home. Then I sat on the couch and thought about him and Miranda having sex and grew angrier and angrier as I waited for him to show up.
Which he finally did.
Two hours later. When he got there, I was so livid, I literally jumped on him.
“You son of a bitch,” I hissed. “Did you fuck her, too?”
“Who?” he asked.
“Miranda!”
I yelled.
“What?” he asked.
“That old hag?
No. I didn’t fuck her!”
“If you fucked her, I will kill you,” I said, shaking from the anger. “I swear to God, I will!”
“What is your problem?” he asked and took off his jacket and threw it across a chair.
“You know what my problem is,” I said. “I am done with this shit.”
He sighed. “I thought we were meeting for dinner. I went to the restaurant and waited on you. When you didn’t show, I had dinner by myself.”
“Liar,” I said. “You fucked her, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “She’s a little old for me.”
I glared at him and watched as he sat down in one of the two wingback chairs directly across from the couch. They were covered in linen and had cost me a fortune. For some reason, it occurred to me to take them with me when I left, that I would never let him have those chairs. The thought sent a surge of panic up my spine.
This was it. It was here.
There would be no more ignoring the problem. It had grown out of control.
“But I could have,” he said. “She has the
hots
for me.”