The Silver Screen Wars

3 - In the Rough

"Does this mean I have the job?"

Bishop scrutinized the young woman, blatantly ignoring her question as he looked her up and down. With his arms crossed over his chest, he peered at her from every direction, pacing around her in a full circle to examine her every physical facet. Hard to tell what exactly he was working with under those baggy clothes, but at least she had roughly the right figure, he thought. Then again, even if she didn't, her raw talent alone was certainly enough to get her by.

"If you could give me an answer before you do a whole cavity search..."

"Shut up," he said. "You're distracting me."

Kodiak - for that was her name, and he wouldn't be forgetting that anytime soon - gave him an incredulous look. "Distracting me?" she repeated. "Distracting you from my body?"

"Once you're mine, your body no longer belongs to you, kid. Get used to it."

When she moved away, however, instead of obediently staying still, he remained in place with his eyes locked where she had been standing. Did she really just do that, he wondered to himself, half astonished and half pitying. The pity came from the self-awareness that he was about to demolish her for defying his wishes, of course. The astonishment came from the sheer f*****g GALL this girl possessed.

Bishop was not a man easily charmed with cute, daring stunts. He got enough of those from wannabe starlets on a daily basis; he didn't have the time nor the patience to deal with it now, either.

"Get the f**k back over here, Kodiak Clyde."

His voice was as smooth as polished marble and just as cold. Typically, little rookie actresses didn't get warnings, but he was feeling generous today. She would get one more chance, he decided, and only because she was the greatest conceivable prize he could possibly obtain. This was the motherlode, he had struck something more precious than gold.

Indeed, he had been prepared to arrange however many auditions it took to find someone with a quarter of the talent this woman possessed, and here she had walked into the very first one for the day like a f*****g fearless animal.

...Ah. Maybe too fearless.

"I was going to say you could call me Kodi," she was saying, "but at this point you can call me uncasted, your choice. I'm not sticking around with you talking to me like I'm your least favorite pet dog."

Bishop pulled in a deep breath and straightened his back, teetering on the brink of unleashing verbal hell on this brainless pixie. Did she know who she was talking to? Did she know where she was standing, three feet away from the man who could make or break her entire future in the acting business? If he so much as woke up on the wrong side of the bed tomorrow morning, he could end her entire world let alone any dreams of a promising career. That was no empty threat: he had delivered hell unto hundreds of unworthy f***s, and those were just the ones he bothered to remember destroying.

"Do you know who I am?"

Bishop kept his voice as level and calm as he could, but even to his own ears he knew he was failing terribly. Well, too bad, his temper wasn't his problem. No, it was about to become Kodiak Clyde's, and she wasn't going to like that very much. How quickly was he going to make her regret her attitude, he wondered. How long would this one last? It irritated him that he would have to school and break yet another rookie in the ways of the Bishop, but at least with this one, he knew it would be worth it. A little trauma and some fear to reinforce his sovereign authority, that was all.

And yet when his cold blue gaze slid up to catch the young woman's at long last, he found her staring back with an infuriatingly blank expression and nothing else - not a hint of fear or regret. Was that it? Just empty nothingness, a hollow void behind those eyes? Where had all that passion from earlier gone, all that spirit and vitality he had seen there while she was on her knees?

"Yeah," she said. "I know who you are. You're the guy who's either going to hire me or not, and if it's the latter, I walk out and it's like nothing ever happened. Super simple."

He c****d his head and examined her once more, ignoring the way she narrowed her eyes at him in response. He would have loved nothing more than to let loose and tear her self assurance to pieces, but the truth was that it wasn't unfounded. He would never admit it aloud to her - the last thing this rookie needed was an ego to go with the attitude - but his heart had skipped a beat when she had threatened to leave.

Had she even been aware it was a threat? It didn't seem like it. If anything, she looked like she was simply looking for an excuse to walk out, not shoving an ultimatum in his face. The shallow furrow between her brow, the disbelief, everything: all anger. There wasn't a hint of smugness there, no awareness of what she was dangling so temptingly, so precariously before him.

She had no idea what she was doing to him, he realized. She had - no idea. Well, he would have to use that to his advantage. This way, it would be far easier to make her see how much she needed him. Pride would only get in the way of her growth, her talent. She needed strong, brutal guidance to direct her steps, and that of a caliber only he could provide. God, how she needed him, and yet he needed her, too. The linchpin, the cornerstone. He felt it in his gut that everything would rest on her.

But he wasn't going to tell her that. Not a f*****g chance. He turned and ambled back around the table, affecting a show of indifference with his hands in his pockets and his aviators back on his face. He needed a few seconds to think, that was all. A plan. With his foot, he slowly dragged back the folding chair by its leg, and then slid down onto it with a platinum grace he knew he wielded like a honed weapon. Let her soak it in, he told himself. Just a moment to let her process whose presence she was really in.

That had been his first mistake, he knew now. He had been too hasty, too caught up in the panicked euphoria of having found his masterpiece in waiting, his diamond in the rough, and he had let her peek his cards for just an instant. But he could salvage this easily. He was Bishop Cassius, after all. The man. The legend. And in this auditorium as well as every film set in the world - and therefore to this little woman staring at him so impudently, too - he was God. He just had to make her realize it.

“Just confidence won’t take you far, Kodiak Clyde."

“Yeah," she said stiffly. "It’s Kodi, though. Not Kodiak. Thanks.”

In the tense, tight-wrung silence that followed, Bishop c****d his head and gave her a withering look. “And what in hell,” he drawled, his voice dripping with enough sarcasm to fill a cynic’s casket, “makes you think that I care?”

Kodi raised her eyebrows at him. “Well. You don’t have to care to be wrong. It's Kodi.”

“Is that so?” He leaned forward and crossed his forearms over the table, eyes obscured behind his dark aviators but still unmistakably boring through her skull anyway. “Kodiak?”

The woman held his stare with a level gaze of her own for a moment. One long enough that Bishop's pulse began to flutter. “You’re lucky I speak fluent asshole,” she said blithely. “I wouldn’t be able to understand you otherwise. Anyway, are we doing this or what?”

He leaned back in his chair, resisting the urge to clench his jaw until his teeth ground each other into dust. Unfathomable. She still hadn't grasped her situation yet. She was on the brink of receiving the privilege of a lifetime, a golden opportunity that he had never extended anyone before - and still she was looking at him like that. As if she were wearing sandals and he were an overflowing storm drain.

Fucking hell, when was the last time anyone had dared to look his way with such an expression? He was used to the worshiping stares, the starstruck receptions, even poorly hidden resentment and bitter envy. But not this. Not her judgmental half-scowl, not the way she stared right at him but didn't see him, not her ignorance of everything he was.

God damn it, what part of him being Bishop Cassius didn't she understand, and how was he supposed to deal with that? Trying to school her into submissive shape when she had enough attitude to level a city block would be an ugly matter, and he couldn’t chase her out with shouted expletives the way he could anyone else, either.

No, he couldn't afford to break her, not this one. All the other toys? Who cared! But there was only one Kodiak Clyde, and even if another like her existed somewhere in the world, he wouldn't find them in time - not in three months, and that was all the time he had to make this work. He had to make this work. And that meant Kodiak Clyde was going to have to belong to him.

Because he wanted her. Needed her. She was going to be his magnum opus, his greatest work. No matter what it took, he was going to mold this woman-shaped mass of raw, pure talent into his silver screen star.

Because he was Bishop. THE Bishop. And he always got what he wanted.

“Yeah,” he replied through gritted teeth. “Yeah, we’re f*****g doing this. But let’s get this straight. We’re doing this my way.”

Kodi's head tilted forward, and she gave him a pitying, skeptical look with a lift of her brow.

“Yeah," she said shortly. "We’ll see about that.”