1. Maybe.
1558 Words
|PART I OF THE STORY: THE DOMESTICATED PSYCHOPATH|
1. Maybe.
Katarina.
|Present|
28 years old.
"Katarina!"
"Katarina, here!"
"Katarina, look at us!"
I should be used to the camera flashes by now, but with a few drinks in me and these huge heels, I feel like I'm dazzled, almost losing my balance. My bodyguard makes his way through the reporters and I duck my eyes, hiding my face as I try to move through the crowd.
I feel tugs on my hair, also on my dress, and my foot twists on the way, but I continue silently until I'm finally in the back of the limo. I slump against the seat, closing my eyes to shut out the outside.
"What was that over there?" My manager bombards me, taking away my peace. "You were drinking all through the awards show and there are already videos and memes of the grimace you made when Jefferson Demartini won for Breakthrough Actor."
I don't answer, I continue with my eyes closed, trying to look for stability because everything is spinning around me.
"Your career is hanging by a thread" he continues, "you were invited out of cordiality because your last movie was a flop, did you need to damage your image more, Katarina?"
I sigh and as he goes on and on about my career decline, I pull out my phone and go to the messaging app. I scroll down, ignoring messages from my mother, my father and dozens of other people I don't care about. I scroll down a little further until I get to her name and, once again, I see how my messages from the past few months didn't even reach her.
I feel my mouth twitch into a grimace and maybe I make a sound, because Albern snatches my phone and speaks to me with a fury I'm getting used to.
"Are you really thinking about Willa right now?" I stare at him, still not answering. "Snap out of it, Katarina, your life is going to s**t and all you're thinking about is texting your little friend."
"Relax" I tell him calmly.
I take the phone from his hand and turn to look out the window as we move through the city's dazzling lights. Las Vegas, the city that never sleeps. So far from home, but lately nothing feels like home.
"I'm going to quit if you keep this up."
I don't even flinch at his words.
I absently move my thumb over the edge of my cell phone and he continues, "Your father is waiting for you at home, he needs to talk to you."
I tense up at his words, but still say nothing. Only when he throws a clutter of papers on my legs, I look at him, asking: "What is this?"
"A script."
"A week ago I finished my last filming."
It was a bad film, but that doesn't take away from the hard work that went into shooting it.
"In a month you'll start a new one" he says without looking at me, concentrating on the screen of his cell phone. "Someone like you, who is increasingly being forgotten, can't afford the luxury of resting."
"I don't even know what it's about, Albern" I shake the sheets in my hand, "you can't pull me into a project I have no idea about."
"Do you want me to remind you where you stand?" He asks and for the first time in maybe months I look at him, really look at him and see the extra wrinkles on his face. "You're sinking, Katarina, be thankful I got you a new role, you don't know how hard it was, no one wants to hire you."
If I didn't know this man since I was a little girl and didn't know that underneath all those words what he's looking for is my well-being, at least my professional well-being, I would have told him to f**k off.
So I opt to shut up and, just as I'm about to glance at the script, I realize we're going straight to the helipad.
"I can't even go change clothes at the hotel? Really, Albern?"
He ignores me, doing what he does best; twiddling those thumbs on the touch screen of his phone as he fights against the current and tries to salvage a career that's probably already sunk.
I wave my hand out the limo door and turn on the lights to read the script.
Not ten minutes later, I deny, passing the script to Albern.
"I won't do it" I tell him.
"Katarina..."
"This is porn, Albern."
"It's an erotic film, it's also cinema."
"In most of the shots I'll be naked and my dialogue is more moans than words, what did you get me?"
"The main character is Jefferson Demartini."
I look out the window again, then say in a flat voice: "No."
"Katarina..."
"I won't do it."
"He's the actor of the moment, it's an opportunity you can't miss."
I just look at him, deny and get out of the limousine when it stops at the heliport.
He comes after me, but thank heaven the noise of the helicopter prevents me from hearing him. That privilege ends when we are inside the machine and he speaks to me through the headphones.
"There will be contracts involved, people present at the recordings, you know that everything will be professional."
"I know perfectly well how to record bed scenes, I've done a few, in case you've forgotten. By the same token I know and am aware that no matter how professional the situation is, his hands and mouth will be on me. And hell will freeze over before he touches me."
"He was drunk."
This time I don't look out of the car window, but out of the helicopter into the great void.
What if I jumped?
Would it be so bad?
It's preferable to having this ridiculous conversation.
"Come on, Katarina."
"No" I flatly refuse.
I'd rather my career sink into oblivion than film intimate scenes with the jerk who tried to hit on me when I refused his proposal to take me to bed. Jefferson Demartini is an arrogant asshole and new to fame. Just because he's getting a little attention, he thinks he's an irresistible hunk, when the truth is his acting is mediocre and his pretty face that schoolgirls like is the only thing that propelled him to stardom. But in a year or two a new face will come along and he will be forgotten.
The irony is not lost on me that I will probably be forgotten by then too.
"You can't miss this opportunity, Katarina, you haven't done a good leading role for more than three years, accept it" he continues and I continue without saying more, I already gave him my answer. "You are an excellent actress, we both know it, it will be a bad role, but then there will be a good one. These are the sacrifices you have to make in this medium."
Since I already know his modus operandi, I know that when he realizes that praise won't help him, he will start sending in the heavy artillery.
Indeed, he does.
"Your career went to s**t when Reid Colleman disappeared, it seemed he was the one who kept you in the spotlight. You need a new romance, Jefferson may be your new salvation."
He says it like my success was tied to Reid when the reality is I got it all on my own merit. When people started wrongly speculating that my partner was Reid Colleman, the singer of the moment and just my best friend, Reid and I were already on top by ourselves. My fame started before and not after Reid. But that's okay, I keep quiet and don't remind Albern how I put my blood and sweat into roles that got good reviews and a few major awards, because he's partly right.
Reid Colleman disappeared and I began to slowly fade away.
But not because of him, but because of me.
I bring my hand to my neck, remembering the blood I spilled that last day, the day Killian Colleman's mask was removed to reveal the psychopath he always was. But if he's a psychopath, I'm an asshole, because only an asshole would risk her own life to save his skin.
I stroke my thumb across my throat, where the knife edge cut from my own hand, as I remember Reid's murderous look at Killian.
Reid was going to kill him, he was going to kill him.
Sigh.
Katarina, Katarina, ice princess, stop thinking about him.
"I won't fake an affair with Jefferson Demartini," I tell Albern, focusing on the present.
"It doesn't have to be faked."
I'm not surprised by his words, I knew that's what he was going to say.
"I'd rather throw myself to a slow, painful death in a pool of acid so I don't have to deal with scum on his level."
I end the conversation, pick up my phone again and clench it in my hand.
I don't let go, I haven't let go for over three years.
Maybe, someday, one of them...
Maybe, just maybe.
But I deceive myself, because I know.
I'm already in oblivion... I've been in oblivion for more than three years now.
- Writer
