Epic (16 page)

It was quite another when someone I
barely knew looked at me like the last tasty morsel on a plate he was ready to lick clean. Instead of feeling empowered, I felt vulnerable and exposed. Fourteen years disappeared in a flash and I was that same little girl praying this would end sooner rather than later.

Was Jace right? Was this all about Shane?

I concentrated my focus on Griffin’s mouth. It was full and framed by his sexy, five-o-clock shadow. I memorized every detail that set him apart from Shane Pearcy. I reminded myself that I was in total control of this situation. It was completely safe. It didn’t feel safe, but I kept telling myself I had ultimate control over my feelings.

This was a job. People in my industry did things like this all the time. Every time I sang a song, I became a character. That was the mask that I had so prized for so long. And this video was nothing more than an extension of that.

It wasn’t me. It wasn’t a six-year-old girl. It was a character. Someone I made up. Someone who wasn’t real.

It just felt real the more his hands covered my body and his mouth hovered over my skin.

Panic rose in my throat as Griffin pressed me back onto the bed. I closed my eyes and pretended it was Jace’s hand sliding up my thigh. That was the magic of being behind closed eyes, I discovered. He could be anyone, even the man I most loved.

I let myself go into the fantasy. My fingers traipsed along his satiny flesh as I remembered discovering Jace’s body for the first time. A groan escaped my lips, and Griffin’s fingers dug into my flesh in response. My eyes snapped open. I assumed he was doing what I was doing, fantasizing about someone more appealing for a late-night canoodle on top of tangled sheets. My breath caught as I lost myself in those dark eyes
; eyes I suspected saw every secret I had tried my whole life to hide.

I watched his mouth descend towards mine. I kept waiting for Roxy to yell, “Cut!” but the film rolled as
I tangled my fingers in his short, dark hair. He nudged my nose with the tip of his as he kissed my face, inching ever nearer to my slightly opened mouth. He pressed his hips toward me, and I could feel his hardened body reach for me.

I swallowed back another wave of panic. “
This are characters in a play
,” I reminded myself. “
This isn’t real
.” It occurred to me that I had overlooked one very important element of the video. I was the vixen, the one who was stalking her sexy prey and conquering the object of her desire. I wasn’t there to be seduced, powerless to his mounting lust. So I summoned every iota of strength I could muster and pressed him back onto the bed. His eyes widened but he went with it, especially as my lips trailed along the strong line of his neck and along his muscular chest. His fingers wound into my hair as he pushed my warm mouth along his body.

I kept it sexy but chaste, mostly because I couldn’t even pretend to simulate certain sexual acts, even with TV-PG rated sensuality. If it had been a real seduction, I might have straddled him. But I was too afraid my extra weight would remind Griffin of how fat and unattractive I was and totally kill the vibe.

Unfortunately, Griffin seemingly read my thoughts. He guided me over his body until I perched above him. His indisputable erection didn’t soften, which confused – and scared – me even more.

Thankfully Roxy called out, “Cut,” and
I was able to escape from the bed entirely.

“That was hot,” Roxy praised. “Whatever you guys did there, keep doing it. That was exactly what I wanted to see.”

As she reviewed what she had shot, Griffin slipped from the bed and checked his phone, touching base with Emma who sat nearby.

I had completely forgotten she was there.

I had actually forgotten everyone was there until Roxy ended the scene.

But now that it was business as usual, Griffin ripped himself out of character and resumed the cold shoulder. It reminded me again how much of a fraud I was trying to sell sex to the masses.

I didn’t have much time to feel sorry for myself. Amelie took me aside to freshen my makeup, and before she was done Roxy informed everyone that she had changed her mind. She decided to film an actual kiss to see which one worked better for the video.

My heart sank. I remembered the kiss from the night before, which had sent both Griffin and me running for the hills. I really didn’t want a repeat of it. But Roxy explained that there was an intimacy with a kiss that trumped anything overtly sexual. She wanted to layer that into the video.

And she wanted to film several options for this kiss, just to be sure she got the right shot.

Joy.

The first shot was on the balcony. She wanted that first, tentative kiss that would jumpstart the seduction. Like the night before, the embrace would start as a dance. She wanted to film two specific shots: one where I initiated the kiss with Griffin, and one with his initiating the kiss with me. She queued up a highly suggestive song by Paula Cole to set the mood. For each shot, we had to grind against each other and touch and grab and tease each other until it ended in a passionate, open-mouthed kiss.

My senses were in overload as we stalked each other on that patio, coming together in a dance that should suggest to the audience that we couldn’t wait to get our hands on each other. Griffin was selling his part a little too well. There was an animal hunger in his body as he clutched me close. I could easily believe in all the tales of his prowess as a lover because a tiny, forbidden part of me questioned, for however briefly, what it would feel like to experience his lust for real.

So I curled one hand around his neck and pulled him toward me for a kiss. I unleashed the inner vixen as I played with his lips. I felt a shudder run through his body right before he grasped me tighter, enveloping me in those strong arms so that I couldn’t run away, even though that was my first instinct the minute I felt his hard-on against my leg.

For the second kiss, his hands cupped my face and he toyed with my lips before his mouth closed over mine, his tongue darting inside only momentarily, which I knew had to sizzle onscreen.

I tried to keep my focus on the mechanics on what we were doing, so I could stuff any emotional reaction way back in its long-forgotten closet in the dark corners of my psyche.

By the time dawn broke, I had kissed Griffin so many tim
es it was no longer remarkable. Our last scenes to shoot, my character passing the potential lover in the street, with enough confidence to slip him my number, were impossibly easy by that point. I still didn’t believe Griffin’s cheeky grin as he pocketed the number and chased after me in the street, but it was a great ending for a female sex-positive video. After all the trauma I went through to get through the experience, I was happy with Roxy’s results. Griffin decided he was going to head to her studio with her so he could be a part of the editing stages, but I was ready to put this part of my New York trip to rest. I made it through this far, that was miracle enough.

And now that Griffin was back to his regular self, I knew my presence wasn’t necessarily welcome. He was back on his phone, conferring with Emma and Roxy, and basically ignoring me completely after a night of forced intimacy that had clearly been as difficult for him to pull off as it had been for me.

I couldn’t mistake his erection for actual sexual desire for me in particular. It was a response to skin against skin. I knew he’d find a much more suitable partner to relieve his tension.

Possibly Roxy. Maybe even Emma.

I couldn’t worry about it. Now that work was out of the way, I could focus on something way more important: my father’s spotty and elusive family history.

I ducked out of the penthouse without saying goodbye Griffin at all.

New York City, NY

July 2, 2012

Corey volunteered to go with me to the group home in Newark, New Jersey that following Monday. His show was dark that day, and he wanted to help me piece together the scattered pieces to my own personal puzzle. We had utilized the Internet as much as we dared, but entertainment (read: gossip) news kept sidelining us.

PING captured Griffin on the arm of his East Coast steady as they arrived for an event that Sunday. He snuggled her close and looked much happier than he had looked during our entire shooting schedule for the video. Though it shouldn’t have mattered, I found myself sullen and bitchy
as a result. No one could make me feel quite as sub-par as Griffin Slade. If I thought that might be better after a manufactured hookup courtesy of a music video, I was sorely mistaken.

Sadly, that same event was attended by Eddie and Shelby. Eddie kept the fragile, petite beauty close under his wing as they posed for photographers. Though she smiled in every photo, I could tell how bitterly unhappy she was. I
couldn’t help but worry how she was managing her stress and powerlessness under her oppressive father’s and Eddie’s control. But unless I was ready to literally strip bare for the media there was nothing to be done about it.

It actually sparked the first ever fight between Corey and me. He jokingly suggested that a sex tape may make the video
I had just filmed even juicier, drawing me even more attention, which caused me to fly right off the handle. Corey was stunned silent by my tirade, where I raged that I didn’t need cheap tricks to sell my albums. If my voice wasn’t the cornerstone for my success, then I didn’t want to be successful at all. I burst into tears and slammed into the guest room, where I stayed for a good two hours. I was over my temper tantrum after the first fifteen minutes. After that I was too embarrassed to face my very dear friend. He hadn’t deserved my unloading on him.

When I finally poked my head through the door, I waved an ivory pillowcase. Since he was more confused than offended by my display, he was able to laugh off the whole incident. He chalked it up to PMS and I let him. It seemed like as good an excuse as any.

To make it up to him, I enlisted Iris’s help to organize a private dinner cruise. 

It was the least I could do, considering all he had done for me. I owed all my successes to Corey, and it was about time I showed him
my undying gratitude.

I was especially grateful after our arduous afternoon at the group home
which yielded no results. According to their records, no juvenile named Joe, Joseph or Joey Hemphill had ever been processed through their system. They had records for Maya, which they had already provided for Mr. Vass. I came prepared with photos of both my parents, but the administrators had no recollection of their time there.

Worse, we still hadn’t been able to locate my father’s birth certificate. My last resort was flying back to Iowa and trying to convince Marianne to provide these documents for me, but I knew I couldn’t face Shane again. God only knew how he’d try to wreck my life in the future.

“You know nothing about your grandparents on your dad’s side?” Corey asked as we entered the Holland Tunnel, heading back to Manhattan.

I shook my head. “To be honest, I can’t rec
all much of anything before my dad died. Mr. Vass is looking into the Social Security death records to see if he can pinpoint anyone with my dad’s exact date of death in or around Oswen. We located the news reports of his death, listed a hunting accident, but that was through the major newspaper of Des Moines. It all listed his name as Joseph Hemphill.”

“Did you ask your birth mom?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. It was enough of a hassle moving her out of the hovel she was living in. With finishing the album, shooting the video and all the store openings, I just haven’t had time to question her about it.”

“What was your Aunt Verna’s name? Was it Hemphill?”

I shook my head. “But she had married. Widowed by the time I met her, and died without any kids. Dad was her closest living relative.”

“Sounds like there were a lot of secrets in your family,” he commented. Then, with a grin, “Like everyone else, I guess.”

I giggled. He had a point. I didn’t know why it was so important to me to fill in my sketchy history. If family wanted either my mother or my father, they wouldn’t have ended up in a group home. If Maya was any indication, I wasn’t likely to unearth a happy ending out of this tangled mess.

Maybe ignorance really was bliss.

I brushed it off as best I could as we headed back up to Corey’s loft to change for the evening. Iris sent me a vague message to “dress to impress,” so I got the sneaking suspicion she had organized a much bigger dinner party than I was expecting.

Little did I know.

Iris had worked her magic, inviting just about every VIP she could think of. She invited Roxy and everyone involved with the video – including Griffin – and Angus and his filmmaking crew as well. Rounding out her client list was Jacob Corey, Jasper’s trusted assistant, and most of Corey’s dance troupe from his Broadway production.

I shook my head as I approached her. “What did you do?”

“What?” she asked innocently. “I thought it’d be a nice gesture to socialize with your colleagues.”

I spied Griffin standing by the railing with yet another celebutante to keep him company. “I had hoped it’d be a little smaller.”