Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,50
instructed. “I don’t…I just needed to see you.”
Declan pulled her into him, not pushing her for the explanation she fought to put into words. She buried her head into his chest, and for a moment, it seemed like she really might just dissolve into a mess of tears and snot.
I really would have had to object on that character choice, probably loudly and without care of the rolling camera I was interrupting. My name had been tarnished enough without these girly dramatics. But at the last minute, she tilted her head up and captured his lips in a pleading kiss.
Earlier when we’d discussed it, she’d asked, “Why did you kiss him?”
I’d paused, not because I hadn’t known the answer, but because I hadn’t wanted to say it. “To distract him.”
Just as they had in reality four years ago, things spiraled from there, as Madeline and Declan acted out the carnal pleasure Cam and I had written with our own bodies.
I knew that the reality of a sex scene wasn’t supposed to be sexy, and for the most part, it wasn’t. There was something clinical, uninspired, knowing every action the actors took in front of the camera came from the direction of the fifty year old woman standing just a few feet away. Georgia jumped in often, instructing them between takes to, “Keep doing that,” or “Tilt your head just a little more to the right.” My personal favorite was when she told Madeline to do something with her legs because it, “looked like Declan was trying to seduce a starfish.”
I was just starting to relax about the whole thing when clothes started flying. Say what you will about the mechanics of the act, but there was something undeniably erotic about flesh on flesh, no matter how it came to occur.
And Declan had some of the finest skin I’d ever seen. The slow loss of clothes ended with his pants, and my yammering heart almost wept with disappointment when his boxers stayed in place. They were hoping for a PG13 rating, after all. Thankfully though, Georgia was known for exhausting as many takes as possible before moving on, which meant I was treated to the show again and again.
I finally understood the appeal of strippers.
“Okay, let’s take five and refresh!” Georgia clapped her hands, startling me from my enraptured state with a squeak.
Snapped back into reality, you could have roasted marshmallows off the heat my face was producing.
Declan stood up, waiting for Fran to bring him and Madeline their robes, and like drizzling honey, my eyes sank down his tanned, defined abdomen. Jesus Christ, how did you even go about getting a body like that?
My mouth was dry, hands clammy, and I had no doubt, if he tried to talk to me while I was in that state, I’d end up acting like a teeny-bopper at a Justin Bieber concert. I may have been acting with all the decorum of a fifth grader with a crush, but my dignity wasn’t going to just let me sit there and face certain mortification.
I jumped to my feet with every intention of going to hide in the bathroom until I was sure the brief intermission was over.
Unfortunately, my haste landed me face planted into the chest I’d just been admiring from afar. Declan stiffened, taking the brunt of my assault before I could halt the forward progress of my body. Oh God, no. I prayed I hadn’t been drooling, because with my mouth landed about an inch from his nipple, he definitely would have felt it.
“Bathroom,” I choked out, peeling my body off his.
“Must be something in the water,” he joked with a nervous chortle, and I thought it might have been the most un-suave I’d ever seen him. Not that I was in a position to appreciate his rare, abashed moment. “I was headed that way myself.”
Neither of us moved, and awkwardness soaked through our silence.
I blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to clear away images of the Greek God that was clouding my judgment, and turn him back into the contemptuous movie star I was familiar with. I knew how to deal with Declan. I just didn’t know how to deal with my attraction for him.
“Alright then,” he said finally, before heading to the bathroom.
I was about to let out a relieved sigh when he stopped a few feet away and turned back to me. “Didn’t you say you had to go too?”