I'm Glad About You(71)

And of course the offer didn’t come, did it? After being told that it was on its way, both by Ryan and by Lars, it simply didn’t show up.

“How many times do I have to tell you, these things are complicated,” Ryan reassured her on one of their daily phone calls.

“Oh, Ryan, please stop. You know I love you. I think you’re a great agent, this isn’t about you.”

“I know it’s not about me, who said it was about me?”

On days like this she really wished she wasn’t dealing with such an agent. The layers of show business bullshit were like some sort of very strange, sticky cocoon. “I’m just saying it’s been a long time since you told me this offer was coming through, and it was a long shot to begin with. I’m not stupid.” She suddenly felt overwhelmed that she even had to mention that. No matter how cataclysmically she had been misunderstood by every single member of her giant family, no one had ever underestimated her intelligence. And now here she was, being conned by idiots who expected her to care about a shell game. Where is it where is it? Where’s the ball? A reasonably smart canine would have picked up on this useless bullshit years ago and refused to play.

“It’s okay,” she said, suddenly humiliated by her own stupidity. “If I’m not getting an offer, it was a long shot.”

“I thought things were going well for you and Lars.”

“Lars and I are fine, that’s not—look. You know that’s not why he offered it to me. He’s not offering me the part just because he’s screwing me. Oh, God. I can’t believe I just said that. Particularly because as far as I can tell he’s not offering me the part at all.”

“What does Lars say?”

“Lars—Lars says they’re offering me the part.”

“Well?”

“WELL, IF THEY’RE OFFERING IT WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG?”

“Back down, tiger. We’ve been through this. They are offering you the part, they just have an internal situation they need to work out.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Alison. Alison. Do you trust me? Do you trust me?” For a moment Alison remembered that snake, from The Jungle Book, who sang a sweet little song to Mowgli to get him to go to sleep, so that he could eat him.

“Sure, Ryan,” she said. “I trust you.”

“How are things going for you and Lars?”

She took a breath. “Lars and I are fine. We’re great.”

“That’s all you need to think about. The rest is my job. Let me do my job.”

Things were good with Lars. “Good” was as usual a relative word, but she would have a hard time describing her relationship with the Icelandic Prince in more unsavory terms. Lars was gorgeous. He was sexy. He was romantic. He was remote, but in a way that you would expect out of a global film director. It was true that sex with Lars, while exciting, was a little unnerving. He would do things like suddenly grab her by the hair, pull her toward him, and kiss her with complete, unself-conscious abandon. She could be sitting on the couch eating popcorn and the next thing she knew he was on top of her, with his fingers shoved up her vagina, her back arched over the armrest, moaning with pleasure. She felt like a total slut at times like that; she had never known that sex could be this overwhelming, and there were moments when she wanted him inside her so much that she wondered if maybe she shouldn’t go see some therapist about sex addiction. It was like a fever dream, half the time, and she would have been embarrassed by her own behavior if he were not even more creatively hedonistic in this arena. If one of them was a sex addict, it was Lars, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t it. This was the thing she couldn’t possibly tell Ryan: Lars was obsessed with her.

He sent dresses to her apartment and then came over at all hours to watch her model them, before undressing her in creative ways so he could f*ck her. He brought her exotic Moroccan oils and showed her even more exotic ways to use them. And then one day he brought actors with him.

No big deal, he explained; he just wanted to have the guys read a few scenes from the movie with her. Her apartment was so small, and so marked as Lars’s sexual territory by then, the addition of the two strange boys was unnerving, bumpy. On the other hand, the idea that Lars wanted to work on the film seemed promising. She had practically memorized the script by then, and the chance to actually say the words and show what she could do with the character jazzed her. There was no way to say no. Why would you?

And of course it was fun, at first. Snappy little scenes where she flirted with the boys, bossed them around, acted all cool and witty while nursing a secret crush on the too-tough leader of the crew. It was lively and they were enjoying themselves. And then they got to the sex scene.

The living room, with so many men in it, had gotten a bit too warm and one of them—Carl, the one playing her love interest—had conveniently stripped down to his T-shirt.

“Let’s try this on the couch,” Lars told them.

It wasn’t a difficult scene. In fact, there was nothing to it. Laila was sitting on the edge of her bed, and the guy came in, kissed her, and then they had sex.

“You want us to do this scene?”

“Is that a problem?” Lars didn’t even look up from his script.

“There’s not much to it.”

“Let’s just take a shot at it.”