Focus, goddammit. You need her for this project to be amazing and you can’t scare her off.
Tonight is supposed to be our first shoot, our first fake date, and I want everything to be perfect, I want everything to feel real, but I also don’t want to freak Devi out with how real things are inside of me right now. But still. Even just knowing that our project is going to lead to sex, that at some point next week or the week after or the week after that, I will fuck Devi Dare—I feel like my skin is about to combust.
Focus.
I reach over and grab her seatbelt, buckling her in the seat, the backs of my fingers brushing against her breasts as I bring the strap over and down and click it into place.
She shivers.
“We haven’t even started filming yet, and already you’re starting with the foreplay,” she jokes weakly, trying to scrub the goose bumps off her arms.
“I’m always on the clock,” I joke back, equally weakly, hoping she can’t sense the conflicted desire pounding through my veins. I turn my body back to the front, start the car and shift into reverse. Soon, we’re on our way north, driving through the city and towards Pasadena.
“So where are we going?” Devi asks, reaching forward to fiddle with my radio.
“A movie in the park,” I say, a little proud of myself for coming up with this great date idea. “Zombie double-feature: Night of the Living Dead and Shaun of the Dead.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Isn’t Night of the Living Dead really old?”
“Old?” I sputter. “I think the word you’re looking for is classic!”
She giggles at my indignation, and it’s been so long since I’ve made a woman really, truly laugh, and oh my God, I told her there wouldn’t be any sex tonight and how am I going to hold myself to that?
I start talking about the movies to keep myself from saying or doing something stupid (like confessing that I have this crazy thing for her and that I beat off to her porn almost every night.) And by the time we get to the park, I’ve given Devi a forty-five minute lecture about the zombie film genre, ranging from Romero to James Bond to a little gem called Zombie Strippers.
“You should open your own film school,” Devi says as I park the car and pull my camera bag from the back.
“I don’t know enough,” I admit. “I need to go to film school.”
“Then why don’t you?” she asks, sweetly puzzled, and I realize that I don’t have an answer for that, actually. Other than money and convenience and the fear of failure and the fact that when you fall into doing something, it’s so hard to fall out of it. I mumble something about not having enough time, and I’m glad she can’t see my face as I look down at the bag.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m going to start filming now, but don’t worry about what you say or do. I was planning on tonight ending with our first kiss, but I’m not married to that idea, because I think it’s better if the night has its own flow and rhythm and doesn’t feel forced. And remember, I can edit anything out, so there’s no pressure to get this right the first time.”
“I think you just want to take me on more dates,” she laughs, and God, I hope I’m not that transparent. Because I do want to take her on more dates. I want to bring her home. I even want to introduce her to my fucking family, and she can’t know that, or she’ll think I’m a stalker for sure.
So I just flash her a big smile, and say, “I bet I could make more dates worth your while.”
I press a couple buttons, fiddle with a handful of settings, and then I get out of the car and walk around the front, opening the door on her side. I take her hand and help her out, and she’s so beautiful in the hot evening light, sun-kissed and happy. My dick, which dozed off during the impromptu session of Logan’s Zombie Classroom, wakes right up as she stretches and her tank top rides just above the low waist of her shorts, exposing a sliver of golden skin. God, those thighs with those surfing and hiking muscles, and those breasts, so full and high and perky all at once.
It hits me all of a sudden how young she is, only twenty-one, just barely out of girlhood. There’s something so fresh about her, so unsullied, and then I remember her sucking me off when she was eighteen, remember how I was thinking the same thing then too. That it should feel wrong to be almost a decade older, that it should be wrong for a man my age to cradle the face of a barely-legal girl and fill her mouth with my dick, but help me, sweet baby Jesus, the wrongness only made it better.
When I finally speak, my voice has a subtle rasp to it. “Devi,” I say, “won’t you say hi?”
Devi waves, a little shyly, which is perfect, and I turn the camera to face myself. “I’m Logan O’Toole, and I’m here tonight to take this cute girl on a date. We met a few years ago, doing a job together, and then we reconnected...where was it, Devi?”
She plays along. “At a party a few weeks ago. You jumped into the pool with all of your clothes on.”