Kelly stiffened. “What happens between us is not your problem.”
“Hello, I’m living a life as you, remember? Sure it’s my fucking problem.”
“Just get to the shower. I’ll call you again at nine sharp.” With a scowl, Kelly closed the connection. The vid comm screen died out.
Nicolla exhaled a long breath. She didn’t like where this was going. All of a sudden, she needed her cigarettes badly. Kelly didn’t smoke, and Ms Prissy wouldn’t be happy if Nicolla started filling her precious lungs with nicotine.
“Ugh.” Nicolla put her coffee cup
on the counter and headed to the shower. This day was going to be fucking great.
Chapter Three
The sight of the movie set scared the hell out of her. Kelly had never been into any studio complex, let alone an X-rated one. As she arrived on the set she was so overwhelmed by panic, the only thing she could hear was the sound of her pounding heartbeat. Kelly trudged to a chair and sank into it, feeling numb. I can’t do this. This is crazy. Nicolla is right. I’m sexually retarded. I’m horrible in bed, so what makes me think I can do this in front of the camera?
“Miss Evers.”
Kelly jumped.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” the woman apologised. She was small, black-haired and dressed in a conservative manner. She looked almost too young to be working in a porn factory. Her nametag declared she was the assistant director and she was called Fitch. “Mr Strickland wanted to see you on the set.”
“Who’s Strickland?”
Fitch looked at her with wonder.
“You know, the darnedest thing is”—Kelly mimicked Nicolla’s accent and hand gestures—“I had a wild party last night and this morning I woke up and can’t remember s-shit.” The curse word left a bad taste in her mouth. Kelly disliked profanities. Not because she’d been raised as a proper woman, but because she personally believed cursing was also demeaning to the person she was speaking to.
Fitch seemed take no offence. “Mr Strickland is your manager, miss. Our boss. He owns this studio.”
“Right,” Kelly slurred, pretending she was drunk. “And what movie am I supposed to shoot this afternoon?”
“Fashionista. It’s a feature film, our biggest budgeted project this year.”
“Right. What does Strickland want with me?”
Fitch shoved a stack of hard copies in her hands. “This is your script. All printed on paper, just the way you like them. Mr Strickland wanted to make sure you remember your lines. We’re far behind our schedule because you kept forgetting your dialogue yesterday.”
Kelly skimmed the script. “Geez. They require a script just to make a stupid X-rated movie?”
Fitch gave her a funny look again. She probably thought Kelly was completely out of her mind. “Of course. It’s a feature film.”
“So you’re saying there are unscripted ones?”
“It’s called gonzo. You starred in seventy-five gonzos before you made your first feature. How could you forget that?”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not. You really need to see a doctor about your…amnesia problem, Miss Evers. It seems to be getting worse.”
Kelly blinked. If Fitch was her assistant at the firm, she would fire her on the spot for making such a remark, but then again, maybe Nicolla Evers was so screwy that someone like Fitch had to point out the obvious. She resisted an urge to counter her smarminess, and instead, she followed Fitch to Strickland’s office through a labyrinth of individual movie sets. People bustled around them, men with cables and props, and actresses being primped by makeup artists.
Fitch herded her away from the cacophonous chaos into a private, enclosed set. It looked like an office with tasteful furniture and neutral colour coordinates. The crews were busy with the lighting when Kelly got in. Everybody paused what they were doing, looking in her direction. She froze in her tracks. Cold panic seized her. God, I really can’t do this.
“Nicolla.” A middle-aged man with a stern face and a curt voice snapped her out of her frozen fear. Fitch addressed him as Mr Strickland. He was an elegant man, dressed in a designer suit and expensive jewellery, reflecting his taste in high fashion. He wasn’t the man Kelly had expected him to be. And both Fitch and Strickland were Normies, surprising her, since most people who worked in District One were usually Misfits.
“How are you this morning?” Strickland enquired with a casual tone. “Are you fit for work?”
Kelly shrugged. “Kind of.”