“You really think you’re going to bully your way into a million dollars, don’t you?” I ask.
“It’s actually a million and change, but that wasn’t really your question. Yeah, I really think I’m going to get what I want,” he says. “I know you. You weren’t even that comfortable with just me having these pictures—”
“Looks like I had pretty good reason,” I interrupt.
“Whatever,” he says. “Look, I know that you’re not going to want anyone to see you like that unless it’s for some big role or something, and even in that case, you wouldn’t want to saturate the market with too much of your naked body, otherwise, people are going to start thinking you’re a porn star.”
“Well,” I sigh, “if that happens, at least it looks like I know just the guy to go through for advice.”
Maybe Damian will come in handy for something.
“What?” he asks.
“Five thousand a month?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll give you the account number so you can transfer the money, and this can be the last time we ever speak to each other, assuming you keep up with the payments, of course.”
There are two possibilities in my mind right now. The first is that I can stand up for myself, inform the world of these pictures myself, in order to control the story, and then turn Ben in for blackmail.
I like the idea of him being removed from society. Hell, I like the idea of him being removed from just about anything. The problem with this route, though, is that the pictures are going to get out there.
The same thing happened to Pamela Anderson.
The second possibility is that I keep my public sense of dignity intact, but give a horrible person a horribly large amount of money.
“Can I have some time to think about it?” I ask.
“I’ll give you 72 hours,” he says. “By the way, if you’ve got some idea that you’re going to call the cops and that they’re going to stop me before I can release the pictures, let me just tell you that I’ve got an email set up to send to the LA Times and E! with all of those pictures attached. If I don’t put in a password on a regular enough basis,” he says, “that email goes off on its own and that decision is no longer yours.”
“You do realize that everything you’re saying will happen to me is still nowhere near as bad as everything that would happen to you,” I tell him.
“Yeah, maybe,” he says, “but I have a feeling the way we experience the consequences of our actions—I think you’d have a much harder time with that than I would. I go to prison for something like that, I’m still the guy that hooked everyone in the world up with naked pictures of a hot, young actress who, by the way, I was dating at the time, and you know how that sort of thing turns into interviews and the eventual apology for doing something so ‘outside my character’ that allows me to take a greater role in the public eye. Who knows where all that could lead? Really, all things considered, this could work out pretty well for me. The question you’ve got to ask yourself is how famous do you want me to be?”
Right now, I’d be pretty happy if neither one of us were famous.
“Three days?” I ask.
“Three days,” he says, “starting now. I’ll call you when your time is up and we’ll see what kind of a future we’re going to have.”
He hangs up the phone.
There is actually a part of me that’s actually excited to know that I’m influential enough to be blackmailed, but it’s a small and rather crazy part.
Chapter Four
Refilling the Well
Damian
“You’re losing it,” Danna says as I pour my fourth glass of milk.
I know I’m not the first adult who tries to find comfort at the bottom of a homemade chocolate milk glass, but that particular escape can be somewhat hard to hide.
“You didn’t see them,” I tell her. “They honestly couldn’t give a shit that I was in the room. Even the woman I talked to that recognized me just called me ‘that actor guy’ and did everything she could to pry herself out of our conversation.”
“The problem,” Danna says, “is that you’re just a great big pussy.”
“Excuse me?” I ask.