Thread: Paradise Isle  (Fades & Good Girls)

Did she think she hadn't been prepared for this? There was no longer any hiding it from the crowd, had they not been listening nor paying any particular attention to the Checkovs adorning the stage, but they'd met the fourth and final participant for the day. She was just out of sync with the others, just astride the rhythm that had already been set, but whether or not she was to be a discordant earsore upon a symphony that had been steadily building or the memorable trilling of a new sound bringing it altogether at last was still entirely up in the air. But up until this moment, for hours beforehand, she had been backstage. In the dressing room with Miss Petsch, Miss Grande, Miss Clarke, three names that no longer existed in any legal or important sense. In the time they had spent together they had gotten to know one another in some ways better than Jeffrey knew any of them right at this very moment, and yet the afternoon had not entirely stripped them of being strangers nearly so irrevocably as they had been stripped of clothing and artifice by submission and fire. Madeline hadn't disliked Scarlett when they'd been helping one another with their make-up and idly wondering about what exactly this press conference was going to be in reality rather than the building myth and outrage that had hurtled it into existence. But nor had she fully embraced her the same way she had Ariana -- there had been much gushing and much resultant pleased humility in that pairing, it could be admitted -- or even found commiseration with Emilia in long shooting weeks and admissions of accent-jealousy. Standoffish wasn't quite right. But it was clear that Miss Johansson had been keeping her cards as tightly to her chest as her current ensemble. She didn't seem like she thought she was better than they were in any way, and she was friendly and polite, but as they had grown increasingly comfortable just talking to one another and running through theoretical possibilities of what was yet to come while they assembled their wardrobes and helped one another with their hair, her ice hadn't thawed quite so much. Emilia, Ariana, and Madelaine were none of them surprised, because it had been obvious from the very first moment that Scarlett wasn't sure if she was going to go through with this. Something about the fact that she had very nearly introduced herself to them in person with those same words might have tipped them off, in fact. And backstage, Ariana had been the most ready to talk to her about her concerns and fears and potential reasons for going through with this or not, because the littlest of their quartet actually took to the others like a natural gadfly in a way that was honestly a bit surprising given the apparently exaggerated rumors of her diva-esque existence. But even if they had opened up to one another more than either of the others with the blonde mega-star, Scarlett had still been the odd woman out in their otherwise even numbers. Just a bit. Just a smidge. But it was there. So of course Madelaine had been prepared for her to complain about sharing the stage with a B-lister. She had known from minute one that she was in a slightly different league than the rest, and in that way, she and Emilia shared a particular bond -- the brunette having come here entirely apart from her celebrity to reject who she was and who she had been, and for once and all, be her own by being owned -- of not kneeling on this stage with any care for what the world would have to say of them moving forward. Ariana might have not truly made up her mind until she signed, but she had certainly seemed like she could go either way, and that .. that was what had set her apart from them. His curious expression seemed to have found a wrong note struck in this ongoing opera in the pregnant pause between Scarlett's question and his answer, and yet there was nothing smug at all in the way she watched him with an ingenue's gaze never fading. This was his concerto. It was up to him to put each and every note on the page, to keep every chair in time, and to improvise the instant something went wrong. Everyone who signed that contract was literally putting their lives into this man's hands, and thirty seconds or thirty minutes going by was not adequate time to know just what kind of a decision that actually was. She was the one who questioned the entire endeavor. She was the one who had literally nothing to lose and everything to gain from this encounter, now that her other half-a-mind in these precedings had made her decision and finger-fucked herself in celebration afterward. Madelaine, this was arguably a step up for her. Emilia's rocky career made it something of a toss-up, didn't it? Ariana was on top of the world, and so she chose to be on the bottom of this world entirely of her own free will, with no coercion of money or comfort that he could offer truly having anything to sway her. Scarlett didn't think herself arrogant for knowing that she was in the same boat. She simply knew her worth, just as Madelaine knew hers. And the question that all of them ought to have been asking was whether or not Jeffrey Tremonti knew what their worth really was. Was it a micro-aggression, dear millenial, to simply force him to say what he had built this charade atop of in the first place, that their fame was their worth in a certain fashion? Because some people, after today, would argue that none of them had proved their absolute desire to participate more than Madelaine had granted, those think pieces would be written for all of the branded girls within a matter of hours, and yet she was going to be judged as worth less by the standards he himself had decided upon. Maddie's shoulders might have tensed a little, enough so that Emilia pushed a hand over the slender curve of her thigh in comfort, but Scarlett wasn't watching them. She was watching him . He was quicker than she'd anticipated, she would absolutely give him that. Just like that, he performed a classic donor-match for the girl who had teased Emilia about looking as though she would have twisted herself into a pretzel of joy to be told she could have been allowed to serve for nothing at all. For the redhead who had been teasing in that classic way where projecting one's own faults on another was a winning diversion she would have done everything precisely the same now given a second opportunity where there was a goose egg scrawled on that check. She believed in the good a multi-billionaire's money could do she also believed that no part of this was truly selling herself or her worldly assets so much as that was a bonus of making a rich man's dick feel so good he temporarily forgot that he wasn't supposed to spend quite that frivolously. And that, almost as much as the way she had all but appeared on stage from stories of olds, was what was making her bristle at the blonde to her back. This wasn't puttin' on the ritz, puttin' on a show, puttin' herself out there. She was testing him, in more turns of that phrase than one. Her hand was soft and warm and tangible against his, and she clasped his fingers with the ease of a long-held lover. While Madelaine might have been a bit taken aback by Scarlett's pointed interruption leading to Jeffrey's unexpected generosity, she took it, and him, in stride. Those are lovely sentiments, said the honey bourbon rasp of silk on flesh, her voice a purr without seduction, the matter of fact tactile nature of her very tone making each word sound like a private little nothing whispered into his ear from the pillow, but you're wrong about not having anything to prove. Her hand turned after his second kiss, the gracious elegance of an upturned palm accepting an unspoken invitation to dance. And dance her fingers did, just under the bottom of his chin. Not unkindly. Not without affection. Not without the tiniest touch of condescension. She might have looked upon him as though considering him kneeling at her feet, for all that he still would have towered from such a position compared to her. With a half foot between Ariana and Madelaine, and the pretty Brit currently in between them forming the line according to their height by meeting the difference just about halfway, Scarlett would have landed right in the middle beside her if she took up residence to turn their trio into a quartet. Any illusion of her mind whirling away at what the tables might have been, artfully turned, was revealed for the hoax that is was with the curl of her smile. There was no giddy irony like Maddie's sweet smile at his admitting to his perspiratious inclinations, no teasing promise of a flash just for him, no utter joy at the getting to give. She smiled because she had so much to prove, in a way that had nothing to do with films or spotlights. To him, to the world, to herself. It wasn't cruelty or cattiness or competition of dick-size why measure up when he had been swinging his around since he'd announced this entire mad plan that was driving her, and if it was ego, it wasn't borne of petty-minded arrogance. She wanted him to sweat, yes. This had been too easy for him, ever since Ariana had realized in front of the world it was what she truly wanted. And sometimes it was nice to get everything you wanted, just when you wanted it, just how you wanted it. But he was going to have decades of that, no matter what she decided today. That's nearly a billion dollars just for these three women, Scarlett said into the microphone with an astonished poise, genuinely taken aback by the number amounts they had just seen in the way her eyes widened imperceptibly, her posture put herself on the back foot, and her smile turned itself to the crowd. Only the nectar in her boozy voice had given way to the splash of something undeniably fruit forward, the sweet and palatable crowd-pleaser of a drink that sold by volume rather than got sipped by a connoisseur lingering on every note. That pillow talk murmur had been Scarlett's -- and with the stage truly now upon her, the voice that emerged was Scarlett's. The actress. The star. Approachably unattainable, just one of the girls, occasionally stoned on the red carpet, elegant enough to cut oneself on, self aware enough to joke around with, anything to everyone who wanted her to be anything. Movie Stars were an increasingly rare phenomenon, a devious cocktail of charisma and everywoman nature that mingled with absolute savvy about one's self image and self worth. No one, love her or hate her, could deny that it was exactly what she was, what she excelled at. She sold projects on her name alone, and took projects that would never exist without that same name. If one were to calculate her net worth, even at her stardom it would likely never reach the number on the check that Mr. Tremonti unfurled to put his own period on the statement she had made at Madelaine's potential expense. No one could argue he wasn't opening his wallet wide to get what he wanted. And while she delicately performed a well-practiced applause even with mic in hand, her astonishment at the number certainly wasn't why she was there. The crowd was, metaphorically and literally, going wild with the assumption they were going to get what had already been given to them thricefold. A foregone conclusion. Wow. Just .. wow, she breathed, and not a wrong note to go with it. The harmony had returned. Even Madelaine's tension had abated, a bit, though she certainly didn't think his generosity had been planned before the blonde had pressed it. Was she glad of that, or frustrated by it? She wasn't entirely sure. And over a third, all over again, just for me, she reminded the crowd in case the impact of numbers that large had somehow gotten dulled down by their repetition. More money than any of them would ever see in their life, apiece. They could win the lottery and not afford even one of the slavegirls kneeling on the stage right now well, not after taxes, anyway. It's true that I could talk to my financial adviser, tally up my net worth, and donate every cent to Oxfam tomorrow without so much as a roof over my head to show for it, but I have a very good feeling that I'd barely scratch the surface of that level of generosity, she admitted, perfectly Vanna-ing all four checks in one sweep of her hand. She paused, hoping to let that sink in to everyone, but then she was smiling at Jeffrey again. Its very kindness was a mystery, for how strong she was coming on she didn't seem like she was trying to think of a way to sabotage this entire endeavor. And she looked at him as though the entire rest of the world had truly fallen away -- or perhaps as if she could never forget the world even beyond the walls of the auditorium. I want to tell you a little about myself, but there's nothing the entertainment industry hates more than chicks blabbing endlessly, and you've had three of us already doing just that, right? she asked, her smile becoming a self-reflective cha-grin. Do you think we could take just a minute instead for you to tell us something about yourself, Mr. Tremonti? I know I don't just speak for myself when I say we're very interested to know more about the sort of man who could think up all of this. She could have been referring to the press, of course, but there was no question in her smile and never-wavering gaze, an ocean come to crash down upon him, that she was speaking for those who had been hidden away in wardrobe without so much as a chance to even shake his hand before they walked out onto the stage. Madelaine knew him better than Ariana knew him better than Emilia. They had each merely had longer to observe him. By that token, Scarlett must have known him best of all, even when she knew him not at all. Emilia's calves were beginning to fall asleep and her knees were beginning to ache. So were Madelaine's, which just made her want to boggle slightly at how long the brunette had been kneeling compared to she and Ari without so much as a single whimper of complaint on the hardwood stage. But the blonde, she still had plenty of time free of kneeling aches and soreness brought about by too-perfect posture in the face of the world. And if Jeffrey had enough time to spend the rest of his life with them, she figured he had enough time for an impromptu little interview too. And to think, she might have asked him something else entirely, taken an entirely different tactic, if only he hadn't all but pleaded without giving any ground in his moment of control an impressive little feat, she admitted to let them meet her, as though the irony of how a man as rich as he being able to be literally anyone he wanted to be at any moment in time might have been lost on them. Well, she didn't like that. She wanted to know him. And she had nothing to prove. What made him so special that he could literally buy people? That was something he might not have needed to prove, but it was still worth proving. It was still worth impressing . And that was where Scarlett's smile finally became familiar, the cautious date across the tablecloth, the wine freshly poured. So tell me a little about yourself . There were so many first dates that were more accurately named only dates, and most people didn't need to plead their case for why a second one ought to have been around the corner in front of the watching world. But then again, most of them didn't end with someone's initials getting burned into their skin and soul either. Don't you just wish we knew about what was smoke and mirrors and what was real? Well, yeah, but, I don't think that's exactly part of the yes or no question here. Miss Johansson was absolutely playing nice. She was giving the voice to the question that had gone unasked by the other three, whether due to their nerves or their own determination, that they all certainly wanted to know the answer to. In his reckoning, that answer seemed to be predicated upon their acceptance first . But women who reached the ranks she and The Artists Formerly Known As Ari did were a little more used to the world bending to what they wanted, and there was a unanimity in what all four women on the stage wanted. Who is Jeffrey Tremonti?