Thread: Paradise Isle  (Fades & Good Girls)

How easy would it have been to give the interview in a day or two, were this your average tinsel town marketing stunt? Oh, I hardly even noticed the cameras going off. When you're really connecting with someone in a scene, they're all you see. It's not until you pull back to the reality of the backstage bustle and the craft services table that it all falls away again and you remember you're just there doing a job, albeit one I'd never trade for the world. Emilia's words both humbly self-effacing and yet somewhat in awe of the entire process that they had managed to get away with, the politely interested and incredulous interviewer framing the amusement on her face through some bit of purple prose. That was how events like these were supposed to work. Even the most off the cuff and improvised engagement, in front of the media, was one more scene in a play where all the world was a stage. And it wasn't working like that at all. The world didn't fall away. The snapping cameras and murmuring voices didn't disappear into the black void over the edge of the stage. No matter how polished and shined it had been, the floor beneath the balls of her feet had an ever so slightly coarse texture to it from some falling of dust or grain in the wood that grounded her with a friction that was far too real, the air conditioning of a venue seating all those many, many people here to witness Jeffrey Tremonti's grand insanity felt on every tiny pinprickle bump on her skin that might have seemed immaculate from afar but might as well have been a roadmap of unaccustomed chills to a gliding touch up her arm. She felt cold to his touch when it came, like a cool sheet on a waiting mattress, but just the same she warmed so immediately and contoured to his touch so readily that any chill was immediately forgotten within seconds of their fingers touching. Their positioning hid her behind him, as though he was protecting her from the cruel gaze of the paparazzi, and yet let her peek in a way that appealed to their thirstiest instincts. No one had missed whatever angle they might have liked of Miss Clarke's full frontal surprise, and yet it was the vision of his three quarters profile only allowing the sleek line of her hip and leg to show beyond his own, or the way her eyes seemed to be framed hovering just at his shoulder with the expression on her face otherwise masked by the same, that would be the kind of tastefully perfect metaphor for a cover story about a man literally subjugating one of his favorite actresses, controlling and protecting her in equal measure. Emilia felt every snap. Realized her tits were already everywhere on Twitter as if anything else had been the case for years, frankly, but these were fresh. Knew every picture was another comment about how she ought to have shaved even further, knew every angle was another from which she would be attacked for how her backside didn't hang just right for that person's particular perfect preferences, and she knew and felt -- immense relief. She wouldn't even have cell service anymore, she realized in a very real, grounding way. She didn't have a phone or a computer, or a newspaper or magazine opened before her. Going through with this meant she would never see anything like that again, knowing only what Jeffrey allowed her to know, in some ways. And the race of her heart and the realization of what she had really just done all seemed to melt away with the realization of what she was really about to do. She'd known , or she wouldn't be here. And now she knew in a way that wouldn't have been possible until this moment. No matter what submissive fantasies she had harbored, no matter what dreams of a simpler life might have drifted between her ears, no matter what had lead her to now, it wasn't until he took her hands and held her eyes that she felt from top to bottom the weight and release of what she was doing here today. Today was when it was going to become real. I can recite lines for you later, if you like, she whispered like a sweet nothing that sounded as giddy as it did completely breathless in its near lack of audibility, a rush of amusement and panic blending together all at once. They're very bad lines, she didn't say, but definitely thought in a manner that contributed to that giddy thrill running laps up and down the bow of her spine. Her fingers followed his with nearly every motion, not quite stuck, but certainly wanting to linger in the warmth of his touch in a way that kept them grounded to one another. That gave her the one bit of cover she was currently afforded, the cover of giving herself completely to this man in this mad endeavor, even as she revealed herself utterly to the world one last time. Compared to all of that, it was hard to take much thrill in the reveal of her own worth. In a monetary sense, it seemed so very small to reduce her entire life to date and forthcoming to a number. Even, especially, to 263,000,000. Sure, that seemed like a lot. It was a lot. But what was a human life worth? .. apparently, that. She looked like she almost wanted him to low-ball her. After all that talk about hoping she'd raised a good amount, whispered the curtains to the shadows. Maybe she's the kind of upper-class that likes the idea of the low-class. Maybe she'd have creamed herself if she'd gotten bought for a nickle, the shadows whispered back, more in good natured teasing than any cruelty to the first among them to go through this ordeal. Speculation usually starts with the self, the curtains taunted. Shh , the wings implored -- this was the good part. Or at least, the important part. The part with the quilled pen in between her fingers. The appropriately gaudy contract before her. The promise of everything that had been determined prior, writ in as close to stone as it would ever be, with the dissolution of all that she had been. Her physical and financial assets. Her citizenship records. Her birth certificate. Her rights under known British and Global law. With a flourish, she would genuinely be His property and governed by no laws save for those of his little sovereign nation of an island, enforced world wide at his discretion for all those who were a part of it -- or something along those lines? The truth of the matter was that Emilia Clarke understood the weight of what signing the contract meant even if she couldn't recite every single legal reason why it worked . With the quill in her hand, his presence at her back, and the crowd finally drifting away into the blissful dizziness of there being nothing but him and the stage and the choice in front of her, she knew there were now only two steps. She could step away, back to her life, cold feet returning her to her career a little bit more infamous and surprising than she had seemed before she had set foot on this stage today. Or she would go from person to thing. Beloved, adored, cherished, pampered thing, but thing nonetheless. Property. Pet. Furniture. All at once, sometimes, one after the other at others. Whatever He wanted of her, always. She had been many things in her life, and with an achingly simple scratching of script, she wasn't anymore. Emilia on the line, not her signature, but elegant script nonetheless. Not even a surname to follow it, since as of that moment, she was no longer a part of the family to which she had been borne. She was of a different group, a different caste, a different taxonomy in some ways. The first of her kind, to the chagrin or relief of the others who had all wondered and jockeyed and speculated on who would have to go first and how it would feel to go last, or to be in the middle, or any other number of variables that could overtake the day. If she expected to feel relief, or to collapse as her nerves all reacted at once, or to, well, cream herself at the realization of what she'd just done, there was nothing quite so fancy as all that. There was just Emilia , and she was still holding the quill until she put it down with a smile. And then she wrenched eons of evolution to the task of getting her to turn her hip and place her foot behind her so that she could turn away, and another millenia of self-empowerment to get the other foot to follow suit. Like she was stuck in molasses, every ripple of her stripped curvature might as well have lingered for a fortnight in the eyes of those observing her .. even if in reality, she simply seemed to sign the contract and then begin to walk toward the front of the stage as though she had hit the catwalk. There was nothing leaden nor artistic in her stance when she approached the end of the stage and the sea of darkness that stared hungrily up at the Persephone who had just greedily taken as many seeds as there were years remaining in her life, no matter how it must have felt for her to force herself to walk that short length to the end of the stage. Because she had regrets about what she had done? Absolutely not. What she had done was entirely in the smile and the locking of her eyes that she had shared with Jeffrey, of that she had no regrets. She had only one fear, one inextricable, dangerous, stomach-twisting fear of what was to come, and she was almost certain that that was why Mr. Tremonti had shared the details of what was going to be expected of them so thoroughly beforehand. She hadn't eaten anything prior to this, and she was very glad now as she looked down at the vague features of those in the front row and smiled prettily down at them as she stooped and placed her palm on the end of the stage, balancing elegantly with catlike grace in her downward swooping onto her knees, a position she held cleanly as soon as it was taken. She lifted her chin, and held it high and proud, shoulders back holding her posture with equal pride. And yet those in the front could see the tremble of adrenaline and fear coursing through her. Whether in the tremor of her shoulder beneath her hair or the delectably subtle quiver of her breasts with her breathing and trepidation alike, it was all too easy to assume that what they saw was the second thoughts rushing from a young actress's head throughout her entire body. It wasn't that. Well, not really entirely. It's just that .. yes , Emilia had submissive tendencies. But she didn't have masochistic ones. She didn't enjoy pain. Even if she of all of them knew best that it was through fire that one was truly reborn.