The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Home Sweet Hollywood

Previously: "Daddy-Daughter Time" 

Alison Knox is a healthy piece of girl—a rarity on television, where actresses are too often too skinny. But Alison has hips, thighs, cleavage, and cascading platinum-blonde hair that falls in shallow waves past her shoulders. And though she is wearing neon-pink gloss, tons of bronzer, and heavy eyeliner, it has the effect of enhancing her sweetly feminine features rather than fuzzing them with a lot of glop. She is dressed in Levis, a peach-colored men's shirt, vest, and cowboy hat with an iridescent feather at the top. As you look her down and then up again, you see she's wearing cowboy boots.

With a laugh, you ask if she's dressed for the rodeo.

"Going incognito," she tells you. "It works, you walked right past me without even looking."

"Oh, I saw you," you tell her. "But I'm here with my daughter, so—" You cast a quick sidelong glance at Becky who, po-faced, is loitering nearby.

A faint smile comes to Alison's mouth, and through frozen lips she says, very quietly, "Yeah, what's up with that?"

"Wanna get a drink? We can't go in a bar on account of Becky—"

Alison shrugs, and together the three of you leave the casino floor for one of the restaurants.

* * * * *

It was a pleasant twenty minutes you spent with Alison, even with Becky glowering moodily in the corner. That was for the best, though. You told Alison about your trip back home, and the daughter you found and are taking back to Los Angeles to show around. Alison pretends to be sweetly interested, but you can tell by her expression that she hasn't ruled out—maybe has even embraced—the suspicion that Becky is a really girl you picked up. There is a slight strain between you when you see her off.

After that, there's nothing to do but go back to the room, so you don't even get to do any gambling.

"So why didn't you go back to her room and fuck her?" Becky demands when you're alone again. There's a sour, moody expression on her face. It makes her look too much like her mother.

"I thought about it," you tell her as you slip off your jacket. "Are you mad I didn't?"

"No. It's your business, Daddy, who you sleep with—"

"I thought you might be mad. I thought maybe you wanted to be her. It would'a been you, if I fucked her. In a mask."

Becky looks startled. "Her?"

"Don't you recognize her?"

"Should I?"

"Jesus. I thought you said you watched the show. That was Wysteria Beddoes."

She boggles. "That was—?"

"Christ, she wasn't wearing that much makeup. Maybe the cowboy outfit threw you."

Becky sinks onto the edge of the bed. "I thought she was just some— And you could'a got a mask of her?"

"If we wanted it. You're right, she wanted me." You sit on the edge of the bed opposite, your knees almost touching. "I mean, it's too late now. But—"

"Did you do it with her? I mean, did Paul—?"

"Oh yeah. Only at cons. She was seeing a guy at the time. But we had three cons together, in Boston, Cincinnati and ... Dallas? I think it was Dallas. Every one, we shared a bed. I mean, we each had a room, but hers or mine went unused—"

"Is there anyone you didn't fuck? That Paul didn't fuck?"

"One or two." You lean forward to force her knees apart, then dive across to push her onto her back. You give her a slow, deep kiss. "Sometimes I had lines to learn and that got in the way," you explain after breaking off.

She twines her hands behind your head. "Oh, Daddy," she pouts. "You're awful.

* * * * *

The shortest leg of the trip is the next day, from Vegas to Los Angeles, but it's still a five-hour drive, even making a mostly straight shot of it, and it's mid-afternoon when you pull into the Academy Gardens in Studio City. It's a small, exclusive complex done up in faux-Spanish colonial style, with red tile roofs and adobe-colored walls. Short, fat Arecaceae palms line the walks. It's warm out—temperatures are in the eighties, despite it being mid-October—as you carry Becky's luggage into your apartment. It is, of course, stuffy and unventilated when you go in.

It's not a big apartment either, despite the several thousands a month it costs to rent—less than a thousand square feet. But the kitchen, dining nook, and living room are large and they open out onto each other, so that it has the airy feel of a house when you step inside. Only when you step down a stubby hall and find that the single bedroom and bathroom are the only other rooms in the place are you likely to feel a tad claustrophobic.

"Where do I sleep?" Becky asks when you drop her suitcases on the cream-white, king-sized bedspread.

"Where do you think you're going to sleep?" you ask, and pat her on the bum.

"What are the neighbors going to think?"

"We'll tell them I'm sleeping on the sofa until we can move into a two-bedroom unit."

"I thought we were moving to Sonora or wherever. The place with the high school that Carmen was so hot for." The skeptical expression on her face is closer to one that Sydney would wear.

"Come on." You take her onto the back deck, a thing the size of a postage stamp, with an iron railing that separates it from the narrow grounds on the other side. You point over the top of the surrounding hedge to a black, glass-and-aluminum skyscraper that rises like a monolith a couple of miles away.

"That's Universal City," you tell her. "And over there"—you point in another direction—"on the other side of the one-oh-one where you can't see it, is Warner Bros. and Disney." You swing your finger around the points of the compass. "CBS. Paramount. Sony. We're right in the middle of them.

"But Calabasas—" You wind up and pitch an invisible fast ball far to the west. "—is way out there. Here is where I work. Where Paul works. Where he used to work, and where he can get work again if—" You suck in your upper lip and peer down at her. "If we make him some friends."

"Mm. I see. And what kind of friends—?"

You pull her back inside and push her onto the sofa, then drop down next to her. You drape a fatherly arm around her shoulders and rub her knee.

"Well, I've been thinking about that," you tell her. "Did I mention Valerie Dunn to you?"

"Maybe. I kind of tuned you out after awhile, to be honest. You aren't as fascinating, Daddy, as you think you are."

"You"—you tweak her nose—"are a little witch. But Valerie's a casting director, she's the one who got me cast—got Paul cast—on Enchanted U. If we grab her, we get our pick of a lot of talent in town."

"Hmm. What about agents?"

"Agents could get us access to people," you agree, "but they're not decision-makers. And neither is Valerie, to be truthful about it."

"They could get us to decision-makers, couldn't they?"

"Sure. Or we could go for some of the decision-makers directly. George Babakhanian, for instance. He was the producer on Enchanted U, and he's not going anywhere, not with the kind of production deal like he's got with Warners. Alison, back in Vegas? She's supposed to start work on a new nighttime soap he's doing for them. If Valerie can't get me a job, he could. And like her, he's got access to all sorts of people, and not just talent."

"That sounds good."

"Except I never really clicked with him, and it might be hard to get him alone. I still talk to Bryce Philips, though. He does sitcoms for the Disney Channel, did Ws and Ls for them. I doubt I could get George on the phone, but Bryce would be pretty easy to get to."

You mention a few more producers, but caution that that they probably would be as hard to reach as Babakhanian while ranking about as low as Philips on the Hollywood Power scale.

You talk some more, then leave Sydney to unpack while you run a few blocks over to pick up some fast food for dinner, for you are both starving. Over burgers and onion rings you discuss the possibilities further. Sydney agrees with much of what you say, but she is also strongly pulled toward high school. "Becky has to enroll in one anyway," she says. "If Paul's money holds out long enough, and there's some kids in the school that could get us to some really powerful people, maybe we should try that."

* * * * *

She gives you a blow job after you go to bed, and that relaxes you into a deep sleep. When you get up, you find that she moved onto the sofa during the night, which makes you feel guilty. While she's still asleep, you change into workout clothes and hit the complex's gym. She's up and has fixed a breakfast for the both of you when you get back an hour later, which you scarf down before getting a shower. She joins you under the water for a lot of hot, sudsy kissing; but though you get your cock into her, Paul was never very good at doing it standing up, so that it comes to nothing in the end.

Then after you've dressed and picked up the place—for Paul is more than a bit of a neat-nik—you settle back on the sofa to go over the possibilities again, with more attention paid to your agent, Savannah Getty, after you show Sydney her picture.

Eventually you settle on ...

Next: "Back to School" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"