Darke [Part 1] Read online

  Contents

  Darke

  Darke

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Saber Vale

  Darke

  Saber Vale

  Copyright 2017 Saber Vale

  All rights reserved.

  Darke

  Chapter 1

  The night my dreams were shattered could have been the moment they all came true. I remember how it began, the moment that turned my life from light to dark…

  I was sitting on a cool grey velvet couch in a pristine office in west Hollywood, looking into the dark green eyes of one of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen in my life. I was so nervous I thought I could throw up.

  “Selma, it’s nice to meet you,” he said, his voice both quiet and deep, with the hint of an accent I couldn’t put my finger on (English? Australian?), “I’m Keller Darke.”

  He didn’t need an introduction. Keller Darke was one of the most powerful executives in Hollywood. When my agent had said his name, I’d almost screamed. He had a reputation for… something, I’d only heard whispers, but to me he was the man who had produced some of the biggest movies in the last ten years, a wunderkind at only forty two years old. He was said to have a magic touch that could make or break a movie, a career, a life.

  It had started with a hesitant call from my agent, Gary, earlier in the day, saying he’d set up a meeting for me, but that I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to.

  “Why wouldn’t I want to?” I’d asked naively, thinking that there was no opportunity to small or insignificant to pass up.

  “Well, Keller has very specific… tastes…” he said.

  “Are you saying he’s going to try to sleep with me?”

  “Well, yes and no,” Gary said, “he won’t make you sleep with him for the part, but he absolutely may hit on you, and if he does… I don’t know, he has certain well known predilections…”

  There were plenty of Hollywood producers with bad reputations, and plenty of agents who fed them young talent like someone throwing chum into shark infested waters. Gary promised this wasn’t like that, “but I’d feel guilty if I didn’t warn you he has a reputation for....”

  “For what?”

  “For… causing pain, I guess,” Gary sighed, “some people say he’s a bit of a pervert.”

  A bit of a pervert? I was pretty sure I could handle myself around ‘a bit of a pervert.’ I imagined a dorky nerd who would try to put his hand up my skirt.

  It would turn out to be s little bit more complicated than that.

  A few hours later I was reading the script Keller Darke had sent Gary, in the back of an Uber gliding through the cool, hazy Los Angeles night, watching as palm trees drifted past, silhouetted by the neon pink and lavender sunset.

  I fidgeted with my nail as he looked at me, his eyes intense and searching. He was quiet and meticulously groomed, other than a three-day-old scruff, which only made his otherwise polished beauty a little bit rugged. His suit was cut to accentuate his broad shoulders, his hair was dark and perfectly styled, shaved on the sides and long up top, and his lips were full, deeply hued, and seemed to be set in a permanent, threatening smirk. The tiniest suggestion of a tattoo peeked out from beneath his shirt collar, whispering of a wildness, a side of him that wasn’t perfectly ordered.

  “Your agent said you grew up in Indiana,” he said quietly, glancing at his notes about me “that you had a real ‘girl next door’ quality.”

  I blushed and looked down at my expensive shoes, borrowed from my agent.

  “I don’t get to decide how he markets me,” I admitted, before looking back up at him and smiling. I had to smile, had to be pretty, had to get the part.

  “Do I make you nervous?” he asked, smiling deviously and crossing his arms. It was like he wanted me to be nervous. He was obviously very muscular, and knew quite well how beautiful he was.

  “I’m ok,” I said, trying to sit up straight, brushing my golden brown bangs from my forehead. I felt messy and cheap in his presence, but I was glad I hadn’t let my agent convince me to dye my hair. I would feel even more fake than I already did.

  “Did you have a boyfriend at home in Indiana?”

  Why did he want to know that? I glanced around the room, taking in the bonzai tree, the huge window and devastating view, the bookshelf with novels by Cormac McCarthy and a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

  “No, I was too… I don’t know,” I sighed nervously, “serious... for a boyfriend. The boys in my hometown were…”

  “Small,” he said quietly, “and you want a big, exciting life. You wanted more.”

  “Yes,” I said, locking eyes with him.

  He could give me this big exciting life, he seemed to say.

  He could cast me in a movie and change everything.

  I knew my eyes said what I couldn’t.

  I wanted it more than anything.

  “So you’ve never…” Keller raised an eyebrow.

  “What?” I asked nervously.

  “Had… sex?”

  “No,” I said, blushing hard, “but I don’t see why that matters.”

  Keller laughed and leaned back in his chair, massaging his temples.

  He gave me a long, serious look, appraising me.

  “I don’t think you’re right for this part,” he said with a shrug, “sorry. You can go now.”

  For a moment, I was devastated, the wind knocked out of me.

  I thought that he really saw me, thought he recognized my hunger, thought he’d felt it too, but he hadn’t.

  “No, listen,” I said, realizing I had nothing to lose, “Annie is the best part I’ve ever read. I would do anything for this role.”

  Keller laughed.

  “You and at least hundred other girls,” he said, “this is a role that requires someone with a little bit more… edge… than I think you have.”

  “I don’t have to have edge,” I insisted, “I’m a good actress!”

  Keller laughed again, but in a sympathetic way, like he felt bad for me.

  “You don’t look like anything terrible has ever happened to you,” Keller said, leaning back in his huge leather chair, “you look like an innocent, doe eyed virgin, sure, but can you play the girl who goes through hell? No offense, but I don’t think so.”

  I felt flustered. He was right, I had been very, very sheltered, had grown up in the country running through the grass barefoot without a care in the world. I was also a brownie scout, a daddy’s girl, and virgin who was waiting until marriage, sweet and wholesome through and through.

  Now, though, I was desperate for money.

  My dad had fallen off of a ladder and broken some of his vertebra . My mom tried to find work, but caring for him and the farmhouse was a full-time job. I needed thousands to keep the farm out of bank hands, or else… I didn’t know what would happen. I knew I should come home, get a job working as a waitress so maybe we’d have a little bit more money, but my parents wouldn’t hear of it. They told me to follow my dreams, not to worry, but how could I not? I was obsessed with saving them, and fantasized that I could somehow both save them and follow my heart.

  “What can I do to prove it,” I asked, feeling my heart race, my skin prickle on the back of my neck. What was I even offering?

  Keller laughed.

  “You’re new to Hollywood aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  Was it that obvious? I had been the best actor in my high school and thought ‘why the hell not?’ after I graduating, moving to the city with big dreams and very little money.

 
; “You won’t last long,” he said with a sigh, “you should go back to where you came from.”

  “No, I can’t,” I said, insisting, “I won’t, so you might as well let me try for this part. Just let me get to the audition.”

  “This is the audition, sweetheart,” he said, “whoever I pick gets the part. I already watched your tape and called you. Now I’m just seeing what you’re like.”

  I couldn’t afford rent in my shabby apartment for even one more month. I had enough cash for a bus ticket home stashed in a sock in my dresser, just in case. I wasn’t ready to give up yet, but this felt like my last shot.

  “Please,” I said, “I’ll do… anything you want me to do.”

  Keller’s eyes smoldered, lit from within as he stared at me.

  “If you’re offering what I think you are, you should think twice. I don’t think you’re right for this part, I don’t think you’re right for me, and I don’t give girls parts because they fuck me. You’re… innocent.”

  “I don’t have to stay innocent,” I insisted breathlessly.

  “You don’t know what you’re even asking for,” he said quietly.

  “Maybe not, but you can help me find out.”

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he said, “that’s why I only like dealing with jaded girls, broken girls…”

  “If you need a broken girl,” I said, breathing out, “then break me.”

  Something about what I said seemed to light a fire behind his piercing eyes, like a pair of embers set alight. He stared at me for a long moment, simmering with heat and intensity.

  Then he stood up and came closer, so close that I could smell his aftershave, like sage and leather.

  I was wearing a silk tank top without a bra, and my small round breasts were rising with my quick breath.

  Keller stood over me and reached down, gently pulling my tank top down to expose me. My nipples hardened in the cool air immediately as he pulled both of my tits out and gently cupped them both, one at a time, slowly. I looked up at him, my eyes big and dark and pleading, like a prey animal about to be devoured.

  What was I pleading for?

  Suddenly, Keller slapped one of my tits so hard that I caught my breath and cried out. No one had ever hit me in any way before. I reached up and covered myself, but Keller grabbed my wrist and set it back at my side. I felt myself begin to tremble.

  He slapped my other breast, leaving a red mark and making me sting. I bit my lip and looked up at him with shock, little tears springing to my eyes. I couldn’t believe what he was doing.

  He put his hand under my chin, sliding his thumb between my lips, into my mouth, and turned my face from side to side, looking down at me. I was breathing hard, my heart thumping.

  “You didn’t expect that, did you, little country girl?”

  “No,” I whispered, his thumb against my tongue.

  “There is something so sexy about you,” he said, “something innocent, pure, something that I want to destroy.”

  “Destroy it, then,” I whispered.

  He slapped me across the face, not very hard, not even hard enough to leave a mark. I could see that his cock was hard, pressing against his pants. He got so close to me our lips were almost touching, and I felt a white-hot heat surge through my body.

  Was I, I wondered, about to lose my virginity? Was I doing something stupid? Dangerous? Would I regret it?

  Suddenly he stopped.

  “I can’t do this,” he said, taking a deep breath, “I’m sorry, you’re a nice girl, this isn’t… what I’m looking for, it’s not what I’m about.”

  “No,” I gasped, feeling flushed and deeply frustrated.

  “you can tell the next girl to come in now.”

  “But…” I stammered.

  What had just happened to me?

  “But what?” he said, smirking at me.

  Tears welled, even though I was desperate not to cry. He sighed like I was annoying him with my emotions.

  “I thought…”

  “One day you’ll look back on this moment and realize I was protecting you,” he said, “now go.”

  Darke

  As she ran from the office, obviously humiliated, I felt a pang of something. Not guilt, I’m not one to feel guilty, but something else, a tug inside of me that I didn’t like. She was a beautiful girl, and everything her agent had said she’d be, innocent looking, blue eyes, golden-brown hair that had obviously never been dyed, the slighted trace of freckles on her sunny, bright cheeks.

  I like to cast girls who are fun and jaded, down to fuck, not burdened by feelings or naive ideas about the way the world should work. I’d seen way too many guys ruin girls like Selma, turn them into coke-addicted C-list wannabe’s, and I wanted no part in that. I wanted, strangely, to protect her from people like me, people who would use her, cast her, stoke the flames of her ambition just enough to make her do anything, even though the chances of success are ridiculously slim.

  I wanted to send her home, but all I could do was send her away.

  The next girl walked through the door, slinky dress, bleached hair, fake tits and ass, botoxed, glossy lips, and contoured face so made up it looked like she was wearing a mask. This, I thought, is the kind of girl I like. A girl I could use and who knows the way it goes, a girl I can’t hurt.

  “So, uh, Melissa,” I said, glancing down at her headshot, “you’re interested in the part of Annie?”

  There was no way she would get the role.

  I imagined, for a moment, bending her over, slipping a condom over my cock, and giving it to her hard, until her face was pressed against the desktop and her hair was a tangled mess. I did it all the time, even had a drawer full of condoms in arm’s reach.

  “This role isn’t for you, honestly,” I said with a shrug and a smile, “but I’ll keep you in mind.”

  Driving home to the Canyon, I kept thinking of Selma.

  The pained expression she wore when I sent her away, the way she would have done anything, I knew, to get the part.

  The things I could have done to her, but wouldn’t.

  Back in the solace of my house overlooking the valley, I went back to work, trying to focus on upcoming projects. I read emails, all of them marked “URGENT” like we were saving people’s lives instead of making movies. I had a bourbon, something I only occasionally do, and sat on my pool deck with a stack of girl’s headshots and tried to imagine a girl for the part of Annie, a good girl turned drug addict, that I needed to cast as soon as possible.

  My casting agent had kept sending me girls, and I’d kept sending them away, sometimes after getting my cock sucked or coming right on the small of their back as they bent over my big, polished mahogany desk.

  I didn’t find anyone, but I had a few more days.

  I thought of Selma again.

  I knew I had to be up at five thirty in the morning if I wanted to get a run in before work. I went to bed feeling strangely distracted and unsettled, like I had forgotten something, but couldn’t remember what it was. I reached beside my bed and picked up my laptop, wondering if I’d had too much bourbon, knowing what I was about to do was a little bit crazy.

  Something that Selma said had kept replaying in my mind… that if I needed a broken girl, I should break her.

  Just thinking those words made my cock hard and gave me bad, bad ideas.

  Ideas I knew I should ignore.

  She’d said she wanted to be broken, but she had no idea what she was talking about. Still, those words… break me… kept playing in my mind over and over.

  If you want a broken girl, then break me…. break me...break me...

  I wrote an email to my casting agent and to Gary, Selma’s agent, saying the part was hers.

  I stared at the email for a long, long time.

  I knew I shouldn’t, but before I could stop myself, I hit send.

  It was done.

  Chapter 2

  “What happened in your Keller Darke audition?” my age
nt Gary barked over the phone three days later. I’d hardly left my apartment. I’d made no friends since moving to L.A.. No one. I couldn’t talk to anyone back home about my life here, either. I missed my parents. I was utterly alone.

  “I, uh…” I felt my heartbeat speed up at the name Keller Darke.

  “Actually, keep your mouth shut, I don’t want to know…” he said, “you got the part, you’re going to play Annie in Sundown City. I can’t believe it, sweetheart, I honestly thought you were too green.”

  “What?” suddenly I could hardly breathe.

  “Keller called me this morning, he said you had the part, that you were perfect, that he looked forward to working with you.”

  “Keller Darke?” nothing was making sense. How could he cast me after…

  “Yes, jesus, aren’t you listening Selma? The first script read through is in four days! Keller said he’ll be there, but he wants to see you before then to talk about the part. Are you free tonight?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Christ, Selma, you’re such a hayseed. Yes, tonight, can you put on a tight black dress and make sure he doesn’t regret this decision?”

  “Yes, of course,” I sighed, completely unsure of myself, wondering if I was making a huge mistake.

  Maybe, I thought, I should just go home.

  “I gave him your address, he’ll be at your apartment in three hours,” Gary said, then, after a sigh, “whatever you did in the audition, keep doing it.”