Heaven’s Gate
Part V: Fresh Bread
67 Final Interview
For the rest of the time Whitney was on leave, I was on vacation. We had fireworks on the Fourth of July. I had a quiet and loving time with Hannah on her twenty-seventh birthday. In the morning, though, I woke up at ‘our time’ to hear her talking to me as she petted my head.
“I don’t know what to do,” Hannah whispered. “She’s perfect for the role. She has the right look, the right voice, the right timing. She’s a born actress and has worked with three professional theater groups. I just don’t know if she can handle our lifestyle. She’s arrogant, disdainful, and a prima donna. On camera, she’ll take direction just fine. Off camera, she’s a bitch.” I rolled toward her and pulled her to me. She sighed. I kissed the top of her head. This was her time. I didn’t open my mouth to make suggestions, just let her know I was with her and listening.
“I need you. I won’t bring her onto the ranch if she creates a disruption to our lives. I’ve worked with difficult people before; I can handle the abuse. But I don’t want to put anyone else at risk. I need your perspective. I want you to interview her and explain the rules. She would have to live here at the ranch starting in mid-August when we start filming. She’s from Chicago so it’s too far for her to commute. She has four siblings and a single mother. We have to provide a tutor so she keeps up in school. She’ll be sixteen this month, so she can work full time, but keeping her current in school is part of the agreement. And supervision. I think her mother is hoping we’ll be more successful out here on the ranch than she is in Chicago. It will be intense, and still be mid-October before we finish taping the six episodes. Lily and Sly have agreed to house her and be her assigned guardians. But we can’t just give them a problem child and walk away. You need to explain the rules and see that she obeys them.”
I sighed. What do I know about sixteen-year-old girls?
“Hello, Melanie,” I said when she came into the conference room.
In the intervening time, she’d had her birthday and her mother put her in the car and sent her to us for the last interview. She had already signed all the necessary paperwork. It was up to me to make the final agreement with the young star, Melanie Dennis.
“They said this is the last interview. Are you the one I have to fuck to get the job? It’s no biggie. I’ve done it before.”
“Hold that thought a minute.” I gestured to a chair in the conference room and sat opposite her. She hadn’t even noticed Lily bristling in the corner of the room.
“What’s to think about?” She started to unbutton her blouse.
“I’m trying to imagine any possible way that fucking you might be more pleasurable than rubbing my cock with coarse sandpaper. I can’t come up with one.” Lily nearly choked.
“What’s that supposed to mean. I’ve got a cunt. I can get it wet enough for you to get your rocks off. We can sign the papers and I’ll go move into my quarters.”
“It doesn’t work that way around here. That’s what Lily and I are here to talk to you about,” I said nodding toward Lily. Melanie blushed slightly but covered it up.
“Kinky.”
“Please let me introduce Mrs. Cortales. Mrs. Cortales, this is Melanie Dennis, potentially the actress who will play in our miniseries. Melanie, Mr. and Mrs. Cortales have agreed to be your guardians while you are here in Corazón. They have a lovely home here in the village with a nice suite that would give you appropriate privacy while still being a member of their household. While Ms. Gordon, Ms. Cortales, and I all refer to them as Mama and Papa, we are not siblings and don’t usually share their home except for special occasions when we visit,” I explained.
“Do I have a private entrance. I don’t like to be watched.”
“Melanie, you have a warped sense of reality. Nothing in the village or on the sets works the way you are used to and if you are to be a part of our community, you will have to abide by the same rules that all of us follow.”
“I’m an actress. I’m what you need for your miniseries. I’ll make it. I go where I want and when I want and won’t be following any rules for your village.”
“Then get out,” I said. “Go to your car, drive back to Chicago, and don’t come back. You are a commodity when it comes to acting. There are hundreds of young women who can do this show. For an unknown reason, Ms. Gordon has chosen you as the best we’ve auditioned. So far. We haven’t auditioned everyone yet.”
“But… Wait!” I’d actually taken her off guard. I sat impassively.
“Yes?”
“Maybe I could work within the rules. I don’t want to go back to Chicago.” There were tears welling in her eyes.
“Turn them off,” I said. She looked at me. “I am not interested in you sexually. I am not interested in you emotionally. I am not interested in your tits, your cunt, or your tears. I am interested only in what is good for our community, and so far, I’m not seeing evidence that you are.” She stiffened and blinked back the crocodile tears. “Now tell me why you really want to be here and why you would be more interested in fucking for the job than in following a few simple rules.”
Melanie tried to engage me in a stare-down, but I was uninterested and didn’t engage. Lily sat in her chair with her arms folded steaming, but silent as I requested.
“It’s the way it’s done,” Melanie finally said. “It’s always been that way. You use sex to get what you want until you can just demand it. It’s been that way since I was twelve years old. Directors, teachers, my mom’s boyfriends… Whatever.”
“Twelve? Your mother’s boyfriends? She knew?”
“Not officially. I can’t see how she wouldn’t know. She’s not that heavy a sleeper. The day after my first period ended she hustled me to a clinic to get on birth control,” Melanie said.
“Yeah. To regulate your periods, I suppose,” I sighed, quoting the oft used line.
“No. She was straightforward with them. Said we lived in a neighborhood in Chicago that had the highest rate of teen pregnancies in the city. Said she couldn’t stop me from having sex, but she wanted to make sure I was protected and rapists didn’t listen to kids asking them to use a condom. They praised her for doing the best she could for her daughter. Funny how her boyfriend came into my room exactly one day after my next cycle finished. He was pissed because I didn’t bleed and cry. My brother took care of that a year before.”
“Melanie, I don’t know whether to believe you or not,” I sighed. “You’re a great actor.”
“Thanks. But you can believe this. The only reason I’ll ever go back there is to grab my baby sister and take her away. She’s ten and it won’t be long before they start using her. This job will give me enough money to disappear.”
“Money doesn’t go as far as you think,” I said. “What are you going to do then? Turn tricks? Listen, Melanie, how would you like to do a great acting job that doesn’t require that you exchange your body for your paycheck? Here’s the rules. They are simple. Everyone on the ranch has lived under some set of these for the past twelve years.” I handed her an agreement. She read it.
“Seriously? No penetration until I’m seventeen? What do I do on a date?”
“Go to a movie. See a football game. Go bowling. Things normal kids do.”
“What about drugs?”
“These rules cover the unique things we abide by on the ranch. Both the ranch and Corazón are governed by county, state, and national laws. There is law enforcement in our area and we expect everyone in the village to be a good citizen. I shouldn’t need to tell you that you can’t do drugs or drink alcohol. It’s illegal. That’s all,” I said.
Melanie turned to Lily, finally giving her new guardian consideration.
“Do I have a curfew?”
“We think it’s reasonable that you should get enough sleep at night to do your work and school during the day. I’m willing to work with you on what that means as far as a curfew goes. And if we set one, I’m always willing negotiate an extension when appropriate. Sly and I have raised two daughters. Believe me, we know most of the tricks,” Lily said with a smile and a side-long glance at me.
Melanie read the agreement again.
“Can I see my room?” she asked. We laughed and I handed her a pen. She signed the agreement.
“Welcome to the Village of Corazón and Hearthstone Entertainment,” I said. “Let’s go see your room.”
We kept talking and I asked her more about her family—especially her little sister. Like usual, I was ready to charge off and go rescue someone, but I still didn’t trust Melanie’s story completely. She was a very good actor and I was sure she could put on a performance that would convince me her mother was an axe murderer. I wanted something more definitive and I needed to talk to Sly and Lily, too. Melanie liked her room—hell, what teenage girl wouldn’t like having her own master suite with a huge bath and Jacuzzi tub. And the girls had been over to remove all trace of our occasional cohabitation there. They replaced it with cute girlie decoration and stuffed animals. Melanie was in love.
She was serious about not going back to Chicago. She unloaded her little car and moved in.
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