Private Passions (7 page)

Nevertheless, Deck picked it up like it
weighed nothing, and the ease of his grip made it seem like an
extension of his arm.

"You want warrior's hands you should look at
Deck," Jane blurted out before she could stop herself. Ryan, ever
affable, had nodded enthusiastically and motioned Deck over so he
could see if he could give him any additional pointers.

Deck shrugged and walked over and even had
the consultant direct him through moves so Ryan could observe. All
the while her husband was completely oblivious to the fact that
Jane's hungry gaze was fixed not on him, but on Deck, imagining
those big, scarred, warrior's hands running intimately over her
body, holding her still to take his hard, deep thrusts as he took
her without gentleness or finesse but pure, uncontrollable
hunger.

Soon after, she retreated to her hotel room,
and with Ryan still on set and Deck right next door, Jane had taken
out her computer and added this to the collection.

The collection had started at the urging of
her therapist, though when she'd first suggested the exercise Jane
had balked.

"I don't think I'd be comfortable putting my
fantasies down on paper." Even that word "fantasies" conjured up an
internal "ew." It was one of those words that evoked cheesy
dialogue like you'd find in a skinemax movie.

"But the issue is that what's been
comfortable hasn't been working for you and Ryan. "

"Well, it seems to be working for Ryan as far
as I know, but no, it's not working for me." It had taken a lot for
her to admit to her therapist that she'd felt very little sexual
attraction to her husband for nearly a year. "Even before I was
trying to get pregnant it was starting to feel like a chore," Jane
said guiltily. "Now we're supposed to be doing it all the time, and
I feel like it's all I can do to just grit my teeth and get through
it. "

Dr. Grandy had helped her come up with ways
to try to solve the problem, like being more clear about what she
wanted and needed both in and out of the bedroom to help strengthen
her bond with Ryan and stoke her libido.

For his part, Ryan couldn't have been more
accommodating, a fact that never failed to spark a twinge of guilt
in Jane's gut. He'd tried so hard, asking what she wanted, exactly
how she wanted it. They had what seemed like thousands of
conversations that went something like this:

Ryan: "How's this?"

Jane: "Fine."

Ryan: "Just fine? Should I go harder? Softer?
How do I make it great?"

Jane: "It's great, really great. Just keep
doing exactly what you're doing."

What she didn't have the heart to tell him
was that she didn't think it could ever be great. Not between them.
And while sex with Ryan devolved into what felt like dry, clinical
analyses of what might get Jane off, Jane got so tired of being
asked what she wanted it got to the point that she had to force
herself not to snap, "figure it out!" at waiters when they asked
her if she wanted bubbly or still water.

Because in her deepest heart of hearts, she
didn't want to be constantly asked what she wanted. She wanted
someone who just knew, who would take her and give her exactly what
she wanted.

Someone who wasn't her husband.

"Is there something you need to express,
Jane?" Dr. Grandy had asked when, after Jane had tearfully
confessed that despite her being more open with Ryan and his heroic
attempts to please her, the sex not only hadn't improved, it had
gotten to the point where Jane was regularly faking orgasms just to
get things over with.

Haltingly, without naming any names, Jane
admitted that she was harboring a powerful, unwanted attraction for
another man. "When I think about him, when I'm, you know, by
myself, I have no problem..." she trailed off uncomfortably.

"Achieving orgasm?"

"Yes," Jane replied, red cheeked.

"Then maybe we can take a different approach,
maybe explore your attraction to this other person."

"You don't mean, like sleep with him, do
you?"

Dr. Grandy shook her head with a little
laugh. "While some couples thrive in a more open relationship, no,
I wouldn't advocate infidelity. What I'm saying is, without guilt,
without judging yourself, allow yourself to explore your fantasies
about this other person. Rather than trying to stifle them, nurture
them. Write them down if you want, refer back to them to help them
jump start your libido."

The idea of having sex with her husband while
actively thinking about Deck made her extremely uncomfortable, and
she told Dr Grandy so.

Dr. Grandy had pinned her with an assessing
stare. "Do you think that Ryan thinks of you and only you when
you're intimate? When he's masturbating?"

It wasn't something Jane had ever really
thought about. "I guess not."

Her therapist nodded. "Most married people
fantasize about people other than their spouse. It's not unusual at
all. And it only becomes unhealthy if the fantasy crosses the line
into infidelity."

Jane had done exactly as Dr. Grandy had
suggested, and miraculously it had worked. By writing down her
fantasies, no matter how outlandish or politically incorrect, Jane
had been able hold them in her head, keep them at the ready. It was
her deepest, darkest secret, that the mere thought of Deck could
turn her on more than her husband's touch ever did.

Ryan walked around looking even more
self-satisfied than usual, his walk a little cockier now that he
was regularly getting his wife off without having to ask every
fifteen seconds if what he was doing felt good to her.

"You don't think it's a problem, that I can
only come while thinking of another person? A specific person?"
she'd asked Dr. Grandy a few weeks later. In that time she'd had
more orgasms with Ryan than she'd had in the prior two years of her
marriage. She'd also become exceedingly uncomfortable in Deck's
presence. When she was around him she was like a teenager in the
throes of her first crush. Giddy, her stomach in knots, stumbling
over her words to the point she stopped talking to him unless
absolutely necessary.

Deck, oblivious to her turmoil, treated her
with the same unwavering professional courtesy.

Yet as torturous as it was to be around him
with all of these thoughts of him not just in her head but saved on
her hard drive, it would be even more torturous not to see him on a
regular basis. He was like her drug, his presence infusing her with
energy.

Dr. Grandy had assured her that there was
nothing inappropriate or problematic as long as Jane continued to
keep the fantasies to herself and remain sexually faithful to her
husband. "In the next few weeks or months, you can try inserting
Ryan in these scenarios, and work on fading out this other
person."

But Jane knew it wasn't about the scenarios,
it was about the person. It was about Deck. And, she realized, with
an ever-growing sense of guilt, that one of the main reasons she
didn't act on her attraction to Deck was because not once, in the
years he'd worked for her, had he given the slightest indication
that he saw her as anything but a client. Another body to keep
safe.

Had Ryan somehow sensed it? Not about Deck
specifically, but had he felt the disengagement she tried so
desperately to overcome? He'd never said anything, but when, six
months later, he'd left her for Katya, Jane hadn't considered
herself without guilt. Though the press—thanks in part to Hal's
machinations—painted her as the hapless victim of a philanderer and
a homewrecker, Jane herself had never openly blamed Ryan or Katya
for what happened.

Despite his faults, Ryan was a good person
who had tried to be a good husband to her, and she genuinely loved
him—she just wasn't sure she was ever really
in
love with
him. It wasn't his fault that she'd gotten caught up in the
whirlwind of the media frenzy surrounding their relationship.
Hollywood's Golden Couple! Tinsel town Fairytale!

It was like a crazy ride she hadn't been able
to get off until it was too late.

"Sometimes in marriage, people change and
want different things," Jane had said when Oprah had asked her
point blank what had gone wrong in their marriage. "I know Ryan
didn't do this to hurt me."

Her only regret, she'd admitted, was their
inability to have a baby. She wasn't naive enough to believe having
a child together would have saved their relationship. It was
selfish, she knew, that she wanted to have a baby with Ryan even
though she knew—and maybe he did too—their relationship wasn't one
hundred percent stable.

Even if they split up, she had more than
enough means to take care of a child, and Ryan would be an
attentive, affectionate father, even if he wasn't around all of the
time.

It would be more than Jane had had.

A tap on her shoulder startled her from her
thoughts and made her jump out of her chair. Jane whipped around
and saw Hailey standing behind her, a concerned look on her face.
Her mouth moved, but Jane couldn't make any sense of it.
"What?"

Hailey touched her finger to her own ear, and
Jane realized she still had her earbuds in. She took them out and
heard Hailey say, "Mira's here to help you get ready for the
benefit."

Jane gave a mental groan. The last thing she
wanted was to spend another night with a bright smile pasted on her
face pretending everything was right in her world. But Jane was the
celebrity spokesperson for St. Jude's Children's Hospital, and
there was no way she could cancel at the last minute without
feeling like a coldhearted bitch. "Tell her I'll be right out."

"What's going on with your computer?" Hailey
asked, peering over Jane's shoulder.

Jane's stomach dropped as she realized which
document was front and center on her screen. Fortunately—at least
in this case—her ailing computer was having what looked to be the
electronic equivalent of a seizure. "I don't know," she said,
quickly slamming the laptop closed. "It's been acting up all week.
Maybe I caught a virus or something."

Hailey nodded sagely. "I'll back up the hard
drive and get you a new one first thing in the morning."

Jane wrinkled her nose. "I don't need a new
one. Just have them fix it." Though she could easily afford the
couple of thousand or so she'd spend on a new computer, she wasn't
far enough from a childhood spent with her single mother that she
could blithely replace a computer that was barely two years
old.

Hailey nodded. "I'll take care of it. You
coming?"

"Tell Mira I'll be five minutes. I just need
to wrap up a couple of things."

It took three hard restarts and fifteen
minutes, but finally Jane's computer cooperated long enough for her
to go into her document folder and select on the "scenarios" file.
Her heart squeezed in her chest as she dragged the folder to the
trash. She clicked on the trash can icon, hesitating as the cursor
hovered over the "empty" button.

She had to do it. Not just because of the
risk she carried keeping them on her computer, where they could
easily be discovered. But because Deck was gone. She'd had one
amazing evening with him, after which he'd made it crystal clear
what he wanted from her/

Exactly nothing.

These files were nothing more than an
embarrassing reminder of her unrequited infatuation.

Are you sure you want to permanently delete
these files?

Jane clicked OK. And all traces of Deck were
permanently removed from her life.

"Oh,
crap, I'm so sorry!"

"It's okay," Deck said, blinking back tears
as he pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the flow of blood. "It
was my fault," he said as a production assistant appeared out of
nowhere to hand him a cloth to stem the flow of blood dripping from
his nose and an ice pack to keep the swelling down. "I shouldn't
have stepped into the blow."

Never mind that that was the way they'd gone
over it in choreography, oh, a dozen or so times before rehearsing
the actual fight. And never mind that Marla Workman knew—or should
know by now—that she was supposed to pull her punch before landing
an actual blow.

"I'm sorry," Marla repeated, hopping around
him like a hyper-active puppy as she followed him to the small
sitting area set up in the corner of the sound stage. "It's just
that when we practice the adrenaline gets going and I just can't
seem to stop."

"Yeah, I know," Deck said, trying to keep the
annoyance out of his voice. While the producers had instructed him
to be tough with the cast during training—they were supposed to be
convincing playing battle-hardened soldiers—he knew from previous
experience working on the on-set training and consulting side of
Malcolm's business that he needed to tread carefully with the
talent.

Actors and actresses were a notoriously
sensitive lot, and while they would tolerate—even revel in—him
yelling and criticizing in the heat of their training sessions, if
they for one second thought he was slighting them or sporting a bad
attitude, it would be his ass that hung out to dry.

So in spite of the fact that five foot two
one hundred and nothing pound Marla Workman had given him three
bloody noses and a black eye in the past four days during the
course of their training, Deck forced a smile. "It's good that you
get so into it. It will help it look even more real on screen."

Marla's blue eyes lit up like it was
Christmas morning and she'd just found a brand new bike under the
tree. "Really? You really think I'll be convincing as part of the
first female commando squad?"

Not unless the US Army plans to defend itself
with pint size blonds who eat nothing but lettuce and sugarless
gum.

Then again, she did manage to give you
that shiner you're sporting.
"When I'm done with you, they're
going to want to remake
Rambo
with a female lead."