Sugar Valley (Hollywood's Darkest Secret) (15 page)

“Oh, you scared me. Um ... I’m just looking
around, enjoying the atmosphere,” Jose replied. She paused from
rubbing. He grabbed onto her waist and gave her kiss on her
forehead, at the same time, tasting some sweet substance that lay
on her skin. Jose ignored the taste and gave her a quick,
flirtatious spin, feeling the thick, red velvet rug create friction
underneath his shoes; he felt like he was dancing on a cloud.

“Well, if you put it that way, I guess it’s
alright then.” Julienne grabbed his hand and pulled it toward her
with aggressiveness. The cream from her hand slid across his,
somehow making Jose even more heated from the feeling; to each his
own.

Jose whispered, “So, what do you want to do
now?” His tone sounded like a mating call, laying it on pretty
thick, he made sure to show his tongue before he spoke, and after
he ended the question.

“What do you want to do?” she asked in an
even more silent manner. Julienne only showed her tongue once,
after she asked the same question, and showing Jose at the same
time, that maybe she’s thinking the same thing Jose’d been thinking
ever since he lay eyes on her.

Okay, Jose, she did show her tongue, so that
means she wants to do more than talk. But what happens if she
doesn’t? Screw it, take a chance.

After his thoughts disbursed, he opened his
mouth quickly, but with a little flirtatious drift to it, and
replied, “Um, how about we get naked?” Jose then grabbed her waist
harder. Giving her another spin with his body next to hers, and
grabbing her tighter in the process, he knew that he made the right
decision by saying that.

She lifted up her hand slowly to his face,
seeing one of the lights over an oil painting shining in his eyes,
making them twinkle, and kept it there for two seconds. Within
those two seconds, Jose’s mind spoke, yes, she wants me, she
definitely wants me. Seeing her hand come closer to him, he
wondered, in a very erotic way, the things she could do to him with
it, and that’s when she slapped it hard, leaving a hand print
engraved on his cheek.

Maybe she likes it rough, Jose?

She looked him straight in the eyes, allowing
him to understand that she was angry, not horny, and the slap was
real to her anger, not some form of fetish that all guys would take
it for. “What kind of a person do you take me for? I’m not a
hooker.”

He turned his face toward her more, shocked
and disoriented about the situation, feeling the small whiplash
from her fast hand crash, and asked two questions that should be
asked when this sort of experience happens: common sense. “What do
you mean? What did you think we were going to do?”

She slapped him again, more pain came from
this second round of her anger, and said, “Get out, get out before
I throw your ass out.” Her voice trembled and echoed through the
passageways, and hallways of her kingdom, and even caused the
chandelier to vibrate a bit. Her voice was so loud and great that
Jose thought each person in every oil painting would move about and
stare at him with shock to their painted images.

“Listen, I’m sorry ... okay? I didn’t know
you didn’t want to have, you know... sex,” Jose said. He started to
walk away from this confusing but devastatingly attractive woman,
and headed toward the stairs. Feeling as if each oil painting was
alive, he became embarrassed, like a crowd of kids, circling around
a schoolyard, waiting for you to fight someone bigger than you. A
normal guy, in this situation, would get the hell away, and make
sure to never see that type of girl again. But when you have a
woman like Julienne Wells, the game of cat and dog gets a little
confusing, and interesting at the same time.

She paused for a moment and then walked up
behind him, saying, “Wait.” Jose’s drunken body didn’t respond to
her; his ears were blocked up with champagne. “Hold on,” Julienne
yelled out. Her hand gripped onto his shoulder before his foot
touched the first stair. God and Adam were in the view of this
game, staring at them from the ceiling; they had the best seats.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to leave,” she stated before she walked
away from him and entered the bathroom. The game began.

Jose walked over to the door of the bathroom
and saw her putting white powder onto a mirror. She looked into her
vanity and saw her reflection, staring at it for only a moment. She
made two lines and then sniffed one. “There, I feel a lot better.
You want some?” She stared at Jose standing by the door, watching a
beautiful woman, with a long silk blouse on and her hair back in a
ponytail, sniffing cocaine.

“Why are you doing that?” Jose asked in a
sincere voice.

“Do you want some?”

“No, I’m cool.” He walked into the bathroom
and looked at his reflection in the mirror also, feeling kind of
awkward toward this beauty of Hollywood; confused by the games she
was begging to play, and the way of life that she lived so far.

“The reason why I’m doing this is simple, I
have a screen test to do tomorrow. It’s for a very important part
in a movie—it’s the star role. I’m under a lot of stress, this
helps my stress go away.” She then sniffed the second line.

“So, mainly you’re following the normal
stereotype of Hollywood and drugs?” Julienne looked at him straight
in the eyes after that question came out of his mouth so rudely. He
knew he shouldn’t have said that. “Sorry. So, uh, when does the
movie start filming?” Jose questioned, trying to switch the
topic.

“My agent said that they’re going to start
filming next month. He even said they may start filming next week.
I remembered most of the script and studied my character that I
will hopefully get. I’m so damn nervous.” Julienne passed Jose and
walked down her stairs, without even acknowledging to him that he
should follow her.

Should I follow her, or wait here?

“That’s cool,” Jose said, trying to follow
her path down the stairs to the outside swimming pool. Questions
still ran through his mind as the bubbly slowly went away from his
brain and entered into his bladder.

Okay, Jose, she does drugs, but she’s
beautiful.

She’s rude and kind of immature, but she’s
beautiful, and a movie star.

Just play it cool.

The questions stopped traveling through his
mind by the thing she did next.

“Yeah, I feel much better now.” After those
words, she plummeted into her swimming pool with her clothes
on.

At this point, Jose started to feel alone, as
if his innocence was being ripped from his soul, seeing a woman,
stoned out of her mind, being royalty of Hollywood, in the water
with her expensive ensemble still on; it wasn’t right. It was like
some spirit or angel was there, telling him to leave, to get away
from this woman; his hesitation was showing a mile away. But, where
there’s an angel, there’s also a demon, telling him the exact
opposite.

“Are you nuts? You still have your clothes
on. Did you forget you were wearing clothes?” He watched her
unbutton her shirt, and that’s where his hesitation of leaving was
slowly starting to go away; the demon was winning this game.

“Come in, the water’s warm.” She splashed a
huge wave at Jose, revealing that her flirting was out in the open,
waiting to work.

“This is too weird, I must be dreaming,”
laughed Jose. He walked slowly down the stairs of the swimming
pool, following his animal urges toward this woman of intriguing
designs.

The pool was circular. Lights shined on every
end of it that allowed the blue marble of its body to glow a little
with the water that it held. Jose stood in its body, with his
clothes on, thinking this was all a dream, and went up against the
side of the pool, just staring at the small waves that Julienne
made from her entry.

“Why is it weird?” she questioned. Julienne
released the rubber band from her hair and whipped her hair around
in a circle, splashing Jose with chlorine water, mixed with some
sweet-smelling fragrance; it was like perfume came from her flying
strands.

“Listen, this is only my first day in
Hollywood and I’m already in a pool with a Hollywood star,” Jose
answered. He dunked his head under the surface of the water and
received a bit of chlorine in his pupils.

“I guess you’re lucky then.” She put her arms
around him. “Very lucky.” Julienne wrapped her arms tighter.

“Yeah, I guess.”

Four hours later, Jose and Julienne sat and
talked outside in her pool house. This building stretched almost
all the way around her pool, and was decorated with hanging green
vines that made up the roof. Jose and Julienne sat inside, talking
like they’d known each other for years. They talked about
everything, from their dreams to their fantasies, to their deepest
erotic pleasures that a priest would slap you with his fist if he
ever heard you confess it to him. Jose explained the real reason he
came out to Hollywood.

Their naked bodies touching the whole time,
Jose opened up to this star, like she was his wife, or fate that
he’d found finally. “Okay, I admit, I didn’t really want Damen and
Darell to come with. At first I did, you know, because I was
afraid, but now I wish they would just go back home and come here
in a few years when I do become famous.”

“Why?” Julienne questioned as the moonlight
shone on her naked, perfectly formed body.

“I don’t know. Maybe because ... If I make
it, I don’t want them to make it. I mean, what I’m trying to say is
that if they make it, it will be me against each of them in some
sort of a race for ... for fame,” Jose replied as he played with
her hair. “I know that sounds stupid.”

“It’s normal, Jose. But the thing is, if you
guys make it as stars, you’ll already be famous. What’s the real
reason?” she asked with a serious tone.

The building had windows at every end, with
white, silk, see-through drapes that flew inward, due to the
California wind. He thought about her question for a brief twenty
seconds, gawking out of one of the windows, at the moon that shone
its body onto Julienne’s. “Alright, fine, it’s because I’ve always
wanted to help them ... become famous. It’s like I’ve always wanted
to be their savior, I want to be the reason for their fame, their
success ... Is that wrong?” Jose’s voice sounded childish, making
Julienne smile a bit.

“No, don’t be silly. That’s the way I was in
the beginning, but then it all changed after I gained fame.” She
gave a smile with her words, still staring at his eyes, watching
every movement they made.

“How did it change?”

She turned her head, and stared up at the
ceiling of green nature that hung down into the building; she
wondered if she should go as far as answering that question.
Turning back to him, she replied, “Well, me and four other girls
came to Hollywood about six years ago. That’s when I was
eighteen... We started out working odd jobs, waitressing, cooking,
things like that. One day I got a call for a movie role, from an
agent that I just got a week before; this was my first movie role I
ever tried out for. Well, they told me that I got the part. After
that, I was too busy to help my other friends get famous, as you
put it... You could say, I forgot about them. I don’t know, I guess
deep inside of me, I mean deep, deep, deep in my soul...” Julienne
gave a little pause. Thinking about her past, realizing what life
she had before her success, allowed a dark cloud to settle over her
consciousness. She finished her sentence with, “I’ve never really
wanted to help them. You’ll see, when you make it, you won’t help
them either... ” Julienne got up from the bed, next to a bunch of
swimming equipment, and began walking away from him.

“I will help them,” Jose stated in an upset
voice.

“I can usually read people right away. When I
met you and your friends tonight, I read your vibes.”

“What did my vibes tell you?” Jose lit a
cigarette, and blew the smoke toward Julienne’s naked silhouette as
she stood there with the moonlight reflecting off her breasts.

“You really want to know?

“Yes.”

“They said that you are the type of person
who cares for nothing but himself. Now, Damen’s vibes read that he
does care for other people; he’s the type of person who would help
his friends make it to the top,” she replied. Jose looked down at
the floor of the pool house, disappointed by the devastating truth
that was hiding in his subconscious.

He then asked with anger, “What about
Darell?”

“Darell is just plain-out stupid,” she
replied as she put on her silk robe. A small grin formed on her
face at that moment, hoping that it would pass on to Jose, but it
didn’t.

“So, I guess you’re psychic then. Well guess
what? Your psychic ability sucks.” Jose’s anger went away and a
smile came on his face; he thought his words were funny and well
put.

“That’s why I like you ... you’re tough and
you don’t care about anyone. That’s good.” She turned away for a
second and saw the night slowly beginning to become day. “It’s
especially good for Hollywood.”

“Well, I like you too,” Jose spoke. He closed
his eyes like he was waiting to wake up from a good dream, awaiting
a flash of light to come into his mind and take him out of his
world in night. “But I respect my friends, they’re like brothers to
me. And I do care for them.”

“Listen to me, I don’t want to get in an
argument over the vibes that I felt last night from you guys.”
Julienne said her words quickly, with a little nervousness to their
chimes, like she was afraid to make Jose angry or confused at this
secretive moment. “Anyway, I was wondering if you want to come with
me today to the screen test. Before and after it, I’ll introduce
you to some people of importance, and see what happens,” she said.
Trying to change the subject of the argument she almost had with
him, caused Jose to see some tension on her face as the morning sun
reflected off her image. But, he ignored the tension, for the fact
that this was his big chance to make something of himself that
every actor dreams about.