Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9
Ash
I was trying not to roll my eyes as I sat there giving my presentation, only to hear the scrawny creative director with the big black-framed glasses tell me, “You know what would look good?” I hadn’t replied, but of course he’d continued. “If we punch in on the actor’s face as he smiles!” I’d nodded vaguely and told him I would consider it, but was incredibly happy when Sebastian announced I was the only cinematographer he would work with because I was brilliant, and they should stay in their lanes, because nothing they could suggest would ever be better than what I would come up with. I tried to stifle my smile. I zoned out for the rest of the presentation as Melusi in the art department presented, then wardrobe and make-up and lastly the editor. My part was over. But my ears certainly pricked up when the words “location” and “the Film Place” started being thrown around. Melusi and I clocked each other across the boardroom table.
“The Film Place?” I asked.
“You know them?” the agency producer replied. “They’re kind of new.”
“I’m actually working with them on this job. They’ve been great, really went above and beyond.” The least I could do was get Max some more work, especially since he was new in town, and that would also give me another (real) reason to email him.
“The guy who runs it is Maximillian Adam,” I added quickly.
A terrible noise followed and we all turned, only to find the junior copywriter in the corner choking and coughing. She had sprayed a mouthful of coffee across the desk.
“Sorry, sorry.” She frantically wiped the table, but her face was the shade of a beetroot, and it didn’t look like it was from choking. In fact, I think I knew what it was from. Melusi and I gave each other one more knowing look, and then I fixed my eyes on her as I spoke again.
“Yes, I was saying Maximillian Adam is the name of the guy who runs the company.”
I scrutinized her. Her hands began to tremble, her eyes widened until they looked like they might explode from her head. She cleared her throat and then rubbed her collarbones nervously.
Holy shit! She knew him! Either very, very well, or she knew of him. When the meeting was over, my curiosity was too piqued to ignore, besides Melusi was now nudging me to go and investigate further. I would usually never do something like this, but I was driven by something far greater than professional etiquette right now.
“Hey, Lauren. Sorry, was it Lauren?” The very pretty copywriter turned and looked at me. She seemed young, no older than twenty-one, and Max didn’t come across as someone in his early twenties—he’d been overseas for twelve years. I hoped a possibly thirty-year-old was not sleeping with this girl who looked as if she was right out of high school.
“Yes, Lauren.”
“So . . . I’m sorry if this comes across as totally weird, but I kind of noticed you had a strong reaction when I said Maximillian Adam , and I was just wondering if—”
She stepped forward and whispered, “You’ve heard the stories too?”
“Yes, I have,” I said solemnly.
“Oh my God. I would never have believed it, but this friend of mine, who has a friend, who has a sister, went on a date with him and . . .” She paused and flushed again. She was young, and you could tell not very experienced in that department.
“She said the guy literally gave her an orgasm just by looking at her.”
I burst out laughing. “That’s impossible.”
“I thought so too, but then I heard from someone else, who knows this girl who works as a vet in Noordhoek—”
“Noordhoek?” I interrupted her.
“ Ja , I know, random, but whatever.”
No, it wasn’t random. This one could actually be true.
“I don’t know—he has some weird pet, like one of those things from Mexico . . . What are they called?”
“A llama?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s it, a llama. So, apparently, she went to check on it at his house—he lives in this mansion, by the way—and they landed up hooking up in his pool, and he got her into this position she didn’t even know existed, and then she had the most intense orgasm of her life and fainted afterwards.”
“Fainted in the pool?”
“I mean, she didn’t drown or anything—he was holding her up.”
“Obviously.”
“She woke up like an hour later in his bed and they had sex again, and she was screaming so loudly the entire time that the next day she actually lost her voice.”
“Seriously?”
“She had to take the day off work because she couldn’t talk.”
“Riiight,” I said, and eyed this copywriter up and down.
“What have you heard?” she asked, her eyes lighting up, and for some reason, I actually didn’t want to tell her.
“I also heard he owns llamas,” I said, and then turned and walked out the office, feeling something I couldn’t quite name.