Sixteen Years Earlier
MERCY
Mercy parked her Mercedes SLR in front of studio nine.
She would run in quickly on her way to dinner with the head of the studio, Travis Bishop, to talk about her next film.
He had taken a sudden interest in her career, and she wasn’t about to miss the opportunity of a lifetime.
Talbot had called when she was just about to leave her home in Encino.
There had been a last-minute rewrite for tomorrow morning’s scene and he would drop off the new pages for her.
Her spine tingled, knowing why he was making the offer.
Against her better judgment, she told him she’d swing by the lot to get them. “I’m driving past there anyway.”
His tone was casual, as if nothing had happened. “Okay. I’m going to beam out, so I’ll leave them for you on your chair.”
Shaking with rage, she said, “Thanks. See you tomorrow.”
She hung up and took a deep breath, her mind flashing to the day before when they were filming a violent sex scene.
He was supposed to simulate assaulting her.
Only he had really done it. When the director called for him to push her panties out of the way, he’d yanked at her modesty garment too.
Mercy, who was already nervous about filming the scene, froze, her brain unable to process what was actually happening.
She had a moment of disbelief, then he whispered the line in her ear. “You’ll take it until you like it.”
It was the single best line he’d ever delivered, as low on talent as he really was.
And the only reason he managed it was because he was no longer acting.
Mercy started to struggle and say no, and he carried on.
So she struggled harder, slapping him in the face and pushing him away, screaming for him to get off of her.
As a hundred people watched, silent, rapt with awe at the incredible work being done on the stage, she was being raped.
Finally, she grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked hard enough to make him stop. He yelped and exited her. “Ouch, ouch, ouch!”
“Cut!”
Everyone started to clap. “Amazing work, you two. Incredible stuff. Mercy, the improvising there. Oscar-worthy. Talbot, you okay? She really slapped you. You’ve got a handprint on your face.”
Talbot smirked at her, then turned to the director. “I’m great. Should we go again?”
“Nope. We got what we need.”
Talbot stood and one of the production assistants held a robe up for him. He slid his arms in and tied the robe, then offered his hand to Mercy to help her get out of the bed. “You’re a real fighter, aren’t you?”
She stared at him, numb, as if her mind was hovering above her body while another member of the crew, a woman named Yvonne, covered her up with a robe. When she didn’t answer him, he turned to Yvonne. “Can you get her a mug of tea, please? I think that was a little much for her.”
Yvonne wrapped an arm around Mercy and led her off the set. “You okay, sweetie? That looked pretty intense.”
She nodded her head and whispered, “It felt very real.”
And now, she rushed into the same space where that awful event had taken place, praying that Talbot wasn’t there.
Or at least if he was, that they weren’t alone.
She hurried to the director’s chair with her name on the back of it, her heels clicking against the concrete floor.
When she reached the chair, there were no papers on it.
Her heart sank as she saw him strolling towards her with two bottles of beer. “There she is.”
“I take it you lied about the pages?”
He held a beer out to her. “I thought we should talk. I noticed things have changed since we filmed the sex scene and it’s best not to have strained relationships on set.”
Instead of taking the drink from him, she turned away and started for the exit. “I have to go. I’m meeting someone.”
She glanced over her shoulder in time to see him set the beers down on the floor.
She quickened her pace, but he jogged after her, easily catching up. He grabbed her shoulder, spinning her to face him again. “Mercy, please. It almost feels like you’re mad at me, when I was just doing my job.”
She shook free of his grip. “You were not…you…you raped me.”
He gave her a condescending look. “No, no, I didn’t. It just felt that way to you because you were so nervous.”
“I know what I felt,” she spit out.
“You’re mistaken. I was worried that might happen.
There’s always a risk for misunderstanding with these types of scenes.
Especially for women. You tend to…believe things that aren’t real.
This happened with Annette, only in her case, she thought we were really falling in love when we were filming our scenes together. ”
She fought her tears because she’d be damned if she was going to cry in front of this monster. “That is not the same thing. You and I both know what you did, so don’t pretend that’s not what happened.”
He lifted his hand to her cheek. “Come on, even if I did, you wanted me to do it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have let me.”
Slapping his hand away, she said, “I was trying to fight you off!”
“But not really,” Talbot said with a smirk.
“That’s it. I’m going to lodge a formal complaint,” she said, her brain screaming at her to stop engaging and get out of there. She turned and started to rush off again, only to have him grab her, this time by both upper arms.
“I don’t. Think. You. Will.” He pushed her away from the door, toward the catering table, and she knew what was coming next.
Her eyes scanned the area for something she could use to stop him, and they landed on the fire extinguisher hanging on the wall.
He pressed her up against the table and as soon as he let go of her to undo his pants, she scrambled up onto the table and yanked it off the wall.
When she turned around, she swung it without even looking.
The wild, furious, crazed swing of a woman consumed with the deep-seated rage that he’d caused.
She connected with the side of his forehead and he collapsed to the ground. Out cold.
She threw the extinguisher onto the ground, as far away from herself as she could get it. Then she stood on the table, her back against the wall as she panted and stared at his limp body. Blood started to dribble out of his mouth, and she climbed down, and shouted at him. “Talbot! Wake up!”
She slapped his cheek easily as hard as she had the day before. His head moved from the force, then lolled back to its original position.
And she knew in that moment he wasn’t going to wake up.
She let out a sob and managed to get back up to her feet. Shaking, she noticed her handbag on the floor near the exit. She ran over and dug through it for her cell phone. She was about to call 911, but a little voice told her not to. So, she called the first person she could think of. Travis.
And now, sitting here reliving the entire thing once more, her heart pounded and she felt sick to her stomach.
But after a moment, the nausea eased, and she felt an oddly light feeling that she hadn’t known since that awful night, as if her guilt and fear had floated up into the stars above them.
Winslow sat next to her, his arm wrapped around her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you. Men can be monsters. ”
She nodded. “He wouldn’t have spent a day in prison. No one would have believed me. He was Talbot Sterling, the golden god of Hollywood. And I would have been painted as a difficult, neurotic woman.”
“That’s true, as terrible as it is. You’re absolutely right.”
“And I’ve spent years feeling so guilty. I took a man’s life.”
“A very bad man. You got justice for all the women he did that to before you, and you saved who knows how many others,” Winslow said. “He probably could have gotten away with that shit for the rest of his charmed life.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he would’ve got caught.”
He shook his head. “He wouldn’t have. No one wants to believe their heroes are absolutely trash human beings. So they don’t let them go down.”
She knew he was right. “It’s all so sickening.”
“None of that was your fault, Mercy. None of it. And you have nothing to feel bad about. You were protecting yourself.”
“But clearly my husband is willing to use it to keep me under his thumb.” Her voice wavered. “I can’t even get help for my child who’s suffering. What kind of mother does that make me? To let her struggle like this because I’m too scared to stand up to him?”
“A normal human caught in an awful situation,” he answered, leaning his head against hers. “You can figure it out. You will.”
“But how do you leave a man like him?”
“Carefully.”
They were both quiet, watching the sun make itself known on the horizon. The slightest breeze kicked up, and Mercy took a deep breath, trying to catch it with her lungs. “Will you be okay?”
He nodded, then said, “Well, no. But I’m not going to take the coward’s way out. Not today, anyway.”
She put her hand on Winslow’s arm. “You promise?”
“Yes.” He glanced down at the weight sitting next to him on the platform. “Oh God, I can’t believe I was going to do that.” He let out a loud sob, and Mercy wrapped her arms around him and let him cry some more.
“I almost…”
“But you didn’t,” she said.
He looked at her, his eyes wild. “Thank you, Mercy. Thank you. You’re right. It would have killed him too. And my mother. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just…so desperate.”
“I know you were. And maybe you’re not thinking straight because you’ve got something going on with your brain right now. And maybe that thing can be fixed. Or held off, at least.”
Sniffling, he said, “Yes, let’s hope so.”
They were both quiet for another minute, each lost in their own thoughts about their futures. Finally, Mercy said, “Will you tell Miguel what’s going on?”
His eyes filled with tears again. “Do I have to?”
“He deserves to know everything. He’ll want to be there for you.”
“That’s the problem.”
“Let him do it, Winslow. Let him love you right to the end. It’ll be a beautiful, awful journey for you both, but it’ll be the journey of a lifetime.”
He let out a soft chuckle. “Miguel prefers journeys that end at six-star resorts, not visits to his partner through plexiglass.”
“I don’t really understand what you did wrong, but I do know you’re very rich and very powerful, and that usually men like you come out okay.”
“That’s both disgusting and comforting to me.”
She laughed. “It should be.”