Content Warning: violence, sexual content
I
One Friday afternoon I’m tired of being myself, which is just as well because you’re looking for someone else too. Your casting agent sends me the script a few hours before. It’s a few lines of background – the usual stuff, age, fears, likes and dislikes, the lot– but it’s mostly going to be improvisational. It has been a long winter and I am her spitting image. It is as simple as that.
I dress in the blue shirt, grey skirt and jacket which you’ve provided. The jacket is on the larger side. I ask the casting agent if this will be a problem and send her a photo of myself from above, cutting out my head. She replies saying it’s good enough. Plus, she writes, it’s not like she wears a jacket indoors anyway. She. I am going to become her.
The taxi driver asks me if I do this kind of thing often. He cranes his neck around to speak to me, taking one hand off the steering wheel as we pull out of the drive. I ask him what he means. He looks at me like I’m stupid.
Well, I’m driving you to a hotel aren’t I, he says, and it’s not like you have any luggage. He smiles like a bulldog and winks. He has fat hands. The kind you could imagine struggling to fasten shirts. I put on a joking voice.
Well, if I told you I’d have to kill you. He laughs and turns back to the road. I lean back against the headrest and imagine he’s dead.
My agent told me they were seeing lots of girls, but everyone knew that. In the beginning, when you were still bringing in all the big stars, it was all the press wrote about. These actresses were practically salivating, tossing out words like genius and once in a generation. Might as well have been on their knees for you, such was your talent, rigour, and craft. I guess you got bored of them or of the audition process, because eventually all of them dropped off. The articles stopped being about them and their odds, and instead became just about you and your selectivity. Your endless open calls. Your perfectionism. The term prodigy is thrown around a lot. And wunderkind. This is how I imagine you: a child walking aimlessly around in the dark. A child with a blank cheque.
The casting agent is unmistakably feminine with her long hair and red nails but also somehow sexless, like if you took all her clothes off there would be nothing down there but a flat expanse. You’re writing something down on a sheet of paper. You prodigy. You genius.
Lena, she says. Hi. Thanks so much for coming in.
I place my comp card on the table and you consider it between your fingers. You lean back in your chair and rest your pen against your mouth.
You’re much younger than I expected, is what eventually comes out. I think we have that in common, I say.
Being young?
Not being what’s expected.
You laugh. The casting agent laughs as well, so as not to feel left out.
Go on then, you say, tell me more.
You cross your arms over yourself. You’re thin, hairless, metrosexual. I quote what The New York Times wrote about you like it means something: that you ‘exist outside of the context. ’I tell you that I think it should have said you ‘are the context ’instead. The casting agent smiles. It’s shameless, but not artless. It lands. You raise your eyebrows.
Alright, the casting agent says, shall we get started?
The premise of my audition is as follows: I have just caught a boy peering through my window with his camera. I am confronting him outside.
I’m going to be your scene partner, you say, I hope that’s okay.
He’s not so bad, the casting agent says, I promise.
It’s true. I’d heard you’d trained as an actor before all this. The casting agent turns the camera on.
Whenever you’re ready.
I look over at you. You’re suddenly sixteen. I can believe it. You’re disgusting, I start. You disgust me.
I cross my arms over my body. Everything tightens: I realise it’s true, you do disgust me.
I can get rid of everything, you say. I’ll give you whatever you want. The roll, my camera,
I’ll give you money. You’re looking down at your feet, folding into yourself.
You’re joking, I say. You think you can pay me off?
You shrink into your body and stare at the floor. I tell you to look at me. Once, calmly. The second, more forcefully. You raise your hands up to cover your face but I catch hold of them, bringing you to me in a jerking motion before taking hold of your face in my hands. Your skin is warm and soft and your eyes are dilating in the corporate light.
Look at me.
I’m sorry, you say, it won’t happen again. I swear. I didn’t mean anything by it—I bet you have rolls and rolls of film under your bed, don’t you. I bet you’ve got it all categorised.
You’re breathing heavily now. Shifting your head away from me and squirming like a child. Please, I’m sorry– I’ll do anything.
I don’t believe you.
I’m still holding your head in my hands real close to my face. Half a centimetre closer and we’d be forehead to forehead. I have your face fixed in front of me where I want it.
This is how it feels to be looked at. Do you like this?
I understand, you say, I’m sorry.
You’re growing red and limp in my hands, so I let go. You lose your footing and fall backwards
onto the carpet. I start to laugh loudly. Nastily. I want to humiliate you. I’m going to drive you into the ground.
I’m sorry I’m sorry, you keep saying. And please.
Your face is shining in the light– from sweat, or tears, I don’t know. But it’s not enough. I tell you to take your clothes off.
The casting agent coughs. Or maybe it’s a laugh. You want me to take my clothes off?
You said you’d do anything, I say.
You start to undo the first button on your shirt before stopping yourself, hands hovering over your collar. I see the moment you decide: it passes across your face like skin reddening. You drop your hands to your sides. Later, you will tell me this was when you knew. But for now, you are yourself and I am her and the scene is over. The camera keeps filming, and no one says cut.
A month later, I receive a stack of papers and a post-it note. Call me if you have any questions.
Beneath it, you’ve written your number in handwriting so small and neat it could have been printed.
Inside the script is an envelope with a picture of a woman. She has my face, but I’m no longer myself. She could be anybody. I could be anybody. My agent is ecstatic.
This changes everything, she says, you have no idea. Of course, it goes without saying, you’re not allowed to tell anyone or, if you must, you can tell only very close family. But I really mean it, okay? Close family.
That won’t be a problem, I say, because I don’t have a family.
Oh, she says, how sad. I’m so sorry, but I have to go. Let’s pick this up tomorrow.
I take the scripts and contracts and papers you’d sent me and spread them across the table. I read everything. I read the contract and all the fine print, the welcome letter from the production team, and any other bit of writing that had come from the envelope, three or four times. I study the regularity of your handwriting: small and compact, like a row of teeth. I make notes in the margins. I sign the black dotted lines. I can’t help it — I’m not good at waiting. Then I call you. You pick up your phone after three rings.
Hey, congratulations, you say, I was waiting for you to call.
I can hear some disturbance in your background. I ask you where you are. The din only gets louder.
I’m so sorry, can you hear me? Give me a second, let me just go outside.
This is how it feels to be looked at.
Is this better?
Yes, I say. I can hear you now.
As I was saying, I was waiting for you to call. How are you?
I’ve read everything. I haven’t left my house in four days. You laugh. And what did you think?
I think it’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever read.
I’m flattered, really. That’s high praise. You must be flattered every day then.
Not every day.
Now it’s my turn to laugh. It must be cold where you are, because I can hear you breathing softly
on the line. I sense you’re on the edge of something. So, I was meaning to tell you your audition was great, you say, you made it very… real.
An involuntary image of you crumpled on the carpet. My hands around your face. I say something about you being a very convincing scene partner. You tell me that’s not it. I meant it felt real. Like it was happening to me, you say.
I tell you that’s because it was real and it did happen to you.
That night, I remember a story a girl told at university: There was a dog and an owner. He demanded the dog be loyal to him for as long as he lived, and so the dog did as he was told. The owner forgot that dog years are shorter than human years until, the dog ran out of years. The owner was sad. He wondered if the dog ever loved him. The class discussed its message in depth. The professor said he thought it could be about the dog’s love and survival. Or responsibility. Another person said that the dog’s behaviour was biological– being loyal was just what dogs did. After class, the girl told me she hadn’t given its meaning any thought; she had just made it all up on the spot. I remember telling her I thought it was about obedience.
That’s not the point, she’d said. All that mattered was I was convincing.
We don’t speak like this again for a few months. Only the odd text opaque text. An email through your assistant. On the three occasions I do try to call, I’m put through to your assistant who tells me you’re busy. She has a cold voice and a foreign accent I can’t put my finger on.
I’m sorry Lena, he’s occupied right now. Feel free to leave me a message though, and I can pass it on, she says.
There’s a possessiveness in the way she says your name which irritates me. I tell her that won’t be necessary. I hang up the phone.
I spend a day walking around the city. I’m in a cafe learning lines when I receive a message from my agent. You’re going to want to take a look at this. Then a link. It takes me to a headline on one of those cheap gossip sites. A blurry picture of you with a leading actress. It’s dark and the quality is bad, but you can see her arms wrapped around you, your faces close together. It says you’re ‘eyeing her for more than just the latest project’. I ask my agent what this means for me.
It could just be tabloids being tabloids, she writes, but you’d be smart to make him remember you. I call your assistant and leave the kind of message I know will get your attention.
Your assistant is silent for a few moments, but then says she’ll pass it on. She hangs up the phone. And then I wait.
II
My mother was a nobody, and I didn’t want that for myself. So, I became an actress.
I’m spearing a piece of asparagus on my fork and you’re looking at me like you’re genuinely interested in what I’m telling you.
I don’t believe you.
This is a new joke that has developed. If I wasn’t being hired by you to be someone else, I might have even found it funny.
You caught me, I say. Actually, my mother was an actress on the up, but when she had me her career never quite recovered. She gave it all up for me. I do this for her.
Your eyebrows go up again— thin, aquiline. You look like a 1920s cartoon.
I see what you’re doing, you say, but I want you to be serious for a second.
You almost look sweet like this, sitting with your elbows on the table, and the light from the window reflecting in your glasses. I think of the word earnest.
Alright, I say, putting on a serious tone. I never knew my mother and I was brought up by my grandmother. I went into local theatre programmes as a child and then I was scouted by an agent.
You shake your head.
I’m going to get it out of you, you say. Mark my words.
I fold the asparagus into a mound of mashed potato and place it in my mouth. I chew slowly. You watch me, bringing a hand to your own mouth. We sit in silence for a few moments, and
I’m reminded of exactly why people call it eye contact.
The lunches had been your idea. It’s important we build a good rapport throughout filming was what you’d written to me, but that must’ve been carefully written by your assistant. We both know what we’re about to do won’t bear a definition so vulgar or offensive as good rapport. You had already been drinking at the bar for half an hour by the time I’d arrived. You’re flushed even now, sitting red and loose in the midday light. We’ve barely discussed the film.
And what about you, I say, was this how you expected your life to turn out?
Your fingertips are still on your mouth, running back and forth like you’ve forgotten something.
No, you say. But I don’t want to talk about me.
I position my cutlery on my plate to show that I’m finished. You lean back against your chair, rocking lightly and without a thought. I tell you to be careful or you’re going to fall. You bring the chair legs back onto the ground before smiling with a wild look in your eye.
Do you have a dog, Lena? Or have you ever had a dog?
No. I’ve never cared much for pets. Not the nurturing type?
No.
The top of your shirt is unbuttoned, and the triangle of your chest is scrawny, adolescent. The eagerness I see in you suits you. You run your hands through your hair before, leaning forward.
You have a very assertive manner you know. You’re good at giving instructions. Almost like a director, I say.
You laugh at this and draw an invisible line between yourself and me with your index finger.
Exactly, you say, you know you can have what you want.
And what is it you think I want?
You narrow your eyes at me, as if trying to see something through me that is very far away. Then you repeat what I think is a shallow attempt at an impersonation:
You want me to take my clothes off.
The look you give me is intense and almost serious before you burst out laughing. You look so funny convulsing like this that I begin to laugh too. Eventually you come up for air, eyes glistening and smiling. You lean back into your chair and put your hands on top of your head like a marathon runner.
I mean, really Lena…who the fuck are you? Whoever you pay me to be, I say, with as straight a face as I can muster.
This sets off the laughter again, except this time your laughter is louder and more violent than before. The tables next to us are starting to look in our direction. I just look right back.
You’ve sobered up considerably by the time we arrive in the lobby and more so by the time you’re unlocking the door and saying something insipid like ladies first before ushering me inside. You sit at the end of the bed with your legs crossed under yourself. You don’t say anything or make any gesture for me to join you, so I remain standing in the centre of the room. I know what you want but I want to hear you say it.
So, what are we doing here, Mr Director? You lean back on your hands.
Rehearsal, you say. I thought we could do some acting exercises, keep fleshing out your character more.
Alright, I say, so what’s the premise?
Well, the premise is… I’m a director who’s invited his lead actress back to his hotel room. This is the scene where she confronts him.
I ask you if you want to play the scene on the bed. You shake your head and move so you’re standing facing me. I look to you and you are yourself but somehow different. More relaxed. I recognise this man from his industry profiles, talks and press releases. I look at my hand. These are hers now. Maybe I have never been anyone else.
Alright, I say. Whenever you’re ready.
You begin almost immediately, pleading with me not to ruin your life. You didn’t know what you were thinking. You wouldn’t have made me do anything. These are believable words, but I can’t believe you’re already so reckless with them, lowering yourself to your knees and putting your hands together. It’s borderline ridiculous. It’s pathetic that you’ve given in so quickly.
I say this to you. I tell you I’m going to ruin your career.
I can’t see your face from the way you’re bent over, but I can tell by your neck that it is growing red, excited. You’re speaking in half-whimpers, words becoming all shapeless and blurring into each other as you beg and plead and cry. It’s appalling to look at.
Please, you say to me. Please don’t ruin my life. And so on and so on.
When I ask you why I shouldn’t, you tell me you don’t know.
And so I tell you to take off your clothes. You start unbuttoning your shirt before deciding it makes more sense just to pull the whole mass over your head. It slides onto the floor revealing your flushed chest. You undo your belt, which lands metallic and heavy on the floor, and pull your trousers off along with the underwear beneath it, exposing your pale thighs and dark hair. Standing there in the middle of the room you remind me of the outer layer of a skeleton: that layer of blood and muscle just before bone and under the skin. There’s an excitement in you too.
That’s the part of you that enjoys being looked at.
I tell you to get down on your knees. I kneel beside you, placing one hand on the side of your face. You look at me blankly for a moment, but then you see my raised hand and you understand.
My hand connects hard with the flat of your cheek. You make a terrible sound like an animal, loud and ecstatic. I catch the surprise on your face for an instant before it sinks back below the surface. The air is silent. My hand is electric. I hold it to the side of myself like something
I picked up off the street. I tell you I’m going to hit you again; except this time, you’re going to be silent. I am fascinated by the look on your face as you anticipate my hand. Still. Eyes screwed shut. I make contact.
The sound that comes out of you is automatic. I hit you until your eyes are wet and your cheek is red and you’re spitting blood, and my hand starts to assert its own kind of pain. I am transfixed by the sounds that come out of your mouth.
Tell me you like it, I say.
The sounds you make are like a child with his mouth full of food, like a handicapped person who doesn’t know how to speak English, a person whose tongue has grown so enlarged and thick in their own mouth that it’s now spilling out and lolling around their face, spinning thin bubbles of spit from their lips. Your body is shaking.
At first, I think you’re saying please. Please, I think you’re saying, over and over again. Please.
But then I realise you’re saying my name as well. Lena.
Repeating it, over and over. Please Lena. Please Lena.
I touch my face. I’m surprised to find it’s wet.
I sit back onto the floor. I lower my hand. You close the space between us, placing your head in my lap and closing your eyes. My hands on your chest and your hands on top of mine guiding them lower and lower. Your fingers are pink and warm. You’re already hard.
Afterwards, I sit on the bathroom floor and think about the sound of your breathing. I lean my head against the wall and listen to the vibrations of the building’s pipe system: water that rushes and gurgles down rust innards. An image of you sat outside of the bathroom door waiting: the curvature of your spine and your head in my lap. In the blood on your face, in the hand between my legs, in my clothes on the floor and the bruises that will develop, the same line over and over, dog years are shorter than human years, dog years are shorter than human years. I wipe my face. I unlock the door.
Whenever you’re ready, is what you tell me when I re-enter the world. Whenever you’re ready, I think to myself, and then I am.
Author Bio
Zoe CN Smith is a writer based in London. She has previously had her short fiction published in The Mays and The Trinity Review.