They Shouldn't Have Happened

I was a professional nothing.  He was trying to be a something  Together, we could find everything.

Today is Zack’s thirtieth birthday.  Now I probably don’t have to tell you that a healthy and happy thirty year old man will prefer something else to the hoarse croaking of even his beloved wife trying to belt out “Happy Birthday” first thing in the morning.  Still, waking him up should be kind of special. For three weeks I’d been at work getting certain parts of my anatomy to really go to work on certain parts of his anatomy. I’d seduce him out of sleep and, oh, something much more.

Zack didn’t stir when I grabbed his shoulders and rolled him onto his back.  Zack Ryan naked—what a sight! And I, well, I was never shy in the bedroom, either.  After a few moments of exploring my recent education he began to moan, and his long fingers dug into the sheets as if by their own volition.  He opened sleepy puppy eyes and exhaled.

“Happy birthday, handsome,” I said.  “Better than singing?”

“You’re a devil.”  He tried to reach up for me but I could watch the wave of delight pass over his face.  I obliged and leaned down towards him. “As long as you’re my devil.”

“Beats the hell out of coffee, too.”

I was 41.  That year I saw my own rebirth and my life as a living and thriving woman began.  That was the year I met Zack.

Among actors Zack had a small blip on the radar.  He was performing and getting small parts in obscure films.  In his decent apartment he enjoyed what he needed to stay alive and keep the wolf from his door.  That was all he needed, and he was happy.

Then his agent got greedy, and his private life as an actor ended forever.  Once the public knew him, they wanted him to belong to them. Thanks to the Internet, he really could be in a million places at once, gathering fans from around the world.  

“Mad Young Beauty.”  The title should have warned him.  His agent insisted this drama teen constellation of drugs and sex and badly researched mental illness would benefit his career.  Zack needed the help. He knew he was good and he was confident in his range, but he still kept getting overlooked for serious parts.  

But for this role, a teenage boy led by his balls by a manipulative girlfriend with a cemetery of skeletons in her closet, Marilyn White chose Zack.  I knew her as one of the more progressive studio executives. If she liked Zack, he must have managed to do something right.

And so they had gone out and "done lunch." Zack described to me how Marilyn had sighed, tracing invisible symbols on the tablecloth between them.  “Actually it’s kind of simple. An actual teenager probably won’t have the emotional range needed for the character. You do. You’ll be bringing that to the role, but the audience will believe they’re watching a teenager with those emotions because we’ve led them to that conclusion.  It had another original title, but we’re changing it to ‘Mad Young Beauty’?”

“Why?”  Zack closed the script and dropped it on the table.  “What was wrong with the original?”

Marilyn gave a delicate shrug.  “Keenan seemed to think it was too clinical.  Appropriate enough for the subject matter, but not at at all sexy."

Zack told me how he'd laughed.  “Sexy. I hate that word.” He turned to look out on the ocean.  “You people won’t be happy until you’ve gotten me naked."

And then came the kidnapping.

Hey, I had no more of an idea than anyone else.  Suddenly I was grabbed where I stood, felt my wrists get cuffed in front of me, and then I was carefully rolled into the tight compartment of the back of some truck.  Odd, actually, that they had been careful not to hurt me—well, any more than necessary. Then I heard “Ryan” and “millions” and insurance. Aha. I knew the plan.

Any major studio will take out kidnapping insurance on their top stars.  If a ransom is demanded, the insurance will pay. Euterpe had insured Zack Ryan, plain and simple.  Now, as to whether the star needed to be returned living, I wasn’t certain. I was hoping so.

I worried Zack Ryan would be big and brave and stupid, but in the end he was only big and brave.

He moved with subtle but efficient movements to bring the length of his body against me, protecting me against any more bumps and tosses.

He had done enough high drama kidnap scenes to guess at what was happening, but these guys were over the top.  Six just to take him down and duct tape to bind his wrists behind my back? And another strip over his mouth before they forgot he might scream?  Whatever they wanted, they were serious.

Two more seconds and we're lifted off the ground and thrown.  We land on a tacky plastic rug, roll once, and with the shut of some door we're left in the dark.  But I come to rest bouncing into a bundle on the rug next to me and then hearing a surprised gasp. “Don’t give them any trouble and I think we’ll be all right,” I hear a a voice speak from the bundle.  “Just go along for now.”

We must have been in the back of some vehicle, which now pulled away with increasing speed and knocking the two of us around what our confined space would allow.  My mind was able to process the obvious. As we took a turn on two wheels he rolled into me. The scent was so close it was pervading my senses. I didn’t know if my message would be understood, but I struggled to bring my body firmly next to his, to use my own strength to keep from any more rolling.  

Sweat ran slick down my body.  I heard a muffled, relieved, “Thank you.”

Before I could think much more we ground to a halt and our captors dragged us out of our tiny dungeon.  We were parked at one of the thousands of nameless and faceless motels dotting the Interstate lights. I tried to see my companion but they quickly had us in a drab room and lying bound on the bed.

I’d been wrong.  There were eight of them, eight muscle-bound goons to grab one actor of decent physical shape.  Not only had they been prepared, they had taken no chances.

“Treat the lady nicely.  She’s the one we really need.”

Now my curiosity had me.  

With one gesture of her shoulders, I threw her hair back, falling behind me and down to my waist.  I was reacting with my mind and with my heart. But Zack was having another effect on me that I never would have expected.

“You all have been very wise so far,” I said.  “Stay wise and we will all come through this.”

“Assuredly, Madam, I would prefer business over violence, so I know I need you.  I brought the boy along just in case anyone at the studio doubted my resolve.”

"Boy?" Zack cried.  "Me? I just turned 27!"

And then he looked at me and I was gone forever.

We stared at each other.  How stupid did I feel? I never stared at anyone, but there I was, taken by the peridot eyes the whole world seemed to love.  Thing was, Zack was staring back at me, transfixed. Why? Was he seeing the horrible little troll I really was?

Our captors hadn’t thought this part through very well.  By coming together we were able to reassure and comfort each other, just by being on the same side in this conflict.  I already had a plan, or at least the opening moves of a plan. A few more unguarded words from our charming hosts and I’d know how to proceed.

Instinctively I took my cuffed hands and placed them against Zack’s heart.  What I was doing, I didn’t know, but I hoped it would communicate my good intentions to him.  I’d had no idea what simply touching him might do to me. The opinions of millions suddenly made sense.

Well, to come to the point. we were released sooner than later.

The following morning the kidnap and rescue of television and movie actor Zack Ryan was splattered all over the front pages and filled the morning talk shows.  His agent gave out that he was recovering and would be back for interviews and press conferences the next day.

There was no mention of Kate Maguire, the woman who had been abducted with Zack, set him free, and as far as I could tell, saved his life.  If I hadn’t freed his hands he would have been shot dead, insurance money or no insurance money. But where had I gone? The cameras were calling.

Except Zack had bothered to look where the media wouldn't find us--my office at the studio.  “Do you have a moment?” he finally said.

I stood up and offered him the chair on the other side of my desk.  My office was almost as bad as the back of the truck we’d shared had been.  I almost mentioned it, then thought it might make things awkward.

Zack moved quickly, as if the chair might escape him.

“I wanted to thank you.  But I wanted to say so much more than that.  I’m going to sound like an idiot, but I’m an honest idiot.  You haven’t been out of my thoughts, not for a second. Something happened out there.  Something between you and me. Who we are, where we are, none of it matters. All that matters is what happened.  I’m a different man since my body was lying next to yours, not like a man does with a woman, but like two souls becoming one.”

He paused, breathing deeply.  The sincerity hadn’t waned from his face for a moment, and I was feeling heat in some unusual places.  Then he smiled. “Can I call you Kate?”

I had to laugh.  “Of course.”

“Kate, I’m not alone in this.  Am I?”

Ask an honest question and get an honest answer.  “Neither of us are alone now.”

Emilie J. Conroy

ejconroy778@gmail.com