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to meet you – I hope we get to do scenes together,’ he said with a shy grin.

      ‘Hello,’ replied Claire, warmed by his friendly manner. ‘I hope so, too.’ Jason edged out of the way and Claire sat tentatively in his place and braced herself for the next encounter. Sonia stood behind her.

      ‘I expect you do your own, don’t you?’ she said quietly.

      ‘What?’ said Claire, startled.

      ‘Make-up,’ replied Sonia. ‘I can see you’re good at it – you look lovely.’

      ‘Oh – thank you,’ said Claire, unable to believe her ears. ‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do.’

      ‘You’ll need a bit more base, Claire. Would you like me to do that?’ enquired Sonia, smiling gently. ‘Then you can do your eyes and things.’

      ‘Yes, of course.’ My luck’s in, thought Claire as she gave herself over to Sonia’s ministration.

      ‘Now, what are we going to do with your hair?’ running her fingers through Claire’s soft reddish brown curls. ‘It looks quite good tied back in the nape.’

      Claire suddenly became aware that she was under scrutiny. She turned and met Patsy’s hostile gaze. Sonia followed her look.

      ‘Patsy,’ she said, ‘have you met Claire yet?’

      ‘No,’ said Patsy solemnly. ‘Hi,’ she added casually, before turning away without waiting for Claire’s response.

      ‘Take no notice of her,’ whispered Sonia in her ear. ‘She thinks she’s the star of the show.’ Claire was rattled by Patsy’s evident dislike of her and thought privately that if she had made an ally in Sonia then Patsy was decidedly an enemy.

9

      It was ten o’clock on another blindingly hot day in Bel Air – a misnomer if ever there was one, the only air worth breathing being of the conditioned variety. Somewhere a telephone was ringing. Jim Dutton stirred from the mists of a drug-induced sleep. He moved his head and opened one eye blearily. He became aware that he was not alone. A very young girl with red hair of an impossible hue was sprawled on her stomach across the pillow next to him. Another girl, a blonde of the type known as ‘platinum’, lolled over his loins, her mouth half open near his flaccid cock. They were both sound asleep, the blonde obviously having abandoned her attempt to arouse his flagging ardour mid-operations. The redhead’s breath smelled appalling. The phone continued to ring. Where the fuck was Consuela? The number of phone calls and possible job offers he’d missed through that goddamn broad not answering the goddamn phone … then he remembered he’d had to dismiss Consuela the previous week. Hell! It had come to something when he couldn’t even afford a goddamn housekeeper. Something had to break soon. What the fuck did his goddamn agent think she was doing?

      He crawled across the redhead, who moaned and rolled over onto her back, displaying a pair of enormous breasts. This had the effect of giving him an instant hard-on, which almost distracted him from his mission. The phone rang relentlessly; it obviously intended to go on ringing until someone answered it. He glanced hungrily at the huge nipples. ‘Later, later,’ he muttered, and staggered across the room. He always kept the bedroom phone on the table by the window. It was the only way he could be certain of making an early morning call at the studio. He had to be sure of actually getting out of bed.

      ‘Yeah,’ he said huskily into the mouthpiece of the onyx and gilt turn-of-the-century-type telephone.

      ‘Hi, sweetie,’ said a cheery voice on the other end. It was Meriel his goddamn agent! ‘I was beginning to think you’d died on me, honeybunch.’ She sounded in high good humour.

      ‘Likewise,’ growled Jim. ‘I haven’t heard from you in months!’

      ‘Jimbo, that is such a lie. If you’re alluding to the Universal project, we are pushing as hard as we dare at this point in time. Now, concerning the Golden Globe Awards –’

      ‘Holy shit!’ intoned Jim. ‘Have you any idea what time I hit the sack?’

      But Meriel was questioning him closely on his activities at the awards ceremony. Had he interacted with the right people? Meriel started giving him a list of the casting directors who apparently had been impressed by his appearance. Jim caught sight of his reflection in the huge mirror that served as the bed head.

      ‘Jeez,’ he muttered to himself as he gazed longingly at the recumbent beauty on the bed, ‘I’m standing here completely nude with an erection like the Empire State Building and my asshole of an agent, who can’t get me an interview much less a screen test, is giving me the third degree on last night’s guest list.’ He started to work his foreskin up and down his penis automatically. If only Meriel would get off the goddamn phone he could get down to the biggest pair of tits he’d seen in a long time. He groaned involuntarily.

      ‘What was that, honeypie?’ queried Meriel.

      ‘Uh, nothin’, it’s okay – uh, say Meriel, can any of this wait? I’m kind of busy right now.’

      ‘Oh sure thing, sugar – oh, just one thing, though, there’s these two British-type guys – want to sign you up for a TV series.’ Was this broad raving or what?

      ‘A British TV series? They only ever get shown on HBO, Meriel!’

      But Meriel was unimpressed by his reaction. ‘Think about it, Jimbo. There’s not a lot of work around right now and there’s a lot of talent chasing what there is.’

      Meriel knew how slim the chance was that Jim would get the Universal movie. It would go to Kurt Russell or Patrick Swayze for sure. Unless they got a better offer – and then Jim would be up against the two-dozen others in his own league.

      ‘You’ll be getting a call from them any time – I gave them your number – they’re flying over to see you in the next couple of days.’

      I do not believe I’m having this conversation, Jim thought wildly. One day I’m being tipped as the hottest thing to come out of Hollywood since Kevin Costner and the next I’m on a meteoric ride to obscurity in a British TV series. This cannot be for real.

      Jim was good-looking, even by Hollywood standards – but apart from possessing a physique that could have passed muster as a quarter back with the Miami Dolphins, Jim’s main asset was a gentle, sensitive, little-boy-lost expression that seemed constantly to assail his features. Women were bowled over by it. So were female casting directors (who, although technically women, were in fact a breed apart). Producers, on the other hand, seemed strangely resistant. Once it had dawned on Jim that his boyish charm and devastating good looks could be used to get what he wanted, he used them mercilessly. He had been discovered by his agent, Meriel Brooks, playing Chance Wayne in a production of Tennessee Williams’s Sweet Bird of Youth at the Pasadena Playhouse. She had got him a small but regular part in a daytime soap series and he had bedded her out of gratitude. This in fact had not been necessary so far as Meriel was concerned. Her job was the motivating factor in her life, that and the antiques that graced her lovely West Hollywood apartment, and her plastic surgeon’s bills that were extortionate. But she had accepted Jim’s offer without any fuss. It had only happened once and they had been firm friends ever since.

      She had introduced him to the Hollywood social scene. They had breakfasted at the Beverly Hills Hotel, lunched at Le Dôme, dined at the Ivy, been to countless premieres, awards ceremonies and charity galas and benefits. The Hollywood élite had welcomed them. The champagne had flowed and the cocaine had drifted. Jim had launched himself into a full and varied sex life. Women flung themselves at him and he had lost count of the number of girls he had bedded.

      Meriel had finally got him the lead in a fairly awful but enormously popular life guard series, which required him to do little more than sprint across the sand of Malibu plunging at least once an episode into the pounding surf to rescue a damsel in distress or preferably a small

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