Saddled, chapter twelve (Patreon)

Clive’s assistant ambushed him at the door of his Bangor office. He knew he should have worked from home, especially when he was still suffering a domination hangover. He’d spent most of Monday trying to convince himself he shouldn’t call the agency again, and five minutes into his day, he was already feeling an itching in his dialing finger. He didn’t want to deal with any of Kelly’s bad news, and he could tell from her face something had blown up. “Brandon Robinson has called eight times,” she said as she followed Clive into his office.

That was old news. Clive spent all Monday deleting texts and resenting Robinson’s intrusion into his personal time. Not even Kelly called him on those days that he retreated from human company. “You should see how many texts he sent me. After I ignored the first twenty, you’d think he would stop.”

“Mr. Davidson.” When Kelly used that tone, she sounded like Clive’s mother or maybe Sharon. It said something that in Clive’s memory their disapproving tones had somehow merged into each other.

“His problems are not my problems.”

Kelly twitched her lips, but she was far too professional to comment. Instead she moved to the next item on the agenda. “Mr. Taylor has asked you to call him when you have time.”

That stopped Clive. Steve Taylor was the star of the movie half of this adventure, and Clive would have answered that message. One wrong word to Taylor’s fanbase and the concurrent Broadway musical would go down in flames. Since that’s where most of Clive’s money was, he had a vested interest in keeping the ass happy. Clive even had more patience for him because he was a talented ass, unlike Robinson who did more posturing than delivering. “Why didn’t you call me immediately?”

Kelly handed him a clipboard with the important mail for the day. “He said to wait until you came into the office. I think he was trying to respect your creative space.”

“Next time a headline star calls, I don’t care if I’m taking a shit, you let me know immediately.”

“Classy.” Kelly threw in an eyeroll. “But duly noted.”

Clive waited until Kelly had retreated to the front office and closed the door before he set the paperwork aside and called Taylor. The phone hadn’t even finished the second ring when someone answered.

“Clive. Good to hear from you.” Taylor answered the phone himself. No assistant. And he had an overly friendly tone. That was worrisome. “Give me a second.” In the background, Clive could hear doors close. Only then did he speak in a more normal tone.“Thanks for getting back so quickly.”

“I will always return your calls immediately, and you’re welcome to use my private cell.” Clive knew the man had it because he had called to complain about Robinson often enough.

“Hopefully this isn’t that sort of emergency,” Taylor said. “Robinson called me. He’s ranting and raving about how you’re trying to cut him out of his life’s work.”

Clive leaned back and closed his eyes. He was starting to wonder if he could justify another long weekend and another call to the agency. If John was available, Clive might do it. However, for now he needed to focus on business. “He owns part of the Uninvited project, and you exercising your right to keep him off the set doesn’t change that.”

“He accused you of putting me up to all of this. He suggested that you maneuvered me to put that clause in my contract.”

Robinson might be smarter than Clive had given him credit for. “He’s paranoid,” Clive said dismissively.

Taylor hesitated. “Did you talk to my lawyer about that clause?”

And Taylor was just as clueless as Clive had assumed. Of course he had talked to every lawyer involved. He’d been in the business longer than anyone else involved in producing this project. “Robinson is a relative newcomer with a history of losing his temper. Your lawyer had every reason to include a clause that would protect your work and make you sure didn’t have to perform in a hostile environment.”

“I’m taking your lack of an answer as an answer,” Taylor said. “Robinson is an ass. But here’s the thing—he’s dangerously angry and ranting about revenge.”

Clive frowned. He had assumed Taylor would deny being manipulated by anyone, but this was almost sounding like an apology. “While you were listening to Robinson rant, did you happen to throw me under the bus?”

“I didn’t just throw you under the bus, I threw you under a car and a train too. If I could figure out how to throw you under an ocean liner, I would. Robinson is running on high-octane crazy right now.”  Taylor was trying to sound funny, but his voice revealed some pretty significant stress. He might be a great actor with a script, but he couldn’t bluff to save his life.

Clive was a fan of lancing boils. If Taylor was afraid, he wasn’t going to perform well, so Clive needed to manage this situation. “Are you scared of him?”

“Hell, yes,” Taylor quickly blurted. “And I owe you my first born child for making sure I don’t have to deal with him on set. That’s a debt I will pay one day. I will absolutely pay you back, but I am not getting between you and Robinson. In fact, I told him that’s why I was invoking the clause. I told him that the conflicts between the two of you made focusing on work impossible.”

“So you didn’t tell him I asked you to ban him?”

“No, I just blamed you for doing it. He’s ready to eviscerate you.” Taylor’s voice dropped into the sort of tone confidants use when sharing dangerous gossip. “Watch your back.”

God save them from naive actors. “I’m not worried about Brandon Robinson. I’m more concerned that you play nice with Thadie Ralecia.”

“Oh shit. Is that who you’re bringing in?” Now Taylor’s voice grew uncomfortably high. Clive grimaced. He should have gotten Taylor on board before calling her, but he’d been delightfully distracted at the time.

“Do you know someone better to get us back on schedule?”

Taylor’s dramatic sigh was an answer in and of itself, but he added, “Satan would be afraid to collect her soul thirty seconds early.”

“You should tell her that one. She’d enjoy it.”

“At least she won’t call her gangster friends to break my bones.”

Sometimes Clive hated the general stupidity and gullibility of people. “You can’t actually believe those rumors.”

“I’ve seen pictures—him going to clubs with criminals and thugs.”

Clive winced at Taylor’s casual use of thug to describe Robinson. Maybe he should email Ralecia and suggest she not spend much time around Taylor. Otherwise Taylor was going to earn one of her patented lectures about race and assumptions. Clive had endured one or two, and while his own careless use of language had deserved those tongue lashings, he did not want to negotiate a peace between Ralecia and Taylor if words like thug got thrown around. “Those criminals hang out with Robinson because he can get them into clubs. They’re not about to break any bones for him.”

“Are you sure? I mean, are you really sure?” Taylor asked.

God save him from actors. “What has he told you about his childhood?”

“He talks about the gang violence growing up in Chicago.” Taylor’s tone was full of both awe and horror.

Taylor clearly believed every word out of Robinson’s mouth, even the ones that were more fictional than the script to The Uninvited. At one point, Clive had admired Robinson’s chutzpah in creating a backstory that had so little to do with his privileged upbringing. Decades earlier, Clive had done something similar, only in reverse.

Back when Clive had first started trying to get work in the story rooms, the industry had a not-so-subtle disregard for blue collar workers or people from those families. Clive had hidden his past as a key grip and had lied about his father to create a white-collar illusion that allowed him to bluff his way into the inner rooms of power. Now that the industry worshipped at the altar of those who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, Robinson had done the same in reverse. The difference was that Clive’s fictional background never led to people being afraid of him. Any fear came from Clive’s ability to ruin someone’s career with one rumor.

But Robinson had used racism and his own talent for weaving lies to intimidate. Clive had not understood how broadly Robinson had created his own personal myth, not until he had already gotten into a bad deal. “Oh, he grew up in Chicago,” Clive said. “He went to fucking Lake Plains Academy. He probably studied violin as he engaged in ritual cheers. The only fighting he did was to earn house points.”

For several long seconds, the phone was silent.  Then Taylor asked in a shocked tone, “What?”

“I did my research. He did his secondary school at a private boarding school that’s more than a century old. The place is set up like a boring version of Hogwarts, including having different houses. I’m sure it’s a great school, and he got a good education, which is why he has such talent in producing. But this inner city persona he’s created is fiction. When I was young, I dyed my hair gray so I would look distinguished. Robinson does the same thing, only he wants to come off as dangerous and edgy.”

“Okay.” Taylor drew the word out. “That doesn’t change the fact that his friends actually are dangerous and edgy.”

“Maybe. And maybe they’re creating their own illusions. I’m pretty sure people who are actually dangerous try to stay off TMZ and You Tube,” Clive pointed out.

“Hey, your neck. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t feel guilty about covering my own ass.  And now that I know I am going to have Ralecia breathing down my neck, most of that guilt is gone. Fuck. Ralecia.”

“I have a secret about staying on her good side.”

“Oh?” Taylor sounded interested in that.

“Don’t be the person causing the biggest delays.”

Taylor’s laugh was rough, like it had been startled out of him. “Right. I’ll keep that in mind.” And then the phone disconnected. Clive had work. He was in charge of the Broadway end of the project, and he had budgets, casting, theater contracts, and opening publicity to worry about. However, his brain kept circling back to his wild assistant.

Knowing himself, he would obsess all day if he didn’t get John out of his mind. So despite his best effort to separate work and play, Clive picked up the phone and dialed a number. The receptionist sounded suitable formal with a touch of bored, transferring him to the boss as soon as Clive proved that he knew her by name.

So when she picked up the phone, Clive greeted her with, “Elena.”

“Clive. How nice to hear from you,” she said. She never sounded stressed, not even when she had contacted him that first time to warn him that one of his stars was hiring dominants to whip them and the games were getting psychologically dangerous. He respected that she had put the submissive’s health first, and he suspected that she had researched him enough to know that he had a reputation as a dominant in a few of the more discreet clubs. Clive had taken care of the problem with a call to a private practice therapist and had called her for an assistant three months later. She continued, “I take it from the email I received that you appreciated John’s work.”

“More than I expected.”

“Either John is very good or I have disappointed you far too often in the past,” she said with a touch of humor in her voice.

“Much more of the first than the second, and whatever disappointment I might have felt was not a reflection on you.”

“Still, I’m feeling a need to make sure you know how much we value you as a client.”

“I write the checks. I know exactly how much you should value me,” Clive said drily. He appreciated Elena, but he wasn’t the sort of client she had to manage. “John was really…” Clive had no idea how to couch his compliment in a way that would sound innocuous enough to anyone listening. Personally, he thought that precaution was paranoid, but Elena did enjoy her games. “He is new, but I found his help imminently satisfactory.”

Elena chuckled. “I told you I was sending someone with a remarkable dearth of experience and no bad habits for you to break.”

Clive wiggled his sore toes. “Oh, he had many bad habits. I might have enjoyed breaking them. I will admit that I am a little surprised you sent out someone with so little on-the-job experience.”

“That is what you asked for.”

“Yes, but it would have been easier for you to tell a regular to lie, wouldn’t it?” Clive had been fully prepared to play along with a barely adequate acted version of a new submissive. However, no one was good enough to feign that sort of naïveté.

“First, I never lie to clients. If I promise you a red-headed former Olympian with a typing speed of a hundred and fifty words a minute, I can promise you that I will send someone who ticks every box. I will even check to see the rug matches the drapes—no bottle red heads for our clients, not if you want natural.”

Clive shook his head. This is why he used Briarwood to keep his stars happy. She treated every request—from homemade sugar cookies to Polish vodka, from Casablanca lilies to gold plated sex toys—as vital to the success of a project. When Clive needed a touchy personality to get a little special attention, he trusted Elena to provide. And he trusted her to watch out for her assistants.

“We worked hard this weekend. I hope he didn’t complain about me overworking him.” Hopefully that was vague enough to satisfy Elena’s need to remain circumspect about the business while still getting information on John.

The answering pause worried Clive. Eventually Elena said in an overly neutral tone, “He has not yet come in today.”

Clive’s blood pressure went up fast enough that he felt a headache start throbbing behind his eyes. “What if something happened? That’s a long, winding road, and he was functioning on very little sleep.” 

“I sent someone to check on his house. He got home fine. If he doesn’t check in today, I’ll have someone drag him in.”

The knot in Clive’s chest loosened. “He probably overslept. I expect a lot of my assistants.”

“Yes, you do.”

Clive tapped his pen against the lined notebook he always kept on the corner of his desk. Computers made his life easier, but sometimes he preferred the feel of a good quality pen sliding across paper. “With work being as difficult as it has been recently, I might like to schedule another assistant.”

“With someone like John?” Elena asked.

Clive put the pen down. “With John.”

“Oh.” Elena fell silent, so clearly Clive had managed to shock her. “He has been looking to pick up more hours recently, so he might be available.”

“Of course,” Clive said. If John was looking for more hours, that meant that he was definitely in some financial trouble. The idea of someone else forcing John to do something distasteful for money made Clive’s stomach churn. Given that Clive had done exactly that, he recognized the hypocrisy and irony. Yet he was deeply disturbed at the idea of someone else treating John that way.

“We can talk details later,” Elena said, which was code. Clive needed to contact her on a secure chat app to discuss the more explicit details.

“Soon,” he said. He hung up the phone and forced himself to go use the restroom before messaging Elena. He didn’t want to look desperate.

Chapter 13 and 14: https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-chapters-18974026 

Chapter 15: https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-chapter-19132781 

Chapter 16: https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-chapter-19490176 

Chapter 17: https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-chapter-19634666