Page 54 of Bound By Brielle (Crave & Cure Productions)

She hides her hands in her lap, below the table. Our gazes idle as we silently dare one another to spill. Finally, I bring my cup to my mouth and before taking a drink I say, “I’ve started sleeping with Augustus and Lance.” Ah, the truth is out there.

She slaps her palms down on the table so hard and so loud that the barista pops out from the backroom, glaring at us. “Sorry,” I wave, smiling awkwardly as I glare daggers back at Winnie. “Dude, chill out.”

“I will not fucking chill,” she whisper-hisses, eyes brimming with excitement. “You’re going to elaborate right this second.”

Still not knowing where their boundaries lie, I decide to omit the pet play, providing only the core details. “The three of us work really well together, on set and off.”

She nods, and I love that she isn’t the type of friend to look for holes, or weak spots. She isn’t lying in wait to burst my bubbles or caution me with reality. We both know the reality: as with everything, the possibility of being hurt is there, hovering invisibly above us. I don’t need to hear it, and Winnie knows that. “And what about out of the sheets? You guys work in a casual off-set way, too?”

I know what she’s asking. Is this just sex or is it going to be an actual relationship. The only thing is, I don’t know the answer, and I admit as much. “I don’t know,” I shrug, sipping the last of my latte. “I hope we do, and I mean, we do. We get along great, I just don't know what they want in the long term.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Didn’t you say that Lance is a switch, so they’re looking for a sub to enter the equation permanently then, aren’t they?”

When she says it that way, it all feels so… transactional. Am I that for them? Am I simply the missing component added to makethemwork? The way they touch me, the tenderness in which they speak to me… I don’t think that’s what it is. But I’d be foolish not to acknowledge that it is a distinct possibility.

“Oh fuck,” Winnie sighs. “You didn’t think of that until now. I’m sorry, B. I’m really not trying to be negative fucking Nancy over here, I promise.”

I fix a smile on my face. “No, I know that. I know you’re not. But you’re right—that hadn’t occurred to me until just now and the fact that I’ve been in delusional bliss, is a little scary.” I pluck at maple icing crumbs. “Unlike me.”

Winnie crushes her empty cup in one hand like The Hulk, the way she always does. I smirk and she smiles. “Maybe you need to be unlike yourself. I mean, that’s why you applied to the program, isn’t it? To be unlike you, at least for a little while.”

I nod. “You’re right. And no matter how it ends, this is what I set out for. Discovering a new side of me. Becoming an unforgettable person.”

Winnie rolls her eyes. “You weren’tforgettablebefore. It’s just Noah wasn’t in your life to remember you. You know? Noah was just a stepping stone to get you… I don't know, maybe here?”

We finish our coffee date, dropping the serious talk right there. And as I head into Crave, I can’t help but get hung up on her words. Am I just a missing piece so that they can be together? Am I their cog?

I shuffle the papers in my hands, double checking that the numerals on the body are in order.I can’t believe I wore a collar and acted like an animal.That simple truth heats my skin, so undeniable that I pinch my blouse and fan myself with the soft fabric. My eyes veer over the first page, getting an idea of what’s first to be filmed this morning. But…They are all I can think about.

“Hey,” Cohen snaps me from my dueling thoughts. Half of my brain just wants to think about them and the other night and another part of me wants to focus on work and only work. Focus on the reason I’m in this program—to learn how to direct art.

“Hey, Cohen,” I greet, smiling softly, so glad this man has approached me. Anything not to think about everything, even for a minute. “What’s up?”

He produces a folded sheet of paper from his back pocket, opening it slowly then hands it off to me. “Aug and Lance have you listed as the first chair directing all week. So I wanted to run the light configuration by you. This one you can keep. Let me know whenever. No rush. For the first scene today, Aug signed off on lighting, but if you want, you can change it.”

I blink down at the paper, an organized sheet of all the scenes we’re filming this week, with tiny little sketches of the light placement and how it will move with each scene. I look up at him. “Do you do this every week? These little sketches and things?” This must take so much time.

He nods. “I do. But the sketches are pretty much set. I copy them into a new document, print and hand label them.”

I look down at the array of lights, spotlight, beams, overhead racks, how he has them moving, centered, how bright they’ll each be. “This really makes it easy to understand how things will look,” I tell him, amazed at his diagram.

“Aug and Lance are visual learners. After being snapped at for a few weeks when I first started, I thought of this. And they love it. Makes planning things much more collaborative,” he says. Then he starts pacing backward, lifting a palm. “Let me know.” And then he’s gone.

So quiet, polite and private. I wonder what his story is. But then the backdoor swings open and Lance charges through, a phone pressed to his ear, lips in a thin angry line. “And legal made it clear that we run non-consumption contracts as the base. Consumption is an additive at the actor’s will,” he growls, stomping down the shadowy hall. The set rattles as he slams the office door closed.

From nearby, Alexa shoots me a look. “Great,” she comments. “He’s in a mood.”

From the refreshments table adjacent to me, Otis pops a grape into his mouth. “Is he ever not grouchy?”

I rise from my chair, leaving the schedule and papers in my seat. Making my way down the hall, my fist is reared to knock when the door is yanked open, and Aug appears. His dark hair is styled how it usually is, neatly coiffed, perfect fade. His face is clean shaven still and his dark eyes roam over my body quickly before he gruffs, “I was just going to grab you.”

I step inside and jump a little when he closes the door loudly. “We’re bringing another actor to Crave. It’s been in the works for well over six-months,” Aug fills me in as Lance sits on the edge of his desk, looking at his feet, crossed at the ankle out in front of him. “We hired her as a non-consumption actress, meaning–”

“I know,” I push out. I’ve been paying close attention because I love this job.

“Well, now she wants to perform consumption scenes, because she got wind of the perks.”

“She’s money driven, Augustus, and we don’t fucking want that kind of person here!” Lance hisses, finally raising his face for me to see. Veins bulge in his temples, and one angry one pounds in the center of his forehead. “Everything was fine until Dante in legal made a mistake, writing it in her contract erroneously and removing it but not before she saw. And she learned that swallowing would get her an extra twenty grand, now all of the sudden the contract doesn’t suit her?” he snarls, shaking his head.

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