“Oh, look at you, celibate prince.” I practically spit it out. This is fucking pathetic.
Tarek has the gall to laugh. “What’s the problem? That we’ve been with her, or that you haven’t?”
My mouth snaps shut. A small, wicked smile spreads across Adam’s face, as though he couldn’t have chosen a better question himself.
I’m not going to answer.
Instead, with a glare, I pick up the camera from the table and hold it steady in my hands. The urge to chuck it out the bus window is overwhelming.
“I’m going to talk to her about this. And, if she’s as easy as she apparently is to all of you, I might get a nice little bonus.”
I leave the kitchen with Adam’s delighted laughter ringing in my ears.
9. KAT
IT’S NOT EVERY DAY you receive an email with the subject “URGENT: BAND PROTOCOL”. It reads:
Dear Ms. Galbraith
Further to your signing as our official filmmaker for our client ROYAL ELEMENT on their international tour LIVIN’ IN THE PALACE, please find attached the creative brief outlining your duties to be carried out on behalf of MCM.
Your sincerely,
Carla Merksworth
What school do people attend to learn to write like robots? Heaving a sigh, I open the attachment. As I skim the correspondence from MCM, I start to believe it’s not so much “band protocol” as “banned protocol.”
As official filmmaker for our client ROYAL ELEMENT on their international tour LIVIN’ IN THE PALACE, you are summarily requested to obtain footage of the members of ROYAL ELEMENT (”Adam Tyndall”, “Tarek Idris”, “Seth Fawkes”, “Conor McLelland”, “Leon Roberts”), with particular focus on Adam Tyndall.
Appropriate footage includes (but is not limited to):
concerts
backstage interactions
pre-concert preparations
fitness and leisure pursuits
red carpet events
promotional activities
interviews
In particular, MCM supports creative endeavors focusing on honest interpersonal communication and group dynamics — the agreements and disagreements, no matter how seemingly harmful to the ROYAL ELEMENT brand.
As an MCM employee, we encourage you to record your interactions with each member. This is for your own benefit as well as that of MCM.
Please note that any inappropriate conduct will instantly result in contract termination.
I blink, rereading every line. It’s the oddest brief I’ve ever received.
MCM wants me to record my interactions with every member. I frown. Do they mean record as in film, or record as in write it down in some kind of account? And if either of those... why?
The more I read, the more my head spins. Their list of band members isn’t even approaching alphabetical order, and I have to wonder if it’s MCM’s order of preference.
The final line chills me to the bone. “Inappropriate conduct”? Does that include someone swallowing come from my fingers?
My face heats rapidly as I’m reminded of last night. I can’t believe that happened — I must have gone insane. It was stupid of me to even venture into their room in the first place, never mind to masturbate there like some kind of sick freak. Apparently I like to live life on the edge. Who knew?
Yet Conor didn’t exactly seem to be put off. That’s the strange thing. I’d have assumed he’d be raging about it, some intruder fingering herself to orgasm in his shared room like a damn animal. Instead, he... watched?
Did he really just watch me?
When I tried to run away and he grabbed me by my wrist, his own hand was sticky with... what? I swallow. It can’t have been. I’d heard him groaning, true, but that could have been his reaction at discovering me. Although, it didn’t sound entirely negative. It sounded practically orgasmic...
A member of Royal Element jerking off over me?
No...
And yet, a weird thrill rushes over me, along with an odd sense of... something new. Raising my chin, I try to identify it.
Power? Can it be?
One of the most sought-after men in the world wanted me, felt desire for me.
What isn’t powerful about that?
Though it’s not just him. Tarek behaved just as crazily in my presence before the gig last night. How does this happen to someone like me? I’ve had no advances of any kind living in Nowheretown, Colorado. Suddenly I’m plucked from my interminably dull existence into Celeb Land, where men are apparently desperate to seduce me?
No, this doesn’t just happen. As attractive the prospect of sleeping with them is, I don’t trust their motivations.
I’ve seen movies like this before. They must have made some kind of bet or something — first to make the virgin chick take off her pants wins.
They must have.
Please note that any inappropriate conduct will instantly result in contract termination.
Conor, though... He wasn’t like Tarek. There was a sweet sincerity there, not a single-minded determination to fuck me up. I think. Unless I’m reading everything all wrong? Perhaps Conor’s just a good actor. I sigh. I don’t know what to believe anymore.
And now MCM are feeding me instructions and threats, because that’s what I need in my life right now.
There is a sharp knock on the door.
I take a deep breath. What now?
When I open the door, Leon is staring at me with anger blazing in his eyes. One of my smaller cameras is held aloft in his hands.
He nods to it. “Recognize it?”
He looks like he’s about to tell me off. I don’t doubt his deep voice would carry across the bus, maybe even to Gary at the front. If he’s going to go berserk at me, he can do it in my room where the chances of someone overhearing are slimmer. After everything else, I don’t think I can take the embarrassment.
So I frown and hold the door open for him to enter. Without hesitation, he squeezes inside.
When he presses against me in my cramped room, I start to realize how bad an idea this is. He’s well over a head taller than me and I’m staring quite squarely at his firm chest. The tip of my nose is practically touching it.
“I’ll, uh, go up top,” I mutter, climbing the short ladder to the upper bunk and trying to keep my backside in check. Last thing I need is to make them think I’m seducing them, like the MCM spy I supposedly am. I ease myself under the canopy of the ceiling and hunch forwards, my legs dangling over the edge. Well, this isn’t awkward or anything. “Welcome to my office,” I say grandly.
He doesn’t even smile. Instead, he raises the camera into my face. “What is this?”
I lick my lips, wondering if this is some kind of test. “It’s a camera.”
Leon rushes forward and grips the bed frame. He leans into my face — now evenly matched — and says quietly, “I know it’s a camera. I want to know what it was doing in the gym.”
“Then why wasn’t that your first question?” I bite back.
He exhales loudly and tosses the camera onto my pile of papers. I make a noise of outrage and scoop it into my hands, switching it on to make sure it still works. The little red light blinks on, happy and alive. I breathe a sigh of relief.