Page 127 of Notorious

I realize I’m ravenous. Don’t remember the last time I was actually hungry.

After dinner, we walk Lady on the beach, and I feel like a human being for the first time in I can’t remember how long.

In the middle of the night, I wake up feeling giddy. “Holy crap, it’s over,” I whisper in the darkness.

Kurt stirs. “Hmm?”

“Sorry to wake you, baby,” I say. “But it’s hitting me again and again. I’m done with those bastards forever.”

“It’s okay. I’m happy it’s over, too.”

“I feel … free.”

“Good.” He climbs onto me. “But you’re stuck with me.”

“That’s a kind of freedom I’ll happily give up.”

Ace, my agent, calls me the next morning. “I hear congratulations are in order. That’s a big award.”

“Thanks. Yeah, it is. I dunno if I’ll ever see a dime of it, but it’s vindicating, you know?”

“I do.” His voice drops. “Johnny, I’m sorry you had to go through that. If I’d have known that those things were going on with that studio, I never would’ve booked you there. I know people think agents are leeches, but I genuinely care about you, and I’d never want you to be hurt. I’d never want you to be drugged. And I’d never want you to lose your livelihood.” He pauses. “Now that you’re retired, I suppose you have no use for me, unless you want to try acting in regular films or TV.”

“Not acting, no, but, there is something you could maybe help me with. I want to try becoming an intimacy coordinator.”

It’s quiet on the line, and then Ace says, “You know, I think that’s a great idea. Let me see what I can do.”

“Thanks very much.”

I hang up and see Kurt standing there with a refill for my coffee. “Your agent’s going to help you find work?” Kurt asks.

“Yep. Isn’t that great?”

He nods, but his lips are turned down.

I kiss him, then gesture at his long face. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m balancing wanting you to be happy with wanting you to quit trying to pay me back.”

Ah.

That.

“Thank you for the reminder. I need to do something.”

“What’s that?”

I stand and go over to the table with the notepad where I’ve been keeping track of everything Kurt’s bought for me. I hold it up. “Do ya mind if I tear up this here paper?”

“Thank fuck. Please do,” Kurt says. “Get rid of that. Our relationship is so much more than a tally sheet.”

Ripping it into tiny pieces, I toss it in the trash, then take him in my arms. “That it is, precious. That it is.”

CHAPTER 43

Kurt

“This is the address?” Rowan says, sitting in the driver’s seat of a plain white Suburban, looking around at the plain warehouses in the San Fernando Valley where the porn studios are clustered. His eyes are bright with excitement, and his hands are trembling with what I assume is adrenaline. Since I’ve got the same thing coursing through my veins.

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