The One with the NDA

"Oh my god, you guys! Let them have their peace. Leave them alone," barely cuts through the begging and shutter snapping of the paparazzi's Canons. "Show some respect. They're human beings just like the rest of us."

There is always a 50% chance that whenever my publicist tips the paps off to my whereabouts, there will be some white, suburban -- what my agent refers to as a "live,laugh,love Lacy'' -- pleading for my peace, as if I'd ever want anybody to believe that I was anything like the rest of them. The hoi polloi. The gentile.

Tatiana paces a few steps behind me -- looking perfectly annoyed, shielding her eyes from the blitzkrieg of flashes using a Balenciaga hourglass bag.

"Cesare over here!" screams one camera wielder.

"Look at the beautiful couple!" shouts another.

"Do you have anything to say about Sal Vincenzo's son?" asks the lady recording.

"Can I please get a selfie with you?" pleads a stumpy, Latina.

Tatum opens the backseat door of the Escalade and slightly shoves a pushy DSLR, making a way for us to get in. Like a true gentleman, I let Tatiana slide in first and before the door shuts behind me, I find the Lacy, make eye contact and give her a wink, acknowledging her solicitousness while mouthing a "thank you." You can damn near see the dopamine breaking every levy inside her cranium.

And that's how you guarantee she's the first in line when my next movie comes out.

"Don't touch my fucking camera, man!" I hear one of the aggressive Brazilians yell as Tatum slides into the front seat and closes the door. "I'll fucking sue you, bitch," his muted barbs continue.

Behind the presidential tints of the SUV, Tatiana's countenance shifts. After years of the hustle and bustle, rejection and stress of the fashion model's origins story, she had finally gained the immunity from a regular life that she grew up lusting after.

"Tatiana Souza!" My PR agent Kim Ngyen exclaimed a few weeks ago, placing an IMG Models comp card in front of me. "She's twenty-four, so she's been at this for a few years, but we have to start aging up because of you-know-who." I pick the card up and flip it to the other side. "She's black and Colombian, so she's got that whole Zendaya-biracial thing going on that everybody loves nowadays. A few runway shows, a couple of editorials, nothing major."

"5 '9", Dark Brown, Hazel, 32-24.5-34," I read off the stats, slightly impressed. "Size 2 dress, shoe size... Size 10 US? Jesus Christ, Sasquatch!"

"The photographers gave great notes about her," Kim said, snatching the card out of my hand. "She takes direction, is eager for the perfect opportunity, doesn't live on social media, and is a natural beauty. She's perfect." Kim smiled at the comp card. "And look on the bright side, at least you two will be able to share heels."

My face fell down and I squeezed my eyes shut, messaging them with my thumb and index finger, embracing myself for the response to my next question.

"For how long?"

"Well..." she began. "After the last two, your public image is kind of starting to seem a little... what's the word? Philanderer-y." She continued: "And after the story we just had to plant about the maids and the broken condoms and the abortions, it might be best if you just... settle down for a while."

"For how long?" I repeated impatiently, looking up.

"Just through the filming of this series... and the filming of your next movie... and all of the promo..."

"That's damn near three years!" I yelled, cutting her off. "No way! No fucking way!"

"Let me finish," she said, calmly. "I'm on your side, I'm looking out for you."

I fell back into my chair, crossing my arms, pouting.

"If things are just absolutely terrible with her -- I'm talking raging, petulant, daily bitchfits bad, then we can dump her before you promo your next film and play up the brokenhearted, sad boy angle. The womanizer finally gives his heart to a professional materialist and she pierces it with a six inch stiletto," Kim emphasized, painting the picture for me. "Limited promo that go round as you recover, heart so cold you don't date for years afterwards."

Three years. I'd definitely unravel before the lease ended.

"Very low key," Kim assured me. "You'll be filming for eight months, plus reshoots, so she won't be around too often. Just the occasional pap snap and appearance. Plus, she's a very nice girl. This will be nowhere near as bad as you're thinking."

*****

"I think it's time you had a baby," my longtime agent, Shel Dar, suggested to me over dinner at Carbone a few days later. "I mean, you're getting up to that age and people are starting to think you're gay."

I choked my negroni back into the glass.

"I'm not saying you have to marry the broad or even stay with her, but it would be very helpful to continue solidifying yourself as a man's man," he said, scratching his beard. "Plus kids are fun. Cute. Life changing."

"I draw the fucking line there," I furrowed my brows. "You want straight? Thats a straight fucking line I'm drawing in the sand."

"Look, I know you're allergic to... fish and everything," he continued. "But this entire ecosystem we've been archeteching forever revolves solely around you. All these people who've helped build and support your dreams when nobody else would, and their families, all rely on you. And you were desperate when you first started. Begging. Crying. Remember?"

I hit my patented face-in-palm pose.

"Oh, I'll do AN-KNEE-THING," Shel emphasized, mocking a teenage Cesare. "Well this is the anything."

"No babies," I repeated. "I'm not going to fuck up another life by introducing it to this circus."

I heard him exhaling sharply and felt the marinara spittle hit my hand. The Carbone in Vegas is not the Carbone of Los Angeles or New York.

"Fine, no babies," he conceded. "But you're going to have to change your fucking attitude about things. You know how many fifty thousand dollar slash NDA combos we had to hand out after that last little stunt you pulled? That's coming out of your pay."

The heat that was rising in me began to dissipate and grabbed a napkin and twisted it around each individual finger until it was smeared red.

"Now these Chinamen are spending a flat-assload of money to fund this series and they don't get down with that dirty dick shit like the guys in our offices do," Shel explained, masticating around the veal parmesan. "They definitely won't sell a LGHDTV-ABCDEFAG lead in America and they definitely can't sell one in their country, so you're definitely going to need to keep your hands clean throughout this project."

"And after this project?" I asked.

"We'll see," he shrugged.

"It's always we'll see," I shoot back, mocking him now.

"Awww. Poor little thespian, eating a $100 branzino, sipping a $20 cocktail, living in a $5,000 a night suite, while shooting a series he's getting paid $15,000,000 for -- burning all that money that would make other people's biggest problems melt away." he reminded me. "But the wittle baby is sow sad because he can't alert the entire world to the fact that he bounces scrotums on his stubble every night," he hissed. "Hard knock life."

"I'd think you'd at least understand the difference between 'alerting the entire world' and suppressing something so much that it begins to fester and rot inside of me."

"Boo hoo," he exclaimed, sending another constellation of marinara across the table. "Go fester on a fucking yacht."

*****

"I want you to... no, I need you to... I need you to..." I'm racking my brain, trying to shuffle through the dense fog that was activated by last night's glasses of chiantis.

"Accelerate!" annoyed, veteran actor Sal Vincenzo reminds me. "I need you to accelerate this process for me." He doesn't look up from his crossword puzzle.

We're sitting in a small building on the lot of the future Navarre Casino and Hotel Resort, engaging in our final reading before we begin filming. The Chinese investors that are building the hotel decided that a great way to promote the new venture would be to create a mini-series that takes place in the Italian-inspired resort.

The series will star grandfathered-in, A-lister Cesare DuNotti.

Three-time Oscar winning Sal Vincenzo.

Up-and-coming, androgynous, it-boy twink Henry Plache.

And Chinese model-turned-future Razzie-nominee Sue Han (who replaced the talented, afrocentric, Lois Patchouli as our sole diverse cast member).

At the end of the long table is the French auteur, Francois Gerund, red eyes brimming with tears.

Francois was the director of last year's Coucher avec le Diable (English translation: Sleeping with the Devil). As incredible of a film as it was, it lost out on every single international award because of the trans coming-of-age debut by Norwegian director Nicolas Stass. While Herr Stass received the accolades and opportunities that come with that type of acclaim, Monsieur Gerund was left trying to compromise an artistic masterpiece out of big budget drivel.

"We actually can't use the word accelerate," says Sheila, one of the beautiful assistants to Larry Goldenberg, producer extraordinaire. "It's too close to 'accelerationism' which is on the banned words list."

A tear drops down Francois' eyes and muddies up a yellow-highlighted page of his once brilliant script, which was now marked up with everything that needed to be changed and ended up looking like the crime tape around a murder scene.

"What the fuck is accelerationism?" I ask.

"It's an insane set of ideas that suggests..." Sue Han begins.

"New-age buzzword," Sheila interrupts.

"It's a serious hazard to society that is spreading..." Sue continues.

"Can't we just change it to say 'speed up,'" Sal suggests, still glued to his crossword puzzle. "I want you to speed up this process for me."

"Speed up? No way," replies Henry, peering over his dorky ass non-prescription glasses. "It completely loses its poetry."

Francois takes a sip from his coffee mug, which is most definitely laced with whatever alcohol of his choice. He knows if he walks now, he will never get another opportunity for funding after being pegged as a headache. He signed on operating under the 'one for them, one for me' mindset, but if the 'one for them' turns out as terrible as it's seemingly headed, there isn't a guarantee of a 'one for me.'

"Listen. Let's just take thirty and regroup once our heads are a little clearer," I suggest.

"We've only been here for fifteen minutes," Shelia reminds me.

A phone buzzes.

"Uh. Yeah. Thirty sounds good," says one of the guys from the investment company, sent to make sure we were making effective corrections. "I have to take this call."

I slide my chair back and make a beeline towards the espresso maker and start maneuvering around it with proficiency. Sal comes up beside me and starts preparing his cup.

"You just gonna let him talk to you like that?" I begin questioning once I see Henry isn't within earshot. "No way. It loses its poetry. Tell that little fuck to mind his shit. He hasn't earned his stripes yet."

"Who? Henry?" Sal asks. "He's just an actor-slash-artist. He has some good ideas."

"Artist?" I shoot back. "Just because he's painted every top in Hollywood doesn't make him a fucking artist."

I look back and Henry is still peering at the script pensively, biting down on the temple of his glasses that he's twirling in his hand.

"What? What is this about?" Sal questions. "You're not at that stage where you start getting jealous of the new fodder, are you? It's best to just skip it because you end up..."

"Jealous?" I cut him off. "I don't think those crossword puzzles are helping out because the dementia is clearly creeping through."

"So what is it? Is this about that new girl yours? What's she like, by the way."

"She's a slow, time-released, pain in my ass for the next three years, that's what she's like."

"Do you not like her because she's truly a terrible person, or do you just not like her because you don't like the situation?"

"Does it matter," I shrug.

"Listen," he sighs. "I understand, ok. I came up in the eighties. It was just a free-for-all back then. Nobody really cared behind the scenes and the public didn't know what you didn't want them to. But you guys wanted to keep your... extracurricular activities hidden. It was just easier that way."

The espresso machine beeps and he shoves me to the side and replaces my cup with his.

"That type of lifestyle just isn't sustainable. I've seen some of my best friends get eaten alive by that fucking AIDS virus and nobody gave a solitary fuck. The ones that survived are either extremely lonely, paying some young brute to pretend they love them, or finding imagined companionship on a fucking porno website. Rarely a happy ending. Just a bunch of guys trying to convince themselves they made the right decision."

The machine starts hissing out his drink and he turns to look me directly in the eyes.

"Just... you know, give into it," he says. "Our talents are a gift whose purpose is bigger than the person. Do what every other fucked up actor does and just throw your head into your characters. The sacrifices have already been made, so you might as well just try to enjoy it whenever you can."

The machine beeps and we take our cups to the table, which has mostly cleared out, aside from Henry who's still whispering his lines to himself, and Francois, who's quietly sobbing at the other end of the table. Sal leans in and half-whispers to me.

"Truth is, living your truth isn't all it's cracked up to be either. Me for example. You go out, find some woman who will accept you for you little dick, have a few little ones, try to use that love and confidence to power you through life and keep that structure content. And then, one day, your kids become strangers and you wife ends up fucking some rapper while you're on set, which is way too often, by the way."

"Jesus Christ," I exclaim. "Mary is fucking a rapper? Which one?"

"You know... the Lil' one. With all the hair and those teeth."

My mind shuffles through about twenty options.

"What can I say," Sal shrugs. "I'm always away. She deserves to have a little fun. Often, she used to cry to me about always being on set or promoting something. Constantly giving me ultimatums and threatening me with divorce. But she stayed. And I'm here."

"Jeez!" I'm still caught up in the insane randomness of this revolation. "Rest in peace to her organs."

"And don't get me started on those fucking kids," he says, shaking his head. "Ungrateful nepo-fucks. One thing about being rich and famous is your progeny are guaran-damn-teed to embarrass you on a national stage."

"Yeah, I saw that on TMZ," I sympathize. "I'm sorry."

The wrinkles around his eyes crinkle up as he gives me a weak 'I appreciate that smile' and pats my hand. He opens up his crossword book and picks up a pen.

"Help me out with this one, will ya?" he asks, shaking his head.

*****

"Alright, guys," Kim announces to the room. "Looks like everything's fine. We hid all the dead bodies."

Shel is holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes, staring down at the tourist staggering around in the Vegas sun.

"Jesus Christ. Those people drag their poor culture with them everywhere they go," he mutters to himself.

My new bodyguard, Tatum, a brick shithouse built black man, is sitting silently at the bar across the penthouse, absorbing his new atmosphere. He's been tasked to keep a closer eye on me since my last 'little stunt' could've landed me on the cover of every single publication in existence. He warned me from the outset that he "ain't with that gay shit."

"Had to let that little fuck know how easy it would be to knock a few branches off his family tree if he opened his fucking mouth," Kim continues. "I don't understand why they don't just take the money up front. Is the attention really that addicting?"

"You should ask Little Miss 12-Steps, who always wants to block all the good shots," I say, nodding over to Tatiana, who is scrolling through the new crop of pap snaps, looking for one to post on Instagram. "Two-to-four paces behind and one step to the side. I don't know how many fucking times I have to tell you this."

Eyes roll.

"I think it might be better to have her in front. Gives off a more protective vibe from you," offers Kim's most recent intern, while, inexplicably, clutching a clipboard. "They're beginning to hire body language experts at some of these rags. People are really into that type of thing now."

"You're really bottom of the totem here, sweetheart," I shoot back. "You should just be quiet."

"Hey!" Kim yelps. "Kill that attitude. Everybody here is trying to help you."

"It's just this desert heat," Shel chimes in. "Fucking sticks to your soul."

"I fucking hate Vegas after day three," Tatiana adds.

I sneer. "A lot better than drinking sheik shit shakes at the Burj Al Arab, I'm sure."

"Fuck you," she says with an unbothered anger. "I'd kill myself before I take that basic boat bitch route. They're really only into those Kardashian clones anyway."

At this early stage, Tatiana was still on a mission of convincing everybody she wasn't as morally jaded as the rest of us, but she had already cut all the ethnicity out of her nose

cartilage for a shot at more prestigious opportunities, and once you take it there, it's just a slow sinking into the abyss.

Shel chuckles, still magnified onto the Vegas strip. "Would you look at that? Two hookers fighting."

"Look, it's been a long day," says Kim. "Maybe we should continue this conversation over some room service."

"Great idea!" exclaims her assistant.

"Steak. Well done," calls out Tatum.

"I'll take the... Mar y tierra," I say, just now realizing I haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon. "And for the misses... a bag of cotton balls?"

"I'm not hungry," Tatiana responds.

"We can split the salmon, Tati," Shel offers, finally lowering the binoculars and walking towards everybody else sprawled out across the large couch. "Can I call you Tati? Has a nice little ring to it."

"I'm not hungry," she repeats.

"I promise it's not going to turn you into a portable earthquake, sweetie. You'll still be able to fit in those sample sizes next week."

"I'm not hungry." Again. This time, more annoyedly.

"Shoot yourself, Tati."

Now that Tatiana was the girlfriend of Cesare DuNotti, H&M ads and Miami Fashion Week catwalks were out of the picture. Shel was able to twirl the digital roladex and get her a few higher profile gigs in Paris. Louis Vuitton. Givenchy. Jacquemus. Celine. Even opening the Schiaparelli show. "Everybody hates the evil Jew until they need him," Shel smirked as the confirmation texts came in.

"They don't do well done steaks here," shouts out Kim's assistant.

"I don't like eating blood," Tatum responds.

"It's not blood," Tatiana corrects. "It's myoglobin."

"I don't like eating my-yo-glow-bin."

"Would you like something else?" She's holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder as she writes something on the clipboard.

"Can we not yell?" Tatiana asks. "I get extremely anxious when people start yelling."

"Chicken works," Tatum shrugs.

"Do you guys have fried chicken here?"

"Would it kill you not to be a fucking curmudgeon everyday," Shel says, settling down next to me. "This isn't the tragedy you're making it out to be and people's patiences are really wearing thin on this entitled, exaggerated, dramatic, telenovela bullshit."

"Entitled?" I gasp. "I'm not entitled. I earned everything I have."

"Yeah, keep holding on to that," he mutters.

"And I wouldn't be a curmudgeon if I didn't have to explain the same shit every fucking business day."

"Look outside yourself for a minute," Shel continues. "You get to wake up and play God everyday. You know what people would give up to obtain that type of power?"