Living the Role

The scene ran about 8 minutes, and when Henry called the cut neither Ronan nor Jane was ready for it. Ronan least of all.

They were still on the barn floor where the whole of it had happened, straw under them, the lights still up. [Full-Immersion] let go of him and put him back on the barn floor, and his body hadn’t gone anywhere with it.

He was still hard, still throbbing, and it had crossed over into something close to pain. He was also still braced on his arms over her, which meant there was nowhere to put any of it.

’Fuck. Fuck. I’ve never felt anything like that in my life and while it was happening it was the most ordinary thing in the world. And it never once crossed my mind that the cut would end it. Of course the cut ends it. And now I’m stuck here with blue balls in front of the entire crew.’

He’d wanted to finish. That was all it came down to. He’d wanted the thing to run to the end it was heading for, and instead Henry called it and the world switched off around him and left him with nothing to do about any of it.

’Serves me right. That’s what I get for being curious.’

"Ronan?" Jane pushed the hair off her temple where it had stuck down, and left her hand there. "You alright?"

His arms locked. "I-I’m fine. Of course."

"C-can we separate now?"

"Y-yeah."

He got off her fast and sat down in the straw with his back half-turned, which solved nothing.

She came up behind him, dragging the deflated ball across herself with one hand and getting an arm over the rest, and she was in the same state he was, which was the part she couldn’t do anything about. ’Damn it. I hate that I’m even thinking it, but I wanted it to run longer. I wanted it to keep going until I—’

She stopped herself before the end of it, and then had to sit there beside him with the thought half-finished.

Her personal assistant, Veronica, had been standing at the edge of the set since the first take and hadn’t moved once in all that time. She got over late with the towel, shook it out twice before she had it open the right way round, and kept her eyes down somewhere around the straw.

"M-Ms. Jane. Here, this is for you, it’s clean, I had it out ready and then I just— here."

"I appreciate it, Ronnie."

"No problem, Ms. Jane, it’s no problem at all." She got the towel round her boss’s shoulders and worked the corners together, and while her hands were busy her eyes went where they’d been trying not to go, straight to Ronan sitting in the straw three feet away. She pulled them back so fast the heat came right up her neck. "That was— you were incredible in that. As always. Both of you were, but you especially, obviously."

"Well. Thank you."

There was more she wanted to say and she swallowed it, because no version of it came out as anything but congratulating her boss on a sex scene.

A second AD came over and put a towel into Ronan’s hands. He thanked him and got it around his waist, which he should have done a minute earlier.

Then he looked over and found Jane already looking at him. Both of them dropped it at the same time. It was only now, sitting three feet apart with the cameras down, that either of them started working out what they had actually just done to each other.

’I felt every second of that and I’m still feeling it, and she’s sitting right there. Give it time. Don’t say a word to her until this is gone.’

He got up to go.

"Wait up, Ronan."

He turned. "Hm?"

She had the towel closed at her collarbone in one fist and she took her time getting to it.

"What we did in there was work. That’s all it was, and I’d like you to remember it that way." Her chin came up on the last part. "And thank you. For stopping it over the ball, and for the rest of it. You made it easy, and it is never easy."

His hand went to the back of his neck.

"You made it easy for me too. So thanks. Both ways, I guess."

She smiled, small, and got it out looking at a point somewhere past his shoulder.

"D-don’t get the wrong idea about any of it, alright? Feelings are unprofessional on a job like this, they get in the way and they make it harder on everybody, so let’s not go mixing that up with the work."

He laughed under his breath. "I won’t."

And that was the end of it. He gave her a small nod, the kind you give someone at the end of a day’s work, and turned and went. He didn’t look back on the way.

She stayed where she was standing and watched him the whole way across the floor, and she was still looking at the doorway a while after there was nothing in it.

Her personal assistant caught it, and something turned over in her chest.

’Am I— am I reading this right? Look at how she’s watching him go. I know that look. That is the look of a woman falling for somebody.’

She held the towel corners and didn’t move.

’No. No, no, no. This is Jane Kingsley. How does Jane Kingsley fall for an actor she’d never heard of a month ago?’

The more she thought about it the more impossible it got. This was Jane Kingsley. Then she thought about the sex scene she had just stood there and watched, how far past acting the whole of it had gone, and the impossible part quietly stopped being impossible.

"Could it be possible?"

She hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Jane turned around. "Could what be possible?"

"A-ah, it’s nothing! Nothing, I was talking to myself, I only meant that I admire you in every possible way, which I do, you know I do."

Jane smiled and let it be, and pushed herself up out of the straw. "You know what, I want to lie down. Take me back to the trailer."

"Right away."

"And put a coffee on while you’re at it, we’re up again in an hour." She got the towel higher on her shoulders and started walking. "Actually, make it two. One for Ronan. He’s going to need it."

Veronica nodded and went after her.

---

In his own trailer, with the door shut behind him, Ronan looked down at himself and set his teeth.

Walking off the set like that had been its own kind of hell. The towel the AD gave him was big enough to pass for a blanket, and it was the only reason he’d made it across the lot with any dignity left.

"Goddamn it." He said it to the wall. "If I’d known it was going to leave me like this, I’d never have taken the offer."

The panel came up in front of him as if it had been waiting for him to ask.

[Sensory Fidelity: adjustable at Host discretion.]

[Current setting: Unrestricted.]

[First intimate scenario defaults to maximum.]

He had never chosen unrestricted. Nobody had put the choice in front of him. The thing had set itself to the top because it was his first time in a scene like that, and if it had told him there was a dial he’d have turned it down far enough to get through the take and walk away in one piece.

"Knowing it now doesn’t change a thing. I still have to deal with this."

He looked down at his cock—still thick, flushed, and throbbing hard against his stomach, the memory of her heat still clinging to every inch of him.

So he dealt with it the only way left.

He wrapped his hand around his cock and stroked, eyes half-shut, imagining it was Jane beneath him instead—her body tight and wet, taking every thrust the way the system had let him feel it. He fucked his fist harder, chasing that same heat until his breath turned ragged.

He never heard the door.

Veronica stepped inside with the coffee already in hand, most of the way across the threshold before the sight of him registered. The moment it did, she stumbled back out onto the metal step so fast she nearly toppled off it, one hand flying up to clamp over her mouth.

’W-what!? He’s— he’s doing it in there?’

The cup shook in her other hand.

She knew exactly what she should do—set the coffee down, get off the step, walk away and never mention it to anyone.

She didn’t.

Her face was already burning, and something hotter sat low in her stomach, sharp and restless. She stayed where she was, listening.

Then her heel came down wrong on the metal step and the sound of it went through the whole trailer.

"Who’s there?"

His voice came through the door.

She got about two seconds of panic before it opened, and he was standing in it in a robe, covered throat to shin.

Her mind caught up just in time. "Um. I’m here to bring you this. Coffee."

He looked at her face, which was doing nothing at all to help her, and took the cup. "Thanks."

She was gone before he had the door shut.

’Damn it. What is wrong with me? I actually did that, here, with the whole crew forty feet away, and she heard it. She definitely heard it.’

He shook his head at himself.

From now on, however bad it got, he wasn’t doing that anywhere there were people around. Or at the absolute least, he was going to make damn sure the door was locked first.

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