Paradise Isle (Fades & Good Girls)

[good girls]

"Fuck!" The immediate, candid disappointment was uttered into the microphone so quickly that it sounded like it had been an accident. There was no glamour, no posturing, just a single raw curse of frustration at seeing one's plan go up in dust before it had even been sprung, and (perhaps appropriately) it was joined by a snap of the fingers loud enough to be caught across the auditorium as well.

Scarlett's reaction to Jeffrey telling them he wasn't going to get naked and jerk it for them only made a big laugh bigger.

As much as she might have been intentionally exuding old-school grace and mythological airs, as much as she was an actress, she was still very much a human being. And to the former, she knew exactly how important it was to remind everyone of the latter. Even her off-the-cuff amusement and played-up frustration with the assumption that his joke might have had the possibility to be reality was staged, but it was staged in the moment. She was quick on her feet. And having not looked away from him when her face lit up with the amusement cradling her "disappointment" in the alternate reality of who was to be branded here today not coming to fruition, finding the line between Scarlett Johansson and Scarlett proved, well .. impossible.

She had plenty of chest to keep her cards close to, as he had pointed out.

"I'm ready for that!" Madelaine volunteered with a hand in the air, needing no mic to be heard with her chipper enthusiasm. You see what you get, Mr. Tremonti, by focusing on the ones who crave the spotlight? Everyone had something to contribute, and words must be chosen extra carefully! Not that peer pressure was likely to turn any tables here. "I still need a few minutes," was more for the front row, with Ariana's quietly sultry murmur and wave of her own hand pantomiming fanning underneath her chin making it clear she wasn't above rolling with the teasing at her expense. Once she'd put on that kind of show, it was going to be difficult for her to exactly retreat into meek shame over what she'd done.

Well at least Emilia was still being good and posing rather than giving into the giddiness of the moment, though her deepened smile and only gently rolled eyes said there was no actual tutting to be had over the others letting Miss Johansson threaten to take this press conference off the rails entirely. They'd broken enough boundaries; what were a few more?

The moment passed, the tittering quieted, and then so did everything else. Scarlett waited, her smile encouraging, patient. But she was not entirely passive, either. In lieu of wine to swirl in a glass or a salad to carefully cut inside so as to not make a loud scraping of flatware and interrupt a poignant point in a story, she made her way to the checks, the table, the contract. Enough perhaps to make a heart race and eyes watch carefully to see what she was to do over there, but she never bent or took up the quill; she would have needed to turn her back to him for that, and she was paying him close attention. Every glance in her direction found no drifting eyes that needed to snap back upon being noticed. She was always watching him, smiling when she was "supposed" to, delicately frowning at the less pleasant aspects of a life long lived in the same time they all had on the planet.

Celebrity was something of a pressure cooker. You burned brighter and died out faster. It didn't matter what got you there, or where you ended up, because you were going to do it under twice the scrutiny. No one knew that better than those on the stage, save perhaps for others who were not but very well could have been. Drug addiction, messy divorce, burnout, "the comeback" -- Maddie might have hit on her status as a liberal elite, but everyone thought they knew what it was like to be famous and had their minds made up on just what celebrity meant. Whether you were an unconscionable monster who got paid far too much for something "anyone could do", another Hollywood floozy using sex appeal until your 18-22 year old replacement came along in two to four years, or a rockstar business person making waves and changing the world, everyone hated you, everyone loved you, and both of those statements seemed to be true at all times.

Sometimes you suffered in silence through near death experiences, the world seeing only the smiles and the interviews and the work, knowing that any day that near might no longer be the appropriate descriptor. Every day truly could be the last one, and you lived each one to its fullest, not with the specter of what could be but rather the promise of what now was.

Sometimes you went so big and public that there was never going to be any possibility of separating the smoke from the mirrors. You put your heart on your sleeve through the work, fictionalizing the real and realizing the fictional, whirlwind romances on the grandest stage consuming all and then burning out to again be used creatively. The greatest disguise for a private persona being to make it seemingly the same as the public one.

Sometimes you simply rejected what was normal of society and expectations, and worked your ass off to become at least famous enough that you could normalize those rejections in a large enough number of people to make yourself feel normal, and cast off what society expected of you and anyone for the construct it had always been.

Scarlett didn't linger near the table. She ran her fingertips along the feather of the quill, briefly peeked down at the contract that could very well have seen her signature blossom along the bottom of it, but soon moved on. She stepped with care, so as to never overwrite a single syllable of the answer to her question (or at least, the best that could be given via one's own recollection and telling) with an errant fall of her heel or creak of a board on the stage. He was doing his best to keep things light and entertaining, but it hadn't quite been enough to keep Ariana from visibly tearing up at one point, struck by something hitting close to home or simply feeling empathetic for the less glamorous parts of his story, and her glittering eyes and turn of her head to look at him rather than at the crowd was going to be an indelible image shared from the afternoon among the more playfully tawdry wildfire destined to spread. And far from the podium, far from the table, far from the branded women, almost preternaturally finding the point equally far from each of them to make herself an island in the conference, Scarlett came to stop.

She waited there as though someone might have chiseled her out of marble, an absolute idealization of the artist's eye, yet implacable and cold no matter how good the artistry might have seemed. She, moreso than even Ariana's considerations, looked as ready to walk toward him as she did off the stage. She was pleasant enough in demeanor and poise, but like those who earned such carvings of them in centuries past, there was never quite shaking the reality that there was a tithe being demanded. The tithe of his story was excellent; was it enough? The faces of the others all struck with something found resonating within them, captured at different points in his telling, but Miss Johansson's poker face was nearly so practiced that any furrowed brow or brief twist of her lips in response could easily have been explained away as idle motion even if any camera snap were quick enough to capture a poignant look in response to giving up everything just to have anything.

"Thank you," she said simply at the conclusion. Her smile was quietly radiant. She didn't want to overstep any follow-up statements he might have had, letting his words sink in for just long enough that no one would begin to wonder what happened next. She lifted the microphone. "I wish that I had anything half so interesting to say of myself. I'm just a a girl from a big city who always wanted to be a star. I achieved that, and I wanted to use my star to shine on other people whenever I could. Acting and philanthropy are my two biggest passions," she said with a wry little twist of her lips, angling her hand briefly toward the theatricality of the revealed checks, "and so here we are. "For almost a decade I maintained a role as an ambassador for Oxfam among many other charitable ventures, and while I would never seek to belittle any of the other organizations I believe in -- USA Harvest, Soles4Souls, Times Up --"

She paused for the inevitable laughter and the irony remaining in her smile as she called out the organization that she herself helped to create along so many others expressly for the support of other women and an end to their silent objectification in the entertainment industry, while she stood center stage of three stars who had stripped themselves to nothing and been branded the property of a man.

"I think that I could choose no other organization to benefit more from a donation in my name" She let him hold his breath for less than a second before she finished that thought "should I join these other brave women today."

If for any amount of time today on stage any of the other three had had any semblance of being an ornery tease even for the briefest of moments, then it seemed like they had only flirted with something that Miss Johansson embodied down to her very soul. She may as well have had a fishing line that she was letting bob in the water, never quite setting the hook even when the nibbles inevitably arose. "But as we all know, this would be an awfully big change. What everyone alongside me on stage today has committed to is giving up everything. And that's a little bit frightening," she admitted, the perfectly practiced porcelain of her facade giving way to a moment of true fear in her eyes. The fear of the unknown, of what tomorrow would bring on the wings of choices made today. "What would be easy would be to go back home, to write my own not insignificant check to assuage any guilt from walking away from this offer, and to continue doing what makes me happy now. I'm a little too independent to be the sort of woman to easily slip into being told what to do," she said with a low breath of a laugh, facing the audience, but slipping her eyes to the corner across the stage so that they'd meet with Jeffrey's again.

"At least, I think so."

He already had an embarrassment of riches, after all. And if she was at all on the fence, well, their overwhelming consent to this entire project was an important piece of the puzzle in keeping it all on the up and up, wasn't it? It might have been disappointing to let her go (or was he the one being let go from her own pursuits?), but if she wasn't certain that this was what she wanted, mightn't that be for the best? And yet, that's not what the thin curl at the furthest edge of her lips was quite saying, or the sidelong look of admission in her uncertainty. In a leap of faith, some people still needed a little push. They even invited it.

Some women, even when interest was overwhelmingly clear, still wanted to be pursued. To hear it said out loud. They hadn't met until this moment, but in the end, Emilia, Ariana, and Madelaine had all clearly wanted Jeffrey and the lifestyle he was offering, but Scarlett wasn't quite ready to make that same plunge. Not until she was certain that that was what he wanted.

How badly was he going to fucking ache for her when it would be just as easy for him to walk away with three gorgeous celebrities who had pledged their lives to him? If he wanted to, was willing to just let her go .. then the smartest thing for her probably would just be to go, right?

 

[As Day Fades]

"As the beautiful Miss Johansson said, this is an awfully big change. For everyone involved." Jeffrey cast her a sidelong glance, and let her see him casting it. He looked to her eyes and he smiled, letting that pause in words happen, letting the moment of their locked gaze simply exist. "But there's a favorite quote of mine, for life, but particularly apropos for moments like this -- 'Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.' Franklin D. Roosevelt." He looked back to the crowd, their cyclops-eyed cameras fixed on the various figures across the stage, but mostly on him at that moment. "Though I hardly need to tell an Avenger about courage," he laughed. They laughed too.

"But, all joking aside. I can't make her want this." His calm blue eyes looked back to Scarlett's. "Nor would I want to. Else her giving me so precious, so rare and tremendous a gift as herself, in her entirety, would not mean nearly as much. It needs to be her free will that decides to do away with her free will; nothing else is good enough, not for how meaningful I want our lives together to be going forward from this. I know that many in the world aren't quite ready to understand something like that, but for those who are, they understand it heart and soul."

At this his gaze traveled over to the kneeling three, to his trio of pretty things already committed and on display. "As exciting as 'right now' is, I already feel myself yearning for it to be a memory. I want to 'get to it' already, with each of them...no, not the sex," he laughed. Another round of amusement slipped over the crowd, masterfully keeping the feel light at all times despite the heavy reality of what they were talking about: slavery. "That will come, especially with an ass like Maddie's," he snickered, "but that's not my meaning. I want to get to...the intimacy. The closeness. With each. They are no mere baubles collected by a rich man, no mere coins tossed upon a pile of other coins, with some Tolkein dragon sleeping upon his hoard. They are priceless. Gemstones, each of them. Emilia, my sapphire. Ariana, my emerald. Madelaine...I suppose my ruby. I mean, what else could she be?" He snickered. Again, more laughter. "And Scarlett," as he looked back to the blonde, allowing a half-moment of pause in his words, an appropriate amount of time to give them effect. "If she wishes it. My topaz, a beautiful yellow-gold. Crown jewels, all of them."

Jeffrey Tremonti looked back to the crowd in attendance, media outlets from all facets, crossing the full political spectrum, even the comedy-politics crowd. "Being this close to it, right on the cusp, I'll say it, because you can't hold a press conference like this and have a problem being direct," he snickered. Looking to the statuesque actress off to his right once more, "I want you, Scarlett. To join me. To join us. To be part of our family. But more than any of that, what I want is for your decision, whatever it be, to be true. True to you. True to you inside. In the moments where everyone watched me hold each of these other women and whisper something just between ourselves, these are the sorts of things I said to them -- to search yourself inside, in hope some part of you truly yearns for this...and if you don't, then don't sign. But I hope that you do. Most of all, I hope you do because you know it'll awaken, or fulfill, or enrich some part of you that needs this."

He looked forward again, then down, at the podium as he spoke. "I'll even...tell you a secret, before you decide. A fun one. ...Before taking the stage this afternoon, when everyone was still getting ready, I sent out the checks. The ones you see behind me? The ladies here all informed of us their choices for their charity ahead of time, which wasn't only so we could have it written already on the oversized checks for show -- though that's probably what they thought -- but I decided, before taking the stage, to send them. All four of them. Having no idea if I'd walk out of here today with four devoted servants in tow, with one, or very possibly even none. Because that's how things play out sometimes, right? Sometimes you gamble, and you lose. You can bet a lot on something, on something important, and it doesn't come through. That's how it works sometimes. But are you wrong to, when something is that important to you? ...If any truly hesitated, I planned on letting them know. I didn't want anyone leaving here with a heavy heart today. The money was always going to be donated. That wasn't the point to me, even if it was a tremendous excuse to do something wonderful."

Jeffrey pushed back lightly from the podium. He walked over to that ever-present final table, the one with Scarlett's oversized check, the one she'd toyed at earlier while he'd said his piece. Simply, he plucked up the quill in a hand and turned, walking over to her. His other hand took hold of hers, of her more slender touch that was holding a live microphone still, and lifted it up between them. "The dollar amount may have been part of what brought us all here, that helped catch attention and create headlines, and will end up doing a lot of good, but each woman came out today and made her choice based off her own heart, not off my wallet." The hand with the quill moved into Scarlett's free hand, they each facing one another now, the quill in one clasped touch, the mic in the other. "I would have said something earlier if I felt any were making their decision because of it...because while I want you, I want you, Scarlett. We're talking two human beings doing this crazy thing of being devoted to one another, forever, from here on. My hope was to draw in a special sort of person today that craves this bold, beautiful, scary thing too."

"Everyone on the other side of that check is going to receive every last cent of what's written, no matter what you choose. That was true for everyone here. I promise."

The hand that he held the quill in, and held it to her own hand, opened, spreading his fingers out from his palm. It slowly lowered from hers and slipped away, a moment of truth coming in the question of if she'd take it from him or let it fall to the stage. Then the held set of hands with the mic lowered, till it was at their waists, and he let go. "There's nothing 'wrong' about this, merely 'different.' And it's the very opposite of some slummy Hollywood asshole overlooking talent for curves. Time's only Up if you're ready for it to be," with a wry smile. All these words were just for her. "I would cherish you, if you would allow me. If you search your heart. If it would be just as overwhelming...but special and meaningful, important and fulfilling to you, too..."

 

[good girls]

Scarlett looked genuinely surprised to find the quill balanced elegantly against her fingertips.

She didn't look dismayed or distraught, that would have been silly. She could have simply dropped the featherlight and ink heavy tool if she was here to entirely reject him and the premise that she might have been willing to entertain his offer. Her surprise came part and parcel with the pleasant but never quite bemused interest in her .. everything when Jeffrey approached her anew to speak with her and her alone, to hold her by the hands, and to look her in the eyes. He had been direct with her, the entire crowd in the dark beyond the lights, and the entire world beyond the stage that held them now. He had said plainly at least a few of the words she had been one hundred percent wanting to hear if she was going to continue walking down this pathway: I want you. It was more than common courtesy that she would entertain him after that; it was the next step. Eye to eye, hand to hand, she let just a piece of the veil fall with little more than a particular slope of her shoulders and an ease in her smile for him. He wanted her.

Well join the club alongside every other teenaged boy in America some might have said; unlike her contemporaries on stage, all of whom had sold sex in various ways as parts of their own careers in entertainment, Scarlett had pretty much been declared a sex symbol for the better part of her career. It wasn't novel to want her. But it was novel to have the ability to have her and to want her on top of it. Confidence was every man's greatest weapon whether they understood it or not, and the big dick and big pocketbook didn't even enter the picture when compared to the big swagger of the man who knew what he wanted, had the ability to get it, and the vulnerability to admit that he wanted it.

What was so vulnerable about telling her that yeah, he'd want her to kneel at his feet like the others? What was vulnerable about being a masochistic asshole trying to make slavery cool again just because he was going to do some philanthropy on the side of his sex-harem?

I mean, if you didn't get it, that's why you weren't on stage.

He was naked, like it or not, both for his answer to her question and his follow upon it. And that's how she wanted him. She had admitted her fear and her doubt, and he had admitted his own. They were that much closer to getting to know one another. But what neither of them could know was exactly what was going to happen when he pressed the quill against her hand, and she the microphone against his, and in those moments of his warm whispering between them neither one of them held onto either object. They balanced them together, keeping either from tumbling to the stage, but neither one took ownership of what lay between them. They could only own the place where they themselves stood.

It might have been callous to say that the charity had always been the least of her concerns about today, but it would be true. Even coming from someone who was as genuinely charitable as she was, for the press, the charity would be the point for some of them. But the point of all of this was exactly what was being whispered about the connection between two peoples .. or one person and four others .. about how crazy that was under every circumstance, and about how the situation was a lot more nuanced than could be properly condensed into any soundbite or date-night topic of conversation. Explaining and dancing and fencing around the subject for hours on end would still do very little to eliminate the need for that vital, final trust fall that was required to truly allow it all to happen. Every person on stage right now knew that, regardless of whether or not anyone else did. Emilia and Madelaine had trusted in it almost without hesitation, but they had needed to trust in it nonetheless. Ariana had trusted that she'd have her answer by the time she made it.

Scarlett seemed to trust in something else. As much as those three had put their trust in him to do right by their choice, they had put their trust in themselves too that they had been making the correct decision. Hand in hand with Jeffrey Tremonti, Scarlett Johansson instead put her trust .. in him.

To convince her. To woo her. To say the right things. To be the right person. To demand that she take notice of him, and to take notice of his demands. To want her, but not just to want her in the way of a teenaged boy, but .. also to want her in exactly that way.

Her eyebrows lifted, just so, upon finding that she was holding the quill and his hand had fallen by the wayside. There was no more balance between them, precarious and precious and perfect like Schroedinger's little slave agreement, but merely the elegant set of her fingers against a tool of freedom's willing demise. She hadn't intended to take the quill any more than he had genuinely handed it to her. It had simply found its way into her grip as though it belonged there, the unconscious push of the Ouija or the silent hand of fate guiding her to a destiny that had been pre-ordained no matter her validations and expectations leading up to the moment.

Or as though some part of her truly yearned for this.

She took a breath or released one, the fine frills on the feather waving with the motion. It might have seemed from a distance a tiny flourish of smugness from the headstrong actress for having strung him along for this long, but up close, it was all too clearly a realization that the implement was precisely where it belonged in her grasp. Just as it could not have been dismay, her surprise did not explode into giddy understanding. She was not too reserved for giddiness, not too mannered for enthusiasm, but the instant didn't call for celebration on her part. Her own surprise in her decision was enough to make it clear that she had not necessarily been hoping to be convinced any more than she had been praying for him to fail. In a way, he had put it best. Time was only up if she was ready.

And it seemed like she was.

The quill wiggled between her fingers with a little flex, deliberately drawing attention to the way that it sat in her grip but also angling it just so that she could give him a quick tickle with it underneath his nose while with her other hand she brought the microphone back up to her lips. "You know, Bill Murray told me that once," she murmured.

She let that feathertip trail against his upper lip when she turned and walked past him, holding it quite clearly aloft like a tiny little Olympic flame finally making the final leg of its journey, letting whoever wanted to snap the in between images of freedom and slavery as many opportunities and angles as they liked to truly capture the moment. Her dress trailed sleekly behind her, just enough drag to allude to the bride approaching the altar. Similarly, there were still nerves. Still doubts. Still the chance for anyone, herself included, to speak now or.

She turned at the altar, not so much giving a pose for the side-view of her standing at the precipice as she was simply shifting enough that she could look Jeffrey in the eye. Her calm smile had not quite caught up to the reality of what she was doing, that pleasant but very real surprise doing nothing to dispel the way she had wreathed herself in the air of a capricious goddess for the evening's festivities. In myth, how often did they set in motion tasks and challenges for mortals with no way of knowing just how things would play out? They were not omnipotent nor omniscient, and could be just as taken with an unexpected turn as anyone else. This wasn't entirely unexpected, but nor had it been determined by the fates.

She was making a decision, her own. That was all.

"Do we have a few minutes for me to read over this?" she asked into the mic, getting a decent laugh from the crowd who was probably as ready for her to get on with it as anyone could be. So she did. She leaned down (and this was very much deliberate posing, from the angle of her bend, the set of her hips, the placement of her hidden legs to balance her, to give One Perfect Shot of the blonde in action) and put quill to parchment, and made everything nice and official with a flourishing Scarlett.

Some people were going to hate him even more for having it seem like there might have been something that wasn't going to go his way today, only for everything to line up as perfectly as it probably could. Nonetheless, Scarlett née Johansson let the quill come to rest on the altar and then began to drift purposefully but not hurriedly back toward the center of the stage where Jeffrey stood in the lights behind his three kneeling supplicants and the fourth on her way. "Now I really do have to ask one more thing of you, Mr. Tremonti, to make things official," she said casually before she kicked one leg around and, partway toward him, she spun as though flourishing in a slow tango to put her side and then back toward him and turn her chin over her shoulder so she didn't lose her gaze on him for more than a second, the intricate lacing and bow at the back of her dress as clear to the audience as it was to him. "Could you help a girl out?"

It took a team and effort to get even the most effortless seeming red carpet look down, and Scarlett was the very definition of effortful squeezed into her gown as she was. The chances that she couldn't even reach the ties were rather high, at least not without great personal pain and struggle in the process. And she hadn't had the foresight to wear tissue paper like some other certain rubies. But also, quite frankly .. for all that do-it-herself had a certain supplicating appeal to the whole process, Scarlett herself always liked to unwrap her presents. Why deny him the opportunity?

 

[As Day Fades]

The moment had been tense. The air tight. Heavy. Every second felt. As he'd spoken to Scarlett, or she'd spoken back, or in those moments where neither was speaking at all, this was all moving forward toward something. Inevitably. Balancing between two possibilities on a razor's edge, it had been impossible to predict which side the spectacle would fall on. He'd opened himself up, had given everything she asked, had offered things publicly he'd hoped to reveal to them all privately, and had even given her the feather-in-the-cap of speaking into the microphone for all to hear -- something he hadn't done for the other girls prior -- the ways in which he wanted her. Physically? Of course. But there was an emotional desire too.

In those leaden seconds that followed the last thing he said, and when he'd stepped away, leaving the blonde Grecian goddess-like woman with the quill and microphone both, Jeffrey's mind and his insides and his everything else swirled with regret. He should have said more, he knew. Something more. More than the trust of what they were entering into together. More than the physical beauty. He knew he should have talked more about her, about the person, even though he hadn't had these last two weeks to think about the person -- the 'applicants' had been kept from him, to be a surprise, until shortly before the ceremony, and there hadn't been time to truly fall in desire with any of them yet, nevermind actually fall in love.

There had been no true time to mull it over, the idea of The Scarlett Johansson being here today, but here they both were regardless. And his stomach turned, regretting the knowledge that he should have done more. Could have, possibly, done more, regardless of whether or not there had actually been a way to. Outward may have been confidence, but within swirled the butterflies of doubt. Like the studious before a big test, or an athlete walking into an event that would impact their career. That what he'd done quite possibly wouldn't be enough, that it wouldn't be worth her worth, and he might miss out on something quite special because of it -- more special than some 'pile of pretty jewels.' The time they'd spent on stage together, and this was true of each of the women during their respective turns, there had been an interesting chemistry, a show of personality, and a few little snippets of moments that gave warm promise of plenty actual full-lengthed moments together to come. It was enough to plant the seed of interest in the person, for each of them, and though Jeffrey pushed himself to keep it apparent from his face, as Scarlett considered herself, her future, he felt that turmoil inside.

But then she tickled him on the nose, and traipsed off with heels clicking and gown dragging in tow.

And he...just. Smiled. And sighed. And it wasn't over, he knew, it wasn't official until it was official, but the cute, playful action had broken him from that chaotic swirl of thoughts. Like a mist of fresh water to the face, refreshing, revitalizing, and leaving a light, silly feel for allowing that doubt to sink in, even if only inwardly. This could still all be a dramatic last-moment tease before turning him down in grand, public fashion, but it was also officially out of his hands at this point, he relaxed his shoulders and realized. So he just watched. Like anyone else.

Except no one else got the beautiful, captivating view of Scarlett Johansson gazing at they and they alone with her beautiful blue eyes, as she stood in front of her very real slavery contract.

The sweet honey bourbon of her voice as she fit in one last joke made him smile, and quite warmly in fact. Though as quickly as it had come, she was on to her next moment, teasing with the gorgeous view of cleavage, the shapely view of hips, as she...leaned over, and signed.

And it was done.

And that smile quickly returned. Perhaps it was a bit of a smug 'cat that ate the canary' moment, doing nothing to quell the jealousy of all other living men that just doubled from this acquisition alone, but so what. One would be hard pressed to argue he wasn't entitled to it for at least a moment. Jeffrey kept his blue eyes on Scarlett's, for as long as she kept hers on his, while she set down the quill and sauntered over in a fashion that felt as smooth and silken as the rest of her. He watched her continue to lead their dance as she took her pose, inviting him playfully to come unwrap his gift, a grown up boy on an X-rated Christmas morning. And as she took that pose, now simply Scarlett, the philanthropist billionaire allowed a few seconds of enjoying the sight, of the lace hanging elegantly at various points, of the way her body filled it out at various angles that were known to make a grown man shiver.

Then he touched her. Then he smelled her. Then he came up behind, placed his hands on the middle of the blonde's back, let his chest and his crotch lightly touch against her, and took in her elegant, feminine scent. Jeffrey's eyes drifted closed. "I want to know you in the way that few people do," whispered against the back of Scarlett's head, his lips a ghosting touch to her hair. "I am...eager for it." Those larger, stronger palms slid up the sides of her back, letting their firmer touch be known every bit of the way. They went to her upper back, then up to the base of her neck, before settling at the outside of either shoulder. "Imagine all the private, personal revelations we just shared...but done again with just you and I, curled up together in front of a cozy, crackling fire. Now imagine me doing anything I can to make you smile." A kiss was set upon the top of her right shoulder. "Before then, though, we have a few things to get through, don't we?" The hands moved from the sides of Scarlett's shoulders to their tops again, and then back down, bringing the thin straps of her beautiful, flowing white gown with them, in a move that threatened to let loose her bust should she but lean in the wrong way. "Like the many different facets it's easy to appreciate you on."

Jeffrey let out a heavy sigh against the side of her neck, staring over Scarlett's shoulder at the ample cleavage on display. His palms slid down the sides of her arms, then underneath them, to her front, where they unapologetically groped her in front of everyone, cupping her breasts right there on the stage. Holding them. Mashing them twixt his palms and fingers. "God," he continued the whisper, "I'm going to end up needing to fuck you before we even get home, aren't I?" Jeffrey dragged his hands down, pulling the simple, flowing cloth with it, exposing Scarlett's generous breasts, her big tits, her fucking jugs to the public, bulbs flashing anew, the sound of the room awash with a new wave of reporters all calling her name in hope she'd turn to them, giving them the best angle in what was the newest of probably two hundred different picturesque moments this day. Jeffrey pulled the front of Scarlett's dress down to her waist, leaving her bosom and abdomen both exposed, then left it there, the lace-tied back of the dress holding it in place while he returned to that greedy, eager, two-palmed cup of her chest.

He breathed her in, unabashedly, two-thirds of a foot taller even in her heels. "Oh. That's right. You like showing off, don't you?" His tone was playful, teasing, as he released his touch, re-revealing her full breasts and their soft, pretty nipples to the world. One hand went to hers, to the one still holding the mic. The other went to the complicated straps at her back, plucking each expertly-tied lace ribbon in playful fashion, each threatening to be the one that finally releases her from her previous life of 'wearing clothing' for good. Jeffrey brought the hand with the mic up, guiding her by the wrist, to near both their lips. "I hope everyone's enjoying the show," he said into it, to which there were a few cheers in response, and a whistle that managed to break through the rest of the noise. "The thing is, I don't deserve any of the women here today. Scarlett included." He plucked another lace ribbon. "Madelaine included." Another lace ribbon. "Emilia included." Another lace ribbon. "Ariana included." Another lace ribbon. "I don't know that anyone truly can -- deserve another human being. But...it is perhaps my greatest blessing that, today, I've found four women that disagree." Another lace ribbon. And that one did it, sending Scarlett's elegant white dress melting into a pool at her feet, skin and curves on full display. More bulbs flashing. More clamor. "I'm not going to fight them on it," met with another round of laughs.

He plucked the microphone from her hand. His other came up, holding a single finger aloft as he glanced to the crowd, in a 'hold on one moment' fashion. He lowered the mic to her lower back, and the arm that was held up, in a wide, wicked flourish, swung around, swung down, and audibly clapped Scarlett right on the bare skin of her ass.

His confidence was back.

Everyone laughed and even burst into a round of applause, the supporters in the crowd eagerly drowning out and that came here thinking to boo at such a display.

"Finish stripping," privately again to her, "until you're like the others -- nothing left. Mm. Then be a good girl, pick up the brand, and assume the position. You're not too feisty to do all that, are you?"

 

[good girls]

"A cozy, crackling fire," Scarlett all but hummed with the music of her appreciation of that thought, a tune carried on the words themselves that really should have presaged her amused flourish while she was closing her eyes to his touch at her back, "on a tropical island. The air conditioning bill certainly won't be what makes me smile."

It would have been easy for her to sigh and lean and melt against his warm and inviting and invited touch and keep her tongue tight twixt her teeth, but when had she made it easy on him since she'd taken to the stage? As much of a tease as little Ariana might have fashioned herself, clearly it had been from the beginning and until this ending which itself was only another beginning Scarlett who was going to most need to learn how to mind her tongue and not try to be oh so clever at every moment. There was something to be said about being in an industry that genuinely valued you more for your looks than your talent or your personality and how that could lead a woman to spend far too much idle time coming up with little bon mots with which to amuse herself. Normally they went entirely unsaid, but well, what could she say now? She felt a bit ironically freed, having just designated herself exactly the opposite.

Her hands went to his hips. They might have gravitated to rising up to the back of his neck, to hold him in a lover's repose that would allow her to tilt back and capture a kiss, but that was not the play they were performing here at center stage, the fourth act of similar but distinct opening bows to the world for women who had been one thing yesterday and yet had burned like phoenixes to rise as something anew today. Lifting her arms up might have kept the straps from smoothly sliding down, straight to her elbows. And she was doing her best, teasing or otherwise, to be frictionless. The very best present she could be in the moment.

"Guess you like to find reasons to keep a gal warm," she tutted with all the true admonishment of a girl Friday bantering about for a slap from her fella, but then, her focus was still fairly remarkably true. At least it was from his vantage point over her shoulder, where her abundant cleavage seemed to have been saved from total exposure to said elements more by the virtue of a chill up her spine than by any clever craftsmanship or tailoring regarding the integrity of her dress. The way the material felt like it had caught, just so, on the peaked rise of her unseen nipples, such that he could just glimpse the pink of her areola over the warm golden-pale slope of her skin into the silken material. He could have just let her stand there and breathe, and gravity would have done the rest of the trick.

Fuck off, gravity. She's mine, his hands said.

"Mmngh," Scarlett replied, having no clever retort for his palms trying to contain the entirety of her bounty in their breadth. Instead, her breath caught as assuredly and certainly as the material against her skin, inexorably dragging its way up her throat while the laws of physics and motion inexorably dragged her dress against his fingertips, the rough and smooth patches of his hands, and then worked in concert to strip her down to her waist. Her own fingertips dug in against his hips, whether to hold him or herself a mystery left to the ages, the microphone digging against his side between it and her palm. She stood balanced and poised, but not precisely posed for the flashbulb hunger of the worldwide press and audience, even as the floodgate was opened. She had been squeezed into her ensemble, and his greedy hands had found competition for how she had already been compressed, but now the dam burst with a lurid bounce and jiggle of settling skin that threatened to never be properly contained again. In an embarrassment of riches, the former Miss Johansson had her own assortment. In an industry that liked to throw women away the minute they moved beyond being twenty three, it practically seemed as though the blonde's natural defense mechanism had been to appear perpetually that, as though understanding that to most folks she would always be that ingenue practically busting out of a little red dress. If Emilia had moved beyond the timid vulnerability of a new khaleesi, and if Ariana had understood her girlish appeal as an essential part of her brand, and Madelaine knew her appeal was what she made of it rather than what others knew of it, Scarlett seemed to have known that in Hollywood an actress could truly never change or grow beyond what her public thought of her. No amount of reinvention was going to stick when you made a certain first impression.

Thus the big tittied blonde sex object could only light up with a grin as her big titties jiggled and bounced into the eager cameras, and she even more eagerly arched her back to let him feel what he'd just been sold.

"Do it," she whispered, angelic white not hiding her devil's horns while her hair tickled his shoulder. The smooth allure of her voice urging and begging him onward while her fingertips turned and pressed his hips toward her own, whether or not she was also seating her hips back against him. "Rip it off. Fuck me."

It was the Scarlett who had first appeared, the Scarlett who had walked the line of arrogance and self assuredness, the Scarlett who knew just how damn much she was worth and what her worth really was, especially compared to her immediate predecessor on stage. She had made all manner of statements already, but what more of a statement could be made than to be the only one to drive him wild enough to take them for a detour right here on the hardwood stage beneath them? A brand burned for hours, but bruises on her knees would last a lifetime when she alone was glimpsed with them in the lineup of his beauties. She squirmed against him, her lips glossily parted in the release of another near caught breath, and she breathed out just as his hands fell away. If there had been any question of her funhouse hourglass shape being altered or exaggerated or misremembered, it was now answered and caught for the world to enjoy. Mostly.

The rest had to wait for his acknowledgement of his astonishing fortune. For the reminder of each one who came before her; her equals now, whether she wanted to be driven against the floor to question that or not. For the pluck, pluck, pluck of her loosening fate, each new slip and drag of her dress a reminder of what was about to occur. She welcomed it and feared it in equal measure. It was one more step in the direction she had eventually chosen, following the one before it, and it felt ever more as though she had gone from a tentative toe forward into an increasingly rapid sprint. Did he deserve her, or Madelaine, or Ariana, or Emilia? Did an art collector deserve to own a true original rather than a recreation? One arm aloft, the other tucked to her side, and with a flash going off the instant her dress fell before it was gone, one lucky shot got the perfect Scarlett de Milo pastiche with which to pose that question before she was without guile or guise between the pool of silk around her ankles and the clasps in her hair, the golden down of her pubic hair neither trimmed perfectly a la Emilia nor untamed a la Madelaine, but somewhere naturally in between like the guiding light twixt the wide framing of her hips to the picture prettiness of her pussy.

There was no bad angle to be in that audience, because even those close enough to perhaps be blocked by one of the other three offerings on stage .. had those offerings themselves in their lenses, after all.

"Well we'll see about that," Scarlett had almost no choice but to purr toward the microphone while it vacated her hand. She couldn't not dig about how deserving he may or may not have been when he had suggested she might be the one to break him of his confidence and calm only to have that particular victory snatched away from her, right? And as much as she might have gotten a murmur of laughter from her sardonic half promise, no one could say that she hadn't earned her immediate place-putting by way of his stepping back, lining up his shot, and nailing it right on target.

The gasp he wrenched out of her was more honest than a thousand smug or playful bon mots could have managed. As honest as the ripple that went through her Boticellian figure in response. She clearly wasn't used to being reprimanded, verbally or physically. Just one more way in which she promised to be a couple of handfuls even in the ways the other three were not. But if he took her breath away, then it was only to leave an opening for him to lean in and truly give her what she had invited time and time again on stage without truly earning until she had put quill to parchment, to see just whether or not she was capable of taking direction. Another hearty spank was likely far more of a deterrent to her than it might have been for, say, a certain little slave or toward skin that practically begged to be reddened like the hair above.

And yet she felt it. Something Emilia realized, that she herself had only even begun to wonder about.

His confidence was back, and his command was like dark music in her ear. No wonder the petite songbird had given everyone a glass-cracking show as things had climaxed.

She turned in silence until she was facing him, pressed up against him in their proximity, squished against him in all sorts of delicately delightful ways while her freed hands went up and equally freed the barrettes from her hair. It spilled, bounced, and flounced every bit as much as the rest of her had, golden curtains dancing down past her shoulders and coming to an eventual rest. She slipped her hair clips into the right pocket of his trousers, and flattened her hand against his leg through the thin lining therein before tucking them back out.

Her right hand slipped into his left pocket, her fingertips flattening there as well, closer but no more successful in reaching deeper into his pants than its partner had been, but when she squirmed her fingertips back out her bracelet had been left in his other pocket.

She had to reach up, leaning forward against him and coming as close to flattening against his chest as she possibly could -- not very -- as she plucked each of her earrings from her ears and then let them find a home just above the compression of her sumptuous cleavage, giving him any unnecessary excuse to peer down at her spiriting away her shiny jewelry into his breast pocket before she finally took a step back and extricated herself from the pool of her dress. There was an expert grace in the way she scarcely needed to leave a hand out to steady herself in kicking first one heel nearly up to her backside and let it reach her hand, and then the other, removing her shoes without so much as a hint that she needed to crouch or kneel before they were dangling from her fingertips .. and then dropped gently onto the stage right where her dress had landed.

"Maybe being a good girl's not as overrated as I thought," she breathed.

"Maybe," she repeated, the cupid's bow of her lip deepening with a glitter of promise in the sea of her eyes. She put a hand against his chest, dragging her fingertips down it in an appreciative stroke. Standing in front of him, naked from head to toe, at the most vulnerable she had likely been in her entire life, it only highlighted just how that didn't apply to him at a glance. Tall, strapping, immaculately presented, those in attendance were not privy to just how much he had truly put himself out on a limb. No matter what he had said of his situation, or admitted in his telling of the tale of just who He really was, there were those who were never going to know or appreciate that he had been just as vulnerable in so many ways as the naked slaves he had made out of four beautiful young women. And in the brief challenge and promise of her playful stare, Scarlett all but promised that she wouldn't forget it. That she wouldn't always default to the master is always right. That she would test him.

And that she still could do exactly what she was told to do, just to keep him on his toes. And to put her on her knees, with a branding iron balanced on her palms and held out for the taking of he who deserved to wield it and use it upon her sumptuous flesh.

 

[As Day Fades]

"Do it," she whispered. "Rip it off. Fuck me."

"Do it," she whispered. "Rip it off. Fuck me."

"Do it," she whispered.

That smooth bourbon voice. He could hear the honey in it, yellow as the hair upon her head. As the tended to, still very much present hair upon her lovely crotch. The words made him shiver. She'd come out to the stage dressed akin to the angel on his one shoulder, but very much was taking the role of the temptress on his other, imaginary barbed tail surely curling around his leg as she did so.

Jeffrey watched everything that came next. He watched as she obeyed. He watched as she retained her sense of teasing throughout, right from the very start of brushing those naked, vulnerable nipples of her big, bare tits against the silk of his shirt. It was no accident, he knew, Jeffrey meeting Scarlett's blue-eyed gaze as she reached up to release her hair, letting it bounce alluringly to picture frame her face in waves of gold. He stood, kept the excitement coursing through his veins and up his back to himself as much as one could, and stared. At her. Right at her eyes. Letting everything happen as she would. Jeffrey stood there in silence as Scarlett not only found his pocket, but quite boldly explored it, even if it could be playfully feigned otherwise. He stood there as she did it again with the other, this time moving her hand about inside it, as she shifted the bracelet from her wrist. All of this, eye contact. And he watched and stood there and let it all happen as she pressed the fullness of her bosom into him, the blonde leaning heavily into him with her heavy breasts, whilst plucking her earrings, depositing this final trinket of her former life into the pocket on his own chest.

This last bit, he knew -- but simply breathed, watched, let his blood race and allowed to happen -- was indefensible. Playful, and yet entirely unnecessary. Undeniable in her taunting of him, whereas fishing around in his pockets could have been toyingly played off as having 'nowhere else to put these things.'

"Do it," she whispered.

And he might have. He would have. He was going to. Had the dress not been a discarded thing on the stage already, its physical integrity would have been in jeopardy. Would fucking her right in front of everyone not be rewarding bad behavior, Jeffrey knew, he might have already set aside his desire to save it for later and take her right then, right there. And had she not chosen that very moment to kneel down in front of him -- temporarily breaking their shared blue-eyed gaze -- grasping the branding iron and holding it aloft in offer, that might have been the moment where he snapped and did it anyway.

As he looked down, back to her eyes again, that face framed so perfectly in her strands of gold...no, this might be the moment where he snaps and does it anyway.

All he could do was breathe. In. Out. Heavily, the rise and fall of his chest apparent. As apparent, now, as an arousal that was apparently left in the wake of the busty blonde dragging her body off of him; an incredibly human want that belied the fact he was indeed not some automaton, and was no longer able to be denied.

But not like this. No. Victory would be at least eighty percent his, if he gave away that twenty percent at all.

A hand reached down, into Scarlett's soft hair. A hand stronger than hers. Rougher. With a purpose able to be sensed, even as it touched her gently, fingers disappearing between it and the side of her head. Jeffrey knelt. Eye contact, the whole time. He claimed the microphone that had been discarded and stood back up, gradually, calculated. And then his grip firmed. And then he jerked Scarlett toward him, turned, and jerked her back, so she was kneeling in the exact same spot she had been, but now was facing the crowd, with the beauteous fullness of her chest moving as freely as her hair now, and vice versa.

"Ladies and gentlemen," huffing the words into the mic, a switch clearly having being flipped within him. "The woman known as simply Scarlett now has something she'd like to say," and as he said it, he pushed the microphone into one of her hands, then grabbed that more slender touch by its wrist, then pressed it against the base of her collar, just beneath her throat. Then knelt, pressing a knee into her back, forcing her into a forward arch. Then let go of her hair, snatching up the offered branding iron that still glowed orange with its promise of searing permanence.

Then he gave the moment, maybe, half a second for anticipation.

Then he brought the bite of that branding iron just above Scarlett's left breast, directly over her heart. This wasn't a tender lover's hold as he had with Emilia. This wasn't a wistful, lewd show as it had been with Ariana. This wasn't Madelaine claiming a fifth second, boldly claiming that bragging right. This was a show of dominance -- or at least the show of that struggle between them -- with the placement of the microphone which he still held Scarlett's wrist, holding it there, meant to act as a very clear underline of who was whose. The chance of some clever quip amidst assured spasming and screeching, amidst unladylike drooling and shrieking, he knew, was amusing at best. No. This would be a very loud show that She Who Would Tease To The Very End, the slave FKA Ms.Johansson, was meeting a new 'end,' one where she was obedient and he was the one in control.

Even if he fucking needed to fuck her right now.

One... Two... Three... Four.

The branding iron was discarded, for the fourth and final time. Jeffrey threw it outward, literally tossing it away, letting it clatter off the stage and into the pit beneath, in front of where everyone sat. What was left was a pair of beautiful, full breasts, with pert, pink nipples, and smoke rising from a mark that was quite permanently seared into Scarlett's famous cleavage.

And it quite well could have ended there, the final feather in his cap which was already adorned with feathers.

But while he would undeniably hold claim to his majority of eighty percent, what came next could arguably, even smugly, be claimed as her twenty.

Jeffrey stood, his hand digging back into that now-freed long blonde hair as he had before, but now with an even fiercer purpose. He pulled her, as before. But unlike before, he dragged her now, literally pulling Scarlett back a little and then turning, taking her horizontally across the stage behind the other girls in a way that would no doubt force her into a bitch-like hands-and-knees walk, lest she resolved to simply be dragged like some cavewoman, follicles screaming against her scalp. He pulled her, behind Ariana, behind Emilia, behind Madelaine, from right-to-left across the stage, then gave her a moment's reprieve. It would be enough to gain composure for but a moment, before he started walking her again, started jerking and pulling her with him, her long blonde hair a de facto bitch's leash. Back from behind Madelaine to Emilia, back from behind Emilia to Ariana, all of whom were knelt patiently, obediently, never breaking from how they were showing off their bodies and their brands, still all this time. He dragged her from behind and around, then to the forefront of the stage, bringing Scarlett up beside Ariana in the lineup.

Finally he let go. His chest rose and fell. Jeffrey's face was fiercely stoic, his jaw set firm. This was all being winged, to be quite honest, and until his hands reached to the metal clasp of his belt, its jingle distinctive, not even he was sure that was going to be the next step. But it was. So, here they were. "Back arched," he said simply. "Face the crowd. Chest down." The leather whipped as it slipped from the belt loops. "Ass up."

He doubled it up in his hand, and much like before, cracked the beautiful 'Miss' Scarlett across the left cheek of her bared backside, albeit with a much more leathery bite than before.