- Text Size +
Chapter Eighteen

It had been a long time since I was awake at four in the morning. As the type of person who enjoys my sleep, functioning on a combined total of about six hours sleep in the last two days was grating on me. Needless to say, I was not in a good mood. Seeing myself in the skin tight mummy outfit only made it worse. I sat in a makeup chair feeling like I was wearing Saran wrap.

“Your makeup’s going to take awhile,” the girl said apologetically, noting the scowl on my face. “And you can’t drink afterward. Need some water?”

I nodded, taking a clear plastic cup. I downed it, thinking I needed something a lot stronger than water to get me through the day.

When we had walked in that morning, the sets were ready and waiting for us. I walked with Nick through the Egyptian set, shivering a little bit at the realistic cobwebs. The main floor was ready and waiting; the hypnotic purple and white swirl lay proudly on the floor. It seemed to be screaming, “hey, remember me? Let’s go!

I stared straight ahead as the makeup artist started to cake me with layer after layer of makeup. The hair stylist was working simultaneously, precisely placing the mummy wrapping around my head. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

I remember watching the Behind the Scenes video for Everybody and thinking that the transformation of the guys was the coolest thing ever. The entire makeup sequence took about five minutes. In real life, the makeup took hours. My ass was asleep and I was sure that I was sweating off the makeup as fast as they put it on. Finally, they stepped away.

“You’re ready to go,” they said proudly. The makeup artist held up a mirror.

I gasped. I looked completely different.

Not in a hot way, just more like a dead for thousands of years way.

I slid out of my seat and looked around.

There’s my mummy.”

I turned around to see Nick. I had to smile. He actually made a better mummy now than twelve years ago. His baby face was gone and so was his gawky teen body; his chiseled face and the tightness of the outfit made me want to kneel before him.

“Hey, you look good.”

“So do you,” he said, his eyes fixed straight on my chest.

“It doesn’t leave much to the imagination,” I said awkwardly.

“You don’t know my imagination,” Nick said, laughing. He took my hand. “C’mon.”

I followed him to the individual sets.

“I don’t think they’re ready for us yet. Joseph’s shooting Howie’s scene,” he said.

We stood to the side and watched. Howie looked amazing in the Dracula costume. The hair dresser had given him extensions; he looked perfect. He saw us watching and gave a wave.

“I’ve walked down the hall 310 times,” Howie said. He looked slightly frustrated.

“And we’re going to do it one more time,” Joseph said. “Action!”

We watched Howie strut down the hall, twirling his cane. He turned and gave Joseph a look, Joseph gave him the thumbs up.

“That’s a wrap!”

“Did you already shoot Leigh and James?” I asked. Howie nodded, smiling. He opened up the door to the “tomb.” Leigh walked out holding James. He was the pudgiest sweetest little vampire I had ever seen.

“Oh my god,” I said. “He’s adorable.”

“He started crying when he saw me,” Howie explained. “After about, oh, 200 takes, he finally came to terms that he was stuck with me coming into the room every few seconds.”

Leigh laughed. James clung to her, his little hang grabbing onto the top of her dress.

“You look great, Leigh,” I said.

“You do too,” she said. “Doesn’t she Nick?”

Nick didn’t respond right away. I looked at him. His eyes were directly on my ass. I twirled around, destroying his view.

“What?” he looked up. Sorry?” he said. “Did someone say something?”

“Nick, I think we’ll take you now,” Joseph said. “We’ve got Howie’s and AJ’s scene done. Brian and Baylee are still in makeup.”

I felt a pang of sympathy. I couldn’t believe Baylee had to sit still that long; I could barely do it. And he was only seven years old.

We followed Joseph to the tomb.

“Welcome to my crib, MTV,” Nick said, throwing his arms wide. “Let’s see what we have in the fridge.” He opened his coffin. “Hmm, looks like I need to go shopping, only cobwebs in here.”

“You haven’t changed a bit, Nick,” Joseph said. He spent a few minutes putting us into position and walking us through the shot with the cameras off. When he was satisfied, he settled down behind the camera

“Alright, one, two, three.”

I heard the audio track let out a creak and saw Nick’s face come out of the tomb. Joseph pulled the camera away and I knew I was in frame. I quickly walked out.

“Cut!” he said. He looked at me. “Walk out slower; I want to see you ooze sexuality, be enticing.”

“Are you kidding me? I have sheets of toilet paper sticking to my ass and I’m supposed to look sexy?”

Joseph smiled at Nick. “I like her.”

Nick smiled back. “Me too.”

I sighed in frustrated and we set up for another take.

Howie wasn’t exaggerating the number of takes. I counted up to one hundred ninety-five. By this point I was tired enough to walk slowly, even though I’m not too sure about the sensual part. I had also begun to ad lib. It got boring doing the same thing every time. On the next take, I heard the creak and turned and smiled, making a “c’mere” motion with my bandaged finger. I slowly slid out of frame. Nick did a “score!” expression to the camera before following.

“Cut! That was great,” Joseph said. “I think we’re done here.”

“Yes,” I said, fist pumping the air. Nick came up and picked me up from behind, swinging me around. “You were great.”

“Put me down!” I said laughing. Obeying he set me down, but not before I felt his fingertips brush the underside of my breast. I sucked in a breath. His lips brushed my neck.

“I can’t wait to see costume number two,” he said, his breath tickling the sensitive skin.

By the time I turned to look at him, he was already gone.

------------------------------------------

For as long as the makeup took to put on, it was scrubbed away in minutes. I got into the beautiful gold corset dress and settled in for hair and makeup. Maybe it was because I had dreaded the mummy costume so much, but this time around the wait didn’t seem as excruciating. It was close to one o’clock in the afternoon and my morning grumpiness was fading away.

“I love your hair,” the hairdresser commented. She had my thick, wavy brown hair in both of her hands, examining it.

“Thank you,” I said. “It weighs a ton.”

“Well,” she paused. “I think we’re going to accentuate the waves and push just the sides away from your face. When you’re jumping I think it would be so pretty to have your hair fanning out in slow motion,” she explained.

“You’re the expert,” I said, trying not to move my lips. The makeup artist was liberally applying a clear gloss.

Forty-five minutes later I was up and out of the chair. By this time all of the girls were getting finishing touches.

“Baylee looked adorable,” Leighanne said as we sat sharing our experiences. “And he let the hairdresser trim his hair. Once she did that he looked so much like Brian it took my breath away.”

“I can’t wait to see it,” I said.

“Are you ready girls?” Joseph said, poking his head in. We nodded.

We headed out to the main set. The guys were waiting, talking with the backup dancers. Brian turned first; when he saw us he let out a howl.

“You girls look great,” he said. Leighanne ran her hands along his pimp coat. Her blue dress looked lovely in contrast to the plush white coat.

“I could definitely sink my teeth into you,” Howie said, pulling Leigh close. Her red dress next to his black cape was a perfect fit.

AJ didn’t say anything. Instead, he scooped Rochelle up, giving her a long, slow kiss.

I turned to look at Nick.

“You look amazing,” he said. “I…wow.”

I tugged on one of his bandages. “Thank you, mummy,” I said.

Our admiration fest was cut short as Joseph walked on set. Fatima trailed behind him.

“Alright, let’s see how fast we can get through this so we can get the guys out of these costumes. If we make good time we can break for dinner, the guys can get into hair, makeup, and costume, and we’ll be finished by midnight.”

The hint of food at the end of the rainbow upped the ante. For two hours we danced, waltzed, lifted, and dipped over and over again. I had wondered how Nick was going to be able to dance in the mummy costume, but he danced like he wore it every day.

Finally Joseph was satisfied. The boys went to get changed and then joined us for dinner. I had almost forgotten how good the Boys’ looked in the peasantry outfits. Nick wore black pants, a white blousy shirt and a gold vest that perfectly matched my dress. He emerged from the dressing room with a rose.

“A rose for a rose,” Nick said, tucking it behind my ear.

“You shouldn’t have,” I said, touching the velvety petals. He kissed me, handing me a dinner plate at the same time.

“I like dessert first,” he teased. I smiled.

We ate ravenously. After a quick trip back to hair and makeup, we donned our masks and tackled the stairs.

I was grateful that we had practiced the jump the day before; after making sure that the wires were once again securely attached, I felt confident taking the plunge. Take after take piled up and hour after hour rolled by. It seemed forever before our harnesses were off and we were once again waltzing. I was beginning to think that we’d never be done; we’d spend the rest of our days twirling and whirling round and round until our feet cracked and fell off when Joseph finally stood up.

“Okay,” Joseph said. “Backup dancers you’re free. Thank you.”

Kevin and Kristin stopped to give everyone hugs.

“We’ve got to take off,” Kevin said apologetically.

“We’ve never been away from Mason this long,” Kristin explained.

Everyone wished them a safe trip and they were off. Joseph turned to our small group of eight.

“Okay, last but not least, I need a close up of the kiss. I got the wide angle kiss shot; now we need to get the saliva flowing.”

Nick rubbed his hands together.

Joseph started with Brian, making his way down the line. Nick and I were last.

“Wanna practice?” Nick said.

“Oh, you need practice?” I said sweetly. “I don’t.” He made a face.

The one thing I noticed while watching the others was that it was a lot harder to make a kiss look natural when you had to do it on cue. I watched as Joseph took take after take of Brian and Leighanne and AJ and Rochelle. As he was working with Howie and Leigh, Nick’s idea of practice began to sound better and better. I turned to him, placing my hands on his gold vest.

“Did I tell you how much I like that corset?” Nick said, his taller vantage point giving him a perfect view straight down into my cleavage.

“How much?” I whispered. Before he could respond, I brought my mouth to his.

I lost track of the progress with Howie and Leigh. My fingers trailed from his vest to the fluttering opening of the white blousy shirt. It was damp from perspiration. Nick pulled me closer and I shivered in delight as his tongue probed my mouth. Hot torrents of desire flowed through my body.

I don’t think we would have stopped if it wasn’t for Howie pulling Nick’s shoulder back slightly. Nick broke the kiss, turning to look at him.

“Hey, he got it on the first take,” Howie said, snickering.

“Huh? Oh good,” Nick said. He turned right back to me, his lips practically magnetized to my own. In minutes we were the only ones left on the set, a handsome prince and his lady in waiting.

That night my lips were never lonely. As the busses made their way from New York to New Jersey, Nick and I made our way from the couch on his bus to his bed, our lips barely separating. Nick never pushed for anything more; our talk the night before must have been on his mind. I was grateful for his thoughtfulness, but the truth was I knew I’d wake in the morning still wanting more.