Chapter 1: The Amazon

"Everybody comes to Hollywood. They wanna make it in the neighborhood."

Count me amongst "everybody." I grew up with visions of bright lights and brighter stars. Coming here and "making it" had long been a dream of mine. And those dreams would soon be coming true.

I was twenty-four when I sold my first script, a young, inexperienced writer who got really lucky. Last month at this time I was sitting on a folding chair eating leftover Chinese take-out with my girlfriend, err... ex-girlfriend. Now I was eating a filet mignon dinner that cost more than a hundred bucks a plate in the company of high-powered studio bigwigs. I was here. But that didn't mean that I'd made it yet.

This was the fourth power dinner I'd had in the last week with the director and executive producer to discuss the "vision" of the movie. It pretty much consisted of the two of them haggling back and forth over artistic integrity versus what would bring in the big bucks. Well, the movie was targeted as a big-budget blockbuster, so I was pretty sure artistic integrity would be going out the window shortly.

After the first round of drinks and appetizers I excused myself to the restroom. After freshening up I flipped open my cell phone and held down the speed dial to my ex-girlfriend. We were still friends, and she was happy to hear from me, and I filled her in on what was going on. She patiently listened to me vent my frustrations and then reassured me that everything would be alright in the end. We had been pretty close, even if not very serious about each other. So when the opportunity to come to Hollywood had arisen, we parted amicably and promised to keep in touch. Neither of us harbored any illusions about maintaining a long-distance relationship, especially not in Hollywood. Still, it was calming to talk to her again.

After a few lewd comments from me about old times and a laughing remark from her to avoid all the Hollywood hookers, I snapped the phone closed and strode purposely to my table. I was a Hollywood writer now... as long as the film didn't end up in development hell.

I had just gotten settled into my seat and re-entered the conversation when she walked through the door. My jaw locked up and my body went still. The two studio bigwigs stopped to see what I was staring at. My High School sweetheart. The beauty from my past, now in my present; and I had no idea what our future held.

HIGH SCHOOL, SIX YEARS AGO

My hands flew over the keyboard in a rhythmic rat-a-tat-tat while Andrea lounged on my bed, trying to finish our math homework. I should have been doing the assignment as well, but I hated Math with a passion, and I knew she'd let me copy her answers later.

I paused every now and again to stare at her, sprawled face down on my bed and propped up on her elbows as she read over the math book. Incredibly clear violet eyes were partially hidden behind stylish black glasses. I had never seen eyes of that perfect color, neither before nor ever since. Perfect cheekbones and a great complexion made her the envy of even the prettiest cheerleaders. A self-styled flower girl (it was a phase), she let her long dirty-blonde hair just fall straight, a daisy she'd picked that morning tucked behind an ear. A lifelong vegetarian, she munched on a carrot stick while I let my dirty mind get the best of me. The white lacy top was baggy on her thin frame, hanging a little loose at the neck to show off some very interesting cleavage. She never wore a bra. Some post-modern feminist thing, but I had no complaints. Skin-tight jean shorts hugged her ass and led down to luscious legs. Every so often, I would stop and ogle her just long enough to get my fill, but not quite long enough that she noticed and scolded me for staring.

I finished tweaking the general plotline and the main character bios, and I waved Andrea over to read what I'd written so far. It was an action-adventure in the Rain Forest, a kind of Indiana Jones meets Beverly Hills Cop, except with a female Axel, and a little of James Bond's girl-banging thrown in for good measure. The girl finds a map to a lost treasure and drags along her experienced adventurer friend. Hilarity and chaos ensues.

Andrea quickly scanned everything and then let out a sigh of barely concealed disgust. Her nose wrinkled as if smelling something rather foul.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"Where to begin?" She threw up her hands. "This plotline just panders to the masses. The heroine's boobs are bigger than her brains and she keeps getting herself into situations where the guy has to rescue her. Meanwhile, he keeps sleeping around with every other chick they meet, and it's unrealistic that the girl wouldn't care since you've written her to have a buried crush on the strong hero. The plot has bigger holes in it than the Titanic, and defies every point of logic."

"So, it's perfect as a Hollywood blockbuster."

"Unfortunately... yes..." She turned and flopped back onto my bed. "Don't you ever want to write a truly great work of art? Something with literary complexity and rich emotion? I mean, it's not like it would be such big deal nowadays to make the GIRL the hero with the big guns and acrobatics?"

"I need to get my foot in the door first. Give the Hollywood studio heads what they want. Then once I've got a few hits under my belt, I'll have enough power and freedom to write REAL stories."

"Hollywood? Why the hell would anyone want to work for a big-budget studio monstrosity? Hollywood is a cesspool of recycled garbage and casting couch sperm. That's why I'm going to Broadway. Someday I'm going to be a star. And you'd better be right there writing me the most amazing PLAYS."

We spent the next hour arguing over the motivation of the main characters and the choices they made. She seemed to find it somewhat ridiculous that the male hero was incapable of considering the consequences of his actions beyond the next five minutes. I tried to defend that aspect as part of his charm. Andrea just laughed and told me the hero was a moron, so he must have been modeled on me. She punched me playfully on the shoulder.

I just smiled and turned back to re-editing my script. Andrea was the ultimate theatre geek. She'd been in every school play since grade school and devoured the works of great playwrights at every opportunity. I'd joined the tech crew at the beginning of my freshman year just to meet people. We became casual friends rehearsing for that first school play, and found a connection with each other. She was loud, gorgeous, wild, opinionated, and absolutely fascinating. I'd developed a crush on her from the moment we met. In those days, Andrea was the most perfect woman on the planet. Line up every supermodel and famous actress alongside her, and I would pick Andrea every time. To this day I still don't know what she saw in me, though.

We had a few classes together, became study pals, etc. It took me almost two years to work up the courage to ask her out. When I finally did she just yelled at me for taking so long.

From that moment we were inseparable. My first French kiss had been with Andrea in my friend's basement. I had sneaked a hand to the outside of her boob before she slapped me away that time. Her developing curves had been the images of my every fantasy. My first love.

There had only ever been one bump in the road. A cute cheerleader, jealous of Andrea in that catty High School way, had decided to seduce me to prove a point. I knew what she was up to, and yet my brain short- circuited in the face of a set of round tits and tight ass. If I had one fatal weakness, it was that I had absolutely no control over myself if a hot woman started coming on to me. Fortunately Andrea came by my house to visit, and caught us before things got out of hand. The best part? Andrea's solution was to keep her boy always satisfied so I'd never need to stray.

One day, we had just finished up a very satisfying blowjob and I sat pecking away at my computer. Andrea was sitting in my lap, her head pillowed on my shoulder and staring past my ear. She asked me, "What do you want in this world, more than anything? What is your greatest desire?"

It took me a while to think about it, but I found the answer deep down in my gut. "To write something really special, something I believe in. And to share that with someone who is just as special to me."

Andrea sat back up and looked at me. "That's so cool. I only hope that I can find my own answer someday."

That had been months ago. And I was nowhere closer to finding that special story. But I worked on it every day.

So back in my bedroom, I was still wrapped up in my script, typing away, when Andrea declared that she was done with our homework. "Okay, pay attention to me now!"

"Hang on just a minute..." I kept typing. I should have known to turn around and pay attention to her. But I'm a guy. And I never said I was smart back then.

Then I felt her lips on my neck, soft pads rubbing and nuzzling at my sensitive skin. Damn that felt good. "Cheater..." I mumbled. Boys are just puppets on strings at that age.

She turned my head in her hands and then we were kissing, long, sloppy kisses of High School puppy love. As an eighteen year-old boy I knew enough to recognize an opportunity when I saw one, and seizing the initiative I picked her up and planted her on my bed, attacking her lips frantically.

Andrea was suddenly really aroused, and she reached down to whip her top off, tossing it into a puddle on the floor. Her perky tits were firmly upright and begging for my attention. I was still amazed every time I saw them, memories of over a year of attacking and being rebuffed before we got to second base. But by now we were comfortable with each other's body, and I immediately dove in to lick and squeeze and suckle.

She was moaning and groaning and I started to panic that she would raise the attention of my little sister in the room next door. So I moved up to press my lips to hers before whispering a desperate "shh..."

Her eyes were glowing as she nodded and then went to work undoing the clasp to her jeans. When she tugged the jeans and panties down to her feet, I stripped them off and spread her legs wide. We had gotten to the point where oral sex was a common event between us, and I was becoming quite adept in the art of cunnilingus.

She was shaved completely bare for me and she resumed her squirming and moaning as my tongue speared into her channel. I switched to nibbling on her clit and she clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a scream, tears dribbling from the corners of her eyes as she fought to restrain herself.

I figured a good way to keep her quiet would be to fill her mouth with something. So I stripped down in a hurry and then lay down on the bed next to her. She kissed me quickly, tasting her own fluids before climbing atop me in a sixty-nine, slowly taking my banana-bent cock into her mouth. I grabbed onto her ass cheeks and split her wide as I continued to eat her out, and was rewarded a few minutes later when she twitched and started gushing her honey out onto my lips.

When she'd recovered, Andrea stopped her tongue bath on me and turned around, grinning. I was panting and sweating myself and had been on the verge of eruption before she let go. With a wicked gleam in her eye, she held up a silver package. "Wanna do it again?"

We'd only had sex on two occasions before, and there was no way I was going to pass up an opportunity for a third time. For a moment I felt guilty pride at my relationship. Half of my friends were still virgins and none of them had ever had a girlfriend as pretty as Andrea. I just grinned and nodded my head "yes" while she proceeded to roll the condom onto my wet member.

Then Andrea lay back against the pillows and beckoned me to her. I paused from my reckless passion for a moment, kissing her tenderly while lining myself up. I held her hands in mine, our fingers interlocking tightly while my hips sought out that haven of paradise between her legs.

But once the head nudged its way in I lost all semblance of control and started to pound away at her, Andrea's sweet lips at my neck whispering dirty thoughts in my ear, my hips ramming into hers already at breakneck speed. I must have only lasted a couple of minutes before my face screwed up in a grimace and I was filling the condom with my juices. She had not been anywhere near a second orgasm yet.

The happy bliss that normally comes to a guy after orgasm never came, just a disgust at my pathetic performance. Weren't the super men supposed to be able to screw for hours on end? I groaned in half apology and buried my head into the pillow next to her head.

Andrea just chuckled and slipped me out of her, dropping the used rubber into my trash can. "Shh, you know I'm fine with that. As long as you've got more for me."

She resumed kissing me, her tongue massaging the sensitive pads inside my mouth even as her hand rubbed in my wet crotch. I just kissed back, my hands roaming along her toned body, squeezing her tight ass, stroking her legs, and cupping her pert B-cups in my palms. I was hard again within minutes, and Andrea was grinning as she slid a fresh condom onto me. "Thank god for teenage recovery. This time, I wanna be on top."

I lay back, staring at Andrea's heaving bosom as she straddled me. She was a warm, wet sheath of pleasure, and she apparently enjoyed being drilled quite nicely. We started thrusting against each other, every muscle tensing, sweat dripping, and always the wet slap of our hips clashing together. I lost myself in the wonderful rhythms of her tits bobbing up and down with our fucking and let the rest of the afternoon drift away...

Andrea and I had been joined at the hip since starting to date sophomore year. By the second day of dating we'd gotten inside each other's head to the point where we knew what the other was thinking and finished each other's sentences. I'd spent more than two years of my life sharing every experience with her, from the social climbing of the High School cliques to my anxious discoveries of the female form. I wanted to be with her forever.

Breaking up with her was one of the hardest things I'd ever had to go through. Andrea got a scholarship to Stanford and was moving to California. A part of me thought I'd never see her again. People didn't come back from California. But then I knew that she was always destined for great things. I would be attending the big University in-state, ready to major in Modern Lit and distinctly avoid any complicated Math for the rest of my life.

The summer after graduation was the happiest three months of my life. Realizing we were soon to be parted, our parents let us stay with each other almost every night. We stayed up all night just talking about nothing. We wrote stories and scripts together, enjoying the playful tug-of-war over characterization and artistic integrity. We made love like there was no tomorrow.

And then one day, there was no tomorrow. Andrea was gone.

We tried to stay in touch through college. But long distance things just don't work out when you're eighteen. Eventually we moved on, and I

spent half of my college years with my new girlfriend, Bethany.

The summer before my third year, I got an email from Andrea. My heart was racing from the moment I saw the sender's name. It was the first contact we'd had in nearly two years.

It turns out she was broadcasting a message to all of her High School friends, happily announcing that she'd been cast in a major Hollywood movie. I was very happy for her, but also a little confused. She had always struck me as the theatre type, shunning most of the Hollywood bullshit as she had so delicately put it.

But Andrea's success had a bigger impact on me. It made me realize that while she was making her acting dream come true, I still had yet to write a full-length script.

I had of course told Bethany about my High School girlfriend, and Andrea's acting aspirations. When the movie finally came out just before my fourth year, Bethany and I went to see it together. The movie turned out to be fantastic, and Andrea had grown up to be sexy as hell.

That night, Bethany decided to do a little reenactment of the movie's love scene, where Andrea's character had done a slinky strip-tease before attacking the male hero. The sex with Bethany was amazing, but with one unfortunate side effect. Every so often, Andrea's face from the movie would slip to the front of my mind, and I had to bite my tongue not to call out Andrea's name. I tried to focus on my new girlfriend. But in the end, my hardest orgasm came when I imagined that

I was spurting into my High School sweetheart.

A few months later, Andrea won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. She had finally made it. It was time for me to catch up. As soon as I graduated, I sat myself down at my computer and began to type. And this time, I wasn't going to stop.

A couple of years after graduating, I was happily still a writer. I wrote movie reviews and other entertainment columns for the local newspaper, which let me work from home and afforded me plenty of time to keep tinkering with my script and waiting for the right opportunity. Everything I had ever researched about the movie industry told me that it was connections to the power-players that mattered more than how good of a writer I was. And I only knew one person in Hollywood.

Andrea had gone on to several prominent supporting roles, both in drama and critically popular independent films. But she had also started dating Roger Beckett, an up and coming action-film producer along the likes of Jerry Bruckheimer. I saw my chance to make it. Because in Hollywood, it's not what you know, it's WHO you know.

Word on the grapevine was that since hooking up with the guy, Andrea had been looking for an action script, something that would put her in a blockbuster movie and make her a household name. Beckett would be executive producing of course.

So I took a chance, and I called her agent. It took over an hour of worming my way through call-screeners and sitting on hold. No one seemed to believe that I was an old High School friend. So I just left my name and number, but only after getting a promise that my name would be delivered to her.

Twenty minutes later she called, delighted to hear from me. We chit- chatted for over an hour. She asked how my girlfriend was. I asked how her career was going. And then she dropped in the perfect question. "Still working on your script?"

"Always. In fact, it's just about done. You want to read the latest version? I think you'll recognize it."

"The Amazon?"

"The same one."

"The script that pandered to the masses. The rugged adventurer hero and the rival adventurer heroine. The heroine has big boobs and the guy sleeps around, blah, blah, blah." I could almost see Andrea smiling on the other end of the line.

"So it would be a good Hollywood blockbuster?" I asked, hope in my voice.

"It might just be perfect."

I sent her the script, and Andrea showed it to Beckett. Two days later, I was off to California.

HOLLYWOOD

"The Amazon" started off as a smart and intelligent little adventure, with wit and charm galore. After a few rewrites with established Hollywood script-doctors, it resembled more of a big boobs and bigger explosions flick, but I couldn't seriously complain. I knew the rules. First you play along. Only when you've got your own power can you impose your will upon a script. The top dawgs like Kasdan and Kaufman could do whatever they wanted. It was frustrating, but my time would come eventually.

I was still in a state of shock when Andrea walked through the restaurant door. Time and Hollywood had only transformed her from a natural beauty into a gorgeous leading lady. Perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect wardrobe. And her violet eyes locked onto me with an intensity that sent a shudder through my body.

Roger Beckett, the producer, and Anton Martin, the director, followed my gaze and smiled at seeing the female lead of their movie coming in. She dismissed her entourage and then made her way across the restaurant towards us. We all stood up when she arrived at the table, Beckett and Andrea sharing a short peck before sitting down.

Our leading actor arrived five minutes later, and the five of us delved into a heated discussion over how to create our Hollywood blockbuster.

The rest of the evening went by in a blur. I recovered enough to discuss the vision of the movie, arguing enough in preservation of my dreams, but knowing enough to back down when the producer demands control over how he's spending his money. Remarkably, Andrea still remembered almost everything from my vision of the script back in High School, and argued to keep my ideas very much intact for me.

Mostly, I found myself kind of staring at her. I hadn't seen her in six years, and I'd forgotten how beautiful she was. One of the men asked how we knew each other, and Andrea demurely replied, "We're old friends."

My heart was racing like a teenage schoolboy's, and I just smiled back at her, praying that no one else at the table noticed the electrical connection crackling between us. It was all I could do to pay attention to anyone else.

When the power meeting was over, Andrea and I stood up and exchanged warm hugs. Almost instinctively, I turned my head and started forwards to kiss her, but then backed off once I realized what I was about to do. Andrea similarly was backing her head away, her face flushed with momentary embarrassment and she glanced at Beckett to make sure he wasn't watching us.

Then, having made up her mind, she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek before turning away suddenly and striding towards the door in a major hurry.

I didn't start breathing again until she was out of sight.

I got to the office the studio had provided me for the duration of my contract. It was relatively large, well-appointed, and featured a decent view of the Hollywood Hills. There were already a dozen messages for me concerning this and that. I had now been in Hollywood for over a month, and we were still working on pre-production. The set designer wanted to revisit the bar scene. Beckett wanted to talk to me about adding another female boob-role. The list went on and on. But my schedule for the day had already been cleared. I was auditioning today.

Our casting director had screened through hundreds of actors and actresses for the various roles involved in "The Amazon." Once they made it through that selection process, however, the key roles had to be reviewed and approved by the director, the executive producer, and the writer, which meant me.

In most cases, the major roles had already been filled by name actors we had mutually agreed upon, but there were still a host of supporting characters to decide upon. The top three to five candidates, people who had already auditioned twice by now, were separately brought to me and then the director, and finally our producer.

To some extent this process became tedious very quickly. The wisecracking bartender, the strung-out junkie, the sage old boat captain. All of these characters had but a few minutes of screen time, but I certainly wanted the final actor to stay true to the picture in my head when I'd written the piece. Very rarely did anyone ever "get" the character I had envisioned. And while I felt sorry for some of these struggling actors, I despaired over having to pick the least BAD actor of the lot.

But then it came time to cast "Tina Woodbridge." The character was the classic Bond sexy-but-evil-girl. A tall blonde bombshell from Britain, the character was to seduce the main hero and in general, distract him away from his mission. She was, of course, a deadly fighter to boot.

Along with Andrea, this was going to be the woman that millions of teenage boys would be drooling over and be ready to pony up $9 per ticket to see. The right actress would be a relative unknown, with minimal previous acting exposure. This would be a breakout role. But at the same time, she had to exude sex appeal and athleticism, handle the accent, be the epitome of female physical perfection, and possess enough moxie to pull it all off in a big-budget movie.

The first girl I auditioned wasn't even close. And it took a monumental effort on my part to be polite throughout the entire audition. She definitely was a blonde bombshell, but this particular girl had the intelligence of a carrot. Her accents were horrible and I figured she would be good for nothing but eye candy. She tried to be flirtatious, but I was completely turned off by her and sent her off to the director for her next attempt.

The second woman to audition wasn't half-bad as an actress, and she definitely had the body for the role. Big, fake tits and a nice ass, long legs. A native Londoner, she had the perfect accent and the right amount of huskiness in her voice. She happened to be a brunette, but I didn't see that as a major problem for the movie. We role-played one of the scenes back and forth, with me in the role of the hero. While I found her both attractive and seductive, she seemed to be trying to seduce ME instead of the character, even going so far as to grope my crotch in the middle of a scene, which I KNEW wasn't in the script. She gave me a wink and a promise to "make it worth my while" if I could help her along in the auditioning process. Then off she went to seduce Anton Martin.

Now everyone who comes to Hollywood knows about the casting couch; but I had never really thought about actual opportunities for me. I was just dreaming about bending this hot Englishwoman over my desk and reaming her out when the phone rang.

I shook myself out of my reverie. It was Bethany, calling to say hi. We chatted amiably, the comfortable conversation of two people who had been around each other for more than four years. She whispered that she missed me, and momentarily wondered if we couldn't still work this out. I had to admit I missed her. Not only for her reassuring presence, but I hadn't been laid in quite a while. She laughed off her emotions on the fact that she wasn't used to being single anymore, and that our friendship was for the best. She didn't help tame my current arousal though, whispering suggestive thoughts in my ear and giggling before hanging up.

I found my Tina Woodbridge with actress number 3. The instant she walked through the door I knew she was the right one. Tall, lithe, and confident, Skye made her presence known. Blue eyes so pale they seemed gray pierced me with such intelligence, as if she were already studying me and determining how best to pick me apart. Golden hair with a silky shimmer cascaded down her back. She wore a tight-fitting black turtleneck and leggings ensemble that instantly reminded me of La Femme Nikita, and she glided across the room with the grace of a panther. When I said "hello" she merely inclined her head in response and slid into a wing chair facing my desk, crossing her long legs and resting both hands on the armrests.

I slid behind my desk to conceal a rapidly rising boner, and did my best to get the audition started. When she spoke, she had a distinctive European accent that I couldn't quite place, and immediately I started rewriting the character in my mind to fit Skye the actress. She carried herself with such confidence and maturity I was amazed to find out she was only 19 and after changing her name, she had come to Hollywood from Europe, along with her sister, to make it big in the American movie industry.

Her voice was intoxicating, and we flirted shamelessly for over an hour, until one of the studio secretaries had to come and tell me that she was late for her audition with Mr. Martin. We both stood up, and when I shook her hand in goodbye she leaned forwards and gave me a chaste peck on both cheeks, and then she was gone.

I got lunch with a fellow studio writer I'd become gradual friends with over the past few weeks. He asked how the audition process was going and more importantly, to him at least, whether I'd tapped into the wonderful world of the casting couch just yet. Apparently, he had bagged four different girls ("Grade AAA eggs, man..." as he put it) on the last project he'd done.

"And they weren't even expecting any promises in return. They just jumped into my bed and hoped for the best. We even cast one of them."

I mentioned that there were a few that caught my eye, and for the rest of the lunch I had visions of Skye twisted up in my sheets while staring deep into me with those brilliant eyes of hers.

When I returned there was only one audition left, but I was so wrapped up in my daydreams I didn't even check the name. So when the knock came at my door and I opened it, I felt pleasantly surprised. Skye was standing before me, her blue-gray eyes startling in their clarity, shining out and appraising me while I ran my gaze appreciatively over her perky tits and sculpted body. The only difference was that she'd changed into a new set of clothes, this time a flowing blouse and skirt combination.

"You're back! How were your other auditions?"

She smiled, and held a hand over her mouth coyly. "You must have me mistaken for my sister," she giggled in that intoxicating accent. "My name is Sienna."