if you wrote anything for raymond swan i think i Would Die. He’s my favourite little freak. i love the concept of him being all obsessive, hm, maybe more so if he felt like the reader was rising ’above’ him and no longer needed him somehow. i’m terrible at ideas, what do i know, i just need that man
The Prince of Darkness and Things that Belong to Him.
Back in the old days, people had something called Kingmakers.
An individual or a group that wields significant influence over who comes to power, by definition. And Raymond did have it outlined in a leather bound dictionary with a black pen that he kept in the drawer of his office's desk, not that he required linguistic reminders; he was just particular like that. He just wanted it to be known, that to you, that was him. Every manager, every agent, every coach, every producer in Hollywood and beyond, he thought, was a sort of Kingmaker. Queenmaker. Just Maker. The more history moved forward and things changed, the less changed and in 1936 as well a thousand years ago, Raymond Swan would've been then to you what he is now.
Naturally, the set is too good and that is the first thing that ticks him off.
The production value seemed high even in these early stages just like he knew it would be; the staff was plentiful, cars coming and going with deliveries, the assistants active, the wardrobe was being carted around on rolling garment racks that fill the open soundstage with the sound of swishing fabric, the blazing, heated carbon arc lamps set up with such intensity one could easily mistake day for night and it took him nearly a week, he thinks as he sauntered through the set grounds led by some energized intern, to schedule an appointment with you. Him. Needing a week. To schedule an appointment with you. His own Pygmalion. Didn't they know who he was? Did they conveniently forget?
You practically rush out of the room with your name on it with eagerly extended arms; the set cavernous and dark. Oddly cool in the California heat. Like being led through a great, big packing hangar underground and there, at its very navel where you, rushing to greet him in a long, white dressing gown. Oh, will you like that --- like those ingenues on the silver screen who accidentally shoot their wealthy husband and then cry big tears over his freshly murdered cadaver.
The intern tens him off-handedly, marking something on the file they were carrying around.
Were they giving him a time limit and orders?
Raymond rehersedly smiles and nods in a false sort of acceptance through the seething, cold anger bubbling up inside like a subterranean current and takes you by the offered hands in a manner most becoming friends and professional peers at a public place of work, even though if you were alone he would doubtlessly slap you. Then kiss you.
-"Don't 'darling' me, chickadee."-
He leans in and murmurs icily, lacing every passive-aggressive sound with a layer of honey while giving your fingers a squeeze of warning with his own, leading you straight back into your private dressing room, the curve of his mouth pressing upwards into the seams of his cheeks in the semblance of an artificial grin.
-"It is very hard to get to you these days."-
He coos once the door shuts behind his back with a thud.
The interior, womb-like light envelops you in a dim, orange hue.
He halfway purrs, approaching you slowly.
Were you dodging him? No, no, that couldn't be it; you adored him. It was these others, filling your pretty head with notions of freedom and independence. Liberty in expression, as it were. How he despised that. When artists started droning about their rights. Artists had no rights. Each and every one of them belonged on a velvet leash held by someone who knew better. As did you.
-"Have you forgotten your old friends? So soon?"-
He quips with near infinite tenderness all while the violence inside of him caused him to see red as he propped his index finger beneath your chin affectionately, making you look at him. Melora too was beyond herself that you paid them so few visits as of late and she had the tendency to get exceedingly emotional when her toys were taken away. Raymond on the other hand tended to get murderous. He always did figure, that if he wasn't in Hollywood and the pictures industry, he would be running with Al Capone.
-"I'm sorry. They're very particular about my schedule now, Raymond. I don't like it all the time either, but it is what it is."-
You try with an excuse, eyes big and truthful, seeming genuinely apologetic and a little aggrieved and Raymond feels his head tilt as he watched you, the smile of an ingenue still etched on his face and he feels it on himself like something alien that was merely plastered there, observing you like those dogs while they're assessing whether they should attack or not, understanding that you were the good one in this story. You weren't a ladder climber. Not ruthless. Not Machiavellian. But even kind hearted people needed to be reminded of their place every once in a while.
-"Next thing you know, they'll contractually outline who you'll go to bed with too."-
He jokes, with a quip, chuckling.
Did this Director want you, was that it?
Was that why he was keeping your schedule so full? To isolate you? From him?
Keep you perpetually in a state of work and rest and work and rest?
He's done things like that.
Admittedly, he couldn't help but admire a man for trying.
You click your tongue, sliding your chin away from the support of his finger.
Flustered, were you? Tenderly admonishing him for the suggestion?
Your cheeks were red and it wasn't the rouge.
He slowly starts walking you backwards, towards the bed that was in the corner.
Right next to the boudoir makeup table illuminated with a garland of vanity lights.
He did not like other men in charge of you.
He did not like other men around you in general.
He ought to have you cast in Little Women next, but knowing what he knew about this business and the chaos and complications that often came with an all-female cast, that wasn't a guarantee either. He should have cast in a stage play were you monologue in a theatre alone for two hours. But who would watch that? Everyone, if he marketed it well.
-"You do know you still belong to me, don't you?"-
Raymond reminds with a near eternal sense of calm, hand coming to cup your cheek, giving it a gentle caress; once your eyes widen in uncertainty, he decides on a rare mercy and chooses to water down the impact of his words, if only barely. -"On paper, that is?"- He adds with the sweetness of a hungry widow spider wrapping a silken net around the mate it intended to devour later. This movie would make it big. It would propel you to unimaginable heights and he didn't like that. He miscalculated, he could confess as much now, in hindsight. You being a star on a sky of your own would mean you wouldn't need him anymore and he liked that even less. He intended to peel you out of here before you slipped out of his grasp forever, even if it meant hauling you off and into the Rolls that was waiting outside, making it seem like you merely had a mental breakdown and run off yourself. Actors under stress, overburdened by work and the sudden influx of budding stardom have been known to do that. He had a lodge manor out on the slopes of Mount Shasta, outside of San Francisco. He could just keep you there indefinitely, should he choose, with nothing but woodland and rock for miles and miles. -"The Director..."- You begin, only to be interrupted -"The director."- He repeats with undeniable, amused contempt, as if though uttering a particularly dirty, profane word. Of course. The director. The director became an affront to him the minute he started raising you up on a pedestal. Matinees he wasn't present on? A dinner with royalty overseas? It had to stop. Next thing he knew, you'd meet someone who'd whisk you away. Someone big. Your very own Clark Gable. His hand reaches out to tug at the hem of your dressing gown at your shoulder blades once he feels the back of your legs hit the edge of your cot. He scoots down slightly to pick you up suddenly, hovering you above where you slept nowadays. In this...den. Too many bouquets of flowers, too many postcards, too many gifts, too many stuffed animals, both opened and unopened, too many letters lined the walls. They'd take you away from him if he didn't act now, breach of contract be damned. -"I don't like the clothes, I don't like the room, I don't like the staff, I don't like the makeup and I don't like the bed."- He lists all of his grievances off, observing you with what he deemed as affection, cradling you lifted, swaying you swilightly, left and right, left and right, the light swish of movement causing your robe to fall unto the cot like a an ivory curtain. None of those people had any business dressing you like an extra at a set where they shoot stag films, abundant success or no success.
-"We have a much better bed at Swan Studios, if you recall."-
The tip of his nose nearly brushes against yours as he whispers, holding the leverage.
You have been lovers before, yes; never quite stopped.
In every way but the legal and the official, you lived as common-law spouses.
Throughout your entire early tenure in his production studio and up until very recently.
You haven't slept with him since the shooting of this picture started.
And that fact had him vexed. Most vexed.
-"The prince of darkness' own black satin. A charcoal cloud to sink into. Remember how it felt."-
Raymond coos, slowly lowering your right on your own subpar bed and its utilitarian white sheets, wondering briskly if his ten minutes were up, listening the chatter, noise and the sounds of activity from beyond the cocoon of this door. Ten minutes was all he needed for seduction when the situation was urgent. Occasionally, when he upped the ante, he needed even less. He could simply threaten to release certain images of you he had and ring up certain newspapers editors that owed him certain favours to do an impromptu release containing a salacious scoop concerning a rising Starlet by tomorrow morning. You peer up at him from the pillow he was looming over, blissfully unaware of the thoughts germinating in his mind, your hand in repose holding his the way sweethearts do as he stood, admiring the patch of skin where your neck ended and your chest began, imagining sinking his teeth into that bit of no man's land that belonged only to him like in those German Expressionist movies.
If he had to blackmail you to get you home, he would.
Melora couldn't stop crying as of late.
-"Did you have yourself driven all this way just to come and tell me you hate the movie you yourself set me up with before shooting has even started properly?"-
You stretch and yawn affectionately, like a well-pampered, capricious house-cat pleased by its master's attentions, smacking the nail right on its head, getting to the root of the problem.
You ask, uncertain, lashes blinking rapidly.
Because you were about to be propelled to international stardom.
You didn't even realize it yet, but his intuition and experience were never wrong.
A mere few months from now, once this movie was out and running, little girls would be keeping your picture glued to their desks, emulating how you walk, talk and do your hair and boys would daydream about fucking you in a parking lot and you would have no need of old Mr. Raymond Swan anymore, that's why. They'd set you up with some copy-cat of Rudolph Valentino as a sham-marriage PR stunt to sell periodicals to people interested in your public courtship or you'd imagine yourself in love some English Duke who makes a hobby out of marrying newly-minted Hollywood actresses and you'd be otherwise occupied. Too occupied for him. Too unavailable for him. Unreachable. The doors would be closed. He would have no way of getting to you if you went and aligned yourself to people more powerful than him. And to lose you forever? He'd rather have you thrown into the Pacific Ocean. Or lock you away in a sanatorium somewhere out in Brentwood.
-"Because I have better things in mind for you. Don't rush to thank me."-
He lies, trying to sound nonchalant and casual about it.
He had nothing better in mind. Nothing at all.
Unless you count facelessly narrating an evening radio drama then yes, why not.
That sort of thing stunted many an aspirational careers and it would stunt yours too.
Like an atrophied limb wholly misused; an Olympic athlete about to strike gold reduced to sitting on a couch.
There's a knock on the door.
His ten minutes was up, it seemed and he leans down over the bed to kiss you.
Wrapping his arms around your eager shoulders to lift you up just so.
Tilting your neck back so he could go deep; as deep as he liked.
The type of stuff, he thought, movie posters could envy.
-"Come away. Now. Who loves you more than me anyway? Who knows more about love?"-
Raymond murmurs once you separate and it seemingly takes a moment for you to regain your composure and catch your breath, eyes fluttered shut slowly opening as your head reclined in his hands overflowing with your spilled hair, throat bent backwards in a sensual, gentle repose, having surrendered --- He was close. Oh, so close to having you eating from the palm of his hand again. He wasn't lying, you know? He did know everything about love --- his career in grooming and raising singers, actors and dancers from nothing to something and dealing with all the natural, expected emotional roller-coasters that come with that taught him all about the human heart and its irrational, often illogical secrets, like a master alchemist, he felt he was one of those rare people in Hollywood who found the formula to turn a common metal into liquid gold. He knew it was the most potent thing in the world. Passion and affection. It could have a rising acteur abandon their star project to elope with their married producer. It could also have the producer resort to any means necessary to get what he wants.
-"They'll sue me, my love."-
You chuckle a little, but the concern in your voice was undeniable.
You lace your fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck as he lifts you to stand.
Yes; the staggering losses would be in the millions. This Director would have to recast you and quickly. The entire set would be in a disarray. They might even have to re-write the script; re-do the hand drawn posters. Have entire casting calls. Do new screen-tests. Re-do the promotional material, re-create the costuming meant for you with new measurements --- do nearly everything from scratch. But whatever Swan Productions loses now by tampering with this process, it'll make back with the lawsuit. Raymond would simply have his lawyers lie the work conditions were inadequate. Looking you up and down in your robe slipping down your shoulders, he knew just the thing he could make up to win a potential case. A lecherous boss was always a classic that wins the hearts of the jury; he might've been projecting with that one, he thinks, amusedly. There's a knock on the door again, no doubt the pesky intern respectfully calling your name, the sound of it muffled by the walls.
At that point, he has you by the hand and abruptly steps out, leaving with you.
The prince of darkness always comes back for the things that belonged to him.
He might've been a Kingmaker, but he was also, when needed, a King unmaker.
-"Not if I do it to them first."-
Raymond Swan re-assures with all the fervour in the world, brushing past the flaggerbasted, stuttering intern, squeezing your hand and waltzing into the parking lot where his Rolls Royce with tinted windows awaited; in his mind, he envisioned every footstep taken accompanied by one of those grand, sweeping movie scores they play triumphantly at the end of the credits when the blackout card says 'Fin'.
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