"Are you shaved?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Are you shaved?"
The clipped voice was bored, the small room enhancing it somehow. She shivered.
"Y-yes."
She licked her lips, incredibly nervous.
"Will you take a shower?"
"Yes."
She answered more clearly, pleased to hear this question. She stared at the manicured hand checking off the list of questions on the paper.
"Do you consent to being touched sexually by other people?"
"Err...what do you mean...I thought...?"
"There will be multiple people. It may enhance your experience to be touched or touch other people as well. You will always have the ability to say no."
The man looked up over his half-circle reading glasses, his patience obviously close to running out.
"Yes."
"Will you leave if told to?"
"Yes."
"Will you refrain from speech?"
"Yes."
"Do you consent to being filmed for everyone's protection?"
Her expression was all he needed to see.
"All recordings will be stored securely for a month and then destroyed. They will never be made available online or for anyone's viewing pleasure."
"Yes."
"Are you using contraception?"
"Yes."
"What are you using?"
"The pill."
There were other questions. They filled two pages. The NDA was longer. She signed her name at the end of each document. The bored man in his exquisite suit waved her through the door ahead. She entered another small room which was bare apart from five clothes rails, almost like you'd see backstage at a fashion show with some empty coat hangers. Three of the rails had clothing on with a pair of shoes underneath. There was another door leading out of the room.
The empty clothes rails each had a white towel and a white towelling dressing gown on them.
A female security guard, or at least she assumed that she was a security guard, was standing in the other doorway. She gestured at one of the rails and went back to looking at her phone.
Behind her in the other room she heard the same bored voice asking questions.
"Are you shaved?"
She was so nervous that she was worried about disgracing herself. Her bowels felt like they'd turned to water and that any movement would be disastrous. She stood immobile for a second like a rabbit in the headlights.
"Honey? Lose the clothes. We don't have all night."
She forced herself to move to one of the empty rails and quickly took off her cute little top. She kicked off her mules and the denim shorts followed next. Standing in her underwear she took a deep breath and pretending that she was alone stripped before quickly putting on the luxurious toweling robe. It smelled and felt wonderful.
She was distracted by the bored voice from the other room again.
"Are you over eighteen? Please show me your ID."
There was a pair of those disposable hotel slippers on top of the towel. She put them on and picked up the towel. She suddenly realised that she didn't have anywhere to put her keys, her phone or her purse. She looked at the security guard who waved her over, holding out a large ziplock bag.
She placed the valuables inside the clear plastic and the guard wrote the number four on the outside before placing it in a carryall behind her along with other similar bags.
"Through there honey - if you're sure that is."
She gulped absolutely not sure but nodded her head in response and walked into a large suite. Three other people were sitting there on separate sofas, wrapped in their white towelling robes. The security guard pointed to another door and she meekly made her way through the room with three pairs of eyes watching her every move.
She walked into a well appointed bathroom. She shut the door and looked for a lock. She mentally kicked herself as she realised that of course there wouldn't be one. She took off her robe and relieved herself, embarrassed by the noise she was making. She flushed and then started the shower. She remembered one of the questions as she looked around at the shower and hair products.
"Do you have any skin allergies that would prevent you from using any Jo Malone products?"
All of the three people in the other room had wet or recently washed hair, so she showered, washed her hair and used the relevant products. If she wasn't so nervous she would have enjoyed it, the fragrance was faintly intoxicating, musky and yet still fresh.
She was just putting her robe on when there was a knock at the door. She jumped and just managed to stop herself from squeaking out loud.
She opened the door and came face to face with another young woman. This woman had short, pink hair, cut in the latest style and seemed to have layers of makeup on. She quickly vacated the bathroom and continued to dry her hair before settling into one of the luxurious sofas.
The man with the bored voice and expensive suit was back and the door into the suite was shut. There was no sign of the security guard.
"We need to wait for number five and then we can begin the briefing," he said. He went to the bar and poured himself an evian.
"Help yourself to a soft drink if you would like one. If you wish to kiss please refrain from anything other than water."
The nerves were back. She settled into the sofa far away from the others and wrapped her arms around herself, her hands holding her elbows as she asked herself for the hundredth time what on earth she was doing here.
Five minutes later the door to the bathroom opened and the young woman emerged. All her makeup was gone too. She looked younger and somehow more vulnerable.
"Will you remove any piercings?" the bored voice had asked them as one of the many questions. There were no earrings on display, no jewelry of any kind. Just five anonymous bodies swathed in high quality robes.
The grey eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles scanned the room.
"Let's begin."
= = = = = = =
Theo Raven stood there, arms stretched out, soaking in the adulation of the twenty thousand people crammed into the arena. He was drenched with sweat after a two hour set, four costume changes and this final encore. The crowd were delirious.
The adrenaline rush was immense. People screaming for him; the crowd chanting his name. One middle-aged woman at the front had been there for the last two nights so he blew her a kiss. She screamed and fainted. He signalled to security but they were already moving. Once he realised that they were on top of things he finished waving to the crowd, bowed deeply from the waist, as he always did, and ran off the stage.
"You were on fire tonight Theo."
"Great job Theo."
"Your voice was off the charts man."
"That guitar solo! Whew!"
He acknowledged the band with a thumbs up, nodded to the hangers on and the arena staff while desperately trying to hold on to the high from the gig. It was the closest thing to perfection for him. He loved to perform. He lived for it.
He was taken to his dressing room. He closed the door, his security team well aware of his habits. The big screen TV and sound system were on and he touched the screen to play the video.
He was surrounded by the acclamation once again. The screams, the love.
He slowly closed his eyes, his arms out to his crowd again as he relived that final moment.
The feeling wasn't as good. But it did trigger the memory. The pictures and sound helped. It was almost a form of pornography to him as he was enveloped by twenty thousand adoring voices. He held the pose until the noise died before taking a deep, shuddering breath.
A tear came down his perfect cheek as he slowly came down from the clouds of fame, stepping back into the hot sweaty clothes of a thirty-one year old man again.
He sighed and reached for his bottle of Perrier, pouring it into the plain crystal glass. The sound of the bubbles and the clinking of the ice rang around the dressing room, the slice of lime rising to the top.
He wiped away the lone tear and sighed heavily. The come down after the show wasn't anything like as bad if he did this. He relaxed into the chair, turned off the sound and became aware of the noise from outside the door.
He sat up, straightened his top and shouted "OK" at the door.
= = = = = = =
It was always a strange, ramshackle group.
The type of person that wanted to be in that room always surprised him. Old, young, fat, thin, short, tall, black, white. Some trembled with nerves like number four over there, while others were as calm as you like. Some jittered, their knees bouncing up and down in a staccato rhythm, others bit their nails, while some were so turned on that they didn't last two minutes.
But they'd all agreed. They'd all signed.
He closed the door behind him acknowledging the five people wrapped in their robes. When he was sure that he had their attention he cleared his throat.
"Hello. My name is Gregory Norman. You all know why you're here. The focus of tonight is not you. It's him. I will be the only other person in the room. I will manage the cameras. If you see me point at you and then at the door you are to leave. No questions. You are not to talk. You are to listen to any requests that are made of you. Do you understand?"
He paused. They all murmured that they did.
"That all sounds pretty heavy right?"
He allowed himself a small smile looking back at the five worried faces. He allowed some warmth to creep into his voice for the first time.
"Don't forget why you're here. Remember to enjoy it. Have fun. Take your time. Any questions?"
Number five raised her hand.
"It says to stay quiet..."
"It does not. It says to refrain from speech."
"OK, but what if we can't stay quiet? I'm kind of noisy..."
"As I said, this experience is not about you. If you can't stop yourself then you should leave now. No one wants to know that YOU are coming, how YOU want to be fucked or which hole YOU want to have filled next. This is about him."
