Iwent looking for Alex the next morning on set. He’d had a way earlier call time than me, so I’d gotten to sleep later. I felt out of place amid lots of people trying to do their jobs when there wasn’t really anything for me to do when I arrived.
I very quickly learned that filming was almost entirely comprised of standing around while various people did the hard work to set up a shot with brief spells of actual action happening. I now understood why the actors had trailers to hang out in while they were waiting.
Alex was dealing with something in wardrobe, so I went in search of Melody to see if she needed any help with her early scenes. Any excuse to feel useful instead of awkwardly trying to stay out of the way. Awkward was going to be the name of the game if we went ahead with the plan and I had to interact with Alex on set, acting as an intimacy coordinator for scenes I'd done all too intimately with him in real life.
I knocked on Melody’s trailer door, double-checking it was the right one when no one answered. I’d almost given up and left by the time she opened the door, but as soon as she opened it, I could tell something was wrong. She’d been crying and wouldn’t meet my eyes, although she was trying to pretend everything was fine.
She waved me inside, so I followed her in and closed the door. It wasn’t my place to pry, but now I could see she was visibly shaking as she cleared a spot for me to sit.
“Is everything okay?” I asked gently.
“Yeah, I’m sorry.” She swiped a tear away looking angry at herself.
“You don’t need to be sorry. There’s nothing wrong with crying. Do you want to talk about it?”
She looked unsure. “If I tell you, you can’t even tell Alex.”
“I won’t tell a soul if you don’t want me to.”
She sighed and paced in the tiny space.
“Max asked me to go to his trailer to talk about one of my scenes. When I got there, he had me run through my lines, but then…” She swiped another tear. “He pulled his dick out and started jacking off, snapping at me to keep going. He said if I was a real actress, I would keep going. He groped me. I was terrified.” She sobbed. “And I didn’t know what to do so I just sat there. I froze up and couldn’t remember my lines and he got so angry. I didn’t know what he was going to do, but he kicked me out of his trailer and told me we would try another time. If I told anyone about it, he’d fire me and make sure I never worked again.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak. I was so consumed with rage and guilt and remembered fear that I couldn’t get words out. Melody’s sobbing snapped me out of it.
I stood up and very gently said, “Melody, I believe you. I’m sorry he did that to you. It wasn’t your fault.”
She threw her arms around me and I stood there and let her cry, trying to channel my strength into her, focusing on her needs instead of my rage.
I’d always told myself his behavior was limited to the dungeon and that I’d done what I could to prevent him from assaulting other subs by speaking up and getting him banned. At the time, I’d declined to call the cops, but there are a million reasons not to in that situation. I didn’t need to have their bias against sex workers thrown in my face or end up in handcuffs for prostitution even if what I’d been doing was technically legal. I didn’t trust Max not to claim I’d been breaking the rules and he was a powerful, well-liked man in Hollywood. It just wasn’t worth putting myself and the dungeon under that kind of scrutiny and media exposure when I knew he had the resources to weasel his way out of any consequences.
But simply banning him from the dungeon wasn’t enough. It had allowed him to maintain a position of power in the film world. It wasn’t my fault. Who would’ve even believed me if I’d said something? But I still couldn’t help feeling some responsibility.
“I’m sorry.” She stood back and swiped at her tears again. “It’s not that big a deal. It’s not like he even did anything to me.”
“Please look at me, Melody. He made you feel unsafe and violated. He threatened you and exposed himself. That’s not nothing. You’re entitled to be upset and he’s a sack of shit who should be punished. I have to put a stop to this.”
Now she looked terrified, grabbing me by the shoulders. “You can’t tell anyone! You promised. I’ll be blacklisted and my career will be over.”
I sighed. “I know. I’m not going to tell them about you. If it’s okay with you, I’ll tell them about me. He was a former client of mine at the dungeon. He was frequently inappropriate, but the last time he assaulted me. I used the panic button and had him banned from ever going back to the dungeon where I work or any other dungeon we have a relationship with. This is clearly a pattern for him, and I can’t stand by and keep letting it happen.”
I unhooked my choker and held the key out to her. “I’d like you to take this and wear it. If you give me your phone, I’ll download the app it pairs with and set it up for you. You don’t have to speak up. You need to deal with this on your own terms and I’ve had much longer to process it. But I need to know you’re safe. If he tries anything again, you hold this button down and it’ll alert me through the app. I can also set it up to alert someone else if you’re okay with that. Maybe Alex since I won’t always be on set?”
“No. We’d have to tell him why.”
“He’s a good man, Melody. I trust him. You can too.”
“I’ll think about it, but not yet.”
“Okay, you let me know if you want to add someone. In the meantime, if I get an alert from you and I’m not here, I’ll be contacting security if I don’t hear from you immediately to confirm you’re okay. Since sometimes I’m with clients and don’t have my phone, it’s going to default to calling emergency services if one of us doesn’t deactivate it to say you’re fine.”
“Thank you,” she said, hugging me again.
Once I’d set things up on her phone, I made sure she was okay one more time, gave her the info for a therapist friend if she wanted to talk to someone, and left to do what needed to be done.
43
Alex
