Another day, another thousand dollars. It was money in her pocket, money that could go toward bettering her life someday. Starring in adult films wasn't exactly what Belle French had set out to do with her life. In fact, she hadn't really set out to do anything. She had dreams, big dreams. College, acting school. Someday she'd be a star in all the great sweeping romantic dramas. The next Ingrid Bergman, only in a smaller package.

Gaston LeClair, her boyfriend of the time, had talked her into auditioning for a role in a movie. She was told she'd have to go topless for it, but it turned out they were looking for something a bit…more. She had been desperate for money and so when they convinced her to play along, to strip down, to get on her knees and wrap her lips around a stranger's cock, she had done it.

Apparently she had done it so well, they wanted to hire her on the spot. Belle was tiny, but with an hourglass figure it turned out directors loved. She was natural and they told her that there was a market for that. Men, especially the sect of men who considered themselves "nice guys" tended toward wanting the natural look, no implants, nothing fake about the girls. And Belle fit that perfectly.

Gaston had thrown a jealous fit when he found out what kind of movie he had brought his girlfriend to audition for and had stormed in to have words with them. The director liked his fire and passion, liked the look of the big burly ex-football player so much that he had offered him a job acting opposite her.

He told her he would make her a star and Belle had not found it in herself to refuse.

With three movies behind her and another one set to start the next day, she had begun getting used to taking her clothes off in front of people. She was numb to the sex. It was just another acting job that happened to involve nudity and bodily fluids. Gaston, of course, loved every moment of it. He was asked to work with other women, sometimes with Belle, sometimes without, and his buff body had put him in high demand. Men generally didn't make as much in the field as women did, but he had acted in over half a dozen movies and was already making a name for himself.

She had broken the relationship off soon after starting this mess with him. It wasn't because of the porn, not exactly. But she knew that this was the life for him. And for her? Well, she'd get out as soon as she could. Leave it all behind her. And that included leaving Gaston behind as well.

Belle arrived on set early that day, first running into their cameraman. David Nolan had been a star in his own right some years ago, before his costar, now wife, had turned up pregnant. That had scared them enough to get out of the business almost entirely. Mary Margaret had gone back to school, online classes, trying to find a career she could do where her former one wouldn't haunt her. And David had gone from starring in a series of fairy tale based adult films to being the cameraman for the studio. Their director lamented losing him every day, but seemed at least somewhat satisfied with Gaston as his replacement.

"Hey Belle," he called out to her as she raced past him.

"No time to chat. I'm afraid I need to get ready!" Belle had a routine. First yoga, then a shower, shave or wax if needed. She had someone who did her hair and make-up, made her look as fresh and young as she could. Belle was in her late twenties, but looked much younger, and so they played that up as much as possible. She couldn't pass for the "barely 18" some wanted, but she still seemed young and innocent and it was something the director was all too happy to emphasize.

"Belle…wait…" David caught up to her, gripping her arm lightly to stop her as she strode away from him.

She turned back to him, her lips pressed together, eyes narrowed. It wasn't like David, the one they all tended to call Prince Charming behind his back, to be so grabby with the female stars. He generally was hands off, even during his days as a star. He had eyes only for his now-wife and so did his job with a sort of disconnect that she understood entirely.

"Our director was arrested last night."

Belle's eyes widened and she let out a rather unladylike curse. "Why?"

"Seems he had a little side business. Children." Belle shuddered. "They dragged him out right in the middle of last night's shoot."

"Ruby must have been pissed." Ruby was one of her closest friends on set, if one could say that about any of the other people that she worked with. Ruby was, at least, not competitive with her about roles. Belle didn't really care much as long as she was comfortable with those she performed with. She wasn't in this for the long haul, reminding herself over and over again that she would get out once she had enough money to get back on her feet. Ruby enjoyed the life and her body type was so drastically different from Belle's, tall and slender where she was small and curvaceous, that they weren't even really performing for the same audiences. Ruby was also willing to do anything and Belle was, well, a bit more conservative about it all. Despite that, the director had liked her and so she found herself with enough work to keep her savings account growing.

"She was, but not over the lost shoot. You should have seen the words she screamed after him as the police took him away." The tips of his ears turned bright red. David was a strange one, certainly not someone she would have pegged for being involved in the adult industry, not that anyone would have pegged her for being involved either. She hadn't watched any of his old flicks, though she knew Ruby and Ashley had spent some time with them, and she heard that he was quite good. The girls had certainly enjoyed it. For all her being involved in the adult industry, Belle found she actually didn't much enjoy watching the work they produced. It was all fake and some faked it worse than others.

"So what now?" She needed the money from this shoot.

"New director."

"Really?"

David nodded. "Yup. The studio had him on board almost as soon as they dragged King off. Best of the best, apparently. Gold."

Belle's eyes widened. "Of Gold Studios? I heard he was in retirement."

"He was." David leaned down close to her, quite a distance considering the difference in their heights. "Something strange went down there Belle. Gold lost interest in the business a long time ago and got out nearly a decade ago. He's been holed up for years God knows where. And he suddenly comes out of the woodwork for this one little film?"

"He's not taking over the whole studio?"

David shook his head. "Nope. He has some special interest in this film."

"Current speculation?" She knew there would be plenty of it.

"None. The guy's a complete mystery. No one even knows what he looks like."

"Well, one thing's for sure. This ought to be very interesting."

"Well, dearie, you're just gonna have to make it happen." Gold slammed the phone down. He had been on the phone with his lawyers since before he even set this taking over of this film into motion. Oh, King was guilty. That much he knew. He'd had hackers getting into his computer for months, compiling evidence. When that evidence showed up on the DA's desk late the previous afternoon, there had been no doubt of Albert King's guilt. He had gone down quickly and almost painlessly.

Well, for the cops at least. King hadn't seen it coming, had tried to protest, but the sheer amount of evidence of his guilt would likely put him behind bars for very long time. Gold was no longer in the business, or hadn't been until today, but that didn't stop him from having a sort of visceral hatred for King. Anyone who took advantage of children like that deserved to be gutted. Jail for life would be too kind for that disgusting excuse for humanity.

And some considered him the monster. At least the girls he'd had work for him had been of legal age and had not been coerced. King was not above manipulating and forcing people to get involved in his studio. The adult industry paid well. It was sometimes easy to manipulate someone who was in desperate financial straits. Gold well knew the look of a desperate soul and he believed King's latest, a young woman with the stage name Lacey, was one of them.

She looked small, fragile, so tiny that he had no doubt she'd make him feel tall, but with curves that made it clear she was all woman. Her eyes were startlingly blue and he might have thought she was wearing contacts if it weren't for the fact that everything else about her seemed natural. She was striking, but there was a look in her eyes that he recognized all too well.

When the clothes were on, during the setup, she seemed alive. She was sincere, believable. As soon as the real sequence started, as soon as the clothes came off, she shut down. She did her job admirably, there was no doubt about that. And he had found himself suitably aroused while watching her work. But there was a sort of deadness in her eyes as she did so. She wasn't all there, her mind had simply cut out while her body did what was necessary to arouse the male viewership.

It had, honestly, been ages since he had been able to watch a pornographic film and feel the level of arousal he did while watching Lacey on screen. He had spent so many years directing the stuff that he was more worried about proper placement of cameras, of catching the right angles, of making sure his actors avoided making the ridiculous faces some of them made. After the car accident that damaged his ankle beyond repair, he had retreated to his home in a tiny little coastal Maine town and left the whole business behind. He had long since lost interest in watching other people have sex. And the pain in his ankle, the cane he was forced to use, had made him lose interest in the opposite sex all together. It was easier playing at being the town pariah, the recluse, the monster in the haunted house on the edge of town.

When that was your lot in life, you didn't really consider dating a priority. Getting by. Not thinking about the shambles your life had become. That was the priority. He had managed that much.

At least he had until he'd seen Lacey and then found out about King's repulsive preferences. He hadn't quite felt this alive since before the accident. He had a goal, something to do with his life that didn't involve holing up in his large home, alone, and drinking until he felt nothing, until the pain disappeared.

Belle shivered slightly as she stepped into the prepping room. The start of a new film always made her a little nervous. She had gone over her lines, few though they were. She knew what she had to do. But the opening of it, the reminder that she would soon have to do this all over again always left her feeling a little on edge. She was used to it…almost.

But today felt different. Today there was a new director. Today there was Gold. She had heard of him, had watched a few of the movies he had put out back when he was active in the industry. His movies had come as close to art as pornography could and the actors were required to actually act. The stories were believable, the scripts often surprisingly romantic. There were no "hot pizza delivery guy" stories among them. The man had taste and she found it very much a shame that he had abandoned his company just as it was at the top of the game. The industry could use more movies like his.

Rumors had run rampant at his sudden retirement. Even now, nearly a decade after he had walked off a set and closed down his studio, people speculated. He had gotten divorced from his wife Milah, the woman who starred in all his movies, soon after his departure and all suspected it had much to do with that. Milah had gone on to star in a series of films called The Jolly Roger, which featured her, her new beau, one Killian Jones, and a number of men posing as pirates. The movies were crass, nowhere near the quality Gold Studios had put out. But from all reports, Milah was happy. And Gold? He disappeared off the face of the earth as soon as the divorce was final and the studio was closed.

Belle suspected there was more to it than just that. She knew next to nothing about Gold, but she had come to know Gold Studios well during her first days in the industry. She was a studious sort and even though Gaston has reminded her, over and over again really, that it was just the adult industry, she still felt obligated to study up on the subject. And she had found herself wishing that she had gone to work for the already-defunct Gold Studios.

Albert King didn't put out work as crass as Killian Jones did, and Belle had made sure to watch a couple of King's, but the level was not as high as Gold's.

Now she had the chance to work for him. Finally. After all this time. As she was prepped for the first scene, hair washed and brushed and curled, make-up applied, she wondered what he was like, what he looked like. She had never even found so much as a grainy photograph of the man. He was like a ghost, someone so far behind the scenes that he was only spoken of in hushed tones had never been photographed.

"Ariel?" Belle asked as the young woman wrapped her wet hair in a towel and led her to the chair where she'd work her magic.

"Hmmm?" Ariel was fiddling with brushes, combs, the hair dryer, mouth full of various implements to pin up bits of Belle's long dark hair as she worked. Ariel was sweet, too sweet to be working for such a studio, but she assured Belle it was good money and since she did nothing more than hair, it was actually quite a prestigious job for one so fresh out of beauty school.

"Do you know anything about this Mr. Gold?"

Ariel paused for a moment and then resumed brushing her hair. "Not much," she said with a slight shrug.

"But something?" Belle's voice was hopeful.

"Not much, really. I…well, I heard he was difficult to work with…"

"Difficult?"

"Demanding. He wanted perfection." She let the obvious rest of the statement hang. Perfection in an industry that involved the slap of body parts and more bodily fluid than Belle really wanted to think of. "There were a lot of complaints."

Belle winced as Ariel found a knot in her hair and pulled. "I can imagine so."

Ariel frowned as the brush hovered over Belle's hair. "It was a long time ago."

They both fell into silence as Ariel continued to prep her for the new shoot. She was more careful than usual, the rumors of Gold's perfection obviously making her tense.

"Is he here?" Belle rushed into the room, stopping to speak to the first person she saw.

"He's been here," David muttered, lifting the camera carefully and shifting it a few inches to the left. "Been here and left it in a shambles."

Belle looked around the room, at the unusual bustle. Under King's direction everything had been set up the same way every time. A quick introductory scene was filmed and then it was on to the "important" part of the show. But now, cameras were being moved around, people were shouting back and forth, Gaston had been escorted out and forced to change into something more appropriate for the first scene.

She didn't know Gold, but she could well imagine he had been here based on his reputation. Perfection. That was what Ariel had told her expected. Absolute perfection. Even years after he had left the business, his reputation preceded him.

It took another half hour for the cameras to be moved, the lighting to be changed, the set to be altered to fit what Gold wanted. People everywhere were cursing King for being a lecherous pedophile and leaving them in the hands of a tyrant. Belle would have found it amusing if she weren't so nervous.

"What's he like?"

David glanced at her briefly. "You'll find out soon enough." He stepped away. "All ready on set!" The words carried through the large space set up for the shoot, sending a ripple through everyone milling about.

"And here I thought you'd never be ready." Belle whipped around at the sound of the unfamiliar, accented voice as everyone around her fell into silence. The groups standing around parted, allowing her a view of the speaker.

He stepped through the crowd carefully, using his cane to push anything on the floor out of the way of his uneven gait. She wasn't quite sure what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the small older man with the shaggy graying hair. He was dressed impeccably, suit clearly expensive, tie perfectly knotted, matching square just barely peeking out of the pocket.

Belle had not been in the business long, but she was used to a director who wasn't afraid to get hands on with his actors, stepping into the scene to position arms and legs where he wanted them. King's clothes had been well-made but fairly casual. This man was clearly not the same sort. No one dressed in Armani stepped close to a sweaty, naked body.

As Gold stepped by her, Belle only had the impression of dark eyes and a hawkish gaze and then he looked past her. "I'm not one for pretty speeches. You know what to do. Get to it." The words were curt, to the point.

Belle cringed slightly when his gaze came back to settle on her. "You're my star?"

She tried not to be offended at the appraising look he gave her, his eyes strangely cold and intense. "I am." She pulled herself up taller. Standing in her ridiculously high heels as she was, she realized she was nearly the same height as their new director.

"You'll do." And then he turned away from her and she realized she could breathe again, that the air that felt like it had been sucked out of the room was suddenly rushing back in. A little light-headed, she took up her place for the first scene.

It was going to be a long day.