10
“I THINK I SHOULD record an album,” Keisha blurted out of the clear blue.
Pablo nearly spit out his protein shake. “What?”
“Come on, let’s be real. JLo was really created by glam gurus, auto-tune, and Benny Medina. Who’s really the brain behind the beauty? All you need these days is a brilliant producer to become a star.”
“P.S. She can actually sing.”
“Madonna can’t and look at her. With Andy Levenkron behind me, I can do whatever I want. He’ll make sure of it. He’s made oodles of popstars.”
“Isn’t it enough to have a hit television show and be one of the world’s most gorgeous women?” Pablo tried not to roll his eyes. “Far more beautiful than JLo, Beyoncé and Madonna combined, I might add.”
“I wanna be more than my looks, Mr. Pablo.” He cringed as her voice shifted into what he now thought of as, scary child’s voice. “You know that.”
“But you can’t sing.”
“Details, details. Did you even hear what I’m saying? Andy will take care of everything.”
Season two was already gearing up. They’d just finished four open calls and assessed thousands of models, picked the semi-finalists, planned the creatives, and were about to start filming. Pablo was already tired and he knew that no matter what, he was going to get sucked into the Keishavision vortex and have to help her become a popstar—on top of his regular workload. De La Renta wasn’t going to have to dye his hair grey for much longer; he’d be natural grey if this pace kept up.
The Supermodel had already given the go-ahead to her new—I can do no wrong—talent manager to pull together the ultimate dream team to make Keisha Kash America’s next top recording artist. Andy hired the best songwriters, the hottest Hip-Hop record producer, and Celine Dion’s own voice coach, a Cherokee dude with a long ponytail and pained expression on his formerly kind face. He only lasted one day before having a Celine Dion emergency and flying to Canada. Clearly, he could only feel safe from Keisha’s voice if he was in another country. As an A-list celebrity, no one dared tell Keisha that her voice sucked, especially when she was trying to become a musical popstar.
Keisha didn’t care. “He taught me so much that first day, I don’t need any more lessons.” She smiled at her BFF. “Besides, you can sing. You can coach me if I need it.”
Pablo tried to look pleased with the idea.
At the first recording session, Keisha wailed into the microphone so loudly that the sound engineer had to remove his headphones. He looked over at Pablo and whispered, “Are you kidding me?”
Pablo headed into the sound booth.
“How was that?” She smiled gleefully at him. “I’m digging this whole set up. It’s so dark and cool.”
“Keisha, fiercest icon of the world...” Pablo began.
“Did we get it in one take, or should I go again?”
“Keisha.” Pablo swallowed hard. “You can’t sing.”
“I just did.”
“No, what I mean is, you can’t carry a tune. You’re just a touch tone-deaf.”
“I’m black! We can all sing.”
“Well, evidently, you’re not black enough. And I say this with love, my goddess of the catwalk, you’re no Beyoncé. You’ll be a laughingstock if you release this track.”
“Excuse me?” She hissed at him. “You used to be so supportive, but lately, you’ve gotten really difficult and petty.”
“I’m trying to help you avoid embarrassment,” Pablo said earnestly.
“You’re just jealous.”
He looked at her in shock.
“Why don’t you try singing something?” she dared him.
Nothing got by that Venus flytrap of a brain of hers. From the glint in her million-dollar eyes, Pablo suddenly realized that every little detail of his life scooped out over those all-night ice cream binging orgies had been filed away for her use later. He hadn’t known back then that his confides would be the fodder used against him at some random later date. Now, he wondered what else he’d told her over the past two years when they were just Babes in Arms. Though his dream of being a singer when he was a spotty faced, awkward teenager shouldn’t have been ammunition—what teenager hadn’t wanted to be a singer in a band? He turned toward the mic and called her bluff.
Swaying his hips back and forth, he did a little salsa and serenaded the most beautiful woman in the world. “Yo, soy el cantante…” He sang in Spanish as Keisha frolicked around him, pretending to be a flamenco dancer. Of course, the song had a salsa beat. He watched her and smiled sweetly. She so wanted to be more than her looks. But she couldn’t sing, though. She couldn’t dance either.
Was that why they were in this recording studio now? Pablo felt a strange coolness sweep through his body. It hadn’t occurred to him before that she was usurping his own talents and claiming them as her own. She’d adopted his hashtag gesture and made it her own, borrowed almost all of his catchphrases and made them famous on Model Muse, and now she was trying to sing.
He returned to the engineer’s studio and shrugged. “You’ll have to fix it in the mix.”
* * *
“So, Andy had a great idea, Mr. Joe.” They were in their last pre-production meeting before filming began on season two, planning the teaches, challenges, and photoshoot themes. “We’re gonna release my new single with a music video and use the models as back-up dancers. Mr. Pablo will come up with the treatment and direct, and maybe get someone from Dancing With The Stars to choreograph.”
Pablo nodded obediently, knowing better than to object to anything his BFF says publicly.
“This is not part of our production schedule, Miss Kash.” Joe Vong politely argued. “I don’t see how we have time for this, and there’s no budget for a choreographer or an expensive location shoot.”
“Mr. Joe, I think you’re gonna have to make it happen.” She aimed her finger at him and pressed an imaginary trigger with her thumb a few times. “Don’t you?”
“Broyce will have to okay it.”
“You’ll have to make sure he does. Remember, you’re mine now, Mr. Joe. And you don’t wanna learn what I’m really capable of—you owe me.” She blew on her finger and turned to Pablo. “Make him go away now, Mr. Pablo.”
Pablo opened the door for Vong and shut it behind him.
Keisha had gotten a pair of brass balls—Andy Levenkron’s, to be exact. Her new talent manager was working overtime to give his Model Muse star a branding makeover. What Keisha wanted, Andy got. Period. No one crossed him. And with his power behind her, she knew she could place Vong’s testicles in a vise and squeeze until he was her pawn. It may be cliché to say that Hollywood managers are all crooked and unethical but in the case of Andy Levenkron, that was an understatement. Slimy and devious were Andy’s most positive attributes. He shrewdly used his high-powered connections to keep his more debaucherous escapades out of the press and himself out of hot water, but Andy was always on the cusp of another public sex scandal. He was the “golden child” of managers because he was ruthless. “I’m the best in the business because no one dares fuck with me,” he often spouted. True enough, Hollywood can be a pretty shitty place, especially for those who find themselves in a position where powerful people like slimy Andy don’t think twice about asserting control over them to get what they need. Thinking about his incident with cocky Mason, Pablo wondered, Why do abusers always win the power struggle…while the abused fall into silent defeat?
Girls Are The World, Keisha’s debut single was to be released to coincide with the airing of the 5th episode of season two’s Model Muse. On top of everything else Pablo had on his plate, he now had to produce the music video–a task which normally took months. It was to be used in the judging elimination segment. He would have forty-eight hours to shoot the video and have it perfected for the judges to evaluate. Keisha refused to have them review a rough-cut, even though production could easily edit in a polished final version for the episodic airing months later. Nope. Keisha wanted everyone to see the final product at the judging, which only gave Pablo two days to shoot the contestants with Keisha and turn around a perfect product. When had his Supermodel boss become so unreasonable, or had she always been this way and he’d just never noticed?
* * *
A burned-out Pablo leaned his head on De La Renta’s shoulder. Next to them, sitting in video village watching Keisha introduce her music video, were Joe and Andy. Keisha had given strict orders for none of the judges, or crew, to hear the song or see the video before her onscreen moment. Always the teacher’s pet, Mason had a pleasant look on his face. For once, Miss Thing and Sasha sat patiently waiting; of course, Sasha was drunk. The guest judge for the episode was Derek Hough from DWTS–who’d choreographed the video. Though a complete professional who embodied cool, Derek was nibbling on the quicks of his fingernails.
“Who knew he had an oral fixation,” De La Renta quipped.
“I cannot tell you how nervous I am right now. My legs are literally shaking because this is the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever done.” Keisha addressed the eight contestants who’d participated in her music video. “This week you had a very special photoshoot. You performed in my first ever music video.”
Sasha turned to Miss Thing, silently opened her mouth and stuck her finger down her throat in a mock gag. Pablo wondered if any of the cameras had caught her and hoped for her sake they hadn’t. Keisha wouldn’t like being made fun of, even if it was going on the cutting room floor.
“After nine years of secretly working in music studios around the globe, it’s time to present the world premiere of my first music single, Girls Are The World!”
“She means nine minutes,” De La Renta cracked.
The jib swung across the soundstage and pulled out to a wide shot revealing Keisha, the judges and all the contestants directing their attention to the huge LED wall above the runway. Per Keisha’s direction, an old-fashioned white circle with black numbers doing a silent countdown and the background sound effect of crackling static filled the room.
3…2…1…
FADE FROM BLACK: Keisha in an all-white catsuit is riding a black horse past barrel drums on fire. A post-apocalyptic vibe à la Mad Max.
Joe instantly snatched Pablo from his seat and dragged him through the nearby soundstage door, where Andy was already standing in the hall. “OK, Keisha didn’t want me on set while she shot her video–fine.” Joe was more ballistic than normal. “But explain to me why the word ‘girls’ is being repeated every four beats—this all sounds and looks very familiar. Even to me. If Beyoncé sues us, it’s on your heads. Not the network’s.”
“Calm down, Vong.” Andy shook his head. “Artists are always getting inspiration from other artists–look at Taylor Swift, she totally knocked off Beyoncé’s Homecoming performance once. They all hail the queen.”
“Fuck! I knew it,” Joe screamed. “This is a blatant rip off of Beyoncé, isn’t it?”
“Listen, Kim Vong-un…”
“What the fuck did you just call me?”
Unbothered, Andy continued without addressing the racist slur. “Beyoncé’s Run The World (Girls) isn’t even close to Keisha’s Girls Are The World.”
“Can I just jump in here and say…” Pablo was saying, as both irate men ignored him and continued yelling.
“Pablo worked with Keisha on this. We’ve changed enough details to avoid any first glance comparisons.”
“What are you talking about?” Joe’s face was solid red now, “I don’t know fucking shit about these pop singers and even I noticed. Beyoncé fans are gonna crucify us when this airs.”
“You’re overreacting, Joe.”
Pablo was too tired to jump in and didn’t understand why he was dragged into the hall in the first place, if they were just going to ignore him. He was just a soldier, not a general, and certainly not the President of this shitshow. He’d had enough and slipped back into the soundstage.
“If we get a Cease and Desist letter from Beyoncé’s team, I’m gonna make sure—”
The soundproof door clicked shut.
Pablo now watched as the scenes on the LED screen continued to play out exactly as Keisha had requested, with the model contestants acting as her army of power women taking on the masculine world. Keisha had several wardrobe changes that were all carefully designed to look just like all of Beyoncé’s outfits. Her wheat gold hair flowed long with a tasseled wave, expertly styled.
“You know how long that wig took me to make?” De La Renta leaned into Pablo and asked. “Too fucking long. That’s how long. That piece was a bitch to color! She had me match highlights and lowlights so her Queen Bey wig looked authentic.” De La Renta, whose hairstyle changed almost daily, began playing with his now short Senegalese twists in frustration. “But I’m hitting production with overtime. Trust.” Being the youngest child of seven, the hair guru was raised by his grandmother in Atlanta. She was a loud, say-it-like-it-is kind of woman, and he inherited her mouth.
Pablo had used bright beauty ring lighting and only noticed now that he inadvertently made Keisha’s complexion appear lighter than usual. She really did look like Beyoncé in a few of the wide shots. The similarities were worrying. What would the fans on social media say when the episode finally aired?
The video ended with Keisha gyrating in a green sequin and chiffon dress, with a dangerously revealing diagonal slit over her breasts. She punched a male dancer standing in front of her on the last downbeat, and with the whip of De La Renta’s custom sewn wig, she turned her back on the camera and sashayed away.
FADE TO BLACK.
Mason, Miss Thing and Sasha sat frozen in time. The Model Muse cameras pushed in for closeups. Keisha had tears in her eyes. The others? Well, they had tears of a different sort.
“Before we evaluate all your individual performances, I just wanna say, I’ll never forget the eight of you who will forever be a part of my dream. Hashtag,” she crossed her fingers, “bonded for life.” The Supermodel dabbed the corners of her eyes as the camera pushed tight.
“And, that’s a cut everybody,” Bill yelled. “Quick change on batteries and let’s repos for evaluations. This isn’t a break people. Keep comments for the cameras. No talking.”
“Bravo, Keisha,” Mason proffered while politely clapping. “You sounded fantastic.”
“Oh, you’re so sweet,” Keisha bashfully sat down next to the handsome Brit, “but no talking. Wait till we’re back up.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Miss Thing fired across Mason’s bow. “Canines in New Jersey could hear that auto-tune. Beyon-say-you-Betta-don’t.”
Keisha turned towards her model coach, the man who’d given her, her signature walk and in essence made her who she was today. If her eyes could shoot bullets, he’d have been a dead man.
Pablo didn’t dare get up from the safety of his seat on the sidelines.
“I bet Beyoncé wished she had that beat Keisha.” Sasha jumped in.
“Why, thank you, Sasha,” Keisha interrupted and smiled. “Us girls need to stick together.” She stuck her tongue out at Miss Thing and closed her eyes as De La Renta stepped in to touch up her makeup.
Sasha whispered in Miss Thing’s ear, but her audio was still being transmitted to all the production crew’s headsets—including Pablo’s. “She gotta certain beat all right. Did you see her ass jiggling in those outfits? Looked like two pigs fighting under a blanket.”
Hearing them on their mics, Pablo accidentally swallowed the mint Mentos he was sucking on and began to sputter and choke.
“God don’t like ugly,” Keisha said, her eyes still shut as De La Renta applied more liner. Maybe she did possess magical powers?
“Places everyone,” the AD yelled. “We’re back in 3, 2, 1.”
“What’s our criteria for judging the models?” Miss Thing asked. “I mean they were barely onscreen. It was all Keisha.”
The silence in the studio was deadly. By now Pablo had figured out how most things worked on the show and in post—the hours of footage that they’d shot were organized into some semblance of order, and the real story was crafted. It didn’t matter what the cameras shot; the show was made in editing. Flipping coverage between the different camera angles the editors created the “moments” Keisha wanted on TV. The rest was garbage. No gag reel. Nothing.
When season one hit the airwaves, a harsh lesson was learned. Keisha had hoovered up all of Pablo’s good lines, adopted his hashtag gesture, and he noticed that she now tilted her head like he did when he was talking to the models. The most talented person on the show, full of hilarious impersonations and witty one-liners, Miss Thing got slashed and burned in the editing room. Keisha degraded the cross-dressing runway coach to a babbling buffoon and ensured nothing of real substance came out of his mouth. There was only one star of Model Muse, and that star was Keisha Kash. No one else.
* * *
Keisha got an evil little glint in her amber eyes that spelled trouble. The kind of trouble the network would love. “Get some male models to surprise the girls,” she told Pablo.
“What do you have up your sleeve?”
“I thought we could stir things up. Models aren’t nuns, you know.”
That was for sure, Pablo thought. He’d spent his entire 24-hours in South Beach looking at venues for the open call, while she got her “toes” tickled.
“And tell The Wine Barn to send over a case of red and white.”
“How about I get us some product placement, and fund this party for free?” He called the marketing department of Interboro, an alcoholic drink that packed a punch. By the time he’d gotten off the phone, they were committed to delivering four cases—two to the models’ apartment on Canal street and two to Silvercup for the wrap party in a few weeks.
“That’s what I like about you, Pablo—you’re so thoughtful and always thinking ahead.”
“A drunk crew is a happy crew.” He hoped she’d heard him.
“Oh, and make sure the boys are willing to get naked too,” she added.
Season two’s models were housed in an actual apartment rather than a hotel like they’d been in season one. It was thoroughly rigged with cameras and microphones—like the CIA, only more fun. Almost every night after work, Keisha and Pablo would retire to Keisha’s couch, with a pint of ice cream apiece, and watch their own private reality show—unedited. So they could see the live feed from the apartment as five gorgeous hunks arrived carrying two cases of Interboro, followed by two Steadicam operators.
“Hey, girls!” Sexy Guy #1 said, “Keisha’s really proud of all the hard work you’ve done over the past few weeks and sent some refreshments.”
“OMG. Party!” the models’ screeched.
“Why do girls squeal?” Pablo plugged his ears and turned to Keisha. “It’s really annoying.”
Sexy Dude #2 opened a can and handed it to one of the girls. Keisha smiled and leaned back to watch the shenanigans she’d set up. And there were shenanigans. One of the girls put on Spotify as their hunks—permission to strip approved—began handing out instant mixed drinks. Music blared. Another girl began dancing and the rest joined in, showing off their back-up moves from the music video. “OMG, we had to listen to Keisha’s track over and over. It was the worst song ever,” someone blurted. Another girl caught her eye. She shut up.
Pablo looked over at Keisha to see if she had heard the reproach. She stabbed her ice cream.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sexy Guy #4 asked the one girl who seemed to be holding back.
“I’m just homesick.”
“You’re not from New York?”
“I haven’t even seen the city. All we do is go back and forth to different studios where we may have to sit in a closet and not speak to each other, or we’re locked in here or driving around Manhattan in a stretched Hummer.”
“Shit.” He drank some of his Interboro Gin & Tonic. “I love your accent. Where’re you from?”
“North Carolina, where thanks is a three-syllable word. You from here?”
“Chicago.”
“What do you do for a living?”
He looked at her and puffed up his chest. “I mostly work fancy catered events where they want model type waiters, but I’ve been shot for GQ and recently did a spread in Vogue with Gisele Bündchen.”
“You model?”
“Don’t sound so shocked.” He handed her another G&T. “Erik.”
“Mandy.”
“Come on, Mandy. Let’s go out on the balcony. It’s too loud in here.”
As they trailed away from the camera, Keisha looked over at Pablo and winked. “Love at first sight.”
The party was getting raucous now and most of the guys had pulled off their shirts. The girls were stripping off their layers too.
“What a bunch of sluts.” Keisha laughed hysterically.
“Hey, where’d Mandy go?” one of the girls shouted as she grabbed Sexy Guy #1’s belt buckle and pulled him toward her. “She’s missing all the fun!”
The Steadicam began moving down the hallway to the rooms of the girls. One or two were making out, but no Mandy. He turned left down the hall.
“Ohh…Baabeee,” a southern voice moaned.
“Fuck, you’re hot,” Erik said.
The bathroom door was slightly ajar. The cameraman pushed it open and there in the shower, behind a steamy clear vinyl curtain, were some very fine male buttocks thrusting between some very pale, long legs wrapped around his waist.
Pablo burst out laughing.
“Mandy?” Keisha dropped her ice cream and screamed. “She wasn’t supposed to fuck the guy.”
“They aren’t nuns! You said so yourself.”
“They shouldn’t be sluts.”
“Since when?” Pablo rolled across the couch, laughing so hard tears squirted out of his eyes. “Models shouldn’t be sluts?” He roared. “You’re the queen of the booty call.”
“Stop laughing,” she ordered.
Of course, that didn’t work. He couldn’t. The more she glared at him and threatened him if he didn’t stop, the worse it got. He laughed so hard he snorted. Waves of laughter cascaded through his body—he hadn’t laughed so hard since he was a kid.
“What do I do?” the camera operator said into his IFB.
“Bust them up,” Keisha screamed.
“Poor kid. She just needs to let off some steam.” Pablo burst out laughing again. “And that shower is certainly steamy.” It took five minutes to get himself under control and even then, all Keisha had to do was look at him and he would start laughing all over again.
Over the live feed, Mandy’s southern charm vanished and she sounded Hillbilly distinctly. “What the hell?”
“Hey, that’s not cool, dude.” Erik grabbed a towel and, like a true gentleman, wrapped it around himself, leaving naked Mandy to fend for herself.
“I gotta hand it to you, Keisha, this is gonna make great television,” Joe Vong said over his IFB.
Keisha made a little told-you-so face at Pablo, who’d finally recovered some composure. His sides ached.
Keisha looked like a stern housemother. “I’m gonna teach that girl and all girls on my show a lesson they will never forget.”
“Be afraid. Be very afraid.” Pablo wiped his eyes.
The next morning, Keisha ordered the Steadicams to follow her into the girls’ apartment at 8 a.m. The contestants had an afternoon call time and looked not entirely Model Muse worthy. They welcomed their Supermodel with a little less glee than they had on the first episode.
“Where’s Mandy?”
Mandy came out of her bedroom in her bathrobe. Her eyes had dark circles under them.
“You went to sleep with your makeup on?” Keisha sounded more horrified at that than the indiscriminate sex. “Models always take their makeup off at the end of the day. True beauty is not skin deep.”
Pablo thought of Vinny and the makeup Keisha had slept in every night to make him happy.
“But that’s not why I’m here. We need to talk.” Keisha pointed to the rest of the girls. “This is between Mandy and me. Go to your rooms.” Like a flock of chickens, the models scurried away. Keisha sat down on the couch and patted the spot next to her. “As I said, we need to talk.” The camera zoomed in on Keisha’s perfect face. “About being sexually responsible.” Mandy’s face was crimson red. “Did he wear a condom last night?”
Mandy began crying and shaking her head; she whimpered a “No.”
“Are you on the pill?”
“No.”
Keisha shook her head back and forth. “What were you thinking, girl?”
“I dunno.”
“I do. You weren’t thinking. We don’t know anything about that guy. He could’ve had any number of STDs, Syphilis or Gonorrhea perhaps. This is New York City, Mandy, you can’t just get laid by any old random stranger.”
“You sent him over.”
“Cut that.” Keisha looked at the cameraman and slashed her throat. “Let’s be clear—I sent some refreshments to you girls after a hard day’s work. That’s it.”
Hanging in the back, behind the camera, Pablo nearly choked. It was so not true.
“I’ve made an appointment for you to go see a gynecologist. You’re gonna get a blood test and pap smear, and test for STDs. You’re also getting the Morning-After pill.”
Mandy began sobbing. “I’m sorry. I was just so lonely.”
“How else are you gonna learn? As a Supermodel, your body is a temple. You have to take care of it.” Keisha was on a Mother Teresa roll now. “That means eating the right food. Never eating sugar. And make sure you’re healthy.”
“What if I test positive?”
“I’ll have to send you home.”
Mandy bawled.
Keisha looked at her coldly. “I thought you were homesick.” She signaled to the camera crew. “To the doctor’s office.”
Joe Vong leaned over to Pablo and whispered, “The ratings are gonna explode from this episode.”
“You can’t follow her to the doctor for a gynecological exam,” Pablo said.
“Watch me.”
Of course, most of the saga was cut by the Network censors—Model Muse wasn’t supposed to be more than soft porn, and it was certainly not a doctor show. But Keisha and Joe got enough of the story in the final edit so that Mandy and her nice Baptist family in Morganton, North Carolina, were embarrassed on national television. It was the ratings spike that solidified Model Muse as the reality show to watch.
* * *
At around 3 a.m. Pablo’s phone started buzzing on his bedside table. The new screenshot that lit up his screen featured Pablo and Keisha posing against some rocks and sand in South Beach–he looked buff in his Tom Ford swim trunks and she looked like an overstuffed mango in a strapless, orange one-piece. Pablo was proud of how he looked though, and that’s why he chose this new pic of them for her contact photo.
“What.” His voice was hoarse from long days on the set and lack of sleep.
“I’m late.”
“For what? It’s 3 a.m.”
“My period.”
His head fell back on his pillow with a thump. “You couldn’t tell me that at breakfast?”
“I need you to get me a pregnancy test.”
“Me?”
“Get a couple. Different brands.”
“In the morning.”
“Now.”
“Keisha, I’m not gonna get up and try to find an all-night pharmacy so you can do something now that you can do just as easily in a few hours. Go to sleep.” And then for the first time in his life, he hung up on her.
His phone buzzed. He groaned. Answered. “No.”
“Please.” Her tone slipped up a few octaves into her high pitched little girl voice. “Please, Mr. Pablo.”
“Ugh, are you worried about T-Rex or South Beach?”
“South Beach.”
“You’re telling me you didn’t use a condom?”
“No,” she whimpered.
“And you’re not on birth control?”
“No.”
“What were you thinking?” He repeated the lines she’d used on Mandy. “I know, you weren’t thinking.”
“You don’t tell a star football player to wear a condom, Pablo.”
“I wouldn’t know. I was looking at venues for an open casting call—for your show.”
“Will you go now?”
“No. I’m going to sleep. Tomorrow morning I’ll swing by Rite Aid and grab you a couple brands and bring them by. It’s a few hours, just try to relax.”
“I can’t…”
“I’m turning my phone off, Keisha. Good night.” And then, he did exactly what he said he was going to do. He turned off his iPhone and fell back on his mattress. For a moment, he thought he would never get back to sleep. A few hours later, he woke to sunlight on his face. If I left my phone off every night, he thought, I might actually achieve some REM sleep. He hadn’t dreamt in so long. He’d forgotten how good it felt to be swept away and truly slumber.