Pamela Anderson - Star Struck

Star nodded.

“One,” they said together, each peeling a finger from the railing as Jimi continued to film. “Two…” Another finger. “Three!”

With a scream and a wail the man fell from view, past the twenty stories of the hotel, down the cliffs and into the rocks hundreds of feet below. The crashing waves swept him out to sea.

Jimi filmed for a while, unable to think of anything else.

Star scanned nearby balconies to determine whether anyone had witnessed the photographer’s fall.

They looked at each other. Did anyone see? Did anyone hear? Dare they breathe?

And with that thought came a pounding on the door.

“Oh shit,” Star said.

“Get the tapes,” Jimi instructed as they dashed back into the room.

Star raked their videos into a pillowcase and knotted it.

More pounding.

She stepped awkwardly into a pair of bikini bottoms and barely grabbed the top while Jimi, clad only in a pair of jams and a tank, grabbed her hand and dragged her out onto the balcony.

As the knocking continued, they climbed the photographer’s rope ladder up to the roof and pulled it up behind them, just as the door to their room opened.

“Room service,” the maid called from the door. “Ay, dios mio.”

How did I get here? Star wondered as she looked around the harbor at Cannes. Dressed in formal black rubber, laced up the front, and cinched at the waist, she rode at the prow of a yacht the movie studio had hired to create her entrance at the film festival. She was excited about attending. She was excited about being in the movie. She’d read the script for Hy Voltz with Jimi and fallen in love with the idea of being an action hero. The studio had been amazing, putting everything together. It helped take away a little of the fear she felt about being catapulted up onto the big screen.

But that morning truly took her breath away.

To this almost too perfect small town on the ocean were added that morning the perfect mix of fluffy white clouds and sunshine, a gentle breeze, and hundreds, possibly thousands, of smaller boats dotting the harbor, each laden with photographers and video crews poised to capture the moment of Star’s arrival at that year’s film festival.

How had this happened?

She laughed as she waved at the well-wishers and paparazzi who bobbled in her wake. She looked up at Jimi, who sat next to the captain on the bridge, and shared a secret smile as if to confide a bit of her disbelief.

They exchanged a wary glance. Ever since Cabo they’d been looking over their shoulders. The body of the photographer who had fallen from their hotel balcony had washed ashore in Migrino, just up the Baja coast. There had been speculation about his death, but most thought he’d simply fallen scaling the cliffs in search of his prey. And it really was that simple, he had fallen. But Jimi and Star were a little paranoid about hiding out since their marriage had made them the targets of even more media attention. Plus, Jimi was being sued for missing the show, though insurance was covering it.

Their secret, not to mention their tormentors, had provided them with a common enemy. They became inseparable. So when Star had accepted the movie role and the promotional debut at Cannes, Jimi was right there at her side.

He grinned.

It was all the encouragement that she needed. She turned back to the crowds and the eyes of the world and waved. She could hear the shouts and cheers over the roar of the massive engines that powered her toward the red carpet that had been rolled out all the way down to the water’s very edge to receive her.

She felt a strange swelling inside, as though she might cry or run for cover. Perhaps it was joy or pride or ego or just fear or paranoia or a little bit of all of the above. She stood alone on the deck of a ship arriving in a city where she had never before been to promote a film that had not even been shot or, for that matter, even fully scripted. But here was the world waiting to welcome her, watching her every move. It was her they had come to see, and she knew it for sure for the first time that perfect morning, she just didn’t know why.

The weeks with Jimi leading up to Cannes had been a whirlwind. Like a honeymoon on crack. They had returned from Cabo to Jimi’s Malibu beachfront of a bachelor pad. The multimillion-dollar home was still only sparsely furnished with a few well-chosen pieces and some art. Warhol’s pink camouflage hung above the bed, which was just a mattress on the floor, albeit a really, really nice mattress. A bedsheet partially covered the plate-glass window with the money-shot view of the golden sands of Malibu.

“Were you robbed?” Star asked warily as she regarded the interior of their new home. “The morons. Isn’t that a Warhol?”

Jimi laughed, sluicing through the art and architecture books. “When my ex-girlfriend left, I told her to take what she wanted, and she wanted a lot. I just haven’t gotten around to it. But, this way we can make it our own. It won’t be like you’re moving into my place, it’ll really be ours.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Star said, realizing how little she knew about this man. “It’s my favorite Warhol ever.”

“Then I must have bought it for you,” he said quietly. And then, “Oh, dude!” he exclaimed suddenly, striking himself on the forehead. “I totally spaced on this one.” Without further explanation or intimation, he dragged Star out the front door, swept her into his arms, and carried her, not only across the threshold but back up the stairs and to the mattress by the window in his bedroom.

As they tore the sheets from the window, the magic of sunset poured into the room, and the spartan surroundings were forgotten as the forces of their need for each other once again overpowered them.

He couldn’t get inside her fast enough.

“Oh, hell, yeah.” Jimi heaved, driving himself inside her. It had been all the time since the hotel room in Cabo that they’d had their last fix, and both were glad the wait was over.

Star clawed at his back, matching his urgency as she tore at him.

It was beautiful, efficient sex, and both were taken care of more than once before the sun slipped below the horizon. If true love is when you come at the same time, this was it always.

Jimi fell away and they lay gasping, bathed in sweat and the pinkish gray twilight that spilled up from the ocean below and poured over the room through the massive unmasked window.

“I do love a good sunset,” Star sighed contentedly.

She awoke to the harsh glare of morning from the unshaded window.

She clasped the sheet around her as she arose and then giggled as she realized what she was doing. In truth, it was stranger for the pair to be dressed in each other’s company than nude.

Laughing, she cast the sheet aside and bounded out of bed to find her husband. As she padded down the second-floor landing, which was in effect the upstairs hallway, she heard Jimi singing the lyrics to “Rapper’s Delight.”

Following the sound of his voice, Star walked naked through several expansive but otherwise unidentifiable empty rooms.

She sang back to him, joining in the words to the song.

“In here, honey pie,” his voice came from behind a pair of double swinging doors.

She smiled as she passed through the mahogany doors and into a vast commercial-scaled kitchen, all stainless steel and black tile. At the far side, bent over a range larger than the one they had back at Mother Pearl’s, was her new husband.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she made her way around the archipelago of utility islands that dotted the unfathomable interior of the immense room. “And what’s with this room? Will we be shooting a cooking show or are we opening a cafeteria?”