Page 121 of Little Deaths
“You’ll kill me?” he said dryly.
Donni moaned a non-answer.
Rafe tilted her face up with his hand. “I’m not going to be very easy to get rid of,” he said. “If you tried to come after me with a needle, I’m pretty sure I could stop you. Besides, you wouldn’t hurt me, would you? I’m your sweet giraffe.”
What?“Rafe,” she said. “I—”
“But I’m not very sweet, am I?” His hand slid down her back, over her ass, until he was gripping her between her legs. “I think I’m pretty fucking horrible, actually. And I think you like me that way. So what are a few little deaths between us when we have so much more?”
He squeezed and she had to grip his good shoulder as her knees threatened to give out.
“I’ve seen you at your worst and you’ve seen me at mine. We both know every dark secret the other has. So now,” he concluded grimly, “you won’t have to pretend for me, the way you did with my father. And I won’t have to spend my life ignoring the fact I want somebody else.”
Donni swayed once. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”
“Come back with me. To Portland. You’ll be able to see the river every morning from my bed when I’m fucking you in it.”
“Portland,” she repeated numbly, lips parting as his mouth crushed against hers.
“Come forever. Stay forever. You don’t even have to love me,” he added, in a curiously soft voice, “but I’d prefer it if you pretend you do.”
The surprisingly vulnerable words pierced her with the same aching sweetness that the way he looked into her eyes did when he pulled back to look at her with something that was nearly tender.
“I don’t need to pretend,” she said, sliding her fingers into his hair. “I have you.”
“Yes you do,” he breathed back. “You have me by the throat.”
MADISON HAWTHORNE
(Directed by Dolores Valencia; starring Adonica Blake and Jared Jones; 2019)
The erotic crime thriller series,Madison Hawthorne, hit streaming services today. The show, based offa book trilogyby author Rafael Nicastro, is about a down-on-her-luck biracial private investigator who is looking into a series of murders plaguing San Francisco’s kink community. Her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Russian ex-mobster-turned-artist, Nikolai Makarov, is her lover, tormentor, and chief antagonist of the series.
Nicastro, who co-wrote the script for the show, captures the breathless titillation of its ‘90s predecessors, likeExit to EdenorBasic Instincts. Hawthorne, played by Adonica Blake (Deadly Beautiful, Cleopatra’s Curse), manages to portray the jaded ennui of an ex-cop fed-up with internal corruption, and the vulnerability of a woman torn between safety and desire. In 2016, Nicastro revealedin an interviewthat Hawthorne was closely based off a woman who “was once in his life” and that writing her character was like “falling for her, and being betrayed by her all over again,” but he has refused to clarify his statements in subsequent interviews, which has onlyled to more speculationinto the heroine’s origins.
Jared Jones, who plays Makarov, steals every scene that he’s in. Like Hawthorne, the viewer is never really certain whether or not he’s the Scene Slayer picking off oblivious kinksters one by one, particularly during one chilling moment where it’s revealed that he has a similar fetish to the killer (hint: the pacing isn’t the only breathless thing in the series). But Jones refuses to take the entire credit for his acting skills. “The script is good,” says Jones. “Very good. And Ms. Blake is an exceptionally charming and beautiful woman. It’s easy to see why a jaded man like Makarov could fall for such an enigma.”
Madison Hawthorneis Blake’s first return to acting after a seventeen-year hiatus, when she left her career after facing public blowback for accusing former producer-director, Johnathan Steel, of rape. Seeing the forty-two-year-old actress shine in her starring role is testament to the power of #MeToo, and the appeal of a good comeback story.
-Barbara Hollitzer(Journey Entertainment Magazine, 2020)
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‘Move over, Makarov’—Madison Hawthorne mega star, Adonica Blake, announces engagement to series screenwriter, Rafael Nicastro
Viewers of the show were shocked whenMadison Hawthorne’sstar posted a picture of a vintage Art Deco engagement ring(find Art Deco jewelry near you)with a caption that said, “I said yes ♥♥♥”. While Blake and Nicastroare not the first coupleto tie the knot after working together, the shock stems primarily from the twelve-year age gap between them andsourcesconfirming that Blake was, at one point, Nicastro’s stepmother.
Nicastro, now 30, defends his relationship with Blake, saying, “She barely raised me. Which sounds terrible, but I was in and out of boarding schools for most of my life, and she always seemed more like a babysitter or a friend than a mother. It wasn’t until I was eighteen that I started to think of her as more than that, and I can say for a fact that she didn’t return my feelings then.”
When askedin an interviewif he felt emasculated by having an older partner, Nicastro got visibly angry. “I’m really very lucky,” he said. “She’s beautiful and sweet. And funny—very funny. We’ll be doing something and she’ll make a wry little comment under her breath and I’ll just laugh and laugh. I never used to laugh. My agent says I actually look like a human being when I pose for my book jackets now. That’s all her.
“She’ll kill me for telling you this, but I’m the dominant partner in our relationship. She’s a terrible cook and not very good at cleaning. But she’s fun and she tries to take care of people, even when she’s the one who needs taking care of. Everyone on the cast ofMadisoncan tell you a story about one of Donni’s recipe disasters, where she brought in something truly awful and then sat down to watch them eat it. If I didn’t do the cooking, I’m pretty sure she’d be eating olives out of a jar and washing them down with champagne.”
Blake, who has been considerably more taciturn about their May-December romance, said only, “I’ve never been loved by anyone the way he loves me. It would honestly be terrifying if I didn’t feel the same way. I remember readingWuthering Heightsin school and thinking, ‘What idiot would marry this man? He’s clearly insane.’ And then recently, when I was doing my makeup in the mirror, I thought about that, and realized, ‘It’s me. I’m the idiot. I married Heathcliff.’ And we clearly deserve each other, because I’ve never been happier.”
-Faye Walsh(Hollywood Now, 2020)
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