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Marvin reached across the table and rested a reassuring hand over hers. "What else did the assistant say to you?" Marvin asked, his voice dropping into a cold, protective register that seemed to lower the temperature of the entire booth.
Scarlett sniffled, wiping at her eye with the back of her hand, leaving a faint pink mark on her cheek. "He said that if I really want to secure this role, I have to prove I am willing to work harder than ordinary people," she sniffled, her voice cracking. "He handed me a card with his personal hotel phone number. He said that if I need private 'role guidance' tonight, I can contact him at any time. He promised that as long as he was satisfied with my dedication, he would put in a good word for me with the director."
Marvin felt a surge of cold anger tighten his jaw, his fingers curling into a fist on the table. The assistant wasn't offering advice. He was exploiting the imbalance of power, dangling a role in front of a fifteen-year-old girl and making her feel as though her future depended on pleasing the right people. It was an old trick, dressed up in polite words and professional smiles.
Hollywood liked to tell itself it had changed.
Yet people like him still found ways to hide behind titles, connections, and promises.
The hypocrisy of the industry amused Marvin in a twisted way.
The irony wasn't lost on Marvin.
One day, critics and moral watchdogs would probably look at the unusual circle of women around him and judge him without hesitation and label him a monster. They would assume they understood him after seeing only the surface. But Marvin understood the fundamental difference.
Isn't Marvin like this himself? In fact, he is worse in some ways. Hey, he's not even human, in the first place!
He was an Incubus. He dealt in consent, mutual pleasure, and the total elevation of the women in his circle. He shielded them from the rot of the world.
And he was raising them so they could bloom into proper, beautiful individual flowers—free from the mental burdens they had inherited from their parents—healing their psychology, minds, hearts, bodies, and souls, and giving them more freedom than they might ever have had in the flawed timeline, nurturing their careers.
So, they gave him all their passion.
The men running Hollywood were simply beasts in cheap suits, exploiting desperation.
Marvin reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out his phone, ready to make a call that would end the assistant's career before the sun set—one word to the right producer, one whispered truth about the man's habits, and he would be finished.
But then he paused.
He looked at Scarlett more carefully.
Something wasn't right.
Her eyes were a little too watery. The corners of her mouth kept twitching upward whenever she thought he wasn't looking. Even the little quiver in her lip repeated with suspicious consistency, like she was hitting the same beat every time.
Marvin slowly lowered the phone onto the table.
A grin spread across his face. "Scarlett..." He leaned back against the booth and folded his arms. "You can drop the performance now."
She blinked innocently. "What performance?"
"The one you're very proud of."
"...I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You almost sold it."
"Almost?"
"The left corner of your mouth gave you away."
Scarlett held the serious expression for exactly three more seconds. Then she burst out laughing. "Oh, come on!"
She threw her hands into the air.
"That was so good!"
"I had the shaky voice!"
"I even made my eyes water!"
"You did."
Marvin nodded.
"It was convincing."
She pointed at him.
"You believed me!"
"For about ten seconds."
"I'll take ten."
She leaned back with a smug grin.
"That's, like, a personal best. You caught that way too fast," Scarlett laughed, She clapped her hands together in mock applause. "You are worthy of the hype, Marvin. You grabbed your phone so fast. Who were you going to call? Were you getting ready to ruin someone's life for me?"
Marvin shook his head, laughing. "You were seconds away from making me start calling people."
Scarlett's eyebrows shot up. "Seriously?"
"Seriously."
"Of course! Seriously, is that even a question?" Marvin admitted easily, spreading his hands. "I was going to make sure that assistant never worked in entertainment again. I had three different producers in my contacts who owe me favors, and I was going to call all of them."
"Oh my God," Scarlett said, her eyes widening with genuine delight. "You were going to go full Godfather on him. 'Leave the gun, take the cannoli.' That's... that's actually really sweet. In a terrifying, mafia-adjacent way."
"I prefer to think of it as efficient."
"Okay, okay, let me give you the honest version," Scarlett said, stealing a cherry from the top of her milkshake and popping it into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully, her eyes dancing. "The casting director did say I grew up a little too fast for the part. She said there was another actress named Anne Hathaway who had the advantage over me for the innocent look. And yes, the assistant really did try to hand me his hotel room key and trick me into a 'private rehearsal.' But I'm from New York. I know a creep when I see one. I took his card, looked at it, looked at him, and then dropped it in the trash can right in front of him while maintaining eye contact. Then I walked out."
"Good," Marvin said, the tension leaving his shoulders in a rush. "Though next time, maybe don't toy with the guy who has anger issues on your behalf?"
"Where's the fun in that?" she asked, her grin wicked. "Besides, I wanted to see if you could tell. I'm practicing my crying on cue. Robert Redford said my tears were 'technically proficient but emotionally distant' on *The Horse Whisperer*. I've been working on it."
"They were convincing," Marvin admitted. "I was ready to break kneecaps."
"The only thing that actually makes me angry," Scarlett continued, pointing her spoon at him with mock severity, "is that this woman named Anne is two years older than me! She came in to compete for the role of a little girl, and I was the one who got eliminated for looking too mature. The math makes no sense. I did the math in my head while I was walking out. She's seventeen. I'm fifteen. She's got two years of 'mature' on me, yet somehow she's the innocent one? Hollywood is a logic puzzle with no solution."
"Hollywood math rarely does make sense," Marvin noted, flagging down a waitress and ordering a vanilla malt. "It's quantum physics for egos. Anne Hathaway is very talented, though. You'd like her. She probably feels just as weird about playing younger."
"I don't want to like her. I want to competitively resent her in a healthy, career-motivated way," Scarlett said, then sighed. "But fine. I'll begrudgingly respect her. From a distance."
"But I don't hate Bonnie, the casting director," Scarlett said, her tone softening, shrugging her shoulders. "Even though her assistant is garbage, she was actually very complimentary during the read. She said she could introduce me to another director working on an indie movie adapted from a comic book. I think it was called *Ghost World*."
"That is a strong script," Marvin said, recognizing the title, his eyes lighting up. "Daniel Clowes. It's perfect for you. Enid is the role you were born to play—sarcastic, cynical, secretly vulnerable, wearing vintage clothes and making fun of everyone."
"You think so?" Scarlett asked, perking up, her spoon pausing mid-stir.
"I know so. You'd bring a pathos to Enid that the character needs. The comic is funny, but it's also deeply sad. You can do both. You can do the laugh and the ache in the same breath."
Scarlett smiled, her eyes searching his face with an intensity that made the air between them thicken. "I still remember our agreement from the set of *The Horse Whisperer*. You promised that if I ever run out of good scripts, you would tailor one specifically for me. Does that offer still stand?"
"The offer is permanent," Marvin agreed, his voice dropping to that register that made her skin hum. "It's written in stone. Or rather, in fountain pen on bond paper. When you're ready—when you want a character that fits you like a glove, that shows the world what you can really do—I'll write it. A Scarlett Johansson vehicle, designed to win you every award."
"And you'll direct it?" she asked, leaning forward, her chin resting on her hands.
"If you want me to."
"I want you to," she said simply. "I trust your eye. You see things in people they don't see in themselves."
She reached across the table, her hand finding his again, their fingers intertwining under the neon glow of the dessert shop lights. Her skin was warm, slightly sticky from the milkshake, but firm. "I know how the bad elements of this industry operate, Marvin," she said softly, her bravado softening into genuine, warm affection. "I have been navigating these audition rooms longer than you have. I won't let them fool me."
Marvin turned his hand over, lacing his fingers through hers, his thumb tracing circles on her palm. "I know you won't. But you also don't have to fight them alone. You have me. You have... resources. A safety net."
"Is that what you are?" she teased, her eyes sparkling. "My safety net?"
"I'm your trampoline," he corrected, smiling. "Safety nets catch you. Trampolines launch you higher."
"I like that," she said, laughing. "You're very... bouncy."
"Terrible joke."
"You're terrible," she countered, but she didn't let go of his hand.
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, the afternoon bleeding into evening outside the window, the golden light turning rose-colored. Scarlett leaned into the conversation, her sharp wit matching his quiet confidence, finding the sanctuary she always felt in his presence—the sense that here, with him, she didn't have to perform, didn't have to be the tough New York kid or the precocious actress. She could just be Scarlett, fifteen and uncertain and hopeful.
"Hey," she said suddenly, her eyes lighting up with mischief. "Want to split a piece of pie? They have key lime. It's very tart. Like my personality."
"Like your personality," he agreed. "But you're sweeter than you pretend."
"Don't tell anyone," she whispered, leaning across the table conspiratorially. "I have a reputation to maintain."
"Your secret is safe with me," Marvin promised, and when the pie came—two forks, one plate, the green filling tart and creamy—they ate from opposite sides, meeting in the middle, laughing when their forks clinked together, the sound like a toast to whatever came next.
Outside, Central Park rustled with autumn promise, and inside the booth, two young people who were more than they appeared shared dessert and dreams, the afternoon stretching into a perfect, endless golden hour.
---
Later that evening, streetlights illuminated the Queens skyline. Marvin sat in the back of his rented town car after dropping Scarlett off at her hotel after a lovely date.
He pulled his phone from his jacket and dialed a private number.
The phone rang twice before a familiar laugh echoed through the receiver.
"Haha! Hello, Marvin," Tom Cruise answered, energy radiating through the line. "Why call me so suddenly on a rest day?"
"Hello, Tommy," Marvin replied, watching the passing traffic. "I need your help with a minor casting issue. I hear you have a strong relationship with the executives at Paramount."
"Yes, an excellent working relationship with Sherry Lansing, the studio president," Tom confirmed. "What do you need? If you have a problem over there, I can fix it."
The rumor in Hollywood was that Tom Cruise practically ran Paramount, acting as a shadow studio head due to his relationship with Lansing. It was an open secret that they were fucking. During Lansing's tenure, Paramount and Cruise collaborated on fourteen different films.
Cruise leveraged that relationship to secure a contract that broke the financial ceiling for actors.
He didn't just command a standard $20 million upfront salary. He negotiated 22% of the global box office gross from the first dollar. But the true shock to industry insiders came from the home video market.
While standard directors and producers fought for a fraction of a 20% royalty pool, Cruise bypassed the system, securing a direct 22% dividend of the entire video income stream.
Before filming *Mission: Impossible 2*, he recognized the rising dominance of DVDs and renegotiated. He bumped his dividend to 30%, pulling an unprecedented 12% of total global DVD sales profits.
It was the kind of "king-level" deal every actor dreamed of. Tom Cruise had negotiated terms so favorable that Mission: Impossible 2 ultimately earned him more than Paramount itself.
****
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