Elizabeth Hurley didn’t know if it was professional or not, but her mood always went hand in hand with her performance. No, she didn’t feel sad when she performed a sad scene or happy when she was in a Sex scene–she wasn’t that pathetic. But when she was acting at the top of her ability, making the stage crew cry, giving the director material he wouldn’t edit out for Love or money, she was on cloud nine.

And when she fell short of that, when she knew she could do better but somehow didn’t… well, then she felt as she did now. Depressed and worthless.

She lived to be acting and now a whole day of filming was down the drain; she just knew they’d come back to the scene in reshoots, purely because of her lackluster performance. And she should’ve been fine! It was a real movie, with real actors. She was the spanner in the works and for the most petty of reasons.

Elizabeth had told herself she’d made peace with the march of years. She was fifty-seven years old, which was a blessing in itself, but she’d aged so gracefully she easily could’ve passed for a woman half her age. But that simply wasn’t in the cards. Men could no longer get away with May-December romances, so no one wanted to ignite a hypocritical firestorm of a middle-aged… nigh elderly… woman being paired with a younger man.

So she was now old enough to play mothers. And not the struggling, single mother who met a man and had him step in as a surrogate father to her infant-toddler-adolescent child because they were both just so young. A mother mother. With an Adult son. Just like in real life.

It was all too real. Her acting life had been a fantasy life for a long time–playing the sexpot and temptress that she only rarely was in real life–and now, age was catching up with her both in reality and fiction. She’d accepted that. She had.

But performing a scene with Ridley Stokes, it had all come crashing in on her. She wasn’t a woman anymore. She was a mother. An old lady.

Ridley Stokes was the male lead–the man who romanced the female lead, i.e., not her. She was a supporting character. His mother. Merciless math made it plausible. Even though every atom in her body screamed that her rightful place was to be the desirable Love interest he ended up kissing and caressing, she was relegated to Giving Advice. Significant Looks. Hugs.

God, what she wouldn’t give to be twenty years younger… God, more than twenty years. Ridley was only twenty-four.

He was one of those acting prodigies who’d had an honest-to-God career when he was fourteen, doing Spielberg movies and getting Oscar buzz. He’d aged wonderfully. As a young Adult, you’d think he was one of those models that went into acting. He had a dashing mane of blond hair, piercing blue eyes, a jaw as square as a cliff–abs that Elizabeth didn’t even want to think about, because they’d make it impossible to get into character as a blood relative.

And he was good at acting. Damned irritatingly good, not even as old as Elizabeth’s car and still acting circles around her because she couldn’t pull her head out of her own arse and stop thinking about being a senior citizen like everyone else her age!

Is this how it starts? Me panicking over irrelevance like some Page 3 tart? Shall I phone Playboy and see if they still want me for a spread? Maybe see if I can get booked on a reality TV show while I still qualify as a celebrity? Lord, get a grip, Hurley… it was just one bad day. You can pull out of this. Dust yourself off, get back on the damn horse, and blow them all away tomorrow. You’ve got all the bloody experience in the room–use it!

But how could she put this shitshow behind her long enough to recover? She really was too old to go partying–bottle service and lines of blow and… and cabana boys. She’d thought she was too mature to need that kind of thing anymore, but now how was she supposed to get out of her own head?

Elizabeth tried a cool, refreshing Shower and it did ease the frantic ache she felt just under her skin. By the time she’d dried herself off and put on her nightgown, all she felt was a dull emptiness. It was bearable, but she wished she could shake it before she went to bed.

If she woke up still feeling this shameful ennui, she knew she wouldn’t be able to put anything into her acting. Blimey, she might start forgetting her lines. That was all she needed… people thinking she had bloody Alzheimer’s.

As she sat at her vanity, brushing out her long raven hair, Elizabeth thought of posting some racy selfie online. A chorus of comments on how beautiful she was would perk her up. She remembered one, a paragraph long, asking if she’d cloned herself and zapped her mind into the younger body, passing that thirty-something science project off as her real carcass. Now that lifted a girl’s spirits!

But no. The last thing the producers needed to see, after her abysmal showing on set, was her flashing her cleavage on the internet. Even though it did look spectacular…

With a frustrated sigh, Elizabeth set down her hairbrush and untied the bow between her tits, letting the flimsy material of her nightgown fall open. Yes, her breasts were gorgeous. Maybe not as big as that Kate Upton bint, but everyone knew hers were fake. Elizabeth’s were completely natural, as plump and proud as when they’d first come in. Just bigger.

Elizabeth didn’t know what she’d done to still have such an amazing bosom when any other woman’s would be around her waist. Maybe it was some trial offer from the Devil. If she didn’t sell her soul to him, he’d send her back twenty years and let her breasts droop like anyone else’s.

There was a tap at the door. “Hurley? You awake?”

Biting her lip, Elizabeth pulled her nightgown closed and retied the bow. Speak of the Devil–that was Ridley Stokes. While they were shooting in Spain, the production team had put them all up in the same hotel, so it was no surprise that Ridley would call upon her.

Except that she would’ve thought he’d be out drinking, trying his luck with the Spanish senoritas. Elizabeth knew that she would’ve been if she were his age. Well, with the senors, not the senoritas. Then again, if she were twenty-four…

Elizabeth sighed lovingly. It would’ve been nice if Ridley were there to be one of her senors, but it didn’t bear thinking about. She’d only depress herself further. “It’s open,” she said.

The door cracked open and Ridley peered in, blinking. “Hey. Got a minute?” he asked, his Yank accent ingratiating as ever.

“Do many women not have time for you?” Elizabeth asked with a coolly British tone of surprise, like he’d faintly shocked her. A quick glance in the mirror showed her the lust on her face to match the cheeky comment. She tried to hide it with a friendly grin. “Come in.”

Ridley stepped inside and shut the door behind him, then leaned against it. “I just wanted to ask if everything’s alright with you?”

Elizabeth leaned into Brit upper-crustness to hide any emotional vulnerability. “Of course it is, Ridley. Why ever wouldn’t it be?”

“You’re a good actress. You were good at the audition, good at the chemistry reading… every last day of shooting you’ve been an inspiration to the whole cast. Then today you were… off. Not playing hardball. I just wanted to know if there’s something going on.”

He stared at her, eyes trusting, imploring, trying to forge a connection with her the same way he did in their scenes together. Elizabeth rose and went to her bed, sweeping the wrinkles from the front of her gown. “It was just an off day. Everyone has them. If you’re young enough that you’re batting a thousand every day, then I envy you.” And she slid under the sheets.

Ridley didn’t leave it at that. He strolled deeper into the room. “Turning in already? It’s only eleven, Hurley.”

“Only eleven,” Elizabeth repeated. “We work twelve hour days.”

“That’s what Red Bull is for,” Ridley said. “We sleep when we’re dead–or at least when we’re not on the call sheet. You know, if you envy me that much, you could come along with me.”

“To some party or another?”

Ridley came even closer, boldly sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Is it bothering you that you weren’t invited?”

Elizabeth gasped, affronted. “Of course I was invited! What bothers me is that I have no desire–that I’m too bloody old to party all night like you hooligans.”

Ridley chuckled and blurted out his first thought: “You’re not old.”

“I’m old enough to be your mother.”

“You’re not my mother. She’s a little old lady with gray hair.”

“Gray hair?” Elizabeth demanded. “No, no, no, she must be even younger than me, she cannot have gray hair…”

“She worries,” Ridley explained. “She thinks that whenever I’m out of her sight, I’m at some drug-fueled hollywood orgy.”

“And are you?” Elizabeth insisted.

Ridley shrugged. “You tell me what’s bothering you and I’ll tell you the answer.”

Elizabeth chuckled. Cheeky bugger. “Of course you don’t. You’re a choir boy. Anyway, I’m at all the drug-fueled hollywood orgies and I never see you there.”

“Okay. Tell me what’s bothering you anyway.”

“It’s silly… I am far too old to be having some sort of mid-life crisis… old enough to know that aging beats the alternative. What’s the old saying? Old age is the one ailment…”

“That no one wants to be cured of,” Ridley finished for her. Then explained: “I’d go crazy if all I read was the scripts I get sent.”

His sincerity made Elizabeth feel a warm glow. She patted his leg, letting her palm linger on it. Wearing just shorts and a polo shirt to weather the Mediterranean clime, Ridley reminded her of a lot of things and made her imagine still more. His slim, athletic build seemed poised just between man and boy–leaving behind the innocence of schoolyard crushes but not yet achieving the domineering callousness of a man grown.

He was too sweet for that, even if his body didn’t look it. Broad-shouldered and muscular, with hard thighs and a bulging groin that made her blush just to think about it. That was most definitely not boyish… but had he learned how to use it like a man? Or did he still need guidance, experience, the gentle acceptance of a woman who knew…

Elizabeth sneered at herself. He didn’t need some guide into manhood–he needed a girl his own age, all the girls he could get. With a body like his, no bird would mind him figuring it out as he went.

She felt obliged to confess to him, to get it off her chest, as if to put the sexual side of their interaction aside and focus entirely on work and camaraderie. “In my head, I’ve known that I’m no leading lady anymore. But acting with you, it was like I was watching it all in a movie theater. There you are, with your young lover and your young friends, and there I am, the old lady.” Without realizing it, Elizabeth began to stroke his leg. “I still feel like I should be the one with… perky breasts under the covers because we just had a Love scene, while your sheet is around your waist for some reason.”

“Is this the part where I disagree with you?” Ridley asked. “Because I think you’re absolutely right.”

His eyes flicked down his screen mother’s body and came to rest on her bosom. The bow there hadn’t been tied with any amount of expertise. From where he sat, he could see that a gap had opened up, displaying so much of Elizabeth’s creamy décolletage that it made his prick stir with excitement.

This close to Elizabeth, he risked discovery with every moment he had an erection. Her hand was on his thigh; she was practically touching it already. But that only thrilled him more. This was starting to feel a lot less like some friendly, innocent chat and a lot more like foreplay.