Better Than an Oscar
By Keiko Tanaka

Brandy sucked the last drag out of her cigarette as she looked out the window, then turned and snuffed out the butt in an already crowded crystal ashtray on her vanity.
Her husband Frank had made her quit smoking while they were dating, but she never really quit altogether. But tonight she had returned to the habit with a vengeance.
Brandy slipped open her panty drawer and pulled out the soft leather gloves she had bought for this occasion. She slipped the gloves on one at a time, enjoying the feel of them on her skin, flexing the fingers until she was satisfied with the comfortable fit.
Her gloved right hand reached into the drawer once more and wrapped around the wood grip of the .38 caliber pistol she had been keeping there in preparation for tonight. Brandy popped open the cylinder and smiled as she studied the six lovely .38 caliber bullets she had loaded earlier into the gun.

Brandy popped the cylinder closed and put the gun into the pocket of her robe.
Her gaze returned to the scene outside the window.
Frank was supposed to return home tonight from his location shoot. While Brandy was just another Hollywood actress, her husband was major power broker in the business. Of course, when you’ve been an actor for 25 years and you have your own film production company, that tends to lead itself to having a great deal of power in the industry. Not that it seemed to help Brandy much.

Theirs was a most public courtship, and Frank reveled in that, the handsome leading actor dating someone twenty years his junior. He was very cognizant of his image, and some details of his private life would never be known, such as his male lovers. In Brandy he saw the perfect mate for that perfect image he wanted to project to the public.
Brandy was known as the cute actress who started in the business as a teenager in a cute little family show (in which she lost her virginity, which always made her laugh when she thought of it). Now in her youthful twenties and that series well behind her, she had been relegated to B type movies and off Broadway plays when Frank took an interest in her.

In Frank, she saw an opportunity to get back in the game, so she let him court her. He was indeed handsome, but he wasn’t quite the man’s man she usually welcomed into her bedroom. Tall, well built, and virile, that’s how she liked her men. Frank wasn’t much taller than she was.

When she suddenly became pregnant, Frank wanted to get married. Again, to maintain that perfect image with the public. Brandy wasn’t even sure the baby was his, even though she never told him that she had continued welcoming other men into her bed to satisfy her sexual needs, needs Frank never truly satisfied.

Brandy never had a problem attracting men. They all fell for that cute little actress image that got her that first role as a teenager and continued to get her attention. Only those who knew her intimately knew she was nothing like that in real life.
They were married in a fairy tale wedding in Paris, even as she was three months pregnant. A couple months later they announced the pregnancy, implying Brandy became pregnant on the Caribbean honeymoon. When she had the baby, his people implied the child was premature. All carefully handled as always.
A nanny took care of her little girl most of the time, as Brandy had little interest in motherhood except for publicity purposes.

Frank was gone most of the time, whether on a movie set as an actor or producer, or on a publicity tour to promote a movie in which he was starring or produced. In any case, Brandy was left alone a lot, which she didn’t mind a bit. It was hard to have an active sex life with a husband around.

Brandy flipped open her Zippo and lit up another cigarette as she thought about her personal bodyguard, the blond Viking with nice abs that she had thoroughly fucked this morning. He was the one that warmed her bed now when Frank was gone. She enjoyed him in bed more than any man she had been with for quite some time.
Hans was also instrumental in her plans for tonight. Brandy knew she could count on him when the time came. She smiled and slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke.
Brandy suddenly saw Frank’s black limo winding up the long driveway leading to their estate and allowed herself a last drag before grinding out her cigarette. Now it was a matter of time.

Frank walked into the bedroom and saw his wife waiting for him in the terry cloth robe he had bought for her. He wrinkled his nose at the smell in the room.
“Have you started smoking again?” Frank asked. “I thought you were long past that.”
Brandy shook her head and smiled at Frank as if he were a child. “Oh, Frank. You can be so fucking dense sometimes.”
“Gee, what a welcome home,” Frank sighed. “It doesn’t sound like you missed me.”
“I can honestly say I didn’t,” Brandy said. She pulled out the gun and aimed it at him. “Nor will I after this is over.”
Frank stared at her incredulously. “Are you insane?”
Brandy smiled. “No, actually I’ve planned it very well. This will be my biggest role, my finest acting job. I’ve always wanted to play the bad girl, the femme fatale.” She cocked the gun. “Now I will.”
“You’ll never get away with it,” Frank said, trying to reason with her.
Brandy laughed. “This is LA, you idiot. Even if I did get caught, no one gets convicted here.”
She pulled the trigger. She laughed as Frank comically looked down at the blood flowering around the blue black hole in his dress shirt, as if he couldn’t believe she actually shot him. Then she shot him four more times in the chest.
Frank fell back against the door, then slid down it, leaving a smear of blood in his wake.
Brandy walked over and aimed her gun at his head. “And just to make sure,” she said before firing the final bullet into his forehead.
She quickly wrapped the gun in a cloth and stowed it in one pocket of her robe, the black gloves in the other. She went to the balcony and threw the double doors open.
Not long after, the bodyguards burst in.
“What happened?” Frank’s bodyguard snapped.
Brandy was crying. “Frank found an intruder and the guy shot him several times,” she bawled. “He tried to shoot me too but he was out of bullets. So he ran off out the balcony doors.”
“We’ll get him,” the man said and set off out the balcony doors.
Hans turned toward her. “Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked, taking her by the arms gently.
“Yes,” Brandy said, slipping him the gun and her gloves, which he stowed inside his jacket. “Go get him.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hans said and followed.
Brandy lit another cigarette and waited patiently for her next role in this drama.

Brandy answered each question from the police while she sipped a brandy, presumably to calm her nerves. The bodyguards didn’t find the intruder, of course, the police assuming he had an escape plan ahead of time.
She played her role of the grieving wife to perfection. Brandy cooperated fully, relating her version of the story several times while she apparently tried to maintain her composure and refrain from crying again. She wasn’t always successful.
No one even thought of accusing the cute actress of the crime.
With her bedroom now being a crime scene, Brandy was staying in one of the guest quarters on the grounds.
She was lying on the bed, completely naked, smoking a cigarette, horny as hell from the murder she had just committed, when Hans slipped into the room. Brandy went to him.
They kissed hungrily. Brandy tore at the belt on his slacks like a child opening a Christmas present.
In no time at all, he was as nude as she was and she pushed him back onto her bed.
Brandy moved over him, taking all nine inches of him into her wetness.
“I got rid of the gun in the river,” Hans said between grunts. “I got rid of the gloves as well.”
“Good boy,” Brandy breathed. “Now, collect your reward.”
She kissed him and they lost themselves in each other.

After an hour or so, they took a break. Brandy poured them a couple of glasses of Dom Perignon and sauntered back to the bed. She gave one glass to Hans.
He drank his greedily. “I can get used to this.”
Brandy smiled. “Good. I intend to see to it you get what you deserve,” she said as she crawled back into bed with him.

Hans stirred, seeing the world as if he were in a daze. The edge of his vision was clouded, his vision fuzzy.
Brandy was dressed in black leather, circling the bed.
He saw her take his Glock out of the holster hanging on the chair by the bed and shove it in her waistband.
Hans wanted to move but his body wouldn’t obey his commands.
He watched in horror as Brandy picked up a black Beretta and screwed a black silencer onto the business end.

Brandy smiled evilly as she aimed the gun at him.
Hans licked his lips and tried to speak. He tried clearing his throat, but still nothing.
“Don’t bother, darling,” Brandy said, shaking her straight black hair off her cute perky face. “The sedative I gave you is pretty strong, even for you.”
Hans tried to speak again.

“I’m sure you are asking why,” Brandy guessed. “Easy. I’ve done enough of these movies to know that you get rid of loose ends. And you are a loose end.”
Brandy had thought killing Frank was a necessity. What she didn’t count on was just how much she enjoyed pulling the trigger and committing cold blooded murder. Now she was about to enjoy that experience all over again by eliminating her accomplice, dear old Hans. She was going to miss him.

Phut! Phut! The first two shots went through his heart.
Phut! Phut! The next two shots went through his head.
Brandy lit a cigarette as she surveyed the damage her bullets had done to her latest victim. What a rush.

Hans would be compost in her garden by tomorrow morning. She would find another lover soon enough. She always did.
Now that Brandy had the power she always craved, Hollywood would feel her wrath. Anyone who didn’t bow to her wishes now would end up out of the business…or dead, she thought with a knowing smile.
Her future was going to be bright. She couldn’t wait.