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****
Marvin answered with truths of his own. Nothing profound. Nothing rehearsed. Just the quiet intimacy of two people deciding to drop their armor.
By the time the Rolls-Royce slowed, Charlize realized she'd been talking for nearly an hour. Rolls-Royce finally turned into the quiet road leading up into the Hollywood Hills and rolled to a stop outside the small villa Charlize had rented under a discreet arrangement.
She lifted her head from his shoulder. Neither of them seemed eager to move. She slipped her shoes back on, flexing her perfectly healed ankle with a look of quiet amazement, before Marvin opened the door for her.
She stepped out onto the pavement, her hair was slightly tousled, her face flushed a deep crimson, but she appeared radiantly composed. However, her stride seemed a little weak, her knees trembling slightly as her feet hit the pavement.
After walking a few tentative steps toward the front door, she suddenly paused, looking down in shock. She trotted back toward the car with perfect, painless agility. Her sprain had miraculously healed. There was no swelling, no redness. Just flawless skin.
'What a joke,' Marvin thought, watching her from the dark cabin. Such a minor injury meant nothing to his mana. It was merely a convenient excuse, a waste of a few drops of alcohol.
Charlize leaned down, resting her forearms on the open window frame as she looked into the dark interior of the car. Her eyes were blown wide, dark and shining with an intoxicating mixture of love, awe, fascination, and hunger. The streetlights caught the soft flush on her cheeks and the slight parting of her lips.
"Marvin," she breathed, her voice low and trembling with emotion. Her hand found his shoulder, fingers curling lightly into the fabric of his shirt as if she needed the contact to steady herself. She leaned further across the narrow space between them, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her breath and catch the faint scent of her body. Then she pressed a soft, deliberate kiss against his cheek—lingering just a second longer than necessary, her lips warm and slightly parted against his skin.
When she drew back, her gaze stayed locked on his. "This… this is my temporary residence. The house I'm renting for the season." Her thumb brushed once over his shoulder, almost absently. "You're welcome to visit me. Anytime. Day or night." Her voice dropped lower, softer, edged with quiet need. "Just… call me in advance so I can be ready for you."
"I will," Marvin replied solemnly, his handsome face hidden in the shadows, revealing nothing of his intentions.
"Then, goodbye, handsome," she murmured.
Marvin looked at her, his eyes entirely calm. "Goodbye."
She lingered beside the open door, her smile losing the last traces of its practiced Hollywood polish. It was just her now.
"Tonight was one of the best days of my life," she said, the words quiet enough that they almost disappeared beneath the distant traffic.
"Then I'm glad I was there," Marvin said.
"So am I." She straightened up. "I'll see you soon."
"I'll be here."
She closed the door.
Marvin watched through the tinted glass as she walked toward the house, Halfway up the path, she stopped.
She turned.
Their eyes met through the glass, and Charlize smiled. It lingered for a moment before she lifted her fingers to her lips and blew him a kiss.
Then she disappeared inside.
The window slid shut, and the car eased away from the curb.
Charlize leaned back against the locked door and finally let herself breathe.
Her heart was still pounding. Heat crept back into her face as the memories of the evening came rushing in, leaving her almost dizzy. She slipped her shoes onto the floor and slowly sank down against the door.
She covered her face with both hands. "Jesus..."
A nervous laugh escaped her. "What the hell is happening to me?"
Her face flushed hot again, and she felt her legs grow weaker every passing second.
She touched her burning face, her fingers trembling. "Am I going crazy?" she muttered to the empty hallway.
Then she reached down and gently, reverently touched her healed ankle. "That feeling... it's like nothing I've ever experienced in my life. It wasn't just physical. It was in my blood. Marvin is different. He's unlike all the other pathetic men in this town…"
She moved it carefully, almost expecting the pain to return.
Nothing. The injury that had left her limping earlier was simply gone.
Charlize stared at her ankle for several seconds. Whatever Marvin had done, whatever that strange warmth had been, she knew she hadn't imagined it.
It hadn't felt like anything she'd known before. That was what frightened her. And fascinated her.
She looked toward the narrow window beside the door. The Rolls-Royce was already gone, its taillights swallowed by the Los Angeles night.
"Marvin Meyers." She said his name quietly, testing the sound of it. A small smile touched her lips. She wasn't going to let him disappear from her life.
Not after today's experience.
If Marvin wanted someone extraordinary around him, then she'd become indispensable. She would work harder, prove herself, and find a place beside him that nobody else could take away.
Charlize picked up her shoes and headed deeper into the house.
She had no idea where this was going. But she knew one thing. She wanted to find out.
---
By the following morning, the incident had grown far beyond the walls of the Miramax celebration.
The party itself had been supposed to be the story.
The Others had crossed the $100 million domestic mark, an extraordinary milestone for a supernatural thriller that had entered the summer with plenty of people wondering whether Nicole Kidman could carry it.
Instead, Hollywood woke up talking about a fight.
And not just any fight.
Ben Affleck and Marvin Meyers.
One was an Oscar-winning screenwriter and one of the most rapidly rising young actors in Hollywood. The other was a thirteen-year-old miti award winner billionaire, filmmaker, writer, musician, three Oscars winner, and now—apparently—a frighteningly competent martial artist.
The morning television shows couldn't get enough of it.
Photographs from the party appeared beside reports about the box office. Grainy footage taken from across the ballroom was replayed again and again, with hosts pausing the tape at different moments and arguing over what exactly had happened.
One entertainment program even managed to obtain a clearer copy.
The footage wasn't long.
It didn't need to be.
Ben moved toward Marvin.
Marvin stepped aside.
A quick movement redirected Ben's momentum.
A second put him off balance.
…
The third sent him flying.
The whole exchange lasted only a few seconds.
The studio went quiet after the tape ended.
The host looked toward the martial-arts expert they'd brought in to fill the segment.
"So... what exactly did we just watch?"
The expert leaned closer to the monitor.
"He's not just throwing punches."
He rewound the tape.
"Look at this."
The footage rolled again.
"He's using Ben's momentum. That's the interesting part. Marvin doesn't try to overpower him. He lets him come forward, redirects him, changes his balance, and then finishes the movement."
The host blinked.
"You're telling me this kid actually knows what he's doing?"
The expert gave a small shrug.
"From what I can see? He has a deep understanding of martial arts mechanics. Whether he has formal training or simply an extraordinary natural understanding of movement, I couldn't tell you from a few seconds of tape."
The host laughed. "Well, there is one obvious question."
He turned toward the camera. "Did the Kung Fu come before the Kung Fu Panda books?"
The panel laughed.
"But seriously," he continued, "Marvin Meyers has spent the last year writing about martial arts, studying Asian mythology, and apparently developing a reputation for being obsessed with authenticity. So here's the question everyone's going to be asking today: did Marvin learn martial arts because he wanted his books to feel authentic, or did he write about it because he already knew martial arts?"
That question spread almost as quickly as the footage.
By lunchtime, the tabloids had turned three movements into a legend.
THE MEYERS THREE-MOVE MIRACLE!
OSCAR WINNER DROPPED BY TEENAGE BILLIONAIRE!
MARVIN'S SECRET KUNG FU!
But the trade papers were more interested in what the fight said about Hollywood.
> Variety: "A celebration of a $100 million domestic success has become the setting for Hollywood's strangest piece of gossip this week. Multiple guests confirm that an altercation involving Ben Affleck and actress Charlize Theron preceded a brief physical confrontation between Affleck and Marvin Meyers. Accounts differ on the precise sequence, but there appears to be little disagreement about the outcome: Meyers, despite being considerably smaller and younger, brought the confrontation to an abrupt end.
The Hollywood Reporter went further.
> The Hollywood Reporter: "Hollywood has spent the past year trying to decide what Marvin Meyers actually is. Writer? Producer? Actor? Music phenomenon? Teenage millionaires? The latest answer may be martial artist. Footage of Meyers' confrontation with Ben Affleck shows surprisingly controlled movement rather than the wild swinging one might expect from an inexperienced fighter. Whether his skills are the result of formal training or an unusually serious commitment to authenticity, the footage has added yet another improbable dimension to the Meyers mythology.
The entertainment programs kept pressing the question.
Where had he learned? Who had trained him? How long had he been practicing? Had he learned martial arts for his writing? Had he learned it for his films?
Or had Marvin simply decided that if he was going to write about something, he wanted to understand it properly?
Nobody outside his closest circle seemed to know. And that uncertainty only made the story better.
> Rolling Stones: "THE MEYERS COUNTERATTACK? Witnesses at the Miramax celebration describe a remarkably brief confrontation between Marvin Meyers and Ben Affleck after Affleck allegedly became aggressive toward actress Charlize Theron. According to several guests, Meyers dropped the larger actor in three quick movements before security could intervene. The teenager's reported martial-arts training has suddenly become the most discussed piece of trivia in town."
The Los Angeles Times cared considerably less about the mechanics.
> The Los Angeles Times: "KNIGHT IN THE BLUE SUIT! Ben Affleck allegedly gets too aggressive with South African beauty Charlize Theron—then young billionaire Marvin Meyers steps between them. Three moves later, the much larger star is on the floor. Hollywood's newest wonder boy apparently comes with his own security system."
By lunchtime, the story had already acquired a life of its own.
One radio host claimed Affleck had been thrown across the room.
Another insisted Marvin had barely moved.
A guest who claimed to have been standing ten feet away swore Marvin had dropped him in "about three seconds."
By the afternoon, somebody was telling reporters it had happened in two.
Nobody seemed particularly interested in correcting the record.
Variety took a more measured approach.
> The New York Times: "The confrontation involving Marvin Meyers and Ben Affleck at a Miramax celebration has become the latest piece of Hollywood gossip to overwhelm the event itself. Accounts differ considerably, but multiple guests confirm that Meyers intervened after an altercation involving Affleck and actress Charlize Theron. The incident ended quickly, with Affleck being restrained by others at the party. What might ordinarily have remained an embarrassing late-night episode has instead become another chapter in the increasingly extraordinary public mythology surrounding Meyers."
The television shows were less restrained.
By that afternoon, entertainment programs were running the same blurry photographs repeatedly, circling Marvin in one frame and Affleck in another.
Entertainment Tonight replayed eyewitness footage while discussing the bizarre contrast between Marvin's carefully tailored appearance and the reports of what he'd done to the considerably larger actor.
MTV even got in on it, treating the story with the same irreverent tone it used for every other piece of Hollywood gossip.
The details were already becoming folklore. Three moves. One larger actor. One very angry young man. And Charlize Theron standing behind him.
The most important part of the story was almost being lost.
Marvin hadn't gone looking for a fight. He had stepped in because he believed Charlize needed someone between her and an increasingly aggressive man.
That distinction mattered to some people. It mattered considerably less to the tabloids.
Then came the feminist reaction.
The incident might have remained another piece of Hollywood gossip if Charlize's name hadn't been attached to it.
Several accounts described Marvin stepping between her and Affleck after the situation became heated. That changed the tone of some coverage.
The magazine had returned to newsstands earlier that year under feminist ownership and was deliberately trying to remain relevant to a younger generation of women while maintaining its political voice.
****
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