Fast Lane

by Ashley, Kristen

  He then rents us a house on a hill off the 101 down from Pasadena.

  It’s got four bedrooms, a pool, a big kitchen, a pool house, which Shawn claims, a mother-in-law apartment over the garage, which Dave got, Lyla’s already in town, but before she showed, she’d mailed two boxes of clothes and shoes.

  And there it begins.

  The best of times.

  Which, you know, always are what happens before you slam right up against the worst of times.

  Lyla:

  I loved that house.

  [Smiles softly]

  Preacher made love to me for the first time in that house.

  [Interviewer’s note]

  At this point, the door that leads to the rest of the cabin that has been closed throughout our session opens and a young man walks in, followed by a gray cat with dense fur and a round face.

  The recorder is still on.

  “Outta here, Mom,” he says.

  Lyla tips her head back as he bends down to kiss her cheek.

  “You taking the truck?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” he answers.

  The cat has jumped up to the daybed and is stalking the many pillows when Lyla orders, “Close the door, honey.”

  “Right,” he says.

  He walks back to close the door he came through and he leaves after calling good-bye to his mother.

  “Later, Jesse,” she says.

  The door to the outside closes soundly.

  “Sorry about that. He’s not normally rude, but my children are not very happy I’m dredging up what they call ancient history,” Lyla explains. “They feel the heartbreak for Mom is better left alone. Particularly my son.”

  Jesse:

  We didn’t know.

  We didn’t know we had a month and how important that month was.

  We didn’t know we had a month to hang by the pool. Go to the beach. Catch a movie at the Chinese theater. Go to Universal Studios and take a tour of homes of famous people. Hit clubs on Sunset and listen to the music people were playing.

  We had a month to drink and smoke and get high and go to bed with a woman where you didn’t have to wake up and haul your ass onto a bus or head to the airport to catch a plane that would take you to another city, another hotel, another sound check, another gig or get to the studio to lay down tracks.

  You could sleep as long as you liked and get up and Lyla would bring you coffee and make you eggs or pancakes or someone would have gone out and bought donuts.

  We didn’t know we only had a month.

  Only a month to be young.

  Only a month to still be kids.

  Only a month before we all had to grow up.

  And fast.

  I was sitting by the hotel pool reading when someone blocked my sun and it stayed blocked.

  I looked up from my book to see Preacher standing there.

  He was wearing shades, the sun behind him so he was shadowed, this meaning I couldn’t read his expression.

  I didn’t have long enough to figure it out before he shifted to the side of the lounge I was in, bent over and put his hands in the armrests at my sides.

  And in this position, his face in mine.

  I held my breath.

  “Tommy got it,” he said.

  My heart flipped.

  “He got it?” I asked.

  “He got it. He got it all. Creative control. Danny and Hans. Headline tour. A month off. And more money than we were expecting.”

  All I heard was what I asked next.

  “Headline tour?”

  He smiled.

  Slowly.

  Then he said, “Get up, cher. Go upstairs. Get dressed. I got somethin’ I wanna show you.”

  I wanted to celebrate headline tours, but if Preacher had something to show me, I’d go for that.

  He pushed off and helped me up.

  I wrapped my sarong around my hips and held his hand as we went upstairs to our suite.

  I was slathered in oil, so I took a shower while Preacher got on the phone, and by the sounds of it, talked to practically everyone he knew.

  He sounded happy so I was smiling as I swiped on some eye shadow, blue eyeliner, a brush of pink blush, some mascara and lots of lip gloss before I fluffed out my hair, threw on a long-sleeved, off the shoulder, inch-of-belly showing, printed gypsy top, some cutoffs and slid on a pair of pale pink pumps.

  Preacher approved of my outfit with a sexy smile, grabbed my hand and I walked down to the lobby with him in his faded jeans with his worn-out tee that had a faded logo from some bar he’d played in Illinois.

  He asked the valet for one of the three cars Tommy had leased for the band.

  As we stood outside waiting for it, I slid my sunglasses on, and Preacher lit a cigarette and then threw his arm around my shoulders.

  Lyla:

  [Off tape]

  That picture is iconic.

  Yes.

  It was weird then. We were just…us.

  We didn’t think, standing somewhere, waiting for a car, that someone would be around to shoot a picture that someone would pay to print because people would pay to look at them.

  At us.

  We didn’t see them then.

  The photographers.

  We learned to spot them.

  Many credit you and that picture for gypsy tops becoming the rage.

  [Shrugs]

  I don’t know.

  I just know that suddenly, everyone was wearing them, which I thought sucked.

  Because when they did, I didn’t want to wear mine anymore.

  And I really liked them.

  Preacher drove up a scary, steep driveway to a massive house, then around to the side where he hit the opener I just then noticed was attached to the visor of the Porsche 959.

  The garage door opened.

  A garage door that was one of four of them.

  He pulled in, turned off the ignition, the car stopped purring, but I was having trouble breathing.

  “Preacher,” I whispered.

  “Come on, cher,” he said before he knifed out.

  He was at my side before I had my door open.

  He helped me out, took my hand, and guided me through a door, along a breezeway and then fumbled with some keys, opening another door.

  Inside there was a big mudroom with a washer and dryer that was also a kind of pool room with hooks and a shower.

  He pulled me up some steps that led right into a huge, bright, sunny kitchen.

  It opened up to a massive living room with a lot of white furniture and the biggest TV I’d ever seen.

  It also had a view of that part of LA out large picture windows.

  I wandered into the living room, mumbling, “You didn’t—”

  “Tommy rented it for the band.”

  Okay, he didn’t buy it.

  It was rented.

  For the whole band.

  I stood at the window, staring out at the haze over LA.

  Preacher came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me, stooping so he could put his chin to my shoulder.

  “Shawn’s claimed the pool house. Dave’s got the space over the garage. And you and me,” he kissed my neck, “are in the master.”

  I trembled and turned my head, he lifted his, and I caught his eyes.

  “You’ve made it,” I whispered, knowing how huge that was for him.

  “We’re gettin’ there,” he replied.

  I looked to the view.

  He’d made it.

  They’d made it.

  We drove here in a Porsche.

  We were staying in a fancy suite.

  And now this.

  Our first night together, the night we met, that motel they were staying in, it wasn’t anything to write home about.

  And the bar where they’d played that night was not an arena.

  This…

  Was something else.

  “Where are the guys?” I asked.

  It seemed to take him a
year to answer, “Not here.”

  I turned in his arms and looked up at him. “Show me the master.”

  He got me, I knew it when his arms tightened and he murmured, “Cher.”

  “Show me, Preacher.”

  He studied my face for another year and then he took his arms from around me, placed a hand on either side of my head and brought his face closer to mine.

  “I didn’t bring you here for that, Lyla.”

  “We’re celebrating something you worked hard to earn by me giving you something else you worked hard for. And earned.”

  He made this groaning, growly noise I felt like a physical touch in a very private part of me before he erased the minimal distance between our mouths.

  We made out, right there by the windows with a view of LA at my back before Preacher broke it, took my hand and walked me down a hall to the end of it.

  The master was large.

  I could see it had its own bathroom and walk-in closet.

  It also had white walls and white furniture and diaphanous white curtains on the French windows.

  But mostly, I was staring at the bed, which was a king-size mattress set on a tall boxy platform (painted white).

  It had a white comforter and loads of white pillows.

  And above it, the only color in the place.

  A huge picture of three pink tulips with white edges on their petals.

  Preacher stopped us just inside the space.

  It was me that walked him to the bed.

  Once there, I took a deep breath, turned to him, lifted my eyes to his and kicked off my pumps.

  Then I stated, “I’m in love with you, Preacher McCade.”

  There was no groan in his growl when he heard that.

  I then had his hands on my ass, his mouth on mine, his tongue in my mouth and in short order I had my ass to the bed, and after, his body on mine in said bed.

  By now, I knew his sweet spots.

  And he knew mine.

  But as he peeled the clothes from me, and I returned the favor, we found new ones.

  His lips and tongue and beard could make miracles.

  And they did.

  The only time I felt funny was when he slid down between my legs, right before his mouth closed on me.

  And then I didn’t feel anything but his mouth on me.

  I had never had an orgasm.

  In all of our groping and rubbing and kissing, I’d come close.

  But I climaxed against his mouth, arching toward the white ceiling, my fingers buried in his hair.

  He was up and covering me, working my neck with his lips, cupping me between my legs warmly with his hand, when I recovered.

  “That was…wow,” I whispered my understatement.

  “I’m in love with you too,” he said against my neck.

  I stared at the ceiling. “What?”

  He lifted his head and all I could see was the beauty of Preacher McCade.

  “I’m in love with you too.” He caught a tendril of my hair, wrapped it around his calloused finger, and held my eyes. “I love you, Lyla. My Lyla. Prettiest girl in the world. All for me. All mine. Made for me.”

  I made a noise that was kind of a sigh, a moan, a sob and kissed him.

  He went to pull away and I knew why because I tasted me.

  But I caught his head and held him to me, pressing up to him.

  He groaned in my mouth, the fire he’d quenched sprang up again, and suddenly, I was desperate for him.

  Suddenly, in a way I didn’t know existed because I thought I’d always felt that way, I couldn’t get enough of him.

  I couldn’t take in fast enough this amazing man who loved me.

  It got to the point where he had to warn me, doing it gruffly, “I’ll stop, anytime you need me to stop. But just sayin’, baby, soon, it’s gonna be hard to stop.”

  “Then don’t stop,” I panted against his lips before I kissed him again.

  He took over the kiss and, well, everything.

  And then he was searching for his jeans, pulling out his wallet, sliding out the condom.

  “You don’t have to watch, cher,” he muttered.

  “Do you not want me to watch?”

  “I want you to do what you want.”

  “Then I’m not missing a thing.”

  And I didn’t.

  I didn’t miss watching him roll the condom on his long, thick, beautiful cock.

  I didn’t miss him spreading my legs like he was preparing to make an offering to a goddess.

  I didn’t miss watching him lower his big body onto mine.

  And I did not miss a second, staring into his eyes, our breaths fusing, as slowly, very slowly, he filled me.

  There was a twinge when he started and there was so much to him, there was a moment I was worried I couldn’t accommodate all of him.

  But then he was inside.

  And it was perfect.

  He was perfect.

  As I’d somehow known from the start, we were perfect.

  “Yeah?” he grunted, like he was in pain.

  “Am I hurting you?” I whispered.

  “Baby, that’s my line.”

  I smiled up at him.

  He made another delicious noise before he slanted his head and kissed me.

  Then he made love to me, gliding a hand between us because he was Preacher.

  And he was sure to give me mine (again).

  Before he took his.

  He’d come back to me after he dealt with the condom, whipped the comforter out from under me, the sheet, then got in bed, took me in his arms, pulled the sheet over us, to my breasts, and then me into his arms.

  My back to his front, our eyes to the French windows which had a view to a rectangular pool with lounges with white cushions, tall, lush greenery all around the deck and a pool house at the end.

  “You’re bleedin’ a little,” he muttered in my ear.

  “I’ll live.”

  “You sure I didn’t hurt you?”

  “I’m sure I’d tell you if that happened. I’m also sure that the first time that happened between us I don’t want to talk about blood or pain, the former you said is only a little and the latter I barely felt.”

  He chuckled.

  I settled into my man.

  Then I said, “I’m yours.”

  His body did a funny jerk before he shifted to shove his face in the side of my neck.

  “Forever, Preacher,” I whispered.

  “Fuck, I love you, Lyla,” he rumbled.

  I liked the sound of those words so much, the feel of them, I turned in his hold and we started making out again.

  “Preach, man, where are you? You can’t find dick in this mausoleum!” we heard Jesse hollering. “Dude! Show yourself! Tim bought steaks. Tom’s out firing up the grill. We’re cooking out and christening this pad!”

  At the end, his voice was getting closer.

  And the bedroom door was open.

  “You come back here, brother, I’ll shoot you!” Preacher shouted.

  I could actually feel the shock coming down the hall.

  Then, sounding like he was getting pissed, “Is Lyla with you?”

  I felt something else, something weirdly cold and hot before Preacher yelled, “What do you think, asshole?”

  “All right then, cool!” Jesse yelled back. “See you when you come out. Hey, China.”

  “Hey, Jess,” I called.

  “Yo, China!” I heard Dave shout.

  “Yo, Dave!” I shouted back.

  It was then I heard Tim, quieter, but I heard him, “Lyla and Preach are goin’ at it?”

  “Apparently,” Dave replied, not quiet.

  “Then why’s the door open?” Tim asked.

  “Because we weren’t around when they started the festivities maybe?” Jesse asked.

  “You should close the door!” Tim shouted. “We don’t wanna hear you doing China!”

  “How ’bout you all shut up?” Preacher
yelled. “That’d be a good idea.”

  I started giggling.

  He looked down at me. “They’re idiots.”

  I put both my hands on his bearded cheeks and replied, “They made perfection even more perfect.”

  And earned Preacher kissing me again.

  Lyla:

  Tommy grilled steaks that night, and it was the first, but not the last time he demonstrated he was exceptionally talented with a grill.

  [Smiles]

  Dave was high by steak time and determined to get me to agree to pierce my ears and do it himself.

  Preacher put a very abrupt end to that.

  [Laughs]

  And that night, sitting by the pool after eating steaks, kicking back with the guys, was the first time I smoked pot.

  [Expression shifts to pensive]

  Dave was the one who talked me into it, and looking back, Preacher was not at one with this happening.

  Though he let it happen, probably because I was curious and in a safe place with the guys. Also, because he’d learned by then that I made my own decisions and wasn’t a big fan of him intervening when I did.

  I always thought he wasn’t hip on the idea of me trying marijuana because, at that time, he thought I was his good girl. Not to mention, he was looking after me as well as looking after my grandfather’s granddaughter.

  He’d made my grandfather promises, and in his mind, and mine, he didn’t break them by making love to me. We were adults. That was our decision. And it in no way had anything to do with disrespect, even to my grandfather.

  We were in love, that was an act of love, and even if the words had not been said, I knew we both thought from that moment on we’d spend the rest of our lives together.

  But now, looking back, I know it was something else.

  Preacher needed me to be free of that so I wouldn’t be a part of it which would mean he could come to me after times when that kind of thing was all around him, and also be free of it.

  [Off tape]

  “Tulips” is my favorite track from Like a Desperation. It’s the sexiest love song I’ve ever heard. I suspected it was about you, but I would not suspect it was about a deflowering.

  This is what you don’t know when you’re young and your hormones are raging or you’re getting pressure from some asshole.

  If you wait for the right person, it can be amazing.

  We were like kids in a candy store, time on our hands, the guys had money, and we were in a place as cool as LA.