by J. Levy
*
Jezzy
August in New York and the city was drenched in a suffocating blanket of heat. The flight from JFK to Heathrow was late and despite the early morning hour it was stifling by the windows at the gate. Upon hearing a voice having a seemingly one sided conversation coming from behind her, the girl with the light blue eyes looked up from Page Six of the New York Post, brushing a bead of perspiration from her forehead as a flash of recognition passed swiftly through her mind. That voice was so familiar. Mesmeric. It had haunted her thoughts intermittently for six years, having been that long since she had last heard it. Yet there it was, all these years later, coming from somewhere behind her, getting louder, closer. Jezzy Arthur felt a secondary heat winding its way through her moistened skin as the voice grew louder. Fluffing her hair away from her hot neck, she fumbled in her bag for lip gloss and listened, half hidden beneath her newspaper camouflage.
‘Tell them I’m en route from LA, I’ll be in London for a few days and we’ll meet a week from Wednesday. The final pieces are being shipped to me from Hong Kong this week and yes, they’ll have them on time. Give them my sincerest of promises, thanks sweetie.’ He laughed, that same distinctive, charming, throaty laugh. She covered her face a little more with the Post as he came into view and watched him, her eyeline just visible above the headlines. He carelessly dropped his cell into his jacket pocket. Then, as if drawn to her by some invisible magnetic force, his eyes met hers.
Lightning bolts seemed to fire straight into her soul.
‘My god,’ he breathed, ‘is it really you?’
She looked up slowly, smiled even slower and whispered, ‘Hello Adrian.’
He had missed his flight from Los Angeles and had to take the later one, due to a traffic pile-up on the 405. She had been due to fly back to London the following day, but in the early hours of that morning she broke up with Nathan and in the heat of an argument, hastily grabbed her bag, flew out of the lobby of the W and grabbed a cab to take the first plane to London out of JFK. It all seemed so much more than coincidence. It was fate. Surely, this time it had to be fate?
They boarded the plane and Adrian charmingly hustled the tall, spindly lady in the striped red blouse out of her seat, urging her to please change places with him so that he could sit with his very dear long-lost friend. Of course the lady moved willingly. Adrian was a man who could charm the pants off of anything that drew breath.
As Jezzy took her seat and fastened her belt, memories came flooding back, showering her mind entirely with Adrian. As bitterly as they had parted six years earlier, she relished being beside him now. Maybe it was because a girl always finds some kind of reborn strength after initiating a break-up and leaving Nathan, mere hours ago, was still so very fresh and at the same time seemed so very long ago. Or maybe it was just because she and Adrian had been left unfinished. Undone. Now, here he was right in front of her face. Six feet tall. Rangy Body. Golden arms. Not much hair on his head. Baggy cheeks. But he looked at her in that way he always had, deep into her, in a way that still made her throb. And even though she had run from him all those years ago, now she wanted to run to him.
She thought about what had brought her here. Back to him. The journey back to Adrian had begun a few months ago. After a heady summer in London culminating in an impromptu long weekend in New York, she let her memory take her back to that hot night when she met Nathan. That rare hot, burning night…
Her lashes were smudged, her cheeks flushed, her lips swollen and hot. The summer air was so heavy that night she felt as if she were wearing a thick tweed overcoat. Another night in London Town. Another party at Home House in Portman Square. She fanned the tops of her fake-tanned, golden legs with the short, chiffon hem of her dress, the color of over-ripe damsons. A heavy guy with an incredibly broad chest and insanely neon orange hair lurched towards her.
‘Been checking you out all night,’ his breath smelt of cheap, aged beer and burnt onions and his accent came from somewhere in America’s deep south. Unravelling herself from her sticky hemline, she moved into his arms to inappropriately dance a slow dance to hip-hop. Running her fingers through his hair, which was thick, coarse and much too bright.
‘Fabulous color,’ she murmured, smiling into the almost palpable stench emanating from his mouth.
He smiled widely, revealing short, sharp teeth, densely packed with remnants of food. She almost heaved. He was not her type at all. Or maybe he was, as she had been on a rollercoaster of self-destruction over the last few years. She went with men that she knew in her gut were wrong for her right from the start, deliberately drawn to unappealing men ever since she ran away from Adrian. Why stop now? And so began her affair with Nathan…
Back on the flight, she carefully chose what to divulge to Adrian, so she picked and mixed, like a long lost sweet counter from a sadly extinct Woolworths.
‘Everything was great for a few months and then, I don’t know, I suppose I really knew he wasn’t the guy for me, you know, but then when he totally disregarded my birthday, I mean not even a lousy card! The trip was so last minute, he got the tickets from a friend who cancelled at the eleventh hour and all he managed was to have room service deliver a basket of stale crackers, two apples and a half bottle of cider all squashed into a wicker basket, which by the way cut my finger, look, what the hell was that all about?!’ She held up her finger to show him the graze that was left over from the wicker tussle of last night. Despite herself, she started to laugh. Whatever had happened with Nathan, it could not ruin her pleasure at being free and the strangely sensational strength it gave her. Adrian took her finger into his mouth, his warm tongue circling the cut and she thought of what she had seen earlier that morning through the taxi window on her ride to the airport, just as the sun was blossoming. A tiny sliver of a silver plane, its steamy trail carving a smoky heart through the sky, before dissolving into the blue. A sign, surely? It had to be.
Adrian cupped her face in his hand, his eyes penetrating hers… ‘Remember your 28th birthday?’
They smiled at each other, suddenly transported back to her twenty-eighth birthday in Los Angeles. Her mind sailing back in time to when she and Adrian had first met.
Jezzy had been in LA for a three week holiday with her friend, Frankie and they were staying in a tiny hotel called The Comstock, between Beverly Hills and Westwood. Frankie was insistent on seeing as much of Los Angeles as she could by bike, therefore the two of them had seen little of each other during the day.
Jezzy and Frankie had met Adrian and his friend, a little older man called Bernie, at La Scala in Beverly Hills where they were having chopped salads for dinner. The conversation across their neighboring red booths had been charming and light and they exchanged numbers.
Although Jezzy hadn’t too much money to spare, she had booked into the Beverly Hilton, one day and one night in a fabulous hotel, a luxurious birthday present to celebrate herself and the fact that she still didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, when the hotel was in its heyday, when Merv Griffin was in charge and old Hollywood would happen by at any given time. She had been lazing by the pool, on a succulent afternoon and for lunch she had ordered a cob salad, even though she was not one to eat bacon, or even turkey for that matter, but the cob at the Beverly Hilton was too divine to forego. So, a birthday lunch by the pool. One day and one night in a fabulous hotel. Even the air in Beverly Hills smelt rich, its sumptuous fragrance, usually of Giorgio back then, clinging to the oxygen. Jezzy had been lazing by the pool at the Beverly Hills hotel with a massive plate of fries, a Coke and a pile of crap magazines, when she heard the wanton, far off strains of a saxophone…and then there was Adrian, holding a cake and candles and wishes, a small saxophonist with rangy limbs and glossy brown skin, meandering beside him to serenade her. They sauntered towards her, drifting along on the melody, as she lay by the pool, feeding her mind and her soul care of Sammy Cahn and Gene DePaul.
Adrian took her hand and they followed
the saxophonist into the empty ballroom, where a quartet dressed in black tie was playing a smoky rendition of Teach Me Tonight. Did you say I had a lot to learn? strained the blue, aching instrument. Well, don’t think I’m trying not to learn, since this is the perfect spot to learn, trying to find somebody to teach me tonight. The alluring lyrics played her across her mind as the saxophone groaned.
She wanted Adrian desperately then, the way he looked at her made her so wet, so quickly. The saxophone wrapped its notes around her mind and all she wanted was Adrian. A man she barely knew.
Back in her room, one over by the fountain across the drive for that was all she could afford, Adrian ran his large, strong hands along her swimsuit. The lycra grew damp, but he would not pull it away from her body. She longed for him. But still he would not submit. No surrender. He wove his intoxicating spell over her, under her, until finally he was, at last, inside her. She wanted any part of him inside her, it seemed that they had both longed for this moment for so long, his fingers, his slender, slightly bent cock, his warm tongue. All she could hear were the strains of the saxophone outside the room, as she rose and plummeted and rose again inside and outside of him. And her mind was lost and her body belonged only to him. To Adrian. To this strange and mystical man she had only just met, but who had already woven a permanent spell over her until they was bound. Her body and mind, tangled.
It turned out to be a magical couple of weeks, a hazy, sun-filled affair that seemed to stretch on and on. She thought she had what she wanted, all those years ago, but that was when her relationships all started to go wrong. It was the first time she had felt such overwhelming love which at the same time felt so very wrong. Their first time together had been fleeting, yet so powerful, it had been etched into her soul. And because of him, even though she was only in Los Angeles with Frankie for a three week holiday, after meeting Adrian she ended up staying in Los Angeles for a couple of months. Her visa was intact and she was between jobs, so she had the time and Frankie flew home to begin a training course as a nanny. Jezzy moved in with Adrian and their relationship was volatile and stupendous but her heart tore a little more each day. After a couple of months, she couldn’t take any more and was desperate to fly home to London, so she gathered her strength, prised herself away from Adrian’s spell and fled.
*
Someone with
TheRapist
‘It’s as if I have this weird sort of hunger, or anger, or whatever you would call it, inside of me. Just like this ball of stuff that isn’t fulfilled unless I’m performing. I don’t even mean on the stage. I mean, I wish I was on the stage, constantly, but it’s not even that. Even if I’m up there seven nights a week, two shows a night, it’s not enough for me. It’s something else. Life Drama. That’s what I crave all the time, in everything I do. I can’t even date properly anymore. It’s like I always need something outrageous to happen for it to mean anything. I can’t be content with dinner and a movie. Dinner and a movie. Even the sound of it is so banal. Dinner and a movie? Dinner and a fucking movie! Where’s the thrill in that?! I don’t need to be with someone just to eat. To show off how I chew! What is eating anyway? Especially with someone you barely know. It’s pretty much defecating in front of them. Whatever you eat you’re going to shit out later anyway. Where’s the attraction in that? Whoever decided that sucking on king crab tails was a turn-on ought to be in analysis. If I date a guy, I need something mad crazy to happen. If it doesn’t happen organically, I genetically modify the situation to make it happen. I hate ordinariness. Is that a word? Tell me later, I’m paying you through the fucking teeth for this, but I know that they’re entering new words into the dictionary all the time, so if that’s not a word already, it ought to be. Looking back, like you made me do, like you practically forced me to do, I think it began when I started dating at, what, fourteen or so? I used to purposely pick a fight with the guy so I could make a huge issue of walking out on him in the middle of a date. Storming out of McDonalds or jumping cab mid-journey. That way I could go home feeling as if something meaningful had happened and what a shitty date it had been and what a total asshole the guy was. After some heavy analysis though, I’m thinking maybe it had something to do with me. That is so hard to admit, but I’m beginning to think it might be the truth. I thrive on life drama. And if I can’t get it by performing for an audience through my work, then I need to get it somewhere else. That’s how I ended up with you. Here on your couch. Which, by the way, reeks of stale emotion.’
*
Devon
Devon was browsing in the soft fruit section of Whole Foods when she decided that she needed to fuck a woman. Everything she had ever done with men had left her dissatisfied, apart from when she was in complete control. Their hairy, soggy dicks invariably left her with an aftertaste of repulsion and lately she had begun imagining she was with a woman again, with Mary, when she was with a man. Whether she was making love with a man or fucking a total shitty guy, the only way she could come was to imagine He was a She. It was possibly the only thing in her life she had fought against feeling and had tried to hold back for as long as she could. The trouble was since her one time experience, the one she dare not let herself think about too often, the women in her mind were completely fictitious. Which caused a problem, because she couldn’t have sex indefinitely with her mind. Could she?
It was a hot night and the cool of the store felt good beneath her vivid red silk sheath. She idly threw kiwi fruit and persimmons in her basket, which due to increasing heaviness, she was beginning to resent. Devon had chosen 2% milk, chai tea and four packets of cookies….some with chocolate cream, some with raspberry jam. She grabbed a box of sourdough pretzels and a tin of anchovies and headed to the hot counter for a takeout chicken, stuffed with garlic and chili peppers,
then sauntered to the checkout and waited in line. Hated it. She dumped her stuff on the conveyor belt and grabbed a copy of Family Circle magazine. Those magazines at the check-out got you every time. Bagged her shopping in a green turtle bag she had stuffed in the side pocket of her Prada. Paid. Headed home to watch The Bachelor on ABC and eat pre-roasted chicken and creme cookies. Devon was an oxymoron within her own existence. If only they knew.