by Lisa Ferrari
I feel bad because, apart from the hasty lunch with Harper at Panera, Denise and I haven’t seen each other and hung out since she and Mark got loaded and started necking in front of Kellan and me. Instead of discussing a business investment-cum-partnership, they were tonguing and undressing one another.
But Denise doesn’t seem pissed at all. She keeps the door open any time I want to come over for a night of girl power or to watch the Niners. Any time the Niners score, she takes a pic of the TV and texts it to me. One night she texts me a blurry selfie that is mostly a close-up of her face with something in her mouth. There’s something brown that looks like pubic hair, so I’m guessing they got loaded and she took a selfie while fellating Mark. I show it to Kellan and he hypothesizes that it’s another attempt to lure us into a foursome. He’s probably right. I delete the text and resolve to do what I need to do, which is to focus on my training and my nutrition and on being ready when the big day arrives.
KELLAN AND I are deep into the high sets and gutwrenchingly endless reps of a heavy leg day one afternoon when my phone rings. I happen to be holding it because Kellan has me taking pics of his calves so he can add them to his progress pic file on his computer.
But it’s Nancy. She almost never calls.
“Hi, Nancy.”
“Hi. Where are you?”
“I’m at Kellan’s. Leg day. What’s up?”
“Oh nothing, except that we have a big golf tournament dinner for two hundred and twenty people and you were supposed to be here an hour ago.”
My blood turns to ice and my stomach drops. “Oh shit. Shit. I’m sorry, Nancy. I guess I forgot to check my schedule.”
“I’d forget too if I were auditioning for the most expensive movie ever made. You want me to help you out and just pull the trigger and fire you? I know you feel bad quitting. But I think you’ve outgrown this job, Claire. You’ve moved on to greener pastures. You need to water that pasture with blood and sweat and tears and everything you’ve got, so you can do everything in your power to make all your dreams a reality. If you continue working here, carrying trays, that isn’t going to happen. Besides, aren’t your book sales up? Like, way up?”
“Actually, yes, they are.” The past three weeks have seen a doubling, and then a tripling, and then another doubling, of my daily sales volume.
“Great. So you no longer need us.”
“But what about–”
“Don’t worry about it, Claire. We’ll be fine. Life will go on. People will get married and somehow we’ll find a way to serve them their dinner. It’ll be okay. I gotta run. Say hi to Kellan.”
Nancy hangs up.
Holy three-tiered-wedding-cake.
“What was that about?” Kellan asks.
“Nancy just fired me. Like, officially.”
“About time. Your set.” Kellan motions to the two 50-pound dumbbells I’m using to do lunges.
His casual indifference is shocking.
Until I realize he’s right.
My leg workout is taking me closer to my goal. Carrying trays at work for a golf tournament would be taking me backwards. Or at least keeping me where I am, treading water. My book sales are up and together with the sales of Iron Born merchandise, the income has surpassed what I was making at work. Plus Christmas is coming and with it a lot of new tablets and phones and Kindles and other e-readers, which means a nice fat spike in book sales.
But I don’t have the money in my checking account just yet. “What about my rent?”
“What about it?”
“What if I can’t pay it?”
“Vacate.”
“Huh? Where will I live?”
“Move in with me.”
Oh Sweet Baby Jesus… “Really?”
“Sure. You spend all your time here anyway. When was the last time you spent the night at your place?”
I do not immediately recall.
Kellan’s proposition is terrifying. Thrilling, but daunting. I’ve never lived with a man before.
I hear Denise’s voice in my head: News flash, honey, you’ve been living with a man since summer.
Yeah, but not officially. It’ll be different once all my stuff is here and there’s nowhere for me to go if… if… well, we won’t go there.
“Okay.”
Kellan smiles. “Really? You want to move in with me?”
“I would love to.”
“Okay!”
Kellan sweeps me up into his arms. The next thing I know, we’re on the floor, making love, surrounded by dumbbells, celebrating our decision to cohabitate with our naked, sweaty bodies.
We’re so excited, and so in love, we both last about three minutes.
I CONTINUE TO work on Nate’s notes on my books. He’s been sending me ideas for revisions. Some of his notes are brilliant and insightful and cause me to doubt myself because it’s so obvious. Others are so whacko and weird that I think he was drunk or stoned or being fellated when he made them. Or both. At this point, nothing would shock me.
I ask Nathan several times if there is anything new regarding my book deal. He always says ‘Not yet’ or ‘Be patient’.
I never responded to his advances. Mercifully, he seems to have stopped making them.
“Maybe he got the message,” I suggest one night while Kellan and I are doing bi’s and tri’s.
“Not to be crass, but he still wants to fuck you.”
“That is crass. And how do you know?”
“Because you’re a hot piece of ass and he’s a man with a penis. He wants to put it in you. And then take it out, and then put it back in, and then take it out, and then put it back in, over and over and over until he has this thing that feels like a sneeze only better.”
I’m torn: on the one hand I’m outraged at Kellan’s insensitivity and his vulgarity; but I also like hearing him refer to me as a hot piece of ass. It could be construed as totally sexist and disgusting, but being thought of as a hot piece of ass is better than being thought of as a fat pig. I’ve been ignored at parties and in bars; I didn’t enjoy it. And I didn’t have to dress up in a fat suit like Tyra Banks to experience it. She got to go take off the sweat pants and the fat suit and go back to being Tyra, super-cool and ultra-beautiful supermodel goddess television host. I, on the other hand, got to go home and watch Dancing with the Stars, which I watch sometimes even though I kinda hate it. I suspect it’s because watching non-dancers try to dance reminds me of times in my life in which I was publicly humiliated (such as being ignored in bars). A pint of Phish Food and an hour of that and I’m too depressed even to masturbate. Or the opposite will happen: I’ll take one of my sex toys in the shower and ram myself with it until I come or until my vagina hurts and I have to stop so I can cry, whichever happens first.
But that was then and this is now.
“Look,” Kellan continues, “I don’t want to tell you what to do. You haven’t asked my opinion, so I don’t want to step on your toes here. This is your career and you need to handle it as you see fit.”
I sense he is holding back. “But… ?”
“But… if it were me, I’d tell that guy to fuck off. I’d sever all ties. I would literally use the words ‘fuck off’. I wouldn’t do business with him.”
“Yeah but I thought it’s best to never burn any bridges.”
“You don’t need to worry about that, especially in a case like this where some guy is just trying to get into your pants. He probably does this kind of thing all the time. He finds young, aspiring female writers and makes a whole big show of flying them to Manhattan and showing them his literary equivalent of the Bat Cave, he takes them out on the town, and most of the time I’m sure it ends with his penis inside them. Then they fly home to Nebraska or wherever with a great story to tell. He strings them along for a while but eventually he says sorry the deal fell through but you’re very talented blah blah blah, let me know when you have a new book so I can maybe help shepherd it in the right direction because maybe I’ll be intere
sted or maybe I’ll know someone who is. And she gets all excited because now she knows it wasn’t just a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am hit-it-and-quit-it sort of thing and she tells all her friends how the big New York agent flew her to the Big Apple and raved about her work and his little pencil-dick raved about the tight walls of her vagina and he can’t wait to see her next book. Everybody’s happy.”
I’m forced to admit to myself that Kellan’s summation is eerily, painfully, and, most of all, infuriatingly accurate.
I get pissed.
Before I can stop myself, I hit back at him for taking a giant pee all over my dreams of being a published author, one who may even win a National Book Award. I latch on to the one thing that has been the biggest obstacle between Kellan and me: She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.
Except I totally name her.
“Then why haven’t you done that with Stacy? We know she’s still pining for you. You haven’t stopped doing business with her.”
“I’m financially invested.”
“So. Have her buy you out.”
“She doesn’t have the money.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen the books.”
“So what. That’s not your problem. Tell her to get a loan. Or… or… have new incorporation papers drawn up or whatever, and get out.”
“Walk away?”
“Yes.”
“And lose my investment?”
“How much is your investment?”
“About a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“Wow. Really?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, then. Never mind.”
I plop down on the flat bench, deflated.
Kellan takes a seat beside me. “Look, let’s not argue, okay? Let’s not let any of those people or any of their bullshit come between us. Okay? You are my first priority, okay? Not my businesses or the movie and certainly not Stacy. You and I need to be copacetic. Everything else can wait.”
“What’s ‘copacetic’?”
“I think it means squared away and taken care of. My football coach used to say it. What does ‘crass’ mean, anyway? I said it earlier and, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I used it correctly.”
“You did. It means vulgar or rude. Or churlish. That’s one of those four-dollar words you only read in books.”
“Okay. I didn’t mean to be churlish.”
“I know.”
“And I didn’t mean to dump all over your aspirations of being a successful, well-known author, either. I have no doubt that you will come to be known as exactly that. I just don’t think you need to waste your time with Hamburger Wellington now that we know he has a thing for you and continues to flirt with you despite knowing you’re with me. That’s… shitty. It’s offensive. I take offense at that. So, do what you need to do but I can’t pretend to like him.”
“I know. You’re right. It’s just that he’s the first real New York agent who ever showed interest in my work.”
“I know. But just wait. In the next year or two, you’re going to have a whole bunch of agents emailing you and texting you and calling you to represent you.”
“You think so?”
“Trust me. And as soon as I finish the Harry Potter books, I’m going to start reading your books, okay?”
“Really?” This makes me smile.
“Of course. I’m sorry I haven’t read them already. That was a huge blunder. That was dumb of me.”
“That’s okay.” I put my arms around him and squeeze him tight. “Should we finish our workout and then eat so we can go out in the spa and have sex?”
“Sure.” He kisses me. “It’s your set.”
I stand up and resume our arm workout. I grab the EZ-Curl bar with a ten-pound plate on each side and begin curling. Kellan stands behind me, spotting me, reminding me to explode up to work the fast-twitch muscle fibers which are responsible for the majority of hypertrophy, but he also makes certain I squeeze for a one-count at the top of the movement in order to activate the maximum number of muscle fibers. And finally he makes me go slow when I lower the weight, getting the negative, the eccentric, to activate even more muscle fibers. By the eighth rep, my biceps and forearms are on fire. But Kellan is standing close behind me, pressing his crotch against my butt. I manage to squeeze out four more reps before I fail completely. As I recover, I press my butt against Kellan’s crotch.
The next thing I know, he’s pushing my compression pants down to my knees, then to my ankles, and he’s burying his face in my butt, eating my anus. I’m so shocked and so lost in the sudden ecstasy, I don’t know what to think.
Kellan guides me onto the flat bench and takes me from behind as we watch ourselves making love in the big mirrors on the wall.
He squeezes my hips and gives it to me hard and deep, ultimately exploding inside me as I’m coming. I feel every bit the hot piece of ass he said I am.
LATER, WE RELAX in the spa, exhausted from our workout.
Both of them.
My clitoris is still tingling. It does that a lot these days. I’ve heard about Restless Genital Syndrome and Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome. I can imagine how they could be a problem.
But I don’t think I have either of those.
I think I have I Want Kellan Now Syndrome.
We sip a protein shake and watch Friends on the outdoor TV. I recline on Kellan’s chest with my head on his shoulder and my arms and legs floating. Kellan has his arms around me. One of his hands cups my breast and simply holds it. I love that.
We watch the one with the proposal, during which Joey wins the Mister Beaumont. When the show is over, Kellan and I reminisce about our trip to L.A. to buy the icy-blue Aventador, aka the Mister Beaumont. That was one of the best weekends of my life.
Kellan concurs fully.
He grabs his phone and scrolls back through his gallery, finding photos from that weekend. He finds a good one of me at the Chateau Marmont, and several of me with the sexy Lamborghini.
I’m shocked by my appearance. My face is round and my neck and face are rather fat. Kellan scrolls to a pic he took of me at breakfast a few days ago, sitting there in my compression pants and sports bra after morning cardio.
I look like a different person. I’m so much leaner. My face is smaller and more square. My arms are smaller. I can actually see some definition in my shoulders. My hips are visibly smaller.
“I noticed it earlier, when we were doing it on the bench,” Kellan says. “I was holding on to your hips and I realized they felt smaller than they used to. So I made a mental note to look back at some pics from a couple months ago so we could compare.”
I think I’m leaner now than I’ve ever been. I must be approaching my high school weight.
“See, this is why progress pictures are so crucial,” Kellan says. “It’s the difference between looking at yourself and seeing yourself. You look at yourself in the mirror every day. We all do. But when you see yourself in a photo, you see what others see. You see yourself as you actually appear. And when you’ve made progress, the way you have, it shows. It shows you that what you’re doing is working. It provides motivation to continue. Pretty cool, huh?”
It’s very cool.
OVER THE FOLLOWING weeks, my body continues to improve and change. I get stronger, too. I set personal bests on all my lifts. Weights I’ve been using for a solid month are now too light. One night, we’re doing arms and I’m curling 20-pound dumbbells and I’m not getting anything out of it. I do a set of twenty. Nothing. Kellan hands me the 30’s. I do eight and reach failure.
“Better?” he asks.
“Much.”
“Good. Stick with those for a couple weeks.”
We continue to train and eat super clean. The weird part is that I’m not craving ice cream or cookies or cake or nachos or pizza or jalapeno poppers or Bagel Bites or anything like that.
Kellan tells me he gets the same way when he’s training hard and has a goal and a dea
dline. It’s easy to stay on the nutrition plan when you’re busting your ass working out every day. It’s easy to go off the nutrition plan when you’re not working out every day. They go hand in hand, but it helps to begin with the workouts, and the nutrition follows naturally.
My mom and Beth both break radio silence.
My mom texts, then she calls, then she calls again, then she texts, and then she calls about seven more times.
I never answer.
I can barely bring myself to read her texts. The first one seems innocuous, like a virtual olive branch. But quickly they degrade into goading attempts at humiliation and guilt, telling me that my behavior at Thanksgiving dinner was unacceptable and that I owe an apology not only to her and to my father but to Beth.
Screw that.
All they do is give me grief and nitpick and make me feel guilty and tell me how I’m screwing up my life.
When I was alone and single and not with Kellan and had no one to believe in me and inspire me and motivate me and to cheer for me, I let myself put up with that crap.
But not anymore.
After several days, my conscience eventually gets the best of me and I text my mom back. But I don’t cave in. I tell her that she and my dad owe me an apology. And that they owe Kellan one, too; that we tried to be cordial but they did nothing but attack us. And if they want us to visit for Christmas, they need to make things right.
My mom texts back late one night when I just know she’s in bed, in her white flannel jammies, pecking at the little keyboard on her outdated cell phone. She tells me I’m a fool for trying to break into Hollywood, that my books will never make enough money for me to live on, and that it’s time to stop chasing rainbows.