The Rock Star Next Door, A Modern Fairytale

by Lily Silver

  “Hi Mom.” Lex took the house phone from the housekeeper. “I was just out the door, a business meeting.” Lex tossed car keys up in the air as he spoke and then caught them as they dropped by spinning about and cupping them with his hand. “Can I call you back later?”

  “Honey.” Emma Coltrane’s uneasy voice oozed into the phone. “I’ve had the most bizarre phone call from a woman called Marcie Kelly claiming to be your fiancée’s mother.” The shock and concern in her voice was punctuated by another heavy sigh. “Lex, honey, she said some pretty terrible things.”

  Lex looked up the stairs, noting that Jessie’s door was open above them. He moved swiftly to his office and closed the door. “What kind of things?”

  “Horrible things. The woman was ranting on and on about the poor girl, like a crazy person. I told her she needed psychiatric help and she hung up on me.”

  Lex swallowed. He didn’t know what to say, how to respond to the questions in his mother’s voice. He sank down into the overstuffed loveseat, letting the silence hang between them as he quickly went over the events of the last few days in his head.

  “Lex, are you still there?”

  “Yeah, Jessie is upstairs. She’s been really sick over this whole thing.”

  “Poor dear. I can’t believe she’s as bad as that woman claims. No mother would say those things about her own child.”

  “What things?” Lex persisted.

  “She claimed her daughter’s a whore. And she said Jessie is so stupid she became pregnant, and then the woman claimed that the child wasn’t even yours so there was no reason for you to have to marry her at all. She said Jessie probably didn’t know who the father was, and I should warn you before it’s too late. Lex--that woman sounded like she’s a whole lotta nuts. It’s not true, is it? You aren’t getting married so suddenly because your girlfriend is pregnant, are you?”

  “No.” Lex snarled into the phone at his mother, incensed as a white hot rage surged through him. “Jessie is not pregnant, mother. Why would that woman claim that I was being duped into marrying her because of a baby she was passing off as mine?”

  He was beyond angry, he fighting-dirty mad. If the woman didn’t live halfway across the country he’d drive to her house and punch out her lights, just on principle. Jessie hadn’t been with anyone sexually for years before they started dating. For her mother to imply she was immoral, sleeping around and trying to trap him into marriage--it just burned all the way down to the soles of his feet.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, dear. Is Jessie okay? You said she was ill.”

  “We had to rush her to the hospital yesterday. She’s been getting threatening calls from someone . . . some fan who is stalking her.” Lex explained the details to his mother, all the while coming to a better understanding about Jessie’s reluctance to talk about her family back in Wisconsin or tell him who the prank caller really was.

  “She seemed like such a sweet girl when you brought her out a few weeks back.”

  “Mom, listen, she’s been getting calls from her sister, who is religious in the extreme. Her sister told her I was a Satanist, that she shouldn’t marry me. I think the whole family is upset about our engagement and they’re grabbing at any chance to stop the wedding--because of me, because of who I am.” Lex paused, pinching the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb as he tried to regain a calm demeanor.

  “Her mother was definitely not lucid--or calm. She seemed desperate for me to hate her own child. What kind of mother does that? All it did was make me feel sorry for the poor girl. Oh, such things shouldn’t surprise a person in my line of work. I see the handiwork of abusive parents on daily basis. It’s just . . . one doesn’t expect to encounter it on such a personal level.”

  “Yeah.” Lex agreed, remembering the long line of abused kids his parents had taken in as foster parents over the years until social services found permanent homes for them.

  “I received a second call this morning.” Emma confessed. “Not from the mother this time, but from a woman named Rachel Johnson. She claimed to be Marcie Kelly’s sister. She apologized for the earlier call. She told me not to believe anything Mrs. Kelly says because Jessie’s mom suffers from schizophrenia and has constant delusions about people being out to get her. She asked me not to tell her sister that she called on Jessie’s behalf, as things were strained between them as it was.”

  “Jessie’s aunt called you?” Lex repeated, taken aback.

  “Yes, dear, to defend your fiancée and to apologize for the entire incident. Lex, I didn’t mean to upset you. I don’t believe what Mrs. Kelly said. Tell Jessie that for me or let me talk to her.”

  “Mom,” Lex began, uncertain himself about how to bridge the subject with Jessie. “Just let me handle it. Don’t say anything about this to Jessie. It would hurt her to know her mother called you and said those things.” He bit the key ring and told himself to breathe deep, remain calm and let the anger pass through him.

  “Tell her I’m thrilled to have her in our family.”

  “Yeah. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “I love you.” Emma cooed in her sweet tone. “Take care of that sweet girl.”

  “Love you, too.” Lex replied, warmed by his mother’s tenderness and concern as he turned off the cordless phone. Christ! He set the phone on the counter, leaned on it with his elbows and hung his head. “With Cruella De Ville for a mother and a religious fanatic for a sister, no wonder you’re so edgy about a big family wedding.”

  A clattering of voices echoed in the hallway outside his study. Inez’ worried voice, and Jessie’s cool, determined one.

  He rose and opened the door. Jessie stood clutching Duncan in her arms, her feet bare and her face chalk white as she tried to pass by the housekeeper.

  “I’m going home.” Jessie whispered in a tone fraught with hysteria as she looked from the housekeeper to Lex. “I have to go home now.”

  “Jessie, no.” Lex started toward her with his arms opened, intending to scoop her up and carry her back upstairs.

  She backed away with tear-filled eyes.

  “Inez,” Lex gestured her away with his head while slowly approaching the distraught Jessie, his arms outstretched, his face determined. “Jess, it’s okay. Just come back upstairs, honey, we’ll talk this out.”

  “I can’t marry you. There too many things you don’t know about me. About my family. Horrible things. My mom called your mother, didn’t she? Didn’t she? ”

  Lex clucked his tongue and pulled her hard into his arms. “She did, but my mother could tell she was not right in the head. My mom didn’t believe her, honey,” She sagged against him, weak with pain and defeat. Duncan groaned, crushed between them. Lex released her just long enough to take Duncan from her arms and place him on the floor, then lifted her easily into his arms and carried her back up the stairs.

  He placed her on the bed, sat down and gathered her into his arms. Jessie trembled in his arms and pleaded with him to get Jack. “I’m here. Shhh . . . everything’s going to be all right, I promise.”

  “I don’t want to be any trouble. Just, let me go.”

  “Jessie.” Lex cradled her head in both hands, making her look at him. “Stop it. Stop this. You can’t just run away.”

  He slipped one arm beneath her neck, hovering over her as they lay together on the bed. Lex gently brushed away her tears with his fingertips. “Shhh, love.” He kissed her brow, her temples and finally her lips with the utmost care. He nuzzled into her ear and kissed it softly, then the wisps of copper encircling it. “Forget everyone in the world but you and me. That’s all that matters right now, Jess-- just us.”

  She reached up to touch his hair. She looked so lost, desolate. “What did your mother say?”

  “She said to tell you she’s happy to have you join our family.”

  Jessie gazed at him with wariness. His mother received the promised call. She could tell. She wondered if Lex was lying about his mom’s welcome, trying to
smooth things over between them.

  She was so tired. Tired of running, of trying to avoid the ugly reality that stalked her. Tired of trying to pretend everything was normal in her family. She wasn’t going to cry. Not anymore. She was finished crying over her mother’s bizarre need to ruin any chance she might have for happiness.

  Jessie placed her palm behind his head, pulling him close. And then she kissed him, hard and deep. Nothing mattered but the two of them? Yeah, let’s roll with it. Focus on the physical. Right now, she needed him, needed his firm skin pressed hard against her. She needed to be kissed until she couldn’t think straight. Until she could only feel him, until he became her only reality. Jessie wanted to forget, and Lex was going to help her, if only for a little while.

  She tugged at his pants, jerking the button open and sliding the zipper down. She kept kissing him with the devouring hunger of a demon trying to suck someone’s soul out through their mouth. Lex responded to her hunger, her need. She plunged her hands inside his jeans, outlining his hips and skimming his tight ass as she pushed his pants and his underwear down to his thighs. His reaction was immediate, he sprouted some serious wood. Jessie rolled onto her back and gripped his shaft firmly, pulling him by his ready cock to mount her. He followed her lead, settling between her thighs and allowing her to guide him into her slick wet folds. “Love me hard, like a pirate.”

  Lex complied. Jessie gasped at his rough intrusion, but it felt good. So good. It was delicious to be filled by him, to have his engorged cock inside of her be the only reality right now, the only feeling she would allow. She wanted to be nailed by him. Lex; the bad boy rocker, her dangerous pirate, the sexy master of seduction.

  Her arms went about his trim waist, tugging at him, urging him to rest his full weight on her as they kissed and devoured one another with lips, tongue and teeth.

  It was glorious, wicked, erotic. Lex was fucking her. Yes, she liked that nasty word right now and the quick, hard strokes of their union. Jessie arched against him measure for measure as his powerful body covered her and they succumbed to pure primal pleasure. She gasped and writhed, hugged his hips with her legs and urged him on as he banged her for all he was worth.

  At last, sweet release came. Jessie gasped and moaned her triumph, savoring every last shiver as the heady rush of raw, hard sex with a man she trusted lifted her high above the cares of the world and into the realm of pure fantasy.

  * * *

  “I thought you’d like to know about this right away.” Rolly began as Lex sat in the chair opposite the detective’s desk. “I talked to the skinny guy after you left for the hospital with Ms. Kelly's brother.”

  “Steve.” Lex clarified. “Steve Walker.”

  “The guy with the long dark hair and no shirt. Has pierced nipples. Odd, don’t you think?”

  “I didn’t notice.” Lex shrugged. It was common to have piercings among the younger set these days. Some of the younger rockers even had pierced penises. Not that he’d go that far, but nothing much surprised him after being in the rock world for close to fifteen years.

  “I asked him questions. He was edgy, didn’t want to give much away.” Rolly handed him a paper from across the desk as he spoke. “But then, the guy pressed the message on the answering machine for me. This is it. This is what sent your fiancée into hysterics, and a near heart attack. By the way, how is Ms. Kelly?” The sharp man added the last in a perfunctory tone.

  “She’s better, thank you.” Lex took the paper from him, read the cryptic message typed on it and regarded Rolly with raised brows.

  “It’s verbatim.” Rolly assured him. “I wrote it down word for word. I had my secretary type it up so you could read it as opposed to my handwritten copy.” The small notebook was thrust at Lex as proof that the message on the answering machine had not been tainted or added to. “Your stalker is a woman.”

  “Marcie Kelly.” Lex read from beneath the message on the scrawled notepad. “She made good on her threat. She did call my mother with nothing but slander against Jessie.”

  “So she’s guilty of telephone harassment and defamation of character, for starters.” Rolly noted, shuffling through a sheaf of papers on his desk. He handed Lex the one he’d been searching for. “This is a printout of all the calls coming into the house in the last three weeks.”

  Lex shot him a look of surprise. “You can do this, so fast?”

  “It helps speed up the process when you insist someone’s life in danger and its official police business.”

  “You lied.”

  “I exaggerated. I am a former FBI operative. You aren’t paying me to be a priest. You’re paying me for results. It could have taken a month for us to get this and learn the phone calls coming into your fiancée’s home at all hours of the night are long distance, from Wisconsin. The number is listed under Jack Kelly, Sr. in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I did some background checks on your girlfriend, and I’m sorry to say--”

  “It’s her mother.” Lex finished for him. “I knew that without you telling me.”

  “Humm.” Rolly paused, but only for a second. “Do you want me to pursue this? I was thinking I could fly out to Wisconsin, do some checking around to find out why this woman is frightening your girlfriend so, sending her into cardiac arrest.”

  “It was a panic attack.” Lex clarified, going down the list of calls from the distant town. The number was astonishing, and the hours were always very late, past midnight, or early in the morning hours, by California time. “This one.” He circled the one that occurred the previous night, when he’d been awakened from a nightmare about Jessie being in danger and finding it to be true. “Can you find out the contents of that call?”

  “Only if the phone was tapped or we have a recorded message from the answering machine, there’s no way of knowing except asking the parties involved. Could be talking about a French lace wedding veil or what color flowers to purchase. Remember, it’s a different time zone there, a two hour difference.”

  “She was hysterical.” Lex tossed the papers back across the desk. “And Jack was really shook up, too. Every time the phone rings now she cringes, she’s terrified.” He fingered his earring, holding Rolly’s austere gaze.

  “Telephone harassment is a criminal offense. Being the perpetrator is her mother makes it touchy if you want to press charges. Ms. Kelly may wax sentimental and refuse to press charges. It’s an old story, but usually it’s spousal abuse, not parental.”

  “I’m not interested in pressing charges. Not yet.” Lex crossed his arms about his chest, pondering what options he had open to him, where to go with the information given. “I want to find out more about this woman and what kind of threat she poses to my bride.” He searched the ceiling for the answer, and then the mahogany desk before him. “Go to Eau Claire.” He said at last. “Be discreet.”

  “Always.” Rolly touched the intercom, “Cindy, go ahead with the round trip tickets to Eau Claire. Thanks.” He returned his attentions to Lex. “Anything in particular you want me to look for?”

  “The sister, Michelle. I don’t know her married name. She told Jessie I was a Satanist. She tried to get her to cancel our wedding.”

  “Sounds like the whole damn family is certifiable. Congratulations.”

  Lex ignored the sarcastic compliment, more concerned with getting to the bottom of Jessie’s family life. “Jessie and her brother ran away from home when they were teens. She told me that the parents never reported them missing. Check that out, and there is an aunt named Rachel.” Lex filled him in on the phone calls of Mrs. Kelly, and the mysterious Rachel Johnson, to his own mother in Phoenix.

  “Right.” Rolly scribbled the names on his pad. “And Ms. Kelly’s sister, Michelle.”

  “Find out what kind of woman Marcie Kelly is. What kind of reputation she has with her social circle, and--” Lex paused, looking the man straight in the eyes. “If she’s ever been investigated or charged with child abuse. I want all the dirt.”

  Rolly nod
ded gravely. “I’ll be discreet.”

  “Another thing,” Lex rose. “If you call my house, don’t tell Jessie anything, just ask for me. You’re a business associate, that’s all I want her to know.”

  They shook hands, and Lex left the austere offices of Roland Gibson.

  Guilt nibbled at him as he drove back to Malibu from L.A. Lex caught his reflection in the rear view mirror. He frowned at himself. He hoped Jessie wouldn’t resent him for having her family investigated. She might take it the wrong way. She might think he had reservations about marrying her instead of seeing it as his way of trying to protect her.

  Their rough and quick tumble in the sack this morning also worried him, now that his blood had returned to a cooled state. Jessie wanted him, hard and fast, and he complied. He felt like a prick now, after thinking about the interlude. Oh, it was hot, damned hot. He enjoyed every second of it; of ravaging her at her request. And it felt a little strange to admit such a thing. He chewed a stray lock of his hair with worry as he raced up the Pacific Coast Highway, back to Jessie.

  * * *

  Jessie hated sneaking out the back door, but it was the only way to get past Lex’s housekeeper without incurring a lot of questions and stall tactics.

  Inez was vacuuming the living room carpet. She had her back to the hallway. Jessie bolted for the side kitchen door with Duncan following close at her heels. Once outside, she scanned the street before scurrying across the lawn to her own front door.

  If she’d hoped to remain inconspicuous, she wasn’t going to get away with it. Sherry, their housekeeper, stood in the kitchen mopping the floor. It was Wednesday, Jessie remembered. Unlike Lex, who had a housekeeper come daily to pick up after him and cook meals, they had Sherry come in three days a week to do laundry, tidy up the downstairs and the bathrooms.

  “Look at you.” Sherry smirked, her brown snapping eyes full of amusement as she eyed up Jessie’s turquoise silk nightgown and robe. “A night on the town and you come home with a blush on your cheeks wearing only your bloomers.”