by L.J. Shen
“I figured if I couldn’t get rid of you, at least I can have fun with you.”
“I’ll never sleep with you.” I poked at the pastry without even considering eating it. Alex took a big gulp of coffee, still looking at the ocean.
“Why?”
“Because I’m not as stupid as to willingly put myself in a position where I get hurt.”
He swiveled his head to face me, and suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. Like all artistic geniuses, he had an expressive face. Kind of funny-looking. Sort of imperfect. The type you couldn’t look away from. Mick Jagger, Steven Tyler, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards. They all looked a little funny. A little too mischievous. With mouths too wide and eyes too droopy and smiles too open. Alex’s face was like a great book. Every time you looked at it, you found a different something.
“I’d never hurt you. I will leave you kindly. And you will leave me happily. That, I can promise.”
“How can you promise me that? How can you promise me I wouldn’t fall in love?”
He looked up from his coffee, a sad smile on his face. “I’m sort of unlovable once you get to know me.”
Silence.
“My appeal is in my mystery, you see.”
Rain started pouring down on us, seemingly out of nowhere. Tropical weather. Short sleeves and a downpour. He tilted his head to the other side of the promenade.
“Come, Stardust. The night is young and full of promise.”
We rolled to the parking lot, dripping and laughing.
And I decided not to ask Alex Winslow any personal questions, just to keep my sanity at bay.
Another show.
Another hit.
Blake speculated that the YouTube video’s views of “Secondhand Love” that had been leaked from Japan were so high, whoever had posted it was making twenty grand a day from ads alone. Not gonna lie, writing a great song numbed the notion of being categorically defective as a human being, and for a day there, I’d even forgotten about Fallon and Will and revenge and the champagne—side note: the latter sat in the back of my mind the whole time. I didn’t even like champagne. Getting pissed, though, was another story.
When I got off the stage, I rushed to the dressing room, disregarding the shambolic queue of staff and local celebrities milling around trying to get a moment with me. I threw the door open and collapsed right on top of Indie, who was sitting on a silver sofa, sewing.
“Alex, gross! Get off my fabric.” She pushed my chest, but there was laughter in her voice.
I climbed atop of her like a monkey and tickled her armpits—and what do you know? Indie Bellamy was ticklish. She squirmed and made the most fuckable sounds, making me want to stuff my fingers into her mouth and take out those little sounds and put them in my pocket.
“Off, off, you caveman, off!” That hint of a giggle bloomed into a full-blown laugh.
Something had changed. We’d changed. She’d melted a little, and I wanted to shove off the ice and see what was underneath. Alfie, Blake, and Lucas walked through the door, watching us from the threshold, mesmerized. It thrilled me, the look on Lucas’ face. I didn’t even need to lift my head to see it to know it was there. He was hurting. Not in the way I was hurting when he’d booked the hotel for Will and Fallon under his name so they could fuck when I was still with her, but still.
“Make me,” I growled into her face, so close I could see every individual, orange freckle peppered across her nose.
“This is sexual harassment.” She laughed breathlessly.
“Don’t embarrass yourself.” I pinned her to the sofa, my crotch on hers, my lips on her cheek so only she could hear me. “I bet if I slide my fingers up that fancy dress of yours and push your knickers aside, I’m going to find you so soaked and ready for me, it would take me an hour to lick you dry.”
Her body stiffened beneath me, and I elevated my upper body, glancing down at her. Her blue eyes were so wide and curious. I wondered if she was a virgin. Indie with another guy. I couldn’t picture it, and not because I was attached or some sentimental crap along those lines. She just seemed too reserved. Too proper.
“Alex,” she warned, too afraid to move underneath me, knowing my erection was dangerously close to her cunt.
It was crazy, but this was perfect. This. Me on top of her. The only things between us were fabric and the idiots watching us from across the room. Her body was humming, and I could feel it beneath me, struggling between lust and logic. I lowered my face to hers when some cocksucker grabbed me by the belt loop and yanked me away from her.
“Get off her, you wanker,” Lucas barked. When I turned around, he looked pink and pissed, not unlike Babe the pig. “You’re out of control!”
“So is she.” I fished for my cigarette pack in my back pocket and lit one up, blowing smoke into his face. “It’s called passion. You wouldn’t recognize it if it pissed directly into your mouth.”
“You’re such a twat, you know that?”
“Know it, live it. Sorry, Saint Lucas. Not all of us can maintain such high moral standards.”
“Alex!” Indie scolded.
Fine. I shut up.
The ride to the hotel was wordless. Indie looked out the window, Lucas looked at me, Blake looked at his phone, and Alfie looked at his watch.
“I’m expecting three fans in half an hour. Think we’ll make it in time?” The latter poked his lower lip out.
Everyone groaned, and I threw the blue pick he’d thrown at me in L.A. right at his face.
He laughed. “Oh, we’ve come full circle now.”
In the hallway, I flat out collapsed by my door, watching Indie do the same. It was past midnight, and everyone went to their rooms. Lucas knew better than to push me by loitering around her. Indie had her cloth duffel bag, with a patched dress stuffed into it, the one she’d been working on backstage.
I plucked the notepad and Sharpie out of Tania’s case and stared up at my muse, waiting for her to feed me spoonfuls of her soul.
Knowing I didn’t deserve her.
Knowing she didn’t deserve this.
Knowing how fucked everything was, but not being able to stop, because I wanted revenge, and an album, and solace. And Indie? She would get her money—hell, I might even throw in a couple more hundred grand to sweeten the deal for her—and I’d be to her what I was to so many others. A good story to tell her mates when she was piss-drunk at a hen party. I fucked a rock star once, and it was great.
“What’re you working on?” I jutted my chin to her bag.
She grinned.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just that you’re the only person who asks me stuff. Most people just tell me things, you know?”
“Well, you’re not utterly boring, and you’re here, so you might as well spit it out.”
“A dress. For Paris. My favorite city in the entire world.”
“I thought you’d never been on a plane before?”
“I hadn’t!” She batted her eyelashes and did some little girly-claps, looking so utterly ridiculous, it was almost endearing.
“Looks patchy,” I observed. There were white and pink and cream patches sewn together deliberately out of order. Like a patchwork blanket.
She fingered the fabric with her thin fingers. “It’s a little ugly. Isn’t it beautiful?”
It was my turn to smirk. I strummed my fingers on Tania.
“You find ugly things pretty? Tell me more.”
What she said came out in one breath. Like she’d been waiting to tell me this. Waiting for our midnight date.
“Anything essential is invisible to the eye.”
My eyes shot up. I’d recognize those words anywhere. “The Little Prince.”
“Have you read it?” Indie asked.
I snorted. “You can say that again.”
She squeezed the tip of my boot, her eyes probing. Was I really going to share this with her? Whatever. Why the fuck not.
“My family was the furthest thing from
bookworms. I don’t think we had one book in our house, save for the Bible. We were skint as hell. But my dad had a brother, George, who lived in Notting Hill. Made his money composing songs for kids’ shows. It was my dream to go live with him, but George was a womanizer, and a terrible drunk, and even though he loved me, he certainly didn’t love me enough to give up on his precious vices. When I was eight or nine, George gave me a rare birthday gift. A hard copy of The Little Prince. He said to look for the meaning of the book, and once I found it, he’d buy me my first guitar. He said that no musician deserves as much as a pinch of success before they truly understand the meaning of life, and that he’d know if I cheated and asked, and anyway, I didn’t want to. I wanted to earn that fucking guitar. Wanted her to come to me justly and deservingly. For the next couple years, I was consumed by this book. Every year I saw him at Christmas, I tried my luck, decoding the meaning of this goddamn book. All I got was nonsense about some little twat asking people to paint him a sheep. Until, two years after he gave me the book—now worn and old and stained with mustard and milk—it dawned on me. All true meanings are hidden. Life is full of secrets, and narrow-minded people, and sugar-coated, empty conversations that hold no weight. What’s real is what’s inside us. What’s important is what we feel. That day I rang him, and he picked me up from Watford, even though I could’ve taken the train. That day, I got Tania. That day changed my life.”
I squeezed the length of my acoustic guitar. I’d stopped playing Tania at unplugged gigs years ago, but I still carried her everywhere—you don’t throw away your gran because she gets too old to bake your favorite pie. Tania was, after all, my first and only genuine friend. Indie caressed the fabric of her work in progress in circles, nodding.
“I always loved The Little Prince because it always felt like I, too, belong on another planet. Like I can barely even survive the world I live in and don’t necessarily understand why things are the way they are,” Indie licked her lips.
She tucked her chin to her chest, her eyelashes floating on her cheeks. I stared. Gulped. Averted my gaze. Fuck. She was beautiful. It was hard to believe she was the same girl from the Chateau Marmont. The one I’d looked at and seen a strange lass with a funny dress, weird hair, and a too-freckled face.
I looked down at my notepad and started writing.
Can you keep a secret?
Sometimes I look at you and all I see is regret
My little passion pit is out of this world
Dictates my every lyric and note and word
I do all the things I want to do to you in the dark
But time knows and sees and notices every mark
And sometimes I want you
But most times I don’t
I should leave you alone, but we both know I won’t.
I realized I was running out of paper, but the words kept on gushing out. They rushed in a stream, and I needed to capture them as they were. Desolate. Feral. Un-fucking-hinged. I grabbed Indie’s hand and pulled her into my body. She stumbled across the tight space between us right onto my lap, her mouth falling open. I didn’t care. It wasn’t about sex. It was art, and art was divine—it overruled everything. And this wasn’t even my bullshitter speaking. I actually believed that.
“I need you to take your dress off.” I tugged at the thick fabric of her frilly number.
Her eyes widened, and she jerked away. Oh, how I wished she were one of my groupies in that moment. But if she were, we wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be feeding off of her memories, and stories, and reveries. That was the thing about Stardust. She stood toe-to-toe with me, even though I was taller, stronger, richer. She made me feel…real.
“Here? Jesus H, please don’t tell me you’re drunk.” She looked around the hallway, checking that it was empty.
I gripped the hem of her dress and dragged her toward me, my eyes roaming, looking for the buttons or zipper or whatever to get her out of her dress.
“I need to write on something and my notepad is full. No one will see you. The lads are fast asleep, and Alfie’s girls only just arrived. Even that dickhead can keep them busy for at least twenty minutes. The whole floor is reserved for us. It’s just you and me, Stardust. I need your back.”
And your words.
And that song that kept playing in my head.
I’m the king with no subjects
The vain man with no crowd
The drunk twat who’s always so fucking loud
And you’re the rivers and mountains
Maybe even the oxygen itself
You’re the wind that carries me from place to place
The only high I always chase
“No.”
Inside, I screamed my frustration, but on the outside, I just looked at her with mild disinterest.
“No?”
“Just write on my arms. Better yet—on yours. They’re thicker.”
“Not enough space, and I need to break it into paragraphs.”
“No.”
“Why?” My eyelids were twitching. I was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign.
“Because you slept with someone else yesterday.” She looked surprised at my even asking.
I licked my lips slowly before opening them, enjoying the way her gaze clung to them. “I didn’t sleep with Gina.”
“Huh?”
“Never intended to, either. I kissed her, right. But only to piss you off, and honestly, I don’t remember what she tasted like, just your reaction to it, which made my cock really fucking happy. The only person I want to fuck right now is you. The second I heard you across the hall banging your head against the door, I threw her in Alfie’s room and went into the bathroom for a quick wank. But don’t feel sorry for our little friend Gina. Alfie gave her what she needed and then some. I meant what I said, Stardust. I want to screw the words out of you. Just you. Until the end of this tour, it’s only you and me.”
The silence between us reminded me that seduction was like a game of Monopoly. It required patience, and planning, and reading your opponent. Just because I’d hit the jackpot and had a pocket stuffed with fake money didn’t mean shite.
She could still say no.
She could still win the game.
Not giving her the chance to deny me, I brought my callused palm to her back and rolled the zipper down. She let me, if for no other reason than the relief she felt knowing I hadn’t slept with that Aussie bird. Or maybe she finally understood what we were. Floating in the world, with no roots or ground or gravity. Mistakes, and sins, and errors were the bones of my kingdom. Everything felt different away from home, and so she allowed herself not to be herself, just for tonight. When the top portion of her dress slid down, Stardust turned around quickly, covering the small, perky tits I didn’t get the chance to see.
I uncapped the Sharpie with my teeth and started writing on her smooth back, taking great pleasure in knowing it was going to stay there for days. The Sharpie danced along her spine, and I gulped each time her body shivered against the bright red tip of the marker. My cock sprang to life, but now wasn’t the time.
And I would travel from asteroid to asteroid
Trying to find the one that would be ours
Building palace after palace until it feels like home
From London to Paris, from New York to Rome
The Little Prince, Alex Winslow
I paused, staring at my own terrible handwriting.
Her skin blossomed again.
“It’s cold.” She cleared her throat, grasping for her dress, her tits still covered by her arm. Bullshit. She was hornier than a unicorn. “Let’s go inside. You can copy it onto a notepad.”
I leaned forward and kissed the valley between her shoulder and neck, her skin coming alive and heating under my lips. The next words I whispered as seductively as I possibly could. I didn’t normally need to put in an effort, but with this one, I had to.
“If I don’t fuck you soon, I will die, and it will be on your conscience.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“You can call me that in bed, if you’re inclined to,” I retorted, my lips skimming her drug-like skin. What was it about her that felt like home? It was senseless. I didn’t even fucking like home. I didn’t fucking have a home. Home was where my useless parents sat on their arses all day spending my money. “Isn’t that what The Little Prince is about? Being tamed and taming others? We don’t have to do that, here, Stardust. It’s just us. No grown-ups.”
“We are supposed to be the grown-ups.”
“No one is a grown-up when given a choice. It’s something you’re forced into.”
Pause.
“I’ve already told you, Alex. I’m not a fling type of girl.”
“You’re young, and available, and fit. You shouldn’t be so closed off. Get drunk. Fuck famous blokes. Post pictures of yourself all over the world on Instagram. You should live and make mistakes, and I’m offering to be one of those mistakes, because you have nothing to lose. We have an expiration date. We have a deadline. We have endless five-star hotel rooms and an album to write and your family to save and just fucking admit it—all arrows point in the same direction. Us. Together. For now.”
“And after now?” She turned around to stare at me. “What happens after now, Alex?”
“What do you mean?”
“When the tour is over. What do we do then?”
“We go our separate ways.” Wasn’t it obvious? Did she want a fucking boyfriend? Because I didn’t do that shit. And even if I did…Fallon was the first and last girl I tried monogamy with. She held my heart between her manicured fingers and squeezed hard every time I considered moving on. Even if I wanted to give Indie something—which I didn’t—I wasn’t sure if I even could.
“You will likely run into Fallon in Paris.” Indie was candid. And honest. And raw. She didn’t beat around the bush, asking the tough questions, giving zero fucks if it made her sound clingy or committed. She didn’t pretend to be someone she wasn’t.
“Then we end in Paris.” I brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “We end whenever Fallon and I begin again.”