by Kayti McGee
Get up
Are you up yet
I’m hungover
GET UP
I’m a new man!
These texts, which started well over an hour ago when there was certainly no chance of me being awake, are followed by a string of emojis that appear to describe his steps to New Manhood: the death face, the barf face, the pill, three coffees, a Bloody Mary, and then the dancing man.
All of those feel reasonable to me, so I give up on the comforter, which has grown hopelessly tangled from my efforts, and sit up.
To my delight, the housekeeper left a stack of clean clothes on my dresser sometime in the early hours. To my chagrin, I realize this means she undoubtedly saw more of me than anyone besides my doctor has in a very long time. Hopefully Jake tips well. Maybe I should tip too.
I pull on a pair of sweat shorts that hug my ass and zip a hoodie over my breasts, then scrounge through the clutch I find abandoned on the floor near my bathroom for some cash. I come up with a crumpled single, several silver coins, only one of which is Canadian, and a cough drop. I leave them all on my pillow for her and make a mental note to hit the ATM at some point today.
Once I brush my teeth and hair, I follow the blessed scent of coffee to the temple of caffeine. I’m too focused at first to notice Jake sitting on a stool in nothing but black boxer briefs and a fresh white t-shirt. There is a trail laid out for me beginning with the aspirin on the counter, French press and mug next to it, and finally a Bloody on the island in front of him.
Damn. He might be my best friend, but that body in those clothes is a better garnish than the celery in my Bloody.
I chase the tablets down with a deep gulp of coffee. And maybe something did change last night because I watch him watching my throat as I swallow, his eyes on where the zipper’s teeth are pulling against my breasts. And then, ever so sensually, I spit my coffee all over the pristine island because I was too entranced with Jake’s garnish to remember that I hate black coffee.
So this is starting well.
Or actually maybe very well, it occurs to me, as Jake hurries in to save the day with paper towels. He does his patting routine, but on my boobs. And the zipper is clearly on my side here, lowering itself during the ordeal. Revealing more cleavage. Attracting Jake’s eyes again.
Beneath his gaze, I can feel my nipples perk. I’m used to having impartial eyes on my body when I dance, but this is way hotter.
We finish laughing, he finishes staring, but I swear he takes another glance as we slide onto stools next to each other. I abandon my mug of black shit in favor of the Bloody because frankly, I could use the liquid courage for the discussion that’s bound to follow. I take a deep breath and a deeper swallow, open my mouth, and immediately change my mind.
This is stupid. This is weird. This is a terrible idea.
To say I’m surprised when I feel the side of his thumbs against my thighs as he swivels my stool to face him is an understatement. He wraps his legs around the outside of my shins and squeezes them tight.
This isn’t how he touches me. What is happening between us? I feel the power in his body and okay, yeah, maybe I’m doing this after all.
“Okay, Marlee. What aren’t you telling me? I’m not letting you go until you spill it.”
Oh. So it isn’t a new phase of touch, it’s a trap.
That’s fair. I had planned on backing out mere seconds ago.
I take another sip of my drink, appreciating the perfect amount of heat and salt, perfect like Jake is. I move my legs against his and watch for a response. He glances down but brings his eyes back to mine with great attention. God, he can see right through me. Of course. What are best friends for?
“I need your help,” I say. “And I didn’t want to talk about it in front of all of my childhood crushes.”
I bring my hands momentarily onto his where they still rest on my stool. I like feeling the length and warmth of his fingers and the slow thump my heart gives in return. He’s safe. I don’t have to be embarrassed with him. I look down at his legs and smile, motion for him to let me go so I can get the contract. I spread the pages out in front of him and take the opportunity to alter my coffee into something drinkable while he reads.
His face is neutral at first and I see his lips mouthing the words to himself when he stops suddenly. His face turns pale and I see his jaw clench when he gets to The Part. He runs his hand over his mouth, and rubs at the stubble on his chin, like he’s got some ass to kick. Pissed-off Jake is totally hot and it’s a good thing I’m not near my phone anymore because I’d be tempted to recreate my childhood shrine with brand-new pics.
“So what do you need me to do, Marlee?” he finally asks from between gritted teeth. “Cut off his balls and stuff them where his eyes used to be?”
It’s sweet, seeing him react like this. But I don’t need him to be my friend right now. Or, I mean, yeah I do, but I need him to be more, too.
“Oh, no! Leave his eyes in place. And the balls, probably. Jake… I agreed to this. It was all on the up and up. See how I even got a contract? Learned that little trick from a book. I’m a grownup. A grownup who reads smut and gets contracts.” I’m babbling, but I can’t help it. I need him not to go to war with Hollywood right now, I just need him to listen.
He laughs sharply and shakes his head, looks at me with a mix of anger and pity.
“Marlee, you’re going to sleep with your producer in exchange for this part.”
“No,” I say, standing straighter, needing that pity off his face. I will never enshrine that particular expression, and I’d like to forget it exists.
“I mean, not exactly. I got the part on my own. And I keep that no matter what. This extra bit is about solidifying my career, helping me take off. Being seen with Richard Thurgood, photographed with him, makes me someone in a way that just landing a role doesn’t. This show could tank but with the connections I’ll make being with him, that won’t make nearly as much of a difference. This doesn’t have to be my make-or-break part. The real role is being his girlfriend, I suppose. At least for the duration of the filming and for the episodes to premiere and then we can reevaluate. Can’t you see what this will do for me?”
He drops his head into his hands and massages his temples before looking me straight in the eye.
“It feels pretty Weinstein to me.”
“No, no, it’s not like that. There were no hotel robes.”
“It’s a #metoo, Marlee!” He doesn’t normally say my name this much.
“It’s more of an #andalso,” I correct. “A #plusthis, if you will.”
“I will not,” he says.
I sit next to him again and this time it’s my turn to grab the top of his thighs and swivel his stool towards me. Damn, they’re strong. So masculine, with just enough dark hair to remind me what lies just slightly further north. Unf. Nothing at all like Johnathan’s pale, undefined stalks.
“Listen. He offered me the part in the show before suggesting that perhaps being his girlfriend could also be mutually beneficial. And it could! He never put his hands on me, or made me feel like my job was dependent on sleeping with him. He’s attractive, Jake. It won’t be gross, I’m pretty sure. Unless he’s into gross stuff. But I put a clause for that in, as you can see. Grownup,” I repeat, pointing at myself, unsure which of us I’m really trying to convince about that last bit.
I watch something like panic or pain flash across his face. It’s brief but it still gives me pause to know that I’m upsetting him, that I did this thing without talking to the one person I always, always talk to before making crazy decisions.
Like moving to LA. (“Stay with me, Marlee, save your money.”)
Cutting six inches off my hair. (“It grows back. What’s the big deal?”)
Or piercing my nipples. (“Do we really think this is wise?” We did not, after all.)
“Okay,” he says. He doesn’t mean it, but he’ll hear me out. Thank fuck. I hate that he’s upset.
&nb
sp; “So what do you need from me?” he asks. Ah, the other shoe. Ready and waiting to drop. I bring my focus back to my hands on his thighs, my legs on the outside of his. I slide my body forward on the stool so that I’m almost straddling him. Not beginning a new phase of touching—yet—but a trap. So he can’t leave. So I can’t either.
“He’s going to expect things from me as a girlfriend.”
“And?”
I look down at the fabric between me and his dick, marveling that it’s just like—right there—and bring my eyes back to his, hopefully before he notices.
He notices, but is too kind to call me on it.
“Richard will expect his woman to have expertise in things I don’t have it in, and I need you to teach me.”
“Teach you what?” he asks. “What could I possibly know about being a producer’s fake girlfriend? Which fork to use? What designers are hot right now? The name of my lawyer to get a new kink clause put in your contract?”
“Not exactly. It’s just that… I’m a virgin.”
Chapter Four
Jake
I could have fallen off my goddamn stool if I hadn’t been trapped in place.
It couldn’t be true; the idea of a woman like her never having been touched just made no sense at all.
I try to wrap my mind around it, and fail. Marlee is stupid hot. She’s talented. She’s… bendy. And she was engaged, for fuck’s sake! Oh, the irony in that particular phrase.
“How is that possible? I mean, are you… like, are you serious?” She can’t be.
“It was an accident! I’m an accidental virgin!” She moves her hands away from me, which I don’t want at all but I need to focus if I’m going to get to the bottom of this. And get to the bottom of it I will. This is a crime. A girl like my roommate deserves to be worshiped. Twice daily, if possible.
“What about your fiancé? You didn’t sleep with Johnathan? But why?”
“He said he wanted to wait until we were married! It seemed romantic at the time! How was I supposed to know he was gay?”
Probably not my finest moment, but I laugh.
I laugh because she owns a mirror, and it should have been obvious. She’s so hot, sitting here in those shorts, the way her slightly coffee-stained hoodie hugs her curves, her nipples pushing through. Um, yeah he wasn’t into girls.
I laugh because I cannot believe she’s so clever and intuitive when it comes to her body, but she doesn’t seem to know how insane hers drives me.
She turns red and swivels a little away from me. I feel bad, but I don’t really know how to fix it. The laughter dies in my mouth.
“We were saving it, okay? Me, for marriage! Like in a fucking clean romance book. Him, for Doug Rusk who he met at Buddies Gay Sports Bar every Thursday night for beers and beejers. Like in a… different kind of book. These things sometimes happen, Jake!”
Do they? Do they?
I’d say they don’t, not in my world, but it’s not like my world has ever been normal. Still, this seems like the kind of thing that surely doesn’t ‘sometimes happen’ outside of the 1950’s or certain parts of the Bible Belt. Is Missouri the Bible Belt? Besides that one video shoot and the occasional tour date, I’ve never thought twice about such a flyover state.
But couldn’t there have been someone else? Some experimentation in high school, perhaps? A crazy party after a dance performance? A best friend’s older brother? Yeah, okay, maybe that last one came from rifling through Marlee’s books once or twice.
Three times.
What, they’re hot, okay?
And then it hits me like a ton of bricks, hard enough to jolt me back from her stool. Mine scoots back across the tiled floor with a loud screech that makes both of us flinch.
I got caught up in the idea of how she ended up an accidental virgin at twenty-three and forgot all about the first thing she’d said.
I need your help.
He’ll expect expertise.
I need you to teach me.
Marlee Reed. My roommate. My best friend. My secret crush. And she wants me to teach her how to touch a man.
I’d be a liar if I pretended I hadn’t dreamed of showing her how to touch me a million times. It just never, ever occurred to me that I would be the first man she touches. It’s really unacceptable how turned on I am by the thought, as though I’m one of the asshole alphas from one of her books. Okay, so I’ve read most of her library at this point, so what?
My dick is seriously testing the stretch of my underwear’s cotton. Thank god she’s not looking at me; she’d be even more upset than she is right now. Friends don’t act like this. Friends say yes, of course, and oh I’m so sorry, and you never could have known.
Friends don’t pop boners the second they think about banging the other.
And this asshole Richard Thurgood. Asshole is not a strong enough word. This predator, this animal. This motherfucker. He’s not Hollywood royalty so much as the power behind the throne. This town runs on his gas, bought from his station, owned by his company, and you take his car back out onto his roads once you’re fueled up.
I’m rich as fuck. Not to be crass, but I am. It’s just a fact of my fame, a side effect, even. I made more money before turning twenty-five than most could in several lifetimes.
Thurgood’s bank account makes mine look like a teenage babysitter’s.
How is a nice Missouri girl like Marlee, with her state-school education, and her midwestern nicety, and her goddamned virginity intact supposed to tell a man like him no? His kind run the world and hers works in it. Not putting her down, it’s just the reality.
Shit, I work in it too. I might be a couple more rungs up the financial ladder, but I’m not a player in the upper echelons. Those are reserved for the white men born with silver spoons—platinum spoons, even—who see the world as a chessboard and the rest of us as pawns.
Right about now, I’m starting to realize that Marlee is a pawn.
That’s his mistake.
My girl is a fucking queen.
But what can I do? Sitting in my kitchen, drinking my coffee, looking at what appears to be an airtight contract that Marlee signed without ever once asking me if there was another way, or if it would be worth the cost.
Jesus, I know there’s never a guarantee in acting. Even Three Spot Productions has churned out flops, but is this really the only shot she has at continuing a career?
All of this is running through my mind, faster even than the sprints Marlee and I sometimes do up and down our crazy-steep driveway, but nothing’s coming out of my mouth. How can I say a word when I’m equal parts horrified by what’s happening and turned on by what my role here could potentially be?
Well I guess I know for a fact now that I’m not as good a man as I thought I was.
Marlee looks super pissed, but not as pissed as I am. This frustration is building in me like a soda bottle shaken up in a paint mixer. I want to fix this, and I want to shake her. My dick might be hard, and I might be ashamed and furious about it, but I’m also furious with her. Goddamnit, I should have done more. I could have gotten her in Nick’s videos, I could have introduced her to his wife, Natalie. I could have called in favors, I should have… I could have. I could have done something before she chose an arranged relationship with a rich scumbag.
And she didn’t trust me enough to talk to me.
Did I always care more than she did, even without the tension that only I seem to feel? From the corner of my eye, she’s staring back and forth between her coffee cup and her Bloody Mary as though it was a shell game she’d put her life savings in.
Right then, I melt a little, because to her, that probably is what it feels like. I have savings, I have options. She has a shit-ton of failed auditions and a borrowed room. I have an entire staff on payroll, and she once told me she’s really hoping to pay off her student loans before she turns forty.
And she trusts me enough.
Maybe I wasn’t her consult on this fucked-up contr
act, but I’m the one she trusts with her body.
Her gorgeous, perfect, sculpted, and yes, bendy body.
Goddamnit, this is the most fucked up thing I’ve ever been bizarrely turned on by. Even as I mentally list off all the ways—the tiniest ways—I can hurt Thurgood (no more soundtracks, no more parties, no more run-ins on a red carpet that don’t end with my fist in his face) I’m also planning all the things I could maybe do with Marlee.
Am I any better than he is?
Am I any better than anyone at all, or am I just another shithead guy who sees a girl in need and thinks with my dick instead of my head? Or am I actually worse than anyone, seeing my own opportunity inside this nasty proposition?
Or am I a bad feminist, trying to assert my opinion where she doesn’t need a defender?
Like she said, she’s going into this with her eyes wide open. Maybe it’s a turn-on, maybe it’s hot. Maybe she honestly likes him, wants to see where this opportunity takes her. Maybe she’s hot for the idea of a power-exchange relationship, for a billionaire romance. She has ownership over her own body, her choices, her situation. I don’t. I might want to defend her to the ends of the earth, but she fucks who she wants in her romantic fantasies.
I’m just positive there’s no actual romance in this particular billionaire sex romp.
Her hand is on mine again and I snap out of the argument going on in my brain. It feels better to be distracted by her body and I take a moment to look at it like I let myself during that cheesy song last night. It was hot to just look at her, to imagine my tongue on the curve of her stomach, my face between her tits, my hand working her pussy, making her buck and come. It was a relief to grind on her thigh on stage and not worry about what it all means.
Now it’s all too real, and with my newfound knowledge that all those actions are new to her, I’m both sorry for what I’ve done and sorry I didn’t do more.
“It’s an adventure, Jake.” Her voice is pleading. It tugs at me. I want to touch her, to reassure her, but touching would be weird for us and also I’m still not sure that reassurance is even possible at this point, fuck! I bury my head in my hands as she goes on. “Think of it like a romance book. I know you steal mine.”