Boys Club: How Far Would You Go?

by Ema Bancroft

  About how much I loved them all.

  And, in their favor, they sat and listened, putting a question here or there to clarify, but never commenting or criticizing throughout my narrative. Elijah leapt from time to time to add a detail or two, but for the most part he sat beside me, holding my hand - a beacon of strength to keep me standing.

  Ethan was the first to soften up, breaking a joke when I mentioned my rubber dick. Roland was next, nodding silently as he described the sense of euphoria I had at our first show.

  But Raul. Raul was the tough one. He sat down, arms folded and eyes hard, listening, but still not willing to give in.

  Angry.

  And it hurts.

  Wounded by betrayal - not only by me, but by his best friend.

  "And then, when you all saw us backstage, I knew we had to be honest,"I finally said. "We wanted to protect you from the consequences we would have when all this came to light, but I couldn't lie to you anymore. I inhaled deeply, letting the air out slowly.

  "So... that's it..." I waited for an answer, my eyes dancing nervously toward Raul.

  To my surprise, he turned to Elijah.

  "What about you?"

  Elias blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?"

  Raul bowed his head. "Daisy told us why she did what she did. I mean, I can understand why she did it. She saw us as her only chance, her last chance for a career as a singer. I understand that. It wasn't that it was okay, lying to us like that..." He shot a pointy look in my own way. "But at least I understand."

  "But you, E.? " he added, squinting. "You lied to all of us, to me, for what? A piece of tail?"

  "Watch your fucking mouth,"Elijah replied through his clenched teeth. "It's not like that."

  "Well, what's it like, E. C.? " He spat the pseudonym Elijah as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. "You let your dick make your decisions, as usual?"

  "Fuck you."

  "I mean, I have to admit, she's sexy..." Raul looked at me again. "I mean, once her boobs are back, that's it."

  With a roar of rage, Elijah crossed the room shooting, grabbing Raul's shirt in his hands as he snarled at his face. Ethan and Roland leapt into action, grabbing Elijah's arms and trying to pull him out, but he did not move.

  "Elijah stop it! " I jumped at my feet, rushing towards him.

  "Raul, you have to back off,"Elijah warned. "I mean it."

  Raul wouldn't budge, screaming in his face. "But to throw away our band... our friendship, for a girl?"

  "She's not just a girl!"

  I approached to touch Elijah's back, the tense and angry muscles under my fingertips. "Please don't do this! " I begged him.

  They both ignored me, too trapped to be calm. "So what is it, Elijah? " Raul shouted, pushing his chest. "What made you lose your career, your friends, your fucking family? " What if it's not just an easy fuck?"

  At that moment, Elijah released his fist again, cutting off Raul's angry words with a furious blow. Unified gasping filled the room, and after a moment he staggered back, staring at his fist as if surprised by what he had just done. Raul straightened himself up, wiping a drop of blood from his lip with the back of his hand.

  Ethan, Roland and I watched in awe as Elijah breathed heavily, his eyes finally returning to Raul.

  "Don't talk about her like that,"he finally said. He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, I was surprised to see that the anger was gone, replaced by a silent plea.

  "I... I love her, Rocket"?

  The words hung in the air, and my mouth slammed open.

  "What? " I didn't realize I had asked the question out loud until Elijah turned to me.

  "I love you."

  "Oh. " Yeah. I said,"Oh,"eloquent, don't you think?

  Elijah put a hand through his hair. "I know it's fucked up for me to tell you like that. I had it all figured out and Mabel gave me some great advice..."

  "Mabel"?

  "And there's no sunset, no dinner, no champagne, no romantic crap I was talking about." "He rubbed his face with frustration. "I swear, I was gonna do it right, but... yeah. So, I screwed this up, too.

  "But I do,"he finally said, turning his gaze on me - soft, warm green eyes. "I love you."

  I was only half conscious of the three pairs of eyes moving slowly from Elijah to me. All I could see was him looking at me, hopeful and perhaps a little nervous.

  His eyes fell off as he rubbed his neck, and then they put their hands in his pockets. "So…anyway…"

  Yeah. Definitely nervous.

  Could it be? Could I really not see how I felt about him?

  "Elijah,"I said quietly, taking steps to close the gap between us. He looked up at me, his head still bowed - a pink blush on his cheekbones and the tips of his ears. I reached out to touch his face gently, running my fingers over the curve of his jaw, slightly rough from his five o' clock shadow.

  "I love you too,"I whispered.

  He blinked at me as his hand covered mine, a slow grin stretched across his face, illuminating his eyes. "Yes?"

  I nodded my head. "God, yes. " I smiled. "A lot."

  He bowed to kiss me softly, but stopped when he heard the sound of a throat clearing.

  Actually, three throats clearing.

  My face got hot when I walked away from Elijah. He kept my hand on his while we turned to the boys.

  "This is all very sweet and everything,"Ethan finally said. "But we still have a little problem to deal with.

  You know, the whole thing about passing a girl off as a guy?"

  "Cecil is serious,"Roland added. "We're talking about lawsuits and fraud... and it's not just about Daisy. We could all be objective. Not to mention what this will mean for our recording contracts.

  You think they'll fire us? "Ethan asked. "Well, we've been talking about doing it on our own for a while... forming our own production company."?

  "Yes, but they could still sue,"Roland said. Not to mention all the concert halls... the promotion company... fuck,"he whispered," all our sponsors. We could lose everything.

  "I can't let you guys take responsibility for this,"I interrupted. "This is my fault. I will take the blame.

  "No."

  To my surprise, the word did not come from Elijah.

  It came from Raul.

  We all watched silently as he stood and walked to the sink, taking a drink of water and shaking it around his mouth before spitting it out and rubbing the dried blood from his chin. He looked at me in the mirror.

  "What you did - what you both did - is fucked up,"he said. Elijah opened his mouth to answer, but I squeezed his hand, silencing him.

  "You should have told us,"Raul continued. You should have trusted us enough to give us the truth. "His eyes turned to Elijah before falling to the ground, his jaw slightly clenched. "But I think we all understand how it started and became... more. We'll get through this. It will take some time, but I think we'll all get beyond this... eventually?

  "But, B, you're not alone in the fall,"he added, turning to fix his blue gaze on me. "We're a group... a family... and no matter what, we stay together"?

  I felt a new round of tears poking in my eyes. "Don't you have to... I can't ask you to..."?

  "You didn't do it,"he said abruptly. He looked at Ethan and Roland in turns. "Do we agree? " The two responded immediately in the affirmative, and I felt my body warm in the gesture.

  "Thank you,"Elijah said quietly. "I should have known you were coming."

  "Yes, you should have,"answered Raul, but there was no malice in his tone.

  He offered Elijah a short nod before he turned to me.

  "And he shrugged. "I owe you one for introducing me to Mabel. But you're going to have some questions to answer the next time you talk to her.

  I hardened. "Please don't be mad at her. " I swallowed it thick. "She begged me to tell her the truth, she really did."

  Raul nodded. "I'm sure she did. She's a horrible liar."

  That smiled at me. Little by little
, he returned the gesture.

  "After the demonstration of friction, I made a joke about how Elijah seemed to enjoy his performance a little more than everyone else,"he said. "She actually got up and ran to the bathroom and stayed there for half an hour. When she finally got out, she said something about eating bad shrimp. He laughed, shaking his head. "Not to mention all the damn Splendas."

  "Shit! " Ethan exclaimed suddenly. "No wonder your boobs felt so real!"

  I blushed, and the boys looked the other way, remembering the little touch session in the locker room. Elijah's jaw tightened, and I quickly changed the subject.

  "The fact is I'm in serious trouble,"I said with a deep sigh. "What are we gonna do?"

  I was surprised when Raul jumped over the counter, a smile on his face. "I have some ideas."

  "Really?"

  He shrugged. "Sure. You know what Cecil always says,"It's all about the twist."

  E. C.

  Three months later

  The lights went out and the crowd went crazy.

  "All right, Chicago... Is this the moment everyone's been waiting for..."?

  "Are you ready? " I asked Daisy, she smiled back at me, giving me the usual thumbs up. I nodded, bowing to kiss her quickly. It had become our ritual every night since we started the European leg of the tour. We returned to Chicago, our last show before we arrived at the studio for our next album.

  Yeah. Our next album?

  I had to give it to Raul. Underneath the bad boy, a grass smoker, I didn't give him a damn exterior, I had the mind of a miraculous PR worker. It had been his idea to confront Cecil as a united front. Your idea to summon all our favours to the national and international media.

  His idea of "losing" Twicher's camera until our plan was on track.

  Brad Caldwell had helped a little with that. And I think I might have enjoyed it a little.

  Well, more than a little.

  And it had been Raul's idea to call a press conference - live on the Internet and via satellite - to tell Daisy's story to the world.

  She had resisted that, of course. Despite her love of acting, Daisy never liked to be the center of attention. But Raul and Cecil had worked with her, prepared and prepared her without ceasing, asking her questions until she could answer the answers without thinking.

  Her hands shook as she climbed the podium in the packed conference room of the W Hotel, but she turned her back and defied the flickering cameras and shouted questions, addressing the crowd with a firm voice.

  Why did you do it, Daisy?

  Why did you lie to your fans?

  "I didn't want to lie to them,"she replied. "I just saw the audition as my last chance in my dream. And to be honest, I hadn't thought about what would happen if I actually got the job. "She smiled timidly... shrugged. "When I did, I couldn't believe it. I finally got my chance, but it meant I had to pretend to be something I'm not.

  "Maybe I made the wrong decision,"she admitted. "Lying was wrong, but I..." She looked at us. We couldn't see any other way. We hope that the fans will understand us and forgive us.

  At this point, Raul jumped in. "When we all heard what Daisy had been through, how hard she'd worked in the music business, we knew we had to help her. I mean, we knew she had talent. We didn't know if America was ready for a boy band with a girl in it. He smiled charmingly, just as he had rehearsed.

  "We just wanted to give her a chance,"he said. "We knew that once everyone heard her sing, they would love her. We just hope you can forgive us for not being completely honest with you.

  Roland came over. "We all know what it's like to be told you can't do something, and when that's what you love, what makes you live, wouldn't we all do whatever it takes to do it?".

  I knew it was my turn, so I took a deep breath and leaned into the microphone. "Women have been fighting for decades - centuries - for the respect they deserve. We just hope that the world can understand that Daisy just wanted a chance to be heard: an even playing field.

  "We just wanted to give her that chance: the rest, well, it had to be for talent."

  E. C. Is it true you're romantically involved?

  I don't like to talk about my personal life,"I replied, my typical answer. Then I smiled, putting the E. C. charm. " But yes"?

  The crowd exploded in a flurry of flashbulbs and whispered expressions of surprise. In less than an hour, everything was on the Internet. That night, he directed all the entertainment shows and we watched nervously the public reaction.

  "I don't know. I guess it was wrong to lie, but I understand. I was just trying to make her dream come true, you know?"

  "I think it's so romantic. She and E. C. are so cute together."

  "She's a liar and 5Point is a bunch of impostors. I've never heard them and I never will.

  Well, you can't win them all.

  At the end of the week, the group was on the front page of almost every weekly magazine. But instead of headlines like Boy Band Lies to America and 5Point Flips Off Fans, we have E. C. Find Daisy's love and dream come true.

  Just in time, we found out later. Twicher had discovered us, at least partially. Daisy's grainy picture of me and Daisy kissing had made his journalistic juices flow - and we found out that he had captured some of my hotel images entering Daisy's room. Several times.

  It wasn't enough, of course, but he put it on our tail. I thanked God that he never got his hands on the images of us kissing in the hallway of the W Hotel in Seattle, or everything could have turned out differently.

  Of course, the reaction of our producers and sponsors was our greatest immediate fear, but they stopped any demand, obviously wondering what would happen to our European tour. We were all eagerly awaiting word of the cancellations, but when we arrived in London crowds of screaming fans, carrying posters like We love you E.

  C.! and Daisy, You Rock! we started hoping that maybe it wouldn't be as bad as we feared.

  Someone even made a poster saying Girl Power with my picture on Ginger Spice's dress next to Daisy. I had to laugh.

  But we're still worried. We knew that the key for Daisy - and the rest of us - to avoid any lawsuit, or worse, it all came down to money. If ticket sales fell for the tour... if album sales decreased at all. It could all be over.

  The powers that only care about the baseline. We all trusted that fact, and we expected our fans to stay with us.

  Because if they didn't....

  Well, we knew what would happen if they didn't.

  But when we took our positions on the platforms at the top of the O2 Arena, we knew our fears were unfounded.

  Sold.

  Screaming fans.

  Just the way we liked them.

  And each city for the next three months had been the same - Madrid, Paris, Frankfurt, Lisbon - even in the Asian stage in Tokyo, Seoul, Dubai - and finally in Australia.

  All the shows were sold out, with downloads of records from our Seattle show on iTunes.

  The fans are here. And the threat of lawsuits vanished.

  As for Daisy, she became a sort of image of women's rights. She was invited to speak at women's seminars and even came to write a book about her experiences.

  She declined, saying she was happy to be part of the group.

  She had even started a fad. I heard 4Square was thinking about getting rid of Chester and replacing him with Joyce, Rafael's cousin.

  Just imagine.

  "Elijah? Daisy's voice took me out of my thoughts. She smiled with a smile. "It's time."

  I nodded, grabbing my harness.

  "Here they are... back from a three-month tour of Europe, Asia and Australia..." E. C. Rocket, E-Dog, Whispers and Daisy! Put your hands together for five points!"?

  We threw ourselves from the platform, flying over the crowds in the zip lines as the music beat and waved its arms to the beat.

  We sing and dance, doing what we do. Daisy smiled and greeted her new fans - we've never had so many kids at our concerts before - and I tried not to look at them wh
en they screamed back.

  She laughed, knowing what I was thinking, and shook my head in response as she took the initiative of Uncharted Territory. Her hair had grown a few inches and she no longer looked like my little brother. She sat on a stool in front of us, still wearing her favorite jeans and Nikes, but opting for a pair of sleeveless T-shirts that left no doubt that she was a child.

  Yeah, and I burned the Hartmann bandage. Daisy kept the rubber dick.

  Sentimental reasons.

  And when it was time for Spiced Candy, I sang it to Daisy, as usual, now that I knew I had written it for her. She smiled, chanting harmony through a faint glow of tears.

  That song always affected her.

  In the end, I held her in my arms and kissed her with strength, smiling at the screams of approval from the crowd.

  "I love you,"I whispered. She smiled, telling me she loved me too.

  Yeah. Life was good. And it was gonna get better.

  I was going to ask her to marry me.

  Soon.

  I had to think the right way. Something romantic and fucking perfect.

  Maybe something at sunset...

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue - The Boys are Back

  Eleven years later

  NBC News Transcripts

  SHOW: Today, 7:00am EST

  5-Point Meeting at Madison Square Garden

  RUBY FISHER, Co-Host:

  It's been ten years since 5Point pop sensation members went their separate ways. Well, tonight at a sold out show at Madison Square Garden, fans will have the opportunity to see the band together for the first time in a decade. It has been a long way for the band called boy band, and one that was not exempt from its rocky patches. But, according to TODAY correspondent Alexis Powell, the boys and girls have won.

  ALEXIS POWELL reporting:

  VIDEO CLIP of 5Point Concert: The five love points... add to you and me...

  It's been ten long years for 5Point fans.

  Unidentified Fan #1: I was first in line for the tickets.

  Unidentified Fan #2: I am so excited! I can't wait!

  Unidentified fan #3: E. C. Definitely, E. C. is my favorite.

  POWELL: Ten years of waiting, and hoping that one day, the group that turned on the world of pop music, would reunite.