Getting Real

by Ainslie Paton

  “You know what I mean. I don’t want you to take pity on me—poor sad Harriet.”

  “God! I don’t think you’re poor sad Harriet.”

  She shook her head. “Shh let me finish. I don’t want you to think you have to make more of this than it is.”

  “Is that it?”

  She nodded.

  Rand said, “It’s like multiple choice. Let me get this straight. You don’t want A: to be just another conquest. B: me to sleep with you out of pity. C: for me to make more of this than it is. Is that it?”

  “D: all of the above.”

  “Right and E: none of the above.” Rand reached for her hand. “Harry it’s E: none of the above. I’m not thinking of you as a conquest. In my experience conquests are quicker and they don’t taste nearly as sweet as you.” He kissed her hand. She opened her mouth to interrupt and he put his finger over her lips. “Wait,” he admonished. “There is nothing about you that I could pity. You’ve turned into one amazing chick. I know what this is between us, even if you don’t, and baby, I’m worried I’m not making enough of it.”

  She looked at him wide-eyed. She was completely infatuated with this man who’d been in her dreams for so long, so it hardly mattered what he said. She’d give anything to be with him and worry about the consequences later.

  He said, “Here’s what I think we should do: A: Trust each other. B: Enjoy what we’ve got. C: Play it all the way. D: Know there is nothing we can’t have if we both want it.”

  She said, “E: all of the above.”

  The city spread out in front of them, smouldered in the final stages of the sunset. Rand reached for her, wrapping his arms around her, drawing her against him. She rested her head back on his shoulder.

  “All the bases are loaded sugar, batter up.”

  23. Flutter

  With industrial jack hammers carving holes in his skull, Jake arrived on the newly built stage to find Rand and Stu facing off at each other. Both of them were snarling, red-faced, body weight forward on their toes. Roley was standing between them saying, “Calm down. Back the fuck up,” his words scattering, about as effective as autumn leaves. He had his arms out to hold the two bigger men apart.

  “You keep your fucking nose out of my business,” Stu shouted at Rand.

  “It’s my business when it screws with the band,” said Rand, and Jake heard the fierceness of the anger in his tone. This was a new side of Rand, something he’d not seen before. No wonder Rielle had been anxious that he was angry with her. This was the monster heart she’d talked about, and its owner didn’t look like he was going to be willingly talked down. Rand looked mean, determined and barely in control.

  Roley saw Jake and exhaled in relief, dropping his arms. But the minute he did, Rand struck, shoving him aside and rushing at Stu. The two men were well matched in height, weight and rage, and came together with a dull thud and a crashing of fists.

  By the time Bodge, Tef, Bunk and Lizard pulled them apart, Stu was spitting blood and Rand had a cut above his eye. Both men were blowing hard and struggling to get away from restraining hands, shouting incoherent insults at each other.

  Jake waited until the worst of their growling was over. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s over, right now.”

  “Fuck off, Jake,” snarled Stu.

  “This is none of your concern, Jake.” Rand breathed harshly. “Back off.”

  Jake stepped up into Rand’s space. The bigger man was itching to push him away to get to Stu. He dragged Tef and Bunk forward.

  “Stand down Rand. It’s over.”

  “No, it’s not over, until that fucking pig changes the way he treats Ceedee.”

  Stu shouted, “Saint Rand. Get the fuck out of my face,” and reefed one arm out of Lizard’s grasp.

  “Right,” said Jake, “so that’s how it is then.” He surveyed the scene, both protagonists and the circle of hyped-up onlookers. “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll have an organised fight. Not here, blood on the stage is bad luck.” He considered, scratched his aching head. “Guess we might not need the stage, so yeah this will do. We need about ten minutes to get organised. I want an ambulance on standby.”

  He snapped his fingers at Tef, who said, “On it, boss.”

  “Bodge, you organise the betting.” Jake looked at Rand. “Last man standing wins.”

  “What?” said Rand, wiping blood from his eye.

  “I’ll have him right now!” shouted Stu, spitting a mouthful of blood and saliva on the stage floor.

  Lizard said, “Oi mate, I have to clean that up.”

  “Yep, Stu. Ten minutes, mate. Just keep a lid on it for ten minutes. We all want a piece of this,” said Jake.

  “What! You’re going to let us fight?” said Rand.

  “I can’t stop you. And it looks like you’re prepared to rip each other up. We’re all going to lose income on this especially if one of you is hurt badly, so I want to give the crew a chance to pick up some extra cash before the tour falls over.”

  “What?” the two rock star gladiators chorused, both of them loud and incredulous, their pitch finely calculated to make glass shatter in the empty cavities of Jake’s head.

  “Look, let’s just get on with it. You should both pick seconds. Do we want a safe word or is this no holds barred?”

  “Two to one odds on Rand,” called Bodge.

  “I’ll take that,” yelled Bunk.

  “Here’s a blood bin to spit in,” said Lizard, offering Stu a bucket.

  “Five hundred bucks on Rand,” shouted Rielle from somewhere behind the circle of black shirts.

  “Someone get me paper,” yelled Bodge, “gotta get this down before you bastards change your bets.”

  “Jesus Christ!” said Rand.

  “You’re not going to try getting us to sit down and talk are you?” said Stu.

  Jake said, “Nope.” He was trying this friggin’ desperate tactic instead. If it didn’t work he’d have more than a hangover to worry about.

  “They always try and make us sit down. They always try counselling.” Rand sneered.

  “And it never worked, so bring it on. Once and for all,” said Rielle, having forced her way through the roadie ranks. She looked at Rand. “You ready?”

  “No-o-o-oo!” he stuttered. He exchanged a look with Stu and laughed.

  “I don’t know what you’re laughing at?” she said, “I’ve got five hundred bucks on you.”

  Rand bent forward, put his hands on his knees and roared with laughter, and Stu followed him, the two men shifting from fury to hysteria in a matter of seconds.

  There was a shuffling from the spectator ranks, then Bodge called, “Ah, ya bastards,” as Rand advanced on Stu with his hand out to shake. Stu grabbed him in a hug, clapping him on the back instead, and thank fuck there wasn’t going to be a fight.

  “All right,” said Jake, “show’s over, everyone back to work.”

  “Did you know they’d back off?” asked Glen, as the crowd dispersed, grumbling their disapproval. The thought of a fight and the chance to make a buck had been a very novel distraction.

  Jake rubbed his head. Partly to check liquefied brains cells weren’t actually leaking out. “Hell no. I was hoping if I called their bluff they might think twice.” He passed the same hand over his face in relief. “Pretty sure I could’ve gotten myself sacked if I let that go ahead.”

  “Over my dead body,” said Rielle, eyes flashing.

  Glen stepped back with a grin. He was bailing. He was a dead-beat coward.

  “That so?” Jake said, “I remember not so long ago you thought I wasn’t up to this. What was it, not Godzilla enough?”

  “Yeah well, that was pretty fucking Godzilla.” She play punched him on the arm. He caught her fist and held it and a look flashed between them that made him think of steamy sex scenes in x-rated movies for no good reason, except the thought filled up the craters in his head with something like warm sponge.

&nb
sp; “Are you all right?” he asked. It was the first time he’d seen Rielle alone since leaving her sobbing in her room. He’d heard her behind the closed door and ached to go back inside and comfort her. But since he figured he was the source of her distress that didn’t make a lot of sense. So he listened to her sob until he couldn’t stand to listen anymore, then he went to the hotel bar and started in on today’s intergalactic sized hangover.

  “I’m good,” she said. “But you don’t look so great.” She reached up, lifted his sunglasses off his face.

  “Aw, too bright.” He squinted, flinching from the midday sun. She took his hand and drew him into the shade. “What did you do?”

  Tried to forget the ravaged look on your face and the wrenching sound of your sobbing. Tried to understand how the heat between them had roasted him to the core but left the walls of her ice palace frozen solid. “I met Jack Daniels in the bar and he kept topping up my glass.”

  Rielle sighed. “That would be my fault.” She dropped her head and spoke to his rubber-soled work boots. “I’m sorry.”

  She looked about as miserable as he felt. Jake put his arms around her and drew her to his chest. “Maybe we just burned too hard? Maybe we’re moths and the light’s too intense, and we can’t help ourselves but keep flying at it even though it’s going to kill us.”

  She nodded into his chest. “Just don’t hate me.”

  “About the only person I can summon the energy to hate is Jack Daniels and I think he’s already dead. Bastard.”

  “Can we be friends?” she asked.

  Jake heard the hesitancy in her voice. He wanted to say, “No, are you deranged? No, we can’t be friends, we can’t be lovers, we can’t be anything to each other. It’s too hard.” But what was the point in telling her that. The tour was half way through, only Melbourne and Sydney to go and she’d be out of his life anyway. He tightened his hold on her and breathed her in and she tucked herself into his arms like she wanted to belong there and contrary was her middle name.

  “Rand and Stu, is that over?” he said.

  She looked up, stepped out of his arms. “For now. But it’s not finished. It’s a problem, but not your problem.”

  “They’re fighting over Ceedee. What does she want?”

  “She wants Stu to commit, and she wants Rand to make him. It’s not going to work. Rand is such a dope. He lets her play him every time. And Stu, he’ll never give her what she wants and Ceedee will never stop believing he’ll change.”

  He said, “Hmmm,” considering the implications for the rest of the tour, for the rest of the band’s future.

  “There’s no ‘hmmm’ about it, Jake. People don’t change. It’s going to go on like this until someone breaks.”

  Did she really believe people couldn’t change? Was that the problem for Rielle, wanting to change and not being able to? It was all too much on top of the hangover. Jake’s head throbbed, his ears felt like they fitted too tight, his throat felt too small to be functional, and he had work to do. He dropped a kiss on the top of Rielle’s forehead and left her at the side of the stage.

  Early that evening, before the stadium gates opened, Jake watched as Rielle and Ceedee rehearsed their pole routine. They were working under a set of stage lights, both girls sweating from exertion. The forecast had said evening breezes, but instead they had a blanket of humidity thick and wet and heavy around them.

  Bodge and Tef were standing by watching. A couple of roadies were setting up for Problem Children and Jake sat back in the wings, ostensibly checking over venue records but surreptitiously watching Rielle.

  When the first few moths arrived they were hardly noticeable in the big space. But as the evening spread, more of them arrived. They craved the light and began to fly around the lit stage in increasing numbers. Bodge and Tef swatted them away with annoyance and still they came—a huge cloud of them.

  “Argh! Yuck, what are these things?” Ceedee screeched, sliding down her pole to the ground to shake two out of her hair.

  “Bogongs, you can eat them,” said Tef helpfully. When Ceedee made a face, he laughed, mouth wide. And promptly swallowed one. Jake laughed while Tef choked, hawked and spat to try and dislodge it.

  “Tasty eh, Tef.” Bodge thumped him on the back.

  Tef coughed with a red face and a sour expression. “S’posed to cook ‘em first.”

  “Argh, I’m outta here,” said Ceedee. “This is creepy!” She left the stage brushing moths from her arms and shaking them out of her hair.

  And the Bogongs kept coming, fluttering in on their big brown papery wings and taking up residence on every lit surface, human or otherwise. They were all over Jake’s folder. All over him by the time he came out onto the stage.

  Rielle was still at work. The moths didn’t bother her but they were all over the pole making it slippery under her hands. She used resin to improve her grip and went through the routine again under Bodge’s watchful eye, the moths flitting around her as she moved.

  Jake watched openly now. As much as he was conflicted about Rielle, he loved to look at her. The pole routine was all about strength and athleticism; there was only a hint of strip club sexiness in the way she moved. She could spin, twirl and completely invert herself. She could float most of her body but for a hand, a foot or a hip hold away from the pole and appear to levitate. She made plank shapes and contorted herself into elegant knots, opening her legs into overhead splits and transitioning from one impossible looking shape to another, with an ease that belied the hours of practice she did to stay so sharp and strong.

  Rielle worked through her routine with heart-stopping precision, all the while dripping with sweat and being attacked by hundred of moths which swooped and fluttered around her; some of them hovering above her, others touching down on her skin. They rested on her legs and arms, walked across her shoulders and nested in her hair.

  Standing back, out of the direct light watching her, Jake was floored by the hot sting of desire that hit him, like a bite, like a burn, slamming up into his incomprehension about their disastrous lovemaking. How could she, so sinuously fluid when she worked, become so wooden and closed off when she was with him? It hurt his head to think about it. It hurt his pride to know it was just him that made her feel that way. That’s what she’d said, no one but him had made her feel that way.

  Now the moths were reaching plague proportions. This was going to be a hitch for the gig. Tef wouldn’t be the only one coughing up wings tonight, every singer had a problem. Jake saw Rielle’s hand slip and stepped forward shoulder to shoulder with Bodge to catch her if she fell. She was wearing a harness so no real harm would come to her, but neither man was about to test that theory.

  Bodge said, “Reedy.” He beat a cloud of moths off his shoulder.

  Jake said, “Bodge.” They stood side by side, heads tipped up to face Rielle. Jake felt dizzy but not so much from vertigo. “We’re going to have trouble tonight.”

  “That breeze is gonna come up and blow ‘em all away.”

  Jake nodded, brushing a moth off his forehead, feeling them in his hair and against the back of his neck. “Let’s hope.” Had he really said he and Rielle were like moths earlier that day? Well, not like these moths—these moths were in ecstasy.

  When Rielle came off the pole she stood on the stage floor stock still, arms open crucifix style in the light. She faced out into the empty stadium and let the moths settle all over her. They touched down on her, crawled on her, kissed her skin. They made rings on her fingers, and caressed her spine. They weighed down her eyelashes and capped her knees. They dusted her with their wings and tickled her with their crisp little legs and spidery antennae. Hundreds of moths invaded her body and made fluttering love to her in the light.

  “Fuck me.” Bodge gulped. He stole the words from Jake’s dry mouth before he said, “House.” into his headset, bringing the stadium’s enormous flood lights on and chasing all the Bogongs away.

  24. Push

  Cherry was
a new nightclub, based on the concept of a Las Vegas pool party. It was a rooftop venue with a designer infinity pool and private cabanas flanking its edge, as well as a scattering of restaurants and bars. Smooth dance music played, and you could smell the illegal substance abuse in the air. Rielle hated the place at first sight of the glittering pool and the bikini-clad hostesses. But they were contracted to be here so she was stuck.

  She’d rather be anywhere else but poolside at Cherry, but then she didn’t want to be at the hotel, in the city or the country either. She wanted to be back in LA at the very moment Rand looked like he’d found home.

  She left Rand with Jake and went to the bar, where she signed a few autographs and posed for some pictures. With social media taken care of for the night, she got two Champagne Daisies and headed over to Harry who was watching Stu and Ceedee slow dance dangerously close to the edge of the pool.

  She’d been ready to dislike Harry, the school nerd turned TV producer, but she’d seen the way her crew responded to her, how she’d won the trust of the band and the roadies, and the way Rand was when she was around. He floated, he never stopped humming bits of song, some recognisable, some of his own making. Rielle was anxious nothing burst his bubble, not yet anyway.

  The way Harry looked at the drink told Rielle she thought it was bait.

  Rielle threw out her first line, “You and Rand—you’re serious?”

  “We’re having some fun.” Harry took a sip. “Hmm, this is lethal. I’m working—I need to watch it.”

  Rielle shifted her glass from hand to hand. “You’d better play fair with him, because he’s a lost cause about you.” Not quite a hook, more of a sinker. Harry could pretend ignorance, but not if she was interested in an easy life.

  “I know, Rielle. I know how he feels.”

  “He’s the finest person in the world. He deserves to be treated with respect.” Rielle frowned, working herself up. “I’ve never seen him like this.”