I turn to the mirror to apply my lipstick. As I pick up the lip liner, I hear a knock.
“Come in,” I call out.
“I wouldn’t put that on yet if I were you.”
I can feel the little hairs on my arms rise up. I have goose bumps everywhere. My skin is tingling. I swivel around to meet Matthew’s eyes, their bluest of blues taking me in. He looks hot and sexy in his jeans, boots, and a long-sleeve crewneck T-shirt with a funky crisscross pattern in the middle. He bends down to me, brushing the back of his hand against my cheek, trailing his fingers toward my mouth. As he does, I turn my cheek into his hand, leaning in, watching his face as I savor the feel of his touch.
“I have to go on in fifteen minutes.”
He eyes me up and down. “Did you wear that skirt for me?”
My jean miniskirt is short, but not butt-cheek length. It lands mid-thigh and has a certain deliberately well-worn look.
“Yes.”
Matthew thumbs the hem of my skirt. “Does your door lock?”
“Yes.” I walk to the door, flick the lock behind me.
His hand finds my waist, his thumb presses against the flesh of my hipbone. “You are fit.”
“Fit?”
“It’s like the English equivalent of hot. If she’s really hot, like you are, we say she’s fit as fuck. You are fit as fuck, Jane Black.”
He runs his hands along my arms, then scoops my hair off my shoulders and holds it up in a big pile on the back of my head. He looks at me, his hands still mimicking a ponytail holder. “You are gorgeous, Jane. And you don’t even know it. You don’t know how sexy, how beautiful, how absolutely divine you are. And that’s why you are so sexy, because you don’t realize it. You just are.”
I’m floored. I mouth “thank you,” not even knowing how to respond to such an ode, such a delicious and unexpected tribute. He’s standing inches away, his full height in front of me. In my boots I’m still four inches shorter, perfect kissing height. I tilt my face toward him, expecting a kiss. But instead he lets my hair fall down, takes a step back, and starts talking.
“I adore you, Jane,” he says. And it hits me—he said he adores me. I must be dreaming this, imagining this, because I can’t believe I am actually living my hairdresser’s tattoo wish. Matthew is looking straight at me, his blue eyes holding me tight. “And I am absolutely and completely falling in love with you.”
I’m thoroughly unprepared. I am without words. I want to respond. I want to say something, but before I can even form an answer, he places one finger on my lips to shush me. “You don’t have to say anything. I wanted to say it. I had to say it.”
Then he’s kneeling, muttering playfully, “I can do a lot in fifteen minutes.” His hands skim up my thighs, reaching under my skirt, peeling off my underwear. “I want you to do something, Jane,” he says.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to close your eyes, lean back against the wall, and tell me what it feels like.”
“You want me to narrate?”
“Yes,” he says, very serious. “Trust me on this.”
No one has asked me to give a play-by-play before. I feel shy right now, nervous. But he told me he was falling in love with me without agenda, without any expectation of getting the “I’m falling, too” in return. I close my eyes and lean against the wall of the dressing room, as he kisses my neck, my shoulders, my arms.
I focus on the sensations. “It feels like…” I stumble, reaching for words, grasping to describe the amazing, astonishing feel of him. “It feels like wisps,” I start, unsure of what that means. But this is raw material; this is of the moment. “Like fingertips, like warmth.”
He’s down on his knees again, kissing my legs, blazing a trail of soft, wet kisses up the inside of my calf, then my thigh. “Like fuzzy vision. Everything is blurry. I can’t see straight,” I say, even though my eyes are closed, but the world feels like it’s tilting toward an altered state. He shifts to my other leg, licking his way up my flesh, the inside of my thigh, then hiking up my skirt, exposing me to him.
He wraps his hands around my hips. “Keep talking. I love hearing your voice. It’s so sexy,” he tells me, then he trails his tongue and deliciously soft lips on the inside of my thigh, so dangerously close to where I’m aching for his touch. The man is an expert at teasing, taunting, and sending me into a fevered heat for him, and he does that now, by tracing me, drawing lines through my wetness with his talented fingers.
I arch into him. “It feels like a long, slow tease,” I say in between pants.
“I’ll stop teasing,” he whispers. He blows warm breath against me, making me cry out, and then his mouth is on me, and I moan instantly. He feels so good, his tongue traversing me as his fingers roam the soft skin of my thighs, the back of my legs. The sensations burst across my flesh, and my body is calling out for him all over.
“It feels hot, like heat, like the sun,” I say in a raspy voice. I thread a hand through his hair, gripping him tight as he nearly consumes me with his fantastic tongue, kissing me deeply with his mouth, and flicking me right where I want him the most, sending sparks through my veins, the most intoxicatingly wonderful feeling in the world. I lean back against the wall, turning more light-headed by the second with every delicious stroke of his tongue, every sigh he makes as he tastes me. “It’s like swimming, like diving, like running. It’s rising and filling.”
He keeps going, his strong hands now gripping my ass, spreading me wider for him as he digs his thumbs against my flesh.
I groan loudly, because it feels so fucking good. I grapple with his hair, urgently tugging him closer, closer because I can’t get enough of this either, I don’t want any distance, I want to feel all the exquisite sensations he’s delivering throughout my body as he licks and kisses me, and starts to send me over the edge.
I rock my hips into him, my muscles tighten briefly as pleasure whirls through my body, radiating out in all directions. I don’t feel shy; I don’t feel nervous. I give myself over to his command for narration, gasping out words amidst my stilted breaths. “It feels like…it feels like, like desire. It feels like desire, over and over and over.”
I want to scream out. I want to shout his name at the top of my lungs, my very loud, very powerful lungs. But I don’t. Instead, I place a hand on my mouth and mute myself, letting the orgasm tear through me, leaving no part of my body untouched in its wake.
I shudder, running my hands through his hair as the after shocks linger. I sigh deeply, still in another world as he rises, wipes his hand quickly across his mouth. “I believe you’re ready to go onstage now.”
I shake my head, giving him a mischievous little grin. “No. I’m not,” I say coyly.
“Why not?”
“Because that only took five minutes, so by my calculations you have ten more minutes.”
I reach for his jeans and start unzipping quickly. He raises an eyebrow and shoots me a smirk. “I love the way you’re always thinking,” he says, grabbing a condom from his wallet, before he pushes his jeans down. Then he rolls it on, lifts me up, and lowers me onto him.
He groans as he fills me. “Look at you. So wet already.”
“You got me that way,” I say, as I wrap my legs around his hips, my arms around his shoulders. My back is against the wall, and he thrusts into me, moving quickly, sinking deeper.
“I love the effect I have on you,” he says, then leans into my neck, inhaling me until he reaches my ear. “Do you think I can make you come twice before you go onstage?”
“If I were a betting woman, I’d have to say there’s a damn good chance.”
“What do I have to do to get you there? Do you want it harder? Slower? Do you want me to talk dirty?”
“Anything you do feels good,” I tell him as he flexes his hips, moves deeper into me. “But you know what I want instead of dirty talk?”
“Tell me,” he says in a hungry voice.
“I want you to say it
again. What you told me before you went down on me,” I whisper.
He thrusts deeper, then moans as he holds me down hard on him. “That I’m falling in love with you?”
Those words. Those delicious, amazing words turn me on more than anything ever has. Those words that mean everything, that hook right into my heart. “Say it again,” I ask him, in between halted breaths.
“Screw falling. I’m there. I’ve fallen in love with you, Jane,” he says, driving into me, blazing kisses along my neck, sending me into the most electrifying state. My spine tingles, and I can feel the build starting again. I dig my nails deeper into his shoulders, moaning and panting as he rocks into me, each move sending me closer to the blissful oblivion of sweet surrender. Then in seconds, I’m coming with him, and neither one of us bothers to mute our voices this time.
Soon, we sink to the ground in a heap of hot and sweaty bodies. I’m still all tangled up in him, arms looped around him, but I manage to look him in the eyes. “I’m in love with you too.”
…
Suffice it to say I’ve never started a show in this state of mind. I’ve never taken the stage having been completely sated—not in that way. So tonight I’m performing with a little secret, I’m singing with a little piece of something sweet in my back pocket. I feel sly, I feel sexy, I feel clandestine tonight. I’ve just gotten some backstage, and on top of that—I’m in love.
Jane Black, the chronicler of broken hearts, is in love, and here I am, in front of the crowd, and my absolutely delicious boyfriend, who is unequivocally fit as fuck, is in the front row. And there’s my sister and my brother and my boss. And I love them all. I strut across the stage, lifting my arms in the air, while the band plays on. I lean my head back, then toss my hair forward, my crazy, cascading curls, and belt out the refrain to everyone’s favorite song from Crushed.
“But you said you loved me,” I sing, lavishing in the presence of the 400-capacity crowd, all on their feet, all singing along, all lifting me even higher than anyone should rightfully feel after having that done to them before a show.
I finish their favorite song and give a cute little bow. “Thank you, thank you very much. You’re a lovely crowd tonight and I adore you all. Would you like another song?”
They cheer uproariously. “I don’t know. I’m not really sure you do.” I pretend to wave good-bye. They’re even louder now, more raucous, as I act as if I’m walking off.
“Do you really want another song? Do you really, really, really want one?”
They’re barking now, roaring for another tune. “Do you know this one?” I ask, letting the band play the opening chords of “Something Like Normal.” The song Matthew asked me about at the Grammys. There’s a lovely sort of hopefulness of finding love again, he’d said. Is there anyone in the wings and do you believe it’s possible to love like that again?
Yes.
The crowd yells their yeses, echoing my own.
“Do you like it?”
They indicate they do. Matthew is in the front, clapping along with the crowd. I meet his eye. “This one’s for you,” I say to him and start the song, singing to him the whole time, knowing surely that I am on the other side in every way now.
Chapter Twenty-two
When the show’s over, I mingle with the audience, say hi to the people I know, say hi to people I don’t know. Soon the crowd thins. My sister and her husband have returned home; Owen and Jeremy are off in the corner deep in conversation. But I spot Matthew, looking cool and relaxed, drinking a beer, chatting it up with the club’s manager. I tap Matthew on the shoulder, greeting him with a huge, knowing grin. He pulls me against him so my back is pressed against his belly. Dom makes a gesture to offer me a drink, and I nod. He heads off and I lean into Matthew, resting my head against his shoulder. “Don’t think it’s gone unnoticed that you spoke like a Brit tonight,” he says softly.
I turn around so we’re face-to-face.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re a lovely crowd tonight and I adore you all,” he imitates me. “That’s very English, Jane. Lovely and adore. Very English words.”
“Do the British have first right of refusal on those words?” I ask as Dom returns with a beer.
“Of course we do,” Matthew answers, as I take a drink.
“I do love the way you talk though. I love your accent, the way you say words like body with a slightly different emphasis than we do, and how you have these words all your own, like loads and rubbish and barking. Words we could never get away with.”
“Don’t forget knackered. That’s another. Then there’s brilliant, right, trainers, holiday, fancy. I could go on.”
“And here’s another thing. I’ve decided that British accents are far sexier than Australian accents. The Australian ones fool you. At first you think, ‘Oh, cool accent. Very sexy.’ But then the more you listen, they’re a little too twangy and you realize the British accents really are better.”
“As a nation, we really strive to have the sexiest accents,” he says, wrapping an arm around my waist.
“So can I objectify you for your nationality?”
He pulls me closer. “Objectify me all you want, Jane.”
“I plan to when I get you back to my place in a few minutes,” I say and I’m about to list off all the other parts of him that I can objectify when Jeremy ambles over. “Nicely done, Black,” Jeremy barks, then claps me on the back.
“Good to see you again, Matthew,” he says and shakes Matthew’s hand.
“And you as well, Jeremy.”
Then Jeremy turns back to me. “I need you to do something tomorrow. Just talked to the guys at Flint,” he says, referring to the music network that actually plays music videos rather than reality shows about hot, sweaty, young things living in a cramped box together. “You know they’re totally last minute, but a great opportunity just came up. Something that might bring you back to your Grammy-winning roots and knock some more inspiration into that head of yours,” he says, tapping my forehead. “Know what tomorrow is? April tenth?”
I roll my eyes. “What do you take me for? A kid?”
Jeremy looks at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.
“The day the Beatles broke up, Jeremy,” I say.
“Right you are. And you know how Flint wants to celebrate?”
“How does Flint want to celebrate?” I ask.
Jeremy points at me. “They want you to come on the Paul and Mike Morning Rock Show. Be a guest host and countdown with them your top ten breakup songs of all time. You get to pick ’em. Any ten. Jane Black’s ten songs for a broken heart. Leave it to Flint— any other network would countdown breakup songs on Valentine’s Day, as an antidote. But those guys, they’re doing it on the saddest day in rock ’n’ roll history. April 10, 1970 to be precise.”
He takes a beat, waiting for a response.
“That is awesome.” Then I ask, “But why me?”
“Because you are—this is direct from Paul—Queen of the Dumped.”
“Wow. Queen of the Dumped,” I say drily, glancing at Matthew, who’s taking another drink of his beer, trying to stay out of the conversation.
“So it’s a yes?”
Of course I’m not going to turn down a chance to guest host a whole show. Or to share my picks for the best breakup songs of all time. I have oodles upon heaps upon piles of sad songs on my iPod, in my playlists. I lived by them over the last year. I fell asleep to Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane,” I woke up to Guns N’ Roses’ “Patience,” I cried at the kitchen sink in the middle of doing dishes to Pearl Jam’s “Black.” I remember scrubbing soy sauce off a dinner plate as Eddie Vedder’s beautiful baritone rang out, almost like his voice was breaking, almost like he was about to cry. And I did the same. I broke down right there at the sink, tears pouring out, shoulders quaking, head in my still-wet hands for minutes before I realized I had pressed the soapy, dirty sponge against my forehead and that my son had asked, “What’s wron
g, Mommy?”
There are so many songs to choose from. How can I even begin to narrow it down to ten for my appearance as Queen of the Dumped tomorrow morning?
I nod to Jeremy. “Yes, it’s a yes.”
“Good. And maybe while you’re at it, you can write some breakup songs. You do those really well,” he suggests.
“You want me to write more breakup tunes?”
“Sure. Why not? Maybe that’s your true niche, Black.” He smacks his sternum, then leans in to speak in a low voice. “Tap into the angst. The turmoil. Maybe even have a fight with your new man. See where that gets you. Or better yet, call it off for a few days, and see if you can write.”
Then he leaves.
His suggestion smacks me hard in the chest. I can’t get air for a minute; I can barely breathe. There is a truck on my chest, the wheels are spinning, and I’m pinned. There’s no way out, there’s nothing I can do, and I’m being crushed by a stark realization.
Because I am stuck.
Absolutely and unequivocally stuck.
I press my palm against my forehead, digging my fingers into my temples, as if I can excavate a song that way. As if I can exhume all the bits and pieces of music that are buried so far and so deep in me. But if I can just grab them, then I won’t have to do the horrible thing he’s suggesting.
The horrible, awful, and also completely true and reasonable thing he’s suggesting.
It’s the only answer if I ever want to make music again.
Because it’s come down to love. Or music.
I’ve been fooling myself that I could write from love. I’ve tried and I’ve tried these last few months, and I’ve come up empty every time. There are no love songs in me; there are no sexy songs in me. Falling in love hasn’t made me want to sing. Holding out hasn’t inspired any music, but the best sex of my life has left me tuneless, too. Even stepping out of the past, letting go of all my self-doubt hasn’t freed the roadblock in my brain. Take away my pain, take away my hurt, and I am a goose egg of creativity, a gigantic ball of nothingness.
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