by N. K. Smith
Instant lust floods my body. I almost get lost in it until I remember that I broke up with her.
I have Liliana, and I’m doing just fine.
“You’re going to have to stand next to her,” Natalie says.
I nod and move forward.
Cole’s people tell her I’m right behind her, and in an exaggerated move, she sweeps me into a hug. She smells so good, and I won’t lie. I get a little hard when her breasts press against my chest.
By the way the crowd is going crazy, I realize Liliana must have just arrived. I glance behind me to see her step out of the limo in her little red dress. It’s flouncy, and I had fun when she modeled it for me. She spun around and around, the bell of the skirt rising up to reveal her shaved muff and tight ass.
Someone pulls at my arm and my attention is back to the photographers yelling things at Cole and me. Unlike the paparazzi, these guys are pleasant. We’re pressed together and the shutters go off in a mad wave of light. Then a few of the other actors in the film crowd in, and I’m forced to place my hand on her back as once again her breast presses against the side of my chest.
We all smile and somehow, my hand drops and stops at just the beginning curve of Cole’s ass. It’s familiar and comforting, and for a moment, I forget about the past few months. I imagine that we’re still together, walking this aisle as a Hollywood couple. I turn to Cole with a smile on my face. Mine is real, hers is not.
When I look at Cole, truly look at her, I see how tired she is; how pale. She is wearing heavier makeup than I’ve ever seen her wear to disguise the dark rings under her eyes. Even with all the makeup, I can see her skin isn’t as soft and glowing as it had been.
My heart starts to thump and I begin to question if something’s really wrong with her. “Cole, are you—”
But she must not hear me over the noise because she turns and starts finishing the red carpet walk.
I finish my walk and speed up once inside. When I catch her, I call out to her again. She turns, but the fake smile is gone. It’s replaced by an expression of nothingness. As I think of how to start, she pulls her MP3 player from her handbag. Slowly, she places the buds in her ears, and without a word or an inkling she even knows me, she turns and walks away.
As Xavier rushes past me to keep up with her, Oscar slows down enough to look me in the eyes. He says nothing, but the sad shake of his head speaks volumes.
I get word from my co-star Macy that Cole didn’t even bother to sit down to watch the film. She snuck out the back door almost as soon as she entered the building. She doesn’t bother to show up to the studio after-party.
The pit of guilt swells, and I’m not sure what to do or how to feel.
As days turn to weeks and weeks turn to months, I realize Liliana’s fun, innocence, and spontaneity can sometimes just be her being inconsiderate, immature, and disregarding of responsibility. She also sometimes says really stupid things to the press and makes it that much harder for us to do what the studio wants.
I don’t so much question the choice I made to explore things with her instead of staying with Cole, as I try to shepherd Liliana who can be erratic. Tonight we decide to go to a club with some of the other Tortured stars.
We’re shooting in New York this time as Lili’s character, Maya, is at college now. So the stakes are a bit higher for us in the Big Apple. We’ve had to do the car switcheroo, just like I’ve done with Cole, and we’ve dealt with being photographed at the most insane times, like when we get coffee, or when I step out onto the balcony for some fresh air and my hair is a mess. That guy was dangling from the balcony above like fucking Spider-man.
So tonight, I went over the plan with Lili. We’d go to the club, but we couldn’t do couple things. We had to keep our hands to ourselves and be elusive.
In her mind that translated into being all over me and grabbing my cock in front of the hundreds of people with a camera cellphones. They shouldn’t have let her in the club anyway. First, Liliana is a few weeks from twenty one and second, she got drunk at the hotel and was obviously wasted when the guy with the muscles and clipboard let us in.
I say into her ear, “Stop, Lili!” I pull her hand away from my groin for the third time. “The contract is pretty specific. We can flirt, but not—”
“Fuck the contract! I want you.”
With her hand still in mine, I yank her away from the people who’ve stopped to blatantly hold their cells up to record it all. We wind through the throng of people, into the gyrating bodies of those who couldn’t care less if we’re here or not, and out a door to the back of the house, the place guests aren’t supposed to be.
Servers, cooks, and men in suits halt what they’re doing. I stop in front of some guy who looks like he has some power. “Some place private?”
He points up the stairs. “Can I get your autograph?”
Before I can even process it, he shoves a piece of paper and a pen under my nose. Quickly, I scrawl my name, then stalk up the stairs, pulling Liliana behind. Once a heavy oak door separates us from the club help, I drop her hand and spin around on her. “What the hell are you doing?”
She smiles at me. The pupils of her eyes are dilated, her legs bounce, but not in time with the thumping bass down on the dance floor, and her whole body seems to be vibrating.
“Oh, my God, look.” She walks to a tinted glass wall.
I find myself already following her and gazing down on the bodies below. “Lil,” I start with a softer voice.
She presses her hands against the glass as he body moves to the beat.
Something isn’t right. “What are you on?”
She turns her head to me, forehead still pressed against the glass, and gives me a wide-eyed look as if I’ve guessed her secret. She stalks toward me as I back away a few steps. When I’m in the middle of the room, she drops to her knees and pulls my pants down to my ankles.
“Stop.” I wrap my fingers around her bicep and try to pull her up.
She doesn’t stop. Instead, she has got my cock in her mouth, and while I struggle against the rising blood, I know I’m going to get hard. Lili doesn’t usually give head, so having her lips surrounding my dick is something of a rarity. “Don’t,” I say weakly, before giving in completely.
She has only done this a couple of times for me, and none of those times were this good. Liliana attacks my cock like she can’t get enough of it gagging her, or at least, she doesn’t notice that it’s gagging her. I try to control it by putting my hands in her hair and use pressure to slow her down, but she keeps on going. The sounds she makes aren’t anything close to hot, and when she looks up at me for a second, I see her eyes are watering.
Her face is red and wet from tears and saliva, so I use more force to pull her off me. She stands up, wipes her mouth with the back of her right hand, and rubs her eyes with the heel of her left, smearing the black shit on her lashes. I want to tell her how much I’m not enjoying this side of her, most likely brought out by some kind of drug, but my dick is standing at full attention, giving her the idea that I’m completely into it.
To be honest, I don’t really want to stop now that she’s gotten me so worked up. I want to make love to her.
But making love isn’t on her mind as she pulls her skirt up, baring her pussy. She stalks over to me, places her hands around my neck, and lifts herself up. Liliana grips my hips with her knees, and I struggle to keep myself free standing as she climbs up me. She has never been aggressive like this before, never been able to do something like this before.
With my hands on her ass, I’m able to keep us upright as she positions herself. Lili takes one hand away from my neck and slides it between our bodies. She guides my cock into her as she spreads her lips open.
I hold my breath as she sinks down and release it when she starts riding me. She can probably go like this all night, but I don’t have any chemical endurance, so I stumble over to the desk, and lean over it. With her ass on the edge, my hands flat on top of the desk
, I start driving into her.
“Hard. Please? Do it hard.”
I thought I was doing it hard, but obviously not enough. Just like with that night on the balcony at Cole’s, I turn off my concern for Lili and just start fucking. She wants it hard; I’ll give it to her hard.
“Oh, God . . .” Lili chants repeatedly as she moans and gasps, so I know this is what she wants. She rips the skin off my back through my shirt with her nails. Her legs are so tight around my waist, I fear she might cut off circulation.
I can’t go for much longer, so I take one of her hands from my back and position it between us. She doesn’t usually play with herself when we have sex, putting all the pressure to produce her orgasm solely on me, but tonight, I’m going to come quick, so she needs to contribute a little.
Whatever drug she’s on must allow her to conquer some inhibitions because her fingers start moving so quickly; before long she thrashes around under me, shouting, rising up to bite my shoulder, dropping down, eyes closed, panting. I let myself come as she rides out the orgasm.
I’m happy it’s over, but I don’t have a fucking clue what to say to her as I remove myself from between her legs. She lies spread eagle on the desk, her hand still slowly working her pussy. If I keep watching her, I’ll get hard again, so I turn away and pull up my pants.
I didn’t even want to come out to this fucking club tonight, now I’ve fucked her on some dude’s expensive desk while she’s high, and none of it is going to bring us closer. It’s bullshit, because I get the feeling quite often that all she wants is fun, and all I want now is quiet closeness. The kind where we don’t go out all the time; the kind where the affection between us trumps the sex.
It’s the kind of intimacy I’d been building with Cole, but when I was with her, all I wanted to do was go out. I didn’t care about being seen like Lili does, but I wanted to have the traditional dating experience with her. Now I see how impossible that is, and I understand more deeply how uncomfortable it would have made Cole feel. The irony of this thought reversal isn’t lost on me. If only I’d thought about it more when I was with Collette.
“Come back here, Devy.”
Jesus. Now I’m Devy. “What are you on?”
“Nothing.” She smiles, her teeth biting her bottom lip.
She’s still spread-legged, so I make for the door. “I’m going back to the hotel.”
“No, don’t go.”
I hear the rustling of paper, so I stop before opening the door. Her hand rests on my back, and I turn to her. “Pull your fucking skirt down, and we’ll talk in the morning.”
“Stay with me?”
I dismiss the idea without even thinking about it. “I’ve had enough.”
“So what?” She backs away and tugs the skirt down over her hips. “Gonna go back and read? Alone in the hotel, all antisocial and shit?”
“Pretty much, except I’m not antisocial. I just don’t need to hang out with a group of people so obviously fucked up on drugs, who didn’t bother to even let me know that—”
“Because you’re a fucking drag, Devon! None of us wanted to tell you because you bring everyone down. You think those people think you’re so cool when you don’t hang out between scenes? When you go to your fucking trailer to read yet another stupid book? No, they think you’re a stuck up stick in the mud.”
I manage to keep my composure by letting out a long breath. “I read scripts, Liliana. Scripts, for when this Tortured train is over, and I’m allowed to be a serious actor.”
She puts her hands up and does air quotes as she speaks. “A ‘serious actor,’ wow, Devon, plotting out your first Oscar win? Why can’t you just have fun? We’re young, we should be—”
“Well, I guess we just want different things in life, don’t we? Maybe we should—”
Liliana cuts me off, once again right next to me. “Don’t listen to me, baby. I’m just messed up right now. You’re totally awesome. Everyone thinks so. I’m just—”
It doesn’t matter what she says because I’m finished. “We’ll talk tomorrow. Be safe.”
I walk out the door, down the steps, through the club workers, out into the club, through the gyrating bodies, past my cast mates, past the bar, and out the door.
“Yeah, this place is awesome.” I hope my voice sounds more interested than what I feel.
“You’ve got access to your own private beach. The perimeter can be fortified with—”
I don’t feel the need to listen to the real estate agent. After a month of searching, I can already tell this is the house Lili wants, so it’s the house I’ll buy, though she’s still keeping her apartment in the city. The deal will be “secret,” another cloak and dagger thing that will eventually get out to the press. Helicopters will circle above with photographers inside hoping for a picture of us doing something befitting a Hollywood couple.
Honestly, this place reminds me of Cole’s in Malibu, but there is something more formal and uncomfortable here. While Cole’s place is massive, it’s private; this place, though, is completely exposed. It’s perfect for Lili, since I’m pretty sure it’s been her publicist who has been leaking our whereabouts everywhere.
We can’t even grab something to eat without every social media outlet blowing up. Hell, I can’t even walk my new dog, Roscoe, a German shepherd I bought for protection from a trainer in Poland a few months ago, without pictures showing up online within thirty minutes, accompanied by text that describe what I’m wearing and how my hair looks.
Just last week, I walked Roscoe in some old basketball shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. An hour later I got a text from Brady telling me to log in to some website, where my groin was circled in a bright red stroke. Apparently, the shorts revealed the outline of the head of my dick. Definitely no more commando dog walks for me.
I got swept away in the comments for about two hours. It’s amazing how objectified I felt. I never thought in a million years I’d hate having hundreds of thousands of women wanting to fuck me. It’s not as awesome as it sounds.
I flop down on the leather sofa and let Lili handle the rest. Two months later, I’m still sitting on the damn couch, but it’s not leather. It’s some uncomfortable thing some guy in France designed, so Lili had to have it.
Since Tortured Love wrapped, I can’t find motivation. Natalie keeps sending me scripts, telling me I have to strike while the iron’s hot. She worries my fame won’t last for long. “No one’s career lasts if all they have is a few teen movies to their name.”
She seems to forget all about Reflections, the one critics loved and called my performance “masterful” and “daring.” So while Liliana is out doing whatever it is that makes her happy, I read script after script in the hopes that one will spark my interest. Just to keep Natalie off my back, I’ve sent two back to her as maybes.
The day grows late and while I’d meant to flip the channel to ESPN to see how games I don’t really care about turned out, I’d never actually picked up the remote and the television switched itself based on my preselected recording schedule. Suddenly, Collette Stroud fills the space on the wall where my television used to be.
She is so beautiful and looks so much better than the last time I saw her.
I can’t take my eyes off her and it almost physically hurts when the camera switches to a shot of Ronnie Reynolds, America’s favorite reporter.
Shit. Collette is giving an interview. I vaguely recall setting the recording weeks ago.
There are so many rumors about her. Some say she got back into drugs. Other reports give conflicting stories about her love life; some say she’s seriously involved with an English soccer player, or Quin again, others indicate she’s dating an MMA prizefighter. I don’t know which to believe.
Ronnie starts off in such a soft, caring voice. “So, Cole, you’ve had a bit of a roller coaster year.”
The shot of Cole shows her smoothing down her red hair, just the part that lays on her shoulder, and looking away from the camera. “I
t’s been interesting.”
“I won’t beat around the bush because you and I have always had a certain way between us. Do you feel that, too?”
Cole nods. “Yeah. That’s why I like you. You skip the bull—”
The station bleeps out the word, but it’s evident what she says.
“Okay, so what’s the deal? You turn thirty-three, everything’s going great, you direct a commercial blockbuster, then everything goes a little crazy; erratic behavior, missing for weeks, and those are just the things within the past few months. Before that you fired your personal assistant, and—”
“Why do you only pick the negative things to share?” Cole chuckles.
“Are they negative?”
Cole licks her lips. “Yes. I mean, erratic has a pretty negative connotation, right? I’ll be honest right off the bat with you, Ronnie, because I know you’ll get it out of me at some point. I took a few steps back and relapsed.”
“Drugs?”
“Drugs.”
“Which ones?”
Cole tilts her head and gives Ronnie a smile like the question is so stupid and the answer is so simple. “Heroin. My first and only love.”
“That’s interesting.” Ronnie’s index fingers are pressed together in a steeple, resting against her lips for a moment. “You’ve done that before—called heroin your only love. Is that because—”
“Look, I think you can talk to any addict of the stuff and they’ll describe a romance with it. It provides better feelings than any orgasm can produce.”
“But what about actual love, Collette? Orgasm or no, the singular feeling of being loved by another person. Can it rival that?”
Again, Cole looks away. “That love is fleeting. It’s not permanent. But with heroin, if I let it, it’ll stay forever.” The camera pans out to show her picking at the nails of one finger. The crease of her brow makes my insides knot.
“Well, let’s be clear. Not forever, just until it kills you.”
A sad little smile on her face appears as Cole nods. “True.”
“But you’re clean now?”