Songs of Love : Books 1-3

by M J Calabrese

  Let me tell you a secret about Dylan. He is a big butch, hardcore bottom. I have always topped him. He loves anal sex. Play with his ass and he’s yours. Never, in our entire marriage has he ever, ever wanted to switch. I asked him once. His reply was true Dylan. “Do I have to?”

  He plays macho characters because of his looks and voice. He was a man’s man. We laughed about that once when some interviewer put that in their article about him. First off, clearly the guy hadn’t done his homework before meeting Dylan. I don’t think he had any clue Dylan was gay. I remember going with him to the office where the interview took place. He kept calling me Dylan’s friend. I remember we looked at each other and frowned, but Dylan didn’t correct him. We were still kind of new to all of this.

  So to continue the tale of that fateful day, the limo arrived at 5 pm, but at midnight I was still sitting in the first class lounge at the airport. I waited until there was no hope of getting on that plane or any other. A rare Pacific coast storm had shut down LAX. Unheard of. I tried to text and call Dylan numerous times, but he never replied. I figured he probably turned his phone off. He did that sometimes when he had meetings. I grabbed a cab and headed home. I let myself in quietly. I was a bit surprised to see that the security alarm wasn’t on, but it wouldn’t be the first time either one of us had forgotten to set it. Removing my shoes at the door, I tiptoed up the stairs, thinking about sleeping in the spare room so as not to wake him. As I drew closer to our room, the sounds coming from there made my blood freeze.

  Duffel bag still clutched in my hand, I slowly pushed our bedroom door open. There they were. Mason Collins was fucking my husband, but that wasn’t what made me see red. Dylan’s words in that moment as burned into my brain. “Oh, yeah, babe. Damn! You definitely remember what I like. I’ve got you trained now, don’t I. Every time you get better and better.”

  Mason laughed, “Took a few months, but yeah, lover, I know exactly how you like it.”

  I stood there, stunned. In utter disbelief as I watched Mason’s dick slid in and out of Dylan’s ass, without a condom. I watched as Mason’s movement grew jerky and his back stiffened, coming inside my husband. I remember, in that moment, I wanted to kill both of them.

  “You lying sack of shit!” I never thought I’d hear a roar like that come out of my mouth. So low and menacing. I remember I grabbed Mason and threw him across the room. He let out a grunt as he hit the wall. I don’t know how I did it. Looking back, I guess it was a combination of a healthy dose of adrenaline and rage. Then I turned on Dylan. He was floundering. Tangled in the sheets as he tried to get up. The words, Hey, I can explain. Almost made it out of his mouth before I hit him so hard in the jaw that I heard it crack.

  My abusive, alcoholic father would’ve been proud. I know people say when they catch their spouses cheating they stop thinking. In my case, I was hyper-focused. Angry beyond belief and focused. I didn’t even slow down. I picked up my duffel from the hallway and ran down the stairs. I shoved on my shoes when I reached the door. By the time I’d reached the elevator, I had ordered an Uber that was five minutes away. As I waited in the lobby, I pulled up all our banking (both local and overseas), savings, stock sites and joint credit cards and I blocked him from getting into them. It would take him over a month to undo the damage I was doing.

  I sent an email to my lawyer telling him to draw up separation papers. No way was I going to let him drag me down another inch. I was hurt and humiliated and I wanted him to suffer. The Uber took me to a five star hotel uptown. Fortunately, the night manager recognized me. I guess celebrity has some perks and he let me register under another name. I told him I didn’t want to be disturbed. Up in the room, I texted Chris and Emile that I was leaving New York city. That Dylan and I were breaking up. Of course, they wanted to know why, but I didn’t respond. After that I blocked Dylan’s number and I got drunk. Twenty-four hours later, I was fucking some twink I picked up in a gay bar in West Hollywood. I sent Dylan pictures. No, I’m not vindictive. I was nice enough to use a condom with the guy so I wouldn’t give him whatever I’d caught from my lying, cheating, bastard of a husband.

  Chapter Five

  Our lives moved on. I didn’t speak to Dylan for seven years. Never once. Not for lack of trying on Dylan’s part. Two years after we broke up, he almost trapped me in a crowd heading to an after party for the Golden Globes. He’d won that year. (Yes, universe, you suck.) I won for a fantasy series I produced. He almost got to me. If it hadn’t been for a very drunk starlet grabbing him and forcing a selfie, he’d’ve made it. It was sort of sad though, that starlet put out the picture that night on social media with the caption, ‘Me and my boyfriend at the GGs.’ That photo was reposted over and over again with #faghag attached. Poor girl didn’t know he was gay and still married.

  Three years ago, he saw me arriving on the red carpet at the Oscars with my date. He tried to cut through the crowd of media, but I saw him in time to make our escape. I knew he would try to get to me later, but then I won for best screenplay, the one I had based on our relationship. Just to be mean, during my acceptance speech, I acknowledged him saying that without his cheating on me, I’d have had nothing to write about. The cameras, of course panned to him, red faced, in the sea of celebrity faces. It got quite a laugh.

  That was the night I met my current boyfriend. He was a cute, young, wannabe actor. I picked him up from an after party when my date got too drunk and ended up vomiting on someone’s dress. After putting Mcpukie in a cab, I turned around to find him standing near the door, looking very amused, and very sexy. He was supposed to be a quick one-night fuck to celebrate my win, but here he was, three and a half years later, sitting across from me. My desk and laptop being the physical barrier between us.

  “Heywood, we need to talk.”

  I looked up at him. My mini-me was sitting there, with arms crossed and legs twisted and tucked under himself. He cocked his head to one side. He wasn’t smiling. From the first night I brought him home I was struck by how much we looked alike. He is 5’10” to my 6’1. Both of us were brown haired, but mine was now showing a bit of gray at the temples. We had matching chocolate brown eyes and if I would lose a few pounds, my jawline, like his, could cut glass. His day old beard looked trendy, but mine just looked straggly and the gray there, too, made me feel old. Compared to Eric, I was. The ten year age gap (though he still looked like the teen he played sometimes) made people think we were brothers. At least, my look hadn’t faded to the point where people thought I was his Daddy yet. Ok, maybe a few of his friends thought we had that sort of relationship.

  “Did you hear me, Heywood? We need to talk.”

  No one called me Heywood except Eric and in the past, Dylan when we were still together. I grimaced. Then I carefully and deliberately shut the lid on my laptop.

  “You know, nothing good ever happens after a character in a screenplay utters those four words.”

  “What?” Eric frowned or rather he tried to. At 24, he was already getting regular injections of Botox from a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. He had nagged me about going and having injections because he felt the laugh lines at the corners of my eyes made me look older, but I refused.

  “Usually those four words are followed by: A. We need to talk. I want to break up. B. We need to talk, I’m pregnant or C. We need to talk. I need help hiding the body.”

  Eric still didn’t smile and Botox had nothing to do with it.

  “A.”

  “A?”

  “I’m breaking up with you.” He uncrossed his legs, but his arms stayed hugging his chest. “Two nights ago, in front of all our friends, in one of the most expensive restaurants in the city, I got down on one knee and proposed to you and what did you do?”

  Before I could answer, he went on. “You got up and walked away. To add insult to an already humiliating scene, I had to take an Uber.” He raised his voice and pointed a well-manicured finger at me. “An Uber, for God’s sake, because you took the car! You left me
standing there. Embarrassed beyond belief. Do you know what they were saying on Twitter? I will never live it down.”

  “You’re being ridiculous. You’ve known for years that I’m still legally married to Dylan.”

  “Get a fucking divorce!” With this proclamation he was projecting to the back rows.

  “No!”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Then I want half the house.”

  “What? Are you high? This is my house. I bought and paid for it. My name is the only one on the deed. Besides we have an agreement, in writing, if you remember. If we break up, you basically get a small settlement and what you can prove is yours.”

  “I don’t care. We picked this house out together. We decorated it together. I want half!”

  “You can’t have the house.”

  “I don’t want it. I want half the equity its earned since we bought it four years ago.”

  “I bought it and it was three years ago. We’ve only been here three years.” I stared at the awards displayed on the shelves over his right shoulder wondering which one would make the best bludgeon. I wanted to kill the little shit. I bought this house because I loved everything about its 1920’s Spanish hacienda style and its location high in the Hollywood Hills. Eric had wanted a mansion in Hancock Park.

  If he wanted to leave, fine, but I wasn’t going to play his game. There were a number of reasons I never divorced my husband, but the uppermost reason was financial. Together we were worth close to $500 million. First couple of years after we separated both our post modeling careers took off. Prior to my serving him with separation papers, we were worth a lot, we’d started investing at 19. Over the past seven years our net worth soared. He got tagged to play a superhero in an ongoing series of films followed by a major TV series that was cancelled a few months ago. My own work won me awards. I’d produced two films that did well and a prime time series that ran for five years. We kept the same money people and accountants. Lawyers on both sides interceded whenever either of us needed to make a decision about our investments. That’s how I kept from speaking to him. Though we kept separate accounts now, California was a community property state and if we divorced we’d take a hell of a hit. The monies we’d made would be added up and divided. One of us would have ended up on the bad side of that deal. In our case, redistribution of wealth was a not a good thing. I should’ve been grateful that at 34 years of age, I had that problem, but I wasn’t.

  “No!”

  “If you don’t give me what I want I will go on social media, do interviews, whatever, and I’ll drag you through the mud. Do you really think that streaming channel will allow your series to get off the ground? Do you think it would survive all the negative press I can stir up?”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  He stood and leaned over my desk, staring me down. “Watch me!”

  I was impressed. The little shit had balls. He turned and started to flounce away. Yes, in private, Eric Dees, up and coming action hero, flounced. If I’d had the forethought to film him on my iPhone, I could’ve held his career in my hands.

  “Wait.” I remember I actually groaned. He was right, I didn’t need this controversy right now. The little shit was right. I was struggling. For my ego, more than anything else, I needed a win. “Alright. I’ll get the house appraised and I’ll pay you half the equity out of my own pocket.”

  He turned with a smug smile on his face. I wanted to slap him, but I didn’t need the lawsuit.

  “Zillow says its gone up 1.7 million.”

  “What? No way.” There was no way I was going to pay him over $800k to get rid of him. “I want an independent, professional appraiser to value the place and I want it in writing.”

  “Well, Jimmy could….”

  There was no way I was going to use his real estate agent slash fuck buddy.

  “No, someone neither of us knows. Totally independent.”

  “Alright, if you insist. I want this little agreement of ours written down.”

  I turned and snatched a piece of clean copier paper out of my printer. I quickly wrote down our agreement terms, dated it and signed it, along with a non-disclosure agreement. I didn’t need him to renege on our agreement and go to the press if he wasn’t happy with the evaluation. Had him sign it as well and made copies which I handed to him as he came around the side of my desk. He took the pieces of paper, folded them and stuck them into the back pocket of his tight pants.

  With a smile, he poked his ass in my face. “You’re going to miss this old man.” He slapped his bottom to emphasize his words.

  I quickly stood, grabbing my laptop as I went. I shoved it into the designer messenger bag I carried everywhere. “I have a meeting.”

  “I won’t be here when you get back!”

  “Thank God!”

  “Bitch!”

  “Fucking whore!” I made a point of slamming the front door. I knew he’d like the dramatics.

  Of course, this should’ve been an indicator of how the rest of my day would go. Hell, I’d left the man I was breaking up with in my house. It took me a few minutes to collect my thoughts. I called my agent go over to make sure he didn’t steal or vandalize my home. I just wanted him gone.

  The meeting I attended made my heart sink. I was struggling with scripts. I just couldn’t get my head around the main character. Now here was a man sitting across from me who held in his hands the fate of my project and he wasn’t happy.

  “Heywood, we need a big name as the lead of this series.” The suit spoke. I doubted if he’d even read the script. This was a sword and sorcery series. There would be lots of special effects and hiring a name would cost most of my budget.

  “Someone with a fan base, but would do it on the cheap.” The second studio suit peered at me like I had an answer.

  “We need to punch up these scripts, as well. It’s fantasy, very…,” The man stopped as he seemed to search for the word he wanted. “medieval.”

  I had a whole new respect for suit one. He had read it.

  “We could do anything, but I feel you’re holding back. Your past stuff….”

  Yep, you’re only as good as your last hit. No matter how many hits you have.

  “Okay. This is a limited run series. Streaming only buys five seasons max. We’re already filming on a tight budget with what you guys are willing to give me. I would have to offer him a ridiculously low amount to work for us. The tight, short schedule might be attractive to some film actor, but we couldn’t tie him down to months of promo tours. We’d have to work around his film commitments as well. He’s not going to want to lose the income from that. Honestly, I don’t know who we’d get.”

  I knew what they wanted me to say. They wanted Dylan Greig and I wasn’t going to drag him into this. We’d spent seven years not talking to each other. We’d done things this way for so long, well, to be honest, I didn’t know if he would talk to me if I called him.

  Thus ended a shitty meeting that was just one small part of my otherwise shitty day. I walked out having my own little pity party in my head. As I walked out of the building and got into my car, my cell rang and connected with my hands-free system. A number I didn’t recognize appeared on my infotainment screen. I figured it was some telemarketer trying to sell me insurance or something. I should’ve let it go to voicemail, but I was in a bad mood and I really wanted to make someone a new asshole, so I answered it.

  “Alright, you sonnovabitch!” I shouted, “I don’t want what you’re selling. Take me off of your goddamned call list.”

  “Hey?”

  I froze. Except on screen, I hadn’t heard that voice in seven years. And yes, I did watch his movies from time to time.

  “Uh, Hey? Did you hang up on me? Did we lose the connection?”

  There was something in Dylan’s voice that made me respond. Something a bit sad. Something contrite. Maybe I was ready to talk with him again, I don’t know. In that moment, I needed to hear his voice.

&
nbsp; “No. No…, I’m still here, Dylan.” The voice that answered him didn’t sound much like my own. I didn’t think I could sound that soft and like him, sad and tentative. “What’s going on? Why are you calling?”

  There was a long pause, but I didn’t help him. “I need to see you. There’s something important we need to discuss. Something I need to ask you.”

  I blinked fast several times forcing back the tears that were gathering. I was always reluctant to admit this day might come. He was going to ask me for a divorce. No, Dylan I will not be your best man. Or, in my fantasies, he was going to tell me he’d been diagnosed with a fatal disease and had only a few months to live. That was the screenwriter in me, but I didn’t want the first choice either.

  “Okay.”

  “Would you have lunch with me?”

  “Sure, when?”

  The answer must’ve surprised him. My need for revenge was no longer the driving force for me shunning him. He’d paid his penance and I was tired of carrying the burden of my anger.

  “The Abbey? One pm?”

  “Sure.”

  Again, the silence was telling. Whatever Dylan needed to tell me, it was serious. My husband was rarely quiet, and this worried me. When we were together, he would drive me nuts trying to fill in the dead space between conversations by babbling about nothing.

  “Okay, see you then.”

  My next call was to a real estate appraiser. I arranged to meet him at the house at 4 pm. My lunch with Dylan shouldn’t take that long, but if it did. I had an excuse to leave. The fact I had to do this at all made me angry, especially with myself. God, I hated this day.