Just Jack: Everything laid bare

by K. L. Shandwick

  Despite what I told the girls about having to save my energy, I was wide-awake. I just wanted to be out of there as soon as I was done, and because I felt there was something seriously off about Lizzie. As I travelled back in the taxi at the end of the night, it entered my head that she could probably be a sadomasochist given half the chance.

  Glancing at my phone, I saw that it had been Lily that messaged me earlier, and I realised she would be finishing her day in Los Angeles. I walked across my open plan sitting room to switch on my desktop computer. The touch screen monitor was three feet in diameter and a poor substitute for Lily, but it made me feel like she was at least a little closer when we Skyped.

  Swiping my screen I selected the Skype icon to call her. When I touched her name the machine instantly connected to her line. I made several attempts before I accepted that she wasn’t available. Each time it disconnected I felt a pang of annoyance that I couldn’t just see her when I wanted to. Staring down at my hand, I realised I’d eaten the whole pack of ham when I had been absent-mindedly fishing around inside and found it empty. I had been comfort eating while trying to call her and that only irritated me further.

  I placed my hands on the table and dragged myself to my feet feeling disappointed and suddenly tired. I wandered down through my bedroom and into the bathroom to clean myself before bed. I loved my power shower, it was a luxury I afforded myself because I spent a lot of time travelling and some of the hotel showers I’d stayed in were less than desirable.

  My shower was a natural stone tiled wet room cubicle with seven jets. Six to the side and a massive shower head at the top. Multi-force settings gave me everything from a fine mist spray to pulsating and regular flows, and also a more forceful massage water pressure. My varying moods and time dictated which setting I used. Flicking the lever from left to right, the shower instantly sprang to life. The water from the side jets caused the mirrors over the countertop to fog up and the room filled with steam.

  Peeling myself out of my jeans, I threw them in the laundry basket and pulled my shirt over my head. I couldn’t ignore the fact that I reeked of sex. Stepping into the steamy space and feeling the warmth and the force of the jets was an exceptional experience. I didn’t know why, but Rosie popped into my head. I couldn’t help feeling a tad guilty about being with the girls. I did miss her a lot, we’d been together for a while, but she had become more of a habit than a permanent feature. Once I had made my hard decision about her, I knew I would not go back on it.

  Running my hands through my wet hair, I closed my eyes and let the warm water cascade down my body before eventually reaching for the shower gel. Squirting a load onto my hand I began to rub the soothing bubbles over my abs and belly then down to my groin. My dick twitched and I wrapped my hand around it pulling the skin back and forth gently as I cleaned myself. My hand lingered there for a few seconds while I let my mind go blank, then I swung the shower lever one hundred and eighty degrees and the water stopped immediately.

  I walked over to the shelves in the corner and pulled a green towel off of one, wrapping it loosely around my hips. I also grabbed a hand towel from the pile and walked over to the mirror. Wiping the steam from the glass, I stared at myself while I briskly rubbed my hair to stop it dripping. I then used the other side to dry my face. I noted that I looked less tired and much fresher than I had before my shower.

  From the bathroom, I heard the distinctive sound of an incoming call on Skype and quickly walked back to the sitting room. Lily’s face filled the screen as I moved the cursor onto the green phone icon. Clicking on it, the call instantly connected and I leant back in my chair with a wide smile on my face.

  “Hey sweetheart, how are you? Don’t tell me you’re tired of that big pierced dick over there and want to try some British beef for a change?”

  Lily giggled and threw her head back while I automatically leaned forward stretching my arms out on my desk to be nearer her. Watching her happy face, I realised how much I missed that smile.

  “Stop being so jealous, Jack. Alfie isn’t a dick.” Lily was as quick as ever.

  “I was talking about his penis, Lily, if I wanted to insult him I’d have called him an arsehole.”

  Lily chuckled again, tucking her hair behind her ear, then she looked at the screen and reached out as if she were trying to touch me.

  “God, I miss you, Jack.” I could hear the hint of sadness in her voice as she stared wistfully at me, she then took a deep breath and sat back sighing.

  My heart sunk to my stomach, my arms suddenly ached to hug her because she looked so sad.

  “To be honest, Jack, I could do with a little spooning right now, I’m kind of lonely. Alfie is in Las Vegas this weekend keeping Drew company because Elle insisted Drew went with her. A couple of her dance students are auditioning for a show there. XrAid have been recording and although Alfie came and hung around the studio, I could see he was going stir crazy, so I suggested he go with them.”

  “So, how are things with you apart from not getting any?” I asked not wanting to talk about Alfie and focus on how she was.

  Lily blushed and squirmed in her seat at my comment then rolled her eyes, she dipped her head before glancing back at me through her eyelashes, “Good. You?”

  “Oh, I’m getting plenty, in fact I just got home.”

  I knew I’d make her uncomfortable but I loved the look on her face when I did that. Lily’s mouth gaped and she covered it with her hand chuckling and a little embarrassed by my disclosure.

  “Yeah? Was she nice?” Lily’s tone sounded intrigued.

  “They, Lily, they were nice.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?” Lily sat forward and clasped her hands on her lap shaking her head like she’d thought she misheard me.

  “Well there was someone at the start of the evening that I definitely wanted to pursue but that didn’t pan out so I went to talk to Sam and these girls were sitting with him and Cat. You remember Cat from that time at my place when I was volunteered by you to host a drinks party?”

  “You hooked up with Cat again?”

  “No, Sam’s with Cat.”

  “God, you boys are like dogs sometimes.”

  “Cat is Sam’s girlfriend now.”

  “Since…?”

  “Whenever they got together. I don’t know, I was just mentioning her because the girls were with her.”

  Lily’s eyes popped wide. “The girls? You were with two girls? You and Sam? What happened with Cat.”

  “Fuck. Stop, Lily. No.”

  Taking a deep breath I sat forward and started jabbing my hand on the desk to punctuate my explanation.

  “Sam and Cat are an item. Cat brought her friends clubbing. Sam and I met her in the club by accident when we were with Dave. Dave hooked up with Sally, you remember, Sally from high-school? And I hooked up with Cat’s friends.”

  Lily’s jaw dropped again, her head bobbed about in a half-nod-half-shake in disbelief before she recovered and started giggling again.

  “For a moment I thought you said you hooked up with her friends. You mean one of them right?”

  Twisting my mouth, I felt a little embarrassed about my admission but I’d always been open about my sex life with her.

  “Nope, Lily, you heard me correctly.” I held my fingers up in a V sign indicating the two of them.

  “Jack Cunningham! You didn’t.” Lily pursed her lips swallowing a giggle.

  Nodding with a wry grin I reaffirmed my statement. “Uh huh, I did.”

  Lily’s eyes were like saucers by that time, “Two? You had sex with two women at the same time? Did they have sex with each…”

  “Nuh huh, one at a time,” I admitted, my head wagging from side to side as I struggled with the best way of explaining what we did without going into detail.

  Lily was quiet for a moment then stared seriously at the camera. I meant, really stared at me, and I saw a fleeting look of distress pass over her face.

  “You think Alfie…?”


  I knew what she was thinking and I wasn’t going to lie to her. Alfie was a man whore in his day, but I was kicking myself for putting the thought in her head.

  “Probably… definitely. He’s a rock star for Christ’s sake, Lily, but that just shows you that your pussy was better than a double ride, you should be proud of that, sweetheart,” I countered, going for crude to distract her in the hope of relieving the pain of that revelation.

  Lily looked more than a bit perturbed and pursed her lips again looking like she might cry.

  “Hey. You both had pasts.” I said softly with a resignation in my voice.

  “Shit happens or threesomes in mine and Alfie’s case, but when the right woman comes along we sure as hell don’t want someone that’s willing to do that. We want our women as pure as snow but capable of being sluts in the bedroom, or elsewhere we choose to take them when the mood strikes us, but sluts only for us, if you know what I mean.”

  Watching her tussle with the thought, I knew I’d given her something else to worry about. Shut the fuck up, Jack, you aren’t selling this explanation very well.

  Lily’s head was bowed down, looking at her lap and she smoothed her skirt down in a gesture I knew too well. She always did that when she was upset, and I tried again to make her feel better.

  “Lily, sweetheart, who is Alfie with? You. Why is he with you? Because you are all he wants. You’re the end of the rainbow as far as women go for him. You think he’d throw away everything he’d had before to be with you, if the guy didn’t think you weren’t the real deal? You’re ‘it’ for him. And sure, I’ll continue to screw around, but only because I haven’t found my ‘it’ yet, that’s all. When I do I’d, never want to hurt her like that.”

  My comment seemed to settle Lily’s mind and we talked a little longer about her and her band before she told me she’d be coming to London soon. My heart sped up with excitement at the thought that she was coming for four whole days to see her parents. It would be towards the end of my holiday and I was delighted that I’d be able to devote some rare time to just the two of us.

  The only thing that was difficult was being able to take her out somewhere. Now that Lily was famous; it was nigh on impossible to get any private time outside of her parent’s place or mine. And even then she had a massive bodyguard in tow with her.

  “So, you and Rosie are definitely done, Jack? You won’t change your mind?”

  “I told you, Lily, I wish I felt differently about her. I do love her and I miss her sometimes, but I really don’t think I was ever in love with her.”

  Lily nodded like she understood and leant back in her chair crossing her legs and her eyes rolled slowly to the top of her head in thought. I knew she’d started to warm to Rosie and Rosie to her.

  “I think I felt like that about Zack, but I didn’t keep letting him think I was serious for over a year, Jack.” Lily chided, reminding me about a guy she went out with briefly when she and Alfie were on a break.

  “Just a sec,” I ran to the fridge to get myself a coke.

  I was parched after all the alcohol I’d consumed. I quickly opened the can and began slugging it down on the way back to the screen. Lily took her small denim jacket off and threw it over the back of the chair then flicked her hair behind her ears.

  “Okay, beautiful, where were we?”

  “You were avoiding talking about Rosie.”

  Running my fingers through my hair I sunk down in the chair and sighed deeply at how Lily’s opinion about me dumping Rosie grated on me. Especially after all the support I’d givden her with the car-crash-of-a-relationship her and Alfie had.

  “Listen, Lily, I’m going to tell you something and then maybe you’ll understand where I’m at. When I was going to interview Rick yesterday morning, I had a chance meeting with a girl on the tube. Her name was Gini. I’d never seen her before but the connection I had with her left me dumbfounded on the underground platform. We met for all of a minute and I was speechless at the effect she had on me. Rosie never had anything close to that effect on me.”

  Grinning, Lily leaned forward seeming really interested.

  “Mmm, Jack sounds love struck. You got her number, right? When am I meeting her? And if you’re chasing her, what the hell are you doing with other women? You know how I feel about that.”

  “That’s just it, Lily. I have no clue where to find her. I bumped into her twice. Twice, and then she disappeared just when I was getting to know her. I have no idea where she went, but I guess that was our chance. I wasn’t quick enough, one moment she was there the next she’d gone.”

  Lily, in her own little hippie style, tried to throw me a lifeline.

  “If you’re meant to be together you’ll find each other again. I mean, sometimes I think about ‘ifs’, if I hadn’t gone to Florida to study I’d never have met Alfie, if I hadn’t gone to that open mic…”

  Cutting across her speech I interjected, “lf we’d given in to our hormones when we were teenagers, if I hadn’t been so fucking laid back I’d have followed Gini out to the lobby when her phone rang.”

  “So her phone rang and she went to take the call?” Lily said either ignoring my first comment or because all of that was years ago, and those feelings for her were insignificant now.

  “Yeah, and that was the last I saw of her,” I answered, letting everything else I was feeling slide. I wondered if I was just feeling that way because of the finality of our situation.

  “Well she may have had an emergency and had to leave. Try going back there at the same time next week. You never know she may be feeling the same.”

  Armed with a glimmer of hope, I decided it was a long shot but I had nothing to lose. I dropped the subject and we talked about our friends for a few minutes before I told Lily to go, she’d yawned and it was ten in the evening in LA. When the call finished I headed to bed feeling slightly better about my encounter with Gini after talking to Lily about it. I was going to try her suggestion and go back to the club at the same time the following week.

  Chapter 11 ~ Chances

  A shrill repetitive noise interrupted my weirdly erotic dream and I glanced bleary eyed at my bedside alarm clock but then remembered I was on holiday. I focused on my mobile which was ringing on the bedside table.

  The time read two in the afternoon. I tried to get my bearings then shoved myself up and scrubbed my hand over my face. The acidic feeling in my stomach was a dull nauseating ache and my mouth felt like I’d been licking a floor clean. Grabbing my phone I answered, even though my brain still felt foggy. I cleared my throat in an effort to sound even halfway decent.

  “Hello?” I said, gruffly.

  “So?”

  Clearing my throat again, I started to answer but suddenly felt the full effects of my late night drinking.

  “Who’s this?” I asked, sounding hoarse.

  Dave’s voice came back at me sounding way too chirpy for someone who’d been out late clubbing.

  “Dave, who else? Damn, Jack, you weren’t kidding about Sally! The girl rode me until I thought my cock was going to break. She only left about fifteen minutes ago. Jesus man, I thought I had struck gold until I saw who you were leaving with. How come I suddenly I felt as if you’d handed me a consolation prize?”

  “Dave, Sally isn’t a consolation prize, and if you ever see her again you’d better not let her hear you talking about her like that. She’s a nice girl. Very easy I’ll admit, but you wouldn’t find a better natured girl anywhere, apart from Lily.”

  “Whatever. You are one jammy bastard, Jack. I’ve yet to find one woman on this planet that doesn’t want to fuck you!”

  “Well you aren’t looking very far. What about, Lily?”

  “She doesn’t count, that would be like you fucking family.”

  “Well, that’s why I never pursued her in that way.”

  “Oh my God, sounds to me like you’ve considered it, Jack. Revelation here, the guy is human like the rest of us after all.”
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  “Nope never considered it for the reason I just said, Dave, that’s not to say that I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t what?”

  “Want to. Of course I wanted to fuck Lily. Who didn’t? For a while the lines got a little crossed when we were teenagers.”

  Confessing felt good. It was the first time I’d ever openly told anyone about my thoughts in regard to feeling horny about Lily back in the day.

  Dave seemed to jump on my comment. “Oh I wanted to as well, and thought about it many times. Mainly in the shower.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Dave. A hand date would be as far as you’d have gotten with Lily. She’s way out of your league mate!”

  “How would I know that? You never let any of us even speak to her in high-school.”

  Smiling at his honest assessment of me, I wandered through to my kitchen and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge. Swigging it down, I winced when the coldness hit the back of my throat; it was almost painful to swallow.

  I considered what he was saying. I knew that even though Dave was a good looking guy he would have been completely wrong for Lily. It wasn’t that I was against anyone dating her. Well I was, but it was more that I felt she was meant for better things. If one of those spotty school boys had stolen her heart she wouldn’t have pursued all the dreams she had when she was sixteen.

  I guessed what I really thought was that I didn’t think Lily was mature enough to see the bigger picture at that age, and even though I acted immaturely at times, I just knew that Lily was going to be extra special to the world at some point. She just needed to find her inner confidence to realise she could be.

  “Can we change the subject? You’re making my hangover a whole lot worse with this conversation, Dave. Besides, as far as Lily is concerned, no one can compete with Alfie. Anyway, did you only call to get a run down on my performance last night, or was there another reason?”

  Dave chuckled down the line at me then made a long humming sound like he was deliberating about my question.