Nothing But Trouble

by Matt Cain

  ‘I said I love this song!’

  He pulled a face. ‘I’m sorry?’ He moved in closer and allowed his stubble to gently catch her cheek. ‘What was that again?’ he said straight into her ear, his lips lightly tickling the lobe and his hand resting on her waist.

  ‘I said I LOVE THIS SONG!’

  ‘Good,’ he nodded, stepping back to look at her intently. ‘Remind me to play it later while I’m fucking you.’

  She stopped dead and for a second he wasn’t sure whether he’d overstepped the mark. She seemed to shiver ever so slightly. But then she glared at him and her eyes flared with yearning.

  It was time for Jake to begin his performance. A performance he was sure would completely overshadow Lola’s.

  *

  Across town, Freddy was still basking in the brilliance of Lola’s performance.

  ‘Yeah but did you see how much everyone loved her?’ he asked Rhodri. ‘I mean, did you hear how loud they were all cheering?’

  Unfortunately Rhodri’s attention was focused elsewhere. ‘What do you think of that one?’ He gestured towards a generously thighed whopper of a woman whose rolled up G-string was poking out of the top of her low-rise jeans. ‘I mean, she’s not perfect, but I could always D.I.D.’

  ‘D.I.D.?’

  Rhodri looked at him as if he’d said something stupid. ‘Do It Doggie.’

  ‘Oh yeah, sorry.’ Freddy plugged his frown with a bottle of beer.

  The two of them had come to the Roaring Donkey pub in Bayswater, where Rhodri had carried on drinking like a pirate – and Freddy had lost all chance of catching up with him. Not that he was remotely interested in getting drunk – all that interested him tonight was Lola. He couldn’t stop thinking about the moment she’d flirted with him on stage, the moment his heart had taken flight. He wondered where she was now. She was probably at some glamorous after-show party being showered with praise. But as he wasn’t working the gig, he hadn’t arranged to get hold of any invites – and had no idea how he’d go about it now.

  ‘Or what about that one?’ his friend asked. He pointed out a woman with a dramatic streak of red in her black hair and a faraway expression that showed she too had been drinking for hours. She gave a loud laugh like a drain, revealing a huge gap between her front teeth. ‘Hey, do you reckon I could fit my cock in that gap?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, mate,’ Freddy answered. ‘But why don’t you go and chat to her? She looks like a nice girl.’

  ‘Shit!’ Rhodri gripped onto Freddy’s arm and pulled him behind a pillar. ‘Have you seen who’s just walked in?’

  Freddy peered around and spotted a trashy blonde with the worst muffin top he’d ever seen stuffing her face on a bag of Quavers. ‘What’s the matter, mate? Who’s that?’

  ‘Ingrid Grimmer. You must remember her? I shagged her after the rugby ball last year.’

  Freddy didn’t have the faintest recollection but played along anyway. ‘Oh yeah. She was all right, wasn’t she?’

  Rhodri pulled a face as if he could smell shit. ‘Mate, shagging that was like putting my dick in a messy kebab. I ain’t going back there again – no way.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right, like. We can just hide here for a while.’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘No, it’s fine, honestly.’

  As Rhodri emptied his bottle and burped hotly, Freddy couldn’t help wondering how he’d ended up in this position. What he’d give to be with Lola right now. Oh it was all so frustrating. He knew that if he could just wangle one date with her everything would be fine. But here he was stuck in some dump of a pub looking after his shit-faced mate as he hid from a dodgy pull while Lola was somewhere much more glamorous celebrating her success. Not to mention fending off the advances of every man who’d seen her sizzle on stage.

  He took a swig of his drink and told himself not to worry about it. After what she’d said today there was no question there was a connection between them. He’d just have to be patient until he could act on it – until, to use a rugby expression, he could convert the try. But an awful thought suddenly occurred to him and started beating at the walls of his skull. What if some other bloke gets in there before me?

  *

  ‘What was the name of that song again?’ Jake asked as he crashed into Lola’s flat a few hours later. ‘The one I said I’d play while I was fucking you?’

  ‘Oh, who gives a shit?’ Lola practically shrieked. ‘Just shut up and snog me!’

  She ripped at his jacket and tugged it onto the floor, giving in to an urge she’d been fighting ever since she’d set eyes on him at the after-show party. Actually, if she were being honest, it was an urge she’d been fighting ever since she’d first set eyes on him in rehearsals. She’d thought she’d come up with a way of resisting it when she’d flirted with Freddy on stage and then asked Gloria to give him tickets to the party. But her plan had failed – and now she saw no other option but to surrender.

  Falling back onto a cardboard box, she felt Jake lowering himself onto her. As he pressed down, her legs gently fell apart, while her lips hungrily snatched at his. Now that she was giving in to her desire she couldn’t for the life of her think why she’d spent so long resisting. This felt good. It felt right. And today had been such an unreal experience, Lola clutched at it as something that could once again root her in reality. Or at least a reality she recognized as hers. She kicked the door shut and heard it slam.

  She could feel the proof of Jake’s desire pressing against her from beneath his trousers. And the evidence that he wanted her made her flush with a feeling she could only identify as euphoria. Right now she was convinced she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything else in her life.

  ‘Wait a second,’ he said, detaching himself so that he was just out of reach. Her lips carried on snatching at the space between them. ‘I need to quickly use the bathroom.’

  Lola let off a groan. He staggered back and she pointed the way. As he turned and receded into the distance, she clattered down off the box and onto the floor. She was so drunk she felt stunned. She came to a stop in front of a full-length mirror and settled into a glassy-eyed gaze at her reflection. Her vision began to dot like in one of those optical illusions she’d had to stare at when she’d had her eyes tested. For a brief moment the dots rearranged themselves into an image of her mum staring back at her after one of her heavy binges. She watched herself blanch with fear.

  Come on, Lola, it’s not too late to back out of this now.

  She shook the thought out of her head and padded over to the kitchen to see what there was to drink. She flung open door after door but all she could find was a half-empty bottle of whisky she couldn’t remember ever having opened. She held onto the worktop to steady herself and emptied the contents into two glasses. As she did so she heard the tap turn on in the bathroom. Jake was probably freshening up before coming back in to get naked. She let loose a little yelp and gripped her glass of whisky.

  Come on, Lola, this is your last chance to back out.

  Just as she was raising the glass to her lips, a pair of strong arms snaked around her waist and she felt Jake’s hot breath on the nape of her neck. He nuzzled into her and whispered something in her ear. She was so turned on she couldn’t make out a word he was saying; all she could hear was the sound of the blood pumping in her head. And she knew there was no way she could back out now.

  She lowered her glass onto the worktop and turned to face him. Her fingers threaded into his hair and she drew herself into his kiss. The energy between them was so intense the only thing she could compare it to was the way she’d felt earlier that evening performing to an audience of a hundred thousand fans. Except this felt even better.

  And then one last thought flashed through her mind.

  I’m sorry, Freddy. I’m sorry.

  6

  Lola looked out over the Place de la Concorde. It was only 8 a.m. but already the August sun was burning dazzlingly bright in a clear blue sky. O
n her left she could see the Tuileries Garden, the water of the little boating pond glinting with sunlight as the trees fluttered in the light breeze. On her right, traffic slithered over the cobblestones and funnelled into the Champs Élysées. And straight ahead, the River Seine wound its way through a city that struck her as being so beautiful she had to clutch her chin to stop it trembling.

  She’d arrived in Paris the previous morning for the start of a month-long promotional tour of Europe, kicking things off with a press conference to announce details of the Trouble tour and the release of tickets later that week. Obviously, most of the journalists had been much more keen on talking about her views on France, French men and French music. She’d had to confess that she had no time in her schedule for sightseeing and so far most of the France she’d experienced had been through a car window. But she didn’t want to let them down so had regaled them with a story about her teenage fling with the school French assistant, who’d shown her how to French kiss, got her drunk on Pernod and taught her zero French apart from Je veux te sucer la bite, which she was pretty sure meant something rude and gaily trotted out for the assembled press, only to be told by one boggle-eyed journalist that it meant, ‘I want to suck your dick’. Oh, never mind, at least I gave them something to write about.

  She tightened the belt on her white towelling robe and leant on the stone balcony of the Hotel Pierrot. Down below, people were streaming out of the crowded metro station and rushing to work, fanning themselves with newspapers and nervously checking their watches. Lola couldn’t help wondering about the variety of dramas that must be powering them through the start of their days. Have any of them spent all night having hot, sweaty, riotous sex? Have any of them experienced the same kind of passion as I feel buzzing through me right now? Her eyes settled on the tall, thrusting obelisk standing proud in the centre of the square and she thought about Jake with a wicked smile. Je veux te sucer la bite – maybe she’d reuse that line later.

  But right now Jake was asleep in the enormous four-poster bed behind her; she could hear his low snores sailing through the suite of rooms and out onto the balcony. She knew he could afford to keep sleeping as he wouldn’t be needed for hours, whereas she had to be up early to appear on some radio show. Stretching out ahead of her was a full day of interviews, performances and personal appearances, not to mention having to charm record company execs and wow competition-winning fans. The full schedule was documented on the call sheet she’d been given by Barbara the night before, which she’d left by the side of her bed having glanced over the details and registered the most important piece of information – her call time. Today it was 8.30, which gave her just a few minutes until the long sequence of wake-up calls would begin, ending with Amina nervously knocking at her door to whisk her away.

  It was a strange existence but she knew that for this kind of trip to work she had to surrender control of her life. For the next month everything would be arranged for her – hotels, travel, meals, even her choice of clothes. Today’s outfit was hanging on the door of her wardrobe next to a bottle of sparkling water, an empty glass and a pile of vitamin tablets and health supplements. She prickled at the idea of giving herself over to a state of unquestioning obedience, which she always found a real struggle, however temporary. But she knew that everyone working for her was on her side – and that Harvey would have liaised with record-company staff in each country to OK every last detail.

  What Harvey didn’t know was that Jake Hunter was lying in the bed behind her. In fact, nobody knew that little detail. Lola hated having to keep quiet about what was going on but she couldn’t risk the press finding out and making a big thing out of it. Not that there was much going on, other than lots of sex. In fact, the week before they’d left London, Jake had spent every single night at hers – and the sex had been fierce. But that was all it was, sex. And she told herself not to forget it.

  Then again, she couldn’t help thinking how lovely it would be for the two of them to slip out into the street and stroll arm in arm along the banks of the Seine. It wasn’t as if she was particularly romantic, but gazing out over Paris she couldn’t help feeling infused with excitement at the possibility of falling in love. She stopped herself. Don’t develop feelings for him – that’s when everything starts going wrong. She distracted herself with the memory of last night and the powerful jolt of pleasure that had made her shriek out loud as their bodies had urgently come together on a satin chaise longue.

  She heard the first wake-up call and rushed into the bedroom to pick up the phone. She watched Jake stirring under the sheets and realized she only had a few minutes to smuggle him out before Amina arrived. Because, just like all those thousands of people rushing across the Place de la Concorde, Lola had work to do. And her working day was about to begin.

  *

  Jake stretched out his legs onto the chair opposite and sipped at his surprisingly good machine-spluttered coffee. He was in the green room of a radio station somewhere in Berlin. It had been decorated with retro furniture he could only assume had been chosen in deliberately clashing colours and a huge central light fitting made out of old seven-inch singles melted into a variety of head-scrambling shapes. One corner of the room was piled high with cushions and beanbags while another held rows of plastic containers dispensing pick-and-mix sweets in the shape of strawberries, cola bottles and wiggly worms. It was like being in a children’s playpen, although Jake assumed the intention was to crank up the artists’ energy levels before they went through to the studio.

  In just under half an hour’s time Lola and the band would be performing a live session for the biggest and most important radio station in Germany. As this was the third they’d done in as many countries in as many days, no one seemed particularly nervous. Lola and Gloria were flicking through magazines and gurgling with laughter at a story about some woman who’d apparently had sex with a donkey and a Great Dane. Barbara was stuffing her face on sweets and chatting up a power-dressing brunette from the radio station who was just the kind of lesbian Jake might go for if she didn’t blow it all by having an annoying laugh that sounded like a hiccup. And thankfully Harvey was just out of sight, talking business with some record exec in the corridor. Harvey was the only member of Lola’s entourage who made Jake feel uncomfortable. He was the only one who was immune to his charms, which was funny as fags usually loved him. But not this one. There were times when he seemed to look at Jake and know exactly what he was thinking.

  And right now he was thinking about sex. Not that that was particularly unusual as it was what he thought about most of the time. Once again he’d stayed up until the early hours of the morning banging Lola on the balcony of her suite in the smartest hotel in Berlin as he gazed out at the sleekly modern Potsdamer Platz, still bisected by tranches of the graffiti-covered wall that for so long had divided the city. He wondered what the rest of the band would think if they knew about his little late-night sightseeing activity, but it didn’t look like any of them had the slightest suspicion. He scanned the room and saw Mike lying flat-out on a sofa running his tongue along the edge of his moustache, his hair now lightened by the sun so he looked like the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. Danny, Smudge and Chuck were engrossed in a game of table football, although Jake spotted Danny occasionally glancing up at Amina. In his eyes Jake recognized the look of a musician who’d been on the road with the same team for a few days and was starting to find anyone attractive. It was a feeling he knew well, not that he’d ever been so desperate as to have to consider anyone as plain-looking as Amina, who had all the sex appeal of a slug crawling over a rotten cabbage. He looked at her tapping away on her iPad, her eyes intermittently alighting on Danny. Then again, maybe she could have that whole shy-wild thing going on . . .

  ‘Hi Jake,’ smiled Sharonne, sliding into the seat next to him. ‘How’s it going?’

  Now Sharonne was more Jake’s kind of girl. Tall and slender, she had dick-liftingly good legs and a sassy vibe that he knew f
rom experience usually translated into great sex. And I’ve always had a thing about black chicks . . .

  ‘Hey,’ he said, switching on his lazy grin. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Oh, you know, just kicking my heels until we’re on. But this schedule is kind of insane. It’s all work, work, work – and I’m starting to feel like a caged animal.’ She licked her lips in a not particularly subtle way but Jake didn’t care; he’d never been a big one for subtlety.

  ‘Well, I think we’re off tonight – and this is meant to be a kick-ass city . . . Maybe me and you should go out for a drink or something?’

  As he said the words, he knew there was no chance he’d be able to break free of Lola for an entire evening. They’d been sleeping together for less than two weeks and already she expected him to come to her room every night – and was showing the first signs of getting clingy. Sure, she was great fun and their sex life was off-the-scale, but she always tried snuggling up to him afterwards, even though he’d made it quite clear he didn’t do cuddles as they annoyed the hell out of him. And she’d started nagging him about smoking weed, panicking that if anyone searched her room and found his stash, the story would leak to the press and her reputation would suffer. Jake couldn’t help thinking it was selfish of her to hang all her anti-drugs shit on him. Like it’s my problem if her ass gets busted. What am I, her boyfriend?

  He remembered that she’d called him just that when they’d been having sex on their last night in Paris. He’d had to break his stroke mid-flow to tell her he didn’t do relationships, but after the conversation he’d felt relieved he’d spelled it out so forcefully. It wouldn’t be his fault now if she wanted to fantasize about him changing – or her somehow changing him. And anyway, he thought, eyeing up Sharonne, the erect cock has no conscience . . .

  ‘OK,’ she drawled, her eyes flashing as if she understood him completely, ‘let’s go for a drink. That’d be cool.’

  This was the kind of connection Jake loved – one in which both parties knew exactly where they stood. Some psychology student he’d dated back in the States had tried to analyse him once, coming out with a load of crap about him using casual sex to ‘narcotize deep-seated anxieties about being hurt by a woman’. He’d been so desperate for a blow job he’d had to play along and listen to her spout shit, bombarding him with questions about his childhood in Buffalo. He’d ended up confessing that his dad routinely cheated on his mom while he was away working as a sales rep, leaving her needy and desperate, smothering the children with an affection he found repulsive and had found repulsive in women ever since. The girl had concluded some bullshit about him ‘internalizing the models of male and female behaviour’ he was brought up with and going on to repeat them himself. He thought about it now and had to admit that maybe she had a point. But the truth was, Jake wasn’t remotely interested in finding out why he was the way he was. And he wasn’t remotely interested in changing. The truth was, he quite liked the way he was. And there were plenty of girls out there who did too – Sharonne being one of them.