Throb

by Brooke Jaxsen

  Once I saw the “Duchess Bedroom”, I knew that I had to sleep there. There was a small beaded chandelier above the bed, with a matching light on the walls, painted a beautiful robin’s egg blue. The sheets were like the ones in the duke’s room, on a large bed, with three plain prints above it. It was the most relaxing looking of the two rooms, in shades of dusty blue and eggshell white.

  “I’m taking the girly room,” I said, coming back out for my duffle. “Are you going to get more sleep?”

  “I was thinking of ordering room service, if you’re up for it,” he said, taking his own bags from the entrance to the bedroom.

  “Sure, just give me a minute,” I said, opening my duffle bag and looking for something my Victoria’s Secret pajamas, before getting changed and waiting in the living room with my iPhone, turning it on to see if I had any new messages.

  Jason had sent me a text while we were still up in the air and when I read it, my heart fell.

  Hey Becca, sorry I didn’t see you off, I think I got home a few minutes after you left. Have a great time in New York! If you need me to pick you up from the airport, let me know. xoxo J

  What do you even say when a guy texts you something like that? I couldn’t exactly just say We got into NYC okay, ttyl without it sounding like I was blowing him off, and Hey, Jason, I’m having a hard time, because I think I might be in love with two men at once, which means I’m not in love with either, and my heart is flip flopping and so is my brain. I don’t like feeling confused and not knowing what to do, and maybe it would have been better if I told you all this before I left, because even though I’ve known you for months, I still have so many secrets that I haven’t told you, about my worries, secrets, and regrets seems just a little bit needy and clingy and weird.

  “Hey, Becca, what do you want to get?” said Keanne, and I turned to see him. He was wearing a loose pair of plaid pajamas that only helped to remind me of Jason. Above the tie together waistband of the pants was another waistband, made of black elastic, fitted perfectly to his muscles, not too tight but not sagging. Keanne wasn’t wearing a shirt, instead, his bare chest glistening with beads of water. His arms were up, around his head, where he was using a fluffy white terry towel to dry his hair, which he left natural and let grow out about half an inch, before he moved his towel down and behind him, rubbing his back, and then his front, wiping away the glistening spots from his abdomen and leaving it with a subtle glow instead.

  This is what made Keanne so irresistible, not just to me, but to women around the country. He had this way of oozing sheer sex appeal effortless. He didn’t make any attempt to hide his masculinity, to put on a veneer of mystery, or to shield people from his raw power. Jason had never been shirtless around me outside of the bedroom. He’d never let me see him in a state of less than perfection. He’d always been so polite. He was a “nice guy”, but when a guy like Keanne is so good at playing the villain, it’s hard to resist the bad boy.

  Keanne wasn’t actually a villain though, just such a bad boy that you could imagine him doing those sorts of things. He could be the sexy rake that seduces you away from your boyfriend. He can be the Mephistopheles at the club who comes up behind you to dance, and whose dick you enjoy as it hardens, able to be felt through his pants, which he then unzips. He whips out his cock, rubs it on your panties underneath your skirt, and as you move your hands down to let him in, let him inside you, he disappears. He’s the incubus that haunts the willing minds, and right now, I had him all to myself.

  So why wasn’t I all over him? Why didn’t I just kiss him, and tell him how I’d felt this last year, when the only “contact” I had with him was hearing his songs on the radio, reading gossip about him on the Internet, and seeing his face staring back at me from the CVS magazine rack?

  “What do you want?” I said as I opened up the menu, but he sat down next to me on the pink and blue toile loveseat and took the menu out of my hands gently. I could feel his upper arm next to me. It was so large and firm, and it made my relatively average arms seem tiny in comparison. He was radiating a heat that was warmer than Jason’s and I was tempted to just turn, flip my legs up and onto his lap, and nuzzle his neck.

  “Whatever you want, babe,” said Keanne. “You can order whatever you want, even if it’s not on the menu. They’ll bring you whatever you want.”

  I laughed as a stupid thought came into my head. “Even...theater popcorn?”

  “Even popcorn,” said Keanne, rolling his eyes.

  “I was just kidding!” I started but it was too late. He picked up a phone from an end table and just said, “Yeah, we’d like some popcorn and candy and just, regular movie stuff, sent up, thanks.”

  “Keanne!”

  “Becca, I told you: whatever you want. The way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach, right?” he joked, and that’s when I remember what was blocking me and stopping me from just settling into Keanne’s body. Even though he was objectively sexier than Jason, oozing pure sex appeal even when he wasn’t groomed to perfection, he didn’t have what Jason had: a connection with me that had been forged through months of close intimacy. Although Keanne and I were having “alone time” together for the first time, it was too late. I wasn’t willing to give up what I had with Jason for Keanne. Keanne had a lifestyle that I’d wanted for the longest time, even though my parents had warned me it was unattainable, but Jason and I had a life together that I wouldn’t trade for all the diamonds in Keanne’s watch collection.

  The game I was playing was dangerous, and I knew that, even as Keanne and I flipped through the comp’ed pay-per-view channels, looking for a movie and laughing at the titles of the porn channels. We finally settled on “Carrie”, which was still in theaters.

  “You know, I don’t go out as much now,” said Keanne.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, like, if I wanted to see a movie, in a theater, by myself or with someone special? I can’t do that. I’d be swarmed my paparazzi. I got a place in the Hills, actually, and I’m having a home theater installed. You should visit sometime,” he said.

  “That sucks. If you could do whatever you wanted, without any paparazzi or people with cellphones out trying to take a pic, what would you do?”

  “I’d probably turn back time, get back to that time, permanently. Maybe doing the album last summer was a bad idea...”

  “How so? You have everything most people want. You’ve got money, you’ve got fame, you’ve got girls.”

  “It’s what you don’t have that matters, though, isn’t it? I don’t have respect: the media makes me into a joke. I don’t have privacy: I can’t choose when I’m presented to the world and when I get to just have “me” time, because I’ve become public property. I can’t have deep, meaningful relationships anymore, without worrying who likes me for me, and who likes me for the persona I’ve built up,” he said, moving the coffee table back so we had space on the floor to sit...

  To sit the way I did with Jason, when we played video games, watched TV, or just wanted to chat. I remember how it had started, too: Jason and I would usually sit on his couch, but one time, I was super wasted and kept falling off the couch. Jason moved his coffee table so I wouldn’t hit my head and sat with me on the ground, because it wasn’t like I could fall any further.

  As much as Keanne’s revelation tugged at my heart strings, another string tugged at my heart, from thousands of miles away, all the way from Los Angeles. Even though I was half-listening to Keanne as he wandered in and out of the room, carrying two pillows from his bed out for us to rest our heads on as the movie started, the one person I couldn’t get out of my mind was Jason.

  There was a knock at the door and Keanne opened it. The bellhop had brought up not only two large buckets of popcorn, one with butter, the other with a chocolate and caramel sauce, but an ice bucket filled with bottles of soda, a display rack filled with packages of candies, and a pile of nachos. Keanne slipped the bellhop a wad of bills and rolled
the cart over to our makeshift pillow raft.

  We watched the movie and as it got tenser, Keanne teased, “Can I hold your hand if I get scared?” It wasn’t really a question: he grabbed my hand and put it between his anyway. I gave him a small smile but inside, my heart was throbbing. Where was this affection and intimacy before? And what did it mean, now?

  Keanne did squeeze my hand as we watched the movie, before he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me tight. That’s the furthest we went, though, because when the movie ended, I just gave a quick goodnight before going to my suite. I knew that if I lingered, things could escalate. I could be in Keanne’s bed, and I knew that I didn’t want to be like the other girls he just had sex with and never saw again. As tempting as Keanne’s body was, as his charm and sex allure were, I didn’t want to give into that temptation just yet. I went to sleep, hoping that by morning, those feelings would go away.

  But, of course, they didn’t. In the first business meeting that morning, I couldn’t stop thinking about Keanne and Jason, Jason and Keanne. I did, however, manage to help Keanne play hardball, and left the first magazine, a large magazine focused on black entrepreneurs, waiting with bated breath for our answer to their proposal. They were offering two million dollars for the photo rights, but that wasn’t going to be the best offer of the day.

  Neither was the next offer we received: an editorial newspaper’s weekly music issue was going to offer just five hundred thousand dollars for the pictures. Although that sounded like a small fortune, it wasn’t, given that it would increase the sales of their magazine by a substantial amount.

  The third time was indeed the charm: a large tabloid was going to offer Keanne five million dollars. We were going to take it, too, but we played it cool, and they upped the offer to an equally cool six mill. It was accepted, and the magazine’s rep shook Keanne’s hand and said, “A pleasure doing business with you again, and send my regards to Lana.”

  “Lana?” I asked, aloud, and stopped myself before I showed all my cards.

  “That glorious pictorial of Keanne and Lana last month, did you pick up an issue?” asked the rep, pointing behind me. I turned: the cover of the magazine showed Keanne with Lana Minashian, the most famous female rapper in the world, having coffee together incognito in a café.

  “Oh, of course, I thought you meant there was another pictorial for the upcoming issue,” I said, with a laugh, but inside, my heart was not just throbbing, but breaking.

  I’d though what Keanne and I had was special, but there was a difference between watching a movie with a girl in private, and taking her out for coffee. Jason had done both with me, and Keanne, only the former, never the latter. Clubbing with the crew didn’t count, that was no date, that was just business and networking. No, Keanne and I had never socialized intimately in public, but he had with Lana.

  On the plane home, I couldn’t get that magazine cover out of my head. Lana Minashian and Keanne Slims? I had heard the rumors they were dating but somehow, seeing the cover, with Keanne by my side, and having him avoid the topic at all, neither bringing it up or addressing the fact that what I’d seen had obviously disturbed me, was enough to make me question why I’d liked Keanne at all.

  I pulled out my phone and opened the Kindle app, doing advanced reading for my classes. I’d finished all the required reading and homework for the week but I needed something to distract me from the man sitting in front of me that seemed like a total stranger. At least, until he opened his mouth again.

  “You know...I missed you, a lot,” said Keanne.

  “You...missed me?” I asked, turning the phone to sleep mode. I looked up to look at Keanne, who was already looking at me. His sunglasses were off and in some way, he was more exposed to me in that moment than he’d ever been. Keanne, who usually acted so cool and calm, was revealing something to me that I’d never heard him say.

  “Yeah, but I know I fucked up,” he said, giving me a small smile, but not turning away.

  I returned the look. “You did. I missed you too, but with every day that passed without a text or a call, my heart pined a little less. I didn’t expect you to ever text me again, after a while.”

  “Are you glad I did?” he asked, reaching out to take my hand, which I gave readily. He rubbed it gently, his smooth hands almost as soft as mine. It was as if he was polishing a set of precious stones with a chamois cloth, rubbing away all the doubt I’d had about the two of us, all the worries, all the sleepless nights, but some things couldn’t just be fixed through silence.

  “I’m...not sure, really,” I said, looking back up at him and raising just one corner of my mouth and one of my eyebrows, giving Keanne a sad smile. I knew it wasn’t the answer he was looking for, and it wasn’t the one I was looking for either, but then again, neither was his question.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, quietly.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, Becca. I should have texted, or called, or emailed. I should have kept in touch, but I didn’t want to bother you. Every time I wrote you a note, or a letter, or a text, I’d erase it and try and start over, but as the world around me changed, so did my feelings for you. I wasn’t sure what I felt for you. Were we just friends, or did we have something more? How much more?”

  “I’m not sure anymore,” I said, looking back out the window because I knew that if Keanne and I kept talking about this, I’d end up crying, the way I had on so many nights, with a pillow as my only comfort...at least, before I’d met Jason, who could stop the tears he’d never seen with kisses I’d never seen coming.

  Keanne didn’t let go of my hand. He pulled me back, gently. “Becca,” said Keanne. I turned at the sound of my name and he pulled himself up from his chair and leaned over the small table that blocked the sides of us closest to the wall. Taking the back of my head in one hand, he pulled me up and towards him, taking his other hand and slipping it onto my knee, for stability at first, but soon, to explore me further.

  This was what I’d waited for, for almost a year. I’d wanted Keanne to kiss me since the moment I’d met him. It had been what I thought was love at first sight, unlike what I had with Jason, which had started as something fun that got out of control. I’d wanted Keanne to hold me, to caress me, and to tell me how he felt about me...so why did this feel so wrong?

  I knew I should have wanted Keanne to press further into me, with his mouth and his hands. I knew I should give myself up to passion, because after all, it wasn’t like Jason and I were formally exclusive or dating....so why did I stop us from doing something that I shouldn’t regret?

  “Keanne, we...we have to stop,” I said, pulling away from him and pushing his hands away from my thighs. My brain was screaming What are you doing? You’ve wanted him for so long, and he wants you now! Any girl would let him continue, because every girl wants Keanne! My heart was just saying one word, over and over: Jason. Jason. Jason.

  “Baby, don’t you want this?” he whispered into my ear, rubbing my thighs gently but not letting his fingers wander further up my skirt.

  “There’s a man in my life now,” I said, placing a hand around his shoulder and rubbing it gently. Keanne was so firm, so fit, his muscles rippling through the soft fabric on the back of the shirt, but it wasn’t enough to make me cheat on the man I wasn’t even formally committed to. “It’s just that I—”

  Keanne held up a slim finger to my lips and gave me a small smile as he pulled himself away and taking a seat again. “I understand. I do. Even if there wasn’t, hey, you say no, you mean no, you know?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said, pushing my dress back down. “Thanks.”

  “I guess I should have seen what was right in front of me way back in the day, right?” he asked with a small chuckle as he snapped his fingers. One of the air stewardesses, who had been on her phone, stashed it and poured Keanne another flute of champagne before pouring me one as well.

  “I mean, we’re both a lot different than before, you know?” I said, sipp
ing at the golden bubbly liquid and almost instantly feeling more relaxed. Some people liked comfort food, I liked comfort alcohol. There wasn’t a problem that champagne couldn’t fix.

  “Remember that time up in Frisco? The time where we accidentally asked for the shots “Animal Style” when we were ordering burgers on the phone through someone else?”

  “Definitely crazy,” I said with a laugh, and in that moment, it wasn’t like we were up in a private plane. It was like Keanne and I were the people we were last summer: me, a newly minted twenty one who was finally seeing the world I’d wanted to since joining Omega Mu, and him, a sheltered rich boy with a talented voice that he was showing the world for the first time, trying to make it on his own while still bankrolled by his parents.

  “Becca, I have missed you, and that’s not going to change just because you’re not interested in a relationship with me. It’s fine. But I was wondering if maybe you’d like to work on my team again this summer, as my personal assistant, and maybe help with some management stuff too. If you can keep me in line, I’m sure you can handle a bunch of college interns,” he said with a laugh. We both knew that last year, I didn’t need that much guidance: I had been a go-getter, solving and preventing problems before they even arose, but management experience would look good on a resume. It’d open up doors for journalism school, because I knew that if I wanted to get into a good grad school, I’d need to be able to prove I was not only a risk taker, but a leader. Sorority experience was good, but nothing compared to managing a celebrity’s entourage.

  “I’d love to,” I said, a wide smile crossing my face.

  “To summer,” said Keanne, raising his flute.

  “To summer,” I agreed, tapping my champagne glass against his.

  Being in a plane with Keanne felt so natural. Wasn’t this where I belonged? How many girls would kill to be where I was right now, and to have Keanne pursue them romantically? I had been one of them, last summer, before Keanne was as famous as he was today. I’d fantasized about him asking me out, about him trying to sweep me off my feet, whisking me away to a wonderland of glitz and glamour, but when he actually did it, I said no.