by J. J. Murray
“You didn’t threaten them,” Lauren said.
“Yeah, I did,” Patrick said. “I questioned their integrity.”
“They don’t have any integrity to question,” she said, turning on the TV. “I think your eyes threatened them. You have dangerous eyes.”
After watching several stories about stars in and out of rehab and traffic court, they looked on as a reporter on Access Hollywood gushed, “Don’t adjust your set. You are actually seeing actress Lauren Short in coveralls. Lauren has gone from former mega movie star and Chazz Jackson’s leading lady to Brooklyn handywoman overnight. Cinderella has lost her dress, her glass slipper, and her Prince Charming and has gone back to the cinders. . . .”
“You look good,” Patrick said. “I never thought I’d say that about anyone in coveralls.”
“Thank you.” Lauren smiled. “And you’re my Prince Charming.”
“I like it when you lose your slippers,” he said, working her heels. “You have very sexy feet.”
Lauren switched over to Entertainment Tonight. After a puff piece on random actors successfully “saving” a beached dolphin at low tide in Malibu, they watched a choppy review of their recent run-ins with the paparazzi.
“The fallout from Lauren Short’s breakup with Chazz Jackson continues,” the host said. “Lauren has reduced herself to being a plumber’s helper. She has given up glitz and glamor for pipe cutters, slip-nut wrenches, and toilet seals. . . .”
“I like helping you with your plumbing,” Lauren said. “You keep springing leaks.” And I’m about to spring a leak if he keeps rubbing and squeezing my toes!
“It’s because you put my plumbing under so much pressure,” Patrick said.
“I like releasing your pressure,” Lauren said.
“I like making you leak, too.”
Their story continued on ET as a fat, badly dressed, effeminate reporter walked along Hollywood Boulevard. “Oh, it’s a scandal,” he said. “The princess has kissed a frog, and the frog is still a frog! Our poor little Lauren has gone from rags to riches to rags again. But we suppose that once you’ve had Chazz Jackson, there’s nowhere else to go but down. Oh, how the once gorgeous have fallen!”
“I like your tongue, too,” Lauren said. “It’s so long and thick.”
“You have a cute little tongue,” Patrick said.
Lauren sat up. “There’s Chazz.” She turned up the volume.
“She lost her king,” Chazz said, “so now she has a pauper. I’m sure she’ll tire of her boy toy soon, especially when he can’t pay the rent or buy her toilet paper. He bought her ring at a pawnshop! The ring I gave Lauren cost more than what he’ll earn in a million lifetimes.”
“I didn’t think he knew that word,” Lauren said.
“Rent?” Patrick said.
“Funny,” Lauren said. “And his math is off.”
“Not by much,” Patrick said. “Where’s the ring?”
“In the Pacific Ocean.”
“Nice,” Patrick said, working his fingers up to her calves. “I knew you had a good arm.”
“Oh, there’s my agent,” Lauren said.
“I knew Lauren was under a lot of stress,” Todd said, “but throwing her career away like this on a whim, and over a man she barely knows! I never thought it could happen! I’m still working on her behalf, but it’s difficult to do when she doesn’t answer her phone! Lauren, turn on your phone!”
“Todd has lost most of his hair,” Lauren said. “I’m probably the reason.”
“He yells too much,” Patrick said. “Why haven’t you turned on your phone?”
“I don’t want to,” Lauren said. “I wish Todd would accept my decision to retire. He’s mad that I’m costing him money.”
“What percentage of your earnings did he take?” Patrick asked.
“Ten percent,” Lauren said.
“Hey, that’s my raise,” Patrick said.
“You’re getting a raise?” Lauren asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Patrick said. “We’ll be able to afford one more roll of toilet paper this month.”
“Oh, goody.”
As they snuggled on the couch, Patrick’s phone rang.
“Hello?” Patrick listened for a few seconds before covering the phone. “It’s some guy named Sam Gabriel from Us Weekly.”
“Oh, put him on speaker,” Lauren said.
Patrick hit the SPEAKER button and set the phone on the arm of the couch. “How did you get this number?”
“I know some people,” Sam said.
“You mean you paid someone to give up the number,” Lauren said.
“Oh, hello, Lauren. It’s Sam Gabriel. I did a story on you ages ago. Just after I Got This.”
“And you did your best to turn me into a tramp with that story,” Lauren said. “I remember. What do you want now?”
“I’d like to interview Patrick,” Sam said. “I want his take on this affair.”
“It’s not an affair,” Patrick said.
“I am engaged to be married, Sam,” Lauren said. “This is not an affair.”
“Oh, right, sure,” Sam said. “So would you rather do the interview over the phone or come in to the city? Or I can come there. I’m flexible.”
“I’m not interested,” Patrick said.
“We’ll pay you ten thousand dollars,” Sam said.
Wow! Lauren thought. Are we that juicy of a story?
“Still not interested.” Patrick reached for the phone.
“Twenty-five thousand, then,” Sam said. “I can’t go any higher, and no one else will pay you this much.”
Patrick snatched up the phone. “Good-bye.” He turned off the phone. “I didn’t think they paid people for interviews.”
“They don’t usually,” Lauren said.
“Is it because I’m an ordinary guy?” Patrick asked.
“Maybe,” Lauren said. “I don’t mean to be difficult, but you just passed up twenty-five thousand bucks, man. That’s a lot of cookies and espresso.”
“It’s our business, not the world’s,” Patrick said. “If we decide one day to let the world know about us, we will tell it.”
Later they watched the late-night talk shows and shook their heads at the monologues.
“Lauren Short couldn’t have the prettiest man in the world, so she settled for this.” The host showed a picture of Patrick swinging his tool bag past a photographer’s face.
“Do I really look like that?” Patrick asked.
“They Photoshopped that one to make you look more sinister,” Lauren said.
Patrick shook his head. “No, I think I was angry for real in that one.”
Lauren shivered. “I hope I never make you angry.”
“You can’t,” Patrick said.
The host continued. “I hear they’re going to be doing a remake of Beauty and the Beast, and he won’t need makeup. They’re also going to do a new version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He’ll be the hunchback, and she’ll be the belle. Get it. She’s the b-e-l-l-e. . . .”
Lauren turned off the TV. “I am so sorry about all this.”
“I’m not,” Patrick said.
“It has to bother you somehow,” Lauren said.
“It doesn’t.”
It has to. No one, not even a longtime celebrity, can take this kind of abuse for very long. “Not even a little bit?”
“No,” Patrick said.
“They’re saying you’re a wiseguy, Patrick,” Lauren said.
“That’s character assassination.”
“I’m surprised the real wiseguys aren’t going on TV to dispute it,” Patrick said. “They are some proud men, and some of those wiseguys are good guys helping their communities.”
“I’m just so sorry it’s happening to you,” Lauren said.
“Don’t be,” Patrick said. “I know the truth. You know the truth. That’s all that matters.”
“This constant barrage can change a person,” Lauren said. “It’s like wa
ter dripping on a rock. Eventually, the rock breaks.”
“I don’t know how to be anyone but myself,” Patrick said. “I’ve had forty years of practice.”
“But some of what they’re saying is outright slander,” Lauren said. “They can’t even get your name right.”
“The truth always comes out,” Patrick said. “Besides, no matter what they say, they can’t take away what I have.”
“And what do you have?” Lauren asked.
“You,” Patrick said. “I got the girl.”
“Say that again, and emphasize girl.”
“I got the girrrl.”
That is so sexy. “I like to be called a girl. How old did I look today?”
“Eighteen,” Patrick said. “Barely legal. When do your parents expect you home? I’m sure you have homework. I need to see some ID.”
She hugged him to her. “You are so good for me.” She slid off the couch and held out her hand. “Come on.” She led him to the bedroom and took off her coveralls. “I need your advice.”
“I doubt I’ll give you good advice,” Patrick said. “When you’re getting naked, I can’t think straight.”
Lauren shook her booty. “Should I put my clothes back on?”
“Oh no, of course not,” Patrick said. “I like not thinking straight.”
Lauren kicked the coveralls behind her. “Here’s what I need to know. Should I bust out Chazz for the ‘man’ he isn’t?”
Patrick removed his coveralls. “What good would it do?”
Lauren shimmied out of her long johns. “It would take the focus off us. Maybe permanently.”
“Wouldn’t the media say something like, ‘She was engaged to a bisexual man and didn’t know it’?” Patrick pulled his T-shirt over his head.
“Yeah,” Lauren said, undoing her bra under her T-shirt.
“They’d call me clueless, and they’d be right. I was.”
“He’s an actor,” Patrick said, pulling back the covers.
“He was acting.”
Lauren removed her socks. “I just want to see him squirm a little, you know?”
“Like I’m squirming now,” Patrick said, sliding under the covers and removing his underwear. He tossed it across the room.
Lauren stood on the bed, toying with her underwear. “I like to make you squirm.” She slipped out of her underwear and took off her T-shirt.
“And after you make Chucky squirm, what then?”
“I don’t know,” Lauren said, squatting in front of him.
“I’d like to see a hundred microphones shoved into his smug face.”
Patrick stroked Lauren’s thighs. “And then?”
Lauren stretched her right leg forward, resting her heel on Patrick’s shoulder. “And then I’d like to hear these people rake him over the coals with their questions and comments. I’d like to see Entertainment Tonight and these late-night hosts do jokes about him.”
Patrick kissed her right ankle. “And then?”
She stretched her left leg forward, resting it on the headboard. “And then . . .” Lauren sighed, found his bulge under the covers, and began stroking him. “And then . . . I don’t know what.”
“Will it change anything?” Patrick asked.
He gets so hard so fast! “No. It won’t change a thing. You’ve talked me out of it.”
“Out of what?” Patrick said.
Lauren squeezed his penis. “I was about to go out there and shame him.”
Patrick turned to look at the window. “They’re out there? Again?”
Lauren nodded. “I know they’re out there waiting to get reaction quotes. That’s what they do to keep a story going. They want my reactions to all this negativity they’ve started. What do you think about what so-and-so is saying about you? That sort of thing. It’s so juvenile, as if the media is still in middle school. It’s their way of keeping sadness and despair in the news, and sadness and despair sell. People don’t want to watch good news on TV. They want to see sorrow, pain, and accusations.”
Patrick sat up and wrapped her legs around his waist. “If you went out there like this, there would be no sadness, despair, sorrow, or pain.”
“Oh, I plan to put a hurting on you first.” She maneuvered his penis inside her. “Oh, this is much better. I’m still going out there once we’re through.” In a few seconds! Wow!
“To do what?” Patrick asked. “Oh, that’s nice. I like your booty when it bounces on my legs like that.”
“I will keep bouncing,” Lauren said. “When you make me come in about ten seconds, I’m going to go out there to tell them the good news.”
“What good news?” He thumbed her clitoris furiously.
Oh, damn! I can’t believe I have orgasms this quickly! “Damn! That wasn’t even ten seconds.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Patrick asked, thrusting upward.
“No!” Lauren cried, her spasms increasing. “I just don’t want you to think I’m a freak.”
Patrick pressed hard on Lauren’s hips, grinding her as he came, his mouth greedily sucking on her nipples. “I’m surprised I’m able to do this after a hard day.”
“You’re going to have a hard night, too,” Lauren said. She fell off him. “Let’s get dressed and go talk to them.”
“No cuddling?” Patrick asked.
“Later,” Lauren said.
“What do I say?” Patrick asked.
“Go with the flow,” Lauren said. “You’re good at improv.”
Outside on the steps, in the cold, and wearing only coveralls, boots, and a blanket, Lauren addressed the photographers, who gleefully snapped countless pictures while Patrick stood behind her in coveralls, boots, and a heavy brown coat.
“I’d like to make a statement,” Lauren said.
“Lauren, what do you think about what Chazz said about you?”
“What do you think of your negative press?”
“What do you think of your star meter? It tanked today.”
“Is it true you can’t pay the rent?”
“Are you about to go on welfare?”
“Do you like being called a fallen angel?”
“Are you out of toilet paper?”
Really? Oh, my God! “One, I don’t care what any of you think. I never have, and I never will, mainly because I don’t think any of you actually think. Two, you are responsible for the negative press, not me. If you didn’t start it, there wouldn’t be any of it. Three, the star meter is and has always been a joke. Four, I do not care what Chazz says. Five, we are doing quite—”
“Is it true that you don’t have any toilet paper?” a reporter interrupted.
Lauren zeroed in on him. “What do you think? No. Don’t answer that. I’ll only hear silence.” She counted to three. “You hear that silence?” She counted to five. “Now, where was I?”
“Five,” Patrick said.
“Thank you,” Lauren said. “Five, Patrick and I are doing quite well. We are not slumming in Brooklyn. We are living quite happily together, and I love going to work with him. Six, I am not, nor have I ever been, an angel, so calling me ‘fallen’ or otherwise is foolishness. Seven, we will be married tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Patrick whispered.
Lauren turned to him. “You have any plans?”
“No,” Patrick said. “Tomorrow is good.” He kissed her.
“What about Chazz?”
“Aren’t you worried what Chazz will say?”
“You barely know the guy! Isn’t this all too soon?”
“If you want to know what Chazz thinks,” Lauren said, “ask him.”
“Aren’t you worried he’ll be angry?”
“No,” Lauren said.
“What about your fans?”
What fans? No. I can’t say that. I still have a few. “Last and certainly not least, I’d like to thank my fans for still being my fans, even after all these years. I won some awards and had some fame a long time ago, but nothing I’ve ever won and no amount
of fame can compare to the love I feel for this man. And I hope my fans find love like this one day, too.” She pulled Patrick’s hands in front of her. “Patrick is extraordinary to me in every respect. Every . . . respect. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to rest. I’m getting married in the morning.”
“Lauren, aren’t you worried that marrying this man will doom your career?”
Lauren laughed. “I doomed my career when I started dating Chazz Jackson. My career ended the day I became engaged to Chazz Jackson. Don’t get it twisted. Patrick is giving me a second chance at happiness, and I intend to take full advantage of it.”
“But don’t you think this is all too soon after your breakup?”
Lauren smiled. “No. You can never have happiness or true love soon enough.” She turned and pushed Patrick toward the door.
“Are you currently taking any medication?”
“Do you have to get married, and if you do, is it Chazz’s baby?”
Are they serious? Lauren wheeled around. “Let me put it this way. I have a better chance of winning the lottery a million times in a row than having Chazz Jackson’s baby.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lauren smiled. “Ask him.”
Lauren entered the apartment building and shut the door.
“Lauren! Lauren!”
“What are your boots made out of?”
“Yeah, aren’t you worried that PETA will protest your choice of boots?”
Lauren almost returned to the reporters. My boots? PETA? Are they serious? Who cares!
Safely inside the apartment, Lauren disrobed hurriedly and jumped into bed.
Patrick stood beside the bed. “Are you okay?”
“I’ve never been better,” Lauren said. “What will we need to get married?”
They looked up the information online and found that they needed birth certificates and picture IDs.
“Good thing I brought all my records with me,” Lauren said.
“Do you always think ahead like that?” Patrick asked.
“Not usually,” Lauren said.
Patrick rubbed her thighs. “You know, it’s bad luck to see the bride on the day of the wedding.”
“Do you believe that?” Lauren asked.
“No,” Patrick said.
“Good,” Lauren said. “I would like an early wedding gift. I want a burrito.”