Brando 2 (8 page)
“Haley!”
“What
the fuck?!”
she
says, from the bed where she’s
up to her neck in a thick duvet, her hand poking out of it clutching
a steaming mug.
“What
the hell’s
going on?”
I
ask, marching to the end of the bed. “You’re
cancelling the show?”
“I’m
sick.”
“But
you sound fine! Wait here, I’ll
get a doctor,” I
say, taking a few strides toward the door.
“I’ve
already seen one,”
Haley
calls, stopping me in my tracks. I turn back.
“What
did he say?”
“That
if I keep singing without a rest I could fuck up my vocal cords.
Permanently.”
I
drop myself onto the plush couch at the other end of the suite and
cast a hand over my eyes.
“Fuck,”
I
whisper angrily to the ceiling. “You
should have come to me first.”
“Why?
Do you know how to perform throat surgery?”
Haley
quips after a sip of her tea.
I
sigh, not in the mood for jokes. “This
is bad. Tonight was what this whole tour has been leading up to. The
biggest gig of them all. The one we’ve
been publicizing the most. Now that—”
“Stop,
Brando,”
Haley
interrupts curtly. “Do
you think I don’t
feel bad enough already?”
I
look her in the eye and see the disappointment there, the shame, and
I know without a doubt that what she’s
saying is true. This isn’t
just nerves, or spite. Shit.
“I’m
sorry,” I
say, getting up off the couch and walking over to her. I sit myself
down on the edge of the bed beside her and stroke her hair. “Is
there anything I can get you?”
Haley
looks around the room. “Well
this tea could do with a refill,”
she
says, offering it to me. I take it and start to stand up, but Haley
grabs my arm. “And
there is one other thing…”
“What?”
She
pauses before answering.
“Go
on,” I
urge her. “Anything
you want.”
“I’d
still like to see the show.”
“
Lexi’s
show?”
She
nods.
I
take a deep breath and look away. “You’re
sick. Are you sure that going to a show is a good idea? We could
always just watch it streaming online, with my laptop, or—”
“Please,”
she
says, still clutching my arm. I look down at her and she smiles.
I’m
going to have to learn to say no to her one of these days.
If
she’s
not going to be up on stage, it’s
only right that Haley gets the best seat in the house. I pull the
strings to make sure we get a VIP box for ourselves, her bandmates
and crew in another. Seeing an ex-girlfriend’s
show with the girl I want to make mine isn’t
exactly the kind of thing I had in mind when I thought about winning
Haley over, but I’ll
take what I can get. This tour has turned into a daily round of
surprises, and I’ve
learnt pretty quickly to roll with the punches.
We
make it up to the box surrounded by bodyguards and they leave us at
the door. I step inside with Haley and she takes her coat off before
sitting down.
“Are
you sure you should be taking off your coat?”
“Brando,”
she
says, affectionately. “I
need to rest my vocal cords; I’m
not dying of frostbite.”
I
shrug and sit beside her.
When
the support band comes on, Haley turns to me with a dropped jaw and
eyes that are lit up.
“Oh
my God! The band from last night! Did you do that?”
“Well,
I’m
still managing the tour,”
I say.
“If
people are gonna cancel gigs without telling me first, I’ll
have to show my power in other ways.”
“But
aren’t
they, like,
unsigned?
Wasn’t
last night their first gig in New York?”
“Yeah.
And tonight’s
their second.”
I
look at her face, and wonder how she can smile a million times and
make it still seem different.
“Music
is music,”
I go
on. “If
any of these fans feel half as good as I felt last night then they’ll
have gotten their money’s
worth.”
Haley
runs a finger across her lip and looks away shyly for a second.
“It
was the band that made you feel good?”
“Not
really,” I
admit, putting an arm around her. “It
was all you.”
I
hold her through the whole set, enjoying the smell of her hair, the
way her body fits so perfectly against mine. When the band finishes
up, however, and Lexi’s
show is about to start, she sits up and leans over the railing.
“Have
you ever seen Lexi perform?”
I ask.
“No,”
she
says. “I
used to be too tired from my own show. The last thing I wanted to do
was sit through another.”
Lexi’s
show starts with an explosion of color, a bass drum that sounds like
bombs exploding, a catchy synth melody that makes the crowd scream
like they’re
on the world’s
loudest roller
coaster. In the swirling mix of blood-pumping sounds Lexi starts
singing, and the crowd goes even wilder.
“Holy
shit,”
Haley
says, her face pink with the heat and excitement emanating from the
mass of humanity below us, “the
audience
loves
her!
I haven’t
seen a crowd like this on the tour before at all.”
“You’re
half the reason they love her,”
I
say, as Lexi rises up out of the stage on a platform, legs spread on
six-inch heels, white latex dress reflecting the sweeping lights.
“This
audience would be half the size if you hadn’t
brought so much buzz to the tour.”
Dancers
spin onto the stage, obscuring the focus of the crowd’s
love and adulation, and then the music goes low for all of half a
second –
but
it’s
enough. When it hits again, this time with snares and even harder
bass bombs, the dancers fall away as Lexi exhibits her trademark
strut through them. Sheer power, pure sex, ultra-feminine.
“I
dunno,”
Haley
says, almost as wide-eyed and adoring as the fans having seizures
below us, “that’s
some stage presence.”
“Sure
is,” I
smile at her. “Enough
to make you forget about the songs.”
Haley
shoots me a disapproving look before breaking into a laugh of
acknowledgment.
“Maybe.”
We
watch Lexi strut across the stage, hold out the mic for the crowd to
sing the chorus.
“You
see,” I
say, leaning over the railing beside Haley, “she
loves this: the performance, the act, the spectacle—and
the crowd can tell.”
“
I
love it too,”
Haley
replies, almost defiantly.
“I
know, that’s
why your shows did well. But with Lexi,”
I say,
“there’s
an added element. She’s
not just giving them a show; she’s
giving them a fantasy.”
“What
fantasy?”
“That
they can be like her,”
I
say, leaning in closer. “There
isn’t
a person in the audience who doesn’t
want to be Lexi right now, or be
with
her, at least a little.”
Haley
laughs dismissively. “
I’m
in
this audience, and I’m
fine with who I am, thanks.”
“You
sure?” I
say, nodding toward the stage as Lexi lets a couple of semi-naked
male dancers run their hands over her body. “Maybe
not the songs, and the latex dress. But that confidence? That raw
sexuality? That command over the whole audience that seems so natural
for her?”
“No,”
Haley
says, glancing at the stage, then back at me. “Maybe.
A little bit?”
I
lean in a little closer, so close she can hear the softness in my
voice even over the loudness of the music. “It’s
a fantasy though. And just like any fantasy, you only get it if you
go for it, and it only lasts a little while. So enjoy it when it
comes. As for me, I’d
rather put my hands on what’s
real.”
Haley’s
eyes flicker over my face, and I see her almost look away, but decide
to keep her face close to mine.
“Why
does everything you say to me sound like it might lead to sex?”
“Because
it might?”
Haley
moves her face so close that I can see her pupils dilate and her
tongue move between her teeth.
“It
might,”
she
purrs so sincerely I can feel it in my bones.
The
music behind us swells into a chorus, and it’s
almost like it carries us away with it. We lock lips in a blur of
neon lights and grabbing hands. Haley pulls herself onto my lap, her
hands lifting my shirt and searching beneath it for my clenching
muscles. I grab her ass, long fingers pulling and kneading at the
soft flesh. Her hair falls into my face, her tongue fucks my throat,
the music carries on hitting the satisfying hook of the chorus, again
and again, a million satisfactions all at once. She rubs her pussy on
the bulge of my crotch with the full body ripple of a belly dancer,
my hands clutching her closer to the mounting hardness.
I
grab her throat and push her away from me. She’s
panting like a dog in a fight, and I realize that I’m
not the only one who’s
been suffering from her decision to keep away from me.
“You
sure you wanna do this here?”
I
say through my own frantic gasps.
“Can
you wait?”
“Fuck
no,” I
say, standing up out of my seat and pushing her against the box
railing.
I
grab her arm and spin her around, then pull her ass up against me, my
hand on her breasts, pinching and pulling. I rip my fly apart so
violently I almost break the zipper, and then grasp around in my
pockets for a condom while the next song starts. It’s
a dirty, sex-fueled song, an urban beat with a thumping bass that
reverberates through the walls and floors, setting my muscles on
edge. The colored lights flash rapidly, making everything we do look
like stop-motion animation. But I don’t
need eyes for this, just the sweet feeling of her hard nipples under
my hands, and the fire-stoking guidance of her undulating ass against
my cock. I pull on the condom and she pulls down her pants, but only
to her knees, her legs tight together, her pussy even tighter.
She
twists her head and I bring my mouth to hers, so this time it’s
me tongue-fucking her, my fingers under her panties, teasing and
pulling her clit, my hand pulling her breasts together, holding her
steady as she gets so heady she can’t
even hold herself up. When the bass drops and the hook comes in I
slide my middle finger inside her, circling it inside the walls,
looking for that spot I know she likes.
This
time it’s
her who pulls away from me.
“Fuck
me,” she
begs, her eyes pleading. It always gets me, the gratifying sight of a
girl’s
face when she loses control, the one I’ve
put on a lot of girls’
faces,
but which has never looked as good as it does on hers.
“I’m
gonna fuck you, Haley,”
I
promise, bending her over the railing and grabbing my cock. “I’ll
fuck you real good.”
I
slide her panties to the side, and lean over her. She’s
got her hands on the railing for support, and I groan as I push
myself inside her. With her jeans still bunched around her knees,
keeping her thighs close together, her tightness makes both of us
feel each other even more intensely.
The
drum drops as I put a hand against her waist and curl the other
around to cup and pull her breast. Nothing but the bass and the
vocals hitting a minimalist groove as I fuck Haley from behind in
ever-deepening, ever-quickening thrusts. I press my thumb into the
deep arch of her spine, put a hand on her hair and pull it back.
She
holds onto the railing with white knuckles, her screams loud and
piercing enough to be heard over the crowd. Then the drums come in,
thunderous and earth-shattering, and I let them power me as I fuck
her hard enough to send ripples across her ass cheeks, her back
convulsing. She throws her head down, then back again, involuntarily,
the volatile heat of the drums and my cock stimulating her from
without and within.
Pushing
herself against the railing, she backs up onto me, in no mood to
extend the agonizing sweetness, desperate for a release. I lean over
and press my fingers against her clit as I thrust into her, grabbing
the railing with my other hand. The song ends with one last boom of
the bass drum, and we both erupt along with the crowd, the same way
we began, hard and fast, greedy and selfish. Her whole body seems to
inflate and deflate quickly, and she leans her head against the
railing. I move over her, carefully tugging her jeans back up, and
then softly kiss the back of her neck. She rolls her head to the
side, and I see a flash of smile before the lights go dark.
We
leave the concert before the last few songs. Partly to avoid the
crowds, and partly because we both need a drink and a bite to eat.
With the three bodyguards that I arranged, we skip down the empty
steps of the stadium and make our way out of the large, open exit. I
take Haley’s
hand as we walk and squeeze it. The fact that she barely notices,
that she treats it like the most natural thing in the world, somehow
means more to me than if she had squeezed back. For the first time in
what feels like half of my life, I feel like I’ve
got everything I want. Everything I need. Everything I don’t
deserve, but somehow lucked myself into.
“I
could go for Chinese,”
Haley
says, swiping a lock of hair from her face.
“Chinese
it is, then.”
“Or
maybe Italian.”
“Haven’t
you had enough Italian?”
I
grin, with dumb glee.
Haley
rolls her eyes. “Do
you have kids, Brando?”
“Hell
no!” I
say, almost jumping back at the weird heaviness of the question.
“Then
don’t
make dad jokes,”
Haley
says with a sweet smile.
I
laugh. My normal laugh, which is big, long, and can be heard from
across the street. Which is why it happens.
“Over
there!”
“Shit!
That’s
her!”