Darling

by Gabrielle G

  She nods. Lying to Anna twice is touching rock bottom. I’m making her trust me when she shouldn’t. But I don’t want her to be hurt.

  15

  Anna

  “But I also have to apologize. I jumped to a conclusion, and it wasn’t fair. I have trust issues and… well, I’m sorry,” I say.

  “It’s okay. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression there was someone else. But you have to understand, that shit is part of my life, right? There will always be crazy people claiming things about me, or the press lying. That’s how it is.”

  I nod because I do understand. “I know, and that's why I wanted to confront you right away. I won’t run. That’s not who I am.”

  Dan grips my hair in a tight knot and brings his lips to me. “I’m glad we sorted that out.”

  I try to step back, but his other hand finds my waist, and he presses his erection into me.

  “Make-up sex?”

  My respiration gets heavy from his proposition. I should know better than trying to fix whatever happened between us with sex, but I’m only human. I sigh. “Dan, we’re not going to fuck after what happened between us.”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s not how this should work.”

  “Again, why not? I want you, you want me, we had a disagreement, we spoke about it, now we fuck. You need to trust me. I know what I’m doing with you.”

  I escape from his hold and push him slightly away. There’s something unsettling about Dan since this morning, but I can’t put my finger on it. “Do you?”

  I’m not sure if what he just said is bullshit to fuck me or the truth. Millions of thoughts bubble in my head. I want to know who he had a meeting with, I want to understand why he needs me to trust him, I want to ask how certain he is any of these babies aren’t his, but I don’t have the strength to.

  “Come here,” he beckons me with his finger, but I stay put, forcing him to come to me. “Look at you. Tight jeans and a muscle shirt without a bra. Such a pity these have to come off.”

  He steps forward and unbuttons my jeans. I should stop him, but I can’t. Instead, I go for a kiss, but he jerks back and shakes his head.

  “No, Anna love. You don’t touch, you don’t say a word, you don’t move except if I say so.” Although he continues undressing me, his hands haven’t touched my skin yet, and I’m desperate for him to touch me. “Close your eyes and keep them closed.”

  Once I can’t see what he’s doing, he finally puts a hand on my waist. The tips of his fingers brush my skin, going from my waistline to my stomach. I feel him walking slowly around me. Then his tongue finds my navel and makes its way up to my breast, just the tip, with the same pressure as his fingers before. His mouth closes around my right nipple and wets it before his tongue continues to my collarbone. He always spends a lot of time on my collarbone. Everywhere that his tongue was is now a little cold. When his fingers find my nipple and pinch it hard, I squeal, but his mouth is back on me, erasing the pain. I can’t suppress a moan.

  “If you could say something, love, what would you say right now?”

  “Please,” comes out as a murmur. As if begging will make him enter me right away when I know the anticipation of what could happen next is what I need. He’s giving me a lesson in patience.

  I’m afraid if I open my eyes, I’ll forever lose what we have. In our story, I’m Orpheus and he’s Hades. If I don’t have faith in him, if I don’t trust him, our relationship will evaporate in the shadows—like Eurydice in the Underworld. Faith, trust, and patience are virtues I don’t believe in anymore when it comes to relationships.

  “You don’t need to see me to feel me, Anna love. You have to trust me, to trust I have only your best interest at heart. I’m no cheater, never intentionally, and I won’t cheat on you. Can you trust me, Anna love?” He brings his fingers to my mouth and brushes my lips while I believe his other hand is unbuckling his belt.

  I nod, and to reward me, he presses the tip of his cock between my legs. I wait for the sound of a wrapper, hoping he’ll take me, but nothing comes.

  “Open your legs, love.”

  I’m bursting with anticipation, waiting for his next move, but everything becomes still. I can’t feel him, can’t hear him. I’m ready to ask what’s happening, wondering if I’m standing naked and alone in my living room, then I feel his tongue between my legs. My knees wobble, and I almost lose balance. His arms wrap my thighs and hold me firm as his tongue worships me until I’m about to come.

  Then he stops.

  It’s pure torture.

  I want to slap him.

  “Trust me,” he repeats slowly. “Come down, love, and open your eyes.”

  I’m ready to beg for a release. But he’s kneeling between my legs as if he’s begging for my trust. Him on his knees for me, totally exposed, is a request that I trust him because he trusts me wholly.

  He lowers me slowly, making me kneel my right leg next to him but keeping my left knee bent to support my body. He enters me fully while embracing me with one hand behind my back and the second on my ass. I shift and hug his neck so he can kiss mine. Our bodies are one now, his cock deep in me, in total silence. We don’t need words to convey what we’re doing. No dirty talk or moans. Our eyes share everything while our bodies press into each other.

  He nods to grant me my orgasm, and I come around him. I know I could scream his name from the top of my lungs, but I don’t. It’s a fuck for forgiveness and to earn trust, and we don’t need to add anything through conversation. He buries his face in the crook of my neck, moaning an almost inaudible, “Fuck, love,” before he comes, and we become motionless again.

  We stay there for a while, hugging, before Dan decides to talk again. “I’m far from being done with you, Anna love.”

  And while we kiss, something inside me tells me all of this is too easy. The great sex, the feelings, the relationship we’re starting. I’m old enough to know that when it looks too good to be true, it generally is.

  The next day is perfect. As he’s leaving the day after, I took today off so we could spend every moment together. He keeps repeating he wants to stay in Montreal with me. He’s amazed he hasn’t seen any paparazzi in front of my house yet and that the press hasn’t released my name. I keep telling him people in Canada don’t really care, and we’re far too polite to bother a celebrity, but he doesn’t want to believe me.

  “What do you want to do tonight?” he asks, kissing my stomach.

  “Could we go out?” I propose. He’s avoided that idea the whole time he’s been here.

  “Well, do you really want to share me?”

  True, I don’t want to. I feel a pang of jealousy every time he tells me he met a fan, but staying in every night is kind of depressing. “Certainly not! But I feel like a dirty secret, like a sidepiece. Maybe we could just go for a drink? Naomi told me she went out with Lars and it was fine…”

  “Love, you know if I could, I would. Just before the tour is not the best timing. If we go out now and the press sees it, after I leave, I can assure you that women will announce everywhere I’m with them and cheating on you. The press will follow each of your steps. If I was staying and we were to be together forever, I would share you to the world. But right now, we can’t. I’m sorry.”

  It sounds like a line of bullshit, but I’m trying to trust him, and I won’t waste our last hours together fighting. “Okay, let’s stay in again.”

  “Perfect, so I can enjoy your body.” He goes back to kissing me all over my chest.

  I stop him again. “Dan?”

  “What, Anna love?”

  I need to ask him one of the two questions I’m dreading. Taking a big breath in, I jump. “How is this going to work?”

  “How do you want it to work?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. Tell me.”

  “I want you to call me every morning and every night, whatever the time difference is. I want you to tell me when you’re ready to
take off and when you land. I want to hear from you and never have to wonder.”

  Propping himself on his elbow, he kisses me softly. “So that’s what I’ll do, love.”

  Instead of feeling butterflies in my stomach, I feel as though stones are grinding. Dan looks like a freaking cartoon character with hearts instead of eyes, ready to rip his chest open to give me his heart.

  “You have me, Anna love. We have a deal, and I won’t break it. If you need me to call you and text you to reassure you, then I will.”

  I close my eyes, afraid to show the hope I feel. Dan is my Promised Land.

  “Look at me, love,” he whispers.

  When I open my eyes, all I can see is his soul. I shift my gaze to just above his shoulders to avoid the feelings I see in his eyes.

  “Anna, please stay in the moment with me,” he insists.

  I know what’s coming, and if my heart is begging to let it happen, my brain is trying hard to flee. What if he wants children? Can I let him make love to me again without telling him that if he falls in love with me, we might never have kids? “Children.”

  “What about them, love?” He pinches his lips nervously while rolling onto his side.

  I hesitate, my eyes tearing up. Lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, I sigh. “I can’t have any. I could tell myself I could try, that maybe with the right man it would work, but I stopped lying to myself years ago. After my miscarriage, they said that my chances of getting pregnant are so low, I could in fact not use any contraceptive. But I refuse not to because I’ve made my choice now, and I don’t think I want children anymore.”

  “Look at me.” Dan puts his hand on my chin and turns my head in his direction “I’ve never fancied children. How could I take care of kids when I’m touring all the time?”

  If my heart could jump out of my chest and do fireworks, it would.

  “Really?” I raise my eyebrows.

  “Really. Question for you now.”

  I nod, relieved.

  “Is that why Scumbag cheated on you?”

  I frown. “I never told you he cheated on me.”

  “Huge diamond on Wifey’s finger, jealous eyes when he saw me, you hate their guts. He cheated on you. With her.” I frown at the memory.

  “While I was pregnant, and the day I miscarried after trying for years, I couldn’t reach him. Afterward, I went to his office and found him screwing her instead of taking care of me.”

  Dan smiles. “Sorry, but I’m not sorry!”

  “You’re such an asshole.” I laugh.

  “No, love, if all this never happened to you, we wouldn’t be together today. So sorry, but I’m glad your ex is a scumbag!” He brings me into a kiss that deepens into more.

  Out of time and out of breath, I fall asleep in Dan’s arms, happy to be where we are now but wondering how to survive the next three weeks.

  16

  Dan

  My problems really started when I arrived in the States. Before that, I was often in trouble, but my father kept me in check. Once my mom and I left the UK though, I went wild. He wasn’t around anymore to control my impulses, and my mother was too sweet to do anything about my behavior.

  The last fight I remember between them, my father was begging my mother to stay in London so he could still set me straight, and she refused because he was too strict with me. Once we left, she never asked him for help, even if I was out of control, trying to fly off a building thinking I was Superman or deciding I would be a rock star. She believed in my dreams and helped me achieve them, even when I was crying myself to sleep or getting in trouble at school because I wasn’t listening. She said I could become whatever I wanted. So I did.

  When we became famous, my entourage started to realize something wasn’t right. After the ecstatic phase that came with success, I entered a period of depression when I should have been the happiest person in the world. I felt hopeless and withdrew from Lars, Art, and my mother. I lost interest in girls and had even more problems than usual focusing.

  Lars wondered if my mood swings and spontaneity weren’t more than eccentricity. He talked to my mom, who told him I’d always been that way. By that time, we were due for our first round of big concerts, and he was worried I wouldn’t be able to do it. He wrote down all my moods from the past year, all my actions, all that he saw when he wasn’t too high. Because our budding celebrity was on the line, he encouraged me to seek help.

  I was diagnosed with Bipolar II syndrome a little while later, and my new psychiatrist tried to find the right combination of medications to reduce my mood swings and help me focus. Of course, I was upset—not because we had finally put the name on something I’d always felt, but because I wasn’t Bipolar I. I wanted to be the best bipolar ever. I wanted to be grandiose even in my condition. I was Dan fucking Darling, or I was about to be.

  Lars and Art never treated me differently, but when we started telling people, the looks I received and the worries people had weren’t worth our band’s reputation, so we decided to keep my situation under wraps. I didn’t want to be seen as a crazy singer because people were mainly misinformed about my condition. After that, anybody we had told had to sign an NDA, and I proved myself a good actor, showing the world I had everything together.

  I could fool a lot of people, even my mother and Art. But Lars? He watched me like a hawk and knew me better than anybody else. Nevertheless, I had fooled him. Twice.

  The first time was when I met Blossom. I stopped taking my meds because I was happy and in love. It was a stupid mistake, mainly because in my manic episodes, I’m hungrier for sex than for anything. That didn’t cause trouble when I was with her in Los Angeles, but on tour, even if I loved her, even if she was it, even if I would have done anything for her, I went through pussy like a chain smoker. I couldn’t help it. Hypersexualisation is a part of my condition. She never found out—until she did.

  We were in London. My father had met Blossom two days earlier and said she was an excellent choice for a wife, so he passed my grandmother’s ring on to me. Blossom and I were meeting in a restaurant where I was going to propose. It was going to be epic. She was late. I got an itch. She caught me fucking I don’t even remember who against a wall in the back alley. I tried to explain—my disorder, my impulses, my love for her. She refused to hear me. She left me there and never looked back.

  I started to drink and take cocaine. I didn’t stop until the car accident. When I got back on track, my father was in a wheelchair and Lars brought me back to LA.

  That was the first time I fooled Lars.

  The second time was now, but he was catching up and he wasn’t happy about it.

  As I sit in front of him, his dark eyes scrutinize me. He knows. “How long?”

  “Almost nine months,” I answer, my leg bouncing.

  He takes a long breath, trying to keep cool. “Why?”

  “I forgot, and then again, and then it was too much forgetting, I needed to go see the doc to regulate it all. I knew you would be mad, but I was fine. I knew I could live without, so I did.”

  “Dan.” He sighs but doesn’t finish his sentence.

  Disappointing people is hard. I’m a forty-year-old man constantly disappointing my friends and family. I have millions of fans screaming my name, but the people who love me the most know they can’t count on me. I’ve hurt them thousands of times and made amends after. I’ve fucked their girlfriends, canceled shows because I felt like traveling, sold my mother’s house to get more cash, disappeared without telling them where I was going and much more.

  “Lars,” Art interjects, certainly knowing our buddy is going to lose it on me, “listen to him.”

  I don’t know if it’s because he lost his brother to drugs when he was twenty or if Art has always been that way, but he always tries to understand what I go through. He gives me the benefit of the doubt. He always roots for me.

  “Thanks, Art,” I say.

  “Don’t thank me too fast. We’re on a plane head
ing for a two-week tour and to record our new album, and you’re off your meds. I’m not happy, but I want to understand where you’re at. Are you in a full cycle or are we just starting one? Should we cancel the tour?”

  “No, I’m fine!”

  “You’re not,” Lars exclaims. “You’ve had relapses before, even while taking your meds, but this time is different. Your father reached out to me after you sent him a strange text. You hired a new PR guy because you think your dad is going to sell you to the press? Chad told me something about a castle in Spain, and you told me you’re buying a house in Montreal. You talk extremely fast these days. You have major mood swings. You’re irritable. Should I go on? I’m pretty sure you’re having an episode and you don’t even realize it.”

  “Fuck you, Lars! I’m fucking in love! I fell in love with a great woman. Doesn’t mean I’m having a manic episode. Why can’t you just believe I’m happy?”

  Lars becomes serious. “I’ve read a lot these past days, and I’d like to ask you a few questions just to be sure it’s love. Are you with me?”

  This is the problem with being trapped in a plane with your bandmates. What else can I do? I nod, already dreading his questions. He’s so fucking perfect as a friend. It’s annoying. You’d think he would give me shit and force medication down my throat, but nope. He’s calm and trying to help me, even if I don’t want his help.

  “Are your feelings for everyone the same or more intense, in a good or a bad way?” Lars asks.

  “No, I feel the same about you two, about John, about everybody but Anna. I mean, you get on my nerves and I want to punch your face, but isn’t that always the case? Don’t I always want to punch you?”