by Erika Vanzin
“How long have you been waiting?” I ask him.
Thomas smiles and shakes his head. “Not long, but the waiter suggested I pour the wine because it has to ‘breathe.’ I have no idea what that means,” he chuckles as he sniffs the contents and furrows his forehead.
“Don’t ask me,” I say, shaking my head.
Thomas studies me for a few seconds, then inhales deeply and, while he hands me the menu, asks me the question that is obviously nagging at him “So? Did you sell the photos?” There’s no scolding in his voice.
“Twelve thousand dollars,” I answer as I smile behind my glass of wine.
Thomas’s eyes widen, surprised, then his forehead creases, as though he’s puzzled. “I just realized I have no idea if that’s a good price or not,” he chuckles amusedly, and I echo him.
“I’m happy with it. Ron has never paid me that much,” I admit, ashamed of it. After all, those pictures aren’t even genuine.
“I’m glad. Lilly will be thrilled by the news.” He smiles amusedly but his expression shows his tenderness. She must really be special to him. I noticed it last night when the three of them were so in sync they finished each other’s sentences.
“That girl is crazy. Who would’ve thought of a fake fight?” I admit with a laugh.
Thomas nods vigorously. “She must be. Otherwise, she couldn’t be with someone like Damian. As much as I love him like a brother, you’d have to have an infinite amount of patience and madness to put up with him.”
I’d like to ask him more, how they met, what they did before they became famous, but fear of sounding like I’m investigating holds me back. I’m always afraid he’ll think I’m with him just to get a story, rather than the pleasure of spending time together.
“What do you want to eat?” I ask, looking at the menu, whetting my appetite.
“They have an excellent Sicilian pasta with eggplant and mozzarella,” he says. “What sounds good to you?”
“I think I’m going to have the Gnocchi Sorrento,” I smile, thinking about when he made me the pesto gnocchi that day he brought me groceries.
Thomas looks up and smiles at me triumphantly. “Then I impressed you with that dish!” He puffs his chest out in a way I’ve come to recognize.
I smile and nod, giving him this well-deserved victory. “A man who cooks always impresses. If he cooks a fantastic dish, he gets even more points.”
When he looks at the menu again, I steal a glance at him. He’s comfortable being in a public place with me, at the risk of people thinking we’re a couple. Suddenly, I realize how important this moment is, for me, for him, for what we are together. He could have chosen anywhere far from the prying eyes of strangers: my apartment, his, even the record company offices. But he decided I’m important enough to show me to the world, and the fact that he came back, after he knew I had lied, gives me confirmation that Thomas has no intention of pretending that our relationship is only about the sex. The warmth that invades my chest, the irrepressible joy that overwhelms me, makes me smile and, when he looks up at me again, I see in his eyes the feeling is mutual.
*
Yesterday’s scenario seems to be repeating today: he’s in front of my door, calling on me like a true gentleman and kissing me on the cheek. I smile shyly, though I must have a puzzled look on my face because he stands there staring at me with one eyebrow raised.
“Did I do something?” His question is hesitant, like he doesn’t know what to expect for an answer.
“No, absolutely not. In fact, you’re a perfect knight,” I reply candidly.
“But?” he presses me, and I feel my cheeks burning. I didn’t want the conversation to veer off into this topic.
“No buts, I swear...it’s just...I don’t know... Usually, the guys I go out with don’t even give me time to shut the door before they’ve already jumped on me. But you kiss me on the cheek and wait for me to make the next move... I’m not used to this.” I’m stuttering in embarrassment. He’ll think I’m a teenager with zero experience. He’s probably used to confident women who don’t have a problem jumping him while I’m here waiting for a kiss on the cheek.
The frown on his face almost worries me. “Rule number one: never talk about the guys you went out with the one that takes you back to the door. Our egos are very fragile...I don’t want to have to go and smash someone’s face in.”
“Are you jealous?” I want to make a joke, but he seems to be taking it very seriously.
For a few endless seconds with his forehead crinkled, Thomas observes me, then bursts into amused laughter. When he looks at me again, I see an infinite number of emotions I can’t decipher. I don’t have the time anyway, because his lips are immediately on mine in a frantic, sensual kiss full of affection that I didn’t think he could feel. His hands wrap my face as his body gently pushes me into the apartment, closing the door with a slight kick.
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve gone out with a woman, taken her home after a date, and not even thought about sex. I don’t know how to behave. I feel like an idiot sometimes,” he whispers to my lips as he pushes me toward the bed, lifting my hips to meet his.
I smile when I feel his hands under my skirt, stroking the skin of my thighs between the stockings and panties; his lips trace the skin of my neck as he gently strips me. Alone in this apartment, our sighs and groans blend together and fill the air as our bodies merge in perfect harmony. Making love to Thomas is a mixture of sensuality and sweetness that inebriates me to the point of near madness. His rock-star confidence disappears in an unceasing pursuit of our pleasure. When he sinks between my legs, we’re pushed to the brink of an ecstasy that consumes us until we whisper each other’s names. He has me lie on the bed while with his hands, he grabs my legs and rests them on his shoulders, taking the liberty of sinking more into me, making me reach that pleasure peak that makes me tremble.
“Thomas,” his name slips from my lips a moment before I steal a kiss that leaves him breathless.
I feel him sinking into his own pleasure while making sure not to crush my body underneath him. This is Thomas: protective and vulnerable at the same time.
“I don’t know how to woo a woman, take her out, entertain her, but I swear I’m working on it...” he whispers breathlessly as he lays beside me.
I put a finger on his lips before he can say anything else. “You’re perfect just how you are.” I kiss him as he grabs a blanket and wraps us in a warm cocoon that feels like home.
I wake up with something tapping on my face. It takes me a minute to open my eyes and understand that Dexter is sitting on my chest, pressing his paw on my face. I stretch my arm out looking for Iris’s perfect body, but I can’t find her. My heart sinks a little, wondering if maybe I was too honest yesterday and she got scared.
I sink my fingers into Dexter’s fur and stroke him so he will stop torturing me with his paw and he immediately begins to purr.
“I’m glad to see that he doesn’t just wake me up.” Iris’s voice makes me raise my head just enough to see her sitting at the kitchen table, her laptop in front of her and a smile plastered on her face.
I get lost gazing at her beauty, studying how perfect her face is even in the morning when she’s just woken up—even more than usual. There’s something about this time of day that makes her particularly radiant.
I sit up despite Dexter’s protests—he’d spend the whole morning on my chest—and I feel her eyes on me. I slip on my boxers and look for my shirt, but I can’t find it anywhere, even in this small apartment.
“I think you’re looking for this…” Her words make me look up, and I realize what happened to the t-shirt. It’s so sexy on her that I struggle to hide an erection.
“Keep it. It looks better on you than me.” I smile as I approach her and grab her by the waist, lean against her back, and kiss her on the neck.
“Would you like to have breakfast? I haven’t cooked anything yet,” she asks hesitantly.
Does she really think I’d leave without looking for an excuse to spend as much time with her as possible? The thought almost frightens me. Since when have I been so attached to a woman that I’m looking for an excuse to stay? Usually, it’s the opposite: I make up the most absurd stories to be out of their bed as soon as I’m done.
“What do you want me to cook for you?” I whisper in her ear as I deeply inhale the scent of her hair.
“You don’t have to do anything. I can do it.” I can’t tell if there’s any irritation or mockery in her voice, so I decide to split the tasks between us.
“Make the coffee while I look at what’s in the fridge?”
She nods, jumping down from her chair and freeing herself from my embrace. It feels like she peeled off a layer of my skin and left me exposed.
“Sweet or salty?” I ask as I stick my nose in the refrigerator, which thankfully has been filled since I was here last time.
“Salty is fine.”
I take out the eggs, bacon, and sliced bread and find the pots on the kitchen shelves. I spot the dishes and cutlery and realize how natural it is to move around this apartment with her as she hands me a cup of steaming coffee and the eggs start to fry in the pan. It’s a routine I never thought I’d do with anyone, and it’s both reassuring and terrifying. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I wasn’t born to trust people. But she’s like a drug—I tried her once, and she sucked me into addiction. Like all drugs, though, in the corner of my mind, I know she’s going to kill me someday. I can’t shake the thought, despite feeling extremely happy with her. Maybe it’s because the only time I’ve ever been this happy is when I was a kid. I forgot how it feels.
I put our breakfast on the table, and she follows me, carrying the cups of coffee.
“How does a paparazzo’s life work? Do you go hang out in certain places looking for famous people?” I ask, genuinely curious.
Iris shrugs and makes a slight guttural sound of pleasure as she tastes a bite of the food. It takes considerable effort for me not to pull her into my lap and make love to her for the fourth time in less than twenty-four hours.
“No, not always. I usually take my laptop to one of the cafés in an area where celebrities are known to frequent, then I start searching online for the various accounts that report spotting celebrities. People who hang out on the streets, using social media to report someone’s presence. There’s usually five or six of us working the same area. I have friends that I trust, and we alert each other in a chat when we hear about celebrity sightings. When a restaurant waits for a high-end customer, there’s more frenzy. Often their assistants will call ahead to make sure everything’s in order. This gets everyone all excited: waiters are reassigned, tables are freed and reserved... Basically, clues that something is happening. And some of our friends are waiters or drivers who call us with tips.”
“Really? What restaurants? Can you tell me?’
She bursts out laughing, clearly amused. “Do you want a tip about where you should never show up?”
“I’m just curious.”
“The Mandalay is full of waiters who would easily sell other people’s private lives.”
“Is that why I met you there a few weeks ago?”
She nods blushing, like she’s embarrassed for lying to me. “But I wasn’t there to photograph you. Ron called me, saying Alicia was going to be there with her new boytoy. Sometimes, very often lately, it’s these people’s managers who tip us off.”
“If Evan did something like that, I’d punch him in the face,” I say with a smile on my lips and seriousness in my voice.
“That night you caught me outside the Mandalay, Alicia played her part and so did the kid. They took their time getting in that car, and they didn’t particularly hide themselves from the shots. We were there for major national news outlets—in fact, the next day, the photos came out in the three largest print magazines in the United States.”
I feel a little relieved hearing this. “Do you work only for Ron or for other magazines?”
“I don’t work for anyone. Photos are usually uploaded to agency websites where magazines pay a monthly subscription. Ron and Agata are the only two people unscrupulous enough to get photos under the table that agencies would never touch—either because they were illegally obtained or too raw to be published without warning the reader. Michael’s pictures would never have passed an agency’s guidelines, but Ron would sell his own mother for something like that.”
“It’s absurd how morbidly attracted people are to this kind of news.”
My statement is mostly me thinking out loud, but I see Iris nodding. “I feel sorry for Alicia. Really. She’s the one who found herself with an unfaithful husband and a marriage that was falling apart. But the news is so perverted they made it about him running away with a man. What difference does his sexuality make? If he’d run away with a woman, it would have been no different: Alicia’s the victim in this case. And yet she gets massacred by the media. People are attracted to what they think is the most scandalous, and the media gives them what they want. They know exactly how many times a link is clicked on their site, what topic attracts the most readers, and what keeps them glued to the page. So–it’s more of a scandal in America if you’re gay than a cheater.”
From her tone and the two small wrinkles that form between her eyebrows, I get how annoyed she is by this, and it’s all the more reason I can’t understand how she does this job. It’s clear that she doesn’t want to hurt people; following them and taking pictures like this without feeling something for them is not in her nature.
“But what do you like to do? What does a musician do when he’s not on tour?” she asks, smiling, lightening the heavy mood that my questioning brought on.
“We’re now at the stage where...we have nothing to do,” I admit, chuckling.
“Nothing? Don’t you have an album coming out?”
“Yes, but we’ve finished recording, we’re just making the final tweaks, and the marketing staff, along with the press office, has been preparing for the launch for months. In a few weeks, the promotional campaign will start with radio, television, newspaper interviews...basically, we’ll be targeted day and night. At its most intense, right around the release date, we’ll be doing three or four television appearances a day.”
“It must be stressful. The fact that you can’t stretch out the promotional appearances over time, I mean.”
“It’s just a crazy time. Over the years, I’ve learned to completely trust the people around us who organize our every move. Basically, we do nothing, just show up where we’re told. The assistants are the ones who have the worst life.” I smile, embarrassed, because we sound like spoiled children.
Iris, however, seems fascinated by this topic and nods. “So, you don’t even know which interviews or appearances you’ll be doing?”
“No, to be honest, we approved that list months ago. We have the last say in everything we do, but the list is given to us months in advance. When the appointments come up, the assistants get going to keep up. Do you want me to have Evan contact you for an interview on your blog?”
Iris’s gaze snaps on mine, and I almost regret proposing it. “My blog isn’t at the level of your band.”
I smile and watch her mouth settle into a stiff grimace. “If you mean the fact that it doesn’t have as many followers as other blogs that are more famous than yours, yes, you’re right. But if you mean it’s not as professional as the others, you’re wrong. It’s one of the best music blogs I’ve seen in recent years and is as good as the most famous magazines or websites in the industry.”
She seems to relax at my statement and even blush a little.
“Look, I’ll speak to Evan, but he’s not the one to decide either. It’s going to be the pres
s office.”
“Okay.” She seems more convinced than before, as she brings the dish to the sink, and I follow her.
I put my hands on the kitchen cabinet, trapping her in my arms, and when she turns, she rests her fingers on my chest, a shy smile appearing on her lips. She tiptoes to kiss me on the mouth, a light gesture, not at all mischievous.
“Thank you for making breakfast.”
I smile at her, put my hands on her hips, and lift her up until she sits on the cabinet behind her. “Don’t thank me, I had ulterior motives,” I tease, sinking my head into the hollow of her neck, kissing her, and pushing my erection between her thighs.
She giggles and, with one hand, stretches to one side of the counter where there is a new box of condoms. Seeing her struggling to move her dislocated shoulder, I wonder if she should be seen by a doctor before she does more damage. Still, I’ll need to bring it up calmly, suggesting something that doesn’t make her feel embarrassed. I can’t do it now anyway, with my brain clouded by her hands exploring my body.
In less than five seconds, my boxers are on the floor and her fingers are sticking a condom on me with a delicacy I’m not used to. When I finally get between her legs, I move her panties to the side and sink into her with a slow movement, enjoying every moment she wraps me with her warm body.
Like last night, we take our time, enjoying each other, and when we finally get to the peak of our pleasure, I feel her sink her teeth into my shoulder gently, making me shudder. I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of her. Despite panting and almost out of strength, I want to start over, get lost in her like I’ve never done with a woman. Enjoy her breath, her hair falling on her forehead partly covering her eyes, wide open and full of pleasure, her small and perfect breasts that rise with each of my breaths, becoming swollen against my chest. I wish I could hug her like this for the rest of our lives, and that thought terrifies me to death.
