I sat on the plastic bench by the lane and waited after changing out of the bowling shoes. I noticed Samantha looking over at me where I was sitting alone and saying something to her friend. They laughed.
- - -
Archer must have been gone for almost ten minutes, and I was starting to worry that he'd just left me hanging. Then I saw him coming into the bowling alley through the mall entrance. And I saw that he had a little tail of people following him – a pack of younger girls, mostly teenagers.
I immediately saw the reason – he had wiped off the makeup in his face and changed his clothes. He must have bought new things in the mall and dumped the old ones, because he was wearing a different pair of jeans and a tight, gray and shimmering shirt that showed off his flat abdomen, large chest muscles and wide shoulders very well indeed. His cheeks were still hollow, but not as extreme as before, and his stubble was his own. He looked... well, like Archer Stratton.
And he was coming straight for me.
He smirked with his white teeth and green eyes. Looking at him walking over with those easy, energetic steps had me mesmerized. It was as if I realized for the first time who he really was. And after all, it was the first time I had seen him without makeup or some sort of costume.
As he approached I got up. I had butterflies in my stomach, for some reason. It was hard not to stare at that world famous face that I'd seen on the movie screen so many times. I forgot where I was for a moment, and the world seemed to stop as the super famous movie star, who was now my friend, came close to me.
“Let's go,” he said in his own, masculine voice, looking past me toward the lane where Samantha and her group were still playing their first frames. Then he looked back at me, and I swear there was a real, flashing gleam in his eye.
He took my hand in his. It was warm and dry, and I could feel the rough skin on his palms. The touch was electric and sent a lightning bolt straight to my crotch.
I started to grasp what would happen now, and my heart soared.
The gaggle of teens had caught up with him, and they stood a few feet away, giggling and taking pictures with their phones. When they saw that we were sort of starting to move away, one of them worked up enough courage to ask for his autograph. He flashed them his very trademarkiest smirk and said “sure, Chestnut.”
I looked closer. The brave girl did indeed have long, chestnut hair that she had brushed to a shimmering cascade down her back. Hearing him call attention to what was probably one of her greatest prides, her eyes were now shining.
Oh, he was good. He was very good.
Between them, the girls were able to come up with both pen and paper. Not that any paper was needed, because of course they wanted him to sign their bodies. Arms and hands were stretched out, everyone was taking selfies with Archer in the background.
Now there was a whole lot of thrilled squealing to be heard as well, as the first girl got Archer's big, bold autograph on one arm.
I pulled away a little, not used to being the center of attention, and stood in the outskirts of the circle. It was growing rapidly, as the squealing and giggling group was discovered by the other bowling players and the teen girls texted their friends that Archer Stratton was there, in the old mall in their hometown, signing body parts. I overheard a few conversation like that, where the girl had trouble making herself understood over her own breathless excitement and the growing noise level.
“Get to the bowling alley right away! Archer Stratton is here! Signing autographs! No, just get here! The BOWLING ALLEY!!!!”
Some of the girls starting pulling their tops down to let him sign the top of their boobs, but he was conservative with this bunch of young teens and didn't sign his name too far down on their chests. One girl wanted him to sign the small of her back, just over her butt crack. I thought that he probably signed it a little higher than she had wanted.
He joked with them all the time, and they were pretty much swooning in delight.
Soon, all the bowling games in the alley were forgotten, and some of the players came over to check it out and get their own arms and boobs signed.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Samantha and her friend coming over in an excited hurry, tiptoeing in their bowling shoes and leaving their boyfriends behind to stew in jealousy. Samantha didn't give me a second glance, and no one who saw the huddle of girls around Archer would think that I had anything to do with him, other than trying to get his autograph.
He let them wait, while serving other latecomers with his signature on their selected body parts. He signed the hand of Samantha's friend, but seemed not to see Samantha herself. Then he looked at me and gestured with his head.
“Okay, let's get going, babe,” he said.
“Babe”? That was new. And I didn't mind it at all! If anyone was going to call me “babe”, Archer Stratton would have been pretty high up my list anyway, and having known him for a few hours, he had moved up that list a lot. And of course, now everyone was staring at me, the unknown girl who Archer had called “babe”.
I started walking towards the exit as he finished up all the teens. The only one who hadn't got her autograph by now was Samantha. He was always turning his back on her, and I was pretty sure it was intentional, though it could easily have been a coincidence.
But finally he grabbed her outstretched arm without looking at her and scribbled something quickly, then dismissively turned his back to her. I could see that she was red with excitement, probably bursting with something she wanted to say to the superstar. She never got the opportunity, because he never looked her in the eye.
When I got closer, he said, loudly, “Okay, gotta go! Thank you, girls, have fun now!”
Then he grasped my hand, winked mischievously to me and then artfully and very confidently took me in his arms and kissed me deeply. I mean, he really frenched me there and then! It took me completely by surprise, but I was able to go with it, close my eyes and enjoy. I half saw all the flashes going off as many of the girls took pictures of us with their phones. But I didn't mind. Not at all.
The kiss was good. Like, sensational. Just as I was getting into it, feeling his tongue delicately explore me and more heat build up in me, he gently released his grip on the back of my neck and brought me back to the real world. I couldn't help thinking that I could very easily get used to being kissed like that.
Far away, I sort of heard the happy - and probably jealous - cheering from the extremely delighted girls, who now thought that they knew who Archer's new girlfriend was.
Then I looked straight into Samantha's face. I have never seen a paler and more crestfallen and deflated face. I wanted to laugh out loud. But I ignored her, and Archer waved a happy goodbye to the pack of girls and walked me quickly to the exit we'd come from.
“Is that your girlfriend?” a high-pitched and girly voice called after us. Archer didn't turn around. There was no need. His voice carries very well.
“She's much more than that,” he yelled, to a jealous silence from the pack of girls.
We ran. As we turned the corner to run down the stairs to the secondary entrance of the bowling alley, where the motorcycle was parked, I threw a glance over my shoulder. The large group of girls were all looking at us, some unsure if they should – and could – follow.
But I only noticed Samantha, still standing there with her sleeve rolled up, all ready to be signed by the world famous superstar.
She was the only one who'd not gotten his autograph. Because he had written something else on her arm. He wrote his big, confident letters, and even from a distance, I had been able read see what it said:
NOT COOL
Be nicer to ppl
I didn't feel sorry for her. Not at all. What I felt was a little bit of triumph. And in the middle of it – what did he mean when he said that I was much more than a girlfriend? Because I would have settled for that. Any day, but especially now. Oh crap. I was falling for him. Like, hard.
We ran down the stairs to the back
door. Some people just coming in turned and gawped. I heard a crestfallen “was that...?” before the door shut behind us.
Archer handed me the helmet and helped me put it on. I got behind him on the angry motorcycle and held him tight. A little tighter than before, in truth. I was pretty damn happy. Not only had he totally taken my side in the altercation with Samantha, he'd also seen right through her and what she had intended. He had blown his cover and endured an autograph session with swooning girls – just for my sake!
I felt the heat from his broad back and the hardness of his abdominals, where I was clasping my hands. Oh god... I was starting to have some vivid fantasies about... oh no, I couldn't allow that. He was in a different world from mine. His world was Hollywood and stars and glamor, mine was LuckyStop and stacking shelves and cleaning dirty toilets.
This was only for now, not for long. But now I knew I was going to enjoy every second to the fullest. And if I didn't get my hopes up about anything at all, maybe I could also enjoy the time after. That was fine with me. Most people don't even get that.
He set the bike in motion, and we accelerated gently out into traffic.
12
The wind whistled past my helmet as we followed the rhythm of the other traffic in downtown Carvey.
I was peering at the road ahead past Archer's head. He was still going calmly, but he would occasionally pull out of our lane to accelerate past a slow moving truck or tractor. When that happened, the motorcycle leaped forward like a pouncing predator, easily passing other traffic in a split second as the engine sneered so I could feel it in my whole body, then calmed down to a barely contained growl. Archer controlled everything effortlessly, calmly shifting his weight to help control the bike. I could feel his heartbeat in my hands that were clasped around his hard abdomen. It was slow and strong. He was laid back as can be.
I wanted to relax into the moment. For the first time that day, I had some idea of what would happen next. We would drive back to my home town, and then he would probably drop me off at my apartment and return to his movie making life and ocelots and bodyguards and black Mercedes SUVs with blacked out windows. And super famous girlfriends who were the official faces for equally famous makeup brands or cars or phones or whatever. And throngs of teenage girls who wanted him to sign their boobs and butts and who knew what else.
But, I suddenly realized, they were not here. They were not on this motorcycle right now. Only he and I were here. And we would be here, just him and me, for a half hour until we were back in my town. For that time, he was mine.
I briefly wondered how far I should take the fantasy. Was it wise to pretend that he was mine for real? Would I snap when it ended, leaving me to live out my days alone, growing old with only cats for company? Would anything ever come close to this? On the other hand, this was my one day in the sun. Nothing like this would ever happen to me again. This was my one brief brush with global fame and unimaginable success. It was like being given one day in Disneyland when I was a kid – it's better to not think of the end, to just enjoy each ride to the fullest. And to enjoy this ride to the fullest, I'd just pretend in my own mind that this superstar was mine.
It was surprisingly easy. Maybe because he was so close. I could feel his hard abdominal muscles with my hands and his equally hard back with my own boobs. I felt the smell of him – a subdued cologne, and then the manly smell of his skin. As I felt his body heat melt into mine through the thin fabric of his brand new shirt and into my bare arms, I felt that something might thaw a little, something inside me that I hadn't even known was frozen. It was a while since I'd been this close to a any man, and that had certainly not been a major star like Archer Stratton.
13
We put downtown behind us, and Archer increased the speed a little. Then he turned his head in a way that made me understand that he wanted to say something.
“You want to take another road back? One that's more fun?” he yelled.
Fun? For an action star like this one, that would mean more speed. Maybe more danger. But that fit fine with my fantasy. I would trust him.
“Okay,” I yelled into the wind that blew past. He nodded once with his helmeted head.
I knew which road he was talking about. It was known as The Old Road, which was the first road that was built between my home town of Walco and Carvey. Seems there was a conflict of land rights that meant that they had to lay the road around someone's land. It must have been a bad deal for the tax payers, because the road went up into the hills and had many twists and turns, and now the asphalt was broken many places. Most people never used that road, because it was longer than the new one and there was no reason to take it unless you lived along it.
At the intersection, Archer banked left and we were suddenly surrounded by trees, tall firs and spruces that seemed to wall us in. They were so close to the very narrow road it was like we were engulfed and alone.
Archer slipped the bike down a couple of gears, and the engine growled louder and we accelerated fast up an incline. The sound reverberated softly off the trees. I felt the fresh air and the sweet smell of pine trees heated by the sun. The road rose and dipped and twisted and turned.
Archer became more active as we went faster. Now he was no longer gently guiding the heavy bike along a busy street, he was riding it, controlling it, forcing it to move where he wanted it. I don't know how fast we were going, but on the motorcycle, it felt like we were going really fast. It felt faster than I'd ever been driven in a car or anything else.
I tensed up a little, but in a good way. This was more fun, but it was also more dangerous than driving a car at 30 mph through a sleepy small town, which was the sort of driving I was used to. I clung harder to him and followed the movements of the bike. He was working more, but he was still in total control. I let myself relax again, reducing most of the fear to a feeling of thrill. Didn't I want to enjoy this to the fullest? This was a good time to let go and follow the flow. That was it, I thought: It was fast, but it was also fluid. No jerkiness, no bumps, just fast driving along a winding road.
I had been a passenger in cars with younger men who thought they were some sort of racing drivers, even if their talents and ability for driving were non-existent. They would take huge risks, gamble with their passenger's lives and their own, overtaking wildly through blind corners and taking the turns faster than the car was able to. That was scary and plain dangerous. This was safe, and at the same time much faster. I had a vague recollection that Archer was interested in car racing and probably had taken part in races. I hadn't read his Wikipedia page that thoroughly – it was very long – but it helped me relax and go with the flow here.
As I became confident in his abilities, I was able to enjoy the ride a lot. I held him tighter and trusted him with my life. He seemed to take me to places I'd been before, but in a different way – so calm, so confident, so skillful. I wondered what else he would do really well... and the thought turned me on, like a faucet, and I reflexively pushed my pelvis harder toward him. What would it be like to surrender to a man like this, to open myself and let him take what he wanted? Would he be as good doing that as he was handling this heavy, super powerful motorcycle? I knew that he would have had a lot of practice. He'd had many girlfriends before he met Johanne, and then he seemed to settle down. But now she was gone from his life too, it seemed. Maybe there was room for a new fling?
Whatever. I was not going to throw myself at him. But if there was a chance... I would love to try, see what it would be like to go there, to have sex with an actual superstar. Just once in my life.
14
The bike came to a soft halt outside the door of my apartment building, which had the cheapest accommodation in town. I knew, because that's why I'd picked it to live in.
Okay, I thought, as Archer turned the engine off and kicked out the stand. This is as good a time as any to end this adventure. I'd had my fun. I would have loved it to continue, but if I got further in, it might be too deep.
I smiled sweetly and held my helmet out to him. He didn't even look at it.
“A home fit for a princess.”
He gazed up at the facade of the run-down red brick apartment building from the 1920s. It had not seen much upkeep since then. It was a hovel and an affront to architecture and good taste, but it was my home.
“This is my palace, yes,” I said regally, gesturing to the cracks in the bricks.
“It's perhaps not much to look at from the outside. But you should see the Hall of Mirrors. And the giant... uh... winter garden,” I said, as I finally came up with a luxurious-sounding room that a castle may have. “And the stables,” I added for good measure.
“I bet. Live alone? I mean except the many servants and gardeners and prize horses and all those?”
“For now. I'm between... princes, I guess,” I said airily.
“Right. Any chance of this here Prince of Denmark seeing the royal... uh... baths?”
It took me a second to get what he meant. My royalty didn't go that deep, really. Then I quickly tried to remember if my tiny bathroom with the little tub and pipes with hardly any dirty beige paint left on them was in any shape to be shown to a world class superstar. It probably never would be, no matter how clean. Well, I'd just take my chances. He put me at ease when he showed that he got my reference about Hamlet. Sometimes, he seemed just like an ordinary guy. I stepped up the stairs to the front door and waved him after me.
“Certainly. Follow me, your highness. Watch out for the moat.”
15
While he was in the bathroom I tried to clean up the tiny kitchen a little. It wasn't too bad. When I started working at LuckyStop, I had made the decision that my house wouldn't be any less clean than my place of work. Sometimes it was, sometimes not. The living room wasn't too bad. Just dusty.
Catch A Falling Superstar: A New Adult Erotic Romance Page 8
