Dear Neighbor

by River Laurent

  They look so utterly crushed I feel sorry for them. I see myself in them. Once that was me. I would have killed for an autograph. OK, maybe not killed, but I could have not eaten for days, or something equally difficult. I turn back towards Cash and smile. ‘Go ahead. I don’t mind.’

  An expression crosses his face. He looks suddenly tired and older. He lets go of me and as he turns towards them, the public face of Cash Hunter drops into place and he flashes one of his superstar smiles.

  One of them hands him a paper napkin and the other a piece of paper with the club’s logo at the top. The girls gaze at him adoringly while he signs. They clutch their prizes to their chests and thank him profusely.

  He turns to me. ‘Are you ready to hit the road?’

  I nod.

  He takes my hand and we start towards the entrance.

  ‘Don’t you have to tell your friends first?’ I ask curiously.

  ‘Nah, they’ll figure it out soon enough.’

  Cash

  ‘If you don’t take that dress off right now I’m gonna rip it off you,’ I tell her, as I close the front door behind me and lean against it.

  She turns around, her eyes flashingshe doesn’t like being ordered about. Nevertheless, she reaches behind for the zip. I watch her slip the little black pieces of material covered in gold flowers down her arms. She is not wearing a bra and her nipples are already hard, ready little stones. Carefully, she steps out of the dress. I watch her hang the dress over a chair. There is something insolent about the way she deliberately takes her own sweet time, even though I know she is wild for it and sopping wet.

  It makes me want to punish her.

  To fuck her until her pussy is raw.

  ‘Go into my bedroom and sit on the bed. With your legs wide open.’

  For a second she stares at me defiantly then she turns around and obeys. I tug at my bowtie and watch her sexy ass as she walks naked, but for those sexy heels, towards my bedroom.

  I start unbuttoning my shirt. ‘And don’t fucking take those shoes off,’ I call.

  She doesn’t reply.

  Fuck the girl is begging to be punished.

  I give her a few seconds more before I turn up at the door, sans jacket, shoes and shirt. She is sitting propped up against the pillows and as instructed her legs are wide open. Her pussy is puffy, the glistening folds protruding invitingly out of her sex lips. And that small tight hole. It gapes and begs to be filled, and my cock throbs to enter it.

  I smile slowly as I yank the last of my clothes off and advance.

  Her eyes are riveted on my cock and her chest rises and falls fast. When I am close enough, the heady scent of her arousal fills my nostrils and that unfamiliar and beautiful thing happens again. The rest of the world ceases to matter. I lose control.

  Like a hungry man, I swoop down on that deliciously sticky sex of hers. I stick my tongue into her hole and she gasps my name. Watching her face, I keep my tongue pushed deep inside her until I feel her heartbeat inside her pussy. Fast. Excited. Amazing. Then I suck her clit like a man sucking the flavor out of a piece of toffee until she comes with a force that shakes her to her very core.

  I lift my head and watch her.

  Spread out on my pillow. Her angel hair tangled, her mouth parted, her eyes glazed, and her ripe breasts flushed. I let my eyes travel down to her sex, open, helpless, and throbbing for me … and I feel that wild and feral urge to brand her.

  To call her mine.

  To fucking make her mine.

  Putting my hands on either side of her body, I mount her. She whimpers and her hands grip my upper-arms tightly as the thick, mushroomed head of my cock stretches her.

  ‘Oh Cash,’ she trembles as I force my way in until her pussy has swallowed my entire cock. Her whole body jerks while I pound her ferociously. It is not long before I explode inside her, my seed spilling everywhere, coating her insides.

  I pull out of her and walk to the cupboard. I open it and rummage around inside a drawer. I lay my hands on a red dildo. I bring it back to the bed. She is still lying there, her legs open and my cum trickling out of her.

  Tori

  I stare up at him silently.

  He holds a fire-engine red dildo out to me. ‘Put it inside you and make yourself come,’ he says.

  ‘I’m tired. I don’t want to come anymore.’

  ‘Do it for me,’ he cajoles softly. ‘I want to watch.’

  I hold out my hand and he puts it into mine. It is made of rubber and it’s cold. I have never had a dildo inside me before. ‘Put it in for me,’ I say.

  He shakes his head. ‘I want to see you pleasure yourself.’

  ‘Please,’ I beg.

  He takes the dildo and hunkers down between my legs. The head is quite thick and he places it at my entrance and pushes it into me while he avidly watches the red thing enter me.

  ‘Play with yourself while I fuck you with this,’ he says.

  I circle my clit while he thrusts the thick instrument into me. As I climb higher his speed increases until I finally climax so hard I am sobbing his name. He sits there watching me. I reach for the dildo to pull it out.’

  ‘Don’t take the toy out,’ he commands.

  I let go of the toy and allow my hand hang limp over the side of the mattress. Unable to bear his eyes on me anymore, and with the toy still lodged inside my sated pussy, I turn over on my side. He circles one ankle with his hand and lifts my legs so they make a wide V. I see him watch my pussy with the bright red toy sticking out of it.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he says softly.

  He reaches for the toy, pulls it out of me with a sucking sound, and puts it between my lips.

  I draw in a sharp breath and at first I refuse to open my mouth. I stare at him defiantly. Then slowly I open my mouth and the toy slides between my lips.

  ‘Suck it,’ he orders.

  I obey him.

  He smiles slowly. Then he bends down and sucks my pussy. Laps up all the juices.

  I enjoy the sensation of his gentle licking. When he lifts his head I sigh.

  ‘That was nice,’ I whisper.

  ‘This will be better than nice,’ he says, and thrusts his cock into me again. He pounds me until he comes, his hands possessively gripping my hips and with a triumphant roar. He lays beside me, the scent of sex all around us.

  'Cash?’

  ‘Mmmm …’

  ‘Why didn’t you want to give an autograph to those two girls in the club? It seemed a bit mean. It was so little to ask and it was obvious how important it was to them. It would have been something they would have treasured for a long time, maybe even for the rest of their lives. Years from now they will be talking about the time they met Cash Hunter.’

  For a few seconds Cash doesn’t say anything and I think he is not going to answer me, then he sighs. ‘The fans think they own you. They have the right to walk up to you anywhere they see you and get their little piece of you. For the most part I can put on my ‘play nice’ face and sign their CDs or little scraps of paper or body parts, but sometimes, like tonight, when they want to intrude even in my smallest moments of privacy and beauty, I lose it.’

  He turns his head to look at me.

  ‘Fucking hell, Tori, some of them are so crazily hooked they simply can’t get enough of you. They’re so mad they actually come up to me and tell me their rooms are shrines to me! Can you believe that? They own every Cash Hunter record, mug, spoon, pillowcase, doll. Because they watched every video and documentary and read every magazine article on me, they think they know who I am. How I think. How I feel. They think that they know the real Cash Hunter. The fuck they do!’

  He gets up on his elbow.

  ‘Cash Hunter is a fantasy. Created in part by myself, but mostly by the record company’s PR machine, and enhanced by a mercenary media’s ravenous hunger for celebrity scandal. The irony is even I don't know who the fuck Cash Hunter is anymore, babe.’

  He lays his palm on my belly and strokes it
absently.

  ‘The worst ones are the ones that stalk you and try to pass their number to you through any means possible. They’ll bombard the record company with messages of love and whatever else. They’ll come to gigs and they’ll lie, cheat and do anything to get backstage. Those are the ones who want to get with me. Like being fucked by me is going to change their lives in some meaningful way. There are some who promise never to wash again. I mean can you believe that shit!’

  He shakes his head and I feel the coldness seep into my heart. I see me from his point of view. The crazy mad fan he is describing was once me. My room was a shrine to him. I read and watched everything about him and convinced myself that I was in love with him.

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful that your fans love you so much?’ I whisper.

  ‘No, it’s not wonderful to be mobbed, or have your clothes torn off your body, or have girls befriend your sister just to get to you. It was definitely not wonderful when one of them climbed the gate, broke a window and ended up inside my house. She told the police she didn’t mean any harm. She was in love with me and was only looking for memorabilia.’

  ‘Well, I really should be going back,’ I say, and my voice shakes. My heart feels hurt. What will he think when I tell him about me? About the real me? The me that was crazy about him? The me that travelled across half the world to close the door on my crush? Will I too become that person he holds in so much contempt?

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks with a frown.

  I force a smile. ‘Sure. Just don’t want to accidentally fall asleep here.’

  ‘When do you plan to tell my sister? I don’t like this sneaking about?’

  ‘Soon,’ I promise.

  But first I have to tell you about the real me and then you might not want to be in a relationship with me anymore.

  Tori

  Since Britney’s birthday party is no longer to be a surprise, she decides to hold it a week later. Right after Alkaline’s concert in Milan, in fact. The concert is on a Friday and the party will be that Saturday night at the Hunter residence. The plan is for everybody to fly back for it.

  The days leading up to the concert are a busy time for Cash. He is at the recording studio a lot working on their new album. He works from mid-morning to late at night or even the early hours of the morning, so he sends a car around to take me to his apartment to make sure that I am already there by the time he comes in.

  Even though he would have been working all day and sometimes looks dead on his feet, he will still be full of pent up energy. Most nights he falls on me like a starving animal. After that he is always hungry.

  ‘Feel like some Chinese food?’ he asks that day.

  ‘It’s already one o’clock. I’m going to get fat eating so late every night,’ I grumble.

  ‘No way. You eat barely enough to exist.’

  ‘I eat a lot during the day, thank you. It’s all right for you. You’re practicing dance moves all day long and burning up energy performing at concerts, but eating at this time of the morning is bad news for someone whose idea of exercise is dipping a couple of chicken nuggets into barbeque sauce.’

  He grins and hands me the leaflet menu from Green Jade Royal Cuisine. In the front it bears the caption in red letters.

  ‘Eat more! The heavier you are the harder it will be to kidnap you.’

  ‘Thanks for the suggestion Green Jade Royal Cuisine, but I have absolutely no intention of foiling my kidnappers by letting myself get fat.’

  Cash laughs. ‘Fine. You can watch me eat.’

  He calls them on his mobile and puts through an order that would feed a football team. After he ends the call, he drops his mobile on the table, and walks over to me. ‘The food will be thirty minutes. Want to have a shower with me?’

  ‘Midnight feasts and showers. All dangerously tempting offers, but I think I’ll pass.’

  He cocks his head. ‘Strange how that came out as a question. It was meant to be an order.’

  I giggle. ‘I don’t know what kind of girls you have been hanging out with, but all this macho caveman shit doesn’t work with me.’

  ‘No?’ he asks as if giving serious consideration to my statement.

  ‘No,’ I say firmly.

  He nods, bends down, and scoops me up still laughing and protesting.

  Yes, we have a shower, a very interesting one. One that actually gives me an appetite. Flushed red and wrapped up in one of Cash’s big toweling robes, I sit in the living room next to him with all the food spread out on the low coffee table.

  I watch his large, wonderfully masculine hands peel a pancake, spread a thin layer of plum sauce on it and load it up with shredded duck meat. Then he lays julienned cucumber and spring onion on top of the meat, rolls it up, and takes a healthy bite.

  ‘So what did you do at work today?’ I ask.

  ‘You seriously want to know?’

  I pick up a prawn cracker. ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘We were laying down vocals for the new tracks.’

  I bite into the cracker and let it melt on my tongue. ‘How’s it sounding?’

  ‘They have to mix it further of course, and the finished product will sound totally different, but so far, it’s not bad.’

  ‘Good,’ I say and casually pick up a crab claw and dip it into a container of sweet chili sauce. ‘So … was Octavia there?’

  He starts building another pancake. ‘She popped in for a bit, yeah.’

  I drag the claw in the dip. ‘She didn’t stay?’

  He stops chewing. ‘Octavia in the studio? No. She just books the studio times for us.’

  ‘Doesn’t she stay to make sure that everything works and stuff?’

  ‘Octavia has many talents, but she’s no sound engineer or music producer.’

  ‘But she is a good manager, isn’t she?’

  He picks up a pair of chopsticks. ‘She’s a formidable PR agent. She can make the public think black is white and white is you.’

  I let my finger trace the edge of the table. ‘Cash, have you ever, I mean, have you …um.’

  He uses his chopsticks to pick up a piece of chicken. ‘What? Spit it out.’

  ‘You know, have you ever, well, slept with Octavia?’

  He gives me a narrowed look. ‘Fuck, Tori. What do you think I am? The woman’s my manager.’

  ‘It’s just the way she talks to you. Like she owns you, or has some kind of hold on you.’

  He looks at me incredulously. ‘So you think I fucked her?’

  ‘I’m just asking.’

  ‘Well, the answer to your original question is a big, fat never. She’s the last person you have to worry or be jealous about. She has nothing I want.’

  I nod, relieved but trying not to show it. ‘I’m not jealous or anything like that,’ I deny primly.

  He grins suddenly. ‘You’re not jealous? You’re totally jealous.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘So why all the questions then?’ he challenges.

  I shrug. ‘I just wanted to know where I fit into the scheme of things.’

  He puts his chopsticks down, moves back on the seat, then curls his hand around my wrists and tugs me so I fall into his lap. Slightly breathless I look up at his face. ‘Where you fit in? You fit in because I kind of like fucking my sister’s little PA.’

  I slide my hand underneath his shirt and lightly scratch the skin of his bare chest. ‘Kind of?’

  ‘Erase that. I fucking cannot get enough of my sister’s little PA.’

  I giggle. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s got me all knotted up and twisted around her little finger.’

  ‘Right. I’ll just file that under Fiction, shall I?’

  His eyes are suddenly serious. ‘Why? Does it not seem like that to you?’

  I stare into his eyes. ‘You want to know what it really seems like to me. The real truth?’

  He nods slowly.

  ‘You have so many choices. You’ll play with me for a while then you’l
l drop me. If I think it’s just sex then I’ll be OK when that day comes. If I think it is anything else I’ll be hurt.’

  He strokes my hair. ‘I don’t know what the future holds, Tori, but I know this. I never felt this way about any girl before you. I can’t even bear it when you talk to other men. I feel like ripping their fucking heads off.’

  I feel a rush of pure joy fill my heart. My lips widen and I can’t stop grinning like an idiot. ‘Really?’

  ‘God’s honest truth.’

  At that moment I really want to confess about my childhood crush, why I got the PA job to his sister, basically everything, but he takes a prawn and puts it in my mouth. ‘No more talking. I have other things planned for that mouth of yours.’

  Tori

  Sometimes Cash looks at me with something more than lust in his eyes, but some part of me holds back and I never reveal that I’m in love with him. I can never get past what he said about those crazy mad fans that build shrines to him. I know I should tell him, but every time I try to I just can’t bring myself to do it, and the longer I leave it the harder it is becoming to tell him the truth. I promise myself that I will tell him. Soon. Very soon.

  On the Saturday night before Britney’s party, I meet Cash at the front door in a racy black crop top that leaves my midriff bare, a leather skirt, and black patent leather boots.

  His eyes widen. ‘Well, well,’ he drawls.

  But I shake my head and, taking him by the hand, sit him down at the dining table where I have laid out my surprise.

  ‘What the’

  ‘Shhh,’ I say and set about fixing a dark brown wig on his head. Then I glue on a fake, but surprisingly real looking nose on his face. Using a square of sponge, I apply a slightly darker foundation than his complexion onto his whole face and carefully blend it into his hair, then put some on his neck too. The rest is easy. I stick on a moustache and small beard and voila he is pretty unrecognizable.