Getting Real

by Ainslie Paton

“You heard me mate. You’re a safety hazard.” Glen scratched his head, looked about furtively, as though hoping to avoid being overheard. “Our tour manager is a bit of a bastard, runs a tight ship here. He sees you looking like that, he’ll take me off his Christmas card list.”

  “Yeah, you don’t want Reedy to see you like that mate,” Bodge chuckled.

  “Ah, everyone’s after an Academy Award.” He sighed, rolling his eyes.

  “They’re right. I know that tour manager. He’s fucking Godzilla,” said Rielle, coming up beside Glen.

  Jake gaped at them, noting Glen’s smirk and the challenge in Rielle’s eyes. He put a hand to the base of the tear and completed the rip, shrugging the shirt off and tucking it into the back of his jeans.

  “That do you?” He jerked his chin up defiantly, opening his arms crucifix wide and turning in a slow circle as the cast and crew cheered and whistled.

  When he completed his circuit and was facing Rielle again, he said, “Five-three,” punctuating the score by holding up his open palm and then folding his thumb and index finger down. She shook her head at him before turning to Glen. “I like the new crew uniform, but it seems not everyone got the memo.”

  “I got it,” yelled Lizard. He stripped off his shirt, dropping into a body builder pose, arms curled towards his body to show off the wall of his chest and his tattoo sleeves.

  Teflon followed, dropping his shirt, lifting his arms to his sides and flexing his biceps. Bunk was next, folding his arms behind his head, his impressive abs drawing a coo from Ceedee.

  “Shit,” said Glen, caught by his own game, pulling off his shirt and flinging it at Jake.

  “I’m in,” called Roley. He and How dumped their shirts in a puddle at their feet, both striking matching side-chest poses, one leg bent at the knee, balanced on the toe, twisting sideways, hands clasped to pop their pecs. Laughing, Rand and Stu followed and one by one every man on the stage doffed his shirt, except Bodge who’d taken the opportunity to slip back into the wings.

  “One in, all in, where’s Bodge?” said Glen, and the chant, “Bodge, Bodge, Bodge,” went up.

  Dragged out of the wings by a shirtless Bunk, the only man physically capable of making Bodge do something he didn’t want to, Bodge was protesting loudly, “I’m too old, I’m too fat. I’m not doin’ it!”

  The crew were cheering and Jake was laughing so hard Glen was virtually holding him up. Or maybe he was holding Glen up. Bodge had mentored both of them over the years. Generous with his knowledge, quick with a smack to the back of the head if they screwed up and forever falling in lust with the female talent—though he’d have flipped a switch if they ever returned the favour. Seeing him discomforted now was payback for many a trick he’d played on both of them.

  Above the hisses and boos Rielle called, “Do it for me, Bodge!” She sauntered up to him and put her hands on his chest.

  Bodge blushed. “Aw no, Rie. No one wants to see me without a flamin’ shirt on.”

  She said, “I do,” running her hands down his body, and lifting the edge of his shirt.

  He pushed her hands away. “Nah Rie, don’t.”

  “Will you do it for a kiss?”

  That brought a round of “Wooo,” from the expectant crew. Bodge looked around, glared at the group, silencing them with his gruff expression as only he could.

  Jake figured it was all over. He’d liked that hot look he copped from Rielle, he’d felt it in the soles of his feet, and he’d heard her whistling and calling his name. He’d like to hear her do that again, but without the spectators and while he had his hands on her. But right now he needed to scrounge a new shirt from somewhere.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden loud roar of a wounded mythological beast. He looked up to see Bodge drag off his shirt, slap it on the ground, and thump his chest, warbling King Kong style.

  The chant, “Kiss, kiss, kiss,” was airborne only seconds before Rielle herself. She jumped straddling Bodge’s ample hips. The big man, red faced and wheezing with laughter, caught and held her as she kissed his cheek.

  Now the fun was over.

  “All right,” yelled Glen, clapping his hands. “We’ve got a show to prep.” He glanced at Jake. “Shirts optional, but everyone back to work.”

  As the crew returned to the jobs they’d been doing, Rielle appeared at his side. She was all eyes. All over his chest. Wasn’t that something.

  “I’m three, you’re five?”

  He breathed deeply. God why weren’t they alone. “Yep. You gonna look at me when you talk to me?”

  “Oh, I’m looking. You got a point for the shirt stunt, right?” He nodded, but she was using magic heat ray eyes to make his stomach tighten, to make him feel x-rated. It was distracting. It was fucking great. “So I’m still losing?”

  “Yep.” He put a finger under her chin and lifted her head. He wanted to see what was in her eyes as well as feel it.

  She put innocence and mild outrage into saying, “But I don’t understand the game.” And her expression—Jesus, it wasn’t fit for public consumption, it was closed doors, it was lights out, it was sure bliss.

  He dropped his hand, allowing it to travel in the air along the length of her body, not touching but threatening, until it reached his side. “Girl, you invented the game.”

  She inclined her head, her eyes looked like liquid velvet. “Okay, but I don’t like losing.”

  There’d be other eyes on them, but he didn’t care. He stepped closer, so her breath flowed in a warm whisper over his chest. “Neither do I and you already know my terms for surrender.”

  “Will you give me a chance to even the score?”

  He wanted to touch her. He wanted her to keep looking at him like he was the sun she revolved around. “Maybe.”

  “A gentleman would.”

  He scoffed. “Since when have you ever been interested in gentlemen?”

  He got the flirtatious eyelash fluttering of an actress but a quiet response. “Since I met you.” She slid her hand into his; it felt like she was touching him all over. “Tonight?”

  He wanted to break character and say, “What? Are you really interested in me?” but he sensed she was still joking. Well that’s what the game was about after all. “You have a sponsor’s dinner function.”

  “Rand owes me one. My turn to jig.”

  He grinned. If she wanted to earn points, who was he to stop her? “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to go for a ride, Jake. Are you up for that?”

  She was the ultimate ride, like one of those fun park roller coasters that aim to frighten you to death by twisting your gut in loops. He brought her hand to his lips, as a gentleman might, and said as a scoundrel would, “I’ll let you know,” and left her dangling.

  34. Zen and Hunger

  Rielle had on a skin-tight pair of jeans, a fitted shirt, a lightweight jacket and boots. Jake approved. Clothing appropriate for riding pillion. Clothing that showed off her athletic curves and highlighted her obvious attractions. She walked across the car park and straight into his arms. Close up he could see she wore more natural tone makeup. She’d dressed down, taken the green pieces out of her hair for their date, if that’s what this was. He shook his head to clear it; he wasn’t going to analyse this. If there was any time to be Zen and live in the moment this was it.

  She said, “Hi,” standing on tiptoe to bring her face closer to his.

  “Hi.” He dived straight into her violet eyes and swam in their velvet.

  “You smell nice, like fresh cut wood, cinnamon—hmm,” she purred, “shame to waste it on the night air.”

  “There’s more in the bottle.”

  “And the bottle would be in your room?”

  He laughed at the way her lifted brow punctuated the innuendo. “Yeah, that’s where it would be.”

  “Maybe we can visit it later?”

  “Maybe we can.” If she made one more mention of his room, later would functionally happen in th
e five minutes it would take to recross the car park, commandeer a lift and crash through his door. But he wasn’t ready for later; later was still a problem. There might never be a later, only a now. She was a rock star. He was a roadie. This was never going to go anywhere real.

  Rielle saw the hesitation in Jake’s eyes and knew it was entirely her fault. She’d started this game, made it a challenge and the harder she played, the more Jake distrusted the outcome. That was the irony, the deeper she was falling, the more he walled up his emotions to keep his distance.

  Why couldn’t this be simpler? Why couldn’t this be like Rand and Harry? Watching them together made her heart flap little wings. The way they looked at each other—like they could see past skin, the subtle touches and gestures designed only for each other. The back of Rand’s hand against Harry’s cheek when they didn’t think anyone was looking; the slide of Harry’s knee against Rand’s thigh when they sat together; and more critically, the way they left themselves wide open to each other. They weren’t playing a game. They were building their own world. Karma. Rand deserves his happiness. He’d long ago earned it. She was still behind on points in life. Always would be.

  “You ready to ride, Jake?”

  He curled his hand around hers. “You hungry?”

  “It’s almost the same question.” She bent her knee and traced it up the side of his leg.

  He caught it, wrapped his hand underneath her thigh and dragged her closer to him. “What’s the answer?”

  “You first.”

  “I’m ready to take you anywhere you want to go.” He hesitated; a more confident man would’ve said, “so long as it includes you naked in my bed”. He finished with, “on my bike.”

  She laughed. He must’ve have known she was looking for another answer. “Chicken.”

  A smile played across his face. “So, you are hungry.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said, “hungrier than I’ve ever been before.”

  Their first stop was a restaurant in suburban Albert Park that was quiet, relaxed, with excellent food and discrete service he arranged in advance. Rielle was barely aware of anyone else in the room but Jake. They started out sitting opposite each other, shared antipasto, a dry white wine, and a conversation that after all the flirting and teasing was suddenly awkward, halting and stilted. Just like a first date; just like they hardly knew each other. There was so much she lightly, flippantly steered away from: childhood, family and the future, and he let her. They were both riding the wavelength of now, knowing it wouldn’t take much to tip them off and send them hurtling back to someplace before they were so enchanted with each other.

  She had fish, he had steak. They shared vegetables and bites from each other’s plates. Then over coffee, she moved her chair adjacent to his, put her hand on his thigh, rubbed her fingers against the inside seam of his jeans.

  “What are you doing, wolf-woman?”

  She stopped, blinked at him and lifted her hand. He captured it and placed it back down on his thigh, holding it there. “I didn’t say I wanted you to stop. I’m just interested in your logic. Do you think if you seduce me here at dinner, I’ll forget you’re a crappy conversationalist?”

  “I didn’t think we were about conversation; I thought we were more about doing other things with our tongues.”

  “Ah, you see right there.” He sighed. “Right there, is my problem, Rie. You bring me so close, then you slam the door and you expect me not to care about what’s behind it.”

  She looked away. “You won’t like what’s behind it, Jake.”

  “You’re not giving me the chance to find out.”

  Frustrated, she met his eyes again. “If you want me, you have to take me as I am right now, not how you wish I’d be. I’m not Eliza Doolittle. You’re not Henry Higgins, you can’t make me over, change me.”

  “So, if I say it’s all or nothing?”

  She removed her hand, flattened it on the white table cloth and rocked back in her chair, dropping her eyes. She felt him tense for her response. “Then it’s nothing.”

  “You’d walk away from this thing, whatever we have, that makes me want to forget my manners and screw you on the table right now?”

  He spoke low voiced, close to her ear, but she felt his words hit like the roar of a stadium audience. They blew out her senses and left her momentarily blind, fumbling to remember who she was and what she wanted.

  “I’m not the one making demands. I’ll take you exactly as you are, Jake. I think you’re perfect.”

  The sixteen-year-old boy still a part of Jake wanted to leap to his feet and announce to the restaurant that this girl—this mad, brave, talented rock star—thought he was perfect. The twenty-eight-year old heard her words and felt a wave of conflicted feelings threaten to dump him on the shore. He could no sooner walk away from Rielle than let himself drown. But whatever she was running from—whatever she thought needed to be hidden, weighed him down, like swimming fully dressed.

  He had a mouth full of sand. He said bluntly, “Let’s go,” signalling for the cheque.

  Back on the bike, he thrilled to the touch of her arms around him. There was no distance between their bodies, and she moulded her curves to him as he weaved through the traffic, her hands pressed against his chest, the helmet he’d bought her occasionally bumping lightly against his.

  She had no idea where he was taking her, but she trusted him and that in itself was something vibrantly alive and real between them.

  He drove into St Kilda and parked the bike. They were back in the same street outside the same laneway they’d shot the video in.

  Now it was dark and deserted; a laneway used by delivery vans and garbage disposal trucks, a place for unease to lurk. He wasn’t speaking and he was beginning to make her curiosity harden into something less compliant. Still, when he pulled her into the dark and backed her up against the coarse brick wall, she went willingly. But when he spoke, his words came from the place his fears lived, the place where he rejected taking risks with impossible odds.

  “You’re a bitch, Rielle. I should have seen you coming.” He pressed against her, one hand on the wall, one on her face, stopping her from dropping her chin as his words bit. “I should’ve run a bloody mile.”

  He saw defiance widen her eyes and it sliced through him. He dropped both hands to his sides and stepped back. “Now it’s too late, game over. You win. You’re under my skin; you’re in my head. You’ve drugged me and I’m terminally addicted to you.”

  Rielle reached for him, but he took another step back, ran his hand through his hair. A yellow light from a nearby neon sign bathed her in a dirty glow. All or nothing, kiss or kill, pleasure but certain heartbreak. Everything about this confused him, even his responses to her were beyond his understanding. Like the Bolt from the Blue gig, she was outside his experience and dangerously out of control. One minute he had her captured against a wall, and the next he remembered she played games and was a rock star with the world at her feet and he wanted to walk away cursing and not look back.

  She saw it; his conflict, his indecision. “Jump, Jake.”

  He knew that was the choice. Leap into this thing with her or dive away and never regret it, but decide it now. No more trying for a better hand, no more point scoring.

  He snatched her elbows and dragged her against his body, finding her mouth and kissing her hard. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he shuddered as he hugged her close. When he broke away to take a breath, he said, “I’ll take anything you give me, anyway you give it and I promise I’ll never ask for more than you want me to have.”

  Rielle used her hands and her lips to show him she’d jumped too. She kissed him like she was chasing fame, like she was sacrificing ordinary, like he was the world tour. Pent up desire flooded through his centre, heating his fingertips, railroading his senses with need for her. He forgot where they were when he tore at the buttons on her shirt. He didn’t think to stop when she let him slide her jacket off and tear the shoul
der of her top down so his lips could tease her nipple.

  Their touching was a frenzy of sensation: warm silken skin and sharp nipping, scraping teeth, hard grips and soft strokes. Jake found last night’s milk crate, kicked it deeper into the shadows and sat, pulling Rielle onto his lap to straddle him. He had her bare to the waist, his hands everywhere, his lips following, his heart on stage making music you could scream to.

  “This is what I wanted to do last night and to hell with who was watching.” His voice was shredded with want.

  She panted, throwing her head back to let him lick a path from breast to ear. “I knew it. You bastard, you made me wait. You made me need you.” In the dark, she was a live flame in his hands, sparking heat, feathering, undulating against his body. Setting him ablaze. Jake was white hot, without cogent thought, functioning only to adore and possess her.

  The headlights from a truck entering the opposite end of the laneway stopped Rielle’s hands on his jeans zipper; woke them from their dazed passion; both of them blinking in surprise. She laughed and he pulled her against his chest to hide her nakedness as the headlights flared and switched off, the driver’s startled face visible a moment and then gone.

  Rielle shimmied back into her top and Jake found her discarded jacket. “We’re not finished.”

  In place of an answer, she twisted her fist in his open shirt and dragged his mouth down to hers.

  Back on the street among the crowds eating at sidewalk cafes, Rielle laughed. There was insanity in Jake’s eyes, there was promise in his hand as he dragged her past shop fronts and restaurants and dodged waiters with drinks trays. He alone could make her feel the same exhilaration she felt when fifty thousand people screamed her name—this extraordinary man—a roadie.

  A rock star for her heart.

  The touch of his body between her legs and through her ribs and chest on the ride back to the hotel made her feel electric, like pure energy crackled in her veins, like she could fly if she wanted to.

  In the hotel foyer, she was recognised by fans and stopped to scrawl her signature on a man’s shirt and pose for some hasty pictures. Once Jake would have stepped back, given her space, now he kept a hand on her shoulder, his action saying, “She is mine”.