by Lux Zakari
“The tree house that’s still in my mom’s backyard?” James’ brow knitted. “How do they even know about that? Have any of them actually seen it?”
“Don’t get freaked out now. You need to save your shock for this next bit of news. It’s no secret girls love you. They definitely wanna do you. Some of them probably lost their mental virginities to you—you were probably the first guy they had sex with in their daydreams. And some of them weren’t shy about saying so—or about writing so. What I’m saying is that you, James, have fucked a lot of women on e-paper and in great graphic, explicit detail.”
“People write about me having sex.” James struggled to process this information. “Like, with who?”
“Usually some Mary Sue,” Wade said. “That’s the term for some poorly developed heroine who usually represents the author herself. Mostly, she sucks. But you—the hero—are into her.”
“It’s true,” E.Y. said. “You most often fell for some awkward alternative type who hates cheerleaders, and no one values her weirdness until James Venora comes along.”
James shook his head. “I don’t understand why anyone would write about me like this.”
“Here’s how I see it. First of all, the world never had anyone like you and Wade before—a bunch of wholesome, good-looking brothers with a shit load of talent who wrote their own music. You had no real predecessors. You represented the dream—kids who had the time, funds, and ability to do anything, and girls wanted to do that ‘anything’ with you. Your fans liked how it seemed like with the right girl, that innocence could become something sexy and wonderful. Then again—” She shot a smirk toward Wade. “It doesn’t have to be the right girl.”
“Ugh.” Wade slapped a hand to his eyes. “I was hoping you wouldn’t bring up that.”
“What, what?” James paled. “Wait, are you saying some of these girls wrote me as gay?”
“In a word,” E.Y. said carefully. “For some girls, nothing quite says love like James Venora getting it on with a dude. But for the freakier chicks, they didn’t just want to see James bang some random guy.” She shot Wade a pointed look.
“No.” James covered his ears and lowered his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “Don’t even tell me.”
“I’m right there with you, man,” Wade said with a disgusted sigh.
“I liked the Venora incest slash,” E.Y. said. “Most of it was far hotter and more interesting than the hetero stuff. I even wrote some myself once.”
James and Wade stared at their friend with unmasked horror.
“Relax, guys.” E.Y. rolled her eyes. “Those days are behind me, and have been since I realized real life James and Wade are gay enough.”
“But…we’re brothers,” James sputtered, feeling as traumatized and confused as Wade looked.
“But you’re both foxy so that made it okay,” E.Y. said as if explaining it to a child. “Well, at least, Wade, you used to be. But mathematically, it makes sense. James is hot. Wade is—was—hot. Together equals two times the hotness. Plus, your love is so off-limits and forbidden so it’s extra yummy.”
“Please stop,” said Wade. “I want to get to sleep tonight.”
“But ultimately, I just couldn’t get behind it anymore,” E.Y. continued as if she hadn’t heard Wade. “Like, what are readers supposed to root for? The next time you two will sneak off and do it? Okay, fine, but what’s the best possible outcome? You two holding hands and leading the Gay Pride Parade as Greer emerges from the crowd and initiates a slow clap?”
“Enough.” James couldn’t bear to think of Greer on top of all the other disturbing information currently being heaped upon him.
“In the end, though,” E.Y. continued, “I don’t believe in censoring people based on my personal feelings toward the logistics. I think you just gotta fight for your right to party and fictionally hump whoever you choose.”
James gritted his teeth and drummed his fingers on his knees. “Tell me how sleeping with my brother will get me women.”
“Um, it will get you nowhere.” Wade gave his brother a dark, incredulous look. “It’s not like flattery.”
“It’s flattery that gets you nowhere,” E.Y. said.
“Speak for yourself. Flattery gets me anything I damn well please. For example.” Wade turned to James. “That jacket looks far better on you than it ever did on Greer.”
“Y’know,” E.Y. said, “that’s how most Venora slash stories start.”
The brothers shuddered, and Wade pushed his beanbag chair away from James.
“May I get back to my presentation?” E.Y. asked. “I’d like to take a moment to review a really interesting bit of phenomena that’s popped out at me. It’s how many fan fic writers would have a heroine who refused to scream and turn into a bat-shit crazy fan upon the sight of Venora. And of course, that attribute would totally woo James. He always had to be into the least impressed chick.” She paused. “Yet, aside from ovulating in unison, screaming’s all chicks do at Venora shows, so I’m intrigued by this.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Regardless, James, in your fan fics, you’d always go for the most standoffish chick because you sort of like that she’s a hard shell to crack. She’s so original, but no one but you ever notices or cares, except for you, and that’s how you win over the cynic.”
James’ thoughts immediately turned to Greer and all her frostiness, but he just as quickly shoved those thoughts aside. Why would he think of his wife, who was in the process of divorcing him, when he was trying to learn how to pick up every other woman but her?
“Another element is that the chick is always awesome but she doesn’t know it,” E.Y. said. “She’s too quirky, too full of her Mary Sue ‘flaws,’ but those quirks and flaws are exactly what these writers—er, Mary Sues—wanted someone to love them for. The writer just wanted to call attention to the original traits she valued most in herself. I hope you’re paying attention, James, because this is going to get you laid.”
“How?” he asked.
“Don’t you get it?” E.Y. asked. “Fan fic is your textbook for making your life happen.”
“And how exactly do I make my life happen?”
“Well, James,” E.Y. said, “you just gotta go forth into the world and operate like every girl you meet is a closet Venora fan and always has been.”
James’ blank look had to have been obvious to E.Y., because she added, “Just keep in mind the following key lessons. One, be into her lame shit with great earnesty. Bonus points if it’s something in a million years no one would ever expect you to be into.”
“I.e., women,” Wade said.
“Another bit of wisdom that can be gleaned from these fan fics is you need to let the girl be in control, let her be the goddess,” E.Y. continued. “Encourage her individuality. Respect her for it. And always cop to how you feel. Don’t make her work for your affection.”
“All of this sounds semi-reasonable,” James admitted. “I don’t understand why this advice needed to be pulled from fan fic though.”
“Because, James,” E.Y. said. “This isn’t a how-to book. This is you.”
“It isn’t me though,” he said. “It’s fiction.”
“Well, then,” E.Y. said, “you have a lot of work ahead of you, don’t you?”
Later that night, alone in his bedroom with his sheets twisted around his body, James couldn’t stop dwelling on how people wrote about him. Yes, he knew girls were attracted to him, but he never thought they’d take it this far. It was a devotion so intense it frightened him.
And the things they apparently wrote about… Good Lord. Was that legal? It was all so foreign and disturbing. He had thousands of lives in these stories, and he’d only just found out about them. It was as though he finally discovered he was Tyler Durden.
What really kept James awake, though, was that E.Y. said that the stories depicted a version of himself the fans wanted him to be—and he apparently wasn’t anything like that person.
He knew next to nothing about women, as if that weren’t obvious enough. Before he met Greer, he’d never been on a date. He’d never even kissed anyone, aside from the shy peck he’d laid on some girl in the park when he was six. He’d given her a leopard-print pencil and passed her note about how beautiful she was coupled with some unabashed “I love you so muchs.” After that day, he never saw her again.
The band became famous when he was thirteen and a virgin and just starting to wonder if he should be embarrassed about that. The feeling ebbed when the girls started screaming wherever he went. They lingered outside the venue, the airport, the hotel, the restaurant—there was no escaping them. The thought was a relief. Even though he was too skinny with long blond hair and a voice cracking with change, he was wanted. He could have his pick of who to love.
Except he couldn’t, not really. He wasn’t Jagger or Bowie. He couldn’t cock-walk into a party, eyeball a willing groupie or several, and hit-’em-and-quit-’em before departing in the morning for a new city. Everyone always thought that being a pop sensation made things easy when it came to girls. He’d smiled mysteriously when they joked about him getting laid every night and having his anyone he chose.
But he’d barely been a teenager. From what he could tell, girls were foreign creatures who squawked when they saw him and held signs declaring their love for him. He didn’t actually desire any of them, a fact that heightened his confusion and fear. What was he supposed to do with them? He didn’t know now and he hadn’t known then.
He’d learned the basics of sex thanks to his dad from an educational standpoint, and heard and read enough about the matter but had no experience of his own. The lack of knowledge had been unsettling. Wasn’t it supposed to be easy? He was in a band. He wasn’t bad-looking. He was even a Tiger Beat centerfold. Still, instead of reveling in the rare superpower of his celebrity, he came to focus only on his crippling inadequacies as a man, a lover.
It was obvious not much had changed. As James drifted off to a restless, dreamless sleep, part of him wondered if maybe E.Y. wasn’t totally off the mark.
Blame James (blame_james) wrote,
@ 2012-07-02 16:44:29
E.Y.’s Reinvention Plan
E.Y.: It’s obvious to the world that James needs to undergo a complete metamorphosis in order to be successful in the single-cool-and-fine quest. However, it seems he doesn’t know how to go about it.
CLAUDIA: I vote he gets a hotel room, stuffs bits of shark inside a groupie’s twat like Jimmy Page and Co., and calls it a day.
E.Y.: He should at least go to a party, scream about being a golden god, and jump off a roof. I don’t know if he could pull it off, but that’d be hot. Then again, what can James pull off?
CLAUDIA: Not much, if the James Venora Can’t… list is any indication.
E.Y.: But now that James has a new life situation, he needs a new look to go along with it, and judging by his past fashion disasters, someone has got to help him.
CLAUDIA: Where do we even begin? I myself can’t dress for shit, but even I know the guy’s a wreck.
E.Y.: Let’s list a few of his style misdemeanors:
• The rattail
• The flipping ascot in his “Don’t Leave” video
• The red Doc Martens
• The leather pants
• The suspenders
• The nineteen million scarves
CLAUDIA: All you’re missing are the women’s jeans.
E.Y.: I just think he needs to do something about himself to make Googling pics of him fun again. I can’t stand typing his name in a search and having the first picture be that inexplicably popular one of him wearing wraparound shades and awkwardly holding his kids outside his tour bus.
CLAUDIA: In the future, all Venora family photos need to be left to the professionals at Olan Mills.
E.Y.: I’m picturing him in a studio-style family portrait, wearing ill-fitting pants and a silk scarf while everyone else wears turtlenecks, vests, and gold lockets. Then again, how else is he supposed to dress? He’s James Venora.
CLAUDIA: Yeah, the guy’s got problems. No wonder he’s himself. It is my sincerest belief that he’s bound for a Hasselhoff destiny.
E.Y.: That James. He needs to learn a thing or two in the worst way.
CLAUDIA: Haven’t you learned a thing or two? Like I always say: never gonna happen.
E.Y.: Bah. You’re terrible.
CLAUDIA: Don’t blame me, blame James. Hmm. I think I just stumbled across our slogan.
Chapter Four
On Wednesday, James began his nine-date stint on Heartlines’s tour with a heavy heart and a modicum of embarrassment. Heartlines was Creed, The Script, and Howie Day all rolled into one adult contemporary package. The band was what was popular now, which was more than James could say for himself at the moment. It was why he had, for the first time in his entire life, broken his streak of never opening for other musicians, thus his shame. His joining Heartlines’ twelve-week tour for a few shows was the idea of his manager, Steven Kelly. Apparently, in order to get fans, he had to remind them he was here.
Heartlines was fronted by Ryan, the stout black-haired singer, guitarist, and harmonica player with a fondness for faded jeans and pseudo vintage tees. He also often wore a vaguely cocky smirk, like the one on his face today as he approached James in the Heartlines tour bus kitchenette.
James forced a smile as he looked up from the Rolling Stone issue he’d been staring at for the past hour. Arrogant or not, it wasn’t Ryan’s fault James’ life was in such a sad, uneasy state. He’d tried to put aside his pride about being the opening act and focus on the fact he was touring and playing music, but not for the first time did he wonder if he ought to be doing it at all. How heartless was he to go on tour—no matter how brief—when his wife just left him, taking their children with her? He was a monster. But what was he supposed to do, stay home in a house that didn’t feel like home? And he couldn’t set things right even if he wanted to, if the cold look in Greer’s eyes whenever she saw him was any indication. It was hopeless. He was hopeless.
“James.” Ryan sipped from a short, fat glass of whiskey, no ice. “Get out of your head and loosen up. Have some fun.”
“I am.” James nodded with vigor, hoping to convince the both of them.
Ryan blinked and shook his head like he didn’t believe a word of it then settled beside James at the kitchenette table with a gusty, content sigh. “So the road, huh?” He gestured around them. “Pretty awesome, right?”
Awesome? It was a cramped bus. And technically they weren’t even on the road. They were parked behind the Arcadia Auditorium in Charleston with four hours until James’ set. His own bus was parked beside this one. After James had finished The Choice demonstration that preceded all his shows, Ryan had knocked on the door and suggested he come hang with Heartlines and some of their groupies. James had accepted the invite, eager to escape his sour, depressing thoughts—which had apparently followed him anyway. He could only hope Ryan was too wrapped up in himself to notice.
“After the show tonight,” Ryan said, “we’re hitting up The Wheel. The locals say it’s the best pub around. You up for it?”
“I don’t know, we’ll see. I’m already sort of beat.”
“Already? James, it’s three in the afternoon. Who are you, my grandma? Come on. I won’t let you say no.” Ryan leaned toward James and, after making a show of glancing around to see if they were truly alone, said in an exaggerated whisper, “I hear there are gonna be some mad bitches there. If you go to The Wheel, you’re guaranteed to get your dick wet. Promise.”
This was a songwriter everyone believed to be so heartfelt, sensitive, and sincere? James struggled to keep the shock from his face. “I’m good, man.”
“That’s not what I hear.” Ryan winced. “Sorry about the missus bailin’ on you, bro. All the more reason to go out, find some honey, and rail the fuck out of her.”
Though James didn’t agree with the sem
antics, the sentiment was now making a lot of sense. He experienced not only the humiliation of being Ryan’s object of pity, but a sudden rush of anger and loss. He was twenty-seven years old and had only been with one woman—a woman he’d given everything until she decided she’d had enough. Enough of what? He’d been faithful, embarrassingly faithful, and she was the one leaving him to move in with another guy? What had he done wrong in always trying to do the right thing? She got pregnant, he married her. She wanted another child, he gave her one. He did everything anyone ever asked of him, yet he always fell short.
Never in his life did James want to get laid so badly. He more than deserved it. He was owed it.
And at every show paraded hundreds of girls, most between the delectable ages of twenty-two and twenty-five, eyeing him up like he was a dripping ice cream cone. Here stretched his kingdom of ripe, juicy women, and all he had to do was pick one from the vine. The universe had just spread her legs for him, and he wasn’t going to spend another minute saying no.
His mind drifted to E.Y.’s diatribe that he ought to be Fan Fiction James, and again he wondered if maybe his friend was actually on to something. Did it matter? At this point, he hardly had a choice.
James knew he was awkward. Thanks to the Blame James blog, a lot of other people did, too. Still, E.Y.’s reminder of “You’re James fucking Venora” resonated with him that night, rolling around in his head like a rock star’s meditative “om” until everything that statement embodied rippled through him and he became lightheaded with possibilities.
Most of the crowd in The Wheel danced to ‘90s music with varied expertise and style and drinks in their hands. His mantra thrumming through him, James followed Ryan and the rest of Heartlines as they threaded through the bar at an indolent but measured pace. He surveyed the room and the women in it like they were all his for the taking, and considering the hungry glances he received in response, they were. A giddy rush of excitement snaked through him. Had he always received these looks and just never noticed? Well, he was certainly noticing now.
