by Kailin Gow
I think I love you. That's what I'm saying.
But I want to know you better.
I wish I knew how to know you better.
I wish I knew what was really going on...
The audience isn't screaming and clamoring the way they do for Neve. But they're doing something else. Closing their eyes, leaning back their heads, listening. Maybe they too are thinking of a lost love: somebody they cared for, somebody they miss. Maybe they too are losing themselves to the strains of an endless love
After I finish singing, I'm flushed, exhilarated. My cheeks are pink and my lips are dark. Blood has been pumping through me.
This is better than sex, I think to myself, grinning.
The feeling is glorious. For the first time in a long time, I feel like myself again. A girl with hopes, dreams, ambitions that go beyond the Blue Room. For the first time, I feel like I have a place in the world: a space I've somehow managed to carve out.
Neve comes bouncing up to me.
“You've done an incredible job!” she says. “How have you taken so long to get us your demo?” She rubs my shoulder. “Listen, you have to keep this top secret, but the Never Knights have been talking about getting a second female vocalist. This band shouldn't just be me and a bunch of boys. Not for all our songs, but there's a few I think would really benefit from having two different complementing female voices. And a soprano voice like yours...” She gives me her card. “We're going into the recording studio to mess around a little tomorrow. Maybe you wanna come mess around with us?”
I look down at the card.
I know I should just throw it away: forget my chances, then and there. I should just go back to the Blue Tower and prepare for my next client and stop wasting time and effort on a dream that will never come to fruition. But somehow I know I can't bear to give this dream up.
“I'll be there,” I say.
The next day I find myself in a car with Neve and the rest of the Never Knights, speeding towards the recording studio.
“Okay,” Neve laughs. “Don't freak out. This is going to be chill. Just a few of us jamming, that all.” She sees my panic-stricken face. “Don't look so nervous, Staci. Anyone would think you hated singing.”
“No...” I stammer. “I love it, actually...”
That's what's so hard. Loving singing that much. Knowing it can never really work out. After all, if Neve knew what I really was, would she even be able to look me in the face again? Sometimes I think I can't look myself in the face, either.
“Hey,” Luc is smiling shyly at me. His chocolate-brown eyes are enormous, luscious. His lashes are long and dark. I can't resist smiling back. “Nice job last night.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“It's nice to hear a different voice once in a while,” he says. “You have a really sweet, poetic voice. Like an opera singer or something. I don't know.” He looks down and blushes.
“Come on, Luc,” Steve stretches out as we get into the studio. “Stop flattering her and let's get to work.”
We spend the whole day playing. We sing some of the songs from the Never Knights catalogue, some of the songs everyone already knows. We add a few folk tunes, for diversity – adding a rock and roll spin to classics like “Man of Constant Sorrow” and “Wayfaring Stranger.” I love the sound. I love singing these songs. I've never been happier, I think. It's like a dream – the way going out with Xander is like a dream. It's too good to be true. It's too good to be real.
“You don't write, do you, Staci?” Steve considers me. “Songs, I mean.”
“Sometimes,” I admit. “I like to write.”
“Could you play for us?”
“Don't be shy!” Neve cuts in. She hands me a guitar. “Show us what you got.”
The guitar feels so light in my lap. My fingers start to play, as if they're playing of their own accord.
I sing a song I wrote for Rita, shortly after her disappearance. The words, the melody, still brings tears to my eyes.
I will never know where you went or where
I will never know why things are the way they are
All I need you to know I swear
All you need to know is no matter how far
I will find you,
oh my love.
I will find you
Oh, my strange, strange love
Let me find you
Let me take you home.
By the time I finish playing, Neve and the boys have tears in their eyes too.
“Wow...” Neve whispers. “Staci, that's beautiful. Forget pop – your real talent is folk singing. Singing like this. Singing with meaning.”
“Get us that demo, girl!” Steve almost shouts. “How have you deprived us of your talents this long...”
I make up some excuse, I don't even know what.
“Promise us you'll get us a demo,” Steve insists. “Promise us you'll get us a demo soon. We'll pay for the studio costs – if that's the issue...”
“Come on, Stace,” Neve wheedles me. “It's a great opportunity. What do you say?”
At last I relent.
“I promise,” I say.
Chapter 6
I am buzzing all the way home. My mind is on fire. I know I shouldn't let myself lose myself in the fantasy of the Never Knights, the glamour and the excitement, but somehow I can't stop myself. Singing with Neve and the band was unlike any experience I've ever had. For the past few months, I've been so mired in the muck of the Blue Room that I haven't been able to experience anything outside it. I haven't been able to truly appreciate who I am as a person. I've been a siren for so long I've forgotten how nice it is to be human: to focus on my talents other than looking good and being good in bed. When I was in that studio, I think, I wasn't “sexy.” I wasn't “hot.” I wasn't “desirable.” I was just me: making the art I loved, making something creative.
It felt good. Like – really good. I hadn't realized how difficult it was to just “be myself” until the opportunity had been taken away from me. As much as I loved spending time with Terrence and Mr. X., it was different. With them, I was also a sexy woman first, everything else second. My body, the pleasure I could give and receive, they were front and center, always. I was a lady of the night: a fantasy.
But this was a fantasy of a different kind. Playing with the beautiful Neve, watching her long black hair fall over her delicate face and shoulders, letting my voice soar through to the ceiling of the great studio. It was like losing myself in a fantasy of my very own.
Careful, Staci. It's the voice in my head: cold, hard, like flint. Don't let yourself fall. It was the same voice that said don't fall in love with Xander. Don't fall in love with Terrence. Don't fall in love with anyone. The voice that reminded me that everything to do with the Blues was an illusion. Maybe even this, too. I could be a pop star for a few hours, recording with the Never Knights, but that didn't change anything. At my core I was still a Blue Girl: an automaton, a body without a soul, or at least, with the soul that I decided to adopt each morning for my clients. At my core I was still a nobody.
I don't say a lot in the car ride home. Luc and Steve and Kyle are all joking with each other; Neve is laughing and singing cheesy pop along with the car radio. But I just look out my window at the world whooshing by me: the neon lights, the sparkle, the sheen, the glamour of LA. At least, it was glamour to an outside eye, I thought. Once you looked closer, you saw the trash, the rats scurrying in the gutters, the flies buzzing on the Styrofoam containers left abandoned. Look close enough, I think, and you realize just how rotten the whole world really is.
“You okay, Stace?” Steve pokes me in the knee. “You look pretty somber for a girl who just wowed the Never Knights.”
“Careful with that ego, there,” teases Neve. “We can't all fit in the car with an ego that size.”
“I'm grateful,” I say, trying to smile as best I can. “I really am. It's only...it was such a perfect day. I can't imagine any other day being that good.”
<
br /> “Stick with us, kiddo, and you'll never go hungry again,” Steve leans out the car window like a dog, enjoying the breeze.
The sun is setting as at last we pull up to Blue Towers.
“Lucky you,” Neve says. “You're staying in one swank hotel. Do they put up all their girls here?”
My face flushes. “What do you m-m-mean,” I stammer, trying not to look quite so guilty. “What girls?”
“The waitresses,” Luc cuts in. “Those are some serious perks – unless you're making bank with the tip jar.”
“Oh.” I look down. “Yeah, they put up the waitresses here. They treat employees really well at Blue industries.”
“Sure,” says Neve. “Clarence Blue's a real philanthropist.” There's something sardonic in her tone – something that makes me wonder if she suspects, even just a little, deep down. “Don't forget to steal a few bathrobes,” she laughs. “Those things are pretty darn comfy.”
“And raid the minibar!” Steve chimes in.
“And watch all the on-Demand movies.” Luc stretches out, putting a friendly arm around my shoulder. “Hey, we should all go over to Stace's for a slumber party!”
“I...” I don't think so.
I try to find some excuse.
“Maybe one day,” I say. “That sounds fun.”
“Order champagne from room service. Watch the explicit channels,” Steve winks.
“Maybe just some Gilmore Girls and popcorn,” Neve rolls her eyes. “You guys can get crazy in someone else's hotel room.”
“Oh, we do,” says Steve. “Frequently. But usually you're just not around to see it, Neve.”
I love listening to their banter, their teasing. There's something so wonderfully relaxing about listening to real friends who care about each other. Not like the friendships in the Blue Room: where you're always secretly wondering if someone is actually a john....or a killer.
“This has been nice,” I say, as I get out the car. “Real nice.”
“Glad you think so, Stace!” Neve says. “We've got to do this again, sometime.”
And with that they drive off, leaving me alone in front of the Blue Towers. At sunset, the tower almost looks like it's burning.
I arrive back to my room to find the door unlocked.
My heart beats faster in surprise as I tentatively push the door open.
“Hello?” I whisper.
“Babe...”
His voice makes my knees week. Terrence is sitting on the bed, grinning up at me. His wicked smile makes my heart beat even faster than if there had been actual danger there. Just looking at him makes me flush with arousal. I want him, I think, and wanting him is devastating.
“Terrence?” I try to keep my voice neutral. “What are you doing here? Do we have an appointment? I'm not even dressed up...”
“Don't worry about it, babe...” His voice is husky with need. “I want you just the way you are.”
He doesn't even stop for pleasantries.
In a heartbeat he is on his feet, moving towards me, grabbing my wrists and pinning them up against the wall of the suite foyer. Already he is ripping off my clothes, tearing buttons off my shirt with his teeth. I don't even have a second to savor what's happening, savor how he rips my panties off and tears the lace, because no sooner do I catch my breath to speak than he is inside me, thrusting with an intensity I have never before known. This is not the tender, sensual love of last time we met. This is need, pure and simple: Terrence needs me, and he needs to come, and somehow the knowledge of his desperation affords me more pleasure than if he were focusing on me directly.
I have made him do this, I think. I have made him so crazed with desire.
I hate to admit it, but I like this power.
Am I like Roni Taylor? I half-wonder, in a part of myself that is darkness. But I cannot focus, not with Terrence inside of me, not with the feeling of him flooding through me, not with this ecstasy.
“Oh, oh, oh,” I cry, each time notching louder and louder. My back is arched. My hair is thrown back all around me, tangled.
Then he comes and cries out my name, shuddering. We are still standing against the wall.
He takes a moment to catch his breath. His sweat is still on me: beads of sweat.
“Terrence...”
“Come on.” His eye blaze with hunger. “Your turn.”
Then he picks me up as if I weigh nothing and carries me to the bed. He spreads my legs apart and kneels between them, running his tongue up my inner thigh, his fingers delving where his manhood has been only moments before.
He knows how to make me scream. His own need spent, he is clear-headed enough to focus on my body: playing it masterfully. He knows every muscle, every nerve. He knows where to lick and where to merely caress, where to bite. He knows me so well.
When I come, it is earth-shattering. Tears spring to my eyes. I scream so loudly I worry that the others have heard. But no doubt-they have soundproofed the room for precisely this sort of thing.
“There...” he laughs, when at last I am splayed out exhausted in the sheets. “I guess I've still got it, huh.”
“You could say that...” I grin.
“Mmmm...” He kisses my stomach. “I love the way you smell. I love the way you taste.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask him. “I thought you were out of town.”
“I was,” he says. His eyes laugh, but I see a darkness in them I don't recognize. “But I missed you. I've been under a lot of stress, lately.”
“Because of the company?”
“Yes...but not just that.” His gaze is so intense. I almost don't recognize it. I can count on one hand the number of times in my life I've seen Terrence serious.
“What is it, Terrence?”
“I have...a friend,” he says. He struggles to get out the words. “She's not well. But I don't want to burden you with all this, Staci. I just want to come here, to make love to you.”
Something in me resists this. Who is this friend? Why can't he tell me about her? Am I just a place for him to expend his excess libido?
“You can tell me, Terrence,” I try.
But he shuts me down.
“Sorry, Staci,” he says. “But there are some things it's better for you not to know. Let's just spend the night together, okay? Let's just make love like the old times. I need you. I need your body right now.”
We make love all night. Just like all times. Just the way he wants. I give into the force of my needs. We are in each other's bodies from dusk until dawn, our limbs entwining, our sweat melding into a single heat. I love the way he brushes the hair out of my face. I love the way he knows how to enter me: me on top, me on the bottom, him from behind. It is true ecstasy.
But in the morning, I know, the fantasy is over. We are still strangers.
As dawn breaks out over the horizon, Terrence's phone goes off. He picks it up, and I notice how careful he is to hide the phone from me.
“I have to go.” His face is dark.
“What is it, Terrence?”
“My friend – Virginia. She's not well. Things don't look so good for her.”
I can't help it. A blush comes over my face at the mention of this girl's name. Virginia. Another girl in Terrence's life.
I'm so stupid, I think. Of course Terrence is seeing other girls. I'm seeing other men, after all. It's only fair. We've never asked monogamy from each other. Yet having him throw her in my face like this – I can't help feeling a little hurt.
“Virginia is like a sister to me,” Terrence says. It's as if he sees my discomfort. “I care for her very much.”
“You've never mentioned her before,” I say. I try to sound playful.
“I'm sorry, Stace,” he says. He does not meet my eyes. “I have to go.”
And with that, he's off. Leaving me sitting, naked in my hotel room. Once again alone.
Chapter 7
I spend the rest of the morning staring out my window, looking at the dawn, turning over
the events of last night in my mind again and again. I feel like a crazy person. What is going on with me and Terrence?
Part of me thinks this is normal. I'm not entitled to anything, after all. Why should I be? I'm not Terrence's girlfriend. I'm his whore, plain and simple. He pays me for my body. He pays me for my time. He pays me to close my eyes and scream in ecstasy as I come. He's Mr. O, now. Just like all the others. Even if Virginia is more than just “like a sister”, more than just a friend, even if Virginia were his girlfriend or wife-to-be – what did it matter? I do not demand fidelity. I had that chance and I threw it away to be part of the Blue Room, to find Rita's killer. I am seeing other men, too: Mr. X. still makes me swoon every time I think about him. And am I really so naïve to think that I won't start seeing other men in the future, too? Men who are really married, who love their wives, even, who just want a respite from the drudgery of their day-to-day existence? Stupid Staci, I berate myself. Stop acting like Terrence is your boyfriend. Stop acting like you care about him.
But it stings, and I can't deny it. Seeing Terrence Blue just walk like that out of my room, out of my life, refusing to share some deep and meaningful part of his existence – it hurts me more than I realize. I don't even acknowledge to myself that there are hot tears running down my cheeks.
What if it had been different, I wonder. Could it even have been different – even if I wanted it to be? What if Terrence and I had met under other circumstances – circumstances under which I wasn't a Blue Girl but a normal girl, like the pretend-girl Mr. X. met in the gym. If he hadn't had sex with me days after I'd lost my virginity to Mr. X? What then? Could we have been a normal couple – Staci and Terrence, going out to dinner. Staci and Terrence, going to the movies. Could this have made us happy? I don't even know anymore. I'm not even sure who I really am, underneath the makeup, underneath all the layers of fantasy. Is there even a person called Staci Atussi anymore? Or am I just a collection of attitudes and poses, beautiful hair and sleek dresses, sparkling diamonds and well-tossed pleasantries? If only I knew who I really was. If only I knew what would become of me.
