The Bet

by J. D. Hawkins

  When I take her clit in my mouth she pulls my hair, grits her teeth and growls with aching anticipation. I fuck her with my tongue, deep and wet, bringing it out to flick it over her clit. Slow, resonant strokes, pausing at the end for a split-second to make her beg for more.

  “Brando, stop,” she pants, in between her moans.

  I pull back. “Tell me what you want, then,” I rasp, my voice husky with needing her.

  “I want you to take those stupid clothes off and fuck me.”

  It’s everything I’ve been waiting to hear, and I don’t need to be told twice.

  I grab a condom from my jeans and put it on while she caresses her tits, pinching the nipples, dappled light dancing over them as they bounce back. I stand up and watch her for an agonizing moment, my hands spreading her thighs wide open, my tip teasing her wet lips, before sliding my cock inside her, deep and sure. It’s like coming home. Her breathing stops for a second, her body tensing, and I ease back just a little and then slam back inside until I’m all the way in, and she releases a half-suppressed scream.

  “How’s that feel?” I ask. She only manages a satisfied moan in return.

  I raise her legs and put them over one shoulder, holding them there with one hand on her ankles, the other reaching for her breast. She clutches at my hand, holding it against her breast tightly, her fingers scratching and pulling at the knuckles.

  “You get me so fucking hot, Haley,” I snarl, leaning over her as I start to fuck her to the beat of the distant drums. Her legs almost folded against her, her hands clutching at mine. I’m hard enough to break bricks, horny enough to fuck for hours, but she’s tight and wet enough that I know I won’t last that long. I put a little swing in my thrust, enough to make her really feel me inside, enough to make her scream without worrying who’ll hear her, enough to make her pussy tighten around my cock with the unbearable sensation of too much bliss.

  “Oh my God, fuck, don’t stop,” she gasps, her screams turning into stuttering moans, her fingers digging deep into my hand. I smack her ass as her pussy clenches, wetness flowing against me, and I know she’s right at the edge, almost there. Instead of thrusting faster I slow down, making sure she can feel every single stroke. “Brando.” Her breasts shiver under my hand as she comes hard, breathlessly, blood rushing to her head.

  I can’t hold back any longer. I pump into her again, my need taking over, losing myself in the moment. I cum fast, the ecstatic heat of it slamming through me in groaning waves, and I collapse onto Haley and let her twine her fingers through my hair. After a few minutes of drowsy contentment, I pull out and ease her legs to the ground. She lays on the speaker-stack, arms out wide, catching her breath, even the light that outlines her shoulder seeming fuzzy now with post-orgasmic warmth. Slowly, I lean over her, and kiss her one last time on the lips. So soft she can barely feel it. She receives it sleepily, and smiles when I pull away.

  I wait for her at the base of the stairs while she gets dressed. By the time she emerges from the dark she’s back in control, a sly grin on her lips, that knowing sway in her hips. She walks right past me, and I lose myself in her mesmerizing ass as she ascends the steps. A view that makes me immediately ready for a second round. But suddenly I’m full of doubt.

  “Haley?”

  She looks back at me over her shoulder.

  “That meant something, right?” I say, slowly.

  Haley chuckles slightly, then turns to face me, looking down at me from the height of the steps.

  “No,” she says, with a sense of satisfaction. “It didn’t.”

  I freeze on the stairs. “Are you serious right now?”

  Haley’s smile gets even more condescending, and all at once I feel like it’s more than just the higher ground making me feel like she’s the one in control.

  “It was just sex, Brando. Just a bit of fun, nothing more.” She turns around and walks up a step before adding, “Just like before.”

  She continues to walk up the stairs, and I watch her. Half-crazed by that ass, half-stunned by those words.

  “Haley!” I call out, causing her to pause, though this time she doesn’t turn. “Maybe you want to believe that, but your body doesn’t lie. That meant something.”

  She snorts derisively before continuing up the stairs.

  “Just like before,” I add, quietly to myself.

  25

  Haley

  WE PLAY PORTLAND, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Austin. But it turns out that playing the biggest gigs of my life are the least of my worries.

  It’s hard keeping my hands off Brando, since he’s a constant presence, and each time I come off stage, flushed with adrenaline, all I want to do is drag him away to a dark corner and fuck all of my energy away. But I don’t. I can’t let that happen again.

  We’d already be doing it on the tour bus if it wasn’t for my other band members demanding all of my attention. After a mix-up in Portland where we end up staying three-to-a-room (I declined Brando’s invitation, of course) he decides to start flying out ahead of the crew and the band to make sure nothing else goes wrong with the hotels and venue arrangements. The fact that I can’t see him move any more heavy equipment should give me a chance to calm down, but even during the times when he’s away, I feel the echoes of his touch whenever I’m alone. A post-orgasmic bliss that refuses to fade. Like a drug, I’m itchy and thirsty for another fix of him – however much I insist to myself that I’m not addicted.

  Soon, I’m thinking more about the stolen moment at the first show than I am the next performance. I twist myself into knots remembering both how good he feels, and how badly he treated me. I almost break obsessing over the memories of him lifting amps onto the tour bus, his shirt off, muscles bulging, but a cold shower or my daily run-in with Lexi usually helps me get through it. If not, there’s beer.

  Eventually, I start actually looking forward to the shows instead of constantly twisting myself up in knots over each performance. It’s a big, cathartic release of all the tension inside of me, a chance to channel all of my mixed emotions and conflicts into something positive. Being on stage is the only time I let loose, and the shows are better for it.

  Lexi, on the other hand, only seems to get worse as the tour goes on. She’s a tangled knot of negativity, a whirlwind of tantrums and complaints. She talks in a language of bitchy put-downs and self-pitying breakdowns. Her massive entourage follows her everywhere, sycophantic when she’s feeling good, hiding behind each other when she’s not. Me and my crew steer clear, but the times I accidentally get close to her and witness the way she never stops berating or manipulating them, I feel like I’m back in time witnessing a head cheerleader gone mad with power. I almost begin to feel sorry for her; it’s as if she can’t help it.

  “What the fuck is this?!” I hear her scream as I walk through the lobby of the Texas hotel with my band. “‘Mildly interesting voice’? What does that even mean? ‘Songs that don’t match her stage presence’? Who the fuck is this guy?”

  I turn to see Lexi sitting with her entourage in the lobby’s lounge area, so many of them there aren’t even enough couches. She tosses the tablet toward one of her crew, almost hitting him on the head with it, then turns her head and notices me.

  “There she is! The fucking usurper!”

  She even talks like an under-threat queen now. My bandmates look at me, but I nod for them to go on through to have breakfast without me. I can handle Lexi.

  She gets up and stalks toward me, her long legs bringing her near me in a couple of strides. “You read the review?” she says, her voice low but menacing. “They’re saying you’re putting on a better show than me.”

  “Lexi,” I sigh. I don’t have time for this. I’m too hungry and it’s too early in the morning to get into a catfight. “It was Austin – they like guitar music down there, that’s all.”

  “Oh, that’s very fucking magnanimous of you. Easy to be gracious when you’re the one getting all the praise, isn’t it?�
�

  “Since when do you care about reviews, Lexi?”

  “Since they started talking shit about me, that’s when,” she hisses, leaning in. “I know exactly what you’re trying to do. It won’t work.”

  I lower my head, pushing down the instinct to bite back at her crazed paranoia.

  “It was one show,” I say slowly. “The reviews for every date we did on the West Coast were positive about you. I was lucky to get a paragraph at the bottom for most of them.”

  Lexi’s face doesn’t soften, but some of the venom disappears from her eyes.

  “Maybe you’re right about the hicks down here,” she says. She starts slinking away, but then stops and turns back around, the menace still lingering. “You’d better hope so.”

  I almost run off stage when the set’s over, my blood boiling, my hands clenched into fists, heat behind my eyes. I’m so angry I could punch a wall right now. I storm through the backstage area and continue marching down the hall, breathing fire and clenching my teeth.

  I stop, tense every muscle in my stomach, and scream.

  “Fuck!”

  Then continue steaming ahead with livid, aimless determination.

  Brando’s the only person who’s dumb enough to come near me, running sideways beside me to keep up as I burst through one door after another.

  “Haley, what happened?” he says, his voice muffled and distant beyond the cloud of my frustration.

  “Haley?” he repeats. “Talk to me.”

  I stop tensely and face him.

  “My fucking guitar! First it was…out of tune…then too loud, then too quiet. I played the first half of my set sounding like some amateur at a fourth-grade school recital. Then when Mike gave me another one of my effects pedals, it was all on the wrong settings.”

  “I don’t get it.” Brando shakes his head. “It was fine during soundcheck.”

  He looks to the side and notices Mike standing at the end of the hallway, carrying my guitar and arguing with someone.

  “Mike!” he shouts. The long-haired guitar tech runs toward us with apologetic confusion written all over his face. “What the fuck happened?”

  He holds the guitar up and shakes his head. “I don’t know, seriously dude. The guitar’s a mess. The strings are way out of tune, the neck has a bow in it, and one of the pick-ups is coming loose. I swear, I’ve never seen anything like this. Maybe it’s the dry air, but…I don’t know, dude. It must have got knocked over or something.” He turns to me and hangs his head. “I’m sorry. I swear, it won’t happen again. I’ll take the guitar off stage right after soundchecks from now on, and double-check everything right up until you go on—”

  “It’s okay, Mike,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder. I look at Brando. “I know who did this.”

  Brando waits, and I wonder if he knows what I’m going to say.

  “Lexi.”

  “No,” Brando says. “She’d never—”

  “Yes. She would. She’s scared that my show might get more attention than hers, and this is the only way she knows how to stop that.”

  Brando pushes his hair back with his hand and looks up at the ceiling. “Sabotaging your set?”

  “What? Is it out of character for her?” I reply, voice drenched in sarcasm. “Does it go against her strict moral code? You’re right. Lexi’s the kind of person who takes criticism constructively, and would be really happy for me if I started upstaging her.”

  “Okay, okay,” Brando admits. “It could have been her. Look, Mike, you make sure you take extra care with the instruments for the upcoming gigs. We’ll do soundchecks closer to the concert time, and I want you to double-check everything – not just the instruments, the amps, the mics, the lighting – everything.”

  “I swear,” Mike says, nodding vigorously before turning back down the hallway, still shaking his head at the guitar.

  Brando turns back to me.

  “Look, don’t jump to conclusions, Haley. I know Lexi can seem like somebody poured pure evil into a pair of Louboutins, but she’s still a musician. She wouldn’t do something like this.”

  “You heard Mike,” I say, skeptically. “Somebody fucked with my guitar. If not her, then who else? Nobody else hates me like she does.”

  Brando shrugs. “Lexi isn’t in touch with reality. She has hundreds of people around her – working for her, depending on her. If she doesn’t do well, they don’t get her crumbs. Any one of them could have thought it was a good idea. Lexi doesn’t have a clue what half her entourage does for her. She lives in a bubble.”

  “When do I get a bubble?”

  He laughs warmly. “I’m not saying don’t watch your back, I’m just saying that right now you’re doing awesome. And this kind of thing is the price you pay when people start noticing how awesome you are. There’s always someone, somewhere, who’ll try to bring you down. You’ve got to just roll with it, to be tough.”

  I let a pouting smile form on my lips, put my hand on his chest, and slowly caress his front from his six-pack to his pecs. “Brando, I’m much tougher than you think,” I say, before pushing him away. “I know I’m in this alone.” I take a few steps backwards down the hall, facing him still. “The question is: Do you?” I say, before turning my back to him and walking away.

  26

  Brando

  BY THE TIME we get to New York, the final show on the tour, I’m going out of my mind. It’s one thing to want a girl so badly you could fill a book with the things you want to do to her, but it’s a whole new level of ball-ache when she’s everywhere you look.

  In every town we go to, I get calls all day long asking for a few minutes with the hot new star, pleading music reporters sounding as desperate as I feel. The photo shoots we did for the first single start popping up on magazines and newspapers, her sexy eyes and slightly-less-than-innocent smile tempting me to tear out the pages and do bad things to myself like a guilty schoolboy. And to top it all off, night after night I have to watch her go on stage and become a guitar-playing goddess, making thousands of fans go as crazy for her as I am. Jealous every time I see her put her lips close to the mic, curling her fingers slowly around it…

  I was a bad enough wreck when I lost her, but being near her like this is a torture that even a war couldn’t justify. She’s growing with every show, getting sexier with every victory. It’s not just me noticing anymore, every member of the crew who works with her, anyone who catches a glimpse of her shows realizes that they’re in the presence of something special, that this is the start of a star being born.

  The good thing is that Haley’s progress is making everyone work at the top of their game. I’ve never seen so many people willing and eager to do the best job they can out of love for an artist, but the bad thing is that I haven’t had a moment alone with her since our unlit private encore after her first gig. I have to barge my way through a crowd of people every time I want to ask her something.

  But I’m not completely out of action yet, and if I have to play a little dirty, then so be it.

  I pace a little, standing at the steps of the MOMA. I check my watch and stick my hands back deep inside the pockets of my designer jacket. I miss New York, but not the cold – I find it much easier to look good with fewer clothes on.

  I notice her immediately when she emerges from the bustle of people and traffic, how could I not in those tight patterned leggings and the same leather jacket she seems to wear like a security blanket. I smile as she draws near.

  “Where’s everyone else?” she asks as soon as she’s in earshot.

  “Who?”

  She gives out a deep laugh, one that says ‘I get it.’

  “My band?” she says, deciding to play the game a little with me. “Aren’t we going on a tour of the city?”

  “Oh yeah,” I say, offering my arm for her to take. “Your band is sitting on top of a sight-seeing bus right now, probably freezing their asses off. You, on the other hand, get the special treatment.”

  Sh
e starts walking beside me, our arms linked.

  “What kind of ‘special treatment’ is that?”

  “You get to see New York with a real New Yorker. The authentic experience,” I say, leading her up the steps to the museum. “The good bagels and coffee.”

  “And the good pizza?”

  “And the best shops on Fifth Avenue.”

  “And the nicest drug dealer in Central Park?”

  “And the rudest, smelliest cab driver.”

  She throws her head back and laughs. I can’t help joining in.

  Even though it’s been a long time since we were alone with each other, it doesn’t take long for us to slip into same rhythm we had before: Easy, laid-back, and with more than a little sexual tension in the spaces between our jokes. We amble around the museum, dedicating as much of our attention to each other as we do to the masterpieces around us. Haley asks me to take pictures of her next to a Georgia O’Keeffe with the giggling excitement of a schoolgirl, and she’s anything but the hottest young star on the music scene, nothing like the magnetizing whirlwind of energy that her fans can never be near enough to.

  When we’re done passing amateur judgment on the art, we leave the museum and I buy us a couple of hot dogs at a stand outside Central Park. I hand hers over and wait.

  “What are you looking at?” she says, holding the hot dog inches away from her lips.

  “Just watching you take a bite out of that hot dog.”

  She grins and rolls her eyes. I half-expect her to turn her back and eat it, but instead she locks her eyes onto mine, and takes a slow, soft-lipped bite. I know she’s playing it for laughs, but the almost heart-attack inducing rush of blood to my cock is no joke. She chews with a smile, and after swallowing says, “Damn, that’s good. You satisfied?”

  “Mind doing that again?”

  She punches my arm and we laugh as we start walking through the park.