by Frost, NJ
“You know what. I don’t think I will be fucking you.” I say.
“But…” She looks about ready to rip my head off.
“But don’t worry. I won’t leave you hanging like this. I’m pretty skilled with these fingers.” I smirk as I slide one inside her.
I begin to finger fuck her nice and slow, making sure I pay thorough attention to her clit. Her body gives itself over to me, and I sense the subtle changes as she builds towards her climax. Her breathing quickens, and her wetness makes her slicker and slicker, so I finger fuck her rougher and rougher just like she needs it. She’s falling and rising, fucking my hand right back and then clawing at me, pulling me deeper, she comes – hard. Her head crashes back, and it’s like a demon taking hold, she spits out a whole host of expletives. They seem so at odds with that classy face and the ladylike mouth they are spilling from. Fucking like this lets you see right into someone’s soul, their darkest parts. There’s no room for shame. That’s why fucks like this are better off being anonymous.
I stroke her gently as she comes down, drawing every last sensation from her. She tips her head back forward and meets my gaze.
“Holy fuck!” She breathes, “If you can do that with your fingers, I’d kill to see what you could do with your cock.”
I wipe my hand off on my jeans and I cock an eyebrow at her, still smirking. That’s all the cock she’ll be getting tonight from me.
“Can I have your number?” She asks straightening herself out.
“Sorry, I don’t make a habit of giving my number out to random people on the street. Never know what kind of crazies you’re dealing with.” I wink at her.
She gives me a touché kind of smile, but I can tell she’s surprised and a little slighted. I guess she’s not the kind of girl who gets knocked back too often.
“Well if I ever run into you again I owe you one, and a pretty fucking spectacular one at that.”
With that, she disappears into the night, not looking back, probably home to a blissfully unsuspecting other half.
The heavens open as I make my way through Camden. This place is crazy and beautiful, and even more so on a rain drenched night, gilded by streetlights. It’s where I’d live if I ever moved back to London. Jamie’s house is out on the east side, just off Camden Square. The houses in this part of town are less stoner heaven, more media exec suburbia. It seems far too sedate for one of the most notorious rock star demises in recent times. Mr BBC and Miss Costume Drama are probably at their curtains, twitching away, wondering how the notoriety will affect their house prices.
The last time I was here was post-Christmas fuck up. Jamie was having a hard time from the label execs over his latest album and going through some pretty fraught shit with his mystery girl. He was in no place to help me, but he gave me somewhere to crash for a couple of nights when I had nowhere else to go. He talked me down from the edge of a complete meltdown and got me into treatment pretty pronto. How fucking ironic then that he was the one who got dragged under a few months later. It could so easily have been me. There but for the grace of God and Jamie Grimes…
There would be such little fanfare over my death. That’s not the case here though. In spite of the rain, there’s a crowd milling around outside Jamie’s house and a pool of defiant candles casting their golden light into the dark. It looks like someone has scattered stars on the pavement. This is what bereft fans do. In the absence of their Gods, they erect shrines – on their bedroom walls, on a dead man’s doorstep. Someone is playing his music. It rises into the night sky like a mournful offering, an appeasement to the rock gods. Those gods are so fucking brutal. It seems they always take the best of us far too soon.
As I stand at the furthest edge of this strange spontaneous wake, watching, wondering what the hell Jamie would make of all this, my gaze catches on a girl. Her face is heart-stopping and looks about as haunted as I feel. She’s gazing down at the candles, not really seeing them I suspect, or maybe wondering like me, how the fuck they are staying alight in this slow painful rain. She’s wearing striped pyjama bottoms tucked into huge combat boots that aren’t even fastened and a black biker jacket with an image on the back that is unmistakable. I’d know that jacket anywhere. It’s Jamie’s, which means – she’s her. She’s Jamie’s mystery girl.
My heart is ricocheting around like crazy. With anger and I’m ashamed to admit, with crazy lust. For a moment I regret that my cock decided to behave on the way over here. I wish I’d fucked the nameless model senseless just like I needed. Maybe I wouldn’t be aching now at the sight of my dead friend’s girl. No, not his girl, his fucking downfall – I have to remember that. Seeing her now though, for the first time, I understand. I thought Jamie was crazy for letting a girl get to him like she did. Now I get it. She’s that kind of beautiful. The kind of beautiful you’d die for.
So utterly and effortlessly stunning – even in her quiet grief, standing there in a dead man’s coat and shoes, she shines so fucking bright. I’m blinded.
As furious as I am with her, as much as I want to hate her, I still feel completely fucking captivated. My eyes don’t want be anywhere but on her. I want to confront her, to call her every terrible name under the sun. I want to hurt her for what she’s done. I want to see her heartbreak. But equally, I want to know her, to lose myself in her. I want to lay myself down at her feet and let her destroy me too. I want her. Fucking hell! I want her so bad.
It’s instantaneous. That strange fated feeling you get sometimes when you look at someone and know that, if you let them, they’d have the power to own your soul. But it doesn’t matter how much I want her, how much this feels like fate. I can’t have her. I promised. That’s the killer blow. And if I can’t have her I may as well throw all my energy into hating her. Promises fucking promises – they’re a bitch. But now that I’ve finally seen her, I see everything so very clearly. Jamie was desperate to keep this girl to himself. What a fucking mug! You can’t keep a girl like her. She’s like stardust, and us guys, we’re the star struck fools that she’s blazing past.
There’s so much darkness swimming around in me I want to blow it all right back to hell. I don’t want to feel anything. I’m thinking Benzos and I’m thinking enough to knock me out cold. Viper is my go-to dealer in London and has been since my time at St Martins. I deleted his number on my phone after my slip. Oddly enough I know it by heart.
The girl casts her eyes out to the night. Searching. I hunch myself over and watch her warily, but her gaze doesn’t hook on me. I feel like a stalker watching her like this. She’s twisting her hair, playing with it like it’s a fucking stress toy. She twists it into a tight rope over one shoulder, then lets it drop and unravel. She does this over and over. I’ve definitely drunk too much today. I’ve gone all fucking caveman, wondering how it would feel to bury my face in those waves of rain drenched hair, what she would smell like.
She looks up at the house. It’s in darkness now. Jamie’s Mum and Dad were here earlier. I saw them on the evening news. I wonder if she did? Such unlikely parents of a fallen druggie rock star – retired teachers, about as upstanding as you could get. I wonder what it would be like to have parents like that, normal parents, who care. The Stepwitch would have thrown a fucking party had it been me. Their statement was heart-breaking to watch – their unconditional love burning so bright in their harrowed faces. They begged Jamie’s fans not to glamorise his death, but to see it as a terrible, unfitting end to his story – to recognise that no one is invincible, that drugs can destroy anyone, at any time. It felt almost as though were speaking directly to me. Memories of the old days resurfaced – memories of getting high with Jamie, all the times I shared gear with him. Memories tinged with so much guilt and shame. But I wasn’t to blame for this. He’d kicked it all, kicked it so fucking completely, until her. No, it wasn’t me who fucked Jamie up, not this time.
The girl – her name has just come to me – Sylvie, sits down on the edge of the pavement, pulls out a packet of
cigarettes, taps one out and lights it. She’s staring at the road, scraping at it with those huge motherfucking boots, dragging away savagely, the cherry glowing like a warning light in front of her face. She blows purposeful plumes out. Fuck you, badass clouds of smoke – as though daring God to strike her down. I’m so tempted to go and sit down beside her, to crash a smoke. Fuck! I must be crazy. I want a drag on that cigarette she keeps punishing with those beautiful lips. I want to know what she tastes like.
But as soon as I have that thought, some other fucker sits down beside her. A real tosser wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his face and a hoodie over that. Who the fuck does this guy think he is? He’s an idiot obviously. Probably a boy band prick. That cocky swagger is unmistakable even hidden beneath the streetwear camouflage. He clearly thinks he’s someone. Sylvie doesn’t look up at him until he reaches out and strokes her face. He smoothes his hand over her hair. She leans into him, and he puts his arm around her, kissing her temple. Something horrible unfurls in me as I watch them. There’s an intimacy between them that eats away at me. It’s like acid. I could puke.
I have to remember that I should hate this girl – that she and her fucking around destroyed my best friend. I try to convince myself that that’s why this guy pawing all over her bothers me so much. That it’s disrespectful to Jamie. The truth of the matter is that it’s killing me that it’s not my arm around her, or me she’s falling into. I’m such a poor fucking excuse for a friend. I hate myself almost as much as I tell myself I hate her. She flicks away the butt of her cigarette, and I see her wipe at her cheeks. Something tightens uncomfortably inside me. The guy gets up and stands over her, holding out a hand. Don’t fucking take it, is all I can hear crashing round in my thoughts, please don’t. But she does. That tightness runs its whore-like hands up my chest and then locks its grip around my throat as he leads her away into the night. It feels like I’ve just taken my last breath.
On the way home I call Viper. He’s pretty shocked to hear from me, but I can hear him mentally counting the cash already, rubbing his hands together. He’d happily bleed me and my trust fund dry. He’s going to bring me a little bit of everything I like, says he’ll do me mate’s rates. I know his game. He’s a sly bastard with morals to match. If he didn’t sell such good shit, and wasn’t so discreet, I really would go elsewhere.
It’s funny; with a street name like Viper you’d think he’d be a tattooed, shaven headed hard nut. He’s actually a fellow ex-public schoolboy whose Daddy’s country pile is eating away at the family coffers. As the heir apparent he’s been forward thinking enough to build up a nice side-line in drugs and girls. He doesn’t look out of place on the streets of Chelsea that’s why he became my dealer in the first place. I could pass him off as an old school friend. He may be an aristocrat, but he’s no gentleman where money is concerned. In the hallway he leans up against one of the Freuds to count his money. Such a fucking philistine!
“There’s only five hundred here.” He says, fixing me with his cold eyes.
That’s a fucking fair price for 6gs of the good stuff, some K and a handful of Es and Benzos.
“You said mate’s rates.”
“Oh yeah, I did, but that’s fucking clean shit you’ve got there and it’s not like you’re living hand to mouth here...”
He casts his eye around the place.
“That’s all I have on me.” I tell him.
He narrows his eyes at me. He knows I’m lying, but I shrug my shoulders non-plussed and hold out the gear for him to take back. He waves me off, lets it go.
“Fuck, I must be going soft.” He laughs, but it’s empty and soulless.
“I’ll be seeing you…” he adds darkly, before he slinks off into the night to feed the insatiable vices of ‘our kind’.
I shut the door behind Viper, fingering the plastic package tentatively. I’ve got everything I need to get royally fucked up here. All my weaknesses in one illegal care package. I sit down at the kitchen table and lay the gear out in front of me. When I was at Jamie’s earlier all I wanted was to forget, to drop something that would wipe me out. Now I’m not so sure. I’m actually quite enjoying the image of the girl that’s burned in my mind. I’m not sure I want to forget her, I’m not sure I can. Her tumbling waves of long, dark hair. Her beautiful face, somehow edgy and yet classical at the same time. Her careless appearance, like she didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought of her. So fucking sexy it was painful.
I stuff all the gear into my jacket pocket, grab a couple of beers from the fridge and head for my room. I try to watch TV. I try to play the Xbox, but I just need the quietness of my own thoughts. I turn off the light and lay down. I can’t help but wonder if she’s lying down with him. Hoodie Guy. If she’s fucking him. If it was him she was fucking around with when Jamie went over the edge. She wouldn’t be surely, not when his corpse is barely cold. But then who am I to talk? Look at my behaviour today, with Bethan, with the model. I’m just as big a fucking whore as she is. I feel like a crazed animal pacing my cage, wondering what she’s doing and who with.
The only way I can still my thoughts of her and calm this unbearable restlessness inside me – without using – is to play. I left my Taylor in Brighton. My old battered Martin is perched in the corner of the room. It was the first guitar I ever bought. I think it was at least third-hand from a lad at school, but it has a great tone. I haven’t played it in ages. At first the strings clash in an awkward disharmony and I spend a good few minutes tuning them. I rest the wooden body against mine and let myself get lost in the comforting feeling of the music reverberating through me. Purging.
Playing the guitar has always been such a catharsis for me. My fingers run over the fret board, gently brushing the strings, teasing them. Chords fall into place as if by magic, perfectly complimenting the melody that’s pulling at me – at that part of my brain where songs come from. Words and notes fuse and then form like constellations in the dark. Writing is a kind of alchemy. There are no rules, no optimal conditions for it to happen. It’s like chasing a loose train of thought, a feeling. It’s like blindly falling in love.
Is that what’s happening here?
In the dying light
Of this star lit night
There’s nothing but a sad song
To hang on to
I’m losing the fight
To do what’s right
Over something so wrong
So take a breath, walk away
You take my breath
I save my tears
For another day
He’s gone
And now you’re here
Is this our moment
To disappear
But he takes your hand
And I watch you leave
And I lose my mind
Lose the reason to breathe
Fuck this night
And the candle light
That made you shine
Far too bright.
Fuck the songs I’ve sung
And the prayers I’ve prayed
I watch you blaze
then watch you fade
And now you’re gone
I just can’t believe
There’s a reason to breathe
Or to carry on
He’s gone
And you were here
But we missed our moment
To disappear
‘Cause he takes your hand
And I watch you leave
And I lose my mind
Lose the reason to breathe
I watch you leave
I watch you leave
I can’t, I just can’t
Breathe
Breathe
I can’t
Breathe
When songs first come they’re usually pretty embryonic. Random parts of an overheard conversation. You have to fill in the blanks and flesh them out. But sometimes they come fully formed as if you’ve downloaded them straight from the muse. Those song
s are usually the killer songs, the ones that are just right. This is one of those songs. It feels like a song I’ve always known, like it’s written in my bones.
I don’t want to think too much about where it’s come from. But there it is, maybe the best song I’ve written. I’d like to think it’s a lament for Jamie, but it’s not.
It’s for her.
I jolt awake. Shaken by a nightmare that flees the instant my eyes open. All that’s left is a shimmer of unease that tints the night with my anxiety.
For a moment I’m confused. I feel a body wrapped around mine. Not the embrace of a lover, the hold of a protector. The illusion of safety is a strong one, and my rousing demons sheathe their claws and curl back up.
The steady breath in the back of my neck is like the lap of the ocean, its rise and fall. The gentle beat of life, lulls and reassures – but too briefly.
The hand on my waist tightens and the weight of it is all wrong. The caress of expensive sheets is familiar, but they smell all wrong too. The dissipating sensations of my nightmare begin to gather again and everything seems off and out of kilter.
A fragment of my nightmare comes to the surface. Forces its way out like shrapnel. A needle. A syringe clouding with blood. Blood on my hands. Between my legs. My hand instinctively goes down there to feel for the phantom wetness. A pair of dead eyes stare at me, and my body begins to shake.
“Jamie.” The name mutates on my lips. It becomes a horrible thing.
“Shhh, it’s okay. I’ve got you.” A gentle voice brings me back.
I realise where I am – curled up on Chris Kavanagh’s immense bed, in his riverside apartment. The vast wall of glass beside us looks out onto the Thames. It’s still dark. The city outside seems timeless and distant. All the tiny lights are abstract, like the cold glow of stars. Up here in this gilded penthouse real life seems so very far away.
