‘Come off it,’ I say more harshly than I mean it, holding onto the residual anger for dear life. ‘I barely had a sip before you made your move. You arrogant SOB. You must think I’m a complete pushover. Maybe you should try your tactics on some other female who is shallow enough to fall for this kind of thing.’ Like ninety-nine percent of the girls in New York. ‘Either that or learn some patience. Get to know a girl.’
‘You got me wrong. I like you. I like you even more now.’
‘Noooo… You got me wrong,’ I repeat, mocking him. I was thinking of the look on the face of the brunette girl the night before when it looked like he was hypnotizing her, and she was just dripping with desire for him. ‘In your own words you liked me for…’
‘Yeah. Your fantastic, outrageously beautiful ass and wonderful cascading hair,’ he says finishing my sentence, with a trace of embarrassment. ‘Guilty as charged, I guess. Who said honesty was the best policy? Next time I’ll keep the compliments to myself.’ Just hearing him say those words again in his sonorous, deep voice, without irony or embarrassment, makes me melt a little inside my panties. ‘I meant all that, Jana. I suppose I may have been a little too… real..’
‘What the hell kind of talk is that? “Too real”? Does that work on the other girls – that kind of cheap flattery? Do you think you can just show your face to a girl and then haul her off and fuck her?’
‘I can’t recall using cheap flattery. Or coarse language. You asked me to be honest, and I was.’ I swear he says this with a straight face, after what he just tried against the bar. ‘So I can’t just haul you off and fuck you, as you put it. What are we going to do? Get to know each other, as you said? Then can we… fuck?’ He says the last word with a cheeky grin.
The frankness of the conversation is a filthy turn-on in itself. Astonished at my own dirty mind, which is seriously considering the being-hauled-off-and-fucked option, I manage a riposte. ‘Get to know each other? The ice in your drink lasted longer than the get-to-know-you phase of this relationship,’ I say and pick up my glass to make the ice tinkle. ‘I’ll pass, if you don’t mind.’ Am I really saying this? Despite his obvious intentions, there is something tender and protective about the way he reaches out and half holds my fingers and looks at me.
‘Don’t tell me you didn’t feel anything.’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘But what I feel for you can be satisfied by picking up some guy in a bar. And I can assure you, this city is full of hot guys.’
This is a complete lie on my part. Even supposing I could pick up a guy this good-looking in a bar, the chances that he would have those delicate, sensual fingers, and beautiful lips are… zero. Let’s face it.
At the suggestion of me looking at other guys, however, his eyes kind of smolder, looking even sexier, as if he’s wants to take me regardless of what I think.
But for now those eyes will have to smolder at what they can’t have. As I pick up my purse to leave, I throw in another comment. ‘With any luck the guy I pick up tonight won’t summon me miles across town in my work clothes, and he will make a little bit of an effort before I give him what he wants.’ Or perhaps I’ll buy a vibrator on the way home, and fantasize about what might have been for the rest of the afternoon.
Chapter 6: Chelsea, New York City Tuesday 9 May
The next morning I surprise myself by how excited I am at the prospect of a night out. This is a day off work for me, and because I work the evenings, I don’t get many chances to party. Phoebe and I have seen so little of each other and the thought of partying with her is enough to raise my spirits. Phoeb is great fun, but for the past couple of months she’s been with Josh, and before that it was me who was spending my nights with him. It’s like Josh Lake has been running a divide and conquer campaign on our friendship, and I am really, truly grateful to have Phoebe back for an evening and in the mood to hit the town.
I’m ruthless with myself on my workout, and it does flit across my mind that I’m angry and trying to punish myself for the thoughts I’ve had about ‘John’ from the day before. If I carry on as angry and frustrated as this I’ll be in fantastic shape.
Back at the apartment I push myself with the weights until I think my arms will break. I may be pissy and frustrated but my legs will be like steel cables after a few weeks of this! Finally I sink into a hot bath.
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Yesterday the challenge for Jana Kidd was dealing with a super-hot rich guy who thought I was fair game as a lunch hour sex-object. Today’s challenge is scarcely any easier. I have to figure out what a girl wears to make an impression at Andrea Davidson’s art exhibition. It should be fun, but it’s a non-standard kind of a night out, with non-standard people. Especially on a Tuesday.
Bohemian arty? Straight from the office? Casual? Upscale smart?
I check Andrea’s Facebook and her web site to get some ideas. She has understatedly listed some VIP’s who have promised to come along. No Broadway producers, unfortunately, but lots of artists, one or two up-and-coming musicians, a ton of people in fashion and of course a bunch of journo types who in reality seldom turn up to this kind of thing. They include Matt Wiles, a solitary theatre critic, who probably won’t show up. But who cares? These people know other people and those other people throw other parties. It’s a good crowd to get into and Phoebe is right; it’s a networking opportunity. Even Andrea herself is worth keeping up with, because she’s such a great networker and a ball of human energy.
Besides, it will be good to spend an evening with Phoebe without Joshua Lake to distract us both. We were quite a team until Josh came on the scene five months ago.
There’s still a ton of time to kill in the day, so I take a look at Andrea Davidson’s personal web site. In fact, I discover the hyper-achieving Andrea has another whole web site focused solely on this exhibition at the Saul Hankow gallery. Both the exhibition and the site are called “Icons of Resistance”. It’s all very worthy, full of the battle against oppression in far off lands – the kind of thing that only the Andreas of this world have the mental energy to engage with. For the rest of us even pronouncing the names is hard work.
Andrea’s web presence and her “social media profile” are sickeningly professional as well. I think of my own Jana Kidd acting page on Facebook, and feel tired about how much I really need to up my game.
There’s a three-line blog post in there from Andrea on her site, barely an hour old. How can she realize the time to blog, by the way, when the exhibition opens the very same day? I read it.
Incredibly, Johnthen Trent says he will be coming to the Icons Launch event this evening. Not a guy you say no to. Let’s just hope this piece of sumptuous eye-candy doesn’t distract too many of the females from Icons of Resistance.
Johnthen Trent? Jonathan, surely? And why “incredibly”? I can’t believe Andrea’s spelt the guy’s name wrong like that, and who the hell is this “eye-candy” anyway? Someone she thinks is pretty cool, evidently, and who am I to disagree with Andrea? Yet the name is kind of familiar. Wasn’t he on USA Idol or something? Hardly super-cool Andrea’s type, surely.
I sit there in my bathrobe and idly Google the name Jonathan Trent. Not much coming up, just a bunch of images for a singer-songwriter called J. T. Gamble a few years back. Then I notice at the top of the page Google has asked me a question.
Do you mean Johnthen Trent?
Was Andrea correct with that spelling after all? Who would spell the name that way? I click on the “wrong” spelling and the search results change. One catches my eye.
Amateur video Johnthen Trent 1st performance 17 years-old
I click.
It’s a YouTube clip, all dark and grainy. The sound quality is awful, made worse by listening through the tinny speakers on my laptop. Some overweight guy in a Hicksville bar is drawling on about his next act, some local boy who he refers to as “Jonathan”. The kid, it seems, has been begging the fat guy for the chance to perform in his bar. The fat bar owner seems pretty pissed abo
ut the whole situation. The camera is wandering amateurishly around the bar as he is talking.
While I’m waiting for something to happen, I glance down at the viewer comments below the YouTube video clip.
Thanks so much for posting. Never seen this before. Truly astonishing performance.
YES! It’s really him. I’d heard about this show (his first??), but I always thought it was an urban myth. Goes to show that if you’ve got it, you’ve really got it. And he’s got it, whether it’s Madison Square Garden or this shitty bar in a trailer park.
And then there’s Amy from Iowa who has a different angle:
OMG! ** Wet panty alert!! ** And he was only 17 back then. Does that make me really bad??
Given Amy from Iowa’s reaction, I wonder if I am going to see some kind of male stripper, a juvenile Magic Mike, because the dark, grainy shot of the bar looks like that. What am I doing watching this? There is no connection with Andrea Davidson and her worthy Icons of Resistance, fighting against oppression. But hell, that’s what the Internet is about, isn’t it? Wasting time watching irrelevant semi-porn?
It seems like half the bar is smoking, so it must be a while ago. There is a tension-fug of bluish cigarette smoke and red lighting, and there’s a lot of hostile shouting directed at the next act from bearded guys near the bar. The fat, sneering bar owner is still rambling about this Jonathan. There’s a ton of young women in that bar too, wearing a lot less than they ought to. In fact, the atmosphere is half-brothel, half-illegal fightclub.
At last two teenage boys appear from behind the bar owner. One is holding an electric bass. He is all in black, as far as I can make out, and has dog-like hair coming down over his glasses. Geeky. He looks at his bass so he doesn’t have to look at anyone else. Not surprising given the ridicule coming from the fat guy. Finally the MC disappears and Dog Hair flicks on a backing track for the pair of them and begins to play. The boy can play bass very well. He’s nothing to be nervous about.
Clearly the other kid is “Jonathan”. He’s wearing the tightest pair of faded jeans I have ever seen on a man, above what looks like a pair of shiny, cherry-red wrestler’s boots. He has on a red leather motorcycle jacket, which is way too tight for his muscled chest and shoulders. That’s all his wearing. No shirt at all. The absurd, slightly feminine get-up somehow emphasises his maleness. The jeans are tight over his manhood, drawing my eye inevitably. Definitely skimped on his undergarments, this young man. The crazy red leather jacket over his shoulders is barely concealing his chest at all. It’s a fashion disaster but none of the women are complaining. They whoop just like he was a male stripper, but I don’t think he is.
One thing’s for sure. This young guy is not afraid of standing out from the crowd. His skin is darkly olive, with a fuzz of black hair in the middle of his chest. Very male, despite his age, and the way he moves in front of the mic just aches with masculine sexuality and outrageous self-confidence.
OMG, to quote Amy from Iowa. I’m beginning to get her drift.
The dog-haired accomplice on the bass guitar can play – they’re impressive considering the venue. But when young Jonathan (Johnthen?) lets rip his vocal chords, it gets shocking. His voice is like an avenging angel tearing a thousand miles of sky, quivering and passionate. The girls and women in that bar just explode into hollering and whooping. The camera is buffeted in the surge forward that results. Even the men are wide-eyed and stunned. I grab Phoebe’s expensive headphones and plug them in to hear better.
Doooo youuu seeeeee, I’m not scared that you love me…
Oh my Lord! He’s obviously written this himself, and the words aren’t brilliant, but boy can he sing. He’s got that deep power thing going on, with an awestruck intensity, like he’s shocked it’s even happening to him. He’s simply shivering with sexuality, and holds those long sexy notes for an age, hitting one gorgeous power-note after another. I can feel the intensity. The teenage girls are shouting and jumping. The camera is jostled and pans around wildly. The older women are looking on greedily, like thirst-maddened travellers looking at a long, cool drink. Something is seriously sexy about this guy. His voice is going through me, quivering and alive. I’m listening to music but find myself wondering how many local virgins this young man deflowered that very night. Heaven knows what it was like to be there in this hysteria.
I totally get where Amy from Iowa is coming from. Wet panty alert – if I was wearing any panties beneath by bathrobe. Enrique, Jared Leto Justin Timberlake – you’ve got nothing. Nothing. With that intensity and the voice and the body, that boy simply has to be amazing in the sack. Just has to be. I can imagine the teenage hotties waiting for him outside the bar right after this performance.
Everything has conspired in the last forty-eight hours to add to my sexual frustration. Phoebe and Josh Sunday afternoon, Mr Dark and Mysterious in his silk suit at the restaurant, and now an idle search on YouTube for Johnthen Trent. I give in and slide my fingers under by bathrobe. I cannot possibly go out like this.
00000
The weirdest thing happens when Phoebe gets home from work. I come in the living room and find her looking at the laptop. The YouTube page is still on the screen and she’s watching it and dancing at the same time with the headphones on. Such a sunny character, Phoebe. Always there with a smile, and for now I feel guilty for resenting her.
‘What HAVE you been watching, Jana?’ she shouts over the headphones, shimmying her butt. ‘You are a naughty, naughty girl!’ she hollers, mock accusingly. She must have clicked on the play button on YouTube, because her eyes have kind of glazed over. ‘I don’t care how old he is. This boy is hot! You’re a bad girl, Jana Kidd to spend your afternoon watching this stuff! Wow!’
‘It’s an old video. This guy’s coming tonight, to Andrea’s exhibition downtown,’ I yell back. I’m acting downbeat, guiltily trying to explain myself. ‘Look at his clothes, though. He looks ridiculous.’
‘This boy can wear what he likes. Preferably as little as he likes.’ Phoebe turns the sound up and she’s swaying her hips to the music. I swear her eyes have actually dilated. ‘I loved this guy when he was on USA Idol. Remember him? He won USA Idol, but refused the recording contract. Went off to make it on his own. J.T. Gamble he called himself. He was a hit for a while. Really big. He totally had it, but wouldn’t play ball with the record producers. Wonder what happened to him?’
‘Beats the hell outta me,’ I say. I never watched those reality shows. ‘Probably bald, doing drugs and weighing in at three hundred pounds. Endlessly regretting why he didn’t sell out and sign that contract.’
‘He was a poor kid, I think,’ Phoebe agrees, ‘Real trailer trash. Poor kids who make it big almost always go off the rails.’
‘He just invited himself to Andrea’s exhibition tonight,’ I say. ‘That’s why I was looking him up.’
‘Yeah, right!’ Phoebe laughs, casting me a knowing smile. ‘You were watching a hot guy on YouTube, Jana, is all.’
Phoebe takes off the headphones and turns to me. ‘He was a hot, hot guy back then. Look at him, those eyes! Wonder what he’s like now?’
She clicks to pause the clip on a close up. Johnthen stands there to ecstatic cheering.
Then – the shock, just as she pauses. I realize I’ve gone red and my heart is thumping. The boy is looking out at the screaming girls with a wicked half-smile. He’s looking directly at the camera, looking at me. But that’s not why I’ve gone red. It’s a look, not of satisfaction or joy. It’s a look of victory. He’s conquered those women. But that’s not why I’ve gone red. His face is stunning, perfect, with a dark intensity. But that’s not why my heart is thumping. His body is strapping and exquisite. But I’m not looking at that. The outrageously confident eyes of Mr Dark and Mysterious from La Serenissima are looking at me. John, JT Gamble, Johnthen Trent.
And he’s going where I’m going this very evening.
Chapter 7: Battery Park, New York City, Tuesday 9 May
Gaining a
greement with Phoebe on what we should wear for an exhibition launch at the Saul Hankow Gallery is a work of art in itself. She agrees the artistic, bohemian East Village/Tribeca thing isn’t going to work. Andrea has picked this location because it’s far enough from the Village or anywhere half-lively, so the guests won’t start to trickle away after an hour; also because it’s close to Wall Street and all the folks with money can come straight from work. For that reason, we need to blend in with the suits and business wear.
Also, I have to show I’m an actress; an artist among the suited idolaters of Mammon. This calls for a conservative black pencil skirt, with fitted fuchsia blouse, set off with a wild abundance of accessories. Chunky rings, heavy necklaces doubled up and crazy high, shiny heels. Everything down to the wispy, super-sheer underwear is chosen with care.
I would be idle to deny I’ve made a big effort here to attract attention to myself; not to attract attention from Mr Deep and Dark. I’d rather not even speak to him. But when he sees me, for sure he has to know I’m not hiding. I also need to be different from that damn waitress outfit yesterday.
I’m determined to be a fun person, this evening at least. I must be getting depressing to live with. Although Phoebe likes it that she and Josh are an item and she can smugly lord it over her frustrated room-mate, she also wishes better for me, and is kind of frustrated for me. It wasn’t the first time she’s told me to ask my dad to pull some strings. She’s not just bitchy; she really thinks I should do that.
Phoebe and I split the cab fare and make our way south through the buzzy, jazzed up relaxation of Tribeca and onto the concrete and glass canyons of the Financial District. The streets are still throbbing with testosterone and money as we ride down to the sharp, hard tip of Manhattan, toward Battery Park and the Saul Hankow Gallery. It reminds me why I came to New York; to be part of this magnificent non-stop party. This city rocks, and I resolve to be part of it more often. At the moment I’m either going to work or I’m pounding the sidewalks in my running gear, flitting around the city in the quiet times, like a ghost at the feast – looking on but never taking part.
Never Understand Part One ( Johnthen Trent Adult Romance 1) Page 4
