The Men of Laguna

by Kim Karr

  Talk. We’ve talked about this. It doesn’t change anything. But this time I’ll put it a different way. This time I’ll be clearer. I get up on toes to be closer to him. “Promise me this isn’t going to end messy.”

  That’s when his mouth takes mine, and the kiss I wanted just a minute ago to ease his mind turns into something else. Something stronger, harder. Something that I hope is reassurance, but have a strange feeling is not. When he breaks the kiss, he presses his forehead to mine and says, “This isn’t going to end messy as long as neither of us let our emotions get in the way.”

  I didn’t love that. Not at all. Emotions are already in the way. I wanted reassurance. That was not what I got. What I got was reality. And I know I have to live with that because it’s true.

  The loud sound of the wood crackling has the Yorkies, Romeo and Juliet, lifting their heads for a moment from their beds and yelping, but then they resume their sleeping position, obviously tired from the long walk Brooklyn took them on before I arrived.

  Slowly, Brooklyn pushes my robe from my shoulders. And slowly I untie his and push it from his shoulders as well. Before he lets it fall, he removes his phone and sets it on the counter beside us.

  When we are both naked in the kitchen in front of the fireplace, I get up on my toes again and kiss him. This time he lets me. He kisses me back. This kiss is different from the last. It is beautiful. Passionate and sweet. He breaks it first to laugh into my ear when one of the dogs starts to snore. I put my arms around his neck and jump up.

  With no hesitation, no struggle, he catches me, and I wrap my legs around him. He rests my ass on the edge of the counter, not far from his phone, and looks at me. I nod, letting him know it is okay. I want him to video us. I want to be able to watch what this was between us when it is over. He taps the screen, and then leans his phone against the champagne bottle.

  We hadn’t planned to fuck in the kitchen. It isn’t where I thought I would make my first sex tape. It just starts to happen. His cock is hard between us, and I pull his ass closer with the heels of my feet so I can stroke him.

  With his warm skin against my palms, I rub him up and down. In a sudden swooping movement, he captures my mouth with a force that had he not been holding me in place might have sent me reeling backward on the counter.

  Again, I have this feeling that seems like so much more than it is, and I really wish it didn’t.

  Forcing my mind to let go of that stuff that might suffocate me, I switch from my palms to my fingers and allow them to drift over his heat and hardness. He makes a small, soft noise into my mouth when I circle his head, once, twice, three times.

  As if on its own, our kiss pauses, our mouths still touching, but unmoving. Too lost in the moment to do anything else.

  Breathing heavily and feeling unusually needy, words fall from my mouth that normally wouldn’t. “Tell me you want me,” I breathe against his lips.

  “I want you, Amelia.” Brooklyn presses his face into the side of my neck, where his hot breath caresses me, and a shiver races along my spine.

  I tilt my head so he can mouth my skin as my hand works along his length. “Say you want to be inside me.”

  “I want to be inside you.”

  “How much?” I give my palm a twist around the base of his cock.

  His voice breaks a little when he answers. “So much I can’t even tell you how much.”

  I find his gaze then, and heat flares vibrantly in it. As if unable to wait another second, he grabs my hips and drags me closer to the edge. Like this, his cock nudges my pussy. It is more than evident that I am wet for him, and so ready.

  And then he moves just a little more. I moan when he pushes inside me, balls deep, the counter at just the perfect height for us to connect.

  “Fuck, you feel incredible,” he mutters.

  “Oh, God.”

  Moving slowly, he buries his face against my neck as he fills me. His teeth press my skin, and I arch to get him even deeper inside me. When he bites me lightly, I moan, this time whispering, “Fuck me,” into his ear.

  He bites harder as he increases his pace, fucking into me, bare and impossibly deep.

  I put one hand on the back of his neck while my other grips the counter. His hands are on me, holding me in place, keeping me safe. Unable to otherwise move, I use my heels to hook around his ass, urging him on.

  As we begin to hit our stride, he pulls away just a little, and I drop my hand that was then tugging on his beautiful hair.

  When he grabs his phone, I become oddly intrigued as he somehow manages to put it between us, and starts to capture the connection of his bare cock inside my pussy.

  We both watch as his cock disappears into my pussy, and then as he withdraws, how slick he is with my juices coating him.

  It’s so hot to watch, but he doesn’t keep the phone close for very long before he sets it back to capture us from a distance.

  I know why.

  This isn’t going to last much longer. It can’t. He’s bare inside me, and I am surging on the way to orgasm, and the shudder of Brooklyn’s breathing tells me he’s close too.

  “Kiss me,” he hisses, regaining total control of my body.

  And I do, so hard our teeth clash. His tongue twists with mine as he fucks into me harder. When he shifts us just a little, it applies just the right amount of pressure to my clit, and that’s when I light up like a Christmas tree. Coming so hard, I scream out his name, and he swallows my gasp as my pussy clenches all around his bare cock.

  Not five seconds later, he goes taut against me, every muscle in his arms and chest straining, coiling tight. Words spill from his mouth, but I can’t make out what they are. He thrusts again, jetting deep inside me. His release is well under way. Soon I can feel the dampness between us, can hear the wet sounds as he sinks into me one final time.

  Brooklyn presses a kiss to my neck, just below my ear, and whispers something that I can’t hear.

  Pleasure consuming me, I don’t even notice when he reaches to turn the video off until the sound of him setting his phone on the counter alerts me to it.

  Soon he is slipping out of me. “Let me grab a towel to clean up.”

  I grab hold of him before he disappears into the bathroom. “I want to sleep with you tonight.”

  From under thick lashes, he looks at me. “I think you just did.”

  I tug on his hand to draw him to me. “I mean fall asleep in bed together.”

  With the gentlest of touches, he pushes a piece of hair from my eyes. “Do you think that is a good idea?”

  I nod. “Cam and Makayla have Presley. They will be so busy with him, they won’t have time to think about me. I’ll sneak back before the sun rises. It will be fine.”

  Brooklyn smiles at me. “Sure, as long you think it will be fine.”

  As of late, I am not sure anything will be fine…but I am certain Cam and Makayla won’t notice where I sleep.

  You see, I have this need to sleep in Brooklyn’s arms.

  To embed myself even further into his life…and I have no idea why, since I know the end is nearing.

  And there is nothing I want less.

  30

  Less Than Zero

  Brooklyn

  Francis Ford Coppola is one of the greatest screenwriters of all time. And if you ask me, Cameron Crowe runs a close second.

  Billy Wilder, though—he was the one with the brass balls. Pushing taboo topics into mainstream America when everybody else was afraid to do it. Shit, he introduced cross-dressing in Some Like It Hot and alcoholism in The Lost Weekend before those topics were even spoken about out loud in the forties and fifties.

  Today, though, things are different. Pushing the limit is almost expected. In fact, it is almost needed to succeed.

  As I type the words Fade in across the top of my page, and then the words Scene Heading below it, I wonder what else is out there that hasn’t already been brought to the big screen.

  The truth is that scre
enwriting is a skill that requires a vivid imagination and a job where such skill is very much underappreciated in the film industry.

  As students, we were told this very simple and real fact the first day of class.

  We were also told that creating a script that is fresh, flowing, and translates off the page is exceeding hard, but very satisfying.

  And that wasn’t a lie.

  Fangirl is well on its way to being one of those scripts, I hope. In fact, it’s almost ready for another pass from my mother, and perhaps a first read-through by Mr. Gerhardt as well. And still I’m sitting here, adjusting the headings, the actions, and the transitions, worrying that the simplest of errors will make it unreadable. Unlikable. Unacceptable.

  Amelia resurrected this manuscript and whatever happens, I owe her a lot for having faith in me and for reminding me that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Not lifeguarding. Not living off my royalties from Chasing the Sun. Not starring in a new reality television show. Screenwriting is my passion, and because of her I am actively pursuing it. Pushing my fears aside and going for it, I’m finally ready to jump.

  Once I finish Fangirl, I have so many other ideas I’ve started and set aside, but now I’m ready to pick them back up.

  The other day after I ate her pussy while she rode my tongue, she joked that she owes me for not making her sleep on the street the night she came into town. God only knows where she might have ended up. I joked that she saved me from a life of the blinding sun and endless days on the beach. She was kidding. I was not.

  Closing the Word document, the one that mimics the marked-up pages of the manuscript beside it, I look out the window at the surf.

  The week flew by. I can’t believe it is Thursday already. I didn’t see as much of Amelia this week as last. A, I worked more. B, Makayla was home during the days. And C, I didn’t try hard to be available when she was.

  Amelia told me she would be headed to New York this Sunday to talk to her father and clear out her desk. When I asked her what was next, she told me she didn’t know. She did tell me that Cam offered her a job, but she wants to settle her life in New York before she decides.

  Makes sense.

  I get it.

  I’m sure I’d be the same way. Close-one-door-before-you-open-another kind of thinking. Makes the unknown a little less scary. Fuck, haven’t I been doing that for the last three years? Lifeguarding to avoid putting myself out there? Shit, maybe it’s time to quit. Maybe, just maybe it’s time to move back to LA. What I hate about it is exactly why I need to be there—to conquer my fear of failure.

  Coming to this conclusion, I start to feel a little guilty about blowing Amelia off today to work on my manuscript. It was more about me trying to protect myself than anything else. Looks like I have more fears to conquer. Perhaps I should lay it all out there for her. Tell her I want more. Tell her I want to try to be that guy she dreams about.

  Yes, with only three days left, I probably should.

  Just as I pick up my phone, it starts to ring in my hand. The name Natalie James flashes across the screen. I take a moment to regard the phone, and all I can do is feel my pulse quickening with each terrible ring.

  Natalie is my father’s wife. Wife number five. She calls herself a dancer, but really she’s a stripper. Not the ideal stepmother. Luckily, or not so luckily, she calls me only when she needs help dragging my father out of some bar he crawled into after an audition bombed or his agent told him he didn’t get the role.

  If you’ve ever watched Entourage, my father is the equivalent of Johnny Drama. If you haven’t watched that show, then think Gary Busey.

  Rather than answer my phone, I simply cock my head to the side and stare at it with contempt. Sounds like I’m a shitty son, but the truth is he’s a shitty father. When I was a kid, he was never around. When I landed my gig on Chasing the Sun, he was always around. Looking to party with the producers, score drugs from the cast, or ask me for money.

  On the third ring, I wait…no, pray…she hangs up. Not in the mood for her stories, which are dramatic and go on and on.

  On the fourth menacing ring, I pause for a brief moment to gather my thoughts, and then begrudgingly answer. “Hey, Natalie, what’s going on? Is everything all right?”

  “Oh, shit—thank God, I got you! Brooklyn, Todd is in the hospital and—”

  Experiencing an odd feeling that I have never felt before, I cut her off immediately. “Natalie, what happened?”

  She immediately plunges into every detail of how my old man ended up in a hospital bed. “It was past two a.m.,” she tells me, “and Todd and I were at a busy intersection in a dirty corner of Hollywood, just blocks away from the Chinese Theatre. People were spilling out of bars and heading home. The place was crowded. It seemed safe. Sure, the Strip was emptying out quickly, but it was clear prime time was just beginning. Hookers were pouring out onto the sidewalk, circling the block slowly in packs of twos and threes, and causing a traffic jam as cars slowed to a crawl to check out the selection and ask how much.”

  I draw in a breath.

  She continues. “Your father and I were there to score some good, old-fashioned heroin in order to celebrate his being cast on an ABC prime-time network show.”

  I wait for her to continue.

  “We drove farther to another corner on a tip from a dancer friend of mine who lives in the area. And we knew we were in the right place when we started seeing transvestites and gigolos.”

  I say nothing.

  “We parked our car in a side alley and approached the corner on foot. A pack of about a dozen thugs loitered in the shadows of a brightly lit donut shop. Inside, two pimp-looking guys decked out in gold chains and with teeth grills, surrounded by a couple of haggard, masculine-looking prostitutes, were eating donut holes, laughing and boasting.”

  “And then what?” I urge.

  “I wanted to leave, but your old man bought a pack of smokes and lit up, trying to look as nonchalant as possible while he surveyed the scene.”

  “And then what happened?” I ask.

  “When he finished his smoke and edged a little closer to a dude leaning up against the shop’s exit, he asked if the guy had any smack. I hung back. The guy stared hard at him for a few seconds, just long enough to make Todd nervous, and then shook his head. Then, all of sudden, he swung his head to the right and walked away without a word. That’s when we saw a patrol car had turned the corner and was slowly creeping by. The people hovering in the shadows dispersed without a sound.”

  “And?”

  She sighs. “We both walked away. With no buy, your old man wouldn’t give up. He baited a homeless drunk down the street with a couple of bucks and a cigarette in the hopes of getting some information. He was told he had to go to the Valley to get smack.”

  “Don’t tell me you did?”

  “No! But we should have left then. A group of what we thought were young punks farther up the street were laughing, and when your father asked them if they had any H, they smacked him on the shoulder and said sure thing.”

  I start to get impatient, but continue to listen.

  “Amid a patch of shuttered shops, your old man whipped out his money, and got the shit beat out him. I ran. I had to. When I came back, he was lying on the sidewalk down the alley. With the help of some guy I promised a thousand bucks to, we got Todd to the car, and to the hospital.”

  Christ Almighty! This is an awful lot to take in. And who knows what the truth is, and what is made up. For all I know, they were trying to score a hooker or a gigolo. That’s how crazy the two of them are together.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  “Is he okay?” I ask.

  Her voice is low. “The doctors said he’ll be fine. Just a couple of broken ribs, some minor cuts, and heavy bruising. He should be able to go home tomorrow.”

  “That’s good,” I offer, and look out to the calm surf of Laguna Beach, and remember why the fuck I’m
here and not there in LA. Because of him and the stupid shit he does.

  “Can you come,” she asks, “and bring a thousand bucks? The guy who helped me is in the waiting area, waiting for me to pay him.”

  “Shit, Natalie, really? That’s why you’re calling me?”

  “Don’t judge me, Brooklyn. I’m doing the best I can. And that’s not the only reason why. I need you to help me get him home tomorrow. I kind of drove into a light pole when I was parking the car at the hospital, and it’s not drivable.”

  Running a hand through my hair, I want to say no. To cut him out of my life for good, but I can’t. “Yeah, Natalie, I’m on my way.”

  “Don’t forget the money. I have no idea what this guy will do if I don’t pay him.”

  Gritting my teeth, I answer, “I’ll stop and get the cash. And I’ll stay at my brother’s in West Hollywood tonight to help you get my father home tomorrow, but after that, please don’t call me again.”

  She hems and haws, but says nothing more.

  Hanging up, I call my mother to warn her the press and paparazzi will probably be hounding her once the story is leaked, but as usual, I get her voicemail. I leave her a message, and then call my brother.

  Keen answers right away.

  He always does.

  Sometimes I think he and Cam are the only two people I have in this world I can count on.

  And look what I’m doing to Cam. Going behind his back and fucking his sister. That makes me just as despicable as my old man.

  Without rethinking anymore, I decide Amelia has made the right decision, and I need to leave it alone.

  Forget the talk.

  Forget the idea that I could be her Mr. Right.

  Obviously, I couldn’t be farther from it.

  31

  The Wedding Date

  Amelia

  The wedding invitation stated black-tie affair.

  Although I was surprised long dresses were required, I was happy to shop for the perfect one.