Teenage groupie XXVII

We met up with AJ at the bar being seduced by two older heavily endowed female fans. Nick instantly pulled him away from the eager fans and walked him over to a more secluded section of the bar to discuss our covert operation. The guys began to talk all at once.

“Okay, you go in with key.”

“Tell him how your heart has been pounding for him.”

“Put the rose petals on the floor.”

“Play his favorite song, some mood music that’s fine.”

“Be sincere, whatever you do sound sincere.”

“And intense, look into his eyes, guys like that kind of stuff.”

I couldn’t make out which words to take. It all seemed so unreal. Me, beg a man for his affections: Dr Harrow would have a field day with this at our next session. Confront your emotions Nikki, confront that part of you, you have kept stored away for so long, don’t be afraid to hurt or scream. I could hear his wise words echoing in my head. I guessed this is what he meant by “confront”.

The plan was simple: Go up to the room with the key we got from his bodyguard, stay there and wait until the cell phone rang, informing me that he was on his way up to the room. He was going to come up alone to his room because the guys had set it up so that the others would be held up by some other business, and hopefully any female companions wouldn’t besiege him. And when he comes in, I just go for him, spewing out my guts in pleas and advances, confronting so to speak. It was a shaky plan but one I hoped would definitely work.

As the guys spoke all at once, I suddenly felt my head being engulfed by all the suggestions and intrinsic detailing. I began to gasp for air feeling a near panic attack. I excused myself and ran to the ladies room in the lobby to squirt some water on my face.

As I looked at my face in the mirror, the image that came to me was of fear and panic at the romantic missionary journey I was about to embark upon. I found myself talking to my self aloud unaware if anyone else was listening. “It’s going to be okay, Nikki. It’s going to be okay.”

This would have been a shocking sight for someone else besides me in the bathroom to hear, but the ladies inside it had busied themselves so much with adjusting their make-up and clothes that they didn’t really care if the world was crashing in at that moment.

There were 2 of them, a taller slender one with lots of freshly applied makeup and a nice tattoo on her shoulder that said, I rock and the other one was shorter with sunlight blonde hair and a lot less makeup. The taller one left the bathroom hurriedly, shouting out to her friend. “I’m leaving, I can’t wait for you to take a smoke in here.” With that she walked off, clanking her high heels on the concrete floor, no less angry than her tone had implied.

The blonde one, indifferent to her friend’s outburst, pulled out a cigarette from her purse and clasped the cigarette with her lips as she rummaged the tiny purse in search of a lighter. Unsuccessful, she glanced up at me for a second, and without thinking she walked to meet me with the cigarette still in her mouth and her face buried in her purse. “I’m sorry, you don’t seem to have a light, would you?”

Her voice had given her away, and for a moment I remembered who that taunting voice belonged to, someone from my past, someone I despised, someone I hadn’t expected to run into in a ladies room.

“Vikki?” I asked, aghast.

She looked up from her purse, ready to question how in the world I knew her name. She saw my face and she squinted for about half a second trying to make out my face, when she did, she stepped back and hissed loudly. “Oh, it’s you…what in the world happened to your hair…you look like a virgin, could hardly recognize your foolish ass,” she murmured, continuing with her search, maybe in an effort to avoid my face.

“Nice to meet you too,” I accepted her rude attempt of pleasantries boldly. “What are you doing here?” I questioned still shocked to meet her here, looking well, blonde. What happened to the Gothic look? It had totally disappeared, leaving the mature teen fan look with bleached blonde hair and decent---though skimpy---clothes to surface. I could tell now that she had gorgeous blue eyes, underneath all that heavy mascara she normally painted on, and gorgeous streamlined lips. You could almost mistake her for a lady!

Ignoring my questioning, she frantically poured out the contents of her purse on the bathroom sink, and with her frail fingers she rummaged through the array of condom wraps, a diaphragm container, makeup kit, hairbrush, assorted lip liners and fruity bubblegum packets for the elusive lighter, swearing and cursing as she went along. She found it: It was small and black, chipped at the edges with the name of a hotel where she nicked it form written across it, but that had chipped away too. Instantly she lit her cigarette, sucking in a nice deserved drag. That was when she acknowledged me, answering, “I’m here to see *Nsync,” she began. “Heard the Italian one, Joey likes blondes.” She patted her bleached blonde mane as she spoke, tweaking it with her forefinger. “Didn’t know I was a fan, did you Lolita? Well I am. You know they are pretty big now…almost bigger than Backstreet too.” She puffed the smoke into my face in an effort to humiliate me. “So how’s AJ?” she asked eyeing me ferociously I could read contempt written in that question. “Heard he’s in the neighborhood…how’s his skinny little ass doing…how many punches has he tossed your way…” she took another drag and gave me a realization look. “Oh…I see…is that why you’re here, to rub AJ in my face again?” She sneered, clutching her stick like her life depended on it.

I stood waiting for some snide remark to escape from my mouth, something quite as hurtful as the ones she had thrown my way all evening. But nothing could. Instead I was filled with pity. Another image from my past had confronted me, there in front of me, this time in the person of Vikki, a fellow teen groupie. And looking at her and remembering my story I just knew she certainly wasn’t there for the music, she was there to get away from whatever life she had left behind, to find solace in some artist’s arms and to live the rock and roll dream some of us, including me, had always dreamed about. I felt so sorry that I had thrown her out of AJ’s room some months ago. And thankful inside me that she hadn’t come for Lance because I certainly couldn’t handle another power tussle.

“What is it? Cat cut your tongue Lolita?” She continued, breathing fire to our somewhat “polite” conversation.

I cleared my throat. “Vikki…can I call you that…” she rolled her eyes and nodded, still tweaking the hair. “I’m sorry about everything, you know, the whole AJ thing…about throwing you out and being so mean to you…I was another person then…I’d like us to forget all about it and call it a bad disagreement between friends okay?” I hoped my voice sounded as sincere as the apology was intended to be. She didn’t blink. She stared at me open-mouthed, possibly thinking this was some kind of degrading joke on my part to play on her sentiments. Reassuringly, I offered my hand in a handshake to her. I wanted to offer her a little help in nailing Joey since Nick probably knew how to get to him faster than she would, but I decided to keep the offer to myself. I didn’t know Joey too well, and I doubted that Vikki was his type, in fact any self respecting man’s type. However, who knows with these rock stars and their frivolous taste in women.

She took my hand in hers briefly, pulling it away to quickly stub out her cigarette on the bathroom sink. Nasty habit, I remarked inside. “I’d better go. They’ll be back from their Press conference anytime now. Just keep out of my way this time, you have your man so everyone can be happy now.” She warned clearly.

She packed up the contents of the purse, shoving them inside carelessly, adjusted her leather pants to adequately hug her narrow hips and winked at her pleasing image in the mirror, all this just before she stormed out of the bathroom leaving me alone.

Phew! That was a confrontation I had handled exceedingly well another one to go. I hoped she would get at least a decent score like I did with AJ.

Part 28...