c) 2000~Spiral Bound Fiction and Lumien Scrittore
AJ looked the worse. His face was completely blanched. The buxom blonde whose nipples he had been caressing was my first clue it was over. I scanned the room, but none of them looked sorry. It looks like another day for them. Like they knew this moment was coming from the beginning and had steeled themselves for it long ago. They did look a little ashamed, but not enough to gauge any real reaction out of them.
I turned on my heel and left the hotel suite. I heard AJ call after me, but I beat him down the hall and into the elevator that his bodyguard held for me. When I turned and watched the doors close, he hadn't even made it to the hall to see me leave. I looked one last time through the glass into their world and the doors closed around me. The sedate lighting of the exclusive hotel elevator soothed me.
I was numb as I walked out into the freezing Portland winter rain. Ice mixed with the damp downfall, biting into the exposed flesh of my arms and face. Even his large warm hands on my arms did nothing to bring any life to me. He pulled me back inside out of the elements and turned me to face him. I looked up into his blue eyes as he spoke.
"I'm sorry. These things happen." He said, but it sounded rehearsed.
"Are you the one they send?" I asked, my deep voice quiet.
"I'm sorry." He said.
I know he's not. I know now he doesn't care about me, or what just happened, any more than AJ did. I tried to pull away, but for some reason, he held me fast.
"You shouldn't be out in this storm." He added.
I look back out through the lead glass of the brass decorated doors. I didn't care. He didn't care. AJ didn't care. Why was I still standing there?
"I'll be fine, Nick." I said, in an attempt to get him to let go of me.
"Do you know any one in Portland?" he asked.
No! I'm from LA you, dumb-ass! I thought. I came here to see AJ! You people are all I know here!
"Yes."
"Don't lie to me." He said earnestly. I can't help the strangled bitter ironic laugh that comes out of me. I couldn't stop it if I wanted to. He lets go of me. Sure that I'm possessed. "Let's go to my room." He said, reaching for me again to give me a pull in his direction. I resist a little, until I finally decide not to go with him at all and our struggle ensues.
We are drawing attention to ourselves. He looks up and is nervous. Fans are seeing him. He doesn't want them to. "Come with me." He growls in my ear and I stumble behind him as he pulls me along.
I'm put into an elevator with him after we are pushed past his security. The doors close and I yank myself out of his reach and move to the farthest corner from him.
"This isn't going to help anything." He scolds me.
I don't look at him. I don't care.
The ride up is long and I feel his impatience growing with me. I don’t give a rat's ass. The doors open and I see the same security who held the elevator for me. I realized that he knew AJ was with another woman before I had even stepped off the lift. I glare at him as Nick yanks me off. He actually has enough shame to divert his eyes from mine.
I stumble behind Nick and am pulled face to face with AJ. I can see his lips moving, but I can't register what he's saying. I look behind him and she isn't in the room any longer. Kevin and Brian are. I don't know where Howie is. He's probably screwing her right now. I look back up at Nick who isn't looking at me or AJ.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" AJ demands.
I hear the words and think that it is something you would tell a child. I am not a child. I was his lover and their friend. His captive audience knows that. His voice is so loud as he screams at me, that I suddenly realize that everyone can hear him berate me.
He tells me I'm stupid for overreacting. I'm stupid for thinking that anything was exclusive. I'm stupid to think I was the only one. He says I am nothing to him.
My embarrassment and shame begin to boil in my stomach. I am stupid. I am foolish for believing that what we had was special. Then I realize that I am even more stupid for standing here and listening to him humiliate me.
I spit in his face.
He wipes his face and curses at me. My eyes narrow and my body tenses. Even his venom can't make me back up as he gets in my face. I swish my tongue in my mouth a few times; knowing I could probably hit him one more time before security finally allows me to leave.
Nick gets between us, completely blocking my view of AJ. Parts of him pop into view around the bigger kid, but I turn to leave as their attention is diverted from me. I bolt for the elevator, only to find myself crushed up against Howie, his arms holding me to him. I let him have the spit I was saving for AJ's second round.
He releases me and I marvel at the stunned look on his face. His sympathetic eyes meet mine and I feel my face sneer at him. You stupid fool. He curses, too, wiping his face. Nick has turned to see that I've gotten away from him. He shoves AJ back into the suite and comes after me, ordering Howie to detain me, but as I purse my lips at him, he steps back.
I am away. I am down the hall and up against AJ's security again. I slap the buttons to the elevator, but it's not here. Nick is on me and I get my back against the buttons, turning my face to avoid his noise. He begins to talk too, but I can't understand what he's saying. I get glimpses of Howie behind him, but I close my eyes in an attempt to shut them out.
I turn and begin to slap the button, cursing the lift for not coming as I call for it. Nick gets closer, but I turn on him, unexpectedly shoving him back into Howie. I curse him. I curse them all and go back to the elevator buttons. Nick touches my arm, but I spat a threat at him. If he ever touches me again..
The elevator never comes and when I realize that, I turn to look behind me. Everyone is gone. Except Nick. He's still there. Waiting for me. I look again, but all the suites' doors are closed, the guards are gone and it's just him and me.
"AJ should've never done this." He speaks in a way that is almost…kind.
I feel the culmination of all my feelings begin to overwhelm me. I have no where to go. I know no one in the city. I can not bear to look at him in fear he will cause my humiliation and anger to consume me. To consume us both.
He steers me to what I know is his room. He closes the door and I stand there. What am I supposed to do? He wraps me in a warm clean bath towel and I sit in an overstuffed chair in the corner. He tells me he's going to go to bed and turns off the light.
I can see by the city's lights that try to flood past the slits in his drapes he is undressing for bed. He gets under the covers and doesn't say a word to me. I don't know how long it takes, but I do fall asleep.
I wake to fingers going through my hair, warm lips pressed against mine. For a moment, I think it was all just a bad dream and I respond in kind. I never open my eyes as I press forward, my tongue reaching to meet his.
His moan vibrates through me, but I realize its Nick and not AJ. I pull away and in the dark room, I can barely see him. Even if his face is just inches from mine. He resumes what he was doing. Seducing me.
He smells like sleep and make up. He tastes like potato chips. Old stale potato chips he ate hours ago. His larger frame dwarfs me as I continue to sit in the chair.
He goes down on his knees before me, leveling his face with mine. Words are being murmured, but I don't understand them. I can only hear the first syllables and feel the rhythm of his breath on me as he speaks.
His large clumsy hands fumble with the front of my dress, unbuttoning the silk covered buttons. I know what he'll find underneath. Nothing. That's how AJ always liked it. No bra. No panties. I marvel at how he has never done a day of manual labor in his life, but his knuckles are still slightly callused as they brush between my breasts. The only thing I remember about AJ's hands are the moments when his rings would cut into my flesh.
He pulls the dress open and exposes my breasts to his hungry mouth. I slip my fingers into his now short hair and moan with excitement. I close my eyes, but I don't even try to pretend its AJ. I know it's not and I feel a part of me knowingly accept that it's Nick.
I open my legs and he slips between them. I close down and I feel the soft flesh of his sides. He is overweight. He has always been overweight. He is also completely nude.
He wiggles me out of the dress and delights at what he finds. He finds me warm and inviting and I don't turn him away. The last of the silk stockings pools at my feet in his hands, and I know I can not avoid what is going to happen.
He gets to his feet and takes me to the bed. I startle even myself as he touches me tenderly and I cry out his name. I can hear what he's saying and he encouraging me to say it again and again. I get pulled toward him so I can't stop saying it. It comes from me like a prayer for my own salvation and he revels in it.
When I come, I am gone. I go where he is not, nor is AJ, nor are any of them. The world they put me in is gone. I settle down and look at his face and he is no longer Nick Carter. He is flesh and blood and he's a man.
As he comes closer, placing himself between my legs I dig my fingers into his forearms. I tell him to enter me. I tell him to do it. I order him to. He has no patience for my demands and does not move on ceremony.
He pins my shoulders down and drives himself in and I begin my mantra of his name again. We buck like wild horses who are trapped and have no where else to go. Nothing else to do. We have no choice. I know we don't. I can not demand any more of him and he has given me all he has, but he does not surrender to his weaknesses. He will see it to the end. He vows to purge AJ from my body. From my mind and my soul. As he carries on, I find no escape from him and all that was once AJ's is now his. My body, my mind and my soul.
He sleeps and my hand rests on his back as he lies on his stomach. I feel the texture of his skin, the softness of his fleshy body and the rhythm of his breathing. He has a gentle curve to his back as it swells over his bottom, I doubt many people know about. The hair on the back of his thighs tickles me between my fingers as I draw my hand down the length of his thigh.
He sleeps with him mouth open. I can see the very tip of his pink tongue. I lean forward, place my nose right on his shoulder, and breathe him in. He smells like me. My perfume lingers on him.
He is wherever he goes when he dreams. He doesn't know when I leave his side. He doesn't know when I leave his bed. He doesn't know when I get dressed.
I can not resist not taking something. I go through a pile of clothes he has on his side of the bed and I pick up the last tee shirt he had on. I bring the stained white cotton to my nose. Yes. This is will do.
I turn and I go. Back to LA and back to my life before them. Once at the street I walk briskly away from him and find a cab to take me to the airport. Luckily, it has stopped raining, but the sidewalk was slick with ice.
I watch the city go by as the cabby chatters on and on. I know in my body and my mind and in my soul, it is one thing to make love to one Backstreet Boy it's another thing to fall in love with a different one.
The End
Spiral Bound Fiction