Chapter 3
2013
“There’s a series of questions here I’m supposed to ask. Do you mind if I ask them?”
Fuck, really? They’ve assigned a biographer to replace Jesse Harris that they don’t trust to draft his own questions.
I smile. “Go ahead.” I light a cigarette and wait.
“Best concert?” Miles asks.
Trite. Why am I continuing with this exercise in mendacity? People don’t want the truth. They want cleverly drafted, interesting, and artfully dishonest anecdotes. I don’t even remember most of my concerts—I grin—and then there are some I remember very well.
“June 1998. Los Angeles.”
The words slipping from my lips make the picture come into clear focus in my head and my body rapidly heats. A vision of Chrissie on stage, fucked up for the one and only time I’ve ever seen her wasted. Her blue eyes bright with lust and love as she crossed the stage to me after finishing her set. How she wrapped herself around me like an octopus, practically raping me on center stage, before she gave Neil the bird and told him to fuck off to a packed house.
Then waking up with her the next morning, knowing I could fuck her and holding myself back because she didn’t remember what she’d done at the concert. Fuck, she had been so worried and frantic. I wasn’t much help when she asked me what had happened on stage before she passed out into my arms. I should never have said, “I’m not sure which will be the highlight or the lowlight for you, love. I definitely have a preference.” God, I can be an ass at times. Poor Chrissie. She was so humiliated after learning she’d thrown herself at me on stage and done a rather nice dry hump of my cock in front of a packed house. I should not have phrased it that way. I should not have told her molesting me on stage was ‘the highlight’. She’s right. I can be mean sometimes, but I never intended to be. Not ever with her.
My gaze shifts to Miles. My anger flares when I realize the little cunt is writing that down. “Fuck, that was a joke. Don’t write that.” I stomp out my cigarette. “Write instead: every time on stage is the best concert of my life.”
OK, that’s idiotically trite, but fuck, it’s what people expect you to say.
“What’s your greatest regret?”
I maintain an expertly blank expression while inwardly I’m flooded with annoyance and disgust. Greatest regret. Jesus Christ, I have a life filled with regrets, you imbecile. You actually want me to pick one?
Miles taps his pen. “Do you want me to skip that question?”
I lean back into my pillows and close my eyes. “Answer: I’ve never regretted anything I’ve done in my life, only the things I haven’t done.”
Fuck, this biography being an exercise in mendacity is now an epic understatement. Greatest regret. Oh fuck, without a doubt the week Neil Stanton died…
* * *
2003
I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket again, but I’m fucking tired. I remain slouched on the leather seat as the car moves toward the concert venue. Last show of the tour. Then I’m home. Maybe all I need is to be home with Chrissie to start feeling like me again.
I look out the window.
“I need something to wake me up, Len,” I grumble.
Len tosses me a vial. I take two fast snorts of coke, dampen the tips of my fingers, snort again to clear my nostrils, and then chase it with a long swallow of JD.
Len fixes on me a disapproving glare. “You’ve been waking yourself up too often lately. What the fuck is the matter with you? You look like death.” His gaze intensifies. “Where did you disappear to for an entire week?”
“Sod off. I don’t owe you answers to anything.”
Better to let him think I am a prick—fucking around on Chrissie—instead of the truth. I don’t need Len and the rest of the band in a panic over me.
“Better have a fucking better answer than that for Chrissie.” Len studies me. “Feeling guilty, are you? Is that why you won’t take a call from her? Fuck man, she’s been blowing up your phone for hours. What if she knows whatever it is you’ve been doing during your disappearing act? The longer you let her fume the worse it’s going to get for you, Manny.”
Great fucking advice, Len. You’re such an old woman at times. Worse than Linda. Only you’re wrong about everything. Always. You’re my best friend. You should know me better than that.
I don’t fuck around on Chrissie. Not ever. I collapsed in my hotel suite. I’ve been in the hospital, you asshole. The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with me yet—I don’t look like death; I feel like death and I’m fucking scared—and I sure as fuck don’t want Chrissie to know about this yet. She takes everything so hard. Better to find out what it is first. Better not to worry her.
The car rolls to a stop and the door is opened. The crowd, the screaming, the rapidly flashing cameras are almost more than my fatigue-drained body can take as I am pulled by my security team into the arena. Maybe Dr. Blackman was right; I shouldn’t have left the hospital. But fuck, what’s the point in lying in a bed waiting for them to tell you what’s wrong when they can’t do a single thing to make you well until they figure out what the fuck is wrong in your body.
Fuck, I’m breathless. Why can’t I pull air in and out of my lungs? What the fuck is happening to my body? I don’t want to be ill. I have everything to live for. Finally.
My security team starts ushering me toward the pressroom, but the couch in my dressing room is where I’d prefer to go. My phone vibrates again. I pull it from my pocket and flip it open.
Blackman. Finally. What the hell took so long? What the fuck is the point of having money if it can’t at least expedite things in your life once in a while? It shouldn’t take so long to get answers on a handful of medical tests. They make you wait because they can. Miserable cunts in white coats.
I search for somewhere quiet to take the call. Shit, nearest place is an exit tunnel.
I turn toward the head of my security detail. “I need to take five minutes in there alone. Keep everyone out of the tunnel.”
I’m escorted into the concrete corridor and security starts pushing the bodies back from me.
I hit the answer button, cover one ear with a hand, and turn my back on the shouting crowd intent on not letting me have a completely private moment for this.
“Yes, Dr. Blackman,” I say anxiously. “Did you get the test results back?”
“How are you feeling, Alan?”
Oh shit. I can tell by his tone of voice this is not going to be good news. I tense. “Why don’t you skip the pleasantries and move on to the part where you tell me what’s wrong with me?”
A long pause. “When can you get back to the hospital? This is a discussion we should have in my office.”
“I can’t. I’m performing tonight. Then I go home to California. Just tell me what the fuck is wrong with me.”
“California. Good. Probably best. I have a colleague at Stanford Medical Center. Top man in his field. It’s where I recommend you go for treatment. He’ll take excellent care of you. High success rates. They are making remarkable medical advances with this type of illness in the United States. Much better treatments than we have in the UK.”
Treatment for what? Why can’t anyone ever talk to me straight? “What is wrong with me?”
“Alan, you have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Cancer.”
My body goes cold even though it feels like my heart is about to explode from its rapid beating.
“Cancer? Are you telling me I’m going to die? Is that what the fuck you’re telling me tonight? Stop equivocating and be direct even if it offends your medical sense of superiority and cruelty.”
“That’s not what I’m telling you. There are no guarantees, but the cure rate is very high for this type of cancer. If you were going to get a cancer, this is the one you want. Ninety percent cure rate.”
My temper flares. As far as reassurances go, that one was fucking inappropriate. Who the hell would want any kind of cancer?
“When are you back in the States?” Dr. Blackman asks.
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll set things up with Dr. Hern for him to see you as soon as possible. You shouldn’t delay this, Alan.”
As if I’m going to fucking delay trying not to die. “Set it up.”
I snap shut the phone. My legs give way. I’m crouched against the wall, my face in my hands. My phone starts to vibrate again. Chrissie. Every part of me is desperate to hear her voice, but I can’t talk to her, not now. I’ll lose it if I hear her voice.
I stand up and shove the phone into my pocket.
“You ready to do this, Manny?” Trey shouts from the top of the corridor.
I nod to the head of my security team, climbing the slight incline to the main corridor. God, I can hardly breathe and it was only ten steps. I’m ushered into the pressroom. The rest of the band is already there fielding questions.
Len stands up, placing his hands on my chest. “We need to talk before you do this. Something has happened that you need to know about.”
I rake a hand through my hair, trying not to explode. I just found out I have cancer. I don’t need to hear about anything, not one more fucking trivial thing anyone thinks is important, not ever again.
Do I call Chrissie and tell her or do I wait until I’m home? I can’t breathe again. Emotion clogs in my throat. Oh fuck, not here. Not now. Not for people to see.
“Manny…”
I ignore Len and drop heavily onto my chair as my name is shouted over and over again. I point. Jenkins. Daily Telegraph. It will be a softball question. I can’t take more than softball questions today.
Jenkins stands. “Do you have a comment on the death of Neil Stanton?”
Did I hear Jenkins right? The sudden hush in the room is eerie, even with the rapidly flashing cameras wanting to catch my first reaction. Oh no. The repeated phone calls from Chrissie. So unlike her. Crap. Is this why she’s been calling me?
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Jenkins flips his notebook. “This is from the LA Times this morning. ‘UCLA Medical Center announced that Neil Stanton, lead singer of Arctic Hole, died at 7:27 a.m. following a fatal car accident on Laurel Canyon Road at 11:30 p.m. Thursday night. He was immediately rushed into surgery; however, he never regained consciousness. At his bedside when he was removed from life-support were his wife, singer-songwriter Christian Parker, and their daughter, Kaley Stanton.’ Do you care to comment?”
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. I need to get home, now.
I calmly arch a brow. “Ex.”
Jenkins’s eyes widen. “Excuse me? Would you like to repeat that comment?”
“The LA Times is inaccurate,” I reply succinctly. “Christian Parker is his ex-wife.” I point to another reporter. “Next question, please.”
I force myself to sit through another five questions, then abruptly I stand up and calmly leave the room.
I lean into the head of my security and order, “Take me to my car.”
Trey looks alarmed. “Where the fuck are you going? You’re on stage in less than two hours.”
“I don’t care.”
And for the first time in a very long time, I don’t.
The house is dark when I reach Malibu fifteen hours later. I should have called Chrissie before I left London, but I traveled straight here from the UK without even my customary stopover in New York as I prefer. The few days alone to decompress from the road before I try to ease myself into Chrissie’s world are an immeasurably useful thing, but not this time. Getting to her quickly, for a multitude of reasons, felt like necessity.
With all that’s going on, it would probably have been the smarter move to do the days in Manhattan. I’m anxious, tense and on edge. And Chrissie…who the fuck knows what I’ll find going on with her? Neil’s death could manifest in her in a variety of ways.
Fragile Chrissie. Angry Chrissie—since she flooded my voice mail and I still haven’t called her—or the worst of the worst, convoluted emotionally illogical Chrissie.
It’s probably going to be the latter, since everything about the Neil situation is emotionally illogical to me. Her affection for her ex-husband has never gone away, not even through the years after their divorce. They’ve maintained a strong friendship—somehow after Neil shoved in her face in a brutal way that their marriage had been a farce because he’s gay—and she still is willing to participate in keeping his sexual orientation a secret from his fans.
Not one betraying word has even passed from Chrissie’s lips. But then, that’s Chrissie. She is loyal and does it lovingly.
Five years she’s lived with me and I still can’t get Neil Stanton out of my life and I’m still not sure why Chrissie cares for him. It’s probably because they have a child together, but shit, I can’t stomach the fucker, not even for Kaley.
Oh fuck. I shouldn’t be thinking crap about a dead man, and I need to pull it together because showing my disdain for Neil is the last thing Chrissie needs at present. She’s going to be a mess over his death. That much I know for sure.
I move through the main living area of the house. No one. Rooms dark. I check the clock. 10:30 p.m. Hopefully she’s just gone to bed early and isn’t out. It would be a fucking rotten end to the miserable hours of travel if she’s not here. I should have called when the plane landed so she’d be awake. Tonight I could really use one of Chrissie’s homecomings. Having her run to the door, all sexy and breathy with her eyes sparkling just because I’m here.
God, I love the way she looks at me. The way she feels, the delicacy of her in my hands, how soft and supple and intoxicatingly giving she is in a way a woman should be and too often isn’t. The way she smells, tastes—the thought of her shoots straight to my cock.
I pour myself a drink, willing him to be calm. Tonight isn’t going to be—or at least shouldn’t be—one of those hard fuck nights with Chrissie. She’s going to be emotional over Neil’s death. She’s going to want quiet and tenderness and excruciatingly slow lovemaking. It’s fucking incredible how completely she gives in to fully feeling everything in her body, my body, and our bodies together. But it’s been two months apart this time, my body is on fire and my erection hasn’t calmed down completely since I boarded the plane.
I probably should have whacked one off before reaching home, but the building urgency is part of the thrill. The holding back, for her, the long spans of torture without her, then the losing myself in her without letting my body go, not completely, until we are both insane for release.
Fucking incredible torture.
Like the night we first went to bed together. My sexual frustration and long-denied body wanted to fuck her into oblivion. Hell, I’d just gone six months trapped in rehab then Jackson Parker’s house without a woman, but I was held back by her nervousness and sweetness and innocence.
Good thing that I was. That night was a fucking shocker in more ways than one. Who would have thought Jack’s daughter would have been a virgin at eighteen? I sure as hell didn’t—I laugh—definitely a first for the both of us. All my romantic nonsense about wanting to make love to her was just what I thought I had to say to get her into bed quickly so I could do what I wanted with her. And there was quite a bit I wanted to do to her, even though she’d been pretty much a pain in the ass since I’d met her.
Why she had been such a frustrating girl, mixed messages and confusing as hell to pursue, I didn’t get until I found myself punching through her untried cunt and then face-to-face with her tears. I never expected that one. What the hell was a virgin doing giving it up to an asshole like me? Not just any virgin, a beautiful rich girl from California who could have any guy she wanted, but for some reason had settled on a bloke like me.
That’s when the softness of her seeped through my pores. Her beauty. Her fragility. Her sadness—oh yes, even her sadness is an intoxicating thing—and the eagerness in her body that she didn’t know what to do with. Her walls dripping and tight around my cock propelled me to something beyond aroused, only to be quickly followed by the flashing realization that I would be her first experience with sex and if I fucked it up, I would fuck her up forever. And Chrissie was already a pretty fucked-up girl before I entered her life. I didn’t need to screw her up in more ways, not with that perfect body of hers already covered with self-mutilating burns. Her version of pleasure; pain.
What happened next changed me forever. An act of love done in love—it’s like a drug you can’t kick—only she didn’t love me then, not that first night. I was the one already in love with her. Hers from the first moment I saw her. Hers, but she didn’t know that then, and I’m not completely sure she knows that now.
Fourteen years have proven to me that I am and always will be Chrissie’s. I still loved her after she left me in New York in ’89. I still loved her after she cheated on me in ’93. I loved her while she was married to Neil. I love her today after years of her not committing to me. Whatever Chrissie does, I love her.
Moronic.
Asinine.
Romantic drivel.
But it is the fucking truth. There is such a thing as a woman grabbing on to your balls and not letting you go, but for it to last she has to take your heart first so you’ll want it. Chrissie, who understood men not at all when we first met, did this brilliantly. She took possession of my heart during a walk on the beach. My balls she took a week later that first night we went to bed together. And she’s held on to them both ever since.
I walk down the hallway. Kaley’s door is open. I glance in. Bed empty. Ah, my luck is improving. A kid-less house for a change. Oh no, I hope she’s not sleeping with Chrissie. That would be a great fucking end to this wretched day. Then I remind myself that the girl just lost her father. What a selfish prick I am at times.
Whatever happens here tonight is not going to be about me, my wants, or even how fucking scared I’ve been since talking to Dr. Blackman. Whatever Chrissie needs has to come first, that’s part of the cost of loving Chrissie, even though I’ve got my own shit going on.
My bedroom door is ajar. I try to marshal my thoughts into obedience. I’ve been thinking too much lately. Uncharacteristically introspective. Not good. Is this what happens when someone shoves the possibility of dying into your face? You become sentimental, reflective and weak?
I stare in at her. Chrissie is lying on her side in the center of the bed, her beautiful face lit by moonlight, her long, blond hair streaming across the pillow. She looks like an angel—an angel with a body built for sin. Everything a man could want.
I step into the room, set my drink on a table and start to undress. I debate whether I should wake her or just climb into bed and make love to her before she can speak. Get one good fuck in before the shit starts—me telling her about my illness and her telling me about Neil.
It’s been two months since we’ve fucked. My balls feel like they are about to explode. I slip into bed and ease into her until my body is flush against her full length, my cock pressed into the supple flesh of a butt cheek. I inhale, feeling the thrill of her shoot across my already blistering nerves. I run my palm down the smooth flesh of her hip.
I move my hips into her and her sweet little butt pushes back into me automatically, but she doesn’t wake. God, she has a beautiful ass, even if she doesn’t ever let me fuck her there. It’s small and round and firm and torture.
Massaging her with my lower body, I kiss her hair. Her scent fills my nostrils, reminding me of why I was in such a hurry to get here.
My hands skim over her torso and her belly toward my favorite part of her body. I begin to lightly tease her with my fingers between her legs. Gentle, slow, over and over again, as my kisses cover her body, enough to get her wet and hot, but not fully awake…on no, not fully, not until I’m in her. My hips thrust forward, pushing my pulsing flesh deep into her before I can stop myself. I freeze, my body shuddering from being held tightly inside Chrissie.
I fight not to move. A couple of pumps in her and it’s going to be over. Oh shit, I’m that fucking hard and we haven’t even started this. The surface of my body is twitching and burning.
“I’ve missed you, baby.” I run my teeth along her earlobe. “Show me you’ve missed me, too.”
My hand moves upward to her perfect breasts as I hold myself still, in agony. Fucking dick-ripping agony. I run the calluses of my fingertips over her nipples.
“Oh God.” She whimpers and is trembling in want and dripping wet. I knead and tease the fullness of her breasts, gliding my lips on her neck. She groans, pushing back against my pelvis and my body responds, meeting the urgings of her repeated, anxious moves.
She starts to pant and her hips move in time with my rhythm, and what I planned to do just died a fast death.
“I love you, Chrissie,” I tell her as I sink myself into her over and over again.
I increase the pace. The surfaces of our bodies are covered with sweat, we are both quivering and straining into each other.
“I want it harder, Alan.”
She’s desperate. She is on fire. She needs me, misses me as much as I miss her when we’re apart. Knowing that is a good thing, feeling it is a fucking hot, out of my mind, flesh-searing thing.
I pull out, leaving just the head of my cock in her. Her limbs start trembling and I know she’s on the edge. I slam into her, balls deep, and she shudders around me and screams my name.
It’s my undoing. I plunge into her over and over again, my cum shooting from me in a torrent, my body unrelenting in its need to pound in her, until I’m drained and collapsed against her back.
I don’t pull out of her. I want to stay buried inside her as long as I can and she’s curled in a ball, ass into me, hugging her pillow. She’s exhausted, too. Her eyes are closed. I bury my face in the curve of her neck and shoulder. I’m still hard enough to keep this going, to do it the way I should have, slow and tender and consuming.
I kiss her shoulder, nipping lightly before I ease back and lift up on an arm. I slowly turn her onto her back, and my mouth drops to her pelvis. My hands lightly move up the tops of her thighs. I kiss her mound, then breathe deeply the scent of her. I run my tongue around her clit, close but not touching that spot that ignites her. I let out a breath. Her body shimmies.
Her fingers snake in my hair, clenching my waves, and she abruptly lifts my face from her. Those enormous blue orbs flash at me.
“Why didn’t you call me?” she whispers raggedly. “You don’t know what it’s like for me when you’re on the road. It’s awful when you’re gone. It’s like I can’t breathe or think, like someone has hit a pause button on me until you’re back again. But it is worse when I can’t reach you. I go crazy when I can’t reach you.”
Oh fuck. Her eyes are wide open, alertly studying me and filled with hurt. Hurt, so much worse than angry Chrissie. Hurt Chrissie always makes me feel like a shit, even though I don’t have anything to feel like a shit over.
My temper flashes, but the way she’s staring at me makes the list tick off in my head: Except that I am gone too much…and she does deserve more…and I do play that trust card to the limit at times, like I did not calling her back for days…but I’ve got shit in my life, too…and I hate leaving her…and she won’t travel with me…fuck, she won’t even marry me…
I bank my thoughts and anger quickly. I can run that list through my head forever—she will always be the winner and I will always be the one not good enough for her.
I inch back up her body and turn onto my back, taking her with me and settling her on my chest. I hold her tightly against me—it feels so fucking good to hold her—and I don’t want to release her. And I don’t want to talk. I just want to fucking hold her.
I want a few days with Chrissie with everything normal, without my problems in the room every minute. I want to hold her, fuck her, and feel normal until reality won’t let me.
She pushes back against my arms and lifts her chin. “You promised never to lie to me, Alan. I called Len. Why didn’t he know where you were? Why didn’t you call me back? Were you with someone else? Just tell me quickly now and get it over with. But don’t lie to me.”
I lift my lids. She’s staring down at me.
“How the fuck could you ask me that?”
Her gaze clouds over. She pulls away from me completely and sits on her heals beside me.
“Were you with a woman?” she repeats, each word clipped and scalpel sharp.
“Fuck you, Chrissie.”
Her body jerks and I regret that outburst. But, fuck, I’m angry. I shouldn’t be. It’s what I’d think if she disappeared and was unreachable by phone, but she should know me better.
I move my hand toward her but she avoids it.
I relent. “It’s not what you’re thinking, and I wouldn’t lie to you, not ever. You know that, Chrissie.”
Her lower lip quivers. She’s battling tears. “Then tell me where you were.”
I study her face as she struggles to maintain her composure. Her gaze is burning into me unwaveringly. Those giant blue eyes are like truth serum.
Fuck. I run my hand through my hair in aggravation. “I was in the fucking hospital.”
Her body goes rigid. “What do you mean in the hospital?”
Shit, now she’s worried and afraid and I can tell that my explanation has collided with the recent events of Neil and is stirring her into full panic.
“It was nothing,” I say quickly, the lie falling from my lips with appalling ease. “It’s been a long tour. Road exhaustion and a touch of lurgy. Just the standard shit, Chrissie. Exhaustion. Too much booze. Dehydration. I just got worn down until I was ill. They released me from the hospital. I wouldn’t be home if it had been something serious. Can you please stop worrying, love?”
Her eyes rapidly search my face. “Are you telling me the truth? I can’t take one more shock, Alan. You have no idea what’s been running through my head since I heard you walked out before the London concert—”
I cut her off by pulling her back into my arms. “I didn’t know about Neil until the pressroom that night. All I wanted was to get home to you. I didn’t think. I was wrong not to call. I just wanted to get home to you, Chrissie.”
Her breasts move against my chest from her rapid breathing. I’m not sure which way this is going to go. More questions or…
She wraps her arms and legs around me. Her mouth takes mine in a wide open, deep tongue kiss. My insides jump and my cock hardens to its full length. Her hips lift. She gloves me with a hard downward descent on my erection, and she is riding me hard, touching and kissing me into full boil.
I thrust upward into her. I take a nipple in my mouth, sucking it until she shivers. I finger that sensitive spot above her hole. She moves faster, more urgent, her shudders more violent with each stroke of her cunt around me.
I moan and surrender to her and I know—this is going to be a hard fuck homecoming.
* * *
2013
Shit, how long have I been sitting here silently lost in my thoughts? I can feel Miles Abernathy studying my face.
I close my eyes, stopping the memory, but not before I remind myself that it wasn’t a hard fuck homecoming after all. It was the homecoming of mistakes. Going to the hospital in Stanford instead of Neil’s funeral. Not telling Chrissie the complete truth about my illness. Letting her be disappointed in me yet again. The fight we had three days after Neil was buried. What she said to me before she walked out that last time: “I’m tired of living my life alone, Alan. Five years we’ve lived together, I see you only a handful of days a year, and I don’t even have a ring. I asked for one fucking thing from you. To be with me at Neil’s funeral. But no, you made me go without out. It’s never going to change. You’re never going to change. And you are never going to really love me.”
That’s the part that fucked me up, and filled me with anger and misplaced pride. The you are never going to really love me part of her tirade. Stupid now. I regret it. But it kept me silent as I watched her walk out the door.
I down my scotch. But, fuck, I didn’t think she’d leave for good and I never expected three months later she’d marry Jesse.