Bootycall 2 Read online

  “Dylan…I…that was…” I say, as I try to catch my breath. Then I start laughing.

  He smiles, and chuckles a little too, standing up so that we’re face to face. We look each other in the eyes, and I brush my hand through his hair tenderly.

  “There’s your breakfast done, but mine is on the floor,” I say, nodding towards the smashed eggs and cups.

  “How about we take a little shower and then go out for something?” he suggests.

  “Probably a good idea,” I smile, “I imagine the only way we’re going to be able to keep our hands off each other is if we’re in public.”

  Dylan smirks. “Don’t count on it.”

  I laugh and grab some paper towels.

  “Go shower – you’re a very dirty boy. You’re lucky our call time isn’t until this afternoon.”

  “Yeah,” Dylan says, the smirk still on his face. “It’s almost like somebody planned it that way.”

  I giggle and shake my head as I crouch down to wipe up the mess.

  “Oh, by the way,” I say, as Dylan’s just stepping into the bathroom, “your phone was ringing all morning. I hope you don’t mind, I put it on silent.”

  “Yeah, I saw,” calls Dylan, his voice sounding echoey in the tiled claustrophobia of the tiny studio bathroom, “I thought you couldn’t stand ringing phones?”

  I think about it for a second. “Maybe I’m learning to let some things go.”

  “Well, whoever it is can wait.” He leans his head around the bathroom door to wink at me. “I’ve already got someone keeping tabs on me.”

  I scrunch up a paper towel and throw it at him. He quickly dodges it, laughing as he returns to the shower. I hear him turning on the water and my mind immediately starts imagining his body getting naked and wet in there. I finish wiping up the broken eggs and start collecting the shattered pieces of the cups, but the image stays in my mind. I quickly finish and go to the bathroom, pushing the door open slightly and leaning in.

  It’s as beautiful as I thought it would be. I could spend hours staring at a photo of Dylan, but to see him in the flesh is something else. To see him wet, drops of water slowly caressing the hard lines of his muscles, the water bouncing off the manly firmness of his chest…despite what he just did to me in the kitchen, I’m already aching for more. I’ve come a long way since the night I first saw him, and if anything his body gets me worked up even more now that I know exactly how good he is at using it.

  I step inside the bathroom and shut the door. He hears it and turns his head in surprise, smiling a little when he notices me. I open the medicine cabinet, take out a condom, and tear open the packet with my teeth, hard and swift, plenty of indication as to how I want it. I step forward, our eyes locked, and I grab his cock, already hard. I pump it a few times, roughly and tightly, the slickness of the water giving him enough protection against my ravenous appetite, then I slip on the condom.

  He pulls me into the shower and I fall against him, his cock between my legs, our mouths gliding around one another’s like dancers in the dark. His knees are bent slightly, his back against the wall. I steady myself on the opposite sides of the shower and squeeze his cock between my thighs, rubbing myself gently over it. He throws his head back against the tiled wall, and I dive into his shoulder, biting at the unyielding muscle there.

  He growls huskily at the pain, at the pleasure. “I’m gonna fucking tear you apart, Gemma. I’m gonna fuck you so hard you’ll never take another shower without thinking of it.”

  “Fuck,” I moan. “Yes. Now.”

  I gasp as he grabs my ass cheeks in big, rough hands, pulling them apart, and clawing aggressively. He spins me around face up against the tiled wall, nudging my legs apart with his knee and pulling my hips back, making sure I’m right where he wants me. I feel the hot water hit the small of my back, feel his hands grab again at my aching cheeks as he parts them, feel the thick head of his cock settle itself between them just before he plunges into my pussy.

  “Dylan,” I pant against the cool tiles. “Oh my God.”

  He moves in a rhythm, to a beat, every note struck with perfect clarity. I lose myself in a swirling storm of emotions, sensations, and eruptions. His cock presses itself deeper and deeper as his hand cups my breast in the hot wetness of the water mixing with sweat. I gasp as he pounds into me and withdraws slowly, only to slam into me again, even harder. A beautiful ache builds inside me, and his hand reaches around to flatten against my tensed stomach, stroking down to my clit and back up again. He pulls on my hair, tilting my head back, forcing my lips up to meet his in an urgent kiss. We fight to catch our breath as he continues to thrust in and out, strong and steady and relentless.

  Dylan rams me harder and then eases back, a move that’s too quickly dragging me toward my breaking point. I lose sense of where my body ends and his begins. His growls of lust, his will to fuck, his increasing carnality is mine. I feel his hunger grow inside me, sending tendrils of erotic fulfillment into every corner of my being. He pushes deeper, sending me higher, until I feel like I’m riding the crest of his cock like the tip of a mountain, about to fall into sweet oblivion.

  Then I feel Dylan’s hand skim down my hip, my thigh, coming back up again to cup my ass in a firm squeeze. When he trails his finger up the crack of my ass, I gasp, but he kisses the back of my neck and I find myself adjusting my stance, spreading my ass for him.

  His finger presses against the puckered tightness there, a place no man has ever touched me, sending my heart racing. As he probes deeper, slipping inside, I cry out at the sensation. Dylan pauses, his lips grazing my ear.

  “I can stop,” he says, pulsing his finger gently inside my ass, making me shudder and clench against his rock hard cock that’s still buried in my pussy. “Just tell me what you want.”

  I take a breath. I don’t even need to think about it: I know exactly what I want.

  “I want all of you,” I tell him, rocking my hips, riding his cock at the same time I’m driving his finger even further into the most forbidden part of me. Dylan groans into my ear and curls his finger, stroking me inside, fucking me every way possible as I lean into the rhythm he’s created between our bodies. Soon his movements grow faster, and his breathing picks up speed as his thrusts become more frantic with unstoppable need.

  There is pleasure and pain and I’m hungry for both, grinding against him in a flood of desire. The sensation is exquisite, and I don’t want it to stop. Dylan must feel the same, because he pushes that finger even deeper into my ass, his thrusts shorter and harder, his cock continuing its smooth grind back and forth against the walls of my pussy. I feel my orgasm building, inevitable now, and all I see behind my eyelids are galaxies and stars as the sweetness in my clit expands, rushing through my entire body, about to explode.

  “Gemma,” he growls, edging back, both arms holding me tight around my waist now.

  He stops the quick fucking to press me deep inside, the way he does when he’s coming, and I cry out a low, shuddering moan, realizing that I’m coming too.

  We groan, clinging tightly to each other as the pleasure overwhelms us. My pussy clenches around his beautiful cock again and again, and he holds it inside of me for a few seconds, surfing the last big wave of pleasure that flows from my body to his, before pulling out slowly, leaving a void inside of me that quickly fills with a warm, honey-like fulfillment.

  I gather my breath and straighten up, leaning against the wall. My heart is pounding in my chest and my knees are shaking. All I can think is, I’ve never been fucked like this before. Dylan kisses the back of my neck gently and I purr happily.

  “Was it good?” I ask, softly.

  “You’re always good,” he says, brushing my hair over my shoulder to plant another soft peck along the upper part of my neck. “You’re just…perfect for me.”

  As I get dressed afterward, Dylan stands near the doorway in the manner that boyfriends, husbands, and – well, whatever the hell we are – have waited for women sinc
e the beginning of time. Impatiently, inexplicably, and long-since ready.

  Once I’m finished with my outfit selection, make-up, and hair, I step out of the bathroom and walk towards him.

  “Ready now?” he says, doing a decent job of hiding his sense of stretched endurance.

  “Let’s go,” I reply, slinging my handbag over my shoulder and stepping past him.

  Dylan smiles as he wraps an arm around my waist caringly and opens the front door for me.

  Over the next five seconds, realizations hit me like punches to the temple. First I notice the cars. There are usually a few outside my house, but not many people in this area tend to keep cars parked on the street if they can help it. Today, however, the road is filled with them, some even double-parked. Then I notice the people, dozens of idle chatterers standing around, the biggest clusters just in front of my door.

  Then I notice the telephoto lenses, the shoulder-mounted cameras, the microphones with major network logos on them.

  Then I see stars, flickering in all kinds of colors across my vision, lightning crackling all around me, the docile street scene that was in front of me disappearing and being replaced one-frame-per-second by people running towards me, charging like trench soldiers, arming their cameras like weapons, their eyes refocusing like they’re going in for the kill.

  Then a strong grip yanks me backwards, and the door slams shut.

  I blink and shake my head, struggling to regain a sense of vision that doesn’t include flying dots and floating neon shapes.

  “Fucking paparazzi!” Dylan shouts, as he storms into the apartment.

  I continue blinking as I follow him, struggling to keep my balance after the sudden visual shock.

  “What’s going on?”

  Dylan paces up and down the increasingly tiny apartment. He looks at me with wild, angry eyes.

  “They fucking sniffed out a story, didn’t they?”

  I rub my forehead, slowly trying to work my brain into a fast enough trot to keep up with the world around me. I really regret knocking over those eggs now.

  I look around the apartment as shouts and calls from outside grow louder, the tense fear that they instigate forcing me to snap into ‘organization’ mode.

  “Something’s up, Dylan. Maybe that’s why you kept getting calls this morning. Check your phone.”

  Dylan paces a few more steps, his eyes almost bloodshot with anger now, before my words seem to sink in. He pulls his phone out of his pocket.

  “It was Larry. You’re probably right.”

  I pull my phone out of my bag and see that Frankie has also tried to call me so many times that my missed calls are almost in the triple digits. A vague memory of sleepily turning my phone to silent and pushing myself back into Dylan’s embrace tiptoes into my mind, and I slap my phone out of frustration. I dial Frankie back.

  “Oh my God! Is he there!? With you! This is either the best or worst timing of anything ever!”

  “Frankie! Slow the fuck down! What’s going on?”

  “You don’t know? You don’t know?!” she screams, her voice like a high-pitched whistle.

  “For fuck’s sake, Frankie! Know what?!”

  I hear Frankie hyperventilating on the line.

  “It’s…the…Dylan…Fuck it. Look, Gemma, you need to go online and see this thing. You need to see the pics. I…I can’t explain this…I mean, I can’t believe you didn’t know!”

  I stride to my desk and open my laptop, while Dylan curses into his phone. I open up a browser and take a deep breath.

  “Ok, Frankie. What should I look at?”

  “Um. Shit, Gemma, just look at any fucking gossip column and it’ll be on the front page! Go to Perez Hilton. No! Wait, he’s mean. Bad idea. People. Try People. Wait. No. TMZ. They’re live-blogging it. TMZ.”

  I shake my head and sigh as I clench the phone between my shoulder and ear and go to the website.

  It’s there alright. Multiple times. I click on the top story.

  Scandal Update: Dylan Marlowe’s Secret Love Child!

  The pictures are plain, simple, boring. The kind of thing that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone in most cases. To me, though, they’re a fucking atomic bomb. Dylan playing with a kid in the park. Dylan holding the kid in one arm while the other is wrapped around a dark-haired woman who’s obviously the mother. Dylan and the kid eating ice creams and smiling.

  “Did you see?! Can you see them?! Talk to me, Gemma!”

  I scroll down, my vision blurring for entirely different reasons now. Occasional words pop out from the fuzzy lines of black on white. Secret payments. Three years old. Close to the mother. I hit End Call, drop the phone to the floor and push my chair out, slowly backing away from the screen as if confronted with a monster.

  I look toward Dylan, the room spinning around me as I turn my head. He notices me, dropping the phone to the side as if the strength has disappeared from his arm, his face open, waiting, expectant.

  I shake my head. At him. At the computer screen. At everything.

  “What is this, Dylan? What’s going on? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  His breath quickens to a pant. His eyes narrow and harden. He looks at his phone, pushes a button, and stuffs it into his pocket.

  “Dylan?” I say, feeling like my voice is coming from deep at the bottom of some well.

  He looks at the computer, then back at me.

  “Dylan,” I say, and it sounds like the word ‘help.’

  His jaw clenches, he rolls a shoulder, and then he marches out of the door and into the crowd of hungry press like a bowling ball of unstoppable motion. I watch him go.

  Chapter 9

  Dylan

  Kavanagh’s is a shitty bar. You can find it tucked away between an abandoned theatre with graffiti scribbled over the tragically big doors, and a pawn shop that only opens at night. It was built during, and never really escaped, the Great Depression. It’s cheap enough for the bums to spend their begged quarters in, and so poorly signed that if you didn’t know it was already there, you’d never find it. Only the loneliest, thirstiest, most aimless men find a place like this – the password is desperation.

  The rules are written in the floor, battered and worn from work boots and heavy thoughts, in the craggy, inward-looking faces of the men there, and it’s always men, commiserating, regretting, and hurting as only men choose to do – alone. The rules are that you don’t talk to anyone, and that if you do, it never leaves the stained, peeling walls.

  I sidle in to the dim, smoke-filled room (not even a smoking ban can change Kavanagh’s) and walk to my usual spot at the bar. My fame, my face – none of it matters here. A flicker of eyes – more at the light that I let in as I push open the door, than the fact that I’m Dylan Marlowe – is all that greets me.

  Seconds after I’m in my seat there’s a triple whiskey in front of me. I gulp half and let it burn, let it sink into my body, let it wash all the shit I want to shout and scream about down my throat once again.

  You can’t run away from the past. But if your past is as dark as mine you’d better run anyway – or else it’ll run after you.

  I rub my eyes, and when I open them the bald bartender, in his ill-fitting jeans and meal-for-one stained shirt, looks at me blankly. I nod my head, down the rest of the whiskey, and he has another there in seconds, before going off to lean at his post by the radio.

  How could something so pure, so good get corrupted to shit so easily? It was all so fucking simple when we were kids. Me and my buddy Cal swapping VHS tapes of R-rated films that were on past our bedtime, but that we set the machine to record. Quoting lines from Scarface as we walked to school. Talking about what we would do if we were stuck on this ship with the Alien, because we were really just shit-scared of the thing. Talking about why Jaws was the greatest film ever. Realizing that being an adult was harder than it looked when we saw the Godfather trilogy. Wishing to God that our Sunday school teacher had also seen the Graduate and liked the idea of
it.

  It was all another world. Someplace fantastic, but real enough to move you. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to make art, create characters that people felt they knew as well as their closest friends, scenes and situations so powerful that people referred to them like real memories. It was untainted, a good ambition.

  How did it all turn to so much shit? How does something as good and as pure as making art, telling stories, reaching out to people, all end up with scumbags digging into your past and blocking your doorway? How does all the work that goes into creating characters and plots and scenarios, with elegant visuals and vivid sound, get turned so quickly by cockroaches into discussions and critiques of career trajectories, marketable stars, snide slanders and arbitrary praise? How does the fantasy and infinite imagination of film live so closely with miserable reality and close-minded judgment?

  I slam the second whiskey glass down and pick up the full one next to it. I gulp down another soothingly hot sensation and drop my head into my hands.

  What am I talking about? I’m so full of shit. I’ve spent so long thinking about movies that I’ve lost touch with reality. I’ve gotten so used to clean endings, happy endings, that I can’t handle the things that linger inside of me like unfulfilled promises. Gemma’s right. I’ve never dealt with any of it. I’ve just kept on blocking it out, distracting myself, and hoping that the great scriptwriter in the sky will figure out an ending for me – a good one. I’m the star after all. Aren’t I? Dylan Marlowe. The biggest name on the poster. The hero.

  I listen to a guy behind me push his chair back, slam some coins onto the counter, and shuffle his feet out of the door, mumbling as he goes. “Back to the bitch.”

  Was I really thinking that? Was I really believing things would get better for me? That I could move on and not live in either a state of anguish over the past, or throwing myself into things that would help me forget for a few seconds? I’ve never been optimistic before. Never had reason to believe things would get anything but worse. So what changed? Why am I acting like this is something new?