First Kiss (Heavy Influence) (57 page)

             
“I can’t do this anymore, Aly. I’ve gotta get out of here,” I announced, defeated. “I’m sorry, but we’re never gonna change, at least not now.”

             
I stepped toward the gate and she came after me, “Jake, please don’t go. Not like this.” Her voice quivered, unsteadily.

             
I wanted to hold her, but I just couldn’t. I had to be strong and walk away, or we’d never learn. “Aly, I love you.” Those were the last words I spoke and I left her crying and never looked back.

             
My mother must have been waiting at the door for me, because she was right there when I came through it. As soon as I reached her I began to cry, the deepest pain I think I’d ever felt coursed through me and I collapsed on the floor and the tears didn’t stop for what seemed like an hour. My mother sat next to me holding me, rocking back and forth. She was crying too and for the first time, she said nothing. I looked up at the wall of black and white photos and searched through the blur of tears for the ones I’d added of Aly. The ones my mother never said anything about.

             
I’d be taking those with me to New York.

             
It was almost midnight and I’d sat on my own bed for the first time in months. It felt odd being there, knowing Aly was next door and hating me. She’d text me several times and I’d deleted them. I couldn’t stand reading them anymore, as every word whipped and seared me. The light flickered bright and then went dim from the TV, over and over again as the images danced around the screen. It reminded me of all the nights spent there with Aly. I sat like old times, strumming my guitar and the song that came out was our next radio song, a duet with a hired voice, and it was bigger hit that our first, and the most poignant. I wondered what Aly would think when she heard it.

                                                       
Talk About It

So far away

This thing that we started

Has ended just right

You let me down

I never promised I would be the one

And it’s over now

I don’t wanna talk about it

I don’t
wanna think about where we ended

I don’t want to think about you

And all of the things we could have been

You had my heart

It’s so hard to keep it when we’re so far apart

I need you still

And I wish we could change but I know we never will

I don’t wanna talk about it

I don’t
wanna think about where we ended

I don’t want to think about you

And all of the things we could have been

I don’t wanna talk about it

I don’t
wanna think about where we ended

I don’t want to think about you

And all of the things we could have been

I don’t
wanna talk about it

I don’t wanna talk about it

55

Jake

Rolling, rolling , rolling. Time doesn’t care what time it is.

I wasn’t ready to wake up. My head was as thick as a brick. The stink of cigarettes mixed with Victoria’s musky perfume tickled at my senses, and not in a good way. I rolled over moving away from the foul aroma that made my stomach turn. These European’s I’d been hanging with were the smokiest bunch of people I’d ever met. I thought the Midwest of the US was bad, nope. These people smoked like their lives depended on it, like it wouldn’t send them to an early grave.

              I stared over the mess that took over my rented flat. Victoria’s shopping bags, shoes and clothes were strewn everywhere. I wondered how her place looked and if it smelled of smoke as mine did, however faint it was, I hated it. I didn’t think her smoking would bother me but it did. It crept into every fiber and stuck to my skin like sticky invisible tar. It clung to Victoria’s hair too. Since I’d met her, she’d never had clean smelling hair, ever, it was always smoke tinged and now it was gross to me.

I couldn’t take the mess anymore or the smell o
f Victoria and her cigarettes. I had to pull my shit together and figure out how to get rid of Victoria. Let’s face it she’d been a quick fix to fill the void and now I’m not so sure the void could ever be filled. There always seemed to be something askew, gnawing at the edges. What time was it anyway? I wondered. It had been dawn when we arrived home, finally. I reached for my Levi’s and dragged myself out of bed.

I’d met Victoria Wellington half way through our first twelve city European tour. We’d been together nearly every day since, for nearly two months. Or was it longer? Whatever it was I’d had enough. Victoria was a friend of a friend of the headlining band. I spotted her leaning against the wall, smoking, near the backstage entrance as we were loading in. Her long hair and bare back caught my attention and from behind I swore it could have been Aly, as a blonde.

Victoria’s bare back was facing me once again, her golden blonde hair splayed out across the pillow. It could have been Aly lying there, too. To the eye they were so similar in body type, but to the touch Victoria was way softer. She didn’t workout like Aly. I missed Aly’s firmness. I missed her clean, sweet smell. I missed Aly’s everything. It’d been months since I’d obsessed about her. In fact, meeting Victoria was exciting. We connected instantly and it was fun for a while, she took my mind off of Aly, almost completely. Now here I was again, in that place I wanted so bad to vacate, my own Hotel California ~
you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave
~ The Eagles. I should tattoo those lyrics on me somewhere. What the fuck was wrong with me?

I wanted to get back to New York. To get back into the studio and to the girl I’d been seeing there, Sophia. That would help right? I really liked Sophia. She was nothing like Aly at all. We’d only gone on a few dates before I had to leave. We exchanged a few emails, all playful and never serious. That’s what I needed. Nothing serious a
nd Victoria mentioned one night she wanted to move to New York to try something new. Ugh. Really? I guess that’s what those trust fund Euro’s do. They just float where the wind took them. I was no longer gonna fill her sails.

“Now you know you could have someone else doing that for you.”

Victoria’s smooth raspy voice startled me and I tripped over her red stilettoes. I knew those things could kill someone. Her accent reminded me of Notting. That’s right, another reminder of home, I needed to return his call.

“Hey. Yeah well, considering I can’t stand looking at all this shit anymore.”

“I’ll call someone right over…”

“No,” I interrupted, “No, really, please, Victoria. Thank you. It’s fine. I have a washer and dryer right down the hall. Um, it would help if you could gather your stuff up too.”

I wondered how that last part came across but I wanted her to leave, even though she looked beyond sexy lying there with her perfect breasts peaking out through her hair. She stretched out her arm and rubbed the empty space in the bed.

“Come back to bed. You
must
not be feeling well. I could change that you know.”

I felt a pang in my groin.

“Yeah?” Who was I to deny myself one last romp with a willing participant? Dropping the basket I made my way around the mess. The closer I got I could smell the staleness left over from last night. Then an idea popped in my head.

“Let’s take a shower.”

“Look at you, something new.” She hummed.

She slid out of bed and tossed her blonde mane behind her. Her lilywhite skin was flawless and her pale pink nipples stood erect. I couldn’t deny my physical attraction for her. “After you.” I said smiling and held out my arm directing the way. “Start the shower. I’ll be there in a sec, the shampoo’s out.”

I knew exactly what I was doing but I just had to get rid of the decay that agonized my senses. I wanted a clean, refreshing scent. I wanted something from home. I rummaged through a duffle bag and grabbed out an old bottle of Suave Strawberry Citrus Rush, Aly’s signature scent.

I stepped into the shower placing the bottle on the tan tiled bench. I took Victoria in my arms and kissed her, shifting around so the water’s warmth would wrap around me. She released me and I watched her as she squeezed the pink tinged gel into the palm of her hand.

She giggled. “Where did you find this?”

“It’s just something I picked up along the way.”

“Ah, mhmm.” She smiled knowingly, as if she knew.

I paused, not sure how to react to that. She lathered her hair into a thick bubbly helmet. Thank God she wouldn’t smell like an ashtray anymore, and whatever else she thought smelled good. She moved me out of the way rinsing her hair and I picked up the bottle and held it under my nose closing my eyes. The most vibrant happy memories of Aly flashed in front of me. That was so long ago. Then I thought of how I left her, crying and broken.

“Darling, no.” Victoria said softly, rousing me from my time warp. “Let me wash your hair.”

She gently took the bottle from my hands. I watched as she drizzled more gel into her palm, then she began running her shampoo caked fingers through my hair. “Tip your head down more, here, sit down on the bench.”

Victoria was only a couple of years older than me, twenty, but she was way more secure with her sexual being than any American girl I’d been with. I’d heard that European woman were way more sexually forward thinking and now I believed it to be true, like it was wired in them since birth not to be self-conscious or something. Our first few nights together she’d taken control. Until then I’d never gone down on a girl long enough for her to have an orgasm or at least I didn’t think I did. There was nothing more arousing with anyone else other than being with Aly, and even then Aly and I only stayed on the surface. Victoria was sensual, knowing and slow moving. She was tantalizing. She talked me through everything and explained exactly how she liked it. From then on, it only took me a few minutes to please her that way. That sexual act was the only one that I’d felt inept. That was no more.

I sat with my eyes closed as she gently massaged my scalp. I opened them to her belly button only a few inches away from my lips. Of course I couldn’t help but glance down. She didn’t have one hair on her, smooth from a Brazilian wax job. That turned me on. I reach up wrapping my hands around her tiny waist and kissed her stomach. A soft moan escaped her. My hands roamed over her slippery, wet body to her breasts and between her legs. I kept my eyes closed as my tongue played with her nipple. The strawberry scent was overpowering and I fought to focus on Victoria, but Aly kept popping in my head.

“Jake, rinse your hair.” Her breathy voice prompted.

I stood with a hard on and backed into the water rinsing the suds from my hair. I felt her hand gently wrap around me and her lips pressed eagerly against mine. As much as it felt good, it was wrong. It was wrong in so many ways. Not only because I was going to ask her to leave, but I was turned on because I was fantasizing about Aly. I felt the guilt drape over me. Taking Victoria in my arms I held her. I knew I shouldn’t go any further. She kissed and sucked at my neck as her hands roamed my backside.

“Are you ok?” she whispered.

“No, actually I’m not. I feel sick, like I’m gonna puke.” Those same words, why do I always default to those words? Like I’d done with Rachel all those months ago?

She released me looking up and taking my face in her hands. I was sick that she wasn’t Aly staring back at me. I’d filled the air with her scent and pretended for a second it was her. What an asshole. Victoria was beautiful and willing and she deserved more. I felt like history was repeating itself. The whole Aly thing came out of nowhere. I didn’t realize I’d be taken by the familiar smell. What an idiot. I wasn’t over her like I’d thought I was. I’d convinced myself that thinking of her from time to time was just a normal thing, as I’d thought of all my other friends I’d been missing. Victoria didn’t know about Aly, and it wouldn’t make a difference now anyway.

I sat on the edge of the bed watching Victoria gather her things, folding and gently placing them in their designated bags. Royal blue Rag and Bone skinny jeans an
d a black and silver muted Iro blazer remained out. I was schooled on her fashion choices and their meaning as I shopped with her day after day. She hadn’t wanted to go home since we’d met. She lived in the country, an hour outside of London. I wondered why she never wanted to invite me to her place.

“Victoria, I’m curious. Why haven’t you invited me to your house?”

“Oh, I don’t know…it’s just been a thrill…to be in the moment, you know…I,” She trailed off. There was something that flashed across her face. She wasn’t telling me everything.

We looked at each other for a long moment and she giggled, nervously. She walked past me to her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes. “You know how it goes, Jake, reality is just…reality. My family is a little difficult.”

             
She pulled a long slim cigarette out of its pastel green casing and played with it between her fingers. I never noticed she had her nails painted a pale green color.