Second Best Fantasy

Second Best Fantasy

By Angela Kelly

Published by JMS Books LLC

This book is available in print.

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2011 Angela Kelly

ISBN 978-1-61152-152-8

Cover Photo Credit: Jose Antonio Sánchez Reyes Used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

Cover Design: J.M. Snyder

All Rights Reserved

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

Author’s Note:
Although within these pages Janine Jordan is a fictional character, all song titles and lyrics are courtesy of the amazing Kayla Brown. To find out more about her and her music, visit myspace.com/kaylabrownmusic.

* * * *

Second Best Fantasy

By Angela Kelly

For Cin, my fantasy woman incarnate.

And for Kayla, whose talent the world needs to know.

Joan Orlean.

I couldn’t believe it. After two years of entering my name into dozens of email pools to attend record release parties for rock stars I either didn’t care for or didn’t know, I had missed my opportunity to catch a glimpse of someone I really admired.

Fuck.

I had missed work due to an overindulgence of Southern Comfort and less than satisfying sex the night before. Then, while still lying in bed unshowered, nauseous, and with a jackhammer deep in my cerebellum, the phone rang. Jan, a co-worker, had called to announce she had won the pool and would be trotting down to Avenue A Records the following Saturday to meet the one, the only, the every-lesbian-in-the-world-wanted-to-touch Joan Orlean.

It was out and out unfair; especially given the fact Jan wasn’t even gay. The heinous wrong was equal to a straight guy winning first row tickets to a Melissa Etheridge concert. As I was ready to tell Jan to fuck off and never speak to me by the coffee maker again, she made me glad I hadn’t said anything.

“I just wanted you to know that, although I would never surrender my invitation to anyone, even at gunpoint, I think there’s a way I can get you in. I know you’re a big fan,” she said.

Swallowing bile, I managed to reply, “Any chance you can give me I’d pay money for.”

“Well, that’s exactly what you’ll have to do. I have a bartender friend down at the Red Robin. He told me Jack Kasper is one of the owners of Hammerfield and Company. They are the caterers for the party. My friend claims Jack is a big time lush 1

and a regular at the Robin. If you feed him enough whiskey, he’s been known to take bribes to sneak people in through the kitchen for other high profile events. I looked into this myself before I knew I’d won the pool.”

Only in New York,
I thought to myself.

“Thanks Jan, I’ll give it a shot.”

“How are you feeling, by the way?”

“I’ll be in tomorrow.”

Jan wasn’t so bad. I hardly knew her except in an office environment kind of way, and I was touched she’d gone through the trouble of calling and advising me on how I could meet one of my few idols. The trick then became feeling well enough to venture out and smooth talk some catering drunk who was quite likely also an asshole.

* * * *

I guess you would say I was a high-society dyke, looking at my life from the outside in. My life at that time was the envy of a lot of friends, and with good reason. I drove a moderately priced car that I owned outright, I had a home in the east village, and I had a great job. However, I wasn’t snobby or some rich kid, which redeemed me in the eyes of most people. I had worked hard for everything I had, and considered myself a genuinely good person. And, like many people that arouse jealousy in others, I was often lonely.

It was late summer in 1994 and life in New York then was any lesbian’s dream. You could simply be out “among your own,”

take refuge as a stranger, go pick someone up or be picked up, or even seek out a friend instead of a lover, all dependent upon which bar, restaurant, or store you walked into.

I belonged in New York. Born and bred in New Jersey, educated in the Midwest, there was no place else on earth I would have ever wanted to call home.

I had moved to New York when I was thirty. After so many years of working hard and feeling like my wheels were spinning, perhaps turning thirty was all I ever needed to do. It was the 2

most fortunate year of my life.

I had returned to school when I was 24 and spent four years in the University of Illinois getting a Master’s degree in English. I didn’t want to teach so I found a great job in Illinois with a book compositor that didn’t pay much but gave me priceless experience that allowed me to land my job in the big city and move back closer to my roots. Within a month of my big three zero, I had flown to New York for both a first and second interview at my job, packed up my apartment into a Ryder truck, untangled myself from yet another woman gone bad, and drove away, knowing I would never miss the cornfields of the Midwest.

The luckiest stroke was still to come. After commuting from a friends place in New Jersey for three long months, I met a real estate agent in a gay bar who wanted to fuck me so badly she offered me a deal on a sublet in the village for a price that was simply unheard of.

* * * *

My job was a dream job. I became an English major because I wanted to work in the publishing industry, so my education combined with my experience at the compositor allowed me the luxury of actually being in the profession I chose, something I know has only happened to one, maybe two people I’d ever met in my entire life.

I had acquired two solid years of production experience by the time I first flew to New York to meet the Human Resources director for Phantom Publishing, Inc. Phantom was indirectly affiliated with the music industry. Our clients were publishers that specialized in rock biographies, “scene” magazines, websites, and project management plans that were farmed out from record labels when they had more than they could handle.

Our responsibilities to the clients ranged from editing and proofreading to being customer service liaisons between them and the authors. If you owned any CD that was on the charts, chances are a colleague or I had scribbled corrections all over the inside cover jacket at one time. I was far removed from any 3

customer contact and that’s exactly the way I liked it. I thanked the heavens each day as I rode the train to the shiny marble office building.

* * * *

I sat with my arms wrapped around my knees in the tub and let the shower wash away the debauchery of the night before.

I’d made myself a breakfast of Bloody Marys and French toast at three o’clock in the afternoon after I’d gotten off the phone with Jan. I still felt woozy, but knew from experience a bottle of Pepto-Bismol and a half dozen Advil would have me on my feet and looking good enough to make the drunk caterer swoon.

A few hours later I dropped off my silk sheets at the dry cleaners and took a cab to the Red Robin. The bartender had been tipped off by Jan and pointed out Jack Kasper shooting pool with some other suits at the other end of the bar.

I wasn’t sure how to approach him, so I had the bartender send him a drink on me. He looked over and raised his glass to me in a toast. I bided my time and waited for him to come to me.

When it became obvious it wasn’t going to happen, I took a chance and strode to the jukebox. Three dollars and an album side of Joan Orlean later, he came and perched on the barstool next to mine.

“So, I assume you’re a dyke and my asking you to fuck me in exchange for getting you into Avenue A Records is out of the question.”

I was right in my assumption he would be an asshole.

“Well, yes, that’s true. But I do have $250 in an envelope.

Would that make up for the loss of a lay? I have to admit I’m still hung over and I wouldn’t be very good even if I were straight.”

He had a sense of humor because he snorted for a few minutes and then hacked that awful smoker’s cough I was blessed enough to not be cursed with myself. He slid the envelope into his back pocket after removing a $20 to wave in the bartender’s face. “Bring my woman here a double of Jack straight up, and make it two for me.”

4

To be honest, Jack was a good-looking guy that probably got laid a lot in spite of his atrocious demeanor. He promised to pull strings with the suits and get me on the guest list, so I wouldn’t have to be smuggled in through the caterer’s entrance in the alley. I thanked him with a hug and a brush of my lips against his. It was fucking Joan Orlean, after all. If I’d had enough to drink, I would’ve considered jerking him off if he had rejected my $250 in the envelope.

* * * *

The next day arrived slow and languidly. I went to work to make up at least a few of my hours, feigning an illness so well I could’ve been nominated for an Oscar. I suspected at least a couple of my superiors were heavy drinkers and knew and understood the rare occasions I called out. I chose to play up to the innocent ones, because a drunk knows that you cannot trust another drunk.

After six hours I ran out of work and couldn’t believe how caught up I was on my various projects. I was as guilty as any one for slacking off when I had the chance, but when I worked, I worked hard. We’d just come through an extremely busy period, and I’d been thinking of taking vacation leave. Not to go away or do anything special, just relax my mind and maybe take a trip over the bridge to visit my parents.

I mentioned this to Trish, one of my favorites, on my way out. She told me to let her know on Monday, they could afford to be without me for a few days, especially since I was one of their highest paid supervisors. As she walked away, I knew that she was mentally calculating how much money she could save in payroll. I knew this was why no one ever gave me a hard time when I put in a vacation request, the longer I was gone and not sucking up overtime, the better for the company.

I left and went home to get ready for Joan Orlean.

* * * *

5

I saw her the moment I stepped through the door. She was difficult to miss. She wasn’t beautiful, yet she was striking. In a crowd of music industry suits and pantsuits, she stood out like blue suede in her seventies revival gear, reminiscent of a young Grace Slick.

During the controversial social climate of the nineties, there had been a resurgence of sixties and seventies memorabilia, clothes, attitudes, and TV shows. Although the marketing onslaught of all of this wound up somehow being marketed to teens, it reverberated throughout a generation old enough to remember those times. As a result, parents of the new fake hippie generation in their tie-dyes and ripped jeans were dusting off their turntables and pulling out their The Who, Doors, and Stones albums by the dozens.

The ever-evolving geniuses of the record industry didn’t skip a beat and started signing bands like the Blue Is, fronted by the woman I was now staring at. I’d heard their one hit single, and at first, I couldn’t even remember the singer’s name. But then I remembered reading somewhere that she and Joan went way back and I had it: Janine Jordan.

I had no idea what the rest of Janine’s album sounded like, but the one song was as good as, actually a little better than, anything else that was being granted precious air time on the radio. It had a Melissa Etheridge feel to it, with an old Heart type rocking backbeat added to enhance the vocals.

Unable to recall the name of the song, I asked a colleague I recognized from Rhino Records whom I spotted at the buffet table.

“Oh, yeah, ‘Too Much Trouble,’ I think. Yeah, that’s her over there; she looks different than in the video.”

Typical. Civilians assume if they ran into Cher in the grocery store she’d look and dress exactly the same as she had in those eighties Jack La Lane commercials.

I mingled, but kept my eye on Janine. I wasn’t star struck; I didn’t go in for all of that, if I had, I would’ve been all over Joan.

Instead, I kept my cool. Eventually I’d make my way over to the crowd, flash Joan my pearly whites, and hope for the best.

And Janine, well, after all, I only knew the one song; she 6