LIKE (Social Media #2) (2 page)

I just couldn’t imagine living with that level of uncertainty Felicity was displaying. So I adopted her. Sent her to the best school for the duration of high school and just as I suspected, she was brilliant. She made up for all the previous years of poor education with perfect attendance and she graduated
summa cum laude
right on time. Colleges came knocking and she was admitted to my alma mater, the University of Southern California, without me even pulling strings or writing an extra check.

Now, she’s a senior. Psychology with a minor in criminal justice. Still has perfect grades. Still has perfect attendance. And even if she had none of that, she’s still perfect to me.

Yes, Felicity has certainly changed my view on life. The past four years have been the best, even though my love life has seriously been lacking. I count up the number of submissives I’ve had in that time. At least fifteen. Some of them were so bad at it, I never got past the first oral sex. All were stand-ins for the real deal.

I’ve had plenty of public girlfriends too, and those I do not fuck. It’s a business arrangement my agent sets up. We go out to eat together, shop once in a while, attend functions—but, you know, public things.

I don’t take the subs to any of that stuff. And to be honest, I’ve never had the desire.

I think I can count two authentic girlfriends in my life and both were in my teens. My co-star at Disney was matched up with me for some awards show and we actually did hit it off. We’re still friends now, but she’s… well, a movie star. Egomaniac, selfish, pampered, and self-sufficient. She never needed me.

I like to be needed.

The other real girlfriend crashed and burned at eighteen. Been in and out of rehab about a dozen times. It’s too bad, she was so cute as a teenager. But that one was clingy. Too needy. I like to be needed, but not for stupid things like waking up on time every day. I want to date a grownup. That girl never quite grew up, no matter how old she got.

After that, eh, I could take them or leave them. You’d think it’d be easy to find a soulmate as an internationally famous movie star. But it’s not. People just want to use you. They want something from you at all time. They want money, they want introductions, they want help.

I never know if they like me for me, or just for what I can give them. It’s hard to separate the two because if you really want to make a relationship work, you have to be invested.

I try not to be invested. I admit that says I’m not trying to be in a relationship. Which is why I have the submissive girls. They do what I say, and while I certainly do hand things out, they don’t get to
ask
me for anything.

One-way streets. Those are the best kind of relationships for me. I tell them up front I’m not invested. I’m shallow, I’m using them, I’m a controlling asshole. Take it or leave it.

Very few leave it. Well, that’s not true, they all leave it eventually. When I kick them out the door. When I drop their asses off at the airport. When I stop taking calls, or answering emails, or reading messages. I don’t need to change the locks, they never come home with me anymore. Not since Felicity. This is a sex-free house. For both of us. No boys here for her, no women here for me.

Nada. This place is our safe haven from the world and that’s how it’s gonna stay.

My tablet dings with an incoming third-party Twitter notification.

@FilthyBlueBird has unfollowed you.

I laugh. “Oh, Grace, Grace, Grace. You think you can slip me that easily?”

Grace @FilthyBlueBird – 1s

OMG, I have a stalker! What do I do, #BlueBirds?

You’d think a woman using Twitter this regularly for a few years would understand how it all works. I can still see her tweets when she unfollows me. I have to stop and laugh a little.

MovieStar @VaughnAsher – 30s

@FilthyBlueBird
Who is this stalker? I will set him straight.

And then the usual happens. Within minutes, there are dozens of @replies. Mostly from her girlfriends on the Dirty Heaven list, the #BlueBirds. But some random stalkerish fans of my own are in there too.

@VaughnAsher is @FilthyBlueBird your GF?

@VaughnAsher if you’re the stalker, you can stalk me any time!

@VaughnAsher who is @FilthyBlueBird? Can I be your blue bird?

They get worse from there. Invitations to fuck them. Sit on my face. #SOHF is a code word for that on Twitter. @FilthyBlueBird uses that one a lot. And I’ve got to admit, that’s something I’d like to imagine. More than imagine, actually. I’d like to lick that sweet little pussy until she’s dripping down my chin.

Fuck. I’m horny. I reach for my phone and press Grace’s number in my contacts. She picks up on the first ring.

“What the hell are you doing?” she growls at me.

“You left so suddenly, Grace. I didn’t have a chance to—”

“Get off my Twitter feed, Asher. Now!”

I chuckle. It’s one of those full-of-myself chuckles I do when my power is looming over people. “Now whyever would I do that, Miss Kinsella?”

“Because, Vaughn, I’m just a girl from Denver who has absolutely no interest in signing your contract. It was a fun fling, but it’s over now. So leave me alone and stop stalking me on Twitter! My friends are all going to see—” She’s interrupted by a continuous litany of pinging from my tablet and I admit, at this point in the conversation, I’ve got a hand over my mouth to stop the laughing. She screams on the other end of the line.

I can see why. She just got bombarded with tweets asking about me.

“Oh my God. What do I tell them? What the hell am I going to tell them?” She screams again. “Fuck! Bebe just found out, thanks a lot! I never told her about you, now she’s going to know I was with you on the island.”

“So?”

“So? Jesus, have you no sympathy for me at all? She’s my best friend and I lied to her! I fucked a goddamned movie star and I didn’t tell her! How can you—”

“Grace?”

“—be so fucking cold, you jerk!”

“Grace?”

“Oh. My. God. Do you hear that? That’s her now! She’s calling on the other line!”

“Answer it, I’ll wait.”

“Answer it? No! I’m—”

“Grace?”

“What?”

“I’ll tell them all it was a lie if…”

“If what?” she growls at me through the phone.

“If you have phone sex with me, right now.”

“Holy shit, you are insane!”

“Oh! What’s that ding? Bebe again? I don’t suppose she’s very happy with you leaving the island the way you did either. I sense a girl fight coming. I almost wish I was there so—”

“Fine! Fine, fine, fine, I’ll do it. Just quick, say it was a lie.”

“No can do, Miss Kinsella. I need satisfaction first.”

There is a pause then. A blank in her freaking out. But the entire time I can hear her Twitter dinging the incoming messages. She sighs. “OK, you win. Just tell me what to do, I’ve never done anything like this before.” Her breath is all ragged and fast. It’s driving me wild. I wish she was here so bad. I’d strip her naked and bend her over the couch back, then finger her pussy until she screamed.

“Make me come. It’s that simple. With words, Grace. Make me come with words.” I close my tablet cover and it makes a little snapping sound as the operating system goes to sleep. “Did you hear that? That was me putting my tablet aside. I’m not in the least bit of a hurry to stop the Twitter chatter going on right now. But if you are, my girl, then by all means, you can make it snappy.”

“You’re lucky I’m not there. I’d make it snappy. I’d snap my teeth on your manhood so hard, you’d—”

“Now, now. While I do love the image of your mouth on my cock, your plump lips wrapped around my shaft, sucking while your hands pump me hard and fast—the teeth are not working for me. So leave that part out.”

She growls again and my pants become a little tighter as she decides what to do. “Why? Why do you like to embarrass me?”

“I’m not trying to embarrass you. Why do you think that?”

“Because you want me to talk dirty to you, you want to fuck me in public, you want to drag me kicking and screaming outside my comfort zone and you want to laugh at me while you do it. I don’t like that.”

“First of all, Grace, take a nice deep breath and then sit down, lean back on your couch or the pillows on your bed, and relax for a moment. Can you do that?”

She groans on the other end of the phone. “Fine, I’m sitting on my couch, completely relaxed.”

I smile as I picture her all tensed up. She’s probably pacing. “Take a deep breath, I said.”

She inhales deeply, holds for a moment, then lets it out in a long, slow stream.

“OK, now listen to me. I am not laughing at you at all. I’m enjoying you. You make me smile, OK? You make me laugh, yes, but in all the right ways. You bring me… joy. Do you see the difference? I’m not trying to embarrass you. I’m trying to stimulate you.”

“But why does that have to be in front of the whole world?”

I sigh and narrow my eyes as I try and work through what she’s saying. “I’m surprised at this direction you’re going, to be honest. I mean, look at it from my perspective, Grace. You’ve been online for years. Years! Typing out every dirty sexual fantasy about me in public. You do understand that, right? Or have you deluded yourself into thinking no one is watching what you’re doing? Maybe you think this is just a friendly chat with a few friends, but that’s not the case, Kinsella. Your Dirty Heaven thing is quite big. In fact, on Saturday nights, you are a Twitter star. So how can you blame me for assuming that you have a fetish for exhibitionism?”

She’s silent on the other end.

“Am I right? Or did I totally miss the boat on this? Because I just assumed, after reading that tweet in the bar, that we were into the same thing.”

“So you
do
like public sex!” She says this like it’s a gotcha moment and I practically throw up my hands.

“Grace, how could you be my online stalker for years and not realize that? I admit, it’s reading between the lines, but there are so many lines to read between. Every few months there’s a report about my deviant behavior. Don’t you read
Buzz Hollywood
?”

“I do, but—”

“But you assumed they were lying?”

“Well, yes. Of course. I mean, I’m not naïve, I figured the NDA was legit. But I just always gave you the benefit of the doubt.”

I am silent. I’m seriously without words. “You… did?”

“Of course, Vaughn. I had you wrapped up in this tight fantasy bubble. You were like, my prince. You were the perfect man. And I know that’s not real. I understand you’re a human being, but…”

She trails off and I’m not sure I can fill in the silence, so I don’t even try. I let it hang there.
We
let it hang there.

“Are you still there?” she asks.

“Yes,” I breathe out. “Just thinking.”

“About how stupid and pathetic I am?”

“No, Grace. That’s not what I’m thinking. I’m thinking… it’s been a long time since someone was so honest with me.”

It’s her turn to be silent now.

“Grace?”

“I’m still here.”

“Tell me, truthfully, if you don’t mind. Why don’t you have a boyfriend? Why do you waste your Saturday nights on me?”

“Why not you? I mean, you’re hot. And you’re so easy.” She giggles. “I mean, you have such a long public history, you know? I can do a search and somewhere, someone has an answer to my questions about you. I like that. And your pictures are everywhere, so I can make cute graphics with comment bubbles over your head.”

“I’m public.”

“Yeah, you’re—” She stops as the pieces fall into place. I have never had a conversation about this stuff with a woman. None of them. “That’s why you like the public stuff? Because you’re an open book?”

I let her think about this for a few seconds. “Makes sense, though, right? I mean, look, I’ve been in the media since I was five and started doing commercials. Primetime sitcom series for six years, then the band when I was fourteen. I’ve been on display my whole life. What’s one more asshole watching me during a private moment?”

“Is it an addiction? Have you ever had sex in private?”

I laugh. “Of course.”

“But you thought I like the public stuff too?”

“I know it excites you, Grace. I felt your pussy and it was wet every single time. So why fight it? Why give me such pushback?”

“Because it makes me feel… dirty.”

“Aren’t you? Aren’t you the filthy blue bird? Isn’t that the public persona you’ve been cultivating for the past few years?”

Silence from her again.

“It’s not real to you, is it? All that Twitter stuff. It’s fake to you. Is that why you don’t have a boyfriend? You prefer the illusion?”

“That’s actually not why.”

But her tone is hostile, so maybe that’s not exactly why, but there is a reason why she doesn’t have a boyfriend. And it’s got something to do with this Twitter stuff. Somehow, some way, it’s related.