Never Understand Part One ( Johnthen Trent Adult Romance 1) (3 page)

I knew even then Josh would have made to love to every girl in the same expert way, but so long as I was getting it, what did I care? You could say he lacked passion, except it wasn’t exactly that. The burning eyes, the hot erection and the sheer care he took over it all said otherwise. He had plenty of passion, but for him, I felt it was never enough. It was all about control. He was doing everything so perfectly, just to gain control of me. And then when he had that control, then maybe I’d find out what his real passion was.

As it was all we ever did was fuck. He never took me out. No theater, not even a movie. The odd cocktail not long after I met him. I was no more than a sexual hook-up for him, where I thought I had a boyfriend and a lover.

Of course my regret is I never really found out what made him tick. I wanted closeness, passion, maybe love eventually. Josh used his skill to control me, but he wanted more control. He wanted to push it farther. He started with the handcuffs – and ended, who knows where? I turned him down at the handcuffs, said I wasn’t quite ready. I guess I’d had enough of people controlling me in my life, especially my father, and the handcuffs were a symbol of that. So I said no, and said we should be more loving, and I wanted a little more.

Joshua broke it off with me about an hour later. Said I didn’t trust him. He even said I couldn’t commit, which was rich coming from him. But the truth is, it was about sex and control for him and if I wasn’t playing ball, there were plenty of women who would.

Starting with Phoebe.

Who am I to complain? If I’d let him handcuff me and tie me up, and just went along for the ride, it could be me with all the
mmmm
and the
ahhh
on a Sunday afternoon. But that’s all it would ever be with Joshua. He’s a hot guy and a great lover, but that’s all. He’s also a bit of an arrogant jerk, I now realize this. To him, I was just another girl, and while he had complete control of the situation, he was fine. When I asked for something else and tried to have my say, he dumped me. Since then he’s been snarky and snippy, as if I’m some kind of man-hater.

Living in New York and trying to make it as an actress, I’ve seen that Life is more than happy to walk all over you. I don’t need to let Joshua Lake walk over me some more.

00000

Still on the subway, the more I think about Josh the less he means to me. What made me think of him? That silk-suited Deep and Mysterious, the Adonis at La Serenissima. It was his voice. That rich, deep voice was like his long, strong pianist’s finger pulled over my clit, dilating my eyes and stealing my breath for that second. Now there’s a man.

Almost home. Will Josh will be at the apartment when I get back. I think of Josh clicking those handcuffs on me instead of Phoebe and I realize I am slightly wet in my panties here on the subway. Wild thoughts creep into my mind again; Josh still there, with Phoebe cuffed to a dining chair. He’ll be sitting in the armchair and see the lust in my eyes as I walk in, and he’ll tell me to undress. And I’ll obey like the bad girl I always have been for him.

Chapter 3: Chelsea, New York City, Sunday 7 May

‘You need to phone in sick on Tuesday,’ says Phoebe when I walk back in the apartment. ‘We’re going to an art show.’

When I get home, Josh has gone. Mercifully. Phoebe is still up, all smiley and bouncy. Was it really that much fun with Josh that she’s still got that “cat that got the cream” look? She looks every inch the exhilaratingly oversexed New York girl I am not, which makes it all worse. To say my reply has an edge of frustration would be an understatement.

‘Yes, of course,’ I say hurling my purse on the sofa. ‘Because I’ve got so much cash that I can phone in sick whenever I want! And my student loans were paid off months ago. NOT.’ I head towards my room, making a mental note to buy myself a vibrator before I become impossible to live with.

Phoebe’s not in the mood for this gust of negative energy from her tired and frustrated room-mate. She’s just been fucked into dreamland, even if it was by an emotionally stunted, narcissistic Wall Street jock.

‘Andrea Davidson, remember her?’ says Phoebe, coming after me. ‘She sent you an email.’

Of course I remember Andrea. She was involved with stage design, costume design and all sorts of fun things when Phoebe and I were at the Metropolitan School of Drama and Dance. Andrea Davidson is a creative dynamo. While we were at Drama School, she was completing her own Masters in Fine Art, designing sets for us at the Drama School, getting together her first portfolio of fashion design ideas to hawk round the studios, while simultaneously exhibiting her first collection of sculpture - in the Hamptons of all places. Multi-talented Andrea Davidson - she works at 500 miles per hour. She has a talent for effortless self-promotion too, and she’s a living reminder to me of everything I’m not.

‘Andrea’s latest show is opening Tuesday,’ says Phoebe. ‘We should go along.
You
should go along. You look like you could use a night out and you never know who you might meet. It’s at the Saul Hankow Gallery, down at Battery Park.’

‘Come on, Phoeb,’ I say, exhausted. ‘Those artist people are so phoney. And The Saul Hankow Gallery is full of bankers and finance guys from Wall Street.’

‘And?’ says Phoebe. ‘You talk like that’s a bad thing. Come on, it’s going to be full of hot rich guys. Guys like Josh. ’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

Phoebe doesn’t like that. It’s an indirect stab at her boyfriend. ‘You’re afraid of running into Josh?’ she says, accusingly.

A derisive snort escapes me. ‘As if! Anyhow, we both know he won’t be there,’ I say. It’s true. Josh likes to concentrate on what he does well, which means making money, windsurfing and, chiefly, sex. And while I wouldn’t put it past him to go picking up girls at the Saul Hankow Gallery, it wouldn’t work out so well if Phoebe was there too, would it? Meeting Phoebe at the gallery would be like an
actual date
, and therefore an inefficient use of his time. ‘No, I’m not worried about meeting Josh. I just don’t want to go.’

She’s unconvinced. ‘What’s the problem? You’re not worried about work, surely?’

‘I assume you’re not worried if I can’t make the rent this month, then?’ I say, aggressively. ‘Very generous of you.’ It’s bogus though. I’m not worried about work, and I’m not worried about all those Josh Lake-lookalike bankers. One of them, preferably with a little more “decent human feeling”, would do very nicely, thank you. It’s the artists and actors Andrea knows that I’m worried about. They remind me how I’ve failed to make it. It will be, “Still working at that Italian joint, Jana?” And Andrea herself is a living reproach to me.

Phoebe gives me a look, eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Jana,’ she says seriously, like she’s giving sisterly advice. My hackles are beginning to rise. ‘Like I said, you don’t know who you might meet. If there’s some big producer or director down there, you can get your game face on, pull out all the stops and charm the pants off him. Like you did when you met Josh.’

Did I? Was I that transparent?

‘Sorry to break it to you, honey,’ Phoebe goes on, reading me like a book, ‘But if the same bigshot director comes in your restaurant, he’s gonna look straight through you. He wouldn’t even recognise you when you come back with the check, let alone in the morning. You’re no-one to him. At Andrea’s party, you’ve at least got a chance to network.’

There. That’s me told. She might just as well have said, “You’re no-one. Just like you were no-one to that superhot guy in the restaurant tonight. He gave the tip to Massimo”. That was bad enough. But she goes one further. Phoeb has a knife and she twists it viciously.

‘Or maybe you should do what anyone else would do, stop complaining that you can’t get an acting part, and go have a chat with your dad?’

A simple sentence, but it’s like she just kicked me in the chest, robbing me of breath and speech. Phoebe knows it. She wears a look that says she’s won the exchange, and she has. But that last cheap shot, bringing my father into it… did she have to?

There’s nothing worse than knowing you’re wrong. If I don’t go to Andrea Davidson’s show, how can I pretend I’m even trying to get acting work? And as Phoebe said, I could sure use a night out.

I have to go.

But she had no right to bring my father into it.

Chapter 4: Chelsea, New York City Monday 8 May

Phoebe says I have an integrity problem.

She means I have too much of it. Integrity, that is. Phoebe would have no problem phoning in sick an hour before her shift started. In fact she rings in sick to her office without a second thought, beginning the call with a trademark fusillade of coughing and laying on the gross medical details, until her boss can’t wait to get her off the phone. By contrast, I can’t stand the idea of lying on the phone to Massimo and letting him down.

This morning, I take the easy way out and level with Massimo, calling him early on Monday morning so that he can get someone else to cover my shift on Tuesday. ‘It’s a chance for me to do some networking, Massimo, and I can’t pass it up. I’ll do Friday night again if you need me.’

There. Massimo would have been happier if I’d called in sick, rather than hear how I am doing my damnedest to escape working at his restaurant. But what the hell? My integrity is intact and my conscience is clear.

As it happens, Massimo sounds quite pleased. He says he’s fine for Friday. He’ll ring and tell me when he needs me for a lunchtime shift.

One of the things about working evenings is that I have all my free time during the day, when everyone else is at work. It has some advantages. If I had the money to shop for instance, I could assemble a wardrobe with style and flare. If I had some acting work on, I could rehearse during the day.

That’s all hypothetical. Since I have no money and no acting work, I use the time to keep in shape. People don’t realize what a part physical fitness plays in acting. During my first semester at drama school it felt more like gymnastics at times, and since I’m what is known as “curvy”, not naturally slim like Phoebe, I have to work at it. I was out running at six every morning, while Phoeb was in bed. I remember we had to be able to jump onto a table from a standing position, and I never thought I’d do it. But I did. And I still can, just about, unlike Phoebe.

Keeping in shape is good, though I’m still not sure how many directors are looking for the “real woman” shape offered by yours truly, Jana Kidd, rather than the super-svelte nymph. Body fascism is alive and kicking in the Hollywood Reich for sure.

I mentioned my father. The body shape issue is one of the “things” I have with my father. He’s a TV producer in LA, and as Phoebe and probably the rest of mankind would point out, he’s easily my best chance of engineering my “big break” into TV. I won’t go to him, though. Not if my life depended on it. I’ve deliberately stayed in New York so that no one’s even going to
think
I’ve asked my father to pull strings for me. Hopefully no one in NYC will even know him, although that’s something of a long shot even three thousand miles away.

My father wasn’t happy at all that I wanted to act. He says the right things and says he loves me. But he doesn’t believe in me. He always told me how tough it was going to be, and that he didn’t agree with me going into acting. ‘It’s hard, Jana. It’s so political, and it’s about who you know. You’re too sincere. Half of those girls on TV have slept their way to the top. You don’t know what they’ve been through.’

He thinks he’s trying to protect me, but he has to realize he can’t do that anymore. I don’t want to spill my whole guts about this one, but the body shape thing is just one of those things. He once told me I had the wrong body shape for a “real acting career”. He said my natural shape “won’t make it any easier in your career”.

So you can see why I work like a maniac on the fitness. I still run six miles every morning before I start thinking about what to do in the rest of the day. I use a few free weights and stretching routines in the apartment after that. My budget doesn’t stretch to gym membership, but I do what I can, and it’s the only thing I’m really dedicated to.

I’m finishing up my stretching in the apartment when the phone rings. Massimo.

‘Can you come in today, Jana? Lunchtime? I need you lunchtime, is that OK?’

Unexpected and short notice – but it’s not like I’m busy. I shower, dress for work and get on my way. I’m glad I can help Massimo and it gets the extra shift over with. It’s just about 12.30 when I arrive at the polished glass door of La Serenissima. I can see Massimo behind the door, and he unlocks to let me in.

It’s like an explosion has gone off in my head, with questions flying everywhere. Massimo is unlocking the door, and yet it’s lunchtime, so why is the door locked? La Serenissima is closed Mondays. I hadn’t given it a thought, but the restaurant is closed on Mondays. What am I doing here? And why have I dressed in my work clothes of white shirt and black skirt, when Massimo is wearing jeans, black cashmere sweater and loafers? I glance behind me as I go through the glass door, as if I’m doing something clandestine; as if Massimo and I are up to something. There’s something guilty in his eyes for sure. I stiffen next to Massimo. What’s he up to?

The restaurant is dark save for the spotlights above the bar, which create a pool of warm, cheerful light. It’s eerie and mysterious to be here in the dark, and it’s so quiet. I’m lost for words, but I guess I’m looking nervously at Massimo, as if to say, ‘What the hell?’

‘It’s OK. I pay you for the shift,’ says Massimo, guiltily. ‘Someone wants to speak to you.’ He doesn’t elaborate. He merely flicks his eyes towards the other end of the restaurant, near the bar. Then he disappears.

In the shadows, I make out the tall, slim form of a man, lounging back on one of the restaurant chairs, and I know instinctively who it is.

Chapter 5: La Serenissima, New York City Monday 8 May

It is of course Mr Dark and Mysterious from the night before. The bright, warm light of the spotlights catches the gold and green of his eyes as he steps out of the shadows, and I can’t help but look at him again. He’s wearing a suit, flowing over his sculpted physique just as it did before, but it’s not the same suit. It’s not quite the same cut. His shirt is crisp linen, not silk and there’s no tie this time.