The Complete Groupie Trilogy (36 page)

“Vanni, listen to me,” I tried to reason, but he was too far gone. “She was an adult. She made her choices too. And that included the one where she ended her life over someone she barely knew. This isn’t your fault. You’re an asshole, but you’re not a worthless piece of shit.”

He laughed in spite of himself. His red eyes met mine. “Good ol’ Andy. I can always count on you to tell me the truth.”

I smiled. “What are friends for?”

His eyes searched my face. “You were more than a friend,” he said. “And I hurt you too.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Vanni…”

He turned his attention back to the box on the dresser across from the bed. It had the peignoir hanging out of the edge. “And now it’s too late. I’ve lost you to someone who can give you what I couldn’t.”

I had to chuckle. If only he knew. “I bet he says the same t
hing about you,” I said softly.

Vanni turned back toward me. “Remember last Christmas?” he asked as he touched my cheek with the back of his hand. “Before it was so crazy and so complicated?”

I took his hand in mine. “Honey, it’s always been crazy and complicated,” I pointed out.

“And yet it doesn’t feel that way when I’m with you,” he said softly. “It never did. It’s always felt right. Like I’ve come home.” Then, “Thank you for the gift.”

I toppled headlong into those bottomless brown eyes. Little could he know that he was giving me a gift right at that moment, with that look on his face that could melt my will like lava. It was all I dreamed about this whole, horrible year. “Vanni…”

With that he bent toward me and the warmth of his mouth covered mine. My whole body came alive under his kiss, and I almost literally swooned against him. This wasn’t angry, desperate or punishing, like our last few encounters. This was tender and beseeching. Without words he begged for me to open myself up to him, and without words that was exactly what I did. My arms wound around his neck as I clutched him tightly to me, kissing him with all the desire I had pent up for months.

He eased me down on the bed under him, and I felt his hands liberally explore my full curves as though he desperately needed to once again imprint them on his memory. I whispered his name against his lips, which made him more brazen. His hungry touch poured over my body, bringing each peak and valley to life under his fingers.

“Tell me you’re still mine,” he pleaded as he pressed his body against mine. Even fully clothed we fit together like two perfect pieces of the same puzzle. “Tell me it’s not too late.” He covered my neck with hot kisses and then whispered into my ear, “I love you, Andy. I love you.”

My fingers dug in his back as I repeated the words back to him in an urgent whisper. It didn’t even occur to me we were on a bed in Graham’s house, with Graham’s party raging on just outside the doors.

It had all faded unto a low hum just outside of the world that Vanni had created for me. A make believe world – that I knew all too well had real world consequences.

I gasped as I bolted upright when I remembered the door to my room was open. And there, just like I knew he had to be, was Graham looking on, transfixed and broken-hearted.

We stared at each other for a wordless minute that seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Even Vanni pulled himself up and tried to compose himself, as if he himself realized too late he was canoodling with the boss’s romantic i
nterest right in his own house.

When Graham turned away I couldn’t help but run after him. “Graham! Graham, wait!”

I chased him through the throng of people, unaware that my hair was mussed and my makeup smeared. No one seemed to care except the man who wouldn’t turn around no matter how much I called out for him.

He didn’t stop until he was out of the house and onto the darkened beach just beyond his patio. “Graham!” I called as I stumbled off into the sand. “Please, wait.”

He spun around. “Wait for what, Andy? All I’ve done since I met you is wait. I thought if I just gave you enough time you’d come to your senses. You’d see how good we could be together, how it would feel to be with a man who truly respected you and valued you. But now I get it. That’s not what you want, is it? You want to be temporary. To be disposable.” He looked disgusted as he flung the accusation.

Tears poured down my face. I never meant to hurt him, but it was clear I had. “Graham…”

“I could wait forever and you’ll never look at me the way you look at him.” He approached me, growing angrier, and sadder, by the second. “You’ll never kiss me the way you kissed him. You’ll never touch me the way you touched him. And you’ll never love me. Not the way you love him.”

There were no excuses to give. He was absolutely right and we both knew it. “I’
m sorry,” I offered helplessly.

“You should be,” he said, fighting back tears of his own. “Because he’ll never love you the way I love you.”

His declaration of love hit me like a gunshot. In that instant I realized I was his Vanni. The one he would want that could never love him in return the way he wanted. “Graham,” I cried out but he stalked away from me and back into the house.

This time I didn’t bother to follow. I sank to my knees in the sand and tried to figure out where it all had gone so completely wrong.

Los Angeles, December 2009

Talia

I didn’t think I would be able to last until I could see Giovanni again. I missed him so badly my soul ached every single day I couldn’t have contact with him.

He must have sensed it because he began to send healing thoughts to me, through the air, through my dreams, and sometimes even my waking moments.

I could feel his touch on my back when I walked from one room to the other, particularly if I was undressed. He was such a naughty boy and I knew he didn’t want to wait much longer, but I still had to find some way to get rid of Ben. Since he started getting sick in April it had been nearly impossible to leave him, but with his disability payments finally approved we could afford a nurse, as well as a couple of well-timed vacations for me to take with my new man.

And besides…he was barely conscious by the time I left him I knew he’d never even know I was gone. Kind of like our marriage.

So I raced to L.A. to be with the man of my dreams, my soul mate, even though I knew we would have to play it cool. He’d already warned me in my dreams that he had to keep Kat around to keep the other groupies away. Groupies like Tawnie, whom he already apologized to me for sleeping with in New York City.

He was so desperate to be with me he had to be with someone, and she was there.

And of course she’d be in Los Angeles too, but I wasn’t worried. He already let me kno
w he’d never be with her again.

And if he couldn’t make tha
t happen, I sure as hell could.

I wasn’t playing anymore with these skanky whores who wanted my man. He belonged to me in spirit if not yet in body. We’d made love through mutual meditation, in a way that bonded our spirits forever. And I knew that he was as eager as I was to make our love a reality.

I was willing to wait it out until we could be together. First I had to be single, and then he could give up his charade with that trashy little slut who slithered around stage like a viper just waiting to strike.

I made him promise in our spiritual encounters that he would not sleep with her anymore. I didn’t put her above getting pregnant to keep him. And I didn’t trust condoms as much as he seemed to. Tawnie let it slip that had she not come prepared for their union he might not have slept with her at all.

So he promised me he wouldn’t sleep with anyone else until we could be together, because he had seen the future and knew we were going to have a baby within the next year.

This meant I had to get busy. I had to be free by the cruise, and ready to sleep with
him and finally have our child.

I probably shouldn’t have even taken the time to come to L.A. when I had so much work to do in Las Vegas to prepare for my upcoming single life, no matter how brief. But he had begged me with those big brown eyes and I couldn’t say no.

He even offered to put me up at the hotel but of course they fucked up the entire reservation and I ended up having to pay for it myself. I ended up bunking one door down from Tawnie and her new BFF from the message boards.

She had grown as tired of me as I had of her, and apparently she thought this new girl could get her special time alone with the band even during
the big fan event.

Who knew at this point who was telling the truth and who was lying about Giovanni’s wandering eye? All I knew was to trust the Giovanni who met me nightly through our spiritual unions, and he promised that no one had ever made him feel like I made him feel. He swore he was now waiting for me because in the next few months we’d have to make our baby together.

It was with this confidence that I watched him ignore some of his more ardent fans, fans like Tawnie who pissed and moaned that just because she filled his bed for a few hours he wasn’t still pining over her.

Now that he had me to bond with spiritually and Kat to put on a show, he didn’t need these little cunts that had nothing better to do than try to fuck a celebrity.

That’s all they were, too. Disposable body parts.

He was downright mean to some of the girls, especially that desperate fat cow Andy. She really was pathetic. She mooned over him with her big puppy dog eyes but he barely spared her the time of day.

He already told me how disgusting she was trying to come onto him when clearly he couldn’t ever want someone like that when he could have me.

It made me laugh to see the disappointment on her face when he was almost mean to her, making his point about never sleeping with groupies. I knew he had made that rule just so he wouldn’t have to gag around her gross layers of fat as she nearly suffocated him for real.

Everything was going along exactly according to plan until the last day, when he began to falter and flirt again with some of his fans. Tawnie used the opportunity to sneer in my direction and I knew she thought she could be with him again way before I could.

Little did she know we already had, in a way more significant way than just bumping uglies.

But I knew I couldn’t let her test his resolve. He’d hate himself if he didn’t save himself for me, but he was just a man.

It was up to me as the woman to protect him from himself. And to do that I had to get rid of those around him who would tempt him beyond what he could bear.

So I had no choice, really. I had to take care of the problem – like choking off the weed. And much to my surprise (and delight) it was far easier than I ever thought possible. It was amazing what could be done with a little preparation.

I knew one day when I told him what I had done he would understand. He already let me know that we would do anything to be together.

And it made it all the more clear what I had to do to release myself from my marriage.

We would be together.

Very, very soon.

And no filthy cunt was going to stand in my way.

~Andy~

After the disastrous events at Graham’s holiday party I packed my things and waited at the airport on standby to get home as quickly as possible. I was able to make it back to the safe, normal world in time to go to Christmas services with my Grandma, but decided against seeing the light of day until 2009 was safely in the distance.

I didn’t talk to anyone, even though everyone had texted or tried to call me. This included Graham, whose message in my voicemail only served to make me feel like an even bigger shit.

“Andy, I’m sorry for the way I behaved,” he said softly, and I could easily close my eyes and see that wounded look on his face. “I knew what I was getting into when I decided to pursue you, it wasn’t fair of me to test you with Vanni and then punish you for following your heart. That’s all anyone can ever do. I hope, more than anything else, we can always remain friends.”

I went for days before I finally wrote him back an email that accepted all responsibility for my actions. I asked for forgiveness and even gave him a way out by letting me go from my services with the band, but he wrote back and told me that we were professionals, and this would have no impact on our working relationship.