***
“Why do you want me to go?” she asked. “I’ve got to finish this project soon or my editor will have my hide.”
“Because it’s kind of a big deal today. I don’t do this collaboration thing a lot, even with musicians I like. I want you with me today. I promise I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the week.”
Tabs sighed.
“So look,” he said, running his fingers through her hair and penetrating her with his devastating sweet-boy face. “Just make with the introductions and some small talk for me, and then I promise I’ll whisk you off on some bullshit errand; you can have the rest of the day to work in my office. I just want you there, Tabs. Alright? I’m askin’. Please.”
“Okay. Sure,” she relented.
“That’s my girl,” he said. “Besides, I thought you were a fan of his.”
“My dad was,” she said with a smile.
“Smart-ass, “he laughed, “Don’t tell him that.”
“I wouldn’t. He probably feels old enough as it is with all that he’s been through.”
“Yeah,” he said, turning away to glance at the twin lights of the early motorists and the last of the city lights shooting past like neon comets.
She studied her hands resting in her lap. “I was actually pretty terrified of him when I was younger. My dad took me to one of his concerts; I don’t know what Dad could have been thinking. Anyway, when he started stomping on the baby chicks, that’s when we finally decided to leave. I hear that was one of his milder theatricals.”
“Hhmm. Well, the whole point is to entertain. If you’re not surprising the audience, not hookin’ them with somethin’, then why the hell should you show up?”
“Yeah, and nothing tops a show like a barbaric display of animal cruelty.”
He turned to face her. “You know that’s not what I fuckin’ meant.”
“Yeah,” she said facing the window.
“You alright?”
“Yeah, “she replied, still staring out the window. “I’m fine.”
They arrived at the studio, which was a warehouse at one time and had been refurbished. Its walls were littered with floor to ceiling windows that shined in glorious light, emanating a dignified beauty against the concrete floors and garage-like feel of the red lacquered diner tables and rough cotton drapes. Heavy Metal posters were scattered across the walls in haphazard fashion. Freshly emptied ashtrays littered every table and windowsill. The recording booths were sectioned off in a far corner of the first floor, while the rest of the place was treated as a mingling area for the band and their guests. There was a small café set up, with a dingy but workable fridge and bar. Some threadbare couches and leather chairs had been strewn together to make a sort of sitting area. A three tiered shelf there held copies of the books that he was currently reading.
Tabs sat down to converse with their guests, this legendary man whom she had been afraid of as a child, whose make-up had run down his face like a demonic, teary-eyed drag queen, and who had pentagrams drawn around his nipples is crimson ink so that it appeared that they bled, and the blood dripped down in beads of his sweat. Today he was just a man in old boots and a faded vintage tee, the only telling of his rock-god status being his studded leather cuff he wore and his black tangle of hair. He talked and laughed and gestured with the slow, easy movements of a man twice his age, like he had lived all the life that he needed to, and now, all the time that was left him was to be treated leisurely and cavalierly. His wife was very serene and gracious, Tabs thought. She moved like she was lost in a dream, with a dancer’s eloquence, like the whole world could be blown down and she would stand in its destruction, marveling with silent grace at how beautiful the chaos of it all really was. Tabs felt akin to her immediately. The three of them had gathered around one of the café tables to chat while the band was tuning up.
“It’s really wonderful getting to meet you both, Mr…”
“Oh, no sweetheart,” he interrupted, “never ‘Mr’. Please, God. Call me Tim.”
“Tim?!?”
“Yeah. That’s my name, peaches,” he laughed.
Tabs and his wife laughed as well.
“Okay,” she replied. “Tim. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting you to have such an ordinary name.”
“Ha! You were probably expecting something like ‘Sam-uel’ or ‘Josiah’”?
“Well, maybe not that extreme. Something like that, though.” She smiled.
“I like you. You’re honest,” he replied.
“That’s an admirable quality,” his wife said, making the words sound like the sagest advice ever to pour from a desolate mountain top or a shaman’s feet.
“And what is it that you do, my dear?” his wife asked.
“I’m a writer. I’ve published some short fiction and I’m currently working on my first full-length work,” Tabs replied.
“Oh yeah, that’s right. He told me that,” Tim said. “Said you were going to be the next Angela Carter.”
Tabitha blushed.
“I’d love it if that were true. I just hope that there will be someone out there who takes something away from what I write. That they’ll discover a moment of beauty or of wonder. That would make me happy,” she said.
“That’s great. And…now that we’re off to ourselves here,” Tim said, leaning into the table and speaking in a lowered voice, “I have to tell you I’m damned thrilled to see you with him.” His eyes glanced off to where the band was warming up and he stood with his back turned, emanating the sexual, powerful glow that followed him everywhere.
“How’d you two meet?” Tim asked.
“We met at one of his shows. Actually, I kind of searched him out. I was sort of fascinated by him. Drawn to him in this, inexplicable way. I guess he was with me too, in a sense. Anyway, he pulled me up on stage. And afterwards, we talked in his room…”
“Uh huh,” he said, with a knowing smile. “And so, how’d you end up here?”
“Well, after we talked that night we said our goodbyes. He was getting ready to leave. He said it made him happy to know that someone like me was out there somewhere, thinking about him. I asked him if that was enough.”
“And it wasn’t,” he said.
“No.” She smiled, remembering. “He chased me down in the parking lot, and asked me to come with him, and that was, like, the most intense, incredible moment of my life! I don’t know, I just came with him. No questions, no looking back.”
“Must have been a pretty strong connection between you two.”
“I don’t know if I can describe it, “Tabs said, pulling her sleeves down over her wrists. “It’s almost like this…otherworldly thing, like the moon’s pull on the tides, or that connection you have with someone that’s so strong its subconscious; like you were souls from a past life or twins separated at birth. So, yeah, for those few minutes in that parking lot after I had left, I felt like my lungs were being crushed, I couldn’t get air, and I thought, This is what it’s like to lose a part of yourself, like losing a limb. Isn’t that crazy? I mean, having just met him? It’s a beautiful and terrifying feeling, being bound to someone like that.”
“And, when I heard him calling for me to wait,” she continued, “and saw him running towards me, I wanted to cry, just from the relief of being with him again. He grabbed me and said, ‘Fuck it. Come with me.’ And that was it.”
“And how long have you been with him now,” Tim’s wife asked.
“Six months,” Tabs answered.
“That’s awesome, really,” Tim said. “Although,” he added, tapping a cigarette against the table, “I gotta tell ya, I’m shocked to hell by it. No offense to you, sweetheart. You’re just about as gracious and lovely as you can be. In fact, you’re damned perfect for him; just what he needs. You remind me of Chessa when she was your age.” Chessa smiled at her, warmly.
“I was out of my head back in those days,” he continued. “But after a while, I got sick of spendi
ng my nights with fucking idiots. That’s all it was, just bodies in a bed. Might as well have been blow-up dolls for all they were worth. Finally, I knew that I wanted someone with a brain; I wanted it all, you know, the whole package.”
“That’s when I met my baby,” he said, taking Chessa’s hands in his, “and I never looked back. But him- it’s just the damnest thing- Some guys in the business crave that life, you know? They never grow out of it. I never thought he’d settle in with anyone.”
Her eyes fell over the symmetry of her hands, guarded and betraying longing. “It’s not really like that for us,” she hedged.
“Oh…wow. Sorry, I must have misunderstood,” he said.
Chessa’s gaze locked with Tabitha’s.
“But, “he continued, “you do live with him, don’t you?”
“Yes, but we’re not together.”
“Well, you sure as hell could’ve fooled me,” he replied. “I mean, seeing the two of you together...”
Tabitha felt the heat rising in her cheeks, embarrassed to have to offer an explanation for the complexities of their union.
“It’s kind of an…unconventional relationship between us,” she said.
“Uh-huh…What does that mean?” he asked, his face registering a sincere cluelessness.
Tabitha wished she could disappear into the table’s lacquered finish. She could not bring herself to speak the words; the sound of them in the air would give them an idiocy she couldn’t bear.
“You’ll have to excuse my husband,” Chessa said, a knowing in her eyes that said: I won’t offer you empty platitudes or vain consolations. “He doesn’t see the boundaries like most people when it comes to polite and impolite questions.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Tim said. “I didn’t mean to get so personal.”
“It’s alright, “Tabs replied. ***
Later, Chessa pulled Tabitha into a brightly lit corner. The sunlight danced across the ceiling in prism shivers.
“You smoke?” Chessa asked.
“No. But, please, don’t let that stop you,” Tabs answered.
Chessa nodded and took a drag.
“You’re so young,” she mused.
“I just look young. I’m twenty-one,” Tabs said.
“Ah, but he…he is much older than you though. By a good fifteen, sixteen years, no?”
Tabs stared out at the passing cars, thinking about those moments of silence before a crash.
“Something like that,” she replied.
“I ask because, it’s a lot for a young girl like you to take in,” she said, exhaling smoke in beautiful tendrils. “I think maybe you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself in for here…or maybe you do, hmm?” she mused.
Tabitha brushed her hair behind her ear and said nothing.
“You’re not a stupid girl,” Chessa continued, “You’re special. I see it in you. That’s why he picked you. Only, maybe- after six months- you are realizing it’s not enough. Am I right?”
Tabitha nodded, feeling stunned and exposed. “How did you know?” she asked.
“There’s a certain sadness about you,” Chessa replied, patting Tabitha’s hand. “In this business, you learn to recognize it in the women all too well.”
Chessa’s penetrable stare was blinding, and her words with their resounding truthfulness left a waspish sting.
“I have nothing to feel sad about,” Tabs said, holding onto her one lifeline, her one livewire-I will not hope in what cannot be; I will not ever be one of them, these ‘women of the business’ she speaks of. Purity exonerated her from being just one more disposable pleasure, and she had no right to wish for or expect the one thing for which she was not willing to gamble: her dignity, her whole self for his.
“No? You love him don’t you? My beauty,” Chessa said, taking Tabitha’s hands in hers, “there will always be sadness in loving someone who can’t give you what you need, whether you give all of yourself to him or not. It is a pleasurable lie we women tell ourselves, that we can somehow protect ourselves by holding strong to this one thing. We think it is our weapon, we keep it to ourselves, and then” she brought her hands into the air and opened them, releasing an invisible shower into the air, “we discover the truth, only too late; it is a lie.”
They both sat, silent and thoughtful for a long time.
When Tabitha finally spoke again, her voice sounded to her like a stranger’s.
“The thing that makes me sickest,” she confessed, brushing the moisture from her eye in a quick sweep, “is that I feel like I’ve already given him the best parts of myself.”
“Yes,” Chessa said, affirming with a nod. “That is the lie that few recognize. The moment you make that decision, ‘I will do this to protect myself’, it is too late; your heart is already taken.”
“But I can’t not hold back; there has to be something left of me- you know- to take away when it’s done.”
“Yes, I know,” Chessa replied, taking Tabitha’s hands in hers once again. “But darling girl, do not fool yourself- oh, not that you are foolish- what I mean to say is…you are a wise girl. But you think you are making new rules. Those rules have been broken a thousand times over, in your heart, you see? It will hurt no matter what. Be prepared for the hurt, if it comes.”
“Most women,” she continued, “who know the business and know what being with someone in the business entails; they come into it with the expectation that monogamy is not a feasible option.”
“I’m more than aware of that,” Tabs responded.
“You have to protect yourself. Forgive me,” Chessa said, trying to pacify the unreadable expression on Tabitha’s face, which was lost somewhere between insult and incredulity. “It’s only because you are so young. I cannot help but tell you to be careful of yourself. Are you? Protecting yourself?”
Tabitha’s laugh was clipped and sardonic.
“You have no idea.”
“What do you mean,” Chessa asked.
Tabitha hesitated. She sighed and rubbed her hands over her forehead.
“I can’t explain this to you. It’s humiliating. You’ll think I’m ridiculous.”
Chessa offered her the condoling smile of a confidant.
“I promise you that it will not be anything I haven’t either heard before, or done myself,” Chessa said. “And I will keep your secret.”
Silence.
And waiting.
“I haven’t slept with him.”
“Haven’t…what?”
“I haven’t slept with him yet. I won’t…” Tabitha replied.
Chessa was speechless. Her face said it all.
“No, it’s okay,” Tabs said. “It sounds crazy to you, like some sick form of perdition. But, it’s not enough for me to be just another nobody in and out of his bed. I mean, I know it’s more than that. I live in his house, I share his conversations; I’m the one he confides in, the one that’s there at the end of the day when the others are walking out in stocking-ed feet with their cab fare in one hand and their heels in the other. “
“But it’s not enough,” Tabitha continued softly, lost in that quiet space behind her heart that ached constantly. “I won’t-and he knows I won’t-give him all of myself, unless I’m enough. Finally enough.”
Chessa and Tabitha glanced at each other, the undercurrent of unspokenness passing between them. What would this forecaster, this predictor of the future say? Tabs waited for Chessa to tell her she was crazy, that it was hopeless; things she already knew.
“Well, I think that there’s a reason he’s held onto you for six months. That’s equivalent to twenty years in rock star time,” Chessa said.
Tabs smiled at that.
“And I don’t doubt that he’ll hold onto-whatever it is that you two have-for quite a while. But darling girl, what about you?”
Tabs looked up at her.
“You’re holding out for something,” Chessa said, a sadness showing on her face, grasping Tabitha’s h
and in hers. “I don’t know if you will ever get it.”
“I know,” Tabs replied.
“How long are you planning to keep that up?” Chessa asked.
Tabs thought for a moment. The answer, she was surprised to discover, was sitting there, humming beneath the aching, symptomatic surface of her heart.
“Until it hurts too much. Until being with him hurts more than being without him. Until there’s nothing left to hope for.”