SEX WITH A SHOOTING STAR
A selection from The Junkie Tales collection
By Benjamin Douglass
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Sex with a Shooting Star. Copyright © 2009 by Benjamin Douglass. All Rights Reserved. For more information, contact Ben Douglass Publishing, Denver, Colorado.
FIRST EDITION
Sex with a Shooting Star
~
In a city of stars, Jodie outshone them all, while I spent much of my time avoiding the afterburn. But that’s what a man in love does, right? On nights like tonight, I wasn’t so sure.
I brushed a lock of hair from Jodie’s cheek, running my fingertips across the edges of her lips. Her head rested on my naked stomach, as her fingers traced circles across the fading ink wrapped around my bicep.
Satisfaction hummed inside me. Was this love? I didn’t know but whatever it was, I didn’t want it to end. Stupid and naive, I’d believed it never would.
Jodie sighed, her fingers slipping lower to caress my navel with a manicured nail. “I love being with you.”
“Me too.” It sounded lame, even to my ears, but I’d lost all powers of charm twenty minutes ago. All I wanted to do right now was fall asleep with her body pressed to mine. Her scent and warmth curled around me, slowly pulling me into sleep.
“This last year has been incredible.”
What was it with women and pillow talk? “Yeah, it’s been great.” I yawned, closing my eyes, hoping she’d take the hint.
She didn’t. “There’s something I want to talk to you about…”
I cracked an eye open, trying to focus. “Now?”
She bit her lip, and I felt like an ass. “Sorry, what is it?” I stroked her arms. They were chalk-white with thin veins, like broken links on the internet, fading from blue to purple with a single touch. Broken capillaries. Small bruises. I wondered how they’d gotten there. My fingers traced her throbbing artery, as if following a map to her heart.
I felt her indrawn breath, and a rush of fear ripped through me. Was I about to get the ‘just friends’ speech? Or worse, the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ brush off? Was our fairytale relationship about to become much too real?
“Don’t hate me—,” she began. Tears dribbled from her eyes, hanging from mascara-thickened lashes. They fell silently, puddled against my skin, leaving thick, black stains. Each droplet smoldered against my skin like a flickering flame.
“Whatever it is,” I touched her chin, forcing her eyes to mine, “we’ll work it out.”
“It’s not that simple.” She slipped from bed and slithered to the balcony. Her blonde hair shimmered in the moonlight, reminding me of the day we met, outside a downtown club.
I hadn’t been looking for love, not that night. But she’d found me. Jodie Dean, Hollywood’s girl next door. For years, she’d made America laugh, a rising star in a world filled with broken dreams. I remembered how she’d made me laugh, keeping my demons at bay with a smile.
“Got a cigarette?” she’d asked, her hair alight with the neon glow from the nightclub. Instantly, I’d recognized her. Recognized her face. Her smile.
Out of habit, I reached in my pocket for a cigarette pack, and with true regret, came out empty-handed. For the first time in years, I wished I still smoked. I wished I still did many things. Deadly, dark, dangerous things.
I shrugged an apology, and she grinned. A cute, girlish girl filled with mischief. The black thoughts plaguing me scattered under her innocent smile. I think I fell for her then.
“Good. I don’t smoke.” She laughed, warming the space between us. “Not tonight at least.”
It was my turn to grin, and with a one in a million chance to capture a shooting star, I asked Jodie Dean for coffee. I had never regretted that decision.
Until tonight.
Watching her tremble in the darkness, my heart slammed in my chest. I climbed from the bed, dread making each step nearly impossible. “Tell me.”
“There are things you don’t know about me.” Her voice broke. “Bad things.”
“I know all I need to.” Fool that I was, I’d believed each word. “About you. About us.”
“Do you?” she questioned, her face turned angry. “What is it you think you know?” She shook her head, her hair swirling around her face. When I stayed silent, she added, “You don’t know me. No one does.”
She was wrong. She was my fantasy come to life, an unscripted lover. A friend I trusted with my life. In a city filled with users willing to crush your soul to get ahead, she wanted nothing but my heart. I knew her, perhaps better than I knew myself.
I’ll admit we’d only known each a short time, but in that time I’d learned so much. Like what Jodie liked in her coffee, two creams and a packet of sweet-n-low. What made her laugh, Jay Leno and tequila, and what made her cry, cheesy Danielle Steele novels. What else did I need to know, other than we belonged together? That without her, each breath I took hurt.
To deflect the pain, I lashed out. “If you’re trying to get rid of me,” I said, “just fucking, say it.”
She flinched, as if my words were physically punishing. “I don’t want to hurt you. It’s not....”
...you, it’s me, echoed through my brain.
Bitch. A surprising pain shot through my chest, centered on the broken pieces of my heart. As much as I’d tried to protect myself, to not fall in love with a face worshiped by millions, I’d failed. I loved Jodie Dean. Forever. But that realization did little to combat what I felt right now.
“Whatever.” I grabbed my Levi’s from the floor. “I’m out of here.”
“Wait. Please, don’t hate me, whatever happens....” She sank to the ground, sobbing. Fat, fake tears. Hollywood tears.
Enraged, I headed for the door, ignoring her affected tears. Hate her? How I wished I could. A part of me wanted to curl up and die, fade into the woodwork like a termite. How could she do this to me, to us? Was she fucking someone else? Was it that action star, People’s 32nd Sexiest Bachelor? Or maybe, her manager, Pete? Bile rose in my throat, but I managed to choke it down.
I threw open the door, gazing at her tear-stained face for one last time. Her eyes met mine, sending a jolt of fresh pain through my heart. Slowly, her gazed lowered to the floor, leaving me standing alone in my misery. I closed my eyes, and walked out the door.
In the hallway outside of her apartment, I jabbed my finger into the elevator button. The door opened with a ding, and for the barest of seconds, I glanced back at her door.
Get in the elevator. Forget her, my mind screamed. Nevertheless, I hesitated, staring at the brass-plated number on her front door. For what seemed like hours, I stood, waiting for her to come rushing out, to beg me not to go.
Her door remained closed.
Pressing the lobby button, the elevator doors slide shut, closing on our future.
Fuck her.
I didn’t need Jodie. I didn’t need anyone.
A couple of blocks from her place, I found salvation in the neon glow, a means to mend my shattered life. Sure, I’d quit seven years ago. Seven long years. But there wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t want it, desire the burning and instantaneous calm the first hit always provided.
My drug of choice was easy to find, even with government intervention, and after school specials. I plunked down a twenty, and in a few seconds, my fingers clutched a foil wrapper to my chest.
******
Two days later, I sat on my couch in front of a widescreen TV, smoking yet another cigarette from a foil wrapped packet. Staring at the burning tip, I hated myself for my weakness. Nevertheless, deep inside me, I hated Jodie more for hers, for tossing away what could have been.
My cell phone, sitting on the table next to me, rang but I ignored it. Who called me anyway? Bill collectors and telemarketers that’s who.
After thirty seconds, my phone beeped, warning of a new voice mail message. Instead of checking the message, I lit another cigarette, and continued to stare mindlessly at the TV.
A pretty-boy newscaster popped on the screen, his face projecting empathy and caring, which appeared at odds with his hundred-dollar haircut. He stood in front of a string of yellow police tape, red and blue lights reflecting off the lens of his stylish, non-threatening eyeglasses.
In the background, the camera captured the grieving face of the crowd. A child grasped her mother’s hand, tears splashed down her cheeks, and a teddy bear stayed firmly clutched in her hand. The child looked so sad, and heart wrenchingly familiar.
“I’m here at the Glen Grove Lofts,” he said, “reporting on the apparent suicide of the famed Hollywood actress—”
I knew it was Jodie even before he spoke her name.
“Jodie Dean was pronounced dead at the scene.” Pretty-boy wiped his dry eyes, as Jodie’s beautiful face flashed across the shimmering screen. She smiled at the world from a glossy headshot photograph. The image looked nothing like her.
Oh, God. Please, no.
But my prayers came too late. Jodie was dead, obliterated by an eighteen-story dive from her loft to the cement below. The newscaster repeated the gruesome details of her final flight, as if his career depended on it. Maybe it did. Maybe all this was some sick joke to boost ratings.
But it wasn’t. A fresh wave of horror at her death hit me, and I fell to my knees. Tears burned my eyes, and I struggled for breath.
Why, Jodie? Why kill yourself when you had everything to live for? It didn’t make sense. Millions of people adored her, loved her sparkling smile, and little girl laugh. I loved her. She was an icon, a star, burning bright as she crossed the sky.
“Sources closest to the actress say,” he paused for effect, “Ms. Dean was devastated by the recent break up from her long time beau.” Through the television screen, the reporter’s eyes burned into mine, damming me for an eternity.
******
Three days later, standing in front of Jodie’s headstone, I sucked in nicotine-filled air. A cloud of smoke formed around my head. As quickly as the cloud formed, the Santa Ana winds swept it away toward the setting California sun.
My mind flickered with memories of our time together, of days spent laying in her bed, and nights that I prayed would never end. But end they had, leaving me with nothing but the fading taste of her skin on my lips.
Time healed all wounds, but our time had run out.
I lit another cigarette from the butt of an old one. After seven long years of abstinence, chain smoking felt like a gift from the heavens, a parting gift to be more precise.
Glancing to the sky, I smiled bitterly as the smog-filled air charred my lungs. The cigarette burned brightly in the polluted air, reminding me of a shooting star.
I wish I may, I wish I might, mend this broken life.
Helpless anger swelled inside me. Jodie’s death weighed heavily on my mind, on my heart, on my soul. But what I felt most was rage—violent, cold anger. But not at last desperate act of a fading star. No, my fury had another target. An easier target. Staring at the cell phone in my hand, I listened to the voice mail left days ago for the seventh time.
“Hello, Mr. Coleman,” a clinical voice said. “This is Dr. Jones.” The good doctor was a man without a soul, a man in a white lab coat untouched by human emotions, a man who’d never know the pain of loss. I hated him, and his robotic tone. “We have the...,” he droned, as if reading from a note card.
No emotion.
No regret.
But I had plenty of regret. A list growing far too long as the doctor’s message played again and again. I closed my eyes, and pictured Jodie. I’d thought I known all there was to know about her, like her favorite color or that she craved Chunky Monkey ice cream after sex, but in the end, I hadn’t known her.
Not at all.
I’d failed to ask the important stuff, like why she wore socks to bed, or why her eyes sometimes appeared glassy and unfocused. To me, none of that had mattered. Staring at her grave, I realized how much it had.
Today, I’d learned my beautiful star’s final secret. A secret she’d taken to her grave. A shared secret, I’d carry with me for the rest of my days.
“Mr. Coleman, I regret to inform you...,” Dr. Jones intoned, his voice cold. “You have HIV.”