Lingus by Mariana Zapata
"Well, shit," he laughed for what seemed like the hundredth time.
I suddenly felt a little bad because that was mean of me to say, even if I was joking. I barely knew the guy but then again, he'd been merciless with his teasing of me, so fuck it. Regardless, I still felt just a little bad because I didn't like to insult people I didn't know well. Once we were on even ground it was a different story. "I'm kidding," I mumbled out sheepishly.
Tristan was really quiet while he got himself put back together, tugging the hood up and over his faded green cap. He still had a silly smile on his face as he leaned back against the chair. "What are you doing the rest of the time you're here?"
"Nikki, my friend you met earlier, drove, so I have to wait for her to get tired until we can go." Suddenly, I remembered the fact that I'd been planning on going to Andrew Wood's booth. I looked at my watch to see that the signing would start in thirty minutes. "Actually, I just remembered that I'm going to Andrew Wood's booth," I said, raising my eyebrows at him. "That's the only thing I wanted to do today."
Tristan's brown eyebrows went up, questioningly. "Andrew Wood?" he practically spit out.
"Yeah. Why? What's wrong with him?"
"Nothing," he said, but frowned. "Andrew Wood? Why?"
My eyes widened in an effort to say, hello. "Because he's my favorite porn star of all time. He's like... in the porn hall of fame."
"He's... old."
I'd never guffawed in my life, but I was pretty sure I guffawed then, and said the first thing that went into my head. "Wine gets better with age, so do some men. Specifically him."
Tristan rolled those bright green eyes, but smirked. "I just don't get it. Why is he your favorite?"
I realized then that I was talking about my favorite porn star to someone I barely knew and that was pretty weird. However, logic evaded me and my mind settled onto the fact that Tristan looked disapproving at my choice. "You want me to tell you why he's my favorite?"
"Yeah."
I sighed and didn't even need to think about the reasons why I favored Andrew Wood porn. "Okay, well, have you seen his movies?"
Tristan just shrugged, giving a half-assed nod. Mr. Wood was a legend in the porn industry. He'd been around for nearly two decades, and was still considered to be one of the most sought after porn stars in the business. In his early forties, I thought he looked to be in better shape than pretty much any other man. With dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and an olive complexion, the man was a fucking looker. Nikki and I had joked around for years about agreeing to do porn if we could do it with him. I had compiled a list one drunken night of the things I'd do to him if I had the chance. Weird? Maybe.
"He's just so... passionate in his movies," I emphasized the word by widening my eyes. "He likes what he's doing, obviously, but he's not like these studs nowadays who just want to fuck a girl like they're a machine or something. You know? He's not a bam, bam, bam, sort of guy. He puts a little something into it, I think it's hot, " I finished. How in the world I managed to say that without giggling, I don't know. Who the hell talks about porn with a stranger? I guess I did.
He gave me a really funny look that I couldn't even begin to decipher. "He's old."
"You're going to be old someday too, Magellan." I responded with a wink.
He just huffed, crossing those arms that I was pretty positive were packing some serious muscle, over his chest. "I got awhile." He looked up at the ceiling and sighed, whispering, "Andrew Wood."
"Oh, whatever, Mr. I'm-Hiding-Under-My-Cap-and-Hoodie-Because-I'm-A-Pussy-and-Don't-Want-Anyone-To-See-Me."
"I don't!" he answered with a big smile on his face. I swear he smiled so much it was impossible not to smile back at him. I think he could have told me that I looked like Gollum in Lord of the Rings and I'd still smile back at him.
"Pussy," I called out one more time and laughed.
Tristan shook his head as he pushed back from his chair, gathering up all of our trash. "C'mon, little gold digger, I'll walk you to grandpa's booth. It's on my way."
"I barely know you, yet, somehow I already know you're full of shit," I said while getting out of my chair, waiting for him to come back around after throwing away our mess.
"Oh, Kat," He sighed, shaking his head again.
He looked down while we started walking, carefully sidestepping a lot of people who were still looking at us curiously, remembering our earlier snorts and laughter. I couldn't help but take inventory on the fact that he was so good looking it was unreal, and his personality was just... I didn't know how to describe it. Knowing that he was walking me over to the booth and that it might be the last time I saw him, made my chest clench up a bit. It was probably because he was unbelievably hot that I craved his attention like a teenage girl with uncontrollable hormones. So I asked myself, what I should do?
Nicole's face flickered in my head and I knew what I needed to do. Grow a damn backbone with the stranger.
"You okay?" Tristan asked me, like he could sense I was deep in thought.
"Yeah," I answered back. "I was just thinking about what you asked earlier." I wanted to vomit but that would be terrible. Beyond terrible. "I think Andrew Wood has a perfect dick."
The noise that came out of his throat, not his mouth, sounded like a backed up dishwasher.
He opened and closed his mouth a few times. Those pretty pink lips moved silently up and down for no apparent reason. The movement of his mouth made it seem like he was having a silent conversation with me. He looked flustered as he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, making another funny noise deep in his throat.
"Well, um..." he said with a gravelly voice, looking down at the concrete floor beneath us. The sound of robots chiming from his pocket broke the awkward silence we were in as Tristan fished into the front of his jeans for his cell. "I'm sorry, I need to take this. Hold on a second, okay?" he asked, already pressing what I could assume was the answer button. In less than a second, he slipped the phone into the space between his ear and the cotton of his hoodie.
We walked slowly through the crowd while he talked quietly into the phone. The only thing I heard him say was "Five minutes... yes... I understand..." Tristan's eyes stayed glued to the floor as he made his way through the throngs of people.
I eased my step to follow his trail because his much larger frame moved through the crowd easier than my average-sized one. He was so tall that the top of my head only grazed his broad shoulder. He turned around to make sure I was still following him, even though he was on the phone.
Having memorized the map of where Andrew Wood's signing booth would be, I knew we were really close, and I spotted a small line just a few feet ahead. A giddy feeling spread through my body all of a sudden, knowing I was just minutes away from meeting the man who had kept me company for so many nights via the internet.
We were right in front of the booth at the same time that Tristan ended his call with a long, drawn out sigh. The line was already about ten people deep, facing a large poster of a girl with a Texas-sized amount of jizz spread all over her face. "ANDREW WOOD" was printed across the bottom of the poster in huge, block font.
Like the perv I was, my eyes stayed glued to the pearl necklace made of bodily fluids spotting the girl.
I eased my way into the short line while my new acquaintance pocketed his phone and cast a wary glance at the line of females ahead of me. He ducked his head a little more before facing me again.
Tristan gave me a soft smile. "I'm sorry about that. Someone is waiting for me. I need to get going."
I wanted to ask him why he'd been so vague every time I had seen him, but that would have been kind of weird. We barely knew each other, so I just nodded and forced a smile. "Okay."
My auburn-haired companion shoved his hands deep into the front pockets of his low-slung jeans, and I caught sight of the sliver of creamy skin where his hoodie failed to meet denim. "I'm," he whispered, as he took a step closer to me when the woman in front of me turned to gi
"Oh God, I was only picking my undies out," I murmured, trying to keep my voice low enough that the nosey woman didn't hear us.
He smiled a big, toothy grin only a foot away from my face since he was ducking to talk to me. "Whatever you say," he teased. "Thank you for lunch, Kat."
"You're welcome."
"I really need to go," he said, straightening up. "I'm glad I met you."
I couldn't help but smile a little weakly, disappointed that he was in such a rush to leave. "Me too."
Tristan stepped back but smirked a split second later, he then took two steps closer to me, his shoulder hovered only a couple inches away from my face. I caught a whiff of his clean, soapy scent. His warm breath tickled my ear as he leaned in and made a sound like he'd inhaled my scent too, but I was so focused on how close he was that I really couldn't know for sure. A fire ran up my spine at his proximity.
"I think you should find a younger porn star to watch from now on," he said in a husky voice before brushing his hand down the length of my ponytail and stepping away. "Bye, Kat."
My ponytail whispered to me that she would never be the same again.
I felt like I'd been put under a spell from the moment he started breathing right against my ear until he was out of sight. Was I in a trance? My ear felt warm and tingly even in the long moments after he'd left.
My brain was in such a daze I didn't hear the nosey woman in front of me talking.
"Hmm?" I asked, trying to focus in on the heated words coming out of her mouth.
The woman, who looked to be in her late twenties, rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Was that Robby Lingus?"
"Who?" I asked her again.
"Robby Lingus." she whined, her pale eyes looking in the direction Tristan had walked.
"No." I snapped back at her, annoyed by her sharp tone.
Her eyes narrowed in my direction like she didn't believe my answer, but she turned back to face forward again, completely ignoring me. I busied myself with sending Zoey a text to let her know I was in line at the Wood booth, and then started looking around trying my best not to think about Tristan again. I knew I'd probably never see him again, so it was pointless to get caught up thinking about him. I mean, he could have asked for my number if he was really interested, right?
"There you are!" Zoey's sweet voice rang out through the masses as she slid through the people in line to stand next to me. Linking her arm through mine like she usually did, the nosey woman in front of us turned to look back again.
Her eyes narrowed at Zoey and me, with a sneer on her face.
I've had people give us that look before and just like every other time, it managed to piss me off instantaneously.
My sweet Zoey was extremely affectionate. Even before all of this madness of porn and girls, she'd always been very touchy-feeley, and I liked it. I didn't care. Being an only child, and then on top of that losing my mom at such a young age, had left me the tiniest bit starved for attention. My dad loved me, I never had any doubt of that, but he wasn't much for outward displays of affection. As the years rolled by, Zoey had started getting recognized more often but every once in awhile, the appreciative looks she usually received were replaced by ugly, mean sneers courtesy of people who didn't understand.
They didn't know her the way I did. If they wanted to think something bad about her, or about the both of us, so be it. But, really? If someone recognized her, they weren't exactly in a position to judge anyone else. So, the look on nosey-ass' face made me mad. Fortunately, Zoey was oblivious as she looked everywhere but ahead.
"I'm really good at spitting across long distances," Nicole barked at the woman staring at us as she made her way over with one blonde eyebrow drawn up in a challenge.
"Don't be mean, Nikki," Zoey sighed.
Nicole stalked over, but her vision was locked on the nosey woman's face. She was really fucking scary for being so pretty, and luckily, the woman has some survival instincts, because she turned her body to completely face away from Nikki.
I could only snicker in response to Zoey's words. "That would be like asking the world not to turn."
Our blonde friend just shrugged, as she planted herself right next to us. "You wouldn't want me any other way."
Zoey and I just looked at each other like we'd done a hundred times in the past and shrugged. "Meh."
"Bitches," Nicole hissed at us while digging through her purse. "Here I was buying my favorite asshole a present..." She'd been referring to me as an asshole for as long as I could remember. She loved me, I had no doubt about it. Nikki pulled a shrink-wrapped DVD out of her impressively-sized, fancy purse and thrust it in my face. "You're welcome."
A picture of Andrew Wood from the mid-nineties was plastered on the front of the cover with psychedelic neon colors highlighting his name. "Nikki..." I started to say, but she waved her hand around, looking away from me.
"Yeah, yeah. I love you too," she muttered like the act of buying me a DVD of my favorite porn star wasn't awesome.
I lived on a teacher's salary as well as royalties from my e-books. While I wasn't poor, I had to limit myself to what luxuries I could spend my money on. I bought generic brand everything, cut out really good coupons in the mail, and relegated myself to free porn websites. On the other hand, Nikki shelled out the big bucks for the good porn sites and splurged on whatever she wanted. She was a good friend though— she shared her passwords for the good sites, so I could enjoy them too and bought me little things randomly. Like me, she was an only child, so over the years our friendship bridged the gap that we missed out on as kids.
I slung my arm around her shoulder, which was pretty awkward. I had to stand on the tips of my toes because she was a giant. "Thank you, Nikki." I said, quietly squeezing her to my side.
She rewarded me with a little smile out of the corner of her mouth and that was good enough for me.
"LADIES! Andrew Wood will be out in just a few minutes. He appreciates your patience and looks forward to meeting you all!" a tiny woman with very short hair hollered at the line.
Nicole's phone chimed the instant the woman started talking. She quickly pulled it out of her purse like her life depended on it. She grinned at the screen in a creepy way and nodded. "That was Calum again," she laughed to herself a little before typing away on the touch screen.
"Are you finally texting him back?" Zoey asked.
She nodded in response, tapping away on her phone with a smirk on her face. "Yeah, I'm tired of playing games. I just want to sit on his face, the sooner the better."
The nosey woman in front of us did something that sounded like a half choke-half cough sound, but Nicole just rolled her eyes.
I suddenly remembered all about my lunch with Tristan and let out a little gasp. "I met his friend, Nikki."
"What friend?" she asked before I even finished saying her name.
"The guy earlier? The one who caught me pulling out my wedgie?" I reminded her and she nodded, her face serious. I decided to skip the part about having lunch, well, more like a snack I guessed, with him for some reason. "He said he was friends with Calum."
She looked pensive for a moment, almost looking like the lawyer she was if it wasn't for the really tight clothing she wore. "Huh," she muttered in response.
The women ahead of me started shifting around, extending the line as they prepared to assault Andrew Wood himself. There weren't as many people as there had been with Calum Burro earlier, but whatever. I busied myself ripping the shrink wrap off of my new DVD, so I could get him to sign it when it was my turn. I missed the brown-haired sex god make his way into the booth followed by a small entourage. The women in line started going insane.
I saw a bra go flying in his direction and hit him square in the jaw. He picked it up and grinned before tossing it onto the other side of the table. The lady behind me, who looked old enough to be my mom, screamed at the top of her lungs, "I finger my pussy
I wanted to die for her.
The line began moving forward as the autograph and picture taking began. Soon enough, everyone was making noise again, probably laughing at what the lady behind me said. Zoey and Nikki stepped out of the line, shoving me forward, while giving me their own versions of a smile. Zoey looked like a cute little angel, while Nikki looked like she was thinking of a way to murder Maya.
My feet moved on their own, I clutched the DVD to my chest as the line kept getting shorter. In no time, the small woman handling the line earlier gently pushing me toward the table.