Standing On Top

Chapter 3a

In Escrow

Los Angeles, California

January 17^th, 1987

11:30 AM

The yellow 1986 Volkswagen Cabriolet wound its way up the narrow two-lane road into the hills below Griffith Park. Rachel Madison, dressed in a pair of designer jeans and a silk blouse from Buffington's on Rodeo Drive, was behind the wheel. Jake Kingsley, wearing a pair of Levis and a long-sleeved pullover shirt, sat in the passenger seat, directing her on where to turn and where to go straight. They were on their way to see the house that Jake was seriously considering buying. Jake's temperamental Corvette was currently in the shop — again — the victim of a broken front-end strut this time. He could have taken a limo up for the second viewing of the residence or he could have gotten Diane Brown — his realtor — to drive him up, but he'd asked Rachel to pick him up instead. It was Saturday, a day they both had off from their normal obligations, and he wanted a woman's perspective on the house.

Since New Year's Even they had been seeing each other fairly regularly, their respective schedules permitting. As promised, she had broken up with her fourth year med student boyfriend, leaving him in shocked tears, she'd told him with a small amount of disgusted amusement. Jake had taken her out every Friday and Saturday night since, escorting her to the Flamingo Club twice, to Flamer's Steakhouse (where Mindy Snow had casually broken up with him once upon a time), and to several shopping excursions to Beverly Hills. Rachel was good company and he enjoyed being with her. She was intelligent, able to hold a decent conversation, had a sense of humor, and was very attractive. She seemed to enjoy his company as well — even when he wasn't spending hundreds of dollars on her.

So far their relationship was in holding pattern as far as physical intimacy went. They held hands when they were together and they kissed quite frequently when they were alone, even going so far as to have heated make-out sessions when the mood seemed right. So far, however, she had fended off each and every one of Jake's attempts to go further. She would push his hand away when he tried to slide it beneath her shirt. She would squirm out from beneath him if he tried to lay her down on a horizontal surface. Her typical explanation was, "I'm not ready for that yet."

Jake remained mostly good-natured about her unwillingness to go to the next level of their relationship. It was actually somewhat of a novelty. Most women he slept with opened their legs to him within minutes, hours at the most. Having to work at the game, feeling the thrill of the chase for once, made him feel almost like a normal American boy chasing a normal American girl.

"Turn here," Jake said. "This is the street."

Rachel turned onto the twisting, tree-lined street. "Nottingham Drive, huh?" she asked, eyeing the widely spaced houses that were set back on both sides of the road. "Sounds very Robin Hood."

"Matt will say it sounds faggy," Jake replied.

"He does have rather strong opinions of that subject," she said.

"Matt has rather strong opinions about almost everything," Jake said. "Slow up a little. It's coming up."

"Which one?" she asked.

"That one." He pointed.

The house in question was bigger than most of the others on the street. It was two stories tall with a large attic area that was big enough to qualify as a third story. It was fifty years old, of classic Spanish Colonial architecture, and surrounded by a lot that was just under an acre in size. A wide, well cared for front lawn stretched from the porch to the street, broken only by a circular driveway and an ornate marble fountain. Sitting off to the right was a four car detached garage.

"Wow," Rachel said. "It's huge."

"Thirty-six hundred square feet," Jake said. He had done his homework on houses in the past month. "That doesn't include the attic, which is another nine hundred square feet. Of all the places I've looked at I like this one the best. It's got the best location, the best view, and the best square footage for what they're asking for it."

"I think I love it already," Rachel said.

She pulled into the circular driveway and parked her car behind the gray Mercedes that belonged to Diane Brown. Diane worked for the same company Jake rented his current condo from. She specialized in Hollywood Hills and Beverly Hills properties and, as such, was accustomed to dealing with rich and/or famous clients. She had a knack for finding out exactly what her clients' needs and/or wants were and matching them up with the properties currently listed. In Jake's case she knew that he loathed driving in traffic and wanted to stay within fifteen miles or so of Hollywood but that a prestigious location was not that important to him. She had steered him away from Beverly Hills, where the money he was willing to spend would have gone more toward a 90210 zip code than the house and lot itself. The same amount in Beverly Hills would have netted him a house and lot half the size of what he was now looking at.

Diane was a smartly dressed, attractive woman in her mid-forties. She stepped out of her car when Rachel parked behind her and met them at the walkway that led up to the front door. Jake introduced the two women to each other and they shook hands.

"So you like this one, huh?" Diane asked. "It's a good value. A beautiful place with lots of amenities and the owners are quite anxious to unload it."

"Of all the houses you've showed me so far, this one has the most of what I'm looking for," Jake told her. "It's reasonably private, it has a big lot, it has a view, and it's close to Hollywood. I just wanted to take one more look at it and have Rachel give it the once-over as well."

"So you're thinking of putting in a bid?" Diane asked hopefully.

"I am doing more than thinking of it," Jake said.

"Well then," she said. "Let's go look it over, shall we?"

She retrieved a key from a lockbox attached to the water pipe and let them in through the double doors. The owners — a cardiac surgeon and his wife — had divorced three months before and were selling the house as part of the settlement. Both of them had long since moved out and taken all of their furnishings with them.

They walked through the interior. The downstairs contained a formal living room, a formal dining room, a regular living room, an entertainment room complete with mahogany wet bar, a huge, fully equipped kitchen, a laundry room, and one of the five bedrooms. All of this level was covered in mahogany hardwood flooring that had been polished to a mirror sheen. The entertainment room looked out to the south, out over the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, which sat below the hills. A circular staircase led up to the second floor where the other four bedrooms, including the nine hundred square foot master suite, were located. There was also an office that looked out over the back yard. All of these rooms were covered in wall-to-wall thick pile Berber carpeting.

"I think I can live here," Jake said as they finished the house tour.

"It's gorgeous," Rachel beamed, her eyes agog at everything.

"Come out and look at the back yard," he told her. "That's what I like the most."

The back yard was actually a side yard since the back of the house was right up against the edge of the hill looking downward over the view. Jake led her out onto the balcony outside the master suite and over to a redwood staircase that led to the west side of the lot. Immediately at the bottom was an oversized swimming pool and a built-in hot tub surrounded by a large expanse of stamped concrete deck upon which a huge brick barbeque and a covered wet bar had been constructed. Beyond the patio was a third of an acre of Kentucky bluegrass. Privacy hedges formed a perimeter around the entire yard, preventing any of the adjacent properties from viewing what occurred out here.

"I've never seen a house like this before, Jake," Rachel told him. "It's like something out of a fairy tale."

"Yeah, it'll do for a starter home," Jake replied. He turned to Diane. "They want nine hundred grand for this place?"

Rachel let out a little gasp as she heard the price. Diane and Jake both ignored her.

"That is the list price," Diane said. "I am inclined to believe, however, that if you were to offer eight-fifty and a quick escrow they would probably accept."

"Hmm," he said, considering. "I like the house. Why don't you put in that bid for eight-fifty and the quickest possible escrow, all dependent on a satisfactory appraisal, of course."

"Of course," she said. "I'm sure it's no problem for you, Mr. Kingsley, but have you secured financing yet?"

"Not yet," Jake said. "But my accountant and my lawyer both tell me that with my income and my bank balance if I put twenty percent down the banks will be falling all over themselves to write a loan for me."

"I'm sure they speak the truth," Diane said, a smile on her face. She was already tasting the $8500 commission on the sale.

"However," Jake said, a hint of warning in his voice, "there is one thing I should mention."

"What's that?" Diane asked.

"I really hate it when people try to take advantage of me," he said. "I will be having real estate experts and lawyers going over every detail of any agreement. If anyone tries to screw me, even in a small way, I will void this deal immediately and I will never again do business with whomever tried to do the screwing."

"I assure you," Diane said, a little taken aback, "that I only deal on the up and up and I make sure my clients do the same."

"Then we should have no problems," Jake said, smiling. "You start writing up the bid when you get back to your office and let me know how the owners respond. You know how to get hold of me."

Jake led Rachel on a quick tour of the back yard, showing her the rose garden near the back (the bushes were all dormant and clipped down to almost nothing this time of year) and the patio attractions. After, they went back into the house and exited through the front door. They said their goodbyes and nice-to-meet-you's to Diane and walked back over to Rachel's Cabriolet.

"Are you sure you don't want to drive?" she asked, offering him the keys.

"Quite sure," he said, taking them and opening the driver's door for her. "No heterosexual male should ever be seen driving a Cabriolet under any circumstances."

"Where does it say that?" she asked with a giggle as she sat down behind the wheel.

"It doesn't say it anywhere," Jake told her. "It's instinctive heterosexual knowledge, imparted by the Creator from birth."

He came around and sat in the passenger seat of the small car. She started the engine and dropped it into gear, back toward Los Feliz Boulevard.

"Are you really going to buy that house?" she asked him.

"I really think I am," he confirmed.

"And you're going to put down twenty percent? That's like a hundred and seventy thousand dollars."

He shrugged. "I can either put it down on a house or I can give it to the IRS next year."

"That's just amazing," she said, her eyes shining almost hungrily. "That's more money than I've made my entire life."

Jake shrugged again, not wanting to talk about his finances. Such conversations made him uncomfortable. "How about some music?" he asked to change to the subject. He reached for the stereo in the dash. "Do you have a tape in this thing?"

"Uh... well... yes," she said, blushing a little, "but I don't think you'll really like it."

"You'd be surprised what I like," he said, pushing the play button. "Let's hear what you got."

It turned out to be La Diferencia's last album that was stuck in there. The final minute of Lovers In Love — the biggest hit from that album and the song that had been nominated for a Grammy this year — was playing.

"You can change it if you want," Rachel said. "There are some more tapes in the glove box there."

"This is fine," Jake told her. "I didn't know you liked La Diferencia."

"I thought it might bother you if I told you," she said shyly.

"Bother me? Why would you think that?"

"Well... you got in that fight with them that one time at the Grammy awards so I figured you hated them."

"That was Matt's gig," Jake said. "I just got caught in the crossfire. I actually think Celia Valdez has a beautiful voice and is an extraordinary acoustic guitarist. She was a very charming lady as well."

"Really?" Rachel asked. "What was she like?"

"She's tall, almost like an Amazon. She's very pretty and well spoken. She has a good sense of humor and a thick accent. She was able to hold a conversation and even give me back some of the shit I was giving her. She also put Matt quite nicely in his place, something that not many people are able to do."

"Wow," Rachel said. "Sometimes it's just hard for me to believe that I'm really going out with a famous person, you know? And here you are talking about talking to Celia Valdez, one of my favorite singers of all time, and I know you're not making it up. I mean... you've like really done that."

"I've really done that," he confirmed. "It wasn't a big deal. She's just a normal person like I am."

Rachel laughed. "You're not a normal person, Jake," she said. "Normal people don't plop down a hundred and seventy thousand dollars on a house."

"Yeah," Jake said, uncomfortable again. "I suppose."

Lovers In Love faded away and the next track started. It was a song Jake had never heard before as he'd only listened to the La Diferencia tunes that were played on the radio. It caught his attention immediately because it started with a fast, Latin-based acoustic guitar session that was fingerpicked out into a rich, melodious intro. It settled into a rhythm that was half strumming, half fingerpicking as the drums kicked in and set up a slow, military-like backbeat.

"Hey," said Jake, reaching to the volume knob and turning it up a few notches. "This isn't bad. She really can play the guitar."

"I've only heard this song a few times," Rachel said. "I usually listen to the ones they play on the radio and fast forward past this one. It's got a weird name. Something Mexican or something and they never say the title in the song."

The song continued and Celia began to sing, her soft contralto accompanying the instruments and speaking of men marching off to a battle, of muskets and gunpowder, of friends falling and others leaving them where they lie to continue on. It was a riveting piece that was completely unlike any other La Diferencia song he'd heard. He began to wonder about this.

"Do you have the cassette cover in here somewhere?" he asked.

"In the glove box there," she said. "You really like this song?"

"Strange but true," he replied. "It has a depth to it that's missing in most of their other tunes." He opened the glove box and dug around through an untidy collection of loose cassette tapes and empty and full cassette covers. He finally found the La Diferencia cover near the bottom of the pile. He opened it and pulled out the insert, turning it over to where the tracks were listed and credited. He looked at the track listed after Lovers In Love. Carabobo was the name of the tune. Rachel was right. They hadn't said that word a single time in either the verses or the chorus. He looked beneath the title and saw that words and lyrics were credited to Celia Valdez, one of only two tunes on the entire album she had written. The rest were credited to a variety of male names, none of whom were band members.

"Celia Valdez actually wrote this song," Jake said.

"Doesn't she write all of the songs?" Rachel asked. "I heard she was the talent behind the band."

"She is," Jake said, "but they don't write most of their music. It's assigned to them by Aristocrat Records. All of the songs you hear on the radio are written by record company songwriters who specialize in catchy pop music."

"They seem to do a good job, don't they?"

Jake bit back the reply that rose to his lips: To the musically unsophisticated, I'm sure it seems that way. Instead, he said, "Yeah, they're not bad. They certainly sell a lot of singles, but this song here, this Carabobo thing, this is real music. Listen to that guitar work. Listen to the mixing. The vocals are first rate with much more depth then on the pop songs and the lyrics are actually meaningful instead of a sappy, feel-good catch phrases repeated over and over."

Most of this seemed to pass over Rachel's head. "I just like a good song," she said, perhaps a little defensively.

"Me too," Jake said, listening to the ending of Carabobo. It was a strumming slow down of the guitar work and the drums while Celia repeated the final lyrics several times: "So we can be free, so we can be freeeeeeeeee."

"Do you think I can borrow this tape?" Jake asked her when the next song — one of the pop staples from the album — started.

"Uhh... well, sure," she said.

"Do you have the other La Diferencia tapes too?"

She gave him a strange look. "Sure," she said. "They're back there in that case in the back seat."

Jake reached behind him and grabbed the cassette case she had. He opened it and dug around, noting that her musical tastes were indeed a bit simplistic — she seemed to favor country and pop — and that she didn't have a single Intemperance tape in her collection. He found the other two La Diferencia tapes and quickly opened them up and gutted them of their inserts. He opened them up and read over the tracks, seeing that two songs on the first album and one on the second had been penned by Celia Valdez. He wanted to listen to those tunes and see if they were as good as Carabobo had been. Could it be that he'd perhaps underestimated Ms. Valdez's talents a little?

"So... you seem real interested in Celia Valdez," Rachel said.

"I wouldn't exactly say interested," he said. "I'm just surprised that she actually seems to have some musical depth. I didn't even know she composed."

"Have you ever... you know... gone out with her?"

He laughed. "No," he said. "I've never gone out with her. The only time I've ever met her is at the Grammy award party and the awards themselves back in 1985. She's our closest competition in terms of album sales and I'm just curious about what makes her tick. You can tell a lot about a person by what kind of songs they write. My guess is that if Aristocrat ever gave her full artistic license instead of feeding her a bunch of crap songs she'd wipe us right off the chart."

This seemed to make Rachel feel a little better. "She is really good," she said. "I've loved La Diferencia ever since their first album." She blushed a little. "I used to have the biggest crush on Eduardo Valdez. Those Latin features, that accent, and that little goatee he used to have." She shivered. "Mmm, what a hunk."

"If not a particularly great guitar player," Jake said.

"You don't think he's good?" she asked.

"Well, he knows where to put his hands on the instrument," Jake said. "I'll give him that."

"Everybody can't be as good as you and Matt, Jake," she said.

"You do have a point there," he said. "Listen, maybe you'd like to meet them?"

"Meet who?" she asked. "La Diferencia? Can you arrange that?"

"They'll be at the Grammy awards and the pre-Grammy party next month. And it just so happens that I don't have a date for either occasion."

Her mouth dropped open and she looked at him, stunned. "Are you asking what I think you're asking?"

"If you think I'm asking you to the Grammies, then yes, that's what I'm asking."

"Oh... wow, Jake," she said. "Are you serious? You mean go to the Grammies with you and be on TV and everything?"

"I am serious," he said. "And before you answer, you need to think about this a little bit. If you go, you are going to be on TV and the whole world is going to know you're dating me. Your picture is going to show up on tabloids and in the entertainment magazines. Reporters are going to be digging into your life, trying to find out everything there is to know about you so they can print it. If there's anything unflattering about your life, they'll probably find it and print that too. There will be paparazzi hanging out in front of your restaurant and snapping pictures of you. You will no longer be anonymous."

"Wow," she said again, overwhelmed.

"I won't be mad if you say no," he told her. "I'll understand completely. Being famous is not all it's cracked up to be."

"No no," she said, shaking her head strenuously. "I want to go. I'd love to go. Oh my God! What would I wear though? I mean, I know how to dress up and everything but I don't have anything for the Grammies." She screamed a little. "Oh my god! The Grammies."

"As I said," Jake told her, "think it over a little bit. I don't need an answer right away. And don't worry about what to wear. If you go, the various dressmakers of Hollywood will be falling all over themselves to be the one to outfit you for both the party and the ceremony. They'll give you whatever dress you want just so it can be seen on TV."

"They'll give me the dress?" she asked, astounded. "You mean for free?"

"If you were a celebrity of some sort they'd actually pay you to wear it," he assured her. "Don't worry about wardrobe."

"Yes, Jake," she said. "I'd love to go." She shook her head. "Oh my God. I can't believe this. Wait until Maureen hears about this. She is gonna be soooo jealous!"

She chattered on and on for the rest of the drive, asking him a thousand questions, making a thousand spontaneous statements, her mood going from elation to nervousness and then back to elation again. When they pulled up in front of Jake's building he invited her up for lunch. She accepted.

"I need a beer," Jake said as soon as they entered the condo. "Do you want anything?"

"Just a diet soda if you have one," she said. "You're really serious about this Grammy thing, right? You're not just fucking with me?"

"I'm not just fucking with you," he assured her, taking a bottle of beer and a can of Diet Coke out of the bar refrigerator. "How does turkey sandwiches sound for lunch? I just happen to have all the ingredients in the kitchen."

"It sounds good," she said absently. "Can I call Mom? I really need to tell her about this."

He handed her the can of soda. "Call away," he told her. "I'll be in the kitchen. Turn on the TV or the music if you want."

He went into the kitchen, leaving her to make her phone call. He cracked his beer open and had a large drink and then began to remove the roast turkey he'd cooked two nights ago from the refrigerator. He prepared immaculate sandwiches on sourdough rolls, garnished them with chips from the pantry, and then carried the whole works into the dining room. By this point Rachel was off the phone and Jake was on his second beer.

"Mom is so excited about this," Rachel said. "Can she be with me through the dress fitting thing? I'd love to have her there."

"I don't see why not," Jake said.

They ate their lunch and then retired to the couch in the entertainment room to watch a movie on the VCR. It wasn't long before they were in each other's arms, engaged in a heated make-out session.

This time when Jake put his hand beneath her shirt, she didn't stop him. Encouraged, he slowly unbuttoned her four hundred dollar blouse and popped the snap on her matching front-loader bra. The perky breasts that he'd admired for so long beneath her Brannigan's T-shirts at the restaurant were now visible to him in all their majestic glory. They really were worth the wait, he concluded as he gazed upon them for the first time. Nice, well-rounded C-cups capped with pink nipples that were sticking out excitedly. He cupped one and then the other with his hands, caressing them, feeling them, and then he slowly lowered his head and took the left nipple into his mouth.

"Ohh, yessss, Jake," she moaned as she slurped and sucked at her.

He tried to ease her back onto the couch so he could start working on her pants but she resisted. He gave a little grunt of frustration — a good natured grunt he thought, after all, this was part of the thrill of the chase — but she seemed to think he was mad at her.

"I'm sorry, Jake," she said. "I'm just not ready to... you know... go all the way yet. I'm not trying to tease you or anything."

"It's okay," Jake said, his hands going back to her breasts. "I'll just find something else to occupy my time." He lowered his head again, preparing to take the nipple back into his mouth. Once again she stopped him.

"I'm sorry I leave you so... frustrated all the time," she said, her hand rubbing up and down his back. "Maybe there's something else I could do to help you out."

"Something else?" he asked, twirling her nipple between his thumb and index finger.

"You know... maybe I could... uh... put it in my mouth?"

Jake certainly had no problem with this plan of action. "Sure," he said. "I think I'd like that."

She nodded and glanced nervously down at his crotch, which was bulging out quite suggestively. With shaking hands she reached down and undid the buttons on his jeans. He raised his hips up so she could pull them down, revealing his turgid erection to her. She took it in her hand and stroked it up and down a few times, staring at it all the while as if she'd never seen one before. Finally she lowered her head and took him in her mouth.

It became obvious as she went to work on him that she had no idea how to give a blowjob. She swirled her tongue around the head a few times, sucked a little, but kept her hands out of the action and developed no sort of up and down motion that would produce an orgasm. Jake let her do her thing for two or three minutes until his erection actually started to wilt due to lack of stimulation. He then reached down and gently pulled her head up.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Didn't you like it?"

"Uh... well... yeah, I did."

"Then why did you stop me? It's okay if you... you know... come in my mouth." She said this last with an air of fear — the fear of the great unknown.

"Rachel," he said gently, "have you ever done this before?"

Her lip quivered a little. "Is it that obvious?" she asked, seemingly near tears now. "I mean I've had sex and everything, but I've never, you know... done that before."

"There's nothing wrong with that," he said. "I don't want you to do anything you don't really want to do."

"I do want to do it," she said. "I really do. I want to make you feel good, Jake."

Then let me into your puss where it doesn't matter if you know how to do it or not, he did not say. That was the Matt in him coming forth. In truth, he was actually excited at the thought that she had never had a penis in her mouth before — more excited than when one of the nameless sluts he usually slept with performed an expert blowjob on him. "Look," he said. "If you really want to do this, then how about I tell you how to do it right, okay?"

She nodded, looking down at his penis, which had sprung back to its full glory. "Okay," she said.

He directed her through the basic process, teaching her to move her mouth up and down, to use her hands on the base and jack at the same rate her mouth was moving. He directed her on the proper speed to use — a pace that mimicked copulation just prior to orgasm. It was far from the best oral sex he'd ever had but it was very pleasurable all the same because it was Rachel doing it, a woman he actually knew something about, who's company he actually enjoyed. This, coupled with the fact that he'd had no sexual release other than masturbation since he'd started dating her, led to a quick conclusion to the encounter.

"Yes, oh yeah," Jake said as the final moment approached. "Just like that. Don't stop. Almost... there..."

She increased her pace a little, keeping up the friction and the feeling of blissful release shot up and down Jake's body. He exploded into her sucking mouth, letting loose a torrent of pent-up semen. She dutifully kept up the action throughout the orgasmic period although a considerable amount of his offering dribbled out of her mouth and onto his upper thigh.

Slowly she raised her head up and looked at him. The expression on her face was not of delight, nor was it of satisfaction of a job well done. It was of barely controlled disgust. Her color was more than a little on the green side.

"Are you okay?" he asked her as he watched her breathing heavily through her mouth.

"Uh... uh... I'll be back," she said, scrambling to her feet. She made a mad dash for the nearest bathroom, diving into it and slamming the door behind her. A moment later Jake heard the sound of retching.

"Well," he said, standing up and pulling his jeans back up. "That went well."

As the retching went on and on the phone began to ring. He walked over to it and picked it up. "Yeah?" he said into the mouthpiece.

"And hello to you too," said Pauline's voice. "Are you busy?"

A particularly loud retch came drifting out of the bathroom. "No, not really," he said. "What's up?"

"You got trouble," she said.

"What kind of trouble?" he asked.

"I've been getting calls all morning from entertainment reporters wanting comment on an article about you that appeared today in February's issue of Catholic Monthly magazine"

"Is that the porno mag with all the chicks in schoolgirl skirts in it?"

"No," she said. "It's not the porno mag with all the chicks in schoolgirl skirts in it, it's the primary publication of the Catholic Church in the United States and they have a very unflattering article about Jake Kingsley, lead singer of Intemperance in it. I went and picked up a copy an hour ago to see what all the fuss was about and it's very bad."

"How bad can it be?" he asked. "Every freakin' religious group in the world hates everything we stand for. They've all done stories about our satanic music and the coke-sniffing from the butt crack thing."

"This one is different," Pauline said. "This article was written by your ex-girlfriend."

"My ex-girlfriend?" he asked. "Which fuckin' ex-girlfriend? I've had a few."

"Your first ex-girlfriend," she said. "Michelle Rourke, formerly known as Michelle Borrows. The girl you used to date in Heritage while you were playing at D Street West."

"Ahhh," he said, "that ex-girlfriend." That had been almost seven years ago, long before anyone had ever heard of Intemperance. He had met her in community college where he'd been taking some music courses and working on general education requirements for his still unattained college degree. She had been an English major, her goal to one day be a teacher at the Catholic School where she herself had been educated. They had dated for over a year and she was Jake's first true love. Eventually, however, as Intemperance became more popular to the Heritage area rock music fans and as her own Catholic upbringing had finally conquered her will to go on dating a scrungy musician, she had broken up with him. He had never heard from her since and had only seen her one time since. That had been on a television newscast showing religious protesters picketing an Intemperance concert in Heritage. She had been hanging out with a group called The Family Values Coalition of Heritage and carrying a sign that said INTEMPERANCE IS SATAN'S TOOL!

"That ex-girlfriend," Pauline confirmed. "Jake, she makes some pretty inflammatory accusations in the article."

"Like what?"

"I think maybe you should come over here and read it for yourself," she said. "Once you do that we can start talking about what our response is going to be."

"That bad, huh?"

"That bad," she confirmed.

"Okay, I'll be over as soon as I can get there."

He hung up the phone, wondering how what had been a pretty good day had turned so shitty in such a hurry. First his girlfriend starts puking after giving him a blowjob and now Michelle Borrows, the girl he'd written the hit song Point Of Futility about, resurfaces in his life after six years accusing him of God-knew-what.

Rachel emerged from the bathroom a minute later, still looking kind of ill. Her face was pale and her expression was of embarrassed unhappiness. "Jake, I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know what happened. I know how this must look to you, but..."

"It's okay," he told her, lighting a cigarette and taking a few deep drags. "That kind of thing happens all the time, I'm sure."

"It does?"

Actually Jake had never heard of such a thing happening before, but now was the time for diplomacy. "Sure," he said. "It's nothing to worry about. Listen, can you give me a lift over to my sister's house? Apparently there's some trouble brewing with a Catholic magazine that printed an article from an ex-girlfriend of mine."

"Trouble?" she asked. "What kind of trouble?"

"I don't know yet," he said. "I haven't read the article."

"Is it Mindy Snow?" she asked.

"No, much further back than that. A girl I used to date when I was in college and playing the clubs. Pauline wants me over there as soon as I can get there."

"Uh... well... sure," she said. "How will you get home?"

"I'll catch a limo or have Pauline take me." He walked over to her and kissed her on the cheek. "Don't worry about what happened, okay?"

"Okay," she said, sniffing a little. "I'm just so embarrassed."

"Don't be," he said. "And while I'm talking to Pauline I'll let her know to start contacting the dressmakers so we can get you outfitted for the Grammies, okay?"

"Okay," she said, the smile coming back to her face as she thought about it.

The title of the article was: A WRETCH LIKE ME, my experience as Jake Kingsley's girlfriend.

"A wretch like her, huh?" Jake said, looking at her picture above the article. She was still pretty, the six years that had passed having been kind to her. Her blonde hair was tied into a conservative bun and fashionable glasses were perched upon her face. The caption below her picture read: Michelle Rourke is a lifelong member of The Church who was educated at California State University at Heritage and who currently teaches English at Holy Assumption school in Heritage. She is a founding member of the Heritage branch of the Family Values Coalition and, as revealed in the article, dated Jake Kingsley, lead singer of the death metal band Intemperance, for more than a year from 1980 to 1981.

"A wretch like her," Pauline confirmed. "Why don't you read through that while I get you a drink? I think you're going to need it in a few minutes."

She left the office, heading for the kitchen. Jake took one last look at Michelle's picture and then started to read.

I was born and raised Catholic and I adhere strictly to the teachings of The Church. I was married in St. John's Cathedral right here in Heritage, California and I attend services there every Sunday. I teach at the oldest Catholic school in the Heritage region and I am well respected by my students, my peers, and my administrators. I am the eternal good little Catholic girl through and through but I've harbored a deep, shameful secret from my early college days. Only my closest friends, my priest, and now, as of two weeks before, my husband, knows this secret. I used to date Jake Kingsley.

This relationship started in June of 1980 when I was working on general education requirements at Heritage Community College. I was twenty years old and in the midst of a crisis in faith that is so common to younger members of The Church. I wanted to rebel against the lifestyle and the sacred rules I had been raised with. Jake Kingsley, who was then a struggling musician who attended Heritage Community College, seemed the perfect outlet for this rebellion. He asked me out one day and I accepted. Thus began the fifteen-month nightmare that scarred me deeply but that ultimately served to reaffirm my faith.

"The fifteen month nightmare?" Jake muttered. "Jesus Christ."

He read on. According to Michelle, their first date was to a rock and roll club in which he'd forced her to smoke marijuana and snort cocaine and had asked for oral sex at the completion of the date. When she'd balked at his demands he had become angry with her and took her home immediately, telling her to never talk to him again. Something inside of her, however, had been attracted to the "bad boy" persona he represented and when he asked her out a second time she'd agreed to go even though he pointedly told her what the price of dating him would be.

I did it that night with him, sinning in a way that even men and women married in the eyes of Our Lord in holy matrimony are forbidden. And to my great shame, my great consternation, some sick and twisted part of me actually enjoyed the encounter. I went out with him again and again. I smoked more marijuana with him and I drank more alcohol and I snorted more cocaine and I fell deeper and deeper into wretchedness so far removed from my upbringing that I feared I might never come back.

Soon, very soon, I gave up my holy virginity to him. Actually, I didn't really give it to him, he took it from me, plying me with enough drugs and alcohol that my resistance was reduced to nearly nothing. He then ripped my clothes off and violated me in the back seat of his car. That was the first time he hit me. I asked him to please be gentle and he laughed, backhanding me sharply across the face and calling me a name that is usually associated with female dogs.

"You fuckin' lying bitch!" Jake screamed out to the empty office. He was outraged beyond belief. He had been with well over four hundred women at this point in his life, including seven or eight serious relationships and never, not a single time, had he ever hit one of these women or abused any of them in any way. What Michelle was saying was an outright lie. Although Mindy Snow had implied that Jake had been abusive to her she had not actually come out and said he'd hit her. This was the most libelous fabrication he'd ever read.

Things did not get better in the rest of the article, they only got worse. Michelle described a relationship from hell in which Jake regularly beat her, degraded her, even had sex with other women in front of her. She described orgies of drug use that had never occurred. She described bull sessions in which Jake and the rest of his horrid band had sat around and expounded upon the virtues of Satanism and Hitlerism while degrading anything that had to do with organized Christianity.

I could not seem to break free from this relationship, no matter how much I wished to return to my old life. I've been to counseling since and I've heard the tales of a thousand battered women in abusive relationships and my experience is quite typical of these encounters. I was constantly threatened with death and dismemberment if I left him. I was told that my parents, my church would never accept me because of what I'd done. He threatened to expose every sordid detail of our lives if I displeased him in any way. And I believed him as only a twenty-year-old girl experiencing the harsh realities of the modern world could believe him.

Eventually I got to the point where I was seriously considering the most mortal of sins — that of suicide. It seemed, at times, that this was the only way out of the hell I found myself in. I could no longer feel Jesus in my life and it was my belief that He had abandoned me, that He was so disgusted with what I had become and with who I was with that even His everlasting love could not extend to a wretch like me.

But He had not abandoned me. Our Holy Father abandons no one, not even wretches who consort with henchmen of the Devil like Jake Kingsley. Interestingly, it was not an attack upon me that finally convinced me to pull myself from this horrid relationship, but an attack upon the Holy Scriptures. Jake dragged me to another one of his awful productions one night and sang a new song that I'd never heard before, a song that was a condemnation of the bible and all it stands for. It was an attack so vile upon the very book that forms the foundation of our faith that I knew at that point I could no longer continue to be with him. I felt Jesus talk to me that night, felt Him in my heart as he told me it was time to come back to Him and leave my wretchedness behind.

Michelle then went on to describe how, upon hearing that she was breaking up with him, Jake had beaten her to within an inch of her life, raped her one last time, and then threw her in the Sacramento River from the back of the boat owned by the evil proprietor of the Devil's music club they'd been playing at. Somehow she managed to survive all of this and accepted Jesus back into her heart, eventually going on to finish her degree, get her teaching credential, and, when Intemperance became popular, to help found the Family Values Coalition of Heritage in order to fight everything that Jake Kingsley and those like him stood for.

By the time he finished reading Pauline had come back into the room. She held a potent rum and coke in her hands. Jake took it from her and downed half of it in one drink.

"Pretty bad, huh?" she asked, sitting down across from him.

He nodded numbly. "This is the most slanderous thing I've ever read before," he said. "I beat her, raped her, and threw her in the river? What kind of shit is that? She broke up with me after I got done eating her pussy out and she didn't even return the favor. And she wasn't fleeing from the relationship, she told me she loved me and gave me an ultimatum. Her or my music. I chose my music and she left."

"I didn't think any of that was true, Jake," she said. "I know you as well as anyone and I know you'd never hit a woman in anger, much less regularly beat and rape one. And I remember when you were dating this bitch. She was madly in love with you. It was obvious to everyone who saw you together."

"But everyone else who reads this is going to think its true," he said. "The media is going to be all over this for the next month at least. And it'll be like the coke in the butt crack thing. They're never going to forget about it. Every article they ever write about me from now until forever is going to describe me as the musician who was alleged to have snorted cocaine from a girl's buttocks and who was is known to have violent and sadistic tendencies with his girlfriends. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Rachel stopped seeing me when she gets a look at this thing."

"I know," Pauline said. "I wish I had some encouraging words for you but I really don't."

"What about suing for libel?" Jake asked. "Can we do that? Force this fucking rag to print a retraction?"

"We could sue them," she said, "but I don't think we'd have much chance of winning. In a libel suit the burden of proof is on the accuser. That means you'd have to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that her allegations are not true in order to win. That's a pretty tough haul when all she is talking about are one on one encounters from six years ago."

"Fucking bitch," Jake said again. "I wish I would've beaten her ass now."

"Don't ever say anything like that to anyone but me," Pauline warned. "I think our response to this needs to be a statement from me that you emphatically deny ever laying a hand on Michelle that was not welcome. You deny raping her, you deny hitting her, you deny everything."

"Of course I'm going to deny everything," Jake yelled at her. "I didn't do any of it!"

"I know that," she said. "I'm just telling you what our official response should be."

"Maybe we should tell the tale about how she let me eat her pussy out and then broke up with me without so much as a hand job in return," Jake suggested. "That'll let people know what kind of bitch she is."

Pauline licked her lips carefully. "Uh... bad idea," she said. "I think we should just stick to the denials and go no further. Don't say a word about Michelle to anyone. Just pretend she doesn't exist and with any luck maybe they'll let the subject drop soon."

"Can I at least tell them about how she screamed out Jesus' name the first time I made her come?"

"Impressive," Pauline said, "but no. Not a word about anything. We'll acknowledge that you dated her, that you eventually broke up with her, and we deny everything else."

Jake nodded. "All right. We deny everything and keep our mouths shut."

Jake talked to Rachel on the phone that night. By this point the story of the allegations put down by Michelle Rourke (formerly Borrows) were the top news story on every entertainment show and had even been mentioned on a few of the local news shows themselves. There was no way she could have avoided hearing what her boyfriend was being accused of.

"Everything she wrote is pretty much a fabrication," Jake told her. "We actually had a solid, loving relationship up until the last two months or so. That's when her upbringing started to make her question her relationship with me. I never laid a hand on her in anger. I've never done that to any woman."

"I believe you, Jake," she said. "Remember, I've been dating you for almost a month now. You've never even yelled at me."

"I was just worried you might believe what she was writing," Jake said.

"I don't," she assured him. "Did you talk to your sister about those dressmakers? Mom is real excited about helping me pick one out."

"Yes, I did," Jake said. "She said she'll call and make the arrangements for you on Monday morning... if you still want to go."

"Why wouldn't I want to go?" she asked.

"Well, with this whole article thing and the media attention it's getting, the reporters are going to be much more interested in you now. If you show up as my official date they're going to be hounding you, asking you if I beat you, if I make you do drugs, if I rape you. Are you sure you want to subject yourself to all that?"

"Reporters don't bother me, Jake," she said. "When they ask I'll tell them that you're the most loving, considerate boyfriend I've ever had."

"Okay," he said, "but don't lay it on too thick or they'll think you're just protecting me."

"I won't," she promised. "And, Jake... about what happened today. I just want to tell you again how sorry I am about... you know... throwing up after you... you... you know?"

"I know," he said. "And like I told you this afternoon, don't sweat it. Things happen. If you don't like doing that, you don't have to do it again."

"I did like doing it, it's just that at the end... when you... you... uh... squirted that stuff in my mouth, I just wasn't prepared for..."

"Rachel, hon," he said. "Don't worry about it, okay? It's already forgotten."