1 - A Woman Walks Into a Bar...

There she was again.  This time, on the far side of the Irish pub that was hosting tonight's after party. 

He was starting to think she was following him.

Tony Bongiovi carelessly tipped up his beer bottle, pretending as though it were perfectly normal to be stalked.  In reality, it was freaking the hell out of him.  He’d been down this road before and wasn’t fucking impressed.  It was a little different last time, though, since it was mostly online and the girl had been telling everybody they were engaged for God’s sake.

Nonetheless, it was enough to make him regard the fairer sex with a heavy dose of wariness.

Not all of them.

There were the one-night-stand exceptions.  But those women made their intentions clear right off the bat.  They wanted to fuck Jon Bon Jovi.  If they couldn’t, one of his brothers would do.  It was one of the few scenarios in which Tony didn’t mind hitching a short ride on Jon’s coattails. 

Fact One, he was single.  Fact Two, he got horny.  Courtesy of his brother’s fame, he occasionally found a woman who didn’t have an interest in changing Fact One to help him out with Fact Two.

He took another deep swallow and absently nodded his head at the two women offering him a subtle wave.  One of them might even be such a woman, given the opportunity, but he wasn't in the mood.

Fan club gigs and VIP after parties were… not his thing.  When he wasn’t on the clock taking pictures and video, he tended to keep to himself in the corner of the bar and quietly drank a couple of beers.  He preferred to stay detached and watch everything from a distance.

The lenses of his glasses shielded his eyes enough so that he was able to inconspicuously check out his ‘friend’ again.  This was her first VIP after party, as far as he knew.

Looks like she’s getting brave.  She’s moving closer.

The lady looked perfectly nice.  Average height, average build, average brown hair.  Normally, he wouldn’t have given her a second glance, and he hadn’t in Munich, Oslo or Edinburgh.  If she didn’t have a web of scars on one side of her neck, he probably still wouldn’t have noticed her. 

Once he finally did take note, Tony was surprised to realize she’d been at every European stop so far, and, in Manchester, they’d even briefly crossed paths on the backstage tour.  On that particular occasion, he recalled being surprised that the woman hadn’t taken the opportunity to speak.  She just checked out his computer monitor on her way through the business side of the stage, barely sparing him a glance. 

He ultimately figured out that, during the show, she could be found somewhere near the front of the crowd, on stage left.  Alone.  As far as he could tell, she wasn’t traveling with anyone, and, most of the time when he spotted her, she had her camera up snapping pictures of… him.

Tony didn’t like being on the focused end of a camera lens.

With a hesitant smile, the mystery woman situated her denim covered butt onto the stool next to his, putting her half-empty drink glass on the bar.  Thick brown hair flipped over her shoulder when she swung around, hand extended.  It was then that he saw that the scars on her neck weren’t the only ones she bore.  The back of right hand and wrist carried the same random scarring as the right side of her neck.  Tony idly wondered what happened to her.

“Hello,” she drawled quietly, eyes fixed on his chin, detracting him from his curiosity.  The lilting Southern twang surprised the hell out of him.  For no particular reason, he assumed she was a native European.  British.  Maybe Irish?  Definitely not American. “I’m Lilah.”

Rolling the lazy “Ly-luh” over in his mind, he accepted her hand, and her trembling fingertips stilled in his grasp.  She was nervous.  It wasn’t an unfounded assumption, either, because the scooped neck of her sunshine yellow top showed red splotches all across her upper chest.  

Those splotches made him feel a little sympathetic, so he didn't waste time toying with her.  He cut right to the chase.

“Lilah.  I see you finally got up enough nerve to come talk to me.”

His bluntness only made the splotches spread wider, until they were creeping upward to mingle with the scars on her neck.  He’d wager that it was embarrassment now, instead of nerves.

“Can I get you another beer?” she offered, ‘another’ sounding more like ‘a-nuth-uh’.  French manicured fingers folded together in her lap, and she awaited a reply without looking at him.

Checking out the empty bottle she had nodded to, he shook his head.  “No, thanks.”  Women didn’t buy him drinks.  Label him a male chauvinist pig if you wanted, but that wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.  Men bought women drinks, not the other way around.  Stalkers were no exception. 

There was a definite look of discomfort in her pinched smile as she dared to dart a glance his way.  Her drink offer having been declined, she circled back and responded to his initial observation. “I didn’t realize you knew I’d been followin’ the band.”

He gestured for another beer from the bartender, leaning his forearms on the bar.  “I don’t get a lot of fans taking pictures of me.”  One dark eyebrow arched over the frame of his glasses.  “I prefer it that way.”

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t realize my photography was gonna be a problem.”  She thoughtlessly scratched at the base of her neck, making the hives even angrier.  “There are just so few pictures of you out there.”

“You say that as though it was a bad thing.  Did you ever stop to think it's intentional?”

Her glass came up off the bar and she sipped what was left of the fruity drink through the little cocktail straw.  Tony thanked the bartender for his beer and enjoyed the cold brew sliding down his throat.  He waited, undeniably curious about what this woman wanted from him.

“No.  I don’t suppose that I did.  I was more inclined to believe that folks just didn’t take the time, or didn’t realize…”  The words trailed off uncertainly.

This was a weird fucking conversation.  “Didn’t realize what?”

“That someone would like to see them, I guess.”

Why in the hell would she ‘stalk’ him like the paparazzi and then, once she finally got within speaking distance, not even look at him?  This was all too bizarre for his liking.  It was time to make a graceful exit before Tony found himself in an awkward situation with one of Jon's fans. He took a deep swallow of the beer and put one foot on the floor in preparation to stand.

“Listen, lady, I’ve got to admit, you’re creepin’ me out a little bit.  Is there something you wanted?  Because if not, I should be shovin' off.”

She immediately whipped her head up and, for the first time, her eyes directly met his.  They were just your average shade of blue, a lot like his own, but there was something mesmerizing about them…  It was almost like she was looking inside his head and seeing things that he preferred to keep hidden.  The notion was unsettling enough for him to wish she’d never lifted her gaze past his chin.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to be creepy.  I just wanted to talk to you.  Well…”  Now the all-seeing eyes slid away, and his discomfort eased, even though he still couldn’t wait to get away from this woman.  Lilah.  “I can’t really say that’s all I wanted.”

Words that should have been fairly simple and straightforward took on a suggestiveness that had his Spidey-sense tingling.  

No way.  The Bashful Stalker is gonna proposition me?

Could he see himself sleeping with this woman?  The answer was a quick and resounding ‘no’.  His Fact Two wasn't in bad enough shape to want to take that kind of chance.  She had some kind of ulterior agenda, and she wasn’t Playboy hot enough to overcome his reservations about what that agenda might be.  He stood, not bothering with the rest of his drink. 

“I hate to cut this short, but I need to get back to the venue and make sure everything has been stowed.”

She stayed rooted to her seat, for all the world looking like he’d kicked her damn puppy.  “Of course.  I understand completely.  I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

Fuck.  Her feelings were hurt.  Tony kept his distance from the fans, but if he found himself in close proximity, he was never rude.  He just wasn’t that guy.  With a quick glance at his phone, he decided it wouldn’t kill him to give her five minutes.

Stifling a sigh, he forced out, “Nah, no bother.  I have work stuff to take care of, but I just got a text telling me it’s under control right now."  He was going to regret this.  He’d bet his Harley on it.  "You were saying that’s not all you wanted?”

Lilah extracted the little straw from her cocktail so that she could tip the highball glass and drain it of any remaining alcohol.  The ice cubes clattered together when the glass met the bar once again with a heavy thunk. 

“Yes.  I was saying that.”  Blue irises, focused sharper than any camera lens he’d ever owned, came to meet his again.  “I also wanted to offer you sexual favors.  Oral sexual favors.”

A moment ago he expected her to insinuate something about sex.  Or, hell, even come right out and ask to fuck, but the roundabout way she’d offered to suck him off threw him for a loop.  So prim and proper.  Clinical, even.  The long, flat sound of the ‘a’ in ‘favors’ and the blending of syllables in ‘sexual’ – it sounded more like ‘sex-yull’ – made him wonder if he’d even misheard. 

Never one to be called shy, it took him all of a heartbeat to ask for clarification.

“Did you just offer to blow me?”

The red splotches swallowed her entire neck and had moved up to consume the underside of her jaw.  “Yes.”

This was getting weirder by the minute.

“Wanna clue me in as to why?  ‘Cause I gotta tell ya, the way you say it, it seems more like a business proposition than… anything else.”

The first genuine smile dawned on her face, transforming average features to well-above average.  She was actually quite pretty when she smiled.

“I believed you to be a smart man, Mr. Bongiovi.  It’s good to know I wasn’t mistaken.”

Next post: Wednesday, October 3