Categories > Celebrities > Savage Garden > Pop!ular
POP!ULAR
I sized them up in a glance: the older, more hawkish one was the prick that ran the show, and the other one...tagged along wanting to do what his older brother was doing...but doing it better.
/Yehr.../ I thought affirmingly as I heard the younger one tune up a bit and start to strum again - I had watched him accompany the two guys ahead of me because I had gotten there early. His rhythm was better. His moves were better. And he didn't look right at me at first. I was obviously not that interesting to him. The older one though...he'd already given me the onceover, and I pretty sure he didn't liked much of what he saw. Thinking probably that I'm too much of a pussy-type. I knew his type: Basically, just a jealous jock. I'd seen my share of it at the high school I'd graduated from.
To his credit though, he did offer me a beer before we got going.
"Want a beer?...em, Darren...is it?"
"No, thanks," I answered, giving him a small nod of appreciation. I could tell that did not go over well, either. But what do I care?
/If I don't want drink during auditions, I should feel obligated by his generosity? Not!/
The younger one - I was pretty positive they were brothers, finally looked at me. But he didn't signal me to start. He just gave me a
cute little smirk, and went back to fiddling on his guitar, flitting about with a few quiet riffs.
A smirk! That little beggar! - correction - that tall little beggar (don't these guys ever EAT??) - had given me a smirk? Like he knew something I didn't...
And maybe he did, because it was the prettiest smirk I'd ever seen on a guy. Sheesh! What a day this was turning out to be...never mind
that I'd almost missing getting there because the city transit was in strike negotiations until that morning...I liked to be punctual for
important things, but these guys were assing around...like why?
"Okay..." said Oliver, after a long silence seeming related to nothing except to keep me waiting and nervous. "You're on, Darren...what are you going to do?"
The next ten minutes went like a blur. I sang quickly through my number, pounding from my own adrenalin. I knew I sounded like a strangled cat, and I could feel the tension in the room so badly, I was sweating bricks even all down my legs...
//Wonderful! Way to go, you purple pansy!" I berated myself.
I tend to ride myself kind of hard when I screwed up and I was sure I had dropped a shitload of dog poop today. I guess I should have warmed my voice up or something. I knew I could have done twenty times better. How did I let my nerves get the better of me like that ...I'd done much better auditions than that before. Maybe it was that smirk that did it...serves me right for letting myself get distracted like that. One of these days I'll learn to stay more focused...//
"So, Darren...have you done other kinds of stuff?" I heard a deep voice ask. But the voice didn't come out of Oliver...it came out of the younger brother who had smirked at me AGAIN. The question seemed genuine enough, like he wanted to know, and was not going through the politenesses that basically said "fuck off, we're not interested!" I
looked at him a little more closely now: /Look at those lips!...and those green beacons...they could shipwreck a few sailors, while the captain fell asleep at the wheel getting hypnotised.../
"Darren?" he smirked at me again, amused.
/Brilliant, Dozer! HULLO??? Anyone home? Shipwreck number 58 crashing against the shore...
"Just school productions, musicals...that sort of thing...and I work on pop stuff at home..." /Okay, so it's a small lie...I can't sound too lame now, can I?/
"Do you know "Heartbreak Hannah?"
"Just to mumble..." I answered quickly. This made him laugh. Wow! What a smile! I knew right then and there I always wanted to be able
to make him laugh. A lot. The reverberations from it just sent shivers up my spine, hearing him laugh like that. It was deep, masculine, throaty, and it was the sunshine filling my sky completely with golden yellow. Approval that I wanted so badly.
Needed.
Oh you beautiful thing you! You sexy thing!
/I believe in miracles...you sexy thang/ echoed through my mind
I do believe in miracles.
Yes I do. Yes I do.
~ ~ ~
"Wanna go for a beer?" he asked me, after I got over my shock at being called by him a day later. It was about an hour after Oliver had
phoned and asked if I would be willing to come back and re-audition. I had hesitated a moment, before replying "when?".
"A beer? Sure!" If Dan had asked me if I wanted to join him for green, mouldy cheese, doubtless, I would have said "Yehr, bring it on,
mate!".
He gave me an address that was close to where I'd gone for the audition, and although he kept me waiting a good ten minutes, he finally showed up.
"So how's it going?" he asked me in with that deep, gravelly soft voice of his. I could tell he knew he had a good thing going with that, as well as some of his other charms...
"Busy...I've been getting geared up for exams ..." I explained, with a look of pouting chagrine. I had some charms of my own.
"I didn't spend too long in school...couldn't take the boredom..." explained Daniel, lighting up a cigarette.
/Boo! I wish he'd asked.../ I thought.
As if reading my well-concealed disapproval he said to me:
"By the way, do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, already having lit up his cigarette.
"It's a little after the fact, isn't it?" I smiled at him indulgently.
"I don't mind butting out, if it's going to bother you. Obviously, you don't have the habit...// he eyed me mischievously, his eyes
twinkling for some reason. Like a hunter slowly circling his prey. Behind the merriment was a mixture of...hard to pin, really. But I
think he meant to have his way in something. We were not just here to shoot the breeze.
"So, your brother's going to have a few people re-apply? Not quite sure?" I said, feeling him out.
"Oh, he's a stupid bastard. He doesn't like change of any kind, but he has to face the fact we've gotta break somebody new in..." Daniel
explained to me. "That's kind of why I suggested we get together for a chat and a beer...I thought it might help if I tell you a bit about him and the band...because a band has to fit in a few ways, you know? Maybe if you know something about him, you'll be able to tip things your way...
"I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but why are you doing this for me?" I asked. I had to get straight to the point, since I don't like to
spend a lot of time figuring out what the rules of a game are.
"I don't know...you'd probably be good for the band...I can tell you take these things seriously...". I watched his long, elegant fingers wrap around his beer mug, as he brought it up to those divine lips. "Aren't you going to drink any of your beer?" he asked me, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"Oh...you know... - how about you have it? I'm...not in the mood right now..." I answered, feeling all of sudden, awkward.
"I'm not going to refuse that offer, mate - you're sure?" He looked at me, clearly much more interested in it, than I.
"I'm sure."
Then I watched how quickly the beers went down him. How his throat moved as he swallowed slowly, savoring it. It made my stomach do a
flip flop. Sexy vices on a gorgeous creature.
He was a walking temptation all right.
Show me to the nearest hotel room.
I could tell my quietness was unnerving him though. I couldn't think of anything I quite wanted to say, though.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?" he asked, a caring sincerity shining from those stunning eyes and a serious inquiry finally, from that
triangular, well-sculpted face.
I nodded. "But not always..." I hinted.
"Yehr? When aren't you shy?" he asked picking up my cue.
"When I've had a few beers..." I answered nonchalantly.
"Then you're `anybody's'?" he asked, half-teasingly, half warily.
"You could say that..." I answered, looking him straight in the eye, for the first time, and not lowering my stare.
He studied me for a long moment, as if unsure how take my mixed-signal come-on.
"In that case, drink up, Darren," he replied quietly.
I learned later, he's shy like that, too... after I'd ordered myself a second beer.
~ ~ ~
The elevator doors closed on us, and all became silent. Pressing the button which would summon us to the floor of the room he had impulsively arranged for us, I stood back and waited, not making a sound. Not even daring to look at him.. He turned to me and immediately cupped his palm firmly under my chin, moving his smiling face much more closely to mine as he examined my lips.
Sensing the perfect crime was about to be committed, I closed my eyes just in time to feel his own sparking lips descend upon mine. At the last moment, they parted obscenely widely. Reflexively, I groaned a powerful pang of hunger into his mouth. As his electric tongue glided sweetly into my gaping mouth like an airplane sailing into its hangar, I silently screamed.
I see a lot of flight plans in our future!
Because if he can sin so well on an elevator, we're obviously in deep trouble...
~ ~ ~
We stayed in the room together until morning, catching some sleep for a couple of hours as the dawn sneaked some of its light through the curtains. As the sun got higher in the sky, I came to and heard him light up. But then butt it out, as he seemed to recall that did not like it. He turned around and spoke.
"Darren?
I only opened one eye. I was kind of afraid to drink in the sight of a sex god with both eyes, so late in the morning. The movement was sufficient to announce the fact that I was not asleep any longer. Unable to penetrate my mask of non-expression on my face, he smiled a little uncertainly. "Hope that wasn't a one-off?" he asked, reaching over. He began to caress my wrist gently.
"M-m-m..." I said lazily, finally allowing the other eye to open as well. Non-committally: "N-no...I don't think it was..."
I could feel his eyes on me. Did I detect some anxiety in his otherwise placid, green-pastures gaze?
"Why?" I prodded, now propping myself up and now making my interest level obvious with a big,
warm, shy smile, putting my cards on the table finally. "You want to go another round before breakfast?"
He could tell now, that I'd been having him on.
"I'm not a breakfast person..." he answered, scrambling for some clever way to get even for my withholdingess.
"You're the fantasy I didn't even have the imagination to think up, Dan!" I assured him, this time letting him hear my earnest approval, as I moved my other hand over to take his, and squeezed it softly.
"Well, regarding the auditions..."
My heart sank. Shop talk already. Usually I would have been up for it, but this was killing the `moment'. Really bumming me out.
"A person has to be really ambitious..."
"Yehr," I concurred, nodding absently.
"Be willing to go the extra mile...because with our management, we have to produce."
I continued to nod, but had started to feel numb and disinterested. How deeply disappointing.
"You might even have to sleep your way to the top to be popular, you know..."
/What???/ My mind did a double take. "What??" I blurted aloud, not censoring my wholehearted disapproval, even if it meant not being in the band.
He looked at me with faint amusement. "Well, look at me for instance..."
I SO did not want to hear what I thought I was about to hear. Dan having sex with others? And for what, exactly? But I waited despondently
for him to continue.
"I have to sleep with all sorts of women to get them to come out and watch us at rehearsals."
I looked at him like he'd lost his mind, but he paid me no heed.
"And I have to sleep with guys just to get them to show up at auditions..."
I began to smell a fish...I noted that little knowing smirk was re-surfacing at the corners of his mouth again.
"And I have to service the auditioning incumbents..." he went on.
I'd been had, all right! I quickly grabbed a pillow, and pummelled him with it Soon, a full scale pillow-fight broke out between us. We grabbed the other to hold them still while we thumped and crashed our pillows on one another. Suddenly as I found myself pinned on the bed, with him towering above me looking down, I felt his warm hand wrap around my `Darth Vader'. We fell silent, as my approval grew in size to fully greet his carnal "handshake".
"Service all you like!" I smiled weakly.
"The things I have to do to be popular!!" he complained campily.
"Are you willing to sleep your way to the top?" I asked facetiously.
"Maybe..." he answered, grinning. "After all, I do wanna be popular!". His arms wrapped around me, while his descending lips silenced me.
//Popular//?
Yeah. I could go for that: I could make him popular, one way or another.
And maybe I'll even write a song about it someday. Sounds catchy, after all...
~ ~ ~
THE END
I sized them up in a glance: the older, more hawkish one was the prick that ran the show, and the other one...tagged along wanting to do what his older brother was doing...but doing it better.
/Yehr.../ I thought affirmingly as I heard the younger one tune up a bit and start to strum again - I had watched him accompany the two guys ahead of me because I had gotten there early. His rhythm was better. His moves were better. And he didn't look right at me at first. I was obviously not that interesting to him. The older one though...he'd already given me the onceover, and I pretty sure he didn't liked much of what he saw. Thinking probably that I'm too much of a pussy-type. I knew his type: Basically, just a jealous jock. I'd seen my share of it at the high school I'd graduated from.
To his credit though, he did offer me a beer before we got going.
"Want a beer?...em, Darren...is it?"
"No, thanks," I answered, giving him a small nod of appreciation. I could tell that did not go over well, either. But what do I care?
/If I don't want drink during auditions, I should feel obligated by his generosity? Not!/
The younger one - I was pretty positive they were brothers, finally looked at me. But he didn't signal me to start. He just gave me a
cute little smirk, and went back to fiddling on his guitar, flitting about with a few quiet riffs.
A smirk! That little beggar! - correction - that tall little beggar (don't these guys ever EAT??) - had given me a smirk? Like he knew something I didn't...
And maybe he did, because it was the prettiest smirk I'd ever seen on a guy. Sheesh! What a day this was turning out to be...never mind
that I'd almost missing getting there because the city transit was in strike negotiations until that morning...I liked to be punctual for
important things, but these guys were assing around...like why?
"Okay..." said Oliver, after a long silence seeming related to nothing except to keep me waiting and nervous. "You're on, Darren...what are you going to do?"
The next ten minutes went like a blur. I sang quickly through my number, pounding from my own adrenalin. I knew I sounded like a strangled cat, and I could feel the tension in the room so badly, I was sweating bricks even all down my legs...
//Wonderful! Way to go, you purple pansy!" I berated myself.
I tend to ride myself kind of hard when I screwed up and I was sure I had dropped a shitload of dog poop today. I guess I should have warmed my voice up or something. I knew I could have done twenty times better. How did I let my nerves get the better of me like that ...I'd done much better auditions than that before. Maybe it was that smirk that did it...serves me right for letting myself get distracted like that. One of these days I'll learn to stay more focused...//
"So, Darren...have you done other kinds of stuff?" I heard a deep voice ask. But the voice didn't come out of Oliver...it came out of the younger brother who had smirked at me AGAIN. The question seemed genuine enough, like he wanted to know, and was not going through the politenesses that basically said "fuck off, we're not interested!" I
looked at him a little more closely now: /Look at those lips!...and those green beacons...they could shipwreck a few sailors, while the captain fell asleep at the wheel getting hypnotised.../
"Darren?" he smirked at me again, amused.
/Brilliant, Dozer! HULLO??? Anyone home? Shipwreck number 58 crashing against the shore...
"Just school productions, musicals...that sort of thing...and I work on pop stuff at home..." /Okay, so it's a small lie...I can't sound too lame now, can I?/
"Do you know "Heartbreak Hannah?"
"Just to mumble..." I answered quickly. This made him laugh. Wow! What a smile! I knew right then and there I always wanted to be able
to make him laugh. A lot. The reverberations from it just sent shivers up my spine, hearing him laugh like that. It was deep, masculine, throaty, and it was the sunshine filling my sky completely with golden yellow. Approval that I wanted so badly.
Needed.
Oh you beautiful thing you! You sexy thing!
/I believe in miracles...you sexy thang/ echoed through my mind
I do believe in miracles.
Yes I do. Yes I do.
~ ~ ~
"Wanna go for a beer?" he asked me, after I got over my shock at being called by him a day later. It was about an hour after Oliver had
phoned and asked if I would be willing to come back and re-audition. I had hesitated a moment, before replying "when?".
"A beer? Sure!" If Dan had asked me if I wanted to join him for green, mouldy cheese, doubtless, I would have said "Yehr, bring it on,
mate!".
He gave me an address that was close to where I'd gone for the audition, and although he kept me waiting a good ten minutes, he finally showed up.
"So how's it going?" he asked me in with that deep, gravelly soft voice of his. I could tell he knew he had a good thing going with that, as well as some of his other charms...
"Busy...I've been getting geared up for exams ..." I explained, with a look of pouting chagrine. I had some charms of my own.
"I didn't spend too long in school...couldn't take the boredom..." explained Daniel, lighting up a cigarette.
/Boo! I wish he'd asked.../ I thought.
As if reading my well-concealed disapproval he said to me:
"By the way, do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, already having lit up his cigarette.
"It's a little after the fact, isn't it?" I smiled at him indulgently.
"I don't mind butting out, if it's going to bother you. Obviously, you don't have the habit...// he eyed me mischievously, his eyes
twinkling for some reason. Like a hunter slowly circling his prey. Behind the merriment was a mixture of...hard to pin, really. But I
think he meant to have his way in something. We were not just here to shoot the breeze.
"So, your brother's going to have a few people re-apply? Not quite sure?" I said, feeling him out.
"Oh, he's a stupid bastard. He doesn't like change of any kind, but he has to face the fact we've gotta break somebody new in..." Daniel
explained to me. "That's kind of why I suggested we get together for a chat and a beer...I thought it might help if I tell you a bit about him and the band...because a band has to fit in a few ways, you know? Maybe if you know something about him, you'll be able to tip things your way...
"I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but why are you doing this for me?" I asked. I had to get straight to the point, since I don't like to
spend a lot of time figuring out what the rules of a game are.
"I don't know...you'd probably be good for the band...I can tell you take these things seriously...". I watched his long, elegant fingers wrap around his beer mug, as he brought it up to those divine lips. "Aren't you going to drink any of your beer?" he asked me, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
"Oh...you know... - how about you have it? I'm...not in the mood right now..." I answered, feeling all of sudden, awkward.
"I'm not going to refuse that offer, mate - you're sure?" He looked at me, clearly much more interested in it, than I.
"I'm sure."
Then I watched how quickly the beers went down him. How his throat moved as he swallowed slowly, savoring it. It made my stomach do a
flip flop. Sexy vices on a gorgeous creature.
He was a walking temptation all right.
Show me to the nearest hotel room.
I could tell my quietness was unnerving him though. I couldn't think of anything I quite wanted to say, though.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?" he asked, a caring sincerity shining from those stunning eyes and a serious inquiry finally, from that
triangular, well-sculpted face.
I nodded. "But not always..." I hinted.
"Yehr? When aren't you shy?" he asked picking up my cue.
"When I've had a few beers..." I answered nonchalantly.
"Then you're `anybody's'?" he asked, half-teasingly, half warily.
"You could say that..." I answered, looking him straight in the eye, for the first time, and not lowering my stare.
He studied me for a long moment, as if unsure how take my mixed-signal come-on.
"In that case, drink up, Darren," he replied quietly.
I learned later, he's shy like that, too... after I'd ordered myself a second beer.
~ ~ ~
The elevator doors closed on us, and all became silent. Pressing the button which would summon us to the floor of the room he had impulsively arranged for us, I stood back and waited, not making a sound. Not even daring to look at him.. He turned to me and immediately cupped his palm firmly under my chin, moving his smiling face much more closely to mine as he examined my lips.
Sensing the perfect crime was about to be committed, I closed my eyes just in time to feel his own sparking lips descend upon mine. At the last moment, they parted obscenely widely. Reflexively, I groaned a powerful pang of hunger into his mouth. As his electric tongue glided sweetly into my gaping mouth like an airplane sailing into its hangar, I silently screamed.
I see a lot of flight plans in our future!
Because if he can sin so well on an elevator, we're obviously in deep trouble...
~ ~ ~
We stayed in the room together until morning, catching some sleep for a couple of hours as the dawn sneaked some of its light through the curtains. As the sun got higher in the sky, I came to and heard him light up. But then butt it out, as he seemed to recall that did not like it. He turned around and spoke.
"Darren?
I only opened one eye. I was kind of afraid to drink in the sight of a sex god with both eyes, so late in the morning. The movement was sufficient to announce the fact that I was not asleep any longer. Unable to penetrate my mask of non-expression on my face, he smiled a little uncertainly. "Hope that wasn't a one-off?" he asked, reaching over. He began to caress my wrist gently.
"M-m-m..." I said lazily, finally allowing the other eye to open as well. Non-committally: "N-no...I don't think it was..."
I could feel his eyes on me. Did I detect some anxiety in his otherwise placid, green-pastures gaze?
"Why?" I prodded, now propping myself up and now making my interest level obvious with a big,
warm, shy smile, putting my cards on the table finally. "You want to go another round before breakfast?"
He could tell now, that I'd been having him on.
"I'm not a breakfast person..." he answered, scrambling for some clever way to get even for my withholdingess.
"You're the fantasy I didn't even have the imagination to think up, Dan!" I assured him, this time letting him hear my earnest approval, as I moved my other hand over to take his, and squeezed it softly.
"Well, regarding the auditions..."
My heart sank. Shop talk already. Usually I would have been up for it, but this was killing the `moment'. Really bumming me out.
"A person has to be really ambitious..."
"Yehr," I concurred, nodding absently.
"Be willing to go the extra mile...because with our management, we have to produce."
I continued to nod, but had started to feel numb and disinterested. How deeply disappointing.
"You might even have to sleep your way to the top to be popular, you know..."
/What???/ My mind did a double take. "What??" I blurted aloud, not censoring my wholehearted disapproval, even if it meant not being in the band.
He looked at me with faint amusement. "Well, look at me for instance..."
I SO did not want to hear what I thought I was about to hear. Dan having sex with others? And for what, exactly? But I waited despondently
for him to continue.
"I have to sleep with all sorts of women to get them to come out and watch us at rehearsals."
I looked at him like he'd lost his mind, but he paid me no heed.
"And I have to sleep with guys just to get them to show up at auditions..."
I began to smell a fish...I noted that little knowing smirk was re-surfacing at the corners of his mouth again.
"And I have to service the auditioning incumbents..." he went on.
I'd been had, all right! I quickly grabbed a pillow, and pummelled him with it Soon, a full scale pillow-fight broke out between us. We grabbed the other to hold them still while we thumped and crashed our pillows on one another. Suddenly as I found myself pinned on the bed, with him towering above me looking down, I felt his warm hand wrap around my `Darth Vader'. We fell silent, as my approval grew in size to fully greet his carnal "handshake".
"Service all you like!" I smiled weakly.
"The things I have to do to be popular!!" he complained campily.
"Are you willing to sleep your way to the top?" I asked facetiously.
"Maybe..." he answered, grinning. "After all, I do wanna be popular!". His arms wrapped around me, while his descending lips silenced me.
//Popular//?
Yeah. I could go for that: I could make him popular, one way or another.
And maybe I'll even write a song about it someday. Sounds catchy, after all...
~ ~ ~
THE END
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