FicWad

I foggily awoke, glancing at the clock- it was 11:30 at night. I pushed my face into a pillow. What the hell had woken me up? Then I realized the sheet was off of me and there was a weird tickling sensation on my lower body. Startled, I moved to get up, but a voice stopped me.
“Naw, don’t move, I’m almost done.”
Was he fucking serious.
“You’ve got a perfect ass for this, girl,” Izzy told me, showing me the joint in the light of the window. I half laughed and half groaned, burying by face back into the bed.
“C’mon, honey.” He easily flipped me over with one hand.
I sleepily covered my eyes with one hand. “Izzy, where the hell’ve you been-”
He pushed the joint and a lighter into my hand. “Don’t talk, don’t talk yet. Just smoke.”
Well fuck me, I wasn’t going to argue with that.
I sat up against the headboard, taking the sparker and the pot. The orange glow of the tiny flame illuminated the bed for a second before I clicked it out, taking a deep inhale. Now that my eyes were getting used to the dim light of the apartment, I could see him, stretched out and shirtless in the armchair, a bag of weed on the side table.
“Great way to wake up,” I told him sarcastically, sitting Indian style on top of the bedcovers. He just shrugged.
“I thought so.”
I couldn’t help smiling in spite of myself, taking another long toke. He sat up and leaned forward, sticking his hand out. I handed him the rolled cigarette, watching his lips around it, watching the bluish smoke stream out of them. He looked at me from underneath his bangs, the tiny ember smoldering between his fingers. I looked back, feeling too mellow to even bother asking again what he’d been up to. We sat and stared and smoked for what must have been ten minutes, just watching the other take a hit each time. Finally I gave in to myself and crawled out of bed, curling up on top of his lap. I half expected him to push me away after last night, but instead he put both arms around my bare waist, pulling me closer to his chest. I snuggled into him drowsily, watching the burning orange of the joint rise up to his mouth again, then hit the floor and disappear under his heel. He planted his hands firmly around my waist, staring into my eyes. I felt my bare nipples tighten uncomfortably underneath his gaze and the cool night air. I was wearing only a pair of black panties, while he appeared to be in jeans and boots, his hat sitting next to the bag of Mary Jane.
He must've gone out.
I didn't care. I ran a hand through his messy black hair, leaning forward so that my breasts pressed against his bare chest. He leaned forward, breathing on my lips before pulling back and giving me a sharp slap on my ass.
"Izzy!" I whacked his knee, but smiled at him as he grinned back, pushing off his boots with the heel of his other foot. Gathering me in his arms, he carried me over to the bed, dropping me so that I bounced on the mattress. He flopped down beside me, propping his head up on his arm.
"Where'd you go today, anyways?"
It wasn't an angry question. He sounded relaxed and mildly curious, playing with my hair absent-mindedly.
"Slash's." I edged over to his side of the bed, tracing the silvery outline of his nose ring.
"Oh."
Again, the absent tone. He seemed to not care too much about my answer, hand moving down to stroke my lower back. It was funny, I thought. Any other man would have been at least irritated, if not downright angry. His girlfriend hanging out at a womanizer's house for over four hours, when said womanizer was a friend to boot, would have put a burr in any anyone's saddle.
Not Izzy's. I laughed softly, snuggling into his shoulder.
"What is it, honey?"
"You."
"What about me?"
"Everything," I sighed sleepily.
"Is that good or bad?" he wanted to know.
"I dunno. Where'd YOU go off to?"
"The Whiskey a Go Go."
I had a vague notion that I would have questioned him any other time, but the pot had me too relaxed to care.
"Hey, I was a good boy," he told me, tapping my nose.
Damn, I loved getting high with Izzy, when we were alone, just the two of us. He was relaxed and sweet and open in a way that I’d never seen him when he was sober, and was quite sure I never would. But I took what I could get.
“Sure you were.” I smiled into his chest.
“Mmm.” He turned over, hugging me from behind. I stared at the ceiling, listening to the clock ticking and the whiz of cars passing by the complex. I had never felt like this with anyone else, and that was the frightening truth. He was a rockstar, a problem child, a bad boy.
You’ve been a stripper since you were nineteen, Kincaid, I reminded myself. You’re no innocent rose either. According to most of the world outside of L.A., you’re a sleazy, white trash whore.
But somehow, laying there in the dark with his arms around me, I didn’t feel like a whore. I felt like a girl that liked- maybe even loved? a man. I had to close my eyes again. No, I couldn’t love him. That was too dangerous.
I sighed, shifting under the covers. The entire life they lead was dangerous. The entire life I lead was dangerous. Fuck dangerous.
I tapped him on the shoulder. “Izzy?”
“Mhm?” he murmured, rolling over so that I could lie on his chest.
“Do you ever wonder. . .”
“Wonder what, girl?”
“I don’t know. . . I mean, wonder what you’re going to do in life, what’s going to happen?”
He propped himself back up on his elbow, looking at me in the sliver of streetlight from the window. “Nah, I don’t wonder.”
I played with his necklaces, my fingers caressing the smooth black beads. “I do.”
“Mmm,” he sighed. “What do you wonder about?”
“Well, I wonder about my life, wonder about what’s going to happen.”
He said nothing, just looked at me, which I took as an invitation to go on.
“I mean, c’mon Izzy, I can’t dance forever. I won’t be twenty three forever.”
He nodded slowly, his gray eyes thoughtful. “I know what you mean. . . I mean, look at me.”
I glanced up at him.
“I mean. . .” He waved his hand absently. “I won’t be twenty seven forever, Jen. I can’t be a rockstar forever. It doesn’t work that way, fame and fortune doesn’t last.”
I gazed at his hand on my hip, his low rise blue jeans. He was so real, so solid. It seemed impossible that he would ever change, seemed impossible that he would ever be anything different. He stretched underneath me.
“But I don’t worry about it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, why do you worry about it, girl?”
I shrugged. “I just worry that I’ll end up like one of those you see on the streets. . . you know, older women that used to be girls, girls that are desperate that used to have faith, dancers like me that lost all their money and became dirty and hopeless. They’ve got nothing, Izzy. And it scares me half to death that I’ll end up as one of them, when I think about it.”
He tightened his hold on me. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t worry.” He stroked my hair. “Don’t you worry, girl. Fame and fortune may not last, but as long as I’ve got a dime in my pocket, you ain’t gonna be desperate on the streets.”
I could have cried with happiness. It one of the rarest things in the world to hear something like that from Izzy. To me, it was pure gold.
“Izzy. . .”
“It’ll be alright, baby. I promise.”
“I believe you.”
“You wanna talk about last night, Jen?”
“Nah,” I murmured, snuggling into him tighter.
“Good, I don’t either.”
I closed my eyes. Last night and tomorrow didn’t matter. Because right now, I was with him.
And a white trash whore fell blissfully asleep in a problem child’s arms.