Chapter 4: M. John Fitzherbert III

-- SUNDAY, JUNE 18, 2006 --

Even though it was well after midnight, the city lights burned as brightly as they had at 9pm. I stared out the driver's-side window of our taxi watching skyscraper after skyscraper anonymously pass by without recognition. I didn't know where I was, had no clue how much longer it would take, and the urban jungle of Manhattan only amplified my feelings of being lost without direction.

Twenty minutes ago I knew who I was, knew who I was with, and knew why I was here. But now I wasn't so sure about any of those things. I knew my name, of course, but my sense of identity had been shattered. I no longer recognized the woman in the seat next to me; sure, her face was that of someone familiar, but the person behind her eyes felt like a stranger. And my original purpose in flying across the country: to spend time with a cherished love one, now felt like one great big deception.

In my anger, I felt like I couldn't trust anything this stranger said to me, so I ignored every word that came out of her mouth. She had demanded that I stop being an idiot, but I paid her no mind. She had pleaded for me to listen, but I wouldn't open my ears. And she pledged over and again that she truly loved me, but every endearment was ignored.

"Will you please talk to me?" she now sighed from the seat next to me, twenty minutes after her initial protests. She no longer demanded, no longer pleaded, and no longer professed her love. Those had softened with each passing block, and for the past minute or two she'd given up altogether. And somehow this resigned whisper out of the stone cold silence broke through where the frantic pleas and angry demands hadn't registered.

I turned to face my girlfriend. It took Adrienne a moment to realize she finally had my attention. She'd been staring at the taxi floor, shoulders sagged, her attitude one of defeat. But she felt my gaze and turned, her eyes widening in surprise to find me looking at her. But instead of looking upset with me for ignoring her, or apologetic for hurting me, her expression showed more confusion than anything.

"I didn't think it was a big deal," Adrienne shrugged. "I wasn't trying to hide it from you. You knew I was part of the scene."

She was right. I had known. The coke was news, but maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe this whole thing was no big deal. I wasn't some geriatric fuddy-duddy with an overdeveloped sense of morality when it came to recreational drug use. I knew it was out there, and knew it could easily be abused. But I wasn't so delusional as to think that everyone who did drugs was an addict who needed rehab. Just like plenty of people drank alcohol without becoming alcoholics, plenty of people used drugs without losing their heads. And if there was anyone I trusted to keep her head on straight while dabbling at the fringes of acceptable behavior in polite society, it was Adrienne.

Two years ago she'd left college, and left ME, to pursue a dream of full-time modeling. Since then she'd made it to the big time: appearing on the covers of the hottest magazines, becoming a featured star on Fashion Week runways, and traveling around the world to exotic locales. Companies paid her big bucks to fly to Milan and wear their clothes. Millions of people paid big bucks to see her wear even fewer clothes in their magazines. She'd accomplished it all without succumbing to the lures of the casting couch, without compromising her sense of self, and without violating her precious male-fidelity to me.

Or so I'd believed.

It had been reassuring to listen to her roommates go on and on about how they'd never seen Adrienne touch a single cock. About how they'd become convinced she was 100% lesbian as she shot down hunky guy after hunky guy after hunky guy. I had no reason to believe she was anything but completely faithful to me, at least as dicks went. My Adrienne, my Tigress, had promised that I was her one and only.

But if the stranger beside me could lie about cocaine, what ELSE could she lie about?

"It's no big deal," she muttered. "This isn't the first time I've done hard drugs in front of you, and I told you then that I know how to take care of myself."

I clenched my jaw and shook my head, getting even angrier with her. In her attempt to defend herself, she'd reminded me of exactly why I was so adamantly against hard drugs right now. Everything had gone to hell in a hand basket only six weeks ago. And the scars, both physical and emotional, were still healing.

"I love you to death," I said. "But for as much as you claim to always be thinking of me, you certainly aren't thinking of me right now. It's always about you, about what makes Adrienne happy, regardless of how it affects ME."

"I didn't realize it would set you off like that! It's not like I was going out of my way to hide what I was doing. Not my fault you never noticed I was bumping all night."

Directly in front of me, on the other side of the Plexiglas barrier, I saw our taxi driver's head perk up at the mention of "bumping". With a scowl, I shook my head, glared at my companion, and growled, "We are NOT talking about it here." And then I went back to staring out the window.

The plan had been to crash overnight at the models' apartment. The plan had been to check out of our hotel in the morning and move all our stuff to stay there for the remainder of the week. But those plans had gone out the window the moment I found out what was causing Adrienne's nosebleed, and right now I had every intention of hopping on the first morning flight back to San Francisco.

Screw the remainder of the week. I just wanted to get the hell out of town and go home.

Within minutes, our taxi pulled into the hotel driveway. I got out and paced the sidewalk while Adrienne took care of paying for the cab. Looking toward the entrance of the hotel, I noticed a couple of guys chatting with the bellhop. And they had cameras.

Great.

When they recognized Adrienne in her evening dress from the party, it sounded like several hundred camera clicks fired as they aimed at her, at the cab ... and at me.

<FLASH> <FLASH> <FLASH>

I could already see the tabloid headlines in my head. I was pissed, she was upset, and it wouldn't take long for the interwebs to match my face up to the sex tape.

I could almost hear my mom's voice now. "Told you that tape was a bad idea..."

<FLASH> <FLASH>

"Adrienne!" one of the paparazzi called.

"Adrienne!!!" the other one chimed in.

<FLASH>

"What's got you so upset?"

"Is that your boyfriend?"

<FLASH>

"Where have you been for the last few months?"

"Are you coming back to town for good?"

<FLASH>

Half-covering her face with her clutch purse, Adrienne scowled as she rapidly stalked the twenty feet between the cab and the lobby doors. "Did a bellhop tell you guys I was staying here?" she muttered.

Sizing up the situation, I quickly put myself between the paparazzi and my girlfriend and held a hand palm out, doing my best to block the nearest camera lens. "Hey, leave her alone."

<FLASH>

"Wait, aren't you the guy from the sex tape?"

"Shit, you're right! That's the guy from the sex tape!"

"Adrienne! Adrienne! Is this a confirmation you're back together with your college boyfriend?"

"Did you guys have a fight?"

<FLASH> <FLASH> <FLASH> <FLASH> <FLASH>

"What happened the night of May sixth?"

"Can you comment on how that night may have led to your recent change in agencies?"

<FLASH>

"Some reports said you were involved in the shootings!"

<FLASH>

Elyse screamed "NO!" as she tackled Carter.

"Wasn't HE there the night of May sixth?"

"Wasn't HE one of the shooting victims?"

<FLASH>

The gun fired right in front of me, and even though I dodged, incredible pain seared its way across my forehead.

"Can you comment on the reports of large quantities of crystal meth being found on the premises?"

<FLASH>

The life flashed out of Cameron's eyes.

"What WERE the two of you doing there that night?"

<FLASH> <FLASH> <FLASH>

The barrage of unanswered questions and flashes continued all around us until we finally made it into lobby of the hotel, which had a standing policy against photographers coming inside. A hotel concierge had noticed the commotion and quickly shielded us with his own body while ushering us away from the transparent doors and toward the elevators. Despite the flurry of activity, neither Adrienne nor the concierge moved with any sense of urgency. To them, a paparazzi incident was just another night in New York.

But it had been a big deal to me. Just one more bad experience to cap off one of the worst nights of my life. My heart was racing, memories of Cameron shooting herself and nightmares of Elyse dying a fiery death were invading my mind, and Adrienne STILL didn't understand why the fuck I was so mad.

I HATED this town.

And I wanted to go HOME.

I took a shower by myself and she didn't interrupt me. Alternating the water temperature between refreshingly cold and skin-scrubbing hot did wonders for my mood, as if cleansing my body could also cleanse me of the emotional anguish running through my veins.

I knew who I was again. I knew who I was with. And I knew why I was here. The blind rage had circled down the drain. The imaginary cotton that plugged my ears had gone down with it. And I'd already flushed a good chunk of the alcohol in my system down the toilet as well, so when I finally returned to the bedroom wearing nothing but a fluffy hotel bathrobe, I felt much more clear-headed, more willing to listen, and more ready to face the conversation to come.

Adrienne, my girlfriend and one of the greatest loves of my life, still wore her party dress. She sat on the edge of the bed facing away from me, her gaze out the sliding glass door. We were on a high enough floor that the risk of being photographed was minimal. Still, after my first true experience with the paparazzi, my first move was to walk to that wall and pull the curtain fully shut.

I could see Adrienne's reflection in the glass, but her features had been indistinct. I didn't realize she'd been crying until I turned around and noticed her running mascara. She was a statuesque young woman, standing 5'10" with a curvaceous frame capable of supporting a 36F rack, but right now she looked as small as the day she found out her father had died. She'd pulled her heels up onto the mattress while she hugged her knees and dropped her cheek on them. Though she held back her sniffles, a fresh tear dropped from the corner of her eye and streaked a new line of mascara across her cheek toward her ear. So without a second thought I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around the woman I loved.

She was curled up into a ball, which made it easy for me to surround her body with mine as I sat beside her on the bed. My girlfriend shuddered, and her whimpering sniffles poured out rat-a-tat-tat with a speed I wasn't expecting. But her quivering lasted only a moment before my Tigress inhaled deeply and forced herself to keep it together.

Tenderly stroking her back, I murmured, "I love you. No matter what else is going on, I love you SO much. It's because I love you that your health and safety matter this much to me. Okay?"

She sniffled again and picked her head up to nod. "I know, I know," she moaned. "I'm sorry."

I knew it was my turn to apologize for my behavior, but I still held enough anger to not want to do that. Okay, maybe I shouldn't have shut her out and ignored all her pleas to give her a chance to explain herself, but as far as I was concerned I had been fully justified in my actions.

So instead of saying 'I'm sorry' back, I sighed and muttered, "Yeah ... well ... you should be."

She picked her head up and glared at me.

"What? You should be sorry," I scolded. "Did you seriously think I wouldn't react this way?"

"No! I didn't realize!"

"Well you should have. Jeez, Adrienne ... after everything we've been through lately?"

"It was just a little blow."

"Like it was just a little meth last time."

"This is a completely different situation."

"Is it?"

"YES. No rescue. No little sisters. No guys with guns to point them at your head. I was with friends in a SAFE place just having a good time!"

"They're both still illegal narcotics."

"So is weed."

"Meth and cocaine are NOT marijuana. There's a difference. TELL me you know that."

"Of course I do."

I frowned and shook my head. "Crystal meth ... cocaine ... You doing any other stupid shit I should know about?"

Her eyes narrowed at my insinuating tone, and she coldly asked, "Like what?"

I shouldn't have said what I said next, but I was too angry to stop myself. "How do I REALLY know you never turned into a round-heeled slut to advance your career?"

Her irises flared as her hand flew up and slapped my cheek with enough force to rotate my head. "Go to hell, Ben," she barked.

For a long moment, the two of us glared at each other with fire in our eyes. But fire turned to uncertainty in her gaze, and then shame as she stared at the spot where she'd hit me. And I knew my own expressions were doing the same.

Again, I knew I should apologize for what I'd said, but as shameful as I felt, I was still too caught up in my anger. Rather petulantly, I spat, "Fine, I'm outta here." Holding my sore cheek, I abruptly stood up and stalked away. I flipped open my laptop, logged in, called up the browser, and started tapping out the airline webpage to figure out the first flight back home. "You enjoy the rest of your trip here. Stay in New York for the rest of your life for all I care. I'm going HOME."

"Don't be ridiculous," Adrienne groaned. "You start work on Monday."

"Don't need it. Sure, a JKE job would be a great opportunity for someone like me, but I don't need your insider favors. I got plenty of good job offers in San Francisco without you, and I'm not staying in this town a minute longer than I have to."

"You're acting like a child. It's your new JOB. You can't just run away because you don't like the situation."

"I'm not running away. I'm going HOME, to Sasha and Kim and my sisters and all the familiar things in my fucked up crazy life that at least make sense to me!"

"You'd really just leave me?"

"I just found out you're snorting cocaine, Adrienne!"

"Is that really such a surprise? You KNOW I've been in this industry for a while! You already KNOW I've dabbled in other drugs! And you never threw a hissy fit before! So why the fuck are you overreacting now?"

"Maybe because the LAST time you and I got involved in something drug-related people fucking DIED."

"You're blowing this out of proportion!"

"Maybe I am! Maybe I'm too scarred by what I went through last time that I can't stop and be a reasonable person about this right now! But maybe crystal meth and cocaine are both drop-dead drugs that are just similar enough to freak the FUCK out of me and I'm scared to go down this rabbit hole again, alright? I can't stay with you like this! I can't stand by and watch you do this to yourself!"

"It's NOT a big deal! It's just a little blow!"

"If it's not such a big deal, then why can't you just STOP?!?"

"I can! And I will! If it's THIS important to you, I'll stop!"

"I don't want you to stop because -I- want you to stop! I want you to stop because you want you to stop!"

"AAARRRRGGHHH!!!" Adrienne grabbed at her hair, stood up, and paced away from me. I went back to looking up flights.

After a minute, I found a 7:05am non-stop from JFK to SFO, which was only a few hours away. I didn't book it just yet, but I left it on my screen while I went to my suitcase and started packing.

Perhaps only now did Adrienne realize I was serious about leaving, and she quickly hustled around the bed. "No, no, no. Ben, please. You can't leave me. I can't lose you again."

"And I can't stay here a minute longer if you refuse to recognize just how badly this affects me."

"I recognize, I recognize! I didn't before but let's TALK about this, alright? Open communication. Open communication."

At her last two words, I stopped throwing clothes from the closet hangars into my suitcase, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Holding it for a count of four, I exhaled even more slowly, and when I opened my eyes, I turned to find Adrienne's face covered in anguish and fresh tears as she stared at me.

"Open communication," she repeated, a mantra of ours lately. Sasha's influence.

Shaking my head, I sighed in resignation and turned to face her. "Why did you lie to me about snorting coke."

"I never lied to you."

"You never told me, either."

She shrugged helplessly. "You never asked." At my rolled eyes, she immediately added, "You seemed happier to remain in blissful ignorance of some of the things I did here in New York."

I snorted. "Some kind of 'open communication' then."

"Whenever I'd call, you'd tell me, 'As long as you're careful' over and over again. Well I WAS careful."

"You know I didn't mean to carefully snort cocaine or carefully dabble in crystal meth or whatever other drugs you've done that I'm still in the dark about."

Adrienne pursed her lips. "You're right. I didn't want you to know and I let you think that I was staying away from that scene. But that was when I was here in New York and you were back in Berkeley. Things are different now; we're living together and I haven't touched cocaine once since moving back. But I never lied to you about drug use being a part of my modeling life here; you just never asked. And I told you flat out when we were at Carter's house that I'd done meth."

I squeezed my eyes shut as fresh visions of Cameron's lifeless body sprung to mind. "There's a lot about that night I'm trying to not remember."

Adrienne shook her head. "Open communication includes listening, Tiger. You really seemed happier not knowing. I've dropped hints about my lifestyle over the last few weeks, made subtle suggestions that I'd be willing to talk to you if you ever wanted to know more. I wanted you to have some idea of what to expect when we got here. But while we always talked about my roommates, the other girls I've met, and some of the really hot ones I've slept with, you never wanted to know about me drinking or dancing or flirting or the drugs I took. Face it: the reason we never had this conversation before isn't because I wasn't willing to talk. It was because you didn't want to deal."

I didn't want to admit that I'd been burying my head in the sand, but she had a point. Recognizing my sour look, Adrienne caressed my cheek. "Maybe it IS because of the scars from six weeks ago, and for that alone I should have known better. I'm sorry for that. I didn't think about how it might affect you."

I blew out a breath and closed my eyes. The visions of May sixth that had been haunting me all night were still there at the mention of my scars, but they'd started to fade and go fuzzy. "When did you even start snorting coke? The last thing I remember on the subject was you deriding the snow bunnies and assuring me you stayed away from the stuff."

"That was two years ago when I was just getting started. I was very vulnerable then, but I'm a different woman now. You know how much I enjoy partying and having fun. There was a limit on how much I could participate while staying away from the party drugs. It was either join in, smoke up, and have a good time ... or walk out the door and don't look back."

"So you joined in."

"To a point. Never bad enough to get in over my head. Never around shady guys or other people who might take advantage of me."

"You mean like Greta and the cell phone video."

Adrienne scowled. "A mistake, but one I can live with. She wasn't some slimy producer and I maintained my fidelity to you. I was careful, but I still tried to enjoy myself. Like tonight. I've been bumping all night and never once was I in any danger. I had a good time, you had a good time, and at the end of the night we left together to visit my old apartment. Tell me you didn't love watching your dick pumping in and out between Talita's juicy butt cheeks, huh? If I'd never gotten the nosebleed, we'd have had ourselves a fan-fucking-tastic time all night tonight instead of sitting here."

"Don't try to distract me with sex." I shook my head. "We could have had a fan-fucking-tastic time without drugs. Since when did you need cocaine to have a good time?"

"I've never needed it to have a good time. But the shit makes me feel good, alright? It's called recreational drug use and despite all the PSAs and horror show media coverage, there ARE people who CAN use it recreationally without having a problem. I'm not addicted. I promise you I'm not doing anything crazy like hiding in the bathroom doing lines. And I haven't done coke at all since moving back in with you. Tonight, I was out with my girlfriends here in New York, at our usual club, and fell into doing the same things we usually do when we get together. This isn't a crisis. We were in places where I felt safe and with people I trust. I have a handle on this Tiger. Don't you trust me?"

She asked the last while looking me directly in the eyes. With Adrienne it always came down to that question. And the answer was always the same: "Yes."

Despite her ruined makeup and rumpled party dress, Adrienne glowed in her relief. "I can stop, Tiger. If that's what you want." She snapped her fingers. "Just like that."

"Yes, please." I sighed. "This isn't going to go away with a single conversation, but ... yeah ... For the rest of this trip ... And definitely whenever you're around me ... Yes, please stop. Don't use it in front of me. You tell me you don't need cocaine to have a good time, so don't. Your friends will understand, alright? They're excited enough by you being here as it is. Nobody's going to tell you to snort a line or take a hike, not this week at least."

"Done. Easy."

I sighed. "But only because I'm weirded out by it."

She shrugged. "Because -I- want you to be happy. Clearly, this stuff bothers you, so I won't."

"But it doesn't bother you."

She shrugged again. "I'm sorry, but no. It really isn't such a big deal to me. This is life in the fast lane, Tiger. I'm used to it by now."

I shook my head. "Well then maybe life in the fast lane isn't for me."

"Maybe, maybe not." Adrienne sighed, backed up, and sat down on the nearest edge of the bed. "Everything about this trip has got my head all turned around. On the one hand, it's like I never left: old friends, old habits, old partying ways. I apologized before about not being used to being here with a boyfriend, and I meant it."

I frowned. "Sorry I'm dragging you down."

She shook her head and stood up again. This time, Adrienne came straight for me and wrapped me up in a hug. "No, that's just it. I made a conscious choice to leave here and go home. I made that choice for a lot of reasons, but first and foremost it was about returning to you. I can't lose you again, not over something as petty as a little blow. So I won't, and that's that, alright?"

I nodded and repeated, "Yes, please."

She nodded as well and gave me a tight smile. Moments later, her lips were sealed over mine in the slow-burn version of our kiss. But only moments after that, she broke our liplock and pulled our chests together tight, squeezing me like she never intended to let go. "I love you, Tiger."

"I love you, too."

"I won't lose you."

"You don't have to."

"Not EVER again."

I smiled and patted her back. "Forever and Always."

Instead of catching the next flight back to San Francisco, I got back into the shower with Adrienne and didn't let her use her own hands to soap or shampoo herself. We dried off, made love, fell asleep in each other's arms, and woke up sometime after 12 noon.

The remainder of Sunday passed by with relatively little drama. While I would need to report for work first thing Monday morning – and Adrienne would also be meeting up with ICON, Taylor's Brynn's agency – we'd come early to spend the weekend with Adrienne's friends and that's exactly what we did.

We met up for brunch at the girls' favorite West Village patisserie. Moon tried to apologize, I insisted that Adrienne and I had worked things out, and we went on enjoying each other's company without a backwards glance. We even checked out of the hotel room and moved our luggage to the girls' apartment as originally discussed. Then it was off to do some more sightseeing, all three of the other girls started flirting with me again, and by dinnertime it was almost as if the whole episode had been forgotten.

But after dinner, the girls wanted to hit up another nightclub while I noted that the hour was already past 9pm and decided I should get a good night's rest before my first day of work. Adrienne immediately insisted that she'd stay with me, and I knew she really meant it. But at the same time, I could tell that she also wanted to go party with her friends. It was her guilt over last night's cocaine debacle, coupled with a general sense of not wanting to abandon me, that led her to make that decision.

So I told her to go on ahead without me. "You only have so many nights in town before we fly back home, and I know you've been super-excited for this trip ever since we decided to come. I'm serious: Go have a good time. Besides, Sasha and I have done little more than exchange texts and really brief phone calls the last couple of days. I've got so much to catch her up on and I know she wants details."

Adrienne snorted. "She gets details from ME. You're not exactly known for being verbose on the phone."

"Yeah, well, tonight I can try to step up my game in the communication department. Really, I'll be just fine on my own, I can go to sleep early, and I know you too well to think you'd rather stay here on a long-distance phone call when you could be out there partying up a storm."

Adrienne protested a little more, but it didn't take much to convince her to go. Still, she insisted, "No drugs, I promise."

My initial reaction was to sigh and nod in relief. Adrienne nodded as well, and gave me a reassuring smile. But nearly twenty-four hours after our big blowup over her drug use, I found myself looking at the situation a little differently. At the end of our fight, she'd asked me a simple question: 'Don't you trust me?'

And the fact was: I did.

I trusted her. I trusted her to not lose her head. I trusted her to watch out for herself. I trusted that she'd never deliberately do anything if she thought it would hurt me.

So midway through my head-nodding, I changed direction and started shaking it side-to-side. "Actually, back that up a bit. About the drugs..."

Adrienne's eyebrows rose inquisitively.

Taking a deep breath, I finished, "It's really up to you. I'm fine if you want to."

"What?"

"I mean it. If the opportunity comes up, and you honestly feel like you're in a safe situation, then..."

She frowned. "But we already agreed: Not for the rest of this trip."

"Well technically, I thought I just said not in front of me."

"Definitely not in front of you. But I was serious when I said I didn't need to do it at all to have a good time."

"And you also said you can handle it." I took a deep breath and added, "I DO trust you. You were here on your own for two years without me looking after you or anything like that, so I'm not gonna call Mom and tattle on you. You're a big girl and I know you can take care of yourself."

Adrienne gave me a warm smile. "I can, but I know you'll sleep better and worry less if I promise you here and now that I won't touch the stuff. So that's that, okay? I feel bad enough for leaving you alone as it is. Let me at least take this one thing off your mind."

"Adrienne..."

"Tiger ... I'm serious. I don't need it, and I can stop." She snapped her fingers. "Just like that."

I grinned and reached my arms out to her. "I love you."

She squeezed me back. "Love you, too."