Disclaimer:

This is fan fiction. Though the characters involve real people, this does not recount real events. The rating on this story is NC-17. If you are not 18 years of age, please do not read!

D A R K N E S S I N V I S I B L E

P a r t F o u r (T h e E n d)

© Radiantbaby, 2000

* * *

Part of me wanted to try somehow to make love to her, but I knew that I couldn’t. Of course, there were the obvious, physical limitations. I knew that I had exhausted myself just doing what I had already done and probably would be unable to have the mental focus needed to do so. More importantly though was that the guilt was beginning to set in…for both of us. It had begun to hang like a cloud in the room.

Christie quietly pulled her clothes back on and walked over to the window, no longer looking at me.

“Christie…I…” I began, but she stopped me.

Her shoulders moved, as she seemed to laugh a little. “You know the funny thing is that I have wanted something like that to happen for so long and now it has and it’s just…”

“Anti-climactic?” I finished, nervously.

As much as I knew it shouldn’t have mattered, I still worried about the impending sting of her rejection. It was a slight to my confidence.

She turned to me, “No, its just wrong.”

“I am sorry, I feel as if I pressured you and that was wrong of me,” I offered.

“Oh, trust me, you didn’t pressure me,” she replied with a blush and a mischievous smile.

I smiled despite myself.

“John, I think the two of us are just going through some pretty crazy emotional stuff right now and I don’t think we are exactly thinking straight,” she said, moving back to the bed to sit beside me.

“I just want things to go back to normal again, I want to be visible again”

“What if they don’t?” she asked.

The question stunned me, not just from the directness of it, but also because it was the first time that I had ever considered it a possibility. I struggled to try and figure out why everything was happening to me, trying to piece together the dreams I’d had.

“There is this girl in my dreams, she keeps taunting me,” I just said aloud.

“What?” she looked at me confused.

“I don’t know, I can’t explain it,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.

“What does this girl do?”

“I’d rather not talk about it right now,” I whispered.

She looked at me disappointed, but didn’t say anything.

* * *

Arthur discreetly drove me back home as I let both him and Christie share the evening together without me. I could see that he was a good person and seeing him with her made me feel even worse about what had transpired between Christie and I earlier. He didn’t seem to sense that anything was wrong through; he was too blindly in love with her to notice.

I snuck inside my house, startling Simon by knocking the book from his hands he’d been reading in the living room. He glared as he tried to find where he’d left off and pushed a bookmarker between the pages. He was alone as Andy and Roger had ventured out to dinner, the claustrophobia beginning to set it. He moved to go down to the basement so as to not attract any attention from the detectives and others in the house.

He pulled out a notepad that he had put down there in case of a rendezvous with me and held it out before him with a pen, not knowing where I was exactly. “It is about time you came,” he said.

I walked up to him, taking the notepad from his hands. He gasped a little, but then watched the pen as I wrote. “I had a lot going on.”

“You had me worried,” he pouted.

“No need to worry yourself.” I wrote.

“What did you do then?” he asked, leaning against the table.

I sighed, fighting with the urge to tell him everything that happened back in the hotel room. “Nothing…” I wrote, ambiguously.

“Something happened between you and that girl, didn’t it?” he questioned, standing up a little straighter.

“You know me too well.”

“John! Why?” he asked, his eyes wide.

“I don’t know.”

“You were horny,” he snarled.

“You are one to talk!”

He groaned, knowing full well he had no counter to what I’d said. “How?” he asked with a deep sigh.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I am saying, how did you do whatever you did with her?” he asked, the corners of his mouth twitching into a smile at the absurdity of his question.

“I think I can touch people. Not all the time though and only if I really concentrate.”

“Really?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I think so. I have only done it with Christie.”

“Do you think you can touch me?” Simon asked, tilting his head flirtatiously.

“You are the one who is horny.”

“You can’t just tease me like that,” he whined, moving closer to me.

I could smell it on him then, the alcohol. I am surprised I hadn’t noticed it before, but then again, I usually keep my distance with Simon. No, I do not find him repulsive; it is just at times we have gotten…too close.

“Yes, I can.”

“Come on, John. Just try and see if it will work,” he purred. “I’ll behave.”

“I don’t believe that for an instant.”

“Give us a chance, hmm?” he pushed.

I paused and then wrote, “Okay.”

I knew he could sense my annoyance with him. It was as if, even though he couldn’t see or hear me, he still knew all of my reactions. It was because it had always been that way with him and I. He always knows how to really get under my skin and sometimes that is a good thing and sometimes it is bad.

I stood there directly in front of him, concentrating and then lifting my hand to place it on his shoulder. He jumped a bit when I made contact, a laugh coming from him. I slid my hand down his arm slowly to make sure that he knew that I was touching him. He closed his eyes, his hand opening and mine settled inside it.

“Oh John, I always know your touch,” he sighed. “Thank you.”

I held his hand for a few moments and then let go when it became too awkward. “Don’t let go,” he begged, his eyes trying to blink away some unshed tears.

I picked up the pen and notepad again. “You know I have to.”

Simon.

Where to begin? There was a time when I was very much falling apart, “one foot in the grave” you could even say. I suppose that I was seeking some sort of deeper connection, something that I hoped would ground me in the process. I was feeling alone and disconnected and it was eating me away from the inside. I searched and searched for a reprieve, but sadly, I found myself unable to attain such.

I can hear the mocking laughter. You think that it’s a joke to say that I have ever been alone. You know the old cliché – “It’s lonely at the top”? Well, its true and its even lonelier when you are plummeting towards rock bottom. I know the arguments – I could have any fan that I want, right? Sure, and they could see that their little idealistic image of me is exactly that – an image. I’ll admit that I was quite the playboy in my past, turning up the charm to try and get who and what I wanted. It seemed that almost every night there was a different girl, none of whom I can remember without trying. They would call my name out in ecstasy and tell me how wonderful I was. Still when it came down and I found myself lying awake in the middle of the night clinging to that same sleeping, star-struck groupie, ending up feeling even more alone.

It was these experiences that led to the blurring of the boundaries of platonic friendship between Simon and I. It started innocently enough – a lingering touch here, a flirt there, perhaps an embrace that lasted longer that the usual quick, “male” public embrace. It certainly wasn’t planned, at least not on my end of things. I am a heterosexual, albeit curious man. Back then, though, I was utterly lonely and so strung out on drugs I hardly had any reservations. It all changed one evening during a particularly intense binge on cocaine. Simon and I had somehow ended up on the couch of my hotel suite in a furious kiss, our hands all over one another. Indeed it was a strange experience touching another man, but honestly at the time my mind was more caught up in the newness of the experience and its sensuality. Actually, that first night, not much happened before the two of us ended up passing out as the effects of the coke wore off.

The actions of that night seemed to set off a somewhat odd series of events. The night would repeat itself, but with each time having a progression. We went from wearing clothes, to being partially clothed, to finally nude. We went from tentative touches to full-on “making out,” so to speak. It was different and new and seemed to leave me with less guilt. Of course, I felt the weight of the Catholic schoolboy guilt over sleeping with a man, but it had all the makings of a “no strings attached” thing for me. With the women, I would find myself getting attached almost immediately, but with Simon it was different. I suppose it was just as much a tension release as it was the two of us seeking connection with one another. I didn’t know at the time though, oddly enough, that it was even more to Simon.

“Are you still there?” Simon asked.

I picked the notepad back up. “Yes, I was just thinking.”

“About what?” Simon asked sadly.

“Touch.”

“Touch?”

“I was thinking about when we were in Japan, ‘exploring one another.’…”

Simon sighed, “Yes, I remember it well.”

“I remember that it felt as if I were touching for the first time.”

“Yes.”

“I just miss touch, really touching. I can concentrate all I want, but the resulting touch still does not hold the full-bodied texture I had before.” I wrote, ripping off the page after I filled it.

“Was it different then…with her?” he asked, his tone somewhere between shy and jealous.

“Yes and no. In some ways I felt as if I was still touching her through fabric and in others it felt more intense than it had in a long time.”

“Oh,” he sighed.

“Simon, don’t get upset.”

“I’m not,” he replied, indignant.

“Simon, I don’t need the drama right now, I need a friend.”

He walked over to a chair and slumped down into it. He wiped his eyes with his palms. “I’m sorry,” he said, meekly.

“Simon, don’t do this. I love you,” I wrote, walking over to him and holding what I’d written in front of his face.

“I just think you are making a mistake,” he groaned.

“How so?”

“This whole thing with that girl, Christie. You always do this, John. You feel alone and end up cozying up with a fan to stroke your ego. And to what end? It doesn’t fulfill you, so you move onto your next prey, leaving them behind and hurt.”

“Like you?”

“Yes, John,” he huffed, “As a matter of fact, yes.”

“Simon, this isn’t about you.”

“No, its not, but I have seen this happen far too many times to just sit back and watch. So, what it is this time? Are you just frustrated over the fact that you are invisible and only this girl can see and hear you? Are the fans not buying as many of your records or flocking to your shows? Or is Gela just no longer revering you or giving you a shag?” he snapped.

I raised the notepad up as if to threaten to hit him with it. His eyes reflected fear and anger, “Go ahead, hit me! You have already done worse to me!”

I threw the notebook across the room instead, the pages flapping as it flew through the air and hit the wall. I ran over to the basement door and yanked it open. I was prepared to leave, but something held me back. I slammed the door making it seem as if I had in fact left and just slid down the nearby wall onto the floor.

Simon slowly rose from the chair, gathering the notebook and discarded papers from our conversation into his arms. He sat in the middle of the floor and began to weep. He pressed one of the papers onto the floor, flattening it and tracing the writing with his finger. I wanted to go to him and comfort him, but I knew him too well. He would be ashamed if he knew that I was watching him.

He lay on the floor, curling up into a fetal position, clutching tightly to the straightened paper. He soon fell asleep and I walked over to him, taking the paper from his hand and read it.

“Simon, don’t do this. I love you,” it read.

* * *

Yet another nightmare wrapped around me as I slept on the soft grass on the far side of my yard. I had snuck out of the house after Simon had finally made his way groggily upstairs. I felt so weighed down with emotion as I made my way across the grass that I only hoped that sleep would garner me sweet relief from the day. Well, sleep took me fast, but the nightmare seemed to have struck even faster.

“You think sleeping with her us going to solve your dilemma?” a voice asked. It was she, the voice in my dreams, my albatross?

For a moment I had to orient myself to figure out if I was awake or in a dream. Everything looked real at first. There I was simply sitting on the grass on which I’d laid my head. Then I realized my hands sank in the grass like water when I pressed them against the ground and I was overwhelmed with the feeling that something just was “not right.”

“What? What did you say?” I asked, pretending to not have heard her so that I could try and figure out where her voice originated around me.

“You heard me. You cannot make up for what you’ve done by sleeping with that girl,” she replied, still invisible to me.

“Is that what you think happened?” I asked, smugly.

“I think you needed to prove that you are independent, when in fact you are the opposite. I think you need people from hour to hour make you even function. So, John, how does it feel to not have all those people anymore? How does it feel to just have to rely on only one?”

“My dear, I have been alone many times before this. Do you think that the phone rings anymore since I’ve left Duran? It’s not like I am on top of the world anymore.”

“Look across the yard and see all those people, you still have a following. These people travel from all over the world just to see you. You wondered if anyone would remember you when you die, look and see. Will you remember them, though?”

“What are you getting at? You keep talking in riddles,” I asked, exasperated.

“You only refuse to understand.”

“God, just because I don’t become best friends with every one of my fans doesn’t make me a bad person!” I groaned.

“This is your fault, John. Don’t get angry with me.”

“How? What did I do wrong?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“Dammit, I do not!”

“Such foul language will get you nowhere I am afraid…”

“I just want this over. I want everything to go back to the way it was!”

“Then you will have to remember what brought you here in the first place.”

With that I awoke in a pool of sweat, the morning sun heating my skin. I was getting more and more frustrated with the enigmatic dreams I was having. Was this woman real or some manifestation of myself? I tried not to let her overpower me, learning from therapy to take control of any nightmare. She was strong though and the fear pulsed through me without reprieve.

“I see you are finally awake,” I heard Christie’s voice whisper to me and saw her hesitant approach.

I sat up to regard her, wiping the last remains of sleep from my eyes. “Yes,” I replied, my voice a bit husky from the hours of disuse.

“That must have been some dream,” she said, taking a seat next to me on the grass.

I pulled my knees into my chest, laying my head atop them. “Yes,” I sighed.

“You were thrashing about and mumbling. I was a bit worried about you,” she added, concerned.

“I am worried about myself as well,” I sighed.

“Do you…want to talk about it?”

“I don’t know, I don’t even understand it, so there is nothing for me to say,” I replied.

Sure, there was a great part of me that wanted to speak to her about my dreams, hoping that perhaps if I verbalized them to someone else they would somehow make sense. Then again, I was worried that I would sound completely daft if I spoke of them. Would she even understand herself? What if she is somehow a part of this? I mean, she was referred to in one of the dreams. Could I even trust her?

“I miss my children, I miss my wife,” I sighed.

“Do you know where they are?” she asked, flowing with my abrupt change of subject.

“Somewhere in Texas, I am not completely sure. I don’t know if Gela has called or not during this whole episode. I have no idea what she or the kids are even thinking.”

“Do you think Simon or one of the others might have heard from her?”

“I don’t know, perhaps…”

“Why don’t you go and ask Simon?”

I chuckled nervously. “Simon and I, well, we had a bit of a fight last night. I doubt he wants to speak with me.”

“A fight? What happened?” she asked, then added with a dismissive wave of her hand, “I am sorry, that is none of my business.”

“Nah, nah. Just old ghosts, we have a lot of them,” I eased her.

“Do you want me to speak with him?” she offered. “I mean, I don’t know how I’d get to him, but we could try.”

“What would you say?” I asked, lifting my head, intrigued by her offer.

“Well, you could always tell me what to say. We could always pretend that you aren’t there when you really are. It is not like he’d really know anyway.”

“Ha! Like Cyrano!” I laughed and then more calmly said, “That might just work.”

* * *

“What is this all about?” Simon asked in a bored tone.

I’d lured him down to the basement with a simple note. “Basement. Noon. Meet Christie, come alone.”

“John just needed to ask a few questions of you,” Christie replied, nervously.

“Don’t let him intimidate you. He’s just acting cocky,” I assured her.

“So, is he here, then?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and tapping his foot impatiently.

“No, it’s just me this time.”

“Sending you to do his bidding and not even talking with me himself?” he rolled his eyes.

“Um, yes…he just needed to know if you’ve spoken to Gela at all or heard anything about her.”

“Gela?” he rubbed his chin,” And what if I have?”

“He’s worried about her and the kids. He wants to know if they are all right.”

“Well, Christie,” he paused, reaching behind him to sit on the chair. “I actually spoke to her two days ago. She’s all right, just worried. As for the kids, they are fine. They don’t know anything about what is going on, the family is keeping it from them. They just think they are on holiday.”

“Oh thank God,” I sighed, “Tell him thank you and that I am sorry about last night.”

“Thank you, Simon. You know, John wanted to apologize for last night,” Christie offered shyly.

“Oh, it was nothing, dear. Just a lover’s row,” he replied with a smirk.

“Jesus, Simon!” I groaned, covering my face with my hands.

I knew his game far too well. He was attempting to get back at me by embarrassing me with the more deviant aspects of our relationship. He knew how I felt about anyone knowing and thus it was a closely guarded secret. In actuality, the only people who know are Nick, Renee (who’d actually caught us with our pants down, literally), and Yasmin. Of course, it is all a part of the past as Simon and I have not been, shall we say, intimate, for a few years now and even then was when I was in the throes of impending divorce and bottoming out on drugs and alcohol. I could easily keep it in the past if it were up to me, but Simon always seems to dredge it up -- usually at the most inopportune times.

“Excuse me?” Christie asked, obviously taken aback.

“He’s lying, don’t listen to him. He is just trying to make me look bad since he is angry with me!” I hissed, beginning to tremble a bit.

“A lover’s row,” he repeated, with a quirk of his eyebrow. “Johnny’s always getting his knickers in a twist.”

She looked at Simon in shock, seemingly unable to distinguish if he was in fact lying as I’d said or actually telling the truth. “You…and John?”

“Christie, he’s lying, I tell you.” I urged her, my voice cracking a bit with nerves.

I suppose it wasn’t just that I was worried about her finding out, but that I was worried that since she was a fan, it would leak into the network and I would be forever humiliated. I’ll be the first to admit it is the ultimate affront to my masculinity and overall I am very shameful of it. It also didn’t help that I was greatly worried how it would affect Christie’s opinion of me.

“It is so hard to believe?” he replied, crossing one leg over the other, regarding her with pursed lips. “I would think it to be rather obvious myself.”

She bit her lip, glancing over at me and then back at Simon. “Actually, it sort of was,” she whispered.

* * *

“Oh my God,” I groaned, bending forward with my hands on my head.

“Really? Isn’t that intriguing…” Simon replied, his eyebrow cocked in interest.

“Yes, very,” I echoed mockingly. I suddenly wanted to be as far from there as possible.

Christie shuffled uncomfortably and stammered, “I…I should go.”

“So soon? Just when it was getting good, too,” Simon said, his face expressing an amused look. “We’ll have to finish this discussion some other time then.”

“Yes…yes, of course,” Christie replied, now a bit distracted, and made her way towards the door.

Simon got up and strolled behind her, holding the door open for her long enough so that I could slip out. “It was a pleasure,” he grinned and winked at her.

* * *

“So, you think that I am gay then?” I groaned, sitting by a tree.

“I never said you were gay, John,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“Actually, I think you did, Christie,” I corrected her petulantly.

“Okay, when did I say that exactly? I seemed to have missed it,” she spat, her tone showing her growing annoyance with my questioning.

“When you said that you knew that Simon and I had been together.”

“So, now you admit that it is true. I though it was all one of Simon’s fabrications.”

“I didn’t admit…okay, you are right, I am gay!” I announced with a dramatic lisp.

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“But Simon and I have been ‘together,’ remember?” I said sarcastically, emphasizing the word “together” with air quotations.

“You wouldn’t be the first to experiment, John.”

“Why do you think it was an experiment?” Of course she was right. I was just too angry to let the matter drop easily.

“Because I don’t think you are gay,” she groaned, rolling her eyes.

“Oh.”

It was all that I could say, really. The conversation was going in circles and was really only being perpetuated by me. I was losing ground in the argument terrible and there really wasn’t much else that could be said. My therapist tells me that I need to back down in such confrontations, that I end up enjoying the argument too much and taking it further than it needs to go. This was my attempt at backing down.

We sat in silence for a very long time. The two of us were very obviously stewing and needed to calm down. I couldn’t believe it all. Here I just wanted to know the welfare of my family and I end up finding out that at least one of my fans knows about my experiences with Simon. Oddly enough, she seemed to be rather cool about the revelation, too bad that I wasn’t. I don’t know why I let it bother me so much, perhaps it was because of the feelings that Christie had stirred within me. I felt as if I needed to prove myself to her. To what end, though? As I have mentioned ad nasuem, I am a married man and she is involved as well. Things had gotten that much more complex.

* * *

“Can I ask you a personal question?” I asked Christie.

We had moved to the swing in the far alcove of the yard and we had hardly spoken since our conversation after leaving Simon. She looked up at me surprised, as if she were startled by my break in the silence.

“I suppose,” she replied, straightening up to look me in the eye. “I don’t know if I will answer it though.”

“Fair,” I said, wringing my hand nervously. “Do you and Arthur have a good sex life?”

Her eyes widened, “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. I just…wanted to make sure that you were happy is all.”

“There is more to being happy than a good sex life, John.”

“I know that. It was stupid of me to ask, it was just something that I was thinking about.” I said, looking away, now embarrassed.

“You were thinking about my sex life?”

“Yes, I suppose.” I still couldn’t look at her. Where was I going with this?

“You are quite the voyeur, aren’t you?” she asked, teasingly.

I turned back around to see her smiling mischievously at me. “A weakness of mine.”

“Living vicariously through others?”

“No, just watching others…in pleasure. Maybe its my lack of self-esteem, I need my object of desire to be pleasured by someone else as I feel I cannot successfully do so myself.”

“So, what are you saying? Do you want to watch me?” she asked with a dismissive laugh.

I paused, looking her deep in the eyes. “Yes,” I replied seriously.

I saw the muscles in her neck contract as she gulped hard, her laughing ceasing instantly. “You can’t be serious,” she whispered.

“You are right, I can’t be,” I replied, waving my hand as if the wave away the conversation itself. “Forget I even said anything. I have been in a strange state of mind today.”

“You can’t tease me like that,” she whimpered.

“Eh?”

“First, you get me all excited about you and Simon being lovers, and now you express an interest in watching Arthur and I make love and then immediately drop it. You are incorrigible.”

“Excited about me and Simon? Now you are the one that can’t be serious.”

“I am very serious, John. It excites me greatly to be honest,” she replied, a blush spreading across her cheeks.

I was speechless.

* * *

How did it happen that I was in Christie’s hotel room that very night with both her and Arthur? I had wanted it for several days, wanting to further things with Christie. It was a safe way to do so, one that only involved me on the periphery and her boyfriend. The voyeur in me took hold, taking me back to when I was a child and I first witnessed a couple making love.

It was when I was about thirteen years old and I was staying with the neighbors, the Logan’s, while my parents were away for the weekend. The Logan’s were a nice couple consisting of a very large, ruddy-faced, footballer husband and a petite, blonde wife. They were probably in their late 20s and always seemed a bit odd of couple to me as he was so big compared to her. They were very nice to me and my family though and often helped out at our house.

At their house that weekend, very late one evening, I had gotten up to get a glass of water, as my throat was very dry. As I made my way down the hall, I could hear soft moans and knocks and squeaks of furniture. Curious, I made my way towards the sound and found it was coming from the Logan’s bedroom. I peaked through the cracked open door to see Mrs. Logan astride Mr. Logan having sex. I nearly gasped aloud, but cupped my hand over my mouth as to not make a sound.

Funnily enough, I remember they had amazing stamina! They seemed to go on forever, causing my own cock to harden within my pajama pants and me to caress my own self to climax. They never seemed to notice me watching them and when they finished, I quietly snuck back into the guest room to continue to masturbate for much of the night.

It had ignited a spark in me, giving me an indelible image that I used to arouse me for many years. As I became sexually active, I found myself acting out the voyeurism even more. I would watch my girlfriend masturbate from the closet, or watch groupies with other band members upon getting famous. The thrill of watching seemed to almost overtake the thrill of actually performing sex.

So, here I was about to watch Christie and her lover, Arthur. The familiar thrill rushed over me, causing me to harden before anything even had begun. It was the anticipation. It got me every time.

* * *

“How do you want to begin?” she whispered near me, away from Arthur.

“It is all up to you,” I shrugged, trying to hide my excitement.

“Well, I haven’t exactly told him anything,” she said, chewing her lip.

“More the better. He seems the type that might not be too keen on all of this,” I soothed, then added, “And if you aren’t too keen yourself…”

“No, no, I am fine, really. A bit nervous, I suppose.”

“Just pretend that I am not even here.”

* * *

It all started with a sweet kiss, trailing from her eyelids to her mouth. I couldn’t have done better myself. Arthur the Romantic – or should that be John? He had lit candles even. He spoke softly of how much he missed her and thought of her. The more he spoke, the more I wanted to just shrink from the room. How could I even come between them? Only one look in their eyes betrayed their deep affection.

I moved to the darkest part of the room, waving at Christie as if I were leaving. She looked at me surprised for a moment and then moaned as Arthur unbuttoned her blouse to suckle her breast. I wanted to leave, I really did. I was paralyzed with conflicting emotions. Part of me wanted to leave that room and leave the two of them forever. Another part of me wanted to stay and watch the two of them, the voyeur in me aching to be pleasured. It had all become too awkward now though, becoming performance and not reality. Still, in the darkness of the shadows I was in, I was invisible to Christie, like I wanted.

Like I wanted?

I suppose that was what I wanted in an odd way. I wanted to move around her unseen, to just watch her. Anonymity from the one that mattered, it really made no sense. You would think that I wanted her to see me, as I wanted with everyone else, and, you know, I did. There was a part of me, though, that wanted to hide away from her. With all of her attentions, I felt too exposed.

Her moaning drew my attention. It was like a Pavlovian reaction for me. I sat against the wall on the floor, my eyes trained on the bed, despite myself. The swell of Arthur’s head rose between her legs as she thrashed about on the bed and plunged her fingers into the waves of his hair. He had taken off her clothes while I was deep in thought, leaving her nude beneath him.

I lowered my hand to caress myself lightly through my boxers, feeling myself harden even more upon my touch. I bit my lip as to not be heard by her, trying to keep up the charade that I had left. Her moans grew louder and louder, Arthur obviously slowly teasing her orgasm from her until it finally hit her and she lifted her hips with it, him following along with her.

He moved from her slowly, planting kisses on her belly and thighs before standing. He then pulled his shirt over his head and slowly pulled off his trousers and underwear. He caresses himself briefly before lifting his fingers to his mouth, licking them, and then wetting his cock with them. He knelt above her and entered her. Each moment I imagined it was really I with her, me inside her, daring to be as close to her as I had fantasized.

He moved slowly within her, drawing the pleasure out to an exquisite degree. He was good. Their moans swarmed in the air around them, each succession growing louder and more desperate. I cupped my other hand over my mouth as to not let my own moans join theirs, though I am sure they would not have heard them in the cacophony. My legs began trembling, so I stretched them out on the floor, trying to ease the tense muscles tightening throughout my body with my pleasure. The vision of the two of them and the sounds they made were sending me over the edge quickly.

Arthur pushed against her fast and hard, his grunts and groans growing the louder of the two of them. I stroked myself quickly, knowing the end was coming, the climax making its delicious rise to the surface. I thought of her, how she might feel enveloping me hot and wet, and moved my hand over myself beneath the waistband of my underwear, riding their wave of ecstasy with them. He called out and the first stirrings of my orgasm hit me, each wave slamming into me as he called out from his own. Then I pulled my hand from myself, trying to find the strength to stand and leave before Christie discovered that I was still in the room.

* * *

I slipped from the room as they fell asleep in each other’s arms and as I did, I found myself beginning to slip from existence. I think my hands were the first to begin to fade, as it seemed to roll through me, making each part of my body disappear. I began screaming in fear; frightened that this was finally the very end to me. No one seemed to notice my screams, as maids and hotel patrons just quietly passed me in the hall.

As the face rose to my head and eyes, I blacked out. I don’t know how long I was actually unconscious, but when I awoke, I was in complete darkness.

“Hello?” I called out, my voice reverberating around me.

No one replied, so I felt the ground below me to sit down. It was soft, almost like a worn rug, so I went ahead and sat down. I pulled my knees to my chest, shivering, and began to cry. It seemed as if I were like that forever, regressing back to a boy, scared and alone.

I stopped crying, startled by the sound of someone else. It was crying that I was hearing and it wasn’t mine.

“Hello?” I called out again and again got no reply.

I stood up and tried to make my way though the darkness, flailing my arms out before me trying to at least find something. I was attempting to find the source of the sound, my heart racing as I hoped that now I was no longer alone.

After walking for what seemed like an eternity, I hit a wall, literally. It startled me at first, probably resulting in a nice bruise on my face (if I was able to bruise anymore). I slid my hands along the wall, the crying louder now and obviously behind the wall as I’d cupped my ear against it to listen. I felt some grooves in the wall and realized I’d come upon a door. I slid my hand down and found the doorknob. I held my breath and turned it, hoping for an answer.

The sight behind the door took me aback, almost knocking the wind out of me. It was me that was crying; yet it was me as a boy. I was in my childhood bedroom watching the teenaged version of myself on the bed crying. I looked around me, taking an inventory of my surroundings and confirming that everything was indeed in place. It really was my old room, or at least an exact replica.

And what of the boy before me? He jumped at my entry, pulling the covers to his chin, his eyes opened wide. I looked down at myself, realizing that I was visible to him, and sat that I was in the same state of undress I was before I faded away.

“Who are you?” his voice cracked as he asked.

It gave me chills, my youth voice. A bit high, insecure, wavering - - a lot like I was at that time. It hadn’t yet taken on the deep resonance of today, brought on by years of ego and feigned ego. My stage voice, perhaps? Had I lost my natural voice somewhere along the way?

“A friend,” I offered, unsure of what else to say. He would surely wake tomorrow to think this was all a dream anyway.

“Oh,” he said, kneading the blanket in his fists.

“I heard you crying, are you alright?” I asked, sitting on a chair by the bed.

“I am fine, not crying,” he replied, indignantly, wiping his nose. Oh, he certainly was me.

“Of course,” I said, reaching over to pick up Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure album from the floor by his turntable. “Great album,” I added, trying to change to subject and make him more comfortable.

His eyes widened even more and the tears began to roll down his face again. I placed the album back on the floor. “Nigel, what did I say?” I whispered.

“Nothing, I just had a bad day,” he whimpered.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the bundle of clothes on the floor. It was black boots I’d struck shiny, star stickers all over, some crazy flares I’d picked up in a junk shop, and a glittery shirt. It was my “glam show garb” and, boy, had I been proud of it. It was even what I was wearing the night…Oh God…

“Bryan Ferry?” I asked simply.

“A bloody wanker, he is!” Nigel spat.

It was all coming back to me. Ole Nick Bates and I had found through our covert sources where Byron and the Roxy Doxies (Roxy Music, of course) were staying in town and waited outside the hotel all day in hopes to meet them. It was a chilly September day and I remember it as if it were yesterday. Phil had been the first to come out, but he rushed to his awaiting car faster than my mind could get my mouth to speak. Andy and Paul were the next, chatting with each other, barely even noticing either Nick, me, or Colin (a bloke who’d come from London with hopes of meeting them as well). I held my breath, still holding out hope for Bryan.

Like out of a dream, he appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked absolutely dashing and magnificent and, best of all, he noticed us! We pulled out our pens and 45’s ready for action. In my hands was a German import of “Virginia Plain,” probably getting wet with the sweat of my palms. He walked down the steps in slow motion, and seemed to be coming towards us. Once in front of us, though, he walked straight past us to his car. We stood there waiting for his attention, all of us too stunned to speak, but he simply was driven away, leaving us all unfulfilled.

“What was that, then?” Colin had groaned.

“Let’s go,” Nick said, beginning to walk away with Colin.

I just stood there, my feet weighed down on the pavement, grasping my pen and record. I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach, too in shock to even move. Nick turned back around, coming over to me. He curled his fingers around my arm and repeated in a whisper, “Let’s go, Nigel, he’s gone.”

“But…” was all I could say to him.

Why had he ignored us that day? Why had he ignored me? Was it somehow because of me that he didn’t speak? What little self-esteem I had slid from me and down the gutter of the street corner on which I stood. I had already felt invisible in my life; Bryan had cemented it for me. Sure, he was to make up for it years later when fame finally came to me, never knowing how he’d snubbed me as a child. That night though, I went home in a daze and cried…

“And wished…” I heard a voice interrupt my thoughts. It was her again, the voice that tormented me.

“Why do you torment me? Why does this all mean?” I asked, rubbing my temples.

“Don’t you remember your wish?” she asked.

“No…I don’t,” I replied, annoyed and exhausted. It was all becoming too much for me.

“Ask him,” she said.

Nigel lay quietly on the bed, the covers pulled to his chin and his face wet and red from crying. I moved to sit on the bed next to him, stroking the hair from his eyes, pulling the loose strands caught in his mouth. He looked like a wounded animal.

“What are you thinking?” I whispered.

“I am angry.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I am sad.”

“Yes.”

“I feel alone.”

“You aren’t.”

“Why did he ignore me?”

“He didn’t, he acknowledged you.”

“He ignored us!” he whined.

“Perhaps he was in a hurry. You don’t know his side of things.”

“He still could have stopped.”

“Yes…but I am sure that it wasn’t personal.”

“I hate him!”

“Don’t hate him, Nigel.”

“When I get famous, I will never, ever do that to anyone!”

“You don’t know that for certain.”

“Then I wish that if I ever do, I’ll remember this moment. I’ll remember what it felt like…”

“To be invisible,” I finished, understanding.

“Yes, to be invisible,” he sighed.

* * *

“Look, I don’t know who you are, but this is absolutely ridiculous! This is all because of a wish I made in a state of distress when I was 15 years old?” I groaned.

“Yes,” she replied.

“I am sure that I haven’t given every single person attention, that does not make me a bad person! I never meant to hurt any of those kids!”

“Of course you didn’t,” she replied.

“Then why are you doing this to me?!”

“I am not doing anything, John. You are.”

“Oh, that’s right, my bloody wish!” I replied, sarcastically. Then I took in a deep breath, exhaling to try and calm myself. “Who are you?”

“You.”

“Me? Darling, the last time I checked I was not a woman.”

“Nor am I.”

“I’m so confused…Okay, if you are me, then why are you an entity outside myself talking to me?”

“I’m not.”

“Of course,” I groaned, rolling my eyes.

“John, I am a part of you. I am a manifestation of your conscious. I am a personification of your will to do what is ‘right’ and ‘good.’ I suppose I come to you as female energy as I am what you associate as people you’ve hurt - - fans, lovers, whomever. Yet, in essence, I am not a female. You created me. Your wish brought me to life.”

“A wish I made 25 years ago? This is all because I ignored some fans? I am sure I have ignored many over the years, why now? And, more importantly, how?”

“I don’t know why it happened now, but your thought finally manifested itself on the physical plane. It is fear that rules you, perhaps all that fear finally brought it to life.”

“How can I change something like my life, with just my mind?”

“You don’t change your life with your mind, you create it. Thus, you created this.”

“So, this is why I am invisible? I wished myself to be, so here I am? Why haven’t my other wishes come true then?”

“They have.”

“Okay, suppose they have and all that. I have created this state I am in, blah, blah, blah…how do I get back to things the way they were?”

“You cannot go backwards, only forward.”

“Okay, how can I go forward into visibility again then?”

“You have to want to.”

“I do.”

“Do you? Do you really?”

“Yes, I though I would prefer to hide from the world, but I know now I was wrong. I want to be visible again!”

“Close your eyes.”

* * *

I opened them to find myself on my lawn. It felt good to feel the grass under my feet again and be in familiar surroundings. I walked towards the house, still unsure if I was visible again or not. A gasp to my far right answered my question. A crown gathered quickly around me, a cacophony of people asking if I was all right and where I had been. I wearily told them that I was fine, only a bit dazed. A police officer made his way through the crowd, wrapping a blanket around me and led me into the house. Inside was the same barrage of questions and relief.

I was rushed to the hospital where the doctors concluded that I’d had a bout of amnesia and had been just wandering around the city lost and confused since I’d gone missing. It was all they could come up with really, I mean, how could they explain it otherwise? It was yet another pat answer in the name of science.

Gela and the kids came to see me in the hospital while they held me for further testing. It was somewhat surreal and, amongst my family and friends, immediately labeled as something to no longer speak of. As for Christie, she’d gone home after I was found. I wondered if I was to ever hear from her again, still not completely understanding her role in the whole experience. Perhaps she was my redemption? Or, perhaps, my way of attempting to still the guilt inside me?

When I finally got home from the hospital, I found an email in my inbox titled “Darkness Invisible” and knew immediately it was from her. Excited to hear from her, I opened it and it read:

“Hello,

Well, this is all a bit weird, I don’t know what to sat now that all is said and done. I saw you made the front page of the newspapers, too bad you were only wearing your underclothes! Either way, I am glad to hear that you are all right and I hope that I was able to help you though it all. I never got to say goodbye to you, so I thought I’d write this email. So, well…goodbye.

Christie.”

I smiled to myself that she’d written me. Clicking on the reply button, I typed a few words and sent it. It read: “Who says this is goodbye?”

F I N

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