The Fan

9.12pm

'You've pressed those buttons like a million times,' the girl said. 'The power's out. They're not working.'

Kyle glanced down at her where she sat on the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest, plumping up her boobs even more. She caught him looking and smiled. Turning away quickly, he jabbed his finger at the buttons again. She was right though. He hadn't stopped pressing the damn lift buttons, just the same as he hadn't stopped checking his phone for a signal. He'd checked her phone for a signal too, but seeing Screen-Saver Kyle staring back at him meant he didn't ask again. 

'Why haven't they come and got us already? This is ridiculous.' He slammed his palm on the dead control panel.

'They'll be working on it, trust me. If there's a power outage, then the emergency services will be busy. Just chill out. Come and sit down." She patted a space on the floor right next to her.

Kyle slid down the wall where he was and sat facing her, his long legs stretched out.

"Do you get claustrophobic?" the girl asked. Her feet shifted on the floor, until her toes were almost touching the soles of his boots, wriggling through the open toe of her shoes as if desperate to reach him.

'No I just don't like being trapped in a lift with the power out and no idea when I'm going to be rescued,' he rolled his eyes, his voice laced with deliberate sarcasm.

She frowned, her lips forming that perfect glossed pout again which he didn't like to look at  because it just made him think about watching that mouth working him over, again and again, pink gloss smudging his skin. He didn't want to think about that. Not now. Not here. Not with her. It had lawsuit written all over it.

'Sorry,' he said again. 'It's just I was meant to be somewhere. I had a dinner date.'

'With a girl?' Her face darkened, her voice skipping up an octave. 

'What?' he snapped, annoyed at her pointless jealousy. Why did they all have to be like this with their stupid, fucking dreams about being his girlfriend, becoming the one who cured him of his whiskey-fuelled groupie addiction? Okay, so he'd fucked a few fans. More than a few, if he was being honest, but that didn't mean he wanted to fuck them all. And he certainly didn't want to be cured. Especially not by some over-enthusiastic girl with his face on her phone and his name tramp-stamped just above her arse crack.

'It's just that Becka is convinced you're dating that actress, you know Jenna Whatserface. I told her it was just shit the papers say, you know, but she believes everything in the press. I mean, seriously, she's so gullible.'

'I’m not dating anyone,' Kyle said. The girl's eyes widened briefly as she grinned, slicking her tongue along her top lip.

'Cool.'

But it wasn't cool. Jenna Whittington or Whatserface, he couldn't care less either way, was just the latest in a long line of actresses, models and general media-whores who he'd dated since splitting with Elizabeth. All nondescript, dull pretty faces that filled the void, when the coke wasn't doing its job. Hell, sometimes he needed both just to forget her, plus the booze on top of course. The booze always helped. A JD double and a line or two would probably do just the trick right now. Instead, all he had was a withdrawal headache and this girl who wouldn't stop fucking smiling at him.   

'You know I watched this film once about two people that got stuck in a lift.'

'Oh. What happened?' he said, stifling a yawn.

'The lift plummeted to the bottom of the shaft and exploded. They burned to death.'

Make that five lines. And a bottle.

'Cheery film,' he swallowed hard and checked his phone again.