My Love, My Drug, My Release

Chapter 46: That's Not Love

"There she is!" Mick jumped up off the sofa when he saw me, kissing my mouth roughly. "Wicked dress, by the way." His apartment was vacant save for Mick Taylor, who was inserting a needle into his arm, making my mouth water. Jagger followed my line of sight and snorted. "Guess you aren't really here for me then?"

I placed a hand on his chest, inside his half-buttoned shirt. "Of course I am."

"Don't lie; it's unattractive." My face fell, and I worried he might throw me out, but he just laughed and pulled me onto the sofa. "You're no fun sober anyway."

His words didn't offend me; I enjoyed his honesty. I knew I wasn't fun sober, the whole cheer team knew it, Thelma and Gally probably thought so too, maybe even Paul. But I didn't care about being fun; I wanted to feel numb, empty.

Mick stretched out my arm like he was going to draw blood, and asked, "Did you hurt yourself?" He tapped my bruised wrist.

"Cheerleading accident."

"I didn't know England had cheerleaders. You know that, Taylor?"

I looked over to see the guitarist's answer, but then the needle slipped beneath my skin, and my eyes rolled back into my head. What a clever boy, distracting me like that. If snorting heroin was heaven, this must be the seventh level. It felt like everything inside me had been drained out by a vacuum and replaced with pure, orgasmic bliss. The pain in my wrist dissipated like steam in the wind, as did all my worries about school and Thelma and my family; Mick's hand running through my hair was my only tether to this world.

"Are you in love with Keith?" he asked after an indiscernible amount of time.

"I don't know," I answered honestly. "I like being with him, but I don't know if I'd call that love." I looked up into the Stone's eyes, blinking languidly. "Are you in love with him?"

Part of me expected Mick to scream at me that he isn't a poof, or at least roll his eyes and move away from me, annoyed, but he smiled, contemplating. "No, not really, but it makes me jealous when he goes out with someone else." He pressed his full lips to my cheek, the sensation sending a ripple of silver sparks across my skin. "That's not love, is it? Anger and resentment and possessiveness."

"You're right."

"I know, I'm always right." Mick removed his shirt to shoot himself up on his bicep. His body looked like a perfect anatomical drawing: pale skin with wiry muscles, blue veins swimming under the surface, and almost no body hair. "Get out of here, Mick," he barked at his friend.

The blonde grunted and then stumbled off to the bedroom and Jagger pushed me flat onto the couch, climbing on top of me, lifting my shoplifted gold dress over my waist, sliding my panties aside to enter me. I clutched his shoulders as he thrusted into me, staring up at the blue ceiling and pretending I was on boat, sailing across Atlantic in the nineteenth century, head propped up on a book of poetry.

Junk seemed to make Mick last for hours, sweat making his skin slippery as a dolphin. Before he appeared even close to finishing, the bedroom door swung open and Mick Taylor emerged, hair a mess, in nothing but striped boxers. "Is this you?"

"Mate, you're high, go back to bed," Jagger snapped.

"No, I'm serious!" He swung around a sheet of paper, the crinkling echoing through my brain. I sat up to look at him and saw he was holding a newspaper. "It's Lo, you're even wearing the same dress."

Shoving Mick off me, much to his annoyance, I grabbed the paper and, sure enough, there was a grainy, black and white photo of Keith, Anita, and I after his interview. The headline read: Keith Richards Has Two Girlfriends! Who's The Mystery Lady?  Even in my doped up brain, I knew this wasn't good; we got this paper in my house too. How long before some journalist recognized me from Paul and Linda's wedding photos?