Arabella Two

Arabella Two - Chapter One

Chapter One

August 2011

Alex was going to get laid tonight. It was hardly fitting for his rock star image to be celibate, but he hadn't had sex for three months. All his energy had gone into touring, and most of the time him and Alexa were like a brother and sister who rarely saw each other. The last time they slept together had been a rather boring poke back in May, to try and see if they could make it work, but it had been disappointing for both of them and they hadn't been intimate since. From then on, Alex had found himself not particularly bothered about sex. He thought something might have happened with Miles when he'd supported the Monkeys in Sheffield, in June, but Miles had been besotted with this model called Georgia and he'd treated Alex like a mate and nothing else. That had hurt Alex deeply, and just pushed him into a deeper depression and his sex drive disappeared.

But he felt different today. AM had played a blistering set at the V Festival in Essex on Saturday, and there was nothing like a crowd of people singing your songs, and girls screaming at you, to boost your ego. He felt pumped and ready for action in a way he hadn't in ages. It also felt nice to be back in London. He loved the States, but sometimes he just wanted to be surrounded by English voices, and people who got his sense of humour; and watch British TV shows, and eat food that had never been heard of in LA and New York.

It was a Tuesday night, but there was always somewhere to go, and right now he was waiting in his flat in Whitechapel, for his friend Nate to arrive. Alex hadn't lived here for a couple of years - his friend Phil lived here, but he was away for the rest of the summer, and Alex was determined to make the most of having the place to himself.

He'd spent ages getting ready. He didn't know who he should go as - himself or 'Alex Turner'. He was going to The Grace, an upmarket pub in Soho that was members only. It would be full of people he knew, so it would be easier to go as the persona. Besides, he always found it easy to talk to people - especially seeing as he now looked so different to how Alex felt inside.

He stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom, staring at his reflection. He felt that same feeling of detachment he experienced when people spoke to him about the first album. They asked him about songs he wrote when he was eighteen or nineteen, and would think him an idiot when he couldn't answer. But the truth was, once they left his brain, he became detached from them like they belonged to someone else.

Well, the same applied to his image. He looked at the handsome, confident guy with his tan and his DA and leather biker's jacket with the collar popped, and he was no different to those early songs - a creation. Inside he still felt twenty-two - that shy boy who wrote all those dark songs for Humbug.

But he liked this creation. He was sexy and confident, and girls loved him. In all truth, Alex had never found it hard to attract girls, but he always felt weird around them. Like that part of his brain that wasn't interested in them would chat loudly to him, calling him a fraud and a phony, and he'd end up saying something stupid. But he didn't feel that way looking like this. Girls loved this image. A journalist in the States called him The Boy Next Door who is a secret member of biker gang, and Alex liked that.

Nate arrived in a mini cab, and on the way to the pub, they both had a bump of coke. Alex had to restrict himself because he knew he could get addicted to it. He liked how it made him feel. It deadened his doubts and self-loathing and made him feel somehow invincible. But he'd met too many coke casualties in LA to know the damage too much of it could do.

As soon as they got out of the cab and headed for the pub, a couple of excitable Australian girls practically jumped on him, and in between whoops and screams, they asked for his autograph. He happily posed for pictures with each of them, and when one of them cheekily asked if she could have the cigarette behind his ear, he gave her the rest of his packet of Malboros - after signing it. Alex loved meeting fans. They were the reason he did all this, to make people happy.