Her Song

18 - Like a Virgin

**Kim**

"Get a grip woman, get a grip!" I glared at myself in the bathroom mirror.

Standing in the wings at a rock concert did not require me to apply make-up more carefully than a day stood behind a counter selling the stuff did, but that was exactly what I was doing. Because somehow, someway, maybe it was the groupie version of 'the starlight barking' from 101 Dalmatians, word had gotten out that Van was off the market and those girls had me under extra scrutiny. I know, I know, making canine references – hello 101 Dalmatians – when it comes to other women is not a good example of sisterhood, blah, blah, blah but dammit some of those women were real bitches. Get it? 101 Dalmatians – dogs – bitches. If I didn't laugh I might be in danger of crying.

Satisfied that my lipstick was perfect I gave the mascara a speculative glance before deciding that another layer wouldn't go astray. As much as it pained me to admit it, Van was right, he had discovered the perfect waterproof and smudge-proof brand of mascara. And I really shouldn't have been noticing how bloody good it looked on him. Angrily swiping it on I finally decided that the face looking back at me in disgust from the mirror was as good as it was going to get.

And why the hell did I even care what a bunch of overly made up wenches in mini-skirts thought of me anyway? Oh that's right, hormones. I may have managed to avoid morning sickness – praise Keanu! – but those pregnancy hormones had come after me hard. My hard won self-esteem was crumbling fast because I was that girl. The girl whose boobs expanded a couple of cup sizes the minute she even caught a glimpse of a positive pregnancy test. While I could have happily lived with that, I'd once briefly flirted with and rapidly discarded the idea of a boob job, it felt like every other part of my body, especially my bum, had bloated to match my newly buxom top half.

There was a rap on the bathroom door. "Duchess? You ready?" Time to go. I couldn't help but anxiously adjust my hair one more time, I'd washed it earlier on and allowed an afternoon nap to claim me before it had dried. Even in a braid it looked enormous. All the better to balance out your enormous arse my dear.

"Kim?" Van called again a note of anxiety in his voice. "Are you okay in there?"

I plastered on a smile and swung open the door. It took everything in me not to gasp at the sight of him. No matter how familiar with him I got, whenever I suddenly saw him it knocked me for six. As was usual before a show he looked magnificent. His perfectly tousled hair seemed to have been styled by a gang of abandoned hussy's who couldn't help but run their fingers through his lustrous dark locks. And was it fair that the smudge of black liner around his eyes and the briefest of swipes of mascara should look so hot on him? No, it was not. It was not fair. That lack of fairness is what allowed me to indulge in gender stereotypes - make-up is for girls. Why? It's our reward for putting up with things like pregnancy and bloating. Okay so there may be a slight – alright 99.9% - chance that it was pregnancy hormones and my poor self-esteem driving that opinion but come on, the guy was already hotter than any man had a right to be. Did he really need to dip into my feminine bag of tricks to take it up a level?

Van cleared his throat and I snapped back to reality. A flush heated my cheeks. God knows how long I'd been doing the visual equivalent of feeling him up. I dropped my gaze and groped for my phone. Shit! The extra layer of mascara and the eye-fucking had taken up more time than I'd thought. "Come on, we need to get downstairs to meet the others in the lobby. I will not be happy if Josh shows up with a couple of skanks hoping to score backstage passes again."

"You okay their killer?" Van gave me a look of concern as he wrapped an arm around my waist and ushered me from the room. I hummed. It was the perfect way of replying without blabbing that I wanted to jump him. As we stood waiting for the lift his hands shifted to my shoulders and his thumbs dug into the muscles at the base of my neck. "You seem tense," he said. I may have stared out tense but as his fingers continued to work my insides turned to marshmallow. Soft and gooey. It was fitting really, my insides matching my newly marshmallowy exterior. As we stood waiting, my eyes firmly fixed on the illuminated arrows that told us whether the lifts were going up and down, I found myself leaning back against the firmness of his chest. I was engulfed in the indescribable scent of him as I relaxed into his touch and arched my neck to the side in bliss as his fingers found a particularly magical spot. It was too good. The ping of the arriving lift just as I felt the gentle brush of his nose up my neck from my collarbone to the lobe of my ear had me bolting for the opening doors like a racehorse out of a gate. Great, it was a mirrored car so even I could see I was looking all flushed, wide-eyed and flustered. Was it too much to hope that there'd be some kind of horrible cable failure that would plunge us to our deaths in the basement? Of course knowing my luck Keanu would arrive to rescue us just when I was looking my absolute worst and not in a cute, Sandra Bullock, 90's grunge girl kind of way.