Milton
I forced my eyes open. Blinking in the extraordinarily bright light coming in through the crack in the curtains. It was perfectly aligned to blind me as I woke up. Typical. My head throbbed. I groaned, wanting desperately to reclaim the sleep I'd lost the night before. But it was no use. As the ache behind my eyes worsened, the two unknown girls, one either side of me, sprang into life with the most irritating youthful energy.
"Good morning Milton" they said in unison. Their whiny, childish tone instantly abusing my ears, making me grit my teeth. I smiled. A wry, forced smile, then closed my eyes.
"Nooo, Milton! Don't go back to sleep. We want a replay of last night." One of the girls whinged. I sighed. Deeply. I actually had no idea what the three of us had got up to last night. And I hoped that the memories wouldn't surface any time soon. With any luck, the amount of alcohol I'd consumed would see to that. And it would be a good job too, as neither of them particularly appealed to me. Physically or otherwise. They were little more than kids. Just about scraping by legal age. The thought of our antics made me feel nauseous and the only move I was interested in doing, involved me pulling back the covers and rushing off into the bathroom.
I sat up, first looking to my left and then my right. Studying their pale, adolescent faces, that were eager to please (and more eager to share their experiences on social media the second they left the room - It's a good job my manager had a "no mobile phone" policy when we invited VIPs to our after parties.)
"Sorries ladies, nature calls." I grumbled gruffly, as I swept back the bed covers, exposing both of their underwear-clad bodies, and slipped down the centre of the bed. Once in the bathroom, I simply called "don't forget your phones on the way out of the hotel girls" through the bathroom door. After hearing disgruntled huffs, the rustling and rummaging of clothes being put on, then the slam of the hotel room door, I knew the coast was clear.
It was a well rehearsed routine. Much cleaner and more perfected than my routines on stage. Thankfully, it worked every time too and kept up the pretence that Milton Matthews was an aggressive arsehole that used his fans for sex. If that's what the press thought, great. It worked for me and kept my band, Madison, in the headlines when we were in town. But it wasn't me. Nobody knew the real me and that's how it had to be. For now at least.
I'd been on the road practically full time since I was eighteen years old, with the band. We were a rock band made up of me and my three friends, Gray, our down to earth camera-shy drummer, Dom, bass player and stereotypical rockstar; loving the ladies, drugs and booze on a very regular basis and Alex on guitar; married with a small kid and just a little bit lost. We'd formed when we were in high school, and after one lucky break performing on a local network TV show, our fame seemed to explode overnight. To begin with, we did several US tours and six albums, 10 years and three world tours later, we were just starting our European leg of our fourth tour, in London.
Our manager, Brooke, had booked us into The Tower Hotel, a five star venue of the utmost elegance (and cost) in the hope it would help us keep some of the rabid fans at bay. Security had been increased at our request, with our own bodyguards joining forces with the hotel's own door staff. This gave us some peace and quiet during our down time, but honestly? The endless cycle of performing on stage, after parties and the one night stands were starting to take their toll. I wasn't eighteen anymore and this high speed, high intensity life was beginning to become a struggle, even at just twenty eight. It wasn't fun either and it was only a matter of time before my mask slipped and the true horror of who I really was would be revealed to the world.
Brooke had even been trying to convince me that having a casual girlfriend would reduce the overwhelming female attention I received. But I couldn't see it working. All it would do is spur the fans on, making them more determined to bag and bed a rockstar that was spoken for. It would be like waving a red rag to a bull, and by God, these girls came charging at me fast as it was! There was only so much numbing the alcohol could do. And I was afraid its effectiveness was wearing off. Perhaps Brooke was onto something.
Besides, you'd think I could just say no, but that wouldn't fit in with my rockstar image and would raise more questions than I cared to answer. I turned on the faucet for the shower and waited for the warm water to flow. The steam misted up the mirror, revealing two phone numbers, written on the glass with fingertips, along with a message:
Call us for another wild time!
I exhaled. I wondered what these girls' parents thought of them throwing themselves at a rockstar? Did they even know? Did they care? Being a father myself, it made me all too aware of the lifestyle I was living. There was no way I would let Maddie, the very inspiration behind the band's name, anywhere near a successful rock band on tour. Especially my rock band! But Maddie was only eleven, so she never came on the road with us and stayed safely at home with her mother, which we'd both agreed was for the best.
I stepped into the shower. Hoping to wash away some of the guilt and memories of last night, in the process. I let the water wash over me, cleansing and refreshing me, using some of the luxury soap to clean my entire body of all the lipsticked kiss marks, especially around my dick. The girls had been obsessed with it, giggling when they saw it and practically fighting over who would get to give me a blow job first. It was the only part of last night that made me smile. One of the girls, let's call her 'questionable ID number one' (I didn't make a mental note of names) couldn't even wait until we were back at the suite and proceeded to unzip my pants and suck my dick while we were still in the elevator! Luckily at that time in the morning, it might have been 3am, there was nobody else around to need the elevator.
And that's all I would let them do. A few years back, I got an HIV scare and ever since then, I'd only ever let girls suck me off, nothing further, nothing more. All of them ended up disappointed and either left before dawn, or hung around, thinking that I would change my mind by morning. It kept the tabloids buzzing and people speculating why I wouldn't have sex with anyone. As they say in this industry, "any publicity is good publicity." I just didn't appreciate them poking their noses into my personal life and coming up with their own opinions about it. But, that level of interest came with the territory and after ten years of it? I just didn't give a fuck what the press thought anymore.
I must have been in the shower no more than ten minutes when I heard a knock on the main door to the suite. I decided to ignore it, but the knocking only got louder. I turned off the shower and stepped out of the cubicle, not even bothering to wrap a towel around my waist. Then I heard Brooke's shrill voice, shouting from the corridor.
"Milton Matthews, will you open this fucking door at once!" With heavy, wet strides, I made my way from the bathroom, through the bedroom and living room, to the entrance hall of the suite. I checked the spy hole to make sure that it was only Brooke pounding on the door, waited for her impatient knocks to start again, then swiftly opened the door. Poor Brooke tumbled forwards, straight into my wet, naked chest! I chuckled, my deep raspy tone echoing off the corridor walls. She recovered her balance quickly and took a step back, looking down at the wet patch on her crisp, powder blue blouse.
"You fucking dick!" Brooke screamed. "You've ruined my fucking shirt! But worse than that, I could have been a group of reporters, or room service."
"Not with that voice, Brooke" I answered, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and fake yawning at her. I leaned forwards and rubbed the wet patch on her chest with my hand. She batted my arm away and smoothed down the shirt, puffing out her chest.
"It could have been someone pretending to be me," she retorted, feeling very smug. I pointed to the spy hole in the door. "Hardly. No-one could copy your soft, feminine charm. Or would want to for that matter."
"Well, thank you. Prick" Brooke wasn't the best at being pissed off, or at dishing out insults. "Speaking of which..." her voice trailed off as her eyes moved down my body. "Would you get some fucking pants on, for Christ's sake?!"
"If you insist." And I turned and walked back into the room with Brooke following and closing the door behind her. I walked into the bedroom and slipped on my grey jogging trousers, returning to the livingroom, where Brooke had made herself comfortable on the sofa. I walked over to the coffee machine in the corner and pressed the button for an Americano.
"Coffee, Brooke?" I offered.
"No. It would make it my sixth cup this morning and I've got to pace myself today."
"That bad huh?" The machine finished and I took my coffee and joined Brooke on the sofa. She spread out some newspapers on the coffee table in front of us. It was the usual mix of we love Madison, we hate Madison, Madison exclusively responsible for global warning and Madison is single-handedly saving the world type headlines. A couple of papers were focussed on the absolute chaos we'd caused being in London. Apparently all anti-social behaviour and crime that had occurred in the city over the last 48 hours was all our fault! Another paper probed into our travel arrangements and carbon footprint, which must be absolutely huge travelling all over the world. I simply pointed at it and lazily asked "will they ever look at the water purification and tree replanting programs we're heavily involved in?"
"Of course not Milton. That would make you the good guys and nobody likes you being the good guys, remember?"
"Ahh, yes. We've got to live up to that bad-boys-killing-the-planet persona the press have branded us with. My bad. I haven't quite woken up properly yet." I rolled my eyes and took a sip of the hot steaming brown nectar in my cup.
"So, what's on the agenda today Miss. Manager?" I asked, trying hard to sound enthusiastic about another day of meetings, press events and photo shoots. All I ever wanted to do was tour and sing with my band, but most of the time we were being filmed, photographed, interviewed and used for promoting anything from energy drinks to leather jackets. It felt like an endless cycle of selling myself, rather than just doing what I loved. But I guess fame has its price and having to do all the shit I didn't like was just a small part of that price. Pretending to be someone you're not and behaving in a certain way that people expect was a much higher price. Sometimes I just wanted to scream and run away from it all.
Brooke could sense my disinterest and she knew that I wasn't a fan of all the additional stuff we had to do. "I'm so glad you asked Mr. Matthews. So, at 11am we've got a press conference about the start of your UK tour. That's in the ballroom here at the hotel. Then we've got a location shoot, just over the road at the Tower of London at 12:30pm, then lunch and a VIP meet and greet with the fans at the O2 at 3pm. And finally, it's sound check at 4pm, with curtains at 7:30pm." Brooke looked impressed with herself that she'd booked a day full of activities before the gig tonight, but all I could think about was getting up on the stage.
"But, before any of that, you need to finish getting dressed and eat the breakfast that's just about to arrive because the press conference starts in just 30 minutes, with or without you, M." I tilted my head to one side, like a confused dog. "Sorry, what? You lost me at 12:30pm.." I jested, knowing full well that Brooke got pissed off whenever I didn't listen closely to the full rundown of our schedule each day. Brooke looked at me. Her lips pressed firmly together,thin with mild frustration. "Dress. Eat. You have 29 minutes, moron."
"Er, ok. thanks for all the detailed information. I'll be sure to put it all in my phone." I muttered sarcastically as I walked off into the bedroom to find a shirt. By the time I returned to the livingroom, wearing a simple black shirt and jeans, the breakfast trolley was already being offloaded onto the coffee table. I necked the coffee and picked up a handful of blueberries, tossing them into the air and catching them in my mouth, as if they were nuts and I was sitting at a bar in Texas.
"Very swarve. Always did like your etiquette." Brooke was struggling to hide her annoyance with me. "So, I'm off to round up the other pigs in this sty, I'd better see you down in the press room in less than 28 minutes." Brooke announced, promptly standing and marching out of the suite.
