Mister Nobody – Bonus | Becoming Murphy [The Flashback Collection]

Los Angeles, January 1988 – The guy in the lilac shirt

Lisa had thought the one in front of her was another man entirely. The guy who had been standing next to her mother’s lawyer, John Branca, looked nothing like Michael Jackson. Well, he certainly didn’t look like the Michael Jackson she had imagined, when she had been told that he would be there too – as the groom’s best man.

To Lisa, taking part in Branca’s wedding meant absolutely nothing. Being a guest at an event she really didn’t feel like attending was something she thought she had been forced to do. Her mother had been clear: she was an adult woman now, and she had to keep up appearances. No more wild days – enough with that. She had to start being part of the business. Part of the machine. Lisa had cringed but, eventually, had been unable to say no.

It happened all the time, whenever her mother was involved.

Now, being there, wrapped in her beautiful dress and with her perfect hairdo and make-up, sitting at a small table with her drink, surrounded by people she didn’t know, after the ceremony, Lisa felt like a fish out of water. Michael freaking Jackson had been the only highlight of the evening, and now he was nowhere to be seen. He had probably run off to shoot some short film in a subway or something.

Great. Just great. Well, at least it had been fun to see him a bit out of his element, too.

She had imagined him as the self-confident superstar dressed in buckles and leather, or at least wearing a fedora and the glove, looking all peculiar and out of this world. Instead, the groom’s best man was a very regular, very handsome young man in a classic black suit, black tie, and lilac shirt, well-mannered, shy and completely down-to-earth.

She had also noticed him throwing glances at her during the ceremony. She realized that he was trying to be subtle – without really being able to go unnoticed. They had shared some vague, awkward looks and, at one point, he had even let out the slightest smile. Then he had lowered his gaze.

Lisa wasn’t sure if the dude was trolling her or was just plain shy.

Anyway, after the ceremony she had lost sight of him altogether and now there she was, all alone, feeling like the ugly duckling in a pond full of beautiful swans.

Plus, not only she was bored to death, but she had also promised to her mother that she would stay until the end – while she, Priscilla, chatted animatedly with several guests. It was all about business, for her mom. Lisa got that, she really did, but couldn’t understand why she had to be part of it, too.

She had observed the very elegant, very classy, very sophisticated guests with a clinical look – like a scientist would watch some exciting experiment. She had downed a couple of drinks, forced herself to eat something, and had done her best to mind her own business, hoping to go unnoticed. Hoping to quickly have the chance to leave. Maybe go back to her circle of friends, have a beer. Or two.

After all, she was invisible, and nobody was paying attention to her.

“Hey…”.

The polite, deep voice startled her, and she turned her head.

What. The. Fuck.

“Hi.”

There he was, the superstar. Looking, at that very moment, like the cute guy next door.

Michael smiled.

“Can I keep you company for a minute?”.

What the actual fuck.

Lisa recovered quickly, and her eyebrows sprung up. She pulled the chair next to her back, just a little.

“Sure. Be my guest”.

He sat down and unbuttoned his jacket, clearing his throat, then extended his hand.

“I’m Michael.”

She couldn’t help but sneer, shaking his hand. The guy had a big, strong, warm hand, by the way.

“Yeah, I know. I’m Lisa”.

He chuckled and blinked.

“I know.”

She didn’t feel precisely star-struck. She had been surrounded by celebrities throughout her entire life, she was Elvis’ daughter and had been scrutinized since she was born. If anything, she craved something ordinary. Normal people, typical day to day life, a sane future. Sitting next to Michael made her feel dizzy for a moment but not in the way she would have imagined, although she had to admit, it was a bit intimidating. At one point in her life, she too had been kinda enamored with the idea of him, probably when she was a teenager, and he was in his Thriller phase. What girl hadn’t looked at Michael with heart-shaped eyes, at that time?

And yet, the man sitting at her table now was another person entirely.

“I thought you had left,” Lisa said, very casually, and he seemed taken aback for a second. She suspected it was because he was not really used to be treated in a non-condescending way by people he had just met. Well, Mister Jackson was about to find out that not every woman’s panties would fly off because of his mere presence. At least, this woman’s panties weren’t going to.

He smiled again, very widely this time. He looked… pleased.

“I wanted to leave, believe me. I don’t really like this kind of events”. He fixed his tie and glanced around imperturbably. “I mean, I also wanted to be here for John, but I hoped to just pop by for the ceremony.”

“But here you are, instead.” Lisa grinned.

“Yeah. Here I am, indeed. Surrounded by strangers”. He took a flute of champagne from the tray of a passing-by waiter.

“Well, I’m a stranger too, so why are you keeping me company?”.

Michael took a sip of his drink and studied her, his brow furrowing.

“What do you mean, a stranger? We’ve met before”.

Lisa blinked her eyelids, quickly trying to understand the meaning of his words. Did he consider the glances they had shared during the wedding ceremony as “meeting”? It couldn’t be.

“We did?”.

“Yeah,” he narrowed those deep, dark eyes of his, “But you don’t remember, do you?”.

She shook her head.

“I am sorry. I really don’t”.

Michael shrugged.

“Well, it makes sense. You were just a kid”. Noticing that she was clearly waiting for him to clarify his statement, he chuckled. “You were, I think, six or seven when we met. You came to our show… a Jackson 5 show in Las Vegas, I believe. Your dad took you backstage afterward and, ah… yeah, we met. Briefly”. His voice was gentle, and he spoke with a soft smile on his lips. A smile that reached his eyes.

That, coupled with the mention of her father, melted something into Lisa’s heart and a vague, dreamlike flashback ran through her mind. A dressing room. Her dad crouched down, by her side, smiling at her, tilting his head toward those five young brothers chatting and laughing after their fantastic performance on stage. Her dad’s blue eyes. And then, a quick vision of Michael’s dark eyes. Of his smile, as he waved at her.

She blinked her eyelids rapidly, repeatedly.

“Yeah… I do have some kind of remembrance of that night, now that I think about it. However small”.

Michael smiled again and the flashback intensified. Or maybe it was just her imagination.

“I’m glad.”

“How did you recognize me?”.

This time he laughed, heartily and she couldn’t help but smile back at him. His laugh was crystalline, contagious.

“Are you kidding me? You look just like him”.

Yeah. She had heard that, a lot. And yet it felt strange to imagine that not only this megastar remembered that quick encounter when they were both just kids, but that he had also been able to recognize her face in the crowd, during a wedding.

“You look… different, though”. She noticed the questioning look he was giving her and added, immediately, “I mean, different from the way you appear on TV, or in the magazines.” She didn’t want him to think that she meant he was somehow weird or odd, even though that had been her biased opinion, before seeing him at the ceremony. A belief that was quickly changing, just by talking to him.

Michael nodded his head.

“That’s because they love to give a warped image of who I really am.”

Lisa sighed.

“Yeah, I get that. But that’s not what I meant. You just look… different when you’re on stage. By the way, congratulations on your tour. I heard you’re doing great”.

He lowered his gaze, apparently a bit embarrassed at the compliment.

“Yeah, I really can’t complain. Thank you”.

“So…”, Lisa tapped her fingers on the table, nervously. “Why aren’t you here with your girlfriend?”.

“My girlfriend?”. Michael seemed confused.

“Yeah. Brooke Shields”.

She didn’t even know why she was asking that. Not that she really cared. She had a boyfriend – Danny – whom she loved.

“She’s not my girlfriend. I mean… It’s not – we’re just very good friends”. He shifted in his chair, a bit uneasily, and Lisa nodded her head slowly, giving him a knowing look and taking a sip of her drink.

“I see…”.

She raised an eyebrow, and Michael blushed.

“You see? What is it, that you see?”, he asked her, cautiously.

“Well,” Lisa tilted her head, “I guess it’s just a publicity stunt then, right? I mean… if the tabloids think that you two are a couple while she’s just a friend of yours, instead… I suppose you guys have just been doing something that benefits you both”.

“I don’t know if I would put it that way, honestly.”

“Let me tell you, Michael. If that’s the case, you don’t really need Brooke Shields for publicity”, she chuckled, “You’re on top of the world. She, on the other hand… I mean, what has she done lately except for being photographed with you?”.

Wow. Diplomacy wasn’t one of girlfriend’s best qualities. He, on the other hand, was way better in that department…

“I don’t think Brooke needs me to draw anybody’s attention, honestly.”

She made a face.

“Please.”

“She’s beautiful and amazing, and I love having her by my side.”

“Like a prop?”.

Michael’s eyebrows sprung up.

“What? No! Not at all. I would never use her. And neither would she… I’m sure of that”.

“Alright. Fair enough. You guys are just playing the part of the fairytale couple. But you’re not into her ‘like that.’ I totally get that”. She sipped her champagne. “To each his own, I guess.”

Fair enough, my ass. Michael had a feeling that Lisa had just gotten it wrong, and was probably thinking that he didn’t like girls. But since he now sincerely hoped to have the chance to see the very blunt, very outspoken, hilarious and very sexy Presley girl again, possibly in a more private and intimate setting, it was best to clarify things quickly. Fuck diplomacy!

“OK, look… I know what you’re thinking”.

“What am I thinking?”. She threw him a glance, looking genuinely amused.

Michael straightened his back and fixed his tie.

“I know you think I’m gay. But I’m not, and honestly, I am starting to get tired of people thinking that I am”.

“I never said you were gay, Michael,” Lisa giggled, “And I wouldn’t see the problem, even if you were.”

He shifted in his chair again, uneasily. This was so not going the way he had expected.

“No, I’m not saying that it would be a problem – it’s just… I mean, I know they love to spread rumors, trying to make me look different than what I really am”.

“Yeah well, that’s what tabloids usually do with celebrities,” Lisa leaned closer to him, “They do it for the money,” she whispered, conspiratorially. She was having so much fun at his expense.

“Well, fuck them. Lisa… What I meant to say, is that I know you probably have heard a lot of things about me. But most of it isn’t even true. And it’s important for me to clarify that, whenever I meet someone I’m interested in”.

Lisa looked genuinely surprised for a moment.

“Wow, that was… quite intense. You’re telling me you’re interested in me?”.

Michael chuckled.

“Yeah. I mean, I feel like we have so many things in common, and I’d love for us to talk more. Even though I believe I kinda made a fool of myself in this first conversation”.

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” She touched his arm, very lightly, “If anything, you managed to make my evening more entertaining than I initially thought.”

“Yeah?”.

He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and she burst out laughing. He was funny.

“Alright then… so, what do you think about having a drink together, sometimes?”.

Lisa took another sip of her wine.

“We are having a drink.”

He tilted his head and gave her a lopsided smirk.

“I mean… some other times”.

“I have a boyfriend, Michael,” Lisa stated, flatly.

“Oh,” strangely enough, this time he didn’t look uncomfortable at all. “Alright. But are you happy with him?”.

“Oh, are you hitting on me now?”, she squinted her eyes, and he laughed, again.

“Totally.”

She let out a sigh, their eyes still locked. She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

“I think I am, yeah.”

“Cool.”

“But sure, we can have a drink, sometimes. As friends. If you want”.

Michael seemed to ponder over her words for a second.

“As a friend. Sure. Why not?”.

“I imagine this must be unusual for you. You probably have women throwing themselves at you and trying to get into your pants all the time”.

He scrunched his face in a very endearing way.

“Not really. But I can use a friend, for sure”.

“I totally believe in friendship between men and women,” Lisa stated, matter-of-factly.

“Oh yeah, me too,” Michael nodded his head. “You’re preaching to the converted. Definitely”.

Los Angeles, October 1989 – A terrible idea, or maybe not

Checking her watch, Lisa thought that hers had probably been a terrible idea, after all. Suddenly, she was not entirely sure she could count on Michael like that. Talking over the phone while he was flying all over the world for his tour was one thing, going out with him was something else entirely.

But she had loved those long conversations so much that it had taken her precisely ten seconds to ask him if he wanted to see her, after finding out that he was back in L.A. for a while. And he had said yes right away as if he wanted nothing more than going out with her. It had felt nice. Lisa needed a friend – and Michael was great in that department.

After spending some time together at Branca’s wedding, they had found a rhythm that she had only rarely experienced with anyone. She had expected the superstar, but right from the get-go, Michael had been more like the cute guy next door. Sweet, smart, funny, easygoing, down to earth, so good at listening… and apparently far from punctual.

What had he said, again? That he would pick her up at 4? Lisa scanned her memory one more time. She was pretty sure he had said just that. In that case, he was almost twenty minutes late.

OK. That was it. Lisa would wait for Mr. Michael Joseph Jackson for five more minutes, and then she would go her own merry way. He could moonwalk his cute little ass back home for all she cared.

And just like that – magic! – a car appeared from around the corner, tires screeching as if it was some movie set. Lisa squinted her eyes and, instinctively, pondered over the possibility of throwing herself into a shop, just in case. Who was in there? A runaway robber?

No, it was Michael. Lisa realized it the moment the car pulled over and stopped abruptly. The tinted window rolling down revealed Michael’s beautiful smile. He was wearing his shades and pulled them down on his nose.

“Jump in! Come on!”, he whispered hurriedly, glancing around as if he feared someone would notice him.

Lisa snorted and frowned, walking over to the car. All the while thinking that no, she wouldn’t really have left if he hadn’t arrived just then. But she was so used to playing the bad girl, devil-may-care role that she only rarely showed who she was. Soft. Gentle. Very sweet, deep down. And very much in need of love and affection in her life. Sometimes that part of her was just so well hidden that even she forgot it existed.

“OK… Jeez, where were you running?”.

She was seriously trying not to laugh on his face. He was just so cute, all flustered and wired. And she would have never imagined that he would be all alone, without his entourage. Lisa had been expecting at least a couple of cars, five or six security guys, and a full-body disguise. But no. Michael looked just like his usual, splendid self. Not the stage animal in buckles and leather she had seen on TV, and not even the classy young man in a suit she had met at the wedding, but still very much in tune with himself. That afternoon, he wore simple black slacks and a dark grey shirt, face clean shaved, hair loosely tied in a ponytail. The cute guy next door, once again. One you could easily be friends with.

Lisa closed the car door, and Michael’s scent immediately washed over her. Yeah, he smelled great. All the time. She had already noticed that, too, at the wedding.

Michael rolled up the window and kept smiling at her.

“Hi!”.

“Dude, you’re late.” Lisa watched him with a stern expression.

Michael’s smile faltered, and he looked at her apologetically.

“Am I? I’m sorry… I had to stop at the gas station and…”, he scratched the back of his head. “…I’m so very sorry”.

And then he blushed. Lisa chuckled and shook her head.

“It’s OK. I’m just fucking with you. Don’t worry…”.

“Yeah?”.

“Yeah.” She rested her hand on his and squeezed it for a second. “It’s nice to see you, Michael. It’s been a long time, and I’m happy you’re back.” Her voice sounded suddenly very soft, and Michael smiled again. It was like watching the sun rise on a warm, breezy summer day.

“Me too! I’m so glad you called… and asked me out”.

“I didn’t ask you out,” Lisa laughed, “I just wanted to spend some time with my good friend Mike.”

“For real? Cool”.

He laughed, and she detected something in his eyes, just for a fleeting moment. Something that disappeared almost immediately, sucked back into those dark eyes, something she couldn’t put her finger on – a glimpse that she had already noticed when they had first met again as adults. As if Michael was somehow interested in her, or at least hoped she would be interested in him. But no, it was impossible. That superstar right there, the sexy artist incinerating stage after stage in every corner of the world couldn’t want her, of all people. Not only Lisa was almost ten years younger than Michael, but she also lived a life that was completely different from the only one he had always known. Michael probably didn’t even remember what it felt like not to be famous, or what walking among people going completely unnoticed was like, while she… Well, despite her name and her face, which was a mirror-image of her father’s, she had always had the luxury of living her life freely, coming and going just as she pleased. So, no. It was unlikely that Michael was looking for anything but a few hours out with a sorta-kinda friend, someone he had spent some lovely hours over the phone with, someone who, at times, had also partaken in some intense, serious discussions.

Plus, Michael knew that Lisa had just become a mother, albeit a very young one, and that she was married. And she was under the impression that he was extremely respectful of that. So, friendly meeting indeed. Not that she wanted anything else from him.

“Where are you taking me? And most of all, why were you driving like a madman? I thought you were drunk”.

Michael frowned.

“What? I’m not drunk, and I was going slow”. He glanced at the rear-view mirror and sped off, and the sudden acceleration immediately propelled Lisa backward, against her seat.

“Whoa, what the fuck! Slow down, crazy man! You’re gonna get us killed!”, she laughed nervously.

He giggled, looking completely unfazed.

“Whatcha talking about, girl? I am an excellent driver… I even used the blinker”.

“Oh, did you?”. She threw him a look and shook her head in amusement. He was serious. He was a horrible driver and didn’t know it. Or didn’t care. “Nobody ever said anything to you about the way you drive?”.

Michael shook his head and shrugged.

“Not that I remember… Anyway, to answer your question, we’re going to Echo Park Lake”.

Lisa’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“Really? That’s an interesting choice… I like it”.

His eyes still focused on the road, he let out a lopsided smirk.

“I’m glad.”

And off to Echo Park Lake they went.

The afternoon was coming to an end, and the silence of the evening had started to envelop the space like a cloak. The park was beautiful and so very quiet at that moment.

It was not deserted, there were people around, mainly joggers, couples, and people walking their dogs, but the environment was peaceful and tranquil enough to allow Michael to relax a little bit. Lisa thought that there had to be a reason why he had picked that place, amongst the many others he could have chosen. Maybe its absolute normalcy, the ordinary beauty it communicated had something to do with it.

As they strolled along the lake, Michael realized that Lisa’s proximity made him feel a little bit more overwhelmed than he had initially expected. When she had asked him if he wanted to see her, he had been surprised and so happy. He had been waiting to see the little Presley girl again since Branca’s wedding, but his tour had kept him busy for so long that he had feared she would forget all about him. That was why he had made a point of calling Lisa at least once a week, it didn’t matter where he was, or how tired he felt. Soon, he had discovered that Lisa’s voice had an incredibly soothing effect on him and that after talking to her, sleep would always come much more easily. On a couple of occasions during those long nights spent over the phone, he had also had the feeling that they were flirting a little, innocently, but he wasn’t sure. They would joke a lot, and banter, and laugh together. They had somehow become intimate, turning that often impersonal tool into a very personal means of communication. The boundaries, at times, would blur and their tone would become hushed, almost whispered, as they spoke about their dreams, their hopes, and their struggles.

So, anyway, when she had asked him out, he had merely run to her. He couldn’t wait to see her. And when he had indeed seen her, she had taken his breath away. He liked Lisa, and couldn’t deny that, to him, she was beautiful and sexy, funny, smart. But she was also married now, had just had a kid, and Michael knew that he could only be sinful with his eyes and his thoughts. His words and actions – well, those were a different business, and they had to stay in check.

“So… how’s life at the ranch? Did you move there already?”.

Michael shrugged.

“Not permanently. I still love hanging out at my hideout… and I still go back to my mom’s every chance I get.”

“What a mamma’s boy…”. She pushed him, lightly.

He snorted.

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are…”, she winked at him, “You love having women take care of you, don’t you?”.

“I can take care of myself just fine, thank you. And, if you really wanna know, I love taking care of my women, too…”. He raised his eyebrows suggestively, and Lisa laughed.

“Hear, hear… Plural, no less!”.

“Let’s just not go there… how’s your little girl?”, Michael turned serious and stared at her as they kept sauntering, side by side, their arms slightly brushing against one another.

Lisa’s features softened immediately.

“Oh, she’s so beautiful, Michael… You have no idea. I hope you’ll have the chance to meet her very soon”.

“I hope so, too… How old is she, now?”.

“She’s almost five months old…”.

“I saw the pictures, you know? The ones on People… You were on the cover… with little Riley. It was sweet”. He smiled at her, very softly, and Lisa blinked. There was a tenderness about Michael, an honest, genuine gentleness that never failed to amaze her. He was thoughtful and attentive, and never forgot a thing. She liked that about him – among other things.

“Yeah, well… I looked a bit bloated, but… hey… all in all, it could have been worse”.

“You looked amazing. And even more so now”. His voice dropped a little in color, becoming deeper, like velvet. Lisa’s eyes lowered, but she kept smiling. Michael cleared his throat.

“Hey… why don’t we sit down on that bench for a while? I wanna see the sunset reflecting on the lake…”.

“Sure, why not?”, Lisa shrugged. And ignored the shivers running down her spine after hearing him compliment her. She was not entirely used to that. Not from Danny, anyway. Not anymore. And anyone else… well, usually they all wanted something from her, and that was why they would try to snow her. Michael, on the other hand, was different. He had everything. Didn’t need anything from her. So she had to assume that he was being honest… or maybe, just a terrific friend.

They sat on the bench, facing the blue sparking surface of the water, not far away from the statute. The Lady of The Lake. They stayed quiet for a long time, just enjoying each other’s company, sitting close, but not really touching. It was incredible how not even silence ever felt uncomfortable, with him. They were both utterly at ease. When Michael spoke again, the sky had taken that bluish tint that always preluded the arrival of the night.

“It’s nice, don’t you think? After a while, you almost forget you’re in the middle of one of the world’s most densely populated cities…”.

“Yeah…”. Lisa could hear the crickets chirping. They sounded as if they were everywhere, and yet she couldn’t see them. She glanced around. “You know what they say about Echo Park Lake, right? That it’s the perfect place for making out… And I gotta admit there’s something about the combination of water shooting into the air, ducks and paddle boats that is deeply romantic. I wonder why no-one ever took me here…”.

“Clearly, because they had no imagination and were not romantic” Michael gave her a sexy little grin, “Or maybe they were just shy and didn’t wanna make out here in the open.”

Lisa chuckled. “What? There might be a lot of people around, but they’re all going to be too busy to notice a little face-sucking”.

“You’re too much, Lisa.”

She just ran her fingers through her hair, and more silence followed, interrupted only by the water splashing in the lake and the slight murmurs of some passers-by. She was right: nobody was paying any attention to them – or Michael, more specifically.

“Are you staying for long? Here in L.A., I mean…”.

“For a few days… I got a couple of weeks before another set of shows… Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio… and so on… And then I’ll be finally done with this tour”.

“Aren’t you tired? It must be exhausting…”. She turned her face to look at him. He was staring at the lake, arms spread on the backrest of the bench, looking pensive.

“It is… But I love being on stage. I don’t necessarily like touring, but connecting with the audience… with all those people… well, that’s the best part of my job. Together with creating music, that is”.

“Do you ever think about… I don’t know… Just… slowing down… Taking some time off and focus on your private life? I mean… Having a job that you love is great, but I believe that having kids, making a family, that’s what keeps it all together”.

“I believe so, too,” Micheal finally turned and looked at her. “And I’d love to have my own family… A wife to go back to… Kids… I just… I don’t think I’ve found the right woman, yet”.

“Oh, but you will… You’ll see, she’ll pop up in your life without you even noticing… I mean, how can she not?”, Lisa smirked at him, and he just mirrored her expression, all the while noticing how her blue irises sparkled in the semi-darkness, fascinated by those hooded eyes of hers. One of her best assets… together with many other very interesting body parts.

For a split second, Michael wondered what it would be like to be at Danny Keough’s place, to have Lisa as his wife. But the thought was a little too intense and unexpected for him, and he chased it away. All that remained was a sudden, intense desire to feel Lisa’s lips on his, under the darkening sky, the almost revealed stars, but not quite visible yet.

Neverland, Spring 1990 – Until the time is right

Michael didn’t wait for Lisa to arrive at the main house. He started walking down the road leading to the front gates and slowed down when he saw her car approaching. He smiled and waved his hand, even though it was getting dark and the headlights didn’t allow him to see her face.

The car pulled over, went quiet, and the driver’s door opened. Lisa stepped out and smiled, very widely.

“Hey… thanks for having me on such short notice”.

Michael shrugged sheepishly and walked over to her, opening his arms and pulling her into a hug. The contact was not in the least awkward – in fact, it felt warm and right. Just like their long conversations over the phone. Those had started more than a year earlier, after they had first reconnected at John’s wedding. Their friendly meetings had been way more sporadic but appreciated by both.

When, a couple of hours earlier, Lisa had called asking him if she could spend some time at the ranch, he had immediately agreed. He was home alone, with nothing to do, really, and didn’t mind some company. Plus, he liked Lisa. He liked her straightforward, no-nonsense attitude. It was a breath of fresh air and gave him a sense of normalcy that was completely missing in his life. The fact that she was also so easy on the eyes was a welcome addition, although he had never dared acting anything but friendly with her.

“Uhm, let me take Riley.” Lisa pulled back, and Michael smiled when he heard the baby babbling, from the backseat.

“Here… I’ll help you”.

He took the bag from Lisa’s hands and noticed some diapers and a couple of baby bottles inside. She watched as Lisa bent down and freed Riley from her baby seat and his eyes lingered on her amazing ass for a second. He averted his gaze.

“Say hi to Michael,” Lisa took Riley’s small, chubby hand and moved it up and down towards him and he, immediately, reached out, letting the baby grab his finger.

“Hi, Ri! Wow, she’s getting so big!”.

“I know, right?”.

“Yeah… let’s go. It’s getting cold out here”.

“Uh, Michael… you sure it’s not a problem if I spend the night here at the ranch? I truly needed to get away for a day or two”.

“No problem, really. There’s enough space for the three of us here”.

Lisa laughed. “There’s enough space for an army.”

“Yeah, I know.” He glanced at her and giggled, happy to have her there.

They had a quiet dinner after making sure Riley was well fed and sleeping comfortably in the “baby room” that Michael had arranged in one of the guest rooms. He had a virtually endless series of brothers and sisters and cousins and friends continually visiting the ranch with their babies and liked to be prepared. He wanted kids to have everything they needed, and Riley was no exception: plush toys, baby monitors, cribs, fresh sheets, and rattles were all props that he had gladly made available at Neverland. Michael wasn’t always there, and when he was, he mainly spent his time in his quarters – a bedroom that was, in fact, a duplex, with three bathrooms, two bedrooms, a living area, a playroom and everything he needed to unwind and relax. The rest of the mansion was empty all the time, except for the staff, when guests weren’t around. But he loved to have all that space for himself; he liked to know that, if he wanted to go out for a walk, he was not limited by any visible boundaries.

“So… how bad is it?”, Michael asked, sipping his wine.

“What do you mean?”. Lisa crossed her legs and watched him.

They had moved to the living area in Michael’s quarters and were relaxing on the couch, near the fireplace, drinking some delicious and costly red wine that he had picked from his cellar.

“I mean… with Danny. I don’t think you would have driven all the way over here if it was good…”.

He glanced at Lisa, and she stared at her glass, biting her lip. He couldn’t help but notice – for the umpteenth time – how beautiful she was. It wasn’t only the resemblance to her father that had always struck Michael, but something that was unique, and that just belonged to Lisa. Maybe it was something in those cerulean eyes that seemed to change from deep blue to aqua green, following the light and her emotions. They held the reflection of ancient loneliness, a never soothed pain that made her look way wiser than her young age.

“Is it as bad as it was last year?”, Michael asked tentatively and felt his cheeks blush. He was not sure he should be so inquisitive and hoped Lisa would merely tell him to back off if he crossed any boundaries.

“Yes. No. I don’t know…”. She sighed and rubbed her forehead, then gulped down her wine and fixed her eyes on the flames in the fireplace. “I am not sure if this life I’m living is something I have chosen for myself or…”.

“…Or something someone else has chosen for you”. Michael stated quietly.

Lisa nodded her head.

“Yeah.”

“And who would that be?”.

“That’s a good question. My mom… The church… everyone. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing what everyone expects me to do, and not what I really want. It’s just so confusing”.

Silence enveloped them both for a few minutes.

“I mean… It’s not that I don’t love Danny. I do. It’s just… Sometimes I just feel I’m going through the motions. And I don’t remember if it has always been this way or if it used to be different, once. Riley is the only thing that keeps me sane”.

Michael placed his glass on the coffee table and glanced at the baby monitor. The baby was sleeping soundly. He turned sideways on the couch to take a good look at Lisa and didn’t interrupt her.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten married. It was probably too soon”, she murmured as if she was talking to herself.

“Why not? You just said you love Danny”.

“Yeah,” Lisa finally turned to look at Michael in the eyes. “I do. But I don’t feel I’m in love with him. I love him as a friend. I like him as a partner. He is a good father to Riley. I like the routine of married life, the sense of security it gives me. But at the same time, I know that shouldn’t be the reason why you get married in the first place”.

“I wish I could give you some good piece of advice, but I’m afraid I’m not equipped in that department…”. Michael gave her a lopsided smile, and she chuckled.

“Yeah. You’re free as a bird”.

“More or less,” he tilted his head and poured himself another glass of wine. He glanced up at Lisa. “You want?”.

“Sure. Thank you”.

He refilled her glass and, when he handed it to her, their fingers touched for a moment. Michael blinked and could swear that Lisa did just the same.

“What do you think marriage should be about?”, he asked her.

Lisa shrugged slightly and raked her hand through her hair.

“Deep love. Passion. Trust. Support. Mutual understanding. Chemistry… I guess”.

“And you don’t think you have that, with Danny.”

“I thought I did, and maybe once it was just that way. But now I’m not so sure anymore. Every emotion, every sensation feels dull. Like an old, brown suit that makes you look older than your real age”.

Michael laughed.

“That’s a pretty appropriate simile.”

Lisa laughed with him and pushed him lightly.

“Glad it satisfies you, mister Sophisticated.”

They stared at each other and Lisa noticed how dark and soulful Michael’s eyes looked in the dimly lit room. He indeed had stunning eyes. And a beautiful smile. Something inexplicable rose in the pit of her stomach, and she tried to silence it with another sip of wine. The feeling kept humming in the background of her soul.

“So, what are you gonna do now?”, he asked, very softly, his head resting in his hand.

“That’s another million-dollar question. I wish I were different… better than this. I’m sure things would work out just fine”.

He frowned.

“Lisa, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Yes. Yes, there is”.

“Not at all.” He raised his eyebrows and reached over, touching her knee for a moment. “You’re smart, and funny, and good-hearted, and generous… you’re gorgeous and – I mean…”. He shook his head. “…There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. Danny is a very lucky man… In fact, I’m a bit jealous of him”.

Lisa snorted and pretended to ignore his last comment. It made her feel a bit giddy, though.

“Believe me… he doesn’t feel that way. He is as unhappy in this marriage as I am”.

Michael let out a long sigh.

“Well then… You don’t have to do something you don’t wanna do. You know that, right?”.

“I guess.” She didn’t look convinced.

Michael turned to her fully and placed his hands on his thighs, straightening his back.

“OK. What would you like to do?”.

“I told you –“.

“No, you told me you don’t know what you’re gonna do. I’m asking you what you wanna do”. He grinned. “It’s different.”

She studied him for a moment, biting the inside of her cheek.

“I just want to feel. Sometimes I wonder what you feel, when you’re onstage, in front of that ocean of people. I’d love to feel emotions so strong and deep that I can’t even breathe anymore”.

Michael’s smile widened.

“I can take you onstage with me if you want.”

Lisa burst out laughing.

“No way! I’m too shy for that. I didn’t mean that I want to be like you… I meant that I need to feel something… intense. I think I’ve completely forgotten about that”.

“It is intense, you know?”.

“Yeah, I can tell. I saw you on TV during your last tour. You change completely when you’re performing”. She suddenly remembered watching him in the news. He looked superhuman. So talented. Drenched in sweat. Mesmerizing.

“That’s because I don’t think. I just feel”, he replied, very quietly.

“See? That’s exactly the point”.

“The soul has been given its own ears to hear things the mind does not understand,” Michael mused, and Lisa raised her eyebrow.

“Wow, are you quoting Rumi, now? You trying to impress me?”.

He stared at her, sincerely surprised.

“You know Rumi?”.

Lisa twirled a strand of hair with her fingers and rolled her eyes.

“I certainly do. You’re not the only bookworm here…”.

Michael smiled, just slightly, as they stared at each other.

“Well, clearly not… And I gotta say, it suits you. There are just so many layers of you…”.

“You think you got me all figured out, huh?”. Lisa laughed.

Were they flirting?

“I don’t know.” Michael shrugged slightly. “But I’d certainly love to…”.

Lisa just kept staring at him, drowning in his eyes without even realizing it.

“You should just do what you feel is right for you…”, Michael murmured, and swallowed when he realized that his gaze had fallen on her lips.

The proximity of her body allowed him to feel her warmth. His body was turned to hers fully and his knee brushed against her leg. It felt as if the air around them had suddenly thickened.

Lisa looked just as entranced.

She tilted her head to a side, just slightly, and her hand covered his, still resting on the backrest of the couch. Michael’s heartbeat started to race.

“Michael, I…”

He entwined his fingers with hers, and she gasped, imperceptibly. With the usual fluidity that characterized all his movements, and without even thinking, he scooted closer to her. Her blue eyes felt like an irresistible call. Something he could not ignore.

Lisa stroked the back of his hand with her thumb, slowly, rhythmically.

“I should…”, Michael bit down on his lower lip. “…I should probably let you go to sleep”.

“Yeah… You should”, she whispered in return, staring at his mouth.

“OK… Then… Goodnight, Lisa”. He didn’t pull away but moved even closer instead. Lisa angled her head, her eyes hooded now. And he knew she wasn’t going to reject him.

“Goodnight, Michael.”

His mind shut off entirely and, as if he was moving underwater, he closed the gap that separated them.

His lips touched hers and, immediately, Lisa’s hand cradled his cheek. Soft pecks, light kisses on the lips. They both kept their eyes open, surprised and amazed at what was happening and, at least for the time being, unable to stop it.

Lisa felt as if she was observing herself from the outside. For a moment, it truly felt like an extra-corporeal experience. But the accelerated beating of her heart, the sense of dizziness swirling deep in the pit of her stomach and the sudden warmth in between her legs, were all physical sensations. No doubt about that. And yes, they were intense. They were not dull. Not at all.

She would have never expected to be looking at Michael… like that. And yet it felt so right. He felt so good. She finally closed her eyes and sighed against his lips. They were soft and full, amazing to the touch. When the tip of his tongue grazed her bottom lip, she felt a shiver run down her spine and, automatically, opened up to him, her fingers raking through his hair now. She angled her head and kissed him slowly and thoroughly, their tongues finally exploring one another, stroking and enticing, and heard him groan in a grave tone that reached her straight in between her legs.

Meanwhile, Michael’s beautiful, strong hands were cupping her face, his fingers caressing her skin with incredible tenderness. Lisa couldn’t help but notice how sweet and gentle he was, and yet there was something else – something that lay beneath, a simmering passion, a blistering fire that he could barely restrain. The rawest, more primal part of her wished to unleash whatever it was that Michael fiercely protected behind the thick curtains of his most intimate self.

She already knew that the man-child persona he liked to present publicly was not at all who he was behind closed doors. Or, better said, that was only a tiny piece of him. Michael was a complicated, complex man, a kaleidoscope of colors and shades and the childlike part was just one of his many faces. By getting to know him, Lisa had quickly understood that behind the shy, introverted surface lay a very alpha male core. He had not fought his way to the top by being a wimp. There was nothing weak, cowardly or ineffectual about Michael. In fact, it was just the opposite: his iron core was made of intelligence, determination, perceptiveness, and some rough edges that Lisa liked quite a lot because they made him human. At the same time, he was honestly kind-hearted, gentle and empathetic, a pure soul. And now, another part was emerging, leaving her breathless.

The way he kissed her. Lisa did not remember ever been kissed that way. She didn’t remember ever reaching such a level of arousal just by kissing someone. How many times was she going to be surprised by this man?

He finally pulled back, his breath uneven and ragged. He blinked his eyelids repeatedly and swallowed, still caressing her face.

“I’m sorry… I… I shouldn’t have-“. And instead he thought: but I so wanted to.

Lisa, her eyes dazed, just shook her head and pulled him to her, their lips connecting once again. This time, their kiss was deep and passionate, and Michael seemed to forget about every doubt and hesitation. Lisa was married, that was true, and he had always respected that. But she also had been very clear with him: she was unhappy. She had been unhappy for a long time. One year earlier they had spent several days together, when she was still pregnant with Riley and, even back then, Lisa’s relationship with Danny had been literally in shambles. Michael was not in the position to blame or judge her for wanting some space, some freedom, some emotion for herself.

Plus, he had to be honest: he had liked her since she had met her again at Branca’s wedding. She was beautiful and sexy, smart and genuinely fascinating. He was attracted to her. His body reacted whenever she was close to him, and it was something that he could not control. In that very moment, he didn’t even want to.

Lisa scooted closer to him, and Michael felt her breasts brush against his chest. His penis stirred in his pants and he sighed, letting go of her lips and leaving a trail of kisses on her cheeks, her throat. When she leaned her head back and moaned, his ears buzzed and he closed his eyes, his tongue licking the hollow of her neck, sucking on her soft skin.

“Oh my God… Michael”, she let out in a breath.

“Lisa…”. He spoke against her hot skin, in a ragged, throaty whisper. His hands clasped her tiny waist, and he looked up at her. He waited until she finally opened those eyes that looked like bright blue pools and stared back at him.

“You better stop me now, or…”.

“Or…?”. She put her fingers to his lips, gently. She wasn’t teasing him. She was serious.

Michael kissed her fingertips, and she closed her eyes again for a second.

“…Or I’m afraid I’m gonna lose my mind”.

Lisa bit her lips.

“What if I don’t want to stop you?”. Her voice sounded restrained but fragile, like glass.

Michael shook his head. He didn’t have an answer.

She cradled his face in her warm hands.

“What if I wanted to lose my mind with you? If I asked you to forget about everything, just for tonight? To just… make me feel…”.

What Michael was not sure she realized was how much she affected him. She was not the only one who wanted to feel, to get swept away by that uncontrollable passion, to relinquish all control and only do what felt right, pushing every second thought aside… for once.

Her fingertips traced the side of his face, and her mysterious blue eyes pushed him into the abyss with one last tiny shove.

“Make me feel, Michael…”.

The rational part of his mind just shut down. Michael pulled her in, and their lips collided once again, dancing a dance that they already knew by heart. The immediate chemistry made Lisa feel like she was floating underwater. Michael’s body, so new and so familiar at the same time, was the magnet and she was the quicksilver, liquefying and changing her shape under his pull. She found herself straddling him, her hands on his broad shoulders, her fingers spreading on his chest and sliding down his stomach. His taut, strong muscles twitched under her touch, and she sighed into his mouth, feeling his hands touch the naked skin of her back, under the sweater.

This was madness. And nothing had ever felt so right.

As her heartbeat raced in her chest and the oxygen constricted in her lungs, she suddenly realized the insane level of attraction she was feeling for this man. And he was still completely clothed!

Lisa wondered, for a second, if her perception was somehow altered by the fact that, after having given birth to Riley, she had barely let Danny touch her again. And those rare times had been “meh” at their best, and downright godawful at their worst. She and Danny had no chemistry, no rhythm, no passion, no synchronicity.

Yeah, maybe she just needed a good fuck. And Michael, with his beautiful, athletic dancer’s body and out-of-this-world energy, felt just perfect.

And yet there was something else. Something in the way he looked at her, in the way he touched her – as if she was a precious thing. Lisa was not sure she had ever experienced anything similar before. But then again – had she ever met anyone like Michael? He was unique. One of a kind, really.

Her stream of consciousness reached a sudden halt when Michael’s fingers unzipped her sweater, and his scorching hot lips reached her collarbone, kissing and nibbling. Then, his hands moved on her hips, stroking her through her pants in seductive, circular motions. The fabric felt like sweet torture and she clung to his shoulders, kissing the top of his head and inhaling the scent of his hair.

“Fuck,” she breathed out as her pelvis pushed down on his groin, feeling his erection.

Michael looked up at her, the last shadow of self-control barely visible in his eyes.

“You sure you wanna do this?”.

“Yeah…”, she replied breathlessly. “Are you?”.

Wordlessly, he grabbed the baby monitor and got up from the couch without letting her go, and she closed her legs around his waist. As they kept kissing, he climbed up the wooden staircase leading to his bedroom. He was way stronger than he looked.

When he finally reached the bed, he sat and kept Lisa in his lap. She immediately started unbuttoning his shirt.

Michael flinched as if caught off guard.

“Wait… wait… let me turn out the light”.

He stretched out his arm, trying to reach for the lamp on the nightstand nearby. The room was only dimly lit, and his sudden urgency startled Lisa.

“Wait – why?”. She frowned. One hand grabbed his arm, stilling his movement, while the other gently turned his face to her.

Michael bit his lips and averted her gaze, recoiling. His face was flushed and the massive erection Lisa felt throbbing and pushing up and into her, barely restrained by his jeans, told her that he wanted this just like she did. What the hell was going on, then?

Then it dawned on her. It was because of the spots. The spots on his skin. She had already noticed them, by seeing Michael in private wearing only his t-shirt. She hadn’t thought much of them, really, and surely they were not a problem now. In fact, they were not a problem at all.

“No… Michael. I want to see you. I need to see you, to feel you”.

His body stiffened, and he kept his eyes stubbornly fixed on the floor.

“Hey… look at me”.

When he didn’t react, she kissed his forehead, his ear, his lips, with gentle pecks, again and again.

“Look at me, Michael… please”.

With an unsteady sigh, he finally stared at her. His eyes were dark with desire and barely hid his fear and worry.

Lisa swallowed and licked her lips, hoping to find the right words to convey precisely how she felt.

“I need to see you. You’re so gorgeous, Mike… You don’t need to hide. Not from me”.

“I’m not,” he winced. “I’m so fucking ugly Lisa, you really don’t wanna see all of me, trust me.”

“No, you trust me.” She cradled his face and tilted it up, intercepting his eyes again. “OK? Just trust me”.

Finally, she felt him relax against her body and angled her head, kissing him again, deep this time, their tongues dancing, stroking, probing. His hands ran over her back and unclasped her bra, and she took off her sweater. The bra fell in between their bodies, and she threw it on the floor carelessly, and Michael smirked. She grinned back at him and finished unbuttoning his shirt, pushing it down his shoulders and finally getting rid of it.

He truly was gorgeous. He had absolutely nothing to hide. If anything, those spots and lines looked like a treasure map on the beautiful, magical island of his body.

As he cupped her breasts, caressing and stroking her nipples, Lisa bent over and started kissing his chest, licking at sucking at his skin, leaving a trail of kisses from his pectorals to his collarbone and shoulders. Her fingers raking through his hair, she nibbled at his neck and kissed the perfect line of his jawbone. He moaned in pleasure.

Lisa pulled his head down to her chest and, when his mouth closed on her nipple, she hissed.

“Shit…”.

Instinctively, her hand reached down in between their bodies and finally touched him where he needed her the most. Her nipple still in his mouth, Michael let out a baritone moan that pushed Lisa over the edge. He was throbbing and pulsing, his penis painfully constrained by the fabric of his jeans. For a second, he feared he would break his fly. He prayed she would help him out quick – because racing to the ER with a bloodied dick before even putting it where it needed to be was not how he wanted the night to end.

He moved his mouth from one nipple to the other and kept stroking her warm flesh, caressing the soft swell of her breasts.

“Fuck… you’re just so perfect, Lisa…”, he whispered, “So beautiful…”.

Lying down on his back, he took her with him and kissed her again, long and full, as his fingers got busy unbuttoning her jeans. She mirrored his actions, and they both fumbled with buttons and zippers.

They giggled.

“Wait, let me…”.

“Let me help you.”

Forehead against forehead, their breaths uneven and shaky, they somehow managed to push down their respective pants and underwear at the same time, wiggling out of them. Their urgency was becoming overbearing, their bodies calling one another like sirens.

On her hands and knees and still straddling Michael’s body, Lisa reached down blindly and finally took him into her hand. Her eyes snapped open, and she looked down.

“What the…”.

Michael held his breath and stared at her, his hands stilling their movements on her hips.

“What?”.

“Holy… shit”. Lisa whispered the words and raked her fingers through her hair. She looked up at him and then down again and swallowed. Then her grip tightened around his penis, and she started stroking him, applying just the right amount of pressure. Michael closed his eyes and covered her hand with his own, accompanying her movements, his other hand grabbing her by the back of her neck and pulling her down, to his mouth.

They kissed, and he let go of her hand, reaching her in between her legs, finally. Her hips jerked forward when he touched her, his fingers probing and exploring her gently, thoroughly.

“You’re… so wet, Lise”, he breathed out against her lips, in between kisses.

Fuck, she truly was. She didn’t remember the last time she had been so turned on. And she was pretty sure that what she was holding in her hand had contributed to that, massively. Her whole body tingled in anticipation.

“And you’re…”, she pulled back slightly and looked at him with a sheepish smirk, “…well, you’re fucking huge, Michael… shit…”.

He blushed and bit his lip, hiding a smirk, then rolled over, hovering above Lisa’s body. She hadn’t let go of him, and he exhaled, slowly, hoping he would be able to hold off and resist the urge to come right then and there in her hand, like a virgin.

Framing her torso with his hands, he kissed down her neck to her breasts, again, and then to her stomach and belly, nibbling and sucking, loving the feeling of her, squirming under his ministrations. He focused on her pelvic bone and sucked the soft skin there and, by the way her hips undulated against him, her wetness spreading on his skin with each rolling of her pelvis, he knew that she loved what he was doing. Lisa opened her legs and pushed his head down.

“Please… please, kiss me. Take me”, she sighed.

Michael thought his heart was going to jump out of his chest. He rested his palm over her womanhood, her skin scorching hot, and his thumb slid against her, opening her up to his mouth. When he plunged into her, Lisa cried out and arched her back, and he thought that heaven probably looked just like that.

Lisa’s head was spinning. She felt drunk with lust, with pure, primal, carnal desire. It was like nothing she had ever experienced, and she wondered how it was even possible to have such chemistry with a man she had never even been with, before. It was uncanny and yet felt so incredibly predestined. Her body was the master and the slave, the planet and the universe, the taker and the giver of endless sensations and emotions flowing through her like ocean waves and not for a second she thought that what they were doing was wrong. Against all the odds and despite the apparently incorrect timing.

Michael’s lips, tongue and fingers on her, into her were like a paintbrush on canvas, and she became a watercolor in his hands. When she came it was hard and almost painful, and she bit down on the back of her hand, her other hand still pressing Michael’s head down, against her pulsing core.

He slid up on her body, and they kissed, and kissed, and kissed, Lisa’s hips arching up and stroking his dick. They rolled on the mattress, and she found herself lying on Michael’s torso. There was nothing more that she wanted, in that very moment, than feeling him inside.

As she reached down and started pumping him again, all the while rubbing him against her core, Michael’s eyes snapped open.

“Wait…”.

Lisa groaned.

“Lise… I… I’m afraid I don’t have any condoms”. His voice sounded strained.

“What?”. Her rational mind desperately tried to push through the fog of her arousal. “How? I mean… why?”. She was totally out of breath.

He rolled his eyes and sighed in frustration.

“I don’t… I mean, I’ve never had any company here… and…”. Words failed him miserably.

Her head dropped, and her forehead rested on his chest for a moment. Unbelievable! This sex god didn’t have a rubber! Lisa guessed he was not a womanizer, after all, despite his natural talent in the sheets.

“…And you don’t have the necessaire…”. She snorted.

“I guess not…”. His breath was quick and uneven.

Maybe that was a sign. Perhaps they should just stop there and forget about it all. She could just go to bed and pretend nothing had happened, that it was all just a dream. A sultry, hot, wet, forbidden dream.

Lisa raised her head and stared at him.

“Are you… clear?”.

Michael blinked and frowned.

“You mean healthy? Yeah…”. He realized what she meant, and his expression turned hopeful. “…Are you?”.

Lisa chuckled breathlessly. Her hand was still holding his dick which, by the way, seemed about to explode.

“Yeah, of course… And I’m also on the pill… so… if you feel like it…”.

“We should be safe…”, he finished.

“Yeah…”.

He hesitated for just a millisecond. Then, he grabbed her head and pulled her down to him, claiming her lips once again, his tongue entering her mouth aggressively. She responded without any restraint and they just… let go.

She took care of him, kissing him thoroughly all over his body – on his shoulders, and chest, and stomach, on the taut muscles of his lower abdomen. As her hand kept setting the rhythm on him, she just stared in amazement at his manhood. He looked perfect, so beautiful. Looking up at him and drowning in the black pool of desire she found in his eyes, she took him into her mouth and moaned when she saw his eyelids close in pure ecstasy.

“Fuck… Lise”, he breathed out, his fingers in her hair, caressing and stroking.

She let go of him for a moment and kissed his hot flesh, running her tongue over the soft skin covering the iron core.

“You taste like heaven… Gosh, you’re just so gorgeous, Michael”.

“No… no, you are…”, he barely replied in between gritted teeth as she went down on him again. And she really was. So beautiful and sexy. Drop-dead gorgeous. A goddess in his bed, draped all over him. It was magic. He had never felt anything like it.

When he realized that he was on the verge of losing his mind, he somehow managed to pull her up and into his lap, kissing her lips, tasting himself into her mouth. He sat up, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her hips undulating against his groin.

He took his dick and positioned the tip at her opening, and stared into her eyes.

“You ready? You really want this?”, he asked, softly.

“Fuck, yes…”, she breathed out and then smiled breathlessly. “But it’s best if you let me do it… you’re not exactly little”.

“OK…”.

She lowered herself on his body, taking him into her searing hotness inch by inch, in agonizingly slow motion, and he watched her flinch in pleasure and pain. His heart thumped in his throat, like a drum.

“Shit…”.

“You OK?”.

“Yeah… Goddamnit, Michael”.

He felt as if invisible hands were pressing on his temples as he sunk into her body. She was tight, hot, heavenly. Being inside of her… felt like home.

“Move… Mike, move, for heaven’s sake”.

She threw her head back as he finally pushed up, filling her completely and reaching her cervix.

They both moaned out loud, and Lisa’s head bounced forward, her forehead resting against his, now. Their eyes locked.

“Keep moving… please… Take me. Give it to me”.

“Shit…”.

He placed his hands on her waist and kept her body slightly hoisted over his. Then he started to push and thrust into her, alternating straight, deep jabs with rotating movements, reaching each and every spot inside of her. Lisa’s mouth opened, and her breath came out in gasps.

He kept a slow, steady rhythm, allowing her body to adapt and stretch under his movements, to get used to his size.

“You feel… so… fucking… good”, he moaned in between kisses, and she sobbed, biting down on his shoulder as he gave her a couple of faster, deeper thrusts. A second later, she shook and trembled against him, climaxing hard. Michael took in a long breath, letting her ride her wave and at the same time trying hard to keep control over his own body.

Just a little more of this. Hold it. Hold on a little longer. Make it last.

Taking her with him, he shifted their position and placed her on her back, one hand cupping her ass, the other one resting, palm flat, on the mattress, supporting his own body and giving him the leverage he needed. As he started to move again, reaching all the way into her, their bodies found their rhythm and synchronicity as if they had been united like that forever, and she placed her hand on his chest, right on his heart, feeling his heartbeat getting faster and faster.

“Oh God…”, she whispered.

They never stopped looking at each other and Lisa fought, with all her strength, to suppress feelings that had absolutely nothing to do with the intense physical pleasure she was experiencing.

When she felt him throb and pulse into her, and he squeezed his eyes shut, his pelvis jerking and shuddering, she knew he couldn’t wait any longer.

Instinctively, Michael started to withdraw from her body, and Lisa’s legs squeezed him, pulling him deep into her again.

“No… no… stay…”, she panted. “Stay with me.”

“I’m gonna come hard, baby… I can’t hold on any longer”, he managed to let out, breathlessly.

“I know… It’s OK…”. She felt the familiar heat in her belly, like a bullet thrashing from her brain and directed to her core. There was nothing she could do to stop it. She was going to come with him, and she wanted him inside of her. “Just don’t pull back…”.

His eyes widened, and then he winced, his thrusts so violent and vehement now that Lisa’s small frame shifted on the mattress, and they came together with such ferocity that they both cried out. Feeling Michael release into her, again and again, was one of the most intimate and amazing sensations she ever experienced.

Once again, she thought that making love to him not only had felt right, but had also been inherently right. Something, in her heart, told her so.

That night, she never left Michael’s bed. They made love, again and again, their urgency in trying to defeat the rising dawn unstoppable. Once the sun would be up, they both knew they had to go back to their lives.

The next day, getting ready to drive back home, Lisa let out a long sigh and looked up at him. He had his hands in his pockets and was shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“OK… I’m gonna go take Riley and then…”.

“Yeah…”. He looked down at his own shoes.

“Michael…”. She stepped closer to him and rested his hand on his chest, then rose on his tiptoes to kiss him lightly on the lips.

“I’ll never regret what happened last night.”

He just gave her a sad smile.

“So you’re not willing to forget about it?”, he asked, quietly.

“Why would I?”. Her question didn’t sound like one.

“Can we at least… pretend we forgot?”. He paused and immediately noticed the pang of pain flashing in her eyes. “…Until the time is right?”, he added then, giving her a crooked smirk.

Lisa’s smile lit up his entire soul.

“Until the time is right.”

Los Angeles, January 1993 – The troublemakers

Her heart drumming furiously in her chest, Lisa pulled over and turned the engine off, resting her forehead on the wheel.

What the fuck was she doing? Why wasn’t she at home, trying to work things out with Danny?

Because there’s nothing to work out anymore. It’s over. It has been over for a long time now, and you gotta accept it and move on. The shouting matches about every single subject will no longer do.

Why? Why had she accepted to go to Brett’s house knowing well that Michael would be there, too? What the hell was she trying to prove? That seeing him wouldn’t affect her at all? Well, in that case, the joke was on her because, since that night, several weeks earlier, she had not been able to erase Michael from her mind. She should have just sent him the damn demo tape with her songs.

After their first and last passionate night together, that had left both confused and flustered, they had been pretty good at avoiding each other for more than two years – well, more or less. They had only spoken over the phone, now and then – long, heartfelt conversations where they both had always done their best to keep things on a friendly level.

Until a year after their escapade. At the MTV Video Music Awards, there had been that awkward moment after Michael’s amazing, spectacular performance when he and Lisa had bumped into each other in the backstage. She remembered Michael’s eyes: surprised at first, then inquisitive, finally captivating. But Danny was there too, so the only thing she and Michael did was saying hi to each other in a very awkward, inconspicuous way. When everything they wanted to do was saying so much more. Possibly in private. Away from her husband.

Meeting at Brett’s, the previous November, had been the last nail in the coffin and that was the reason why Lisa was now driving over to the Lindbrook – Michael’s condo. He called it his “hideout,” a place where he could just hole up and relax when he needed some privacy. The idea of she and Michael alone in his apartment was extremely dangerous, given the situation. Given the fact that, after having behaved practically all night, at Brett’s – with the exclusion of some innocent flirting – they had made out like teenagers against Lisa’s car.

While she said goodnight to the other guests, Michael, the usual gentleman, had offered to walk her to her car, and she had agreed with no hesitation.

Of course. Seeing him again had that effect on her. Hearing him talk in his normal, deep voice, joking and even cursing now and then, had dragged her into his spell one more time. And so easily. Memories of what had happened at Neverland in 1990, of that one-night-stand they had been so good at pretending they had forgotten, had flashed before her eyes and she was pretty sure had been in his mind, too. The couple of whiskeys they had sipped together hadn’t helped either. Tipsiness tended to lower inhibitions, after all, and so she had said yes.

Sure, Michael, you can walk me to my car. Why not? I’m not going to tell how many times I’ve thought about you, in the last two years. How many times I’ve woken up flustered after dreaming about you on me, in me. How many times I’ve wanted to tell you so much more about how I feel, over the phone.

At that point of the night, she was there alone. Danny had been gone for a couple of hours after having accompanied her at Brett’s. The truth was that she and her husband didn’t like to spend their time together anymore. Not even the birth of Benjamin had been able to fix things – but that made sense, after all. Usually, kids cannot fix a couple that is not functioning. Lisa was unhappy, and she had sunk into a sort of resignation – she had forgotten, once again, all about intensity. Mother and the church had contributed dramatically in turning the once rebel girl into a good young woman. She had been programmed well. And she, on her part, had done her best at repressing her memories of Michael and their night together, to the point that sometimes they almost felt like a dream.

That perfectly constructed dream had been shattered when she had found herself face to face with him again, during a mundane and yet intimate event at one of their common acquaintances’ house. The memories had come back in full force, slapping her right in the face. And, judging by the look in Michael’s eyes, he hadn’t forgotten either. But that, of course, didn’t mean anything. Michael freaking Jackson surely wasn’t longing for her. Apart from her name, Lisa didn’t think she had anything exciting to offer. She probably had just been a good lay, a distant memory in his restless mind.

Yet, at one point during the night Michael had warned her – he had lowered his head and whispered, in her ear: “You and me, we can get into a lot of trouble… Think about that, girl”.

Oh, she was thinking about that alright. She knew that Michael had been kind enough to listen to her songs and had probably even been honest when he had said that he liked them, that she had something to say when it came to music. She should have just left it at that. Michael was a professional, and his words didn’t mean shit on a personal level. And she was almost going to do the right thing – the thing any good girl would do: leaving – until he had whispered those words.

“You and me, we can get into a lot of trouble.”

You and me.

They had walked to her car quietly, side by side. After a few seconds, Michael’s cocky mask had dropped. Another persona was being pushed back into the magician’s hat, and the real man was emerging. It startled her.

“I am happy to see you… finally”, he had said, gently, and Lisa had turned to look at him. There he was. The man she had been with, at the ranch. The one she loved to speak to, over the phone. The shy and yet passionate guy who had taken her breath away, bringing her to heights she didn’t even think existed in real life. Eyes soulful, bashful smile. That gentleness, the rawest, most disarmed one he only rarely showed to people.

“I am glad to see you, too,” Lisa had crossed her arms over her chest, shivering in the cold air of the night. “You look… great”.

Michael had smirked.

“Nah. You look amazing”.

Lisa had scoffed, shaking her head.

“No, Michael. I really don’t. I’ve just had a baby, and I look like an orca. I am not even planning to go to the beach until I manage to shed some pounds. Sea Shepherd might send a team to rescue me”.

He had giggled.

“You’re silly.”

“I’m learning from the best.”

“No, but seriously. You look beautiful, Lise. You’ve always been nothing but breathtaking, to me… you know that”.

They had stopped by the car, the darkness surrounding them almost entirely.

Lisa had rested her back against the passenger door, Michael’s words shaking her to the core. How could he do that? How could he change every perspective of hers just by tossing out a couple of words?

“Well, then… thank you, Michael. And thanks for listening to my songs… it means a lot to me”.

He had stepped closer, almost entering her personal space. Almost.

“They are good. I love your voice. It’s so deep and expressive. And I think you have a real talent as a songwriter”.

She could see his eyes in the semi-darkness. They were black pools promising the most heavenly emotions.

“Glad to know I’m still able to impress you –“. As soon as she said the words, she bit her tongue. They were not going to go down that road.

Before she could say something else she would later regret, she motioned to walk around the car – it was time to leave. She didn’t like being uncomfortable in her own skin. Above all, she didn’t know how to react to that sudden feeling of being pulled out from inside.

“I gotta go… Good night, Michael”.

His hand had closed on hers as she turned and he had pulled her against his body, gently but firmly. Lisa had collided with his torso and, instinctively, her other hand had come up, resting on his chest. His heart felt like it was beating right against her palm and she had looked up at him. Michael looked calm, but inside he was a mess. Just like she was.

“Come to my condo. We’ll talk more”. Biting his lip, he had stared at her for a moment, his eyes prying, tempting.

The scent of his skin, so unique and intoxicating, had made her head spin. She had tried her hardest to fight against what felt more and more vital and inevitable.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea… What about Danny?”.

“I don’t have anything to say to him. He can stay home… But I wanna see you”.

Lisa had snorted. What else could she do?

“You truly are something.”

“Come visit me at my condo… I’ll be home until the end of the month, and then I gotta leave again…”.

“For your tour, I know.”

“And if you can’t, right now, it’s OK. I understand…. You know, with the baby and all. But I’ll be back in January, and I’ll be waiting for you”.

“Oh, you’ll be waiting for me, huh?”.

“Yeah.”

She hadn’t even realized she had intertwined her fingers with his. The same gesture that, over two years earlier, had ignited the bushfire.

“I don’t know, Michael. I am not sure it’s safe for us to be… you know, alone”.

Michael had cocked his head to a side and had smiled that blinding smile of his.

“Come on, Lise… What do you think could happen?”.

Her eyebrows had sprung up.

“Dude, are you shitting me?”.

He had laughed, rolling his eyes.

“You’re right… This, might happen”.

Without any warning, he had bent his head and kissed her.

It had felt new. It had felt ancient. It had felt real and right. Lisa had acted on pure instinct and reciprocated his kiss immediately, parting her lips and letting his tongue stroke and caress hers. It had not been tentative or awkward in the least – during their one night together, they had kissed hundreds of times, explored each other’s body repeatedly and thoroughly and those memories that Lisa had believed to be well-stored in some inaccessible part of her memory were now resurfacing without the slightest effort. A touch, a kiss and it was like they had never stopped.

Michael had pulled back and showered her face with light pecks. All the while, he had drawn her in closer, holding her in his arms.

“The time is right, now, Lise… I can feel it”. His breath was labored.

Pressed against his body, Lisa could feel it too – that, and so much more, to be honest. Her hands tingled from the desire of touching him all over, of holding him close to her body and her heart. Not before, nor after Michael she had ever experienced a sexual desire or pleasure that could be compared to the way he made her feel. And such an intense emotional connection.

Theirs was a pure, chemical reaction.

She had swallowed and then had just surrendered to the pull once again, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and capturing his lips one more time. She had closed her eyes, feeling his fingers rake through her hair.

“I don’t know, Michael…”. She had whispered in between kisses, her body pressed between Michael’s and the cold surface of her car. “I need to think about it… There are things I have to do, first… things I need to understand”.

“OK…”, he, too, had spoken against her lips. “I trust your instinct, Lise… I know you’ll make the right choice”.

And well, he had probably been wrong. Because the right choice was to make a U-turn and go back home, to Danny. And try, once again, for the millionth time, to work on a marriage that had been in a cardiac arrest from the very beginning. A marriage that was over.

Lisa had resisted the urge to see Michael for as long as possible. Considering how she felt at the mere idea of seeing him again, she was quite proud of herself. They had spoken over the phone on Christmas, wished each other a happy new year on New Year’s Eve, and that had been pretty much it. Until he had called her at the and of the Asian leg of his tour.

“I’m home, Lise. I wanna see you. Come to the hideout”. His voice gentle, but firm.

Eventually, she had relented, thinking that maybe she just needed to get him out of her system – probably she had just inflated her memories with more pathos than they held. Sometimes, a good reality check was all that was needed to rattle someone’s brains back to sanity.

Who was she fooling? She was dying to see him.

Exhaling a long sigh, Lisa turned on the engine and decided just to follow her instinct.

Michael opened the door even before she could knock on it and they stared at each other for a moment, neither of the two knowing what to say.

He looked at her, and his stomach fluttered with thousands of butterflies. She was so gorgeous it wasn’t even funny while he, his face stubbly and his white t-shirt crumpled, was not at his most beautiful. But she had called him right before leaving her house, telling him she was coming over, only giving him the time to take a quick shower. Unpredictable Lisa.

For days after their encounter at Brett’s, Michael had been stuck in a stupor, sure that he had destroyed every chance he had with her. Maybe he had just been too aggressive, kissing her like that. What was he, fifteen? But he had a bit of liquid courage, and that had rendered him a little more assertive than he usually was. Yeah, probably he had scared her away, and now she thought he was weird and creepy and he would never see her again. He hadn’t dared touch the subject over the phone.

Well, facing her now, he had never been so ecstatic to be wrong about something. The way she was looking at him told him that it wasn’t so bad after all. She seemed… relieved. And happy to see him.

“Lise, girl, first of all, let me get this outta my chest. Let me tell ya how sorry I am I was so aggressive at Brett’s, I mean, I had the chance to think about it and it just ain’t who I am, I should have -“.

“Shut up, Mike,” she whispered, shaking her head in frustration and walking straight into his arms. He felt her envelop him in a tight embrace and her head rested on his chest. He exhaled, quietly closing and locking the door behind Lisa’s shoulders, and finally wrapped his arms around her, just holding her tight.

When she pulled back and looked up at him, he knew what was going to happen. The ancient chant was humming again in the pit of his soul, vibrating in every one of his cells. He was exactly where he wanted to be: in her arms.

Lisa caressed his stubbly cheek and tilted her head up, finally wrapping her fingers around the back of his neck and gently pulling him down, toward her lips.

Michael closed his eyes and felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.

They kissed, very gently, and it was magical. Michael inhaled her amazing scent, and it felt familiar, tantalizing. His nerves and synapses stirred and his hands roamed on Lisa’s back, trying to take her all in, her very presence still too unreal to fully register in his mind. When he felt tears wetting his cheeks, he realized that she was crying.

Michael pulled back and watched her intently, from one eye to the other.

“Lise… what’s going on? What’s the matter?”.

She just looked up at him, her hands cradling his head, her fingers in his hair. Her thumbs smoothed down his long sideburns, and she pursed her lips, then rested her face against his chest again. Quietly, Michael hugged her, his chin resting on the top of her head.

“I want to divorce,” she murmured, her voice breaking.

“Already? We haven’t even gotten married yet”.

She chuckled in between the tears.

“You’re such a… dork”.

Michael backed off again, keeping her at arm’s length and gave her a crooked grin. It came out a bit sadder than he intended but hey, at least he had lightened the mood. Sort of…

“I know. So, you guys are no longer together? Is that what you had to do? For real, girl?”.

Her blue eyes were bright and deep. Honest.

“For real.”

He turned serious and placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Why?”.

“Because I don’t love Danny. And I can’t be with him anymore”.

“Yeah?”.

“Yeah.”

“Are you… in love with someone else?”.

Lisa swallowed and chewed on her bottom lip, her gaze lowering.

“Maybe…”, she admitted, in a whisper. “But that’s not the point. I’ve realized that I can’t stay married to someone I love but I’m not in love with. I won’t do it any longer”.

“What about the guy?”. Michael’s heart threatened to burst out of his chest, yet his voice remained calm. Oh yeah. Years and years of practicing had turned him into the perfect performer. The greatest pretender.

“What about him?”. Lisa kept her eyes down.

“Does he know?”.

“That I want to divorce?”. She rubbed her forehead and moved a step back, leaning against the wall by the door. “Yeah… I told him. He didn’t take it well… but we’re separated now”.

“No, I mean… the guy you’re in love with”. A tragic suspicion suddenly crept into his mind. Was Lisa in love with someone… else? Was she talking about another man, and not him?

Lisa’s eyebrows sprung up.

“Oh, him…”.

“Does he know? About your feelings, that is”. Still that calm voice and he wondered how he managed to pull it out.

She hesitated, just for a second.

“I didn’t say I’m in love with him. I said maybe”.

Michael frowned and closed his mouth.

“Anyway… well, I don’t know if he knows, and I’m not sure he cares”. She sighed. “Michael, this conversation is crazy. Maybe I shouldn’t have come”.

“What?”. He reacted as if she had slapped him in the face. The whole thing was getting absurd, indeed. Miscommunication to the nth degree.

“Yeah…”, she breathed out. “I’m sorry, I am just not as clear-minded as I thought, I better go.”

She turned around and reached for the door handle, and he just didn’t let her. Immediately, he moved a step in her direction and placed his hands on her waist, his chest slightly brushing her back, his face an inch away from her hair. She stilled her movements, and Michael closed his eyes feeling her shiver under his touch.

“Maybe you should just tell him, you know?”, he said, quietly, then paused for a moment.

“And if it’s another guy you’re talking about… if it’s not me, you may have feelings for… then… yeah, Lise, then it’s best if you just leave. At least for now”.

She placed her hand on the cold surface of the door as if she needed to keep herself steady.

“It’s you… Of course, it’s you, Mike. I think I’m falling in love with you, OK? And I’m scared shitless. But don’t worry… I am not here to make any demands. I’m separating because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of what happens between you and me… If anything will happen at all. I don’t want Danny to get stuck with a woman who’s not in love with him… And I can’t stay with someone if I’m constantly thinking about another man”.

Michael stood still, the shock too intense and unexpected to allow him even to move a muscle. This didn’t feel real at all. How many times had he hoped to hear her say those words? How many nights had he dreamed of seeing her drive back to the ranch after their night together, and just try to make something real out of it? Something more than a memory to be forgotten.

Lisa’s head dropped, and she let out a shaky sigh. What a fool she had been. Once again, the joke was on her. Apparently, he only wanted her to admit that he was the one. But he had nothing to say about it. Not a single word.

“OK… Your silence speaks volumes. Goodbye, Michael”.

She didn’t even have the time to reach for the door handle.

He just turned her around like a ragdoll and pulled her into him, kissing her hard and strong, hoping to be able to communicate, with that kiss, everything his silence was lacking. It was not that he didn’t want to talk to her. He just couldn’t. His brain felt frozen.

Michael felt her stiffen for a moment, her hands automatically pushing on his chest as she tried to pull back from him. Then she melted, and her arms came around his neck as she angled her head, fully reciprocating his kiss. This time, it was different – it was deep and passionate and slow and conveyed so many emotions that they both stumbled and Lisa’s back ended up against the wall once again.

“Haven’t you heard me, Lise?”, he kissed her again. “When I said you could leave if you weren’t talking about me?”. Another kiss, her cool hands on his face, as if she was proving to herself that he was really there. “Gosh, girl, you gotta listen more.”

She just shook her head, breathlessly, and then pulled him down to her mouth, once again. And then, just like that, it happened.

Their second first time was different from their very first time. There was no embarrassment, no fear to be rejected, no doubts, no hesitations. Blindly, still wrapped in each other’s arms and kissing, they stumbled across the apartment and somehow managed to reach Michael’s bedroom, bumping into walls and furniture along the way. And yet, never such a crooked, unstable dance had felt more perfect.

Lisa found herself lying on her back, on the bed, Michael’s body over hers, and his weight felt amazing, the feel of his muscles under her fingertips like the topography of a newly found island. Her island. The island where she wanted to be stranded… forever.

They were not frantic or in a hurry, but they were passionate and intense. Pent-up desire and longing seemed to guide their movements, their fingers getting rid of garments and exploring naked skin. Almost three years without touching each other suddenly felt endless and, at the same time, as fleeting and unimportant as background noise.

What, on the other hand, Michael felt extremely real was Lisa’s tongue in his mouth and her warm hands framing his face. His eyes closed, he remembered how frustrated he had felt that night at Brett’s after she had driven off. He had stayed there in the darkness for a few minutes, waiting for his raging hard-on to subside before going back to the house and trying to make sense of what had just happened.

On the other hand, he now felt that every piece of the puzzle was finally falling into place. Having Lisa there, in his arms, kissing him like her life depended on it, made his heart soar to a place that was still almost foreign to him, and yet so warm and welcoming. And her words – she had said she thought she was falling in love with him!

Wait!

What an ass he was! He had said nothing to her!

Michael pulled back abruptly, and his eyes struggled to focus on Lisa’s face. Her breath was labored, her skin flushed, and those beautiful lips were parted, gleaming and waiting to be kissed again.

“Lise…”.

“Yeah…”.

Her voice barely a whisper, her fingers immediately raking through his hair, with the softest, most loving touch. Those blue eyes hooded, the long eyelashes. Michael’s heart soared some more, and he felt tears threatening to spill.

“You really feel you’re… falling in love with me?”.

Now her eyebrows scrunched a little. A hint of fear in her eyes – she was disarmed. Vulnerable. And Michael knew, Lisa didn’t like to feel like that. She had always needed her strong armor to carry on, since the trauma caused by the death of her father.

He bent his head and pressed his lips to hers, inhaling her scent, and then softly kissing her some more, again and again.

“…Are you?”, he asked again.

She looked up at him and studied his dark eyes. They were open, exposed. They were eyes that could not be escaped. She swallowed.

“Yes,” she admitted, her voice faltering.

Michael blinked, then his face distended in one of those beautiful smiles that had contributed so much to Lisa’s fall from grace. Oh, she was fucked alright. There was no way she could avoid falling in love with him. In fact, it had already happened. Her last defense was to pretend it was still just a risk, while in fact, it was an inevitability.

“I am falling in love with you, too,” he replied instead, just looking at her with those honest eyes, and taking her completely by surprise.

Lisa could only chuckle and sob at the same time before pulling him down to her mouth again.

They found themselves in the sheets, skin against skin. This time, Michael didn’t ask her to turn out the light, fearing to show his own naked body, and Lisa didn’t feel the need to hide under the sheets, worried about the few pounds she hadn’t managed to shed, yet. In fact, the dim light in the room allowed them to do what they needed, which was look at each other and live in the moment, completely. It was their moment, and it was the right time.

Her arms pinned above her head, her fingers interlaced with Michael’s as he moved into her with deep, hard, slow strokes, Lisa realized that her life would never be the same again. This was it. She would have to go home eventually, she had kids to take care of, but this time she knew she would be back soon. Back to Michael, where she wanted to be. Where she needed to be, and where her heart already was.

“You’re so beautiful Lise… so perfect”, he panted, invading her body and her soul. “I’m crazy for you.”

“Fuck… Baby, you feel so good… so good”. She gripped his fingers harder and lifted her head, kissing and licking the moist skin of his neck. Michael moaned in return, and she rested her head back on the pillow to look at him.

His hair damp and messy, loosely tied in a ponytail, rebel curls falling in front of his flushed, sweaty face, his expression concentrated, his features a mix of agony and intense delight, he was the most handsome man she had ever seen in her entire life.

She felt him pulsing and throbbing inside of her, his impressive manhood stretching her almost to the point of pain and touching her just in the right way, everywhere, and the intense heat sprung again from the base of her head down to her core. She was there with him after he had rocked her body, again and again, orgasm after orgasm. Who was this man? What was he doing to her?

“Shit… fucking hell”. Michael gritted his teeth and let go of her hands, pushing both his palms into the mattress and lifting his torso, needing more leverage. “I’m gonna come, baby…”.

“God… oh god… oh god…”, Lisa could only moan, grabbing his ass and pulling him into her as he surged forward and pushed into her body vigorously, again and again, and again.

Then, the sizzling white haze consumed them both.

Neverland, December 1993 – A freak on a leash

“Where is he?”.

“Miss, he’s locked in his quarters but asked not to be bothered.”

“I swear to you; he wants to see me… Please, let him know I’m here”. Lisa tried to sound as calm as possible, especially noticing the slightly panicked look in the security guy’s eyes. She had been granted her entry to Neverland and the main mansion, as usual – since she was Michael’s girlfriend – but he was nowhere to be found, and now she was somehow being put in the position to force her hand.

The guy, tall and massive, looked at her for a seemingly endless moment, clearly debating if he should follow her instructions or not. He seemed insecure about what to do and that put Lisa even more on edge. Michael had called her a few hours earlier, telling her about the strip search – and he had never sounded more shocked, humiliated, enraged, and saddened.

After the call, Lisa had left everything and had driven straight to Neverland, arriving a little after midnight. Even though Michael had asked her not to come, telling her that it wasn’t necessary, that he would be OK, she knew that it was just his pride speaking and that she had to be there for him. Plus, she was worried sick and just couldn’t stay away – she needed to be with him, by his side. That was her place, her role. So, she had left the kids with Danny and driven straight to the ranch in the middle of the night.

“Please… just tell him I’m here, OK?”, Lisa asked again, and the man finally relented.

She was left waiting in the huge living room for about ten minutes, the maid cautiously asking her if she needed something, anything. If she wanted a cup of tea, some water. No. Lisa just needed to see Michael, see how he was, be with him.

Eventually, the security guy came back, quietly nodding his head, and she found herself exhaling a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

When she entered Michael’s private quarters, he was sitting in the dark, on the wooden staircase that led to his bedroom, wearing pajama pants and his usual white t-shirt. Familiar, comforting clothes, to find solace in a very unfamiliar, un-comforting situation.

Lisa dropped her purse and walked over to him, kneeling in front of him and merely taking him into her arms. His body remained stiff, and Lisa silently waited for him to relax, all the while rubbing his back. When he finally put his arms around her, holding her tight, she allowed herself to kiss him on the neck, very softly, as if he was something precious and fragile, on the verge of breaking into a million pieces.

Michael pulled back, watching her with unintelligible eyes. They were puffy and red, and Lisa knew that he had been crying. He looked exhausted, smaller – as if he had withered into himself.

“Why did you come?”.

“Because I love you,” she simply replied, taking his face into her hands. “And I am so fucking sorry you had to go through this shit.”

Michael’s eyelids fluttered closed, and he winced, as if he had been slapped, a mixture of pain and relief on his face. Grief for what he had to endure, relief for having her there. His face becoming blurry, Lisa realized that her own eyes were swimming in tears now and took him into her arms again.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”, she asked, softly, her voice calm nonetheless.

Michael shook his head, burying his face in the crook of her neck and inhaling her scent.

“Not now… please. Just…”. He shivered.

“It’s OK. I’m here. I got you”.

They stayed like that for a long time. Eventually, Lisa stood up, took his hand and guided him to his bed. As he laid down, she quietly got undressed and, wearing only her panties and one of his t-shirts that he had carelessly tossed on a chair, joined him under the sheets.

Long minutes passed. Her head resting on Michael’s shoulder, her hand on his chest, Lisa listened intently to his breathing and heartbeat until they finally became both regular, calm, steady.

She leaned up on her elbow, intercepting his eyes in a slice of moonlight coming through the window. He was staring absently at the ceiling, his face a perfect, beautiful mask. Lisa’s heart bled some more.

“They treated me like… I don’t know Lise, it felt like a freak show”. He scrunched his forehead and squared his jaw, still not looking at her. “I was the Elephant Man, and they were the audience. I have never been more humiliated in my entire life. I’m a monster to them”.

Lisa swallowed, staring at him silently until his eyes finally turned to her.

“I couldn’t control nothing. They were taking pictures of me. I was standing there naked in front of them thinking… who are these people? This ain’t real… Can’t be… I done nothing wrong. This can’t be happening to me”.

She rested her hand on his cheek, feeling his stubble against her skin.

“This ain’t really happening… Can’t be”, Michael repeated, his voice fully expressing his disbelief. “They took pictures of my…”, he had to swallow. “They took pictures of my dick, Lisa. They photographed my ass, my legs, every part of my body… It was out of control”.

Lisa realized that she was gritting her teeth, the red haze of pure, undiluted rage slowly descending over her eyes. On the outside, she kept her fury in check – but inside, the burning inferno was devouring her. Michael was right. He had never been more humiliated in his entire life. And it had happened deliberately.

Her heart deafening in her ears, Lisa realized that, probably for the first time in his adult life, Michael had experienced what pure powerlessness felt like. And she knew he hated it. Having complete control on his environment, his music, his dance, his business, his privacy – everything that involved him, everything that made him, him – was his only way to cope with the difficulties and uniqueness of his life. Lisa had started to understand quite well how complicated and tiring that level of celebrity and fame could be – sometimes she would feel exhausted just by looking at him as he dealt with it.

As marvelous and extraordinary as Michael’s life was, it was also incredibly alienating. His way to cope with it was all about directly managing it and controlling it as much as he could. Possibly, it was also what he had been taught to do since he was a kid.

Lisa could only imagine, now, how frustrated he could feel, realizing that he had utterly lost that control, that he had been thrown to the lions. How hungry they were for his flesh. How powerless he had felt.

“What do you need, Michael?”, she asked, softly.

He just looked at her, not really surprised by her question, his eyes back at being remote now, indecipherable.

“I want all of this just to go away”, he replied, his voice calm and even.

Lisa smiled, all the sadness in the world painted on her face.

“I wish I could do that for you. I really do”.

“I know…”. He sighed, his eyes showing a hint of his usual gentleness for a moment. And then it was gone, again.

“What can I do for you, baby?”, Lisa asked again, caressing his cheek. “Whatever it is, just tell me. I’ll do anything”.

He stayed quiet for a moment, possibly pondering over her question. When he finally spoke, his voice was dark.

“OK then… Take off your clothes and get on all fours”.

Slightly taken aback, Lisa immediately felt a gush of moisture in between her legs and marveled at the ability of her body of completely disconnecting from her brain, when it came to Michael.

They loved to have sex, and they made love every time they had the chance. Now and then, Lisa had seen a hint of Michael’s commanding nature in bed, but he had never fully expressed it to her. Not yet, at least. He had been dominant, sure, but not domineering.

He was a fantastic lover, extraordinarily skilled and generous, and their chemistry had been mind-blowing since their very first time. Sex with Michael was intense, passionate, sweaty and oh so satisfying, the result of an innate connection and a mutual trust.

And because of that profound connection they had, in that very moment, Lisa suddenly realized what Michael needed, and why he needed it. And she had a feeling that he was going to reveal another face of the extraordinary human kaleidoscope that he was.

“Fuck… oh, fucking shit”, Lisa was breathless, her forehead resting on the mattress as Michael rammed into her again and again. Blindly, she reached for the headboard and pressed the palms of her hands there, pushing back against him as he kept pounding her. Trapped in between pleasure and pain, her body glistening with sweat and almost limp after several orgasms, Lisa moaned, and her voice came out hoarser than she intended. Or imagined.

“You like that?”, Michael snarled in between gritted teeth. “You like it when I give it to you hard? When I’m gruff like this?”.

“Oh yeah, baby… oh yeah… Fuck me, daddy. Don’t stop…”.

They had been going at it for hours now. It hadn’t been sweet, and it hadn’t been slow, but surely it had been overwhelming in the best way possible. Lisa had never been taken like that in her entire life. She had never felt so loved, desired and wanted by a man, both from a physical, mental and emotional point of view. And she had never come so hard.

Michael’s possessive, domineering, controlling, brash streak had finally emerged in all its glory and Lisa hadn’t had the time, yet, to tell him how much she loved it. How much she loved seeing him let himself go entirely, allowing himself to be who he truly wanted to be or felt the need to be, with her. How sexy and manly he was, how heady and intoxicating were the sensations and emotions that he could evoke with his voice, his movements, his words, his actions. In all honesty, Lisa realized that if Michael wanted to screw her like that for the rest of his life, she surely was not going to stop him.

The only thing she was sorry about was that, right now, that heavy-handed streak was running free because of the demons, because of the darkness, because of the pain and the humiliation he had endured. She had no idea if what they were doing was healthy in its motivations, but that was her only way to give back to the man she loved some of the control he had lost. She could only hope it would make him at least feel better.

“Shit…”.

Michael withdrew from her body, and Lisa whimpered, collapsing onto her stomach and breathing heavily. She turned her head and watched him as he stood by the bed, his skin flushed and sweaty, hair wild, chest rising and falling rapidly, muscles tensing and twitching. He was so beautiful, and his dark eyes held something that Lisa couldn’t comprehend.

“We can stop if you want… I told you already…”. His ragged breath, his voice sounding an octave deeper than usual made a number on her, and she shivered.

Yeah, he had told her – you can stop me at any time, Lisa. If you don’t like it, please just stop me. If I’m too hard on you, if I’m too rough, please say it. I don’t wanna hurt you, baby. I love you. And if you don’t like it, it’s OK.

But she did like it.

She smiled at him, and her hand disappeared in between her legs as she started to touch herself.

“I think you just rearranged my internal organs but no… I don’t wanna stop…”, she blinked, slowly, and watched in fascination as he grabbed himself almost subconsciously, stroking his massive erection, an amused smirk on his face.

Such a turn-on for her, on a side note, to see him taking care of himself, to hear him talking dirty to her.

“You can keep going if you are up to it, big guy… for as long as you need me to, I am here for you… You can have me any way you want, daddy…”.

He stepped forward, and she sat up, grabbing him by the hips as he kept stroking himself slowly, and pulling him closer to her.

“Oh yeah? Then let’s get this going, baby… come on, suck me off”.

He bit his lip as her hand covered his, his cock jerking automatically.

“…And play with yourself while you do it. Let me see everything… how you like it… there you go, baby girl… show me how you work that pussy”.

And she did.

She did everything Michael asked her to, trusting him completely with her body and her heart, knowing well that it didn’t matter how rough and demanding he was – she was always safe with him. He was generous and giving, always. It was just his nature – mercurial and unpredictable, gentle and assertive at the same time. And she loved him with every fiber of her being.

When he finally allowed himself to climax, when she finally felt him tense, his muscles getting rigid before he jerked and spasmed into her, sighing and moaning, filling her and giving her everything he had, she could barely realize what was happening before she started to come with him, whimpering, her fingernails digging into his back, her teeth biting down on his shoulder.

She somehow registered his moans and grunts and her name in between some unintelligible words. Then, after what seemed forever, Michael’s body finally relaxed over hers, and she held him tight into her arms, kissing his ear, caressing his damp hair, gently nibbling his neck.

“Oh, baby, that was the best fuck I’ve ever had… Thank you for that…”, she murmured, nuzzling his neck.

For the first time since her arrival, she heard him chuckle, his face buried in the crook of her neck, his hot breath caressing her skin.

“I fucking love you, Lise, so much…”, he muttered softly, kissing her skin. He pulled back and stared at her, his huge, dark eyes soulful again.

There he was, the man she had always known.

He was slowly starting to come around, despite his ego having been bruised and tattered, his self-esteem diminished. Lisa framed his face and watched him intently, her soul expanding with his mere presence, the scent of his skin, the feeling of his body on hers, of his heart close to hers.

“You are everything to me,” she said. And she meant it.

Los Angeles, January 1994 – Ask me again

Lisa watched all three of them from afar and couldn’t repress a smile. She was standing at the door of the living room, unseen, her arms crossed over her chest, leaning against the door frame and observing one of the sweetest and funniest scenes she had ever seen in her life.

It was a little past 5 PM, and Riley had insisted on having a “tea time” with Michael and her brother as Lisa finished some paperwork in her studio. Michael, the natural nanny, had found the idea delicious, and they had set up a mini table, some mini chairs, three mini cups, a mini tea-cup and some invisible tea.

Riley had also decided that, while she was going to be the princess of the reign and her baby brother the little prince, Michael would play the role of the maid. That, itself, was hilarious enough to make Lisa laugh for a lifetime but Michael, stoically – albeit with a distinctly perplexed expression on his face – had agreed. Of course. He would never do anything to disappoint Riley.

Now, Lisa’s hands itched to grab her camera to immortalize the scene playing in front of her eyes.

Riley – the magnanimous princess that she was – had agreed to share her tea with the maid and therefore had authorized Michael to make himself comfortable. Sort of. And so, he was currently sitting down at the tiny table, rocking a very wormy Ben on his knee, one hand holding the baby, the other one pretending to pour some non-existent tea into Riley’s cup. The little girl was delighted by the attention she was receiving, naturally.

The nanny sat on the couch nearby and looked mildly amused, mostly bewildered.

Lisa, on the other hand, was delighted at the sight of Michael wearing a somewhat frilly apron over his sweater and – and that was the best detail – a tiara on his head. The entire scene was a work of art, really, and she stifled a laugh as she watched him speak to Riley in his very average, quite deep, totally manly voice, beaming at her with his stubbly face, his dark eyes shiny and amused. Despite his debatable attire, he looked entirely at ease.

This was just too much. Lisa was going to crack up at any moment. She decided to put an end to her sweet torture and cleared her throat to make her presence known.

Michael’s eyes darted up, and he smiled, very widely, showing those perfect white teeth and his entire face relaxed, turning into the most beautiful sight she had ever seen. Having the chance to still time, Lisa would have pushed the button right then and there, when everything that meant to her, and everyone she loved, her entire world was right in front of her, almost at arm’s reach.

“Mister Jackson, could I speak to you for a second, please?”. Lisa had to muster all her self-control to act severe and nonchalant, but her voice came out a bit strained anyway.

Michael’s face turned solemn, and his attention focused on Riley.

“May I be excused, your royal highness?”.

Riley made a condescending gesture with her hand, raising her eyebrows.

“You can go…”.

So contemptuous! Lisa burst out laughing and pressed her hand over her mouth as Michael stood up and took a bow, Ben still in his arms, blabbering and fidgeting and lighting the entire world around him with his semi-toothless smile.

Michael gently placed the baby into the nanny’s arms and walked over to Lisa, all the while getting rid of the apron and tossing it onto an armchair. Quietly, they moved to the kitchen, and she opened the fridge, keeping up the charade a tad bit longer.

“Something to drink? You didn’t have too much tea, now, did you?”.

Michael leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, grinning.

“Not really. White wine would be great, thank you”.

“Thanks for taking care of the kids, by the way…”.

He shrugged lightly.

“Not a problem, baby. You know I love them”.

“Speaking of which… Didn’t you notice a disturbing resemblance between my daughter and my mother, just a minute ago?”. Lisa turned to him and handed him a glass of wine. “You can go…”, she repeated, imitating Riley’s flippant tone.

At that point, he laughed heartily.

“Lise, you’re so bad! But… yeah, you’re right about that Priscilla streak”.

He sipped his wine while staring at her, as she moved in closer, stepping right into his personal space and wrapping her arms around his neck. Michael put the glass on the counter and bent his head, kissing her softly on the lips.

“You have no idea what you do to me, Mike… Just looking at you makes me all kinds of hot… You’re so damn sexy… so studly… it’s not even funny…”, she whispered, kissing him along his jawline, on his long sideburns, then reaching his ear and speaking in that low, husky tone he adored. “I just can’t resist you…”.

He shivered and nuzzled her face with his cheek.

“It’s the stubble, I know…”.

Not being able to restrain herself any longer, Lisa pulled back and burst out laughing.

“No, baby… It’s the tiara”.

Later that night

Lisa was not entirely sure she could survive this. So much pleasure, coming in waves, crashing against every single inch of her body, both outside and inside, sweeping her away, she was adrift, floating. And Michael was her ocean. Just like the sea, he was comforting and yet mysterious, his undercurrents dark and fascinating, the blue surface sparkling and clear. A woman could easily lose herself in a man like Michael.

She opened her eyes and looked at him as he hovered over her body, moved into her body, with powerful and yet slow strokes, his eyes sinking into hers. She felt him everywhere, touching the most intimate chords of her being, her heartbeat following the rhythm of his breathing. And it was not just the sex, even though it was earth-shattering, and it was one of the most poignant aspects of their relationship. Sex was just a medium – a pass-partout to reach many hidden depths inside of one another. It was the all-access pass that granted a perfect view on their feelings, their desires, and their thoughts.

“God… Baby…”, his low, husky voice, the ecstatic rapture painted on his face dragged her in, and they kissed. “Here it comes… Come with me, Lise…”.

Their eyes locked once again, and she took his face in her hands as they went over the edge together, like one. Their moans and sighs were mingling, words of love and something else intelligible as she was able, somehow, to observe his pleasure while experiencing her own – magnified tenfold. She felt her heart was going to shatter into thousands of sparkling particles – blasted from the inside by the immense love she felt for this man. A love she had never experienced before, a love she would never experience again in her life.

The tiara was gone, of course. Everything was gone except for Michael, his skin, his sweaty, feverish, scorching hot body pressing over hers, his weight delightful, his hands clasping the sheets as his eyes finally closed in pleasure. His expression of intense delight, that dimple in between his eyebrows, wild strands of hair falling over his face. She could feel everything, her senses heightened to the umpteenth degree: the scent of him, his heartbeat, the texture of his hair and growing stubble on his otherwise soft skin, the smoothness of his lips, the hardness and thickness of his penis pulsing inside of her, the sounds of his desire.

Lisa just framed his face with both hands as she watched him experience the beautiful little death of his orgasm and, suddenly, she knew.

As he finally collapsed over her, his face buried in the crook of her neck, his breath hot and ragged, she closed her arms around his shoulders and caressed his back, her fingers slowly running along his spine and reaching the small of his back, grazing his perfect butt, then sliding up again. She smiled, breathlessly, when she felt him shiver under her touch and turned her head, kissing the side of his face, his ear. Whispering.

“I’ve never felt anything like this…”.

He didn’t move, but beamed and Lisa’s smile went wider.

“Tell me about it…”.

His voice was hoarse, thick, and low.

Lisa swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment, holding him tight and shivering. Michael noticed the shift in her mood and raised on his elbow, looking down at her, studying her face. He started to withdraw from her body, but her legs locked around his hips and kept him in place.

“Hey…!”, Michael protested half-heartedly, still smiling.

Her cerulean eyes opened, watching him with immense serenity and calmness.

“Don’t. Stay right where you are… I love to feel you… like this…”.

“And I love to feel you like this… god, Lise, it’s not that I can pull back if you don’t let me go in the first place… I mean, you’re still –“.

She contracted her inner muscles, and he moaned, wincing in pleasure.

“I know. Stay. Don’t move”.

Michael smiled at her again.

“OK…”.

They stared at each other for the longest time.

“Ask me again…”, Lisa eventually said, very softly.

Something moved into the depths of Michael’s dark eyes, and she knew he had understood.

“What do you want me to ask you?”, he replied, nonetheless.

She reached up and caressed his face, and he turned his head slightly, kissing the palm of her hand.

“You know what…”.

“Do I, now?”.

“Yeah… Unless you were drunk, that time over the phone. Which would explain your sudden need to pee”.

He giggled.

“I was not drunk. You can’t drink in rehab”.

“Well then… Ask me again. Properly, this time… like the gentleman that you are”.

“And are you gonna say yes, like you did the first time around?”. His face tender now, so very gentle, features distended, eyes soulful.

“Well… I don’t wanna spoil the surprise but… I love you so damn much, Michael. I want to have a family with you”.

A flickering motion. A twitching muscle, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly and then he kissed her, full force, inhaling her scent, one hand into her hair, the other one wrapping her leg around his hip. She felt him harden inside of her, once again, and sighed, holding onto him as he started to move again, transcending time and space.

Neverland, January 1994 – Would you marry me?

She was snuggled in his lap, her head leaned back to meet his mouth. His lips were on hers, soft and yet demanding. His hands on her body, one stroking her back, the other caressing her ass.

He loved her. He loved being like this with her. He enjoyed these quiet nights when the kids were asleep, and they could just take their time, just being together, the two of them, and nobody else. It was magical – and everything around them, the colors, the sounds, became more real, more present, more intense.

Michael cocked his head to a side and tipped Lisa’s chin with his fingers. He stared at her for a long moment and then kissed her again, the tip of his tongue gently stroking her bottom lip. She opened up to him, like a flower to the morning dew, moaning into the kiss, her hands in his hair now, on his face.

An almost perfect silence in the nearly complete darkness of the library.

“I love being like this with you…”, she whispered, softly, stealing the words he was planning to say out loud. He grinned, trying to regulate his breathing. It was getting out of control, just like his heartbeat. It happened all the time, whenever she was this close, and sometimes even when she wasn’t – she had that power over him. And he loved it. For once, he wished that all his defenses and all the self-preservation mechanisms he had so carefully built over the years could just crumble like a sand castle licked by the waves, stroke after stroke. If he was the shore, Lisa was the sea, invading him, pulling him in, changing his weight and texture, turning him into something that was part of her depths. Lost in that pillowy, sinewy sensation, floating in a universe he had never known before meeting her.

In the meantime, her lips had run a trail to his jawbone and had reached his neck. She started to kiss him there, slowly, again and again, gently licking his skin, moaning softly, making him shiver. One hand cradling his face, the other in his hair. Each and every cell stirred in his body, and he trembled, deep inside. He melted and hardened, all at once.

Once again, Lisa guessed what was going on. Or, possibly, she merely felt it against her body. She glanced down at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Well… look at that”, she said, huskily, with a smirk, and gently stroked his bulge with her fingertips. He couldn’t help but blush and giggle, like a boy. But there was nothing childish in the way his body was reacting to her.

“Wait, I gotta do something first.” With immense effort, he let go of her lips after one more deep, passionate kiss, picked her up and made her sit by his side, ignoring her amused protests.

“Please, Mike, don’t tell me you gotta use the bathroom.”

“It would be quite uncomfortable right now. Plus, I don’t have to pee every ten minutes, you know”, he chuckled, getting up.

“Alright… make it thirty, then”, she replied with a laugh, grabbing a cushion and hugging it. She tucked her feet under herself and observed him from below her long eyelashes as he walked over to the desk and opened a drawer. His back was turned, and she noticed how his head dropped, how he took in a long breath, retrieving something and holding it in his hands.

“What you got?”, she asked, cradling her head in her hand.

Michael didn’t answer. He turned to her and hid his hands behind his back. An unintelligible smirk on his face, he slowly walked back to the couch and stared down at her.

“What?”. Lisa let out a nervous laugh, trying to gauge his intentions.

“Remember a few weeks ago, while we were making love…?”.

This time, her laugh sounded more wholehearted.

“We make love all the time.”

He made a face.

“That’s true. I mean… OK. Let me try again. I just wanna do this right… since it’s something I’d like to do just once in my life and all”.

He cleared his throat and slowly sank to his knee.

Lisa’s eyes widened.

He stared at her for another moment, and then showed her what he was hiding behind his back. It was a velvet box.

Lisa gasped and pressed her palm against her mouth, her eyes welling up immediately. Two blue planets swimming in water. Venus in action.

His heartbeat reverberating in his throat, Michael licked his lips and opened the box, showing her the perfect, 10-carat engagement diamond ring he had so carefully chosen for her, only a few days earlier.

“Lise…”.

“Mike…”. He didn’t know if her voice held a warning or real anticipation. Anyway, it sounded shaky. He cleared his throat and looked up at her.

“Lisa Marie… would you marry me?”. He cleared his throat again. “What do you say? Would you?”.

She blinked her eyelids, repeatedly, holding her breath. It was just a matter of seconds, really, and yet, to Michael, they felt like an eternity. It felt like time had stilled and, for a moment, he thought she was going to say no.

Then her hands were on his face, cradling it, and her lips were on his, kissing him, again and again.

“Yes… yes… yes…”, she whispered in between kisses. “…Yes… Yes, I wanna marry you, Michael. I wanna marry you”.

He laughed and kissed her and then pulled back.

“Wait…”.

With shaky hands, he removed the ring from the box and took her hand. She was shaking too.

“Stand still,” he chuckled.

“No, you stand still!”, she laughed in between tears.

Somehow, he managed to slip the ring on her finger and then she held his hand, tightly. His eyes looked up. She was beautiful. And she was his. She had said yes.

“I love you,” he murmured, hoarsely. The last admission of defeat. The final declaration of victory.

She jumped into his arms, her cheek pressing against his, wetting his skin with her tears. He cradled her, and they laughed. Then he kissed her again, and they got lost in the moment, Lisa still on the couch, he on his knees, on the carpet.

Casa de Campo, Dominican Republic – May 26th, 1994 – Bluebeard

“Look at me.”

His voice was breathless, raspy.

Lisa could barely open her eyes, swamped as she was by the barrage of sensations crashing in waves all over her body. A mixture of pain and pleasure, of love and excitement, lust and passion that made her cells tingle, her nerve endings burn, her entire soul disintegrate. She was ablaze.

“Look at me.”

Michael panted, and his movements slowed down, his hips moving just slightly, and yet she could feel each and every shallow thrust he was giving her. She finally glanced up at him and, all the while, her hands glided down the sweaty skin of his back. Her fingers entwined right above his ass, and she exhaled a shaky breath.

“Are you with me, girl?”.

His eyes were dark and shiny, his lips parted, his face flushed. He had never looked more beautiful. That man, that man right there, in between her legs, buried deep inside of her, in that unmade bed with those crumpled white satin sheets, was not the superstar. He was not the singer, he was not the dancer.

He was her husband. It was the very first time Michael made love to her as her husband and the realization struck Lisa abruptly, and she blinked.

“Yeah…”, she whispered, her breath uneven. She smiled and caressed his face – a very unexpected and sweet gesture in the fury that their raw and rough lovemaking had been until then.

“Hi…”, she said, still smiling.

Michael’s movements stilled, and he beamed back at her, his eyes softening.

“Hi, gorgeous…”.

“You’re my husband…”. Lisa let her fingers trace the contour of his face, loving the feeling of him sweating against her skin, loving his scorching hot body weighing down on her, of his messy hair tickling her shoulder.

“I certainly am,” Michael’s smile got wider, and his entire face lit up.

She pulled him down and kissed him, deep and long, until she felt his upper body relax over hers. His penis was still pulsing and throbbing inside of her, though, a silent Morse code letting her know that he was far from done.

“I can’t believe we really did it,” she whispered in between kisses.

“Oh, I can,” he simply replied, sounding very confident, almost cocky. He leaned up on his elbow, to be able to focus on her face. “I totally married the most beautiful girl in the world. Just like I wanted to do”.

Lisa rolled her eyes and laughed, and he winced at the vibrations reverberating in the most sensitive part of his body – oh, his dick was on fire. But sure as hell, he couldn’t interrupt his wife while she looked like she was having some sort of mystical revelation.

“You’re so fucking corny… But I guess I’ll have to put up with that too, from now on, huh?”. She made a face and fisted his hair, on the back of his head.

“What – you don’t believe me? You gotta know that I had my eyes on you since I first saw you at Branca’s wedding”.

She sneered.

“Please.”

“No, I am serious.”

She narrowed her eyes, the shadow of a doubtful smile still painted on her face.

“You serious for real? I mean, I know you love planning everything in advance but… come on”.

“I am very serious,” he replied, and his hips pushed forward, making her gasp. “As serious as… this”. He moved into her once, deeply enough to reach end and Lisa’s torso arched, claiming his lips. He bent his head and gently lapped at her nipple, and then stilled his movements once again.

Lisa moaned in frustration and glared at him.

“No, Michael, you’re not serious, you’re cruel. You’re torturing me and holding my orgasm hostage. I realize now that I’ve married Bluebeard, who’s probably going to beat me to death with his huge… thick…”.

Michael giggled, and she rotated and undulated her hips.

“…And very hard… club”.

“Lise!”.

He was laughing openly now, but was no longer immobile. In fact, he had started to move again inside of her, in slow, deep, controlled strokes.

Lisa swallowed and held onto his neck.

“Do you have any other wives buried somewhere in your beautiful castle, Bluebeard?”.

He shook his head and bit down on his bottom lip, and she could tell that he was trying hard to keep control over himself. His thrusts intensified.

“No… The only wife I want is right here with me… And I plan to keep her with me for a very long time”.

Once again, she pulled him down and kissed him, her tongue sliding into his mouth and stroking his. She moaned and gasped again as he gave her a series of deeper, slower strokes.

“Gosh, we’re gonna be so happy, Lise…”.

“Yeah…”, their foreheads touched as they kept moving together.

“You, me, and our babies… we’re gonna have a such a beautiful family…”.

“…I love you so fucking much, Mike”.

“I love you too, baby girl.”

“Alright… stop with the mushy stuff, champ. Please, focus on what you were doing…”.

She scraped Michael’s back with her nails, and he grunted, giving her a solid thrust and making her whimper.

“Thank you… I’m not great at multitasking”.

They resumed their dance and their rhythm increased, both in depth and speed.

“There you go, Mike… hit that thing. Oh yeah… Bring it home”.

Michael saw the playful glint in Lisa’s glazed over eyes and giggled, breathlessly.

“God… I fucking love you for real, girl”.

New York, July 1994 – Adolescents

The huge apartment on Fifth Avenue had never been so crowded. In fact, it had mainly seen he, and Lisa, and the kids since they had rented it. But this was somehow their post-wedding party and a special occasion to celebrate their new family with some friends and acquaintances. Most of them had been completely surprised by his and Lisa’s sudden ceremony out of the country. Yeah, well… Lisa and Michael had felt the need to speed things up quite a bit, after discovering that she was pregnant.

The guests – about twenty people, mostly friends and business partners that Lisa and Michael couldn’t simply not invite – were mainly moving around the grand double living room, chatting the night away. Some of them had also wandered over to the cherry-paneled library, admiring Michael’s impressive collection of books, and to the kitchen.

Michael reached out and took Lisa’s hand as she talked to a guy he didn’t remember having ever met.

“Excuse me… I’m going to steal my wife for a second”.

The man smiled politely, nodding his head, and Lisa did so, too, as her newlywed gently – but decidedly – dragged her away.

“Hey, what’s gotten into you? That was so rude!”.

Michael kept his well-trained smile plastered on his face and didn’t look at her as he spoke.

“No, it wasn’t. Isn’t it ironic that I seem unable to spend time with you at our own post-wedding party?”, he grabbed a glass of champagne from one of the catering people passing by, their trays full of stem glasses and open sandwiches, and took a sip. Then he stopped, in a quiet spot between the gallery and the foyer, and turned to her, handing her the glass, knowing well that she couldn’t drink but that they had to keep up appearances anyway, and not raise any suspicions about their pregnancy. It was still so early…

Michael kept holding her hand and stared at her, his face a beautiful, serene mask except for the mischievous glint in his dark eyes.

Lisa just held the glass and kept her eyes on him as her thumb inconspicuously rubbed the back of his hand. Her Morse code didn’t go unnoticed. Whatever it was that he had in mind, she was game.

“Ironic, but common. People crave your attention, baby… you should be used to that”.

She grinned, the deliciously pungent smell of the champagne the perfect organoleptic completion of the visual beauty in front of her eyes. Michael, wearing a black military jacket and black trousers and a simple white t-shirt, looked stunning.

“Yeah, but they want your attention, too. I think they’re trying to steal my gorgeous wife… and I can’t allow that”.

She laughed, throwing her head back and a couple of guests passing by glanced at them. Michael beamed, and they reciprocated with a gracious smile. They were a seventy-something couple of friendly, good people, indirectly connected to Lisa’s business, and threw them a knowing look. Their amused eyes conveyed an elementary concept: been there, done that. The deliriously happy honeymoon phase. For a second, Michael wondered if he and Lisa would be that way, in forty years. Unexpectedly, the idea filled him with joy and hope.

“Smart-ass… Nobody’s gonna steal me, Michael”. Lisa was still giggling.

He turned his head back to her, not really registering her sarcastic remark, his mind already ten steps ahead.

“See? That’s where you’re wrong… Come with me?”. He winked at her in his funny way, and she just shook her head, amusement still evident on her face.

“Where? The house is full of people!”, she mumbled, but she followed him nonetheless, starting to guess his intentions. Michael, as private as he was, could be frisky at times and, in those moments, he didn’t really care about who was around or not. He was never publicly uninhibited or anything, but at the same time was used to get what he wanted the moment he wanted it and, when it came to physical affection, it wasn’t any different.

“No! Not there! Are you out of your mind?”, Lisa whispered and tugged at his sleeve as he headed straight to the master bedroom. Michael spun on his heels and stared at her, stilling suddenly, biting his lip in concentration. She stifled a chuckle, loving that goofball attitude he would pull out every now and then.

“A bit too obvious? …Yeah, maybe you’re right…”. Michael’s brow furrowed and then, still holding Lisa’s hand, he pulled her along toward the indoor elevator that connected the apartment directly to the garage. Once again, they bumped into a few guests, and Michael smiled and nodded politely.

One of the security guys motioned to follow them, and Michael raised his hand to him.

“It’s OK… We just left something in the car. We’ll be right back… Give us a few minutes”.

The tall, burly guy didn’t reply and just clasped his hands behind his back, resuming his position near the elevator. Lisa admired the complete inscrutability of his face. She was kinda sure the man knew what was up since he had been around enough to notice that she and Michael would often “forget” something somewhere. But he had never batted an eyelid. Professionalism at its finest.

The moment the doors closed and the elevator started going down, silently and smoothly, Michael was all over her, and she welcomed him with open arms. They kissed, wildly and passionately, and he immediately rested his hand on her still flat stomach, crouching and kissing her belly through the light fabric of her dress. Lisa kept her hands on his shoulders and smiled, already breathless, drunk with his frenzied kisses. Who needed champagne to feel tipsy?

He glanced up at her.

“You feel good, baby girl?”.

“I’m OK… come back here…”. She gently tugged at his jacket, and he straightened up, delicately pinning her against the wall and kissing her again. Moaning against his lips, she heard the elevator doors open and dragged him outside unceremoniously. They walked blindly across the garage, ricocheting left and right until Michael’s back collided with the perfectly clean and spotless black Suburban.

“We gotta be very quiet…”, he whispered against her lips, all the while lifting her dress and stroking her naked thighs, her ass. Perfectly in sync, Lisa was already unbuckling his belt, pulling down the zipper of his slacks.

“And quick… Or they’ll notice our absence…”, she replied in a hushed voice. Her heart was fluttering in her chest, and her hands were shaking, betraying her apparently calm, comfortable demeanor. Lisa wasn’t sure if it was because they were doing something hazardous, somehow forbidden and so unlike their public personas – well, at least Michael’s public persona – or just because her husband always had that effect on her. It just never changed. The pull, the desire, the lust they felt never subsided. Since their very first night together at Neverland, a handful of years earlier, the bar of their sexual connection had been continuously raising.

Speaking of which…

“Oh, baby…”, Lisa’s hand plunged into Michael’s boxers, freeing him, “…You’re so hard, already… Sometimes I wonder how you manage to walk around like this…”.

“Yeah, me too…”, he muttered, his lips latched onto her neck as his hands were busy pushing her thong down on her thighs. She helped him out, quickly stepping out of the lacy string, and when he turned her around, placing her hands on the car top, she felt as pliant as a ragdoll into his arms.

His hot breath was in his ear.

“Keep your hands right there, baby girl…”, a kiss on her neck and a nip at her earlobe, “…Spread those beautiful legs a little more for me… oh yeah… That’s it, Lise… Look at you…”. The gentle, yet firm touch where she needed him the most told him that she was more than primed for him.

Instinctively, Lisa arched her back and pushed her ass against his engorged member and heard his muffled moan. She was affected, but he was too – his body never lied.

His lips were on her neck, his free hand now teasing her breasts through the fabric of her dress and she gyrated her hips against him, finding him rock-hard and scorching hot. Lisa somehow marveled at Michael’s ability to get at full attention quicker than she could ever imagine. Not that she complained. If, in the past, she had sometimes wondered if he was like that with every woman he had been with, now a sudden sense of peace sunk into her. They were married. He was her husband. Of all people, he had chosen her. And she intended to stay with him forever.

“Come on, baby… give it to me…”, she whimpered, softly, afraid the acoustics of the garage would make their little escapade more evident than it already was.

His pants barely lowered at his hips, biting his lip in concentration, his brow furrowed, Michael placed both hands on the soft globes of her backside and caressed her, then he slowly guided himself into her body. He sighed and kissed the nape of her neck.

“Shit… baby… Just watching you… Your ass is perfect… You can’t possibly know what you do to me…”. His hands kept stroking her and, clenching her teeth and trying hard to stay quiet, Lisa pushed back in one, decisive motion. Michael groaned, and she let out a sly smirk, her eyes still closed.

“Hurry up, daddy…”. Once again, she rotated her hips against him, and he hit end with a grunt.

“Goddamnit… you ready, girl?”.

“Oh yeah… come on…”, she glanced at the elevator and realized that she didn’t care at all about being busted. She was in the moment, wholly immersed in its absolute intensity. Yet, when Michael finally surged forward, she held onto the car tighter and let out a gasp.

“Fuck…”.

One hand on her hip, the other one clasping her throat gently, but firmly, Michael started to move and wasn’t gentle, nor slow. He was just the way she wanted him.

Lisa skillfully met every single thrust, sighing and moaning, reveling in his breathless grunts and little yelps. She loved feeling his hand on her throat, holding her, keeping her firmly in place.

“Oh, shit… that’s it, Mike… Oh God…”, she whispered, realizing that she was already on the brink of insanity. His other arm reached around and in between her legs, touching her, and she jerked. She felt Michael’s scorching hot chest against her back, his lips once again against her ear. His breath was ragged.

“There you are, baby… I can feel you’re close… come on… come for me… come for me”.

She didn’t need any encouragement, really. Another flick of his fingers and she shattered, biting down on the soft flesh of her own arm to muffle her cries as she spasmed against him, feeling safe and secure into his arms, knowing that it didn’t matter how high she flew, he would always break her fall.

Michael didn’t let up, though, and the moment she started to come down from her ecstatic rapture, resumed his unstoppable pounding. Lisa could feel his body tense and go rigid, invading her so completely she thought she would just pass out. But she didn’t, every neuron was alert, ever cell vibrated in perfect sync with him. Before she could even realize what was happening, she was heading into the eye of the storm once again.

Michael felt it, too, and she heard him let out a baritone moan that, alone, pushed her even closer to another climax.

“Oh yeah… Fucking hell, Lise… I don’t think I can hold off much longer…”, he spoke in between clenched teeth, and she took his hand, still holding her throat, bringing it to her mouth and sucking on his fingers.

That was what did him in and, the moment she felt him starting to throb and pulse inside of her, she came again, with him this time. It felt surreal. They were young, reckless and wild, their lovemaking was always intense, often frenzied, but at the same time so full of tenderness – the mixture was lethal. Lethal to the body, deadly to the soul. Lisa closed her eyes as his spasms finally subsided and her legs almost gave in.

His breath still erratic, Michael folded his arms around her and nestled his head on her shoulder, as she finally leaned back and melted against his body.

“Gosh, baby… I love you so fucking much…”, she panted and heard him smile. His kisses on her neck, on her naked shoulder, felt like heaven. Michael hoped that time could stop right there, right then, forever. Everything was so perfect. Not a detail out of place.

“I am so in love with you…”, he murmured, his voice hoarse. Lisa let out a breathless chuckle.

“We should go back up…”.

“Yeah… we should…”.

Twenty minutes later they sat in the backseat of the Suburban, Lisa in Michael’s lap, his hands on her ass, gently stroking her, his lips on her collarbone, taking their time tasting her sweet-smelling skin. He had gotten rid of his jacket, and she was running her hands over his naked arms.

Lisa bent her head slightly and found his lips, and they kissed, deeply and yet so very slowly, their eyes closed, the moment lingering and dragging itself into eternity.

Framing her face with both hands, he kissed her some more, then smiled, pulling back just enough to be able to focus on her eyes.

“I wonder what they must be thinking… We basically vanished into thin air”.

Lisa let out one of her dirty grins.

“Well… probably something like… What in the mother of fuck are those two doing down there?”.

Michael chuckled.

“Gosh, girl… I don’t think that’s the way they speak, you know?”.

“Yeah? See, I don’t know about that… And guess what… nobody would ever imagine the things you say to me while we make love… how foul-mouthed you can be…”, she bit her lip suggestively and then leaned over, kissing his neck with slow, wet kisses. Michael moaned, softly, and tried hard to control his once again raging hard-on. “…They also have no idea that this very sinful version of you is way more interesting than your innocent veneer…”.

“Not my fault… I wasn’t like that at all before meeting you”. He tried very hard to make his voice sound unaffected and failed miserably. Lisa giggled, and her warm breath against his skin made him shiver.

“If that’s what you wanna believe… OK…”. She playfully bit his chin and then kissed him on the lips. “…Do you really care about what they think?”.

“Not at all…”.

“I thought so…”.

Michael raked his fingers through her hair and rested his head against the headrest.

“You know what I’d wanna do?”.

“What, baby?”. She pulled back, and her blue eyes were now soft and so very loving. Despite her strong persona, she really was a sweetheart, and Michael knew it. He loved her contrasts, those lights, and shadows that made her so unique, so perfect for him.

“I wish we were near the ocean… near the beach… canoodling in the backseat of an old-style convertible… watching the sunset together…”.

A smile spread across her beautiful lips.

“Why don’t we do it?”.

“We totally should, shouldn’t we?”.

“Yeah…”.

He put his hands on her waist.

“Then we will. Sooner or later, we will”.

Hidden Hills, August 29th, 1994 – What are you, four?

“Don’t peek… shit, come on! What are you, four?”.

“Well, you said we’re gonna stay here only for a couple of days, so I’m not sure I’ll have the time to see everything in detail… Let me see!”.

“What the fuck, Mike!”, Lisa slapped his hand away as he tried to remove the blindfold she had so carefully placed over his eyes. He laughed.

“I love it when you’re so tame and sweet.”

She pushed him gently down the hallway.

“I know. That’s why you married me. ‘Cause I’m a delicate little flower… This way!”.

“Hey! No need to be sarcastic. That’s not how you should treat a birthday boy”. He was having fun, and Lisa repressed a laugh, shaking her head and placing her hands on his muscular shoulders, directing him through the door.

“Stop.”

“Alright…”. He obeyed and just stood there, hands clasped behind his back, sighing and waiting for her next move. Lisa watched him for a moment, her head cocked to a side, then sauntered over to him, her voice dropping.

“You know, I could just take that blindfold off now, but…”.

“But?”. Michael smiled and bit his lip suggestively, hearing the husky tone in her voice.

Lisa rubbed her hands on his chest, then entwined her fingers behind his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

“But…”, she spoke in between soft pecks, “Now I’m thinking that having my way with you like this could be even better…”. A deeper kiss. “…At least for now”.

She did her best to ignore the fact that Michael’s body was happily responding to her soft play, his rock-hard bulge already pressing against her belly. This man – he seemed to walk around at least semi-hard all day. Lisa would have even found it funny, hadn’t it been so arousing.

Michael held her by the waist, his fingers tracing the lines of her body through the thin fabric of her shirt and she quivered under his touch. He knew Lisa’s body by heart and yet it always amazed him how it looked like it was made for him, and him alone. It was somehow crazy how they could still manage to be physically so attracted to one another. It was just unstoppable, almost predestined. At first, Lisa had been sure that those electrifying sensations would wear off with time – boy, had she been wrong! Not only they didn’t subside: they seemed to get even worse with time. She and Michael had been together for quite a while now, they had gotten married and every day felt like a never-ending honeymoon. She was crazy in love with her husband – and he seemed to reciprocate her feelings just as much.

With immense effort, Lisa pulled back.

“Hey!”, Michael protested with a chuckle, his hands grasping air now.

“Be good… You got me sidetracked for a second, and I forgot all about your surprise…”, breathing out and trying to regain control, Lisa walked around him and started undoing the blindfold. “…Which… by the way… requires your sight”.

Michael blinked and squinted, his eyes slowly getting acquainted with the dim light. He looked around, his mouth opening just slightly in surprise.

“You like?”.

He was speechless.

They were in a perfect dance studio: mirror walls, smooth wooden floor, excellent proportions, everything was flawless. His wife had gifted him with a professional dance studio, specifically built right inside their home.

Soft, low lights now illuminated the studio. In the four corners of the room, Michael noticed huge vases full of sunflowers – his favorite flowers, his happy flowers. In the middle of the studio was a birthday cake carefully placed on a large, soft, red comforter.

“Lisa… I…”, Michael couldn’t find the words.

“Happy birthday, my love,” Lisa said softly, her eyes shimmering in the penumbra.

His eyes still roaming all over the room, he blindly reached down and took her hand, squeezing it and then pulling it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles.

“I don’t know what to say…”. His eyebrows raised, his cheeks flushed, Michael turned and watched her with tears dangerously threatening to spill from his eyes. Lisa cocked her head to a side and reached up, her hand resting on the side of his face. She knew he had some issues regarding the celebration of his birthday, and she had tried her best to make it as unique as she could.

“If you like it, it’s all good.”

“I love it….”, he replied softly, and in response, she smiled that sweet, gentle smile of hers. The one she would always show him whenever she felt vulnerable and safe at the same time. The only thing he could do was kiss her again, softly and repeatedly.

“I love you so much,” he whispered against her lips.

“And I love you.” Lisa caressed his face and then moved a step back, pulling him by the hand. “Come on… there’s a birthday cake waiting for you”.

They ended up feeding each other the cake and then feeding each other all the love they shared – which was quite a lot. Half-naked on the comforter, soft music playing in the background, they made out like teenagers for a long time. The kissing, the touching, the teasing, getting more and more intense and heated by the minute. Every time they made love, it was like discovering a new galaxy – supernovas, flickering comets, distant stars, nebulas, planets. Everything felt new and ancient at the same time.

At one point, Michael pulled Lisa’s sweater pants and underwear down and took them off, as she immediately opened herself to him. And when he bent down, his head in between her thighs, his hands stroking her smooth, tanned skin, his lips and tongue on her, inside of her, the only thing she could do was rake her fingers through his hair, as he became a wave crashing on the shore of her soul, retreating and then reaching for her again. She could only moan and do her best to control her breathing as they became one. The pleasure unstoppable, she whimpered softly and tried hard to keep her eyes open, fascinated by the pleasure he so obviously was experiencing in bringing her to ecstasy. Her husband loved to go down on her, and there had even been times when she had witnessed him climax while doing it. It had mind-blowing, for her, to realize how much he desired her, how his innate instinct to love was also coupled with an intense willingness to give.

And so even now, when it came, her orgasm was like a sparkling wake of stardust among the sky and the only thing it did, was create even more desire and need for this man, for his body, his soul, his heart, that spirit of his, that seduced and tantalized and soothed, completing her so thoroughly.

“You taste amazing…”.

As Michael kissed his way up her body, leaving a trail of scorching hot desire on her belly, her breasts, her collarbone, her shoulders, Lisa grabbed his head and angled her own, kissing him slowly and deeply, savoring the warm sensation of his tongue in her mouth, of the scent of his skin wrapping around her senses.

She kissed his neck, the tip of her tongue tasting sweat and something that was uniquely Michael’s, heady and intoxicating, her teeth nibbling gently at his skin, and spoke in a whisper, straight into his ear.

“Lie down, birthday boy… My turn…”.

She had already gotten rid of his t-shirt and now mirrored his actions, pulling his sweater pants and briefs down just enough to free him and have him at her complete disposal.

She smiled, and he smirked in return, letting out a long breath and leaning back, resting on his elbows.

“Is that another birthday present?”, he murmured, his voice a bit strained.

Lisa took him in her hand and stroked him, slowly but firmly. Looking up at him, her eyes holding a mysterious, deep blue shade now, she gave him a simmering look.

“I don’t know… You tell me…”.

“Well… so far…”, Michael swallowed as Lisa’s mouth descended on him, closing on his painfully hard penis, the soft, scorching hot sensation engulfing him suddenly. “…so good… oh, baby…”.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and licked his lips, then bit them. Maybe the slight pang of pain would be enough to keep his eyes open and fixed on his drop-dead gorgeous, sexy as hell, young wife giving him a fantastic blowjob. What Lisa did to him, Michael had never experienced, not from a physical or from an emotional point of view. He had gone through a few dates before her, and of course he had had sex, but nothing could compare to the chemistry he felt with this woman. The way she touched him, took him to heights he didn’t even think existed, the way she always made him feel loved, accepted, perfect for her, never ceased to amaze him. It still breached his soul further, leaving everything exposed. And it was alright.

“…There you go, baby…”, he groaned, his breath shallow, as he reached down to her, his fingers fisting into her hair and keeping her in place, his hips pushing up as he coaxed her to take more of him. As usual, Lisa didn’t retract – she was a bold, passionate lover, and there was virtually no limit to what they could do together when it came to sex. Nothing was dirty; nothing was prohibited, off-limits or taboo. In fact, everything was nothing more than a purely physical manifestation of the intense, deep connection they shared. Michael was now living his sexuality in an entirely uninhibited and unbridled way, knowing that he was always, always safe with Lisa.

“Oh yeah… there you go… take it…”, he murmured, his voice deep and soft. “Oh, shit… You feel so good, Lise… so fucking good”.

Lisa moaned in return, not letting go of him, the sound emitted by her vocal cords reverberating into his penis. He jerked a little and gasped.

“Yeah, baby… Fuck…”.

Lisa backed off and kept kissing him softly, open-mouthed kisses on his ultra-sensitive erection.

“Getting there…”, she whispered with a smile, her hands caressing, fondling, teasing as she started kissing up his stomach, stopping at his chest, licking in between his pectorals and then focusing on his nipples as he sighed again, trying to keep his breathing under control. It was all painfully slow and painfully intense.

“Lie down…”, she said, softly, reaching his lips and kissing him deeply, as she placed herself astride his hips. “How about I ride you for a bit, big boy? Let me make it good… Tonight is all about you, Mike… all about you…”.

She hadn’t let go of his dick, and now she positioned it in between her legs, rubbing it slowly against her wetness. Michael closed his eyes and swallowed again, his heartbeat hammering in his chest and drumming in between his temples. He was going insane with pleasure. He tried to focus, for a moment, on the erotic, chill-out music playing in the room but it just made it worse.

“Come on, Lise… Do it… Put me inside of you, where I belong…”.

Tossing her hair and giving him a languid look, she slowly descended on him, taking him inch by inch, tortuously and sluggishly, until he filled her to the hilt. She exhaled.

“You feel so good when you’re deep inside me…”.

She had been good at maintaining her self-control, but as soon as she sat down on him completely she let out a moan, and her head dropped back, exposing her beautiful neck. She wore a light blue shirt, wholly unbuttoned at this point, and Michael watched, spellbound, her breasts appearing now and then as she started to move over his body.

“Oh…”, she whimpered, wincing, riding him so perfectly. Her muscles contracted, getting used to Michael’s impressive size, now enhanced by the sky-high level of arousal he was experiencing, and he thought he was going to lose it there and then.

Lisa took a deep breath and then let it go, tilting her head to a side and watching him with her enigmatic eyes. Her hands rested on his chest as she kept riding him, slowly and deliberately, keeping him enclosed inside her body.

“Fuck…”, Michael whispered, laying down on the comforter and grabbing her by the waist, moving her and yet leaving her almost complete freedom regarding speed and rhythm. His hips pushed up and into her, and she winced.

“Oh, shit…”, she moaned, bending down and kissing him, again and again, her tongue replicating in his mouth what he was doing to her body.

“You’re so tight… you’re killing me, girl…”, he breathed out in between kisses. His hands cupped her perfect ass, and he sped up the pace a little, feeling Lisa’s fingers pressing into his shoulders.

“That’s it…”, she whimpered, “That’s it, Mike… let’s try to make that baby, eh? Keep going…”.

Oh, they had been trying for a while now, after their painful miscarriage, but he was eager to oblige once again. He smiled against her lips and sat up, her arms immediately wrapped around his neck, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other running over the sweaty skin of his back. He kissed and sucked on her neck and then descended on her breasts, taking one nipple into his mouth, his hand caressing the other.

“Fuck, baby… I’m about to come again…”.

He felt her tremble and clamp down on him, and his breath stopped in his throat for a second. He glanced at the mirrors surrounding them, admiring the beauty of their interweaved bodies, fused together, the way her muscles moved, like ocean waves under her tanned skin, the way they both glistened with sweat. It was all too much. Lisa starting to spasm and shudder against him, coming violently, was the last push he needed. His orgasm mounted, like a flaming arrow descending from his spine to his member and he let go, thrusting hard into her, giving her everything he had, all of it. It was so violent to be almost painful, and yet he soared, somewhere in the sky, completely free, completely happy, one with her.

Hidden Hills, Los Angeles, October 1994 – Emotionally sore

He remembered that day very well: he was emotionally sore after his first real fight with Lisa, a few months into their marriage. It was nothing, really – he would have learned, with time, that two pigheaded partners could clash and yet still love one another just the same, or maybe even more – and yet he was miffed.

Thus, he had gone to the studio and danced, and danced and danced, sweating out his frustrations and sadness. The early afternoon had turned into an orange-tinted evening when Lisa had finally appeared at the door.

He had seen her, out of the corner of his eye, leaning against the door frame, her arms crossed over her chest and those bright cerulean eyes he could so quickly drown into, impenetrable and apparently unreadable. He had decided to ignore her and had kept on dancing, oblivious to everything but the dance itself.

Eventually, as the music playing in the background started to fade out, she had slowly stepped into the room. Michael had thrown her a glance and had walked over to a nearby bench, dabbing the sweat from his face with a towel. His white V-neck t-shirt was drenched and he had taken it off, letting it fall on the bench and grabbing a clean one.

“Can I come in?”. Lisa’s voice was calm and even.

“You’re already in.” Michael had done his best to sound neutral. But the truth was, he was so happy to have her there. He wanted nothing more than patch things up with her.

Wasting no time, and in perfect accordance with her straightforward personality, Lisa had moved closer, entering his personal space while staring up at him, her eyes softening. She had taken the clean t-shirt from his hand and had placed it back on the bench.

“Lisa… Careful, I’m all sweaty”. Suddenly, even his voice sounded more relaxed.

“I know… I love you like this”. She had glided her hands on his naked chest, and Michael had felt the air tighten around them. His body had immediately responded to her touch. It happened every time. Lisa’s fingers had slid behind his neck, raking through his damp hair and she had pulled him down to her mouth, kissing him softly on the lips.

“I am sorry, baby…”, she had whispered. “I didn’t wanna fight.”

He had placed his hands on her waist, loving the feeling of her warm skin through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. Closing his eyes, he had smiled against her lips and reciprocated her kisses.

“Me neither… And I am sorry, too”.

“Let me make it up to you…”. Her voice was almost inaudible, while the temperature of her body seemed to rise by the second.

“You don’t have anything to…“.

Michael’s voice had trailed off as her hand reached down in between them, finding him already hard and ready. Some parts of his body not only didn’t hold any grudges but also had no shame.

“Baby…”, he had sounded just slightly out of breath, and it had nothing to do with having danced for hours.

“Let me make it up to you,” Lisa had repeated, her soft voice in perfect contrast with the firm grip she now had on his painful erection. Michael had swallowed hard, his heart racing into his chest, as she began to rub him through the fabric of his sweater pants.

As she started to kiss his neck, accompanying her lips with butterfly caresses of her fingertips, her other hand had reached into his gym pants, taking him, holding him, stroking him the way she knew he loved. Michael had shuddered in anticipation.

Lisa’s kisses had traced a path down his chest, on his stomach and sides, and his muscles had twitched under her lips. Slowly, she had knelt in front of him and had looked up, piercing him with her eyes as she gently pulled his pants down just enough to have what she needed within reach.

“Watch me, Mike… Don’t look away”.

His chin almost touching his collarbone, Michael had stared at his wife kissing him, licking him lovingly and finally taking him into the warmth of her mouth and had fought hard to keep his eyes open. Electrical shocks ran through each one of his nerve endings. He had taken a deep breath and exhaled slowly, his hand on Lisa’s head now, guiding her movements, the pleasure already unbearable. He was at her mercy, and it felt so good.

Lisa had let him go for a moment, still stroking him slowly, giving him the time to regain a bit of self-control. All the while, her eyes had never left his.

“You like what you see, mister?”. Her voice raspy, that sexy drawl more evident now, just like the hot, smoldering looks she gave him. She was just as turned on as he was. Lisa loved to go down on him just like he loved to go down on her. It had always been that way – a pure, complete attraction, acceptance and adoration of the other’s body.

“Fuck, yes,” he had replied, gently urging her to take him into her mouth again. Of course, she had complied, and he had thrown his head back, the expression on his face of perfect, ecstatic rapture. Then he had suddenly remembered that they were in a room where all the walls were mirrors. He had opened his eyes again, welcomed by a seamless view of what she was doing to him from every angle. He had jerked and flinched in pleasure as Lisa kept inflicting the sweetest torture imaginable, both with her hands and her mouth, knowing exactly how to stimulate him, to pleasure him, to suck him and touch him, to slowly push him towards the abyss of his physical and emotional fulfillment.

Lisa’s hand had reached back and had rested on his ass, inviting him to take the lead. Michael knew what it meant. The intoxicating feeling of sexual power and dominance was something he reveled in, and even though he was well aware that the roles were reversed, and he could only do what she allowed him to, the sudden sensation was always empowering and thrilling.

Sighing and moaning, he had bit down on his bottom lip, lowering her gaze on her.

“That’s it, baby… come on… Take it. Just like that”.

He knew he pushed her to the limit, but he was also sure she was game – they knew each other’s body like their own and, when it came to sex, almost everything was not only allowed but cherished like a precious thing, a valuable way to communicate on an even deeper level.

She had held him in his hand and kissed him thoroughly.

“You look even sexier when I’m down on my knees… Tell me how good it feels. I want to hear you say it”.

“It feels amazing…”. Michael’s voice came out a bit strained. “I love it when you go down on me… Keep going, baby girl…”.

Dominance and submission. The overlying and slight interchange of roles had the power to turn on the heat even more, for both of them.

Letting him go for a moment, she had gently started to kiss and nibble at his pelvic bones and lower abdomen, sending shivers down his spine.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to have you in my mouth…”.

He had chuckled, breathlessly.

“Yeah?”.

Lisa’s eyes had looked up at him, mischievously.

“Yeah. I don’t know why, but you turn me on even when you piss me off, big man”.

“Well, that’s… convenient…ah”. He had gasped, feeling her mouth closing on him once again. “Oh yeah… there you go… good girl…”.

His choice of words, which had been entirely natural and not planned, had been appreciated and Lisa’s moans and purrs had reverberated into him like a diapason. He had started to shake, his legs trembling.

“Baby… oh, fucking shit! I’m about to come”.

She had grasped his ass more decidedly, keeping him in place, wordlessly telling him what she wanted him to do, the clamping of her mouth on him deadly, now. Resistance was futile, and he had just let go, allowing himself to climax in her mouth, making himself drown in the most intimate contact ever, yelping and sighing and cursing, almost crumbling under the forceful assault of his powerful orgasm. He knew that he was the only man Lisa allowed to do anything of that sort to her and, once again, the heady feeling of triumph and completion had heightened his pleasure even more. There was absolutely no other place he wanted to be, no other woman he needed.

He was helplessly in love.

Breathing heavily, he had pulled her up and kissed her, again and again, and then, never letting go of her lips, had picked her up and had started walking to the door.

Lisa had laughed.

“Hey! What are you doing? You’re such a punk!”.

“What? I’m just dragging my lovely wife to my den…”.

She had chuckled again and had buried her face in the crook of his neck, her arms wrapped around his shoulders.

New York, Beth Israel Medical Center North, December 1995 – Too many enemies

Lisa straightened her back and blinked her eyelids several times, trying to get rid of the red haze fogging her eyes.

“Mr. Morey. I can guarantee you that, as long as my husband does not tell me, personally, that he doesn’t want to see me, I am not going to leave this fucking hospital”.

Morey’s face looked flushed, his forehead gleaming with sweat. Lisa Marie Presley-Jackson was not someone you could underestimate and the tense mood she was in, clearly, was not helping. They had been trying to prevent her from entering Michael’s room for almost twenty minutes now, but she was not relenting.

Only 24 hours earlier, a shouting match had ended with Lisa storming out of the room and leaving the building. Her face pale, eyes huge, she had not uttered a single word after slamming the door shut behind her back.

Of course. She had just discovered that one of the many reasons – together with low blood pressure and dehydration – why her husband had collapsed was intense stress. And part of that stress was because he had come to know that his wife had just found out about Debbie’s pregnancy and miscarriage. Michael, the man who truly believed in marriage and family, had gotten another woman pregnant. In a lab, but still.

Lisa had been furious.

Apparently, she had miscalculated the nurse’s convincing powers and ability to interfere in someone else’s marriage, but also Michael’s determination to have a kid right there and then. A kid that, apparently, he believed Lisa was holding back from him for the sake of it, just because she could. Which was not at all was what it was about – and that infuriated her even more.

At the same time, she was worried stiff for him. Getting reliable information about her husband’s health had been torturous. Nobody, within his entourage, seemed to be willing to communicate with her. Her entourage and her mother were also doing their best to keep her away, all the while whispering in her ear. This is the right time to leave him, Lisa. He’s weak now, and he won’t have time to react. See? He’s impregnated a surrogate behind your back, Lisa, what kind of husband does that? How can you honestly believe he loves you?

All the fucking vultures around the two of them were suddenly ruffling their feathers. Each one of them had their agenda.

She had never felt more alone and isolated in her life.

He had never felt more lost and confused in his life.

After going back to their apartment at the Trump Towers, Lisa had spent the night awake, alternating moments of pure apathy with crying jags.

She had finally come to know, by secretly hiring a private investigator, not only about Rowe but also about the extent of Michael’s illness. He had collapsed on stage, at the Beacon Theatre, during rehearsals: that, she had known right from the start. Mainly because it was on national TV.

What she didn’t know, because someone was withholding information from her, was that he had gotten down suddenly, hitting his face on the grate of the stage, both hands by his side, his microphone still in one. The man she loved and currently wanted to strangle personally had fallen face-first onto a fucking metal grate, risking to break his skull in the process, and had been out cold, scaring to death the entire staff. Some of the people who were there had even wondered if he had suffered a heart attack.

Lisa was petrified, and the only thing she was aware of was the racehorse happening into her heart. Two horses were running: the first was Rage, and he had been at the top of his game for a while. But then Worry had caught up and now was winning, hands down.

Pushing her hurt and disappointment to a side, Lisa had realized that she had to go back to the hospital. She could not stand the idea of leaving Michael with the memory of her shouting at him, to the point that he had asked her to leave.

Now Lisa stared at Michael’s manager and doctors, waiting for them to grant her access to his husband’s room.

“Let me see him,” she repeated, her voice sounding calmer, now.

“Mr. Jackson needs rest and peace,” one of the doctors chimed him, trying to sound reasonable.

“I do too,” Lisa replied sternly. “And that’s why I have to see my husband. If he asks me to leave, I will, but until then, I know where my place is”.

Eventually, they had relented, and Lisa had observed the string of bodyguards and hospital personnel opening like the Red Sea in front of Moses. Quietly, and feeling all eyes on her, Lisa had pushed down the door handle to Michael’s room.

He was asleep, and she took some time to stare at him quietly, her eyes suddenly flooded with tears. She and Michael were drifting apart, and she had no idea what to do to avoid the laceration that, bit by bit, was tearing her heart to pieces.

Michael’s face was relaxed but ashen, his cheeks and chin showing the shadow of a three-day stubble. He looked sick but still otherworldly beautiful.

Lisa bit down on her bottom lip. Her soul shattered when she realized how much she loved him still, and how the mere idea of losing him held the power of effectively killing her.

She walked over to him and sat down on the chair by the bed, and he immediately opened his eyes, blinking. He turned his head to her, and she registered a slight surprise on his face.

“I thought you were gone for good.”

His voice sounded raspy.

Lisa sniffled.

“I can be… if you want me to”.

Michael diverted his gaze and sighed, his expression revealing infinite sadness. Blindly, he reached out and touched her forearm, and Lisa immediately covered his hand with hers.

“Why are you back? You gonna scold me some more?”.

She let out a humorless chuckle.

“No… It’s too late for that, anyway. The damage’s done”.

“Then why are you here?”.

“Because I love you. And I am so worried about you”.

Michael’s grip on her forearm tightened.

“Do you want me to go, Michael?”.

He finally looked at her.

“No, I don’t.”

She lifted his hand and kissed it, first the back, then the palm. He stared at her, and his eyes softened, as his fingers gently caressed her face. She leaned into his touch, and a single tear slid down her cheek. Michael caught it with his thumb and grimaced, her pain reverberating through him.

“Please… don’t cry”. How weak and hoarse his voice sounded. Lisa sniffled and took his hand, kissing his wrist now, with feathery kisses, detecting goosebumps under her lips.

“Did you eat anything?”.

“Yeah… I just had some jello. It tasted horrendous”.

Lisa scoffed, joylessly.

“Come here, baby…”, he mumbled.

She leaned over just as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and kissed him. His lips were soft and warm, and the natural scent of his skin immediately took her into its familiar embrace. Lisa’s heartbeat raced into her chest and, once again, she did everything in her power to stop the tears from falling.

“There are so many things we have to talk about…”, he said, actually surprising her. Michael didn’t like confrontations.

“Not now, though. You need to get better first. And then I will probably kick your ass”.

He caressed her face with his free hand and pulled her in for another kiss. And then another one. And another one.

“Can you at least believe me when I say that I love you, Lise?”. He pulled back just slightly to look at her and a painful pang slashed him when she cleared her throat and averted her gaze.

She smiled, uncomfortably, and blinked back the tears, rolling her eyes and exhaling a sigh.

“You know what I believe? That you need to shave”. She ran her fingertips over the raspy stubble on his chin. “Want me to help you out?”.

His heart rate kicked up a notch, and he felt glad for the sudden truce.

“You aren’t gonna slash my throat, are you?”.

She made a face and stood up, walking over to the bathroom.

“O ye of little faith… you are not aware of my immense talent as a barber, yet”.

She reemerged a couple of minutes later holding a razor, a bottle of shaving foam and a wet towel.

“Sit up and stand still.”

Wincing, he obeyed.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You feel better today?”.

She started lathering his face with her fingers, her eyes avoiding his and focusing on the task instead. All the while, he watched her intently, his love for her soaring by the second. Despite the fights and the power struggles, those were the moments when he remembered why he had chosen her, why he had married her, why he wanted her.

“I do. Still a bit sore and weak, but I am getting better”.

“You do look better.”

She lifted his chin slightly.

“Hold still…”.

The light, raspy sound of the razorblade on his skin felt comforting, and Michael closed his eyes for a moment. Lisa noticed his Adam’s apple move and grinned, just slightly.

“Hold still…”, she repeated, in a whisper, running the blade along his jawline.

They stayed quiet until she finished shaving him. As she lovingly cleaned him up with the wet towel, she cocked her head to a side, then to the other, looking rather pleased with herself.

“There. All done. You’re back to being your old, nice and smooth self”.

He ran his hand on his cheek.

“Good job, indeed.”

“How does it feel?”, she asked softly. She was talking about the shaving, but also about something else, much more critical.

“A little closer to normal…”, Michael simply replied, looking up at her with his huge, dark eyes. Dangerous, gentle eyes that could rip you to shreds.

“OK, let me put these -“.

Lisa stepped back, and he took her hand, pulling her in instead and making her sit on the bed, next to him.

“Stay here. Lie down with me”.

“I am not sure it’s allowed to lay down with a patient,” she protested half-heartedly.

“I don’t care. Take off your shoes and come here. Hold me”.

Lisa complied, with a sigh. She laid down by his side and rested her head on Michael’s chest. She felt his arm around her shoulders and closed her eyes, listening to his slightly accelerated, steady heartbeat.

“Just hold me for a while…”, he whispered, kissing the top of her head, his lips lingering there.

The apocalypse was near, right outside the door, and they were pretending they were in a safe place.

Hideout, February 1996 – The murky courtege of the modern Roi Soleil

“So… can I get you something to drink?”. Calmly, moving slowly, methodically, Michael opened the fridge door. “…Water? Wine? Soda?”.

Lisa watched him, as she sat at the kitchen table, then lowered her gaze. She stared at her own hands clasped on the table, tears threatening to spill. Who was this polite stranger? Was he the same man she had made love to, hundreds of times? The same man who would pick her up and twirl her around, laughing? Snuggle with her on the couch, while watching an old movie on TV, late at night? Wake her up by nuzzling her neck, his hands everywhere on her body? It couldn’t possibly be.

And yet here they were – alone for the first time after signing those damned divorce papers. No entourage, no lawyers, no advisors, nobody but them – for once. They had spoken over the phone and had decided to meet, to discuss some things in private. It was a pathetic excuse.

They just wanted to look each other in the eye and, possibly, convince themselves it was really over. Or maybe assess each other’s condition after the war that, apparently, had obliterated everything they had been building.

Suddenly Lisa felt exhausted. It was all so wrong. That, all of that, was not at all what was supposed to happen. Not to them. They hadn’t met to become enemies. That was not what was in their hearts.

“Water… water is fine, thank you”.

She bit her tongue. She was going to end the sentence with the usual “baby.” But Michael was no longer that, to her. They were divorcing… close to Valentine’s Day, they were no longer husband and wife. At first, she thought it would make her feel better – her decision, which her “people” and her mother had pushed for, with her teeth and nails, whispering in her ear until it had seemed the most logical thing to do – although the most honest part of Lisa felt that this was not the case. She hadn’t been able to fool herself for long, and now she just felt… emptied. Lonely. And desperate. A considerable part of her was suddenly shriveling. That part of her that was marked with Michael’s name.

“Look, Michael…”, she rubbed her forehead. “…I just wanted to say, that I don’t want any money. I just…”.

He stopped cold, his back to her, the fridge door still open.

“You just?”. His voice apparently calm, and yet with a dangerous, barely controlled undercurrent.

“…Nothing”. Lisa shook her head.

He turned around slowly, a big sigh leaving his chest. She watched him. He looked tired as if he hadn’t slept well in days, and thinner. But he was doing his best to appear impenetrable. Invincible. Unaffected. And he was good – because he looked like he didn’t care at all. Otherworldly beautiful and distant, like a star in another galaxy.

“So, you’re here to tell me that we can rip our prenup to shreds?”.

“Yeah… Unless-“.

“I don’t want anything from you, Lisa Marie,” he interrupted her, evenly. She cringed.

“Not money, anyway,” he added then, under his breath. She heard him, though.

“Then what is it, that you want?”, she asked.

He shook his head and turned her back to her again, pouring her a glass of water.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. It has always mattered”.

He slammed the pitcher back on the counter with such violence that Lisa jumped in her chair. She saw his head drop forward and he squared his shoulders, trying hard to control himself. He was livid, and his blind rage barely concealed under the perfect, flawless gentleman mask. The cold, collected, detached stranger he had suddenly become. And yet she knew he was hurting, just like her.

“Did it, Lise? Did it really matter?”.

Lisa knew what he was talking about. He had accused her of not wanting his babies. Which was not exactly accurate, as she had tried to explain countless times – possibly not in the best way. But truth was, she did want to have a family with Michael – only, not if they were not united, not if they were not strong together and a solid front, not if they were not able to communicate properly, not if they weren’t able to get rid of the interferences, not if they kept letting their little “advisors” get in the middle of their relationship. And they had been hitting rough waters for a while, now.

To be completely honest, it had all gone well until their worlds had collided officially, with papers stating that they were, in fact, a family. Theirs hadn’t been a marriage. It had been a fucking harem, a murky court for a modern Roi Soleil. Full of bilious paramours and courtiers looking for attention, jealous of the wife, jealous of the husband. And, eventually, all those outsiders had been able to separate them – by instilling doubts, hurtful words spread subtly and relentlessly in his ear, in her ear. She doesn’t love you. He doesn’t love you. She doesn’t want your kids. He only wants your kids. She needs you for her music career. He married you for your last name. She said. He said. She did this. He did that.

At first, it hadn’t even worked. But after months and months of inexorable manipulation, the drops were continually falling in the same spot had started to erode the rock, and the voices had become more and more intrusive, to the point that neither she or Michael had been able to ignore them any longer.

And it was bullshit. Lisa was starting to realize that – the voice of the truth trying hard to find its way through the fog of malevolent, whispered advice, of not so disinterested suggestions, of malicious “friend talks.” It hadn’t taken long to hear her own heart scream out to him again, the moment she had so idiotically cut the rope.

And yet… here they were again. Miscommunication and resentment so evident in their voices, in their tentative words, and in their silence. So well-nourished by months of careful manuring from both sides. They were now officially in a storm of shit.

“Michael… please. Let’s not go back to that”.

She felt a sudden irritation rise. Because talking about that would inevitably lead to talking about him getting that nurse pregnant while he was still married to Lisa. The fact that it had happened in a lab didn’t matter. The fact that he and the nurse had an agreement and not a relationship didn’t matter. The fact that he wanted to raise the baby with Lisa didn’t, either. What did matter, to her, was that he had done everything behind her back and, when she found out, he had said that she had authorized him to proceed. The mere thought made Lisa’s blood boil – because Michael was not an idiot. And he knew that her answer, when he had told her “If you won’t do it, Debbie will,” had been sarcastic. She had never insulted Michael’s intelligence – and at the very least she would have expected the same courtesy from him.

As if reading her mind, he winced and recoiled suddenly.

“I was not – That’s not what I meant.”

Good. Because there were always two sides to the coin.

“Then what did you mean?”. She tried to keep her voice as calm as possible. She buried, as deep as she could, the sense of inadequacy that had planted its seeds into her, after her miscarriage, and that had now become a 100-tentacle octopus, choking her.

“You asked me to wait… you said you wanted to try again, and then… and then I get those fucking papers”.

His voice, now, showed hurt and confusion and it was Lisa’s turn to cringe. He was right. She had followed her mother’s and her claque’s advice and had blindsided him. She had done something she didn’t want to do, just to stomp her foot. She had been immature, arrogant, and stupid. And he was right: he had gotten the message, called her bluff, and signed the papers. There. How was that, as a lesson? Educational enough?

Telling him that she did, in fact, want to try again, and that those fucking papers had been sent in a sort of spur of the moment, fueled by some bad advice and bad company, would have been pointless anyway. So, she just remained silent.

She knew – Lisa knew – that Michael had trusted her with all his heart and now that trust was shattered. Hers was destroyed too, because of the Debbie debacle. But something – something else – was still there, although it would have been so much easier if it had just been obliterated in the nuclear explosion that those last weeks had been. That something was the love they still felt for one another.

Lisa squared her jaw and nodded, her gaze dropping. The damage was done. No need to keep up the façade any longer.

“You’re right, Mike… That’s what I did”, she replied, tiredly.

“Yeah. You were able to catch me off guard, bravo to you. Are you happy now?”, he scoffed, dryly and joylessly, his hands on his hips.

She kept her eyes fixed on her own hands.

“I wish I were, but no. I am not happy… Not in the least”.

Her answer kind of deflated him and, suddenly, he looked overwhelmed. He rubbed his temples, then pressed his hands over his eyes.

“Goddamnit…”, he exclaimed, under his breath, as he leaned back against the kitchen counter.

They stayed quiet for what seemed an eternity. Finally, Michael sat down at the table, next to her.

“Michael…”.

“Yes…”.

“…Have you been eating?”.

His heart broke a little more, and he felt the sudden need to bang his head against the wall. Everything was so confusing. His emotions were jumbled up, short-circuiting, all over the place. The part of his soul that was still vibrating for her soared a little, realizing that she still cared somehow. He decided not to answer her question. It wasn’t Lisa’s business what he did or didn’t do. Not anymore. She had lost that privilege. And it was all her fault. This was not something he had wanted.

“I wanna know…”, he said instead, his voice plain.

Lisa looked up at him briefly.

“…I wanna know when you stopped loving me”.

What?

Lisa frowned. Was it that, what he thought? Oh, hell no. This was all too much. It was not what she wanted. She just shook her head and, within an instant, felt her vision drown in tears.

“Fuck…”, she whispered, hastily, drying her eyes with the back of her hand. She got up and grabbed her purse.

“Where are you going?”, he asked her, trying to sound as casual and collected as he could. But his hand, up to that point resting flat on the table, balled up into a fist.

Lisa was putting on her jacket.

“Home, Michael… I’m going home”.

He stood up and walked around the table, standing only a few feet from her, fighting the urge to stretch out his hand and stop her, physically prevent her from leaving.

“Why? We’re talking… We’re not done yet”.

She let out a dry, desolate laugh through the tears.

“Oh yeah… Yeah, we are. And it’s worse than ever”.

He acted out of instinct and, before he could even realize what he was doing, grabbed her by the sleeve of her jacket, tugging at it just slightly.

“Lisa Marie…”. His voice was still dangling dangerously between rage, concern and excruciating pain.

She shrugged his hand off and finally looked up at him, stared at him with those liquid blue eyes, immediately leaving a burning trail into his soul. It was incredible how such an apparently cold color could evoke so much fire, so much warmth. Tears were running down her cheeks.

“Michael, just let me go, OK? This is crazy… What the hell… I fucking never stopped loving you, OK? Why are you even questioning it? I can’t believe you think that… I sure gave you a helluva challenge, and I know I fucked up big time, since I’ve never really wanted to divorce you, I’ve been fucking immature and shit, but this… this is just too much for me”.

He was speechless. His eyes widened.

“You… you make it so difficult to stay, sometimes, you know?”, she sniffled, and her voice broke. “You don’t even realize… You cannot possibly understand how hard it is for me, to…”.

“To what?”, he managed to croak out.

“To just sit back and watch you get swallowed whole by those fucking leeches you keep surrounding yourself with. They will chew you and spit you out and-”.

He shook his head and sneered.

“Oh please, this shit is getting old…”.

She flinched.

“That’s right… It’s getting old… But it’s over now, right? I challenged you, and you won. We’re done. You’re free. I should have known better. I was stupid – this was not what I wanted”.

“What did you want, then? Were you trying to make a point?”. He still hadn’t let go of her.

She stared at him as if he was crazy.

“What did I want? YOU! Michael, I only wanted you!”.

He spoke in between gritted teeth, his fury and frustration were palpable.

“You HAD me!”.

She had to close her eyes and take a deep breath, in sudden exhaustion. She realized there was no fight left, in her soul.

“No baby… I didn’t. Not anymore. You were slipping away… and I didn’t know how to stop you. I tried… maybe not in the best possible way. But I’m only human, and I know that my intentions were good… I was never your enemy – this, at least, you gotta believe”, her voice suddenly sounded very sad, very soft and that hurt Michael more than her rage, more than the accusations she had thrown at him, more than their endless fights. Seeing her disarmed and defeated was more than he could tolerate and, for the first time, he felt scared. His rage just disappeared in a cloud of mist. He was losing the woman he loved.

“Please, Mike… let me go. Just let me go home”, she whispered feebly, and another set of tears spilled from her eyes.

He slowly removed his hand from her arm. His head lowered.

“I don’t want you to go…”. He swallowed. “I ain’t gonna beg you to stay, Lise… But just know, that I don’t want you to go”.

After a long, tense moment, she reached up and placed her cold, soft hand on his cheek, and he closed his eyes, leaning into her touch. He felt like crying and frozen in place at the same time.

“Com’here…”, he breathed out, taking her other hand and pulling her into him, gently. She was too tired to resist, and in a second was into his arms, her face resting against his chest. He felt the dampness of her quiet tears soak the cotton of his shirt and held her tighter, burying his face in the crook of her neck. He could feel her tremble and gently kissed her neck, with soft pecks, keeping his eyes closed and savoring the moment – hoping it would last. The scent of Lisa’s skin awakening his nerve endings and sending an electrical discharge to his comatose heart.

He heard her moan, very softly, and then her hands were on his chest, pushing.

“No, Michael… please”.

He swallowed again and tried to hold onto her, but she pulled back, and his empty arms felt suddenly useless, burdensome. Lisa was still shaking visibly.

“Don’t… Lise, don’t…”.

“I have to go. I gotta get out of here”, she whispered, as if she was talking to herself. “Please don’t make me do this…”.

Michael’s eyes burned as she turned her back to him and started walking down the hallway. When he heard the door slam shut, his eyes fluttered closed, and he blindly reached for the table, steadying himself. She was gone. And he was not ready. He felt his lungs constrict in his chest.

Then, a minute later, he heard the door reopen, and his entire body reacted on autopilot, his soul spiraling upwards. Suddenly he could breathe again after the most prolonged apnoea. Without even registering what he was doing, he strode over to the hallway, meeting her halfway, and Lisa was in his arms once again, her purse falling on the floor, together with her jacket.

Without a word, he picked her up just as she wrapped her arms around his neck, her lips over his and he tasted tears. He was not sure they were his or hers, and it didn’t matter. She gently captured his bottom lip and Michael opened his mouth, his tongue immediately searching for hers, probing, stroking, as he moved toward the bedroom, slowly and unsteadily. He felt her smooth hands on his face now, her soft lips everywhere, on his forehead, his closed eyes, his cheeks, his chin, his mouth again. How he had missed her. He had missed her so much. The passionate, yet desperate quality of her touch did nothing but enhance the intoxicating mixture of pain and pleasure he was experiencing on an emotional level.

“Baby…”, Lisa whispered, in between kisses. “Oh, baby…”.

Judging by how strained her voice and her breathing sounded, Michael thought that she was probably undergoing the same emotions. He let out a sob, the tenderness in her tone slicing him open.

Finally entering the bedroom, he was unable to move those last steps to the bed and stopped near the door instead, pushing Lisa up against the wall, his hands still on her waist, as she locked her legs around his hips.

“Lisa…”, he said, huskily, right against her lips. “Say it again… say that you love me”.

Her hands into his short curls and those blue eyes as bright as the ocean, staring at him through the tears.

“I do…”. He felt her fingernails massage his scalp slightly, on the back of his head, and shivered. “I do love you…”.

She would never forget how insecure he could be. This man, who had the entire world eating from the palm of his hand, needed reassurance about a love that was so powerful and overbearing to be almost lethal, for her.

“And I love you, Lise… I’ve always loved you, I love you”.

His eyes threatened to pull her into their darkness and Lisa diverted her gaze, focusing on unbuttoning his shirt instead. If he did notice the shadow of doubt on her face, he didn’t let her know, and she was glad their power struggles were out of the picture, at least for the time being.

He gently put her down, and his warm, shaky hands covered hers.

“Here… let me help you”, he said, as his lips reached for hers once again. He needed to have her, to sink into her and it had to happen quickly as he was going to burst through his pants. As he struggled to get rid of his shirt, he suddenly got impatient and just pulled at the fabric, buttons flying everywhere. Lisa didn’t seem to register and kept kissing him deeply, thoroughly. They hadn’t made love in a month – an eternity, for them.

He took her hand and brought it against his raging hard-on, breaking the kiss to breathe. He pressed her palm there as she gently bit his bottom lip.

“Can you feel this?”, he panted, as her tiny hand closed on his pulsing erection. “Can you feel what you do to me? Only you, baby girl…”.

Her gaze moved from his bulge to his eyes and he could not stand the hesitation he saw on her face.

“This is not just about desire, Lise…”. He fought for control over the sensory overload messing with his ability to speak. The scent of her. Her touch. The warmth emanating from her body. “This is not just sex for me… I do love you-“.

She pulled him down by the back of his head and silenced him with a kiss, their tongues sliding against each other sensually, and he jerked more into her hand. All the while, she took his hand and pushed it into her pants, his fingers immediately touching her scorching hot wetness through her underwear.

“Oh, baby… Oh yeah…”, he breathed out against her lips, moving her thong to a side and finally getting in direct contact with her warm skin, caressing and probing.

Strangely enough, Lisa was quiet even though her body spoke volumes. She slowly sank to her knees and unzipped his pants with trembling hands, freeing him. Wordlessly, glancing up at him for a moment, pain and lust both evident in her eyes, she started to bestow loving, passionate, open-mouthed kisses on his engorged dick, then took him into her mouth. Michael sighed, caught off guard. His hand gently rested on her head.

“Lise…”, he moaned.

She let go of him for a moment but kept him in both her hands, gently but firmly.

“It’s OK…”, she just whispered. “I got you, Mike…”.

Then her mouth engulfed him again, her lips and tongue making a number on him. Michael’s legs started to shake, and he clenched his teeth, wincing in pleasure.

“Fuck… oh shit…”, he panted, his fingers raking through her hair, his other hand resting, palm flat, against the wall.

He loved how she went down on him, and no woman in his life had even been able to make him experience such pleasure with a simple blowjob, but he didn’t want to come that way. Not right now. He didn’t want her to think that he was using her, in any way. So, fighting against his instinct to just let go and have her suck him until he passed out, he managed to grab her by the shoulders and pulled her up, immediately kissing her with all the love that his words were not able to express.

As he kept kissing her, his lips leaving a trail from her mouth to her neck, sucking on her earlobe and delighting in the goosebumps he felt under his fingertips, he took off her shirt and pulled down her pants and underwear. Lisa kicked them off, and he scooped her up again, finally walking over to the bed.

Michael placed her on the comforter and bent down on her body, worshipping her naked skin with his lips and hands. She writhed under his touch, and he felt elated, relieved – maybe she was right, and this was not the right time to talk, if not with their bodies. Perhaps, by making love, they would be able to say all those things that had been left unsaid. They would have time to communicate verbally… later. But before then, some of the ice created by their recent, bitter fights had to melt away.

Lisa’s warm hands reached for his pants and pulled them down, and he got rid of them in a swift movement, finally reveling in the intoxicating skin-on-skin contact with the only woman he truly craved, who he didn’t always like but surely had never stopped loving. Until that point, he had not been entirely sure they were ever going to be intimate again, and now his heartbeat raced suddenly, realizing that it was happening instead. Even though they were both hurting, the immense desire and connection they shared were still able to soothe their frayed hearts.

Laying by Lisa’s side, her nipple into his mouth and his hand caressing the taut muscles of her stomach, Michael felt her grab him and stroke him again and sighed against her skin. He kissed up her neck, sucking on the soft, pulsing vein on her throat and finally reaching her lips, finding them soft and parted. Lisa turned to him fully, and they were facing each other now, her other hand in his hair, on his cheek as they kept kissing.

Michael took Lisa’s leg and wrapped it around his waist and then covered her hand with his own, as she kept holding and caressing him. Breaking the kiss, Lisa looked down at their intertwined fingers moving together on his hardness, as he guided himself to her center.

“Lise…”. His breath was labored. “Tell me… tell me what you want”.

“I…,” she swallowed, and a pained expression appeared on her beautiful face. “I want to feel you… I need to feel you”.

He surged forward and breached her slowly, letting her feel every single inch of his desire and longing for her, savoring that moment, hoping it would last forever. Their eyes still locked, she gasped and bit her lip, her breathing quickening.

“Like this?”, he whispered, almost inaudibly as he entered her further.

“Yes… Oh god…”, came the soft reply and then her mouth was over his again.

He sunk into her, feeling her fingers press into the sweaty skin of his shoulder, then scratch it slightly.

“Oh yeah…”, he breathed out against her lips, as he started moving into her, his arm closing around her waist and pulling her closer, “Oh baby…”.

“I missed you so much…”, she replied in a painful admission, letting out a trembling sigh, her hands framing his face.

He moved in slow, deep, languid strokes and they broke the kiss, staring at each other, breathing each other, letting the moment drag itself into eternity. Even though their lovemaking was unusually gentle and tender, their arousal was sky-high, and soon Lisa started to shake and spasm against Michael’s body, her inner muscles clenching on him, keeping him prisoner inside of her. He tried his best to resist the scorching, pulsing heat but couldn’t and his body reacted before he had the chance to try to control himself. His thrusts were quickening, deepening, he sighed and sobbed and kept his eyes fixed on Lisa’s as he came violently, releasing into her again and again and pulling her straight into another orgasm. When he saw a new set of tears enhance the cobalt blue of her eyes, his vision fogged and he realized that he was crying, too.

They spent the night together, drifting off and then waking up again several times, to make love – the spectrum of their passion undulating like a pendulum, shifting from slow and gentle to raw and animalistic. They never really spoke. Eventually, his body spent, Michael fell into a deep, dreamless sleep that felt like a lullabying black sea made of pure silence and peace.

When he woke up the next morning, the sun was high in the sky, and Lisa was gone. Only her scent remained, still lingered in the air. His body wholly sore, Michael lifted his head from the pillow and squinted his eyes, reaching over to her side of the bed. The sheets were cold.

There was a small, folded note on Lisa’s pillow and Michael opened it slowly.

“Mike,

I do love you, more than you’ll ever know. Please don’t ever doubt it.

L.”

Michael fell back into the bed and took in a deep, exhausted breath. Without her, he felt like an armless wrestler, like a legless runner.

Florida, June 1st, 1997 – Are you in pain?

Wrapped in the darkness of the night, he just sat still by Lisa’s side for a few of hours as she slept with the aid of some medications, a couple of days after her surgery. She looked peaceful, but thinner, and had dark circles around her eyes. As if the stress she had been subjected to over the last months was finally taking a toll on her. And, after all, it was just like that.

At first, Michael hadn’t thought much about it. After their last colossal fight, a few months earlier, he had tried his best to ban Lisa from his life and his mind. To ice her out for good. The first part of his plan had worked out just fine since it was all about practical stuff – he had changed his phone number and, all in all, was too busy taking care of his baby and planning the second leg of his tour to have time to relent and call her anyway. The other part of his little project had been a bit trickier, though. During his long and lonely nights, when he could barely sleep, Lisa’s eyes were the last thing he saw before falling into that dreamless state that allowed him to carry on somehow. Insomnia was a bitch and, when you added stress to the mix, the result was just unbearable.

At the beginning of May, his sources had told him that Lisa was seriously not well and, initially, he had brushed the news off. He had convinced himself that he didn’t care – that what Lisa Presley did, or how he was, or who she saw and possibly even fucked, was no longer his business. He was married to another woman – although that was never his plan and, in fact, he had been basically forced to marry her, since the news of her pregnancy had “mysteriously” leaked – and was a father, now. Lisa had given up her privileges after all, and Michael was not the kind of man who would take his word back.

Except he was, when it came to Lisa.

He was so full of shit. That devil-may-care attitude had never really suited him.

When rumors of her health deteriorating even more had started to spread, once again Michael had decided to ignore them just like he had been ignoring the slow disintegration of the armor he had so carefully built around his heart. He was in Warsaw for a few days, ready to fly to Bremen for his show, and work had always been his best ally when it came to pushing unpleasant thoughts aside. Then everything had suddenly gone downhill: Lisa had been rushed to the hospital, her gallbladder removed. He had come to know that she had been diagnosed with a bronchial infection and stomach and liver infections after over a week of untreated high fever. Apparently, the “church” had tried some useless, moronic cleansing when all Lisa needed was a pack of antibiotics. They had given the infection all the time to spread to several organs, threatening Lisa’s life.

Michael’s concert in Bremen had been incredible for the audience, and a substantial blur for him. He hadn’t known what the hell he was doing there, half of the time. On the outside, his performance had been practically flawless, as usual – he hadn’t arrived on top of the world by allowing his personal stuff to get in the middle of a show – but his mind was somewhere else. He hadn’t been able to focus or thoroughly enjoy the night.

And that was the reason why he had dragged his own ass on a chartered plane after the show, directed to Florida. To hell his plan – he was terrified, worried stiff. And the fact that he didn’t care about Lisa… was bullshit. He did care. In fact, he loved her. Still. Always. And imagining her in a hospital bed, in severe conditions, had been more than enough to pull his head out of his ass and snap him back to the reality of what was more important in the “here and now.” The ice walls he had so carefully erected had been obliterated, and without even thinking he had decided to fly back to the States for a day or two, before his next show in Cologne. He had merely realized he could not carry on like nothing was happening – he had to see her. His ex-wife. The woman he was still in love with and was also mad at.

So, when Lisa finally opened her eyes around 5 in the morning, the first thing Michael did was exhale a sigh of relief and reach over, gently caressing her hand.

Lisa jerked and squinted, fixing her gaze on him and frowning.

“What…”, she croaked out.

“Sssh… baby, I’m here now… It’s OK…”, he whispered, his voice calm but his heart racing a mile a minute in his chest.

Lisa winced, and Michael’s eyes widened.

“Are you in pain?”.

Fuck, she indeed was. So much that she felt like crying.

“You should leave, Michael…”, she managed to say, as evenly as she could, all the while diverting her gaze. She really couldn’t look at him right now; she couldn’t face the raging storm of emotions she was suddenly experiencing: surprise. Anger. Longing. Happiness. Sorrow. Regret. Love.

He shook his head stubbornly.

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”. She glared at him for a second, then closed her eyes again.

“I mean that I’m staying right here, Lise. How are you feeling?”.

She didn’t know what to do with him. A part of her wanted to slap him. Another part wanted to reach out and pull him to her and never let him go again. Disconcerting, exasperating man.

“How do you think I’m feeling? Like shit. They removed my gallbladder”.

“I know.”

“Yeah? And how do you know? Who told you?”.

Michael shrugged his shoulders.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What the hell are you doing here, anyway? I thought I was out of your life”. She did her best to keep her voice stern, annoyed, but he looked utterly unfazed by her attitude.

He stared at her for a moment, all the while intertwining his fingers with hers. Lisa didn’t pull her hand away.

“Do you think I can stay away knowing you’re sick and lying in a hospital bed? You really think I’m such a bastard?”.

The honesty in his voice cut her deeply – which was precisely what she was trying to avoid. She needed him to leave, and soon. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to survive another farewell. Paradoxical, and yet true.

“No, Michael, I don’t think you’re a bastard. But I know you can act like one when you want to”.

It was his turn to cringe, now. Yes, he had refused her calls, ignored her letters, changed his number and punished her by giving her the silent treatment. Until something much more significant than their childish power struggles had scared him to death and forced him to reconsider.

Lisa shook her head slowly and stretched out her arm, trying to grab the bottle of water from the nightstand. She realized that moving was more difficult than she expected, and let her hand fall back on the mattress, sighing.

Michael got up and walked around the bed.

“Wait… let me”.

He poured her a glass of water and delicately brought it to her lips, helping her take a sip.

“There you go, baby girl… Careful…”.

She drank, swallowing slowly, slightly covering his hand with her own. Her lips felt parched.

“Thanks…”.

He put the glass back on the nightstand and crouched down by the bed, looking up at her, staring at her with those puppy dog eyes for what seemed forever.

“I missed you.”

Oh, hell no.

“Michael…”. She turned her head away and gazed out the window. Just complete darkness.

“Lise… look at me. Please. I need to see your eyes”.

“Well, Mike… my voice will have to do. I don’t think you should be here. See? I’m fine. And you’re supposed to be in Europe… You have shows to do, your baby boy to take care of…”, she exhaled. “…And a wife to return to”.

He clenched his jaw, and his gaze fell on her hand, resting on the mattress. He noticed that she had gripped the sheets, slightly.

“How’s Prince, by the way?”. Lisa didn’t turn her head, but her voice softened and another layer of ice melted from his hardened heart.

He got up and walked around the bed once again, plopping on the chair next to her and forcing her to look at him. Lisa realized that turning her head the other way would have been kind of childish and just watched him evenly.

“He’s good… he’s getting real big, you should see him now, Lise…”, he shook his head slowly and cleared his throat, trying to stifle his sudden enthusiasm. “…Thanks for asking”.

A small smile appeared on her face, and he realized that it didn’t matter how ugly it got between the two of them, Lisa would always care about his kid. His heart soared a little higher.

“I do, you know? I do miss you”. It was time to stop the charade. “And I just couldn’t stay away. I had to see you. I was so scared, Lise… So scared you would die”. The expression on his face turned pained and, instinctively, Lisa reached out to him, taking his hand. That small, apparently insignificant gesture of comfort had the effect of a grenade exploding in Michael’s heart. Every defense was blown to smithereens.

“Mike… I’m not dying. I’m OK. You don’t have to worry about me. They’re taking good care of me”.

She closed her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath.

“You can go back to wherever it is that you need to be. I’ll be out of here in a few days anyway, so… It’s all good. Thanks for coming, though”.

Her voice sounded tired, defeated. As if she had no fight left in her.

Michael stood up and looked down at her, noticing the glimmer of tears in her eyes. But she wasn’t allowing herself to cry and, all in all, he could not blame her. Everything had gone quite well between the two of them, and Lisa had accepted Debbie’s pregnancy, understood the terms of their agreement, believed the truth – that he and Debbie did not have a relationship – and even agreed to raise Prince with him. It had been his sudden, unexpected – and forced – wedding what had destroyed everything, and their relationship, until that point precious and delicate like a blooming flower, had crashed and burned. One moment they were reconnecting, talking, making love, trying hard to rebuild that mutual trust that had been a massive part of their history, and then, suddenly, they were estranged once again. In the Armageddon that their lives had become, the only thing that was clear was that they had not separated because they didn’t love each other anymore. And that made everything even more absurd than it already was – if that was even possible.

“Goodbye, Michael…”. Lisa let go of his hand and once again gazed out the window, her eyes distant and sad.

He just stood there, his shadow huge and deformed on the wall of the room, the silence of the night deafening. Maybe she was right – he should just go. Apparently, it didn’t matter what they both still felt for one another. They had wasted their opportunity, and the only thing they could do now was moving on with their respective lives.

He tilted his head and took a step back, slowly removing his jacket and letting it fall on the chair.

Lisa’s eyes turned on him, and he intercepted a trace of surprise in those azure irises.

“What are you doing?”.

“I’m tired.”

“No shit. It’s 5 in the morning. Well… you can sleep on the airplane”.

He removed his shoes and unbuckled his belt, getting rid of it and unbuttoning his jeans for good measure. Lisa’s eyebrows sprung up, and he smirked, just slightly.

“You have a filthy mind.”

She carefully ignored the humor in his voice.

“Mike, don’t. Whatever it is that you’re planning to do, stop right there, right now”.

Unfazed and seemingly lost in thought, he unbuttoned his shirt and finally walked over to the bed.

“Scoot over. You think you can do that?”.

Lisa watched him as if he had grown two heads.

“Are you fucking kidding me? You asking me to make room for you… in my hospital bed?”.

“Yeah. You think you can move to the side a little bit? I don’t wanna crush you”.

“What the fuck! You’re insufferable!”, Lisa’s voice, still low and hoarse, held an incredulous tone and yet she slowly slid on the mattress, even pulling the sheets back for him. Michael barely repressed a full-blown smile as he cautiously laid down on the bed, by her side.

He tucked them both in and delicately pulled Lisa towards him until her head rested on his chest. His arm wrapped around her. How right it felt, to have her in his arms again, finally.

“You comfortable?”, he whispered, kissing the top of her head.

“Yes, you crazy, lunatic manbaby.”

Michael grinned proudly, his lips descending on her forehead and lingering there, his fingers raking through her hair. Who would have imagined that her calling him names would feel so good?

“Are you in pain?”, he repeated the first question he had asked her when she had just woken up, finding him by her side.

The truth was that she was not. Not anymore. Michael was her pain and painkiller, all at once. She rested her hand on his chest and took a breath, shaking her head and relaxing, inhaling the unique scent of his skin. So intoxicating. So familiar. More than anything else, Michael felt like home.

He kept kissing her, soft pecks lightly skimming her skin, on her forehead, her temple, her cheek, her eyelids, the tip of her nose. Her eyes closed, Lisa couldn’t do anything but lift her head a little bit, enough for him to have access to her lips. Finally, they kissed, very gently. But it was more than enough.

Automatically, Lisa’s hand reached up and caressed his face, then her fingers tangled in his hair, on the back of his head. Surprising even herself, she deepened the kiss and stroked his tongue with her own, then bit down on his bottom lip gently. Finally, she broke the kiss and rested her head back on his chest. She noticed his heartbeat and breathing had accelerated, and Michael sank back into the pillows.

“I love you, Lise…”.

Fighting this was pointless. And she was way too weak.

“I love you too, Mike… Now shut up and let me rest for a minute”.

It was his breathing, though, that became slower and deeper, and she relished in the fact that her presence seemed able to ease him into a natural, comforting sleep. No medications needed.

She closed her eyes. Whatever it was that they were doing now, they had all the time in the world to talk about it.

Tomorrow.

For the time being, every single part of her only needed to feel him close, to sink into the warmth of his body, to regulate its rhythm on the unique beating of his heart, to become one with him, once again.

Las Vegas, February 2007 – Atonement

For the life of him, Michael didn’t know how they had ended up being in such an unexpected situation. Lisa pressed against the wall, near the door, in his dark hotel room, goosebumps on her skin, her mouth tasting deliciously like vodka and something else that was uniquely hers.

His mind felt cross-wired, but his hands worked just fine on Lisa’s body. He heard her panting, and his lips let go of the soft skin of her neck for a minute. His fingers tangled in her hair and he moved his head up, blindly searching for her mouth. They kissed, their bodies carrying a muscular memory that transcended every rational decision, time, and space.

They hadn’t been intimate for a couple of years, and yet it felt like they had never stopped making love. At the same time, having his hands on her reminded Michael of how much he had missed her. He had missed her so much, that at times he had purposefully pushed her in the back of his mind, locked inside the chest of his most beloved and secret treasures.

As Michael felt Lisa’s tongue caress him, he suspected that what she had told him after the trial was probably bullshit. She was not indifferent. Undoubtedly, her body wasn’t – he could feel the heat emanating as he let his hands glide on her perfect curves, fondle her ass, stroke her smooth skin through the thin fabric of her dress. At the same time, Michael knew this was not just sex. It was all in the way she clung to him, her fingers pressing into his shoulder, in the small on his back, pulling him to her. Her hips undulating against his crotch, driving him to distraction, making him go insane with desire.

He had merely called her on the phone, after days of doubts and afterthoughts, to wish her a happy birthday. He was a few days late, but hey, this was better than not calling her at all.

At first, Lisa had been surprised to hear his voice, and she had sounded tense, a little bit on edge as if she was wondering if he had called to lash out at her or to make demands she couldn’t agree to. And then she had relaxed. After that initial, limping and uneasy back and forth, they had slid back into their old, well-oiled mechanism. A funny line here, a chuckle there. Some sarcasm, some puns, some dry humor to shove some more topsoil on a barely buried pain, some more serious undertones. Yeah. They were just like that. After all, they had been friends before falling in love, they knew each other by heart, and they could still communicate well if they really wanted to.

Eventually, they had discovered they were both in Vegas. For different reasons, of course, but physically close. It had been a while and the mere feeling of being in proximity to this woman he had somehow learned to do without, but who he had never let go completely, had been intoxicating, electrifying.

Michael’s heartbeat had started to race.

He had asked her to meet him for a drink. To catch up. Chat a little. Say hi. Give her a hug, wish her a happy birthday, in person. Nothing major. Just a drink between two exes. It could be done, right?

Lisa had sounded honestly taken aback and, at first, even hesitant. Michael had pushed some of her buttons, knowing well how to convince her and feeling, more than anything else, that at least part of her wanted to be convinced. Eventually, he had triumphed.

They had met at a five-stars hotel, in a private area of the lounge bar, and they had even managed to not draw any attention at first. Talk about small miracles.

Michael had been forced to resort to all his acting skills to not let Lisa know how ecstatic he was to see her. He had looked as cool as a cucumber, trying hard to be sneaky as he took in her appearance. The long hair he had always loved so much. Those lips. Those hooded eyes. That ass that just wouldn’t quit, those toned calves.

Having Lisa sit across the table and stare at him with that blue gaze of hers had generated an instant hard-on. He had felt mildly embarrassed by his rebellious lower body but not exactly surprised. Fighting the urge to shift in his seat, he had just smirked and told Lisa that it was really, really nice to see her again after all that time.

Keyword: understatement.

They had started to chat, their voices low and even, looking like two polite strangers. Their eyes, though, told a different story altogether. Two living contradictions sitting at a table, sipping a drink, trying hard to keep up appearances. To a certain extent, it had even worked, at least for a while. The more Lisa would stare into Michael’s eyes, the more she felt drawn into those black pools of pure magic, desire, and wonder. Her body had started to tingle and, when he had casually brushed her hand on the table, her skin had felt burned by his touch.

At the same time, when Lisa’s foot had inadvertently touched his leg under the table, Michael had almost jumped out of his skin.

They had been snapped out of their trance when they had heard the commotion. The place was getting crowded – the chance to be seen together was increasing. Lisa and Michael had shared a glance of quiet understanding, and he had asked his security to book a room for them.

“So we can continue our chat.” He had looked at Lisa with his most innocent eyes, and she had given him a small smile.

The slightly excessive amount of alcohol consumed at the table had pushed them both in the wrong and yet very right direction: the moment they had opened the door to Michael’s room, they had already become the perfect recipe for a disaster of astronomic proportions. A failure made of undiluted and unfightable passion.

Once again, the entire universe seemed to conspire to push them together – and that, in itself, was not even shocking anymore since they ended up gravitating around each other all the time, against all the odds.

“Where’s the – wait a second.”

Michael had giggled and had blindly touched the wall near the door, looking for the light switch.

“Here… move, I think I know where it is”.

He had heard the humor in Lisa’s voice and had felt even more exhilarated. Shoulder against shoulder with him, she had tried to push him away, and he had almost stumbled.

“Hey! Stop being so bossy – this is my room, not yours”.

Another chuckle. Miss Presley evidently was in a good mood.

“Alright, sorry. Would you mind moving, Michael?”.

Then he had suddenly bent forward, and their heads had collided with a thud.

“Ouch!”.

“What the fuck, man! Careful!”.

“Shit! You’re hardheaded, woman! I might have a concussion here!”.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Michael… You’re such a crybaby!”.

More giggles. More exhilaration. They had stared at each other in the darkness for a moment and, finally, they had burst out laughing heartily.

So refreshing. So right. Michael couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so at ease. His life after the trial had been continuously enveloped by a grey fog, and it didn’t matter where he went – that dark, heavy mist seemed to always be after him, reducing both his mental visibility and emotional perception.

But not in that very moment.

Eventually, the laughter had subsided, and they had found themselves close, so very close in that dimly lit room.

Lisa had smirked and cleared her throat.

“So… where’s the boo-boo?”.

Her voice sounded sarcastic but, when she had lifted her hand to brush his forehead, her touch had been oh so gentle.

“You hurt?”.

He had done the exact same thing to her and time had stood still for a minute.

Once again, Michael couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when they had turned from semi-drunk exes to newly found lovers, but it had happened, just like that. In a sleight of hand.

And now Lisa’s fingers were on his face, on his cheeks, and her lips were on his, and they were kissing as if their lives depended on it.

“Lisa… Lise…”, Michael breathed out against her mouth.

She moaned in return, and her hands slid down, on his chest, caressing him, feeling the twitching of his muscles under her palms.

“We should…”, she whispered as he pulled down the zipper of her dress with slightly shaky hands, and she pushed his jacket off his shoulders.

“Yeah… we definitely should… stop”.

Michael’s lips found her neck again, and Lisa’s head fell back, resting against the wall. Her eyes closed but her fingers started working his shirt, unbuttoning it. All the while, Michael’s hands reached down and under her dress, finding the naked skin of her thighs. Then they roamed back up, cupping her breasts. He grunted and pulled the fabric down, his lips immediately on those soft slopes and her nipples, his teeth and tongue leaving marks on her.

He wanted to touch her everywhere. He wanted to feel her anywhere. He wanted her to feel him everywhere.

Michael let out a sigh and looked for her mouth, once again, needing to kiss her, needing to taste her, to savor that moment forever, making it last as long as he could.

His shirt now unbuttoned, he felt Lisa’s hands on his naked skin. She stilled her movements once she reached his chest, palm flat, listening to his heartbeat, all the while kissing him, again and again, their tongues dancing that old dance they knew by heart.

Thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump.

He felt like a human drum machine with very primal, very carnal desires.

Michael grabbed Lisa by the waist and picked her up smoothly. Another dance step that had always belonged to their intense, possessive lovemaking and that they had perfected through the years. In fact, she didn’t miss a beat and her arms automatically wrapped around his neck, her lips still latched onto his, their kiss deep and slow.

Michael’s eyes had gotten used to the semi-darkness, and he took a couple of long steps towards a nearby table. He gently placed Lisa on the cold, glass surface and she gasped, immediately grabbing him by his shirt and pulling him into her kiss once again.

“Fuck,” she breathed out as she reached down and started fumbling with Michael’s belt. One hand grabbed the belt buckle, the other rested on his rigid shaft and held it through the fabric. Her head spun, and she felt drunk with desire. She had forgotten what it felt like, to have him in her hand like that, how big and hard and perfect he was, and the sensation was heady. Michael would always feel better in reality than any hot dream could possibly conceive. His scent – cologne and something manly and intoxicating that only belonged to him –, his soft skin, his smooth lips, his unshaven chin, his strong, warm hands. It all was a sensorial overload, every time – and especially this time.

The armor she had carefully tried to build over the years, that veneer that was supposed to protect her from Michael and the untamable pull that came with him started to crack, and she bled.

Lisa pushed his shirt off his shoulder, and he helped her get rid of it until the garment fell on the floor.

All the while his hips moved, pressing into her hand and Lisa let go of his mouth, grabbing him by the back of his head now, her fingers fisted in his hair, her forehead almost touching his. They stared at each other, their breathing labored, and she swallowed.

“I shouldn’t be here with you… doing this…”.

When he replied, his voice was low and raspy, heavy with lust. His hands stilled on her thighs.

“I know… you shouldn’t”.

Lisa could feel him throb and pulse into her hand. She bit her lip as if she was fighting an internal battle.

Never breaking eye-contact, she unbuttoned his pants and pulled down the zipper, her fingers dipping into his briefs, and Michael’s head fell forward, their foreheads touching now.

“God… you feel so good…”, he mumbled as he felt her cool hand on his burning hot skin.

Lisa’s eyes fluttered closed, and she smiled, defeatedly, as she held him and started stroking him slowly. She grabbed Michael’s hand and pushed it in between her legs.

“Make me feel good, Mike… I need you so fucking much it hurts”.

The last bit of control he was trying so hard to keep on himself snapped, like a rubber band pulled to the extreme. For a moment, he had felt guilty – to have Lisa in his arms, knowing that she had a husband, a new life. But then again – asking him to make her feel good probably implied that she wasn’t so fine and dandy after all. The thought made his heart soar a little, and his desire heightened, even more, stomping over his useless guilt trip.

As she kept caressing him and kissing him – her warm lips on his neck, collarbone, chest, her hand still on his dick – he finally managed to undress her completely, and she pushed his pants and underwear down in one swift motion. Michael stepped out of his clothes, craving for full contact, skin against skin.

“You are so beautiful, Lise…” he mumbled as his hands traced the lines of her naked body. “…I missed you so much.”

She leaned back on the table, and he followed, his mouth on her collarbone and breasts, on her stomach and sides, his teeth nibbling at her pelvic bone. He felt her fingernails scrape his shoulders and shuddered as his kisses descended.

“Open up for me, girl…”.

And she complied.

Lisa spread her legs, and he took her, with his mouth and his tongue, her moans louder now, and she let go of all control, surrendering to what could not be avoided physically or emotionally. Michael clearly perceived her capitulation the moment when her muscles relaxed under his touch, the moment every tension turned into spasmodic research for the most intimate contact.

She was his. In that very moment, she was his once again.

He squeezed his eyes shut and dove into her, his fingers caressing, his mouth stroking her, drinking her. The heat of her, her scent and taste went straight to his head, and he felt dizzy and flustered. When Lisa let out a moan that sounded like a sob, he felt her emotional pain, like a slap in the face. The struggle. A struggle that she was hopelessly losing.

He slid up her body and found her mouth again, and they kissed as time, and loose ends didn’t exist.

Michael took Lisa’s hand and guided it to his erection, now craving for release. The desire was almost painful – to the point that his lungs constricted with every breath he took.

“Take it…”, he said, his voice husky and unsteady, “It’s yours.”

Lisa’s eyes snapped open, and she looked at him, like a deer caught in the headlights. For a moment, Michael marveled at how the warm blue of her glossy irises seemed to shine in the dim light.

Then she grabbed his dick and tugged at him, gently, as her thigh wrapped around his hip, her heel pushing into the small of his back, pulling him into her.

She swallowed and stroked his cheek, then held onto his neck.

“Don’t be gentle…”.

There it was. Guilt. As clear as day.

This was sex, but also so much more than that. Michael saw it, in her eyes. Lisa didn’t feel guilty about Lockwood. She felt guilty about him.

And this was love, but also penance.

This was atonement.

When he penetrated her, it was in one single and forceful thrust that sheathed him to the hilt, and she let out a cry, then squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, straining to take his size. Her hands reached for him and grabbed his arms. Her eyes opened again, and she looked at him from below her long eyelashes.

“Don’t be gentle, Michael… Don’t go easy on me…”, she panted. “…Do me hard… Hurt me… Hurt me good”.

He knew what she meant and bent over, kissing her lips softly, the tip of his tongue gently stroking her lower lip. All the while, he pushed forward, with steady, hard, controlled thrusts, swallowing as he felt her pant and quiver against the impact. His eyes, so soft and gentle, were a perfect contrast with the force of his attack and they stared at each other, sighing and moaning, their souls blending for the millionth time in their lifetimes.

After climaxing hard, Lisa pushed Michael back abruptly, and he gasped, forced as he was to leave her warmth. Her legs unsteady, she climbed down the table and dropped on her knees in front of him, her hands immediately on his ass, pulling him into her, taking him into her mouth for a long, heavenly moment.

“Shit… Fuck!”. He raked his fingers through his sweaty hair as he looked down. He was on fire. And so was she.

His entire body shook as she worshipped him with her tongue and lips and eventually he had to pull her up and into his arms, kissing her, and kissing her, and kissing her. He didn’t want to come that way. At least not at that moment.

Lisa pulled back and turned his back to him, bending over the table. Propped on her elbows, she watched him over her shoulder, her eyes bright, shiny, and unreadable. So close. So far away.

“Mike…”, she said, breathlessly. “Please…”.

Intoxicated by everything that was her, he stepped closer once again and rested his hands on her hips, steadying her. He didn’t need any help to breach her once again from behind, and Lisa’s head dropped forward. She moaned and then sighed.

“Come on baby… You know how I need you”.

“Yeah…”. He started to move again, hard and deep, trying as best as he could to distract himself from the wildfire erupting inside of him. “Yes, I do. Take me, Lisa. Take it all”.

And she did take everything he had to give, pushing back with each and every thrust of his, grunting and sobbing, the muscles of her back twitching and burning under the assault. Feeling complete.

As he kept moving, Michael tilted his head as droplets of sweat dripped from his chin and trickled down his chest.

This was heaven. And hell.

He felt her climax, again, and then one more time, and he went into complete overload. Every inch of him thumped and throbbed, his penis buried inside of her and on fire, his heart broken and reborn all at once.

“Lise… girl… I just can’t hold it anymore…”, he pulled her up and held her against him, her back pressing against his chest, he turned her head and kissed her, breathing against her lips. “I gotta come.”

“Yeah… oh, baby… please”. She reached back and fisted her fingers into his hair. “I can feel you. Come on… Give it to me”.

Consumed by each other, both burned at the stake, they moved in their dance once again, and their orgasm was simultaneous and entirely in sync, as powerful as a grenade, savage and uncontrollable. They yelped and moaned, their dirty words mixing with something that could not be expressed in the bright light of day, and that could only reside in the darkness of their secret moments.

It would be ten years before they were going to be like that once again.

England, May 15, 2009 – Please, come see my show

Lisa fidgeted with the tickets. She carefully placed them side by side on the table, smoothing them down, and observed them, then glanced at the rain falling in the garden, outside the window. It smelled so good. Living in Los Angeles for so long, she had forgotten about the seducing, tantalizing smell of the rain on a spring day. It gave her an embracing, entrancing feeling, similar to the one she would experience some mornings, waking up in Michael’s arms, his lips on the warm skin of her shoulder.

Michael had been in her thoughts and dreams a little too much, lately. A little more than average. Despite all her efforts, he would often pop up in her mind, but she had become pretty good at silencing those memories when they turned a little too intrusive. And yet now, with a new tour on the way, he was everywhere. Once again.

When she had found the envelope on her desk, a couple of days earlier, at first she hadn’t even realized what it was, or thought about it that much. The sender was a company she had never heard of, the envelope didn’t have any mark or specifics.

A flat, plain yellow envelope sent from Las Vegas. She honestly didn’t think it had anything to do with Michael.

But it did.

It didn’t contain much. Only three tickets for Michael’s opening night in London, at the 02. And a handwritten note.

“Lisa Marie,

Please, come see my show with Riley and Ben.

I would be so happy to have you guys with me.

Love,

Michael”.

She had stopped breathing for a second and her head had started to spin. She hadn’t heard from Michael since the birth of her twins, the previous October. It had been a quick, courteous phone call and Michael had congratulated her. He had been his usual, polite self and yet Lisa had clearly perceived the sadness in his tone. In between his words, silence spoke to her with her own voice: “This is not how it was supposed to go.”

After that phone call, Michael had disappeared from her radar. On one occasion, she had sent him an SMS – when the news of his upcoming tour had just emerged. He had never replied and, that time, silence hadn’t spoken at all. It had only been silence. Lisa had felt the sting and thought it was the last nail in the coffin.

And now, this.

She hadn’t told anyone about the tickets, not even Riley and Ben. She didn’t know if she was going to go – she didn’t know if she was ready to see him in person, after what had happened in Las Vegas in 2007. They had made love for hours, in his hotel room and, eventually, she had left without a word. She had only kissed him on the lips, one last time, and then she had walked through that door and had never looked back. He had just let her go, his dark eyes studying her as he lied down on the bed, still naked, his body half-covered by the sheets. He didn’t know she had left another piece of her soul there, with him.

Lisa gently touched the handwritten note with her fingertips. She could almost feel Michael’s presence in the room. Bringing the page close to her face and closing her eyes, she smelled his cologne. Everything Michael touched brought his tantalizing smell. That never changed.

Dangerous. Intoxicating.

Her head spun some more, and she put the note back on the table.

Swallowing, she took her phone and dialed Michael’s number.

She was about to hang up when he finally picked up.

“Hello?”.

“Michael… Hi”.

“Lise?”, his voice sounded groggy and cautious, but also slightly surprised. “Is that you?”.

She exhaled a long sigh.

“Yeah, it’s me. Hey, Michael”.

She could feel him smile at the other end of the line. At the other end of the world.

“Hi, girl. How are you?”.

“I am good. Look, I called you to thank you… I – uh – got your tickets”.

“You did? Cool. So… you coming?”.

Straight to the point.

Lisa cleared her throat.

“I don’t know. I can try. I haven’t really thought about it yet… and Ri and Ben know nothing about it, at the moment”.

“Well… I’ll be in London very soon, it should be pretty comfortable for you guys to come and see the show. I won’t be far away from where you live now”.

“I know… It’s just…”.

He stayed quiet, waiting for her to continue.

“…Why didn’t you send four tickets, by the way?”. She couldn’t help but chuckle, despite her heart breaking into thousands of pieces, hearing how careful and weary he sounded.

“Four? Why?”. He was playing aloof, but she knew him and recognized the amused undertone in his voice.

“Well, I do have a husband, you know.”

“No shit.” He chuckled in his low, deep voice and something stirred in Lisa’s chest. She swallowed.

“Yeah. I think Lockwood would be glad to see your show, too”.

“Well, you can always buy a ticket for him, then. Oh, wait, no, you can’t – they’re sold out already”. He smacked his lips. “Sorry, girl.”

“You can be such an asshole, sometimes…”.

Her tone was dry but playful, and he didn’t take her words as an offense. After all, he knew she was right.

“It’s true, but I can put up one hell of a show… if I don’t stroke out after the first twenty minutes, that is”.

She didn’t like the sarcasm in his voice and frowned.

“Are you OK?”.

“What do you mean? Of course, I’m OK. I’m in great shape”.

“Are you, really?”, she repeated, her voice dropping.

Michael stayed quiet for a moment and then giggled.

“Girl, you ain’t gonna worry about me now, are you? I told ya… I’m fine. It’s gonna be a great show. That’s why I want you to be there”.

There was something in his voice that didn’t convince her entirely, though. He sounded a little too playful – the lighthearted tone didn’t match at all the fatigued, exhausted Michael who had picked up the phone. She frowned, painfully reminding herself that it was no longer her place to worry. He was a big guy, and he was a professional. He knew what he was doing.

“Look, Michael… I am sure it’s gonna be great. And I’m sure Riley and Ben will be ecstatic to know that you sent them tickets for the opening night”.

“There’s a ticket for you too.” His tone sounded serious, now.

“Is it appropriate? For me, to be there?”.

“Well…”, she heard him take a breath. “We’re friends, right? I mean, I would totally go to one of your shows, if you wanted me to. So… yeah… Why shouldn’t you be at one of mine?”.

Lisa closed her eyes for a moment, as memories of the previous shows she had attended to flashed in her mind and slapped her in the face like a bucket of cold water. Michael’s sweaty face, his eyes smiling and looking down at her. Their mad dash to make it to their suite in London. Michael fucking her hard and fast against the wall, his dirty words in her ear.

But she was immune, now.

Was she?

“I promise I will think about it.”

“Girl…”.

“Michael. What do you want me to say?”.

“I don’t know, Lisa.” She heard noises in the background as if he was pacing back and forth. “Maybe that you’d be happy to see me? ‘Cause sure as hell I’d be happy to see you, after all this time”.

“Yeah well, I did send you an SMS not too long ago, and you didn’t even answer.”

A pause.

“I don’t remember.”

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t,” he replied, and she could tell he was annoyed. Just like she knew he was lying.

“Why now, Michael? Why you wanna see me again all of a sudden?”.

“All of a sudden?”, he snorted. “Woman, you done losing your fucking mind?”.

“See? That’s the point. That’s why it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to meet”.

“It’s a public event, Lisa Marie. We won’t end up fucking at the afterparty, ya know”.

Oh, how she hated that condescending tone.

“Yeah, but we’re already fighting. That’s our pattern, huh? And I really don’t need this in my life, right now. So, thanks for the tickets but no, thanks”.

His stunned silence made her recoil for a moment, and she bit her tongue. She had lashed out and, once again, had said something out of impulse. Something she didn’t really think. His was a peace offer – possibly. Or maybe he was just trying to reconnect. Either way, she was terrified.

“OK, look. You know what? I tried, Lisa. But that’s it. I’m done. I done trying”.

Before she could say anything, the line went mute, and she cursed under her breath.

She needed to sit down.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled a long breath. Her hands shook.

“OK…. Shit”, she whispered to herself. “Fuck. OK”.

She took her time and tried hard to calm down her own erratic breathing. Once she felt more stable, she picked up the phone again and sent Michael a text message.

“M – I’m sorry.”

“U should be”

“Don’t gloat.”

“Well?”

“Well what?!?”

“That’s it?”

“I don’t even know why I keep this up”

“Cause you don’t like it when we fight”

“Told ya I don’t need that”

“Its OK. I aint mad”

“We’ll be there in july then”

“Cool. I’ll send u a fourth ticket – so you’ll feel safer”

“Ass!”

“LOL. See ya in July”

Los Angeles, May 22, 2009 – They got me alright

Michael floundered helplessly in the dark and struggled to grasp the hands that were touching him, pushing him, moving him around. He didn’t succeed.

“Don’t do this, come on! Come on!”.

From afar, he could faintly hear the voice from the thick, murky darkness surrounding him: it sounded frantic, ragged, breathless.

“Stay with me. Stay with me!”. Panting, panting. “Don’t do this! Michael? Michael!”.

Michael tried so hard to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt so heavy. Everything felt heavy, and whatever it was, it was pulling him down.

“Can you hear me? Michael, can you hear me? Michael!”.

Yes, moron. I can hear you – he thought, but couldn’t say it out loud. He couldn’t find his voice. Where had his voice gone?

“Michael, can you hear me?”.

There it was again.

“Move your head if you can hear me.”

That, Michael, could do. He moved his head with an immense effort, the exertion almost too much to overcome.

“Good… Good!”. A hint of relief in the voice talking to him from the darkness.

“Can you open your eyes?”.

Now, now, you’re asking too much.

And yet Michael struggled and struggled. He felt like floating into a thick, sticky, black shroud that was swallowing him whole. Like a mythological beast, opening its mouth wide. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t see. Could barely hear. And nothing was comforting in the darkness that enveloped him. It was cold and empty.

“Open your eyes, Michael. Look at me. Michael?”.

Follow the voice, Michael thought and struggled again. It felt like the most intense effort he had ever submitted his body to. Yet, he finally made it.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, and his gaze found the sweaty face of the doctor. The one that had been hired to take care of him, to put him “in the right conditions” to perform in London. Conrad.

“…What happened?”, Michael frowned and his voice sounded hoarse, strained. He swallowed hard and winced. His throat was completely dry and felt like sandpaper.

Conrad’s eyes were about to pop out from his skull, but he hid his stress pretty well, all things considered.

“You forgot to breathe for a few seconds, Michael…”. He let out a sigh of relief. “…Are you OK? How do you feel?”.

Michael’s brow was still furrowed.

“I stopped… breathing?”.

“Yeah, but just for a moment…”, Conrad tried to downplay it a little, or so Michael thought. As the haze in his mind slowly faded, he was pretty sure that it had been more than “a moment.” More than “a few seconds,” and that he had done more than “stop breathing.” He was sluggish and confused but was not an idiot. A sting of panic suddenly ran through him. Had he been dead for a little while?

“Where are the kids?”.

He turned his head to the side, but all he could see was the darkness in the room.

“They’re OK… Sleeping in their rooms…”. Conrad was now auscultating him with his stethoscope. “Soon you’ll be sleeping too, and don’t worry… you’ll be well rested tomorrow… I got you, Michael”.

The doctor smiled.

Oh yeah, he’d gotten him alright.

In that very moment, Michael realized, fully, that someone was really out to kill him, that he indeed was going to get killed if couldn’t find a way to get away from them. All of them.

It was May 22, 2009.

Qatar, May 2012 – Unraveling

“Un-crucified you came to visit
and for the life of me
I, I could remember
that you were not a regret
Were you here last night, we fell in love again
or was it just a dream
I’ve never been that high as when we fell in love
that was not dream
Don’t want to open my eyes
when we fall in love if it’s just a dream…”

Michael’s vision was fuzzy, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the whiskey or because of the tears. He balled his fist, carelessly wrapped in a paper napkin now soaked with blood, after he had punched and punched the mirror until it had crashed. His white shirt was stained with blood too, and he didn’t care. With his other hand, he clung to the phone and motioned to get up from the chair, Lisa’s words still resounding in his ears.

She loved him. Still. And she was suffering. Still.

The level of sadness, mourning, and resignation Michael had felt in that song – in those songs – was tearing him apart from the inside. Claws were lacerating his flesh, breaking his bones and finally finding their way through his skin and out, in the void that his life had become.

“Michael? Mike… talk to me. Talk to me, Mike”. Janet voice on the line sounded distant and remote, his ears buzzed.

He tried to clear his throat and felt an acidic aftertaste in his mouth. He swayed and the room started to spin uncontrollably.

“I’m here.”

“OK. What are you doing?”.

Michael watched his bloodied hand absent-mindedly and, when he spoke again, his voice sounded flat.

“What am I doing? Nothing. Just standing here”.

He could tell that Janet was frantic, even though she was doing her best to keep her voice calm and reassuring.

“OK Mike, now I want you to lie down on your bed and take deep breaths. Breathe in, breathe out. Come on, I know you can do it. Lie down and try to relax for a second, will ya? I’m gonna stay here until you feel better”.

“I don’t wanna feel better,” Michael refilled his glass and downed its content in one single shot. “I want her to feel better.”

“She will. You know Lisa… She uses her music to cleanse herself. She’ll be OK. Are you still bleeding?”.

“What?”.

“Are you still bleeding? Your hand, Mike. And then you need to clean up the glasses from the floor before you hurt yourself again”.

“I don’t know.” He closed his fist again, and several drops of blood dripped down, on his pants and the floor. “I don’t know if I’m still bleeding. Who the fuck cares, Janet”.

“OK, you’re slurring your words now. I need you to stop drinking whatever it is that you’re drinking. Or did you take something?”. Janet’s voice suddenly sounded suspicious, and Michael snarled.

“I wish. But no. I’m just drunk, Dunk”. He chuckled, dryly, at the idiotic assonance of the words. “No more medications, you know that. Just a bit of liquid courage… You know what I was thinking? Maybe I should just tell her… Yeah… Maybe I should just call her and tell her the truth so that she can move on”.

“Michael…”. On the other end of the line, Janet tried to blink away the tears. She hated being so far away from her brother. She hated not having the chance to snap her fingers and just be there with him. And she knew it was bad, because it was the first time in her life that Michael had called her in those conditions. Shitfaced drunk.

“Yeah… Maybe I should just call her and tell her that she doesn’t have to be sad anymore because everything’s fine… Right, Dunk? Can’t you see how fine I am? I’m peachy”. His voice was bitter and profoundly unhappy. “…Do you happen to have her number, by any chance?”.

“No,” Janet lied. “I don’t have Lisa’s number, Mike. I want you to lie down on your bed and close your eyes. You need to relax for a moment”.

“Or… maybe you should just tell Lisa that I have never loved her… Yeah… That might do, too… Next time you see her, tell her what a piece of shit I was, how I used her, how I just wanted her for her name and how I didn’t give a fuck about her… Tell her that her mom was right… Tell her she was just a nice piece of ass for me and that, eventually, she was not even that anymore… Knowing her, she’ll get so fucking mad at me that she’ll hate me for a century or two… And then she’ll be fine”.

“Michael… please”. Janet’s voice was weaker and weaker.

“Yeah. It might work. Tell her that, Jan. Tell her that I never cared… Don’t tell her the truth. Don’t tell her that I have always loved her and I love her still and that I can never have her again. How am I supposed… How can I…”.

The next thing Janet heard, was a thump and unintelligible noises and then her brother’s frantic steps to the bathroom before he fell on his knees and threw up violently in the toilet.

When Michael woke up, the sun was rising, and its rays were peeking through the window. He had passed out on the floor, in the bathroom, and when he managed to sit up, his back resting against the cold tile wall, his head started hurting and pulsing. Boom boom boom, right in between his temples. His cell phone lay behind the toilet bowl, screen dark, battery dead. He had to remember to call Janet back and tell her that he hadn’t choked in his own vomit. But not now.

Michael scratched the back of his head, squeezing his eyes shut for a second, then he pushed his other hand on the toilet bowl and, somehow, succeeded in getting up. He stared at himself in the broken mirror above the sink: dark circles around his eyes, face unshaven, skin paler than usual, but with red blotches on his cheekbones, he looked like shit. Michael was sure that not even Lisa, with all her love, would be able to stand such ugliness. Every single muscle in his body hurt. His back screamed in pain. His heart… well, that part of him was shattered.

Somehow, he managed to turn on the water in the shower and stripped naked. When his body finally relaxed under the hot water, the tears appeared out of nowhere, and he cried and bawled like a little kid for what seemed like forever. This time, not for the upside-down life that he was living, nor for the complete turn of events that had revolutionized his entire existence, for the career he had lost and, for once, not even for his family. He sobbed for his lost love; he cried all the tears that he had stoically kept un-cried for the longest time.

Loving Lisa and not having her was terrible… But loving her and knowing that she still loved him and thought he was dead, that was even worse. It was a kind of pain that Michael didn’t even think existed. Or maybe he did. Possibly, it was the same pain he would have felt if Lisa had died and he had survived her.

The mere idea took his breath away, and he bent forward abruptly, his forehead unceremoniously banging against the tile wall of the shower. Boom boom boom, right in between his temples. His eyes still shut and still managing to pour tears somehow.

In his confused mind, Lisa’s face appeared from the darkness, her smile tantalizing, sweet, condescending, loving, sad. So many memories. So many moments stolen and spent together through so many years. And so much pain at the emptiness that her absence had created. Images of Lisa glaring at him, smirking, sleeping, her face relaxed. Images of her lips, of her hand clasping his. Of her face flushed after making love, her body writhing underneath him, her skin hot and fevered, shivering. The taste of it in Michael’s mouth and he let out a sob that sounded like a howl. His body responded almost automatically at the insistence of the memories and, opening his eyes just slightly, he noticed his straining erection. Yeah. That part of him didn’t give a fuck that Lisa was not there, apparently.

He closed his eyes and blindly reached for his dick. The moment he started stroking himself, he winced. This was not supposed to be painful. His free hand banged against the wall, again and again. The wound on his palm reopened, blood dripped down the tiles and Michael sobbed again.

Wales, June 2016 – Wait, what?

Michael gritted his teeth and tilted his head. His vision was fogged by sweat, and he hated weightlifting. He swore under his breath, his arms trembling in exhaustion.

Weightlifting sucked, big time!

And yet he couldn’t avoid it. He had been slender his entire life, and the heavier, bulkier physique he had been forced to build for his new identity required a constant commitment. That meant exercising regularly and eating a lot more than he was used to.

Not that Michael liked to be lazy – not at all – but he had never loved the gym. It didn’t really matter that this was his own private exercise room, built in a purposefully equipped area of his apartment. And now he exercised at least an hour a day and jogged every morning. The last time he had been in such good shape, he was probably 40.

Michael let go of the barbell, and the weight fell, heavily and with a clank, back on its support. He groaned, running both hands on his sweaty face and letting go a series of long breaths, his drenching wet t-shirt clinging to his torso. Wincing and paying attention not to force his delicate back too much, he sat up and rested his hands on his thighs, breathing heavily. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, then got up, grabbing a bottle of Gatorade and taking a long sip.

The TV in his exercise room was running, but he wasn’t listening, – entranced, as he was, staring absent-mindedly at his own reflection in the mirror.

Transformation complete.

Who was that guy? That guy with quite short, and greying hair plastered on his forehead and spiking in rebellious curls on the sides of his head, face pale, pitch-black eyes, thick salt and pepper beard? Sometimes he really had trouble recognizing himself, probably because he had no substantial anchor to cling to. He felt so lonely. So utterly lost and the eyes he saw reflected in the mirror were distant, remote and yet open, gaping wounds at the same time.

Anyway, he now had the luxury of walking around without being recognized, harassed or swarmed by crowds of people or paparazzi. A great luxury. Something he was not used to, yet, by the way. Michael would have never imagined that taking care of himself without a staff of goons and minions doing almost everything at his place would feel so scary and, at the same time, exciting. He had reached middle age and had finally become a big guy, being able to go and buy bread and milk all by his lonesome! Go, Michael!

He sneered and shook his head, taking another sip of his Gatorade.

Then something, a sound registered through the silence in his ears and a trigger went off in his brain. Michael’s attention tuned into the TV. Someone was talking about a person that he, or at least his old self, knew very well.

“…This is actually a shocking split! Lisa Marie Presley has filed for divorce from Michael Lockwood after ten years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences. Several sources have confirmed that Elvis’ 48-year-old daughter has split from his fourth husband, and has demanded full custody of the couple’s twin 7-year-old daughters, Harper and Finley”.

Wait, what?

Michael grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. All the while, recent footage of Lisa and his oddly dressed fourth husband appeared on the screen. Michael looked at the woman he had never stopped loving and swallowed, hard. Lisa looked – different. And not in the best possible way. She was still otherworldly beautiful, but something in her eyes was amiss. She looked… as if she was always somewhere else. Lisa was not happy.

A mixture of jealousy and worry closed Michael’s throat.

“In court papers, Presley has requested only supervised visitations for her ex-husband. The split was also very sudden as the couple has not spent much time separated before filing for divorce – only a few days. Lisa Marie is not asking for any spousal or child support and, apparently, doesn’t want anything from her ex. OK… and now, the latest news about Justin Timberlake –“.

Michael rolled his eyes at the mention of the disrespectful little white boy, muting the TV as the images replayed in front of his eyes. The footage and… something else. Memories.

The first time he had seen Lisa at Branca’s wedding. Her smile, directed at him. Lisa’s eyes – looking at him, sternly, lovingly, longingly. Her laughter. Lisa’s body writhing and spasming, clinging to him as they made love for the first time. Her kisses, heady and intoxicating. Her tears. The last time their naked bodies had been intertwined. The last time they had spoken over the phone.

Michael felt sweat running down his back and knew it was not because of the weightlifting. Lisa was no longer married to someone else. Well, she technically was, but she was divorcing.

Hope surfaced, and he suppressed it hastily. No. It was no longer his business. He had let her go. He had to let her go.

His heartbeat raced in his chest, and he knew he had to sit down. He walked over to the bench and let himself fall on it, quietly, taking in a long, slow breath.

Lisa was divorcing. And, according to the scarce information he had, it sounded nasty. Why the sudden separation? Why filing after only a few days? Something terrible must have happened. Something – but what, exactly?

Michael blinked, repeatedly, a myriad of thoughts swirling in his brain. What was he to do? He didn’t even have Lisa’s number and, anyway… he certainly couldn’t call her. He was no longer part of her world. Hell, he was no longer part of anyone’s world, after all! His old self was no longer, period.

Let it go, he thought to himself. She’ll be fine. She doesn’t need you – not anymore. She’s over you. Leave her be.

And yet.

He just couldn’t. Something, in his heart, propelled him forward and Michael strode over to the living room, quickly, retrieving his cell phone from the pocket of his jacket, which he had carelessly thrown on the couch. His apartment was a mess.

“Dunk? Hi, it’s me. Yeah, I’m fine. Yeah… I’m happy to hear from you too… Listen – yes, I miss you too, Jan. Listen – I need to you to do something for me…”.

Peterhead, Scotland, October 2016 – Murphy

He had been sitting in his Jeep for almost an hour, and now started to wonder if he would ever gather the courage to get out. He also wondered if what he was doing was right.

When he had called Janet, asking her for fresh news about Lisa – right after finding out that she was finally divorcing that oddly dressed dude she had decided to marry in 2006, he had acted on pure impulse. Michael didn’t really think he was going to do anything except letting the new information seep into his mind – like he usually did. It would last him for a few years, he was sure.

But then… something had snapped, into his mind, like a rubber band pulled to the extreme until every fiber just collapsed. Janet telling him that Lisa’s divorce was going to be nasty. That possibly, abuses were involved. That dude was probably going to try and suck Lisa dry. That Lisa was not good at all, that she had to go to rehab for a few weeks. That, as far as Janet knew, Lisa had never truly recovered after what had happened to him in 2009.

Oh, Michael already knew everything about that last part. He had seen her, on TV, at his memorial. He had also seen some pictures on the internet, the stillness of her desperation branding his mind forever. He had spoken to his mother – who had told him that Lisa was destroyed. Naturally, mother had tried to gild the bitter pill, but he had felt as if it was being pushed forcefully into his throat… after having been wrapped in sandpaper. Painful, leaving marks, drawing blood.

She would get over it, he had told himself through the years. She has a family, she’ll recover. She’ll live, and she’ll be happy. Without me.

And now, once again all his certainties were destroyed – since Janet was telling him, very bluntly, that Lisa was anything but happy. Well, what was he supposed to do about that? Nothing. Lisa was in Los Angeles, and he couldn’t go back there. That was no longer his home. Apparently, fate kept working against them. Plus, he was – uh, dead? To her. To everyone, almost. Nothing he could do about that – he had made his choice. He had been forced to.

But no.

Janet had launched the grenade, and it had landed right at Michael’s feet, the blast too impending to take cover, to save himself.

Lisa was not in L.A. or, at the very least, she wasn’t going to be there much longer. She needed – according to Janet’s source – “a breather from everything and everyone.” She felt “betrayed, disappointed and disillusioned.” She was “sick of it all” and needed to “regroup,” to find a way to push through a life that had “broken her into pieces too many times.” Of all places, Lisa had decided to move to Scotland. And Michael had been living in Wales for a few years now.

Wales and Scotland. A distance of mere 300 miles.

Fate. Once again. Only, this time it wasn’t kicking him in the balls. It looked like it was telling him something, by pushing the woman he had never stopped loving so close to where he physically was.

For a few weeks, Michael had stubbornly ignored the internal voice telling him to just go to her, tell her the truth, knowing well that the truth would be safe with her. No. It was all over.

Only, it wasn’t.

And eventually, once again he had acted on pure instinct – putting his rationality aside for the first time in almost seven years. He had terminated his rental agreement. He had found out exactly where Lisa had rented her house – in Peterhead, a small town in Aberdeenshire. He had found a place there, too. And he had moved all his stuff to his new home. Right next to the woman he loved, and who didn’t know he was alive and well. Changed, older, yes. But alive. And so crazy about her, still.

Now there were no more excuses. The removal company had finished the job it had been paid for, and the only thing left to do was climb out of the fucking Jeep, walk across the property bordering Lisa’s, and step into his new house.

If only he could bring himself to let go of the damn steering wheel.

The night had fallen and, although Michael hadn’t seen Lisa yet, he knew she was home. Yellowish lights illuminated her windows and, every now and then, he could detect a movement behind the curtains. It was enough to shatter his heart inside his chest.

For a second he realized that, if Lisa ever decided to come out at that very moment, she would find herself facing an old Jeep with a stranger sitting inside, like a creep. That sudden realization gave him the willpower to finally break his paralysis and Michael pushed the car door open. His boots made contact with the loose gravel on the path, and he straightened his back, smoothing down his long black coat. He grabbed his newsboy hat from the seat and pushed it onto his head, then scratched his beard.

As he closed the car door and pressed the lock button on the remote, Lisa appeared at the window, possibly startled by the sudden flash of the Jeep’s turn signals. Even though he could only make out her silhouette, Michael knew it was her and froze in place. He was in the dark, and she couldn’t see him, but he could see her.

He stared at her small, lithe frame, bathed by the warm light coming from inside the house, his heartbeat racing in his chest. His lips felt parched, his throat suddenly dry.

It was the first time he saw her in almost ten years, and it felt… amazing. And terrifying. His soul abandoned his body and flew off to her and, for a split second, Michael hoped Lisa had lost her innate ability to sense him, wherever he was.

As he watched her, expanding that moment forever both in space and time, making it last and replay in front of his eyes even after Lisa simply stepped away from the window, disappearing into the house, Michael realized that his initial plan to just live there and personally keep an eye on her, check in on her, just to make sure that she was fine, had already been blown to smithereens.

Maybe he could… introduce himself to Lisa? As Ethan. He was pretty sure he would be safe. He mastered his new identity perfectly, and his appearance had undergone some drastic changes. Yeah, maybe he could do just that. Just be a little closer to her, just to bring a bit of joy in her life. Make her laugh. Let her know that not everyone in the world was a fraud, or a liar, or an abuser.

And yet you’d be lying to her, right Mike? You are not who you pretend to be. You are… someone else. Someone she knows.

He shook his head.

No. He would not deceive her. This was not at all about betraying her. He just wanted to take care of her… a little bit. Just a little, tiny bit. It wasn’t that he wanted to resume their relationship or have a family with her, right? Not at all.

Maybe they could just be… friends?

He blinked. Not realizing that something that he thought was long gone had just started to pulse inside of him, once again.

Hope. A man’s worst enemy. A man’s best ally.

A feeling he had forgotten a long time ago.

The story begins.

Chapter song