This story is a work of fiction. It is not meant to state for a fact the sexuality of the real-life-based characters, but is for enjoyment only. I, naturally, have the copyright in that if you want this, or any of my stories posted on a website or cited (for whatever reason), you have only to ask. I can guarantee, I'll probably give the go-ahead. If you're under legal age to read this material, well, I'm not surprised. Comments, questions, concerns or ideas, e-mail me at Faradhi269@aol.com Flames will be ignored
"You're already better than you were last time I heard you," he continued.
"Uh, yeah, I guess," I replied, embarrassed to have been caught. "I still can't play piano worth a crap, though."
He smiled. "Not that big a deal, man. The guys sent me to look for you. Sorry 'bout asking you to leave, but it was kinda private."
"No biggie," I answered, although I was curious about what they'd said. It wasn't a very long conference-about seven or eight minutes. "But, yeah, I'm done here. Let's go."
He walked with me back to the dressing room. On the way, he looked over at me and asked, "What was that song from?"
"Uh, it was from 'The Scarlet Pimpernel.' It's another one of my favorite musicals. But I've got a lot, so that's not much of a distinction," I mused sardonically.
"It was a very nice song," he offered, "but what is it with you and sad songs, anyway?"
I smiled a little and shrugged. "I don't know. I guess as much as I try to look on the bright side of things, the darker side of things always seems to show itself to me more, so I'm sad. I dunno. It's just that sometimes..." I wistfully trailed off.
Lance caught on immediately. "Sometimes what?"
I wondered if he really cared, but I figured it'd be worth a shot. "Well, I've always helped other people through their problems, you know what I mean?" He nodded. "And with all the time and effort and anguish that I've spent doing it, I've set myself on the course to try to save the world from itself, even though I know it can't be done."
His bright green eyes widened slightly, and his eyebrows drew in to a small frown, but he just nodded again without saying anything.
"And, I just wish that things would work out for me, too. I mean, I've spent so much money on my career that never got started. I spent time and money on my martial arts, only to have to stop before I was done. My musical potential was great, but I was unable to go past a certain point. I think I'm sad because my successes in helping people made me think I was something great, and my life has showed me that I'm doomed to mediocrity." I sighed and kept walking.
Lance opened his mouth to say something, but we arrived at the door, and he held his words. He had a thoughtful look in those eyes for the rest of the evening.
We went back into the room, and everyone apologized for kicking me out. "Nothing personal," Chris pressed.
"I didn't take it that way anyway," I assured them. "So, did you still wanna hang out? I mean, I DID fly all this way just to chill, but if you guys want to go to sleep or something..."
"Hell no," JC cried. "Let's party!"
"Yeah," everyone chimed in.
"Where to," I asked, amused.
No one answered. I laughed. "A dance club? I know you've been dancing, but, well, you know..."
"Sure," Justin replied. "We haven't had the chance to lay back and relax for a while, and we don't need to leave for two more days."
"BREAK TIME," Joey roared, scaring the hell out of me. I jumped, they laughed.
"You know any place?"
"Nah," JC said dismissively, "but I'm sure the driver will. Let's get ready."
I looked down at the clothes I was wearing. A pair of khaki pants, a loose black "Guardians of Paradise" t-shirt and a blue shirt with black stripes, open, of course. Not bad, but not exactly club clothes. "Guys, where should I meet you?"
"What do you mean, Ry," Lance asked.
"Well, I'm not exactly dressed for clubbing, so where should I meet you when I get done getting dressed? Here? There? Where the hell are we gonna go, anyway?"
"Don't worry 'bout it," he told me. "We'll hook you up with something. It'll be faster."
I looked around. Height-wise, I think we were OK, but let's face it, I'm not exactly what you call buff. The tightest shirt on one of them would still hang on me. "I don't know if you've got anything that'll fit me," I refused the offer. "It won't take me that long. Really."
"Justin," Lance called out, ignoring me. "Do you have your old, lucky shirt from when you first joined up?"
JC, Chris, and Joey started cracking up. "Ok, what's so damn funny," I wanted to know. Justin, meanwhile, was rummaging through one of his random bags, and, not finding anything, chose to search racks of hanging outfits. Lance merely grinned.
Soon enough, Justin called out, "Found it!" and pulled a small t-shirt out from the back rack. It was, of course, baby-blue and looked like it might actually be a little tight on me. "I had it on when I first auditioned for NSync," he informed me. I mentally counted back.
"You were like fifteen!" I argued.
"Yep," he agreed amiably, grinning from ear to ear. Everyone howled with laughter. "Try it on, anyway."
I glanced around, and everyone was either laughing or telling me to go ahead and try it on, so I shrugged off my shirt and t-shirt. I'm small, as I've said (about 135 pounds, even though I'm 6'), but I DO have definition. You don't do martial arts and dive for as long as I have without building SOME muscles. So I think the guys were a little surprised. Naturally, Nick never told Justin he'd been attracted to me, or even why, so I think J was the most shocked of all. I have an 8-pack and a small "outie" belly-button, and my pecs are finally beginning to form. (About damn time!) Pulling the shirt on, it was definitely tight. I could breathe and move, but you could basically see through it.
"I think that'll work," Lance said. I glared at him, trying to get comfortable, and they chuckled. "Fine. Anyone have some shoes I can borrow, then? I can't really dance that well in these," I indicated my Cole-Haans.
"Hah," Chris countered. "According to you, you don't dance well anyway!"
"Laugh it up, Chris," I encouraged. "That only gives me more incentive to embarrass you in public."
They laughed at me (or was it with me? Who knows?) and Justin tossed me a pair of sneakers to go with his shirt. I had to focus on the fact that I must NOT get any arousing thoughts about Justin wearing this shirt and being naked under his clothes, etc. It would be a bad situation.
I folded and stashed my clothes, and everyone else started undressing to get ready as I finished. I did make sure to take one more look at all the bare skin before saying, "I'll go tell the driver what we're looking for. Meet you at the car."
I left before they could say anything, silently cursing myself for leaving all the eye candy, and applauding my resistance to temptation.
I spoke to the driver, and he did know a place we could go-kinda upscale, but not too snobby. And inn a surprisingly short time-only about half an hour, they came out. I looked at them from head to toe. "Not bad," I offered grudgingly and with a grin.
"Sure, what'd you expect," Joey shot back. "Besides, you're wearing OUR stuff, too."
I flushed and the laughed, as my own attempt at humor backfired. We hopped in the limo and were off. It was a fun night, although I stayed in the background a lot. I enjoyed their banter, and listened in on some of the conversations and stories they'd tell me about life on the road-both the good things like seeing the world and meeting really cool people (as well as really simple 1-night stands) and the bad things like missing friends and family, the hectic schedule, etc. The ride was over soon, and we went into the club. The bouncer-a nice-looking young guy-let them all in immediately, with a surprised look on his face, but he stopped me. "Can I see some ID?"
-Oh shit-I thought. -Naturally, this happens to me.- I started fumbling for a wallet that would prove my under 21 status when Justin stopped and said "He's with us. Let him in, OK?" The guy nodded and I was unmolested in my entry. I flashed a quick grateful grin at Justin and went in to the loud, hot place.
The music was blaring, and all-in-all it wasn't to my taste. The guys liked it, though. All five of them disappeared into the hugely crowded dance area (there were three floors, so God only knows where they ended up) while I went to the bar and flirted with the bartender enough to get hooked up with a sex on the beach. It was ok, but I figured I'd get something different next time. I sat back, enjoying the alcohol flooding through my system and looked around, trying to figure out where I'd end up spending most of the rest of the night: the techno area, the hard rock area, the classical (80's)/soft rock/pop area, or the rap section. I figured I'd head to (where else?) the pop section to take a look at the sights and dance around a little. I finished the drink and went up to the second floor. It was hot, but unlike some other clubs I'd been to before, everyone kept their clothing on (much to my dismay) although there were a lot of cute guys there. I danced around, not really caring how much I was sucking, and enjoyed myself for a couple of hours. Madonna was a popular choice, having her music, old and new, played all the time. Destiny's Child, TLC and Elton John were played, too, to give an idea of what I was dancing to.
It was around 1:30 or two in the morning, so the place was in full swing, and I decided I needed another drink. I went back down to the bar, but I had to fight through this HUGE mob of people. I think almost half the club was swarming the bar! I didn't really think about why until I realized that the group was spread amongst the partygoers, and if one of them got approached, he'd get swarmed. I hopped the bar and winked at the bartender (his name was Jason- 6'2, 178 lbs, dark hair, light blue eyes. Cute!) so he wouldn't make too much of a fuss. When I got around to see what was going on, Justin and Lance were sitting at the bar with a resigned look on their faces, signing autographs, shaking hands, answering questions, etc. In a spur-of-the-moment idea, I got the soda hose from the bar and sprayed everyone around the guys with seltzer. They jumped back, screaming, and I ushered the guys out the back door. "Wait a few minutes," I asked. They looked relieved and nodded. I then shouted to the crowd that they went back to their hotel, and proceeded to "accidentally" let slip the hotel-which was, naturally, the wrong one-the right one being told to me by some insiders at MTV.
Half an hour later, we were all back inside, and the majority of the crazed-fan types had left to go stalk the sex gods I was sitting with. We were all having some beer and just relaxing. They started to talk about some of the details of the business-the next songs, production schedules, etc. and since I didn't know what they were talking about, I went to go dance again. I went up to the techno room. This room was dark and had strobe lights and lots of people had glowsticks. I snagged a couple (it WAS dark, after all), and started to play around. They looked really cool with the strobe lights freezing things in place, so I looked around to see what other people were doing. One guy had three small glowsticks in each hand and was moving them in patters all around his head and hands and body so that he as constantly surrounded by a rainbow of light. Other people were moving in similar fashion. -I can't do this-I thought. -I need to try something else.-
I thought about it for a few minutes and then had a great idea. I wrapped my glowsticks (I had the long stringy ones) around my arms in a figure-eight pattern, crossing at the forearm and holding at the fingers, and another around each of my ankles in a pair of circles. I got some room and started doing katas. I started with the simple ones that moved in crosses or Xs and I was going slowly to get comfortable with them. After a couple minutes, I started to have some fun, and I really started to fly. My hands were a blur (even more noticeable 'cause of the glowing) and my feet were shifting in time with the music. Or in syncopation with it, whatever I felt like doing. And I had enjoyed myself immensely.
While I was caught up in what I was doing-showing off-Lance came up to see if I was ready to leave. The guys were tired after the concert and being here. He saw me, saw what I was doing, and smiled. Then he rushed down to get the rest of the guys and they all came to watch.
Meanwhile, another guy thought I had a great idea, and he did the same thing, so it turned into sort of an impromptu sparring match. We worked around each others' hand and arms, sometimes just blocking, other times intertwining them and pulling away. But now kicks got added for effect. I'd throw high kicks, like spinning-heel or hurricane kicks while he'd drop low for a spinning sweep or some such. After a few moves, it became a dance. Our feet blurred by each others' and we spun in rapid circles. At one point, he jumped back onto his hands and cradled up, just under my first kick, and over the second one. Then he did it to me, and I did the same thing, but this time I kicked out. He grabbed my foot and tossed me into the air, where I did a flip and landed on my feet in front of him. We began going again, this time in counter rhythm so that if I moved left, he moved left instead of right to match me, and we kept going like that, continuously a blur, occasionally frozen in time by the erratic tempo of the strobe lights. Then, I caught sight of the others and hauled it in. The man came with me, and when I saw him in the light, it was the capoeira instructor I'd met down in Florida!
"Nice dance," he told me and walked off. I stared after him, really confused and turned to the guys. "What's up?"
"We're more tired than we thought," JC apologized. "Can we call it a night?"
"Sure," I shrugged. "But why're you asking me? You coulda just left, you know. I could've taken a cab back to my hotel."
"That wouldn't've been very friendly," Chris protested.
I snorted a laugh. "Since when are you friendly, Chris?"
He looked indignant and I smiled sweetly at him. "Let's go!" We got back into the limo to drop me off at my hotel.
On the way, Lance sat next to me and we started talking. "That was really cool, man," he offered.
I blushed a little and looked down. "Thanks."
"No really," he protested. "I mean it. That was great choreography. How long did it take you to get that set up?"
"Uh, I didn't. He just kinda showed up. But thanks."
He looked at me, unsure of what to say to that response, and the limo soon arrived at my hotel. The guys said they'd see me off, tomorrow, and they'd pick me up in another limo. I said they didn't have to, but they insisted, so I agreed. I went upstairs and went to bed. -This was fun,- I thought right before sleep hit me.