Frontwards

Wednesday 24th January, 2006

Since Frank was allowed a day off yesterday, it was back to the basement for him first thing this morning. But I didn’t mind. I was still so happy and smitten that I was more than content to spend the day drifting around the house alone, watching cartoons and unpacking what remained of my stuff into the half of the wardrobe that Frank had cleared out for me.

At around 2pm, just after I’d had my lunchtime bowl of muesli, the phone rang.

The phone in this house never rings. Not once in the time I’ve been living here had I ever heard it ring. I wasn’t even convinced it was ever plugged in. But alas, it was ringing, as sure as my name is Daisy Lucinda Montague.

I wasn’t sure whether to answer it, considering it was almost certainly not for me, but since everybody else was downstairs and it just kept on ringing as I stared at it, I finally decided I’d had enough.

“Hello?” I said as I placed the handset to my ear.

“Oh, hello. Is this Daisy?”

For a half a second I was convinced I was about to get a death threat down the phone. I swear to god. I had already started the hyperventilate when I came to my senses and realised that a) the voice was male, and therefore probably not one of the obsessive girlfans that wanted to kill me, and b) the voice was somewhat familiar to me.

“Um, yes,” I finally said. “This is Daisy.”

“Daisy, it’s Tony.”

TONY. Of course it was Tony, you fool. All that worrying for nothing.

“Oh, hey Tony,” I said with relief. Because talking to a man who has caught you mid-coitus is still preferable to talking to a crazy rabid teenager who wants your head on a skewer. “How are you?” Thought I might as well be polite.

“I’m good thanks,” he replied, although he sounded a little surprised and maybe even suspicious. I was only trying to be nice. “Could you put me on to one of the guys, please?”

“Sure,” I said, only slightly offended that he didn’t return my question. Americans.

So I ventured out into the hallway and hovered at the basement door. I’d never been down there before, mostly because I’d never been invited and I didn’t want to intrude. Sometimes I wondered if they had actually filled the basement with strippers and beer and cake and they just wanted to throw me off the scent by saying they were “practising”. Nice try, guys.

As soon as the door was open I could hear music. Loud, but nice. It was sort of a slow-ish type song. And I could hear Gerard’s voice but I couldn’t make out what he was saying until I got to the last few stairs, still holding the phone with a patient Tony waiting on the other end.

When you go, would you even turn to say, I don’t love you like I did yesterday.

As soon as I was spotted, everybody seemed to stop what they were doing for some reason, and it went completely silent. All five men looked at me like I was a ghost or a Japanese water fairy or something. I held out the phone helplessly.

“Tony wants to talk to one of you,” I said simply.

Gerard took the phone from me and Frank came over to kiss me. It was nice, being able to kiss whenever we wanted to. Although I never have been one for public displays of affection, and nor was Mikey, judging by the look of disgust on his face.

“How’s it going?” I asked Frank, still smiling like a fool as the kiss ended. “It’s sounding good.”

He smiled. “It’s not quite there yet,” he said, rubbing his neck where his guitar strap was resting. “We’ve got most of the songs written. Just trying to get them finalised right now.”

I nodded, all beaming with pride at MY BOYFRIEND THE ROCK STAR. What a strange, strange concept.

“I hate to interrupt,” Gerard said, sidling up to Frank and me. “Well actually that’s a bare-faced lie, but whatever.” He raised his voice now to address everybody; “Guys, we have an interview with Alt Press on Friday, 1pm sharp.”

The response was surprisingly negative. I’d have thought this would be quite exciting. But apparently, judging by the groans of protest from the five men, I was wrong about that.

“Another already?” Mikey grumbled, fiddling with the tuning keys on the top of his bass guitar. “We just did one.”

“Well we have to announce the album and shit,” Gerard said. He then paused for a moment, chewing on his lower lip as he looked towards Frank and I. “And also, Tony feels that in light of the gossip circulating online, it would probably be smart to clarify Frank and Daisy’s current situation publicly.” He said this passively, almost apologetically.

Frank sighed and took my hand. “It can’t hurt,” he said to me thoughtfully. His face was cocked questioningly and he looked so darn cute that I couldn’t help but smile a little.

“Okay,” I nodded. This must have sounded startlingly blasé when you consider that I’m just some accountant from Nottingham and suddenly I’m being talked about in internet forums and now I was going to be in some fucking magazine just because I happened to have sex with somebody. But there you go. Life is full of surprises, isn’t it? Slowly I am almost becoming used to all of this madness. Hardly anything seems to shock me these days. Which in itself is shocking. But like I said, it doesn’t even bother me. These days I am as cool as sushi rolls.

Frank gave me a smile and a peck on the cheek and I sensed it was time for me to go back upstairs. “Well,” I said, “if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I’m a very busy woman.” I like to think that the fact I was still in my pyjamas only slightly detracted from this. “Have fun.”

Frank winked at me and my tummy went all floppy and the rest of them waved me goodbye as I headed back upstairs to finish my muesli and waste the remaining hours of the day chatting with Kate online.

We speak most days, Kate and I. We grew up together and had never been apart from each other for more than a couple of days at a time. It hasn’t even been two weeks since she left and already I miss her to death. I miss her weird jokes and her smiles and even her incessant damn questions. Fortunately, we can still communicate via webcam so that she’s kept up to date with my shenanigans and whatnot. Everything I’ve told to you, I’ve told to Kate.

I think she worries about me being alone, but I’ve managed to assure that I’m okay. I have a group of people I trust around me and I’m happy and I’m healthy. I’m doing okay.

Clearly.



Bad Boys was on TV tonight. I mean, who doesn’t love Bad Boys, really? It has to be way up there in my list of favourites. It has everything: guns, chases, Will Smith, one-liners, everything. It’s an almost perfect film. So this was my film of choice as I lay in bed that night, alone.

Usually I’m asleep before Frank even gets to bed. By the time he’s finished in the basement, had something to eat and showered, I’m too exhausted to stay up for him. Don’t get me wrong; I do try. Each night I think, right, this is the night I’m going to fall asleep with Frank. But most mornings I wake up next to him with absolutely no recollection of his entrance. Which is sad. Because I like talking to Frank. I like just laying with him and talking. But we haven’t really had much chance for that.

Tonight, thanks to Bad Boys, I was still wide awake when Frank walked into the bedroom with a towel around his waist, his hair still dripping with moisture. And this was enough to make me turn the TV off and gawp for a while at the man I’d been sharing a bed with these past two weeks. Not even Bad Boys could distract me from that body.

“Hey, you’re still up,” he grinned, quietly pushing the door to a shut. “For once.”

I was, in all honesty, quite speechless. I was far too busy staring at Frank’s illustrated torso to be formulating words with my brain. So I just nodded. And autonomously I found my body getting out of the bed and heading towards him. I just wanted to touch him to check that he was real and this was all real and I was the luckiest girl in the world.

As my cold hand made contact with the damp skin of his chest, I concluded that this was indeed real life and not some wonderful dream. This beautiful man was mine to do whatever I pleased with.

“Is this really what I’ve been missing all these nights?” I pondered aloud, my hands roaming across his slippery torso. “No fair.”

Frank raised an eyebrow as I wrapped my arms around his waist, pulling our bodies together. I’d never felt so fucking horny in all of my life. Hormones, probably. Or the fact that there was an incredibly sexy naked man pressed up against me. Whatever.

And speaking of what was pressed up against me, I could feel him getting hard against my thigh, even though I was wearing one of his old shirts and a pair of cotton panties. Hardly the most arousing of attires, but it seemed to be doing the job and it would all be coming off soon enough anyway.

“My my,” he muttered, as I planted butterfly kisses along his collarbone. “Somebody’s affectionate this evening. I think I quite like it.”

I smiled and rubbed at his groin through the towel. “It would certainly appear so.”

Bear in mind that we hadn’t had sex since England. At least not together. I don’t really care to know what he’d been up to in the period between our saying goodbye and me turning up at his front door. But suffice to say I was ready to jump his fucking bones.

And so thirty minutes later I had achieved my goal of falling asleep with Frank. Although we still hadn’t done much talking.

But I’ve always thought talking to be overrated.