"Uh... Jake," said Dandie nervously. "Could you... you know..."
"Bring it on out, hon," Jake said. "I still got the pen in my hand."
With a happy smile she rolled the entire front of her dress downward, baring both of her apple-sized breasts. Her tiny nipples were standing up proudly. Jake leaned forward and autographed the right one, again without actually touching it.
After the two girls covered their breasts back up, they finally acknowledged Helen.
"Could you be a dear and take a picture of us with Jake?" Hannah asked her.
"Sure, why not?" Helen asked. She took the camera and backed up a few steps. The two girls got on either side of Jake and put their arms around him and their heads on his shoulders. He put his arms around their waists. They smiled for the camera and Helen took the shot. She then had to take another shot with Dandie's camera.
The encounter soon ended when Jake told the two girls that they had a plane to catch. They fawned for a few more moments, thanked him profusely, and then finally went on their way, allowing Jake and Helen to climb into the taxi.
And, now that he thought about it, that was when the silent treatment had started.
"Why are you upset about that?" he asked her now. "You've seen a hundred girls stick their tits in my face to have them signed. It happens every time there are girls around, doesn't it?"
"Yes," she said. "I don't much like it, but I understand it's part of who you are. I'm involved with a rock musician and I have to accept that part of your job is signing titties and being nice to sluts."
"Well... it's not actually in the contract," Jake said, making an attempt at a joke.
It fell flat. "It's not the fact that you signed those girls' tits," Helen said. "What did that slut whisper in your ear while I was taking the picture?"
She was talking about Hannah, who had indeed whispered something in Jake's ear while Helen had been taking the pictures. "Just the normal crap that women are always whispering in my ear," Jake said.
This was not exactly the right thing to say. "This happens all the time?" Helen yelled. "What did she say? I want to know."
"Uh... well, she said that she and her friend were staying in room something or other and that I would be welcome to visit them tonight if I wanted to have some fun."
"She asked you to come to her room and fuck both of them?" Helen asked.
Jake shrugged. "That is how I took the invitation," he said. "I don't know why you're upset about it. I'm not planning on doing it."
"You told her, 'I'll keep that in mind'," Helen said. "You didn't tell her no. You said you'd keep it in mind."
"That was a jerk-off answer, Helen," Jake said. "I don't even remember the room number now. I hardly remembered the whole freakin' episode until you brought it up."
"She did that right in front of me, Jake," Helen said. "I was standing four feet away from you and she propositioned you while I was watching her. She knew I was there! If she's read any magazines or watched any TV in the past two months she knows that you and I are dating. And she still did it!"
Jake was now getting frustrated. "I'm sorry that it bothers you," he said. "But I can't help what other people do. Like I said, I'm not going to take her up on the offer."
"What if I wasn't there?" she asked. "What if she'd made that offer while you were alone? What would you have done then?"
"You mean if you were not present with me at the moment, but were still out on tour with me?"
"Yes," she said. "If I'd been in the bathroom or something?"
"I would've done exactly the same thing," Jake said.
"And what if I was back home in California?" she asked next. "Would you have taken them up on it then?"
This was touchy ground, Jake knew. He went for the oblique answer. "If you were back in California, I wouldn't have been in Lake Tekapo this morning. I would've been nursing a hangover in my hotel room in Christchurch."
"You know what I mean," she said. "If I wasn't out on the tour and you happened across that same situation somewhere, would you have done it?"
He decided to go with honesty and see where that led. "I might have," he admitted. "It would depend on the circumstances and what was going on at the moment, but yes, I might have taken them up on it."
"So you did find them attractive," she said.
"They were cute," he said. "I never tried to say they weren't."
"And young," she said. "Much younger than me."
"Not that much younger," Jake said. "Why are we even having this conversation, Helen? You are out on tour with me and because of that, I've turned down every offer of sex I've had except for those that come from you. Why are you getting upset over what I might've done if you weren't here?"
She shook her head in frustration. "You don't understand," she said.
"Then make me understand," he told her. "Tell me what's on your mind. Isn't that how people resolve problems?"
She didn't answer at first. Jake didn't push her. He continued his descent and made a shallow bank to keep them on course to the coast. It was only after he'd leveled out the turn that she found the words to say what she wanted to say.
"I'm having a hard time handling all of this, Jake," she said. "I know it seems like petty jealousy to you and it even does to me, but that doesn't make it go away. Beautiful women are constantly coming on to you. I know that's been happening the whole time we've been together and I'm pretty sure you haven't cheated on me, but now that we're out on tour together, now that I go to those after show parties with you, this whole issue is just constantly in my face now. Women pull their boobs out for you to sign them. They put their arms around you and kiss you on the cheek and rub their bodies all over you and you don't make them stop."
"I told you..." Jake started.
"I know, I know," she said. "It's part of being a musician. It doesn't pay to piss off fans and get a reputation as an asshole. What happened this morning, though... that was just too much. We're in fucking Lake Tekapo, New Zealand, some little tiny town in the middle of an obscure country, and there are still women there trying to get you into bed with them. They're so brazen about it that they proposition you right in front of me. I'm just coming to the realization that this is going to go on as long as we're together."
"Yes," Jake said. "It is going to go on as long as we're together. I don't plan to take any of these women up on their offers though."
"You did before, didn't you? You got caught with that redheaded girl down in Mexico while you were dating your last girlfriend."
"That was a completely different relationship," Jake said. "At the time I did that, Rachel and I were already on the outs. It was a mistake and I learned from it."
"And Rachel was publicly humiliated by your mistake," Helen said. "The fact that you'd cheated on her and pictures of the girl you cheated on her with were plastered all over the newspapers for a week. That bothers me as well. If you do decide to take one of these women up on their offer, my personal life and response to that won't be private. Nothing involving our relationship is private. There is always some reporter slinking around trying to get a story. Look what they're doing to poor Matt."
Matt, unlike Nerdly and Jake, had left his girlfriend back in Los Angeles. Since there had been no official break-up announced, the paparazzi and the other media types took great delight in photographing Matt in compromising positions with other girls, something that wasn't hard to do since Matt was now working on a new goal of 'getting some snatch' in every country in the free world. He partied with the groupies just as he always had and made no attempts to hide it.
"Matt is Matt," Jake said. "His girlfriend is in LA making a porno flick called Mississippi Yearning, remember? She's being filmed while she takes twelve inch cocks up her ass. What makes Matt's relationship work is that he and Kim have an understanding that fidelity is not part of the equation."