I’ve been meaning to tell this story for awhile now, but couldn’t, because my counterpart from the story wasn’t famous enough. But now? That’s all changed.
A few years back I had a “thing” with a girl who was on the fast-track to becoming a pop star. She had the looks, the determination, and… well, mostly the looks. She was born in Albania, and her name was Ava. I have a scant memory from our first meeting, and I’m not sure we even talked. But I was working as a bouncer at a bar along the Santa Monica Promenade one day when she came in. Apparently I was the one to check her ID, because she got in with a fake, and if there was one person who accepted all ID’s, real, fake, or imaginary, it was me. Her actual age at the time was 19. So I guess I must have been somewhere on the back-half of my 20’s.
Anyways, it was work as usual, until a couple hours later when another bouncer came up to me and said, “Some girl wanted me to give this to you.” Scraggled across a napkin was a phone number written in red ink. I looked up, and before I could ask, the bouncer answered what I was thinking: “Yeah, she’s hot. I’d say she’s a solid 9.”
“Well, now I have to at least call this chick,” I thought. I did, we chatted a bit, and we made plans to go out on a date. It was there that I essentially met this girl for the first time, and the whole time I was thinking, “A nine? A nine!? This girl is a 9.5, at least.” We chatted over drinks and a light meal as I picked at her brain, and learned about her biggest driving force in life: the dream of becoming a (serious) singer. She had won singing contests in the past but had only just begun dabbling in the big pond that was the Los Angeles music industry. Her older brother was her manager. And she had just made her first music video for what she hoped would be the song to launch her career, a EDM-produced track called “(something-something?) the Pain Away” (I’ve since tried to find the video but it seems like it was erased from the interwebs).
That pain she sang about, I would soon find out, came from a real place. She had been heart-broken by a military dude she was dating, for–although she wouldn’t confirm it–banging prostitutes while stationed abroad. And yes that is all pure speculation, but I know when prostitutes have their hand in a matter, and let’s just say that I smelt prostitutes all over this one.
The date went fine, and with the amount of laughs I delivered during a couple of hours together, I was sure that I would see her again soon. I was wrong.
We would continue to talk a bit here and there but there was no second date. At least, not in a traditional sense. The next time I saw her was months later, and by pure chance. I knew that if I wanted to capitalize, this was the moment.
I ran into her at a bar in downtown Santa Monica… I can’t remember which. Somewhere along Main Street, which was about a mile away from the Promenade, where we met. It was a cool spring day, and one of those days where the sun was back out after having been hidden for days. I had a childhood friend from Chicago visiting me, who was living in San Diego at the time, and in town for just one day. Me and him go way back, even having been arrested together for arson at the age of 13 (story here: http://explicitexploits.com/the-summer-of-arson/). Also joining us was Blacklord, who you may recognize from my stories as being “the black guy”.
When the three of us walked into this bar, I remember seeing Ava there sitting at a table, seemingly with the same day-drinking intentions as us. She was joined by a blonde friend who claimed she met me the day they came in with fake ID’s, and I had to pretend like I remembered her.
As the drinks started flowing, I gravitated away from my friends, and she did to her’s. With each drink, the ante would be upped on the innuendo and risque shit that was coming out of our mouths; well, my mouth, mostly. Finally it got to a point where I said flat out, “Let’s go have sex.” She gave me a look of admonishment, but her eyes didn’t lie. She wanted it just as bad as I did. I made a flicker of my eyes towards the exit and she smirked. She was on board.
But logistically speaking, there were a bunch of obstacles to overcome: our friends, for one. But hey, fuck them. I knew I had a special friend visiting from out of town, and I wasn’t going to abandon him completely–but if any of my friends were in this situation, I’d support them getting this hot piece of tail over “boy time” any day of the week. And so we solved the issue of our friends.
Then there was the issue of her car. She drove to the bar! Which was great, because now we had a bed. But the car was parked out front. On the busy, pedestrian-heavy Main Street. And she was drunk. And I was… drunker. She dangled the keys in front of me. “Can you drive?” Of course I can drive. SHOULD I drive is the better question, to which I’d respond, “Fuck no!” However, I believe everyone should be entitled to drive drunk exactly three times in their life. Three, wisely chosen and absolutely necessary times. And I drove drunk three times in my life: 1. For Chicago pizza at 3 AM, 2. From a high school party at 3 AM, with drugs and drunk friends passed out in the backseat, during which I got pulled over by 3 squad cars and GOT AWAY WITH IT, and 3. This time with Ava… at 3 PM.
The last issue was that of not having any condoms. But you could buy that shit everywhere. So we would have to make a quick purchase across the street before we headed to the vehicle.
I remember being in a corner store buying condoms and the two of us being way too fucked up for the rest of society, giggling, holding up the line, and spilling change all over the counter. “You never realize how drunk you are until you stand up,” I remember her saying, echoing my sentiments at that very moment. When we left the store we walked a bit down the block and then I saw her car and was like, “JESUS CHRIST.” It was the biggest car on a block already teeming with large vehicles. As I was climbing in the driver’s seat I was thinking, “Everybody already knows I’m drunk, just from my awkward way of entering this thing.” I started the car up as Ava sat in the passenger’s seat. And then I realized we had absolutely no plan nor a destination. I originally thought we would just be able to bang in the car without having to move it. But because of it’s conspicuously parked high-traffic area, I would need to move it, at least one block.
“One block. That’s all I need,” I told myself, psyching myself up for a drive I was in no condition to make. As I pulled the car out of its spot, I nearly rammed the car in front of us. I could feel people on the sidewalk looking at us. I needed to escape their gaze and fast. And so I started speeding away from Main Street, and away from the ocean it was situated on. Into a residential area that I had hoped would have just one lonely abandoned area for us to park in.
20 minutes later, I’m still driving, and everywhere I look, there are people stealing up all of the privacy that I had hoped the public would have granted us. And every minute I’m driving, the higher my risk of getting pulled over by a cop gets. And then we passed the bar again. And now my friends (and her’s) are calling us, demanding we get back. The pressure is building. I’m not going to find a place to park. I’m gonna blow it with this babe!
And just at that moment, on the brink of giving up, I found a “good enough” parking spot next to some crummy warehouse in an alley. I had spotted nobody in the alley, and the only area that seemed in danger of someone popping out of is at the head of the alley, a mere 50 feet away. So we would have had enough time to see any intruders… or not. At this point, someone spotting us having sex was a foregone consideration. I parked and looked at Ava. Her mischievous smile signified that she approved. “Back seat?” I proposed.
We had to get out of the car to get in the backseats, which already looks suspect as fuck. But once we were in there, we immediately began making out furiously and petting heavily. And then… her phone rang yet again. Her blonde friend with the timely cockblock. I hoped Ava wouldn’t answer the phone, and to my relief she didn’t. We went back to the touching and started unzipping and unstrapping our clothes. I pulled her boobs out and once they were free, I was momentarily left in awe at how perfectly-shaped they were. Knowing that time was not on our side, it wasn’t long before my penis was out and the condom was on. And then I slowly slipped inside her and we both breathed heavily, relishing the moment. It was just then that I realized that all of the work to make it to this point had not been in vain. We started grinding our hips, me on top of her in the backseat of her huge car, yet still limited in space, and a high-possibility of getting caught by passerby.
And then her phone rang for the twelfth time, except this time, she answered it! I could hear her friend bitching her out on the other end. Ava gave me the look like, “Can you believe this shit?” and I was like, “No I can’t believe this shit, da fuck did you answer your phone for??” With me still grinding in slow motion, she gave her friend some BS story about us getting lost, before promising we’d be right back. When she hung up, she said, “I think we need to get back there…”
It was a reminder that we weren’t here to make love, we were here to fuck. I gave her a solid drilling accompanied by a good sweat. When we finished, we tried our best at getting our clothes back on our bodies, and then drove back to the bar laughing about both how disheveled we looked, and how much the car stank like sex. There was no hiding it from our impatient and irritated friends waiting there outside the bar.
And that, if you want to consider it as such, was our second date.
Ava went on to produce a couple more tracks that I would hear in the months to come. She was a busy girl for sure, and I didn’t expect us to cross paths again, especially when I decided to spontaneously leave LA and move to Colombia. So I was pretty shocked when, two days before my flight out of the US, she told me she was coming to pay me a visit at home.
It was her first time at my place, and with my three roommates gone, I was clearly pushing for the “let’s have sex again” agenda. Although we got touchy, something was holding her back from intercourse. Eventually she opened up, saying, “Well, since you are leaving the country…” and revealed that there was something holding her back from sex, something personal that I won’t repeat because I want everyone reading to know that their secrets are safe with me. So we spent the rest of the time laying in my bed, cracking jokes and keeping it lighthearted. I jokingly told her that I’d see her again once she toured down in Latin America, but honestly, with her young music career trajectory it didn’t seem all that far-fetched. We hugged, kissed, and she was gone.
That would be the last time I would see her. In real life.
The next time I SAW her was on a fucking TV screen; in Spain, nonetheless. I was out at bar in Valencia, when all the sudden I look at the TV and BAM!–it’s Ava from Albania. Who is now no longer called Ava. And no, I’m not going to tell you her artist name, because I’m a gentleman, and a gentleman never tells. But there she is, sporting a different look and dyed blonde hair, but clearly her voice, her style, and a very apropos song title.
A few days later I heard the song again on the radio in Madrid. Then in Barcelona. I’ve heard or seen her song playing 5 times over the past 2 weeks, and I’m not even actively looking for this shit. I did consider the possibility that, maybe she’s just made a name for herself over here in Europe? You know… like David Hasselhoff did in Germany? But then I saw a tweet from a Chicago comedian I know, and it said, quote: “[Artist name] is a bargain box version of Lady Gaga.” And I was like, “Fuck! That’s a cruel thing to say! But hey, she’s known by the masses. She… made it.”
Made it, she did. She’s done songs with David Guetta, Jason Derulo, and other prominent figures in the pop industry. One of her other songs came on on my Spotify recommendations randomly. She’s got videos and tours happening both here in Europe and all around the world. She worked her face off and she achieved the sort of celebrity that she sought.
I believe it came at a cost though. I saw her disengage from the social world as her aspirations got bigger and bigger. Her social media changed from Ava the person to Ava the artist. The photo shoots, promotional shit, and Instagram accounts all reflected this larger than life persona. We talked once and only once on social media, and it was clear that she wasn’t talking to me as a person anymore, but as a fan.
Well, I’ll tell you what: I am a fan. I’m a fan of us banging in the backseat of her car one California day. And I’ll always have that. And as her fame grows, and I see her face in more and more places, I’ll always smile to myself and be cozy with the memory of the brief time we shared together. And then I’ll eventually find a lawyer and sue her bitch ass for not paying me royalty fees.
I KNOW all those songs are about me, Ava! I WANT MY FUCKING MONEY!
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