Magdalena sat staring at her fingernails, which seemed to hold a breadth of amusement for her tonight. They were painted a cotton candy pink for once, instead of her usual hooker red. She had aimed for a softer, lighter approach. Being different. Hopefully, luring the interest of anyone she might have previously forced to back off by her obviously affront manner. Specifically, luring the interest of one person. The person that sat staring at her cotton candy pink nails and grinning.
His nails were painted the standard black. If she had inquired why, he probably would have quoted Morrissey. Not that he was a die-hard Smiths' fan, in fact, that was his twin brother's role. No, Benji was just a dark, macabre soul. He thought too much, over-analyzed beyond the norm, and he was just an all-around, well…She didn't have a word for it. He was intelligent. That was the best terminology. He was intelligent and his black fingernails were sexy. End of story.
Magdalena sighed and glanced upward to stare at Benji. It wasn't like she hadn't done this a million times before, or every single time she was in the same room with him. She loved to take him in, breath in his form visually. From his squared shoulders to his broad chest, the soft silhouette of his ‘Punx' tattoo showing through the white wife beater. His muscular legs. His surprisingly soft hands. That was the shocking part: that a man that played guitar for a living could possess such soft hands. And such a soft heart. Of course, these were the observations one could not see with their bare eyes; it took time and friendship to know the inner-workings of the beautiful man seated on the sofa across from her. In her living room. Staring at her as though she had lost her mind.
Benji grinned. "Mags, are you staring at me again?"
Mags. She hated it when he called her Mags. That's probably why he did it so frequently. He loved to taunt her. Had taunted her virtually since the day they had met one another, a year prior. Magdalena worked in the salon where Benji and his brother Joel came for manicures on their months off from touring. Yes, manicures. Fuck what anyone says, the media are right: Metrosexuality is on the rise. You can't blame Benji and Joel for keeping up with the Joneses. But their fans will.
Benji's grin expanded. "Mags, are you ignoring me?"
"No, just thinking."
"Care to share?"
"Well," Magdalena began but then felt her courage waning. She had wanted to address this topic for some time, to gather his opinions on matters entirely unworthwhile, but her balls- cahones, in Spanish- had seriously dissipated whenever she looked into his amazingly alive chocolate irises. They were gorgeous. Like the Goo Goo Dolls song of the same name. Iris. Beauty. Benji. Magdalena sighed again. "I'm not sure."
"You're not sure you want to share," Benji laughed, "or you're not sure what you're thinking about? If that's the case," he grinned, "then I think maybe some ginseng tablets can help you focus and get your memor-"
"-Shut up," Magdalena rolled her soft gray eyes at him. "I know what I'm thinking about."
Benji crossed his right ankle over his left, stretching his legs up onto the coffee table. He smirked at her and sighed exhaustedly. "Then maybe you should share with the group."
Magdalena stared at him again for a long minute. He looked truly intrigued. He looked entirely interested in what she had to say. He looked…beautiful. She took her turn to sigh and began to attempt to process her thoughts. In the recesses of her Hippocampus, her thoughts were clear and intelligent. Her words, however, betrayed her cool. Instead of sounding worthy of her IQ, she simply blurted, "Do you ever read fan fiction?"
His expression painted the image of a man shot by a stray bullet; he had clearly not anticipated these words from her perfectly painted pink lips. He shrugged casually, pondered the question and shrugged again. "Are you asking if I know that our fans think I'm gay?"
"No, I was-"
"Because, Mags, I already know that a lot of the kids out there think I take it up the ass from Tony- and Joel, sometimes-" he stopped to wince, "and that I have a propensity for corn-holing Billy." He paused and glanced into her expressionless eyes. She was betraying none of her immediate thoughts. So he continued. "I know that my fans tend to think I'm a whore, Mags. And they think I'm a bisexual whore, but they actually hope I'm a homosexual whore. I don't have to read specific stories to know that."
His words rang truth. She had to prepare her next set of statements, to properly demonstrate what was edging at her mind. She thought. She pondered the movements of her tongue. She formulated. "Well, what I was thinking about was more……"
He raised an eyebrow. If she were to stare just long enough and right to the correct portion of his marred skin, she would see where a small piece of metal once pierced his skin. But that had been years before they met. Still, she knew it had been the home of a piercing and that tantalized her fantasies. The ghost of body modifications past. Her mind allowed her to wonder where other ghosts might have once lain. She lost track of her discussion. He did this to her always.
"Mags?" he coughed, filling the air with harsh disruption. "Mags, come back to earth! We miss you!"
Magdalena grinned. She felt her dirty thoughts cleanse slowly, and allowed her neurons to fire across synapses and propel movement. Words. She smiled. "I was thinking about your fans," she smiled brightly, her eyes gleaming. "Benji, are you aware that there are hundreds of thousands of women- nay, girls- that want to have your babies?"
There! She had said it! She had bit back those words for days. Days since she had gone online and stumbled across the website that seemed to take a ruling over her current thoughts. Good Charlotte Fan Fiction. Yes. People were writing fantasies about him. Living, in some small way, the false realities that they wanted to come to life. It was fiction with a non-fiction basis. After all, Benjamin Levi Madden was a real human being who lived and breathed, and truly and truthfully did play guitar in a band. That much made stories reality. Everything else lent them to the Fiction section at the local bookstore.
Magdalena considered the words that her eyes had skimmed over in the nights of the past week. There had been threesomes, more-somes. Sex with underage women. Girls, really. Sex with his twin brother. There had even been a term coined for this: "twincest". At first, she had been repulsed. Then, fascinated. Intrigued by the endless stories of Benji in a veritable plethora of positions with other men, with women. With men and women.
Certain authors made observations about the man that sat before her that even she, a friend of his, had missed. There were the girls that noted birthmarks she had taken for granted; the writers that remarked on his swagger and panache; the women that noted obscure gestures he made when nervous or upset or happy or elated or just plain bored. Magdalena was fully aware that, as someone in his non-fiction life, she had taken much of his non-fiction being for granted. Though, she supposed, that was a part of being a human being. We always tended to take those we knew and loved for granted.
"Mags," Benji coughed loudly and smirked at her. He had uncrossed his legs and removed his feet from the disheveled old coffee table. She had the table in her life since, well, since birth. It was a family heirloom of degenerative sorts. She watched him and allowed herself to try and not take each sight for granted. Because here he was. Fan fiction as non-fiction.
She smiled. "Have you ever read a story about yourself?"
He took a slow sip from his can of Diet Coke, as if he was not certain whether to implicate himself in the crime. He shrugged. "A few."
"And?"
"And I think it's flattering that anyone would find me, of all people, attractive," he smiled softly, innocently. She saw the first signs of a slight blush.
"You are attractive," she argued.
Benji shrugged again and set his soda can off to the side. "I don't see it, but if you say so, Mags."
Magdalena watched his movements closely. The nervous gestures, the biting of the bottom lip. The authors were right: he had a certain shy subtly to him. He didn't, in fact, find himself attractive at all. He was, in truth, embarrassed of his appearance. He hid behind his tattoos and piercings. He modified the body he hated in a vain attempt to embrace it. It was abundantly clear at this moment. She frowned. "Benji, you are beautiful. You should see that when you look in the mirror every morning."
He grew noticeably more tense, but shrugged everything off quickly. "I don't see it, Mags. Sorry."
