Chapter 26
A/N Sorry for the long delay in updating, hope you're still interested! As always, I have no claim on any character I did not create.
Stacy and Alex returned to the main floor of the bar to find to find Tony, Jay and nearly everyone else gone for the night. Alex asked Christian and Peggy individually if they minded the newly improvised travel arrangements, and as Alex has surmised, they each looked almost indecently happy to be asked to leave together. Then she asked Mick if it would be alright to stay in the studio apartment, while Stacy skated unobtrusively in the background.
"Sure, luv, safety is our watchword," he winked, "stay here tonight if you're too tired to travel. You know where the keys are, lock up behind you. I'm off to the Missus and kisses. We've got a pretty big week coming up. Cheerio, then."
Alex waved goodbye to the last few stragglers from the front door and turned around to find Stacy zooming toward her on his skateboard. "This could be the most intense day I ever had!" he enthused, stopping on a dime right in front of her.
"Hmm, let's just see if we can make it the most intense night you ever had," Alex queried, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and her tongue around his.
"Oh yeah, there's that lightheaded thing again," Stacy murmured happily, not bothering to disengage their torsos. "What was that you said about someplace with kitchens, food and water beds?"
"The apartment's right this way, sir, I believe we can satisfy all your needs," she teased leading Stacy out the back door towards the separate apartment.
"Oh I believe that too," he said, playfully smacking her behind as they walked up the steps and into the apartment. "Wow, far out!" was all he could say as he walked into an apartment done up in deluxe 1970's rock star style. There was a sunken living room surrounded in butter soft red leather couches, lava lamps on amoeba shaped glass coffee table and assorted guitars in stands around the room. The walls were lined with signed posters of the various bands that had used the studio, accompanied by photos of the same bands and friends lounging about this very apartment.
Stacy perused the first photo on his left as he walked into the room; Rod Stewart, Ron Wood and several blonde 'friends', obviously seated on the same red leather couches he was now facing. His gaze moved along the wall to the next picture, Keith Richard smiling through a haze of smoke on the balcony they had just come in from. He kept moving down the wall, enthralled. "I can't believe what I'm seeing!"
"Yeah, it's amazing how many bands have used this studio, huh?" Alex concurred.
"Oh yeah, sure… but I was looking into the kitchen right through there…is that a basket of muffins and fruit? Man that would hit the spot right now!" Stacy enthused.
It's always hard to know which part of a guy's anatomy you might be speaking to Alex thought wryly. Sometimes it's his head, some particularly sweet times it's his heart, and often with Stacy it was his stomach. You bring your boyfriend, who's real interested in rock and roll, into this sort of 'inner sanctum', complete with pictures and musical instruments, and what does he focus on—muffins, not even your muffins, if you know what I mean, the blueberry ones in the kitchen. No sex, no drugs, no rock and roll –muffins. "Well, I can't argue with that," she laughed, "let's eat."
Alex set the tea kettle to boiling and Stacy foraged the cupboards for plates and cups. Sitting at the kitchen table munching away, he took in the photo of Peter Frampton breakfasting at the same table. "So, am I gonna see any photos of you and Robert Plant hanging on the walls here?" Stacy asked fixing Alex with a steady gaze that communicated it was more than a casual question.
"I've never been here with Robert or any one else for that matter." Alex answered neutrally. "Why would you ask that?"
Stacy suddenly became very interested in cleaning the last few muffin crumbs from his plate. Still looking down he said slowly, "you were in the movie we saw today and it looked like you were… …especially friendly with Robert Plant." Before Alex had a chance to answer, Stacy raised his head and motioned to her to let him finish. He spoke as if he had blurted out what was bothering him and then realized he might not really be prepared for the conversation. "Yeah, I guess whatever; I mean you've never grilled me about what girls I was with before. It was just that I was sitting in the theater with all the Boyz and there you were up on the screen. And of course Jay and Tony are like, yelling at the screen and high fiving me and telling the projection guy to run that part back again. I was really hoping we would get thrown out like usual, but no The Song just Remained the Same." Stacy's words tumbled out like he was reliving a nightmare.
"Honey, I told you I knew the band and I'm sorry you're upset, but what exactly happened in the movie?" This was a question Alex wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer to.
Stacy was looking up at the ceiling, over at the door, anywhere but at Alex. "It was just a short little clip, really, some roadie walks into a dark hotel room to wake Robert Plant up to go to the show or somewhere and when he starts getting out of bed there's obviously some chick on the pillow next to him. He says something like let her sleep and brushes her hair out of her eyes."
Stacy turned his gaze directly into Alex's eyes, "guess who the chick was?"
"Farrah Fawcett? Eleanor Roosevelt? Jay's Mom?" Alex hoped either to lighten the mood (not likely) or buy some time to process this information.
"No, but I think you managed to sleep through your big screen debut," Stacy replied sullenly. "The boys were happy to suggest lots of reasons why you might be so tired, and oh yeah, Jay says that since I'm doing someone who did someone famous, I'm almost famous."
"Look, I'm sorry your friends gave you a hard time about this…movie. But I really can't control what they think. I didn't know what scenes were in the movie and besides which, it wasn't like I was trying to hide anything from you. Like you said, we never talked about who we've been with before and honestly, I'm really surprised there was a scene like that in the movie. If I had thought there was anything upsetting I would have warned you." Alex said sincerely.
"So you were with Robert Plant?" Stacy really just wanted an honest answer.
"Yeah, but since you got blindsided by this, let me try to explain," Alex exhaled with a sigh. "Like I've said before, my mom and dad have known Jimmy Page since they were teenagers, so they knew Robert from the time Led Zep was formed. They always did work with them as a seamstress for wardrobe and a road manager. My brothers and I would travel around with the band from the time I was a little kid. During the time this movie was being filmed, there was a robbery of the bands receipts from their Madison Square Garden shows. They have never caught anyone because the robbers killed the only two people in the backstage area during the robbery, no witnesses you see. To cut through a lot of bullshit and details, let me just say my parents were killed working for the band, and they felt very responsible for us. They were doing their best to take care of us financially and emotionally. Robert and I spent a lot of time talking and um, I guess he was trying to comfort me the best way he knew how and it got um, more involved. I was a teenage girl, he's a world class sex symbol and grief and guilt take strange forms of expression."
"So this was a one time thing?" Now it was Stacy's turn not to be sure if he wanted to hear the answer.
"No, but it was pretty obviously not a good thing either, especially when you factor in his wife and kids," Alex admitted regretfully. "I'm really surprised for that reason alone that a scene like that was in the movie."
Stacy was seeing this was a painful conversation for Alex and was starting to realize it was hurting her much more deeply than his being teased by his friends. There was one thing he had to know before they closed the book on the subject. "What happens when you see him again?"
Alex reached across the table to take Stacy's hand, praying she wasn't going to be rebuffed; "I hope I can introduce an old family friend to my wonderful pro-skater boyfriend."
Stacy smiled a smile of genuine love back at Alex, "Didn't you say something about a round waterbed? It has been one long, intense day."
"Right this way, sir," Alex said leading him by the hand towards the bedroom with a smile. "So have you ever screwed anybody famous? I couldn't take anymore surprises."
"Just this chick that was in a Led Zeppelin movie."
A/N Led Zeppelin really was robbed of their Madison Square Garden receipts, but thankfully no one was hurt.