But I’m not here for adoration.
In fact, whyamI here?
To check out the quaintest little hotel on Bourbon Street, that’s why.
My mother was originally from New Orleans. Her father was a down-on-his-luck jazz musician and her mother a proper Southern girl from Atlanta who fell in love with a man “below her station,” according to her parents. She was disowned when she ran away with him. Times were tough for my grandparents after that, so their adorable little daughter—my mother—helped pay a few bills by performing her song and dance on Bourbon Street for tourists.
It’s hard to imagine it now, allowing such a thing, but apparently they were that desperate.
A Hollywood talent scout happened to be strolling through the French Quarter one sweltering August day, as the story goes. My mother was ten years old.
When my grandparents heard what the movie studio was offering to pay to put my mother in a blockbuster alongside some A-list superstars, they upped sticks and moved to L.A. without a backwards glance. I still have that old, framed headline somewhere:Shirley Temple’s outrageous talent meets Elizabeth Taylor’s stunning looks for a brand new era. Audiences can’t get enough of the newest phenom child star Hattie Carson.
Poor Mama. (She never allowed us to call her “Mom,” a word she despised.Call me Mama or call me Hattie or don’t call meat all.)She eventually fell out with her own parents because, for years, they spent all her money.
My family history is anything but boring. Which might be why I prefer numbers to people. They’re predictable. They don’t yell or cry, get broken hearts or over-medicate themselves into early graves.
I scan the crowd. Hopefuls in bad suits, desperate for some investment stardust to rub off on them. Women with hard, eager eyes, hungry for my attention.
Women want me for a lot of reasons. My name. My Hollywood pedigree. My looks. My build. My “talent” in the bedroom. My gigantic fucking cock. Not to mention my funds, my companies and my famously vast amounts of money.
Unfortunately, they could all be cardboard cut-outs of the same person, every one of them lacking appeal, personality or any kind of spark. Which happens to be the story of my life.
I wish I was easier to please.
Women seek me out, stalk me, and go to absurd lengths to get close to me. It is what it is. And I never aspired to be either a monk or a choirboy. I go with it when the animal cravings threaten to drive me mad, but nothing has ever lasted longer than one night. Because I never want it to.
I’ve come to realize that I’m destined to end up alone.
I’m about to turn thirty and I’ve never been in a serious relationship.
I try to feel more than just a very finite version of lust.
I try tocare.
The problem is, I never fuckingdo. The exchanges arealways so uneven. So out of sync. So she’ll-kill-to-have-me-but-I’m-entirely-uninterested.
I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I’m not a person who’s capable of falling in love. I’ve never felt even an inkling of anything that could be considered anywhere near that particular ballpark.
Maybe I’m too left-brained, who knows. No matter how much they cry and plead and do whatever they can to get me to commit to anything beyond one night—if I even hang around that long—it’s always the same. I’m already bored out of my mind.
I don’tchooseto lose interest, it just happens. Every single time. And I’ve learned to accept my own shortcomings.
It’s easy enough to fill the void with work. I have a lot of colleagues and employees who in some cases might even be considered friends. And I have my brothers, who know me better than anyone. But sometimes I feel the disconnect harder than other times. Like now. It would be nice to have something—or someone, more specifically—to look forward to. Instead, as always, I feel sort of empty. Dark. Twisted in knots because it’s been too long since I got fucking laid.
I step back from the podium. Now that I’ve done what I came here to do, all I want is to get the fuck out of here.
Cameras flash. Security closes in with stealthy efficiency, guiding me offstage through a restricted corridor lined with velvet rope and people craning for a better look.
I can hear them calling my name.
My mother’s voracious lust for attention definitely did not rub off on me.
Backstage, my team is waiting—assistants, drivers, more security. I’ve never been able to travel light and lately it’s been getting harder to fly under any kind of radar.
I don’t do social media but my executive assistant Todd occasionally shows me the frenzy that surrounds me online.
Which couldn’t interest me less. Most of it is meaningless gossip. Women I’ve spent time with, getting headlines for their tell-all confessionals about how “beastly” and “ravenous” I am in bed, for fuck’s sake. Todd has insisted on showing me a few.
