Chapter 1: The Confession
The living room was a shrine to a specific kind of glow. Neon-outlined posters of Ariana Grande watched from every wall, her iconic high ponytail a sleek silhouette against hot pink and lavender backgrounds. A framed ticket stub from the Sweetener tour sat pride of place on the mantel. The coffee table held a half-empty bottle of Yours perfume next to a pile of remote controls and two sweating cartons of Thai takeout.
Jake pushed a stray sesame noodle around his container. The aroma of pad see ew usually comforted him. Tonight, it just smelled like guilt.
“You’re quiet,” Maya said, not looking up from her phone. She scrolled with one thumb, her other hand expertly wielding chopsticks.
“Am I?” His laugh came out as a short, nervous bark. “Just tired.”
“Mhm.” She placed her phone face-down on the couch between them. It was a deliberate move. Her full attention was a laser, and he felt its heat. Her sharp brown eyes missed nothing, least of all the way his gaze kept darting to the giant poster above the TV, where Ariana, in a silver gown, blew a kiss to the room. To him.
Maya followed his look. She didn’t say anything. She just let the silence expand, filling the space between them with everything he hadn’t been saying for weeks. Months, maybe.
The air conditioner clicked on with a hum that did nothing to cut the tension. Jake’s stomach churned. He put his carton down on the crowded table, nudging aside an old issue of Billboard with Ariana on the cover.
“It’s just…” he started, then stopped. The words were a tangled knot in his chest.
“It’s just what, Jake?” Her voice was calm, too calm. It was the tone she used before dissecting a problem at work. “You’ve been orbiting this planet for months. Just say it. Did you buy more merch? Is there a life-sized cardboard cut-out in the trunk of your car? Because I’m telling you now, it’s not coming in the house. We have no spatial reality for that.”
“It’s not merch.” The sentence burst out of him. He dragged a hand through his messy brown hair. “It’s… it’s a fantasy. A specific one.”
Maya leaned back into the cushions, crossing her arms. Her expression was unreadable. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”
He couldn’t look at her. He stared at his knees, at the worn fabric of his jeans. The confession, held so long, felt like a physical object he was trying to cough up. “It’s… it’s the only one I’ve ever really had. Since I was like, nineteen. It’s stupid. It’s embarrassing.”
“Jake.” Her voice softened, just a fraction. “Out with it.”
He took a deep, shaky breath. The words left him in a desperate, mortified rush, aimed at the carpet. “I have this… this thing where I’ve always fantasized about getting a titfuck from Ariana Grande.”
There.
It hung in the air, absurd and vulgar and devastatingly true. He waited for the explosion. For the hurt, the disgust, the ultimatum. He braced for it, muscles tight, his own shame a hot flush on his neck and face.
The sound that came was a soft snort.
He looked up.
Maya’s head was tilted. One eyebrow was arched. Her lips were pressed together, but they were twitching. Not in anger. In something else.
“Seriously?” she said, her voice dripping with a kind of incredulous awe. “That’s it? That’s the big, shameful secret?”
“I—” Jake blinked. This wasn’t the script.
“A titfuck.” She said the word plainly, testing its weight. It sounded clinical in her mouth. “From Ariana Grande. Not, like, a romantic dinner. Not a backstage meet-and-greet where she recognizes your soul. Not even just regular sex. A very specific, logistically focused act.”
“I guess?” he managed, completely disarmed.
Maya uncrossed her arms. A slow, sly smile spread across her face. It was the smile she got when she solved a complex coding problem at work, or when she plotted the perfect route to beat weekend traffic. It was a smile of intense, focused interest.
“Huh,” she said. She picked up her phone again, but she wasn’t scrolling. She was thinking. Her thumbs tapped lightly against the case. “You know, it’s almost… refreshing.”
“Refreshing?” Jake parroted, his brain still stuck on the lack of yelling.
“Yeah. It’s not abstract. It’s a mechanical objective. There’s a clarity to it.” She looked from him to the poster and back again, her mind visibly whirring. “The problem isn’t your fantasy, Jake. The problem is the impossibility of its fulfillment. It’s creating a cognitive dissonance that’s making you miserable. And by extension, annoying to live with.”
He just stared at her, his mouth slightly open.
“So,” she continued, her tone becoming brisk, practical. “We have two options. Option one: you repress this, we fight about your moping forever, and I eventually leave you for a man whose celebrity fantasies involve, I don’t know, building a bookcase with Nick Offerman. Option two…”
She paused for dramatic effect, her eyes gleaming.
“Option two is we treat this like the project it is.”
“A project,” Jake whispered.
“Yes. A project with a defined goal.” Maya stood up, pacing the narrow path between the coffee table and the towering shelf of Ariana vinyl records. “I'll help you with this fantasy, but we need to break this down. Why Ariana Grande ? She doesn't even have big tits"
The words, so blunt and clinical, hung in the perfumed air.
Jake flinched. "That's... that's not the point," he stammered, his face burning. "It's not about... size. It's about her. The whole... aura."
Maya stopped pacing and leaned against the vinyl shelf, crossing her ankles. "The aura. Okay. Elaborate. Sell me on the product."
"It's the combination," he said, the words tumbling out now that the dam was broken. He gestured vaguely at the poster. "The voice, obviously. It's like... liquid diamonds. But also the aesthetic. The sweetness, the high ponytail, the cat ears, all that... but then there's the thank u, next energy. The toughness underneath. It's the duality. She's like a... a sexy glitter bomb with a doctorate in emotional survival."
Maya’s smirk deepened. "So it's a psychosexual attraction to her perceived resilience. Fascinating." She tapped her chin. "And the specific act? Why that one? Why not, say, a heartfelt duet?"
He slumped back into the couch, defeated by her analysis. "I don't know! It just is. It feels... intimate, but not too intimate. Playful. It's... aspirational."
"Aspirational." Maya pushed off the shelf and came to sit on the coffee table, facing him, her knees almost touching his. The takeout containers were shoved aside. Her expression was no longer just amused; it was intensely focused. "Let's talk logistics, then. In this fantasy, where does it happen?"
"Wh-what?"
"The setting, Jake. Is it backstage at the Grammy's? A janitor's closet? Her private jet? Details matter."
He felt utterly exposed, but a strange thread of excitement wound through the embarrassment. She was really engaging with this. She wasn't running. "I don't know... somewhere soft. A dressing room, maybe. Plush. Lots of lights."
"And the prelude? Does she just see you and say, 'Hey, fan, let's go?'"
"Of course not," he said, a sliver of defensive pride entering his voice. "There's a... a connection. A moment. We talk. She's tired of the fame, and I say something normal, and she laughs. A real laugh, not a press laugh. It's...understanding."
Maya nodded slowly, as if taking notes. "Okay. So it's a fantasy of validation. Of being the grounded, normal guy who unlocks the real her. The titfuck is just the physical manifestation of her choosing you, of her authenticity." She paused. "It's actually kind of sweet. In a deeply, profoundly ridiculous way."
Jake put his head in his hands. "I feel insane."
"You are. A little." Her hand landed on his knee, warm and solid. "But it's a managed insanity. Here's my proposition."
He peeked through his fingers. Her brown eyes were bright, strategic.
"I am going to help you fuck her tits. Maybe we could infiltrate the backstage ? Or do an official request ? "
Or do an official request?” she finished, her voice trailing off as she studied his horrified face. She waved a dismissive hand. “Kidding. Mostly. The point is, we treat this like any other impractical goal. Like running a marathon or learning Portuguese. We break it into stages.”
Jake stared at her. The neon from the poster reflected a pink slash across her cheek. “Stages,” he echoed, the word hollow.
“Stage one is research and reconnaissance,” Maya said, standing up and grabbing her laptop from the side table. She nudged his thigh with her foot to make room, sitting back down beside him with the computer already open. The glow illuminated her focused expression. “We need to understand the target’s movements, her patterns.”
She typed, her fingers a rapid clatter. “Ariana Grande. Current location: presumably Los Angeles. Upcoming public appearances…” She scrolled, humming. “Ah. The Voice filming schedule. A possible fragrance launch in New York next month. Red carpet events are unpredictable.”
“...but charity galas are slightly more structured.” Maya’s eyes scanned the screen, lit with a cool, strategic fire. “We cross-reference her team’s publicist, see if any events align with your vacation days. Stage two would be proximity engineering. Getting you into that space, looking the right kind of harmless and appealing.”
Jake watched her, a cocktail of awe and profound weirdness churning in his gut. The perfume from the bottle on the table seemed suddenly overpowering. “You’re serious. You’re actually serious.”
“Deadly.” She clicked a bookmark into a folder she’d just created, labeled ‘AG PROJ.’ “But we need assets. What’s your in? Are you a charity donor? A talented lighting technician? Do you have a cousin who works at Vogue?”
“I’m an assistant manager at a sporting goods store, Maya.”
“So we need to fabricate a credential.” She said it as casually as suggesting they order pizza. “Or, we go the honest fan route. That’s higher risk, lower probability. She’s probably got bodyguards who specialize in deflecting guys with our specific gleam in their eye.” She glanced at him. “No offense.”
“Offense taken,” he mumbled, but there was no heat in it. He was too mesmerized by the operational shift in the room. His shame was being dissected, labeled, and turned into actionable items.
Maya closed the laptop with a soft click. The sudden silence was heavy. She turned to face him fully on the couch, tucking one leg beneath her. The playful smirk was gone, replaced by a softer, more probing look. “Okay. Ground rules. For me to properly project-manage this, I need full transparency. No more moping. If you’re thinking about it, you tell me. If you see a photo that… activates the fantasy… you tell me. I need data.”
Jake swallowed. “That’s… intense.”
“It’s efficient,” she corrected. “Otherwise, it’s just a secret again. And secrets between us are boring and corrosive. This?” She gestured between them and the invisible flowcharts hanging in the air. “This is interesting.”
He looked at her—really looked at her. The clever curve of her mouth, the knowing glint in her eye that had first drawn him in. She wasn’t repulsed. She was fascinated. It was the most bizarre form of acceptance he’d ever received.
“Why are you doing this?” The question slipped out, raw and quiet.
Maya considered it, her head tilting. She reached out and brushed a strand of his messy hair off his forehead, her touch grounding. “Three reasons. One, I love you, and your misery is a drag. Two, it’s the most bizarre puzzle I’ve ever been presented with, and I genuinely want to see if we can crack it. The challenge is exquisite.” She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “And three… I’m kinda curious to see what happens to you afterwards. Once the pinnacle dream is either achieved or conclusively proven impossible. Who do you become then?”
The question landed in the center of his chest with a soft, profound thud. He had never thought beyond the fantasy. It was a fixed point, a glowing destination. The idea of a ‘fter’ was blank space.
Before he could formulate an answer, Maya’s phone buzzed on the couch. She snatched it up, her eyes scanning the notification. A genuine, surprised laugh burst out of her.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“What?”
She turned the screen toward him. It was a push notification from a celebrity news app. The headline read: ‘Ariana Grande Surprises Fans with Intimate “R.E.M. Beauty” Pop-Up in Downtown L.A. This Weekend.’
A current of pure, uncut adrenaline shot through Jake’s veins. His fingers went cold.
“Proximity engineering,” Maya murmured, her gaze locking with his. The sly smile was back, wider now. “Looks like stage one just got a hard deadline. The pop-up is Saturday. Day after tomorrow.”
Jake’s mouth was dry. “It’s a public event. She’ll be there… in person.”
“For a limited time, amid a controlled crowd,” Maya said, her mind already racing ahead. “It’s a soft target. A non-performative environment. She’ll be in ‘brand ambassador’ mode, which is more approachable than ‘performer’ mode.” She stood up, pacing again, but now her energy was kinetic, electric. “We need a plan. A real one. Not just showing up and hoping.”
“What can we possibly do in two days?” Jake’s voice cracked.
“We get smart.” Maya stopped in front of the poster, sizing it up as if it were a tactical map. “You need to be memorable, but not threatening. You need a hook. Something that makes you stick in her mind for the thirty seconds of interaction you’ll likely get.”
“I could wear the tour shirt from the Sweetener album,” Jake offered weakly, pointing to a framed t-shirt on the wall.
“No. That’s every third guy there. You need to stand out by not being the superfan.” She tapped her lip. “You need to be the interesting anomaly. The guy who isn’t weeping or shaking. The guy with a single, normal, charming thing to say.”
“Like what?” He felt utterly out of his depth.
“We’ll workshop it.” Maya grabbed a legal pad from the cluttered desk in the corner. “But first, logistics. We need tickets. These things are usually raffled or first-come, first-served.” She started scribbling, her handwriting a rapid, decisive scrawl. “I’ll monitor the brand’s socials. You—go take a shower. You’re emanating panic pheromones.”
He didn’t move. He was staring at the news alert still glowing on her phone screen. The fantasy had been a distant, private galaxy. Now, a doorway to that galaxy had materialized in downtown L.A., just a forty-minute drive with no traffic. The reality of it was terrifying. It was one thing to nurse a secret dream; it was another to stand in its possible presence.
Maya looked over, seeing the paralysis on his face. Her expression softened. She came back to the couch, knelt in front of him, and took his hands. They were cold. Hers were warm. “Hey. Listen. This is just reconnaissance. Stage one. We’re not walking in there with a goal of fulfillment. We’re walking in to gather intel and establish a baseline. That’s all. The pressure is off.”
He let out a shuddering breath. “Right. Intel. Just… look at the target.”
“Assess the security, the crowd density, her demeanor.” She squeezed his hands. “And maybe, if the stars align, you get to say hello. You get to test one line of dialogue. We learn from the interaction. That’s a win.”
He nodded, the tight coil in his chest loosening just a fraction. A mission. Parameters. This, he could maybe handle.
Maya’s phone buzzed again. She looked down, and her eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Wow.”
“What now? Is she coming to our apartment?”
“Better.” A slow, triumphant smile spread across Maya’s face. She showed him the screen. It was the details page for the pop-up. At the very bottom, in small print, was a line that read: ‘First 50 attendees will receive a signature goodie bag and a chance for a brief, personal photograph with Ariana.’
The air left the room. The distant galaxy wasn’t just visible anymore. It was offering a souvenir and a snapshot.
Jake’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat for a march he suddenly, desperately wanted to join. The abstract had just become a matter of timing, strategy, and getting downtown very, very early on a Saturday morning.
Maya met his wide-eyed stare, her own eyes blazing with the thrill of the game now truly beginning. “Well,” she said, her voice low and full of promise. “Now we have a real objective.”
The air in the room felt different after that. Charged. The posters were no longer just decoration; they were reconnaissance photos. The perfume bottle was a piece of evidence. Maya was already in motion, a general plotting a campaign.
“We need to be in line by 4 a.m.,” she said, scrolling through her phone with ferocious speed. “Maybe 3:30. This is L.A. The desperation for proximity here is a quantifiable resource. I’ll set the alarms. You need to decide what you’re wearing. It can’t be try-hard. It has to be ‘I just happen to look this effortlessly clean.’”
“It’s 11 p.m. on a Thursday,” Jake said, still slightly dazed on the couch.
“And your dream has office hours tomorrow. Up.” She tossed a throw pillow at him. “Think. What does ‘interesting anomaly’ wear? Not a band tee. Not a suit. Something… trustworthy. Approachable.”
Jake stumbled to his bedroom, his mind whirring. He stood in front of his closet, the clothes blurring into a meaningless mass of fabric. What did you wear to a potential existential culmination? He pushed aside graphic tees and worn hoodies. In the back, he found a simple, well-fitting heather gray Henley and a pair of dark, non-distressed jeans. It was the outfit he wore when he wanted to look like a competent adult for a casual dinner. It said, “I have my life together,” even if it was a lie.
“This,” he said, holding it up.
Maya appeared in the doorway, scrutinizing. “Good. Neutral. Blank canvas. She can project anything onto that. Now, the line.”
“The line?”
“What you’re going to say to her. If you get the photo. You have maybe ten seconds. It can’t be ‘I love you.’ It can’t be a marriage proposal. It needs to be disarming, memorable, and leave zero room for security to intervene.” She leaned against the doorframe, tapping her chin. “A compliment about her work is baseline. Everyone does that. We need adjacent.”
“Her perfume?” Jake offered weakly, thinking of the bottle on the table.
“Too creepy. Makes you smell like her in advance. That’s premeditated.” She paced the short hallway. “What’s something she’s proud of, but doesn’t get endless applause for? The Victorious soundtrack? Too dated. Her advocacy work? Too heavy for a pop-up.” Her eyes lit up. “The whistle tones in the Dangerous Woman album. The technical skill. You say something about the craft. It shows you’re listening, not just looking.”
Jake repeated it in his head. A compliment on the craft. It felt flimsy. “What if I freeze?”
“Then you’re a statue, and we’ve wasted a night’s sleep. Don’t freeze.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “This is a low-risk, high-reward drill. We’re gathering data. Remember?”
He didn’t sleep. He lay beside Maya, who drifted off with terrifying ease, and watched the numbers on the clock bleed into one another. His fantasy had always been a safe, private movie. Now he was being shoved onto a real set, with real lights, and a real, incomprehensibly famous co-star. The scale of it terrified him. The smell of her shampoo—coconut, not Yours—was the only anchor.
At 3:00 a.m., Maya’s alarm chirped. She was out of bed in a single, fluid motion. “Boots on the ground,” she whispered, her voice gravelly with sleep but her eyes already sharp.
The city at that hour was a ghost of itself, all dark glass and empty streets punctuated by the blinding islands of all-night taco stands. The silence in the car was dense. Jake’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
“Nervous?” Maya asked, sipping from a giant travel thermos of coffee.
“I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Don’t. You’ll smell like bile. That’s not a neutral scent.” She navigated on her phone. “Turn here. It’s a block over. We’ll scope it out.”
They found the location, a sleek boutique art gallery usually featuring neon abstractions. It was dark now, but a discreet R.E.M. Beauty banner was already hung. And there was a line.
At 3:45 a.m., there were already thirty people ahead of them. Clusters of young women huddled under blankets, their faces illuminated by phone screens. A few guys, looking either besotted or bored. The camaraderie of shared obsession hummed in the cool air.
“We’re on the bubble,” Maya murmured, doing a quick headcount. “If ten more people show up in the next four hours, we’re out of the top fifty. This is where we hold.”
They took their place at the end of the concrete line. The wait was a form of slow, communal torture. Jake’s adrenaline bled away into a numb fatigue, replaced by a grinding doubt. This was insane. He was standing on a sidewalk to maybe get a photo with a woman whose image was plastered all over his apartment, a woman he’d fetishized in the most specific way possible, while his girlfriend—his brilliant, terrifying girlfriend—leaned against a wall, analyzing crowd dynamics.
As the sky lightened from black to deep blue, Maya nudged him. “See the guy in the vintage My Everything jersey? Three spots ahead? He’s a lock. He’s got the fervor. The two girls with the custom ‘Ari’ hats are also in. We’re competing with them for mental real estate. You are not going to be the most memorable fan here. That’s your advantage. You’re stealth.”
By 9 a.m., the line snaked around the block. Security guards in black polos emerged, their faces stern. The energy shifted from drowsy to electric. At 10 a.m., they started moving people through, wristbanding the first fifty with a grim efficiency. The plastic strip, neon pink, felt like a tourniquet on Jake’s wrist. He was in.
The pop-up was a pastel daydream—cloud-like installations, mirrors framed in pink velvet, tables laden with glittering makeup. The scent was overwhelming: sweet, powdery, like candy and childhood. It made his head swim. And everywhere, her face. Her eyes.
He didn’t see her, not at first. He and Maya moved through the space, a tense, silent unit. She picked up a lip gloss, examined it, put it down. “Stay