Chapter 2: The Backstage Pass
The plastic pass hanging from Jake’s neck didn’t feel like access. It felt like a borrowed heartbeat, thumping against his sternum with every step. The laminated photo of him—taken by Maya ten minutes earlier in a Starbucks bathroom—was already peeling at the edges. The word “PRESS” in stark Helvetica looked like an accusation.
“Just keep walking,” Maya murmured from beside him, her arm looped through his. She’d downgraded her look to ‘harassed production assistant’: black jeans, a faded band hoodie, a tangled mess of all-access lanyards around her own neck. One of them was for a film festival that had ended six months ago. “Eyes forward, slight frown. You’re looking for the coffee station because your editor is a monster and your deadline was yesterday.”
They moved through the Dolby Theatre’s backstage labyrinth. It was a world of brutal functionality hidden behind the velvet and gold. Polished concrete floors echoed with distant, thumping bass from the main stage. The walls were scuffed beige, lined with thick black cables that snaked like sleeping serpents towards the glow of exit signs. The air smelled of lemon disinfectant, sawdust, and the pervasive, sweet-dusty scent of stage makeup.
A security guard with a clipboard eyed them from a folding chair. Maya didn’t break stride. She held up a finger, phone pressed to her ear, and said with practiced urgency, “Yeah, I’m on the freight elevator level, but the talent’s rider specifically says alkaline water, not mineral. I know, I know. Tell them I’m handling it.”
The guard’s eyes glazed over. He waved them past.
Jake’s mouth was a desert. The pop-up flash-mob of a week ago had been a carnival compared to this. This was the machine itself, the silent, humming engine of fame. Every corner could reveal a roadie, a producer, someone who would see the fraud sweating through his cheap button-down shirt.
“Left here,” Maya whispered, dropping the phone act. “Her dressing room’s on this corridor. Stars are always closest to the stage, but with a private exit. Look for the door with the fresh star on it.”
They turned into a slightly narrower hallway. The noise from the stage was muffled here, just a dull, rhythmic pulse. A few doors stood shut, anonymous. Then, halfway down, one was slightly ajar. A sliver of warm, yellow light cut across the dim corridor floor. From within, the faint, crystal-clear sound of a vocal warm-up filtered out. A seamless run of arpeggios, followed by a couple of practiced whistle notes that seemed to vibrate in Jake’s molars.
It was her. In the flesh, twenty feet away. The sound was so casually perfect it stole the air from his lungs.
Maya stopped. Her sharp eyes assessed the situation: the empty hall, the cracked door, the distant, fading sound of the security guard’s walkie-talkie around the corner. This was a bubble of unexpected privacy, a gap in the universe’s security protocol.
She turned to Jake. All the clinical analysis, the project management, fell away from her face for one raw second. She looked at him—really looked at him—seeing the terror and the yearning warring in his eyes. She’d engineered this moment, piece by fraudulent piece, and now the sheer weight of it was here.
She put both hands on his shoulders. Her grip was firm. “This is it,” she said, her voice low and stripped of all irony. “This is your moment. Not for the… grand finale. For a connection. One real sentence. Go.”
“Maya, I can’t—”
“You can.” She gave him a small, fierce shake. “Intel, remember? This is primary source research. Now move.”
She spun him towards the door and gave him a push.
He stumbled forward, the momentum carrying him the few steps to the threshold. His hand, moving on its own, pressed against the cool wood. The door swung inward silently.
The room was smaller than he’d imagined, a cocoon of light and organized chaos. A huge mirror framed by blazing bulbs dominated one wall, reflecting the room’s contents: a floral-patterned couch, a rack of elaborate sequined outfits, a table littered with water bottles, throat spray, and a single, burning vanilla-scented candle. The air was warm and smelled like her perfume—Yours, but also something else, something human beneath it: sweat and focus.
Ariana Grande sat on a stool in front of the mirror, her back to the door. She was petite, almost swallowed by a oversized cream-colored sweatshirt. Her signature high ponytail was a dark, flawless waterfall down her back. She was studying something on an iPad, her head tilted, one hand absently tracing the lines of a musical score. She was humming.
Jake stood frozen, a trespasser in a church.
The door clicked shut behind him.
The sound was tiny, final. The hum stopped.
In the mirror, he saw her eyes—large, expertly lined in black—flick up and lock onto his reflection. She didn’t jump. She didn’t scream. Her shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly, a bird sensing a window it hadn’t noticed before. Slowly, she turned the stool around to face him.
The full force of her presence was a physical blow. It wasn’t just her beauty, which was sharper and more concentrated in person, or the familiar iconography of the ponytail and the cat-eye. It was the quiet authority in her posture, the alert, calculating stillness in her face. This wasn’t the blowing-a-kiss poster. This was her, and her small perfect tits
“Hi,” she said. Her voice was exactly the same—that breathy, melodic tone—but it was flat, a tool turned to a shield. “Can I help you?” Her gaze dropped to the lanyard on his chest for a millisecond, then back to his face, reading him.
Her gaze dropped to the lanyard on his chest for a millisecond, then back to his face, reading him.
“I… my editor. The feature. On vocal rest techniques.” The words tumbled out, a dry-mouthed recital of the cover story Maya had drilled into him over lukewarm diner coffee. He could feel his own pulse in his throat, a frantic beat against the starched collar. The fantasy that had lived in his head for a decade, polished to a high-gloss scene, was ash now, replaced by the terrifying reality of her waiting silence.
Ariana didn’t move. Her expression was a neutral, professional mask, but her eyes were doing a rapid calculation. “Right,” she said, the word a quiet placeholder. She glanced past him to the closed door. “They usually send a runner first. Or an email from publicity.”
“It was last-minute.” Jake’s voice cracked. He was sweating through his shirt under his jacket, the borrowed press pass sticking to his skin. The Yours perfume from the candle was everywhere, the same scent from the half-empty bottle on his own coffee table at home. The congruence was dizzying. All those posters, and now the real woman was six feet away, smelling his failure.
“You’re shaking,” she observed, not unkindly. It was a clinical note.
“It’s cold back here.”
“It’s not.” She finally stood, unfolding from the stool with a dancer’s precise economy. The oversized sweatshirt fell to her thighs. She took one step toward him, and his breath hitched. This wasn’t the approach from the dream. This was an investigation. “Let me see your ID. The real one, not the laminate.”
He fumbled for his wallet, hands clumsy. The driver’s license slipped from his fingers, clattering on the polished concrete floor between them. He dropped to a knee to grab it, a supplicant’s motion, and when he looked up, she hadn’t moved. She was just watching, her head tilted again. He held the license out, a trembling rectangle of plastic.
She took it, her fingers brushing his. Her touch was cool. “Jacob Ellis.” She read his name aloud, and it sounded like a foreign object in her mouth. She looked from the photo to his face. “You don’t look like a journalist, Jacob Ellis. You look like you’re going to be sick.”
The last thread of the plan snapped. Maya’s coaching, the cover story—it all evaporated under the quiet scrutiny of her focus. The guilt was a solid, cold mass in his gut. He thought of Maya waiting in some shadowy hallway, believing in her own bizarre project, and the words just broke out. “It’s not for an article.”
“Okay,” she said, slowly. She didn’t hand the license back. “So what’s it for?”
He opened his mouth. Nothing came. The confession, the one he’d blurted to Maya over cheap pizza, lodged behind his teeth. How could you say it to her? The silence stretched, tight and suffocating. He stared at the sequined fabric of an outfit on the rack, the tiny mirrors catching the light. He was ruining it. He was a burglar in a shrine.
Her sigh was soft, almost inaudible over the distant bass thump. “Listen, Jacob. You’re clearly not supposed to be here. I’ve got a soundcheck in thirty minutes.” She moved past him, toward the door, to end it. Her shoulder brushed his arm.
The contact, so casual and final, unleashed it. “I have this… thing,” he choked out, staring at the floor. “This fantasy. For years. It’s stupid. It’s just, you’re in it. I have all the posters. The perfume. My girlfriend, she… she helped me get back here.”
Ariana stopped, her hand on the doorknob. She didn’t turn. “Your girlfriend helped you break into my dressing room to tell me you have a fantasy.”
“Yes.”
She turned then, leaning back against the door, blocking the exit. The professional mask was gone, replaced by a look of profound, weary curiosity. “That’s a new one. Usually, it’s a marriage proposal or a demo tape. So. What’s the fantasy?”
He couldn’t look at her. He fixated on the peeling edge of his press pass. The words were a whisper. “You. And me. And… your chest.”
The room was silent. The vanilla candle flickered.
“My chest,” she repeated, flatly.
“A titfuck.” He said it to the floor, the vulgar term hanging in the perfumed air, obscene and ridiculous. He wanted the concrete to swallow him. He expected the shout for security, the blistering condemnation.
Instead, she made a small, thoughtful sound. “Huh.” She pushed off the door and walked back toward him, stopping an arm’s length away. Her eyes traveled over his face, down his trembling frame, and back up. It was an assessment, utterly detached. “And your girlfriend is okay with this.”
“She’s… strategic.”
Ariana almost smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “I bet she is.” She crossed her arms over the sweatshirt. “And you came all this way, past actual security, with a fake pass, risking arrest, for that.”
It was a statement. The sheer, absurd arithmetic of it. He just nodded, a miserable, definitive jerk of his head.
She was silent for a long moment, studying the man having a quiet meltdown in the middle of her workspace. The hum of the lighting rig was the only sound. Then, with a resolve that seemed to settle in her shoulders, she gave a slight, almost imperceptible shrug. “Okay.”
Jake’s head snapped up. “What?”
“You heard me.” Her voice was all business now, stripped of melody. “Thirty minutes. That’s the window. You don’t get to kiss me. Call your girlfriend in here, I want her to watch.
The word “watch” seemed to echo in the tiny, perfumed room.
Jake just stared, his brain refusing to parse the command. The laminate of his fake pass dug into the skin of his neck. Ariana didn’t move, her arms still crossed, waiting. Her expression was unreadable, a blend of fatigue and a conductor’s patience.
“You… want Maya here?” he finally managed, the name sounding alien in this context.
“That’s what I said.” Ariana’s tone was matter-of-fact, as if discussing a lighting cue. “The architect of this little field trip should witness the groundbreaking. Go get her. The hall’s clear for now.”
His legs were blocks of wood. He turned and fumbled for the doorknob, his slick palm slipping on the brass. He pulled it open, the corridor’s cooler air hitting his face like a slap. Maya was leaning against the opposite wall, ten feet away, pretending to check her phone. She looked up, her sharp eyes instantly scanning his expression.
“Well?” she mouthed.
He gestured weakly with his head. “She wants you.”
Maya’s eyebrows shot up. A flash of genuine surprise, then the strategic mask slid back into place. She pushed off the wall, slipping her phone into her hoodie pocket. She didn’t ask questions. She walked past him into the dressing room, her posture shifting from conspiratorial to casually professional in three steps.
Jake followed, closing the door on the world outside.
The dynamic in the room reconfigured instantly. Maya stood beside Jake, facing Ariana. It was no longer a star and an intruder. It was a meeting.
“You’re the girlfriend,” Ariana stated.
“Maya.” She offered a small, polite smile, no trace of nerves. “Sorry for the unconventional approach. Logistics were tricky.”
Ariana gave a short, breathy laugh that held no warmth. “Logistics. Right.” Her gaze traveled between them, a living calculus. “So you know about the… chest thing.”
“I do,” Maya confirmed, her voice even. “I helped him articulate it. It seemed healthier than letting it fester.”
“And you’re not… threatened?”
“I’m fascinated.” Maya’s head tilted, mirroring Ariana’s earlier gesture. “It’s a specific, persistent ideation. I viewed facilitating a safe, controlled interaction as a form of exposure therapy. For him.”
Jake listened, a specimen pinned between them. They were talking about his deepest shame as if it were a quirky research project.
Ariana nodded slowly, absorbing this. She looked at Jake, then back at Maya. “You realize how insane this is.”
“Completely,” Maya agreed, a sly smile finally touching her lips. “But isn’t most performance, on some level, insane? You stand in front of thousands and convince them you’re feeling something pure. This is just a much smaller, weirder audience.”
A silence hung, thick with the scent of vanilla and unreality. Ariana uncrossed her arms, letting them fall to her sides. She seemed to reach a decision.
“Okay,” she said again, that same terrifying finality in her voice. “Ground rules. You,” she pointed a manicured finger at Maya, “stand there by the rack. You don’t speak. You don’t direct. You observe.” Her finger swung to Jake. “You stand right here. You don’t touch me anywhere but where I indicate. You do not cum on the merchandise. Understood?”
"Understood," Jake whispered. The word tasted like dust.
Maya gave a single, silent nod and retreated to the shadowed clothing rack. She became a still, dark shape against the glittering sequins, her sharp eyes capturing everything. The vanilla candle's flame trembled in the draft from the vent.
Ariana didn’t look at either of them again. She turned back to the mirror, grabbed the hem of the oversized sweatshirt, and pulled it off in one swift, utilitarian motion. She wore a simple black bralette underneath. The casualness of the reveal was more shocking than any seduction. It was just a thing her body did. She tossed the sweatshirt onto the stool.
"Come here," she said, not turning around. Her voice was all business.
Jake’s legs carried him forward on numb autopilot. The floor felt unsteady. He stopped behind her, close enough to see the fine, dark hairs at the nape of her neck, the stray flecks of glitter from a previous costume clinging to her skin. Her perfume was stronger now, mixed with the clean scent of her sweat.
Her perfume was stronger now, mixed with the clean scent of her sweat. In the mirror’s reflection, he saw her hands rise to the clasp between her shoulder blades. The sound of the fastener releasing was a tiny, definitive click in the silent room. She let the black bralette fall forward into her hands, then dropped it atop the sweatshirt without ceremony.
Her tits were right there. The reality of them, pale and small with pink nipples already stiffened from the cool air, short-circuited every glossy poster image in his head. They were just a part of her, unadorned. She looked at his reflection, her face a calm, distant moon. “Your pants,” she said, the instruction devoid of inflection. “Now.”
His fingers, stupid and thick, struggled with his belt buckle. The clinking metal seemed obnoxiously loud. He pushed his jeans and boxers down to his thighs in one jerky motion, his cock springing free, already fully hard and aching. The air felt cool on his wet tip. He was obscenely exposed, his fantasy physically present while he stood half-naked in a dressing room that smelled like her goddamn perfume.
“Alright,” she said, as if confirming an item on a list. She turned to face him, her eyes deliberately avoiding his, focusing on the task. She placed her hands on his hips, her touch clinical. Her skin was warm. “Stand still.”
She guided him backward until his legs hit the plush arm of the floral couch. “Sit,” she commanded. He sank down, the position awkward with his pants binding his thighs. She didn’t join him. She remained standing, looking down at him with that detached focus. Then she knelt on the carpet between his spread legs.
The sight of her, Ariana Grande, on her knees in front of him, was a synaptic meltdown. This wasn’t the submissive fantasy he’d jerking off to for years. This was something else entirely. She was in charge, her ponytail a perfect dark rope over her shoulder. She spat into her palm once, a rough, efficient sound. Then she took his shaft in her hand, her grip firm, and began pumping him slowly. Her eyes were on her work. “You’re already leaking like a faucet,” she noted, her voice quiet. “This won’t take long.”
She leaned forward, her free hand cupping one breast, and guided his cock between the soft, pale mounds of her flesh. The contact was a brutal, electric shock of warmth and softness. She pressed them together around him, creating a tight, slick channel. “Fuck,” he gasped, his head falling back against the couch. The sensation was overwhelming, a crushing friction that was nothing and everything like he’d imagined.
She began to move, establishing a steady, rhythmic pace. Up and down. It was a technical motion. He could hear the wet, obscene sound of his shaft moving through the cleft of her tits, the slick noise of her spit mixing with his pre-cum. Her perfume, Yours, from the candle, from the bottle on his coffee table at home, was now directly under his nose, suffusing every gasped breath. The cognitive dissonance was a vise around his temples.
“Look at me,” she said, her tone allowing no refusal.
His head lolled forward. Her gaze was locked on his, but it wasn’t passionate. It was analytical, observing the physical reactions her body was eliciting. She watched his face twist, his mouth hang open. Her own expression was placid, a performer monitoring an audience’s response. Up and down. The friction was incredible, a building, coiling heat in his gut. His hips tried to buck upwards, seeking more.
She paused, her grip tightening at the base of his cock to still him. “Don’t,” she said flatly. “You don’t get to fuck. You get to receive. Understand?” She waited for his ragged nod before resuming the same steady, controlled rhythm.
From the shadows by the clothing rack, Maya watched, utterly silent. Jake caught a glimpse of her: her arms were crossed, one hand resting against her chin, a thinker’s pose. She was studying them both, his agony and Ariana’s methodical execution, as if taking notes for a thesis. Her presence was a cold anchor in the fever dream.
“You’re close,” Ariana stated, feeling the throb in his cock against her chest. "If your girlfriend can make me cum before you do, I'll let you finish on my tits"