Thursday 2:43 p.m.  The farm, study

It was a hard week without her, especially those first few days, but although Russell was no stranger to brooding melancholy, he wasn't the sort to wallow in it endlessly.  He mourned his loss.  And then he flung himself whole heartedly into this new challenge.  He finally understood what it was to be the one left behind.  And he didn't like it one bit.  It was a new experience for him.  In the past when his previous lovers had had other commitments on their time, a part of him had always been eager for the break.  Even when he was in love.  Now he was suddenly found himself a bit scared of being alone.  That was new, too.... this wanting to hide in a woman rather than shake her off him. 

It wasn't just his intention to woo Sam from afar; he also wanted to see how their relationship would survive the test of distance and the pressure of a life lived in the public eye.  And he had wasted no time.  There was a message from him on her answering machine and flowers waiting on her doorstep when Sam arrived home.  The bouquet was beautiful and so revealingly sentimental.  One thornless yellow rose for each day they'd been friends.  One thorny red rose for each day they'd been more than friends.  And one white rose for each day they'd been apart. 

It was all overwhelming to Sam, who hadn't yet recovered from the gift she'd found tucked away in her carryon, wrapped in the shirt of his she'd worn that night in his bed.  He'd managed to tuck a stuffed animal in her bag without her knowledge.  A peacock.  He'd penned 'Rusty' on the tag.  Even heartsick, his quirky sense of humor had made her laugh aloud when she found it, drawing curious looks from several passengers seated near her.  She'd just ignored them, wiped the tears from her face and hugged the little plush peacock under her arm as she held his shirt to her face and breathed in the scent of him clinging to it.

But even as he threw himself heart and soul into keeping his connection with her strong and vibrant, Sam was already beginning to come under fire as she became painfully acquainted with the darker side of his fame.  The first pictures of her had already been sold before she'd even spent a single night back home in her bed.  Unaware of the hubbub, Sam had slept in late and was making a cup of coffee in the kitchen when Russell called.  Sam's sleepy cheerful voice told him everything he needed to know.  She hadn't heard.

The phone call didn't last long.  It mostly consisted of a 'Morning', love' a private query about what she was wearing (his shirt, predictably) and a suggestion for her to check her email and then call him back.  That woke her up.  Her warm sleepy fog had vanished by the time she'd booted up her computer and slogged her way through a ton of spam to find the email he was talking about.  His brief note was accompanied by a scan of a nasty article that left her reeling.

dear sam,
my sweet girl.
what a sorry 'welcome home' this is.bet you wish you never left.christ knows i do.
i just hope after reading this you don't start wishing you never came.i know for your sake i should probably wish that,but you
already know what a selfish bastard i am when it comes to you.
desperation does that to a man.
so does love.
missing you, sammy.
me. 

Sam smiled as she read the words that so clearly showed the heart he wore on his sleeve-- as well as his impatient style of communication.  She was used to his little notes.  He never cared much about how they looked.  He really only cared about the sentiment they expressed.  Hugging his shirt tighter around her slender body, Sam read his words again and then gasped when she saw what he'd attached along with it.  It was a scan of an article from the Sun Herald.  There was an unflattering picture of her standing beside Mark, who was unloading her bags from the helicopter at the airport in Sydney.

Samantha was aghast.  And she felt a rolling, seething impotent anger that sat nauseously in her stomach.  To Sam, tabloids had always been something one glanced at in line at the supermarket-- and only then because the trashy headlines about Elizabeth Taylor's latest surgery or Michael Jackson's most recent court case or the separation of the latest Hollywood golden couple broke up the boring monotony of the beep-beep-beep as items passed over the scanner.  She'd been indifferent before, and after she'd come to know Russell she'd been indignant, but she'd never before experienced it from the perspective of the person being written about.  How could they write such horrible lies?  It was such an... an intrusion!  Sam was livid.  Disgusted.  Upset.

Russell was little better.  Even though he was used to it, and for the most part paid it little mind, this time he was furious.  Partly on Sam's behalf.  And partly because his ex-fiancée had deserved to hear about this development in his life from him rather than through the press.  They had been friends for more than a decade.  That was the problem.  They made better friends that life partners, but he knew this would still cut her deeply.  And as if that wasn't bad enough, he was unsure if Sam would be able to take this in stride.  Russell was no fool.  He knew this was only the beginning.

With a sigh, he flung himself down in his favorite red chair and waited for her call.  He wondered if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he'd been through five cigarettes before his phone finally trilled.

"Russ?  Oh my GOD!  I can't believe this...."

Definitely a bad thing, then.  "G'day to you too, love," he tried for a levity he didn't quite feel.  It fell flat.

"Be serious!  How can they print this crap?"

"Freedom of speech.  Ain't it grand?  Bunch of fuckin' knobs."  He took a deep drag and blew out softly.  "Look... you all right?"

"Yes.  No.  I don't know...."  She sighed in frustration.  "That picture!  I look awful!  And they make me-- us-- sound even worse."  Russell couldn't help but smile at that.  Sometimes Sam could be so predictably female.  And it was true.  She did look pretty bad.  Her clothes were passable but she was bundled in a heavy black peacoat that hid her slender figure and her eyes were puffy from crying.  It didn't help that her nose was red and her hair was horribly windblown. 

"Cried all the way there, did you?"

"Pretty much." 

"Well you were crying over me, which makes your red nose rather endearing to my way of thinking," he said softly.  It was sappy but nonetheless true.  He took a deep breath for courage and continued.  "You sorry you signed on for this?"

She ignored his question for the moment.  "Did you mean what you said in your email about desperation and love?"

"Yes.  Absolutely."

"Then, no.  I'm not."  Relief flooded him and he let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding.  "This is going to happen again, isn't it?"

He wished with all his heart he could say 'no' but the truth was, it was going to start happening more and more frequently.  "Yes."

Sam suddenly had a horrible thought and clutched her shirt closed at the throat while she peeped out the window nervously.  "They're not going to come here, are they?  Camp outside my door?"

Russell chuckled.  "They might in time.  But they're not Agent Smith or anything for fuck's sake."  Even Sam laughed.

"Lucky for me I'll be in Calgary tomorrow."  He grimaced, aware of just exactly how lucky she was to be leaving her usual haunts.  

"Well, let me give you some advice.  If they do find you, don't run.  Don't hide.  And don't pretend the camera isn't there.  Look directly at it.  Make eye contact.  Fucks up the shot."  Actually it just made them worth less.  Candid shots almost always fetched more because it appeared as if they'd caught you in some private moment-- and the private lives of movie stars, and the people they loved, were worth their weight in gold.  He giggled then, suddenly less serious.  "Or you can just do what I do and flip the fuckers off."             

"Charming."  Only she was laughing when she said it.

"Actually, I detest having my picture taken."  He didn't tell her that it got easier over time.  Because it didn't.  

Sam could hear the openness in his voice, the solid ring of truth and also the waver of vulnerability.  "You okay?" she asked, well aware he'd taken some pretty brutal knocks in the article as well.

"Yeah."  He was silent for a moment.  "I'm going to have to talk to her about us, you know."  

Sam felt a frisson of worry and a hot stick of jealousy, but if their relationship couldn't stand something that small, it was never going to be able to handle the big stuff.  "I know."  He didn't hide it from her.  He also didn't ask if she minded.  Which was strangely comforting in an odd sort of way.

"I just wanted you to know before some arsehole publishes a picture of us having coffee."  Russell could tell she was uneasy but she hadn't flown into a jealous rage or forbidden him to see her.  Which was a fucking joke.  He might be in love but nobody told him who he could or couldn't see. 

"Fair enough," she said and then she stopped and listened for a moment.  "Can you turn down the TV, Russ?  It's hard to hear you over the noise."

He laughed.  "No, actually, I can't.  That's not the television.  It's the city."  He wasn't at the farm.  He wasn't even in his usual grandiose suite overlooking the Bay.  He was in a little dive motel where nobody would know his name and where he and Mark could hit a few pubs with relative anonymity.

"The city?  Where are you?"

"Some crap hotel in the Cross."  Not far from where he and Dean used to busk in the streets, to tell the truth.  The idea of staying there had amused him.  For a short while anyway.  He swallowed and just decided to be dead honest.  "Hurt too much to be at the farm without you."  He heard her soft croon but went on anyway before it could unman him completely.  "Besides, you know the band and I will be touring soon... on our way to wetting knickers up and down the coast."

"More like making their ears bleed!"

"That too."  Sam snorted at his cheek and suddenly everything seemed like it would be okay.  Like it was just Sam and Russ talking like they always did, despite what went on in the crazy world around them.  "Now, about what you were wearing....."

And that's how they sorted their first brush with the press.  It got easier over time.  They did manage to get some shots of her at the airport as she left for Calgary.  This time she looked chic and elegant.  Shots surfaced, just like he said they would, of him having coffee with his ex.  There were other nasty surprises as well.  They unearthed shots of Sam, not just from previous gallery openings but all the way back to the announcement of her wedding, which to Sam's knowledge wasn't ever published in anything but her little hometown rag paper, the Melcher Gazette. 

Somehow she and Russell managed to take it in stride.  At first it had been hard.  It upset both of them terribly.  As the weeks passed it got so they'd mail articles to each other after having rewritten them.  Her favorite was a snap of him with his middle finger up, obscuring his face.  And he'd written in a caption.  'For once, Crowe really does fuck everyone in sight.'  Sam screamed with laughter when she saw it and she fully intended to tack it to her bulletin board when she got home.  But even that game lost its luster after a while and soon Sam and Russell simply ignored the bad press and concentrated on more important things.  Like their growing relationship.

Russell kept in constant touch.  There was a strong needy hint there that he didn't care to have pointed out to him by anyone.  Even if it was true.  And it was.  He was more aware than anyone just how much his heart yearned for her.  He called her almost every day.  Sent her email.  Letters.  And then there were the presents, which somehow found their way to her with ease, no matter where she was.  Home.  Working for a client.  In transit between the two.  He'd even sent her mother flowers once. 

Sam just couldn't get over it.  She'd never known anyone who was such a cobbling of beautiful contrasts.  From fiery and passionate to obstinate and surly to tender and gentle to bawdy and crude to scorch-her-nerves-peel-the-paint-from-the-walls erotic.  He was so generous, with his feelings as well as with the gifts he sent.  Those were typically of two types.  Either they were staunchly traditional or they were very unusually quirky.  He'd sent her books he'd read and liked, beautiful bouquets of fresh flowers, a bottle of the bourbon they'd drank that night in his study when she'd told him about her vices.  That one had been accompanied by a note that said, 'If you kissed me tonight, this is how I would taste...'

There were silly gifts too.  A peacock feather, crazy snapshots of the Grunty boys behaving badly on tour, singing in dive bars with ruddy faces and beers in their hands.  He'd sent a box of truffles with her favorite flavors taken out, leaving little holes here and there in the elegant arrangement.  That time the note said, 'Guess what I'm eating?  Want your favorites?  You know where to find me.  Better hurry.  I've a taste for something sweet.'  The funniest thing was a copy of L.A. Confidential on DVD that he'd had delivered by a messenger along with a note that read, 'Had to have this one delivered in person cos the rock you've been living under doesn't seem to have a mail slot.'  He was so cocky, so cheeky!  But most importantly, he made being apart so much easier.          

And then there were the romantic gifts.  He could be so sappy.  And Sam ate up every word.  Love letters and poems.  Sometimes he'd call her up and sing to her.  Alone in a random hotel room, guitar in hand, he would give her a private concert and Sam would lay back on the bed or the couch with her feet up and the phone pressed to her ear, listening to his smoky voice woo her with love songs or excite her as his whisky-rough timbre growled out sensual lyrics that curled her toes and left her feeling wet and fluttery.

It was harder for Sam to send him things.  He simply didn't stay in one place long enough to ever get anything.  He was always on the go.  Always moving.  So mostly she sent him email and what few gifts she did send were directed to the farm where he picked them up as he blew through.  And of course, they both lived for the ringing of the phone and that precious connection, instantaneous response and the sound of the other's voice purring in their ear.

Strangely enough, their relationship was more sexual now than ever with the addition of distance.  Maybe it was that they felt safer, or more comfortable as their intimacy deepened or maybe it was just that they were both using every measure they could think of to stay connected.  Most of it was quite playful.  He'd call up, giggling and giddy and slip something cheeky into the middle of the conversation.

"Hey, baby... talk dirty to me."  He was breathing heavily into the phone in a deliberate case of overacting.  Do they give Oscars for corniness?  They should.  Sam made a mental note to carve an Oscar from some stinky cheese and send it to him, knowing full well he'd probably just eat it, grate its head off and put it on his nachos or something.

"Where are you?"  She asked and his giggle erupted before he could swallow it down.

"With the lads crammed in a crap touring coach."

"Russ!"

"What?  We're all a bit hard up.... fancy doing the lot of us at once?"  And then he dissolved into a fit of laughter like a naughty boy who'd just gotten away with something rotten.

He could also be deliciously, erotically crude.   He called her one evening and when she answered, she got no hello-- no anything but this loose sexy voice that was raspy and a little breathless.  "You know I just shot a distance of five feet across the room?  Say something dirty.  I want to beat my record."

Sam gasped as her body reacted to his words, shivering as she felt an instant rush of moisture trickle from between her legs.  "Gone blind yet?"

He laughed.  It was low and dirty.  "Not yet...." his smug retort ended on a rough purr of pleasure as he stroked his cock, still hot and sensitive from his recent orgasm.  Sam could see him in her mind's eye, flushed and sweaty as he rolled the skin back and forth over the oozing tip.  "I'm workin' on it though...  wanna help?"

But Russell wasn't the only one who liked to play erotic games.  Late one afternoon after a little too much wine and not nearly enough actual sex with the man she loved, Sam called him, imagining his face as he answered the phone and heard her orgasm half a world a way.  It didn't actually work out as she'd planned.  He didn't pick up, but that afternoon when he checked his messages while mucking about in some little backwater town, he nearly tripped over his feet as her soft breathy mews of pleasure became shuddery and disjointed and then ended on his name, gasped at the peak of her orgasm when she couldn't hide her longing for him even if she wanted to.  He simply stood there, surrounded by people passing by on the street, and felt his blood throb and tingle as her gentle cries quieted to arrhythmic breathing and then the there was a soft giggle and click of the receiver before the message cut off abruptly.

When Russell looked up, Mark and the others were giving him an odd look.  He waved them off and shuffled away, glad that the long untucked shirt he was wearing hid the massive erection jabbing awkwardly in his pants.  Grinning with unabashed glee, and feeling warm from within as his body burned with desire, he flicked through the menu on his cell phone and hit 'send'.

He was laughing when she picked up.  "Naughty, naughty....." Russell checked his watch wondering where she was.  Her laugh sounded tinny and far away.  "Where are you?"

"La Guardia.  Layover.  I'm dying of terminal boredom.  Save me."

He groaned at her bad pun but then decided to have a bit of fun with her.  She wasn't nearly as free to speak as he was.  He grinned wickedly.  "Nice message you left."

"Thanks.  Thought you'd like it."  Sam blushed, but it was a nice blush.  Warm and happy.

"I had to tell my mum that this woman had choked on the phone...."  He heard Sam gasp.  "Not sure she was convinced though...."  Sam had gone dead quiet.  Russell bit his lip to keep from laughing before he got out the rest.  "I told her 'women just do that when they hear my voice, mum'."  He could feel his chest get tight as the laughter bubbled up.  "Not sure she was convinced of that one either...."

"No!" 

"Yep." Russell could just imagine her dying of mortification.  "Do you think that appropriate use of a cell phone?"  But then he ruined it by bursting into a fit of raucous laughter.  And God knew he had no right to be half so indignant considering he regularly abused the thing himself.

"You're horrible!"  He could hear the smile in her voice.  "How could you do that to me?"  She was laughing now too.

"To you?  To you!"  Russell looked around to be sure nobody was within earshot and cupped his hand over the phone under the pretense of lighting up.  "Fucking hell, love.  That's rich!  I've had to camp out on a bloody bus bench.  Can't fuckin' walk with this thing in my pants.  Christ.  It could cut glass!"  Sam had gone quiet-- but for an entirely different reason this time.  Russell blew out a cloud of smoke, feeling rather pleased with himself.  Until he heard her sharp intake of breath followed by her playful little taunt.

"Only glass?"

He groaned softly and squirmed.  "I should turn you over my knee."  And then his voice dropped.  "But what I'd really like is to turn you over this bench and fuck you raw."  Despite the cold wind blowing, his face felt hot and he took an aggressive drag on his cigarette and growled, "Have a nice flight," and then snapped the phone off before the situation got too far out of hand.  Raking his fingers through his hair, it took the better part of five minutes before the pounding in his blood and the throbbing between his legs became manageable.

And he kept the message she'd left, of course.  Though he waited until he was in the privacy of his hotel room before playing it over and over and then shuddered into his fist, groaning her name as she purred his in his ear. 

There were also times when it wasn't playful as much as needy.  He called her once, uncaring that he'd woken her from a dead sleep.  His voice was deep and rough and all he said was, "Oh Christ, Sammy.  I'm fuckin' dying here.  Make me come...."  And in the darkness, connected by need and desire, they talked each other to orgasm and lay there breathing together in the dark afterward, wishing they could feel each other's sweaty skin and hear the slowing of each other's heartbeat as they drifted off. 

On it went, for weeks, until neither of them could stand it.  They talked about everything, considered every option.  Could she come for a visit?  Could he?  Was she willing to move to Australia?  Should she keep her house?  What about his concert schedule?  And the filming schedule that came after that?  He was due to start the press junket for his last film soon and then filming for his next movie started a few months after that.  What then?  Unfortunately, they had more questions than answers, but they both knew one thing.  They had to see each other.  Soon.

However, it seemed life kept conspiring to throw obstacles in their path.  They both had crazy schedules and Russell was bitter and frustrated when he found out Sam had extended her stay with her latest client.  Mr. Rosengreen was the last of the commissions she'd had scheduled before she'd gone to Oz.  Russell had been hoping to have Sam with him during the band's brief tour in America.  He'd sort of been hoping they'd be able to figure out something for the future while they were together.  Or decide on some kind of forward moving direction, at the very least. 

But to be fair, it was a good opportunity for her.  Mr. Rosengreen had been so impressed with the painting she'd done for him that he'd requested another; a portrait of son.  Sam, who didn't like painting portraits and who'd been trying desperately to free up some time to sort her personal life, named an exorbitant sum, several times over the amount her work usually commanded, thinking it would put him off.  But to her surprise, Mr. Rosengreen agreed without so much as batting an eye.  Sam was floored.  On average, her work commanded something in the neighborhood of eight thousand dollars per painting.  This infusion of cash would leave her sitting quite pretty if she wanted to take some time off....

Of course, things never quite go as planned.  The night she signed the new contract, Russell called, bubbling and excited.  He'd had a brainstorm and was completely taken with the idea of her coming along for the US leg of the tour-- jabbering on about how perfectly their schedules meshed for once with her just finishing up just at the right time.  He was crushed when he found out she'd extended.  But like Russell once said, desperation really is the mother of invention.  It meant more than a few sleepless nights for Sam and she pushed herself hard, but in the end it had been worth it. 

The painting was finished.  Her bank account was substantially larger.  Her bags were packed.  Her flight left for Chicago in the morning.  And Russell had kept his word.  That night they dunked themselves in the cold plunge, he'd promised her tickets to see his band perform. 

Tomorrow afternoon she'd be in his arms.  

And tomorrow night she'd catch his last concert as the boys rocked the House of Blues.