I am in hell.

I am in hell 30,000 feet above sea level and there is no way I can escape. I’m trapped in a plane shaped coffin and I’ll be stuck here for six more hours.

When the record company told me they were springing the cash to pay for a huge private jet to fly me and my crew over to London, I was fucking over the moon. Drive right onto the tarmac, no security lines – just get on the damn plane and leave. Don’t even have to deal with people staring at you as you get on the plane because it’s all my people and I can be myself. No act for the general public.

But now I wish I was on a plane with random strangers because at least Trace wouldn’t be annoying the shit out of me.

“Dude, Lauren, guess what? Lauren guess what? Hey Lauren? Guess what?”

Trace is doing his best to get Lauren to answer him, but instead of getting her annoyed, it’s really fucking me off.

I’m trying to be the studious artist, reading up on my schedule and to come up with some answers from questions predetermined by my publicity team. I don’t want to go into these interviews with these English media people blind. That happened in New York and I thought Ken, my publicist, was going to have an aneurysm.

But I think I’m going to have one anyway because Trace will not shut the fuck up.

I would put my headphones on, but someone forgot to charge my iPod last night. Okay, so that someone is me, but I would much rather blame Trace or Lauren than myself; it’s more fun that way.

Trace continues to chant Lauren’s name, and I tear my eyes away from my stack of papers to see Lauren with her nose stuck in a novel, completely ignoring Trace. She’s doing a pretty good job, if I were in her shoes I would have snapped a long time ago. But I know Trace has an ulterior motive. He’s in the middle of his favorite game –

Get Lauren Wiggins Walters to swear.

And it’s kind of my favorite game too, but not when Trace has to go to insane lengths to get her to utter a single word.

“Come on Lauren, say something. Lauren? Hey Lauren? Lauren, Lauren, Lauren, Lauren, Lauren, Lauren Lau-“

“Jesus Christ,” I interject and I can hear a few of the guys in my security stifle sniggers. Mostly everyone else on the flight has disappeared with their music players, work, or have downed a couple of sleeping pills. Sadly, I have to stay up so I can adjust to the time change because the last thing I need is to be jet lagged and not on top of my game, “Lauren, will you swear so Trace can shut the fuck up and return to his cave?”

There’s a brief silence, as Lauren turns a page of her book, “No.”

“Come on Lo-ho, I know he’s bugging you as much as me. Please?”

Another silence. I want to close the distance between Lauren and I and rip that fucking book out of her hands. “No.”

“Lauren, I’m not fucking kidding,” I growl. I swear if she’s going to grow a pair and act stubborn to piss me off then we’re going to have a big fucking problem. “Just swear and get it over with and we can all get back to work or whatever.”

“Fine,” Lauren concedes without looking up from her book, “fuck you.”

There’s a split second silence and before you know it, Trace and I are sniggering under our breath. I’m sorry, but it is so funny listening to this girl try to swear.

“Okay, no. See, you’re doing it wrong,” Trace explains, “You aren’t putting the passion behind the word. You need that passion to really make it work. Look at Justin and say it.”

I look up from my work just as Lauren does and our eyes meet. I give her my most winning smile because I know she is going to screw this up. Especially when I look this charming – no one can resist my million dollar grin.

“Fuck you.”

I feel like the collective population of the United States has just flipped me the bird in one go. It felt like there was probably a million pounds of napalm behind Lauren’s voice and I was the full on recipient of it. I can only look at her with my mouth agape; I don’t think I have ever been given a ‘fuck you’ so amazing in all of my life.

I mean, shit, that would be awesome if I wasn’t the receiver of such a telling off.

“Dude, Lauren, that was fucking on point!” Trace exalts before he’s out of his seat and heading towards my assistant. I can see the small look of pride behind her eyes as Trace sits next to her, both of them facing me, but not really caring that I’m staring at Lauren like she’s grown an extra set of tits or something.

Not that I stare at her tits or anything.

“Oh my God. You could be really good at swearing, Lauren. Here try this…”

And soon their corner of the plane is erupting in so many obscenities it would make Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock take notes.

“Say, ‘you mother fucking piece of cum gargling dumpster trash…”

I watch as Lauren, ever the dutiful student, repeats Trace. He hoots with laughter and claps his hands like he’s a seal asking for a piece of tuna or some shit. I’m glad some of us can be so easily entertained.

“How about, ‘you’re a no good titty fucking son of a herpes infested prostitute.”

I’m starting to get peeved. Not because they’re breaking the silence of the airplane, but because every time a new string of curse words fly past Lauren’s lips, I can’t help but feel they’re being directed towards me.

And I do not like being the brunt of a string of insults, no matter how creative.

“Lauren, I’m not paying you to learn how to swear and have a good time. Don’t you have paperwork to do or something?”

She and Trace finish their swear-a-thon and look at me with curiosity. She smiles at me and shakes her head.

“I’ve finished it all.”

Dammit. I do not want to hear them cussing at each other for another six hours. That is bullshit. I wrack my brain trying to figure out what stupid thing I can make Lauren do, but seeing as we’re 30,000 miles up in the air there really is nothing I can send her into a tizzy over.

Except…

“Well I’m glad you finished it all, Wiggins, because there’s been a change of plans. I don’t want to stay at the Dorchester anymore. Get us rooms at the Cavendish. And I don’t want to have to wait at the airport while you get this shit done. I want it finished as soon as possible.”

I almost want to laugh as her eyes bug out of her head when I’ve finished relaying my request.

She’ll spend the rest of the flight in silence trying to figure out how she’s going to change reservations for over twenty people without cell phone service.

Good lord, I am a genius.

--

I never realized how fucking liberating swearing is.

I mean, I’ve never been put in that position before, of needing to swear, but holy shit does it take off a load of stress.

And I can’t believe I have Trace to thank for that. I never thought I would be thanking Trace for anything except for being a waste of space.

But he definitely helped me out when I ended cursing up a bluestreak when Justin told me he wanted to switch from the Dorchester to the Cavendish. I busted my ass the minute the plane started its descent when we were over Ireland.

Thank God we were on a private plane with cell service. I still have the feeling that if we were on a domestic flight the bitchy flight attendants would have given me shit for trying to make calls while still in mid-air.

But I managed to get everyone moved over to the Cavendish without any incident. I have to admit I was a pretty smug girl when I told Justin it had all been taken care of as we were landing onto the tarmac at Heathrow.

So you can imagine the thoughts and the swear words running through my head when we loaded up into the cars that would take us to London and Justin announced that he wanted to move back to the Dorchester.

He’s such a fucking ingrate. I swear to God.

And right now he’s a drunk fucking ingrate and I have been doing my fair share of swearing the past three days in London trying to take care of his sorry ass.

“God fucking dammit, Lo-ho, don’t push me!” Justin yells as I gently urge him out of the elevator and onto our rented out floor of the Dorchester.

Justin decided it was a good idea to go out to some random club tonight and drink himself into oblivion. I tried to tell him it wasn’t a good idea, not with the BBC Radio One interview tomorrow at, oh you know, eight in the morning, but he refused to hear me out.

And I’m terrified that I’ll piss him off enough that he’ll give me a bad report to the record label and I will be fucked out of ever achieving my dream job.

“We need to get you to bed, Justin. Come on.” I grab him by the forearm and start to lead him down the hallway.

“Stop pulling me, god dammit!” his words are slurring together and he rips his arm away form me. “Jesus, I just wanna dance, Lo-ho! Lo-ho Wiggins! Wiggins Walters Wiggins!”

Well, isn’t he just fucking hilarious?

“You can dance tomorrow for your interview, Justin. Right now you need to get into bed.”

“Fuck bed! Let’s go to a strip club! I miss the smell of strippers!” he exalts as he stumbles down the corridor. His feet aren’t working too well and he stumbles into the wall, laughing hilariously as he presses his face against the brocade wallpaper.

Babysitting a twelve year old was not in my fucking job description.

“And what, pray tell, do strippers smell like exactly?”

“Dollar bills and jiggity-jizz.”

And this is the man who has captured the hearts of thousands around the world, ladies and gentlemen.

“You can go shove money up G-strings and other stripper’s orifices as much as you want as soon as you’re done with your promotion,” I approach him cautiously wishing more than anything that Eric or Tony were here to pick him up and force him into his room.

I reach out for him again and this time he allows me to grab onto his forearm and tug gently. He peels himself off the wall and stumbles after me, laughing at something under his breath.

We near his suite and I pull his room card out of my pocket. Thank God I had the sense to get it from him before he got too inebriated. I would hate to imagine the shit he would give me if I had to go digging through his pockets to find it.

“Lo-ho,” he mumbles, and I’m hoping he’s getting ready to go down for the count. As long as he gets into his room and to a couch or a bed, I don’t care. I just want to do my job and get the fuck out of here and into my own bed.

“Yes?”

We’re finally at his door and it takes me just a moment to open the door and yank Justin inside. I turn the light on and turn around to see Justin trying to pull his shirt off his body. It gets stuck over his face and now he’s stumbling around the foyer of his suite, banging into side tables and vases filled with plants trying to get the offending article of clothing off his body.

“Lil help, Wiggins?” he giggles and I want nothing more than to tell him to fuck off and to undress himself.

I walk over to assist him, but thankfully he manages to get the shirt off and has thrown it off into the corner of the room.

Too bad he’s now looking at me, his assistant, coming towards him with outstretched arms. It looks like I’m trying to wrap my arms around his naked torso.

Well, this isn’t awkward or anything.

“Someone’s a bit eager, eh?” Justin giggles before he staggers past me, “No offense, Wiggins, but you aren’t exactly my type.”

Good, because self entitled pricks aren’t exactly my thing, either.

“Come pull my bed back so I can go to sleep, Wiggins.”

I want to scream in frustration – this guy is impossible! 

Entering his bedroom, I let go a sigh of relief. I forgot that maids came in and offered turn down services. Justin has forgotten all about my pulling back the bed and he’s already trying to secure himself under the covers.

I head towards his bedside table to set his alarm for seven. I know he isn’t going to like that wake up call, or the one that will be calling him five minutes afterwards, or me banging on his door at 7:15, but it’s his own damn fault that he decided to stay up until three in the morning and party.

Alarm set, I turn to go, but Justin reaches out and grabs hold of my arm, forcing me to stay. I roll my eyes and turn to face him, what the fuck now?

“Hey Lauren?” he mumbles into his pillow. His eyes are opened and glassed over, but he’s managing to look at me and not over my shoulder like he’s done in the past.

“Yes, Justin?” I ask with an exasperated sigh. Can he not just let me go so I can get to sleep? I’m fucking tired too and have to be up even earlier than him.

“It’s really cool that you’re helping me right now. Most of my old assistants would have let me fend for myself. Thank you.”

What in the actual fuck?

“I’m freaking out,” he suddenly blurts out and I realize that I’m in for Drunken Confessions of a College Aged Popstar.

“Why?”

This is so weird. Its almost like Justin is a normal human being and I don’t quite know how to handle this. I’ve been around him when he’s been drunk before, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him acting decent.

He most definitely isn’t like this with me when he’s sober.

“Don’t wanna fuck things up. It’s all on me now. Don’t have other people to blame. Glad Trace is here, though…and you, too.”

His words are clipped and I wish I could blame it on the fact that he has the mental capacity of a two year old. But really, it’s because he’s fighting the jetlag as much as I am, he’s drunk, and like he just said, he’s under a lot of stress.

“You’ll be fine, Justin. Just get some sleep,” I mutter awkwardly as I pry my arm away from his weakening grasp.

“Thanks Lo-ho. Goodnight.”

“Night,” I say quickly before I turn his light off and make a beeline for the front door.

It isn’t until I’m safely in my room down the hall and in bed that I let my thoughts wander back to Justin and his drunken rambling.

What in the hell was that?