T: The New York Times Style Magazine, February 9, 2012
For some reason, Lana Del Rey and her sultry songs drive some people nuts.
CURVACEOUS AND PRETTY IN A DRESS, she brims with catchy songs, all a bit retro, ironic and modern. Without straying too far off the pop grid, she’s the perfect antidote to Rihanna-Gaga overload — dare we say, a skinnier Adele, a more stable Amy Winehouse? Since posting “Video Games” to YouTube last summer, she’s amassed tens of millions of hits, sold out concerts to fashion’s who’s who and now, finally, has released her long-awaited album, which is currently No. 2 on the Billboard Top 200 in America, and No. 1 in Britain, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland and Austria. If you were going to manufacture a star for this moment, you’d manufacture her. Some people believe that’s precisely what happened.
Sitting in her producer’s Chelsea studio in jeans and an oversize sweater, smoking Pall Mall Blues that share space — in a beat-up snakeskin bag — with an old Tennessee Williams paperback, Lana Del Rey tries to shrug off the suggestion that her father bought her success, that her face went under the knife, that she is some sort of industry creation, all accusations floating around the Internet. It’s absurd or maybe flattering, but despite her laugh and smile, it hurts.
“I mean, I met everyone who is anyone in the music industry over the last six years and I was unsignable,” she says. “That’s what I was told by everyone. I would play my songs, explain what I was trying to do, and I’d get, ‘You know who’s No. 1 in 13 countries right now? Kesha.’ ”
There’s a formula for a pop song and a prescribed length for radio. Nothing Del Rey’s written obeys either. “ ‘Video Games’ was a four-and-a-half-minute ballad,” she says. “No instruments on it. It was too dark, too personal, too risky, not commercial. It wasn’t pop until it was on the radio.” And even “Born to Die” — her first big video — was, with its double chorus that never lifts, described to her as “another monotonous depressing song.”
For an hour, Del Rey and her producer Emile Haynie play songs from the album. She points out jazzy idiosyncrasies, quirky lyrics and favorite melodies. Sometimes she sings; often she gets up and dances. The last song they put on is “National Anthem”:
Red, white, blue’s in the skies
Summer’s in the air and
Baby, heaven’s in your eyes
I’m your national anthem
…
I sing the national anthem,
While I’m standing,
Over your body
…
Money is the anthem
God you’re so handsome
It may not be her most lyrically complex song, but it feels emblematic. As she did in the “Born to Die” video (in which she wraps her body in an American flag), she equates her sexuality to the national anthem. And she knowingly conflates love with material success. It feels like a wink at the listener. The Twitter generation loves a wink.
There’s also more than a little of Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA” in the song. Both you could play alone dancing in your bedroom, sing along to in your convertible with the top down or (it might surprise Cyrus’s Disney producers) find yourself gyrating to at an illegal warehouse rave. Whereas Cyrus’s song is a bland pop confection that somehow wound up cool, Del Rey’s track comes from someplace dark thematically and unstructured musically and ends up with pop appeal.
I explain my theory to Del Rey, in a roundabout way, and she nods, sings a bit of “Party in the USA” and ponders the matter for a few moments. “I really like that chorus,” she says. “I love an interesting melody.”
Haynie is more direct. “That’s the beauty of it,” he says. “That’s kind of the magic. She is supercool. The songs are as cool as it gets, sonically and aesthetically. But it’s like, ‘Wait a minute, this could resonate with the world.’ She started underground, small and kind of tight-knit, but some of these recordings are like, ‘Wow.’ I mean, that’s what I heard when I listened. It’s cool and it’s dark, but I thought, This could be big, you know?”
***
We head to a 10th Avenue Italian restaurant that her publicist has chosen. It feels tacky. “Do you want to just get a coffee across the street, and sit on a stoop? It’s not too cold?” she asks. I agree, though it is in fact too cold.
At the pizza place she orders a large coffee with no sugar, lots of milk. The server spots the old Tennessee Williams paperback in her purse, which sparks a conversation about 1950s movies and Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra.
Then he asks, “Are you two a couple?” and looks at me and says: “Today is your lucky day. I wish I was lucky like you.”
The presumption doesn’t stop him from flirting with Del Rey. “Big cup for you,” he says, handing her her coffee. “Just a little kiss for me.”
Del Rey laughs and hits him right back with: “Sure. Just a little kiss. Where do you want it?”
There was no kiss, but the subject of Del Rey’s mouth is an irresistible one. So, sitting on the steps of a 25th Street brownstone, I ask the seemingly preposterous question. “It’s fine,” she assures me. “They’re real lips, I mean. In real life my lips don’t look that big. I think because I cartoonized the footage of myself in the video for ‘Video Games’ things look exaggerated.”
If that video is to blame for a pernicious rumor, it is also to blame for putting her on the map. What it didn’t do was get her a record deal. Not until Fearne Cotton, a BBC D.J., stumbled across it and played it on Radio 1 last June. Suddenly the world was calling.
“I was struck by the wonderful combination of spine-tingling video footage, her haunting voice and the simplicity of the song,” Cotton wrote in an e-mail. “I watched it about five or six times in a row and became slightly fixated with it. The lyrics then started to really stand out and it became my song of last summer. … I had been waiting for a song like this.”
Hers is the typical experience. But falling in love with a video or a studio recording can set unrealistic expectations for Del Rey’s live performances. Look for her to break it down Nicki Minaj-style and you’ll be disappointed. Her turn on “Saturday Night Live” in January was widely criticized. She told me presciently about her anxiety beforehand: “I’m not by nature a showstopper. I love to write and play songs, but onstage, all these things come into play. I’m always saying to myself, Don’t mess up. Don’t mess up.”
Del Rey is a small-town girl. She grew up Elizabeth Grant in Lake Placid, N.Y., neither rich nor poor. She remembers as a kid asking herself cheesy meaning-of-life questions and thinking she was really special for doing so. Then, in high school, she took a philosophy class and realized she was like everyone else. While a philosophy major at Fordham University, she started finagling gigs in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the East Village. At 19 a small indie label signed her as Lizzy Grant for $10,000. “It was amazing. I got my own place to live. I lived on that money, finished school. At that point I envisioned having a very nice career touring small clubs, continuing my studies in philosophy and volunteering,” she tells me. “It’s actually the same vision I have today. I have a serious life here. I have a really big family. You know, I’m needed here.”
Needed by whom? She hints at family, which makes sense given the darker, psychosexual context of many of her songs.
What about love and loss, the other dark note in her oeuvre? “I felt the same way for a really long time, and then I met someone who I guess I fell in love with,” she says. “I just didn’t know I could feel differently. That time with him became sort of a place that I fell back to in my memory.”
And the breakup? “Well, I mean, the breakup is a part of it in the way that in the midst of loss you try to still look towards the light and not fall to pieces or do self-destructive things.”
She grows quiet, looks at her watch. It’s getting late. She admits that she doesn’t have an important industry meeting, as her publicist told me, but has to baby-sit for a friend.
Before she goes, I ask her where she lives. She’s looking to buy a place, but for now is in Williamsburg. “Staying with my ex-boyfriend,” she says nonchalantly, then bursts into nervous laughter and admits, “I live on his couch.”
I give her a look like, You just told me all that about falling in love and breaking up and you’re on the dude’s couch?
She pins it on the touring, letting out another embarrassed laugh. “Because no, I’m busy though!”
Originally published on nytimes.com with the headline A Star Is Born (and Scorned), and in abridged form in the February 19, 2012 issue of T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
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retrograde, we'd shake the frame of your car
Oh look, it's a new instalment of our favourite neighbourhood DILF. Thank you so much for your continued support of this silly little series of mine. Please continue to reblog, comment and like if you're enjoying this!
Pairing | dbf!Joel Miller x Female Reader
Summary | Joel drives you out of the way of prying eyes for a 'date'
Word Count | 3.4k
Warnings | As usual, just dbf!Joel in general, alcohol consumption, dirty talk, fingering (f), unprotected PiV sex (Don't do this) and talk of contraceptives.
Part 1 | Part 2
Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist
The late afternoon sun is beating through the kitchen windows as you rinse the plates in the sink before stacking them in the dishwasher. You smile to yourself as you place them exactly where Joel had told you during your party, before your mind wanders to more unsavoury thoughts of him.
Your parents are sat in front of the television as you wrap up clearing up for dinner, making sure the leftovers are packaged in the fridge. You’re about to grab a cold beer for your dad to enjoy whilst he watches his shows when your phone vibrates in your pocket.
Joel.
Fancy going for a drive?
Sounds ominous. This hasn’t been your plot all along has it? Sweeten me up so you can take me down a back road and murder me?
Joel.
Damn. You caught me. Guess I’ll just have to take you down a back road and fuck you instead.
Give me twenty and pick me up at the end of the road.
You pull out the beer for your dad but leave the bottle you were going to take for yourself, walking it through to the living room. You hand it to him but don’t sit down like usual.
“I’m gonna go for a drive,” You announce, “Been cooped up here all day, just want to get out for a bit.”
Your mom looks up for her gossip magazine and raises an eyebrow, “You be careful now,” She warns, “And be back by eleven, okay?”
“I’m twenty-five mom, do I still need a curfew?”
“Whilst you’re living under our roof without paying rent, yes you do.”
You sigh but relent. You must admit she is right. You hadn’t wanted to stay longer in New York once you’d graduated, thinking the job market in Austin would be less competitive, but it was still a slog trying to find a job that paid well enough that after your student loan payments were gone, you still had money to enjoy life.
You grab your keys and head out of the door, driving your car a few streets over to make it look like you did indeed go for a drive on your own, parking it up in the parking lot of the church. You say a quick prayer of forgiveness to the Lord for leaving your car in his driveway so you could go and live in sin for a few hours, before you’re jogging the few streets back over to wait on the corner of the street for Joel.
Within minutes he’s pulling up, rolling his window down with a wicked smile on his face, “How much for a few hours, sugar?” He finishes with a wink.
“I’m outta your price range, Miller.” You shoot as you round the front of his truck and slip into the passenger seat.
“Huh, weird,” He comments as he pulls away from the curb and starts driving, “Last time I checked you were free for me.”
“Well then, aren’t you lucky?”
“Very.” He says with a smile, as he free hand snakes to rest on the skin of your thigh, squeezing gently as he continues to drive to God knows where.
You smile when you realise he’s pulling the truck into the reserve a little ways out of the suburbs. You’d been here before, sometimes on your own when you needed to clear your head, Sarah had asked to go hiking one weekend when Joel and Tommy were both working, and you think you briefly remember a high school boyfriend bringing you here so he could kiss you.
The spot that he pulls into is secluded. There are trees that shade the small area that he parks in but there’s still a nice view of the lake through the windscreen of the car. The sun is starting to set, creating a mix of orange and red hues in the sky and it’s quite a romantic spot, you think to yourself.
“You knew exactly where to come,” You muse as you undo your seatbelt, “You bring all your girls out here, Joel?”
You turn to look at him and he has a smirk splayed across his lips, “You want the truth?”
“Always.”
He chuckles, “I used to bring Sarah’s mom here, when things were still good,” He points to a tree in front of you, “I actually think Sarah was conceived against that tree over there,” You gasp in shock at his admission, swatting at his bicep which has him laughing, “You asked for the truth!” He accuses.
“So, you bought me here to reminisce?” You ask, “Gonna fuck me against the tree to relive your youth?”
“You want me to fuck you against the tree?”
You shake your head, “Not really, don’t think my hips and my back are up to the job.”
“Don’t be so silly,” He chuckles, “You’re the young and agile one out of the two of us,” He’s finally undoing his own seatbelt, “But that’s good because I definitely don’t have the stamina to hold you up and fuck you like you deserve.”
You look out to the lake, you can see the slight breeze is lapping the water to the shore and it’s so hot that you think dipping your toes into the water might offer some relief, “Wanna dip your toes, Miller?” You ask, nodding your head to the water.
You don’t give him much time to respond, opening your door and stepping down from the truck as you break out into a jog down to the water’s edge. You can hear him open his door and the crunch of the gravel under his shoes as he moves to join you. By the time he catches up to you, you’ve already shed your sandals and you’re into the water up to your mid-calf. It’s not as relieving as you thought – the sun has been beating down on the water all day, so it’s like a lukewarm bath.
Joel is kicking off his boots and tucking his socks into the top of them. You watch intently as he rolls the bottoms of his jeans up past his ankles before he’s wading into meet you. You can sense he doesn’t want to get his jeans wet, so he’s not moving any further once his ankles are covered in the water, so you wade into the shore a little, scratching the itch of desire to be closer to him.
When you’re within reach, he’s taking hold of your wrist, turning your gently before his other arm is wrapped around your waist, pulling your back flush to his chest. You lean your head against his shoulder as you listen to the sounds of the breeze rustling the trees, the water lapping at the shore and the odd whistle of birdsong.
“This is nice.” You mumble, turning your head to look up at him.
“Yeah,” Joel sighs, bending down just enough to kiss you chastely on the lips, “Wish I could take you out properly, darlin’.”
You spin in his arms so you’re facing him now, a teasing grin spread out on your mouth, “Has Joel Miller brought me here on a date?” You tease.
“Maybe I did,” He smiles at you, “There’s even a cooler with beer in the truck.”
He leads you from the water, stopping to let you put your shoes back on, so you don’t hurt your feet on the gravel. He motions for you to sit in the bed of his truck once he’s laid down a blanket for you. He pops the cap off two bottles of beer, making sure he insists he’s only having one so he’s safe to drive you back later.
He settles into one of the corners, letting you sit between his thighs, leant back on his chest. It’s weird, sitting here like this, not worrying about the fact someone might see you, or hear you, but you can’t say that you hate it. After a week and a half of stolen moments and sneaky fucking, you wonder what it is the both of you are doing together, but you don’t bring it up. You want to enjoy this before launching into the inevitable question of ‘what are we?’
You finish your beer quickly, Joel opting to savour the singular drink he’s allowing himself, but he tells you to help yourself to another from the cooler, which you do, “This all seems very wholesome Miller.” You comment.
You feel him shrug behind you, “Just wanted ya to know I’m not just here to get my dick wet,” You hear him take a sip, “I mean, I am because it’s fantastic, but I don’t wantcha feeling like I’m usin’ ya.”
You want to add something meaningful to the conversation but you’re treading on dangerous ground. In all your fantasies about this situation it was never meant to be something serious. He was going to fuck you once, tell you it was a mistake and that would have been it. Nowhere had you imagined being led against him in the back of his truck like this.
The sun is setting fast now, and you can sense that the darkness won’t be far behind, then you’ll need to go home. You put your half-finished beer back in the cooler, moving around so you’re still between Joel’s thighs, but just kneeling to face him now, “Kinda want you to get your dick wet now though.”
“That so?” He raises an eyebrow and finishes the rest of his beer in a big mouthful, “You’ll need to come here then, won’t you?”
His hands are dragging down your sides to reach your hips before he’s shifting his legs, so they’re not as spread, settling you onto his lap in a similar way to how you’d been the first time you’d done this. You settle yourself down on his lap and let your lips crash to his.
He’s squeezing his hands on your hips, gently moving you in his lap so you’re grinding against him, just enough that there’s friction for both of you, whilst he opens his mouth when you rub your tongue along his plush bottom lip. You let your tongue mix languidly with his own as you continue to grind your hips into his, there’s no need to rush, not when you don’t have to worry about your parents walking in on anything, so you’re going to savour every second of this.
“Look so good on my lap, pretty girl,” He praises when you pull away, just a touch, from his lips to get some air, “Feel what you do t’me?” He’s bucking his hips up into yours where you can feel his growing erection in his jeans.
You move forward to kiss him again. This time it’s more desperate, a clash of teeth and tongue. You take his bottom lip between your teeth at one point and nibble, which causes a hiss from his lips of mixed pleasure and pain. His hands have dropped from your hips and their now rooted under your skirt, gripping fingers into the meat of your ass so hard that you think you might bruise there tomorrow.
You let a moan fall from your lips when he bucks his hips into you again, feeling the bulge in the front of his jeans rub at the front of your underwear, but it’s not enough anymore.
“Joel-” You gasp, “Need- more.”
“What do you need?” He whispers, “Tell me, pretty girl, and I’ll give it to you.”
“Want you to make me come.”
He doesn’t say anything in reply, just moves his hands to hook into the waistband of your underwear. You lift your hips enough so he can pull them down, but he doesn’t seem concerned about taking them all the way off just yet.
“I’ve got a feeling of déjà vu.” You breath out, referencing the fact that you’re in exactly the same position as you were that first time, even down to the way his thumb is teasing along the seam of your pussy right now.
“At least this time there’s no risk of your dad waking up and shooting me.”
“I kinda- ohhhhh,” You trail off as his thumb dips between your folds to gather your slick before achingly bringing his finger up to touch your clit, “I kinda like the risk.”
“Naughty girl,” He’s muttering, but he doesn’t seem to care all that much because he’s thumbing tight circles on your clit that have your hands gripping at his shoulders and your head thrown back in pleasure, “Might not be your daddy that catches us tonight, but still, plenty of opportunity for someone else to walk by and see me with my fingers in your pussy.”
He's keeping his thumb on your clit, but you feel one of his thick fingers slip inside of you and curl in the way he’s learned makes you come undone with minimal work. You listen as he chuckles when you start grinding your hips down into his hand, fucking yourself on his fingers, “Always so tight for me sweetheart.” He praises.
You’re letting out little gasps and moans as he works another finger inside of you, thumb never leaving your clit where it is rubbing tight and purposeful circles. You’re sure if anyone were to stumble upon you it would be hell of a sight. You with your head thrown back, grinding down onto Joel’s hand to meet the upward thrusts of his fingers, his name falling from your lips a mile and minute and Joel with his head buried in the crook of your neck, licking hot stripes with his tongue along your skin.
“Don’t stop,” You gasp out, “God I’m so fucking close Joel, don’t you dare stop.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it darlin’.” He mumbles against your hot skin.
Within seconds you’re clenching around his fingers and crying out into the canopy of the trees as he pushed you over the edge into oblivion. When you hear the shout of his name echo around you, you bite down on your bottom lip to stop any other sounds alerting someone to your presence as he works you through the aftershocks.
He’s pulling his fingers from you, looking straight into your eyes when he brings the fingers that were inside you to your lips, “Go on, baby, clean yourself off my fingers.”
You open your mouth and stick your tongue out. He presses the two fingers onto the flat of your tongue and you’re sucking them into your mouth, rubbing your tongue over them to clean your slick off him. It’s depraved but the look in his eyes makes it worth it, he’s hungry for you, looks like he’s about to devour you in a second.
He pulls his fingers from your mouth, replacing them with his own tongue. You can hear him groan when he tastes you on your own mouth, “Fuck, you taste so sweet, pretty girl.”
You don’t have the brain power to respond – instead, your hands grip his belt and start to undo it, pulling it through the beltloops. Then, he’s the one undoing the button on his jeans, tapping your hip for you to sit up so he can shuck them far enough down his thighs, along with his underwear, so that his cock is finally free.
Your pussy clenches around nothing as you feast your eyes upon it. Sure, you’d felt it inside of you not two days ago, you knew he was big, but seeing it in front of you was another story. What you wouldn’t give to wrap your lips around it right now. You would, but you were desperate for him to fill you.
You reach a hand out as you’re settling yourself back on his hips again, guiding his cock to rest at your tight heat, “Go on sweetheart,” He encourages, a hand coming to cup your cheek, “Sit yourself down on my cock for me.”
You do exactly as you’re told. Joel slides into your slick pussy easily, despite the stretch, and its mere seconds before you still yourself for a moment when he’s buried inside you to the hilt. You can hear his quickened breathing below you – it’s good to know he feels the same as you do when he’s enveloped in your warmth like this. You start to move your hips, grinding into his own and the friction it creates is delicious. You can feel him nudging the sweet spot inside you as he moves.
You look down at him, his eyes glazed over and his head leaning against the truck. He pushes himself forward as his hands lift your shirt up and over your head. You make no complaints when his fingers pull the straps of your bra down your shoulders and he pulls the cups down, freeing your tits in front of his face.
“Knew you’d have such pretty tits, baby.” He’s mumbling before he takes a nipple into his mouth, running his tongue over the hardened bud whilst his other hand is working on your other.
Everything that he’s doing is spurring you on. You feel him bring his knees up to rest against the back of your thighs, which gives you more leverage to start bouncing on his cock in earnest. His mouth doesn’t leave your chest except to switch from one nipple to the other, rolling each between his teeth, using the flat of his tongue to soothe each when he’s done.
You’re half aware of the fact that your combined ministrations are causing the truck to shake beneath you – a squeak added to the sounds of you both gasping each other’s names, but if Joel doesn’t seem to care, then neither do you.
“Baby, I’m gonna come,” He’s breathing out as his mouth finally pulls from your chest, one of his arms is wrapping itself around your waist, pressing you into his chest, the other rests on the back of your head, bringing your face to his neck where you start peppering kisses as he takes control, “So fuckin’ tight, and those pretty sounds you make in my ear, I’m close.”
He’s fucking up into you now. You’re so wet you can hear him sliding in and out of your pussy, the feeling of his balls slapping against your skin with every upward thrust just another added stimulant in what proves to be an orgasm that catches you by surprise.
As you’re moaning Joel’s name into his neck and clenching around him, you’re vaguely aware that he’s moaning your own, pulling your body off his cock as he spurts thick ropes of cum across your inner thighs. You stay still, listening to the sounds of your combined heaving breaths before he’s whispering into your ear, “That was fuckin’ close baby, didn’t wanna pull out.”
You’re leaning back a little, pressing a kiss to his cheek, your sex-scrambled brain talks before you think, “Maybe I should go and get the pill?”
His hands are cupping your face now, searching your eyes for evidence that you’re telling him the truth with your words, “You want that?” He asks, “Want me to be able to fill your sweet little pussy full of my cum?”
You’re climbing off him now and shimmying down the truck bed, picking up the edge of the blanket to wipe yourself clean, “I’ve never let anyone do that before,” You admit with a shrug as he’s pulling his jeans back up around his waist, “I think I’d like it though.”
“Well, I ain’t gonna pressure you sweetheart,” He says, following your lead in getting down from the truck bed, setting the blanket and cooler back in the truck, “But if you don’t wanna do that, might be an idea for me to start wearin’ something whilst we fuck, I’m sure as hell not wantin’ another kid right now, and I’m sure you don’t either.”
You can’t deny that he’s right, you’ll have to think about it when you don’t have a million and one hormones running through your body telling you to scream that you just want him to bend you back over and fill you up regardless, “I’ll have a think.” You promise as he’s wrapping his arms around your waist to kiss you.
What was supposed to be a quick peck on the lips turns into five minutes of you pressed up against the truck door, making out like horny teenagers who don’t want to say goodbye to each other. You suppose that really is what you are, just horny adults instead.
“Come on,” He says, breathless, when he pulls from your kiss, “Let’s get you home, sweetheart.”
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