He hovers there for a second before lowering back to the stage. When the clapping dies down, he reaches to pull the mask to the back of his head again, but when he reveals his face, it’s not Jay at all. It’s Jessie. She’s almost the same height, with similar tattoos, but not the same build. And she’s definitely not Jay.

Where the hell did he go?

Twelve

The spotlight travels from Jessie on the stage, down the centre of the audience, to the back of the room. Every single person’s gaze follows the light until it lands on Jay, standing casually at the back of the audience, holding Ellen and Portia, his two white doves.

He waves to the audience, and then the spotlight goes out completely, plunging us all into darkness again. A second later it comes back on, this time shining on the far right-hand corner of the stage, where Jay is now standing, sans doves. Okay, how on earth did he get there so quickly? It seriously can’t be possible.

My mind is boggled.

The song has ended now, and the crowd is cheering louder than ever. When it quietens down, Jay looks to his wrists, where the broken handcuffs still hang.

“You know what,” he says, looking to the audience, “these are beginning to chafe a little. Anybody got the key?”

“You swallowed it,” somebody shouts at him from the back.

Jay scratches his head and looks confused. “Oh, yeah, I did, didn’t I? Shit, that was a bad move. Hey, are you all sure none of you have it?” His eyes land on me, and I jump a little. Up until this moment, I’d felt invisible from my place amid the crowd, but Jay’s gaze alone makes me feel illuminated.

“Hey, you in the purple,” he calls to me with a knowing smile. “Have you got a key?”

I shake my head no, already planning to give him an earful later for singling me out, when I hear something jingle. I reach up to the side of my face, all of a sudden aware of a heavy object pulling on my earlobe. My hand comes to the object, and I feel it. Oh, f**k me. This can’t be the key for the handcuffs. He swallowed it, or at least that’s what it looked like. It’s not possible for it to have gotten on my ear. It just isn’t.

The spotlight lands on me, along with every pair of eyes in the place, as I feel the key hanging from an earring hook on my ear. Jay makes his way off the stage and comes toward me. I lift the key up for everyone to see, and they all start clapping. Jay stands in front of me, holding his cuffed wrists out as he bends down and asks, “You wouldn’t mind doing the honours, would you?”

His breath whispers over my skin and I swallow hard, starting with his left wrist and unlocking the cuff. It falls free as I go to undo the other one. Jay comes closer and gives me a quick, light peck on the cheek, whispering, “Thanks, Watson.” His mischievous grin is still in place.

“You told me not to wear earrings. You planned this,” I whisper in reply.

“Did I?” he asks before turning and hopping back up onto the stage.

I glance at Michelle, and she’s wearing a delighted smile.

“Okay,” says Jay as he walks to centre stage. “I guess you all read some stuff about me in the press lately.”

“Fuck The Daily Post!” some drunken man shouts from the bar.

Jay chuckles. “Yeah, f**k ’em.”

“You can f**k me any time, Jay!” a very enthusiastic woman yells.

That’s the thing about heckling, even the positive kind. Once one person does it, they all start.

Jay looks over to where the woman is sitting with her friends. He doesn’t say anything, just smiles and gives her a flirty wink. On the inside I’m like, That’s my flirty wink. Jealousy rears its ugly head, but I stuff it away. I imagine half the people in here want to make Jay the same offer that woman did. My jealousy would be futile.

Jay continues, clearing his throat, “But in all seriousness, I want to thank each and every one of you for not believing the lies, having faith in me, and coming here tonight.”

There are shouts of encouragement and clapping. Jay waits for it to trickle out before going on, “So, I should probably move onto the next part of the show. As Mr Jerry Burke, who has the good grace to write me truly delightful ten-page ranting emails every week would say, ‘I’m gonna use my godlike super mind-reading skills to mess with your heads a little.’”

Laughter rings out, and I wonder if Jerry Burke is a real person. If he is, it sounds like Jay attracts his fair amount of crazies.

“Okay, I need three volunteers, and my nice assistant Jessie here is going to pick them for me.” Jessie walks out from the side of the stage and heads for the audience. She walks along the rows and selects two women and a man. After she leads them up onto the stage, Jay greets each of them before handing them a white sheet of card, an envelope, and a Sharpie pen. He tells one of the women to write down the name of her favourite band, the other woman to write down the title of her favourite book, and the man to write the title of his favourite painting.

“Once you’ve written them down, I want you to put the cards inside the envelopes and seal them up,” says Jay, going over to the corner of the stage and returning with a small metal lock box. It’s got a narrow slit opening on the top, and each of the volunteers slides their envelopes in. Jay carries the box right to the edge of the stage and sets it down.

“I’m going to leave this here where you all can see it. For the duration of the show, nobody’s going to be able to touch it, so there’s no way I can find out what’s been written. However, I promise you that by the end of the night I’ll have figured out what’s inside those envelopes. Deal?” he says, offering his hand and shaking with all three of them in turn.

They go back to their seats, and Jay carries on with more tricks. The first involves getting a man up onto the stage and hypnotising him into believing he’s gained the superpower of invisibility and can do whatever he wants with no consequences. He heads straight for the bar, helping himself to free drinks and some money out of the cash register.

After Jay has woken him up from the hypnosis and thanked him, the man returns to his seat. I think he must remember what he did because he looks a little sheepish. Jay walks to one side of the stage and calls on one of the women who’d volunteered with the envelopes earlier. Her names is Rhona.

“Hey, Rhona,” says Jay. “I’m feeling kind of generous right now and I want to give you a little gift. Would you take a look in your purse for me? See if there’s anything in there that wasn’t before?”

Rhona looks excited and nervous all at once as she rummages through her red leather handbag. A moment later she pulls out a small brown envelope. “Shall I open it?” she asks shyly.

“Be my guest,” says Jay, coming to sit at the edge of the stage, resting his chin casually on his hand. “Show us all what’s inside.”

I crane my neck to see as she holds up what looks like a pair of tickets. “It’s concert tickets for Kings of Leon,” she exclaims.

“Is that the same band you wrote down on the card and put in this box?” he asks, pointing to the box in question.

“Yes,” she answers happily. “Amazing! Wow, thank you.”

Jay stands. “My pleasure. Okay, that’s one down, two to go. You know what, it’s way too f**king hot in here. I think I’ll take this off.” He proceeds to remove the vest he’s wearing, and the place practically erupts with whistles and catcalls. Some of them come from Michelle sitting right beside me. I eye her and she mouths what?, unable to keep the smile off her face.

God. Nobody looks better than Jay without a shirt on. He’s turned with his back to the audience, and at first I think it’s just more tattoos, but it’s not. There, painted onto his skin, is an exact replica of The Scream by Edvard Munch. Applause mixes with the catcalls.

“What is it?” Jay asks playfully. “Is there something on my back?”

The man who’d volunteered stands up. “You’ve got my favourite painting drawn on you, the one I wrote down on the card.” His jaw is slack, like he can’t believe it.

“That’s two down now,” says Jay, looking to the final volunteer where she’s sitting in the second row, a woman named Becky. “I’m coming for you next, Becky, so watch this space.”

She giggles, and Jay hops over to the other side of the stage, preparing his next piece.

I know it’s the obvious question, but how the hell does he do it? He’d have to have that painting drawn on him in advance of the show, which means he needed to know the answer before any of the volunteers were ever asked the question. Either he somehow planted the idea in the man’s head to write down that painting, or he really does have godlike super minding-reading skills, as Jerry Burke, the nutty fan claims.

As it turns out, guessing the favourite book of the last volunteer is the big finish. Jay went off stage for a moment, and now he walks back on, scratching his head. I’ve come to learn that this is how he pretends to be confused, when really everything is going exactly the way he wants it. I guess other people don’t know this because they haven’t spent as much time studying him as I have, which I’m sure he’d find disconcerting if he knew.

“Crap, Becky,” Jay says. “I still haven’t gotten you yet, have I?”

Becky shakes her head. She looks a little disappointed. Perhaps she was hoping she’d get a gift just like Rhona and her concert tickets. Jay pulls a small book out of his back pocket and lifts it up. “It’s not The Catcher in the Rye, is it?”

Becky’s brow furrows. “Um, no, that’s not what I wrote down.”

Jay throws the book aside and bites his lip. “Lord of the Rings?”

The place is quiet, and Becky shakes her head again, lifting her glass and taking a sip of her drink.

“Hey, it looks like there’s something in your glass, Becky. Can you see that?” He points.

Becky squints at her glass before fishing out an ice cube. She’s sitting in the row directly behind me, and it looks like something’s been frozen inside the ice.

“Oh, my God,” Becky breathes.

“Crack her open for me, would you, Becks?” says Jay confidently.

Jerry Burke was right about one thing — Jay is godlike, and that god would be Loki, the trickster. Becky cracks the ice, discovering the thing inside is a folded piece of paper.

She unfolds it and gasps, “It’s the first page from Neverwhere. My favourite book!”

Applause fills the venue, and Jay comes down off the stage, going to thank Becky for taking part. He takes her hand in his and brings it to his lips for a kiss. She blushes. He’s such a charmer. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was beginning to think he might have a thing for me, but now I see that’s just the way he is with women.

Flirty.

He gets back on the stage, walks off, and walks back on, taking a bow. The clapping continues, and when he rises, he smiles wide before his body starts to shimmer and disappear. What the hell? Was that a projection? Then the real Jay walks out from backstage, taking the same bow the projection Jay just took. The cheering deafens me as I rise with everyone else to give him a standing ovation.

This might just be the best show I’ve ever seen.

The house lights come on, and people begin to gather their things, slowly exiting the venue or going to get one last drink from the bar.

“That was flipping amazing,” says Michelle. “My brain is hurting trying to figure out all those tricks. I think I just need to give up. The man is a genius.”

I rub at my arms, trying to get rid of the goose bumps, and they aren’t from the cold. Jay exudes charisma and sex appeal when he’s on the stage. It sort of leaves you feeling empty when the show is over.

“Yeah, he definitely thinks in a different way to the rest of us,” I say just as Jessie turns up.

“Hey. Did you enjoy the show?” she asks, all out of breath.

“Of course! I’ve never seen anything like it,” I exclaim as she links one arm through mine and the other through Michelle’s.

“Come with me, ladies. We’re having a small after-party backstage, and you’re both invited.”

Thirteen

Leading us past the staff doors behind the bar, Jessie brings us down a short corridor and into a VIP room with red walls, black velvet chairs, and glass tables. Jay is standing on the opposite side of the room, signing autographs for a bunch of Goth teenagers. The only other people are two men and an older woman who are sitting at a table having drinks and chatting animatedly. They’re dressed in black like Jessie, so I’m thinking they’re more members of Jay’s stage crew.

“Oh, come on, just tell us how you two did the change when Jay put on that scary mask,” Michelle urges, trying to get Jessie to reveal some secrets.

“You know what?” Jessie chuckles. “The f**ker actually had me sign a contract for confidentiality, so I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to, babe.”

Michelle pouts, and Jessie asks her if she wants a drink. My friend tells her yes with a little too much of a flirtatious tone for my liking. Michelle is a great friend, but she’ll flirt with anyone who gives her compliments, male or female. I just hope Jessie is wise enough to see that.

I catch Jay’s eye just as he signs his last autograph and a bouncer comes to escort the teenagers from the room. He’s still topless and sweaty from the show as he strides over to me.

“I shouldn’t be speaking to you,” I say, poking him in the chest with my finger. It’s not an excuse to touch his bare, sweaty skin, I promise.

He chuckles, giving me an indulgent look. “Why not?”