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agentrunaway · 6 months ago

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“Doll!” He says to me, bursting into the dressing room. I lay within the bathroom tub, drained and naked. My right leg is propped against the wall. My head rests heavy on my left fist.

“Can’t you knock?” I ask. He looks me over, though his eyes hardly leave my face. There are times his gaze is heated, drinking me in as I kneel or lay before him, or stand in the doorway in a spectacular new gown (on his dime). This is not one of those times. He knows the difference, it is to his credit. The difference between a time for lust and a time for abjective judgement. I raise my eyebrow in defiance of the latter.

Normally I’d have more patience for his puppy-dog grin, rosy lips perfectly peeled over sharp canines, giving his face a wicked look. A look so deeply contrasted by his pure-as-sin eyes. One blue, one green, under shaggy, dirty blond hair. At least today. He can change his features, and constantly does, but I find he resides most heavily in the mock-up I met him in. The façade I prefer.

“You didn’t close the door, poppet, ‘was no-where to knock.” He drawls, only a moment’s hesitation on the quip, voice half-buttoned up in a pout. I roll my eyes and look to the wall.

It’s the half-drunk bottle of wine, and the empty bottle of gin that finally pull his demeanor into a slow hiss. His eyes must be flashing an earthy brown, now. Hair darker now in temper, cheekbones pulling ever sharper. He knows he frightens me, when he must.

He explained it to me once, but I digress. In a fit I once asked him how others perceive him. I’d grown tired of the response “as they wish”. I wondered, laughingly, if my friends thought I had a different boyfriend each time I brought him round. He smiled at me, saying, “Perhaps”. Assuring me that they saw someone quite similar, each time. “Though I arched one eyebrow a little more, or added a small mole each time. One time I had dimples, pet. Did you notice?”

I don’t notice. I’ve only seen him as the band sees him once. Even then I only saw him as he ever is. When he stands before me in the crowd as I sing the starved lyrics he has chosen for me; each syllable I sing playing on his ragged breath - I don't. No face he creates can mask the man I love.

Oh, how upset that man is now. He takes the bottles and holds them up to me. “You play a cheat, love?” He intones, near a growl. It belays the hurt.

Indeed I do play the cheat. I have cheated myself of happiness at every turn, and I have cheated him of love when he deserved it most. I have cheated the world of potential, and I cheat myself of sleep, and of a rested performance, now.

“I have songs that must be writ, they say the best must be done drunk. You understand?”

The clock nears 5:30pm. The lines of fans wrap the block. I wonder, if it was so recently I was a fan doing the same, how I cannot remember the feel of it. Anticipation, rapture, being so close to others touched by the same music, being so close to seeing one’s idols within the same room. A story to remember and tell for as long as the music holds.

He tosses my vices into the waste bin. “You will perform,” he states.

“Yes.” I answer. It was never a question.

My eyes must be shut, now. I can sense him hesitate in the doorway, before I hear the rustle of a towel. It is in this instant I deem myself ready to get out of the tub. As I do, he is silent, but calmer. His eyes are back to that unmatched beauty, his hair shifting. I catch a longer strand in my fingers as it shortens, turning from rusty brown into blond in my palm. He leans his cheek against my palm, my touch, and I rub my thumb against his face.

“You must regret,” I begin. He stops me there. Eyes that had momentarily closed to me open, searching mine.

“I regret nothing.” There is no room to argue.

But he must. Must regret meeting me, pulling me from my meager job with but a meager word of warning. Saying I had my five minutes of being touched by the stars, th`at I must follow him then. I quit within the five minutes. I followed. After that... he must regret teaching me the words, the chords, putting me up on stage. He must regret me begging him to step on it himself, joining me.

I look at him. Knowing he could change his face, until his endless choice of features are foreign, even to me, and walk away. Though that is a lie. He could never be anonymous, even to me. Even if he turned his hair to ash and weathered his skin and covered himself in liver spots. Above all, it is a lie, because he would not walk away. He does not regret one moment of it.

“Then there are sets to play, and a concert to give?” I ask. He nods, and I remember how eager he was when he first stumbled upon me. I must return that happiness to him.

“I must get dressed.” I sigh.

He looks upon me, my damp hair, my goosebumps, and that slight frown turns into a leer.

“Do so fast, dear, or I shall detain you from it,” I hear, and he wraps me in the towel, tucking my head under his chin and shaking me. “For I am the big bad wolf, and I will eat you up!”

I shriek, knocking his chin as I throw my head in laughter.

“You shall not!” I decree.

He stops, thoughtfully tilting his head, grinning as wide as a bandit with gold. “Oh no? Whyever not?” I admit, I bat my eyelashes a trifle before responding. “For you’ll spoil your appetite for the performance, Wolf. And shall not be able to perform, yourself!”

He chases me then. Around my dressing room, as I gather my black dress and underthings, slinging them around my arm, finding myself back in my bathroom, slamming the door on him in play. His laugh echoes.

“In twenty,” I say. “Soundcheck in twenty, I say! You are not yet dressed, either!”

He huffs, as I catch my breath and set to dress. It’s not long before I hear him walk away to get ready, himself.

---

Security has its hands full, I can see that plain as I peek ‘round the curtain. Jet is playing with his pedal-board, and Curly is setting the drums right. King gives me a thumbs up from where he’s hunched over his bass. When I look into the shadows, my boyfriend winks at me. Our make-up artist is winging his eyeliner. Gold, glittery, it sheds on everything. I curse it more for how attractive it makes him, a fact which he knows all too well.

I’m nervous. It’s funny, I wasn’t nervous when we first met. As I catch myself in the memory and try to shake my jitters out, I don’t notice him coming up from behind me, wrapping me in his arms.

“Ready, sweetheart?” He mouths to my ear, nuzzling his nose into my hair. I smile, nodding. Remember, I tell myself, he’ll be out there too. I’m not alone in this, anymore.

The main doors are opened and the room fills until the house lights go down. I notice everyone has taken their places, and my boyfriend’s returned to the wings. The first song is mine alone, but I can do this. I smooth out my skirt and take the mic, heading the band. The curtains go up, the lights flood in.

“Good evening, LA!” I shout. The crowd is roaring, heated and packed, fluttery hearts like dragonflies hovering over a pond.

---

The first song is gritty, dark alley rock-n-roll. It’s about being beat up and down, in the bad parts of town, on the wrong types of drugs. Jet and King help me sing the choruses, the fans know the words. Together we make the night flash in and out, road flares against the numb drone of day-to-day life. -----------------

After I had gone to and dropped out of college, moved three times and changed three jobs, I found myself working in a theater. Somewhere in Southern California, in the dead heat of summer. It was slow, stale. The smell of burnt popcorn and the sound of the same three top hits playing over and over and over in the lobby. I had three people in my line, late-night, around 10.

“Yes sir, what can I get started for you?” I greeted, more habit than thought. In the beginning of my shift my words held warmth, but the script left me cold and broken after many hours. I didn’t even look at the guests I served.

“Two large popcorns, a soda-“

“Small, medium, or large?” I gestured to the display behind me.

“Small, uh. No, medium.” The man, I at least think he was a man, grunted. I paid no mind, just grabbing the popcorn bags and filling them, grabbing a medium cup as I went.

The customer behind him was an older lady. She ordered two bottles of water and chips.

Then, I thought I would be done.

When I looked up, he was there instead. Like smoke from the shadows. He looked at me hard, right in the eyes. A kind of dead-end, determined stare. His hair was a bit shorter, a bit sandier in color. It was his eyes that got me. One blue, both blue, but one pupil dilated and darker. He was a bit shorter, but not quite as short as he could have been. I lost my breath. I didn’t speak for a minute and a half.

“But you can’t-“ I finally started, looking him up and down. He wore a faded grey jacket over a white button shirt, tailored dark-wash jeans. I closed my mouth, then opened it. “You know, you look just like….”

He didn’t frown, persay, but the corners of his mouth threatened to turn down as he narrowed his gaze. “You’re going into shock,” he stated. “You’re going to either become catatonic or melt down, so hear me out, pretty girl.” It was the first of many endearments. “You’ve been touched by the stars, now, five minutes and then it’s up. I don’t know who you see me as right now, but I can assure you I am quite alive, and real. Quit this place immediately, find me out back. Five minutes.”

Of course he couldn’t know whose image he resembled for me then. He’s laughed about it since, though I’ve told him every time that I’d thought he’d be shorter, for who I mistook him as. I forbid him from mimicking the eyes exactly. Those eyes make me cry.

It turns out, he was friends with a band performing very nearby. They were down their main singer after a fit, and he had happened upon me by chance. Guessing that if I couldn’t sing, at least there was a slight possibility I might follow him as he led me a merry dance, and barring that, I was pretty and a warm body. Any singer was better than no in that moment.

Imagine his surprise as I happily took in the lyrics for the night, and my own surprise when the show was a hit!

I’ll never forgive him for that. I’ll never regret.

---

The first song ends, and how his entrance stuns for the second! The crowd cheers anew, alight with love, passion. Wishing, hoping. Memorizing his vest over open skin, mentally driving their wandering eyes from his low-slung belt. Hating me for having him just as much as they worship us together, in the same space as them. He is charisma and tension where I am fraught. Guitar riffs tear it from moment to moment. This song, particularly, I switch to back-up vocals. It is scorn, disdain, forsworn love and duty. He tears open my chest cavity and claims me anew, far past even his love can claim me. It is ancient and wrought with power.

Our duet, following, takes all the ripped emotions and solders them together. Hope, love, beginnings after an end. A dark bass underlines it all. I am drunk on it, as I am still tipsy on the wine. I could swoon into his arms, and fake it. For the audience. He winks at me, and they cry. A phoenix bursts into flames and is born anew. I know, the reporters out there are snapping their pictures, making us larger than we are. Selling us to the county, to the country. To the world, we are strangers. I must cherish it, I know we will not always be so anonymous. I take a moment to absorb it. This old club, with its faulty wiring. The rude bartenders, the neon lights.

His gaze, under heavy lashes, is hypnotic. My Gods, I could punch him, I could kiss him. We shall never marry, or if we shall, it will be years beyond this. Beyond the performances and fame. Or he shall take an honest woman, and keep me a happy memory. I cannot love another, and curse him for it.

The crowd eats us inside and out. Profane, searching. Their hands graze at his ankles, casting wary looks towards me. I do not look, instead I place one foot on a speaker and sing all the lower, all the louder, entrancing them. Transforming their desires into written notes. For theirs is my own. I may know the band up and down, but will never cease to strive for it. For us.

We end on a kiss and slap. The lights go out, the curtains close. Our last number a song mimicking the first, but this one is more about accepting it. The forehead to the pavement grind, the needles and the razors, the grit and the raw romance. I wrote it, after I first sang the first number, which was written by Jet. I love it. My boyfriend is split on it, he hates it but it’s got a good tune and the lyrics stick. The fans regard it as an allusive success. -----------

We pack our things and ship out. It isn’t a long drive to the hotel we’re packed into, and the weather is pleasant. I think it’s too hot, too hot to pace the night, too hard to sleep. Curly and King go out for drinks with a couple girls and a guy they met at the show. Jet goes immediately to his room.

I stare at my suite, luggage already strewn on the floor. I drop my boyfriend’s guitar case against the wall and make my way to the window. He stays in the door, dim hallway light barely eking in, contrasting him in shadow whereas I am illuminated by the half moon. My heart races. I can’t relax. The queen-sized bed looks so inviting, but I cannot breathe. Do I exist beyond the gigs, beyond the music, beyond the nightmares? Do I exist beyond him? I know he must have taken the travel bottles of liquor from my backpack and drained them already. Even so, he knows better than to talk to me now.

The door clicks shut behind me, I turn and cannot see him, so I make my way to the bathroom. I need to be clean. Tripping over his shucked slacks and coat, I understand that he’s collapsed on the bed. I don’t look, however, I go directly to undress and shower. The slick sea algae shampoos I use wash my hair out soft, suds gently massaging all the debris from my skin. I sigh, emptying my heart. Happily exhausted. As I turn the water off and dry, climbing into a set of floral cotton pajamas, I take the time to smile. My contacts are hell to get out, I almost tear them and throw them, but I take care not to. Cleaning my face with astringents until it’s properly flushed, and brushing my teeth until the gums bleed, I deem myself ready for bed.

He’s on his stomach when I’m back in the bedroom. Eyes closed with a furrowed brow. Undoubtedly his irises are a pale ice blue-grey beneath them. It’s his default, when he’s tired and relaxed. Oh, he’s so small, right now. So short, so skinny. Even shorter than I, at my 5’7”. By about an inch, I’d say. I want only to go to him, to comfort him. To sing foreign lullabies and massage his shoulders until he’s at ease, with me.

I climb into bed and pull the sheets over his shoulders, and he cuddles into me, arm wrapping around my hips. I ruffle his hair, a soft, unruly orange-pink, and let him rub his cold nose into my neck. I fall asleep like that, holding him.

Hoping the nightmares won’t take me, my thoughts honeyed by the wine I was able to sneak only where he wouldn’t look. Not in my cosmetic bag, nor my bag of toiletries, but with my diary in my laptop case. The only spot I have sacred from his searching hands. All of me may belong to him, my thoughts bare, my heart raw, my soul open, my possessions forfeit and my voice claimed. My laptop, my diary, and all that lay within, are the only safe haven. There I hold my precious hopes. A pendant he gave me, lotions and secret poems. My heart beats hard even as I shift into a much needed REM cycle.

I open my eyes to find a noose. -----------

It’s too hot, like an oven, and the summer breeze blows tepid and wretched against the park. I’m standing in the center of it, by an old tree. There are acorns strewn across the grass, warm and full bladed at my bare feet. It smells of sweet earth and berries. I dare not move.

Behind me there is a park. Metal slide and swings scorched, warning away any aimless children. Frogs croak in the stream down the way, where dragonflies and water skeeters go about their afternoon. When I was little, I would play with them. Looking for tadpoles. Instead, I am entranced by the rope swinging before me. Still I do not move.

I know, if I were to step on a stool, I could reach it, and it would fit snug around my neck like a necklace of pearls. I slap down the urge to reach for it, forcing my eyes away.

In the air, there is music, as the sky overturns a languid haze while a cloud passes over. Oh, it must be Bowie, I lament. That aching, haunting melody. The entire horizon is like a mirage.

I can remember collecting acorns with my grandfather, in heat like this. Walking down the sidewalk from the house to the park. Burning myself on the metal playground, jumping in the sprinklers in the backyard. I can remember having these nightmares of a noose, but in college. In my dorm. When the faulty heater would kick on in winter and my roommate would still leave the window open.

I can’t stand it all, at all. I can’t stand to remember how familiar everything is to me. I feel like crying, but I am so resolved to it. To the end dangling in front of me.

Then I hear a voice.

It sounds so familiar, but sad. It doesn’t sound sweet, or enchanting, but it sounds like home. Deep-set, upset, and wracked with unshed sobs. Should I turn around? Should I run? I feel dizzy and nauseous and so tired. I must realize, I’ve been here before. I’ve had this nightmare, before. In my mind images flash by like a tidal wave. My funeral. I go through each scenario for each person I know receiving the news. My social media. The pictures. The words they’d say. What I’d say if I knew it would be the last I would say, to different people. Bittersweet, I am 2/3rds at peace with it and 1/3rd desperate to survive.

I don’t have to choose, I can let him reach me, and I let him reach me as my legs buckle and I sink to the ground so that he may kneel with me and hold me. Bury his face into my shoulder until his hair tickles my nose. He whispers, so softly, into my skin. “Hold on, love. Don’t leave me. Hold on. Just hold on….”

I remember. A particularly bad concert. A night we were all booed off the stage. How he turned to white powder, pupils so huge they drowned me. I remember the discarded cigarettes and the way his nails ran jagged down his arms. I remember begging him to stay awake, to stay with me. To live, to swear on his love for me. He did, over and over and over. I wept. I close my eyes, and I weep now. Tugging him closer, pushing him tight to my chest.

---

I wake in the early hours. He is still asleep, but muttering soft words of encouragement. Taller, now, he wraps me to him. Our earlier position reversed. I cling to his side and kiss his chest, forgetting the dream. Allowing myself to feel the soft bed, his welcoming form. Succumbing to aching, dreamless sleep.

If he snores and wakes me up, I vow, he won’t be sleeping with me anymore. It’ll be a couch in the lobby for him, or the bathtub. -------

It was by sheer coincidence that we had met again. I hadn’t been asked to join the band for good yet, and that first (and last) accidental gig had grew two weeks stale. They were busy dealing with the aftermath of losing their lead singer, talking to their schedulers, refiguring merchandise, rewriting songs. Once they emailed me a few pieces to practice, with a note about keeping in touch if they chose to move forward with me. I’d already learned, from following bands I loved around, that musicians tend to be quite flaky.

Seeing as I’d quit my job, money wasn’t the easiest thing for me to spend. It weighed on my conscience, even as I had a little saved up. Enough to go out to the bar on a Friday night, at least. Guilt or no. It was almost midnight, working on my second tequila sunrise, making blasé small talk with the bartender, that he dragged himself in.

Black hair pulled into a pony tail half way up his head, I hardly recognized the man. Except that his face was the same as it had been when I first sang. Demure eyebrows, dark eyes, thin mouth, defined cheekbones, slight cleft to his chin. I remembered him as someone else, introduced to me at the club as someone else. He didn’t look at me, either, signaling the bartender over and ordering two shots of whiskey on the rocks. When he did sit down, he lay his face in the palms of his hands and worried his temples. The way my father used to do. Like the nerves were pinched, like the stress made certain pressure points too taut and sore.

Under Pressure kicked on over the old speaker system. I must have smiled and said something under my breath, because he looked at me then. Transforming his mood from tired to interested, smiling at me a little lopsided.

“Ah,” he said. “So you’ve finally said the name.” As if it’s a rarity for me to say or mourn or love David Bowie. What was that that, a welsh accent? I hadn’t had the time to notice before.

The bartender put down his drink in front of him and he opened a tab, I wrinkled my nose at it.

“Hello again,” I said, giving a nod of acknowledgment and sipping my own drink.

“You claim familiarity?” He contemplated his drink, then took a healthy gulp. “I don’t know what’s a more welcome sight to me, this golden liquid… or you, darling.” It sounded like a purr, and my heart chilled, but I noted quickly his eyes were alight in jest.

I swallowed and frowned, avoiding him. “It’s the alcohol,” I stated flat. “Besides we’ve only met the once, and though it was quite an impression, it was all show.” My fingers twisted the toothpick holding a cherry that was in my drink. He looked at me curiously, searching for a sign that I was joking.

Once he gave up, he downed half of his whiskey and stared pointedly at the wall of bottles before us. “We’ve met twice, love. The first meeting wasn’t half as exhilarating as the second. Though this third encounter is rather leaving me wondering if either should have been memorable to me, at all.”

Oh I hated him for his slight. It was callous, as I’d only known him from the performance, and only knew him second hand as the friend of the man who had taken me from my job…. He was in a bad humor, this man I didn’t know, that much was clear. If he’d been in brighter spirits he may have humored me better.

“Then you prefer to be a stranger,” I demanded, crossly.

“A perfect stranger.” He agreed, but then went on, finishing his drink. “A stranger who knows you so intimately, in hopes that you one day see beyond how I appear.”

I finished my own drink in a heated grasp at competition. “I would rather get to know your friend, for though I only spoke with him briefly, he never treated me as such!”

Damn him, he laughed. I hang my head in shame at the memory now, and I rather think it was his right to laugh. At the time, however, I hated him more and more for it. Still, I did not get up and leave. I thought about it, I even gathered my purse, but then, I wasn’t in a state to drive, and I wasn’t going to storm off because of some lout. We sat in silence.

As minutes ticked by and last call was eventually announced, I gave in. I ordered two waters as a peace offering, and slid the second to him. He raised it to me. Such a sad smile, and to my utter astonishment, his eyes that had been so brown were just a little bit blue.

When I did gather my things and took off, I heard him barely mumble out the words “goodnight, Kyra.” Sounding just a little bit more American.

I wrote the whole night off as remembered incorrectly, blamed it on the alcohol. I got home feeling a little bit sad, a little more confused. In my exhausted, at the back of my mind, I also felt the distinct sense of being lost. I fell asleep, and I mostly forgot. -----------

Curly, our drummer, is the one to wake me at 10am, in time for check out. My boyfriend groans and stretches beside me, then curls into a tight ball and grips the covers as I try to yank them from him.

“It’s too cold, woman.” He whines. Clenching his eyelids. I shake my head, getting up and tossing the curtains open and covering my eyes, myself. Curly’s still watching us, but I shrug. He’s seen us wearing less, and in worse situations, before. There was this particularly heated moment he had walked in on us, back when we were just getting together, in this heavily vandalized, sorry excuse for a bathroom, in a smaller club in Ventura….

I smile, despite myself. It’s off to San Fransisco with the lot of us. A 6 hour drive. Then a gig, then another hotel room. Curly rolls his eyes at my boyfriend and grabs the guitar to go load it up. He looks at me, and I nod a little. Silent agreement passes between us. I give up on the lazy mess in my bed, already dozing again, and get dressed before packing all our things. Including his discarded clothing.

It’s 11 when I’ve finished and have everything loaded into our van, and have put on make-up. Something I detest and save for last. My boyfriend finally groans and rolls over, getting up. I’ve placed a pair of white pants and a pink shirt (one of mine) on my made-up side of the bed. He takes the clothing in, blinking. On the floor beside him, I’ve selected a pair of converse high-tops. He knows from what I’ve chosen that he’ll have to be shorter and slimmer than he wants to be, about 5’8”. His hair is still orange-pink, but quickly begins to fade to dirty blonde as he dresses. He pulls on his pants as I grin at him, leaning against the wall. He mock-scowls, holding the shirt towards me and raising a pointed eyebrow.

“Rise and shine, beautiful.” I sing. “Time to get a move on.”

He gives up, throwing the shirt on and buttoning it. “Did you sleep well…?” he hazards, blinking one eye from blue to green. I shake my head and grab my purse, heading out the door instead. It’s not an unusual thing to watch him change anymore, but it still feels a little perverted to see in action. Like I shouldn’t be privy to the action.

“The keycards are on the lamp table. Grab them to turn in, would you?” I throw over my shoulder. I don’t wait for him to answer.

Downstairs, Curly and King are waiting. Jet has presumably pulled the van around, and I don a pair of sunglasses from my purse as I approach them. White Ray Bands, a gift. “Good morning, boys!” I greet. They nod and start out the door. We all expect my boyfriend will be on his merry way in a moment or so.

King gets into the passenger seat of the Club Van first. Curly slides into the far passenger-side backseat, and I slide into the middle. He tosses us all wrapped sandwiches from the hotel convenience store, and we dig in hungrily. My boyfriend finally gets into the last seat beside me about two minutes away, and looks at my sandwich sadly. He doesn’t even like tuna. I tell him he’d have food too if he hadn’t been late, and I don’t give up any of mine.

Jet has some 80’s station on the radio. I spot the cooler on the floor, undoubtedly filled with different alcoholic ciders and beers, and lift it to find one last ham sandwich. I look over, and my boyfriend is pointedly looking out the side window, arms crossed. I take a PBR and place his sandwich on his head. He turns to me, and it slides off. His eyes widen comically, and I burst out laughing.

“Dummy,” I tell him, affectionately. “eat already,” and I pop the tab on my beer and drink. The secret to living is to just live, to say hell all to the consequences, and make history. Curly laughs with me in a rare show of emotion, and we set off on the 101 North.

-----------

Before he was my boyfriend, I thought he had been someone else’s. He had a lot of fun in that first year, using the fact I still saw him as two distinctly different people. He was my savior, that fair-haired sweetheart who had saved me, and that unruly, taller welsh guy who loved to fight with me. When the band finally called me up to take me in and we went into practices, he came in occasionally.

It was a conundrum to me, to see the man I had met at the bar and at that first show, watching me from the corner of our practice studios. He was always in an unsettled temper, stark, quiet, and stiff. In contrast, it was the highlight of my days to see the man who had first talked to me show up. Shy, cautious, blushing here and then, casting gazes at me under his eyelids. Flirting with me between songs.

I couldn’t help it, I found myself in love with both men.

It was the first night I performed with the band after becoming their official lead singer, that I broke my own heart. The man I loved to love wasn’t there, but the man I loved to hate, was. He showed up half way into the second song, in a tailored black suit, with a girl on his arm. She was spectacularly attractive. Long dark hair, leather jacket, torn leggings over a black hugging skirt, green V-neck T. I found myself jealous of both of them for various reasons. I wanted her, I wanted to be her. I wanted him. I found my singing too aggressive, breathing too hectic. I couldn’t stop watching them. When she laughed I wanted to know why, and I wanted to be the reason why. When he touched her shoulder I wanted to swat his hand away, and I wanted his hands on me.

He started taking her to every show we had and I hated her more and more. After a month, I grew used to it. I let myself grow more relaxed as I learned about the band, about my colleagues. Always, that man who changed me showed. He took my hand when I came in, helped adjust my mic. Clapped from his seat when I finished a hard note, gave me a thumbs up when I messed up. Those nights I just showed up to sit and write, he read a book across from me. Bringing me a water bottle. Once in a while he’d sit beside me and distractedly run his fingertips across my thigh. I asked him to coffee, but he always found a reason to say no.

At the midway point of the third month, that guy with a girlfriend introduced us. His words were pointed, and he left me with her after excusing himself. I faltered in our conversation, hesitating to talk with her, interested but darting my eyes to where he’d disappeared to the bar all the same. I danced with her, still. Catherine. Her name was Catherine, and she like The Ramones and the Beatles and she liked chains and lips painted green and silver, and Wuthering Heights. I never read Wuthering Heights. I asked her about her boyfriend, and she threw her head back and laughed. She took my hand and looked deep into my eyes, on the edge of being very tipsy, with large pupils as a tell-tale sign of her lack of sobriety.

“He’s not mine, though I try and try, you know?” she said. Then leaned into me, whispering. Her breath hot in my ear. My thighs pushed together as I leaned into it, a little aroused. “We’ve been together for a hook up twice, but he swears off more than that. Says there’s someone else. Keeps insisting I meet you.” My own eyes go wide, as I pulled away. Looking for him again, but he’d gone. He wanted someone else? My mind raced.

She looked at me and my pointed searching as if she knew.

I, of course, got wonderfully drunk that night. He didn’t return. I royally ruined our second set, and then I danced with Catherine until they kicked us out. I felt her up, she gripped my hips. We kissed. It was wonderful, blended lust with jealousy. Like I’d been struck with paint, I became an artist of touch and flesh. I went home to my apartment completely spent and alone, in a cab, that night. I wrote an artsy punk number that made no sense, and we still play it today.

Catherine kept showing up after that, but less and less, and mostly without that guy. For a while, I didn’t see either of the men I had grown to want.

Then one day, the softer one showed up to one of our sound checks, more subdued. His roots were showing, and he worried his lip before approaching me and asking if we could take that coffee after all. I was delighted. ------------

2 1/2 hours into the drive we stop at an In-and-out in Kettleman City. We all get hamburgers and fries and King gets a soda, switching to drive while Jet takes the passenger seat and pops a beer. Tub-thumping is on the radio and we pull back onto the I-5, all yelling along to it. My boyfriend is pinching me and messing up my hair, but I don’t mind. This is what it is to be with them, to be making something of history.

Belatedly I wonder if my apartment is okay. Our apartment, I correct, looking at the man grabbing my glasses and leaning his knee on my lap. I fall heavy on his shoulder. What would I do, if he hadn’t found me? The song ends and Deep Blue Something replaces it. I heave a sigh and make myself comfortable against this bony wall of muscle beside me. He cradles my head, shoving my face into his chest. The cotton from my shirt he’s wearing is familiar and cool, and I sink into it.

My mind is easy to remind me of how disturbed my rest was, how tired I am now. After the high of being on the road again. I close my eyes and pay attention to the slender fingers at my neck, kneading and touching. Curly won’t mind that I kick my legs up onto thighs, surely. Encroaching on his space as I settle into my boyfriend and resign myself to a nap. A nice, afternoon, lazily inebriated, nap.

---

“It’s a cat,” he said, dumbly.

“Yes, it’s a cat.” I glared back, holding the grungy white kitten tightly. It had one black patch over its nose. “Its name is Cookie.” I announced.

“Oh no!” He exclaimed. “No no, no. No!” He tried to bar me from entering our small flat, in Riverside, CA. One master bedroom, one bath, one beautiful kitchen / dining room with a balcony and large window. The living room was and is still perfect, as well.

He put his hand out to me. “If you name it, then you mean to keep it!” He accused.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Of course I mean to keep him, look at him.” I held out the frightened thing, it clawed at my hands and mewed.

My boyfriend stepped back. “It’s a him?!” he cried. “No!”

I had no time for his machismo “no man steps in on my land and my woman even if it’s a cat” bullshit, so I brushed past him and set the kitten up in the bathroom, closing the door to go out to my car and grab the litter, box, and cat food I’d bought. He was still standing dumbfounded in the front hallway. I passed him with a huff and went out. That night I slept on the couch, because apparently I was the one in the wrong.

Ten months later, we left on tour, and it was my boyfriend blowing kisses to the cat. Promising that we’d be back soon, that we loved him so very much, and our neighbor would feet him. Cross his heart and hope to die. It was also my boyfriend that let him sleep at the foot of our bed, fed the cat ham when I wasn’t looking, and let him jump on the couch and kitchen chairs. Absolutely incorrigible. It was strange how adding a pet to our life made us that much more of a couple. The way we started bickering over dishes and the trash, and whose turn it was to get groceries. That “no, pizza bites don’t count as a meal on a Saturday night in”, and “no I didn’t drink all the milk I can’t even drink milk why do you keep blaming me for it”. Somewhere along the line Cookie had made us a strange and content family. ----------

We drive into San Fransisco around 6:30pm after traffic and pit stops. I blink myself awake to a Radiohead song, and stare out at all the lights over the water. Our set is at 8, so we begin arguing over the GPS on our phones, trying to find the Rickhouse. Curly’s driving now and King’s fast asleep. Jet’s got my feet over his waist and lounges, spreading to take up as much room as possible. My boyfriend can’t be comfortable, the way he’s folded into the door to keep me happy.

The three men are bickering, which is what woke me up. My boyfriend wants to go to the hotel, he complains he hasn’t had a shower. It’s his own damn fault for sleeping in, I think, but keep my mouth shut. The angrier he gets, the more he massages my back and pets my arm, so he needn’t know I’m awake just yet. Curly and Jet agree we should go to the bar first.

I know my boyfriend’s got problems. You don’t go through life being ‘different’ without picking up a few. I’ll be with him through the worst, always, but part of loving him means not giving him the easy way out. Not siding with him, all the time. He’s going to pull this night off like I pulled off last night. We’ve got someone from the bar filming our first set tonight, but it isn’t life or death. Soon it’ll be over and he’ll be in my arms. We can order pizza and watch bad reruns on the TV.

There’s a band performing after us that I’m rather keen to see. I eye the clock on the dashboard as Jet turns to shove his phone in my boyfriend’s face.

“We haven’t got the fucking time, Jeremy. We have to set up in an hour and the gig’s already a half hour away. The hotel puts us out 15 goddamn minutes! Minutes we haven’t got, we-“ He notices me watching him. Wincing from the bright screen of his android. “I’m sorry, Kyra.”

That stops whatever my boyfriend is about to say, as he moves his fingers from grazing against my forearm to grip my elbow and help me up. “Morning, starlight.” He grins. Demeanor changing from vicious to protective in an instant.

Sitting now, I notice I’ve wrinkled his shirt irreparably. I frown, and he frowns with me. It’s subconscious, a testament to how in tune we are. I know it’s because I must presume to disagree with him, and look at him glancing.

“How close are we to the bar?” I feign instead. As if I hadn’t heard the argument on our designation, that it isn’t in question. My boyfriend’s mouth parts, then he stretches his arms and looks out the window.“About half an hour” he concedes. I smile, but only while he can’t see that I know I’ve won. Jet smirks to himself. We’re going to the Rickhouse.

--------

When we had coffee for the first time, it was a real treat. He kept playing with his blond hair, trying to make it sit right. I bit my lip a lot, and kept sipping my London Fog whenever I did, like I had an oral fixation. Or basorexia. Mostly the latter, but we hadn’t kissed yet, and I couldn’t reconcile the urge with myself or the man in front of me.

He wore a long trenchcoat over a smart grey shirt with a sweater and slacks. A blue tie completing the ensemble. When I look back, I keep looking into my memories for some sign that I knew he was both men, all along. I didn’t know. To some credit, I did manage to throw the darker one from my mind that night, focusing solely on the one in front of me. He was shorter, as I had noted that first day, and fair and as nervous as he was when he observed me in practices for those first months. He took a stoic swig of his mocha and watched me over the rim. We had been talking about favorite artists, or the weather, or something small.

I just wanted to crawl across the table, yank that tie, and press him to his chair. It made me miss what he was saying about rain in the UK. We’d been talking about the UK, because I’d noticed his accent was foreign. I had noticed and wondered for a while, actually, because it reminded me of his contrast to the Welsh guy who confounded me.

“I was just saying, the rain feels like home.” He repeated.

I nodded, a little too enthusiastically. “I’m from Seattle, of course. You know. Anyway it’s rare for it to rain in California, but I rather like it….”

The conversation died. I wondered how I was doing, it had been so long since I’d been on a proper date. Perhaps I should have offered going to the movies, or a bowling alley, instead of coffee for our first. Coffee just seemed traditional. Coffee was more casual, for all those times he rejected me. We started talking again, about plaid and overseas dramas.

The first habit I noticed him having was smoking. Both he and the mystery man smoked. After our drinks were done and we ran out of things to say, knowing anything more would cross the line for a first date, we gathered ourselves and walked out of the coffee shop. He was pleasantly surprised when I took his hand. Outside, he only dropped it to fumble in his coat pocket for a light and a cigarette.

“Do you mind…?” He asked quietly. I shook my head. As he put the smoke between his slim, perfect lips and locked on with such erratically beautiful crooked teeth, I sighed. Smoke streamed slight and elegant from it and he looked at me, oddly. As if he couldn’t quite justify my standing there with him, looking as if I’d been locked inside a peach-tinted dream.

“May I?” I hesitated, lifting my fingers towards his jaw. He stumbled, then took the cigarette from his mouth and held it out to me. I took it, welcoming, dragging on it like a woman dying of thirst. The end was a little damp from his mouth. I savored it, pointedly gazing at the street in front of us. Ill lit, cold.“Yes?” He whispered, far too late to be an answer. I just stood there and let him watch. --------

The Rickhouse, in San Fran, is just as small as any bar we’ve played in. We pull our van into the side street in the alley out back and begin to unload. Like a bucket brigade, I’m handing off equipment to the guys as they lug it through the back door, to the storage room. My boyfriend is being too quiet for my own liking and I’m worried that something has gone wrong to set him off.

It’s not too surprising when he wanders off on his own and I let him, asking him to bring me back a drink. Bloody Mary if they’ve got it, Fuzzy Navel if they don’t. It’s all the same to me, but he’s reaching the end of his tolerance of my alcohol abuse and says a stiff “no”.

“Fine, water, then!” I call after him. King looks at me to see if I’m alright. I don’t have the patience to worry about every little thing that sets that man off, so I turn it from my mind and go about my business, unclipping the two guitar cases and setting up their stands. It’s nobody’s damn business.

It’s nearing 7:15 now, crunch time to move the instruments from back room to stage. Sound check in 15. Curly’s already out there piecing together his drums. I can barely get a hold on the guitars. Jet’s guitar is an electric [ENTER BRAND NAME], painted blue. King’s got a nice bass [BRAND NAME / MORE DESCRIPTION]. He has to take care of his own pedalboard because I’m scared enough I’ll break the guitars, I definitely don’t trust myself with the touchier stuff.

My boyfriend has a lovely acoustic guitar, but he didn’t let me take it from the van. That’s at least two songs we’ll be cutting. Which is okay, that’s about par for any given night. It does seem to be taking him too long, when I realize I can’t see him over at the bar, at all. He never did give any sign that he’d heard me about the water, and will more likely than not fail to actually bring me one. I’m not in the right to get upset about it though, and I’m more than capable enough of getting my own things.

As I approach the bar, however, I come face to face with the reason for my boyfriend’s sour mood.

A very tall, slightly round bartender makese his way around the front, wiping his hands on a dishtowel and then throwing them open to my boyfriend, who has just walked over from an alcove. My boyfriend stands there, grimacing, and tensing. Like he doesn’t know whether to stand his ground or run.

“Jeremy!” The bartender exclaims, grabbing hold of my boyfriend’s chin, and none-to-gently turning his face side-to-side. “It’s been ages.”

I can’t mistake that leer for anything else, and my temper boils. My boyfriend is still blond, still 5’8”, shorter than the bartender. His eyes, one blue and one green, like he was in the car. Like he looks when his defenses are lowered; and how much effort he’s putting in now to keep it that way! If he’s not bristling black and gray and brown features right now, and the bartender recognizes him, it can only mean one thing. This man has known my boyfriend at his most vulnerable before, and hurt him.

“It’s good to see you too, Trevor. I uh, I have to go.” He bites out, side stepping toward the restrooms. Pointedly avoiding me. As I watch, the bartender reaches down and slaps my boyfriend’s ass.

“You be quick about it,” the disgusting man laughs.

My fists clench, my boyfriend near-jumps. Turning on my heel, I stomp back to the band. Everyone’s waiting on us for soundcheck, but I’m ready to call the whole night off. My boyfriend isn’t straight, but that’s no secret. From me, or anyone. I don’t need to know his past, I know too much already. If what I haven’t heard are stories like this one….

Suddenly I understand why he’s been acting up all day. His whole hesitation. I step onto the low stage, and take the mic, shaking my head when they ask if Jeremy’s coming. He’s not. I’ll tell them after that he won’t be performing tonight. I’ve performed alone before, I can do it again. There are a couple of songs we have specifically for female-vocal only nights, and it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to sing them. This’ll be great, actually. Just fan-fucking-tastic.

I chorus a few low, angry notes from one of our harder, sultrier songs as the boys pluck out different chords and Curly hits a tambourine. It’s not odd that our band lacks a keyboardist, we’ve brought a few on that didn’t fit. One of Jet’s dreams is to put a few pieces he’s written on our set list, once we find a keyboardist who can stay. I like those songs, I’d like to sing them now, and one day I will. King and Curly have also joked about bringing in a saxophone. Wouldn’t that be grand. ------------

Our second date had been to the beach. It was winter then, cold even for California. We met at the parking lot and walked along the shops on the boardwalk at Seal Beach. Colorful wind socks flew and the whole place smelled of fish. I hated it, but he said it was part of the experience. He loved any and every experience. Good and bad, nothing left out.

I was his newest one, and he was mine. I understood. What would happen when his interest wore off? I had been left by men who were far more besotted. So I felt then. I have learned since, slowly, that his love for me is far deeper-run than that of any before him, or after. I’m still wondering when he’ll go to chase the next big thing.

“I wonder if Sealand would hold a funeral for me,” I stated, out of the blue. We were hand in hand along the water line. We’d both gotten sunglasses at a stand, made silly faces at each other. He bought me blue-tinted ones in the shapes of dolphins. I got him orange-tinted martini ones. On our one year anniversary, he’s the one who bought me my white Ray Bands. I was so fond of him in that moment for the sentimentality.

He stopped, and I went on a pace, before twirling back around. My turquoise dress lifting out around my knees. “I wonder if they’d make up a Euology,” I continued. “’Here lies Lady Kyra, she couldn’t fix her head.’” I paused. The reality was I didn’t have an ID in my wallet to identify me as Sealand Nobility. Nobody would ever know. Nobody really does.

“Rest in peace?” He offered, a little put off. Catching me back into his arms as I stumbled toward him in the sand. I’d made myself dizzy, spinning.

We fell, gracefully. He wound up sitting, oversized teal shirt and khaki shorts getting sandy. I sat on his lap, brushing off the grit and then lightly grazing the blond hair on his upper arms. “No,” I said, eventually.

“Never.” I grinned. Looking up, I got caught in his eyes, and I pushed his sunglasses onto his head. He was frowning, but just as lost. Then he smiled at me. That dazzling, impish smile.

“Never?” He challenged. “Never at peace? What then, ‘Rest eternal’?”

I scoffed! Pushing myself up and resituating to be comfortable. “Never eternal anything!” I crooned. “I’ve had my fill of forevers. Rest… hungrily, perhaps.”

He chuckled, kissing my forehead and sighing. I knew I wasn’t strange. As he pulled back, he gave a slight sniff and ran his fingers through my brown hair.

“You smell like the sea,” he admitted, delighted. “Of the sea and of… honey, and lavender. Goodness, woman. Did you fall in the ocean, or in a meadow? I can’t quite tell.”

He held me out by my shoulders to admire me, then smothered me to his chest. I couldn’t reply, only managing a laugh and a hum. I was so, so very happy.

---

When the sun started to sink, we finally gave up on picking up shells and rocks on the beach. We carried the shoes and shades we’d discarded and trudged back to his car, a beat up 1969 mustang. He grabbed my purse and threw it inside with my shoes and the dolphin glasses in the backseat, and when I went to open the passenger door, he stopped me.

Turning to find him standing directly behind me, my breath hitched. His hair was a little darker, but that was the fading light, I thought. His smile was wicked, and his intent made clear. He lifted my chin with two delicate fingers and tilted his face to meet mine, just enough to catch my lips with his own. It was a sensitive, yet hungry kiss. Bittersweet as if he’d laced his mouth with juniper berries. I wondered if the menthol sting of my lipbalm had faded.

Caught up in the motions, we dipped and moved to fit better. He nipped at my lower lip, and flicked his tongue against it. I finally gained the courage to part my lips to his inquisitive search, and the kiss ended. He withdrew, mostly satisfied with how bewildered I looked. I swayed, the backs of my knees forgetting how to do anything but fold.

As I swayed in the wind picking up off the ocean, I glanced at his face under the sweep of his honey-currant hair. His eyes were a touch more of an icier blue. ----------

Going on for our set without him is hard. King, being the most upset at my boyfriend’s no-show, stomps on stage first. Curly has learned not to make waves, and Jet doesn’t particularly care. We’ve had our fair share of nights where we’ve had to find him or smack some sobriety into him. They’ve had to cut me from a first set or so for various reasons. Regardless, I’m still angry, and it shows heavily in the outfit I’ve chosen and in my demeanor. My hair is pinned back, a loose black T hangs off my shoulders, sleeves cut. My fishnets are ripped in patches under black shorts with silver skulls on the pockets. It’s how I show that I’m past caring about anything. I’ve even forgotten about the guy filming us, right in front.

I give the best I can give. It’s a careful carelessness that betrays artful fashion over heated anguish. I sell it. Our opening song – which I’m hoping he can hear, wherever he’s gone – is one I wrote about the time I found him out. Found his secret. Found that the love and worry I’d been harboring over two guys was for naught, as the men I loved were both the man I love. It’s secretive, alarming, with a steady drumbeat akin to the march of going to war, or the gallows. I could cry.

---

We took to telling each other stories, fairly early on. He would tell me of the Netherlands, of markets in Paraguay and Peru, and of teas tried in Istanbul, or of an opera in Austria. Some cities, some brands, some stories, never check out. I’ve found myself to have fallen simply for the mystery. I wanted his stories to be true, so they became truth. I found it easier to believe in the possibility of him, rather than his reality.

Of course, by then I had learned his secret. I was shocked and disbelieving of it at first, but I also felt how different he was from the beginning. Often after his stories, I would ask him about it, but he would not tell me more. So I told him stories of my own devising. Of old German and Irish castles, of cities made of rock in Arizona, of laying in the grass in Pisa, and reading in old bookstores in��London.

Adventurous days climbing atop cathedrals and mountains and lighthouses, looking up at the sky. I told him of going out at night to sit beside an Irish river, having a smoke and watching the stars as they misted over. I’ve since thought, if he had sat beside me then, he would be the one person whose company I would not abide grudgingly. But then, I’ve always invited such wildly erratic and ethereal concoctions into my nights. Such strange machinations as him.

“What a mystery, what a man!” I would whisper to him. He would look at me with love, or with disdain. He’d acknowledge pride, for the stroking of his ego, but he would tell me not to say that anyway. Sometimes I’ll still say it, now in a mocking tone when he’s been dumb. I think he likes it. -----------

“Gods what fools these mortals be,” I had muttered. The man beside me, who I’d reluctantly agreed to go out with, chuckled. We sat in the back row of the movie theater, some lazy drama with a shoehorned romance. No. It was an indie film, unrated. Or was it rated R?

I was reluctant because I’d already decided to stick with the quieter man in my life, the one who brought me vanilla-scented cards and remembered my favorite coffee. The one I’d already been out with several times, by then. I wasn’t as reluctant, however, because this was the darker one, the one I’d been so curious about. It wasn’t a date to me so much as an investigation.

I hadn’t really seen the guy since The Catherine Incident. The day they apparently broke whatever it was they had off and he stormed out of one of our shows for the last time. She threw a bar menu in my face and cussed me out. It was kind of hot. Girl code dictated I not go after him. Ex code dictated I not go after either. So I didn’t understand then, or when, a month later, he’d asked me out to the movies. After I’d already been dating Jeremy for a while.

He’d chosen some 1$ movie theater folded into a corner of this rustic street some 20 minutes from my house. A street I’d visited just once while staking out a tea café. A historic town, they claimed it. Filled with antique shops and pubs. I dressed for it, picking a nice peach summer dress, even though it was barely spring outside, on a good day. Coming into March, actually. The theater itself was cheesy, small, and more Rocky Horror than blockbuster. I hated that he pegged my kind of place so well. I was relieved it didn’t remind me of my last job. Not a bit.

My date didn’t even turn his head when I spoke. Though to be fair, I wasn’t particularly talking to him or looking for a conversation. I was focused on the slow pacing and bad music score in front of me. So I was surprised when he asked me “is the film not to your liking?”

“Well, no,” I started. “It’s so… inane.” Inane. I thought I was clever. In the darkness his lip curled into a sardonic grin.

“You say the most curious things, love.” He stated. “Now, watch. This is my favorite scene”. On the screen, the love interest threw a crystal glass of gin on the floor to shatter. She gripped the protagonist and pressed into him for an intimate kiss. Very telenovela.

I shivered. “You’ve seen this already?” I wasn’t happy about that. He must have noticed my chill, for he took his jacket from where he’d discarded it and draped it over my lap. I remember lifting it over my front and smelling the smoke and spices lingering on its collar. It was so warm, so comforting. A nice jacket with a high collar, which he’d worn over a simple white button up and black slacks. Its smell had my mind abuzz. Like a mixture of permanent marker, red peppers and damp bark.

All of my thoughts darted back and forth with the memory of it, hints of the smell on different people passing by me, all my life. Fleeting and nauseating. Pheromones, I’ve labeled them. I really can’t put any description to it otherwise, or a reason why I’ve found it on the people I have. I wanted nothing but to be closer to him, once I smelled it. I was intoxicated with him. Or just his jacket.

I realized, in that conclusion, that I was missing the scene he had wanted me to watch. I was startled to see the main characters in a large shower. I’d missed the transition. The man asked the woman, “forever?” and I scoffed. Forevers. Something I longed for and held with disdain in equal measure. I curse him for making me believe, again.

Then my date leaned into me, whispering to me in a low timbre. “Not fond of forevers, then?” He chided. “I’m the same. You could say I’ve… had my fill of them.”

I didn’t get it. Not at first, then he pressed his nose against my temple and I could feel his smile against the side of my head. “You still smell of the sea,” he murmured, lower still.

I started at the familiarity of his sentiment. Then stopped. Then pointedly focused on the movie. Then felt my face heating up and a sense of jittery embarrassment as I watched how the camera had moved to focus on the couple’s naked forms, as they kissed and caressed under the onslaught of water. My date’s eyes were on me.

As I tried to follow the movie without having witnessed the build-up, he gently placed his fingers on my far cheek. Turning me to him, grazing his lips against the side of my mouth, moving his kisses across my jawline. Delicately making his way to my earlobe, which he grazed his tongue over. My eyes shuttered as I could feel the heat creeping through my veins.

I could feel myself adjusting to be closer. Leaning slightly into his touch. Hypnotized. Then just like that, his fingers were no longer holding me, and he’d moved his face away again. I was utterly devoid of the sensation of him, and as I had felt wrong for accepting him while courting another, I felt wrong for having lost his touch as well.

His eyes had been closed, at first, but then opened as I watched him, his dark eyes, watching me in turn. “I’ve been intrigued with you since the beginning. When you took my cigarette, I knew I was lost, and when we kissed, I was caught.” He whispered so softly into my ear that I could barely hear him, but I felt every syllable. Down to the curl in my toes and the warmth building low in the cradle of my hips.

I understood even as I couldn’t fathom what his words meant. As he softened his voice and his accent lessened, I could close my eyes and know the truth of it. I didn’t know what made me do it, but I opened my eyes and I kissed him. Not a chaste peck, but an eager, open-mouthed and demanding kiss that he answered with equal force.

I felt the same magic as the night I had first thought myself in love, the night I’d given myself away to another stranger. Forevers. Eternity. All ‘nevers’ in disguise. I didn’t think of that, in the moment. I thought of giving myself over again. My mind heavy with the scent of him, the feel of soft alabaster skin and pliant lips.

“But how are you… are you? I don’t-“ I began, trying to find words between kisses, not knowing when I’d grabbed onto his shirt. He broke it for good, then. Again. I’d thought. History repeats itself, as do I.

His eyes full of mischief, maintaining dark irises and not giving into blues, he answered my fumbling question with a grin. “Ah-ah,” he warned, pointedly moving his gaze to the front row, where three teenage boys sat. “You don’t want to cause a scene now, do you?”

I did, but I didn’t. They had no doubt snuck in as they were underage, but a defiant part of me didn’t care what they saw or heard if it meant I could lose myself in the man sitting to my left. Whoever the hell that man was. Instead, I promptly shut up.

His mouth was pressed against the side of my ear again, muffling a deep laugh. “It’s my time to speak, pretty lady.” He said. “Forgive this honest liar?”

I nodded and he didn’t so much explain my unasked questions as say “Yes. Yes it’s true. Yes it’s me.” His hand wandered to my thigh, squeezing and stroking its way up to rest on that delicate juncture between hip and waist. Easily claiming every inch I’d covered with his jacket. “You understand that it’s me?” He finally asked, a little unsure.

I said yes, under my breath, as I had none to spare. I curse him for that, as I was merely parroting the many yesses that he’d said moments before. I was aware only of his hand moving again, lightly grazing his nails against my ribs, towards my breasts. ‘My boyfriend’ my mind helpfully supplied.

“Jeremy?” I ventured. He kissed my head, lazily rubbing his nose in my hair.

I almost didn’t hear him say yes. [REDACTED]. For fuck’s sake, it was a night full of yesses.

I thought I would never be one of those idiots messing around in a theater. Maybe if I’d paid attention to the rest of it, I’d have felt the meaning behind the movie’s bittersweet, shock ending. ------------

Sometime during our first set at the Rickhouse, I’m able to relax back into the music. I spot a few people starting to dance, and I smile at it. Maybe it’s a bad night for my boyfriend, but I can still salvage it. The footage we’re paying for has to be good, even as the camera man trips over one of our fans’ feet. Some strangers have started to dance, to my delight. It’s a song with a beat good enough to dance, but the lyrics put it in more solemn territory. I play it up, for the publicity. Dipping low, running my hands against my sides and feeling the drums and bass in my heart. I even reach my hand out to grasp the hand of a guy in the audience. He circles his fingers around my wrist and smiles at me.

The first set ends well enough. We have one more after a short 15 minute break, which my bandmates take eagerly. I just want to be on again so this can be over. I still can’t see Jeremy anywhere.

I thank the photographers and publicist as I step off the stage, thinking of our second setlist and what we can salvage for it. A really cute girl comes up to me, timid or coy, and compliments me on my singing. I laugh it off saying I’m not at my best, but when she offers to buy me a drink, I don’t say no.

It’s a lovely gesture to get me a gin and tonic, so I down it quickly to try and get over how awful it tastes. I kind of want to gag from it. Belatedly I realize that the DJ is playing some contemporary pop hit, and that the floor has quickly devolved into a pit of moving bodies too messy to walk through. My fan looks at me and brushes her blonde hair out of her eyes, tapping my shoulder and asking for a dance.

I indulge her, because she’s cute. She’s got an asymmetrical bob hairdo that I usually go nuts for. A nice bust under her black T-shirt and thin, athletic legs under patterned leggings. In another time I would slip my hands around her waist and draw her closer, as she probably wants me to. I can’t. My mind is still too wrapped around Jeremy and the bartender. Maybe he’s gone out for a smoke. ---

I lounged on our couch with my legs splayed out. Butterfly, they called it when I was little. A stretch that works your inner thigh. It’s a comfortable enough position now, as long as I don’t try to bend my nose to the soles of my feet like I used to. It was one of my days off, enjoying tea and a bootleg copy of Drop Dead Fred. I’d consider it a dark time in my relationship, but we were trying to clean up our acts. No smoking at home, was the first rule. For some very obvious reasons. Later we amended it to be “only smoking on tour”. It was something to fall back on, when things got… out of hand.

While my boyfriend adhered to the rule, he was back to doing other distasteful things. I didn’t know where he was that day. I had to take him off my mind, thinking maybe imaginary friends and common comforts would do the trick. Cookie made his way onto my lap, deigning it worthy to sit on, for once. I cradled him and cried as the movie ended. Though midday, my eyes watered and grew heavy, the effort to keep them open proving too much. I wanted another world. I wanted the stars. I wanted wine. I threw Cookie off, for which he gave a disgruntled “meow” and glared at me, and I curled up to sleep. Laboring to pull the sofa’s blanket over myself.

When my boyfriend came in, he reeked of spilled beer and weed. Eyes blazed out on something completely different. He stumbled past the entry way, spilling most of the water he tried to pour me in the kitchen. With foul breath he woke me up, easing me to rest heavy on his shoulder and encouraging me to drink. It felt a little surreal and I had that groggy sense that comes post-nap.

“Have you been drinking?” He mumbled. I regarded him coolly and drank from the glass he pressed to my lips until my throat was no longer dry.

Taking it from him to set it down, I said no. “Have you been gambling again?”

He didn’t answer. Guilty, or innocent.

“Take a shower, you reek,” I added when he didn't respond. Covering my nose with the blanket.

He rolled away at that, leaving me to fall back on the couch, no doubt planning to leave again in a huff. At the sound of my head hitting the armrest, though, he started spewing apologies and promises. “shh, you’re okay, you’re okay, let’s get you to bed.” he cooed to me. Gently lifting me with an arm beneath my knees and shoulders. I hated the way he smelled and how sticky his shirt was, but I folded into him anyway.

“This is a bad idea…” I protested, as he swayed under my weight. I couldn’t talk reason into him. To be fair, he did get me to bed safely. Only knocking my feet on the doorframe once. He kissed the top of my head and rubbed circles into my shoulders until I began to doze off. The last thing I heard was the water running in the shower. Covering my nose with the blanket.

He rolled away at that, leaving me to fall back on the couch, no doubt planning to leave again in a huff. At the sound of my head hitting the armrest, though, he started spewing apologies and promises. “shh, you’re okay, you’re okay, let’s get you to bed.” he cooed to me. Gently lifting me with an arm beneath my knees and one beneath my shoulders. I hated the way he smelled and how sticky his shirt was, but I folded into him anyway.

“This is a bad idea…” I protested, as he swayed under my weight. I couldn’t talk reason into him. To be fair, he did get me to bed safely. Only knocking my feet on the doorframe once. He kissed the top of my head and rubbed circles into my shoulders until I began to doze off once in bed. The last thing I heard was the water running in the shower.

(short segment because I'm getting worse mentally as my time of the month draws near and I'm too mentally exhausted and emotionally drained) ------------

I don’t have time to check around outside, by the time I pry myself from my fan. She’s getting handsy and it’s making me feel ill. The bar is too loud, too crowded. I’m suddenly overly sensitized to it. Jeremy usually helps me out when I have an episode… calms me down before I have an anxiety attack. I just don’t know where he’s gone.

Jet finds me near the doorway, silently panicking. In the midst of deciding between fight or flight, he slaps me and backs me into the wall.

“You’re fine,” he mutters. I just stare at him, hand on my stinging cheek. His eyes flit to the reddening skin, then my gaping mouth and shocked eyes, then rolls his own. “You can kill me later. Right now, we need you. Conscious. Not shell shocked. You with me?”

I nod, flinching as he moves his hands back down to his sides. He notices and winces a little in sympathy. I don’t know if he knows my past. I don’t know if he knows how many times I’ve let myself be slapped, grabbed, handled, shoved…. It doesn’t matter right now. I nod again, dumbly.

It’s time for our last set. I circumvent the crowd and step back onto the stage, losing my patience and poise. With a moment’s notice I let the band know what song I intend to sing first. One of anger, anguish. Loss and hurt. It’s slow. Slow enough to cry to, slow enough to listen to on a melancholy ride home from work. It confuses the audience as they stop moving and cheering, silently falling into the trance. Our second song is one of our biggest hits, the one I usually open with on normal nights. Cheering, laughing, the crowd sings it back.

I hold back my own tears and pain at how I just want to be done. I’m owning my moment. Hitting the last high note of our last song, I’m surprised when we gain an encore. I’m even more surprised when I see Jeremy, part of the crowd and moving towards me, face marred by a black eye and holding his arm across his chest like it hurts. He makes his way up and steals the microphone from me, his voice a little shaky. I want to sag against him in relief, but something’s wrong. Switching into my own protective mode, I move back to Jet to share his mic, sinking into the chorus. It’s over. It’s finally over.

#To heavily edit #from 2016 #original fiction

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