Alistair
The stage lights were finally off. Another show down, but always another one to go.
I walked backstage and found the hallway leading to our designated rest and prep area. Dodging a couple stagehands and roadies on my way, I ducked out of their way as they wrapped up cords and stands and the sound system. I made it down the hallway a few feet and took a sharp left, pressing my fingers against the cold steel doorknob.
Sounds of grunts and groans and general sexual noises assaulted my ears as my hand started to twist. I dropped the knob and went over one more door.
“Come join us!” Cooper called from his seat on the old, stained couch in the dressing room.
He had 2 separate blunts on his person, lit, one in each hand.
“Not tonight,” I called back, trying not to strain my voice after the long night of growling and singing into a microphone.
“Don’t be a pussy,” Gerald grinned absently from his spot.
His words came out lazy through his Cockney accent, a small bundle of weed pressed between his lips.
“Not tonight,” I told him one last time before opening the adjoining bathroom door.
“You’re missing out!”
I ignored them and locked the door behind me, sighing as I stripped the jeans, boxer briefs, and sleeveless tee off my body.
My hair was sticking up in some spots, matted in others with sweat that had dried and was starting to crust up. I felt disgusting and needed the shower I was about to steal for myself.
It’d been 3 days since my last shower, thanks to being on the road in a big tour bus, so I knew I needed to savor the running water.
I pressed up against the glass outside the grungy shower, twisting the rusty handle to get the water going.
Leaving my socks on, I stepped into the tiled shower and shuddered. Cold water beat down on my hot skin, tightening it up against every single muscle in my body.
I was so sore, ready for this tour to be over.
After a couple minutes of the cool water, I swung the dial over to warm and watched as steam appeared, slowly clouding up the hard water-stained glass walls and door.
I breathed heavy.
In-out.
In-out.
Steam, moisture met my lungs and my body relaxed. I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, occasionally turning as one side of my body got cold away from the spray.
“Hey, we’re heading out!” Jeremy’s voice echoed through the thin wooden door.
“Yeah, just a minute,” I called back, dreading leaving the warm cocoon of my shower.
I turned the rusty handle and stepped out, cold air prickling my skin as I found a grey (but used to be white) towel to dry off with.
“Marcus is on our asses,” Jeremy called again.
“Coming,” I told him, finally slipping back into my jeans and opening the door.
“You ok,” he asked as I pulled off the wet socks and stuck my wet feet into my shoes.
“Yeah, good.”
Stuffing my sweat stained shirttail into my back pocket, I stuffed my used underwear into my other pocket and followed Jeremy out, leaving the towel on the floor.
“So, was that a newbie or your regular?” I asked Jeremy as we plopped into the couches on our bus, having run from the stadium to the bus hanging out in the back of the lot.
Running away from the paparazzi was annoying and exhausting.
The look on Jeremy’s face told me all I needed to know.
“Summer may not be the most attractive thing, but damn, the girl has tenacity. Following a band across the country for a few shags? I think she’s earned it. Or gold member fan club status, at the very least.”
“Gold member…” I mumbled, grinning at the thought.
Jeremy loved our fans. And he’s loved on a good deal of them, too. I used to be like that, but now I was too jaded. Fangirls didn’t do it for me, anymore.
The bus took off as Jeremy reached for a bottle of amber liquid on the table across from us.
“Didn’t find any girls that fit your fancy?” Jeremy asked after taking a long draw on the bottle.
“Rarely do,” I answered, taking the bottle for my own drink.
“Summer said we should do a 3-some. I told her to go fuck herself.”
“You and who?”
“You,” Jeremy’s eyebrows bounced.
I made a disgusted face.
“I’ve seen enough of your dick for a lifetime. Thanks, anyway.”
“Yeah, I know. We’d be gay if we weren’t totally straight.”
I shrugged.
“Maybe I’ll get lucky at the show in Portland. Find a pretty thing to play with.”
“One that isn’t French and a model?”
“I don’t discriminate.”
A single laugh shot out of Jeremy’s mouth.
“3 more drinks and I’ll be peeing my pants at how fucking hilarious you are,” he said sarcastically, waving his fingers and dismissing my last remark.
I stole the bottle from him, downing those last 3 drinks in one go.
“Wake up Sleeping Beauty!” a loud, shrieking voice invaded my eardrums as my bunk curtain flew open.
My oversensitive, bloodshot eyes popped open against burning sun streaming in through the bus windows.
Lunging for Cooper, he shrieked like a bitch and hopped away, hiding over on the other side of the bus.
How did I even end up in my bunk? Last thing I remembered was emptying the bottle of whiskey with Jeremy on the couch.
Fuck it, who cared how I ended up here.
I laid there a minute, gaining the will to get up before swinging my legs down, hopping off my bunk to the narrow walkway through the sleeping area.
“Food!” Gerald called from the front.
I could smell the grease and garlic already.
Fumbling over to the table, I glared at Cooper, popping something that looked like orange chicken into his mouth. Gerald was eating out of a white carton; some kind of noodle dish. Jeremy was curled up around a box of what must have been chow mein, cheap wood chopsticks in hand, a growl on his face as we made eye contact.
The man loved nothing in this world more than chow mein.
My stomach curled in emptiness, the sensation familiar to me after so many years of drinking too much, so I implemented the only cure I knew.
Grabbing one of the chicken pieces, I detoured to the fridge. One glass of orange juice and 3 shots of vodka later, I drank my cure, feeling my nausea and headache easing.
“You making me one of those?” Cooper asked, poking a plastic fork at me.
“After that wake up call, you’re lucky I don’t shove that fucking fork in your eye, Asshole,” I told him in a bland voice.
Cooper giggled and fidgeted like the druggie he was while Gerald and Jeremy laughed.
“Good morning boys!” the bus door swung open with the words, our manager Marcus stepping in. “I’ve got the best news for you!”
We all looked towards our wily manager, curious as to what he had up his sleeve this time.
“Not only have I got a hotel lined up for you until we get back to Seattle, we are booked with Carry Florance in New York for an interview and performance in August!”
Whoops filled the bus from every living being who’d heard the news.
“Making it big time!” Cooper shouted with glee and slapped Marcus on the back.
Gerald grabbed Marcus’s face and planted a loud smacking kiss on his cheek.
“That there’s an English high-five,” he said while Marcus laughed at him.
While still laughing at Gerald, Marcus turned to me and said, “And you, my friend, have a visitor waiting for you in your hotel room.”
A smile crawled its way across my face as realization settled.
“Lola,” I greeted the long body perched comfortably on the couch in my hotel room.
“Did you miss me?” Lola purred in her seductive French timbre.
“You’ve been away too long, and I’ve lost my taste for groupies. What’s a guy to do?”
She gave a low chuckle and tucked her legs under her, making room for me on the couch. I gratefully took it.
“Well I didn’t miss you. But I did need my fill. At the risk of inflating your already massive ego, no one in the business has your magical fingers.”
A corner of my lips quirked up in satisfaction.
“Have you lost your taste for male models then?”
“I never had one. I only use them until I can get back to you.”
I chucked as my eyes wandered the perfection that was Lola.
She was obviously French. Her accent gave that away the moment she opened her pouty mouth. But she modeled for Victoria’s Secret, falsely giving her the title ‘angel’.
Lola had a long, thin face with auburn hair, big icy blue eyes, and full lips, standing at a full six foot in her heels, only a couple inches shorter than I, with long, thin limbs like a typical model. Her tiny waist was accented by full breasts that had seen a surgeon’s blade more than once.
I lifted my arms and she unwound her legs, resting them in my lap. My fingers immediately found the little buckles on her tall, strappy heels, releasing one, and than the other.
Lola groaned with the first pressure of my thumbs against the soft part of her foot.
“Oh GOD. Magic fingers.”
I threw my head back and laughed, glancing over at Lola who had a look of unadulterated pleasure on her face.
“How long are you staying this time?” I asked, my hands moving up her foot and ankle, sliding along her calf.
Lola arched her back with a groan, tossing one leg over my shoulder while muttering, “Long enough.”
I grinned, brushing my lips down the inside of her leg and pushing her mini skirt up over her hips as I eased over her, encasing her body with mine.
That leg of hers stretched forward, leaving me the perfect opening to delve in. The moment my tongue met soft flesh, Lola called the two words I loved to hear above all other, but only when they accompanied each other.
“Oh… Oh Alistair!”
Veronica
“I’m leaving him,” I told my mom. “He deserves to be locked away forever.”
My mom looked at me with a sad, puppy dog expression on her face. She’d loved Eric with all her heart when we were dating. She loved how gentlemanly he was, and she loved how devout he was to God. Of course, these are the things I fell in love with, too. That was why I married him in the first place.
Until he started hitting me, that is. It was not even a week after we’d said our vows to love and cherish each other in front of all our family and friends that he began lifting his hands against me.
“Are you sure there’s no other way?” Mom asked with tears in her eyes.
See, to Mom, divorce was a sin. We make covenants in marriage, and they are to be kept. She believed everything in a marriage can be worked out with enough faith, persistence and sacrifice.
But she’d never had to live with an abusive husband, either.
I looked at her and nodded.
“He will never change, Mom. He lies to me, and he hurts me. I cannot forgive it anymore.”
That was another sin. I needed to forgive. Maybe over time I could forgive him, but never, ever could I forgive him while he continued with such destructive, divisive behavior.
“You’ve tried talking it out? And he still doesn’t understand?” she asked again.
Understand? Oh, he understood JUST fine.
“I’ve tried getting him to go to a therapist and he acts like everything in our marriage is MY fault. I can’t fix a relationship on my own, and I can’t let myself keep getting hurt.”
Mom let out a defeated sigh.
“If this is the only way, then I support you, Sweetheart,” she said, covering my clenched fists with her soft, matriarchal hands.
I gave a quick nod and stood from the perch I’d taken on her kitchen island stool.
“Do you need help bringing things here?” Mom asked now, standing as well.
“I can’t stay here. I need to get out of town, get away from Eric so I can heal without him being around. And I need to be out of his reach until this divorce is final.”
Mom cringed at the words, but nodded.
“Then I think you need to call your brother.”
It was my turn to let out a defeated sigh. I did not look forward to telling my brother I failed in my marriage. That I was divorcing, and worst of all, that I needed his help. Being the big sister, it was my job to take care of him. Heaven knew he needed more taking care of than I did, but for now, I had to suck up my pride, say a prayer in my heart, and call.