“I’m shy,” I said, grabbing Lori and running out in search of the rockers.
There were a lot of corridors and little rooms back there, all lit up with rows and rows of fluorescent lights, as if there should be no dark corners in which to do dark deeds. Instead, everything should be done in the open fields of this landscape, on these phlegm-soiled carpets under the eyes of surgical lights. We opened door after door until we found a tiny room where InMe was hanging out with photographers and friends. They were so vanilla and milky that I wanted to clap my hands in approval like an auntie after a school play. And then I saw the Bullet For My Valentine boys, all Welsh attitude and emo hair.
I didn’t even know his name, the singer. But he was very pretty. I walked straight up and kissed him as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I felt like a teenage fan.
“I’m Matt,” he said with those adorable lips, which made me kiss him again. While we were talking about Wales, a wild-eyed cavewoman marched up to me screaming obscenities. She grabbed my hair, pulling me toward the door.
“I don’t want any groupie sluts near my band. FUCK. OFF.”
Shocked by the pain of having my hair pulled, I held back tears. “I have hair extensions,” I mumbled. “They’re new.” I couldn’t understand her demonic rage.
“I’m the band’s manager. And I’m Matt’s girlfriend,” she hissed in my ear. “Get the fuck out of here.”
I managed to squirm away and cowered in the corner as if in detention. A few minutes later, Cavewoman, with her Lego haircut and butch clothing, bounced down the corridor as I drifted back to the boys. This time I kissed another boy, Padge. We were talking about threesomes when I felt my hair being yanked again—this time with such force that I let out a guttural scream. She was back.
“I thought I told you to leave my band alone. Fuck off!” Then she grabbed Lori by the hair with the other hand, holding us like two plots of grass. As everyone tried to scrape her off us, I leaned forward to bite her ear. Unfortunately, they managed to pull us apart before I could reach her, and Lori and I were ushered into another room. We could still hear her screaming. “I want those bitches out of here.”
So I decided to go out there and head-butt her.
“Please,” one of the roadies begged me, “she’s one of the most powerful women in London. Don’t mess with her.”
I pushed past the roadie to look for the bitch. It took half a dozen roadies to staple me to the ground: a few of them fatty, a few muscular. Men are so strong, and I’ve never had the strength to overcome that power when they hit me.
“Just wait here,” they said as they left Lori and me.
Then I heard a voice with an American accent ask, “So did they kick her out?” We turned around to see two biker-type guys I recognized from that awful band Poison the Well kicking back on lounge chairs, swigging beer and smirking at us. Their arms were thick and heavily tattooed, and they wore leather trousers. I got hard just looking at them.
“I’m Derek. I like your tits,” the shorter one introduced himself, looking at my chest, which was packed in and displayed from behind four horizontal spaghetti straps.
“Thanks,” I said. “I like your American-ness.”
“These tits are real. You should feel them. They feel so fucking good,” Lori purred from behind me.
Derek opened the door and shouted into the hall to the lead guitarist. “Hey, Ryan, you gotta come and see these tits!” Ryan appeared and immediately announced that he was into auto-erotic asphyxiation.
I took off my top to let my tits swing free and Derek took us out to the bar to do tequila shots and down triple vodkas. After all I’d consumed that night, by my fifth shot, I felt as if my lips had disappeared.
“We’re staying at the Columbia Hotel—wanna come?” Derek said, kissing us both. He took the lead, and gave us sexual compliments, which was such a fucking change from the emotionally constipated Englishmen we were used to dealing with. He took each of us on an arm and began to march us toward the exit doors. Before leaving the building, I frantically asked around for a pen. Eventually, some girl found a Magic Marker. On my right arm, in big letters, I wrote:
GROUPIE.
Chapter 26
The Columbia Hotel’s squiggly staircase reminded me of an old-fashioned carousel, fragile and thin like English biscuits.
“Give us a minute and then come up. Ryan and I are in Room 316.” Derek handed me a room key and got in the lift.
“If we do girl-on-girl, I need to shower first,” Lori said, panicking a little.
We got in the lift five minutes later. I plonked myself down on the floor, took off my black stilettos, and rolled on a pair of deep lace-top stockings. No matter how drunk I was, I always put on sexy lingerie when I knew I was going to have a wild ride.
We stumbled into the room and saw Ryan playing guitar while Eric scribbled lyrics. I threw my stuff down on the bed and straddled Ryan, the neck of his guitar pushing into the fleshy overspill of my exposed-stocking thigh.
“Are you gonna fuck me?” I whispered in his ear. He looked up and pushed the hair out of my face. Putting his instrument down, he began to gently stroke my ass.
I moved away and went for Lori, who had stripped down to her French-cut purple lace panties and matching bra and spread herself like dairy butter on the bed. She was so young, tender like lamb.
“You have a Miami ass,” Derek said, pointing to Lori, “and you”—pointing to me—“have porn star tits.”
“Thank you!” I grinned and started peeling off my clothes while sucking on Lori’s mouth. I licked her navel and bit her little tummy. Kissing her marble-white inner thighs, I made my way toward her flower. Derek immediately took position behind me, rubbing his crotch against my ass. The stiffness of the bulging denim pressed against me.
I kept eating Lori, even though we hadn’t showered.
“I wanna see you girls sixty-nine,” Ryan said from the corner of the room as he continued playing guitar.
Lori tasted peachy as always. I hoped I tasted of strawberries and cream and Chanel No. 5, not of fish fingers or feta cheese.
“I can only watch because I have a girlfriend,” Ryan said quietly. I had a feeling he’d be like that. He had a certain Amish quality about him.
“But I need to look into your eyes while you’re being fucked,” he continued, like a scientist. He positioned himself in front of my face so he could study it as I got fucked from behind.
Ryan sighed in quiet happiness as he explained his strangling fetish. I had a feeling his hang-ups stemmed from a Bible-belt mentality, which gave his eyes a quiet, psychopathic look. “I gotta suffocate myself so I can cum,” he said. “I use one hand to jerk off and with the other I choke my throat.”
“Right on, man!” I laughed as he scurried off to the toilet. This seemed to be a significant moment for him, which we had to respect. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but when he returned a few minutes later, his face was purple and his eyes bulged. He couldn’t breathe well, so I wondered if he’d finally been able to shoot his load.
It was about eight in the morning by the time Derek, Lori, and I stopped fucking. I was a bit sore as I put on my clothes. The band had to leave and check out of the hotel. The staircase spun before me like candy floss as I walked down. I couldn’t sleep for days because of the fairy-tale adrenaline rush I was on.
Chapter 27
Roadies. I Lost My Head. In Their Laps.
Lori and I stuck to each other like glue. Rock bands became our talk, food, and song. I think we were both on a quest to find love and reassurance. I worked like a donkey at my belly-dancing job to make money to travel to gigs. And at the shows, I danced and kissed like I was Cinderella at the ball. Then Velvet Revolver came to London in January. And I became the village idiot.
I loved their songs. I was there for the music, not to get laid. Slash had never been my type, and Scott Weiland looked to me like an anorexic gay junkie who gyrated his hips better than
I ever could. Only Duff was remotely interesting to me. He was much more “fuck-me” looking now than in his Guns N’ Roses days, when he was essentially a subservient drunk. It was still winter, and I didn’t want to put any clothes on, so I decided to see every Velvet Revolver show in London that January.
The line outside the Hammersmith Apollo stretched down the street. Scores of little boys in Guns N’ Roses T-shirts waited with their dads, who were in leather jackets and middle-aged euphoria. Fat couples in denim with frizzy mops of hair stood side by side, dutiful and obedient. I was in a crushed velvet corset and a skirt of flimsy tussore. The freezing wind slapped my bare skin. I looked around for groupie-type girls and didn’t see any.
Lori and I stood at the front of the line for what seemed like hours before the doors opened. Unknown faces in flannel hoodies handed out flyers for Adler’s Appetite, former Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler’s new band.
The support bands were crap, and I was bored but determined to maintain my stilettoed position behind the barrier, even though I was getting crushed by the heaving crowd and drenched by kids throwing beer. Velvet Revolver blew me away. I lost my voice screaming along with every song.
Someone in the crowd behind me untied my corset and it fell off. That was when the roadies noticed me. “Here’s a pass. Come to the aftershow party.”‘ A big bulldog of a guy, who said his name was Anthony, pressed stickers into Lori’s hand and mine. They said, “Guest Pass.”
In the gutted pit of the mauve-rinsed toilets, we looked into the cracked mirrors. The clunky white sinks hosted squelched toilet paper and broken plastic cups. A group of girls, in blurred lipstick and razored fishnet tights worn under knee-high black leather boots, compared levels of drunkenness and gossiped about the band.
“Slash has definitely got his wife with him,” said one with purple hair extensions.
“Yeah, but she’s really fat—very trailer trash,” said a stick-skinny girl in a baby-doll nightie as she smeared on gloops of lipstick. “Slash is totally pussy-whipped.”
“All their wives are here,” a voice from the toilet shouted. “Matt Sorum’s girlfriend is really young. Did you see her? She’s that little blonde with the short fringe who was standing sidestage. She’s really pretty.”
“How are we gonna get near them then? Fuck!” screamed another, sitting on the wet floor with a plastic beer cup looking genuinely bewildered.
I remember noticing, as I walked out the door, how hard their faces all looked—broken, with a desperate, defeated look in their eyes. They wore far too much makeup, trying to prop up their slouched features. I felt happy I wasn’t like them.
Upstairs at the party, I was quickly surrounded by roadies. The bulldog, Anthony, turned out to be the tour manager or something. Carl, another roadie, looked like Robert Redford. Various camera and guitar-tech guys, tired and haggard, sniffed around me like I was birthday cake. I got a bit scared.
Anthony darted over to me in a shot. “Do you wanna come upstairs to the dressing rooms?” he asked. I looked over at Lori, who was wasted, leaning back in the midst of all the crew guys. One of the guys, named Tom, was pulling her up by the arms as she giggled, falling back to collect her belongings.
“C’mon, it’ll be fun.” Anthony put his arm around my waist. He reminded me of a truck driver, and I felt a bit disgusted, but I still followed him. Lori and Tom trailed behind.
The four of us walked into a catacomb of narrow corridors and up tiny stone steps to the very top of the venue, where empty, compact rooms with lightbulbed mirrors were parceled into hidden corners. It seemed like a forbidden tower, desolate and out of reach to anyone else. Even in my cloudy state, I wasn’t surprised that no one else was around. I knew what Anthony and Tom wanted from us in those tiny silent rooms. They switched off the lights, and Lori and I knelt down, as if in prayer, and did what we did in pitch blackness.
I was in full sleaze mode that night, so when we went back to the crew’s hotel in Kensington I was delighted to find a party going on in one of the rooms, with beautiful girls sprawled across deep cushions and guys lounging with guitars and beer. Someone put some Mötorhead on full blast and Lori started to tongue a girl who looked like Demi Moore. “You’re so beautiful,” these model-type girls kept whispering above us—seducing us with a candy swirl of compliments until we were drunk with feathery sighs and kisses. As random people ran in and out of neighboring rooms, half naked and drunk, Anthony pulled me aside and poured thick, brown liquor down my throat.
“Can you come outside with me?” he said. “I wanna talk to you.”
Once we were in the corridor, he looked at me hard. I got worried.
“You know the guy who was doing the sound stuff tonight?” he whispered.
“Yeah, what about him?”
“Look, he’s an old guy. He’s tired and he hasn’t gotten laid in months. Please.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Anthony knelt down in front of me, hands clasped, begging. “Go see him.”
Roadies. I lost my head in their laps. They were waiting for me at the hotel bar. By morning my jaw ached and my lips were swollen. And I hadn’t even gotten laid.
Chapter 28
I got so bored after the Velvet Revolver experience—not just because of the comedown from the Tony Montana portions of white powder, but because the whole experience felt less like reckless, sleazy rock debauchery than like a corporate event. Lori and I were craving another high. So we said, “Fuck it, let’s go see Steven Adler’s band.” They were playing Guns N’ Roses songs at Camden Underworld a few nights later.
The club was packed with bandana-wearing long hairs, flailing and swinging their arms as if anticipating salvation. Two goth girls I’d seen stageside at Velvet Revolver stood patient as snakes, peeping at Steven onstage. So many people who had been in the mosh pit at Velvet Revolver were here, too, ramming their young bull horns forward to the very front.
“Steven Adler, man, he’s a fuckin’ legend,” said a boy with a fluffy beard. Two other excited grinning boys, one with a big mane of blond hair like Adler’s, were doing donkey drop-kicks with merriment.
We bored our way to the lip of the stage, where we stood firmly, compressed from all sides and baptized with beer, as we watched Adler’s skintight–trousered singer, Jizzy Pearl, shriek my favorite songs. The guitarist, Keri Kelli, was the sexiest in the band, but small-boned. And the bassist, Robbie Crane, was cute and raven-haired, but kind of big-boned.
Steven reminded me of a cross between a California surfer dude and a Labrador puppy, with his wild blond mane and constant cheery enthusiasm. Lori and I slid our hands between Kelli’s leather-clad legs to make him desire us. “You’re so beautiful,” Steven mouthed from behind his drums.
Our crotch-stroking was successful. When the band came out to sign merchandise on a table next to the bar after the gig, a voice whispered in my ear: “We’re staying at the Holiday Inn in Camden. My room number is 210.”
I started hurling chunks as soon as we got to the band’s hotel—especially when I saw the two buck-toothed, cross-eyed chicks Jizzy had brought back. There was a shaggy-permed German biker chick of hefty proportions who’d been following the band all over Europe. She was swigging from beer cans enthusiastically, so delirious to be there. There was a short, silent Swedish girl who followed Steven around like a bulldozer. She wouldn’t even look at anyone else in the hotel room. Instead, she just stood quietly next to Steven as he ordered everyone around like a toddler tyrant. I had to look up to Steven: He’d been part of a legendary record, Appetite for Destruction, by a band whose lyrical and musical weight I really respected. But he had a weird, whiny voice, and talked out of the side of his mouth, lopsided due to a drug-related stroke. I soon passed out, as Lori gnawed away at Jizzy’s cock.
The next night, I stashed a fat baggie of coke in my blood-red silk purse, along with condoms, makeup, and mints, and headed out to meet the band at the Hard Rock Café. The place was jammed wi
th Euro-tourist teenage types eating hamburgers with joy in their hearts as they sat worshipping huge posters of Jimi Hendrix. Steven was serene at the center of the action. He sat glowing like an angelic little child, smiling sweetly and bouncing his blond waves around his face.
I was bored, so I stood up to do an erotic dance for the whole place when Robbie and Keri came over.
“Man, she’s loaded!” Keri said to Lori.
They decided it would be better for my general disposition if I packed more drugs up my nose to cancel out the drunkenness. I followed the guys’ orders and staggered to the bathroom for medicinal purposes. My gums and throat went numb. It felt like there were too many teeth in my mouth, which was bitter and dry. But I was turned on and fucking happy. Minutes after the first escalating rush to my head, the fuck-me-hard passion followed and ignited. I wanted to fuck now, like an endangered species moments from extinction. I hurtled out of the bathroom, with what I was sure were red flames flaring out of my nostrils, and headed straight for Keri Kelli, poor little skinny guy.
“So are you gonna just flirt with me or are you gonna actually fuck the shit out of me?” I hissed in his ear.
He looked scared. In fact, I’m sure he was shaking. I just wanted him to do me right there—to hold my head down and feed me his cock in every hole. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Umm . . . yeah, I will. Later.”
What a fucking wuss.
A few days later, Lori and I were at the Bristol show when we saw the silent Swede slink out like a vole from a back lair. Jizzy was pissed off that night, but then Jizzy was always pissed off. His face always looked angry. That was the night I met Ostara. She had a cherubic face, child-like and devoid of makeup, with naturally golden ringlets tumbling around her face. She was dressed starkly plain for a groupie, and I wondered why. But then she explained: the dorky, homely look was part of her game plan.
The Last Living Slut Page 9
