The Last Living Slut

by Roxana Shirazi

  I remembered my mother calling me a whore when she saw my tiny ripped skirts, fishnet tights, and ripped tops. Stung by her words and unable to contain my tears, I began to believe her.

  As I grew older, I transformed myself, within and without. I changed from proper clothes to my shredded outfits in public toilets in the park, where I smoked cigarettes and drank cans of Guinness. I embraced a life in the shadows.

  The thick smell of coffee at Starbucks snapped me back into reality. “Chai latte, please, and a decaf caramel macchiato.”

  On the way back to the hotel, I saw Tommy Stinson shopping with the big-toothed, blond mermaid woman. Then I bumped into Del.

  “I bet you’ve been up all night,” he said in his sweet, uncle-type way. “You kept him up, didn’t ya, you bad girl?”

  “Yes, we’re both tired.” I blushed.

  “See ya tonight, sweetheart.”

  Del was so adorable. I still didn’t know who he was.

  “I need to go shopping for my kids,” Dizzy said when I got back. “Will you come and help me? I have to get Manchester United stuff for them.”

  “Are you sure you want me to come shop for your kids? I don’t want to intrude.”

  “I really like you. It would mean a lot to me if you came.” Dizzy looked at me dead-on. His honesty was so refreshing, so endearing.

  Going shopping in the Arndale Centre mall with someone from Guns N’ Roses was surreal. The place epitomized the unpleasantness of my childhood life in England. It looked exactly the same to me: the same smell, the same hollow lights, the same gurgly echo of kids’ voices and Mancunian accents. We went into a sports shop and started picking out Manchester United shirts for Dizzy’s children.

  “Do you think this would fit a nine-year-old? Would she like it, do you think?” Dizzy was intense. We’d only been together for one night; I didn’t feel I had any authority to shop for his kids with him. But, at the same time, the fact that he would ask me made me feel good about myself.

  As we walked back to the hotel, Dizzy took my hand. It melted into his with trepidation and joy. Then, as we reached the hotel doors, he suddenly stopped and faced me.

  “Why do you like me?” he asked. “I want you to be honest. Why me?”

  “Why me?” I said. “You can have models if you want.”

  I didn’t understand this at all.

  Chapter 43

  Riding on the Guns N’ Roses tour bus felt grand. Dizzy and I sat at the front on the way to the Manchester Evening News Arena. And Del gave me a gold laminate granting me VIP access for the European tour.

  Back at the hotel, we had bumped into Izzy Stradlin outside. He was with the most beautiful and fragrant Frenchwoman and a young girl of about twelve, who I assumed was their daughter. They were traveling in a separate car because Izzy was higher up in the band’s ranking system.

  I wondered how the rest of the band viewed me. I wondered if they were aware of the state of Dizzy’s supposedly open marriage. Each band member seemed to be in a world of his own, like office workers shuffling in quietly to do their day’s work. It all felt very corporate—so different from traveling with other bands, where it felt like one big family.

  When we reached the venue, the bus went through giant metal gates. We parked next to Bullet For My Valentine’s bus, which was a vomit-inducing emo surprise. If they hadn’t shared the same management company as Guns N’ Roses— Sanctuary—they probably would never have gotten the support slot.

  Towers of London was also supporting Guns N’ Roses. It would be weird to see them in these circumstances. Usually I’d be so excited at the thought of seeing my boys—I was as proud as a mother hen to know they were playing such a huge venue—but this time was different: I was with Guns N’ Roses. As we got off the bus, I kept wondering where Axl was and whether I’d meet him tonight.

  After walking down a labyrinthine maze of fluorescent-lit stone corridors that felt like a maximum security penitentiary, we entered a dining area where the catering girls from the previous night ladled out soup and distributed shepherd’s pie, crunchy veggies, and puddings with custardy things. The whole band—minus Axl—sat down for supper.

  Afterward, I followed Dizzy to the dressing room. I felt like I was walking on eggshells, as if at any moment someone would jump out and say, “Hey! This isn’t right. You’re not hot enough. You shouldn’t be here!”

  So I entered the room meekly. A long table with a vast array of fruit, a juice extractor, finger sandwiches, hummus, and other dips awaited the band and its entourage. There was a shower room and a large bathroom. In the corner, Robin Finck, the lead guitarist, was doing leg lunges and yoga stretches in his white long johns, looking like a yeti. Dizzy introduced me to everyone he could. Then he brought out his keyboards and put his headphones on for a warmup before the show. I knew it was time for me to leave, but I didn’t know where to go, so I decided to venture out into the corridors.

  Just as I came out of the dressing room, there he was—Axl Rose, striding briskly toward me like a cougar, surrounded by a wall of security. He was wearing shades and smirking. His face was alabaster white. He was still as beautiful as Dionysus. I felt my body lengthen and bloom like a glowing flower. I smiled seductively, presenting myself to Axl with kittenish fuck-me eyes. He looked me up and down and smiled back. My heart beat super-fast and I was so happy that I was looking hot as fuck.

  I glided on through the corridors, every bend and intersection occupied with security guards poured into elephant-gray uniforms. They were so courteous and gentle with me because I was with Guns N’ Roses. Through those burrows of fluorescent-lit gray stone, I stumbled across the Towers’ dressing room just as the boys were filing out to go onstage. I glanced inside their room, which was pocket-sized and tucked into the back of the venue like a redundant sandwich. My boys. Kissing them one by one on the lips as they scuttled off to play, I felt pride swell in my chest like a mommy watching her children at their first school play.

  “Oi saggy tits, wot u doin’ ’ere?” It was Mad Pete, the glue to the Towers family. The guy looked so bloody grateful and deliriously happy, as he always did when he was with Towers. I had missed him so much.

  “Woz in Glasgow last night. Fackin’ drove back to London and then back ’ere.” He wasn’t called Mad for nothing. “Had to go ’ome for somefin’. Anyway, wot u doin’ ’ere, saggy tits? You’re shagging Axl, aren’t you?”

  “I fucking wish. Actually, I’m here with Dizzy Reed. He’s the keyboardist. He’s really nice, Pete. Not like the rest of them you’ve seen me with. I’ll introduce you later.”

  “C’mon then. Towers are on!” He pulled me along, his giant tattoos of Axl and Sid Vicious entertaining his arms.

  I had to go get Dizzy. I wanted him to see Towers, the boys I had known for so long. Dizzy and I stood sidestage, Dizzy silent and me screaming hoarse to my boys’ songs and jumping up and down like a teenager with Beatlemania.

  Such a huge venue didn’t suit Towers. They were too quirky and Donny’s voice was too weak to fill such a large arena. They thrived in intimate venues.

  At the end of their set, Towers covered “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. “They totally ruined that one,” Dizzy whispered to me disgustedly as we walked back to the Guns N’ Roses dressing room. I felt embarrassed that the band I loved so much had let him down.

  I started massaging his tense shoulders and placing kisses on his head while the rest of the band warmed up, strumming guitars, doing yoga, and eating organic food. Dizzy kept looking up at me like a little lost boy with wide blue eyes. I started to realize that he was getting off on being seen with me. I got the feeling that it actually made him feel more important; even after sixteen years in Guns N’ Roses, many people still looked at Dizzy as just another hired hand, especially since there were two keyboardists in the band. But he didn’t need to feel that way. He was so lovely, so sexy, and such a dispenser of cool.

  Waiting on the sidelines for Guns N’ Roses to come on
that night was one of the happiest moments of my life. The band had been my life since I was a teen. Axl had been my God, and their songs had resonated in my being. Now I was watching them from the wings in a huge arena. And even though it wasn’t the real Guns N’ Roses—with Slash, Duff, and Steven—it was still the music I lived for.

  As I strutted on the edge of the stage in my starched skirt and embroidered corset next to Towers, Mad Pete, Del, and the sound technician, I was thrashed by a sea of thunderous frenzy roaring from thousands of sweaty humans chanting “Guns N’ Roses!” from the dark innards of the arena, steeped in smoke and heat. It was a volcanic yearning so deeply emotional that it resembled mass religious zeal. I felt like this was the top of my mountain. I felt at home. Even Velvet Revolver was dribbing penny change compared to this.

  When Robin Finck trickled the opening bars of “Welcome to the Jungle,” the crowd poured out a soothing sigh of relief. It quenched the festering frustrations kept stacked and stagnant in their lives. Pyro kept going off every ten minutes, and I saw Dizzy pat on some bongos at the top corner of the stage for the opening of the song.

  It was surreal watching the show with Towers. Here I was with a band that I had been everywhere with, sharing girls with, screaming hysterically to their songs; now we were the audience together, excited together, singing together.

  Every Guns N’ Roses song was a little plate of heaven—even though they never played my favorite, “Civil War.” After the final notes of the closing song, “Paradise City,” my body felt arthritic. I went to touch up my makeup in the Towers’ dressing room, which was packed with people like steamed fish in foil.

  “I’m so nervous. What should I do?” I asked The Rev while his girlfriend, a tanned surfer-type, soaked me in embittered looks.

  “You’re gonna be all right, babe. Give Dizzy a few minutes. He’s just come offstage.”

  Just before Towers left, I asked if any of them had any Lynyrd Skynyrd or Stones CDs, because Dizzy didn’t like my Mötley and Velvet Revolver records.

  I treaded like a feather whisper into the Guns N’ Roses dressing room, my cheeks blushed and burning.

  “Hey, where’d ya go?” Dizzy looked up as I came in.

  “I didn’t want to intrude.”

  “Come sit down, honey. Do you want any food?”

  I felt so shy and humble. It was weird being backstage with a band without sex, drugs, and naked girls. This was so proper, like being at my auntie’s house for tea and biscuits.

  I helped myself to some pineapple and sat next to Dizzy.

  “Did you like my piano solo?” He looked at me expectantly.

  “I loved it. And I loved watching the show. It was so exciting.”

  “When I was playing it, Axl kept saying in my earpiece, ‘The guy who wrote that killed himself,’ ” Dizzy said, his eyes widening like an excited fan, as if Axl were his spiritual leader.

  Then Axl walked into the band’s dressing room from his own dominion. “That was fucking great,” he said, hyped up and excited, just like a normal human.

  While he raved on to Tommy and Dizzy about the show, I sat there looking at them all like a nerd. I had to be normal even though I wanted to look at Axl’s face with awe, kiss him, and tell him how many teenage orgasms he had given me.

  “Last night I was in the lobby of the hotel and I saw these two girls,” Axl said, smiling with relish. “We started talking and I took them to my room.” He said this like a normal man, even though he wasn’t normal; he was a god. I was surprised he seemed so proud of such an accomplishment.

  I was nervous and just wanted to cuddle Dizzy and so we decided to head back to the hotel. First, though, we stopped by Del’s room, where we started making out as Del played Lou Reed on the stereo and watched us.

  “Are your friends hot?” Del asked me as Dizzy kissed my neck.

  “Yeah, they’re coming to the Birmingham show on Tuesday,” I said. “They’re all really into Axl and Sebastian.” Sebastian Bach of Skid Row was slated to join the band on the road in Birmingham.

  “Does Axl have a girlfriend?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t being too obvious.

  “Axl has a lot of girlfriends,” Del smirked. I felt crushed; I wanted Axl to be a one-woman man.

  As Dizzy kissed me and fondled my bare thighs with Del looking on, I suddenly felt strange as if I were sirloin steak dripping in sauce, a spectacle for these two men’s amusement. Dizzy looked so smug in front of Del, as if he were showing off to him. His usual wide-eyed, frozen look had morphed into a blazingly dirty sexual one.

  Back in his room, the lights were low and I bounced on the bed like a kid. Then I spread my legs and made Dizzy watch me. He looked at me more hungrily than he had the previous night, his eyes fiery like a silent predator’s. I could tell he was less stilted than the night before. He had a raw, yearning, almost animal energy about him that was crazy. He held me down and climbed onto my body like a sheet of love falling all over me.

  “I wanna come inside you again,” he kept saying as he fucked me, his eyes carnivorous.

  I leaned back, legs up, back arched. And we locked eyes like two rabid animals. He came in me hard, and the sperm ran down my leg when I stood up.

  “Have you even been with any of the guys from Towers of London?” he asked in a snap.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Four of them.”

  “That’s hot,” Dizzy said. “They are good-looking guys.”

  “Why do you keep asking who I’ve slept with?” I asked. “You fuck a lot of women yourself.”

  “I can’t imagine you ever feeling jealousy,” he said. “You don’t seem like you’d ever be jealous of who I fuck.”

  “I’m the most romantic person ever. I’ve just had bad experiences. I know the game now. It’s just fun and sex and it’s all good,” I said happily as I cleaned up my thighs.

  “Why don’t you just settle down with someone?”

  “Because musicians are no good,” I laughed. “No offense.”

  “So you’re not gonna be with someone just because he’s in a band?”

  “Just for fun and that’s it,” I said.

  “That’s great,” he sighed.

  “What?”

  “Please don’t freak out, but I have to tell you something,” he said quietly. “I really like you.”

  Inside, I was laughing. I never took anything a musician told me seriously. I saw it all as fun and fluff because they lived in a make-believe world; only the music was real, not the offstage theatricality of its performers. And if I let my exposed heart’s fibers get intertwined with theirs, the pain would surely impale me. I knew enough not to take that kind of talk seriously. My heart couldn’t afford it. I didn’t want to get hurt again. This had to be sex and nothing more; that was the only way to preserve my heart.

  So I asked him to do water sports with me to steer him away—away from entering the emotional pool. It was the only way I could turn this thing around.

  I took him to the bathroom and put down some white towels. I knelt on the floor and told him to do it. Dizzy looked at me skeptically, with trepidation. He said he’d never done water sports. So he looked at me and I at him. I prayed that he would do it so I could make him forget about that stupid emotional “liking me” bullshit.

  I couldn’t understand why he would be so caring. I still didn’t know why he wasn’t like other musicians. In bed, he held me and talked to me and I told him more about my childhood and my father. When I woke from a bad dream in the middle of the night, he rubbed my back and held me tight.

  “It’s okay, baby, I’m here,” he said, cuddling and kissing me. I wanted so hard to believe that this caring, needy persona was just an act, but it was the most comforting seduction in the world. It made me feel safe.

  In the morning, Dizzy ordered eggs Benedict and told me some girl was planning to come see him in Birmingham the next day.

  “I’m gonna tell her not to come,” he said.

  “Why not?” I asked as I go
bbled up buttered toast.

  “Because I just want to see you.” He looked embarrassed.

  “Really?” I was surprised. I assumed he’d be looking forward to getting a different variety of pussy.

  “I’m gonna call her now and tell her not to come. She’s driving from London.” He got his phone. I thought it was a bit drastic.

  “If the poor girl has already made plans to see you, don’t be mean. Let her come, and I’ll just make plans to see you another day.” I actually felt bad for the girl.

  “I don’t want her to come. I told you I really like you,” he said as he texted her ferociously.

  I didn’t say anything. I just sat there and ate my breakfast, still wondering why he was so nice. There had to be something wrong with him.

  Then Dizzy looked up at me. “Just say it,” he said angrily. “Just say you’re not into me!”

  He picked up his plate and threw it on the bed. The runny eggs rolled and splattered on the white cover.

  I was a bit scared, but I loved his intensity, which matched my own temperament. To me, it was passion and creativity, a rush of ferocious, romantic feeling for me.

  “I’m not saying that,” I said. “I do like you. I just feel bad for the girl.”

  “Fuck!” he shouted, livid. I wasn’t sure if that was because he really liked me and felt conflicted, or because he hadn’t taken his medication.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just fuckin’ tell me you don’t like me. It’s fine.” He paced across the room.

  I immediately rushed to comfort him, to calm him down and reassure him that I did like him.

  “You have to eat,” I told him. “You need it.”

  “I don’t feel like eatin’ now.” Dizzy looked so hurt. I felt like a witch.