Under the Cornerstone

by Sasha Marshall

  I’m inside of her now and she loves me. She’s not going to leave me, because she’s strong. So fucking strong, and it took a year and a half for her to work out twenty-seven-years’ worth of pain. Some of that pain I’m responsible for, but I can’t regret it. I never meant to hurt her, but all my mistakes, all the misunderstandings, all the half-spoken truths, brought us here to this moment. She doesn’t give groupies a second look, hell, she treats them with respect. She lives with me every day on the road chasing down this dream that is just as much hers as it is ours. She’s been in my arms every day, and now she’s underneath me because Leo made her realize she was a bad ass bitch who could beat a man to death with a chair. He also made her realize I was her safe place and that she didn’t want me to love anyone else. While I still want to see her filet him with a butter knife, I secretly want to thank him for what he gave us both today.

  Each other.

  “I love you, Noely. I’ve always loved you,” I tell her.

  “And I’ve always loved you. Since the day you washed glue out of my hair,” she pants.

  “Come, baby.”

  I continue to work inside of her, but I’m not sure how much longer I can last. Going bare feels too fucking good.

  “Come inside me,” she begs and then her eyes close as she calls out my name.

  Her pussy clenches around me, pulling every ounce of me from the depths of my balls. I spill inside her as I whisper how much I love her.

  I fall on top of her, but shift some of my weight onto my elbow. I lean down and place kisses all over her face.

  She sighs and gives me a half-smile.

  “You’re not freaking out on me,” I tease her.

  “You want me to?” she lifts a brow.

  “No. I just want to do that again, very soon.”

  “Every day,” she adds.

  “Twice a day,” I reply.

  “But what if I want it more?” she asks.

  “Then I’ll fuck you until you can’t walk,” I say and press a kiss on the tip of her nose.

  “Shit. Then I’ll have to get a leg cast too,” she says and we both burst into laughter.

  “Jenny only does that shit if you fuck her in the ass,” I remind her.

  “I’ll buy a strap-on,” she says causing me to laugh even harder.

  “How much longer are you going to let Jimmy play his fake broken leg game?” I ask her.

  “Until the very last moment. I’m having too much fun pushing him around,” she giggles. “I bought some itch powder the other day. I can’t figure out how to get it into his cast without him knowing.”

  I laugh some more and then silence grows between us for a while as we recover.

  “Will you stay with me forever?” I ask.

  “Well… maybe,” she answers.

  “Maybe?” I raise my eyebrows at her.

  “What if you start balding?” she asks.

  “What if you start balding?” I throw back at her.

  “I can wear all sorts of beautiful wigs. You can’t. You might be a rock star, but even you can’t pull off a wig,” she answers.

  “What if you get fat?” I ask her.

  “Then strap my ass to the treadmill,” she replies and once again I’m laughing my ass off.

  “What if your dick stops working?”

  “They make pills for that.”

  “What if those don’t work?”

  “I’ll pay to have a scientist make another pill that works.”

  “Good answer. Then, I guess… yes, I’ll stay with you forever,” she finishes sweetly.

  I look down at her, “Forever?”

  “Yeah, just don’t start balding.”

  “I love you Noe.”

  “I love you.”

  “You motherfuckers still bumping uglies?” Ray shouts from the front of the bus.

  “Nope, but we’re naked as the day we were born,” Noe answers.

  “Great. I’m glad you guys waited on me. I’ll take over from here, Rome.”

  “Where’s that butter knife?” I ask her and she falls into a fit of laughter.

  I woke up in the middle of the night and immediately knew I was alone, so I slid out of my bunk and went in search of Noe. I find her in the living area watching television, but she doesn’t really look like she’s paying attention. There’s a faraway look in her eye.

  “Noe, baby,” I call out to her.

  She brings her eyes to me and comes back to the present with a small smile on her lips.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” I ask.

  “Woke up, couldn’t go back to sleep,” she answers.

  I pick her up and sit where she is, and then place her in my lap.

  “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “Under the cornerstone,” she says with a confused look on her face. “You said it the day you left Brooklyn for the tour.

  I kiss her shoulder and tuck my face into her neck, so I can hide how pathetic I am when it comes to her, “I buried my love for you a long time ago, Noe. I didn’t think I would ever be the right man for you. For me there was always this intersection between a lifelong friendship and how I really felt about you. I stood at that intersection for a long fucking time, not sure which way to turn. I was buried under the cornerstone, waiting for… I don’t know what I was waiting on, but I was. I stopped standing in that intersection the night you didn’t show up for our going away party. I didn’t mean for it to happen, I didn’t mean for the fucking brick in the cornerstone to crack when it did, but it happened. Even after everything we’ve been through, I can’t be sorry it happened the way it did. We’re both here now, and there’s no intersection.”

  Í hear her sniffle and try to pull my head from her neck so I can see her face, but her hand comes to the back of my head and holds me in place.

  “Noe, don’t cry, baby.”

  “They’re happy tears, Johnny love. I stood at that intersection for a long time too, but I think we both needed to go through all of that shit to be who we are now. We needed the brick in the cornerstone to crack and for our love to drift in the wind so we could be who we are now with each other. I wasn’t the woman for you until now,” she says.

  “You’ve always been the woman for me.”

  “No, but I am now though,” she replies.

  “I fell in love with you in high school,” I confess.

  “I fell in love with you when you threw a bottle of glue in that bitch’s hair,” she chuckles.

  “I love you, Noe. I love you so fucking much.”

  “I love you too, Johnny. Take me back to bed.”

  Epilogue

  Two hours later

  “That should do it,” Noe says and takes a step back to look at her handiwork.

  Flashes from cell phones go off all around us.

  Then we walk off, leaving Leo’s naked ass tied to a telephone pole. Noely made sure she had her release of contract, and then she officially became the Queen of Blood Feather. Then a whole gang of rock stars helped her enact her revenge on him.

  They stripped him naked, and I have to admit I flinched when I saw his dick was blue and swollen. It looked painful. Noe drew a Hitler mustache on him and then Jimmy drew a bunch of cocks on his face. We tied him to a telephone pole across from a police precinct with an extremely large sign attached to him with the message “I’m a rapist with a little dick. Please refer to the small penis under the sign”.

  Then I took my girl to an all-night diner and had bacon and pancakes. She collapsed beside me in my bunk that night. I kissed her and closed my eyes thanking Leo one last time for being an epic douche bag.

  One Week Later

  “Fuck! Help!” Jimmy yells. “Make it stop! Oh God, make it stop!” he sounds like he’s on the verge of tears.

  Noely finally came up with a plan to get itching powder in Jimmy’s cast. He got pissed drunk last night and fell asleep sitting up. It didn’t take much to get the pow
der into the cast. He was out for the count.

  I look over at Noely in my bunk as her body shakes silently with laughter.

  “I’m dying!” Jimmy screams. “They’re crawling all over me! Help! Help me! God, please help me!”

  She buries her face in my neck as her laughter becomes vocal, and I open the curtain to see Ryan laughing silently in his bunk. I look down and find Rich in the same state.

  “How long does it take to wear off?” Rich can barely manage to speak.

  Noely shrugs, “It didn’t say. Maybe it lasts longer for fake broken legs.”

  “Where’s everybody?!! Help me!” he continues to scream from the front of the bus. “It’s all over me! Fuck me! Somebody please kill me! It itches! It’s fucking itchy! Make it stop! Please God! I’ll be nicer to women,” he begins to beg the big man upstairs. “I’ll stop fucking Jenny in the ass. I’ll even stop watching so much porn. I’ll be better. Pleeeeeaaaaassssssseeeee!!!!!!!!!!!”

  “Maybe we should give him his leg scratcher,” Ryan laughs.

  “You are too merciful,” Noely responds.

  She throws her leg over me, straddles my morning wood for half a second, and then she leaves the bunk.

  “Jimmy, what’s wrong?” she fakes concern for his fake broken leg.

  “It’s on fire! It’s burning!” he screams in agony.

  I crawl out and adjust my junk before I follow her to watch the show.

  “It’s not on fire!” she yells at him.

  “It is, Noe. There are fire ants in my cast.”

  I walk in to see her hand him his leg scratcher.

  He falls off the couch as he twists and turns to move the scratching stick around the cast.

  “Oh god, yes. Right there. Fuck me baby. Oh, that feels good,” Jimmy says as he contorts on the floor.

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was having a seizure.

  “Who did you sleep with last night?” Noely asks him.

  “Nobody! I was a good boy!” he yells his answers to her… and maybe God.

  “Maybe you got crabs in your cast,” she fucks with him and I spit my drink out.

  Ryan and Rich join us in the crowded area to watch Jimmy act like an epileptic.

  “Sweet Jesus, don’t let it be crabs,” Jimmy calls out.

  “How do you get rid of crabs?” Rich asks.

  “I always heard you had to set them on fire and stab them with an ice pick,” Noely answers.

  I can barely hold it together. Thank fuck, Jim’s not paying us any attention.

  “What?” he stops writhing around and asks her.

  “Are you sure it isn’t crabs, Jim?” she asks him with a concerned look.

  He looks at her too long for him to even attempt to say the word “no”.

  “Maybe we should take you to a clinic and get you tested,” Rich chimes in.

  Ryan wades in the drama, “They don’t have enough penicillin in one location for that motherfucker.”

  “I don’t have stank dick!” Jimmy yells and starts to writhe around again.

  Sweat beads on his face and starts to trickle down as he moves around so quickly.

  “You got stank leg?” Rich asks.

  “Fuck you!” Jimmy yells.

  Three Days Later

  I watch Noely wheel Jimmy to the bus and lock the wheels. He requested a wheelchair when the “crabs” made him reinjure his fake broken leg. Noely quickly jumped on the idea, so I knew it was bound to happen. We just finished eating at a restaurant, and Noely kept ordering us shots. So we’re being loud as fuck. We enter the bus, and Noely signals the bus driver to our next destination.

  After an hour, I look around and realize Jimmy is missing.

  “Noe?” I shoot her a curious expression.

  “Hmm?” she answers a little too sweetly and then bats her eyelashes at me.

  “Where’s Jimmy?”

  “Oh damn. I must’ve left him in the parking lot at the restaurant. Oops,” she says, flutters her eyelashes, and covers her mouth.

  Fuck, I love her.

  “He’s going to be pissed,” Ryan says.

  “I know,” Noe says with a big ass smile on her face. “I’ll play nurse and he’ll be all better.”

  “Where are we?” I ask her.

  “We’ve been driving in a circle for an hour,” she answers.

  We all fall out laughing.

  The bus driver pulls up to the restaurant and Noely dashes from the bus to fuss over Jimmy.

  “Oh my God, Jimmy. We’ve been looking for you everywhere!” she says.

  “I’ve been here a fucking hour!” he yells at her.

  Normally, I would intervene, but he brought this on himself.

  “Why didn’t you call us?” she asks. “We all thought you were in your bunk asleep. I came to check on you and you weren’t there.”

  Damn, she’s a good actress. Have I mentioned how much I love her?

  “Well, it appears my battery fell right out of my motherfucking phone,” Jimmy answers.

  “What?” Ryan asks.

  Well, I know who helped her.

  “Yes. Apparently the thing just flew right off on its own. Craziest fucking thing,” Jimmy replies.

  “Let me see it,” Ryan asks and puts his hand out for the phone.

  Jimmy slams it into his palm, and Ryan inspects it.

  “That’s weird,” Ryan replies. “When was the last time you used it?”

  “Before I went to sleep on the bus. You are the one who woke me up,” Jimmy raises his eyebrows at Ryan in suspicion.

  “What are you trying to say?” Ryan fakes anger.

  “You take my battery out, fucker?”

  “Why would I do that? Is that penicillin fucking with your head?”

  “I didn’t have any STD’s! I showed you the paper! I had an allergic reaction!” Jimmy yells.

  “Then why do you think I’d take your fucking battery out?” Ryan asks.

  “I don’t know. Why would you leave me in this parking lot… in the back of the darkest part of the parking lot, for a fucking hour?!!” he yells.

  “Oh, Jimmy, I didn’t know you were afraid of the dark,” Noe looks at him with her big blue eyes.

  “I’m not afraid of the dark,” Jimmy protests while his jaw flexes.

  I finally intervene, “Let’s get you on the bus big guy. We were all pretty drunk. We’re sorry we left you.”

  I help him out of the wheelchair and onto the bus, while the other three remain outside losing their shit the minute he was inside.

  Two Days Later

  I’ve always heard the expression, “It’s like watching a train wreck. You just can’t look away.” I now know what that expression means. You see, I know it’s going to happen. I know it's going to be bad, but I can’t stop watching.

  Jimmy has an intense dislike for clowns. Since we were kids and Ryan forced us to watch Stephen King’s “It”, Jimmy has been fucking terrified of clowns. He’ll avoid them at all costs. The only problem with today’s prank is Jimmy can’t avoid it. He can’t run away and he can’t scream for help.

  So, Noely went the extra mile on this one. She convinced Ray to dress up like a scary clown, and then they set up GoPro’s all over one of the trailers we transport instruments and equipment in.

  Jimmy is still wheeling himself around in a wheelchair for his reinjured fake broken leg, and I watch as he wheels himself across the parking lot to the trailer. I hide around a corner so I can get close enough to the trailer to hear it all go down.

  “No, Jay said it was in that trailer,” Aaron points to the prank trailer.

  “Fuck,” Jimmy says as he turns the wheelchair around and heads for the right one.

  He uses a key to unlock the door and then opens it up. It’s dark as fuck in the corner of the lot, so he pulls his phone out to use as a light. He stands up from the wheelchair and limps inside on his cast. Rich and Ryan
close the doors and lock them and then I hear Ray use a fucked up, crazy sounding voice.

  “Do you want to play?” he asks and then I see the lights we installed shine through the crevices of the trailer.

  “Fuck me!” Jimmy yells. “Fuck off!”

  “I want to play with you. Will you play with me?”

  “Ah, shit. Fuck this. I give up. I give the fuck up. My leg’s not really broken. Fuck, my leg isn’t really broken!”

  He bangs on the doors and then pushes to get them open. They don’t give, since he’s locked in.

  “You sure look tasty. Lots of meat on your bones, boy,” Ray says in his insane voice.

  “I swear to God, if you touch me, I’m going to break your fucking neck.”

  “You can’t run away, Jimmy,” Ray says.

  “Don’t fucking touch me!” Jimmy screams like he’s being murdered. “Don’t do it! Don’t fucking do it! Don’t touch me!”

  “I bet you have a pretty asshole,” Ray says and we all literally fall on the ground laughing.

  “Stop touching me!” Jimmy cries out.

  “Let him out,” Noe gives her order while tears flow down her cheeks from the laughter.

  Rich unlocks the doors and Jimmy pushes through them. Ray runs after him with a maniacal laugh crackling through the air.

  “Come here pretty boy,” Ray laughs.

  We’re all laughing and Jimmy knows he’s been pranked, but he can’t stop running from Ray. He tries to get on the bus, but it’s the wrong one and the code won’t work. Ray sneaks up on him and I swear Jim jumps three feet in the air.

  “Get it off!” he screams and runs towards Noely. “Get the cast off, Noe. I lied. I fucking lied to get you on tour. I didn’t really break my leg. Please make him stop. I’m going to have a heart attack and die!!! I’m going to die!!!” he screams.

  Ray falls out in the middle of the lot laughing. He takes the mask off and throws it at Jimmy, who jumps back like it’s on fire.

  “You’re a fucking asshole!” Jimmy tells Ray. “Why would you do that?!!”

  “Because the girl you lied to about your fake broken leg asked him to,” Noe laughs.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll never lie to you again.”