by Lexxi Chase
The audience roared. Of course they’d heard. Of course they’d followed the updates on CNN and flooded blogs, chat rooms and Steel Demon fan forums worldwide.
Jake smirked knowingly, bitterly, intently scanning the crowd with avid, restless eyes. He turned from them and began diligently pacing, weaving around stage front monitors with the skill befitting a veteran rock warrior. Confidant, belligerent and full of ego and brimming pride. His heart was racing, thudding so loudly in his chest he could’ve sworn the crowd could hear it but he continued on. Past the sudden, surprising lump in his throat, past the hovering confusion and paralyzing, searing pain.
“Fortunately,” he paused on the right side of the stage, seductively leaning forward and deftly planting his spurred and studded black leather boot on top of a monitor, “she survived.”
The crowd screamed.
“I say fortunately ‘cause,” he violently raked his sweat-moistened hair from his face and storming eyes, “that scheming lowlife bitch ain’t allowed to die unless I’m the one that fuckin’ kills her!”
The arena erupted with shouts and assents as his fans went wild.
Jake resumed pacing, his long, silky hair flowing sensuously behind him, deliciously over his strong shoulders and down his tanned, muscular back. Tonight’s opening outfit was especially decadent, remarkably revealing, in honor of rocking Sin City, the raucous crowd and sold out show this evening. Perfectly filling out his tattered skintight studded black leather pants and netted muscle shirt that hung from him in strategic strands, Jake was an unrivaled rock god, the venerated envy of every guy in the audience and every single girl’s salacious wet dream. And he knew it.
“Can’t say the cunt didn’t deserve it or have it comin’,” he gloated, pausing for a second, steadying his voice and emotions before rasping, “Karma’s a bitch.”
He reached front center stage and stopped for a moment, scanning his rumbling audience closely. The devoted and smiling faces, arms raised towards him in adulation and acclaim. The sea of his adoring, extolling disciples, watching him intently with stifled, bated breath. Reveling in and hanging on his every motion, every nuance and hallowed word.
He breathed deeply, closed and opened his eyes slowly and continued, “Ya see, there’s forces out there way more powerful and more important than any of us.”
The crowd noise heightened and he gestured reverently for them to be quiet. Continued when near silence reigned.
“These universal forces,” he explained, “got an intrinsic way of settin’ things straight, puttin’ things right.”
Then, at a momentary loss for words and how to continue, he forlornly bowed his head. Keenly aware of the sizzling energy of the restless audience before him, of the blazing heat and glare of the spotlights trained on him from above. Head down, arms hanging rigidly at his sides, he was a vulnerable, injured messiah, the epochal apostle of many, the divine prophet of literally countless others, and the vanguard and harbinger of his entourage and band.
Duly re-energized, he backed up slowly, head still hung downwards, and ran his fingers smoothly through his bangs and lustrous hair. How the fuck do I do this, he pondered indecisively. How the hell can I do this best?
His mind raced in disparaging circles, images of Amanda gasping, sweating, suspended by his silver-studded black belt, her arms strung savagely above her head. Wade, so ridiculously feigning authority and composure, unwillingly facing the carnivorous paparazzi before he ran. And Zack in the dressing room so contrite and submissive and worried about retribution and his own backstabbing, sorry ass.
Time to give the crowd some extra, unanticipated entertainment, he mused. A little more bang for their buck tonight. He slowly raised his head, scanning the audience with burning, haunted eyes.
“Y’all believe in karma?” he screamed.
The arena went wild.
“Yeah,” he snickered, smirking, and turned resolutely to his left.
Shayne had slunk off to the sidelines and stood partially hidden in shadows at the side of the stage.
“Ya believe in karma, Shayne?”
Shayne stepped forward immediately, smiling and nodding his head. A roadie quickly handed him a mic.
“Sure do,” he yelled.
“Billy,” Jake spun and glared at his drummer.
“Always,” Billy screamed.
“Yeah...yeah,” Jake murmured, “Seems we’re all in agreement,” he said.
And stared at the jostling crowd for a few seconds before unexpectedly turning sideways and eyeing the shadows to his right at the side of the stage.
“Let’s all hear from our esteemed road manager, Robert P. Dunning, otherwise known as Tank.”
Startled, Tank just about dropped the beer he was sipping. Momentarily paralyzed like a deer in headlights as the spotlight embellished him, he quickly composed himself.
Gesturing thumbs up, “Sure Jake, I believe in karma,” he yelled.
“Hmmm...” Jake mumbled and resumed pacing.
Don’t like where this is headed, Tank thought, and by the looks on Billy and Shayne’s faces, it was apparent they were thinking that too. Eyeing Zack, Tank saw he’d slunk morosely into the darkness a few feet to his left. Momentarily locking eyes with Billy, Tank felt as helpless as Jake’s band, and along with them, he dreaded what was to come. But there was not a thing any of them could do about it. Except watch and listen nervously. And incapably witness perhaps the most profound meltdown ever to overpower Jake.
Ignoring the deepening corrosive ache boiling deep within his stomach, and the continued thudding and jumping of his heart, Jake stopped walking when he reached center stage and surveyed his grappling audience once again. The driven, excited and impelled faces. Unsure where this was going but nonetheless relishing Jake’s topic of interest tonight.
The spotlights transfixed blue, then red, as Jake focused keenly on the surging crowd and raised his mic to his lips once again.
“Ya look a little confused,” he said, laughing, then feigning forgetfulness, “Oh, what’s the matter? Did I forget to ask someone the magic question tonight?”
A few assents and howls resonated across the arena and to those watching closely, to the spectators in the first few of the floor’s standing room only rows, the rage and incredulity behind Jake’s laughter were clearly evident, flashing from his stormy eyes.
“Zack,” he yelled commandingly, turning towards him still hidden in the shadows, “Ya believe in karma too?”
Billy laid down his drumsticks, wiping his sweaty palms down his knees and thighs. Going to be a while before we continue playing, he sighed, and looked at Shayne whose anxious eyes confirmed he knew it too.
Zack shuffled slowly out of the darkness, only dimly aware of the boisterous crowd. Unsteadily fixing his eyes on Jake, he answered shakily, “Uh yeah, I guess I do.”
Tank tossed his empty beer and grabbed another just as Jake hissed malevolently, “Yeah? I bet ya fuckin’ do.”
Turning righteously towards his audience, Jake decided to give them a special treat.
“Zack has an amusing little story to tell ya tonight,” he crooned. “But I’m guessin’ he won’t really wanna tell it ‘cause he’s too fuckin’ afraid of karma bitin’ a huge goddamn gaping hole in his butt.”
Zack’s eyes widened and he sheepishly took a step backwards. Jesus Jake, he thought, not fuckin’ here, not now. But there was no time for begging, zero time for regrets. All eyes in the audience focused on him and there was time only to pay his dues.
“Shit...” he mumbled to himself quietly, but not low enough to escape Jake’s attentive ears.
“What’s that Zack? Havin’ trouble startin’? Your balls shriveled so far up your fuckin’ ass they’re stuck in your sniveling stinkin’ throat?” Jake screamed.
The crowd roared.
“Ya know what people?” Jake turned amicably towards them. “I won’t be so rude as to keep y’all waitin’. Besides,” he sneered, “I ain’t afraid to tell
it ‘cause I definitely got the fuckin’ balls.”
The crowd’s response was deafening. Jake gestured them to silence as he began.
“Seems that fuckin’ scheming easy whore Amanda got a little pissed at me in Portland the other night.”
He paused leisurely, waiting for the crowd to quiet down once again. Angrily brushing hair from his eyes, enveloped by spotlights now turning green, red, blue then golden, Jake became the “avenging wounded warrior” that the press later dubbed him, the “decadent, venereal carnal black knight only beginning his unrelenting, widespread inconceivable revenge.” He took a step towards his impassioned followers and began speaking once more.
“Guess she had some issues,” he emphasized the last word, “’bout me takin’ up with a brand new user-friendly playmate the morning after our prolonged night of fun. So what does she do?” he casually asked the audience. “What does she fuckin’ do?” he repeated, enraged.
Not one person in the crowd dared answer or make a sound.
“I’ll tell ya,” Jake sneered. “She fuckin’ decides she’s sick of my so-called infidelity, even though I never promised her no different, and sashays her glorious ass over to Zack’s room and decides to get a little revenge.”
Predictably, the crowd went bananas. Glaring at the front row, Jake watched people scowling and shaking their heads.
“And what does Zack do?” Jake asked innocently, as if talking about a nursery rhyme.
“Anyone?” he asked humbly, locking eyes with the more courageous in the front row.
“No? No one even wanna think it?” he fumed. “Zack here...” he turned and gestured towards him even as Zack stood trembling in his boots, “thinks hey, ain’t this a fuckin’ grand idea, no way can I bag anyone near half as good even on my best days and won’t this just gimme the one up on that superior, arrogant cocksucker Jake.”
“Dear God,” Tank mumbled to himself in the sidelines, his belly suddenly turning rancid from all that beer.
Amidst the jeers and angry catcalls aimed at Zack, Jake continued, his gut also churning, his face a devastated mixture of shock, rage and spiraling pain.
“So, as Zack’s too fuckin’ much of a pansy to tell ya, they start goin’ at it, kissin’ and stuff, but...” he paused suddenly, silenced by the piercing, stabbing literal pain in his heart. “But...ya waitin’ for it? Ya haven’t heard the best fuckin’ part. Zack here puts an end to their shenanigans ‘cause the gutless ball-less wonder has a motherfuckin’ panic attack!”
The crowd erupted so loudly people swore later it could be heard clearly at least ten blocks away.
“So I ask ya people,” Jake screamed, before holding his mic out towards the blustering crowd, “did Zack stop himself from bangin’ my bitch ‘cause he has an infinitesimal, minute shred of fuckin’ loyalty?”
No! the crowd answered with deafening roars.
“That’s fuckin’ right,” Jake seethed. “Only thing that stopped him is he’s got no balls.”
Breathing deeply, erratically, his chest heaving, Jake scanned the sea of animated and frantic faces and blinked away warming tears from his moistening eyes.
“Did Zack decide not to fuck my bitch ‘cause he felt an ounce of regret or fuckin’ speck of guilt?” he screamed before holding his mic out towards the audience once again.
No! they answered more loudly than before.
“That’s fuckin’ right,” Jake fumed. “Only thing that stopped him is he’s got no balls.”
He stretched heatedly, resolutely, readying himself for the finale to his Q&A routine.
“Let’s go over this people,” he invited, his blazing green eyes now a mixture of sorrow and need. “The only stinkin’ pathetic motherfuckin’ reason Zack didn’t bang my bitch...” he slowed his rant, emphasizing every cutting word before tipping his mic out to the audience once again, “is...because...he’s...got...”
NO BALLS! the audience roared in thundering unison.
“That’s right,” Jake sneered and viciously spun towards him just as a piss-filled water bottle flew from the audience and planted Zack squarely in the face.
“Thank you,” Jake laughed bitterly, turning to the crowd and giving them a military salute, “but I prefer to handle this spineless, disgusting traitor myself.”
Zack stared at him in horror, frantically wiping piss from his face with shaking hands. Oh fuck, this is worse than I thought it would be, he told himself. Way worse than I imagined at the height of my worst nightmares. I’m fuckin’ dead. If Jake doesn’t kill me, it’s only a matter of time till one of Steel Demon’s fans does me in. His eyes widened in culminating terror as Jake took a menacing step towards him, spewing the rest of his rant like a coiling, spitting cobra.
“Ya know Zack, there’s someone else out there who ain’t too afraid to at least stand up for himself and speak what he believes is his version of the truth.”
Zack stepped backwards meekly, slowly shaking his head.
“Ya know, I think maybe even Wade,” Jake practically vomited his name, “has more fuckin’ balls than you do!”
Then, amidst the taunts and jeers erupting from the raging audience, Jake heaved his mic, sending it smashing to the floor. Zack barely got his hands halfway up to protect himself before Jake skidded across the stage towards him, landed a ferocious right hand punch to his face and easily, expertly, knocked him out cold.
Chapter 18
“Jesus...” Wade groaned, watching Zack’s scandalous public demise and departure from Steel Demon a few hours later once it gloriously graced YouTube.
Chaos reigned even before Zack brutally hit the floor, with Shayne running towards them and Billy leaping from his drum kit and shoving past road crew also racing to stop Jake’s attack. Tank got there first, along with the band’s security, and everyone surrounded Jake.
But no easy adversary, he fought them all, battled hard for his right to finish Zack off, right there in front of the screaming crowd, in front of Steel Demon’s camera crew and the shocked, hollering, backstage-passed devotees who enthusiastically lined the sides of the stage. Lunging forward out of everyone’s grasp, Jake got in a furious, disabling kick to Zack’s balls before Zack was carried away, still unconscious, to the waiting arms of the medics and crew.
Wrenching free once again, Jake stumbled to front and center stage, panting, sweating, his long lustrous brown hair tangled and disarrayed, hanging into his blazing deep green eyes and wildly framing his storming face. He yelled for someone to hand him a mic and a frantic roadie obliged.
“Guess I forgot myself people,” Jake shrieked, struggling to be heard above the deafening noise of the crowd that shook the arena. Striving to be noticed amidst the numerous feverish brawls that had broken out in the audience even while venue security grappled to control spectators near the front of the floor from leaping and scrambling onto the chaos-racked stage.
“Stop!” Jake screamed in a surge of fresh fury. “Stop fightin’ and listen to me fuckheads, or we all go home!”
Slowly, with ebbing energy and tempers, the crowd responded and after a few tense and strained minutes, all eyes in the audience fixed expectantly on Jake.
“Seems that due to my understandable anger we’re without a bass player tonight.”
The crowd roared.
“So,” Jake lamented, “unless one ‘a ya out there plays bass and knows all ‘a Zack’s parts, we’re gonna have to call it a night.”
The audience went crazy with disappointment and panic and near pandemonium almost took over once again. Tank rushed to Jake who was now flanked by Shayne and Billy, trying to calm him and patted his shoulder in support.
“Jake, what the hell ya thinkin’ buddy? Couple ‘a the guitar techs can play...”
Jake roughly shoved him away.
“Lights up,” Jake screamed. “Raise the fuckin’ house lights!” and the lighting crew obeyed.
“Now, ya get one chance and one chance only,” Jake sharply informed the jostling crowd
. “Someone comes up here just for the damn thrill ‘a playin’ with Steel Demon and they suck...” he sneered bitterly, “I kick the livin’ fuckin’ shit outa them and toss them in the crowd for all you guys to finish off.”
The erupting audience jeered.
Jake scanned the heated and turbulent arena with Billy and Shayne who still stood faithfully at his side.
“Right there,” Shayne announced, pointing to the side seats flanking stage left and singled out two long-haired guys in Steel Demon muscle shirts shrieking and waving their arms wildly in the air. The one on the left was pointing enthusiastically at his buddy and Jake smiled.
“We’ve had a little discussion about balls tonight,” he said, “and you guys obviously think ya have them.”
The audience went wild.
“What makes ya think you can play?” Jake asked, his eyes mirroring disbelief and dejection.
A roadie scrambled to hand the guy on the right a microphone and momentarily stunned once he had it, the guy awkwardly stood up and smiled.
“I’m in a pretty popular Steel Demon tribute band,” he said, “and I’m pretty sure I can get you guys through the night.”
“Only pretty sure?” Jake crooned.
“Real sure,” the guy asserted and smiled again.
So with the crowd howling and chanting, the guy was escorted onto the stage. After a brief and informative huddle, Billy and Shayne took their respective places on stage. Jake, looking like a battle weary conqueror, raised his arm towards their guest bassist.
“This is Chris Middleton,” he announced. “Says he’s scared shitless but doesn’t wanna disappoint us or y’all tonight.”
The audience cheered.
Then, valiantly strutting to front center stage, Jake smirked and victoriously screamed, “I been fucked by the devil and it’s time for revenge!”
For the second time in only four days, Devil’s Destruction took on special meaning, not only for Jake but for his most fervent followers, equally avid but less crazed fans, and for the bloodthirsty paparazzi and even the more mainstream worldwide press.
