by Shayla Black
1. You see people through their lens, not yours. So there’s less getting offended. Less reactive bullshit.
2. You have perspective but not experience. You know it all shakes out in the end. So small problems are small, and big problems are small.
3. You get cocky because you’re mature and you know it. Stupid mistakes are other people’s problems.
4. Your body is still a slave to your brain, and if your brain is thinking about grown-up shit, like sex, your body is going to be a hotbed. And if your body matures early… well, follow the yellow brick road. The Emerald City has its legs spread for you.
Chapter 14
1982 – BEFORE THE NIGHT OF THE QUAALUDE
The house in the Palihood had a thousand square feet of unpermitted add-ons. Some even made sense. Most didn’t. One bedroom was five feet wide and had outdoor wood siding on one wall. One add-on was only accessible via five treacherous two-foot-high steps to an attic the shape of an inverted V, and another bedroom was only accessible from the outside patio and through a closet.
I arrived one afternoon after a respectable activity I could never recall in black pumps and a Chanel jacket. The house was dead except for the open door and obscure punk playing from the sound system the boys had installed over the lead-painted walls and chipped molding.
I didn’t announce myself. I never did. I was a piece of furniture, more or less. I heard voices from one of the spare rooms. I passed through the third bathroom, into the closet, and almost opened the louvered door to reveal the sound when I stopped. A cry had come from the other side of the door.
The louvers gave me a choppy view, but I saw enough skin to make me take a step back. I heard panting. Groaning. A man’s voice. Strat. I took a second step back. Stopped. The doors had a space between them, and I leaned forward and looked.
I recognized the girl from her silky brown hair. When she moved, it swayed over her shoulders. She was on her hands and knees. Strat was behind her, fucking her so hard my face flushed and my body’s heat level went deep in the red. I could smell them. Their sweat and something funkier. The scent between my legs plus a man. I touched the wall. I needed it to hold me up.
Leave. Turn around.
“Take it, baby,” Strat muttered, hands gripping her ass. His skin was satin with sweat.
I wanted him. I wished I was the girl with the brown hair, taking it. I shifted a little so I could see the place where their bodies met. His cock sliding in and out of her.
God god god I want it.
I was blocking the way, but I didn’t want to go back and I couldn’t go forward. All I could was hope that no one wanted to go into the spare bedroom right then. I shifted, nervous someone else was near me.
The second woman had curly blond hair and generous naked hips. I wished I was her, naked with them. Laughing about some whispered words.
You’re nuts. This is so past what you’re ready for.
“You want to eat her out, baby?”
“Yes,” said Straight Brown Hair. She turned to Luscious Hips, still getting fucked, and her eyes lingered on the louvers for a moment.
She saw.
“Let me kiss your pussy.”
No. She didn’t.
Luscious Hips sat right in front of Brown Hair and spread her legs. I didn’t think my clit could have been more engorged or my pussy wetter. I was glued to the scene as she laid her face between her friend’s legs. I couldn’t see what she was doing, but Strat, that voice…
“Eat her hard. Suck on it. Mmf. Yes. Make her come.”
“I’m so wet. So wet,” Luscious Hips shouted.
Strat put his hand between mouth and cunt. I didn’t know what he was doing, but the intersection of those three things aroused me so much. I did the unthinkable. I stuck my hand under my skirt and tore my panty hose open to get under my cotton briefs.
I nearly collapsed at my own touch.
“Get it wet,” Strat commanded as the girl on her hands and knees sucked his finger. “It’s going in your ass.”
Did he say that?
I think I’m going to die.
The girl who was getting fucked had her face in Luscious’s pussy as Strat stuck one finger in Fucked Girl’s ass.
“Yes!” she looked up long enough to affirm.
Strat put in two fingers. She shouted, face planted in pussy. Luscious had Fucked by the back of the head, pushing her mouth into her cunt, pumping her hips across Fucked’s face while Strat pumped away and got three fingers into her ass.
Oh god, I want that I want that.
But I didn’t want to come. I pinched my clit to shut it up. I had more to see.
Luscious came, crying, “Eat my pussy eat me god yes baby yes eat me.” She groaned and threw her head back in relief.
God, that was hot. I wanted someone to eat me out.
Strat held out his hand and said something to Luscious. She reached into the night table and pulled out a bottle of baby oil.
What are you doing, Stratford?
He poured it on Fucked. Down her back and in the crack of her ass. Then he massaged it inside.
“You ready?” he said, handing the bottle back to Luscious.
“Fuck me in the ass.”
I swore the backs of my thighs tingled, and every nerve ending between my legs nearly exploded.
He pulled his dick out of her and moved it up between her ass cheeks.
He’s going to do it.
Fucked’s face tightened and she grimaced, eyes shut, teeth grinding, as Strat slowly but purposefully put his dick in her ass.
“How you doing, baby?” he asked.
“All the way,” she said. “Take my ass.”
I watched his dick disappear in her asshole, and I squeaked.
They didn’t hear me.
I thought they didn’t.
Luscious put her hand between Fucked’s legs.
I didn’t see the rest. I heard the squeaking bed, the shouts and moans, Strat barking when he came in her ass. My eyes were closed as I stroked myself to the most explosive climax of my young life.
As soon as it was done and the three of them were laughing and panting, I pulled my hand out of my panty hose. A line of pussy juice stretched between my second and third finger. I curled them into a fist and backed out of the closet.
Strat was right. I couldn’t handle him.
Chapter 15
1994
“Aa-choo.” I was on my fourth or fifth sneeze.
Audio City kept a rust-painted trailer-slash-shipping container in the north corner of the back parking lot. Teddy had given us the padlock key, and when we opened the back doors, we found a wall of banker boxes stacked to the ceiling. They were ordered by date, with the older shit deeper in the back, except when they weren’t. We had to look at every box and hope that the label was correct. We found Martin Wright’s Opus 33 sampler master box pretty quickly, about a third of the way through. It was labeled with his name and the year. Drew put it on a low pile and wiggled off the top. The box had become misshapen from dampness. The smell of mildew got sharper with every pile we unearthed.
Contracts. Invoices. Master tapes. A pencil case.
“That’s weird,” I said.
Drew handed it over. Shiny orange vinyl marked with pen. I pulled the zipper open. It was empty inside but dusted with fine white powder. I held it open for Drew.
When he looked, he laughed. “Of course. We could probably open up all these boxes and sell coke out of the back of this container.”
I zipped it closed and tossed it back in the box. “He’s a cellist. I can’t even imagine what the rest of these have in them. We taking the whole thing?”
“More likely than not.” He jiggled the top back on.
We’d found what we came for, but we were both hesitating. He looked toward the back, where another ten feet of solid banker box stood. A thick wall of musical history.
“You’re thinking what I’m thinking,” I said flatly. The container was hot
and oppressive, yet I didn’t want to leave it. “We did come for the Kentucky Killer masters.”
“You have to get back to the office.”
“More likely than not.”
“You can’t stay here with me. Already you’ve been with the visiting attorney too long.”
“And a law clerk can’t call in sick for the rest of the day or anything.”
“You’d have to make it up over the weekend.” He put his hands on a high box and slid it down, then he put it in my outstretched arms. It said “Neil Young – 1990.”
“Yeah. I hate working weekends.” I put the box with the rest of the early nineties. “Maybe five minutes. Then I’ll grab a taxi back to the office.”
“You should run into the office and call. I don’t want you to get in trouble on my account.”
He had dust on the shoulders of his shirt, and he’d rolled up his sleeves, exposing the tattoos on his inner arms. I’d done a good job stripping the lawyer costume.
“Five minutes.” I held out my arms for another box. “Ten. Honestly, I already told Dozer traffic might keep me here. And I have a family dinner tonight. So they don’t expect me until tomorrow.”
“Saturday.”
“Come on, you know the drill. Six days a week, et cetera.”
He slid another box off the top. I’d never heard of the artist. He put it gently in my arms, still holding it. “I’m glad you got your shit together.”
“You too.” I whispered it because I wasn’t just returning a nicety. I was speaking a deep truth.
Seeing him again wasn’t just a happy coincidence. He scared the shit out of me. I didn’t do feelings. They didn’t rule me. I did what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted. But I was scared, and fear made me uncomfortable.
I decided discomfort was all right though. I wanted to be around him.
His fingers grasped my elbows while he held the weight of the box. “I’m not together. I just have a law degree.”
He wanted to tell me something, and I wanted to tell him something. We couldn’t. We were different. We didn’t know each other and we never had, but the pull was there. I wanted him to know me. I wanted to tell him my secrets. Not because of who we’d been, but because something about his puzzle pieces fit my puzzle pieces. I felt a clicking, like the snap of one piece into another.
I stepped back with the box, and his fingers brushed my arm as I pulled away.
That felt nice.
I turned away and put the box on the pile. Fear was uncomfortable, but the rainstorm between my legs wasn’t much better.
Chapter 16
1982 – BEFORE THE NIGHT OF THE QUAALUDE
I happened to know that most stars, real stars, didn’t get mortgages. They paid cash or had their corporations loan them the money, so they paid interest to themselves. But Drew and Strat, and Gary to a lesser degree, were normal guys on the brink of becoming real rock celebrities.
We lived on chips and pretzel rods because we were young and skinny. Indy lounged on the blue velvet couch, plucking on his guitar, and Strat scratched his head over the papers laid out over the coffee table. I had my legs slung over the arm of a matching blue velvet chair.
“Can you start booking the studio in August?” I asked.
Indy strummed his twelve-string. Even without an amp, the sound was thicker than a six-string, and he got his fingers into the narrow spaces between them as if he’d been playing since he was seven.
“Yup,” Strat said.
He didn’t have a shirt on, and I tried not to look at him. Strat was so beautiful it hurt. The promise of sex had diminished since poker night. Part of me said to hell with them, and the other part just wanted to know why.
Indy, Gary, and Strat were tight. Real tight. They’d grown up together in Nashville. Only sons in their families. Graduated from their local suburban high school. Like cupcakes dropping out of the same pan. Different, but all from the same batter.
An empty pack of Marlboro Reds landed in my lap.
“We’re out,” Strat said.
“There’s a carton in the fridge,” I said.
His knees bounced, and the swirls of musical staffs buckled where his body folded. A snake coiled around his firearm, biting inside his wrist. Gary and Indy had the same snake tattoo. Gary had married young and fathered up quick, so he wasn’t around unless there was music to be made.
“Tell me what that snake’s about,” I said. I wanted to get him a box of smokes, but I didn’t want to do it because he’d told me to. He was a bossy jerk. Sexy and powerful, but jerky.
“It’s about you getting a fresh pack.”
I didn’t move. Indy ran his pick over his twelve strings. I didn’t think he was paying attention.
“You all got matching tattoos so you could be a fucking asshole? Shit, I can get one too.”
“Why? When you’re a bitch already?” Strat’s words and tone didn’t match. The words were cruel and divisive. The tone was warm and friendly. His face invited me to kiss it, as if he was the only one who would tolerate Margie-the-bitch instead of Cinnamon-the-groupie.
It took me a split second to put together a snappy retort, but Indy cut it off by putting down his guitar and standing. He shot Strat a dirty look and paced out of the room. Strat watched him.
Something was going on, and Strat was too cool a customer to tell me.
I bounced off the chair and followed the guitarist. The house was barely furnished or painted. The guys didn’t have the money or time to do the fancy stuff. They had parties, but everyone sat on the floor and in folding chairs. I crossed to the south side of the house where I could see the pool. They’d had that cleaned and finished because to have a party, you needed a pool.
The kitchen had nothing of use in it. Paper plates and plastic forks. The gas was hooked up but was used to light cigarettes and heat spoons of white powder. The fridge had beer, vodka, cigarettes, and a china tea saucer with blue pills arranged around the center circle.
Indy stood in front of the fridge, pulling out a carton. He flipped his wrist, and the box spun midair, dropping on the island counter with a slap. Red-and-white packs swirled out. I grabbed one before it fell off.
“It’s not your job to do what he tells you,” I said.
“Can I ask you a question?” He took a pack for himself and cracked the plastic, letting it flutter to the floor without a second look. Both of them were fucking slobs.
“Sure.”
“What do you want?”
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?”
He didn’t respond, verbally or otherwise. He just wedged out two cigarettes and held the pack to me. I took one.
“Stop the bullshit. You’re past that.” He took a zippo from his pocket and clacked it open. “We’re past that.”
He lit me. I blew out a stream as he tilted his head to light his own, cupping it as if we were in a hurricane instead of a kitchen. He was unselfconscious in that second, and I admired his face and shoulders.
“Be more specific then,” I said.
He clattered a glass ashtray between us. “You don’t wonder what’s going on here?” He pointed his finger down and made a circle.
Here. I knew exactly what he was talking about, yet he was so vague I could have kept the game going on long enough for Strat to stroll in for his smokes. But I couldn’t. I was as tired of this shit as he was. Both. Neither. All. None. The space between them was getting uncomfortably tight.
“You mean that you guys are always beeping me, and you keep me around but no one’s fucking me?” I ask.
“There you go.”
“Yeah. I wonder that.”
I wondered it at night, when I was home alone with my hands under the sheets. When I felt inside myself, the edge of the unbroken membrane tight on my finger. When I imagined some composite of the two of them was on top of me. Or one or the other. Or they fought over me, and both won. I didn’t know what or who I wanted, but my body got wet for both Sexy Strat
and Sincere Indy. Not that I knew what to do about it. I was old for my age, but there was nothing like actual experience.
“Little Stratford and I, we don’t fight over women.”
“Okay.”
“That’s the deal.”
“You’re implying you’re fighting over me,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“You know what that does for a girl’s ego, right?”
I didn’t actually believe him. That was the problem. I was cute as hell, but come on.
“When I needed Strat, he was there for me. My father was a drunk fuck.” Indy rolled the ashes off the tip onto the amber glass of the ashtray. “Still is. I needed this house for a reason. The guest house in the back? It’s for my mother. To get her out of there. So when I finally talk her into leaving him, she has somewhere to go where she feels safe. If I’m hotel to hotel on a bus, that’s great, but it’s like leaving her to rot. And the guy in there”—Indy jerked his thumb toward the living room, where his best friend was probably still looking over paperwork—“he gets it. I can’t do any of this business shit without him. My head’s not in it. He’s giving up a chunk of his advance to make this house and studio happen.”
“I’m glad, Indiana. Really. He’s a great friend.” I stamped out my cigarette. “What do you want out of me?”
His frustration was bigger than anything we said. His fingers curled, and his teeth gritted. He stepped forward and put his hands just under my chin, an inch from touching them, as if it was as close as he could get. As if his palms and my jaw were the north sides of two magnets.
“I’m fucking nuts about you,” he growled, then leaned down, so his face was level with mine. He smelled like tobacco and cologne, with a hint of music and risk. How many times had I watched his fingers on a guitar and wished they were on me? “You have to make a move,” he said more softly but with urgency. “You have to choose.”
“You’re not supposed to have feelings.” I said it as if “supposed to” mattered at all.
Strat’s voice came from the patio. “Dude.” He took the length of the kitchen in three steps, snapped up a pack of cigarettes, then pointed at Indy with the same hand. “Watch it.”
