George grinned. “Yeah they did.” He left it at that, and as much as Julian wanted to ask more, he didn’t. George moved on. “I’m curious about this new thing.”
“New thing?”
“Josie’s got it in her head to make a comeback. Aaron Simpson’s movie isn’t the first she’s pitched a Ponytail song to. It’s just the first to pick it up.”
“That’s pretty huge though.”
“Josie has her ways,” George said mysteriously—suggestively. “But yeah, it is. And Josie’s hoping it’ll be a springboard for a new album.”
“Wow. You think it’ll work?”
“Probably. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about my wife, it’s that when she sets her mind to a thing, she gets it done.”
“That would be great. Kat would never say it, but she misses it.” He thought of the wild sex they’d been having, and how amped up she always got after a show.
“I bet she is,” George said, again with that hint of suggestion. “But how do you feel about that?”
“Happy for her.” He got the distinct impression that he was missing the point. “You?”
“I can’t wait. Josie’s always so fucking hot when she’s performing. Biggest fucking aphrodisiac.”
“Kat, too.”
“So I heard.” George grinned. Before Julian could ask more, though, he went on. “You’re running on East Coast time, man. Must be rough.”
“It’s…what?” Julian looked at his watch, which he hadn’t had a chance to adjust yet. “Two in the morning. Wow.”
George’s chuckle was a deep baritone. “You’re a real trooper. Out here, midnight’s when the real party just begins. Come on, let’s get you fixed up with something that’ll help you catch that second wind.”
Julian followed George into the house and down a hallway, where the bedrooms were. Which was weird, but he went with it. Nothing about this night was normal, so why start now? The music was quiet back here. He eyed the bedrooms, most of which were open. But not all. As if on cue, one of the shut doors opened and a model-thin young woman emerged, rubbing her nose. Another woman followed, equally attractive, wearing a bikini top and still in the process of snapping her jeans shut.
“Perfect,” George said, leading Julian into the room they’d vacated. It smelled like sex. “Fucking LA, man. This party’s insane.”
“They’re not all like this?” Julian asked.
George laughed. “No. Not quite like this. This is the big leagues right here, son. Josie did well with this one.” He glanced back at Julian. “Hey, lock the door, will ya?”
“Sure,” Julian said, his heart rate suddenly elevated. “What are we doing?”
George produced a little baggie of white powder from his jacket pocket. “Partying, of course.”
Julian blinked at what he was seeing, his mouth going dry. His heart seemed to want to crawl up his throat. “I… um…”
He lost the ability to speak as George poured a small pile of the stuff onto the dresser and began to carve up a couple lines. Julian wanted to scream. He backpedaled, reaching behind him for the door.
“I’m sorry. I don’t do…that.”
“Don’t worry, man. This is not the chalky stuff. It’s real good. Josie gets it from some guy who’s real connected.” He rolled up a bill, inserted it into his nose, and snorted one of the lines. “Mm, yeah. That’s nice.”
“Josie does coke?” He knew she was wild, but for some reason, he didn’t think that this was part of that.
“Well, not a lot.” George chuckled to himself, twisting the rolled bill in his hands. “Not like back when she was touring all the time.”
“Like…with the Ponytails?” Julian felt like someone had yanked the rug out from under his feet. His face burned, yet he felt so cold inside.
“Oh yeah man. Those girls knew how to party, from what I hear. Josie’s got some wild stories.”
“I thought they were more… wholesome.” It sounded like such a ridiculous thing to say.
“Is that really what Kat told you?”
George actually started to look sorry for him, so Julian quickly said, “No, I know it got pretty wild. But I just thought—”
Someone tried to open the door, and Julian almost jumped out of his skin. “Occupied!” George shouted. He held the bill out to Julian and lowered his voice. “You bumping up? We can’t be in here forever.”
“I’ll pass. Thanks.”
George shrugged, doing the second line himself before tucking the totally illegal drugs away again. Jesus. Did… did Kat do that? The thought made him dizzy and sick and aroused all at once. It was insane. He was insane.
“You’re missing out, bud. And I’m not sure you’re going to make it.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Julian said. “I’m pretty wide awake right now.”
By the time they exited and got back outside, people were starting to gather for The Ponytail’s show. The windows along the living room had been thrown open, letting people watch the makeshift stage on the deck from inside, as well as out.
Julian lost track of George, which he was completely fine with. Instead, he pushed into the crowd and watched as The Ponytails, minus their drummer, took positions in front of their instruments. Josie stepped to the mic, looking amazing in her skintight, leather pants and equally tight tank top.
“First of all, I want to thank Aaron Simpson for hosting this amazing party,” she began, leading a round of applause that was heartily picked up by everyone. “Working with the crew of the Prisoner’s Wife has been so fabulous. The movie’s going to be great, and if it doesn’t win an Oscar, then fuck the Academy.”
There were nervous chuckles, but clearly this crowd wasn’t so iconoclastic as Josie Jones.
“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Josie Jones, lead singer of The Ponytails, and this is my band behind me.” She went around, introducing everyone. “But we’re not here to talk at you, right?” Lisa began hammering at the drum. “We’re here to rock!”
And with that, Kat strummed down on the guitar and they launched into an updated, amazing rendition of their hit song. Julian had watched Kat play plenty of times with her local band, but the energy that rolled off of them and infused the crowd was a level beyond anything he’d felt before. The music was loud, thundering through them, and like everyone else, he couldn’t help himself as he began to move to it.
Josie’s vocals were as seductive as ever, but he was surprised when, during the second verse, she stepped back, took up her own guitar, and began to play as Kat took over vocals. Mic in hand, her right foot planted in front of her left, Kat came alive before that group, and by the time she released the mic back to Josie, she was panting.
After playing Prisoner, they sang a couple of their other classics. Many in the crowd recognized the songs, but they weren’t as enraptured as they were by the hit. That was, until they got to the last song, the new one.
“We’ve got a little surprise for you,” Josie introduced. “We call it ‘Smoke.’”
Unlike the hits from the old days, “Smoke” was slower, more paced, more sensual. It seduced the crowd, getting them to lean in, beckoning them close as it built and built. Kat and Josie switched off vocals, their guitars harmonizing along with their voices. Just when the tension was so high the crowd couldn’t take it anymore, Lisa came in with the drums, beating louder and louder, faster and faster. The band opened up, Josie whooped into the microphone, and Kat took off on a solo that Julian only now recognized from her last month of practices. He’d thought it was a new riff for Prisoner of My Heart. Turned out, she’d been practicing for this very moment.
And it blew everyone away.
Even after the song was over and Josie gave her thank yous, even after the crowd stopped cheering and chanting for an encore, it lingered.
“That was fucking amazing,” Julian heard someone say.
“Where can we get that? iTunes?”
“I don’t think it’s available any
where.”
“Anyone record that?”
Kat found Julian in the crowd. Her blue dress clung to her. Her skin glistened with sweat. She was still heaving, her dark eyes bright. On fire. “That was amazing,” Julian said before she bowled him over, kissing him hard. All he could do was wrap his arms around her and hold her close as she squeezed his head so hard it hurt.
“I need you,” she whispered. “Come on.”
She dragged him into the back, slipping into the first open door she found—a bathroom. She shoved him against the door as her hands went to work on his jeans. He was hard for her, caught up in the swirl and desperation she was feeling. It was like all those times back home, only they weren’t at home. They weren’t anywhere private. He could still hear the party behind him, felt the bass of the music as the DJ filled the void left by The Ponytails.
“I missed you so much last night,” Kat said, dragging his pants down. She clutched at his cock, stroking it. “Missed this.”
“I’m here now.”
She reached beneath her, shimmying out of her panties without removing her dress. “Yes, you are. Now stop talking and fuck me.”
Julian kissed her hard before turning her, pushing her down over the sink. He flipped her dress up around her waist, took his cock, and buried himself. She was drenched, and he slid into her with only the slightest of resistance.
“You liked playing in front of all those people?” he asked as he began to fuck her.
“Mmmmhmmm.”
“You were so hot up there. So commanding.”
Their eyes met in the mirror. Hers were wild with excitement. “It felt amazing,” she said.
“Like old times?”
“Exactly like old times.”
“So back then, did you ever drag someone into a bathroom for a quick fuck?”
Kat moaned, shutting her eyes rather than answering. Her orgasm crashed through her, ambushing her. She gritted her teeth, trying to quiet her moans, but anyone walking by would know exactly what was going on.
Julian couldn’t let it go, though. He’d been teased too much by her past. He needed something concrete, for once. “Did you, Kat? Tell me.”
“Uh, baby, do you really want to know?”
“Yes!” He squeezed her ass in frustration.
“I did,” she said. “That what you want to hear?”
He clutched her ass harder, fucked her faster. “Yes, baby. I do. Tell me more.”
“I didn’t do it often, but there were a couple times when I just couldn’t wait… the biggest shows, the ones in front of the largest crowds, were so fucking intense.”
“Intense enough that you dragged the first guy you saw into a bathroom to take care of you?”
“Well maybe not the first,” she said, her eyes glittering. “But the second or third, yes.”
“So hot,” Julian moaned.
“One time, I couldn’t even get to a bathroom. We fucked in an alcove backstage, as the main act went on.”
“You did?”
“It was so hot, Jules,” she said. Her voice was strained. Her second orgasm was peaking.
“I bet it was. Did you suck him off? Or just go at it. Like this?”
“Just like this. No foreplay. He yanked my pants down and fucked me.”
“Oh, fuck.” Julian lost it, his balls tightening, come boiling up his shaft.
“Then I blew him. For round two.”
“Fuck!” He exploded, filling his wife as she filled his head with her dirty, naughty past. She joined him, dropping her head between her shoulders and she pushed her hips back into him, accepting him, accepting his strange excitement.
When they recovered, they realized where they were, and what they’d just shared. She looked at him in the mirror again, because it felt safer than meeting him face-to-face. “You’re okay with that?”
Julian pulled his jeans back up. “Of course, baby. It was a long time ago.”
“It was.” She took his hand. “Come on, let’s get back to the party.”
With the sex out of the way, they rejoined the party and had a good, normal time. It felt more like a reunion than a time hanging out with a bunch of rockstars. Only they were rockstars, and occasionally people would come up to them and ask about the new song.
“So, what’s the plan?” Julian asked at last.
“We’ll see,” Josie said. “We’ll know in the next couple days if it left an impression. It’ll get back to a label, and someone will approach us. If that happens…” She made an exploding motion with her hands.
All the women seemed excited by this prospect. George put his arm around his wife. “Then, the real excitement happens.”
Chapter Four
“She’s not the kind of girl
Who likes to tell the world…”
They were back in The Rail again, and Kat was with her garage band of middle-age misfits, who sometimes called themselves the Warblers, sometimes the Ragbags, sometimes Kristen Stewart Blew Me Sideways or some other such anonymous label.
“About the way she feels about herself…”
Kat was on vocals again, since her fill-in band was mostly male, and they were covering a Garbage song from the 90s. God, she felt good. She was wearing a ballerina’s tutu over skin-tight leather pants, and a sparkly skin-tight top that was so low-cut it looked as though her breasts could spring free any moment, particularly if she jumped up and down a little more.
What could she say? Ever since she’d got back from LA she just felt like showing off. She liked the way people looked at her, people wanted her. Men.
“She takes a little time
In making up her mind…”
There was a little group of men in the front row, holding their beers and gazing up at her as she sang. Wanting her. Maybe it was just the opportunity Josie had dangled in front of her—of the Greatest Hits album, of going on tour again. She was horny almost all the time now—and doubly so when she was up on stage performing.
Thank God she was wearing leather pants, that was all she could think as she looked at her fans in the front row. She could feel that tingle between her legs as she looked at them, so adoring. As she remembered the power she used to command over men like that in the old days.
She flicked her ponytail and continued singing The Trick Is to Keep Breathing, and it almost felt like she was making love to the audience with her mouth.
Julian was going to get it when they got home. She was going to have to pounce on him.
“Lately I’m not the only one
I say never trust anyone…”
Right now she could see him standing there at the back by the bar. Unobtrusively. She flashed him a smile and he flashed one back, adoring her, loving how much fun she was having up here on stage. God, he was amazing. Ever since they’d got back from LA, he’d been a rock. In more ways than one. She’d wanted to spend more time keeping fit, and practicing guitar, and he just supported her, whatever she wanted to do.
As the song hit its stride following the release of Prisoner’s Wife, Julian had supported her in attending the movie premiere in New York.
As the rumors persisted that the band was reforming, that there might be a tour on the cards, it was Julian who had said it would be fine for her to cut back on her work at the high school if such an opportunity came along.
“I won’t be the one who’s going to let you down
Maybe you’ll get what you want this time around…”
And of course, Julian had been there every week that she managed to appear here at The Rail with the rest of her local band. Letting her get up there on stage, get her rocks off. There for her when they ended their set, and she just needed to go home and fuck someone.
Ever since LA, Julian had been particularly good at that.
Only, he kept asking about her past, about her time with the band. About who she had slept with on tour. Sometimes she persuaded him it wasn’t a good idea for her to tell him everything. Sometimes she was just too hor
ny to keep the details from him.
They came to the end of the Garbage cover, and Kat went back to playing guitar on the next number, a Green Day song. It allowed her a little more freedom to look out into the audience—where she saw Julian talking to someone at the bar. A guy she recognized.
Who was it?
The two of them were still watching the band, but chatting as though they were old buddies. The guy was wearing a faded black t-shirt… Kat recognized it as a tour t-shirt, from the Ponytails no less. Now she knew where she recognized him from.
He had been on tour. Not a roadie, not a member of a supporting band or a headline band… a fan… a groupie… Oh God…
He smiled at her. He had hardly aged at all in the decade since the Ponytails had done anything together. Handsome, sure. Square-jawed, almost military in bearing. It was his eyes she remembered particularly—those cool blue eyes, eyes she’s stared down into while he’d gone down on her after she’d come off the stage.
What was he talking about with Julian? She felt frightened, and a little turned on. Did Julian know who he was? Julian would be interested, she had no doubt of that. But would he be horrified what had really gone on during the tour?
The man clinked glasses with Julian as though they’d just made a bet. He moved through the crowd, toward the empty table just by the edge of the stage. He caught Kat’s eye again as she strummed the guitar, and Kat could feel her pussy tingling just from the memory of his tongue…
What was he doing sitting there? Did he imagine she would go straight to him after she was done on stage?
Glancing back at Julian, she found him talking with someone else—Josie Jones, trying to blend in by wearing a pair of ridiculous sunglasses.
Kat watched her talking with Julian as though they were old friends, as though they’d fought in the trenches together. Their greeting was much warmer than it had been the last time they’d met in The Rail. Even if it had only been a few days, it seemed that spending a weekend in LA at the same parties now gave Julian a solid connection to Josie.
What was she doing here? Something good, hopefully. And if Josie bothered to come to The Rail, chances were it did mean something good.
Rock Her World Page 4
