Rock Her World

by Max Sebastian

  It didn’t seem much of a comparison, somehow.

  In the mid-afternoon break, Daryl apologized for having to go out and buy cigarettes, but as he left the room Kat saw him putting in his headphones, diligently putting in the time to listen to the next tracks they would be working on. Kat went out to the bathroom, feeling the eyes of her bandmates digging into her, wanting to ask her what was going on between her and their hot-shot replacement drummer.

  Now she felt like going out to the parking lot, to lean up against a Mustang and share a cigarette with an attractive younger man. Instead, she stood in the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, trying to dampen down some of the lust she felt playing guitar with Daryl on drums just behind her.

  She was going to have to change her underwear.

  The door to the bathroom burst open, and there was Renee.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” she grinned.

  “Hey,” Kat said, shrugged.

  “So…” Renee said, searching for an in for Kat’s latest. “Your man is… quite the talent, huh?”

  Kat sighed, and brushed her fingers through her long, dark hair. “He’s not my man, though, is he?”

  The positivity in Renee’s face collapsed into concern. “Oh… what happened?” she asked. “Something over lunch?”

  Kat shrugged again. “He was in high school when we were putting out records,” she said.

  “So?”

  She looked at her band mate, emphasized her point: “He’s, like, ten years younger than us.”

  Renee broke out into laughter. “What does that matter?” She stepped behind Kat, and wrapped her arms around her waist affectionately, looking at her in the mirror. “Look at you, honey bun,” she said. “You’re flat-out gorgeous.”

  “I’m 33 years old,” Kat said.

  “You look 25 at most,” her bandmate said, running her hands through Kat’s hair, and then stroking her cheek. “I bet he doesn’t even think you’re in your thirties yet.”

  Kat sighed. “He can Google me, easy as pie.”

  “And who cares if he does?” Renee said. “You’re not hoping to marry him, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You just want to bang his brains out, just like every woman who lays eyes on him, I’ll bet. Age doesn’t matter—”

  “That’s not the point, is it?” Kat said. “It’s him who has to want to bang my brains out.”

  Renee laughed again, scoffing at her for denying her chances. She said, “You know he went up to Josie the first day we all got together in the hotel… you know what he asked her?”

  “What?”

  “Whether you were single.”

  “Seriously?” Kat’s eyebrow shot up. And something warm and syrupy-sweet gently exploded between her thighs. She glanced down, wondering why Daryl hadn’t simply looked at her wedding ring for some kind of answer, before being scared away. But as she glanced down, she saw that her fingers were bare.

  She’d forgotten: she’d taken off her rings in order to get them re-sized, because all her training and exercise had meant they were now too big, and might easily slip off and be lost.

  Julian had never insisted she put her wedding ring back on. But then he probably wanted her to appear single…

  “Uh-huh,” Renee said, nodding as though to urge her to go right out there and bang Daryl right in the hallway.

  “What did Josie say to him when he asked?”

  “She said you were married, but available.” Renee smirked.

  Kat felt arousal glowing between her legs. She said, “So what am I supposed to do with that?”

  Renee stepped to the side, and leaned her butt up against the sink. “You just keep doing what you’re doing,” she said. “He’s preparing to make his move, you don’t see that?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged.

  “Come on… he’s making sure he runs into you in the hallway whenever you’re off on a break. He comes in to listen to us play when he gets a rare moment off from his rehearsals… and then when our drummer gets fired for being total bullcrap, who is right there to step in and spend a little more quality time with you?”

  Kat felt a little tremor of desire wash through her. Was Renee right? Was there really a chance she could have Daryl?

  “You’re not put off because he’s a few years younger, are you?” Renee asked her.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I mean, it’s not like he’s under age. And you know what it means if he’s not even twenty-five yet?”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means he’s probably got the stamina of an Olympic marathon runner.”

  Kat smiled, but underneath the surface all kinds of wildfires were being lit within her body. If this had been high school, she would probably wonder if a girl like Renee was simply leading her on, setting her up to make a fool of herself in front of the popular boy. But they weren’t in high school, and Renee was her friend. Renee was forbidden from going near other men herself—it seemed to Kat she had something of a desire to live vicariously through Kat.

  “So I should just… wait?” she asked.

  Renee tilted her head. “Just see what happens. If you get the chance to spend a little more time with him, go for it. Hey baby, this is a goddamn rock band! Just give him a few drinks and take him back to your room!”

  “Sure,” Kat laughed. If only it was as simple as that.

  *

  They all had something of a spring in their step as they reconvened after the break. Daryl was on the phone as he returned into the rehearsal room, smelling faintly of a fresh cigarette—something that, rather surprisingly, seemed to attract Kat.

  As he took his seat at the drum set, he hung up the phone and said, “Okay… if you guys need me the rest of the week, my guys have said they can probably just about spare me in the afternoons. How does that sound, until you find someone else?”

  Josie glanced at Kat and then the others, and then said quickly, “That would be unbelievable, Daryl. You’d really do that?”

  Daryl smiled, and when he glanced specifically at Kat, it suddenly seemed like a real confirmation of what Renee had been saying in the bathroom. Kat felt her pussy tingling a little more.

  “It would be my pleasure,” he replied to Josie.

  “Fantastic!”

  Then something else unexpected happened: two guys appeared at the doorway, carrying a cardboard box each. Daryl seemed to know what was going on—he directed them to place the boxes down by the side of the room.

  “Thanks, fellas,” he said. Then, to the confused women around him, he explained: “You guys not gonna have a beer or two while we rehearse?”

  It was like he was pointing out why the reformed Ponytails were not yet a fully-fledged rock band. It seemed so simple all of a sudden. They needed to loosen up. They all cracked open beers instead of the energy drinks they’d been loading themselves with all week—and suddenly they weren’t just good musicians, they were good rock musicians. As they loosened up, the music just flowed.

  *

  The rest of the afternoon Kat felt jubilant that she was getting to spend more time with Daryl—and the alcohol softened the pressure of doing so. She also felt herself looking forward to getting back to the hotel at the end of the day and calling Julian to tell him the news. It was funny how exciting it was to think that she could tell her husband all about the potential the situation was setting up for her to sleep with another man, and that she would be turning on her husband by talking about it, as well.

  And that really was the icing on the cake. Because as much as she wanted to sleep with Daryl, she also wanted the opportunity to tell her husband about how it was to sleep with Daryl. She had a strong idea, by now, that Julian would probably come like crazy when he heard all about it.

  The afternoon rehearsal was just brilliant. With Daryl there behind them, The Ponytails sounded just incredible. Kat was playing guitar and checking out their hot new drummer, and not
icing that he was checking her out every moment he could.

  By the end of it, she was getting seriously hot around the collar. And soaking between the legs. She could hardly wait to get back and call Julian.

  Only, as Josie and Alyssa made their way out of the room, and Renee quietly stowed away her keyboard, Daryl strolled over to Kat and said, “Hey. How do you feel about doing a little overtime this evening?”

  Kat stifled a gasp, and felt a jolt of fire shoot through her heart.

  “Uh… sure,” she said, looking over to see if Renee had heard what he’d asked her. Renee had heard, and when Daryl wasn’t looking, she gave Kat a broad grin and a silent thumbs-up, making Kat blush like a nun in a strip joint.

  “I just thought… you know… I could run through the tracks with you one more time, and… you know… check a few things…” Daryl said.

  “Great idea,” Kat said, though she kind of felt a little like a loaded gun with no safety catch. She was so very horny already, from the afternoon’s rehearsals…

  “And maybe we could go get something to eat later?” Daryl asked.

  Kat felt her mouth move before her brain had a chance to consider what she said, her lips forming the words: “Okay, so it’s a date.”

  She felt somewhat horrified as she realized what she’d said, how obvious she’d made it all sound when Daryl had given them just the cautious set-up to spend time with each other without anyone having to resort to asking the other one out, or calling it something so blatant as a ‘date’.

  But now she had said it, Daryl beamed warmly, and said: “Wonderful.”

  Kat felt fireworks going off inside her chest. Wow. Wow. Wow. It was a date?

  Chapter Eleven

  Ten days until he was going to see her again in the flesh. Two hundred and forty hours. Okay, so he wasn’t exactly counting down the hours, but sometimes it seemed like it. He’d sit there at work staring at the clock on the wall above the office printer, and he’d work out how many hours left in the day, and how many to go until he was on the plane to LA to see his sexy wife again.

  Wednesday.

  But it wasn’t just the flight to California that he was waiting for. All the time he was waiting around he was really waiting for some little text message, or an email, or a call or a FaceTime message, revealing that finally Kat had taken the bold step of sleeping with another man. Okay, so she didn’t really do email, and she was so busy with rehearsals that there really wasn’t time for a phone call or FaceTime until she finally got back to the hotel at the end of the day.

  She could text, however, and occasionally dropped a little affectionate line like,

  [Kat]: Thinking about you! Xxx

  Or perhaps some random update on her current situation:

  [Kat]: So hot and sweaty. Can you believe the air conditioner in our room isn’t working properly today? Nobody can fix it :-(

  Or a nugget of tour news:

  [Kat]: So Josie fired our drummer :-( She wasn’t all that great, tho. Gonna be tough to find a new one.

  Julian enjoyed knowing he was in her thoughts every now and then, enough so for her to remember a little text update. But it also kind of made him feel like he was some kind of emergency doctor, on call. But rather than waiting for an unexpected alert to some patient in trouble, he was tense to the possibility of a sudden text message from Kat announcing that she’d done something naughty.

  Now that she’d confessed her attraction toward the drummer from Blue Tonic, Julian felt more on edge than ever, nervously waiting for that bombshell of a text.

  Kat had been so reluctant to actually take advantage of her new-found sexual freedom, so nervous about offending her husband even if they’d talked and talked about his fantasy. But now that they’d had the whole thing verified by an independent third party—after Renee had come in and talked it over with them on FaceTime, suddenly it seemed to Julian that Kat was open to the possibility of actually going for another guy on tour.

  So here he was in another boring Wednesday afternoon meeting, and maybe half of his attention was on the phone he had secreted in his palm.

  “Julian, what do those numbers say to you?”

  “Uh… well, Marty, I have to say they’re not as rosy as they have been in previous years, but if you adjust for the state of the economy, it’s really not too bad, considering.”

  He was surprised how effective he was at his job using only half his attention, but maybe that was more a reflection of how mindless the job was. It paid well, but it really was only pushing papers around an office. Maybe he needed to find something different.

  One benefit of Kat being in California, however, was that the time difference meant that for most if not all of the morning, he knew there was zero chance of her texting him. It meant that if there was actually a project where he needed more than an ounce or two of focus, he would be able to get it done before lunch.

  “Well, let’s keep an eye on them, and if anything changes for the worse next month…”

  “I’ll follow up in a week, Marty, just to make sure.”

  “Perfect. Okay. So, we need to look at the reciprocals, I think. Judy, you got something on that?”

  And here just in time to keep his eyelids from voluntarily sealing themselves together, his phone did actually vibrate quietly in his hands. It was still very early days on the tour, so he didn’t get his hopes up despite what Renee had encouraged them to think about the previous night.

  He glanced around the room quickly to ensure nobody would notice him dwelling for any length of time on his cell phone. Apart from Marty, their boss, who had his head turned constantly toward the PowerPoint presentation up on the drop-down screen, everyone else seemed to be unashamedly gazing down at their laps, and their own damn smart phones. Ah well.

  A slight rise in his heart rate as he peered down at the screen of his phone.

  [Kat]: So guess who’s going to step in to help with the drumming the rest of the week, while we find a replacement?

  He felt a slight note of disappointment as he saw that it was merely tour news she was sending. How was he supposed to know who they had filling in for pregnant Jacqueline this week? He didn’t know any drummers.

  [Julian]: Phil Collins? Dave Grohl? Lars Ulrich?

  He was running out of famous drummers.

  [Julian]: Ringo Starr? Charlie Watts?

  Kat was seemingly not amused.

  [Kat]: Har, har. Ain’t you the comedian.

  But he was about to tap out his point about not being expert in the world of drumming when she came up with the answer:

  [Kat]: Daryl!

  Julian caught his breath.

  “Everything all right, Julian?”

  He looked up, mildly shocked that he’d been busted for looking at his phone. Everyone was looking at him. Jesus. What was he going to say? He had no idea what everyone had been talking about for the past few minutes. All credit to Judy and her expertise on the reciprocals, but Julian had no idea and even less care in the world about any of that.

  “Uh… yeah, sorry,” he said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair, as though it would distract from the blush that he felt heating up his cheeks, the sweat oozing out of his hairline.

  “You have something to add?” Marty said, sounding like a teacher demanding to see the secret note he’d been caught passing around.

  “Uh…” Julian felt horrified. What on Earth could he say? He shrugged and blurted out, “I just think there’s gotta be another way, Marty.”

  A gamble. Everyone else, apart from Judy, who had been halted in mid-presentation and looked more than miffed about it, was looking at him and Marty as though they were watching tennis at the US Open. All of them seemed thankful they hadn’t been discovered fiddling with their smart phones, but all were riveted on what Julian had said in order to get out of trouble.

  Marty stared at Julian, his face fixed in a terrifying countenance.

  Then their boss seemed to suddenly relax, turn to Ju
dy and say: “Well, is there, Judy? I mean it’s a perfectly reasonable question considering the extent to which the numbers stack up.”

  Judy gave a silent “fuck you” stare to Julian for messing up the flow of her presentation, and now had to pick up on Julian’s suggestion. Poor thing.

  Julian went back to subtly scoping out his smart phone for anything Kat might have sent him further, resolved to not exposing himself so stupidly again.

  [Kat]: Okay… so right now I’m having lunch with him! It’s not really like a date or anything, but we were talking about our drum situation, and Daryl just volunteered to help us out.

  Having lunch with him—well, that was progress, wasn’t it? Enough to give Julian a semi right in the middle of the meeting, at least. A quick look around to check he was safe—and he was, Marty was grilling Judy on this mythical alternative approach Julian had just suggested—and he tapped out a reply to Kat:

  [Julian]: That’s great, honey! Sounds to me that he’s interested in a certain guitarist…

  Okay, now his semi was thickening a little further, since he’d just effectively hinted to his wife that some guy might want to sleep with her.

  [Kat]: I don’t know… he’s good at playing things cool… right now he’s sitting across from me in a diner, listening to our back catalog on iTunes.

  How long did it take to track down a replacement drummer in LA, anyway? And how long could Blue Tonic just loan out their drummer? Julian hoped it was a few days, that maybe Daryl would find himself irresistibly drawn to Kat… Boy, was it exciting. And he wasn’t even there to see it happening.

  [Julian]: And yet he’s volunteered to do extra work for you guys until you find another drummer… sounds like he’s preparing to make a move…

  But Kat didn’t reply to that text, and suddenly Julian felt the cold frosty chill of fear that he had somehow offended her. He told himself it was just the fact that she was having lunch with someone, a guy she had a crush on, and maybe now they were talking again, and she was distracted from texting her husband. He took the positive view, though he couldn’t quite shake the nerves that she was spurning him because he’d been so crass in suggesting this new friend of hers might want to do wicked things with her.