“Oh, he gets to have me even if he didn’t let me see other guys,” she said.
Daryl said, “He likes you… seeing other guys? Or does he prefer to pretend you don’t?”
“As far as I know, he likes me seeing other guys. He certainly doesn’t do any… pretending.”
“As far as you know?”
She smiled, and felt those nervous butterflies flapping around in her stomach again. Was she making a big mistake, trying to make Julian’s strange fantasy a reality? Would it harm their marriage after all? She told Daryl, “It… kind of… hasn’t really happened yet.”
“Seriously?” Daryl raised his eyebrow again. “Tell me it’s because you haven’t met the right guy yet… I mean… it’s not because guys don’t want you, right?”
She smiled, and felt that line in the sand being crossed again—she liked him as a person, rather than just lusting after his body. It felt almost as though she was in danger of falling foul of the hard and fast rule for all this, falling for another guy rather than just fucking him. But maybe she needed to feel this way about a guy to sleep with him. She needed some kind of emotional connection.
“Julian… only told me how he felt… recently.”
“When he knew you were going on tour?”
“Yes, something like that.”
Daryl nodded. “He knows how it is on tour, then.”
“I’m not sure he does. Not fully. But it seems to fit into his fantasy…”
She regretted her use of the term ‘fantasy’ the instant it came out of her mouth. Too much information. She could have been satisfied with telling Daryl that Julian would know about any guy she slept with, that he’d know she was sexually active while away from him. She didn’t have to tell him that Julian would enjoy knowing she was sexually active while away from home.
“So, this is a sexual thing for your husband?” Daryl said, sharp. Picking up instantly on that word. “He gets off on knowing you’re… fooling around?”
She gazed at him, anxious, but increasingly he gave her the confidence to tell him the truth. He wasn’t shying away from any of this.
“He’s curious… to hear about… anything that happens to me,” she said, speaking slowly as she considered her words carefully.
“He gets off on you fucking other guys?” Daryl grinned.
His grin caught her off-guard. Suddenly she thought he was making fun of Julian, or making fun of her, or making fun of them both. That he really thought it was pathetic, weird, freaky, after all.
“That puts you off?” she asked him, feeling a flicker of butterflies as she said it. She was laying it all out there.
He laughed. But then he said, “God, no. I don’t care that you’re married. I don’t care what you’ve got going on with your husband. I just care that you’re the most beautiful woman I ever saw.”
She smiled and felt her heart just leap. “Thank you,” she blushed, feeling like all kinds of sweet music was playing inside her chest.
What had she ever done for this gorgeous guy to like her?
“Just telling it how it is,” he said. “No point in doing anything else.”
He took another bite of his steak, and Kat saw that he’d finished his. It made her tremble. God, was this all going the way she thought it was? Were they going to go back to the hotel and… well… do naughty, beautiful, wonderful, wicked things together?
She pushed her half-eaten steak aside. She wasn’t hungry. The disco inside her stomach was taking care of her appetite.
Almost in slow motion, it seemed, Daryl leaned forward across the table and reached for her hands. She looked uncertainly in his eyes a moment, and then gave him her hands. She felt a sweet buzz as he touched her, the warmth and the roughness of his hands.
“So, I don’t need to worry about your marriage,” he smiled. “If we were to… you know… sleep together… would it be a problem later on? When we’re on the road together?”
She looked into his eyes. Pretty, blue eyes. She hardly knew him. She couldn’t love him. She felt certain about that.
“It would just be sex, right?” she said, and the casual nature of it all just startled her, though she did well to hide it. Jesus. She was really going to do it with him?
“Just sex,” Daryl nodded.
She said, “It wouldn’t be like we were… you know… together.”
“No,” he agreed. “Just… friends, right?”
She grinned. “Friends with benefits.”
Once again, she felt the alcohol breaking down her inhibitions, removing her sense of awkwardness, her fears and concerns. She slipped off one of her shoes, and now quietly lifted her foot, up to the seat Daryl was sitting on. Between his legs.
She did her best to look as though nothing was happening above the table, but beneath it, her foot stroked his inner thighs, and then glided up over his crotch to gently explore the bulge in his pants.
And boy, what a bulge in his pants.
He gazed into her eyes and smiled, trying as much as she was to look as though nothing was happening, nothing for the waiter or any of the other restaurant customers would be able to see. But he sat there with his legs spread, letting her stroke his hardness with her foot.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “Somewhere,” he said. Ordinarily, she might have thought ill of somebody with such a casual attitude toward his girlfriends. But tonight, with Daryl, she didn’t care so much.
Then he said, “We’re on a break. She decided she wants the kind of guy who can buy her a house in the suburbs—and stay with her in it. Raise kids, a mortgage, and so on. I let her go off and find one.”
Kat felt better about it, nevertheless. She wasn’t a home wrecker.
“She’s crazy,” she said. “Letting you go.”
He shrugged. “You came along. I probably would have cheated on her anyway. Or broke up with her.”
She grinned. “Just so you could have me?”
“No one else I’d rather have right now.”
They were both silent for a few moments. Kat stroked him, feeling out the size of his erect cock. Marveling at it. Was that all him? What would that feel like inside her? Wow. Just, wow.
She felt her hand automatically drop between her thighs—and jolted in surprise at just how damp she was down there. Would he think ill of her? Would he think there was something wrong with her? She was so wet…
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, signaling for the waiter.
Kat withdrew her foot from between his thighs. She felt all giddy again. The schoolgirl who’s won over her high school crush, who knows pretty much that he’s the one to take her cherry. Only, this wasn’t the cherry that made her no longer a virgin. It was the cherry that made her no longer a monogamous, married woman.
Was this really what Julian wanted? It wasn’t as though it was reversible. They could both try to forget about it if things turned out badly, but they probably both knew that it would be impossible to entirely forget something like this.
They split the bill—or at least, both of them put down a fifty each, knowing it would more than cover the meal, and neither of them felt like waiting around for change. Then they were outside the restaurant, waiting for Uber to send them a car.
Waiting outside, despite the restaurant’s offer of a seat inside while they waited for the car.
There on the curb, Daryl pulled her to him. Kat felt bold, and now her hands were on him, sliding up to cradle his jaw, and she was pressing her lips to his. Pressing her body against his. Pressing her crotch against that great thing in his pants.
It felt so very strange, kissing a man who was not her husband. Sucking on his lips, slipping her tongue in his mouth. Breathing in his smell, running her fingers through his hair. It was all so different from Julian. So thrilling.
A police car went by, and whether or not it meant to specifically, turned on its siren just as it cruised past them—making the two of them nearly jump out of their skins in shock
. But it wasn’t stopping, there would be no police warning about public displays of affection that evening. They broke apart, laughing together a while.
Then they were together again, and he was kissing her neck, his hands moving to her breasts, while hers slipped down to his fine derriere, pulling him to her so that his large erection was crushed against the burning need between her legs.
Oh, it felt good. So tender, so sweet, so perfect. Daryl wasn’t too rough, he wasn’t too impatient, he wasn’t inept like so many guys she remembered from college. He was just incredible, so composed, so calm and confident, intuitive about what she wanted, what she needed.
She felt like an inferno inside.
She was going to fuck him.
As she thought about it, she realized she hadn’t texted Julian for ages. Part of her thought, to hell with it, she didn’t need to tell him anything until later, until after. Yet part of her felt she owed it to her husband. This wouldn’t have happened without him willing it. She would just have to find a moment to text him. In the taxi? At the hotel? In Daryl’s bathroom?
How would Julian react?
Part of her still felt worried that he’d freak out, that he’d flip. That he’d feel jealous after all, that he wouldn’t be able to deal with her transgression even if he’d urged her into it. Most of her, though, felt a quiet confidence that this was exactly what Julian wanted. That when she finally revealed all to him, he would be turned on like never before.
Then Daryl’s phone rang.
He pulled apart from her, and apologized, pulling it out of his pocket with the intention of turning the damn thing off. Only, he saw who the call was from, or he saw a brief text from the caller trying to get hold of him, and he didn’t turn the phone off.
“God damn,” he hissed.
“What is it?”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, looking up at her with agony in his eyes. “I think something’s happened to Billy.”
Now Kat’s own phone started ringing. It was Josie. Well, since Daryl had interrupted their little bit of passion for his phone call—and now he was calling whoever it was back—Kat felt she wasn’t being rude accepting Josie’s call.
“Hey, Josie,” she said.
“Kat… you’ve gotta help… he’s… unconscious…” Josie was terrified, struggling to get words out past her tears.
“What is it? What’s happened?” she asked, trying to get her head around what Josie was saying.
“I think we might be in trouble… he’s got blood pouring out of his nose…”
Chapter Thirteen
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Julian found himself watching his clock closer than he had ever watched it before. He was very nearly tracking the seconds as the big hand went round and round and round.
So, ten minutes after her text announcing her exclusive rehearsal with Daryl, Julian sat there wondering if ten minutes might be enough time for them to sit alone in a room—alone in a building perhaps—before wanting to tear each other’s clothes off.
Oh. He tried to watch the latest Star Wars spin-off movie on demand, and as much as he loved Star Wars, he couldn’t pull his eyes away from that clock.
Half past eight. Was half an hour enough time for them to say ’to hell with this rehearsal’ and just get down on the floor and rut like animals? Maybe not. They were both in rock bands, but Kat was 33 years old, if anything she’d drag him back to the hotel if he was willing. And it was what, ten minutes in a taxi back to the hotel?
He also imagined how it might be for the two of them, each probably a little nervous, since they weren’t just banging fans or groupies or roadies or hookers, or whatever. They were both in the bands, and for the next few days they were even both in the same band. Neither wanted to sour their relationship with something slipshod and trivial.
This was an affair between co-workers, not a one night stand between strangers who met in a bar.
And Julian got the sense that both Kat and Daryl were dedicated to the music. Kat, he knew full well was going to want everything to be perfect ahead of the tour starting. Daryl—well, if the guy could listen to a few songs in a diner on his iPhone and then go into a room and just play with the band as brilliantly as Kat had described—then he had to be all about the music, too.
The road to nine-thirty was awfully slow. A watched pot never boils and a watched clock does just as little. Julian tried to relax and tell himself that Kat and Daryl were probably immersed in the music, having so much fun playing guitar and drums they probably forgot the need to break for dinner. Ten-thirty, would be seven-thirty in California with the time difference. Not even particularly late for dinner.
The clock started moving a little more quickly as he managed to turn more of his focus to the Star Wars movie Rogue One. Eleven-thirty came along, twelve. That would be nine o’clock on the West Coast. Maybe they’d call out for pizza, continue rehearsing. Maybe Kat was having such a good time with Daryl that she simply forgot to text him to let him know how it was going. Julian didn’t want to text her in case he interrupted anything.
Around 1am, he found himself nodding off to sleep. He picked himself up and staggered upstairs to get ready for bed.
Finally, at half past one—half past ten California time, he heard the familiar beep-beep of an incoming text message.
[Kat]: Hey honey, sooo sorry I haven’t texted you this evening—everything suddenly went completely crazy… one of Daryl’s bandmates got in trouble… we’re in the hospital right now, so I can’t text too long since we’re not supposed to use our cell phones in here…
How about that for an intense message. Julian felt his eyes spin a little. Things were going well between her and Daryl… that was great. Then another member of Blue Tonic ‘got in trouble’. What did that mean?
If they were at the hospital, then it had to be some kind of medical emergency, some kind of injury or health issue. Had one of Daryl’s band mates had a car crash? Surely Kat would have just said he was in a car crash. The word ‘trouble’ kind of inferred that whatever had happened was of the guy’s own making, he had been doing something a little wrong or even illegal, when some accident occurred.
Had the guy been doing some kind of extreme sport in the hills or mountains around LA? A sky-diving misadventure? Paragliding or scuba diving or something like that.
Why so vague about what had happened?
This was a rock band, though, so Julian’s mind turned toward more likely culprits: drugs, alcohol. Some kind of overdose, perhaps. Kat wasn’t going to state something like that explicitly, especially if the guy was using coke or some other illegal substance.
He felt somewhat disappointed that Kat wasn’t going to call him that night—although he had something to hang onto, that it had been going well with Daryl. Had they done anything? Had they slept together before news of Daryl’s bandmate had filtered through?
So many questions, but he didn’t feel like Kat would have time to deal with them just then. He texted her:
[Julian]: Sorry to hear about the problem, hope he’s okay. Glad to hear it went well with D. Are you okay yourself? Miss you xxx
With that, he lay down in bed, even thinking twice about sticking on the television for a last-minute glance at some news or something before sleep arrived.
Then after a while,
[Kat]: I’m fine… but I’m sooo sorry I’m not going to be able to call tonight.
Julian had already made the assumption that Kat wouldn’t be calling tonight. She had a good enough reason, it didn’t phase him, although the long wait for her had not exactly paid off.
He replied to her:
[Julian]: It’s okay, honey. I understand—how’s he doing? He’s not in any danger now he’s in the hospital?
Kat came back:
[Kat]: I think he was lucky. The hospital wasn’t far away and I don’t think it was quite as bad as it could have been. Josie just got really scared, and needs me with her right now.
Juli
an felt suddenly very tired, as though someone had switched the off button on his energy levels. Most likely, he’d been keeping himself awake with the adrenaline of anticipation—and now it was clear that his wife’s date was basically over, that adrenaline had evaporated.
[Julian]: I’d probably better leave you to it, honey, and get some sleep.
[Kat]: Thanks, honey. I’ll call tomorrow, promise xx
And with that, Julian collapsed into sleep, somewhat disappointed but feeling that he had no right to be. He just had to hang on to the thought that until this crisis, his wife had been getting on very well with her potential new lover.
Chapter Fourteen
For a few days, it seemed hit or miss whether there would be a tour at all at the end of the week. They all had a day off to allow Josie to get over the shock of what had happened to Billy, and for Kat to help her.
Kat didn’t even get to spend any of that day off with Daryl, since he went with Billy to the rehab center just out past Palm Springs. And none of them really wanted to leave the safe confines of their hotel with the media camped out outside demanding soundbites about Billy’s situation.
The day they returned to the rehearsal room, Josie was still pale and quiet. The search for a drummer had been going about as well as the press coverage of their upcoming tour, so they had to do their best with an empty chair behind the drum set.
It was a serious low point. Blue Tonic had temporarily ceased to be, and the band had been the tour’s key to gaining younger fans who weren’t necessarily into The Ponytails or the surviving support band Viking Hoard, whose average fan was even older than that of The Ponytails. Along with the press coverage of Billy’s health problems, the tour was also hit by the various rumors surrounding Blue Tonic itself—whether the band had split up, whether its members were basically facing the ends of their musical careers. The number of times TV news saw fit to interview distraught young fans who seemed willing to do themselves injury as a result of the possibility of Blue Tonic’s end was astounding—they were hardly Justin Bieber or One Direction, for goodness’ sake.
Rock Her World Page 15
