Jonnie threaded in a dreamy, mythological experimentation.
The door to the sound booth shut, and soon a deep bass groove trembled in Brian’s bones.
Lost to the instrumental communication, he glanced over to see Jonas seated on the couch, dreadlocks hanging in front of his eyes while he played a bass guitar.
Brian moved his fingers through chords, his most cherished possession doing his bidding yet again. This new song had a heaviness to it, a gravity, a weight.
Architects of moral panic decried rock and roll as the devil’s music. Though Brian mostly laughed at such fear mongering, at times he felt it.
At the very least, something Dionysian and wild, the essence of a snarl or a cocky sneer and a phallic and thrusting guitar, lived forever in the soul of rock.
Fuck, he loved his band. His music. The lighthouse in his storms, always and forever.
With or without Helen, he’d always have his bandmates, his calling. Even if their affair broke his heart, he’d never be without purpose.
“Yeah,” Thom said, deep voice smoky as he broke into song.
Unrepentant and sexual lyrics of troubadours and carousing, roaming and prowling, conquered the room. The restless nomad’s tune challenged Brian’s romantic reverie.
“Our sensitive singer is having lady troubles again,” Jonnie said dryly.
Brian’s mates got on him for falling for every bird he touched. It wasn’t quite that bad; he knew when to exercise discretion and reject female charms, but perhaps the boys were on to something with their ongoing advice that he needed to get better at protecting his heart from the wrong women. Kris King was proof.
“I’m telling you, you don’t need some relationship to find inspiration. The muse comes from in here.” Thom slapped his chest. “And here.” He grabbed his balls.
Fighting a grin, Brian continued to play. His bassist loved who he was without regret or apology. A leering imp, a randy jester, a decadent rocker to his marrow. Still, he couldn’t miss a chance to take the piss. “Before you know it, you’ll be the eighty-year-old with a nineteen-year-old girl on your arm. Which isn’t cool. It’s pathetic.”
“Tell that to my eighty-year-old cock when it’s getting sucked by said nineteen-year-old.” Thom fetched a beer and used end of the table to crack off the cap.
Tilly’s smiling face flashed into Brian’s mind, and he irrationally squirmed with an urge to sock Thom’s jaw. As twisted as it sounded, part of him was grateful that Janet’s untimely death had left him to the task of raising their young daughter by himself. Stumbling into single fatherhood and figuring out how to parent a girl from age six onward had taught him sobering lessons on why the world needed feminism.
“By that time, let’s hope no young woman feels compelled to service you for any reason. And I’d rather not entertain a conversation with your knob, no thank you,” Brian said.
Thom slid mirrored sunglasses down his nose, light brown eyes aglitter. “Lemme get some girls over here. We’ll find some inspiration the true rock star way. For old time’s sake.”
Brian worked through his solo. “That isn’t me, and you know it. You’re a sad old man grasping at the scraps of his lost youth, not some sly devil dangling temptation. Better I tell you than someone else.”
Thom laughed a robust laugh, shaking his head and sending long hair flying. His song reached a denouement.
Supplying rhythm and backbeat, Jonas and Jonnie kept up their parts.
“We’ve gotten boring. Look at us, a pack of geriatric men sipping beer. We used to pass girls around and pull trains in studios much like this one. Remember?” Thom’s jackal smile revealed the fistfight-chipped tooth he hadn’t bothered to fix.
Most of the wilder exploits from decades ago were bound up with so-called partying, otherwise known as alcohol and drug abuse, and Brian had no desire to relive them.
He’d long since come to terms with the excesses he’d indulged in around the time of their first tour, learned lessons, and moved on. Sex with groupies had been just another drug. No intimacy, no shared humanity, no affection or true spark of desire. A manifestation of addictive behavior, an attempt to relieve boredom and fill a deeper emotional and spiritual void with a momentary rush, a fleeting high.
And, of course, such behavior involved treating the women not as people with their own feelings and needs, but as consumables laid out on the rock star’s endless buffet of party favors, toys to be used and discarded.
“Nah. I don’t think moving past sharing women with your bandmates means getting old and boring. I think it’s a sign of personal growth. Maturity. Insight. And I’m grateful I figured that out quickly, so such behavior represents a misspent year of my youth, not a permanent marker of my character.” Brian wadded up a piece of notebook paper and threw it at Thom.
“The man’s got a point,” Jonas said from the couch. “You know many of those girls didn’t have their heads on right. And how we took advantage…not good for the soul. I couldn’t get to sleep at night if I was still on the shag.”
Thom put a thumb over his bottle and shook it up. Fizz left glass with a hissing pop. “I hereby consecrate, beatify, and declare you Saint Brian. That’s what you want, right? Or do you need to trudge to Jerusalem with a crucifix on your back and have someone nail you up?” The bassist pressed his damp pad between Brian’s brows and moved it to his chest and each shoulder, making the sign of the cross. He flipped Jonas the bird. “Why don’t you come over here and suck him off, Mr. Yes-Man Drummer? I sleep fine, thanks.”
Jonas swapped his bass for a mahogany Fender and wailed out a solo. The drummer had a brutally calm way of ignoring attempts to lure him into conflict.
“Enough,” Brian said through an appreciative chuckle, wiping
