Excess

And the gigs got wilder and wilder. Only Prissy stayed out of the on-stage sex, which was now engulfing the music to the extent that less than half of Sunbeam's time on stage was spent playing the guitar or singing. Rather more was spent cavorting with the other girls, sometimes engaged in simulated intercourse, but on one memorable occasion, for a full fifteen minutes, for unsimulated three-way sex between Carla, Sticky Goo and Krakatoa, while Daffodil and Marsh Mallow kept up a rather monotonous rhythm in the background.

Tabitha told herself after every gig in which there was a further extension of the sexual license that had become an expected and inevitable part of the performance that this was it; that just one more repetition of this, just one more humiliating evening, watching the men in their Black Sabbath or Blue Oyster Cult tee-shirts crowd around Sunbeam, getting autographs signed on their penises or on their bottoms, with the prospect of once again tipping the cleaners a few extra quid to clean up the urine on the stage, that this time, most definitely this time, she would leave the group, even though she had no suggestion as to who should succeed her as manager. And this was despite the fact that she no longer had the time or the need to do her own gigs as a DJ. The split she got from the group's concerts was actually beginning to be worth something.

If it hadn't been for the recording offer, or, in fact, the several recording offers, from three major labels and five minors, Tabitha might well have left the group and foresworn a management career altogether. It was, after all, getting to be quite difficult back at the house she still shared with Tom and Sunbeam. It had been a long time since she'd made love with Sunbeam, who was now proceeding through a frightening number of sexual partners, always more than one at the same time, of either sex, and both noisily and frequently. And it wasn't just the sexual partners. Her drug consumption was continuing to rise. Sunbeam's stake in the drug-dealing business now run by one of her new male friends was paying quite good dividends.

Tabitha's only compensation was her new relationship with Nikki, a DJ like herself, whose repertoire consisted mostly of drum & bass. Otherwise she would have had to spend rather more evenings under the same roof as Sunbeam and have to listen to her many and rather vocal cries of orgasmic pleasure.

Fame and fortune came to Excess very suddenly. It was almost overnight. The major record label with whom they'd chosen to sign wanted, in fact demanded, prompt returns on their investment. And a huge amount that was too. Only the background of a second class Business Studies degree steered Tabitha through all the negotiations, which she knew Sunbeam, especially in her current constant drug haze, would have been totally incompetent in handling. All those zeros on the cheques and the reams of small print on the contracts were enough to intoxicate anyone, but Tabitha knew she had the fortunes of five women riding on her level-headedness. Not to mention the roadies, the lighting engineer and the make-up assistants who were also now dependent on the financial fortunes of Excess.

But Tabitha knew inside herself that she was not really the right kind of person to manage Excess. Especially now, as only the merest sliver of radical lesbian ideology acted as a fig leaf for a rock group rather less famous for its uncompromising sexual politics than for its sexual behaviour on stage, now filmed and displayed on huge overhead screens, and was, if anything, the more extreme as the group became more notorious. Although the interviews, for NME, Rolling Stone, Kerrang! and, rather more prestigiously, the Guardian, still gave Sunbeam plenty of opportunity to pontificate in the way she always did about the power of pussy and the gender revolution, no one, except perhaps the persistently naïve Joanne, really believed that what Excess was achieving really furthered any causes at all. Indeed, it took very little cynicism for Tabitha to admit that the rock group had rather more to do with porn than politics.

It was a very different venue that Tabitha attended on the last day of her rock management career. The auditorium was massive and sloped with a rake toward the front where, from the rear seats, the fans (mostly Dutch and Belgian as the band was on their first international tour) could see rather more on the huge overhead projections than they could of the pale pink naked dots on stage. There were no seats in the audience for Tabitha, who had to sit off-stage in the wings, perhaps grateful she couldn't see Sunbeam don her strap-on dildo and fuck one of the several guest performers who were now a regular part of the act. Nor could she see the musicians, excluding Prissy, indulge in the on-stage orgy in the ultimate number, the number one hit 'Relapse', something she found rather troubling whenever she viewed the reaction from an audience that was now almost wholly male.

She waited a while after the show before she entered the changing rooms. She knew the girls would be excited by the gig and would probably already be working out who they would fuck in the after-gig party the record company had organised in the Antwerp hotel. Not to mention chopping up lines of coke, heating up tin-foils of smack or rolling up huge spliffs. But she had to be careful not to leave it too late or her presence would be only distantly felt.

"Wow! That's a pretty cool outfit you got on, Tabby sweetest!" remarked Sunbeam when Tabitha wandered into the changing room.

Tabitha smiled. At least Sunbeam was still lucid, although, judging by the kit in front of her, she'd soon be mainlining and, for a few minutes later, be quite disinclined to make any coherent observation at all. Of course, one benefit of the group's improved fortunes was that Tabitha could afford to buy exactly the clothes she wanted to wear. Now that she had the choice, her taste was definitely toward the expensive tailored suit. It was as nothing compared to Sunbeam's huge wardrobe of clothes and shoes. Not that there was much evidence of this on her person. Nor indeed on any of the other naked women in the changing room.

"I've got news for you, Sunbeam."

"Whassat Tabby? Gig in Slovenia? Record company not happy with the follow-up to 'Relapse'?"

"No, they're quite happy with 'Love Blouse', though there's a certain Dutch seventies rock group that's threatening legal action. No, it's nothing like that. And the next gig's in Munich, exactly as planned. No, it's about me."

"Oh yeah!" said Sunbeam, almost instantly losing interest. "Hey, Sticky Goo Nita sweetheart, don't you Bogart that joint!"

"'Sif I would!" Carla replied, passing over a huge spliff, the roach still dripping with saliva.

"I'm no longer your manager, Sunbeam."

"Whassat?" wondered Sunbeam, toking long and deep.

"I'm not going to be managing Excess any more."

"Zat right?" Sunbeam slurred.

Tabitha wondered how much of what she was saying Sunbeam was actually taking in. Her drug consumption was now so great that her normal state of being was in some kind of narcotic high and it was relatively rare for there to be a great deal of coherence about her.

"You remember I spoke to Johnny Logan. Of course you do. Manager of the Racing Turds, Sonic Blue and Mary O'Connor."

"Mary O'Connor. She's a kind of Irish folkie, ain't she?"

"Yes. Johnny Logan's a top manager. He only deals with the big acts. He gets the huge multi-million dollar contracts. And he'll represent anyone if they turn a profit. Johnny Logan's not small fry like me."

"Yeah. Mary O'Connor. She's fucking naff. I like Sonic Blue. They're good. I got their CD. They're a bit like... Fuck! Who're they like?"

"Don't worry about them! I'm not going to be your manager any more. It's going to be Johnny Logan. I signed you over. He'll make you rich. Or richer. Richer than I ever could!"

Sunbeam nodded her head, but Tabitha wasn't convinced she really understood what Tabitha had said. Especially when her next comment was: "Fuck! I know! They're a bit like U2. Fucking Bono and that kind of shit. They're fucking cool!"

"Well, you're going to be working in the same stable as Sonic Blue now, Sunbeam. I'm not going to be managing you. Johnny Logan is."

"Oh!" said Sunbeam. She looked momentarily confused. "So, where are you going?"

"I dunno, Sunbeam. I got a good deal from Johnny. More money than I ever thought possible. I might, you know, start a record label. Or open a record shop. You know, all the things we used to talk about doing."

"Record label? Sounds like a good idea. That's what we were gonna do, wasn't it? So we wouldn't ever sell out. We were gonna call it Pussy Power Records. That's why I wrote that song. Remember!"

"Yes, I do!" smiled Tabitha, suddenly remembering another Sunbeam who she'd once known so well, one with whom she had sat at the back of the class, giggling and drawing naughty pictures on the back of the hand with a felt-tip pen. A Sunbeam who coughed and coughed when she tried out the cigarette she'd stolen off her father, and swore she'd never smoke again. Not the Sunbeam in front of her, who was carefully filling a syringe with smack and who had tied a pair of knickers around her upper arm as a makeshift tourniquet.

"'Pussy Power! I've got a cunt. We've all got cunts. We've all got Pussy Power!'"Sunbeam sang. And then she called out to Anita. "Hey! Keep a line of that stuff for me."

"After or before you mainline?"

"Shit! Who fucking knows or cares!"

Tabitha smiled. She turned around and left the changing room, quite happy not to have to find yet another excuse not to accompany Sunbeam to the party at the Antwerp Hotel and looking forward with more anticipation than she'd ever imagined toward her own room in the other hotel where Nikki was waiting for her.

And as every step took her further away from the changing room where Sunbeam was busily ingesting drugs and around which were gathered a huge crowd of adolescent men in their denim and heavy metal tee-shirts, it felt like more and more of a horrible weight and responsibility was at last being taken off her. She felt that when she would finally meet Nikki and the two of them would collapse as one mass of black and brown limbs that she would be so light and unencumbered that she would be able to flap her wings and fly.