Girl in a Rock Show

We sat by the pool, with Miriam, Trixie and me on individual deck chairs, and Jodie and Eric sharing a day-bed, chilling out, chatting about the festival and what bands we enjoyed the most. The sound of crickets were ever present in the background, joining with the ringing still in our ears, and there were moths flying around the floodlights which cast a bright yellow glow across the pool, and occasionally a cane-toad jumped in the grass on the other side of the pool's safety fence.

"Who wants a choof?" Eric pulled out a fancy glass billy, packing a cone and lighting up. Because no one took up his offer he tried to inhale the entire cone's worth of pot in one pull, sucking half the weed through the cone into the bowl, to our amusement. We all laughed and he looked up at us with a sheepish grin. "I hate it when it does that."

Eric had also brought out his acoustic guitar and began to strum it, singing along, trying to play various songs, but not very well. Actually, he was quite shit, but he was givin' it a good crack. He and Jodie murdered Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue's ballad duet, Where the Wild Roses Grow. Jodes couldn't stop giggling when she sang Kylie's parts, while Eric tried to be all dark and serious, Nick Cave style. But it didn't suit his jovial personality. Same with his attempt at The Smashing Pumpkins' 1979, where he failed to nail Billy Corgan's nostalgic vibe.

The conversation mostly centred around music, and was generally inane, with most topics begun by Eric who fancied himself as an indie rock connoisseur. For example, he asked questions like, who was the better Kim: Kim Deal of the Pixies or Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth? Trixie and Miriam, who idolised both bass guitarists, immediately and passionately told Eric it would be ridiculous to think either was better than the other, because they were both great. After getting mildly fired up, Trixie giggled to relieve the tension that was never actually there. "If I ever have a daughter, I'm gonna name her Kim."

"You always steal my best ideas, Trixie-Trix," Miriam said with a giggle, causing Trixie to protest with a giggle, saying she'd thought the idea first.

Our conversations waxed and waned, and with Eric crapping on about nothing in particular, Jodie eventually yawned and stretched, giving Eric a look, then informed us, "I'm knackered, ay. Might hit the sack." She and Eric stood and left hand-in-hand, and soon after Miriam told us she was going to bed too. The arrangement we'd come up with was Miriam and Trixie would share the Queen bed in the spare room, and I'd crash on the lounge in the rumpus.

"I'll join you soon, Mim," Trixie told her sister. "Nighty, night."

"Sure you will," Miriam said with a smile. "Don't you two kids stay up too late."

After Miriam left us, I sat there for a bit, sipping on a bottle of water, my ears ringin' like a bastard, neck and shoulders and legs aching, and my face feeling burnt from the day's sun, listening to the crickets and smiling to myself, lovin' every moment of it.

"What you smilin' at?" Trixie's voice matched the smile on her face too.

"I still can't get over how you managed to get up on stage during Grinspoon's set. You're a deadest legend, Trix. Fucken sick as!"

Trixie laughed. "It was crazy up there! The whole fucken crowd stretched out forever. I thought the security man was gonna throw me out!" She stood and moved elegantly over to the day-bed where Eric's guitar lay, and she sat there cross-legged, beginning to pluck the strings, turning the pegs a little, tweaking the tuning. When her ears were satisfied, Trixie began to strum the Pumpkins' 1979.

"Look at you, you rock star," I chuckled. "Much better than Eric was."

Trixie smiled at me, then shifted the song seamlessly to the Foo Fighters' song Everlong, and began singing softly, "Brett...I've waited here for you...Everlong..."

The floodlight hit her face at right angles, creating an even amount of light on one side, and dark on the other, and she looked into my eyes the whole time she sang, not once looking down at the guitar, playing the notes to perfection, all by feel; the guitar an extension of her soul.

I'd noticed how she'd inserted my name into the song, and I sang along with her, breathing out the lyrics as little more than a whisper rather than belting them out. "Breathe out...so I can breathe you in...hold you in..."

I was mesmerised, Trixie sitting opposite, cross legged, serenading me, and for the first time in my life my heart truly soared for a girl. A girl I'd known vaguely for years, where we'd have hardly called each other acquaintances until today, and now we could call each other friends. More than friends, I was sure.

And she sang, "...and I wonder...when I sing along with you..."

I broke out in goose-bumps as I whispered, "...If everything could ever feel this real for ever..."

"...If anything could ever be this good again..."

We finished together, eyes on eyes, singing quietly, "The only thing I'll ever ask of you, you've got to promise not to stop when I say when..."

It was the most beautiful moment of my eighteen years, and if I hadn't already done so earlier through the day, and I'm pretty sure I already had, I'd definitely just fallen completely head over heels in love with Trixie Fletcher. I clapped, telling her in a whisper, "You are...," I caught my Freudian slip, "I mean...that was...fucking beautiful."

Trixie looked down, shyly, embarrassed, knowing exactly what I meant. And she probably hoped for the reaction I gave her too, but still embarrassed all the same. "Thanks. I've been playin' guitar since I was a kid. Mum taught me. She used to be in a band. Plus, I'm a big fan of the Fooeys."

I sat opposite her on my deck chair, and looked down with a smile, recalling a forgotten memory from two years previously, then looked up. "May I play you something?"

"You play guitar?"

I gave her a bit of a grin. "We'll see. You be the judge."

I reached across the gap between us, and she handed me the acoustic. I began to strum, nice and soft, looking down at the fretboard, nowhere near as skilful as Trixie, but making a tune all the same. She recognised the song, and perhaps she even knew what inspired me choosing it. I began to sing, and not very well, but sufficiently, "Must be your skin, that I'm sinking in..."

She joined me straight up. "...must be for real, cos now I can feel..."

"...and I didn't mind..."

"...it's not my kind..."

"...it's not my time, to wonder why..."

We sat there, singing all the way through Bush's Glycerine, finishing in harmony. "...don't let the days go by...could've been easier on you, you, you...glycerine...glycerine...glycerine..."

Trixie clapped and gave me a shy smile. "You're good. Any particular reason you chose Glycerine?"

"I remembered just now how back in year ten when two girls from our year entered the school Battle of the Bands comp and played Glycerine. One of the girl's played electric guitar...can't remember her name. Who was it again?"

Trixie looked down with an embarrassed smile. "I didn't think anyone noticed me up there."

I chuckled. "It took a moment to work out who you were because your hair covered your face. But everyone talked about how good you guys were! You made it your own but kept true to the original. Not many covers do that. You two were fucken awesome."

She still looked embarrassed, like she didn't know how to take a compliment. "Thanks...we were okay. We didn't win though. It was my idea to enter but we couldn't get a band together, so we chose Glycerine at the last moment since it was only the two of us, just for a bit of fun. Christina's a way better singer than me so I only joined in as back up vocals on the chorus."

"Ah yeah, Christina Schmidt. That chick sure has a set of pipes on her. But your voice sounds perfectly fine to me too. Anyway, you guys were robbed because youse two were fucken incredible, and the winners were pretty shit. Who were they again? Dane, I can't even remember whatever-his-last-name was from year-eleven, and his bevan metal-head mates. Anyhow, what happened to Christina? I didn't know her but she wasn't around last year."

Christina had been a student at our school who'd looked like a starving waif but could sing like an angel. I'd thought her a strange girl, because she'd embraced the whole Emo culture before it was even a thing, and apparently once she'd even claimed she was a witch or wiccan or something similar, way back in Year 8. But like with Trixie, I hadn't taken much notice of her till she sang Glycerine on stage to the entire school.

"Her family moved up north because her dad works in the mines, so our attempt to form a band didn't work out. We're still in touch though."

"Bugger, ay. You two were great. Should get the band back together." I was still holding the guitar, strumming it absent minded.

"I can't believe you remembered I was the guitarist."

"It all came back while you were playing to me just now. Bush were one of my favourite bands at the time and I taught myself how to play Glycerine, so I took notice when you guys got up and played. I'm spewin' I didn't come and say somethin' to ya at the time. You nailed it, one-hundred percent, and I could've asked you to teach me, since I was pretty crap. We could've been hanging out..."

Again she blushed and looked away. I smiled, enjoying her reaction, knowing there was something big growing between us this night. And wishing we'd discovered it years before. Recovering composure, she asked, "What else can you play?"

I kept strumming, choosing some chords, thinking about what I knew well enough to impress her with, then came up with local Brissie band Powderfinger's recently new song, These Days, which I'd been practicing, so started to sing quietly in the night. "It's coming round again...slowly creeping hand...of time and its command...soon enough it comes, settles in its place..."

Trixie began to sing along, "Its shadow in my face...puts pressure in my day..."

"...this life, well its slippin' right through my hands..."

"...these days turned out nothin' like I had planned..."

We dueted through to completion. "...Control, well it's slippin' right through my hands...these days turned out nothin' like I had planned..."

When we were done Trixie was silent, with a hint of a smile on her lips, before saying, "Not bad, not bad."

"I'm nowhere near as good as you, but I do like to play."

"Nah, you're pretty good, Brett." She said it, fixing me with eyes half in the spotlight, the other in the shadow, and then she looked down again, unsure, embarrassed.

I found her shyness overwhelmingly endearing and now it was my turn to be embarrassed, because my heart was thumping in my chest like a mother fucker, with a whole bunch of new feelings I never knew existed flowing through me, wanting this night to be forever. I felt my face flush, hoping she wouldn't notice in the floodlights. "Your turn." I handed her the guitar across the gap between us, then I moved across to sit on the opposite end of the day-bed, in front of her.

"Mmm, let me think. Something from one of the girls I reckon. Do you know Patti Smith's Because the Night?"

"Not really."

"She's been around a while but you'll prolly recognise this one." Trixie began to play and I think I recognised the tune. Then she quietly sang. "Take me now baby here as I am, pull me close, try and understand...desire is hunger, the fire I breathe, love is a banquet on which we feed..."

I listened in silence as she rarely looked down at the guitar, keeping her eyes on me and hitting all the right notes. She was beautiful and talented, losing any hint of shyness and self-consciousness when playing guitar, completely confident with the instrument, seamlessly switching chords and quietly belting out, "...because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to lust...because the night belongs to lovers...because the night belongs to lust..."

Again the floodlight illuminated one side of her face, the rest in dark shadow, her legs crossed and she played and sang beautifully, keeping eye contact right to the end. "...Forgive, the yearning burning, I believe its time, to feel, for real, and touch me now...touch me nooowww...HEY...because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to lust...because tonight there are two lovers, because the night belongs to us..."

Trixie sat there, guitar on lap, smiling, looking rather proud of herself. I stared at her, awestruck, my heart beating like a big steam train, wondering if her choice of song was a message to me. I should have kissed her then and there, right? I can be a bit slow with these things, but instead I said, "I've known you for five years and I must be the dumbest guy, not realising you're the coolest chick ever. I wish I'd made an earlier effort to get to know you."

I'd broken the spell she'd created with her serenade, but was casting another, and again Trixie looked down, embarrassed, her face still lit in half-light, fumbling for words. "You were one of the footy heads, always playing rugby down on the oval." She smiled and snorted slightly. "I'm just the shy arty girl with no boobs and who had braces on my teeth and pimples on my cheeks for much of high school, and who no one took much notice of. Especially not the sporty guys."

I blew air sharply through my lips. "You're more than just an arty girl, Trix. Anyhow, most the sporty guys were total dickheads when it came to girls," I said, totally unfaithful to my mates, but telling a brutal, honest truth, "So it was probably a good thing not to be noticed by them."

"Yeah, probably. But I've always reckoned you're a bit different to most of those other blokes."

"I dunno about that."

"Nah, you've always been different to those guys. In a good way. Exceptional at maths and science. Most the other sporty kids were meat heads."

She was right, I was good at maths and science. Though I'd played a fuck-load of touch rugby league with all the other footy heads at school, I was also academically inclined, unlike most of my mates, and it was clear to me now Trixie noticed me back in school, picking me out as different. All the while I'd hardly thought twice about her. Or any of her crowd, to be honest. What an absolute moron I'd been. I was a bit lost for words, but fumbled out, "Well, I'm glad we got to hang out at the BDO today. Best day of my life, I shit you not. Wouldn't have been half as good without ya."

I'd been one-hundred percent sincere, and Trixie understood what I was telling her, shyly smiling again, blushing, looking down, embarrassed. She bit her bottom lip, then finally looked up at me, fixing me with her eyes in the yellow light of the floodies. "I haven't even asked, but you are going to university aren't you? Of course you are, being so smart and all."

"Yeah. I got into my first choice. Bachelor of Applied Science. I hope to major in Chemistry. How about yourself?"

"Graphic Arts. My first choice too, but I'd rather do music or join a band."

"You could do both. You're bloody great on guitar, and you've always been good at art too. Do you remember we were in the same art class back in the first couple of years of high school?" Despite barely speaking to one another back in our art class, I recalled sitting next to Beatrix a few times and noting what she was drawing or painting or making, and how talented she was. Well, at least my unreliable memory, which hadn't paid her anywhere near the attention it should have, told me she was a talented artist.

"Yeah, I remember. You sat next to me once and told me how much you liked the sketch I was doing."

I couldn't even remember speaking to Trixie, but she'd remembered what I'd said after all these years. What an absolute dick-spank I was. "I'd love to see your work again."

"I'll show you sometime. I guess I'm okay. I like drawing. Mainly portraits and comics these days. I still sketch sometimes."

"I look forward to seeing them."

She smiled, blushing a little but holding my gaze this time rather than looking down. "Brett."

"Trixie."

"Um, nah, its nothing."

"What?"

She looked down and bit her lip again, then said, "Promise not to laugh?"

"Why would I laugh at you?"

"I dunno."

"I promise."

She breathed in deeply, exhaling loudly. "Um, after my stage antics during Grinspoon, when you found me...we kissed...and um, please don't laugh, but it was, um, my first ever."

"Your first ever kiss?" I must have sounded dumb-as-fuck, repeating her words.

She took her time before answering the obvious answer. "Yeah. I've never kissed or been kissed before. But I was so excited after making it to the stage, and you held me up and our faces were close, and well, I just did it and kissed you. Sorry."

"Why sorry? It was amazing. YOU were amazing! I'm glad you kissed me. It's one of my favourite moments of today. No regrets, ay, Trix."

I couldn't tell by her expression if Trixie was about to laugh or cry, but she did neither. She looked up, biting her bottom lip again, a cute nervous trait, and then spoke, almost whispering, a tremor in her voice. "Yeah, no regrets. Um, so, like...I really like you, Brett. I've always...um...sorta liked you, I guess, since those days back in art class. I know I sound silly, but I'll never forget today, because of you." By now it was actually the following day, sometime very early in the morning, but meh, details.

My heart fluttered and I felt my face flush again. She'd poured her heart out, telling me exactly how she felt, and it'd obviously taken her a huge amount of courage. And the way she felt was the same way I felt about her. Finally I did what I should have done earlier, extending my hand to her, which she accepted, and I looked into her eyes, slowly leaning in, and she responded by closing her eyes, puckering her lips above the guitar in her lap between us. My lips met hers in a gentle kiss; lightly, open a little, but no tongue at first, but only our gentle soft lips against each other.

We kissed for more than several thumping heart beats, then broke off, and I looked into her eyes and smiled. "I like you too. I like you heaps. Like I said, I've been kicking myself I didn't get to know you years ago. I'm a fucken idiot for not doing so."

"You keep saying so, you fucken idiot." Her response was bolder now, cheeky even and given with a smile. "Remember, no regrets. Let it be out motto." And she then locked her lips onto mine, hungrily tasting me, with little skill but lots of passion. Our tongues met for the first time, grappling as she thrust her tongue roughly into my mouth. I kissed her back equally hard, admiring her enthusiasm, and she finally pushed the guitar aside, then kneeled on the day-bed so she sat a little higher than me, pushing down to me, her mouth jammed onto mine.

Losing balance slightly, her hand inadvertently brushed my bulge through my board-shorts as she steadied herself, sending an electric shock of pleasure through me, and she broke away, giving me another embarrassed smile. "Sorry."

"Nah, don't be sorry," I said, realising she'd probably never felt a hard cock before. "It's just my penis. It kinda does this when I'm excited by a beautiful girl."

She giggled nervously, looking down shyly. "I know what it is. I didn't mean to touch you there, that's all."

"You can touch me there if you'd like to." I was becoming increasingly brazen. "I liked it."

Her focus was now on my crotch, as if weighing up whether she should or shouldn't go there. Her tone was bashful, almost hesitant. "Maybe."

I looked at her, so gorgeous and sweet. My heart thumped, I was nervous as fuck, and I kissed her again, gently and slow, and she kissed me back, eyes closed. I took her hands in mine, and we spent some time, many more heart beats than I could count, allowing our lips to explore one another, mouths getting used to each other. My ridged cock strained in my shorts, begging for freedom and the touch of this lovely girl I'd known for years, yet never even considered a potential match until sometime in the last sixteen or so hours.