A Roadie's Tale Ch. 02: Sessions

A Roadie's Tale Ch. 02: Sessions

Hell of a show that night.

I was all ready to go home to the privacy of my tent for the night, but I stuck around.

I thought maybe, just maybe...

Got more work with Pacific Sibling on their second tour, they had a lot of gear to move so I earned my pay. It's pretty good as manual labour goes, I work in jeans and a t-shirt, I get paid to move stuff around and live relatively free of responsibility.

I hang around backstage as something to do. I'm not really allowed in here after the performance, we pack up in the morning. But then again these guys only lift beer by the bottle, not the keg. Someone has to keep the vital juices of creativity flowing.

My excusatory prop was an eighteen pack of lager I wouldn't give to a thirsty dog, and my CREW t-shirt.

I hear something going on behind a few doors but the only moans that are familiar seem to be coming from Becca the transport manager, who in turn seemed to enjoy the fact that everyone knew she was getting laid whether they liked it or not. Well, if she minded she might have closed the door at least. Not quite the intimate solo Elle favours, half whisper and half moan, but a sound that's happy just to be loud and exuberant. The puppy-dog panting of the skinny teenager under her kept an unsteady and excitable tempo, but we all start somewhere.

I was half-tempted to applaud as I walked past, but I wouldn't want to startle the kid into prematurity or encourage Becca's increasing exhibitionism to truly public levels.

I mooch onwards and backwards from stage access back to the crowd.

It was a decent gig tonight, they worked the kinks out of the stage effects so no-one was pulling overtime replacing melted cables or dud pyrotechnics. I found myself nodding along to the beat a few times; but there were more dyed fringes being flicked than shirts being lifted, more smartphones than lighters in the air.

I mentally select some Iron Maiden, the communion of the elder gods. I'm humming Nomad to myself as I find a discreet place to leave the gradually heavier eighteen-pack of piss-water where someone dumb enough to drink it will walk by unsupervised.

Cleansed of both Pacific Sibling's tweeny-bop rock and the weight of pretext, I move out through the security barriers and enter the mass of crowd.

I see people; men, women, gangling tweens of all ages and shapes, dolled up and decked out. Things are just finishing up, bottles are being opened, alcohol is infused into the bloodstream of this collective beast that makes a festival out of a field. After a solid week of slog everyone pretty much gets the night off. Work is tomorrow's problem, along with the hangovers and come-downs.

This is the night people tend to fuck, at least among the event staff. I'm not ashamed of following my glands, the call of the eternal horn. I guess I was looking for some nice girl to de-stress with, an amiable dance partner for the horizontal tango. Sometimes I just want to have a new friend over for breakfast, have a reason to be my best self instead of whichever random chamber will wake up staring through the barrel in the morning.

Not that sex is such a casual thing to me but that friend I made, that teasingly frustrated acolyte of groupie-dom, made me feel like I didn't always have to be looking for true love. Not that I wouldn't have called her but we got to orgasm before we got to contact information. She had eyes for the dude who paid me for work, weed, and discretion. I was okay with being a bit of fun for her, it was harmless enough except for a slightly aching jaw on my part next morning.

I missed Elle, if we're being honest. She went and got discovered, she was back in the states for a few months to sign a contract and cut a few tracks. Too talented and too beautiful to stay a voice and a silhouette behind the spotlights for long. Her wish, as she stood on the stage after our private little performance, seemed to be coming true.

My claim to fame is that I heard her first single before anyone else, she made it up on the end of my airbed with that beaten up Spanish guitar she cherished as a keepsake. Not that I'm the scumbag she's singing about. I would rather break my arm than a heart like Elle's, even if it would mean that song not being written.

She kissed me goodbye and it was that last touch of her soft lips that left me with a smile and the need for a long shower before bed. Over a month since then I was a hell of a lot cleaner but no less tense.

I wander along the rows of bars, trailers really, look for a queue moving quickly. Instead I find myself standing behind a particularly nice arse spray painted with faded denim that, to my glands at least, was only co-incidentally attached to a fellow being of sacred origin and unknown perspective.

I like the way she walks, rests her weight on one hip. I like the un-summoned picture in my head of that peachy round backside in my lap; my lips on her neck as my hand slides beneath the zipper to give her as much pleasure with my fingers as she gives me just by existing in my eye-line... Yeah, it's been a while.

I don't like her boyfriend much though, I'm paid to be strong but this guy is like one of those transgenic super hamsters that run in wheels for fourteen hours a day. He doesn't look like the type I could talk into getting experimental enough to bench him with a blowjob before the real fun begins.

Don't judge me. Mouthwash takes thirty seconds, Glory is eternal.

But I do want a beer, so I stay in line and admire the view and don't look up until she turns with an armful of plastic glasses. Her front is as attractive as her back, I stand aside as she manoeuvres half a gallon of beverages and Vin Diesel's stunt double past me, get one last look at her before I turn to order with a smile tugging my mouth.

Equipped with a pint from a genial but tired-looking chick with blue hair, I stand around and stare a bit.

I see the girl with the beautiful arse walk past me again, she gives me the open smile of a fellow human and it brightens my mood a little.

I stand at a blurry cross of drying footprints in the mud marked between areas of plastic garden furniture near the bars. I drink half of my pint, poured by an old friend and recent stranger, and watch the people.

Just me, since Elle told me not to wait for her. I kept expecting the 'I met somebody' text message, but it kept defiantly not coming. We both seemed to be focusing on our work for a while, though occasional inter-continental phone-sex kept us from getting lonely.

I know I should feel sorry for myself at this point but I'm good. The setting sun is still shining, there are people of all description walking by like my own personal daytime TV, there's half a pint of cold beer in my hand that I'm about 70% sure doesn't have any added saliva.

And nothing to do.

My soul groans. What I would give for a...

"Hi." A voice snaps me back to reality. There's a woman standing in front of me.

"Hey." I'm surprised to be approached. She's my age, red hair and freckles, her scarlet lips held at a sly angle.

Staring right at me.

She doesn't say anything, just keeps staring. Somewhat confused I stare back, certain I don't know her. There's a look in those green eyes I would remember.

"Can I help you with something?" I realise I'm still wearing the t-shirt that says CREW on it in huge white letters.

"That's supposed to be my line." She's got an amused grin, a slightly glassy look.

I try to prompt her for more sense with my confused expression. Half the people here are getting stoned on something or other, my current sobriety making her words go over my head completely.

"I think you're mistaking someone for me." I say as something to say.

"No, that would be if I went up to some guy over there and thought he was you." She takes a rollup from her mouth, points the lit end at me like a swagger stick as she exhales herb scented smoke. "You mean I'm mistaking you for someone else."

My puzzlement intensifies.

"Okay love." I say and make a polite quarter turn to look at something else for a second. Maybe that beautiful creature will walk past me again...

She just stands there staring at me.

Eventually I start staring back, watching to see just how long she's going to keep giving me that look. Where all this is going...

Red trainers, red jeans with holes in the knees, a sexily well-fitted black top and a hairband were the only accessories to someone who clearly didn't need any of them. She's not skinny or tall or any of the things we're told are the measures of beauty. She's got a little Tilda Swinton thing going on around her eyes and a little Rita Hayworth thing going on around her hips. And I've got a thing of my own going on that doesn't feel little at all right now.

"You really haven't figured it out?" She asks me, I suddenly stop enjoying myself. Something tells me she's got a friend who can pull a pint, and hold a grudge.

"Look, I'm not here to pick a..." She steps forward and puts her finger to my lips. The boldness and the strangeness of it kept me still and shut me up.

"You called me here." She steps in close to me and whispers in my ear. "You knew what you were doing. Finish it."

This is the point where I might take a step back and walk away from a girl apparently on some decent mushroom tea. But my feet won't move. I can't even wiggle my toes.

"Finish what?" I'm still working on the part where I wasn't going to be talking to her anymore, but somehow I never quite get around to actually moving muscles.

"What I would give for a..." She groans in a perfect impression of how I feel if not how I sound. "Tell me what you would give."

I didn't say that out loud. I think.

I still heard you. Her voice bypasses my ears as she drags a final pull on the herbal rollup, ditches the smouldering roach.

"How the fuck..." My words cut off without her needing to interrupt me somehow. She waits a few seconds, steps in closer and pushes my unresponsive arm holding the beer close to my chest between us. I'm immobile as she takes my hand around the plastic glass and lifts it to her mouth.

The fact I was more distracted by her lips than her psychic powers tells you which part of me was hogging all the blood. She sets the now empty plastic glass down on the table, brings my still unresisting hand to rest on her hip like we're dancing.

She takes my jaw in her hand and leads my gaze left and right over her shoulder.

"You asked for this, I'm just here to help." I find myself looking at the two lanes of human traffic colliding and dispersing again.

I can give you what you want. She think-speaks into my head again. Just tell me.

"Don't you know?" I finally get some kind of control back, but she has one hand provocatively tight around my belt buckle. My glands are more co-operative than the rest of me, she's not quite touching me but I can feel heat coming from her skin, matched by the rush of hot blood to my groin.

"I need you to say the words." She looks at my lips with such intent that I almost say it right there.

"Who are you?" I ask instead.

In answer she pulls back from me, gives me a long look up and down that invites me to do the same. Her top says 'DEVIL' in red letters, and if she keeps holding me by the belt like that she's going to get a much more complete first impression of me than I intended.

"Yeah right." I'm incredulous, even of a psychic redhead.

"Well you shouldn't make wishes on crossroads if you're such a bloody skeptic." She pulls me to her like I'm made of Styrofoam.

"So you're The Devil..." I'm beginning to want to smile at the single greatest practical joke I've ever experienced, but I'm also beginning to wish I'd paid more attention in Sunday school.

"Not THE Devil, just A devil." She's invited herself into my personal space again, makes herself at home with an arm around my shoulders and the other hand still holding me by the tightening front of my jeans.

"And you're going to grant me a wish are you?" It's bravado, I'm scared. I'm harder than ancient Egyptian algebra and my heart is squeezing like a bag of snakes, but I'm still scared.

"If you like." She whispers to me as she draws her hand from my buckle along my chest, tingling warmth seems to follow her touch under my skin, until she has one hand over my heart. Just for a moment I feel her fingers on my skin pulse with furnace heat, the warmth washes through me and I can actually feel it spread. I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry.

"For my soul?" What the hell have I gotten myself into this time...

"Don't believe everything you read in old books." Her voice is soft, her green eyes seem to glow as if in sunlight even though my shadow is across her.

"For what then?"

"I'll grant your wish if you grant mine." There's such a longing in her voice, she's asking for something she needs. It's not about whim.

I should have asked her first, instead I say.

"Alright."

***

We find ourselves backstage. My T-shirt and face enough to access all areas so long as I look like I'm busy, the guy who moves things has a key to every door. We head through the section under the stage where the lifts sit idle and locked.

She's holding my hand like we're just being friendly but I'm aware that she's leading me from half a step behind.

The dressing rooms are going to be the heart of the party later but for now it's quiet, dark. We don't sneak, per se, but we're treading lightly as we go deeper into the stone vaulted chambers that were supposedly off-limits

She grips my hand tighter as we reach a broader space, only the floor and the doorway made of cut stones, the rest is the back of a cave.

Nothing in here but us, I'm about to ask her but she pulls me close, steps into me.

I can feel the heat pouring out of her from where her lips hover a few inches from my cheek, down through where her body is gently thrust against mine, most of all where she traps my thigh between hers, gives the barest hint of a rub against me.

My hands, without any direction from my brain at all, settle around her hips. I'm leaning back against the rough stone wall, the coolness of it and the heat of her seemed to blend together somewhere in my chest.

I watch her eyes, even in the darkness down here they still gleam.

She did offer me a wish...

I put a soft kiss on her bottom lip and look back at her eyes. She smiles at me, rubs against me again and leans in for a kiss of her own.

It starts slow, I enjoy the heat of her lips, of her skin. Not hot enough to be painful, more like the deep rays of a warm sun. This Devil's mouth is sweet and welcoming as our tongues rub against each other. I find myself reminded of Eloise, and the half-glimpsed shape in the dark.

It was odd, it was my memory but it felt like she was showing it to me. I pull back and stare at her.

"You?" I grin as she does too.

She looks at my eyes and for a second hers reflect two bodies writhing under red light, I recognise the sweep of Elle's hair as she throws back her head, see myself kiss her neck. Then it's later, Elle is standing at the empty microphone stand, naked and happy, staring out into the dark as I walk up and hug her from behind. Elle's smile is perfect, gorgeous, unselfconscious.

It's over just as quickly, like the reflection of clouds ran across her eyes and left them their familiar green.

"Pervert." I say and kiss her again. This time I'm not seeing where I stand or asking for permission, lust takes the wheel and I just have to taste her.

A long, deep, eyes-closed sort of kiss. I kiss her like she's the love of my life because right in that moment she was. Not just unusual or exotic, but completely other, a strange kind of different, a whole new flavour of sexy.

I'm not worried about my soul, until about ten minutes ago I doubted I even had one, if such things were real or just a story we tell ourselves because it's awful to lose people.

But I feel her against me and deep inside there is a glow not so different from hers. Fire isn't just destruction, everything that lives is slowly burning, the whole universe is gently cooling and expanding from the point of infinite heat and density that created it.

If we're all just sparks in the void, the least we can do is burn bright. Her lips are making me philosophical...

She pulls back from my lingering kiss and I'm leaning there breathless and utterly, completely under her spell.

"Tell me." I pluck conversation out of the air as we stand there. Always feels odd to be kissing someone you barely know, I suppose it makes me chatty.

"I'll grant your wish if you grant mine." She says, cutely, like I'm breaking some unwritten rule.

"Ladies first." I give it another go for chivalry's sake, her expression softens and she puts a brief smooch on my lip before she answers me.

"I need to borrow you for a bit." She says, a single finger trailing around my chest, subtly pulling and pushing at my heartbeat.

"What do you need me for?" I'm nonplussed, don't know what I can do that a... demon, strong enough to pull me around by the belt, can't manage alone.

This... Her words come from her head to mine, her lips busy putting a trail of small kisses from my cheek to my neck. One arm holding my jaw as she continues to kiss and then lick the side of my throat, her other hand a teasing touch that becomes more solid as she pulls my belt open and slides her hand down.

My heat and hers meet where she grips me by the base, gives me a hard squeeze. I've been good to go since she so seductively stole my drink, sometimes my brain is the last part of me to know, especially with women.

I'm... actually a little drunk. Maybe dehydrated after a hard shift with only half a pint of fluids in me. I tug at the hem of her top, my pleased grin at the feeling of her hand moving in the front of my jeans makes her chuckle into my neck as she gives me one more kiss before pulling back.

She crosses her arms at the hem and then a long upward peeling of snug black fabric as she unveils herself to me. Nothing beneath her top but blushing, freckled skin.

Her hand returns to my cock and it's a sexier, friendlier squeeze than the assessing grip before. She seems happy but I can't boast. Go a month or so without anything but your imagination and then snog the Devil herself, you'll be a girl's ever-ready best friend too. No batteries required.

If this is her wish I can't wait for my turn...

She lets me taste her tongue, an edge of spice in her mouth, her gentle sounds asking for more. Her fingers curl in my hair and hold me still as she kisses my lips, my jaw, my neck.

She licks heat into my skin and then kisses it, nips playfully with her teeth. I groan, more than getting into it as my own hands push downward into the back pockets of her jeans to pull her hips hard against mine. She groans into my shoulder, growls around the nape of my neck as I hug her tight and...

A long kiss tempting me for more. I let her drive and I feel her breath pulling at mine, let her draw it out of me. Strange thing for her to do in a way, intimate.

I kiss her and then felt her breathing back into my mouth, and I accept it. I want all of her.

Fire, the only description. My lungs are the bellows breathing in the furnace and as I try to pull away I realise she has me by the throat.

Fuck. Would have been succinct, as famous last words go.

The heat doesn't fade as it seeps into me, it sets every cell alight or at least it feels like it. I can't move and her fire is pulsing through my veins.

Pressure in my head, my vision fades from the outside like an old movie, down to those two bright points of green staring into me.