Mistress Elisha's Truth

Elisha shook her head and let out a long breath before wincing her lips. "Damn you...Ok, you talk to Jake and I'll think about it." Her chin softened as she folded her arms.

--

The inside of the Beautiful Chaos tour bus was like an upscale mobile home on steroids. "It's not just a name," Lauren muttered as she sat on one of two large, expensive smelling leather couches, admiring the way it hugged her backside. Life in a band seemed to be, well, chaos!

The shorter man, who had introduced himself as Travis Wilson and spent fifteen minutes explaining to Lauren how music was more harmonically complex in the nineties, now sat opposite her, running through finger exercises on a beat up Gibson Les Paul. A large TV screen behind the driver's seat was playing a Blue Ray of Game of Thrones. Men in black work shirts with the word 'crew' written across the back in large white letters were coming and going every few minutes. Natalie was busy texting at a dining booth in the small kitchenette while Jennifer had engaged herself with the fully stocked refrigerator. At the far end, a door led to a hallway with six bunk beds.

Lauren stood up to join Elisha in the back. As she walked through the hallway, she could hear Keegan's voice drifting from behind a privacy curtain on the top bunk. It sounded like he was singing vocal warmups to a recording on his phone. Beyond the bunk beds was a shower and a bedroom suite complete with a full sized bed and vanity.

Katie sat before the mirror on a short swivel chair, curling her hair and applying makeup.

Elisha lay on the bed, staring at the mirrored ceiling, breathing deeply.

"You doing ok?" Lauren lowered herself onto the comfortable mattress.

"Yeah." Elisha looked up. "It's just a lot you know?"

"Yeah, I can see why you left this behind. It's crazy!"

"Oh, it's a bit more than that. And you know--I think if I woke up today and planned to do this, it would probably have been fine. It's just, I just thought we were going out to celebrate and see some band. Who would have thought right?"

"Well, it's kinda cool though right? I mean, backstage! Hanging out on the bus! And I'll get to hear you sing!"

"You haven't heard her sing yet?" Katie spun around. She eyed Lauren skeptically over her mascara wand.

"Well, I did once. Today. She sang a chorus of 'Paradise City' for my dad. Sure won him over. I think I can count on one hand the number of my friends he's actually liked."

Katy smirked. "I didn't know you knew that one. I thought you just found the shirt at Wal-Mart and thought it looked cute."

Elisha sat up, using both hands to gesture at the large GNR on her chest. "Why does everyone assume I don't know anything about Guns N' Roses?"

"Well, I only ever heard you sing country songs for three years, remember?"

"Hey, I have like, depths man!" Elisha huffed, sending a dark tendril of hair billowing away from her face.

"By the way, I'm loving the black. Makes you look more dangerous. Sexier even! Forget that blonde girl!" Katie looked Elisha over. Lauren wasn't sure but it almost looked like she was undressing Elisha with her eyes.

"Wait, what?" Lauren's eyes bugged out.

"Yeah, she used to be a blonde."

"I can't see it." Lauren struggled to imagine Elisha as a blonde. Her forehead twisted into a contorted mess.

Lauren found it funny how she could imagine Elisha tying her spread eagle on the floor, pissing into her mouth though a funnel, or even force feeding her a length of shit covered toilet paper or a bloody tampon, but she couldn't see her as a blonde. For her, Elisha could only be a raven haired beauty.

Katie returned to carefully applying her eye makeup in the mirror. "I can't believe you haven't heard her sing before."

"Well, I can't believe you didn't know she's a brunette now. I can't imagine her any other way!" Lauren smiled hungrily at Elisha.

Katie swiveled around again, putting both hands on her knees. "Well, she dropped off the face of the earth. I mean, we texted but she shut down all her social media."

That wasn't true, Lauren had found out all sorts of information on her. She opened her mouth to speak but was quickly cut off.

"There she is!" A thunderous voice came from the front of the bus.

"The sergeant has arrived!" Elisha groaned.

"He's a captain now." Katie corrected.

"Great." Elisha rolled her eyes.

Katie leaned into Lauren's ear. "Watch out, our fearless leader is here!" Katie shot a quick glance down the hallway then turned back to Lauren, "RUN!"

She looked up to see an enormous man wearing track pants and a hoodie emblazoned with the Beautiful Chaos heart come barreling down the hallway.

He had curly black hair that was graying at the roots and appeared to be much older than either Travis or Keegan. Despite this, his powerful upper body asserted itself through his hoodie and his smile threatened to swallow the room whole. Lauren noted that he probably did just fine with the women his age, or as she watched Natalie tracking his movements down the hall, those much younger as well.

"It is GOOD to see you!" He bellowed. "And who is this?" His sharp blue eyes darted to Lauren then back to Elisha.

"This is my friend Lauren, she's a writer, but went to school for film."

"Film? Hey, we might need somebody for our screens! You know about wireless HDMI? Our guy is kinda slow if you know what I mean and..." He stopped to take a real look at Lauren. "Wow, you're gorgeous! Hi, I'm Jake Mitchell, drummer and bandleader of Beautiful Chaos. This is our female lead, Katie."

"Um, we've met." Lauren rolled her eyes to Katie, who shrugged, smiling awkwardly.

"Anyway, I hope you love the show! Let me know what you think of our video screens! Here's our card. Check out our website for the rest of our dates."

"Sorry, he can't turn it off. He has one speed and that's 'promote the band.'" Katie laughed.

"Hey, you have no problem cashing the checks, am I right?" Jake smiled.

"Anyway, I hear you want to sing a song with us tonight?" Jake looked to Elisha.

"Well, Keegan suggested I should sing one, yeah." Elisha coaxed her skeptical eyes into a half roll.

"Sure, that would be amazing!" He smiled broadly. He had the most professionally white teeth Lauren had ever seen. Even if it was a bit much, it was a bit impressive as well.

"You should sing some Taylor Swift! 'Teardrops on my Guitar' is in the beginning of set two. You'll kill it! Won't she kill that one Katie? Awwww! This is gonna be great!"

"Are you sure this is the same Jake Mitchell that fired me?" Elisha raised a brow. Her anger agitated near the surface but seemed to have lost some of its potency, at least it appeared that way.

"Look." Jake abandoned his professional smile and became serious. "I'm not gonna lie to you. Logan had us over a fire. Seriously. He did! We would have been FUCKED! Travis didn't sing at all back then. We thought were THIS close to a record deal and that connection was one hundred percent Logan. We didn't have Mika to write songs yet. He practically WAS the band. He had us over a BARREL!"

"You always were a business first kinda guy." Elisha frowned.

"You know, I'll admit. I didn't handle that well. I'm not even going to try to say it was your fault. Because it wasn't. It was mine! I know you said it was either him or you, but I shouldn't have snapped. I should have given you the time you needed to make the right choice. Even if you still chose to leave, it would have been your choice. I took that from you. It wasn't my right." His eyes deepened.

"I wanted to call you, I did. But I was scared. I know I did wrong by you and there was no reason you'd ever want to talk to me again. After Logan split, taking the deal on his own...I learned a lot. I was humbled and...I'm sorry. I can't tell you how bad I wanted to call you...to come crawling back." He opened his arms and leveled an almost sincere puppy-like expression. Tears welled at the corners of his eyes as if he had commanded them to do so.

Elisha sighed and leaned in for a hug.

"It's good to see you again. It really is," he said as he pulled from her embrace. His eyes crinkled and his mouth opened naturally, bathing her in a warm smile. "Set two?"

"Set two." Elisha smiled and nodded curtly, tightening her chin.

"It's good to meet you, but we're on in fifteen minutes!" Jake flashed an annoyingly bright smile to Lauren and turned down the hallway. "I gotta get backstage. Mika's having trouble with her in-ears, I think it's a band frequency issue with the antenna combiners. "

"I like how you think we know what any of those words mean!" Katie called after Jake.

Jake turned around and called back. "Remember, tell your friends, number one ONLY on the bus!" He turned to look at Jenifer and Natalie, who had amassed an impressive collection of cans on the dining booth table. "That's the way all the national acts do it." He disappeared down the steps toward the door. "And one square of toilet paper!" His voice drifted away.

"What just happened?" Lauren looked from Katie to Elisha, bewildered.

"You've just witnessed the magic of Jake Mitchell," Katie said, shaking her head. She reached her hand over her shoulder and began rubbing the nape of her neck with her thumb and forefinger. "You don't keep a band together for fifteen years without being able to put out some motherfucking fires. Weird that he's a cop. I think he missed his calling."

"As a fireman?" Lauren asked.

"A babysitter." Katie smiled.

--

Lauren stood next to Elisha as the lights went black. They had opted to watch the show from the large wooden deck attached to the bar. Natalie and Jennifer had pushed to the front.

She reached out to take Elisha's hand in the dark with one hand while sipping her seltzer with the other. It looked like the night was going to turn out well after all.

At once, the recorded music playing over the loudspeakers stopped dead. The sound system fired up to full power with a sound halfway between a monster truck revving its engine and an earthquake. Rumbling bass and an air raid siren ripped through the audience. Smoke and lights flooded the first several rows. A man's voice crackled over the melee, distorted as if he were speaking through a hundred foot tall megaphone. "Get ready to spread Beautiful Chaos!"

Suddenly the siren was replaced by the sound of drums. Real drums! The band had entered the sage unnoticed in the smoke! The drums were joined by the deafening rumble of five string bass. In the spotlight stood a striking Asian girl, wearing a black, midriff enhancing crop top, a leather mini skirt, fishnet stockings and a sparkling gray bass guitar.

"That must be Mika. Keegan told me she wrote most of the songs for the album they're working on," Lauren whispered in Elisha's ear.

Elisha nodded.

The bass and drums were joined by a manic electric guitar. Travis took his turn in the spotlight ripping a few flashy runs high up on the neck of his Les Paul before slamming into the opening power chord of "The Killers" hit, "Somebody Told Me." The front rows sent a chorus of euphoric screams soaring over the din.

The stage lights lit up to reveal the whole band. Katie joined in, playing the signature keyboard motif on her Nord Electro.

Keegan stepped into center stage, grabbed the microphone with one hand and threw a Beautiful Chaos T-shirt into the audience with the other.

He began to sing.

"Breaking my back just to know your name..."

Beams of light cut across the crowd. "The Killers" original music video played on the screens behind the band, nearly synchronized to the musicians on the stage. The audience swayed along to the beat. Girls in the front row threw up their arms. Lauren could see the black outlines of their hands casting half-hearts against the brightness of the sage lights. When Keegan completed their heart gesture with his own hand, audible squeals of delight peaked above the music.

Lauren left Elisha briefly to lean against the wooden railing. She pulled out her phone and took a few seconds of video. Not everyone moved to the music in the same way but, as she panned the crowd, she noticed that everyone moved. There were no side conversations, nobody staring forlornly into their drinks. Everyone was here for the show and utterly captivated by the spectacle.

Flame pots erupted on either side of the stage as Jake hammered the low toms of his drum kit once, then twice.

The audience followed Keegan into the chorus, screaming every word.

"Somebody told me, you had a boyfriend, who looked like a girlfriend..."

"Elisha this is gonna be so cool! I can't believe you're gonna sing with them! I'm so excited!" She turned around. "Elisha?" She was nowhere to be found.

Lauren scanned the audience. There were so many people! Where did she go? She could be anywhere!

Her eyes raked over the women waiting for the ladies restroom. The line for the Songbird Sanctuary had stretched back to the main deck of the bar. There's no way she could have gotten in there.

She checked the bar. She found four men who wanted to buy her a drink and a very drunk girl who knew her name for some reason, but no Elisha.

She pushed her way up to the front where Jennifer said they'd try to be. She made it to the railing as the band counted off into the next song--some country hit from the nineties that Lauren only half recognized but appeared to be a crowd favorite. She watched as Katie emerged from behind her keyboard and danced to the center of the stage.

She finally found Jennifer and Natalie all the way to the right of the pit, next to an expensive looking control console cordoned off with yellow caution tape. Natalie had draped herself over the yellow tape singing every other word while making eyes at a tall, skinny boy with a mop of black hair who couldn't have been more than nineteen years old yet was wearing a black 'crew' shirt.

"That must be Adam," Lauren murmured to herself.

"Jen, Natalie, did either of you see Elisha?" She screamed over the music.

"No, wasn't she with you?" Jennifer looked concerned.

"Yeah, but I can't find her!"

Lauren saw Adam whispering something into Natalie's ear. She came bounding over to Lauren. "Adam says, you should try backstage. Since she used to be in the band she wouldn't think twice about hiding back there." Natalie swung her head from side to side. Her top knot glowed red, then yellow, then purple, then red again in the pulsing lights.

"Thanks!" Lauren was about to turn around when Natalie put her hand on her arm.

"Can I ask you a question?" Natalie put her mouth to Lauren's ear, her face serious.

"Sure." Lauren bit her lip.

"Are you like, into girls now?"

"What? Did Jennifer tell you something? What did she say?" Lauren looked surprised. She WAS surprised.

"Jennifer didn't say anything. Look, I'm a slut. I'll admit that, I'll sleep with anything with a dick. But I'm not dumb ok? I know shit! Like, Keegan was there, right there! Just oozing doomed sex! And you couldn't take your eyes off of Elisha--like, you light up when she's next to you--did you know that?" Natalie studied Lauren soberly despite the prodigious number of seltzers she had consumed on the bus.

Lauren's eyes fell, then drifted to the stage. Keegan had acquired a beautiful hazelnut acoustic guitar and was now jumping up and down with Travis, drawing screams from a throng of girls. She met Natalie's gaze. "Yeah, Yeah think I do. Yeah, I like girls." She flicked her eyes back to Keegan, meeting his chiseled jaw and tragic eyes with indifference. "Well, I like Elisha...and that's why I need to find her!"

Natale gave Lauren a radiant smile. "I knew it! And--I haven't seen you this happy in a long time. Come on, I'll get Adam to let you backstage."

"You heard Jake, nobody backstage during a show!"

"Yeah, but, I'll say I'll suck his dick. Slut powers, remember?" Natalie grinned, running her tongue around her lips.

"Ok. Thanks!"

"Don't mention it." Natalie retracted her tongue and began pressing it repeatedly against the wall of her cheek, stretching her skin lewdly.

--

Lauren found Elisha next to her car, staring up at the large, indomitable Beautiful Chaos heart on the side of the bus.

"I can't do it Lauren. I can't!"

"What do you mean? You can't?" Lauren ran up to put her arm on Elisha's shoulder.

"I can't! I can't! Call when it's over, I'll come back and get you guys." She brushed Lauren's arm away.

She began to pace in a tight circle in the shadow of the bus. Lauren could see the beams from Beautiful Chaos's light show cutting across the sky behind it. It looked to her like a movie premiere from an inner circle of hell.

"Elisha, tell me what's going on!"

"No!" Elisha shoved her balled fists into her pockets.

"I want to know? Something happened and everyone's being weird about it. I want to know the truth! You've been avoiding talking about it all day!" Lauren grabbed Elisha by the shoulders, tried to pull her close, but Elisha pulled away again, turning her back to Lauren. She continued to stare into the large painted heart.

"You won't like it."

"Elisha, I can handle anything. Trust me."

"Ok. Fine. You want to know what's going on? Back here, it's like she's back. The dumb bitch is back! That sorry fucking bitch!"

"What on earth are you talking about?" Lauren twisted her face. She got a better look at Elisha in the intermittent glow of the single street light fixed to the back of the stage.

Elisha was crazed. Her hair stood in a tangled mess as if she had run her hands through it too many times. Her eyes were bloodshot as if she had spent the last twenty minutes crying. Her speech had morphed to something between terrified and furious. "That girl? That was in this band? She's not me. That's some other dumb bitch who let the world walk all over her!"

"What? I'm sure she wasn't dumb...You ARE talking about yourself right?" She studied Elisha, placing her hand once again on her shoulder.

"Yeah. You wanna know what that bitch did? Do you know what she let happen to her?" Elisha ripped Lauren's hand away and continued to pace.

"I'll tell you. She was married, do you know that? She was married to a guy! He was a good guy too. Ok not much to look at. Maybe it was a fucking...I don't know...college starter marriage but he LOVED her." She spun around. "But he was boring, so one day this bitch meets this other guy right? He sings. He plays guitar. He's in a band. He finds out she's been singing her whole life. Plays guitar too, loves music. Ok. He gets her to join his band. All these practices and shows, they get a little close. Mistakes are made. Soon they're havin' a fucking affair!" Elisha gasped for breath.

"Elisha I..."

"Hold on, I'm not fucking finished." She pulled a white claw off the ground that Lauren hadn't noticed before. She took the entire can at a gulp.

"How many of those have you had?"

"Four, but who's counting right?" She giggled nervously. "Let me finish!" Elisha's voice lifted to an unfettered howl.

She turned away again. "Soon her marriage starts to fall apart. She's always with the band. She's doing all these shows. She's a motherfucking rock star." She took her empty can and threw it at the bus. It clinked harmlessly against the steel frame.

"The other girls are always posting online about how good she and fucking Logan looked together. How they'd make a perfect couple. Her husband gets jealous. He starts getting suspicious, he starts being LIVING HELL to live WITH! Soon this band is all she has." She whipped around to Lauren, thrusting her thumb backward at the large painted heart.

She retrieved another can from the ground and opened it with a "pop!" Most of it found her mouth.

"Soon, her husband asks the big question. Does she still love him? She can't lie, she says she doesn't. Why lie? It's just hurting you both right? Ok, so she tells Logan. So what does Logan do? He calls off the affair! He says he waited long enough for her and he's found somebody else!"