Playing the Blues Ch. 02

Jenny woke rested and feeling good, for a few minutes she just lay in bed the music from last night still running through her head.

She reached out her hand to the cold empty space where Pat used to lie. Sadness filled her heart and she could feel the sharp sting of tears in her eyes. Lying in bed Jenny bawled her eyed out, the mournful cry of the albatross filling her soul.

Eventually she pulled herself out of bed and made for the shower.

Standing under the hot jets of water Jenny decided to do a little stock take on her life. At twenty six she was pretty much alone in life.

Pat had gone the same way as her only previous long-term boyfriend, hang around for two or three years and then get caught fucking someone else.

She had no family, her mother had died giving birth to Jenny so she had no recollection of the woman save from a few faded photographs.

Her father had been her whole world all of the years she had been growing up, his solid strength had been her support through all the problems a teenaged girl had to face. He had dealt with even the most personal things a girl would usually talk to her mother about in his calm strong way.

When Jenny was eighteen Stan, her father, was diagnosed with bowel cancer. For two years she watched the quiet strength of her father drain away until all that was left was a feeble shell of the man.

Through her father's illness Jenny worked hard on her degree. Her father had managed to attend her graduation ceremony, Jenny's heart had almost burst with pride at the look in her fathers eyes that day.

But what use had it been, she had a degree in Music & Music Theory and she worked at the checkout of a supermarket.

Jack had been Jenny's first serious boyfriend, he had moved in two months after her father's death. A year later he moved out in a hurry when she caught him fucking some teenager on the living room sofa.

Then came Pat, again he moved in quickly, and nearly three years later he moved out just as quickly.

Jenny wondered if she had just been trying to replace her father. She didn't enjoy the sex with either guy very much, it was okay but she never came and always had to finish herself off with her fingers.

"Fucking hell girl," she told herself, "Your twenty six years old, daddy's gone, now Pat's gone. You just have got to deal with it and move on."

She knew moving on wouldn't be too difficult, she knew she was a pretty girl. Slim with large breasts for her frame, Jenny was aware of the attraction they held for guys. Her face was flawless, even though she rarely did anything to it and almost never wore makeup. Her dark brown hair was long and glossy. She looked good and she knew it, but did she want to just move another guy in to repeat everything the last two had done?

Drying herself after her shower Jenny pulled on an old pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and went down for some breakfast.

An hour later she was rummaging around in the back bedroom to get her guitars out. She found the black case of her P Bass easily but struggled to find the larger case of her six. Eventually she decided to move everything out of the room.

By lunchtime the only thing left in the room were the two guitar cases and Boris.

Boris was a huge amp built for her by her friend Josh. It was ugly it had to be said. The middle of the five foot tall case held two 18" Cats sitting above the 36 inch SubCat. Perched on top of the speaker housing were twin 600 Watt valve amps. Josh had built everything from the cases, the Amps and even the crossovers. She fondly remembered Josh.

The gay Music Electronics student had been her best friend for years until he had fallen out with Pat. Poor old Josh had developed a crush on Pat, when Pat had found out he went ballistic and threatened Josh with all sorts of violent ends. Six months later Josh had phoned her to say he was in London, he had secured a job with a top studio and was going to live his dreams, Jenny had been happy for him but still missed him terribly.

Jenny plugged in the leads and powered up Boris. Taking the guitars out of their cases Jenny looked at the strings doubtfully. They would need restringing before tonight. Tuning up the P Bass was easy and Jenny plugged it in and played a few notes. Boris didn't make a sound.

"Looks like we've lost some valves, now where were the spares?" Jenny found the box for the spare valves, and found it was empty.

"Ok, shopping time, lets go and see Paul."

Jenny drove into town and went to the small music shop where she had always bought her strings, there was a young girl at the counter serving a customer. She looked somehow familiar but Jenny couldn't place seeing her before.

"Oh hi, it's the crying Bassist." Jenny was surprised at being recognised and flushed.

"Uh, yeah sorry about that. Um is Paul about."

"Paul? Oh you mean the guy that used to own the shop, nah he sold it to my dad last year. Can I help you?"

"Um, ok, can I have a pack of heavy Bass strings for a four, and a pack for a six please?"

"Yeah sure we got both. Anything else?" She asked picking a couple of packets off of a rack behind her.

"I'm not sure, do you still sell amp valves?" Jenny asked, if the new owners didn't stock them it would be a pain getting Boris up and running.

"Yeah we stock some, they don't sell that well but dad reckons you can't get a decent sound from solid state or micro. He can be a bit stuffy on some things." The girl almost sniffed as she said that.

"Well stuffy or not he's got a point. I prefer the sound from a valve amp."

"Which ones do you want."

"Uh, if you've got them I'll take a dozen each of KT66, ECC81, and ECC83."

"Fucking hell, oops sorry, dad'll kill me if he hears me talking like that in the shop. What the hell are you powering?"

"Well most are for spares, Boris has got twin 600's" Jenny said with pride.

"Boris?"

"Yeah well the tech guy that built it for me named it and it stuck."

"Cool. If you just wait here I'll see what we got."

A few minutes later the girl was back.

"We've got the dozen KT66 but only six each of the others. I can order them for you, they will probably be in by the middle of the week."

"That's fine I'll take what you've got and call back say Wednesday. Will that be ok?"

"Yeah sure."

Jenny paid for her parts, which took all of the money Julie had given her last night plus some of her own cash. And saying goodbye to the girl she headed home.

It took her until two to replace all the strings, tune the guitars and fix Boris. She loaded the guitar cases into her car and took down the two head amps. But there was no way she would be able to handle getting the two enclosures down the stairs.

"Hi Sue, is Terry about, I could do with a hand?" Jenny asked as her neighbour answered the door.

"Hi Jenny yeah no problem, come in a minute and I'll get him."

Sue went to the kitchen door and called to her husband who was gardening.

Coming back to the hall she gave Jenny an appraising glace, they had been neighbours for years, jenny had done some babysitting for them back when she was at school and Uni. They had spent quite a bit of time together over the years. Sue had raised her two sons and still had time to be like a mother to Jenny.

"Did I hear Pat storming out last night?"

"Yeah, I found out he had been sleeping around." She smiled wryly,

"Just like the last one."

"Oh dear, was it some of his stuff you needed a hand with?" Sue looked concerned, she couldn't believe that Jenny looked so cheerful considering.

"No, I got invited to play with some people, I can't get my amp down the stairs." she grinned at Sue, "It was Terry that hauled it up there in the first place so he should be able to get it back down. At least I hope he can or I'm stuck."

A moment later Terry arrived, the big builder was quick to agree to help his young neighbour and they soon had the speakers loaded into Jenny's car.

"Take care then girl, if you need us you've got Sue's mobile number yes?" Terry gave her a hug before she got in the car and then watched her drive off. Both he and his wife liked the young girl, she had it rough growing up with no mum, then losing her dad like she did. They both had a lot of admiration for Jenny and how she had handled her problems.

Jenny found the club without too many problems. Silk's was a large non-descript building just before you got onto the industrial estate, you wouldn't notice it unless you were actually looking for it.

At the front of the building there was just a fire door with the word Silk's painted in three inch red letters beside of the door. The entrance she eventually found to be down a covered alley at the side of the building. There Jenny found a pair of smoked glass doors with Silk's on each one in a pink flowing script.

As Jenny pushed open the door and struggled in with her guitar cases a pretty girl rushed out from behind a desk to help her.

"Thanks." Jenny said as she put down the heavy cases with relief.

"No problem, you must be Jen. Julie said they were expecting you. I'm Cindy, usually I work behind the bar, but the receptionist phoned in sick today." She said with a smile.

"Um, yeah, are they here yet?"

"Yes dear they're waiting for you over by the stage."

"Ok, um, is there anyone strong that could help me with Boris? I'll never get him in here without some help."

"Boris, uh, didn't the girls tell you what sort of club this is? we don't allow men in I'm afraid."

Jenny went bright red.

"No you don't understand, Boris isn't a guy, it's what a friend called my amp when he built it for me."

The woman laughed as Jenny tried to explain.

"I'll see if Nikki's about, if you go through with those I'll send her over."

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

"Mmm, maybe you can show me your appreciation with a dance on your break?" Cindy said looking over Jenny's figure.

"Um, sorry, I'm not used to these places. I'm just doing the girls a favour, I'm afraid I'm straight."

"Oh, well that's a bit different, we get the curious ones in here but don't often get the full on straight girls, they don't usually feel comfortable here. Sorry about that."

Jenny grinned. "It's not a problem. See you later Cindy."

Jenny walked into the club. The large room held a reasonable sized stage with a wood dance floor in front of it. To the left of the entrance ran a long bar, the rest of the walls were lined with high sided booths. Jenny saw the band sitting at a table beside of the stage.

"Hi guys, how are you?" She called out as she headed their way.

"Hi Jen, what the hell have you got there." Chris said as she ran over to help Jenny with her cases.

"Just my guitars, Cindy said she would send someone called Nicky in to help with my amp." Jenny said as she happily surrendered the P Bass.

"You didn't need to bring your own amp, the club provides the sound system for us." Julie said as the rest of the girls gathered around.

"Yeah but Boris is special, he was built for my six." Jenny told them.

"Your what?" the girls all asked.

"This." Jenny opened the larger case and took out a beautiful wood guitar it was a six string Bass made of mahogany. "Dad found it in a second hand shop and gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday." She told them sadly.

The girls could tell from the sad way she spoke that she was talking of her father in the past tense, a deep sadness had seemed to fill their new friend. Jenny found four firm hands resting on her shoulder, silently offering what support they could as they all looked at the magnificent Bass.

"I thought that a Bass only had four strings." Amy asked after a moment.

"They usually do, but you can get five and six string instruments. It gives you a much richer range to play with. If not you would need two guitars tuned differently and swap them over."

"But you've got two anyway." Amy looked puzzled.

"Yeah well, the Fender is just sort of a spare, for backup."

"You keep a Fender just for backup. Jesus this thing must sound good." Julie said.

Just then a tall heavyset girl with a crew-cut and wearing a suit came over to them.

"Hi I'm Nicky, Cindy said you needed a hand."

"Yeah, if you could I need a hand getting my amp in."

"Ok lets go."

Jenny followed Nicky out to the car park and showed her the large speaker cases.

"No problem." she said and lifted one of the heavy speakers. Jenny picked up one of the head amps and followed the larger girl.

As they were walking back out to the car for the rest of her gear Jenny noticed Nicky looking at her in an odd way.

"What's the matter?" Jenny asked nervously.

"I was just wondering. Cindy warned me not to make a pass at you, she doesn't usually say things like that. Are you her new girl or something?" Nicky asked her.

"Ahh, no, she did ask me to dance later but I declined. It was nothing personal, its just that I'm not gay."

"Oh," Nicky smiled a surprisingly gentle smile. "You could be in for a rough night sweetheart."

"Oh, why is that, Julie said there would be no problem." Jenny was getting a bit worried about the evening now.

"Yeah well Julie's been on the scene so long she's forgotten what it can be like when your new here. Your gonna be saying no thanks all evening. If anyone gets to persistent give me a shout. Ok."

"Ok Thanks Nicky." Jenny smiled at the tall woman.

When the amp was assembled on the stage Jenny left it to warm up while she joined the girls at the table.

"Jenny," Julie began, she was usually the spokesperson for the band. "We had a little chat this morning and wanted to ask you if you would like to join the band full time, you would get a decent wage from it, not top dollar maybe but it's enough to live on. What do you say?"

"I'd say I'm flattered. If you had asked me this morning I would have said yes, but I'm not so sure now. Nicky said I could have a rough time from some of the women here. I would love to be playing with you every night, I'm just not sure I could cope with the hassle." She said looking a bit miserable.

"Nicky's exaggerating, most girls take no for an answer, same as most guys do. Have you had any problems yet?"

"Well I got asked for a dance before I even got in here, and someone else told me they had been warned off me." Jenny told her.

"But no one gave you any pressure did they?" Julie asked concerned.

"No, lets just see how tonight goes and I'll give you an answer tomorrow afternoon. Ok."

"Sure no problem, so what does this huge amp sound like then."

Jenny grinned, "You're gonna love this." she told them as they made their way onto the stage.

Jenny picked up her six string Bass and after checking the tuning played the intro to Peter Gunn, the mellow sound from the amp flooded the room while the girls listened in amazement.

"Wow that's some amp." Chris said in awe.

"Yeah, it's great isn't it. It's got twin 600 valve heads and some big big drivers to get that sound."

"C'mon" Julie said "Let's get some practice in. Jenny feel free to comment on anything you aren't happy with."

They started practicing with some of the songs for this evenings set. At first when Jenny pointed out something that she felt they could do better she was a little reticent about mentioning it, but after she had pointed it out she felt glad that they treated her comment as creative and took on board her suggestion.

By six o'clock when they stopped to eat Jenny was beginning to feel like she was one of the band.

When they sat back down a waitress brought over menu's and left them to decide what to order.

"Pick anything you like Jenny." Julie said, "It's on the house, part of the pay and conditions."

"Ok, I think I will just have a salad, don't want to be weighed down too much when we play."

The others laughed and ordered heavier meals.

"We don't spend much time at home so there's not much point in cooking, we just eat here and snack the rest of the time." Julie explained as huge platefuls of food were delivered to the girl's table.

While they ate Jenny got to know her new friends a bit better.

Julie was a tall girl, twenty four years old she had a slender almost boyish body, she had been with Sally for five years now.

Sally was slightly shorter, the brunette had a fuller figure than Julie, well rounded hips and a large bust. At twenty five she was the oldest of the group.

Chris looked like she definitely worked out a lot, her tall body was well muscled without an ounce of spare fat on her anywhere. Her spiky blond hair sat atop a cheeky face. She was twenty three and had been with Kes for two years.

Kes acted as roadie and organiser for the band, making sure that everyone had what they needed. She was twenty one yet mothered everyone like she was a lot older than them all. She was of medium build with light brown hair, she had the sort of looks that would easily be overlooked in a room full of people if it wasn't for her infectious smile and outgoing personality.

Amy was the youngest at only twenty, she had only come out as a lesbian in the last year and had spent most of that time involved with Kas which was what had got her started with playing in the band in the first place. The petite dark haired girl was incredibly beautiful but didn't seem to be aware of it, she seemed to have a major confidence problem and seemed to Jenny to be almost brittle.