The Adventures of Boipussy Pt. 07

They faced each other on Pete's mattress, tenderly brushing each other's hair out of their faces. Pete placed a tender kiss on Carlos's sweet Mexican lips.

They were both too tired to talk anymore. They each drifted off into deep, restful sleep, lying peacefully in each other's arms.

*

Pete threw the covers off in the morning and dressed for work. He left his spare keys with Carlos, telling him he could stay as long as he wanted.

Through bleary, sleep-encrusted eyes, Carlos watched Pete leave for work. Pete was wearing a sensible pair of business pants and a sensible collared shirt. He could barely believe that this sensibly-dressed law intern was the powerhouse of his band, and quickly becoming the most important person in his life.

Carlos clutched Pete's spare keys in his fist as he slowly drifted back to sleep. He had the rest of the day to himself; he wasn't due back at his own job until tomorrow afternoon.

At his desk, Pete trawled through old emails, trying to make sense of which ones he needed to pay attention to and which were irrelevant. Meanwhile, Carlos slept. His breathing was relaxed and deep. He held the fabric of Pete's comforter as an irrepressible smile spread across his face.

Lunchtime drew near, and Carlos woke up. He checked his phone, there were no missed messages or calls. He texted Pete: 'hey sexy boy, you wanna have lunch with me?'

Pete was knee-deep in the minutes of a meeting he'd missed when his phone vibrated. He smiled when he saw who'd texted him: 'you still aren't tired of me yet?'

Carlos: 'what time is it?' he joked. He added a smiley wink emoji to underscore the joke.

Pete: 'where r u'

Carlos: 'right now? exactly where u left me'

Pete: 'u still in my bed?'

Carlos: 'yeah babe ... its warm here and i can still smell you'

Pete: 'there's a burger place two blocks east of my office, c u at 1pm?'

Carlos: 'i know the place ... so fuckin hungry right now ... but yeah, i can wait'

Pete went back to triaging his week-old unread emails.

One o'clock approached, and Pete stood up from his desk to take his lunch break. Carlos was waiting outside the burger joint, dressed to kill. He was wearing a scuffed, worn-out pair of 10-hole Doc boots, a pair of tight faded jeans, a tight black Ministry t-shirt, and his long, black hair was tied back into two sexy ponytails.

Pete nearly died on the spot, and his cardiac situation barely improved when Carlos stepped forward to thrust his tongue deep into Pete's mouth. "Hola," said Carlos, breaking their kiss.

"I think I've just had what I wanted for lunch," Pete whispered, drowning in Carlos's eyes.

Carlos opened the door for Pete like a gentleman. After ordering, they sat at a table with a pair of veggie burgers and a shared serve of fries in front of them. "How's work going?" Carlos asked politely, before taking a bite of his bun.

Pete stared out the window, lost in thought for a moment as he collected a handful of fries. "If you were my boss, I'd probably tell you how excited I am to be back at my desk after a week away, and how much I'm looking forward to future business opportunities to learn about the law and to grow my professional career. But since you're not my boss, I'll give you the honest answer."

Carlos took another bite as he waited for Pete to continue.

"I don't want to be here anymore, dude."

A look of confusion crossed Carlos's face, and he stopped chewing for a second.

"I'm not talking about Atlanta," Pete continued, "I fucking love this city and I always will. But I don't think I want to be a law intern anymore. I don't want to do this shit anymore. I'm over it. I don't want to spend the next twenty years of my life as an attorney pushing paper around in an office. It was hard work out there on the road, but our hard work paid off, and I want more of that success. Look at what we achieved with just a single week out of the country, so imagine what could happen if we toured Europe?"

Pete paused for a second. "I've been thinking about that INXS documentary we watched last night. Three brothers, and three buddies from school, that came from the most isolated city on earth. No hope for success, right? Wasting their time, right? But they believed in themselves, they worked hard, and they wouldn't take no for an answer. Have you ever heard their first record?"

Carlos shook his head.

"The best thing I could say about it," Pete continued, "would be that it's cute. Actually, it's fucking weird. There are strange, quirky keyboard sounds all over it, the songs are terrible, they aren't sure what genre they want to play, and there's absolutely nothing on that record to suggest what Michael Hutchence would become. You should take a listen on spotify. You'll be stunned to hear how they started, but I warn you, it's pretty bad. I mean, I don't even think their first record was successful in Australia! They probably could've fallen off the face of the earth after their debut album, and nobody would've known or cared. Their second record is a little better, but again, there's not a lot on it to suggest they'd become superstars. But things began to change quickly. They spent ridiculous amounts of time on the road, in Australia but also internationally, which made their live show as tight as a fucking drum, and they methodically weeded out all of the weird shit that didn't work. Hutchence began slithering all over the stage, and his voice developed. By the time their third record came out, they were getting serious attention, and a few years later, they were the biggest band on earth, packing out Madison Square Garden. And not many people know it, but those huge, sexy riffs that define INXS were written by the shyest, quietest member of the band. The dude who played those odd, quirky keyboard lines on their first couple of records found a way to turn notes on a guitar into sex. So why did it happen? Why did this band of school friends from the middle of nowhere become the biggest band in the world? Because they fucking believed in themselves. Sure, they had some lucky breaks along the way, and they got some excellent advice from well-connected people, but they fucking *wanted* it, babe."

Pete took a settling breath. "They fucking wanted it, and they got it."

Carlos waited for his drummer to continue.

"I want to push harder with Ass To Mouth," Pete said. "I want to be an international rockstar, and I know you do too. We can do this. I think we're good enough."

Carlos wanted to crawl inside Pete's skin and never leave. He wondered what it might be like to tour Australia.

Pete sighed as his hopes and dreams crashed back down to earth. "But it takes money to organise a tour, and we don't have a lot of money to spend."

Carlos looked at his half-eaten burger. "I spent everything Gorilla left me on the Canadian tour, and you're right, there isn't much cash left in our band account."

"I'll head back to my desk after my lunch break," Pete continued, "and I'll be expected to plough through the haystack of emails that accumulated while we were away in Canada. I don't know which tasks have been dealt with already and which still need my attention, but in either case, my care factor is pretty low."

"Maybe I could get you a job at Eternal?" Carlos suggested.

Pete shrugged, flicking his beautiful Irish hair back. "If I had to choose between a law office and a bar, even one as cool as Eternal, I'd pick the office. But the truth is I don't really want either. I want a career in music."

"Yeah," Carlos spluttered, "I want that too, more than anything, but I'm worldly enough to know our dreams won't just appear on our doorstep like a morning newspaper. We have to chase them. We have to work for them."

"Yeah," Pete agreed, his eyes on fire. "That's true, but we also need luck. The problem is, I just don't know where our next opportunity will come from. Especially when we have no money. I get paid close to fuck all as an intern, man. The promise is that once I've finished study and I've accumulated some professional experience, the financial rewards will arrive, but I really don't think I want to tread that path anymore."

"We just signed a record deal, babe," Carlos reminded him.

"Yeah, I know," Pete replied, "but have you thought through the process? It's gonna take a lot of time to get to where we need to be. We need to book time in the studio to record, then we need to mix our tracks, and then we need to cut a master. I don't know about you, but I personally don't know the first thing about mastering audio, so we'll need to hire an engineer. And then once that's done, we'll need to get some art or photos commissioned for the record cover, get vinyl and CDs printed and pressed, and think about wholesale and retail distribution. Does Swallow arrange all of that? What's Candii's role in all of this? And then we need to think about how we get some buzz out there on the internet and radio, and then ..."

"Stop, babe ... please stop," Carlos interrupted with a chuckle. "All of this stuff will be fun. We're about to have the best time of our fuckin' lives, but you're making it sound depressing!"

"It's ... just ... the timeframe," sighed Pete, grabbing a handful of fries. "Sure, this is going to be an amazing experience, but I guess I'm just impatient. I want us to get started *now*. Actually, I want us to be at the end of the process already, with our debut record ready to go, so we can hit the road again and climb the next rung of the ladder."

Carlos thought for a while, finally finishing his burger. "The answers to some of your questions might be in the contract, and if they aren't, I've got Candii's business card. She said we can give her a call." He paused for a second. "You said you want to put in the effort, Pete, and maybe part of that is patience. You're usually so rational, babe. Let's just cool our boots for a while and see where things go."

"I guess," said Pete, smiling uncertainly. He picked up the remains of his burger and finished his lunch. In his pocket, his phone vibrated. A message from an unknown number. He opened it, expecting to find spam or some kind of phishing line dangling in front of him, but it was neither.

It was a text from Candii at Swallow Records: 'hey peet it's candii. how are you feeling about being signed to a record label, cutiepie? has it sunk in yet? i think i can confidently predict that your future will be bright. ass to mouth's music is awesome and you're all so goddamn cute. i'd love to play with you all backstage after a gig one night, and i don't mean music. i hope you don't mind me saying that. oops, too much information, sweetie! anyway, back to business. i'm msging you with a proposal. swallow is putting together a small US tour of metal bands that are just about to break and i'd love for you to be a part of it. we will be booking venues, hotels and transport, so it won't cost you anything, but at the same time, we can't guarantee bands will make a profit. i'll send you a copy of the draft itinerary. also, we're hearing cool things about a metal band from florida called boipussy, do you know anything about them? we're thinking about reaching out to them to see if we can get them on the tour. anyway msg me back ... candii xxx'

All the colour had drained out of Pete's face. "I've read this message to myself three times," he said, "and I still can't fucking believe it's real."

"What is it?" Carlos asked. He expected bad news, like someone in Pete's family had gotten terribly sick.

Pete's head was spinning. "It's a message from Candii. You remember we met her, she signed us to her record label?"

Carlos nodded. He also remembered how she flashed her dick at him. "What did she say?"

"I need you to read this for yourself." Pete handed his phone to Carlos and waited impatiently as he watched Carlos's brown eyeballs dart from left to right.

"What do you think?" Pete asked. "I was just grinding myself into a funk wondering when we'd be able to get back out on the road again because we're so fucking broke, and then this comes along! We'd be crazy not to say yes!"

"That's exactly what I was thinking too! I mean, this is fucking huge! But we're a democracy," Carlos stated. "We need to check with the rest of the band first," he said, handing Pete's phone back to him.

"They'll say yes," Pete whispered in hope. He pocketed his phone and crossed his fingers.

"I think so too," said Carlos, "but we still need to ask. They've got lives of their own, and we just got back from Canada, and they might want to take a break from the band. We can't commit them to something, especially not something as big as this, without getting their approval first."

Pete nodded; of course he understood. He nervously checked the time on his phone. He was due back at his desk in ten minutes, but the law would just have to fucking wait. This was just too important. "Call them. We need to know." As if anyone in the band would turn down an opportunity like this. Ten minutes later, the bass player and other guitarist were both on board. They were equally excited.

Pete and Carlos high-fived each other in the burger joint before hugging ... and then kissing ... and then the manager came over to them to tell them to tone down the overt physicality, because this was a family establishment.

The boys apologised. As soon as the manager was back behind the counter, Carlos grabbed Pete's hand, escorted him to the bathroom, rolled a condom on, and fucked his brains out. He rolled the spent condom off and left it hanging over a door as a silent 'fuck you' to the manager. His semen traced a slow, thin line down the woodwork.

Pete walked back to work on his own personal cloud. Meanwhile, Carlos went back to his own apartment. Nobody had been here for over a week, and the air felt a little stuffy. He opened some windows and turned on a fan.

Pete couldn't give a shit about his studies anymore. Sure, he went back to work, but his mind was a million miles away. Later that night, he replied to Candii's message to thank her, on behalf of the band, for inviting Ass To Mouth on their tour and to say they couldn't wait to get back out on the road again. He also told her that Boipussy were a kick-ass metal band, that they and A2M already played a few shows together, and that she should approach them as soon as fucking possible. He sent her Ace's cell number.

Pete managed to separate the personal from the professional. It would've been a dick move for him to tell Candii that Boipussy sucked just to avoid Ace. He knew he'd done the right thing, even if it meant he might be touring the country with an ex, dealing with emotional fallout.

He still needed to talk with Ace about their relationship. It was tearing him up inside. He loved two men at the same time, and he had to choose. Having said that, he knew in his heart he'd already chosen, but he needed to try to let Ace down gently, and he couldn't postpone the conversation forever. This was uncharted emotional ground for a dude who thought he'd be single and lonely for the rest of his life.

Ass To Mouth were back in the rehearsal room the following night. Their set still felt as tight as fuck, and the point of their drill was to maintain the musical muscle they'd built on the road. They ran through their set twice, and in between, they chatted. They weren't sure what'd happen first -- studio time or the national tour -- but either way, the four members of the band wanted to remain connected and prepared.

Ace texted Pete later that night. Ace had given Pete ample space while A2M were on tour in Canada, but he was surprised at how little he'd heard from his boyfriend since he'd come back home.

Ace: 'heeeeeeey sexy dude i havent heard from u since u got back from canada, i hope its not too late but i didnt wanna msg you until u were ready, but you're back home now right?'

Pete: 'hey dude yeah sorry things have been hectic'

Ace: 'how did canada go'

Pete: 'really well, im back at work and we're back in the rehearsal room already'

Ace: 'hey can i call u'

Pete replied with the smiley face, and within seconds, his cellphone rang.

Ace's enthusiastic voice came through clearly, pinballing through the network of cell towers on the way to Pete's handset. "Hey, sexy dude! How's things? Been missing you!"

"Hey," Pete replied. "Been missing you too."

Ace noticed something in Pete's voice that was different. It sounded a little flat, distant and reserved. Ace tried to push past it. Maybe Pete was just tired. Or maybe Ace chose a bad time to call.

"How was the tour?" Ace asked. "Give me the details!"

"Fucking cold!" Pete replied. "I'll tell you all about it some other time, but first, I've got two pieces of news for you."

"Tell me!" demanded Ace.

"The first is, we landed a record deal."

"Fuck, no way!" Ace replied. "A record deal? Are you being serious with me right now?"

"Yeah, dude, totally serious. We're signed to a Canadian label, and we'll be recording soon."

"When?"

"Umm... good question ... we aren't sure yet," Pete replied, "we still need to work out the details about that. Oh, but here's the other piece of news. Our new label is organising a tour of new and upcoming metal bands. We've been invited to be a part of it, and they asked us about a band from Florida called Boipussy. They've heard good things about you, and they're thinking of inviting you onto the tour."

"No fuckin' way!" said Ace. "What did you tell them?"

"I told them to hit you up," Pete replied. "I gave our contact your number. I told her that A2M and Boipussy have played some shows together already, and I said you guys are fucking awesome. Expect a message from a chick called Candii." Pete read out her number so Pete would recognise it when she called. Pete grabbed a nearby pen and scrawled Candii's digits onto the back of his hand.

"Sweet! Assuming we get onto the bill, how much will it cost?" Ace asked.

"I can only tell you what Candii told us, but she said the label will handle stages, security, accommodation and flights, so it won't cost anything. We might not make any money, but it'll be fun to be out on the road playing to new crowds."

Ace tried hard to suppress his excitement: until he got the call from Pete's contact, nothing was certain. "What's the name of the label you signed to?"

"Swallow Records."

Ace laughed. "That sounds appropriate. I don't think I've heard of it before. Tell me some bands that are on that label?"

Pete thought hard. "Ever heard of 'Hypnosissy'?"

"Yeah, Hypnosissy played in Miami a few months ago, they fucking rocked!"

"What about 'Kuntlapper'?"

"They were in Florida just last week, and they were awesome! Sounds like A2M is in excellent company, and I really hope to hear from this Candii chick soon." Ace cleared his throat nervously. "Anyway, how's Carlos?"

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence on the other end of the line.

"You still there, Pete?" Ace asked.

"Yeah ... yeah, I'm here. Carlos is well. He had a great time on tour. I'll let him know you asked about him at our next rehearsal."

"You ... umm ... well ... I was ... I guess I couldn't help noticing you haven't been in touch with me much lately," Ace ventured. It was rare for him to struggle with expressing himself clearly, but tonight, he knew the words wouldn't come out right.

Pete collected his thoughts. "Yeah ... I'm sorry about that ... we were just so busy, lots of flights, lots of hotels and so on." Pete's mind flashed back to the moment he and Carlos had fallen unceremoniously onto a frozen Canadian canal while trying to skate. The tender, passionate kiss they shared and the feeling of connectedness that possessed his heart formed a beautiful, precious memory he'd carry to his grave. Sure, the tour was busy, but not all the time.