The Music Of My Life

All four girls stuck around until the end of the show. None of the guys seemed to mind when the girls hung with us as we packed up.

We called ourselves "Road Noise," and were pretty successful in the Nashville area. Alan Beauchamp and I both worked at a Nashville recording studio, which was my first real job after graduating from college. We would sit around and noodle after the day was done, sometimes joined by other co-workers. Through friends, we found ourselves a bass player, Mike Rogers, and Rick Jones, a guy with a pretty good set of pipes. My boss let us use a practice room from time to time, and before we knew it, we were playing some clubs. As our reputation grew, so did the size of the clubs and our paydays.

While all four women were pretty, I could tell my band mates were most impressed by Kennedy, which didn't surprise me in the least. It was pretty obvious to everyone, though, that she was most impressed with me, as most of her looks and conversation were directed my way.

I hadn't seen Kennedy since just before our freshman years of college when we had sex in my car. We both knew what that night meant, and we hadn't kept in touch at all since then. We were both surprised to find the other in Nashville.

It seemed Kennedy's philosophy degree didn't open any doors in any field she found interesting in the year since she graduated. She had just drifted around since graduation before finally landing a job at an art studio in Nashville through her cousin, Alexa, who lived here. She had been here for just two months.

Kennedy and I became an item of sorts. We shared a lot of good history and she was certainly a beautiful woman. About a month after we got together, we were sleeping together, and a month after that she had moved into my apartment and bed.

Kennedy started coming to our practice sessions, and when the guys found out she was a pretty good singer, they encouraged her to sing backing vocals for us. She got pretty good at that and enjoyed it, and I had no problem with her doing it. In fact, I wrote us a song that had her singing lead, and after smoothing over Rick's hurt feelings, he was okay with taking back-up on it. She had great stage presence, too, and I think our audiences really enjoyed it when she moved from the side of the stage to center for her song.

I know for a fact that Kennedy really enjoyed the rush she got from performing. I could count on her being incredibly animated and loud during sex after our shows, regardless of whether we attended a party after the gig first or went straight home. She was always wound up and very physical, and I have to admit that she just about gave me a concussion several times when I ate her pussy in bed after performing.

I didn't know it at first, but some of Kennedy's rush wasn't just from performing. Somewhere along the line, she developed a taste for cocaine. At one of the parties after a gig, I lost sight of her for a while. Remembering that she would occasionally do some weed as a teen, I figured I should go find her and keep a watchful eye on her. Not being shy, I poked my head into the rooms with the doors closed, usually finding several people inside smoking. I found Kennedy in the fourth room I looked into, where there were several people sucking up lines of coke off of a coffee table. Kennedy had some coke ringing her nostrils and her eyes were lit up. She was laughing hysterically at something somebody had said. The crotch of her white panties was showing as she sat on the floor.

"Time to go," I said to the crowd in general as I walked up behind Kennedy and lifted her to her feet.

"No, Bobby! We're just having some fun," she whined as I lifted.

She fought me a little as I got her to her feet, but stopped when I tapped on the end of her nose none too gently with my right index finger. I pulled her out of the room by her elbow while she acted like a petulant child.

Her high was in full swing by the time we got home. Her mad was gone and she wanted to fuck. I was too weak to resist, and we wound up fucking twice before we both ran out of steam and drifted off to sleep.

Kennedy was quiet and recalcitrant when she staggered to the kitchen table the next morning. At least this time, I knew her apparent hangover wasn't from booze.

"How long has this been going on?" I asked as I slid a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her sorry-looking face.

"A while. Maybe a couple of months," she responded in a whisper.

"Not liking this at all, babe," I said in a voice that reminded me an awful lot of my dad's. "I'm okay with the weed, but this crosses the line. You know sooner or later you are going to go too far and somebody's going to take advantage of your high ass."

"I know where the line is and I can look out for myself!" she snapped defensively. "You don't have to run in and rescue me like a knight in shining armor!"

Although she tried to hide it, I knew she was doing coke at every party we went to for the next few months. She was too high to know that just because I didn't see her doing it, I could still tell she was high. It became a big turn-off for me, although she always wanted rough, physical sex when she was high. I started to turn her down, which resulted in several knockdown, drag-out arguments, including one where she finally went too far.

"You know I can find a hard dick whenever I want one! I don't have to put up with this shit from Mr. Holier-Than-Thou!" she shouted at me.

"There's the door!" I shouted back. "But after you find that hard dick, you'd better find a new place for your ass to sleep!"

She flounced out of the room and our apartment. I heard a car pull up and assumed she took a taxi somewhere. She didn't come back until the next afternoon, looking the worse for wear and wearing clothes that weren't hers.

I didn't ask, she volunteered, "Stacey gave me some things to wear after I spent the night on her couch."

I had spent a sleepless night pacing around the apartment. I tried tender. I tried tough. I knew nothing was going to change until she wanted to make the change. I also knew that I was at my wits' end, and I wasn't going to let her take me down this rabbit hole with her.

We didn't go to another party for a month, even though she begged me every weekend after we'd performed. I started seeing the old Kennedy come back and I was more than a little pleased.

We were packing up after another show when the begging started. As I had for the last month, I turned her down flat. This time, things were different.

"If you won't go with me, I'll just go with Mike," she said, referring to the band's bass player. "He'll take me, and he won't lecture me like my father. He'll let me party."

"Will he take care of you, too, after I'm gone?" I asked deadpan.

The rest of the guys had stopped packing up and were listening and watching us. I shot Mike a death glare, and he decided at that moment to put some more stuff in his trunk. I was well aware that my band mates would all take a shot at Kennedy if I weren't around, even though they were supposed to be my friends. There is friendship... and there is friendship. Kennedy walked out the door of the club without another word.

"I've got my stuff. One of you guys can take the band's things," I said.

"We'll watch out for her, Bobby, I promise," Alan said.

Sometimes you just know things. I wish it was different, but it was what it was. I knew, but I had to confirm it. Had to see it with my own two eyes. I showed up to the party about two hours later. I grabbed a beer and made my way around. No sign of Kennedy, which meant she was in a room with a closed door. This time it was Door Number Two. I opened it and saw her and Mike fucking doggy-style. They were so into it, both making lots of noise, that they never bothered to look my way. For a brief moment, I thought about kicking the shit out of Mike, but that wouldn't have changed a thing except it would have made me feel a lot better. She was the one that needed to be beaten, except I don't hit women.

I closed the door to the room, and just as I turned to go, I looked up and there was Alan standing a few feet away.

"Waiting for your turn?" I asked. "Good job of watching out for her, by the way."

I downed the rest of my beer, after all, no sense wasting good beer, then made my way to the door and left. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

A few hours later, I woke up in my 1985 Ford Mustang at a rest stop about 200 miles west of Nashville. I brought my seat up to a sitting position and cleared my head. I took stock of my two guitars and two suitcases in the back seat and remembered that the rest of my gear and stuff were in the small trunk. I also remembered the exact reason I was sleeping in my 16-year-old car and not in my bed.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

My boss was not happy when I called in from the road on Monday morning and quit on the spot. I gave him the Reader's Digest version of why and he wished me luck.

Most people of a certain age know Fort Wayne, IN, as the home of Maj. Frank Burns from the long-running television series, MASH. Nowadays, Fort Wayne is also known as the home of Sweetwater Sound Inc., the largest retailer of musical instruments and pro audio equipment in the United States. If you were looking for a good place to do recording engineering and hide in 2001, Fort Wayne was as good a place as any.

Sweetwater employed a menagerie of musicians in a variety of jobs, and finding a band needing a guitarist was not hard. I not only missed the performing, but I missed the thrill provided by a receptive audience.

It wasn't long before I became a highly sought-after engineer, and the new band I was in, Crushing Grapes, was busy almost every week. Whether it was because of the band, or just because I was a fairly handsome guy with a good personality, I was enjoying a big social life, which translated into a big sex life, too. Perhaps the only thing I really lacked was sleep. It was a good problem to have.

The snake slithered into the Garden of Eden a few years later, thanks in part to social media. As I found out later, Hailey Kissinger was watching music videos on YouTube when she spotted a familiar face. A second look confirmed that the guitarist playing with some no-name band in Indiana was indeed a former classmate of hers, Bobby Winkler. She squealed with glee, whipped out her cellphone and called her lifelong friend, Kennedy Stevens, to tell her about the video with Kennedy's former boyfriend of a lifetime ago.

I was trying to figure out which musician needed assistance as I headed to the lobby of the Sweetwater recording studios. I looked at the woman standing there once, twice, finally three times before I recognized the face of Kennedy Stevens. She was still a pretty woman, but looked about 10 years older than her actual 28. I had to guess that her coke habit was responsible for that. I wondered if she still partook.

We looked at each other awkwardly for about a minute while I waited for her to speak.

"You look good, Bobby. It's been a minute, hasn't it?"

"You lost?" I asked. "What brings you to the end of the earth?"

"Hailey was watching music videos on YouTube and guess who popped up? You. I did a little research and... here you are. I decided I needed to catch up," she said.

"Well, how nice. Great talk. See ya."

I turned to walk away. She reached out and grabbed my left arm.

"I need to apologize, Bobby. At least let me do that," Kennedy said. "Can we talk?"

Shit. I really didn't want to do this, but sometimes being an adult means you have to do things you don't want to do.

"I'm working right now, Ken, but if you come back at 5, we can grab dinner and talk. You still like Italian?"

She nodded brightly. I felt myself smile. Somewhere in this woman was still the five-year-old girl I fell in love with many years ago.

She was waiting for me in the lobby at 5. I led her out to my Mustang.

"I can't believe you've still got this car!" she chirped happily.

I drove us to Olive Garden. After all, she didn't deserve good Italian. I'm sure she knew exactly what I was thinking when I pulled up in front of the restaurant.

We sat quietly for a minute after the waitress took our order. Kennedy was looking down at the table and nervously drumming her fingers.

"I've got dinner, but this is your show, Kennedy," I said.

She grimaced. I could see the wheels turning in her head. She gulped audibly.

"Damn, I've been practicing this for two years. You'd think I'd have it down by now. Just where the hell do I start?" she said.

"I-I fucked up big, Bobby. I got caught up partying and kind of lost myself. Then I lost you, literally. How can I ever apologize for that? Nothing I've practiced sounds sincere."

"You can apologize for the coke, Ken, but you can never apologize for cheating on me with Mike. Saying 'I'm sorry' just doesn't cut it."

"I didn't fuck Mike! Who told you that lie!" Kennedy cried.

I sat stunned by the bald-faced lie. She had no clue I was in the room while she was fucking Mike.

"Nobody told me that you fucked Mike. I saw it with my own eyes, you slut!"

It was Kennedy's turn to be stunned. She sat slack-jawed, probably wondering how she could have missed me in the room she shared with Mike that night.

"I went to the party late. I found you and Mike going at it. Need I say more?" I asked.

She shrieked and buried her head in her hands.

"I made a mistake, one mistake, and you left me? How could you leave me?" she choked out between sobs.

"It was a helluva mistake, babe. You of all people should know I don't share. Not once. Not ever," I said.

They say women are the fair sex. That may be, but they certainly don't play fair, especially when it comes to sex. Kennedy was more than contrite, but interestingly enough, she didn't go away. She waited six months before showing back up at my place, suitcase in hand. She told me she intended to stay for a few days while she looked around the city. She wanted a new start in a new place, she said, but she liked the fact that she would have me around if she chose Fort Wayne.

All right, so I'm weak. I made sure, however, that she understood one thing: no more coke. That was absolutely non-negotiable.

Our not being a couple again was also supposed to be absolutely non-negotiable, but only in my mind, I found out. She slowed-walked her way back into my heart, first starting out in my second bedroom for a week, then moving into my bedroom when she decided to move to Fort Wayne permanently. I held out for almost seven weeks before we had sex for the first time, and it was every bit as good as I remembered.

The next year was probably the best of my life. My career was flourishing, our band was performing all over the Midwest and I had a beautiful and sexy woman sharing my life. Kennedy didn't know it, but I had actually bought an engagement ring.

I still had my problems getting over my trust issues with Kennedy. I supposed I always would. I employed the trust but verify gambit, and she had been completely faithful for 18 months. Maybe I could get over her one mistake, after all.

The only small bump on the horizon that I was even somewhat concerned with came from the band. I knew our bass player, Jimmy Ralston, had a thing for Kennedy, and when he thought I wasn't paying too much attention, I would notice him trying to chat her up. I warned her gently to stay away from Jimmy as much as she could, and I warned him not so gently that I'd break his bridge hand if he didn't keep a safe distance. Why did it always seem to be the bass players that needed watching?

Kennedy and I were driving back in my SUV loaded with band gear after a killer performance the band had at a club in South Bend on a Friday night when cherries popped on from the car behind me. I pulled onto the shoulder and stopped to let what was obviously a cop car go past, but instead of going past, he pulled in behind me. I knew I wasn't speeding, so I looked over at Kennedy and shrugged my shoulders. She gave me the one eyebrow raised look and I chuckled to myself, thinking that someday she was going to be using that patented eyebrow raise on our children.

I wasn't chuckling when the police officer came up to the window, asked me for my license and registration and then told me to exit my vehicle.

"There's no way I was speeding, officer. I was doing 40 in a 45," I whined, starting to get a little annoyed.

Kennedy was also told to vacate the vehicle, and the two of us stood with a second officer as the first started to inspect everything. I was more than a little annoyed, but I've always been taught to respect the police, so I refrained from saying anything, at least until the first cop told the second to handcuff me.

"What the fu... hell is going on?" I shouted as the bracelets clicked shut.

Cop number one lifted a baggy of white powder, which I presumed to be cocaine, from the spare compartment. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I've got to admit that I immediately wondered if it was Kennedy's stash. She must have been reading my mind, because she looked at me and quickly shook her head.

To make a very long story short, I wound up with a two-year sentence for a Level 4 felony. I was sent to the state correctional facility at Albion, about 45 minutes away from my former home, but a world away from my former life.

The whole episode was surreal and I probably wasn't at my best during my arrest and trial. I couldn't believe I was actually going to prison for drugs that were not mine.

Kennedy had her own car, so I put the Mustang into storage along with my guitars and gear and anything I considered important. She had arranged for one of her friends from work to move in with her so she could keep a roof over her head.

Our last night together before I went in was as sweet and tender as any time we were together. We started with tender kisses in the living room, before I picked her up and carried her to our bedroom. I laid her down on the bed and slowly started to remove clothes, kissing each uncovered area of her body.

Kennedy had flawless alabaster skin from her northern European heritage. Her pink nipples were standing straight up. I licked and nibbled those adorable nubs while she writhed and moaned. I undid the button on her jeans and lowered the zipper before slowly working her jeans and panties off her body. My fingers and tongue moved south. Lord, this woman almost literally dripped honey. She screamed and wrapped her fingers in my long curls, pulling my face hard into her pussy. She wrapped her tight, creamy thighs around my head and rode my face hard, until I had to tap her hard on her ass to get her to release me so I could breathe. I got her three times that way, then moved up and plunged my rock-hard dick into her gushing, hot pussy. We kissed deeply while we made love, then she licked my face clean. She came twice more while we made love, the second one taking me over the top with her.

We made love a little more physically the second time that night. We went back to slow and gentle in the morning before I had to show at Albion. We both cried hard when I left.

Kennedy visited me every weekend for the first month, then cut down to every other week for the next two months. The next month she was down to just once, complaining that the drive of 45 minutes was tedious. Really? I said nothing, knowing where this was going. Between work and travelling someplace to watch my former band perform, she was awfully busy, and coming to the prison was always such a downer, she told me. I felt so fucking sorry for her I told her to save herself the pain of coming down to see me at all, and she felt so relieved she never came back.

Thanks to early release for good behavior (thank you, Mom) I only served 18 months of a sentence I did not deserve. I didn't tell anyone I was coming home. I just figured I surprise Kennedy by just showing up at the apartment one day and we would enjoy one helluva homecoming. It was.