Your mouth puckers and shoulders shiver from the sour flavor. The Gimlet is more lime than liquor. In fact, the shot of Grey Goose is questionable. And that’s how your night has gone.
You are mentally absent and not participating in Isabel’s and Carla’s chit-chatting. This smoky rock club is awkward for you. It’s packed with single people interested in hard drinking, one-night stands and quick hookups.
A few hours ago, Isabel and Carla had to drag you out of the house earlier. They had been asking you to go out, begging you. “It’s just one night,” Carla had said, wrapping her arms around you to stop any escape. “You need to forget your prissy job and act like a fool for a night.”
You had looked down your nose at the girls but finally obliged.
The gym workouts have made you a little more confident lately. Maybe it would be nice to show off the results of your squats and pushups. A pair of skinny jeans and a tight, sea-foam colored blouse would be nice, you thought. Looking in the mirror, Carla reached around you to undo an extra button on the blouse. “You’ve got a rack that makes men buy drinks. Show it off!”
You tried to resist, but Isabel backed Carla’s opinion.
In the car, you reminded both women that this night was atypical for you.
“You know I have not been out drinking since I was, like, in college. And you remember who I was with then.” You covered your eyes as if hiding from the embarrassing memory.
Isabel quickly raised her hand. “Proudly, I do remember. Jerry and his huge pickup truck.”
“That wasn’t the only thing that was huge,” you said.
The car erupted in laughter. The release felt good. A chance to leave life on a shelf briefly.
“Say what you will, but I never got proof,” Isabel said.
“We didn’t have iPhones to just take pictures and hit send. We had to get the film developed. Remember that?”
“And how embarrassing to let store employees see those pictures!” Carla said.
“Oh god, that’s what kept me from giving you proof,” you said.
“Those employees must have seen some crazy pictures,” Isabel added.
A few hours later, you three had had a couple of cocktails at an uppity jazz lounge but ended up, very late that night, at this rock club.
A ragtag rock band, A Thousand Seconds To Mars, is the headliner.
You return from your stumped state of mind. Your wet hands, cold from the Gimlet. Isabel and Carla are chatting.
Two guys walk on stage and grab their guitars and a drummer sits down behind his set. They start warming up. Thudz on tom-toms. Beats a snare. Crashing cymbals. Scratchy guitar solos. Wrong notes. To your disappointment, the music is loud.
“Can we please go somewhere else?” you urge the girls. You point to your ears and then to the stage. Hoping to convey a message that you don’t like this. That your ears will still be ringing tomorrow.
Carla shouts over the screeching guitars: “A few more minutes.”
You turn your back to both the stage and the massive Marshall amplifier stacks and box speakers. “I am not young anymore.” No one hears though.
You are dreading the show. A couple of calculations and you realize one thousand seconds was just shy of half an hour. You hope this band’s show will not last even that long. “Let’s get to Mars and be done already.”
Moments later, the disjointed playing calms, quiets. The white lights in the bar dim and transform into a moving array of colors. Reds, blues, greens, yellows. The drum sticks give four clicks and the band suddenly sounds like a real band. A rock n’ roll beat, a nice blues solo, a grooving bass. Then comes a golden voice. You turn to the stage.
No matter what era of music, lead singers never change. They attract the women to see the band. And the women attract the men to the bar. The simple sequence gets singles into one place with “willing to” attitudes for the good of all—from the bar owner making money to the woman taken to her brink by a new, handsome man.
And the key to it all tonight is the man holding a microphone. Jim Morrison, reincarnate. He strides across the stage with swagger. He is lean and sinewy, has uncontrolled celebrity locks. He rocks his body and belts out classic songs, while basking in the glory of the audience. Yes, he has magnetism for miles.
You want to see him up close, so you gladly dance with Isabel and Carla, moving to the front of the stage. He has amazing blue eyes. They are eyes that could see through a woman and make her want to know what he had seen in her.
“Hot, isn’t he!” Isabel shouts to you and Carla.
Carla agrees. “Who knew they made these types anymore.”
On stage, the man comes near. He stares directly at you. He reaches out his hands and sings:
“I can see in your eyes you know what I like
“How about I take you home tonight!”
Carla shouts a wild “Yes!” And then emphasizes it by shaking her tits, which is how she most bluntly refers to her pair. She is proud of them and learned long ago how to shimmy and shake to get attention. Carla, always the unbridled one, reaches around Isabel and squeezes her breasts for the lead man. He fumbles over his words when seeing the two women but regains his composure without a worry on his sweaty face.
Then, all of a sudden, his eyes connect with yours, and he does not release you until he sings again, “I can see in your eyes you know what I like.” You feel a warmth rising up your neck, a tingle deep in your chest. A tickle on the back of your throat. In this flash of wildness, you loose the tiny bit of Grey Goose from your drink that was deep in you. You scream and hoot for A Thousand Seconds To Mars.
That evening, he plays to the rest of his audience, rousing it and leading it to chant and howl wildly. Nevertheless, he continues to return to you. Isabel and Carla think it’s them. However, he points to you, the one who had urged, nearly begged them, to leave so many times throughout the night. The two women turn, astounded, when finally they realize that it’s you who keep drawing him. You ignore the looks from Isabel and Carla.
Almost four thousand seconds later, the singer announces, “I am Rod Bridges and we are A Thousand Seconds to Mars! Goodnight!” He bows with his sweaty bandmates.
The three of you need a break after the show, to catch your breath, for more drinks. Isabel and Carla go to check their makeup. You head to the bar for another drink and a napkin to pat your forehead, neck and chest.
A few minutes later, a beast of a man comes over. You reach for Isabel and Carla, who could cover as a defensive wall, but they are nowhere around.
“Ma’am,” he says rather politely, “Rod wants to know if you would like to meet him backstage.”
You push up to the bar. Shy, fearful, confused by the giant man’s message. Was he hitting on me? “You’re sure you’re talking to the right lady?” You squint and your mouth tightens.
“Positive.”
Your eyes dart away from the tall man only to realize Rod has instead answered. Rod is even better looking up close. His smile, wide lips, his piercing eyes.
“You’re positive you found the right lady?”
Rod just smiles and winks.
“How am I going to let my friends know?” you ask.
“My man here will wait for them.” He pats the giant’s shoulder. “He’ll bring them to us later. Just come with me.”
Rod reaches, and you take his hand and nab your purse and forget the Gimlet.
You follow him, still in his tight grip. Like times before, you question the choice to go. And like times before, the excitement holds you tightly. What could happen? Will this ever happen again?
Rod takes you backstage, then out of the back of the club. The door of the done-up tour bus is open and another man, another giant, waits by the door. Arms crossed, no smile. He only nods to Rod. After you follow Rod into the bus, the door closes.
Rod pats the cushioned bench seat.
“This is my home on the road.”
“I think Bon Jovi called it the ‘steel horse he rides.’” It is your attempt to calm an uneasy situation.
Rod grins. “A woman who knows her rock n’ roll.”
You shake your head. “No, no, you’ve got a lady who loves her 80s rock.”
“Bonnie,” Rod calls out. You wonder who this other woman is. A hiccup in what you expected. Another woman? Three of us? “Turn on Bon Jovi.”
“Sure thing, Rod,” comes an AI voice. And the bus’s audio system complies.
Shot through the heart
And you’re to blame
Darlin’, you give love a bad name!
The song rocks the bus and soon you are singing loudly with Jon Bon Jovi. You belt out the words from memory like you did when you were with your first boyfriend, Jerry. You remember wearing your tight, cut-up Slippery When Wet t-shirt and your stone-washed jeans. The patches—Poison’s logo and the winged Icarus from Led Zepplin—on the butt of the jeans were your favorites. You wore those jeans until the fabric rubbed away. Literally.
Rod joins in with his crisp voice. He knows the words and keeps the melody as good as Bon Jovi himself. Soon both of you are dancing. You run your fingers through your hair. You make its volume grow. As large as Jon’s hair in the 80s. As billowed out as you did in the mirror as a teenager. A brush and a bottle a hairspray every morning before school, and your strawberry lip gloss that Jerry loved so much.
Rod moves in, brings you back to tonight on his bus. He is grinning at the woman before him. You. He pushes his body against yours so you push against him. He smells of a fresh, clean cologne. Hugo Boss, maybe. A cult classic.
His hands glide around your waist, feeling the soft flesh. You lock your hands behind his tough neck. With the scent and excitement, you tug him close, letting his cool magnetism draw you in. The two of you move closely together, locked tight. You enjoy rubbing against his toughening-up. A quickening pulse speeds. A thumping in your temples. Fast heartbeats. His hands slide lower to your ass, and shots of intensity charge through you. Shooting from your chest to your fingertips and toes. Your knees turn wobbly, but your locked hands tighten. Rod could not back away. Nor could you.
This attention speeds up desire, something you have packed away for a long time. For years, you have remained steadfast in determination for professional success, for status, for power. A woman can do anything and you have intended to prove it in your business world, in your company. You work hard to be recognized by senior partners. Maybe become one. You also struggle hard, never giving up, so you can have a restful life, someday, in due time, whenever that is. It is relaxing in the bright sun with a book on a beach in some place you have never heard of before. Men and relationships have not interested you, or at least, you would not let them interrupt the climb up the ladder of success.
Rod whispers into your ear, “I saw you when I was on stage and I had to know who you were.”
Then he kisses you gently at the base of the neck. You turn your head to let him place another kiss where he would like. His lips brush against you. He nibbles on the left earlobe, then asks, “You felt the connection too?”
“Yes, yes, right away.” You whimper in the weakened state. “I want you.” Your steaming mind produces the words and your mouth speaks them before your rationale throws up a block.
Rod lifts his lips off. He takes your head in his hands and locks his eyes on yours. Magnetism once more. “You can have me right now. Just say—”
You don’t give him a chance to finish, but yank open his button-up shirt, sending buttons across the bus. He stands there. You are free to do whatever you want.
You put both hands on his chest, then drag your long fingernails slowly down to the waist of his pants. Red streaks on his light skin run the length of his torso. A tug at his waistband. “Do you want Mars or Venus?” Your fingers go deeper, nearly out of sight. “Just say what you want. I am ready to take you.”
“Take me where it’s hot and where it’s wet.”
You giggle. Good line, you think. “You know your planets. Been to space a few times?”
“Never visited Venus.”
“Let’s go then.”
He leads you to the back of the bus into a dim room with a large bed. You sit down on the comfortable mattress and he remains standing. You put your hand on his taut stomach to stop any further movement.
“You haven’t said what you want, Rod.” You dig your fingernails into him again.
“Your lips, baby. I want your lips on my dick.”
You only wink. Unzip his pants to get at his stiff cock. It was fully erect and its head was red and pulsing. You let your nose touch the tip, then you let it run the contours of your nose to your upper lip. You kiss the tip of it, as gently as he had first kissed your neck. Your pink tongue flicks it, teasing and making it totter like a tree in a windstorm. His eyes are closed with the new attention. You grip both hands around his cock to stroke it quickly for a moment to jolt his body. Bending it down, you circle your tongue around its head and then suction it into your mouth. You bob back and forth, letting saliva lube him. Strands of the natural lube stretch from your working tongue to his glistening dick.
“You’re so good.” He grabs your hair and yanks you forward and back, as he rocks his hips.
You pull off and lick off the spit drooled from your flushed lips. The lick, you know, twists his mind.
“I’m proud of my skills.” You shove this dick in your mouth again. You do not give him the pleasure to think. His stiffness goes deep, pushing out your cheek. In a moment, feeling his body’s shifts and a salty flavoring on the tip of your tongue, you pull back. Sitting up, proud, breathing heavily. Your heart thumps against your chest. You dab more spit from the corner of your mouth and then lick it off your finger.
He stands there for a moment. Obviously, his mind and body were catching up to reality. A bit slowly. You accomplished the intent. “You liked it, you loved it.” You kick off your heels, unsnap your jeans and slide them down your thighs.
Having returned to consciousness, Rod pitches forward to make you slide back on the bed. Once flat, he slides down your pink panties. There is a wetness darkening the center. It’s excitement, a feistiness, a pent-up, almost forgotten desire. He smiles when he witnesses your dark bush of hair. The bush is a throwback to your youth when life was sex. Sex was living and living well. He then spreads you wide and goes to Venus.
He plants his face in your burning pussy. His tongue slides deep into the pinkness, then comes up to flick your clit. Your sex and excitement smears across his mouth and chin. You wince the same as he winced at the work of your mouth. His tongue slurps the inner folds, tickles your outer lips and pushes deep inside. Then he pulls back to catch his breath. Before having a chance to regain calm and steadiness, he dives down again. His licking causes your hips to rise off the bed impulsively. A surge of power rushes throughout your body, tensing your lower back. It forces you to suddenly wrap your thighs around his head, muscles constricting. He raises up, breathing hard and pointing to the two pythons choking him.
You released them, and he collapses next to you.
“I usually don’t go down on women, but you drew me in,” he says.
“Venus does that.” A smile.
To your confusion and sudden concern, he stands and leaves the cramped quarters.
“Rod, where’d you go? Something wrong?”
What did I do wrong? you ask yourself. You scan through all of the night’s rendezvous. Kisses, touches, songs. Smells, scents, tastes, any imperfections that may have turned him off. What did I do?
He returns though. Back in a moment. He holds a black circlet around his forefinger. He spins it around once.
“I have something special for you,” he says.
You hear a sudden indiscernible soft buzz. Before you have a chance to confirm it, Rod pushes you back. He takes the place of power. He smiles with a faint maniacal grin. He then drives deep into you and when you feel him fully inside, you wail from an unexpected murmur.
“Oyi, ya, ya!” The words stammer out, confused, because your mind cannot fully compute the new screaming sensations. Your body instinctively tenses. Toes curl. Ass tightens. Hips thrust upward and press into his hips. More pressure, more intensity, more shivering, tingling.
You were expecting a smooth cock gliding in. A singular pleasure, a typical intimacy. But this buzz jolts you. Your senses were unprepared for the extra torrent from the circlet at his base.
As he fucks you, your shoulders press deep into the mattress and your face contorts into something freakish. You squirm with each downward thrust and wince at the strike of the circlet against your special place. Your hands press into the bed for help, steadiness.
“Let me … let me … catch my breath, hold on!” You eeked between heavy breaths and you push your hands against his chest.
He gives you a moment’s pause, and then drives in again. A scream scratches from your throat and the shrieks echo all around, even in your ears.
The night! The excitement! The sex! The circlet! All of them culminate into an excruciating joy. The buzz pushes your mind far, far into a torrential place, blurry, unknown. At some distance somewhere, his even thrusts become a far-away wave. Only the wonderful murmur remains to be heard. Nothing else is discernible. The buzz smashes against your spot again, lasts a moment, then melts away, allowing your mind to recoup. But the buzz returns when he pushes in again, only to melt away when he rocks back. The buzzing and the melting, the buzzing and the melting, the buzzing, the melting, a steady rhythm. A clash. Good, evil. Spasm, felicity. Soon though rhythm speeds up. Fast and faster until it suddenly remains a steady. Unrelenting, dizzying, joyous. A strain on your clit. Your teeth grit, jaw constricts, a rush of pleasure speeds up your tailbone along your spine to your neck and back the same bodily trail to your pussy.
Rod collapses next to you. And the buzzing alleviates, letting your mind ease. You return to reality, the bed, the bus, Rod. He is breathing heavily, smiling. “I can see on your face you know what I like.”
His body guard calls. He rustles up the energy to stand. You can only lie there, beaming, buzzing, tingling, shivering.
A moment later, Rod peeks in. “Your friends are outside. They’re asking about you.”
“Oh, shit!” You quickly pack your tits into your bra and slide on your jeans. Because your pants were already on, you jam the small panties into the back pocket. Your hair is a mess, Bon Jovi-esque. Isabel and Carla would know everything, even if you brushed your hair. The getaway on the tour bus is enough of a giveaway.
You step off slowly, embarrassed, nibbling on a fingernail. Eyes diverted from your friends.
The ladies are stunned and in disbelief. They are silenced. The only thing to do is shrug.
“She was in there with him!” Carla turns to Isabel. “I told you.”
Isabel is astounded. “And she got more than a tour of the bus!”
You look back. Rod stands in the doorway.
Before you leave, you pull the panties from the pocket and hand them to Rod.
“A gift,” you say.
He gives you his shirt with missing buttons. “Fair trade.”
You walk to the girls, holding the shirt. “I might not have proof of Jerry, but I got proof of Rod.”