by Nikki Wild
Aiden, I thought.
One hand remained on my waist as the other grabbed a handful of my hair, pulling me down, down, down…
My lips met a desperate, hungry mouth. Our tongues danced together, and he sucked my kiss hard, moving his arm to lock behind my neck.
That’s when I felt a pressure near my ass, and realized he was keeping me trapped for a new experience altogether…
But this was a dream, and my dreams don’t have such limitations as pain. Dylan pushed his cock into my ass as he knelt over me, and Aiden released me from his grasp.
I was trapped between both twins, being used and abused in only the best of ways. The laws of the universe held no sway here.
I was their instrument.
Together, they were my instrument.
And in our intensity, we wrote such an incredible melody, a unison of clashing guitars, husky vocals, and a chorus that brought it all fucking together until the climactic conclusion.
I was racked with sweat and pleasure as they came into me hard and hot. I felt my ass and my pussy simultaneously pumped full of their infernally hot seed. All the while, I watched my body clench and writhe as I underwent orgasm after crippling orgasm.
My eyes flashed open and I was alone in the dark. I almost leapt out of bed to grab my song notebook and my bass guitar. The notes of our desperate melody were still strumming through my head, echoes of a lovemaking session that never was and never would be.
I started to play…
Aiden
I slept too hard to dream, and woke up less refreshed that I wanted. But at least I’d actually fucking slept.
Jeremy had booked us into a budget chain hotel, again. He was probably pocketing a million rewards points for his trouble. The band was jammed up in a single room, just like always. Just sucking up the economy option every time split our hotel costs.
It had been my turn to get the bed.
Cheap hotels and the odd hostel were the name of the game on the road. We couldn’t afford a bus, so we definitely couldn’t skate by on anything better than the bottom of the barrel when it came to lodging. Things would be different once we hit it big, but for now, this would have to do.
We woke up too late for the shitty continental breakfast, so we walked over a couple of blocks and hit up the Waffle Shack nearby.
“You sleep okay?” Trevor whispered in my ear while Carter was ordering. “Seemed like you were moving around a lot.”
“It was okay,” I grumbled. “You?”
“Not really. I hope your new eye-candy is as good on stage as she is in a private jam session without the crowd…”
My eye twitched. “Call her that again, and I jam a fork into your throat.”
Carter was making the waitress repeat the order back to him, trying in vain to cut off his curse. Gave us time to talk a little longer…
“Oh, c’mon dude,” Trevor insisted. “We all saw how you look at her. Hell, how you and Dylan look at her. Anytime you three are in a room together there’s electricity in the air…”
“It was one day.”
“And what an impression it made,” he smiled mischievously.
It was my turn to order, so I didn’t have time to make further threats on his life.
A small, strange pit formed in my stomach while Trevor took his turn. Was he right? Was I that obviously attracted to the new bassist chick?
It didn’t matter.
I’d thought I was playing it cool. To be fair, it had been a while since I’d gone chasing pussy. I was used to it dropping into my lap, easily and willingly.
But if Trevor could see it, then that meant she probably could too… whether that was good for my chances or not, I wasn’t sure.
I cast Dylan a look, and he lazily met it with a gruffer gaze than usual. He and I were gonna have words soon, I could tell.
Wasn’t looking forward to that.
The waitress was wandering off, relieved to finally be away from our table. I could only imagine how badly Carter had pissed her off by trying to counteract his curse.
“Where the fuck is she, anyway?”
“Who?” I asked, turning to Carter.
“Phoenix.”
“No idea,” I shrugged apathetically. “We probably should have gotten her cell number. But my guess is that Jeremy has that under control.”
“I think I heard her say that she doesn’t have one,” Trevor chimed in.
“Who the hell doesn’t have a cell phone?” our drummer scoffed, blowing over the lip of his coffee mug before taking a sip. “She’d better show up in time for, you know, the show.”
“It’ll be fine,” Trevor grinned, casting me a knowing look. His eyes said it all.
Phoenix dominated our little conversation without even having to be there. We passed the time waiting on our food by figuring out how she was going to best fit in with the tour.
“She’s a rookie,” Carter repeated at one point. “This lifestyle can eat her alive if we don’t guide her properly.”
“Dude, we’re still trying to figure it out ourselves,” Dylan interjected. “Don’t act like we’re all ancient Chinese masters of the art of touring. We haven’t even gone national.”
“But we’ve done this a few months and we’ve learned from it. This is our second merry-go-round. We almost screwed it all up on the first try, remember?”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “I remember.”
Carter sighed. “All I’m saying is, if we’re really going to do this, let’s take care of her. She’s a fan, and she’s taking up a spot while we figure out what to do with the fucking addict in our band. Let’s not go and fill her head with anything too crazy.”
“He’s not coming back,” I insisted darkly.
“That’s a band decision,” Carter replied coolly. “If Phoenix works out, then sure, maybe we can give him some time off. But right now, she’s untested, and he’s been with us from the start. Those bass licks she’s playing? Alex wrote those things. Don’t make decisions with your cock.”
I snarled gravely.
So they all knew.
“I think what my brother is trying to say is that Alex is a liability, and so far, the new girl isn’t,” Dylan opted in.
“We just met her!” Carter groaned.
“So what? I’ve got a pretty damned good feeling about her,” he smiled calmly, his face turning to me. “And so does Aiden. Right?”
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
“Yeah, so far.”
“So it’s settled,” Dylan perked up. “For the moment, Alex is out, Phoenix is in. We’ll come back to that when Alex is sober again, but we’re not going to spend any more time debating this until he is.”
My eyes slid to the others.
Trevor looked amused.
Carter, on the other hand, was clearly frustrated. He was shaking that dreadlocked head in resignation.
We didn’t have to dwell on things for long, though. The food showed up quickly, and we began happily scarfing it down.
Well, besides Carter, who had to stop to ask the waitress why his Patriot Platter came with the completely wrong kind of pancakes and was missing the bed of scrambled eggs.
After we were all done eating, we headed back to the motel, snatched up our last few things, and checked out. With that done, we piled into the van and headed for the venue to at least get an early start on the night.
Phoenix showed up with Jeremy shortly after we arrived. Oddly, the bassist wouldn’t look at Dylan or me, and seemed a little embarrassed to be around us. I put that down to pre-show jitters.
Totally understandable, really.
We all spent several hours setting up our instruments, running scales and warming up before jumping into another full rendition of the set.
Satisfied, we kicked back, taking it easy.
And just like that, the show went on.
The opening bands weren’t too bad. The first one had weak songs but excellent stage presence. The other was a pa
ck of limp fishes with surprisingly great music.
Either way, the crowd was pumped and the drinks were flowing.
When we all triumphantly took the stage that night, it sounded like everyone was excited to see us.
I stepped up to the mic and glanced over the crowd. It was another sea of darkness, with faces right in front and packed backwards through the venue. Up above us on the second floor, another throng of concertgoers was pushing against the rails.
“How’re we doing tonight, fuckers?”
A chorus of cheers rang out.
“Yeah, us too,” I spoke into the mic with a devious grin, glancing around the crowd. “Sad to say that we got hit with a bit of a lineup change. Some of you might have heard the story of our bassist. He collapsed after our last show. We got him help, and he’s doing okay.”
The crowd cheered again, fists flying up in support. Don’t cheer that asshole, he deserves what he got, I thought to myself.
But there were far more pressing things.
“Which brings me to one quick thing before we get this shit started!” I turned to our new bassist with a dark smile. I watched her tremble beneath my gaze, and it only made me smile harder.
“I’d like to introduce our replacement bassist, Phoenix Flynn! How about you guys show her the same goddamn support that you show us?”
The crowd cheered on for her and she took a long step forward, swinging her instrument in front of her and drawing out a long thrumming bass line as their cheers built in intensity. I glanced over at Carter with a quick look of confusion as the complex beat thrummed out from her guitar.
This wasn’t anything I’d heard Alex drop. She brought the intensity and cranked it clear to eleven as her fingers crept up the frets, each note coming faster and faster. This wasn’t music. This was raw sex put to a beat. One final blast rang out like a goddamned orgasm in progress and she stepped back breathing heavy with her eyes wide.
Carter looked fucking stunned.
She looked surprised as the rest of us as the crowd throbbed and screamed, glancing around quietly at the throng of people. They were chanting her name.
She gave the most adorable smile I’ve ever seen, and goddamn if it didn’t stoke the fire inside me.
“Let’s get this show on the fucking road,” I growled into the mic, turning my head so that I could see my drummer and still talk into the mic stand. “Carter, go!”
The dreadlocked drummer obliged me.
“A-one! A-two! A-one, two, three, four!”
And away we went.
I was mildly aware that the fans could have thought this was all some elaborate publicity stunt, but it became increasingly clearer that they were onboard. They were absolutely eating up her passionate style of shredding the bass – and even while nervous, she was way more natural up here than Alex had ever been.
The fans even called for an encore.
And they meant it.
We were just walking offstage at the end, listening to the chants. The five of us all exchanged huge smiles.
“Holy sht. Do we… do we even have time for an encore?” Dylan asked, glancing at his watch.
“You could probably spare five minutes,” Jeremy nodded with a large grin, standing just off-stage and beaming with pride. “Get back out there and slay it, kids.”
Trevor scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “But what do we play? We’ve used up pretty much all our good songs on the set already…”
Phoenix perked up.
“We could play Unbroken.”
The rest of us looked at her, mulling it over. We’d stripped it from the set a long time ago, but with the way that she had played it in auditions…
“I think that’s a good idea,” Carter reluctantly admitted. “In fact, setting that track aside might have worked out for us...”
“If we’re doing Unbroken, we’ve gotta bring it to the next level,” I cut in, turning to Phoenix. “You brought that song to life. There’s no way I can sing that as a quiet ballad now. We’re all going to have to put everything on the line to pull it off.”
The rest of them nodded, turning from me to Dylan. “Yeah,” Trevor nodded. “I can do that. I’ll follow your lead, man.”
“And I’ll improvise something,” Carter agreed. “Get those drums rocking.”
“Good,” I noted. “Let’s fucking do this.”
We walked back out to a revitalized chorus of victorious cheers, stepping back into position in front of our instruments.
“You guys know we usually don’t do this kind of shit, right?” I spoke up over the mic. “But you were all so incredibly awesome with the new chick that we thought, Hey, why the fuck not?”
Voices and fists hit the sweaty air.
“Alright, I think we’ve got time to squeeze in one last song,” I grinned wickedly. “You’ve heard this one before, but never like this. Phoenix here’s worked some magic with it, and it’s pushed us to realize that we’ve been doing it wrong all along…”
For this song, the bass guitar was going to be the very first instrument to hit the air. Phoenix started slowly strumming out the first two measures of notes, repeating them over and over to complement my voice.
“You guys know I don’t do the heart-to-heart shit,” I called out to them. “But it means more than you know to help us dust off and get back on our feet. One last song!”
I grabbed the microphone, and Phoenix took her cue, adopting a killer stance as she breathed her light into the song.
Dylan added his electric guitar line, firing up a strong context over the notes. A few bars later, Trevor started strumming backup guitar, subtly slipping a background layer to flesh out the rock.
Carter waited his turn, counting off in his head before bringing the drumsticks down in a heavy clash.
With the heartbeat and the soul there, they quickly fell into rhythm together. All that was left was my part...
The song was originally written softer than this, and my vocals were meant to be more haunting and subdued. I didn’t really do subdued, but this song had been Dylan’s, and he really put his heart into it. I sang it the way he’d wanted and let this be our token “not great” song.
I’d been fine to just let it languish.
But with this empowered musical backdrop behind me, that absolutely wasn’t going to work anymore. The game was officially stepped up, which was more than fine with me.
So I amped up the volume.
I pulled the mic from the stand and bounced around stage, belting out the vocals and getting in the faces of the fans up front. They were going mental at the new direction of one of our lesser songs, reaching out to touch my passing hand as I walked along the edge of the stage.
And then came the chorus, which definitively sold the entire goddamn thing. Here was the single song where Dylan did backup vocals. For the first half, he always followed my shouted exclamations with a dark baritone, setting an oppressive tone to the lyrics to counteract my hallow singing.
Clearly, he now had a better idea.
Carrying the same soulful energy from Phoenix’s notes to his own words, he sang his half-lines up, belting them out like a true punk. I had to improvise my lines into a rock anthem just to keep up with his level.
This is the song! (For the unforgotten)
The melody! (For the broken peace)
A serenade! (To the lost forever)
A loving verse! (To placate the seas)
Bared all for you,
We are the unbroken,
Chains on our skin, we’ll never die;
Scared, not subdued,
We are the unspoken,
Silent for now, but soon we’ll rise
The fans were going wild. I’d never seen them this riled up for one of our songs. While singing this song, I realized that Phoenix had taken our weakest song and sharpened it into something entirely different – something better.
And it hadn’t even looked like she’d tried. In her audition, it looked like s
he’d just done what felt natural. If that was some kind of act, then she was a better performer than the rest of us.
None of us would have been able to get out of own heads and make this song work.
Everything just clicked together.
This band was complete now.
When the song finished, my bandmates milked the last couple of seconds with a spectacular drum solo and lingering, reverberating guitar notes.
“Thank you, Philadelphia!” I called out. “Thanks for helping us debut Phoenix, our new bassist. As always, we are Decadent Desires!”
We disengaged from our instruments and pumped out fists to the crowd as we walked offstage, thoroughly surprised at how well the night had gone.
It was an amazing fucking night.
But it was the next one that was going to really put things in motion. Everything was about to seriously change forever…
Dylan
The Next Day
“…We are Decadent Desires! Pittsburgh, are you ready to throw down?!” Aiden shouted out over the mic, arms tossed out wide.
The crowd roared with excitement.
In passionate response, I strummed out a hard, reverberating lick on my guitar.
Guitar was my passion. I’d already been fiddling with acoustic and electric guitars for years when we decided to put this band together. Funnily enough, we had been considering something a little more folksy at first, relying heavily on acoustic guitars.
But the tragedy had changed all of that.
We seriously loved the crowd’s energy tonight. It was our second night performing with Phoenix. She was standing close to me on the stage, taking up Alex’s old position.
I glanced over at her with a supportive wink, and she smiled bashfully.
“Fuck yeah!” Aiden was the ringleader to the circus of cheers in front of us, kicking up his knee and strutting across the front of the stage. “Now that’s the kind of excitement that really gets my heart pumping!”
Deep into his fan-fueled rock persona, Aiden continued working the crowd and thanking them for their enthusiasm. I took the moment to gather my thoughts and clear my head.