Stryker's Desire

by Meg Ripley

  “I like it,” Nick said. “I think we can sharpen up that melody line in the third verse, but I like it.”

  “Same,” Dan said. I nodded and bent to the side to grab my pack of cigarettes from the floor at my feet. I lit one, thinking about the music we’d been working on. The earlier stuff, I’d played along with, argued about, worked on--but this song actually made me feel, for the first time, like we were on the right track.

  We broke for the day after that and went into the kitchenette to talk about the album. Ron was still on our asses about the timeframe, and the label was probably still uncertain, but I was feeling good again. I was actually enjoying being a part of Molly Riot. “I think we might have hit on what we need to do,” I told the other guys as we sat in a circle, passing a pipe around.

  “That’s a change,” Dan said, glancing from me to Alex. “You’ve barely been about the album at all this whole time.”

  “Get off it,” I told him, feeling irritable in spite of how positive things were. “I just like the direction we’re in right now. I like what we worked on today.” Alex raised an eyebrow and sat back from the table to excuse himself from the pot, fishing a cigarette from his pocket.

  “As opposed to what we worked on last week?” I shrugged.

  “Either the festival shook something loose in me, or Jules came up with a good idea, or both,” I told Alex. “I don’t really care. Neither should you--we’re doing better. That’s worth riding it out.”

  “If Mark is done with being a morose asshole, I’m not going to question it that hard,” Nick said, taking a hit and passing the pipe to Dan. “I mean hell--we might just get this album finished at this rate. Do you want to jinx that shit, ‘Lex?”

  “I’m just curious,” Alex said with a shrug. “I don’t think playing with another band is enough to make him change. Do you?”

  “I think you’re the only one who cares,” Jules said.

  “I think he only cares because it was Jules’ song that made him come out of whatever funk he was in,” Dan suggested.

  “Are you insulted, Alex?” Nick snickered and hacked.

  “Fine, whatever,” Alex said, rolling his eyes and taking a drag of cigarette smoke into his lungs.

  “So we’re back in tomorrow, right? Let’s get this rolling a bit faster, since we seem to mostly be on the same page again.” I looked from Dan to Nick to Jules to Alex. Nobody could really argue with what I was saying; I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt the change in the room. I couldn’t bring myself to think it was all me--it was some weird synergy. Whatever Nick, Dan, Jules and Alex had done during the time I was up in Tampa had contributed as much as what I’d done.

  “I’ll email you all what I’ve been working on, for my own tracks,” Jules said. “Alex?”

  “I’ve got some demos I can send you guys,” Alex admitted. “I’ve reworked a couple of things.”

  “How about this,” Nick said, taking the pipe from Jules as he passed it. “We all send each other the reworked demos, and first thing tomorrow, we listen to everything, and work out what we’re going to do with it.”

  “Are we starting over again?” Dan looked doubtful, and I couldn’t blame him. This would--technically--be the third time we started on the album. The label was already starting to get restless.

  “Not from scratch,” Jules pointed out. “We’ve got a pretty good idea of what we’re doing, finally. And anyway, it’ll go faster this time. We managed to get the parts down for my song in one session.”

  “We’re going to end up having to do double time eventually,” Alex said. “Spending every waking moment in this place to get it done even close to on time.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I suggested. “For now, I like Nick’s plan. Everyone send the reworked demos, we’ll listen to them and then come up with what we’re going to work on for the next week. Let’s just get this shit done.”

  “Okay,” Alex said, looking at all of us. “Let’s call it a day and regroup tomorrow.” He looked at me for a long moment, but apparently decided against pushing the issue of whatever had changed for me. We finished off the bowl and everyone started gathering to leave.

  “Hey,” Dan said, catching up with me on my way out of the studio, headed to my car. “Sophie has some party she’s going to--bachelorette kind of thing. She’ll be out until dawn. Want to hang out?” I shook my head.

  “Nothing personal,” I told him; and for once, it was actually true. “I just already made plans for the evening.” Dan frowned.

  “You have met someone, haven’t you?” I rolled my eyes.

  “Nick is not a mind reader, and Alex isn’t either.”

  “I think it’s good,” Dan said with a shrug. “If you want to keep it to yourself for a while, then do it. Who am I to judge?” He grinned and stepped back and I rolled my eyes again; but I couldn’t help but grin to myself as I went the rest of the way to my car. I couldn’t wait to get back to Allie.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I felt Allie stirring in the bed next to me; I’d been awake for maybe twenty minutes, listening to her breathing, thinking about the album and the band and everything. “You awake?” I opened my eyes and looked at Allie.

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling at her. “And apparently, you are, too.” I threw my arm around her waist and pulled myself closer to her. I’d been seeing her for three weeks; ever since the festival weekend. I still hadn’t told anyone in the band. I still didn’t know if there was anything to tell them.

  “You in the studio today?” I shook my head.

  “Today I am all yours,” I told her. I buried my face against the back of her neck. I still hadn’t managed to figure out how she somehow smelled so good all the time--even when she was drenched in sweat, even when she hadn’t showered. It wasn’t perfume, it wasn’t her soap or her shampoo. It was just something about her skin, about her. “How’s the current assignment going?” Allie shrugged.

  “Pretty boring, photoshoot stuff,” she said. “Did I mention? Spin picked up a few of my pictures from you playing with Bent Bridges. Nice tidy profit on that.” I chuckled.

  “If they paid for those, imagine how much they’d pay for naked pics of me in your bed,” I joked.

  “Not their scene,” Allie countered. She turned around in my arms to face me. “You haven’t really been all that forthcoming about how the album’s going.”

  “Don’t want to jinx it,” I told her. “Things are actually going really well.”

  “Maybe you guys could use some pictures out there, give the mags an update.”

  “You’re forgetting,” I said, tapping the end of Allie’s nose lightly. “Nick’s dating a journalist. If anyone was going to give the magazines an update it would probably be her.” Allie shrugged.

  “She’s a writer,” she pointed out. “Not a photog. I could get some good shots in that environment. Maybe even something worth putting in the album artwork.”

  “That’s a thought,” I said, considering it. “Is that your oh-so-subtle way of saying you want to meet the rest of Molly Riot?” Allie smiled.

  “I do kind of wonder if you’re not…” she shrugged. “We haven’t really talked about what this is.”

  “Do you want to?” I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It’s pretty good the way things are.”

  “You haven’t told anyone else about us, right?” Allie raised an eyebrow. I looked down; her tits were especially great that morning.

  “No,” I admitted. “I guess I didn’t want to jinx this either.” Allie shifted against me, sitting up a little bit.

  “How would telling your friends about this jinx it?”

  “I don’t know.” I took a quick breath. “It just seems like everything is so good, and if I push it...if I try and bring it more out into the open, or analyze it, it’s going to fall to shit.”

  “The drama with the band really spooked you, didn’t it?” I sat up in bed; I felt uncomfortable again--itchy, like there was something jus
t under my skin.

  “Look,” I suggested. “Let’s stay in bed all day. There’s a fucking awesome pizza place up the street, and they deliver. We’ll screw around all day, and eat pizza and wings, and tomorrow we can talk about what this is, and what the deal with the band is.”

  “I can wait until tomorrow to talk about the band,” Allie told me. “But I do want to know what this is. Why you won’t even tell the other guys in the band about me, much less define what we’ve got going. Personally, I like it a lot--but I want to know if I should care about it, if I should count on it continuing, or not.”

  I combed my hair back from my forehead and looked at the shapes of her legs under the bedsheet. “I like you a lot,” I said finally. I couldn’t look at Allie while I said it. “I’m scared of how much I like you. It’s fucking complicated as hell.”

  “I like you a lot too,” Allie told me. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Mark. And the sex is fucking amazing.”

  I reached around on the bedside table until I found my cigarettes. “I need a smoke.”

  “I’ll join you,” Allie suggested. I almost told her not to, but it was obvious that we weren’t going to be able to get back to fucking each other’s brains out until we came to the end of the conversation. I grabbed my cigs and lighter and climbed out of the bed. My boxers were on the floor, halfway across the room, and I snagged them on my way out to the balcony attached to by bedroom.

  Allie settled for my bathrobe to cover herself up, and we both went out onto the balcony. I lit a cigarette and I handed her one as well. “So,” she said. “We like each other. The sex is incredible. We’ve been doing this for weeks. What are we calling it?” I took a long drag--as long as my lungs could stand--and held it for a moment before exhaling.

  “Do you want to be my girlfriend, Allie?” I barely met her gaze. I hadn’t realized how much the idea of actually naming what was going on between us--meeting up at each other’s apartments, grabbing dinner somewhere, fucking each other’s brains out, talking until dawn--was eating at me. I had thought I was over the Sophie and Dan thing. Apparently not.

  “I’d like to, yeah,” Allie said, her voice rippling with amusement. “Do you want to be my boyfriend?” I chuckled and took another drag of smoke down into my lungs.

  “Jesus fuck that sounds weird,” I said, shaking my head. “Yeah, I want to be your boyfriend.”

  “You’re not about to tell me that you’re going to keep this a secret from the band still, right?” I glanced at Allie.

  “Why are you so keen on meeting them?” Allie rolled her eyes, giving me a bland look.

  “They’re a big part of your life,” she pointed out. “You spend most of your time with them. They’re obviously important to you--so yeah, I want to meet them.”

  “And get some amazing pictures?” Allie pulled on her cigarette.

  “I won’t bring my camera,” she told me. “I’ll just meet them as your new girlfriend, that’s all.” I looked at her for a moment. She was beautiful--more beautiful every time I saw her. She had gone ahead and sold pictures of me to a magazine, but I knew she’d be shopping them around. None of the pictures she’d taken were anything I should be ashamed of; nothing had been captured that I hadn’t told the guys about afterward. But part of me liked having some kind of secret from them--it felt like a weird kind of payback for Dan keeping Sophie a secret, for the way that no one in the band seemed to really be discussing the new dynamic, even though we were playing together better than ever before.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll introduce you. But no camera equipment. And let’s not tell them you’re a photog until after they already know you.” I finished off my cigarette and stubbed it out.

  “One of your guitarists is dating a journalist and you’re worried they’re going to think I’m horrible for being a photographer?” Allie shrugged. “And what if they ask about my job in the first ten minutes?”

  “Olivia is already part of the Molly Riot Girlfriends club,” I told Allie. “They’re used to her. But things are tense right now.” I kissed her on the forehead and turned to go back into the apartment. “To prove that I’m on board, I’m going to go set up a hangout right now.” I grinned at Allie. “Assuming anyone is actually free to hang out tonight.”

  I went inside and found my phone and decided to try Dan first. I opened up my messages and typed a quick text. Hey bro. You free tonight? There’s someone I want you to meet. Dan would know right away what that meant--he and I had actually, shock of shocks, managed to hang out on occasion, since things sort of cleared up between us. He kept dropping hints about the woman he thought was in my life, but didn’t push it if I told him to back off.

  I sent texts to Jules and Nick saying almost the same thing; I almost didn’t text Alex, but at the last moment I decided I might as well get it all out of the way if it was humanly possible. “You hungry?” Allie looked up from her phone in response to my question.

  “Pizza?”

  “Definitely.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I could tell that Allie was trying not to fidget. The guys had all--one by one--agreed to meet with me, and I was pretty sure they’d all figured out that I wanted to introduce them to my new girlfriend. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “You’re just meeting them as my girlfriend.”

  “Yeah but you’ve got me all squirrely about it,” Allie said, giving me a quick, nervous smile just before she took a sip of her beer. “Avoiding telling them about myself, all that.”

  “It’s going to be fine,” I told her again. “They’ll love you.”

  “So you say,” Allie said, setting her beer down. She took a deep breath. “I’ll try not to be nervous.”

  I’d arranged for the guys to meet us at Dubliner, since it was more or less central to where everyone lived. We’d played there a few times--good shows, all of them--and I figured it would be as good a meeting place as any, with the good memories attached to it. I knocked back a shot of Jameson and looked around, wanting to make sure if possible that I spotted whoever got there first before they spotted me.

  I saw Dan step into the bar, and took a sip of my beer. “One of four,” I told Allie quietly. He hadn’t brought Sophie with him--I assumed she was working. I raised a hand and waved him over, and Dan spotted me. He nodded and walked over to the table I’d taken, smiling. Sophie is good for him.

  “You must be the new girlfriend,” Dan said, sitting down and reaching across the table to Allie.

  “Allie Havers,” Allie said, shaking his hand.

  “It’s good to finally meet you,” Dan told her. “Should I buy a round for the rest of the guys?” I shrugged.

  “I was going to wait until at least one more showed up, but we can go ahead.” Dan raised a hand and one of the waiters came to the table--the same one who had brought beer and shots for Allie and me.

  Nick arrived as the waiter walked off to get a round for all of the band, and the introductions started up again. I felt both relieved and anxious at the same time, as Allie chatted with my bandmates. Jules showed up next, and came to the table looking less morose than usual, more interested in what was going on. After a while, Alex came in too.

  “So, I’m assuming you met Mark at the festival a few weeks ago,” Alex said, giving me a look. “How’d it happen?” My heart pounded in my chest; Allie looked at me and smiled weakly, and then turned her attention back onto my bandmates.

  “I took a picture of him,” Allie said. “He was walking back to the Bent Bridges green room after hanging out with another band, and I saw him…” she shrugged. “He just looked perfect that way. And I just had to do it.”

  “What brought you to the festival? Are you a journalist? Or crew, something like that?” Somehow while everyone was arriving, the topic of what Allie did for a living had fallen by the wayside.

  “Photographer, actually,” she said. “Freelance.” Alex raised an eyebrow.

  “She got some pictures of me and Bent Bridges into Spin mag
azine,” I told the rest of the guys in the band. “From what I saw they were pretty fucking decent.”

  “You’re just so photogenic, though,” Dan said, giving me a pretend-flirty look.

  “How much did you make on them?” Nick sipped his beer. “Liv is thinking about freelancing.”

  “I made enough to justify the trip to the festival,” Allie said with a shrug. “It’ll pay the bills for a month.”

  “I should put you in touch with my girlfriend,” Nick said.

  “So how did you decide to take a picture of Mark?” I looked at Alex; I’d heard that tone in his voice before, and it set off warning bells in my head.

  “I recognized him,” Allie admitted. “And he just looked...it was the perfect picture. Just the way he was standing, the way he was walking. You’ll see it in the magazine next month.” She grinned.

  “She actually suggested that it might be a good idea for her to come into the studio, take a few pictures of us at work,” I said. “I thought it might be a cool idea, once we’re all comfortable and all that.” Alex knocked back a shot.

  “So, you knew who he was?” Allie nodded.

  “I mean, I live in South Florida and I mostly do photography in the music industry. So, I mean, of course I knew who he was.”

  “And you took a bunch more pictures of him and Bent Bridges and hooked up?” Allie nodded.

  “Seemed like a good idea, since I was sure that Mark covering Neely would be a decent story.”

  “One of those things,” I said, giving Alex a look of my own. “And now that we’ve been seeing each other for a while and things haven’t imploded, I figured that I’d introduce her to you guys.”

  “How long have you been working?” Jules looked almost as irritated at Alex’s questions as I felt.

  “Couple of years,” Allie said. Dan ordered another round and I tried to think of a way to change the subject.

  “It’s interesting, the way you two met,” Dan said. He looked at me and grinned; I rolled my eyes at him, remembering the pep talk he’d given me months before.