“Just thinking,” he said.
She sat down beside him on the grass and began braiding the green blades into knots. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said.
“Wasn’t it? Ain’t we just the same as them, sugar?” He swallowed another lengthy sip of whiskey.
“As who? People who commit violence for violence’s sake? The greedy corporate bastards who run the machine?” She paused, playing with the laces of his shoe. “I choose to think we’re not.”
“When’s Jeeves gonna unleash his secret weapon or whatever, anyway? I feel like I gotta move, go to Thailand or Fiji or go climb Mount Everest or something. There’s too many people feckin’ starin’ at me. I only wanna be Saint Fox up until the system crashes. An’ hell, afterwards there’ll probably be no means for rock stars anyway. At least not for a while.”
“You can always stop, you know.”
“I can’t. Something about momentum. Once I get going, I can’t stop. Gotta see it through.” He took another swig. “To freedom,” he said.
Kit sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. “To freedom.”
“Kiss me, pretty girl.” He wrapped a long arm around her, nuzzling at her cheek.
“You’re drunk.” Just this once, she told herself. Only to comfort him.
He kissed her soft and slow, his hands coming round her waist. She felt the desperation in it, sex as a means to avoid feeling.
Still, her back had hit the grass and his hand was up her skirt before she found the will to stop him.
“Wait...wait,” she said, pulling back. “People in bands shouldn’t sleep together. It fucks everything up. Don’t you know anything?” she teased gently, a sad-sweet smile on her face as her fingers softly trailed his cheek.
He stared hard at her for a moment, his features forming various unreadable expressions before deciding which mask he wanted to wear. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” He stood up abruptly, wobbling a bit. “You’re right. You’re amazing. You’re an amazing guitar player. Guess I want that more than I want in your knickers.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Hey, I’ll see ya later, alright?”
“Okay. Later, Sam.” She straightened her clothing, looked down at her knees. Watched him walk away in long, uneven strides.
She knew Saint Fox would bed the next dumb lucky bitch who caught his eye.
Chapter Sixteen
BROTHERS IN ARMS
Sam was face down on a makeshift bed in the private cabana reserved for Saint Fox and The Independence at Glastonbury, fingers trailing over patches of dead grass beneath him, when Sailor entered the tent, wearing feathers and body paint and not much else.
“Oi, Saint Fox!” Sailor slapped him on the bum, then made a cushion of it.
“Leave me alone,” Sam moaned. He buried his face in a round pillow as Sailor tried to explain to him how the smoothie he’d purchased for seventeen pounds at an organic foods stand over in William’s Green had more hallucinogenic properties than the shrooms he’d eaten a few hours ago.
“...s’all about the enzymes,” he was saying.
“I can’t right now, Sailor, I really can’t. Just go off somewhere and let me sleep.”
Sailor pouted, bringing his wide eyes and feather-crowned head into Sam’s line of vision as he crouched by the bed—white and green linens with matching pillows strewn haphazardly across a bean-filled mattress. A white sheet was pooled around Sam’s hips, his jacket and t-shirt discarded with his jeans unbuttoned and halfway down, the furthest he’d gotten to undressing before passing out. Sailor stared for a while, his tongue nestled in his cheek, lips parted.
“You’re such a tease, you know that? Here I am, high as a kite, admiring the planes of your torso as per usual. Saint Fox, you sly dog. I’ll take care of you, you know. You don’t even have to move a muscle...” He crawled on top of him and began messing about like a kitten, nuzzling his face. The feathers tickled Sam’s nose, beads hanging from suede fringe whacking him across the chest.
“Hey, cut it out,” Sam said half-heartedly, batting him away.
Sailor paused, sitting back on his heels atop Sam’s shins. “God, you’re such a twat sometimes. Why do I even bother with you? I’m sick of you, I’m moving out, I’m leaving,” he said, managing a wounded and judgmental expression despite the dilation of his pupils. “Fuck you.”
“Fuck you,” said Sam.
“No, fuck you,” said Sailor, poking him in the chest. He swung his legs off to the side, making to leave.
Sam groaned, “Hey, wait. I’m sorry, okay? Don’t go. My head is killing me. Can’t we just sleep? Come on.” He patted the space beside him.
“Tell me you’re sorry,” Sailor insisted.
“I just said it, you tweaker. But for the record, I’m sorry. For what I’m not sure, but whatever. I’m drunk and exhausted and I keep taking your downers, you know? I think that’s what I’m sorry for, taking your damn drugs.”
“Sneaky bastard,” Sailor said, making a show of reluctance as he crawled up the mattress next to Sam. “Your fans don’t know you like I do.”
Sam barked out a laugh. “You’re weird, mate.” He wrapped his arm around Sailor’s shoulder, letting him rest his head against his chest, but not before removing the feather headdress so it wouldn’t tickle him.
“I know you better than that Kit girl,” said Sailor.
“Leave her out of this. And you probably know me better than I know myself.” Sam paused. “Maybe there’s not much to know.”
Sailor, with his black doe eyes, paint smeared across both cheeks, and pouty coral lips was as good a distraction as any. Sam kissed him on the mouth, tentatively at first, then pulled back a fraction, his eyebrows raised in question. Sailor answered by closing the distance between them and kissing him dizzy, hands tugging at hair and slipping roughly across skin.
“You want me to know you a little better?” Sailor asked against his cheek, unable to hide the smugness in his voice.
“What’s your name, Sailor?” Sam asked, voice barely above a whisper.
“My birth name’s Dave, but my friends call me Sailor.”
“Hello, Sailor,” he said, closing his eyes.
“Hello, Saint Fox,” Sailor said against his lips. “Is this part of the V.I.P. package?”
Sam laughed, maneuvering Sailor onto his back and hovering above him. “Yes, it’s complimentary, along with a psychedelic smoothie and this.” He pressed lengthwise against him, tit for tat, pinning his hands above his head against the bean-filled mattress.
“Careful now. Don’t break my heart; you know how fragile it is,” Sailor said, breathing shallowly as Sam’s hips rotated an evil dance above him, moving like the reptilian rock god he played on stage.
“I’ll do my best,” Sam answered. “That’s a promise.”
Kit had watched five different bands play in the past three hours. She abandoned analyzing the technicality of the bands’ performances as a choice and allowed herself to get lost in the music, letting melodies at the right frequencies soothe nerves in her brain, a pain-free electroshock treatment.
The frontman of the group onstage now was a Saint Fox wannabe, blue glitter eyedust smeared across his lids, dancing a fearsome shimmy and shake across the stage in a secondhand leather getup. Kit grinned and lifted her cigarette to her lips. One of the sure signs of making it was when copycats started to appear.
Maybe this kid should have been Saint Fox. She saw what it was doing to Sam, the weight of fronting a band serving as decoy for a mysterious cause, everything moving too fast. He’d been created to float in the in-between spaces, drifting unseen through crowds, perhaps a shadowed figure on the underground platform at night who you thought just might be your soulmate—except you didn’t really get a good look at him and crafted him mostly from your imagination using his shoulders, his shoes, and the colour of his hair.
Kit understood that the spotlight shining so harshly exposed too much, made one want to flee, exacerbated
that ‘look at me’/‘don’t look at me’ dichotomy that so many performers possessed. Celebrity was simply a freak show instituted to cast blind spots on the even freakier components of the world taking place in the shadows.
The Sam-a-like prancing around on stage winked at her; she wondered if he recognised her or was simply flirting with the entire audience, much like Sam himself. She tried to push the thought from her mind that Sam was one of those people who was incapable of having any genuine feelings for another person, some kind of defence mechanism, brain dysfunction, the truth about all of us.
Maybe she and Sam needed regular jobs, somewhere out in the country, something outdoors they could put their backs into, reaping and sowing and sweating and earning. It wouldn’t be much different than now, she thought, and anyhow she couldn’t really picture it, could never picture what stability looked like—a house, kids, marriage. Someday a woman would probably marry herself to Sam without him realizing it, some model or socialite who seemed extra understanding at the right time and then bam, married, and a few months or years later, bam, divorced.
Maybe it was okay to do none of the above. Okay to just look after herself. She hadn’t signed on to be anyone’s wife or mother because she didn’t need to.
The music transcends everything, she realised. Transcended what counts as him or her or anyone else. Together, apart, it didn’t matter because—
Because they were the music.
Kit wandered away from the Sam-a-like show, tossing her half-smoked, burned out cigarette into a nearby rubbish bin. Not looking where she was going, she almost ran feet first into Sailor, who was headed away from their tent area. His hair was a disaster and his cheeks held a high flush.
“What have you gotten yourself into?” she asked, smoothing tangles of hair behind her ears. “You look like you’ve been having fun.”
“Blimey, Miss Kit, I have. I have indeed,” Sailor said, stretching his limbs like a colt. “Been partaking of the festival’s delights.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Have you seen Sam?”
“Darlin’, I’ve seen all of him. Which bits did you want to see?”
Kit smirked wryly, one side of her mouth curling upwards. She didn’t know it, but she had started grinning just like Saint Fox.
“Just the general shape of him will do. The last I saw of him he wasn’t at his best, so to speak. I hope he got some rest.”
“Oh, he’s out like a light now,” Sailor said, grinning with his arms folded across his chest. “Should sleep like a baby after the workout he’s just had.”
“Yeah, performing usually gives you that jolt of adrenaline for a few hours after, and then you crash. Anyway, Muzzy says I gotta go check out this trance/thrash/lightshow act he swears is allowing him to hop dimensions. You wanna come?”
“Nah, I’ve done enough dimension-hopping for one day, love,” he said, eyebrows raised. “You enjoy yourself. And don’t take candy from strangers.”
“Don’t you worry, I never do,” she said. “See ya later.” Black boots, black shirt, and black hair faded into a crowd of colourful festival goers.
“Later,” Sailor echoed.
“Too late,” he said quietly to himself. He headed off towards The Unfairground, intending to blend in with the freak show and get thoroughly off his tit but never made it, stumbling across one of his favourite sugar pop dance bands playing a secret show in Silver Hayes, and there were far too many other distractions along the way.
Chapter Seventeen
LOVE SONGS IN THE KEYS OF U AND I
The network of the Arcane Society was spreading exponentially in line with the rise of Saint Fox and The Independence, an ever-growing fan base who were all instantly accessible at the touch of a button.
On a Tuesday evening, Janus Jeeves sat cross-legged on the floor of his living room, his cleverband at the ready, its inner chips and wires protected by a poorly designed orange-and-white striped waterproof silicone slipcase that didn’t quite fit around the edges. A full, pink moon was high in the sky; he watched it through the purple folds of his semi-sheer curtains as it watched him. It was a quiet night in South London and absolutely everyone else was at home eating supper in front of their tellies.
“Chief code monkey,” Jeeves addressed his partner in crime.
Benson Bridges was balanced precariously on a kitchen stool, daydreaming in SQL. He responded with a grunt, not having slept for the past forty-eight hours.
“Is it time?”
“Up to you, doc,” said Benson. “Told ya. Broke through, we’re in. It’ll work.”
Jeeves’ grin spread across his face in increments. “You’re a good lad, Benson.” He touched his cleverband and opened the FoxDen app, signing into the admin account.
New Post. Visible to: All Members.
Hello, my Independents. The time has come for you to emancipate yourselves. Be prepared to sync your devices tomorrow. You will receive a gift from us, complete with instructions on when and how to use it correctly.
If you’ve been following our regularly posted updates, then you’ve been expecting this! More to follow.
Love on and love well,
Saint Fox and The Independence
Janus Jeeves hit Post.
50,000 Likes in less than an hour.
Sam Numan awoke with a massive headache, upside down and tangled in blue sheets. The flat was eerily quiet. Outside, a grey rain beat an irritating pattern against the pavement.
Sam groaned, grabbing the pillow from the proper end of the bed with his feet and squashing it over his head.
Things had not gone well at Glastonbury following his tryst with Sailor. As soon as his flatmate had left the tent, Sam panicked, immediately bedding the next pretty blonde girl he came across. He didn’t know her name. Eyes bloodshot and his mind wild and reeling, he’d patched one destructive bandage over the next to try and snuff out the feeling of being responsible for anyone else’s happiness. She’d tasted of cheap beer and oranges, and she’d screamed and screamed, trailing scratches down his back with long, tiger-striped nails. She’s a better performer than I am, Sam had thought.
After an hour of staring at the ceiling, he got out of bed, pulling on a black t-shirt and some army green track bottoms that barely held onto his slim hips. He passed Sailor’s room on his way to the kitchen, noticing that the bed hadn’t been slept in. Sailor’s narrow floor length mirror was awkwardly propped against the far end of the room. Sam’s reflection grinned at him sideways, running a hand through his tussled shock of bright red hair. The reflection threw out twin rock horns and started headbanging. Sam groaned and looked away.
He needed coffee badly. Or if he was lucky, he hadn’t actually drained the bottle of vodka he’d opened last night.
In the kitchen Sam frowned at the vodka bottle, which was indeed empty. So was the bottle of wine beside it, some godawful rosé shyte that belonged to Sailor—he would pour it in a martini glass and prance around in his frightfully short turquoise satin robe with curlers in his hair pretending to be a nagging housewife, telling Sam to trim the hedges and take Binky to the groomers and why don’t you ever notice when I wear a new frock? until they both failed at the roleplay and collapsed in fits of laughter.
It would be coffee, then. At the back of one of the cabinets behind dozens of unsorted tea bags, he found a tin of instant down to its last grounds. It would have to do.
He hadn’t been to the shop in ages, hell, he hadn’t been home in ages, touring the country instead of doing normal things like going to the grocer’s or doing the laundry. He put the kettle on and began humming to himself, soothing, low vibrations to try and quell the pain in his head. It seemed he always had a headache or some other sort of ache these days, probably the fault of some pill, though impossible to pinpoint which, there were so many. Pills to make you sleep, pills to keep you awake, pills to make you lose weight, pills to make you happy, pills to make your cock hard, pills to make you feel, pills to stop you
from feeling anything. He wondered how anyone kept track.
The coffee was bitter and stale. There wasn’t any sugar left in the house except for baker’s sugar, and too much came out of the large box when he tried to pour some directly into his cup. It tasted even worse now, but he would gladly eat ashes if it would make his head stop pounding.
Sam sat down on the understuffed couch and flipped on the telly—“news” programme, “news” programme, gals gossiping about celebrities programme—he hoped they weren’t talking about him; he hadn’t been able to walk down the street lately without people staring.
BBC Two was playing some dreadful game show where the contestants competed to be the next host of the show by humiliating the current one in creative and twisted ways. He left it on the game show. The poor bloke serving as today’s host was having his hair cut and dyed by one of the contestants. Shaved on one side, spiky and green on the other. He looked quite the sorry muppet.
That pathetic bastard’s just like me, he thought. Trussed up like a Christmas goose and on display for all the world to see. He felt bad, then. His mother would say he was ungrateful. Nah, he thought. It ain’t really like that. It’s been a brilliant ride so far, it’s all just happening too fast. I just hope it all amounts to something. Sets things right, makes everything fair and square.
His cleverband rang. An image of Janus Jeeves in light-coloured sunglasses and a stovepipe hat appeared on the holo display.
Sam activated the display and the face sprung into motion. “Good morning, Saint Fox. Good afternoon? Good evening?”
“Good-fucking-early,” Sam protested weakly. “What’s up?”
“We are on the brink...of success,” Jeeves’ face said, his mouth spreading into a flat grin. “It’s time to deploy Bezzy’s little mechanism. The foxhounds are ready. Thought you’d like to know.”
Sam rubbed at his temple. He knew he must look like shit. “You promise no one’s going to get hurt? Just no more buyin’ and sellin’ for a little while?”
The Rise of Saint Fox and The Independence Page 11