Louder Than Love

by Topper, Jessica

  She smiled brightly. “Olá!”

  “Olá, Ana.” I echoed the only word I was pretty sure I knew and gave a friendly little wave.

  “One minute, luv?” Adrian asked me, and beckoned to Ana to follow him. They chattered back and forth amicably out of sight, and then I heard the latch of the door. He whizzed back into the kitchen, grinning apologetically. “So sorry. Housekeeper.” He pointed to a bucket of cleaning supplies stashed near the sink that neither of us had noticed.

  “I figured she wasn’t the German lingerie model.” I thought of my deliberation between wife and maid and was relieved to have confirmation it was the latter. “I didn’t know you were bilingual, Mr. Graves.” I sidled back up to him. “Very sexy.”

  “That’s Senhor Graves to you . . . hmmm, yes. I’ve spent a bit of time in Portugal. Wonderful people.” He kissed my earlobe. “Come, I have something to show you.”

  “We’re not going to run into any butlers buttling, are we? Or gardeners gardening?”

  “Nope. Jeeves and José have the day off.”

  We left the kitchen the way he and Ana had and found ourselves back in the foyer. Adrian proceeded straight ahead to another set of double pocket doors off the living room. He slid them open to reveal a library, its four walls lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in rich mahogany. “I knew you’d like this. I don’t own nearly enough books to do it justice.” I gazed around in wide-eyed wonder, instantly in love with it. There were brown leather couches beckoning invitingly and small brass table lamps like the ones found in the Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library.

  “Curses, I forgot the coffee. Be right back.”

  I made a beeline for the shelf nearest me. Rows of colorful spines with their thick fonts called out their siren’s songs. I ran my index finger along The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, volume two of The Complete Beatles, and several other coffee table–worthy music books until I came to Godforsaken: The Truth and Turbulent Times of Corroded Corpse by Alexander Floyd. Hmm. A librarian’s job is to thoroughly and objectively evaluate and validate printed matter, I reasoned, peeling it off the shelf and cracking the stiff binding.

  Under the rigid social structure of pre-Thatcher-era Britain, Douglas Adrian Graves and Richard David Rottenberg had only a snowball’s chance in hell of ever crossing paths. The younger of two rough-and-tumble sons of divorced working-class parents, Digger (as he was christened early on by his friends “for my early fascination with the sandpit, not due to the wordplay on my surname”) spent his youth in state comprehensive schools and hanging out near the Portsmouth docks. Riff, by contrast, grew up sheltered in Hampstead, the only child of wealthy educated Jews. Art historians by profession, they would take their young son with them regularly to Stockholm, Paris, and New York. Private tutors had provided him with the bulk of his early education. But at thirteen, both lads found themselves enrolled in a newly established independent day school located in a stately home known as Ditcham Park. And so the snowball avalanched.

  After divorcing the elder Douglas, Polly Graves remarried up; her new husband taught math at the elite public school, akin to a private prep school in the United States. She thought the secluded environs and smaller class size would be good for her teenage sons, who were slipping through the cracks of society under the not-so-watchful eye of their hard-drinking, hardworking motor mechanic father.

  Dual sabbaticals for the Professors Rottenberg at NYU’s prestigious Institute of Fine Arts landed Riff under the care of his favorite aunt in Petersfield. His parents, keen on providing him with a proper British education, were impressed with nearby Bedales School, but his aunt Barbara, or “Bootsy,” as she was affectionately known, convinced them Ditcham Park would be a better fit. The two boys became thick as thieves there within the first week, with Riff turning Digger on to fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, and Digger in turn introducing Riff to a whole new religion: heavy metal. Second only to his wife, Simone, metal music became Riff’s lifelong love.

  Rick. Simone. And Wren. Names I don’t often like to think about. I remembered Adrian’s words, my fingers flying to the index and locating Wren in the order. Chapter five. As I flipped through the pages, I caught a glimpse of a wedding picture. Rick and Simone, 1982. The groom’s haystack of dark hair needed a postal code of its own, and Simone radiated happiness from everywhere, especially her cavernous blue eyes.

  Three more pages and . . . Wren. I found myself staring down at a suited slim man with an easy grin and hair too short to be trusted. The mirrored shades, fashionable at the time, didn’t improve my opinion of him. Judging from the tone of the paragraph, I had a hunch Alexander Floyd wasn’t his biggest fan, either.

  Wren Blackmoor had worked his way up the chain. He had paid his dues as a dogsbody, doing grunt work at various major labels and playing assistant to prominent A&R reps of the day at EMI and Columbia. He vaguely alluded to projects he had been involved in with famed producers Mutt Lange and Martin Birch, and would name-drop and pull quotes from management greats like Peter Grant, Don Arden, and Malcolm McLaren with such ease that one was easily convinced he had had intimate dealings with such heavy hitters. At the time the band met him, over pints and pool at an Earls Court pub, Wren claimed he had sorted the key steps in the formula for commercial success and was ready to strike out on his own and develop a band and a brand, a household name that would keep back catalog profits churning for decades to come. All he needed was a young and talented band with the beginnings of a loyal following and a strong work ethic that wasn’t afraid to go for broke.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Adrian was back. He handed me my coffee and snatched back the book. “Now don’t pout. I promise I will give you a no-holds-barred exclusive peek into the sordid lives of the tortured souls who made up Corroded Corpse.”

  My eyes followed him over the top of my mug as he tossed the book aside and made his way to a bookcase in the far corner. “Check this out.”

  The bookcase revealed a hidden doorway. I hesitated for a moment, thinking about Leanna’s torsos-in-the-freezer comment. Peeking in, I saw numerous gold albums, leaning in their frames against the walls of the small room in piles, none hung up. I thought back to the children’s drawings prominently displayed on his fridge. Ironically, his own accomplishments were hidden out of sight. “Welcome to my lair.”

  One corner of the room was dedicated to a workbench for fixing his guitars. There were guitar strings of various gauges coiled tight like tiny silver and gold snakes. On the wall above the bench was a pegboard completely filled with keys—hotel keys. The old-fashioned kind, complete with heavy plastic ring tags sporting various hotel names. What didn’t fit on the pegboard was spilling out of the drawers of a tall black-and-gray metal case. There had to be at least two hundred of them. The case was on casters, with CORRODED CORPSE stenciled in white on all sides. I assumed it was some sort of road case that used to travel with him.

  “I see you’re admiring my collection. From the good old days, before key cards spoiled all the fun.”

  “Why did you take them?” I picked up one and inspected it. The thick silver was engraved with the words DO NOT DUPLICATE; the turquoise diamond-shaped tag was emblazoned with the word PHOENIX in gilded lettering and the number 22.

  “Dunno. Just something to collect, I guess. We played over one hundred cities a year. After a while, I felt like I was leaving a little piece of me behind every day I was on the road. I needed to take something in its place to remember who I was.” He touched the key in my hand. “Our debut in San Francisco, during our first US headlining tour. Dodgy neighborhood, but a gem of a motel. All-night jam sessions by the pool with topless ladies in attendance, and no one seemed to mind.” He began to finger several others, as if the anecdotes lay in their raised lettering and colorful geometric designs. “We were staying here when we learned our album went platinum. I was here, in Belgium, on
Natalie’s first birthday. And this is where I was”—he shook a key ring embossed with Japanese Kanji—“when Robyn left me. She rang me up at four in the morning Tokyo time and informed me she had moved out.” His voice trailed off, lost in thought.

  My eyes rested on a key from the Plaza. His eyes must have followed mine. “Ah yes. You commented on how at ease I had seemed there. We stayed at the Plaza every time we played New York. My favorite hotel.”

  “So I wasn’t the first one you brought there.” Sordid visions of groupies, trashed hotel rooms, and nights of excess swam in my head.

  “Actually . . . yes, you were.” He began to explain that despite all of the nubile and willing temptations presented to him on the road, he had managed to keep most of his wedding vows to Robyn intact until she dumped him. “Sadly, Robyn had never fully trusted me on the road. And I had met her at a gig; imagine that. The moment she got her claws dug in me, she was suspect of any girl in the audience. I suppose I made matters worse when I told her I didn’t want her or Natalie on the road with me.” He explained the reason behind his decision, painting a picture of walking into his dressing room one night in Los Angeles to find a beautiful young girl servicing two of his bandmates simultaneously. “She had invited me in on the fun, but I politely declined, opting for a pre-gig line of quality blow with some friends.” He had assumed she was some random groupie until, after the concert, he was introduced to one of his all-time idols, a well-respected musician “whose name I don’t dare reveal,” and the man’s fifteen-year-old daughter, said beautiful girl whose lips had been wrapped around the organs and other sundry parts of Adam and Rick backstage. “I knew right then I didn’t want Natalie exposed to that kind of life, so I put my foot down. Not so I could do whatever I wanted on the road, as Robyn later accused, but rather to shield them. That was the beginning of the end, as she didn’t like playing second fiddle to anyone or anything, especially not to the road.”

  “So being on tour really is like all those rockumentaries describe. How big of a rock star were you? Like, panties-thrown-at-you-onstage big?” I ventured.

  “Panties-thrown-with-phone-numbers-written-in-them big,” he admitted. “But I never snorted ants or bit the heads off bats or any of that crazy business.”

  “Yet you kept company with those who did?” I was incredulous.

  “Do you still want to be with me?” he asked, a hopeful yet heartbreaking look on his face. I dropped the keys and took his hands in response. “It used to be women wanted to sleep with me after they learned who I was. Kind of ironic . . . now that you know, I’m worried you won’t want to be with me.”

  “I just want to get to know the real you, whoever you are. I want the tap water.”

  He pulled me close, an impish smile on his face. “Might want to turn those taps on pronto, let ’em run for a bit full pelt. Shake the rust loose.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I murmured, my lips grazing the ringed lobe of his ear. “I think I know exactly how to turn them on . . .”

  ***

  Adrian’s bedroom was a tranquil masculine retreat of brown, gray, and crisp white. I was delighted to find his bed was a futon, although it was actually on a frame and ten times more comfortable than mine. Large square wall panels behind the headboard in a rich dark grain matched the wood on the floor and gave the room an insulated-from-the-world effect. Thick velvet drapes lent themselves to the mood as well. Adrian lit a large candle the color of the darkest chocolate, and the room instantly simmered with the same peppery smell that infused his skin. Fifteen stories below, the hushed and steady thrum of traffic could barely be heard, with just the occasional chirp of a truck horn or police siren breaking through.

  He slowly began to undress me. “Nice plaster. Sexy,” he whispered, kissing my knee. I had cut myself earlier while shaving in the shower and had hastily slapped on the closest bandage I could find. I saw now it was one of Abbey’s Hello Kitty Band-Aids.

  I pulled his T-shirt over his head. “I wasn’t exactly thinking of how good I looked this morning. More preoccupied with how I was going to bring myself to say good-bye to you . . .” He was kneeling on the bed before me, all those tattoos I had only begun to glimpse in pictures now fully exposed.

  A thin, simple dagger ran down the middle of his chest, starting at his clavicle and ending with the point at his navel. “That’s a misericorde—used by knights to deliver the final ‘mercy’ blow to the mortally wounded.” His chest trembled as I kissed my way, openmouthed, down the blade. “Something I would have needed had you actually brought yourself to say good-bye . . .” The sharp tip was bordered by delicate red writing that looked vaguely Nordic.

  “What’s this say?”

  “Don’t you read Old Icelandic?”

  “And you do? Come on . . . Portuguese is one thing . . .”

  “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you,” he deadpanned.

  I cocked an eyebrow, and he relented with a smile. “It reads að blanda blóði saman—‘to mix blood together.’” He took my finger between two of his and traced around the text. “Rick and I were big fantasy geeks in school, you know . . . Dungeons and Dragons and all that. His father was an art dealer, seventeenth century Swedish art mostly, and so we learned a lot of the Norse mythology from looking at all the paintings. There was a tale of these two blokes who were blood brothers, and we thought that was brilliant so we did the same, with an old flick knife I had, see, right here?” He extended his arm at the elbow to display a faded X in the hollow. “We were too young to have tattoos back then, but once we started getting inked, Rick brought up the blood oath thing. We chose identical daggers, and he pulled the quote from one of his dad’s old books. Kept its meaning a secret, even from the rest of the band. Stupid now, I suppose.”

  “Not if it meant something to you at the time.”

  “Yeah, it did. I wrote a song about it. ‘Blood Oath.’ Based on Orvar-Odd’s saga.”

  “Over-what?”

  “Orvar-Odd. You’ve never heard of him? Or the love story of Hjalmar and Ingeborg?” I shook my head. He pulled the sheets down and me up to the pillows. We twined our bare limbs under the crisp linen, and Adrian wove his version of the Norwegian warrior Orvar-Odd and Swedish warrior Hjalmar as he gently stroked my hair. “Orvar-Odd was hell-bent on testing his fighting skills against Hjalmar’s, so he sailed to Sweden with five ships and met Hjalmar, who had fifteen ships. Hjalmar wouldn’t accept such an uneven balance of strength and sent away ten of his own ships so the forces would be even. Which was so like Rick and me. His family was well-off and had so much, and I didn’t have much of anything, but we were always equal, you know? We’d take the piss out of each other, but we were best mates. Anyway, the two warriors fought for days with a lot of blood-letting, drama, poetry, blah blah blah. But it was a draw. When they finally realized they were equals, they became blood brothers. Hjalmar confided in Orvar-Odd about this beautiful princess who he was in love with, named Ingeborg. Orvar wanted to help them elope, but Hjalmar dragged his heels until these twelve crazy berserkers came along and one of them wanted to marry her. Typical man, yeah? The king let his daughter choose, so of course she chose her true love, Hjalmar, and the berserkers went . . . well, berserk. A big duel ensued, with lots of gore and yuck, and at the end, all the bad guys were dead, but sadly so was Hjalmar. So Orvar-Odd took his blood brother’s body back to Ingeborg, who of course dropped dead at the news. All he had to do was give her Hjalmar’s ring”—Adrian slipped off his Shakespeare ring and placed it on the index finger of my right hand resting on his chest—“and she knew. And that was it.”

  “Wow. That’s some story. I can see how it could inspire some good songwriting. Death and romance.” I fell silent as I contemplated how the subject matter was something I was sadly versed in. The metal was surprisingly hot against my skin. My finger felt heavy as I used it to trace a thorny tattooed vine snaking around the blade on Adrian’s chest and tra
iling to a rose that wound around his rib cage. It blossomed at the approximate spot of his heart, and Natalie was etched into the tight center of the petals in a spiral pattern. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, taking it all in. He had a smattering of realistic-looking bullet holes across his breastbone, narrowly missing the rose. They appeared three-dimensional. Beauty, darkness, danger, pain. “You are beautiful . . .”

  “Yeah, right.” He gestured to the demon on his other breast. “You can tell Abbey I’m the original boogeyman.” The half-bone, half-flesh corpse had pins sticking out of his head, voodoo doll–style. The skull was dusted greenish blue as if it had been pulled from a swamp somewhere, and the flesh was yellow, oozing red. Its teeth were of varying lengths and in different states of decay. “So can you see why it’s not easy to woo the ladies toting around that one?” His tone was sardonic, his expression sheepish.

  “Does he have a name?”

  “Corpse Guy? Nah. He appeared on our first album, but then we did away with him and started using this.” He pointed to the Corroded Corpse logo above his appendix, which consisted of two Cs hooked to each other and linked vertically. Their color, shading, and texture suggested they were made of bone or claw, pitted and ridged, with a bit of gristle for emphasis hanging from where they were seemingly ripped from whatever body they belonged to. “I regret him somewhat . . . especially when fans would come up to me and proudly display their own Corpse Guy tattoo in honor of their love for the band. It’s just such a personal, permanent statement.”

  “Well, some of those fans probably lived and breathed your music.”

  “True . . . even after I stopped.” He rolled over, stretching and pushing his hair off the back of his neck so that I could inspect more of his body artwork.