by Ashley Grace
My Heart’s Blood
(Hard Love & Dark Rock, Part 1)
A New Adult, Rock Star Romance Serial
By Ashley Grace
Copyright 2015 Ashley Grace
All Rights Reserved.
Cover by Jack
[email protected]
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual people or events is coincidental.
Chapter 1
Anne
I was lying on my bed trying to force my way through Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, which was the required reading for my Modernist British Fiction class, when Becca burst in. And when I say "burst in," that’s exactly what I mean—the door swung open so hard that it smashed against the wardrobe unit on my side of the room, which made the cheap wood rattle and knocked a hanger off the rack. Becca didn’t even seem to notice. She ran straight to her closet and threw the door open, frantically pawing through her clothes.
"Anne," she said, not pausing in her frantic search or turning to look at me while she talked, "I know we haven’t always been besties, and that maybe you would’ve rather had some boring Chinese Chemistry major as your dorm-mate or something like that, but I am about to make your day. No, scratch that. I am about to make your whole freshman year!"
I looked up from my book, my thumb on the page to mark my space, but I didn’t say anything.
"Are you listening to me?" Becca said. She looked over her shoulder, her hands still pushing and shoving the clothes in her locker as if she didn’t even need to actually look at what she was doing. "Are you listening to me, Anne?"
"With baited breath," I said.
"Come on!" she said. "You can show a little more excitement then that! This is going to be the single greatest night of your life! Aren’t you even a little curious?"
"You’re not planning on throwing another party in here, are you? I washed my sweater three times, and it still smells like that drunk fratboy’s puke."
"Oh, that guy was totally hot," she said. "But no, this is going to be even better." She yanked a hanger off the rack with each hand, held a dress up at either shoulder, and spun to face me. "Which one?"
I closed the book—holding my page with a finger—and sat up. "It might help if I had some idea of where you’re planning on going, of what kind of event you’re dressing up for. Or, failing that, how about a hint of the impression you want to give?"
"Anne, we’ve been dorm-mates for almost a full year. You oughta now my style by now."
"Sophisticated but approachable?" I offered.
"Slutty but chic," she corrected. "Now, which one?"
I looked from dress to dress, but didn’t have much of a preference. "That one," I said, pointing.
"Oh, totally!" she said. She threw the other dress into her closet, where it fell in a crumple. The dress I’d picked got tossed onto her bed. Almost before it landed, she’d whipped her shirt over her head.
I nearly flinched. Despite the fact that we’d been sharing a room for nearly nine months, I still couldn’t seem to get used to the fact that Becca rarely wore a bra.
She started unbuttoning her jeans, and then she looked up at me. "Well come on!" she said. "You’re not going like that."
"I’m not sure I’m going anywhere," I said. "You still haven’t told me what incredible adventure awaits. How do I know I even wanna go?"
She unzipped her zipper, and dropped her pants. Today she wasn’t wearing panties, either.
"Anne," she said, stepping out of her pants, "if you were gonna die tomorrow, if tonight was gonna be your last night alive, on this planet, ever—what would you want to do?"
I tried to keep my eyes on her, but the fact that she was just standing there, completely naked, was starting to make me embarrassed. I felt myself starting to blush, my face flushing hot. I looked back at the book in my hand.
"Dunno," I said.
"Anne! Come on!" She propped her fists on her hips and stomped a foot. Becca’s not that big up top—she’s certainly a far cry from voluptuous (which is a word I’ve sometimes heard used to describe myself, and it always makes me blush to hear it), but she had enough to jiggle a bit when her foot hit the floor. "You’re a literature major! You’re all about fancy words and make-believe stories. Use your imagination! What would you want to do tonight if you weren’t gonna be around tomorrow? Or here, I’ll give you a hint: what band would you want to see, if this was your last night on earth?"
Unwittingly, my eyes went to the poster on the wall above my bed. I’d spent so much time looking at it, as I lay on the verge of sleep, that I could practically see it with my eyes closed, like it had been tattooed on the insides of my eyelids. Four guys and a girl, all dressed in black. The guy in the middle is the only one not looking at the camera. His hair is so black it looks dyed, and his eyelashes are longer and thicker than the girl on his right (and why is it that the most beautiful eyelashes you see are always on guys?). His skin is so pale it looks like he never goes outside in the daytime, but on his right wrist—in beautiful, flowing cursive script—is a vivid tattoo that says "bleed blessings".
"Belletrists," I said.
"Bingo!" Becca said, nearly shouting. "Get the girl a cigar!"
"But what… but how…"
"I believe the words you’re looking for are ‘yes Becca, you are in fact the most awesome room-mate ever, not to mention the hottest and classiest chick in this whole state, and I totally forgive you for the time you threw a party in the dorm and that really hot dude puked on my sweater’."
"Belletrists aren’t on tour," I said. I was on my feet, but I don’t remember standing. "They haven’t done a show in nearly two years. The rumor is they broke up."
"Anne, didn’t anybody ever tell you not to believe rumors? Unless, of course, that rumor is about how Becca is the hottest fuck on campus."
"I don’t understand."
I’m telling you that I’m a sex goddess, queen of the bedroom. That the boys line up in hopes of getting a sniff of my panties."
"No," I said, "what I don’t understand is how you think you’re going to take me to see a band that hasn’t played a show in more than year."
She smiled. "Belletrists are getting ready to go into the studio for a new album," she said. "They’re doing a series of secret shows in small clubs, testing out the new material. Obviously, there’s no promotion or publicity for the shows because if people found out they’d swamp the venues—it’d be a total clusterfuck. But because they want to have a some kind of audience, they still need to get the word out a little, to a very small, very select group of people. It’s all very hush hush."
"And how in the world did you manage to hear about it?"
Her smile turned wicked, a mischievous glint sparking in her eye. "Remember that bartender I told you about, the one who works at Club Hemlock?"
"Was his name Danny?"
"No, Danny’s the bouncer at Whiskey River. I’m talking about Ronnie, the guy who always tries to lick my butt when he’s going down on me. I call him Ronnie the dog. Remember?"
I blushed again. Becca always had a new story, and they were pretty much always X-rated, or at least PG-13.
"You don’t remember me talking about Ronnie?" she said, as if she couldn’t believe it. "Really? He’s in some of my very best stories." For a second she actually looked hurt, but then she seemed to shrug it off. "Oh well. To make a long story short, I finally let him lick my butt," an impish grin spread across her face, "and he gave me guaranteed access to the show tonight. It’s gonna be awesome. Club Hemlock only has room for two hundred people, and we’re gon
na be two of those two hundred."
"I can’t believe it," I said.
"I know," she said. "Who would have thought that letting a guy lick your butt could result in that kind of a payoff!"
"No, I can’t believe the Belletrists are actually gonna play a show. And that it’s gonna be in a club as small as the Hemlock, and that we’re gonna be able to go." I paused, a sudden, crazy rush of hope swelling in my chest, so strong I almost lost my breath. "It’s just so… unbelievable."
She gave me a funny look. "Unbelievable. That’s the best you can come up with? You’re a literature major, and the best you can do is ‘I can’t believe it, it’s unbelievable’? Anne, this is gonna be epic. This is the sort of night that fangirls cream their shorts thinking about, and the best word that comes into your mind to describe it is ‘unbelievable.’ Geez Louise." She rolled her eyes. "No wonder you have to spend so much time studying. You’ve got the vocabulary of a ten year old."
I shook my head. "I’m sorry, Becca. I’m just a bit blown away. If this actually works out, if we actually get to see Belletrists perform…"
"And in an exclusive, super secret, very hush hush, intimate performance," she cut in.
"And in an intimate performance…" I repeated.
"In a small club, not in one of those super lame stadium shows where the band members look smaller than ants and you’re stuck watching the video screens so you might as well be home watching them on TV."
"In a small club, where you can actually see the band…" I shook my head, trying to clear it. "Becca, if this works out… this really might actually be the best night of my life."
"That’s what I’m talking about!" she crowed, throwing her arms up in the air (which made her boobs jiggle again). "Tonight’s gonna be awesome, Anne! So come on, get changed. You don’t want Trace LeBeau to see you looking like a frumpy librarian."
"Do you think Trace… do you think we’ll be able to get close to the stage?"
She took a step toward me, put her hands on my shoulders. "Girl, this is Becca you’re talking to, remember? We’re gonna be right up in front, at crotch level. Close enough to smell the man musk. Close enough to just reach out and grab a handful. And when I’m through helping you get ready, Trace might even invite you to do just that! So come on, get out of those ugly clothes. I’ll show you how to dress for action."
"Becca, I don’t know what to say. Thank you, so much. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you for this."
She smiled. "How ‘bout a kiss on the cheek, for starters," she said.
I puckered my lips and leaned in, gave her a peck. But the wicked gleam came back into her eyes.
"That’s not the cheek I meant," she said. She spun away from me and bent forward, thrusting her bare ass at me. "Give me a big wet one, right here," she said, and smacked her own round cheek.
I was so excited about a chance to see Trace LeBeau, I almost did what she said.
Chapter 2
Trace
"To sup the blood and rake the flesh, and taste the death of Gilgamesh," I said, reading the words out slowly, feeling them on my tongue. I reached a hand up and stroked the old paper, feeling a sudden pulse of longing glowing through the dull wash of my emotions. It made me think of what I'd read about the phantom-pain experienced by limb amputees.
I closed the book and looked at the brittle cover. Little pieces of it had flaked away at the edges, revealing the age-brown paper beneath. The book looked like it had been rescued from a house fire, the pages stained by the smoke. But when I brought it to my nose and drew a breath in through my nostrils, there was no hint of burned scent.
I lowered the hand holding the book until my knuckles rested against my knee. And then my eyes drifted to the scar-tissue at my wrist—a puffy, ghostly-white line against my already pale skin, cutting right through my old "Bleed Blessings" tattoo. It looked almost like a strip of someone else's skin that had been pasted onto my body. Or maybe the scar was actually my real skin, seeping through a fake exterior.
The dressing room door opened and Joey jingled in, the chains on his boots punctuating each step like a cymbal crash. He had a half-empty bottle of Jack in his hand, the brown liquid sloshing inside. From the loose way he walked, and the goofy smile on his face, I guessed the other half of the brown was already sloshing in his belly and coursing through his veins.
"'Sup, Trace," he said, his grin growing wider. "Getting ready for the show?"
I looked back at the book, thought of the tender ache it had provoked in me—more than I'd felt in days, but still much less than I used to feel.
"I guess you could say that," I said, still looking at the book.
"That's what I like to hear!" he said. "Looks like it's gonna be a good crowd tonight, too. Plenty of dark-rock hotties in attendance, and they're all dolled up for the Belletrists. San Francisco never lets us down, am I right?"
I thought of the last show we'd played here: thousands of screaming fans in the ballpark stands, so far away from the stage that you couldn't see their faces. They'd seemed almost like a single monstrous entity, a mob with a thousand mouths. Playing in a sports arena had seemed grimly ironic too, considering the fact that I hated sports.
But that had been just before the dark times, before I'd gotten the scar I now wore on my wrist. Maybe my memory carried the tone of the mood I'd been in. Maybe, in an objective way, it hadn't been as bad as I remembered it.
"Yessir," Joey said, his eyes taking on a far-away look. "The Jejune Generation tour, when we'd been dominating the charts for twenty weeks straight. God, I got so much action on that tour! It's a wonder I was able to keep my strength going behind the set."
His eyes snapped back into focus, and he trained them on me. "Remember the triplets we brought on the bus after that show? The redheads?"
I shook my head. "They weren't really triplets," I said. "They were just playing that angle to try to get on the bus."
"Well, it worked," he said. "I mean, if they were willing to put in that effort to look like sisters—with the hair dye and the contacts and everything—we knew they'd be down for whatever." He gave me a mischievous wink. "And from what I remember, they totally were."
Suddenly I felt even more tired. "Don't you ever think of anything besides sex?" I asked.
"Course not," he said. "I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the whole reason we started this band in the first place? So we could get laid?"
I thought back to the days when we'd started, the first few practices in Joey's mom's garage. We'd been teenagers then, and if I was really honest with myself, getting laid probably was one of the main motivators for starting a band.
I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't really remember why we started."
"Don't give me that shit," he said, the corners of his mouth pulling down. "That's the reason and you know it. And frankly, it's not a bad fucking reason, either." He lifted the bottle, tossed back a shot. "We've been all around the world now, you and me, and we've done every fucking drug there is to do, and nothing tops riding the baloney pony, man, nothing! You know it."
I looked back at the book in my hand, unconvinced.
"In fact, it's always been about the good old bangarang. Since the beginning of life, since the first one-celled fucking bacteria started swimming around in the primordial soup, reproducing has been the primary goal of every living thing ever," he said. "Reproducing. Baby making. Fucking. That's what it's all about."
"Except for the fact that, for all of your efforts, you've never actually made a baby," I said.
"Well, duh," he said. "The actual making of babies is beside the point. Come to think of it, the fact that humankind has managed to separate the baby-making from the banging is probably the greatest argument for its superiority over the other animals. It's what separates us from the beasts, brother."
I shook my head, putting the book down. "Don't tell me you actually believe that," I said. "The meaning of life, of existence and everything else, is to
have as much sex as possible? Even with all the mood-stabilizers I'm taking, that's depressing."
"It's not depressing!" he said, nearly shouting. "It's enlightened. Think about it. When do you feel most alive? When do you feel most at peace with the world, with yourself? When you're boning, man! That's when!"
He lifted the bottle and took another gulp.
"And that's your problem right there, Trace. That's what's behind all of this emotional flailing you've been doing for the past year. The counseling and the pills and the thoughts of quitting the band… all this shit you’ve been going through since Sara’s little sis checked out. You're trying to over-think it all, trying to discover some deeper meaning. The truth, the real truth, is that life is full of bad shit, and fucking is one of the only things that makes dealing with the rest of it worth the bother."
The mention of Sara’s sister, of Lucy, was enough to rattle me a little. My eyes fixed on his, rage smoldering in me somewhere beneath the numbing fog.
But Joey didn’t look away. He raised the bottle to his lips and took another slug, his eyes never leaving mine.
"It’s been a year, Trace," he said. "More than a year. You need to move on. You need to get laid, trust me."
I looked at the steely glint in his eye, and didn't see any doubt there. And maybe he had a point. All the books I'd read in the past few months, all the counseling I'd gone through, all the pills I'd been taking—it all left me feeling dead, so emotionless and lifeless that I'd even begun to yearn for the depression that had nearly pushed me over the edge. At least I'd felt something then, and not just this opaque fog of feeling that swallowed up anything bright or sharp.
"Think about it, Trace," Joey said. "What are your happiest memories? When were the times that you felt the most pleasure, the most joy? When were the times you felt most alive?"
I bit the inside of my lip, thinking.
"I'll tell you when," he said. "When you were sliming the banana, that's when. You used to go through more groupies than anyone else in the band. Even when you got together with Lucy, the two of you always brought in playmates. And whether or not you admit it—whether you think of it as boning or as making love or as some intimate mingling of souls, or whatever woo-woo bullshit you want to label it with—that's when you're happiest. I know you, Trace. Believe me."