by Shay Kassa
“Just how big is this -” Kathy stopped dead when Gina opened the door at the end of the corridor. This wasn't the greasy dive bar she had expected – the room was enormous, and must have taken up the whole block. The ceiling was better than twenty feet above her head and supported by industrial steel columns. The bar itself ran the length of one wall, with separate booths taking up the opposite wall and tables scattered in between. They had come out just beside the stage, a broad raised platform where a few men were setting up amps and drums. The actual entrance was another set of double doors at the far side.
“Oh, wow,” she said.
“Yeah, everyone's got that reaction at first.” Gina smiled at her. “Come meet the guys.”
There were three of them moving things around on the stage. One of them was tall, lean, and dark-skinned, with tribal tattoos peeking out from under his shirt. The guitar guy – who was carefully tuning a long black bass – was a more normal height, and wore a sleeveless shirt with spiked bracelets.
The one setting up the drums caught her attention. He was almost as tall as Mr. Tribal Tattoos, and twice as broad. The faded Led Zepplin T-shirt he wore strained against his muscled arms and thick torso. He wasn't toned, simply built on a bigger scale than normal, and had a slight gut that suggested he liked either his food or his beer. His long black hair was tied back, and he had a goatee with what looked like a day's worth of stubble growth. Of all of them, he looked the most like he could pick her up in one hand and break her in half.
Kathy was very nervous as she came forward to be introduced to the trio. The place was quiet – only them, another waitress, and a couple of people sitting up at the bar drinking – but she was out of her depth here, in unknown territory, in a parallel world where going to a heavy metal bar was a normal thing to do.
Gina waved at them by way of greeting. “Hey, how you guys doing?”
“You ain't working til six, Gina. You miss us or something?” the guitar guy said playfully. “Who's your friend?”
“This is Kathy. She's, uh, just got some man trouble, so we're hanging here for a while. Kathy, meet Tony, Axeman and Eddie.”
She got smiles and handshakes from all of them. The broad one that seemed so intimidating, Eddie, had a very gentle grip and surprising warmth in his fingers. He was better than six inches taller than her, and couldn't help looming over her a little, but he did try to put her at ease. “Can I buy you a drink, beautiful?” he asked, his voice deep and powerful. “You can tell us all about your man troubles if you want.”
Kathy blushed to her roots. “Uh, sure. Thanks. I mean, if we're not interrupting...”
“I'm all set up here, how about you guys?” He looked to Tony, with the tattoos, and Axeman with the guitar.
“You go on, I'm not done here yet,” said Axeman.
They left him to mess about with his bass, and Gina sat them down at one of the booths and went to collect a few beers from the bar. Kathy still felt uncomfortable, seated as she was beside two men she had never met before, but Tony and Eddie were nothing but friendly.
“You must have some pretty bad trouble to want to hang out here,” Tony said. He had a very slight accent, one that suggested Latino or European descent. “So what happened?”
Kathy didn't know what to say, and felt her face getting red again. Eddie elbowed his friend in the ribs. “And what if she doesn't want to tell us, man? She just met us, c'mon.”
“Alright, I'm just curious-”
“My boyfriend cheated on me,” she blurted out. “I caught him sleeping with another woman last night. And now he's making it seem like I'm the bitch and he's the innocent one.”
The two guys looked at each other for a moment. “Wow. Why'd he do that?” Tony asked. “It kinda seems stupid to me because you're smokin' hot – OW!”
Eddie withdrew his elbow again. “Tony, you remember last week when I said you were being a dick and you better shut up?”
“Ow, yeah, I do.”
“You're doing it again.” He turned to Kathy. “Sorry. You don't have to say anything. That's a really shitty thing for a guy to do.”
“Yeah, it is,” said Gina, setting four beers down on the table. “He's being a real dick to her, and all her friends believe him. He needs a punch in the face.” She slid one over to Kathy. “That's on your tab, Eddie.”
“Thanks,” Kathy said, even though she hadn't drunk any beer since she started making enough money to buy good bourbon whiskey, and had never liked the taste.
Eddie smiled at her and raised his beer for a toast. “To man troubles.”
Kathy managed a half-smile in response.
*****
Gun Metal wasn't that bad, Kathy decided. When Gina went to work, and the place started to fill up a little, Tony and Eddie laughed and joked with her and generally kept her spirits up. Then Tony had to help Axeman with something, and Eddie sat a little closer, and she found herself forgetting about Mark for a while.
It wasn't that she didn't feel hurt anymore, but a couple of drinks and good company in a new place, with no reminders of him, made it easier – even if she didn't really like the drinks in question.
Eddie had her in stitches with a story about a singer with halitosis he had met once, then gestured at her with his beer. “Alright, beautiful, how about you tell me a little about yourself?”
Kathy stared at the table for a moment. “Well... I work in insurance. I spend most of my time in front of a computer looking at numbers. It's like, you know, working out the odds of things happening and all that.”
“Sounds boring. How'd you get into that?”
“I studied it in college. My parents wanted me to do something useful. How did you get into heavy metal?”
He laughed at that. “I just like the music. I stayed because the money is good.”
“Really? For drumming?”
“Oh yeah, around these parts anyway. Good drummers are hard to come by, and there's plenty of gigs for a drummer who's reliable and mostly sober, or a roadie who can toss amps around.” He held out his arm and flexed the muscle. “Gives you a great upper body workout too, so I moonlight as a bouncer here sometimes.”
Kathy ran her fingers over his forearm. It felt rock hard, with every tendon clearly defined. He could probably punch someone through a wall, which was completely at odds with his easygoing nature. Maybe it was precisely that; he knew his own strength, and he knew how to be gentle. She found herself wondering what it would be like to be held by him.
Oh my god, she was attracted to him – to a tall, hairy, heavily-built drummer with a beer belly. The sudden realization almost took her breath away. Mark's cheating had done more than shake up her world; it had dropped her into the damn Twilight Zone, where up was down, left was right, and Eddie looked good to her.
He caught her hand. “Hey, you okay?” he asked.
She gulped, feeling a lot more light-headed than she normally would be after a few beers. “I'm fine. I was just thinking about my boyfriend – my ex-boyfriend, I mean.”
Eddie didn't let go. He held her hand in both of his. “Do you want to talk about him?”
“He's a jerk,” she said bitterly. “I came back from a conference late last night just so we could be together on our one year anniversary, and I found him in my bedroom with another woman. All the people I know were friends with him before they were friends with me, so of course they believed him. I just wish...” She began to choke up again. “I never suspected for a minute that he was sleeping around. He could have been doing it all the time, and I didn't know. I don't even know if anything else he said was true.”
“Hey,” he said, “you know now, that counts for... wait, is that how you know Gina? She was the woman he was sleeping with?”
Kathy went red. “Yeah, it is,” she said quietly.
“And you guys somehow got talking?” he asked incredulously.
“It wasn't her fault. He lied to her too, and then he suggested a threesome when I showed up. Then she c
ame back today to find her phone, and she told me about what he'd been doing, and... yeah.”
Eddie whistled under his breath. “And she brought you down here. I swear, that girl gets the strangest ideas.”
“No! No, I'm glad I came,” she said, giving him a weak smile. “I didn't want to face Mark or our friends right away. I'm actually kind of happy I met Gina, and you.”
He squeezed her hand. “For what it's worth, I think a guy would be nuts to cheat on you.”
He looked so sympathetic that Kathy teared up. She stifled a sob. Eddie patted her shoulder while she began to cry again. The loss of Mark she could probably accept, but she couldn't help questioning herself, and her judgment. It hurt that she didn't know where to go or what to do without him.
“I'm sorry,” she said, “I'm sorry...”
Eddie stood and tugged on her hand. “Come on, you can stay in one of the dressing rooms for a while. It's okay, Kathy.”
He slung an arm around her shoulders and brought her back behind the stage. The first dressing room had a few clothes racks, a mirror, a chair and a couch, and it smelled like dust and stale beer. Eddie set her down on the couch and got her some tissue from the restroom.
“It's not your fault,” he said, rubbing her back. “Your boyfriend's an asshole, and you're not responsible for that. It's just bad luck, that's all.”
She blew her nose and sniffed. “I just don't feel like I can trust myself any more,” she said tearfully. “I mean, my boyfriend's been cheating on me for who knows how long and I never worked it out, and now I'm in a heavy metal club in the bad part of town talking to a strange guy instead of trying to convince my friends that I'm not actually Hitler in disguise.”
“Hey, I'm not that strange,” he said jokingly. “I've worked with some guys that you'd swear come from Mars. All I have is the long hair and T-shirts.”
Kathy tried to smile while she wiped her eyes. “You don't even know me and you're being so nice to me.”
“I just don't like seeing beautiful women cry,” he said gently. “And you are very beautiful.”
On a sudden whim, Kathy reached out and hugged him tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered.
For a moment, he hesitated. Then Eddie put his arms around her, holding her firmly with his hands flat on the base of her back. It was just a friendly hug, from one stranger to another, her common sense said, but her libido and her sense of betrayal joined forces and threw her common sense out the window. Mark had sought out his own pleasure with other women and broken her trust. That meant she owed him nothing, especially not any kind of fidelity.
Eddie felt good, and comforting. He made it hurt less. His hands on her back were more than warm; they were hot, and she had an almost supernatural awareness of the pressure of each finger. It would be incredible if he moved his hands elsewhere... She was actually contemplating the unimaginable, the absurd, for a clean-cut business analyst with a nine to five job. Kathy took a deep breath, inhaling his scent of beer and sweat and feeling the slow heartbeat against her cheek.
The world was already turned upside down, and she was in parts unknown just by being here. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe it was time to stop thinking.
“Eddie?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah?”
“Are you single?”
His head turned towards her; she could feel his breath on her shoulder. “Why do you want to know?”
She froze up, suddenly terrified at how she'd even explain the vague, slow-burning need for... something. Pleasure. Intimacy. A connection with another human being that hadn't been shattered with lies. Her heart started to race and her head started to spin as she imagined herself with him.
“Kathy -”
“I'm attracted to you,” she said quickly, “and – and I just got out of a bad relationship and I'd like to have some fun.” She felt giddy, repeating the same thing Mark had told Gina. It was true in her case.
Eddie pushed her away, and looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “Okay, not that I'm not flattered or anything,” he said evenly, “but I don't think you really want to do what I think you're telling me you want to do.”
“No, I do,” she replied, and the conviction was a bit stronger now. Still the world felt unreal, like she was on a set course that she couldn't deviate from. “Eddie, I thought I'd be spending my weekend with Mark. I thought I had a boyfriend I could trust, and it turns out that all I have is a lying asshole who's been using me for the last year.” She looked down at his arm, and reached out to touch it lightly with her fingertips. “I guess I'd like to have something that isn't a lie, even if it's just for a few hours.”
“Why me, though?”
“You said I was beautiful,” she whispered.
Eddie tilted her chin up. “I meant it,” he said emphatically. He paused for a moment, seemingly deep in thought, then sat back on the couch and held out his hands to her. “Just... sit here for a minute.”
Kathy stood, turned, and slid sideways into his lap. Her legs were tucked up against his, and she rested against his chest as he cuddled her close. It was deeply satisfying, being held and comforted like this. It was honest. Someone thought she was worth holding, who, as far as she knew, wasn't a colossal bastard.
She didn't move when Eddie put his hand on her hip and stroked her gently with his thumb. It made her want to fall asleep here.
“So you're single, then?” she murmured.
“Maybe I am.”
“Am I your type?”
He chuckled under his breath. “You answer that first.”
“I don't know anymore. I thought I knew my type, but then again, I thought I knew a lot of things.”
Kathy felt him shift and his hand traveled a little farther down her leg. “So I'm guessing you don't usually take any notice of heavy metal drummers then?”
“No, you're the first.” She lifted her head. His face was close to hers. “I guess you don't get many analysts asking you for sex?”
“I could get used to it if they look like you – and, you know, if they don't expect me to shave or anything.”
Kathy leaned up and kissed the edge of his jaw. It was different. Mark was clean-shaven, after all. Not unpleasant, not off-putting, just... different. “I don't expect you to shave,” she said, looking up at him and hoping that he wasn't going to push her away again. “So, am I your type?”
Eddie didn't answer. He cupped her face and pulled her closer, and in a heartbeat their lips met. It almost came as a shock, but the sensation of being kissed and wanted was a familiar one and she instantly gave in to it. It didn't have to be mind-blowing and it certainly wasn't all that romantic, but it was pure and honest. No illusions. No emotional messiness.
She twisted sideways, rearranging herself to straddle his lap and throw her arms around his neck. The heat and power of his body pressed against hers was incredible. Her hands tangled up in his hair, and his belt buckle started digging into her stomach, but his mouth – tongue and lips and the taste of beer – god, his mouth on hers was wonderful. He kissed her with the kind of unrestrained passion she'd never known before.
He was so different. Mark had been good in bed, and she'd always enjoyed herself, but her experience of men in general was pretty limited. It had never been this raw before. She'd always been thinking about it too much. Now, she didn't have to think at all – but she still felt a sense of triumph, that he hadn't cheated because she was unattractive or frigid. Here was another man who was willing to be with her after only a few hours of knowing her, and he was warm and funny and somehow pushed all her buttons...
“Tell me what you want,” he growled against her neck. “Dammit, tell me fast before I lose my mind and fuck you right here.”
Oh, that was good, that deep tone. It carried enough distilled desire to set a nunnery alight. She wanted – she needed – to hear it again, preferably with no clothes on, and who cared that she might crash at the end of this particular roller-coaster? “Talk to me,” she gasped. “O
h god, Eddie-”
“Eddie! Kathy! Are you guys in here?” The door slammed open to reveal Gina, and she was clearly furious. “Where – oh...”
“God fucking dammit, Gina, do you ever knock?” Eddie shouted. Kathy could only freeze in surprise. Her first instinct – to shove Eddie away – wasn't going to work while he held her tightly.
Gina backpedaled at speed when she saw them. “Okay, I am totally sorry that I'm interrupting, but Mr. Shitface is here!”
“Who the hell is-”
“Mark is here?” Kathy said, her voice rising in horror.
“Yeah! He's at the bar and I think he's trying to pick up Axeman's girlfriend! I can't believe this son of a bitch would come back here after last night!”
“Oh no... oh no, I don't want to see him, I don't want to be anywhere near him!” Kathy started to panic. “What's he going to say if he sees me in a place like this?”
Eddie sat her back on the couch and stood up. “Right, I'm gonna go throw him out. You stay here with Gina for a few minutes.” He adjusted his pants uncomfortably and grumbled under his breath. “Someday there'll be a goddamn saga composed in honor of my bad luck...”
“You sit the hell down, Lancelot, we're not throwing him out.” Gina came in and shut the door, a manic grin plastered on her face. “That fucker needs some major payback for sleeping around and lying about it, and I'm going to be the one to deliver it. No one – no one – gets to bullshit me like he did and hurt you and get away with it.” She pulled out her phone and handed it to Kathy. “That thing takes video, you know how to use it?”
Kathy stared at it, and up at her. “You want me to go out there and record him?”
The evil glint in Gina's eye said it all. “All you have to do is hide behind Eddie and record Mr. Shitface when I get him talking. I'll keep his attention on me. Then we'll see how many of his friends want to take his side.”
She looked at Eddie. He shrugged. “Your choice, beautiful.”
It was a good plan. She could show everyone just what kind of utter bastard Mark really was. All she had to do was muster up the courage to get through the next few minutes. But it felt like a mountain rising in front of her, and one wrong move would leave her buried in a landslide. If it went wrong, well... their friends already believed she was evil. It probably couldn't get any worse.