by Drew Cross
The members of the support act, AFI, begin to file out onto the stage, taking up their positions with only the barest nods of greeting to the crowd. Veteran support bands tend to be aware that, not having broken the proverbial ice with a display of their musical talents yet, a lengthy introductory monologue can turn an indifferent crowd hostile.
The lead singer goes by the name Davey Havok if I remember correctly, and I can see the full 'sleeve' tattoos with their recurrent Halloween themes that have become his insignia. The other members of the band are heavily tattooed and pierced as well, but I am transfixed by their front-man's near translucent pale skin. He has deep set black eyes to accompany the evil looking host of pumpkin faces snaking around his toned arms; my interest is piqued already.
Before a band begins to play, particularly the band supporting the main act that the majority of the crowd have paid out cash to see, you can rarely tell what sort of reaction they are going to get.
Expectation sits like static electricity in the atmosphere, the crowd's faces are hard and blank, challenging the artists to impress them.
AFI's set kicks off with a roar and ends with an anguished howl of rage and pain. The middle is almost a blur, and even though I barely recognize a single song, I find myself making a mental note to buy their entire back catalog at the first available opportunity. The crowd surges, ebbing and flowing like water with the frantic guitars and thunderous drums, and I am sure that my eyes are locked together with the vocalists own as he moves from note to note with urgency and plaintive emotion dancing across his features.
Having been to many live gigs before, we have already edged our way to the bar at the side of the stage before the set draws to a complete close; knowing that in the inter-band scrum is almost impossible to get noticed by the helter-skeltering bar staff for long enough to order another drink. Several people are being splashed with water in the small enclosed area at the front of the stage,suffering from the crushing impact of a multitude of heaving and pressing bodies during the opening performance.
A pretty blonde girl with pink streaks in her hair wanders past with blood running down her chin from a split lip, probably as a result of collision with somebody's shoulder as they jumped up and down with the music. In the near darkness the blood looks thick and black like treacle, and she smiles with red tinged teeth as she catches my interest in her. I push my way over to her and touch the livid wound softly with my index finger, pulling away a dark droplet that perches on my fingertip like a small blister.
“That looks sore, would you like me to kiss it better for you?” I ask cheekily.
“Sure, but I think it also needs another drink to completely numb the pain.” She smiles broadly and I lean in smudging the blood like lipstick across her full lips and exploring the warm copper tang of her mouth with my tongue.
“Funny, you don't look like a vampire.” She quips and wipes a dark sleeve across to remove the sticky blood residue from her face.
“Appearances are almost always deceptive.” I reply and pass her my own drink.
“The band is about to start up, but I'd like you to find me later,” she says.
I meet her stare and smile, then walk back into the crowd, quickly relocating Meg and Will near the huge speaker at the left hand side of the stage.
“Tart” says Meg, aiming the insult at me and then pressing her lips close to my ear. ''I bet I can make you forget all about her after the gig.” She nips my ear with small sharp teeth, and then moves back to welcome Will back into the fold as the main act 'Cold' strut out onto the stage.
The solo electric guitar opening to 'Remedy', the first track from the album: 'Thirteen Ways To Bleed Onstage', starts up, and the lights go out completely save for a single spotlight above the lead singers head that shrouds his features in a deathly blue and white glare. Motes of dust float in the air around his head and steam rises from his clean shaven scalp. His eyes are lined in blue and purple, giving the appearance of either deep bruising or recent disinterment.
The guitar comes to an abrupt halt and the anticipation in the few moments of silence that follow is smothering and unbearable. It ends when Scooter Ward pulls in a deep noisy breath and in his idiosyncratic choked and hollow tone bellows out the first line.
“I don't love how you love, but please don't leave me here alone.”
The reaction is immediate and explosive, and in complete contrast to the surge and pulse of the crowd during the warm up act, a violent circling mosh pit starts up straight away, with people of all sexes, shapes and sizes hurling themselves together with complete disregard for their own safety.
To the casual observer the phenomenon is disturbing – a glimpse into Dante's Inferno – the tortured souls twisting together in mutual torment, but to us this is surrogate intimacy. The violent physical contact with strangers, the blood and bruises, these things are unifying, and we are an extended family that proudly wears its battle scars like badges of honor.
Familiar and well loved songs merge into one single voiceless meaningless wave as the perception of passing time shifts. There is nothing else now for the next sixty minutes, only the repetitive thud and smack of wet flesh on wet flesh, the bitter taste of salt sweat from whipping tendrils of hair. The mosh pit heaves and churns, a vast panting obscene tangle, a huge copulating beast. The floor would pulse like a heartbeat if my feet could touch it.
As suddenly as it all began it ends. The frigid night air – temporarily forgotten in the human forged humidity inside the club – is a slap in the face. The thronging crowd leaving as one is alight with the buzz of adrenaline fueled conversation. The host of merchandise pedlars, taxi drivers, food hawkers and drug dealers is another shock to the dazed senses. The night is alive with cloying aromas of marijuana and onions frying in burger fat; my t-shirt is wet shrink-wrap around my torso, saturated with cooling sweat and my body is pleading for respite from the sensory assault.
Exiting the confused tangle of the crowd I hear a familiar voice rising in alarm. The man has hold of Meg, octopus arms invading and overcoming her resistance. His face is a mask of combined amusement and contempt. I feel the key protruding from between my slick knuckles, while not really knowing how it got there, registering the fact that I can no longer hear anything above the noise of rushing blood in my ears. I see the other hand as if it belongs to another, grasping his shoulder to steady him as I drive the hard metal into his face over and over again.
The night turns away and bleeds out in shades of red and gray.
* * *
The street outside is dark and unfriendly, but the familiar blonde and her unfamiliar dark haired friend arriving by taxi are oblivious to the attentions of passing danger. I welcome them both in with a smile that shows off my pristine fangs; I am bare-chested and bare-foot but still head and shoulders taller than both of them. I invite them in and start to walk back away from the door, giving them a clear view of the scorpions tattooed on each defined shoulder, forcing them to follow in my wake. Let the power games begin.
I walk into the darkened bedroom, feet padding softly on the smooth wooden boards, small tea-lights provide the only illumination in here. The blonde girl with the BITE ME neck tattoo – Ashleigh – as I now know her to be grins and starts to slip off her top. Her dark friend's eyes grow wide at the assortment of objects on the bedside table though; handcuffs, a blindfold, new syringes and gleaming chrome blades. I approach her and see her fighting the urge to tremble, her big brown eyes dropping to the floor rather than meeting my own.
“You have managed not to run back out of the room so far, and Ashleigh wouldn't have brought you here to experience something that you've only dared dream about before if you were not safe with me. You don't have to hide what you are feeling. The fear will become ecstasy. The pain will become pleasure. I promise you.”
I gently lift her chin until our eyes meet and then hand her a straight razor.
Outside a lone woman sits in her car watching the house. Her radio plays chee
rful songs that she doesn't hear. The cool night air is swallowing up the surrounding scenery and leaking in through the open window. Beside her on the passenger seat is a bag and inside is an expensive bottle of malt whiskey and a 'get well' card.
Eventually she makes her decision and crosses the road with the bag, placing it at the side of the doorstep at the top of the metal stairs without knocking to announce her presence. She turns the music up louder as she pulls away, refusing to let the tears escape. Detective Inspector Karen Cobb won't be allowing herself to cry over any man any longer.
Chapter 13
The early morning returns to her senses with the hollow slaps of rain striking empty tarmac. The gutters are filling to overflow, water squeezing to freedom and eventual oblivion out of ill-fitting joints. It gushes down the outside of the window pane, distorting the view of acid green foliage under an office gray sky. When I press my cheek against the cold glass I can feel the resonant force of its urgent progress towards the ground; a soothing vibration along the prominent ridge of cheekbone.
The girls are long gone now, but the reminders remain. There is stark crimson spatter on the bed linen and floor. It's smeared on my torso too and dried amongst the stubble on my chin. The sharp surgical blades are immersed in a clear sterilizing solution, the fluid now stained dark pink, and on the bedside table blood had become thick and congealed inside one of the discarded syringes.
I move away from the window and examine my naked body in the full length mirror. There are bite marks on my chest and shoulder and small neat incisions lower down across my stomach; boundaries had blurred, roles reversed and resumed in the frenzy. Shit. The marks won't be gone by Friday I suspect, and Karen's likely to notice something subtle like the impression of another person's teeth in my skin.
Vague nausea swims around my innards, mocking my amateurish behavior; drink too much blood and it makes you vomit – something that newcomers to the scene swiftly learn. I've been doing this for long enough to know when to stop, but I'd ignored my own better judgment, consumed by terrible desire and now I'll suffer.
An image flash as I look at the bloodied bed, Ashleigh hungrily kissing her friend, Diane. They both have bloodied mouths, black and blonde – the reverse of symmetry. Ashleigh's eyes are on me though, calm sea green orbs looking deep into my soul, no pretenses just a statement in them. Keep me forever. The soft ash smell of incense and the heavier green drift of marijuana smoke in her hair. Eighteen years old and already in love with her own mortality. I wouldn't need to hide from her; she's already looked into my secret face without fear, judgment or disgust and she shares my fetish needs. We could be bound by blood and the exploration of our desires, we could own our pain.
* * *
Three children in a grassy cocoon, one shirtless all three scarred.
The sun's face fading to burnt orange, with feathery wisps of cloud starting to mottle her aging skin. As the day begins to tire of itself the breeze comes alive, rustling asides to the intense conversation and bringing the undergrowth to life. The volume of their voices drops instinctively at the boisterous intrusion, but still the sharing of dark secrets rolls on, addictive like the soft repetitive whispering of a sharp blade through tormented flesh.
“What does it feel like?” Will mutters the question into my shoulder, steering the conversation back to cutting. He is only just loud enough to be audible through the muffling three-way embrace that we are sharing. I slacken the hold so I can give a clear reply.
“It doesn't hurt like you might imagine. It's kind of like the greatest sense of relief that you've ever felt in your life initially, but then at the same time there's guilt. You feel like you shouldn't be doing it and then the relief is gone again.”
“Have you two ever thought about us becoming blood brothers? I mean, I know that I'm a girl, so technically speaking I can't be a blood brother, more like a blood sister. That's if you both wanted to…you don't have to or anything … ” She trails off suddenly, growing embarrassed by her own suggestion.
“I think it's a great idea. We can be a blood club, a blood family. Everyone who's in put your left hand in the middle with your palm facing upwards.” I say bringing an end to her awkwardness.
Will is the first to stretch out his gently trembling hand, surprising us both with his willingness. We both look at him amazed and amused. “I've already told you how I feel about you both,” he states firmly without twitching.
Meg follows suit putting out her own hand and using the other to pull her hair away from her face. Her long fingernails are painted crimson today.
I reach into my fatigue trouser's pocket and fetch out the small knife that I keep there, opening out the blade and snapping the mechanism into a locked open position. Will's hand first; I slip my fingers around his wrist and steadying myself jab the sharp point into the fleshy part near his thumb, secretly enjoying the sensation. He tenses a little and I hear the hard clack-clack of enamel on enamel as he clenches his jaw. But he makes no other sound as I inscribe a small incision and see the precious blood beginning to flow. Meg seems mesmerized by witnessing the act and continues to stare at his wounded hand even as I repeat the action on herself, and then finally on my own hand.
“You two place the cuts together on each other and I'll place my hand over the top. It will all be done when the blood flows together and then we're bound by blood forever,” I find myself saying, taking control. I didn't know then how true that statement would become.
We watch silently as the scarlet leakage creeps and finally runs together, it falls from underneath the tangle of hands and stains the leaf strewn floor beneath.
“We need a name,” says Meg. “Something to unite us and our mutually crappy experiences.”
“I've already got one; we're the Living Dead Club.”
Meg and Will laugh delighted at the suggestion and I join in, releasing their bloodied hands from my grip.
“The Living Dead Club.” Will tries on the name for size and finding it pleasing. He turns to me with his expression suddenly serious. “Did you ever wish you were really dead when you were cutting yourself?”
“Only in moments of strength.” I reply, bringing his bloody fingers up towards my mouth.
* * *
“Leave me alone!”
My shout echoes back off polished surfaces, heard only by myself and Ghost who ignores the outburst completely, he is accustomed by now to my eccentricities and is still annoyed with me for banishing him to his bed when I entertained the girls last night. I feel smothered, suddenly confined by my surroundings in the aftermath of the memory. My body feels like a prison, like it is containing and compressing me, my heart rate rising and my chest becoming unbearably tight as sweat beads in my hairline. I need to get outside before I suffocate.
The front door key is awkward and clumsy in my trembling hand; I drop it to the floor twice before managing to get it into the lock and I wrench the door open and stagger out onto the rusting metal platform. I have experienced panic attacks before; the terrifying sensations of suffocation and impending madness that combine to crush the oxygen from your lungs and force your heart rate up into the stratosphere.
Not for a while though. Up until now I had fallen into the belief that they were gone for good, that I had achieved an inner separation from the coiling anxieties, and with it freedom from this. My chest burns and the strain of pulling in those first few breaths of crisp open air is an effort that takes all of my strength with it, leaving me trembling and hunched over.
I am still completely naked, but the landscape is an abandoned expanse devoid of human activity; strange how people are compelled to hide away from the falling water which gives them life. The rain is a torrent now, washing away the dried blood from my face and body in watery red-brown streams. The sensation of the freezing cold deluge is like immersion, I can feel it stripping away the flickering panic and restoring me to a previous state that I can only distantly recall.
There is a bag at the side o
f the doorstep, somehow I missed it in the dark when the girls were leaving last night. It's a decorative bottle bag with matching curly ribbon and a tag; somebody took their time over the presentation but then didn't knock on the door, leaving it to spoil at the mercy of the elements. My churning stomach sinks further.
I lift it up and step back inside, raindrops fall from my body forming a series of shallow puddles on the floor. The door slams too with a shudder of air behind me but I don't bother to lock it yet. The water on my skin is becoming uncomfortable as it starts to evaporate. Inside the bag is an expensive bottle of single malt, sherry cask finished to add richness and sweet notes on the palate, and a 'Get Well' card – the inscription ornate and lavished with kisses.
I can vividly recall answering Karen's casual inquiries about my taste in whiskey, me enthusing and elaborating with the passion of an aspiring connoisseur on the different 'finishes' and my recent forays into the infinite variations on offer. She listened and she cared, but she didn't knock on the door last night. I'd have heard her, even over the festivities taking place. The hollow tap-tap carries well in the excellent acoustics here, ricocheting off high-ceilings and carved wood and landing in the ear wherever I am in the place.
She saw them. She must have been outside, arriving through some twist of fate at the precise same time that the two girls did and watching them enter. The heavy drapes and the positioning of the windows on this place would have made witnessing anything else impossible, but she had her imagination with her and she'd left the presents anyway, as a message.
Damn it. What the hell am I supposed to do now? As far as she's concerned you just spent the evening enjoying a threesome with two girls whose combined ages wouldn't add up to her own. Call her? And tell her what exactly? That it's not what she thinks? That you didn't have sex with either of them? You just spent half the night involved in intimate acts with two strangers, but the fact that you didn't fuck either of them is the important thing here?