Above the Noise

by Michelle Kemper Brownlow

  “Come here, rock star. I’ll be gentle.” What was I saying? I wasn’t ready.

  He grinned and crawled up the bed until he hovered over me again. He lowered just enough for our lips to touch, but he didn’t touch me with any other part of his body. His tongue took over and a quiet moan left my mouth. He kissed my neck just under my ear, which caused even more goose bumps. His mouth travelled down my chest. His lips once again brushed up and over each of my breasts. My nipples screamed for his tongue. I knew what he could do with it when it was in my mouth. I longed to feel it on all the other parts of me. He kissed me in a straight line all the way to my belly button. His tongue grazed around its rim, and I shuddered. He was so close to the part of me that literally ached for him.

  “Is this okay?” His head lifted, and his hooded eyes stared right into my soul, and then he smiled, knowing he didn’t need to wait for my answer.

  There was a part of me—a very small part, mind you—that felt hesitant to let him go any further. I couldn’t explain it. I was completely overwhelmed. I’d never let myself become so invested in a guy that I felt fearful.

  Calon’s lips brushed the skin below my belly button. The guitar in the song whined one pluck at a time, and the soft tapping on the cymbals matched my heartbeat. I was lost in Calon and the music when I felt his hot breath trickle down over me. He gently pressed my legs apart and looked up at me again. I couldn’t take my eyes off him; the curls, the eyes, the broad shoulders, and the defined arms. That’s when I realized, he was still fully clothed.

  “Stop.” A pang of relief ran through my chest when he immediately stood and ran his hands through his hair again. I wasn’t sure I could handle all of what I knew he could give me and still guard my heart with the little piece of wall that was still left.

  “I’m sorry, Becki.” He licked his lips and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “It’s fine. I… I was just going to say, you’re still dressed. I’m feeling a little selfish here.” I pushed myself up the bed a little, smiled, and nodded toward my nakedness to make light of the situation, but the nervous tension in my gut wouldn’t let up. My body wanted him so badly it ached, but something in my heart was scared to take it all in. To take him all in. I closed my legs a little.

  “I just wanted to kiss you. I wasn’t planning on going any further than what I’ve already been doing. Just kisses. But, I’ll stop if you want me to.”

  Oh. My. God. He wasn’t ‘priming the pump’ as Shawn used to call it. This was a selfless act. This was all for me. He was getting to know my body. It just so happened Calon Ridge used his mouth to navigate.

  “Don’t stop.” I growled out the words and hung my head backwards and drew in a deep breath. There was no way I was laying down again. I needed to watch what he was about to do. I had no idea how a guy goes below a girl’s waist without taking it any further than kissing. How do you—

  A deep groan interrupted my thoughts. “Becks, you’re beautiful. So fucking beautiful.” He pressed my legs open again and bent forward. His breath heated my already hot center. He maneuvered one of my legs farther than the other and shifted so his body was almost perpendicular to mine. His face moved closer to me, and he tilted his head a bit. He breathed in a deep breath then placed his lips on the ones he hadn’t kissed yet. Long, soft, caresses. He kissed me there like it was my mouth but again without his tongue. It was like true a first kiss all over again, complete with that anticipation of the guy slipping you the tongue and being unsure if he was going to. Each peck brought me closer and closer to coming without him doing anything more than lightly touching me with his lips. Just then, his mouth pressed against me with just enough pressure to enflame me. I could feel the roll of the tension growing like a wave about to crash.

  He left that spot and kissed the insides of both my thighs, one at a time. He continued down from my knees to my ankles then stood at the end of the bed and kissed the tops of my feet and each toe one at a time.

  “Mmmmm. Becks.” He lifted his eyes to mine, climbed up the bed, bringing the sheet along with him. He lay on his side next to me and covered us both up. “Thank you for trusting me. I just wanted to kiss you.”

  I WASN’T SURE I was digging the vibe I got from the guys of Smiling Turkeys. We probably should’ve met them prior to signing on to the tour, but we were so stoked about getting the opportunity to open for them, we just sort of pounced.

  Becki had warned us against jumping into something too quickly, because we’d been screwed over so many times and lost big gigs and possible contracts before. But, we just wanted to sign on that line and live it.

  One of the band members of Smiling Turkeys called mid-week to tell us they added a date to their tour and we needed to be ready by Friday to follow them out to some night club on the outskirts of town for some secret celebrity birthday. They were all hush-hush about who the celebrity was, like they couldn’t trust us with the information. Dicks.

  We sat in their studio for an hour past what was supposed to be the start of our studio time. Instead of playing, we listened to them argue over which cover they were doing for their encore.

  Their studio was over the top. First off, it was huge with not only the set up for the band but enough space to have a small house party. There were two big sitting areas with black leather furniture placed perfectly around the edges of geometric design throw rugs. There were framed photos of the band with famous people in the industry and a signed electric guitar displayed under a small spotlight that hung from the black drop ceiling.

  It was beyond me why you would need all of this crap around you while you rehearsed. I couldn’t imagine what it cost them for the space. Maybe they thought all the extras would inspire their music. We practiced at Mitchell’s when the bar was closed, and Buzz never charged us a dime. For me, the smell of stale beer and the history of all the bands that had ever played on that stage were my inspiration. Luckily, all that came for free.

  “Dude, fuck you. Everyone wants to do ‘American Music’, so let’s just agree on that.” Frank played guitar, he seemed pretty cool, but he and Max, their lead singer, rubbed each other raw the whole time we were there. I got the feeling no matter what Frank wanted to play, Max wouldn’t have agreed to it.

  “Oh, so because you, Troy, Ben, and Steve want to play Violent Femmes, that’s everyone? Well, Frank, I counted and there are five of us, not four.” Max walked over and got in Frank’s face.

  Frank didn’t flinch. “Well, if we’re voting, I’d say we have the majority.”

  Max had wild black hair, short but all over the place. He wore a long black leather coat everywhere and always had half a snarl on his face. I’d seen him enough times on the sleazy tabloid news clips that ran on the local LA stations. I wasn’t his biggest fan. I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just sing both songs for their encore. Crowds love lengthy encores.

  “Nope. We’re playing ‘Lump’, and that’s it.”

  “Fine, Max.” Frank threw his hands in the air. “I just think that crowd we’re playing to may not even know that song. The Presidents of the United States didn’t really make it onto a whole lot of ‘Best of’ lists. But, whatever.”

  Are you kidding me? Dude with tough looking coat rules the roost? That’s bullshit. Spider, Manny, Bones, and I had been together since elementary school and never had stupid arguments like that. Not even when we were twelve. What a dick.

  “You guys need to practice?” Max looked over at us like we were an afterthought.

  “That’s what we’re here for.” I didn’t try to make nice. He could tell by my flippant attitude that I was pissed. I knew he was going to pick a fight with me before this whole tour ended. Whatever. Bring it, bad ass.

  Max smirked and shook his head before he counted them off. They played their single encore song then started packing up their stuff.

  The guys and I got the space set up while Max continued to antagonize Frank about their encore. It felt so good to be playing again. Just
a couple days without amps and mics and I felt like a part of me had been amputated. I loved acoustic, but there was nothing like a hard riff through an amp to bring your soul to life.

  “You guys wanna do all five songs in the order we picked for the set?” My sentence was barely finished when Spider’s eyes flashed to something behind me. I turned just as Max walked up to me and shouted.

  “Five songs? This isn’t your concert. You’re just the opening act. You get three songs. Got it?”

  “Yeah, cool. Three songs because you don’t want us to show you up, we get it.” I turned to walk back to my mic.

  “You fuckin’ with me? You wanna start somethin’?” He followed me, and when I stopped walking, he slammed into my back. I turned, and we were eye-to-eye. The size of his pupils told me he’d puffed up his attitude with some illegal substances, so I decided to give him a break.

  “Look, man, I’m not trying to start anything. We just wanna play.” I rubbed the back of my neck just to give my right hand something to do so I didn’t take a shot at him. This guy was such an ass.

  “Three songs.” He turned and flipped his coat like it was a fucking cape. What a tool.

  They hadn’t left the studio when we started to practice our set. They grabbed a couple beers and took up one of the seating areas like uninvited guests. We planned to play two songs from our Fallen album and one new one we were working on. It was so new we hadn’t even titled it, yet. That was Bones’s thing. He usually picked our titles.

  “Hey, Cal, what do you think of this for the bridge in the new song?” Manny played something that had a bluesy twang to it but kept a rock tempo. I loved it.

  “Dude, that’s –”

  “What?! You’re still writing the songs you’re performing for the tour? Are you kidding me? Where did we get these guys? Come on. Fuck!” Just Max’s voice alone grated on my nerves. Add his inflated ego and I couldn’t help but fantasize about beating the shit out of him. I’d knocked out guys twice his size before.

  I tried to speak without clenching me jaw, because all I really wanted to do was throttle him. “Listen, Max, you worry about your music, and we’ll worry about ours. Last I checked, you don’t have a say in what we play.” I shoved my hands in my pockets to control the urge to bust his face wide open. Not many people could even see the small vicious thread that hid deep down inside me, but Max was picking at it, and it was just a matter of time.

  “Then you didn’t read the fine print, hair boy.”

  Hair boy? That made me chuckle a little. “Come on, man. Let’s not do this. We’re gonna be spending a hell of a lot of time together. You really need to bring it down a notch.”

  “I read the fine print, Max.” Becki’s voice came out of nowhere, and she said his name like it burned her tongue. “And I assure you there is nothing in the contract that gives you any say in what songs Alternate Tragedy plays for their set.” She slowly sidled over to where Max and I stood.

  Holy shit, she was hot. Immediately, my mind was thrown back to earlier that day when I was between her legs. My stomach rolled, and my dick swelled. I had to put those thoughts out of my head if I was going to stay connected to the conversation that played out in front of me, because if he pulled his condescending attitude with her, I’d take him down.

  “Well, well, well. And who do we have here?”

  “Hi, Max, Frank, Ben, Troy, Steve.” She smiled and tipped her head to each of them as she said their name. “I’m Becki Mowry, Alternate Tragedy’s manager. All contracts and deals go through me. We had a long chat with Mr. Barnes about the details of our contract, and I can assure you, they can play what they want.” Becki walked up to Max without an ounce of hesitation. Her balls were huge.

  “So, Becki, you wanna talk about this over dinner tonight?” Max raised an eyebrow, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I shoved my hands in my pockets again and looked over at Manny. He winked and nodded his assurance that Becki had the situation under control, which helped me breathe a little deeper.

  Becki smiled and took two steps toward Max. She reached up and put her hand on the lapel of his fuck ugly leather coat. “Max, I will let you take me to dinner, under one condition.”

  My fists clenched inside my pockets. What the hell was she doing?

  “And what’s that, beautiful?” He reached up toward her face. She took a step back and calmly blocked his hand with her forearm.

  “You can take me to dinner tonight if you get down on your knees and blow Calon.”

  “WHAT?!” Max and I yelled in stereo. The visual in my head made me want to puke. I had no doubt Max felt the same way.

  “No fucking way!” Max acted as though he actually thought she was serious. Idiot.

  “Well, sorry, Max, but our deal’s off. And I guess I’ll just have to do it for you.” She winked and walked toward me. Gene Krupa would have been proud of the badum-ching Bones banged out on Spider’s snare drum, signaling Becki’s score over Max. The guys all lost it! Even Max’s guys laughed.

  Becki’s hands came up to my face and held me still. My jaw still clenched, I glared at Max over Becki’s head. I was ready to rip his throat out.

  “Calon, down here.” Her voice was so calm and sultry, almost like she got off on putting Max in his place. “Calon, take your eyes off him and put your lips on mine this minute.”

  She didn’t have to ask twice. She kissed me deep, and my mind went somewhere else. We could have been standing in the middle of a busy intersection, and I wouldn’t have noticed. Becki Mowry stole my heart right out from under me. Her hands went to my ass, and she squeezed and pressed me into her.

  “Come on!” Bones yelled and threw Spider’s sticks. “This is getting ridiculous!”

  “Bones, grab Spider’s sticks. Let’s practice our set. You stayin’, Max?” I looked at him while still inside the loop of Becki’s arms. He scoffed and shook his head. Frank, Troy, Ben, and Steve shook all of our hands, and they all headed out.

  “Well, look at me, won’t ya.” Becki fell back onto the black leather couch that sat about six feet from my mic. “Private show by the hottest guys in LA.”

  “You think I’m hot?” Bones’s chest puffed out. “Cal! Your girl wants me.” Bones had himself so excited he tripped over the cord to his bass and fell on his ass.

  WE PRACTICED FOR over two hours and then decided to head out to the nightclub we’d be playing on Friday to check out the vibe, see the stage and introduce ourselves to the management.

  The line outside Paisley almost wrapped around the building. Bones drooled as his eyes raked over all the bare legs in line. There were definitely more women than men, which was good to know. Playing to a mostly female audience was very different than playing for a bar full of dudes.

  “Dammit, Cal. We’ll never get in here.” Manny was the partier of the group. Bones could drink like it was an Olympic sport, but Manny loved everything about the nightlife. The dude didn’t need sleep.

  “Hang on, guys.” Becki dove into the big hobo bag she always carried, pulled something out and spun on her heel. She looked back at us and smiled. “I got this. Hang tight.” But before she walked toward the front of the line she adjusted her bright blue top to show just a little more cleavage and shimmied her form fitting black skirt further up her thighs. The gait she took off with was sexy and every guy in line thought so, too. I made a mental note to talk to her about that technique when we got back to the room later.

  She returned in less than five minutes fanning herself with five bright blue cards on lanyards. She got to us and handed us each a V.I.P pass for the celebrity lounge on the second floor of Paisley.

  “How’d you do this, Becki?” Spider asked.

  “Well, while you guys were having a pissing contest with Max, I was at the printer having some business cards made up. The guy at the door recognized the band name from the posters hanging inside. He was happy to let you guys in.

  As we followed her to the front of the line, I reached
down with both hands and pulled her skirt down to a more acceptable length.

  “Prude.” She giggled, grabbed my hand, and snuggled into my side.

  The entrance was a tubular hallway of neon lights. We made our way through, only getting stopped a couple times by people who knew who we were. The flashing tunnel opened up and the quiet hum grew louder and louder by the second. By the time we got to the bar, there were girls all around us. We were used to girls digging our music. We used to hang out with our female fans on our breaks at Mitchell’s. They were fun girls we could laugh and joke with. Don’t get me wrong, we’d been propositioned more than once, but we always respectfully declined. Well, except for Bones.

  The term groupies always seemed seedy and dirty to me. I, personally, didn’t like the word. But the girls at Paisley, yeah, they were closer to the groupie end of my measuring stick. We were being touched and groped and, as far as we knew, not one of them had ever seen us play. They were all over us, I assumed, just because our faces were plastered on the walls of the entryway.

  “Cal, I feel like a piece of meat—and I love it!” Bones was grabbing and groping right back. He, of course, then followed a couple girls away from our group.

  Spider and I both called, “Not it!”

  “Shit!” Manny was always slow at that game. We all knew there had to be a chaperone assigned to Bones, or we’d lose him. It’d happened one too many times that we left a bar and headed to the van only to realize we were one man short. We’d eventually find him in someone’s back seat, or he’d call from someone’s apartment, but it always dragged the night out longer, and, quite frankly, it got annoying.

  “You must be Calon.” A beautiful blonde stood before me in a skin tight black tank and boobs that held their own zip code. I felt awkward because Becki was right next to me with her hand in my back pocket. I didn’t want to flirt back, but at the same time I knew blowing off fans wasn’t a good idea for any musician, especially an up and coming band. Becki’s hand slowly slid out of my back pocket, and she slapped my ass.