When he was gone, she realized all her bandmates were staring at her in silence. When they saw her realizing it, they all burst into laughter.
“You two are adorable,” Renee said.
“What are you talking about?” Kat snapped, but found herself blushing fiercely.
“You don’t need to worry about us,” Alyssa said. “You know we have your back.”
“What goes on tour stays on tour, right?” Renee grinned.
Josie just folded her arms and nodded, giving Kat an I-told-you-so look.
“I’m married,” Kat said quietly.
“I’m married,” Josie said.
“You’re married to George,” Kat pointed out.
“And it seems to me that Julian is wonderfully similar to my George in many respects.”
Well, there was no point in trying to keep things from Renee or Alyssa. A band on tour was no place for secrets.
Kat said, “I don’t know that for sure.”
“Yet,” said Josie.
Kat merely shrugged then slouched out of the rehearsal room. It wasn’t quite a storm-out, but might have been seen that way by her band mates. She still felt horny, she still felt giddy when she thought about Daryl. But she also felt the gloom of uncertainty when it came to Julian. Sure, he got super hard when they talked about her being unfaithful, but did that really translate to him being okay with adultery in real life? What if his little kinky thing was just that, a little kinky thing. And when it came to her seeing other guys in real life, it shattered their relationship?
No tour—or crush—was worth that.
*
Kat got back to her room and stripped off to take a shower. She relaxed under the flow of the hot water, enjoying the luxury surroundings of a five star hotel en suite. Her mood softened regarding her bandmates’ apparent interest in her potential adultery—but then she started wondering if she might have offended Josie, and maybe even Alyssa and Renee.
Now she was nervous about that.
Stepping out of the shower, she wrapped herself in a big white hotel bathrobe and heard a quiet knocking at her door. She went to look through the peephole and saw Renee standing outside.
“Hey,” she said, smiling, as Kat opened the door.
“Hey, Renee.”
“I just… wanted to make sure you’re all right.”
Kat smiled to show that she was. “I’m… I’m really sorry I was grouchy with you guys.”
Renee shrugged, “It’s okay. You know how Josie is. She likes to pry. And she likes to manipulate. She doesn’t do it to be mean.”
“I know that.”
“She just… well, she wants you to be as happy as George apparently makes her.”
Kat nodded, and took a moment before realizing she had Renee standing out in the hallway. “Hey, you want to come in?” she said, stepping back to invite her in. “I… I think I was just going to order some room service for tonight.”
“I love room service,” Renee beamed. “Want some company?”
Kat paused a moment, her natural instinct to apologize and say she felt like an evening on her own, that maybe she would have to call her husband soon so that it wouldn’t be so late for him… but then she changed her mind. Perhaps she needed to spend a little time with her bandmates in order to get comfortable with this tour.
“Sure.” She smiled. “Sounds good.”
Renee ordered them burgers and ice cream on room service while Kat put PJs on, and then the two of them watched The Notebook on TV.
“I’m gonna have to call my husband soon,” Kat warned as the credits rolled, hating to end their evening together.
“Oh, you want me to go?” Renee asked her.
Kat shrugged. “Not really,” she said, even though she’d been looking forward to another sexual encounter via FaceTime with Julian all day. Particularly the way Daryl had made her feel.
“I can stay if you like… or I can go, and then come back when you’re done…” The tone of Renee’s voice suggested she knew exactly what Kat needed from her FaceTime call with Julian.
Kat sighed. “How are you coping with it?” she asked her bandmate. “With being apart from Nate for so long, I mean?”
Nate was Renee’s husband. Renee chuckled, and raised an eyebrow. “I have the most amazing vibrator,” she said. Then, “To be honest, the way things have been going with Nate… it’s not much different than normal.”
Kat frowned. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Renee shrugged. “It’s okay. Some people just… you know… don’t have sex quite so much once they’re married.”
“Did you guys talk at all… about how things would be on the tour?”
“Not really. I mean, Nate’s not like George… or Julian… apparently.”
Kat sighed, and Renee added immediately, “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… it’s your business…”
“No,” Kat said. “It’s okay. I should talk about it with someone. Josie seems… biased. Like, she’s desperate for me to cheat on Julian, to treat Julian the way she treats George.”
“And how are things with your husband?”
Kat said, “Well he says he likes the idea of me… you know… having the freedom to see other people on tour.”
“But you don’t believe him?”
Kat shook her head. “I don’t know… I do believe him. Yesterday as we were talking about it… well, let’s just say I saw definitive physical proof that he likes the idea…”
Renee giggled. “Okay, well that sounds promising…”
Kat said, “I just… it’s so weird, you know? Everything we’re taught about dealing with guys… they get jealous at the drop of a hat… when you even look in the direction of another guy…”
“Nate does…”
“…They don’t get unbelievably hard when you talk to them about maybe liking the drummer from one of the other bands…”
Now Renee laughed loudly. “Seriously? You are sooo lucky, girl!”
Kat smiled. “I just don’t want to… you know… go for it, only to find that Julian really only felt that way about it as a fantasy, not real life.”
Renee was fetching drinks from the minibar. She handed a gin and tonic to Kat, while sitting back down with a rum and coke for herself. She said, “You worry too much. If he’s said you can… you should try it. And it’s his fault if he can’t handle it.”
Kat shook her head. “I just think he might suddenly turn around and accuse me of wanting Daryl all along. Wanting to cheat on him all along. Like it was all my idea, not his, this cheating thing.”
“I don’t think Julian’s like that, though, is he? I mean, from what I know…”
Kat sighed again. “No, I know he isn’t.”
Renee sipped her drink. “So just take baby steps,” she said.
“What?”
“Yeah… you don’t have to sleep with Daryl right away, huh? I mean, just take things slow. Dinner one night. Maybe a little… making out… the next night… maybe you give him a hand job the next night… and each time you tell Julian exactly what’s been going on.”
Kat sipped her gin and tonic, mulling over what Renee suggested. She had to admit, it seemed like a good strategy. “I guess… I’m just used to the way it was on tour,” she grinned. “You know… you like a guy… you wait until the next time everyone’s drunk… and then you jump him.”
“Maybe things are different nowadays,” Renee laughed.
Kat did feel some of the worry melting away. Why hadn’t she thought of a go-slow approach?
“You do like him, then?” Renee asked her. “The drummer guy.”
Kat glanced at the door as though she was worried someone was going to burst in and overhear. Then she flashed Renee a wicked grin, saying, “Jesus, it’s like I’m in school and I have a secret crush on some guy in the year below.”
“Scandalous!” Renee beamed, apparently feeling happy that her bandmate really did have a crush on someone “He is a hottie.”
&nb
sp; “He’s also five years younger than me,” Kat pointed out.
“Five years! Seriously, that’s nothing. Ashton Kutcher was 15 years younger than Demi Moore. And don’t get me started on male celebrities dating younger women…”
“Yeah, I suppose…” Kat grinned. “You know… I think of high school… and if I was a senior, he’d still be in middle school.”
Renee cackled. “We’re not in school any more.”
Kat said, “Seriously… the last time I had a crush on anybody… like this one… I was in high school.”
That only made Renee laugh even more.
“You think Julian would feel bad about me… having a crush like that?” she asked her bandmate.
Renee shrugged, and went up to get them more drinks. “You know, we’re gonna have to order some more booze from room service. This minibar is not well stocked,” she said. Then, “It’s only a crush, right? I mean… it’s not like you’re in love with the guy.”
“No, definitely not.”
Renee smiled warmly, “You’ve just… been given complete freedom by your husband, and you’re not used to wanting a guy so badly and being actually allowed to have him.”
“I suppose that’s it.” Kat felt herself tingling again, merely thinking about Daryl. It made her feel even more so with Renee telling her she was ‘allowed’ to have him.
“It’s exciting!” Renee declared. “You’re just not used to that kind of excitement… as good as things are with Julian, you guys have been married for years.”
“I guess so.”
Renee picked up the phone from Kat’s bedside table and placed an order for Champagne. “We’re celebrating, right?” she giggled as she put the receiver down again.
“Celebrating what?”
“Your seriously hot new boyfriend!”
“He is not my boyfriend,” Kat laughed.
“Yet.”
Sitting by Kat’s bedside table, Renee opened the little drawer, only to find Kat’s vibrator sitting in there. Kat gasped and then blushed, but Renee wasn’t teasing her about it. “You have one too! Aren’t they terrific?” she said, pulling it out of the drawer.
It seemed more than a little strange, her bandmate handling the vibrator that had been inside Kat so much, particularly recently.
“I think I could probably cope with it, as long as Julian comes out to see me often enough,” Kat said. The alcohol was already getting to her. She kind of liked seeing Renee handling her vibrator for some reason. Probably some residual lust left over from Daryl and the day’s rehearsals.
“Hmm… well, I’ll be okay. I don’t think Nate’s planning on coming to see me very much.”
“Seriously?”
Renee shrugged. “Maybe he’ll have a change of heart, after a little while…”
“That’s terrible,” Kat said. “He expects you to have no sex life at all?” Somehow it seemed almost like a human rights issue—and yet it really was very unusual that Kat’s husband was letting her have a sex life while away from home, Nate’s attitude was much more conventional.
“Oh, I could probably have a little fun here and there… as long as it’s with a woman,” Renee said. There was a knock at the door, and she picked herself up to go answer it.
It was the Champagne. Renee closed the door again and then returned to pour them out a glass each.
“You would cheat on Nate if… it was with a woman?” Kat asked Renee, and signaled that she was still on her last gin and tonic, and didn’t need the bubbly just yet.
For some reason, Kat’s mind was drifting back to the time when Julian was shaving her pussy, and the two of them had talked about the possibility of her sleeping with Renee again.
Renee did look good. The band’s keyboardist had the classic porcelain skin that went with being a real redhead—and she was real, even if she did always jazz up her hair with luminous, almost neon, red dye—and it always made her seem fresh-faced and ten years younger than she was. Kat thought she’d find it hard to tell the difference between Renee now and the Renee who had last taken the stage with The Ponytails, even if you could compare the two directly.
“Nate doesn’t consider it cheating if it’s with a woman,” she said, coming over with her Champagne. “He never has. Not that I’ve… well, made the most of it over the years…”
“And if you… sleep with a woman, you have to tell Nate all about it?” Kat asked her.
Renee stood there and shrugged. “He’s not really bothered. It’s not that he’s… you know… particularly turned on by the whole girl-on-girl thing. It’s just that… well, the way he explained it was that he doesn’t feel threatened by my being with other women.”
“He can’t imagine you leaving him for another woman?” Kat said wryly, gazing up at her bandmate, and maybe noticing that her nipples were just about visible, pushing against her faded white Led Zeppelin t-shirt.
“Far less marrying one,” Renee laughed.
“So… are you planning on making the most of Nate’s philosophy now you’re on tour?” Kat asked. It felt as though the alcohol gave her the nerve to pop what seemed to her to be a fairly personal question, since the two of them had seen little of each other for so long.
Renee sat down on the couch, purposefully close to Kat, her thighs wedging against Kat’s. “If I can find some willing babes to help me make the most of it,” she said, slinging an arm suggestively around Kat.
Kat felt her body temperature rise by a few degrees, with various wildfires igniting spontaneously inside her. She’d always preferred men, despite her experiences, but Renee was just plain sexy. She’d probably turn entirely straight girls.
“You know…” Kat said, draining her G&T, “Julian and I talked about the possibility of me… you know… being a willing babe for you, Ren.”
“Seriously?” Renee’s face lit up.
“You mean you’ve forgotten—”
“I thought… you know… you’re all married now…”
Kat smiled. She could smell Renee’s perfume, which was all coconut and lemons and not at all conventional, but with the booze streaming around her system, it kind of gave her a buzz. “You know Julian’s talked about letting me see other people on tour…”
“Other guys, sure,” Renee said. “I wasn’t sure about…”
“Well, I can’t say I’m sure about anything…”
Renee leaned in and brushed Kat’s hair out of her face, her hands moving to cradle her head. And then they were kissing, their lips pressing together, moving together, Kat sliding her hand around Renee’s jaw, feeling her oh-so-soft skin as her mouth filled with the sweetness of the other woman’s lips.
It was so soft, so tender, so cautious and yet so very, very sweet. Kat felt as though fireworks were going off all over her body, her heart beating so hard that perhaps it was going to bruise her chest.
Renee tucked a few rogue strands of her vibrant, scarlet hair behind her ear and sucked on Kat’s lips as though she’d never kissed anyone sweeter. And for a while, time just seemed to slow to a halt.
“Wow,” Renee said, finally, as they parted.
“I’d say so,” Kat was blushing. Even with her Hispanic complexion, it was quite obvious, and becoming on her.
Both of them were breathless, their chests rising and falling as though they’d just been running the marathon.
Sure, Kat had spoken of such a possibility with Julian—but even so, she was just shocked by the reality. After so long dedicating herself only to one person, one man, it was startling. And even if she had had same-sex experiences before Julian—with the band, in college—it was just so different to what she was used to—and slightly terrifying.
“I… uh… was supposed to call Julian pretty soon,” she said, not quite knowing what else to say. Not even quite knowing what she meant by telling Renee just then. Did she want to use it as an excuse to get Renee out of there? To give herself time to figure out just what she really wanted, and whether she wanted to go there wit
h her bandmate.
Renee nodded, apparently accepting or understanding Kat’s surprise. “You… want me to go?” she said.
“Uh…” Kat didn’t even know herself.
“Really, it’s no problem,” Renee said. “I mean… you know… maybe I should get an early night, you know? Another hard day of rehearsals tomorrow…”
Renee pulled away from her on the couch, and Kat felt a throbbing tightness between her thighs. Desire. Longing. Craving.
She suddenly blurted out, “No. You should stay.”
Not exactly an eloquent soliloquy laying out all her feelings, but it made Renee pause.
“Uh… sure.”
Kat took a deep breath and tried again, “I want you to… stay with me… tonight… uh… if you wanted to… It’s just… you know… my husband will expect me to…”
Renee smiled, but Kat detected a slight tremor in her body, and from the energy of her eyes could see that she was just as nervous about this. Well, neither of them wanted to mess up the internal relations within the band—and like Kat, it had apparently been a while since Renee had done anything with another woman.
“Of course,” she said. “You guys have to do your regular call… I could… step out onto the balcony while you guys talk?”
Renee picked herself up, and drew Kat’s eyes right along with her. Kat cleared her throat and felt herself just go with her impulses, not really thinking it through. “No,” she said. “No, I… you don’t have to go…”
“It’s no trouble… nice out on the balcony tonight…”
“You don’t have to go anywhere just because I’m calling Julian,” Kat said, and her thoughts began to catch up with her voice. “I… I mean, I don’t have any secrets from my husband…”
“Sure, of course,” Renee nodded, taking a tentative step back toward Kat and the couch.
“I mean… you know… I should tell him about… well… you know…”
“Our kiss?” Renee prompted her, and smiled as though she was just now reminded how hot that kiss had been.
Kat returned the smile, cautiously. “And if you did… you know… want to stay here… tonight…”
Rock Her World Page 9