Rock Angel (Rock Angel Series Book 1)

by Bogino, Jeanne

  Restless and at loose ends since Quinn’s defection, she’d begun spending a lot of time with Dave. He was so easy to be around, with a carefree, happy-go-lucky quality about him that she found soothing. Nothing seemed to bother him, ever.

  She’d gradually realized that his dope use had something to do with that. Dave apparently was respectful of Quinn’s no-getting-fucked-up-during-a-gig rule because he was always straight enough while they were onstage and even during practice, but he usually snorted some coke after they finished playing. He smoked a lot of pot, too, and a few times he’d come by the house in such a light, dreamy state that she knew he was stoned.

  All of her bandmates partied, but she hadn’t realized how much until she started living with them. Dan was an archetypal California stoner, smoking pot on a daily basis, and Ty usually joined him. Even Quinn took a hit once in a while, despite his general antidrug stance. Both Dan and Ty liked an occasional line of coke, too, something Shan had never seen Quinn touch. He confined most of his partying to alcohol, for which he had an astonishing capacity. She’d never once seen him drunk.

  She’d been thinking a lot about drugs herself, just lately. She’d even gone to a few of the NA meetings they held at the Methodist church in Tujunga because her mind kept drifting toward H, craving the marvelous way it had of evaporating pain. One hit and all this hurt—it would float away.

  Hanging out with Dave helped, though. Tonight they’d been practicing for a couple of hours, just the two of them, since her roommates were all out. Ty was on a date with some actress he’d met at a gig and Dan and Denise had gone out to hear a band. Quinn hadn’t been seen in two days and Shan knew he was off with Julie. She supposed it was better than having them here.

  She pushed them firmly from her mind. “I’d like to learn flamenco,” she said, as Dave came back into the room with two bottles. “Can you teach me?”

  He twisted the tops off and handed her a beer. “Sure, but a flamenco guitar is different from an acoustic. The sound is brighter with less sustain. You can play notes that would sound muddy on an axe like the Angel.”

  “I know. It’s more like a classical…” Her voice trailed off as she thought of her mother’s classical guitar, the one Shan had left behind when she escaped from her father’s house. She wondered what had happened to it.

  “Well, it’s different from a classical, too. I can teach you but if I do,” he warned, “I guarantee that you’ll be wanting a flamenco guitar of your own.” He himself had a Cordoba Solista, in addition to two Gibsons, three Telecasters, and an Ovation.

  She laughed. “Not any time soon. First on my list is a new electric. I have my eye on a vintage Strat at the Guitar Center.”

  “That white one I keep seeing you playing? Nice,” he said. “Pricey, too, I suppose.”

  “Eleven hundred.” She grimaced. “I’m saving.”

  “I’m surprised that’s the one you’re hankering after. Usually when we go there you head straight for the Gibsons.”

  “I love the hollow-body ES,” she said, “but I don’t have that kind of cash.”

  “Well, there’s nothing more important than your instrument, now, is there?” She nodded in full accord and he beamed at her. “I do so enjoy our little chats, Shan. You’re the only woman I know with a passion for guitar porn that matches my own.”

  She laughed as he sat back down beside her. “I think I’m finished for tonight,” he said, taking a small box from his pocket. He selected a joint, which he sparked, and took a big hit. He held the smoke for a few moments, then exhaled and took another.

  Impulsively Shan held out her hand. “Can I have a hit?”

  “Oh. Sure.” Dave looked surprised, but handed her the joint. “I didn’t think you smoked.”

  “I don’t usually,” Shan said, taking a hit anyway. “I’ve had my issues with dope in the past. Stronger stuff,” she added, “and it got me into trouble.”

  She handed back the joint, which he accepted. “I’ve seen phyamps in the fridge. Those are yours?” She nodded, shamefaced, and he shrugged. “Occupational hazard in our line of work.”

  “I’m clean these days, except for the ’done. It’s been quite a while since I’ve done anything. Anything fun, that is,” she amended. “Methadone is the opposite of fun.”

  Dave produced a conical silver container with a hole in one end. “Like this, you mean?”

  Shan took it, then regarded it thoughtfully. “A snuff rocket,” she said. “Coke?”

  “Yeah. I do a little blow when I play once in a while,” he said. “I like the energy it gives me. I keep it on the QT, though, because of Quinn. He’s so uptight about drugs.”

  “Don’t I know it. But I’m not complaining,” she said, “because he held my hand every inch of the way when I was getting clean.” She felt another pang of longing. She missed him so. “I don’t think I could have done it without him. I owe him a lot.”

  “Well, he knows the drill, that’s for sure. There’s not much he hasn’t seen, after all the shit he went through,” Dave said, taking another hit off the joint.

  Shan eyed him quizzically. “What do you mean?”

  “All that time in rehab,” he clarified. “He was in for such a long time.”

  “Quinn, you mean?” She still wasn’t quite sure she was understanding him.

  “Yeah,” Dave stared back at her, beginning to look concerned. “Didn’t you know?”

  She shook her head, stunned.

  “He had a pretty toxic coke habit, back in the day. His folks had him put away for a stint during freshman year. Some fancy fucking place,” Dave added. “They could afford it. Anyhow, it worked. He never touches the stuff now.”

  Shan was staring at him openmouthed. “I can’t believe he never told me!”

  “Me, too. I figured you knew.” Dave took another hit. “But he never has talked about it much. It can’t be a pleasant memory, because he was royally messed up.”

  “Still, I’d have thought…after everything that’s happened…or that Dan would have said something.”

  Dave looked thoughtful. “Dan might not know, either. He’d gone to New York by then. Q and I were in a band, the Accidental Evils. All of us did a lot of blow, but with him it was constant. He was the original snowman. Quinn the Eskimo, we called him. At first it was funny, then it got fucking scary.” Dave shook his head. “I like blow, too, but I can handle it. Q, he can’t.”

  “That just means it wasn’t the thing that grabbed you,” Shan said. She was both shocked and indignant at the revelation, but battling her hurt that Quinn had kept such a significant secret from her was a surge of tenderness toward this unexpected vulnerability in him. “If you’ve never been there you wouldn’t understand, but I get how it happens, falling in love with a drug.”

  “Maybe you ought to pass on that, then,” Dave said, nodding at the snuff rocket.

  “Coke is something different, for me. I can take it or leave it. It’s fun, though.” It was, such a cheerful, happy sort of high. It felt like forever since she’d been merry and light, not weighed down under a gray pall of misery. She rolled the vial between her fingers.

  “Well, there’s a hit in there. You’re welcome to it, if you want. I have more in the car.” He frowned. “I don’t know about blow when you’re on methadone, though.”

  Shan hesitated. “No worse than a speedball,” she said, and lifted the vial to her nose.

  “Shh,” Shan gasped, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. “I hear a car.” She tried to stop laughing and couldn’t. She’d been laughing nonstop for hours. Her stomach hurt from it.

  Dave peered out the window. “It’s Dan and Denise.”

  “Oh no,” she groaned. “What if they tell Q?”

  “Fuck Q,” Dave advised. “We’re not gigging. What is he, your keeper?”

  “No, but—” She scrambled off the couch and grabbed his hand. “Quick, let’s hide.”

  Giggling, they ran upstairs to her bedroom. Shan eased the
door shut. “I think they’re downstairs,” she whispered.

  Dave leaned over her to press his ear against the door. A few strands of his long, burnished hair grazed her shoulder. “No, they’re coming up. Shh.” He caught her by the waist and put his hand over her mouth as she started giggling again.

  She covered his hand with both of hers and laughed into it silently. She could feel Dave vibrating with laughter, too, and she kept laughing even when she realized that his hand was creeping under her shirt. His fingers on her stomach tickled, making her laugh even harder, until they dipped inside the low rise of her jeans.

  Once she got over her surprise it struck her as funny and she began laughing anew, even as she tried to say no. But by then he’d gotten his other hand up her shirt and he was squeezing her breasts. He thumbed her nipples and she felt them harden under his touch..

  She twisted out of his grasp and turned to face him. “Stop,” she gasped. He looked so disappointed that she dissolved into laughter again. “I mean, jeez. You haven’t even kissed me!”

  “No, I haven’t. Yet.” Then he was kissing her. His lips were nice and firm and his tongue tasted of beer. He pulled open the snap on her jeans and slipped his hand between her legs.

  She’d often admired how he fingered the strings on his guitar, with such confidence and skill. Now he was fingering her with similar skill. She could feel how wet she was and it occurred to her that she was probably going to have sex with Dave. That’s a bad idea, she noted, arching her neck as his lips nuzzled her throat. It could get messy. I don’t really feel that way about him, either, she enumerated internally as his fingers swirled inside her. Q is the one I really want.

  Like that mattered. It never stopped Quinn from having sex every chance he got, with anyone that caught his eye, and just now she couldn’t seem to stop herself from rubbing against Dave’s hand. She hadn’t been touched this way in such a long time and it felt very nice.

  He stopped kissing her long enough to pull her shirt over her head. “Hey!” She crossed her arms. He ignored her, fumbling at the buttons on his own shirt, which he let fall open, and she saw that he had a spidery tattoo on his stomach to match the ones on his arms. He pushed her hands away, slipped his hands behind her back, and pressed her bare breasts against his chest.

  Her body erupted in gooseflesh and she wasn’t laughing when he kissed her again. Her jeans dropped to the floor and, as her panties joined them, she realized that she was completely naked while he was still fully clothed. She began giggling again but before she could stop, tell him what was so funny, he’d dropped to his knees and his tongue was delving between her thighs. It felt exquisite and she moaned softly, laughter forgotten.

  He turned her to face the wall, still exploring every inch of the terrain between her legs with his tongue. She didn’t stop him, even when she felt his tongue in the crevice between her buttocks. He obviously appreciated that area, as he attended to it with gusto, his tongue flicking like a lick of fire. When he rose to his feet she heard a zipper opening, then something smooth and hard pressed against the spot that his tongue had been investigating so zealously.

  That sobered her up a little. “Wait, Dave. I mean, I haven’t…”

  She heard his clothes dropping to the floor. “Let’s take this over to the bed,” he said and when she turned, he was naked. His body was a thing of wonder, all sculpted curves and long, graceful planes.

  “You must work out,” she said as he urged her down onto her back.

  “Yup,” he replied. He sat back on his heels, cock jutting from between his spread thighs like a sentry, and produced a condom. She watched him roll it on, thinking that it was the largest cock she’d ever seen, big as a Telefunken U-47 microphone. She giggled, singing the Zappa song in her mind.

  Then, without further preamble, he was fucking her, filling her up so much that there was no room for anything but pleasure.

  She woke the next morning with a pounding in her head and a sense of being dirty. She felt sticky and crusty as she rolled over to regard Dave snoring beside her.

  They’d had sex for hours. They’d also done a whole lot of cocaine. She’d snorted rails off his erect penis and he’d rubbed coke on her vagina once it started get sore. Now that the numbness had worn off it felt bruised, rent, and it wasn’t the only thing that hurt. She sat up and grimaced, shifting to take the pressure off the raw, mushy ache between her buttocks.

  Dave opened his eyes. “Morning.” He kissed her and her nose detected more than a tinge of rancidity in his breath. No wonder, she thought, considering some of the places he’d put his mouth.

  Hers wasn’t pristine, either. “Suck it,” he’d groaned loudly. “Suck it good.” She’d tried to tell him to quiet down, but her mouth was too full of cock to do more than mumble.

  This morning he looked pleased, but Shan felt shy and uncomfortable with him. She wasn’t ready to have sex with him again and searched for a way to put him off, then saw with relief that he was getting up. “I have to go,” he said regretfully. “How about a little head for the road?”

  There was that cock, huge as ever. He thrust it toward her and she turned her face away, suddenly assailed with another memory. He’d been pulsing in and out of her mouth, grunting for her to “suck it, suck it good,” and he’d suddenly pulled away. She opened her eyes to see him yank off the condom and, when she opened her mouth to ask him why, was squirted in the face with a stream of semen. She’d laughed and laughed, but it didn’t seem funny at all now.

  “Hey. You okay?” Dave dropped down beside her, catching the bedclothes under his knee. The blanket shifted, suddenly exposing her to the waist, and she quickly tugged it to cover herself.

  He moved his knee and caught up the blanket, wrapping it around her until she was securely swathed to the neck. “It’s cool, you know, Shan,” he said. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be weird. We’re fine. Better than fine. Okay?”

  She looked up and saw kindness in his eyes, and understanding. She bit her lip. “Okay.”

  He got up and pulled on his clothes, then stooped to kiss her on top of the head. “I have to go, but I’ll see you later at practice. You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.” She pulled the blankets a little tighter around herself. “I mean, you’re right. It doesn’t have to be weird. I don’t want it to be, because I like you.”

  He regarded her warmly. “I like you, too. What did you think, that I’d stop liking you because I made love to you?”

  “No, but…” She paused, then shrugged. “It’s fine. We’re good. You’re a nice guy, Dave.”

  “Well, you’re a nice girl.” He winked, blew her a kiss, and then he was out the door.

  She heard him go down the hall into the bathroom. She knew he was right; they’d be okay, but she still felt edgy and anxious. When her eyes went to the clock, she saw it was past noon and she realized she was late for her ’done. She sat up, unwinding the blankets from around herself, and heard the bathroom door open.

  “Oh,” she heard Dave say. “Morning.”

  A pause and then, “Afternoon.”

  Quinn’s voice.

  Shan gasped and fell back on the bed, flinging the blankets over her head.

  When she finally got up, she peeked timidly into the hall. She saw it was empty and made a beeline for the bathroom. She scrubbed herself from head to toe, but she still felt dirty.

  She went back to her room and dressed in capris and a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt, then regarded her bed. It was a rumpled mess mottled with suspicious stains. She pulled the sheets off, stuffing them into her wicker laundry basket. She wasn’t going to the Laundromat until Friday when Ty went and this was her only set, so she’d have to borrow some from Denise. She turned toward the open door and stopped.

  Quinn was standing there, watching her.

  “Oh…hi,” she said.

  He didn’t reply right away. They regarded each other silently for a few moments.

  Eventually he spo
ke. “So Dave stayed here last night.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Um…yes,” she stammered. “We were up late, playing. I mean, practicing. He’s teaching me some new stuff.”

  “I gathered as much. Did he teach you to suck it?” he inquired. “Suck it good?”

  The blood slammed to her face. For a moment she couldn’t respond.

  He cocked his head. “Well?”

  She found her voice. “What’s it to you? I don’t comment on the multitudes of bar sluts you date, or whatever you call what you do with them.”

  He didn’t respond right away, just regarded her with glacial eyes, and she noticed a white line around his mouth. He was clenching his teeth so hard it must hurt.

  When Quinn spoke, his voice shook. “Fuck you,” he said, then vanished from the doorway.

  Shan began to tremble.

  chapter 23

  Practice was torturous that day. Quinn was silent and withdrawn and glared at Shan sullenly, assuming an injured air whenever she spoke to him. “Julie’s gone?” she heard Ty ask him.

  “Yup,” Quinn said without looking at him. “Flew out last night.”

  “Good thing.” Dave chuckled. “You were becoming the Invisible Man.”

  Quinn didn’t respond and remained uncharacteristically quiet. During a break he drifted outside. Shan followed and found him sitting under the sycamore tree, smoking a cigarette and gazing out over the creek bed. “Are you still mad at me?” she asked him.

  “I’m not mad,” he said, staring at the water. “I just don’t have anything to say.”

  “I’ve noticed,” she said tartly. “You’re not even criticizing my playing, for once. I thought you were so committed to not letting anything personal interfere with the band.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do.”