Wild Thing

by Blair Babylon

  “What?”

  He grabbed her, sliding one arm around her waist and slamming her up against the wall. He kissed her hard, cramming her between his body and the plaster, and he snagged her arms and pushed her wrists over her head, pinning her.

  Shock coursed through her, and she would have been sure that she was completely sated from earlier, but desire rose at his hard body pressing her.

  She was kissing him, her lips opening, and he freed her breath. She stole gasps when he backed off and let her breathe. His hand traced her body, sending shudders of hunger through her.

  He bent and bit her neck, his teeth raking over her pulse and shoulder.

  Georgie sagged into the warmth of his breath and the pressure of his hands, her mind clearing, and as she had for the last several months, she gave up control.

  He broke off the kiss and lifted his head. “Let’s go.”

  “Wha-at?” Her knees wobbled when he released her wrists from his grip.

  He grabbed one of her hands and pulled her behind him, striding for the stage.

  The black hole surged, blowing up around her before she realized that he was leading her out of the hallway toward the stage. “No!”

  He walked faster. “That’s not your safe word.”

  The blackness of the arena engulfed her. Showers of wicked green and red lasers sliced through the air and the stage, swinging wildly. Xan’s hand wrapped her fingers. Shards of green light glinted off his hair and black frock coat.

  Tryp drummed a stuttering beat, one that wound up the tension with its unexpected hesitations and stomps.

  The crowd screamed for more.

  Xan’s hand lifted, and wide, metal stairs rose in the dark in front of them. Pinpoint lights on the sides illuminated each step.

  He clattered up the stairs, and she could hear the steps rattling under his boots despite the waves of human screaming crashing into her.

  She climbed the stairs, holding her skirt in her other fist so she wouldn’t fall flat on her face in front of the thousands of people.

  The spit in her mouth dried up like she had bitten into a bad persimmon. Her tongue shriveled to a hunk of tough jerky. Her teeth stuck to her lips.

  Every step up the stairs felt like the metal was wobbling out from under her, but it was her legs shaking.

  Xan reached the top and stood aside in the dark, holding her hand aloft as if he were escorting a lady to the parlor.

  Georgie looked up as she climbed the last step to the main level, downstage, closest to the front row.

  Thousands of paired eyes shined in the dark at her.

  Tryp played a drum roll, signaling something was about to happen. At the apex, Cadell crashed a loud chord from his guitar.

  Huge stage lights blasted pure white light over the stage and audience.

  Thousands and thousands of people coated the arena, packed onto the floor and risers and the first balcony and the second one and bridges running across the space, a monstrous swarm of bats clinging to the inside of a cavern.

  Their scream blasted the air away.

  Cadell launched into a guitar solo, running notes as fast as a machine gun from the guitar. The bright beam of a follow spot picked out Grayson, strumming on his bass guitar beside Cadell, his blue hair swinging as he ground his hands into the guitar.

  Georgie looked away from them and the mob and at Xan. The blazing lights burned his skin to alabaster, and even his black velvet frock coat paled to silver.

  He held her hand and gestured with his head toward the left side of the stage where the keyboards were set up. Without waiting for her to agree, he walked.

  The blazing suns above the stage and audience died, leaving only cones of light on Cadell and Grayson playing their guitars and Tryp in his drum kit.

  The crowd stared and screamed, raging like they wanted to tear the band apart.

  Georgie followed Xan through the darkness instead of being left alone with them.

  As Xan crossed the stage, screams swelled like a tide, all of them howling and shrieking to get his attention. He waved over her head as they walked.

  He led Georgie to the chair fenced in by keyboards and tucked her monitors into her ears. The earbuds blotted out some of the barrage of noise slamming against her head.

  Xan gestured to somewhere out in the wailing horde, and Georgie heard him breathe in her ears. Fiery stage lights suspended in rows over the stage beamed light at Cadell and silhouetted Xan beside her.

  In her ears, he whispered, “I’m not forcing you to do anything you don’t want to. This is what you want, what you crave. You’ve denied yourself what you need most.”

  She shook her head. No, no. It wasn’t true.

  He whispered, “Play for me. Not for them.”

  Her heart fluttered in her chest under the onslaught of thousands of eyes drilling through the air at her.

  Xan sat her on the office-type chair, and without thought she adjusted the height to allow her to lean into the keyboard to play. She had done it hundreds of thousands of times, adjusting and readjusting during more than forty thousand hours of practice.

  The keyboards spread in front of her, impossibly huge, too many keys, upper and lower ones and mini-boards for special effects. She didn’t know what they all did.

  Xan whispered through her earbuds, “You’ll hear me, Tryp, Cadell, and your own music.”

  She nodded, shaking harder.

  “If you need me, just say so. I’ll come right here. Mitch, patch her feed into my monitors, all right?”

  A man’s voice said, “Will do,” in her ears. “Give me a sec.”

  She nodded again and tried to swallow, but her dry throat slammed closed instead.

  His warm hand smoothed from her bare shoulder and down her arm. “You can do this, Georgie. Play for me.” He stepped closer and bent over her shoulder, his cheek right beside hers. “I’ll sing in your ears all night. Every song is for you. Every word I say, I’m singing to you.”

  “No, you’re not,” she whispered, but she must not have been patched through yet because he acted like he hadn’t heard her.

  He said, “It’s only us. We’re the only people in the world tonight.”

  Her arms felt like her hands were trapped under boulders. She told them to go to the keyboards, but they hung, lifeless.

  Xan picked up her fingers and ducked to kiss her fingertips.

  Georgie glanced at the mob, dreading their reaction, but he had hidden down among the keyboards when he touched her fingers to his lips.

  Xan lifted her hand, and her fingers drifted through the air and landed as lightly as flower petals on the black and white keys.

  “Not yet,” Xan whispered.

  Cadell segued, slowly dropping notes from “I Choose Love, I Choose Life” into his ad-libbed guitar solo.

  With a recognizable series of notes, the first line of the chorus, the crowd erupted.

  Georgie flinched at the noise battering her ears, but Xan had his arms around her shoulders and his body behind her back, cradling her. “Your set list is taped here,” he pointed to the sheet written in his shaky handwriting. “‘I Choose Love’ is in G.”

  She nodded and adjusted her fingers to rest on the keys in a major chord, ready to play.

  Xan’s fingers trailed down her arm to her fingers, and he rested his hand over hers.

  She closed her eyes for a second, feeling the warmth of his hand seeping into her frozen bones.

  Cadell played the opening guitar lines of the intro.

  “I have to turn my mic on now. Stay with me. Play for me tonight.”

  She nodded, locking in the deal.

  Xan moved backward over her shoulder, and his lips grazed her shoulder, almost the kiss of a ghost, as he pressed her fingers into the keyboard.

  A glorious major chord rang over the audience, reaffirming the lyrics.

  Cadell played the chorus. Georgie lifted her hand to follow his lead. Xan lightened his hand on hers, and she ran an arp
eggio up the keyboard.

  Xan slid his hand backward, brushing his fingers up her arm to her elbow, and floated into the dark while she played.

  Warm, glowing light surrounded her, and she almost thought it was a metaphor until Mitch said in her ears, “We’re bringing up your spotlight now. You okay?”

  She raised one hand into the air, playing with the other, not willing to disturb Xan, who was striding to the center of the stage.

  “You can say that out loud,” Mitch said. “You’re only in my headphones. I cut Xan out.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, trying not to sound like she was choking to death.

  “You should say that to Xan. He called us all in right before the show for a tech meeting. He was worried about you.”

  “Okay, patch me through,” she whispered, “but then take me out so I can talk to you without Xan hearing me. He needs to do the show.”

  “That’s a girl. You’re in his monitors now.”

  “I’m fine. I’ll be fine, Xan. Go do the show.”

  In the darkness of the downstage apron, she saw the blond ends of his hair sway against his black coat, and he turned and pointed one finger at her, a dim smear of pale skin in the writhing dark. He couldn’t say anything because all eighteen thousand people would hear him through the speakers the size of rooms suspended from the ceiling and flanking the stage.

  In her ears, Mitch said, “And you’re just with me again. If you need anything, tell me. Bottle of water, hit of Xanax, whatever.”

  “I don’t need Xanax,” she whispered, disgusted at the thought, and she ran her hands over the keyboard, keeping up with Cadell’s intro.

  “The techs can get you anything you need with no one seeing us. We are the ninjas in the night of the theater.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Okay, honey. Play the shit out of those keyboards.”

  The first verse was coming up, two more bars. Georgie vamped with Cadell, playing placeholder bars until the cue hit.

  Xan blasted the opening note, a sustained, primal scream of pain, into the microphone with his fist punched into the air.

  A thousand brilliant lights hit him and fire fountained into the air from the edge of the stage, illuminating Xan like he burned with silvery fire, and his anguished voice filled the arena.

  Georgie sucked in a deep breath and dove into the music.

  Xan sang,

  Even though you’re gone,

  Even though I’m dying inside,

  I choose love,

  I choose life.

  ALWAYSLAND

  Xan Valentine

  Every song took on new meaning in the aftermath of Rade’s death.

  Every note Xan had written filled with defiance. He stood in the drenching spotlight, and the roar of the crowd slammed his ears. He punched every lyric, insisting that he would go on and he would not bow to the rage and pain and despair.

  Behind him, the fifty-foot screens blazed with fire or zoomed with stars like he had fallen into hyperspace, dizzying him when he turned upstage to check on Georgie.

  She was a virtuosa, every note crisp and on the beat. Except for her passion and the way she spoke phrases with the notes, he would have believed that her music had been run through a computer and tightened to the drum line.

  He barely remembered his breaks in the green room while Boris fussed over him and Yvonne pressed water bottles and whiskey shots into his shaking hands.

  A dim thought floated in his mind that the pain afterward was going to be very bad this time. He was pouring every ounce of himself into the performance, emptying himself entirely. He wasn’t sure what caused the knifing pain after his performances, some reaction to adrenaline, a side effect of his bizarre neurology, perhaps, or a physical manifestation of post-traumatic stress disorder.

  The only thing worse was performing on the violin.

  At least Georgie would still be there. Even when the black pain twisted him, just knowing she was there, that he could reach out for her, comforted him.

  He found his way through the haze back to the stage and the blinding lights and the white-hot screams of the people who poured their love onto the stage that night.

  He stood with his arms spread, absorbing it like sunlight.

  Finally, there was only one song left to perform.

  “Alwaysland” usually ripped into him, but tonight, it was going to eviscerate him.

  Maybe, if he wasn’t alone out there, it wouldn’t be as bad.

  Before his last encore, Xan waited in the dark of the tunnel, pretending that the show was over while the crowd drove itself into a frenzy, filling the air with their energy. Tryp, Cadell, and Grayson were already in the green room, probably drinking to take the edge off the adrenaline high before they hit the showers.

  Jonas stood behind them, talking into his headset and listening to the roadies set up the last few lighting and pyro cues.

  Xan took Georgie’s hand in his sweaty palm. In his grip, the feel of her fingers—the long, strong fingers of a fellow musician—soothed him.

  He asked, “Can you do ‘Alwaysland’ with me?”

  “Of course,” she said. “One last time.”

  “Right. One last time.”

  Oh, he lied. He had no intention of it being the last time. Killer Valentine had a show in three days in Europe, and he needed a keyboard player for at least a few weeks until they could get another musician even half as familiar with their music as she was.

  He told her, “I’ll be downstage this time. I need to do it differently today. We’ll transpose the key to C-minor.” He glanced down. “Are you all right with that?”

  She frowned, a line gathering between her eyes and one side of her mouth crimping her skin. “Seriously? You think I can’t transpose a song on the fly?”

  “Just checking.” He looked back out to the stage where the light and screaming glimmered like fog.

  “Do it like Rachmaninoff?” she asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I had been thinking,” she said, and the pensive tone in her voice caught him. Xan turned, bending to look at her. She said, “I was thinking about the melody. There are parts that sound like Mozart, like the Lacrimosa from his Requiem Mass.”

  “Yes,” Xan said.

  “So, if you’re going to do what I think you are, I could work some of that in, just as fills, just to echo the emotions.”

  He caught her up in his arms, bending and holding her warmth to his body. “Yes. Do it.”

  Oh, God. This was going to rip him apart.

  The stomping and screaming out there reached a fever peak. Light from eighteen thousand cell phones beaming on flashlight mode cast a ghostly glow on the stage and arena.

  “It’s time.” He trotted out to the stage, still holding Georgie’s hand, and dropped her off at the keyboards while he continued downstage to stand before the crowd.

  The deafening whirlwind of their roar rose around him. He lifted his guitar strap over his head to hang it over his shoulders and sat on the barstool placed centerstage, adjusting the microphone placed there to point to the body of his guitar.

  He held up a palm and waited for them to settle down.

  When the roar had died enough that Xan could hear his ears ringing from the barrage all night, he cleared his sore throat and said, “As many of you have heard, we lost one of our band members today. Rade Delcore, our keyboard player, overdosed on heroin this afternoon and died.”

  The crowd quieted further, straining to hear his hoarse voice over their muttering and shuffling.

  He said, “We were torn about whether to go on tonight because we’re all in mourning. Rade was a good friend and my bandmate for these past few years. We lived together on the road. I know him better than I know my family, but his death still took my breath away. I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t feel my heart beating.”

  The crowd stilled, all listening to him.

  “We were going to dedicate this concert to Rade,
but he’s not the reason we found the strength to play tonight. You are. With your emails, tweets, and posts, by making your way here tonight, and by watching online, you saved us. When we were hurting, you lent us your strength. When we were broken with grief, we leaned on you. I can’t express how much we needed you tonight, and you were there for us.”

  His voice cracked, and he looked down at the guitar on his thighs, but the body of it wavered. He blinked hard and shrugged his shoulder to wipe the wet off his cheek.

  Xan drew in a shuddering breath, tasting the dust frying in the lights and the pot fumes from the crowd. The smoke in his mouth tasted like Rade’s dressing room, and a sour taste hit the back of his throat. He swallowed it down.

  “While the concert was for you,” Xan looked up into the thousands and thousands of faces that packed the arena all the way to the rafters, their eyes reflecting the lights like he was in the center of a galaxy thick with stars, “all of you, this last song is for Rade. I don’t know if I can make it through. I need your help one last time.”

  He wrapped his long fingers around the neck of the guitar and picked out the intro in the minor key.

  Behind him, Georgie’s piano sounded like a church organ as she let a sad, wintry chord swell around his guitar notes. He didn’t know when she had learned to set the voices on the keyboards, but she had found the right one for that song.

  So many hours of singing had shredded his throat, but he forced his voice out in a breathy tenor, singing over his voice. “Because while I live, because while I breathe, because while my heart beats in my body, I will love you like we live in Alwaysland.”

  The crowd sang back, and Xan leaned on them and on Georgie’s music. His throat slammed shut twice, which he blamed on rough use and blinked hard to keep his eyes from watering.

  MUSIC IS A BITCH MISTRESS

  Georgie

  Georgie lifted her fingers from the piano keys, letting the final chimes ring in the air with the last of the singers’ voices harmonizing in the audience.

  Her fingers hung steadily, not shaking anymore.