by Meg Ripley
“I thought it would probably be weird to admit it,” she said. I could see her blushing in the weird orangey light. “Like...I didn’t expect to see you there at the festival at all. I didn’t even have any thought about it. Molly Riot wasn’t on the lineup, so it never even entered my head. But I was leaving one of the green rooms and saw you walking around.”
“Still not getting how it’s awkward,” I told her.
“You did look perfect in the shot I took,” Allie explained. “But it was also...I wanted to meet you.” She smiled weakly. “I wanted an excuse to introduce myself.”
“So you took a picture to get my attention?” Allie shrugged.
“Part that, part not being able to let a chance like that snap pass me by,” she said. She shook her head. “Your turn.”
“I was the last member of my band to lose my virginity,” I told Allie.
“Seriously?” Allie sat up and looked me up and down. I laughed.
“Seriously,” I said. “Nick lost his at fifteen, Alex at sixteen, Jules and Dan at seventeen, and I didn’t lose mine until I was almost nineteen.”
“How the hell does that happen?” I shrugged.
“Well Nick would probably have lost his at fourteen if he could have,” I said, snickering. “But that would’ve been a huge fucking mess. Alex had some weird kind of pact where he was determined to lose his before he turned seventeen, and Jules and Dan just hooked up with random girls after a show one night.”
“So was there a particular reason you didn’t lose it earlier, or just lack of opportunity?” I shrugged and lit a cigarette.
“I mostly didn’t date in high school, so that definitely made it harder to find the chance,” I told her. “Then on top of that I was all about the drums and hanging out with the guys and playing PlayStation, so between those things, even when I had a girlfriend for a few months, I wasn’t really all that serious about it.” I offered Allie a smoke and she took it from me, let me light it. “It just wasn’t a huge priority. I figured: there’s porn and lotion. How could sex be better than getting myself off?” Allie giggled and buried her face against my chest, barely keeping her lit cigarette from burning me.
“How did you even end up losing it, then?”
“Actually, there was a girl,” I told her. Allie began giggling again. “Hey! I’m not going to tell you if you’re not going to take this seriously. This is an important story of my life, Allie.”
“Sorry--sorry, it’s so late, and the idea of you watching porn and masturbating and thinking…” she convulsed in giggles again and I waited for her to calm down. “I’ll be serious now.”
“She actually had a bet with some of her friends that she could get me in bed,” I told Allie. “She had no idea--no one did--that I’d never been with anyone and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her.”
“Did she figure it out?” I smirked.
“Nope,” I said. “I managed to get it up, and keep it up, and I’d heard enough from the other guys in the band to know how to sort of keep things going, so she never had a clue.”
“That is definitely a promising start to your sexual career,” Allie told me. I looked around as I stubbed my cigarette out and realized that it was actually starting to get light outside--it was dawn.
“Fuck,” I said. “It’s got to be at least what--six, seven in the morning?”
“Shit,” Allie said, shaking her head. “I need to get back to my room.”
“Mind if I crash there?” I thought about the guys in Bent Bridges; Neely for one would not appreciate me coming in and waking him up. “Just crashing, I swear.”
“Just crashing for sure,” Allie said, raising an eyebrow. “I need to sleep or I’ll be useless when I go back to the festival later.”
“Same for me. Come on. Show me your pad, pretty lady.”
CHAPTER SIX
I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep, but my phone was ringing from across the room. “Fuck.” I turned over in bed and felt Allie starting to wake up as well. I stumbled out from between the sheets and hit the floor, before getting up and grabbing my phone from where I’d left it plugged in. It was Nate. I tapped ‘Accept’. “What’s up, man?”
“Thought you’d want a wake-up call with enough time to actually wake up before you need to be here.” I scrubbed at my face while my hungover, sleep-deprived brain processed that, and then I smiled.
“Thanks, man,” I said. “How much time until I need to go?” I looked at my phone to check the time. It was one.
“Get over here by say five? So we can get ready and chat about the set list.”
“Will do,” I told him. “See you then.” I ended the call and looked over at the bed. Allie was sitting up; we’d been too exhausted by the time we’d gotten to her room that morning to do more than take off our clothes and get between the sheets and go to sleep. “I have about four hours until I need to be over at the festival,” I told Allie.
“I should probably be there right now,” Allie said, stretching. My eyes went directly to her tits, showing just above the blankets. I’d caught a glimpse of them the night before, but I’d been too tired to do anything about it. I was still tired--but not too tired to do anything about a naked woman in a bed I’d just left.
“Too late to be there right now,” I pointed out, walking towards the bed. “A couple of hours isn’t going to make that much of a difference, you know.” Allie looked me up and down slowly and smiled.
“A couple of hours?” she leaned back in the bed, elbows on the pillows, and I took in the sight of everything above her hips: tanned skin, paleness where her bathing suit top covered her tits--just barely--when she wore it however long ago, the curve of her waist.
“A couple of hours to start,” I told her. “We’re both going back south tonight, right?” Allie shrugged one shoulder.
“I hadn’t decided, but I might as well,” she said. I climbed back into bed, pulling the sheets aside to reveal the rest of her body; Allie didn’t fight it, didn’t even look annoyed.
I covered her body with mine, slithering down until my hips pressed against hers. “Deerfield is closer than Coral Springs,” I pointed out. “You could crash at my place, get home tomorrow to do all your work.” I brushed my lips against hers. Just the sight of Allie’s naked body had been enough to get my blood flowing. Feeling her skin against mine, tasting her lips, was enough to get me hard in seconds. “For now, though…” I rocked my hips against hers, slipping down between Allie’s legs. She was already starting to get wet, to judge by the slickness of her labia against my cock. I rubbed against her, trailing my lips from her mouth to her jaw to her neck.
Allie wrapped her legs around my waist, pushing herself down on me, her hands roaming across my back. We moved together for a little while, building up the friction, the tension between us, and I held off on getting inside of her as she got wetter and wetter until I could feel all that tension rippling through her body. I reached down and guided the tip of my cock up against her, and slid inside of Allie’s tight, hot pussy slowly, filling her up inch by inch. “God, you feel good,” I murmured against her lips. “So fucking good, Allie.” She did: tight, wet, hot, like a glove around my cock.
I started moving inside of her, pulling out just a little bit and then pushing deeper and deeper, rocking my hips against hers; finding the rhythm. Allie fell into my beat, flowing with and against me, hands wandering everywhere as her hips twisted and rocked with me. I kissed her again and again, and as we moved together I couldn’t help but notice that it was as close to perfect as any sex I’d ever had; normally it took a few moments to get into a rhythm, to find someone else’s beat and match myself to it.
With Allie, though, it felt amazing--she matched to me instead of the other way around. It only took me a few moments to lose the ability to think altogether as we moved as one. I tried to hold back, but I knew I wouldn’t last long--the feeling of her muscles tightening around me, flexing and releasing in little spasms, was enoug
h to almost bring me to the edge right away. I reached down between Allie’s body and mine and found her clit by touch, and started rubbing it in time to our movements together, trying to bring her to climax before I couldn’t hold back any longer. I shuddered at the sound of her moans, at the little breathy cries leaving her throat, echoing in my ear, like the melody wrapped around our beat.
I felt the tension reach the breaking point, and Allie trembled underneath me as she moaned out, long and low, her nails digging into my back. I managed to hold my own climax at bay for a few more thrusts but then I felt the liquid-hot tension deep down in my groin give way, and wave after wave of crackling sensation crashed through me as I came. “Fuck--god--Allie…” I tried to keep it going for as long as possible; she felt fucking amazing, her body tightening around my cock in little spasms while I twitched inside of her. All at once I was finished, and so was she, and we lay there for a moment, both of us panting and gasping for breath.
“We still have...an hour…” I looked up at Allie; she hadn’t caught her breath yet, but I could see the gleam in her eye.
“Give me five minutes and then let’s do that again,” I told her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“How was your vacation?” I rolled my eyes at Nick’s question as I walked into the control room.
“Fun,” I replied, sitting down in one of the chairs. “What are we working on today?”
“One of Jules’ tunes,” Nick said. “He’s talking to Jack about it.” Nick looked me up and down slowly.
“How’s Neely?” I shrugged.
“Broken bone. They’ve canceled a couple of shows.” Nick frowned, looking at me more sharply.
“It wasn’t just playing the festival,” Nick said. “What’s up?” I snickered.
“Becoming a mind reader now that you’re in a settled relationship?” Nick rolled his eyes.
“You’re in a good mood. A better mood than you’ve been in since the bullshit with Dan happened.”
“Playing a festival gig with a new band switched something in my brain, I guess,” I suggested.
“I think you’ve met someone. Come on, Mark--you’re not the secretive type.” I shook my head. I wasn’t sure why I was so keen to keep the rest of the band from finding out about Allie, but I knew I didn’t want to say anything about her just yet; I wanted to feel the situation out.
“Just feeling better about life, I guess,” I told him. Dan came into the control room, saving me from more questions from Nick.
“I saw Jules talking to Jack as I came in,” Dan said. “I take it that we’re working on one of his songs?” Nick nodded, and so did I. It felt weird, having a secret from the rest of the band--it was the first time I’d ever not told someone in the group about something big that had happened to me. I wasn’t sure that it was something big yet; but it felt big.
After a few minutes of bullshitting, Alex and Jules and Jack came into the control room, and we started talking about the day’s work. “Do we really need to start over on this?”
“We’ve started over on everything else,” Jules pointed out. “Why not this one, too?”
“It just seems pretty straightforward,” Nick said.
“I want to go more complex,” Jules countered. “That’s why we need to start over.”
“We’re starting over on everything,” Alex said, looking from Nick to Jules to me. “If we’re committing to that idea, then we might as well start over on this one too.”
“What did you have in mind?” Jules lit a cigarette and took a jump drive out of his pocket.
“Play it for the kids, Jack,” he said, tossing it over to the producer. Jack plugged it into the console and pulled it up on the system. I felt fidgety--weird, almost itchy. I pushed the feeling aside as Jack started up the track.
I forced myself to listen; Jules had demoed the track, probably with Fran, with a beat-maker. It was more complicated than the original track had been, with a syncopated beat--that much at least gave me something to work with beyond the usual. It wasn’t entirely in the same vein as the other tracks we were working on, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It sounded good--it sounded great, in fact.
“I think we can work with this,” I said.
“You’re different,” Alex said, looking at me sharply.
“Spending a couple of days on a different project revitalized me,” I told him.
“I’m pretty sure he’s met someone, but he insists it was just playing with Bent Bridges,” Nick told Alex.
“It is just playing with Bent Bridges. Felt good. I want to get on the road again with Molly Riot soon; to do that, we need to get this album done, right?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “So let’s get to work.”
Alex and Nick both stared at me for a moment longer, but there was nothing really to say about it. We went into the live room and I sat down at my kit. There was the same odd tension between the five of us, but it was different at the same time; in the back of my head I was thinking of Allie--picturing her sprawled on my couch where I’d left her, going through the photos she’d taken at the festival, editing them and picking and choosing between them to submit to different magazines.
“Everyone ready?” Jules played through a run on his guitar, testing the sound in his headphones.
“Let’s do it,” I said, grabbing a fresh pair of sticks. I checked the levels of everything on my kit--I had adjusted Neely’s kit to my needs for the second day of the festival, but it still had been a foreign one, and switching back to my own was like putting on an old, beat-up pair of shoes that I’d worn for ages.
Jack started the tape, and the beat from the demo track Jules had brought in played through my headset. I fell in with it, and then heard the other guys falling into their own parts. It was just a rough scratch track--something for us to listen to, to sort of get an idea, a map of where the band was going to take Jules’ idea--but surprisingly it felt pretty good to play it. For the first time in months, I felt like the band was playing something that actually made sense.
We played through again and again, refining the melody, and I found a way to play the beat that Jules had set, while still making it my own. Hours went past--back and forth, talking to Jack, playing it again, talking about it again. The rate we were going, it was going to take another two or three months to get the album recorded, but I actually felt good about it. I felt good about what we were doing.
“Okay, let’s listen through the track again,” Alex suggested. “I think we might have actually nailed it this time.”
“Starting to feel it in my hands,” I said, nodding. “Anyone else feel good about it?”
“I’ll wait until I hear it,” Jules said. “Play it back for us, Jackie-boy,” he added through the intercom, sitting down on the floor. I put my drumsticks down and re-settled the headphones on my ears.
“Playing back,” Jack said over the intercom. I got comfortable on my seat and closed my eyes. The playback came up through the headset and I focused partly on my own section, and partly on the rest of it. The beat was right on point. It sounds good. It actually sounds good. I was amazed.
“I like it,” Nick said. “I think we can sharpen up that melody line in the third verse, but I like it.”
“Same,” Dan said. I nodded and bent to the side to grab my pack of cigarettes from the floor at my feet. I lit one, thinking about the music we’d been working on. The earlier stuff, I’d played along with, argued about, worked on--but this song actually made me feel, for the first time, like we were on the right track.
We broke for the day after that and went into the kitchenette to talk about the album. Ron was still on our asses about the timeframe, and the label was probably still uncertain, but I was feeling good again. I was actually enjoying being a part of Molly Riot. “I think we might have hit on what we need to do,” I told the other guys as we sat in a circle, passing a pipe around.
“That’s a change,” Dan said, glancing from me to Alex. “You’ve barely been abo
ut the album at all this whole time.”
“Get off it,” I told him, feeling irritable in spite of how positive things were. “I just like the direction we’re in right now. I like what we worked on today.” Alex raised an eyebrow and sat back from the table to excuse himself from the pot, fishing a cigarette from his pocket.
“As opposed to what we worked on last week?” I shrugged.
“Either the festival shook something loose in me, or Jules came up with a good idea, or both,” I told Alex. “I don’t really care. Neither should you--we’re doing better. That’s worth riding it out.”
“If Mark is done with being a morose asshole, I’m not going to question it that hard,” Nick said, taking a hit and passing the pipe to Dan. “I mean hell--we might just get this album finished at this rate. Do you want to jinx that shit, ‘Lex?”
“I’m just curious,” Alex said with a shrug. “I don’t think playing with another band is enough to make him change. Do you?”
“I think you’re the only one who cares,” Jules said.
“I think he only cares because it was Jules’ song that made him come out of whatever funk he was in,” Dan suggested.
“Are you insulted, Alex?” Nick snickered and hacked.
“Fine, whatever,” Alex said, rolling his eyes and taking a drag of cigarette smoke into his lungs.
“So we’re back in tomorrow, right? Let’s get this rolling a bit faster, since we seem to mostly be on the same page again.” I looked from Dan to Nick to Jules to Alex. Nobody could really argue with what I was saying; I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt the change in the room. I couldn’t bring myself to think it was all me--it was some weird synergy. Whatever Nick, Dan, Jules and Alex had done during the time I was up in Tampa had contributed as much as what I’d done.
“I’ll email you all what I’ve been working on, for my own tracks,” Jules said. “Alex?”
“I’ve got some demos I can send you guys,” Alex admitted. “I’ve reworked a couple of things.”