Jag (Pandemic Sorrow #1)

by Stevie J. Cole

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She stared at me for a few seconds, then wet her lips. “Wh – yeah…yeah…I’m – I’m okay. Just…” she trailed off, completely dazed. “Just really glad to touch you.” She attempted to smile.

  Roxy squatted down next to her, pulling her out of my lap and into hers. “Layla. What the hell?” She glanced up at me and then quickly back down to her barely coherent sister. “Did you take something?” she whispered.

  “No. It was just – His ass, it’s so firm!”

  Roxy squinted her eyes. “What?”

  “I grabbed his ass. It was just too much excitement, I guess.”

  “Oh, my God. Get up!” she growled as she rose and yanked Layla to her feet. One of the bouncers came over and escorted Layla over to a bar stool, leaving Roxy standing next to me.

  “I’m so sorry,” Roxy said. “She just…she just really likes you.” I smiled at her and opened my mouth to speak, but was cut off with her finishing her previous statement with, “I don’t know why. But she does.”

  My smile quickly turned into a scowl, and I reached down into my pocket. Handing a crumpled up ticket to her, I said, “Try not to ruin the show for her at least, then, huh? Unlike you, everyone else here is a fan. So try to stop being such a gigantic bitch, okay, princess?” I reached behind her and smacked her ass. “Damn shame you won’t let me show you just what a fucking good time Jag Steele is.”

  Without looking at her, I turned and made my way to the backstage area.

  Stone laughed. “Someone’s gonna owe me – what was it, Jag? Twenty thousand?” He patted me on the shoulder. “Good luck with that one, bro.”

  “Hey, you didn’t say how long I had.”

  Stone glanced back at me over his shoulder and shrugged. “Take a fuckin’ month. Not gonna happen.”

  Chapter 13

  You could hear the crowd from the holding room. The sound of the screams, the clapping – it was a rush like no other. I took a bump and then strapped my guitar over my chest. The rest of the guys stood on the ramp to the stage and glanced back at me, smiling. I’d lost count of the shows we’d done, but that surge of adrenaline that slams through you right before walking out and getting blinded by the stage lights, hearing the drum of screams trying to pop through your ear plugs – that excitement never changes.

  I watched the band walk out, leaving me by myself. Rolling my ear piece in my palm, I listened to the crowd go crazy. I waited, and then I heard them start screaming for me. “Jagger! Come on, Jag!” I stretched my neck and took a few quick breaths before jamming the plug into my ear and running out on stage, holding my guitar like a sword at my side.

  The soft beat of Pax’s drum broke through, the vibrations wafting through my core. I tapped my foot and then felt the addition of bass from Rush, followed shortly by Stone’s Fender. I stared at the stage, reading over the set list taped in front of my feet. Then I slammed my pick over the strings and felt my freedom. The lights went green and focused on me from all angles as I stepped up to the mic and let out a long wail. I closed my eyes to enhance the feeling of the vibrations from the amps, the slight friction of the string on my fingertips, and the heat of my breath washing back against my face from the metal microphone. This had been my dream since I was six years old, and here I stood, on a stage, in the middle of a damn stadium packed to the brim with screaming fans. Hell, my picks even had my name engraved on them, all seven that had been stuck in the microphone stand in case I broke a few ripping on the guitar. I sang and everything around me faded. When I was on that stage, nothing fazed me; nothing could penetrate the zen I achieved when performing.

  Halfway through the show, and after several refresher hits of blow, just as planned, I “unexpectedly” jumped from the stage and took off sprinting through the masses. People grabbed at me, pulling at my shirt. Hands were all over me, sliding up my legs, reaching for my crotch, pinching my sides, my arms, my neck. Any part of me that they could reach, they touched. Sweaty hands all over me, fighting to feel me, wanting to see if I was real. Girls were screaming and crying. It was a frenzy of stimulation and, honestly, every single time I did that run I came back with a hard-on. How could you not? How many people get to experience something like that? I had people dying to just fucking touch some part of me, wishing that they knew what it was like to be me – how could you not feel like a god? If anyone who’s been in my shoes says it doesn’t make you feel an ungodly sense of power, they’re lying. No matter how levelheaded, how down-to-earth of a person you are, shit like that changes you.

  Each show I felt the need to push it, like I had to do something to top the last show, and this time I knew exactly what I was going to do. I tore free from the mob of hands groping me. The single spotlight followed me as I sprinted up a set of stairs and to a catwalk running between the floor and the balcony. I stomped down the steel grid, my boots clamoring against the metal. My heart was racing with a mixture of adrenaline, arousal, alcohol, and coke. Placing one foot on the metal railing, I flexed it. I stared down at the band on the stage. Stone was glaring at me, ever so slightly shaking his head while continuing to play fucking awesome rifts on his guitar. I shot a wide, devious smile down at him and pulled the mic up. I tapped my finger on it, raising it to my lips.

  “Hello, Los Angeles,” I shouted, holding out the last syllable until my voice cracked. A few more lights moved over to me, illuminating my body from all angles. Illuminating me just like a god.

  Sweat rolled down my face and dripped down my neck as I watched the crowd raise their arms, mouths dropping open as they yelled. The roar vibrated against my earplugs.

  “Hope you’re enjoying the show tonight.”

  Another boom broke through. Then I looked down and somehow saw Roxy, the one person there who hated me, the one girl who I couldn’t fuck, staring up at me.

  “I’m glad you all came out tonight. Couldn’t thank you enough. I fucking love our fans!”

  I waited, giving the multitude plenty of time to die down before continuing, “You know,” I laughed, “I was told tonight by a fucking hot-ass girl that she didn’t particularly care for our music.”

  The crowd’s fists pumped in the air, and I could make out the loud rumble of boos.

  “But that’s okay. ’Cause she’s here and we’ll just have to change her mind. Right?” I smiled. “We’re Pandemic Sorrow. Fucking right? And we’re not going anywhere!”

  Raising my other foot and steadying myself with one arm, I pulled up onto the railing. I stretched my arms out and slung my head back, trying not to lose my balance. A few times I lifted one foot from the railing, threatening to fall over the edge. The look of absolute shock on some of the faces below me was amazingly enjoyable. It was probably about a twenty-five-foot drop to the concrete floor, but that didn’t bother me in the slightest.

  “I can trust you, right, LA?” a smile flinched across my lips. I saw heads nodding, making the crowd almost look like a rippling body of water. I teetered on the edge again. “Want me to jump?” Raising my eyebrows, I shot my gaze back in the direction of the stage. Stone hung his head, Rush enthusiastically pumped one fist at me, and Pax just shook his head as he banged on his drums. “You better catch me. If you don’t, guess this’ll be the last show of Pandemic Sorrow. Epic either way, am I right?” Without a second thought, I folded my arms across my chest, jerking my body around and tossing myself backward over the railing of the catwalk.

  In my mind, everything went silent. I felt like the guys stopped playing and the crowd completely choked. The air rushed around me, and then, suddenly, I hit a hundred hands, the weight of my body catching and pulling their arms down momentarily before they lifted me up and skirted me across their wriggling fingers toward the stage. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud as I clutched the microphone against my chest. Un-fucking-believable. I’d just entrusted my life to complete strangers and here I was, body surfing across the hands of thousands of fans.

  When I got to the edg
e of the stage, Stone reached down and jerked me up on the platform. He leaned in close to my ear and said, “That little stunt, that was fucking stupid. You’re not a god, Jag. No matter how much you feel like one, you’re not. Don’t forget that.” He pulled his sweat-soaked shirt from his chest and flung it out at the crowd, casting another glare in my direction as he walked back to his spot.

  The next song on the playlist was Winter Solstice. I hit the whammy bar after stroking out a long note, and then shielded my eyes against the stage lights, searching the crowd for that twenty-thousand-dollar bet I’d made. There she was, almost front and fucking center. She looked so out of place with a sour-ass look plastered to her face. Walking to the edge of the stage, I leaned down over two screaming girls and her sister, their hands grabbing at me and tugging me down closer to them.

  I pointed my finger at Roxy. “Hey! You – the girl who said she hates Jag Steele and Pandemic Sorrow.” Every face turned to gawk at her. Her eyes pulsed open and her face flushed red. “Yeah, little princess. This song. I dedicate this to you.”

  I watched her fight the smile trying to force those damn near perfect cock-sucking lips up.

  “No hard feelings,” I said as I pushed myself up from the stage and walked back to my spot. The lights went out, and I bellowed out the tortured lyrics to our hit song that I’d just dedicated to a bitch who probably didn’t know the first damned word.

  The lights faded to blue, and I knelt down at the edge of the stage, grabbing a random girl’s hand in the crowd and holding it. I watched tears pour from her eyes as I softly sang out lyrics that cut into me like a rusted blade. “Tortured, bruised, and broken. You ruined me. Ruined me.” I let out a yell and released the girl’s hand. “I’ll find some devil to grant me peace. And you ruined me, won’t let you ruin me.” The bridge broke out and I hung my head, stomping the heel of my boot in beat with the drums. I glanced over to Roxy, her eyes locked on me. I knew that moment, regardless of how much she thought she hated me, would be ingrained in her head forever. After all, I was Jag Steele.

  Chapter 14

  After the show, on the way to what Rush and I called the “whore room,” I stopped at the table to snort back a few lines. The high from coke didn’t last damn near long enough. If I was lucky this time, it wouldn’t wear off before thirty minutes, but I had a pretty high tolerance, which forced me to keep shoving bumps up my nose. Sometimes I figured it would probably be better on my body if I’d just do something harder, something that I wouldn’t have to use so much of to reach the desired effect, but most of those hard drugs required a needle to get the kind of rush I chased, and honestly, I hated fucking needles. Sure, you could smoke heroin, but if I was gonna do it, I was gonna do it. The few times I’d shot up heroin it took me several tries just to jab the needle into my vein. The tourniquet pinched the hairs on my arms, I sucked at stabbing a needle in my flesh, and that hot lava sensation flowing through my veins – I didn’t care for it. After you get over the initial bout of nausea, the high that comes with it is almost like an orgasm – fucking ecstasy. But I couldn’t let myself really become an addict, and I was afraid if I ever got over the turn in my stomach that happened when I watched that needle punch through my flesh, I’d have a real problem. Coke wasn’t a problem, but heroin – that would be.

  I eyed Rush as he swallowed back a few pills. A wicked twist formed over his lips as he said, “Couldn’t ask for a better life. We’ve got to be the luckiest sons-of-bitches ever.”

  I nodded and clamored down the deserted hallway, my shoulder brushing against the painted cinder block walls. Loud, giddy giggles, accompanied by the sound of several heels clomping against the floor, flowed down the corridor. When I came to the doorway I glanced over my shoulder, my hair covering part of my eye, and before ducking into the room, I flicked a one-sided grin in the direction of the girls waiting in the hallway.

  Pax and Stone were sitting on the couch, drinks in hand, and Pax had a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

  “When the hell did you start smoking, Paxton?” I asked, sitting down in the floor and leaning against the couch.

  “Ah, hell. It’s not a fucking smoke, dildo. It’s a damn joint.” He took a quick drag and held it out to me.

  Snatching it, I looked at how neatly he’d rolled it. “Damn. It looked like a cig.” I took a few puffs and held my breath, letting the smoke saturate my lungs before I passed it to Stone.

  The door creaked open and Rush came in, the giggles from the hallway spilling into the room before he shut the door. “Dude,” a large grin stretched over his face, “there’s a redhead out there. Fucking killer ass and tits.” He held his hands out like he was groping a nice rack. “She’s mine.”

  Stone coughed, his eyes watering up as he handed the leftover joint to Rush. “I want one with dark hair, pale skin, and she has to be shaved – with a fucking butterfly tattooed on her pussy,” he laughed.

  “Yeah, well…” I rose and thrust my pelvis out as I rubbed my hand over my crotch. “You guys really need to just wait and see which ones don’t want me, then you can fight over who gets who.” I glanced back at Pax, still grazing my hand over myself, getting it primed for the feast that was about to be waltzed through that door. “You can have my sloppy seconds. I’m okay with that.”

  Pax leaned back into the couch. “What the hell ever, you piece of shit.”

  I shook my hair out to make sure it had the messy look chicks wet their panties over. My stylist actually made me turn my head over when he cut my hair. He insisted that it needed to fall in a perfect v when I flipped my head over on stage.

  I pointed at Pax and shook my finger. “And don’t fucking watch me either, Pax. I feel your hungry eyes blazing through my ass every single time.”

  Huffing, Pax shot me a look of pure hatred. I think my snide comments were finally starting to get to him. After all these damn years of him being my little bro’s best friend, I was finally breaking his ass. He was annoying, he really had no personality, but we’d been friends for years. I was entitled to give him grief.

  There was a knock on the door, and every one of our faces went hard. We couldn’t have huge ass grins slapped over our faces when those girls walked in. We had to look our part: hard-up, badass fucking machines with no emotions. We had to seem like a different breed. We had to seem almost untouchable. If those girls realized we weren’t really any different than a random guy at a bar, besides the fact that we were swimming in money, the allure would be lost and our fountain of endless blow jobs and meaningless sex would dry up.

  Rush flicked the roach across the room, and I watched it slide under a table.

  I raised an eyebrow. “If this place catches on fire before I bust a nut, I’m gonna beat your ass.”

  The entire group erupted in stoned-induced laughter, only stopping because there was another loud bang on the door, followed by Jules opening it. She looked over at us, rolling her eyes and shaking her head as she put an arm up to block the girls from entering. “You have a few fans who are dying to have your cocks rammed down their throats.”

  That condescending comment didn’t dull the smiles slapped over any of their over-made faces.

  Jules let out a long exaggerated sigh of annoyance. “They’ve all signed the waivers. Just don’t choke any of them out this time, okay?” She shot a glance over at Rush.

  “Hey!” Rush flipped his hair out of his face. “That chick,” he waved his hand around, “she begged me to do it. She’s the one who was experienced in that shit, she should’ve warned me or something. Laid out a safe word like giraffe or spaghetti-monster.”

  Rush was a fucking idiot.

  “Whatever, Rush. Just no choking this time.” She glared over at the girls like a mother hen. “Don’t ask any of them to choke you, okay? Just suck ’em, fuck ’em, and let that be enough.” Jules lowered her arms and the group stalled at the doorway. She walked off mumbling, “And it’d probably be in your best interest to wait about a month to run to t
he clinic for testing. Give it some time to fester so it’ll pop up positive, no questions asked.” She shook her head. Jules despised the fact that girls were so eager to give their dignity up to a bunch of fuck-ups like us.

  I took a few stumbling steps toward the door and curled one side of my lips up as I motioned them over with my finger. “Come on, girls. You’ve signed your pussies over to us for the evening, no need to be shy.”

  The redhead took several wobbly steps inside, and I immediately pointed over toward Rush. “You’ve been claimed by him.” Her eyes widened momentarily and then she sauntered over to Rush, who had already unzipped his pants and shoved his hand inside his open fly to get his dick hard.

  The other girls walked in, and I honed in on the thin blonde in the flock. Her eyes grew larger as she looked around at the girls who were already groping the other band members. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the redhead had Rush’s dick shoved halfway down her throat, his hand gripping the back of her head, trying to get her to go down further on him.

  “Not as intimate as you thought, princess?” I asked as I ran my hand over her arm.

  I remember the first time something like this happened. I felt so bad. I felt somewhat gross, and couldn’t even get off because I was in the same room as the rest of the guys. I used to feel like it was wrong to just fuck a girl because you could, but over time I’d realized it’s what they wanted. They sought us out, hoping to screw the shit out of us. And who the hell am I to tell a girl what she should be doing? She gets to run off and brag for the rest of her life that she rode Jag Steele, and I get off, have titties rubbed all up in my face, and don’t have to worry about a relationship. Win-fucking-win.