Jag (Pandemic Sorrow #1)

by Stevie J. Cole

An hour later, Jules came back and escorted the girls out. Most of them had left their numbers and told us their Twitter handles. We’d all, of course, promised we’d call, tweet them, something to make them feel like they were different than the thousands of other girls we’d fucked. Hell, to be honest, if I could just remember their names, that right there would make them different.

  This was my life. And although it sounds utterly fucking amazing, it really was completely empty.

  Chapter 15

  Another day wasted. I’d slept until three in the afternoon. Woke up. Took some pills. Laid around and watched some stupid show on Syfy. Snorted a couple of lines then googled some good porn. Smoked a bowl, then had one of the housekeepers bring me a rib eye in bed. Then I took some uppers, snorted a line, and took a shower. Finally, around eight, I got dressed and met my brother out in LA.

  Stone laughed as we strutted up to the club. He smacked me in the middle of my back. “So. You just wanna wait until the end of the month to stroke that check out to me or what?” A sarcastic smirk crossed his face as he slapped the straggly pieces of his brown hair out from his eyes.

  I shook my head. “I’m not writing you a check, man.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll take cash.”

  I snorted and stopped grinding my teeth long enough to say, “No cash either. I’ll come through on my end.”

  We strolled by the long line of people waiting to get in The Club, each head jerking to the side as we passed.

  Flashes from phones went off, and then came the squeals, the gasps, and the whispers – “Oh, my God. That’s Jag and Stone from Pandemic Sorrow.”

  I combed my fingers through my hair as I faced the street. I forced a strained smile and threw a slight wave.

  Looking back at Stone, I said, “I never don’t get what I want.”

  “Whatever. How you gonna find her? The entire song dedication thing didn’t make her wet her panties. Just face it. She’s a lost cause. To her, you’re nothing more than a pathetic drug addict who can sing.”

  I rolled my eyes and reached down inside my pocket to make sure the plastic baggie was shoved deep down in it. “Drug addict? Really. Man, that’s cruel. I’m not a damn addict –”

  I felt a hand grab the back of my shirt, and I spun around. The girl gripping the material had a look of absolute shock slapped over her face at her own actions, like she couldn’t figure out how my shirt had become wadded up in her hands.

  When I made eye contact with her, her eyes grew wider and her lip trembled a little. My mouth flipped up, and I placed my hand on her forearm. “Was something on my shirt, princess?”

  “I – I…You…” she stammered, and a blotchy, cherry-red hue appeared on her cheeks.

  My smile deepened. “You don’t get pissed easily, do you?” I tilted my head to the side and swept her hair behind her shoulder, getting close enough so she could smell my expensive cologne.

  My remark confused her. Her brows scrunched and her lips parted. I took that as my opportunity to get a real rise out of everyone. I reached around her, pulling her face to mine, and pressed my lips to hers. Hard. I kept my eyes open and stared into a set of bulging-from-shock blue eyes. My tongue quickly slithered into her mouth, making one long and wet lick over hers, and then I pulled away. I shot her one last smile, accompanied by a wink, and continued walking toward the entrance.

  Stone groaned, “You really, really take advantage of it, don’t you?” He paused. “You can’t just use women like that.”

  Stopping midstride, I faced him. “Use? Use? You think that was using a woman? You’re crazy.” I spun around, ripping my glasses from my face and searching for the girl I’d just kissed.

  I found her, still fanning herself and surrounded by ogling girls. “Hey, princess?” I shouted, and the girls immediately jerked their heads around to stare at me. “Did that make you angry? Did you feel like I just used you then?”

  Her head popped out from around the group, a perma-smile stuck to her face as she yelled back, “No! That was simply amazing. Thank you!”

  Waving, I said, “I can’t help it. I love beautiful women.”

  With that, several screams rose from the pack.

  I turned back to Stone and shrugged. “See. You sure have turned into an emotional pussy.”

  Stone grumbled. “I’m not talking about her, dipshit. I’m talking about River. What the hell are you guys, anyway? One day you’re dating, one day you’re not. Then she wants to marry you, then she wants to murder you. Why do you guys even bother with each other?”

  Stone’s constant badgering annoyed the piss out of me. He was too damn mature for his age, too nosy, and he acted like he had a huge stick shoved up his ass sometimes. He was too serious. River was a bitch. He hated her. Why did he even care how I treated her?

  Shrugging, I said, “Don’t know. We’re not really anything besides headlines, I don’t guess, now are we? We’re both just good at fucking and like to do it.”

  I had only been infatuated with River. I knew she loved me – as much as a spoiled, self-absorbed, fame-seeking, immature woman could – but I didn’t love her. I couldn’t love anyone. I didn’t want to. I didn’t need to.

  In the beginning, for those first six months I was with her, I’d thought that maybe, one day, if I let my guard down, I could maybe learn to love her – but like I said, fame changes everyone. I quickly became too self-consumed, too numb to let myself feel enough to say I “loved” anyone. And the more I thought about it, I wanted to blame Stephanie for just up and leaving me like she had, especially now that I knew she was pregnant when she left. If I really wanted to, I could blame every horrible decision of my life on her. If she’d have stayed with me, I would’ve been forced to grow up. I would’ve never snorted that first fucking line, never would have started screwing random chicks for the hell of it. I wanted someone to blame it all on; I’d been looking for a scapegoat, and I finally, finally, had someone I could pretend was the root of all the shit in my life.

  “Jag.” Stone’s voice shattered the memory I’d lost myself in. “Man. You blanked out there for a minute. She get to you that bad? I was just giving you hell. You know I think she’s a bitch.”

  “Huh?” The bustle of the crowd and the humming of the tires on the street came back to me.

  “River. You kinda just checked out after I got on you about her.” Stone stepped up to the bouncer at the entrance of the club.

  I pulled my hand from my pocket and flattened the material to make sure the baggie wasn’t poking out. “Nah.” I chuckled. “Nah, man. Rock gods don’t let women get to ’em.”

  I lowered my tinted glasses down at the bouncer.

  The man uncrossed his steroid-derived arms and, barely glancing at me, said, “I know who you are. Go on in.”

  And with that, we stepped into the dark club. The loud music vibrated through my entire body, the bass rattling my lungs. Green and red lights broke out in flickering rays across the room and scattered in all directions. The club was packed with a sea of blondes, with a few brunettes sprinkled in the mix. I followed Stone up to the VIP area, passing several nearly naked girls on the stairs as we made our way up.

  A guy that looked too scraggly to be a bouncer unhooked the red rope and, without question, let us through.

  “About damn time,” Rush said as he tipped back a shot glass of whiskey or bourbon or tequila, some sort of dark liquor.

  Glancing over at the couch, I saw Rush’s cousin, Isaac, who’d flown in from Savannah to visit. “Hey, man. Long time since I’ve seen your ugly-ass face,” I shouted over the music.

  Isaac stood up and we smacked each other on the back, giving each other one of those acceptable man hugs. I pushed the hair out of my face and grinned. “Ready to live it up? Party? Girls? You know, the whole ‘drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll’ thing?”

  Isaac smirked and thumbed his fingers over his spiky blond hair. “Yeah! Are you kidding? This is incredible.” He held his hands up and waved around the
VIP area, pointing as the bouncer let in six gorgeous and extremely drunk socialite chicks. Isaac shook his head, the devious grin on his face tightening. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Just like that. And unto you on this day is delivered beautiful women who want to offer their tight little bodies up to you! Women just sacrifice their pussies to you assholes? Just like this?”

  A scantily clad waitress brought a tray decorated with several rounds of shots over to our couch. I grabbed two, dumped the contents into my mouth, leaned my head back, and gulped both shots down. “Oh, we’re gonna show you one hell of a time, Zac.”

  Stone took one of the tumblers in his hand and raised it up. “To old friends and good times.”

  We all picked up a glass and toasted along with him.

  Stone’s lips curled up and he laughed. “To never-ending pussy and fame.”

  “Yeah! That’s the Stone I love,” Rush shouted, whacking him on the back of the head.

  Pax shoved his glass into the middle of the group. “To Pandemic Sorrow.”

  Letting out wild yells, we took the shots and slammed the glasses back down in the middle of the table.

  The head socialite waltzed her way over to me. She flipped her brown hair behind her bare shoulder and let her eyes wander from my face to my crotch. “I’m a huge fan. Like, huge.”

  “Really?” I asked and trailed my fingertip over her collarbone. “How big of a fan, princess?”

  Her thick, fake eyelashes fluttered as she inched her lips toward my ear. Lightly licking my lobe, she moaned, “A really, really big fan.”

  Her plump lips made their way down my neck, and I looked over the top of her head at the guys. Each of the girls had picked one of the guys. Even Isaac had one groping all over him. After a few minutes of heavy kissing, I grabbed the girl by the hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on,” I said, and nodded to the stairs.

  She followed without hesitation, asking, “Where are we going?”

  I hopped over the rope. “Now, does it really matter where you’re going if you’re with me?”

  We made our way down the stairs and snaked through the mob of sweat-soaked partygoers. I found a narrow hallway and went down it, pulling the girl, whose name I still hadn’t gotten, behind me.

  I flattened my palm against the door, shot a mischievous grin at her, and pushed it open.

  The girl paused, jerking back on my hand. “I’m not going in there!”

  I propped the door open and grabbed the back of her head to pull her lips to mine. My tongue forced its way inside her warm mouth, pressing against its roof, running along the inside of her cheeks, behind her teeth and rolling around her tongue. Kissing is like a weapon, it’s venom that can paralyze most girls’ morals just long enough to make them give in. When I felt her body relax, I pulled away and backed into the restroom. “Come on, princess. I promise it won’t take but a minute…unless you want seconds.”

  Her glossed lips turned up into a tight-lipped smile, and she trotted into the restroom after me, following me into one of the stalls.

  Fifteen minutes later I kicked the stall open, zipping my fly as I made my way to the sinks. I looked in the mirror and caught the reflection of her pressed against the stall, her hair disheveled, her foot still on the toilet seat, and her face covered in a sex-flush. It was hard to harness the prideful grin that threatened to wash over my face. Conquistador. Every time, I felt like an emperor conquering a new territory. I looked at my reflection and ran my hand over the wrinkles in my shirt and pants. I felt the lump in my pocket and, without thought, pulled the bag out. It crinkled as I unrolled the top to pinch a small amount of coke from it. Raising my powder-covered fingertip up to my nose, I closed one nostril with a finger and sniffed the drug back.

  The girl’s heels echoed across the floor, and I turned to face her. She tugged the bottom of her skin-tight dress down as she stared at the floor, refusing to make eye contact with me. There was the look of shame. After their carnal urges had been satisfied and they could think clearly once again, the realization that they had just let a guy who’d fucked an endless list of girls just like them set in. When that happened they usually had a moment of regret wash over them. I guess realizing that fucking me really wasn’t going to get them anything aside from one hell of an orgasm was a bit of a letdown.

  “Oh. Now, don’t tell me you regret that? I mean, hell, I used a condom.” I bent my head down and looked up under her bowed head. “Nothing to be ashamed of, princess,” I said, as I pushed her chin up. “That was a beautiful thing we did there. It was art. It’s good to give in to those kind of animalistic urges every once in a while. Orgasms like that are good for your health.”

  A small bow shaped over her lips and she let out a sigh. She walked toward the door and I called out, “Maybe we’ll run into one another again. Who knows?” She pushed her way through the door, the music growing louder when the thick wood opened, and she disappeared into the gyrating room.

  I stared at the door as it swung closed. For a second, the guilt of what a prick I had turned into reared its disgusting head. And like it had a mind of its own, my hand frantically reached back down into the bag. I gathered another small hit on my fingertip and crammed it up my nose, then rolled the bag back up and hid it in my pocket before walking out into the bar.

  I started back to the stairs, and as I was passing the bar I caught a glimpse of one of the bartenders. Her hair was black with a thick, chunky pink stripe cascading down it. If this isn’t fate…

  I turned on the heel of my boot and headed directly toward the sleek glass bar. Wedging myself in between several people, I shouted, “Princess. Hey, little darling!” She was too busy pouring drinks. What was her fucking name? Roxy! The fact that I’d somehow remembered her name was unbelievable. I never remembered anyone’s name.

  I cupped my hands around my mouth and belted out the chorus to “Roxanne.” She immediately spun around, a bottle of top-shelf vodka gripped in one hand and the hose to the soda fountain in the other. Scanning the crowd, her eyes rested on me, and then widened before abruptly narrowing into a scowl. She turned back around and finished mixing the drink. By now, people around the bar had realized who I was and were beginning to swarm around me. Their jibber-jabber grew louder as they passed along that Jag Steele, obviously high as hell, was singing some Sting song at the front of the bar. Roxy stomped over to a customer and slammed his drink down in front of him. She glared at me as I trudged through the crowd. I stopped in front of her, and only the bar separated us.

  “Well. Nice to see you again. Enjoy the show the other night?” I asked as I leaned over the bar, putting my face directly in front of hers, catching a whiff of her cinnamon gum when she huffed out a breath of utter contempt.

  Her eyes flamed, and she glanced around me before rolling her eyes at the disturbance I had caused. “No. I told you, your music sucks!” She yanked up a glass rack from under the bar and dropped it on the counter. The glasses shook against the crate and drops of dishwater flew up, splashing me on the face.

  A grin flickered across my lips. “Are you gonna take my order or what?”

  Her eyes closed again, this time fluttering from the anger she was forcing back inside her. “Well, we only serve alcohol here, so if you want your usual suicidal cocktail of cocaine and ecstasy laced with a little bit of embalming fluid, you’ll have to go talk to the crackhead over off Ventura.”

  My smile deepened and I chuckled snidely. “Nasty. Looks like somebody needs to get laid to take the edge off her attitude.”

  She shot a sharp glare at me and crossed her arms. I bet if I could’ve seen her foot from under the bar it would have been tapping the floor.

  “If that was an offer from you,” she glanced up and down my body, a look of complete repulsion snarling across her face, “I think I’d rather fuck a goat.”

  “Ohhhh.” I leaned back and raised my arm in the air, pointing at her. “She’s into bestiality. That’s illegal here, you know?”

&nbs
p; Laughter broke out from the people standing around gawking at the cheap form of entertainment I was providing.

  “What do you want?” she grumbled.

  Tapping my forefinger across my chin and staring up in thought, I said, “Hmmm. How about a buttery nipple, a blow job, and two bald pussies?” Her nostrils flared, and I tossed my hands innocently in the air. “What? Those are the names of shots, aren’t they? That’s what I want. Go ahead and mix those up for me, would you, princess?” I winked at her and gave her a classic one-sided grin.

  Roxy snatched a stainless steel mixer and turned to grab the bottles of liquor.

  Leaning over the counter, I shouted, “And what about a black-headed slut with a pink stripe? Is that a shot? Because I really think I’d enjoy putting that in my mouth.”

  I watched her tense up just before she slammed the glass down. Her fingers wrapped around the neck of a liquor bottle and shook. Another bartender came up to her, resting her hand on Roxy’s shoulder. I couldn’t hear her, but I could read her lips as she said, “That’s Jag Steele. You know that, right?” Immediately after that, Roxy let out a frustrated yell.

  When she turned around, she had the fakest smile I had ever seen plastered on a woman’s face. Balancing a tray on her flattened palm, she set the shots down, one by one, in front of me. The tone in her voice was mockingly sweet. “Here’s your buttery nipple.” SLAM. “Here’s your blow job.” CLANK. “Two bald pussies.” THUD. She glanced up at me, batting her eyelashes as she cocked her head to the side, that pink chunk of hair sweeping in front of her face. “And this one,” she set it down and twisted it around, “this one I made especially for you, Mr. Jag Steele, and it’s called not a fucking chance.” She jerked her lips up, tossed the tray to the side, and stormed off behind the bar.

  The fact that this girl hated me, the fact that she wasn’t starstruck and had the balls to cuss me out made my dick hard as hell.

  Chapter 16

  The next morning we were on the road; we had concerts scheduled damn near every night for the next month. Then we had a two-and-a-half week break, just to go out for another month after that. By the time I got back to LA, I was exhausted. I never really slept when we were on tour, just stayed dehydrated and hopped up on drugs. The features of all the girls I’d screwed pretty much blurred together: two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and a pussy. I just wanted to unwind, pop a few sleeping pills and stay knocked out for two days straight.