Whatever the Impulse

by Tina Amiri

  Colby suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Uh, hey Brandt. Sure you guys don’t want to come with us? You look a little stressed, Morgen. Maybe what you need, instead of laying low tonight, is to get yourself utterly and intolerably stoned.”

  Night nodded feverishly. He had to get out of his own head, and for once, not settle for anything short of the drummer’s suggestion. “Help me get there, Colby, because, right now…I really need to know what that feels like.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Two days later, the tour landed in Wisconsin, and Brandt plunged into the sunshine through the lobby doors of his Milwaukee hotel. He inhaled the fresh air, enjoying the freedom of not being a core member of Morning’s Desire. The band would be stuck in interviews all morning and, beyond that, would never really shake security. He, on the other hand, could mosey down to any local coffee shop without being recognized.

  He veered off the main road to cut through an alley between two high buildings when something bashed him over the head. He wanted to blame a piece of concrete for falling off one of the old buildings, but he already sensed the human culprit.

  Someone ripped a dark cover over his head and kicked him in his stomach. Before he could stand up by himself, arms doubled across his neck and yanked him into an even narrower side-alley, on his right. He realized there were two attackers when a second perpetrator kneed him in the stomach while the first still held him up from behind. Except for his own cough, he didn’t hear another man’s voice until he rammed his elbow into the rack of lower ribs behind him.

  The injured party shoved him forward, tripping him into the trajectory of the second assailant who could be heard scraping a metal object off the pavement. The anticipated blow fell across his shoulders and made him crumble, while a steel-toed boot kicked him in the groin, paralyzing him throughout a spectacular show of colors.

  Brandt clawed the bag off his head to the thumping of two sets of fleeing footsteps. His eyes uncrossed, but his assailants had already vanished onto the main street. Against all instincts, he took his time in standing up, but he realized it would be a few minutes before he could walk, let alone run.

  The attack was unexpected enough, but the biggest surprise came when he felt his back pockets and confirmed that they hadn’t even bothered to steal his wallet.

  ****

  Andrew glanced at his watch. His plane was scheduled to land at Portland International in less than ten minutes. He could have waited for the tour to bring Night back to Oregon, before making any kind of move, but by venturing to Illinois, he’d managed to identify another major foe in the ever-expanding chronicles of Night.

  Before this trip, he’d never given the band’s entourage much thought, but after having met Brandt, and verifying he was the group’s key image consultant, and Night’s personal stylist, he was glad for the wake-up call. At least he’d delivered one strike against this queer prick who had so pompously, with his housecoat gaping at the chest, guarded Night from the man who had raised and owned him first.

  Andrew tried not to think about how many others deserved to have thugs-for-hire stuck on their trail. He cringed at his surreal nightmare of the multitudes of Aileens, Daphnes—and now Brandts—in Night’s daily experience, and tried to see the additional trip to Milwaukee, and the shady business he’d conducted there on a downtown strip, as time and money well spent.

  ****

  When Night decided to visit Brandt, in the afternoon, he walked in on a scene disconcertingly reminiscent of Sandy’s homecoming, after his grocery store incident. Brandt didn’t have the colors of violence all over his face, but his limp and his reaction to the incident made it comparable.

  “Morgen…don’t worry about it. I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m probably going to live,” he added, sounding more than a little bit like Sandy. “Don’t you think it would be pretty cheap of me to take attention away from the tour’s success when I’m going to be just dandy in a few days. Look…I’m fine right now…perhaps a little sore in places, but I’ll live!”

  “Who would do this to you?”

  Brandt waved him off and hobbled toward the washroom. “I could think of a couple people, but not any in Wisconsin. I’ll see you before the show tonight. Don’t even think about this. I’ll be fine.”

  ****

  “You’re definitely different, Morgen, but I think I’m beginning to like the changes,” Doris broadcasted backstage as she skipped toward Night.

  “Since when?”

  “Since I heard about what you said in the dressing room. I didn’t know you were so sensitive about certain things. But maybe you’re right about what you suggested to me—that we should both go with other people for a while. I think that when we’re both all screwed up and screwed out, we’ll come looking for one another. You think I haven’t noticed that your groupies are starting to bore you. You’re not lost out there. You’re still right here, attached to me, and the rest of the home crowd.”

  He felt she was right, in a way. He could hear his fans in the arena and he couldn’t deny they excited him—on the whole—but individually, not so much. The few exceptions consisted of people who he could never see again or who refused to have him. This thought led him straight to Morgen.

  His brother’s life mission had been to get to this moment—either himself or through the only other person who could. Often, Night hoped he’d get a message in his sleep that would assure him that his brother was satisfied. Tears threatened Brandt’s make-up job again. Life without Morgen wouldn’t have been his choice, but without that choice, it was time to fully accept all he’d earned.

  “Are you okay, Morgen?”

  He clutched Doris to his ragged costume and kissed her—until he’d surpassed his efforts with anyone so far. Doris looked puzzled when he backed away.

  “Wow. I really didn’t expect you back so soon.”

  Night’s hand slipped from her arm as he heard his cue. “I’ve decided…you should be mine.”

  She laughed, despite his seriousness. “I always have been, you asshole.”

  Night turned his head and saw Brandt in the sidelines staring back at him. For once, the make-up artist didn’t bother to do a single last-minute touch-up, leaving Night to freely ascend to the platform.

  In this non-tiger performance, the star alone wore the black and white stripes. They stood out plainly on the tatters Brandt called a top, but on his loose-legged black pants, the stripes had to catch the light to be visible. For the first time since the start of the tour, his earlobes showed plainly beneath freshly cut and teased layers of platinum hair, revealing all three earrings on either side: one hoop and five studs, in total. He had to agree with Brandt. The times, as well as his profession, did allow for a lot of fun…a whole lot of “whatever.”

  Gripping the rope and crouching at the top of the removable staircase, he left the scaffold and spiraled onto the forestage where a microphone waited for him. He poured his best roar into it and then waited for his fan’s screams to dwindle, but after pacing back and forth, several times, he realized this would take a while. It took Aden and Colby’s explosive intro to conquer the crowd.

  Night waited out the beats before he had to fire his own voice into the mix. He grabbed his guitar from a crewmember in the sidelines and positioned it while he absorbed the sights from the stage. He stared into the thousands of open-mouthed faces and beheld the scene completely without sound as he tried to imagine it being his very last show. It was a heart-wrenching thought—that Morgen’s survival would have condemned him to a kind of death—and it hit him. He wasn’t doing any of it for his brother anymore. In essence, it was Morgen who had done this for him.

  “I love you!” he called out as the sound returned to ears. “If my other side can hear me now…thank you!”

  What he could hear, loud and clear, was many of his fans answering that they loved him too, just before he drowned them all out with the cry that opened his song.

  After the concert, it seemed
everyone in the audience had a backstage pass, and the rest of the band didn’t appear to be in any great hurry to leave. This set the tone for the next couple of days, especially in light of one prestigious party invitation.

  ****

  Night realized he hadn’t made much of an effort to speak to any member of Morgen’s household since he’d started the tour. He still faltered when it came to remembering his responsibilities to Morgen’s family, which were quite different from the ones he’d always had to Morgen.

  His call to the house was received by the temporary housekeeper, Helen, who gushed for over a minute about how much her nieces loved the poster she’d begged him to sign for them. He planned to talk to Morgen’s parents if they were home, but he asked for Beth first.

  After the initial thrill of his phone call subsided, Beth approached a topic that neither of them wanted to touch. “Have you heard from…you know…?”

  He understood that she didn’t want to say Morgen’s name on the chance that some unscrupulous source could be listening or recording the call. His heart plunged at the thought of telling her about Steve’s call…and he also didn’t want to make it real. “It would be very hard to reach me,” he half lied.

  “Yeah, maybe he did try. Well, guess what…” Beth perked up on the wave of denial he sent her way. “It looks like Dad’s going to win the election. For a while, it was close against that Malcarek guy, but people are talking like it’s already a done deal that Dad’s going to win…even after the tabloid scandal…imagine that,” she remarked. “Well, Dad’s not here, but let me go get Mum. She’s been dying for a phone call from you. Hang on…”

  Two minutes later, Brigitte’s voice came through the line. “Morgen, we miss you around here. Beth makes sure we see all the coverage from your tour and I think your father can only dream of that kind of popularity. And let me tell you, your success hasn’t hurt Beth’s popularity either. I don’t know how you even managed to call home with so many people fighting for your attention. I hope we’ll still get to see the old Morgen when you come back.”

  Now that he’d opened up to integrating the old Morgen, he thought it might be a possibility.

  ****

  “Brandt!” Night shouted over the chatter on the TV, after bursting into his friend’s suite. “I want you to do my makeup, right now.”

  Lying on the couch, Brandt pivoted slightly toward him. “Why? You starting to feel naked without it, even offstage?”

  “I mean the makeup on my body.”

  “Oh? Is that foreplay to getting naughty with me, like the last time, because I have to say, my balls and their friend are still killing me since the Milwaukie incident—?”

  “Brandt, I want to do it with somebody else. I’m going to that party, and first, I would like you to do my makeup.”

  Brandt glared at the television, but then he stood up and wobbled over to the bar. “No,” he replied, without turning his head.

  Night stomped further into the room. “No? What do you mean ‘no’?”

  “It’s not my job to do your pre-sex makeup, Morgen. At least, I didn’t see it in the contract.”

  Night’s face flushed and his whole body tensed. “That’s not fair. I can’t do it myself, and you’re the only one who can.”

  “Aw, that’s right.”

  “Brandt! You always help me. Why won’t you help me now?”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Morgen, you’re not an idiot. Figure it out yourself and then go screw whoever you want—and best of luck to you—but I’m not your goddamn servant.”

  “Brandt? …Brandt!”

  But Brandt wouldn’t look at him as he poured himself a drink.

  “It’s your job to look after my image, but if you don’t care, why should I?” Night waited for a response that didn’t appear forthcoming. “Okay, fine! Well, fuck you, Brandt…fuck you!” He ran into the hallway and slammed the door behind him, so hard, it sent yet another hotel room picture crashing to the floor.

  ****

  In spite of everything, Brandt snickered at how Night reminded him of a small child trying to mimic an adult, every so often spewing out an inappropriate phrase that he’d picked up somewhere. But after a few seconds, Brandt’s grin fell and he tossed his rye and coke into the sink; then, with his arms folded, he returned to the couch and continued to glare at the television.

  ****

  The music turned up and the lights dimmed, inside the grand house. Different from the other parties he’d attended, this one catered mainly to personnel of every corner of the music industry, from other bands, to their executives and crew, to bar managers and friends.

  Night soon realized he was being tested again, this time by Aden, who kept pushing shots of vodka across the table. His bass player held his stare, threatening to detect the slightest hiccup in his composure.

  “You caving already, Morgen?” Aden took another shot himself. “Once again, Sean Durges redeems himself. God rest his soul.”

  Night shrugged and faced Colby, a bit uncomfortable with the subject of Sean. “I’m glad you’re here, Colby. You’re a better drummer than he was and he deserved to be killed.”

  “Shit, Morgen… I hope the rest of us never let you down or get on your bad side.”

  Aden raised his glass to Colby’s words while Night downed another shot.

  “I think someone is waiting for you to notice them,” Colby announced before Night finished his gulp.

  A girl with a crimped ponytail and gold tassel earrings leaned in between them with her eyes on the tiger.

  “I wanted to bring you a drink, but it looks like you don’t really need one.” She stepped back and flicked her head, beckoning him to follow her, which he did.

  She led him up an impressive staircase, into a bedroom that turned out to be her own. She turned on the lights, then dimmed them, slightly.

  Night adjusted the same dial until the interior of the room resembled his name.

  “Not that low,” she protested. “I want to see you—”

  “No… This is how I want it.” It really wasn’t, but with Brandt having refused to do his body make-up, he thought he’d exercise his status and show some command.

  “Radical, but I’m game.” She pushed him backward, onto her black islet bedspread. “Why don’t you tell me more about how you want it?”

  Her body slinked over him, led by her lips that seemed hungry for his mouth. She tasted the inside of it, stirring the malty remnants of his drink with her tongue, and when she’d had enough, her teeth found his left ear. She plucked one of the tiny silver studs from the back of his earlobes, and with the same efficiency, she drew out the stem with its minuscule diamond.

  “May I keep it…as a souvenir?” She obviously sensed his nod against her cheek because she continued, happy. “Now it’s your turn to call the sport. What is ‘morning’s desire’ exactly?”

  “It’s this…” Night ran his open mouth, sometimes with teeth, down her neck to her gaping cleavage. His hands explored and eventually tightened over the mounds beneath her gold sequin bodice. This action brought him into a sitting position as he gradually pulled his knees back.

  She tugged off his slippery black top and tossed it off the bed. “I’m Sherri,” she stated, once they were eye-to-eye. “My dad built the arena that you guys played in yesterday. And I know who you are, so I think we’re ready to rock.” She nipped at his face, all the while fumbling to drag her elasticized top over her head. This left her dressed in only a gold link belt atop a black suede miniskirt.

  For a moment, Night secretly implored the ceiling lamp to glow a bit brighter so he could visually inhale the deep pink buds on the girl’s small round breasts, but Sherri was clearly jammed on fast-forward because she pressed him back immediately. Her next game involved using only her mouth to open the silver clips on his belt, as well as the button fly beneath it, which put him within an inch of finishing when he wasn’t yet willing.

  “Here’s the best part of my tiger impr
ession,” she cooed, clutching his pants and ripping them clear below his knees, and then off with the help of some frenzied kicking from her prey. She mounted him and, to his surprise, she helped him slip right through a slit in the lacy material of her thong.

  He’d thought the same thing on other occasions but, once again, this feeling transcended anything he’d experienced so far. It was a sensation he’d often imagined. It had been whispered to him through every similar encounter but had never been fully realized.

  He pumped and she stirred and, for a time, he became lost in pseudo-realism—further away than any drug had ever taken him. It had been enjoyable enough, to be taken into somebody’s mouth, but it didn’t compare to the warmth and tightness of here…

  He didn’t care or acknowledge when two guests walked in, ended a brief conversation with one another and walked out again. Sherri’s counter thrusts consumed him both physically and mentally and he sent a cry into her rhythm of hard breaths, just as somebody walked right up to the bed.

  “Oh my God… The queen bee,” Sherri blurted, panting and winding down.

  Night’s tipped his face to the side to see Doris’s silhouette beside him.

  “Wow. Doris DeCara… I so respect you,” Sherri continued, still perched on top of Night and topless except for her jewelry. “I’ve been trying forever, but I’ll never be able to play the keyboard like you.”

  “Thanks,” Doris replied, deadpan.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Here…” Sherri scrambled off him.

  Night slowly sat up, rubbing his face as he dropped his legs off the edge of the bed.

  While Sherri looked for her sequined top, Doris focused on Night and laughed, frankly. “You know…I could help you out of that state, if you’ll let me.”

  Night looked up as his black top bounced off his face.

  “I thought you couldn’t wait to get back with me,” Doris stated.