Rock Revenge: Alex's Story

She sobbed again but nodded, without raising her head. It was better to spell it out now than to let things continue. I waited for her to speak. She didn’t look at me though.

“You can go,” she said.

I got up, relieved to have things out in the open.

I wanted to go upstairs, to see Dee again but, when I got there, they’d all gone to a house party. They hadn’t even told me they were leaving.

Dee

“Is he as good as he thinks he is?” Ferdie asked. We were waiting for Alex to come on stage.

I had to admit that he was. For all Alex’s ego, he had the talent to back it up. I was surprised that he hadn’t gone further with his band. Other than playing at Trouble, he didn’t seem to do much.

Jake had always said Alex was the driving force in their band, the one who wanted the rock glory. He’d sent out demos from the time they first started and he pestered people until they got publicity and attention. It seemed though that Alex hadn’t progressed much beyond that. But what did I know? He might have all kinds of deals going on behind the scenes.

Ever since we’d played, I’d been buzzing. Everything with the band seemed charmed. The music kept getting better, my song was almost ready to be played. The day after the gig, I’d been walking down the street and some girls had recognised me from the band. That had been weird. Hell, if that kind of thing kept up, I’d have an ego as big as Alex’s.

The band room was jam-packed when we got there. We pushed our way to the bar and got drinks. Pete was too busy working to even say hello.

“Near the sound desk, that’s the best spot,” said Ferdie.

Since I was happy to stay low key, I followed him. I nodded to Hamish, the sound engineer. He’d seemed like a really nice guy when we’d been sound checking. Then I settled back and waited. The band on stage were just finishing. They were a bunch of five chicks. I wondered if I should introduce myself to them. I knew pretty much no female musos and we had to stick together in this world.

Last time I’d watched Alex play, there hadn’t been the same buzz of tension in the air. Maybe I’d been too focused on my own shit to notice it or maybe it’d been a more casual night. Now, I couldn’t help but get into the mood of it.

Carlie and Holden saw us and pushed through the crowd.

“Hey, how’s it going?” she asked. “God, I hate myself for loving this guy so much.”

I glanced at Holden, wondering how he’d take that.

“Not Holden, I mean Alex. When he gets on stage, you forget what a bag of dicks he is and how hard he is to work for and all that ‘stop giving people free drinks’ lecturing. He’s just hot sex on legs when he’s up there. It’s those damn leather pants, I swear to God. Makes you just want to lick him to see what he tastes like.”

Again, I glanced at Holden. Surely he’d be angry, but he just laughed.

“He’s nothing. Wait until you see me in my full glory, babes. You’ll be dripping wet at my feet.”

“Already am, babes.”

Ew. That was too much about their relationship for me to know. Still, Carlie was a funny chick. We’d gone out drinking the other night and she’d told me some hilarious stories about Alex. They had such a love/hate relationship. It was hard when she asked me about him though. I didn’t want to say too much. I’d once thought about blackening his name by letting the world know what he’d done but, when it came to the crunch, I couldn’t profit from my pain like that.

Ferdie ran to the bar for another round of drinks before the band started. He’d just got back in time. The lights darkened. Everything went quiet, then Alex appeared.

As he went into the first song, I began to understand what Carlie meant about those leather pants. Even when he wore them usually, it didn’t have the same effect but up there, in the lights and with all the hip-thrusting guitar moves, oh boy, was I in trouble. Well, literally in Trouble but figuratively too.

I clenched my legs together. My panties would NOT be getting wet over him. Not now. Not ever. I wasn’t sixteen-years-old anymore. He couldn’t do that to me.

Sweet Jesus, though. My teenage fantasies came flooding back, every dirty thought of the things I wanted Alex to do to my body. Surges of heat rushed through me as I watched his fingers move on the frets. Alex became someone else on that stage. His body moved with an aggressive grace. Charged like an electrical storm.