Authors: Lyra Byrnes
Austin’s fabled Peach Orchard Grand Hotel seemed to be in
decent shape considering the rowdiest band in rock was occupying its penthouse
floor. No shattered windows, no television sets in pieces on the pavement. Perhaps
they were still asleep, Josie mused. It was only three in the afternoon.
She had left a note for her roommate Melanie with specific
plant-watering instructions, transferred money from her savings account,
written out and sent the next month’s bills, bought a charger and hit the road,
frantically going over her checklist and hoping she hadn’t forgotten anything.
Toothpaste? Spare glasses? Batteries for the tape recorder? Aspirin? Condoms?
No, no condoms. She was here to work.
Two weeks on the road! She would need clothes along the
way—god knows what traveling with the band on a smelly, beer-soaked bus would
do even to her sturdy journalist’s wardrobe of jeans, T-shirts and boots. As it
was, Josie was feeling smelly and stale, exhausted from ten hours of driving, a
short night’s sleep and ten hours more, powering through the desert as fast as
she could, Domination on the soundtrack. She had to give the band grudging
respect for keeping her awake. The music might not have been pretty but it had
power, propulsion and a kind of ferocious excitement.
And then there was Bram’s voice, an impossibly alluring mix
of menace and seduction. It could bludgeon like a weapon or stroke the listener
with velvet, and when he let loose a scream his anguish was almost palpable.
All metal sounded alike to her but it was clear Bram controlled the mood of the
music, its building tension and explosive release, whipping up more than enthusiasm
from the listener, something like sympathy, even desire.
She thought about that whip as she entered the chilly lobby.
Was it upstairs now, coiled in a suitcase? Or was it lashing down on the
shoulders of some groupie, the taste of his come still in her mouth?
Stop it,
she told herself.
When did you become such a slut, Josie Arrington?
“Josie Arrington?”
She snapped into focus. No, this wasn’t Bram reading her
mind. It was a sharp-featured man in early middle age, holding out his hand to
shake. She took it. Only an Englishman would wear a three-piece suit in a Texas
July.
“Buckingham Croft. You’re in Penthouse B.” He looked past
her and nodded slightly to someone in the distance. A bellhop scurried over. “Is
that your only bag?”
“Yes,” she answered, almost finishing with “sir”.
“If it is not sufficient, let me know. We will provide for
all your needs for the duration of the tour. Bram has requested to see you.
Penthouse A.” He handed her a keycard and was gone before she could respond.
He was again wearing nothing but the tight leather pants.
This time Bram didn’t hang in the doorway but walked back inside the luxurious
sitting room, Josie following. Peripherally she could see the room was a
veritable Oriental love palace, rich in gold, red and black, with ornately
worked rugs and sumptuous wall hangings. But it was hard to take in the
furniture when she was busy ogling Bram from behind. It wasn’t the first time
she’d gotten a look at his perfect butt—there were plenty of pictures of it
around the Internet, most with slavering comments—but it was damn sure the
closest look.
“I don’t have my tape recorder,” she announced.
Bram sank into a leather club chair, his arms spread over
the back. “Hi,” he said simply.
“Yeah, hello.”
“It’s good to see you again, the only girl to ever get an
interview with Bram Hunter.”
“The only
person
.”
“Feisty little minx. What made you show up at my door like
that? No one is supposed to know where my dressing room is.”
“It was a mistake,” she admitted. “I was supposed to talk to
your bassist, Jet, but I was running late and got the wrong door.”
“Don’t mean to blow my own horn, lassie, but I’m the lead
singer. Easy to pick out of a crowd, especially a crowd of four.”
She blushed. “I missed the show.”
“Terrible manners. If you were what I thought you were, I’d
so enjoy punishing you for that.”
“You mean a whore?”
Bram unleashed his half-smirk again, an incredibly potent
weapon. When he smiled, sardonic but amused, Josie felt as if he had never
looked at anyone else. “Not a whore, just a sort of…specialized fan. Bucky
chooses them. He’s very astute, for a heartless automaton.”
“Do they all get on their knees for you?”
“You did,” he pointed out. Yes she had and that had been a
professional low point for sure.
Bram’s piercing blue eyes narrowed. “You’re new to
Domination, aren’t you?”
Josie gulped before realizing he meant the name of the band.
“Metal isn’t normally my thing.”
“Too bad. Metal is magic—it has all kinds of properties,
soft as gold or hard as iron, cold as steel or hot as molten lead. You just
have to know how to wield it to get the desired result.”
She had no idea what he was talking about but he had a
poetic turn of phrase and his black-honey voice was hypnotic.
“If we’re going to do an interview I’ll need a notebook and
pen at least.”
He shook his head slowly. “We are not. Here are the rules.
You do your job, tell the world all Dom’s dirty little secrets, how Kraxis
farts in his sleep and how Jet can’t hold his liquor, what a colossal shit
Varian can be. The noise we make, the fights we have, the girls who come and
go. But Bram Hunter’s off-limits, yeah? Everything I say to you is between us.”
That was the damnedest thing she had ever heard. “Then why
am I here?”
“I’m not fond of journos, Josie. There’s a reason I play
close to the vest. You got more out of me than a hundred seasoned men, and
believe me, they’ve all tried. Let’s just say I wanted to keep you close.”
And your enemies closer,
she thought. They had talked
only about music in that first interview, nothing revealing, but he didn’t
trust her.
“You’re still a mystery.”
His smile was wolfish. “And who doesn’t love a mystery? See
you after the show tonight. This time try to bother showing up.”
If listening to Domination in her air-conditioned rental car
was a powerful experience, seeing the band live was like being strapped to the
outside hull of a space rocket. Bucky had planted her not backstage but in
house seats, amid the electric frenzy of the crowd.
Bram owned every inch of the stage and manipulated the
audience like a magician. He stalked like a jungle cat but he could evoke
screams of desire just by standing still for an extra beat. Every nod, every
smile, every glower brought a fresh gout of screams. The guys banged their
heads and shouted along with the lyrics, but the girls… The girls were almost
universally pretty, young and shiny, all makeup, tiny belly-baring shirts and
streaming hair. And they clearly all wanted only one thing—Bram Hunter on top
of them. He handed the mike to a girl in the front row during
Soulcrush
and she shouted the chorus, caressing the mike with unmistakable intention.
When Bram whipped his shirt off after the third number, a blonde in front of
Josie turned to her friend and yelled, “I just came in my pants!”
After the show Josie made her way to the bus, which, she found
after circling the entire hotel, was parked in front of a garbage-smelly alley.
A handful of groupies had found it anyway and lingered on the sidewalk, pouting
and trying to see into the darkened windows. They looked so young, most of
them, Josie thought. Sexy and nubile, yes, but like girls dressing up for
Halloween.
If the theme of the Halloween party was Goth Hooker,
she
added.
Bucky, freshly be-suited and wearing the frown that seemed
to be his customary expression, shooed them away to let Josie board. The
groupies moved slowly, like cats disappointed their mouse had gone into its
hole but not giving up too quickly.
She stepped inside, feeling sweaty and worn out. Jet, the
bassist with delicate features and ringlets of brown hair, was already on board,
pouring straight vodka into a plastic cup.
He cast her a wink. “Ah, the little bird, ’ere to chirp all
our secrets to the world. Join me in a drink, love.”
She accepted a glass of vodka with thanks. Surely they had
mixers around somewhere. She spotted a bottle of orange juice wedged between
seats and reached for it.
“I wouldn’t, sunshine. Kraxis pisses in that when he gets
lazy.”
She snatched her fingers away as if they had been burned. “Down
the hatch, then.” They toasted. Jet seemed kind, with eyes as soft and brown as
his hair. “Bram says you can’t hold your liquor.”
“Nor can I. This poison’s coming right up in an hour or two.
But oh, what a time I’ll have first!”
The bus was cramped and dirty, every surface covered in old
plates of food, discarded bottles, ashtrays and stray pieces of paper. She
turned her knees to make room for a roadie wrapping a cable around his elbow. “So
what happens after a show?”
“What are you in for, you mean?”
She grinned. “All right, what am I in for?”
“Decadence and debauchery, madness and mayhem, chords and
chorus girls. Better hang on to the rails.” He drained his cup. “There’s a
party in our suite. I imagine the girls are already there, drinking our liquor
and sniffing our panties. Bucky will keep them in line until the headliners
appear.”
“Groupies?”
“Groups and groups of them, each more ripe than the last, if
you line them up that way.”
She pictured girls like the ones at the show—they were
probably many of the same girls, she realized—licking their lips and making
eyes at Bram, willing to kneel before him, to be punished, to suck his cock and
feel his whip.
“Outta the way, ye mangy scalawags! Hoist the sails and
raise the anchor!”
Huge, hairy Kraxis shoved his way on board, his thick
drummer’s arms like clubs. He swiped the bottle from Jet and glugged half of
it.
“This the reporter?”
“Blogger. I’m Josie.”
“Pretty little thing. Wanna ride in my lap?”
“Leave it, Krax, you hairy fool,” Jet said. “V’s here. Let’s
roll.”
Icy and blond, Varian the guitarist almost touched the bus
ceiling in his long black leather duster. He peered at Josie with distaste. “Thought
I smelled fish.”
What an asshole.
Jet touched Josie lightly on the
arm. “You’ll get used to us.”
* * * * *
Bram had not been on the bus, nor could Josie find him
through the haze of cigarette and pot smoke in the band’s suite. Girls were
everywhere, draped over couches, chairs and each other. They were all giggles
and shiny hair but there was an air of expectancy in the room, as if the
opening act were going on a little too long.
Waiting for Bram, just as she was.
Josie sloshed red wine into a cup and circulated, stepping
over bodies and trying not to be the prig at a party always waving away smoke.
A couple members of the crew were taking advantage of Bram’s absence to nab the
more desperate girls. One was down to her underwear in the lap of a burly
roadie, feeding him maraschino cherries from her mouth. A trio of girls hunched
over a coffee table with Varian, snorting lines of white powder from its glass
surface. The music they’d chosen to blare at deafening volume wasn’t their own
but old-school punk—Black Flag, from the sound of it.
Josie struggled through the crowd out to the balcony, where
Kraxis was pawing the ass of a giggling blonde. She jotted some notes, looking
up to scan the room. Still no Bram.
Jet blundered outside, swaying. “Fuck, I’m wasted already.
Pity, I wanted to go dancing. Hold my hair, darling?”
“Yeah, uh, maybe put that down.”
“No! Mommy’s vodka!” He clutched the bottle to his thin
chest. “It’s not—hic—done with me yet. I’m waiting for that click in my head
that makes me feel peaceful.”
That click in my head.
She knew that quote. It was
from
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
, spoken by tormented hunk Brick, who drinks
himself insensate to hide who he really is. A surprisingly literate line for a
bass player…and a telling one.
“There are no boys here tonight.”
He nodded sadly. “None I don’t have farting in my face on
the bus all day. There never are, boys at the parties, I mean. It would ruin
the illusion. I don’t want realism. I want magic!”
Another Tennessee Williams line. If the whole room didn’t
know Jet was gay they weren’t paying attention. “Okay, Blanche DuBois. Maybe
you’d better lie down.” But he weaved away and melted into the crowd.
A gay member of the band with the biggest reputation for
cocksmanship in all of rock and roll. Would it be indiscreet—or worse,
actionable—to include that in her blog?
She’d seen enough. The party was just atmosphere anyway. She
wouldn’t get any useful information by talking to people and she’d had her fill
of observing. The thing threatened to burst into a full-blown orgy and it was
hard enough to watch two girls crawling over Varian as he lay on the floor,
still in his duster.
She tucked her notebook in her purse and made for the door
but it swung open and there he stood, glowering.
Bram. It seems every door that opens in my face has him
on the other side of it.
“Where have you been?”
“Here. I’m on assignment.”
“I told you I’d see you after the show. Learn to follow orders.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” she retorted.
“Don’t you? Come with me.”
He sat on the couch and nodded to the empty space next to
him. Josie sank onto the velvet.
“Why aren’t you with one of your Bucky specials?”
He ignored this and swigged from the Jack Daniels bottle
then offered it to her.
Drinking JD from the same bottle as Bram Hunter, she
thought. The girls in the next suite would chew their own arms off for the
chance. She took a sip and gagged.
“This isn’t whiskey.”
“Cold peppermint tea. Liquor is bad for the throat.”
“This is what you’re drinking onstage?”
“There’s your headline—
Rock’s Wild Child Eschews Booze,
Sips Tea
. Why didn’t you come tonight?”
“I told you. I’m working. A party like that is gold—so much
atmosphere and detail. It will give the readers a sense of what goes on on a
real international rock tour. I’ll leave out the drugs of course.”
“You are working by being on tour with Domination. With me.
Everything you see, everything you hear, everything you do will be because I
allow it or I request it.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You can’t control my experience!”
“Love, controlling someone’s experience is what I do.”
Bram swaying to the crowd and the crowd swaying back. Bram
whipping off his shirt while a palpable wave of erotic desire swept over the
audience. “I noticed. You had every one of them eating out of your hand. If you’d
told them all to cluck like chickens or stab their mothers, they would have
done it.”
He snorted. “So you liked the show.”
“It was…interesting.”
“It’s a great sense of power, guiding someone through a
journey. Even without drink or drugs you can reach a sort of transcendence.”
“You mean like with those girls? Like you were going to do
with…with me.” The memory hardened her nipples, although with him so close she
could smell mint and leather and the warm salt of his sweat, it didn’t seem
like a memory at all. It felt all too real.
“Yes, Josie, like that. That’s why I wanted to become a rock
star and that’s why I brought you on tour. I saw something in you that ached
for transcendence.”
She stood, suddenly tense. But also excited. What did he
mean by transcendence and more importantly, was that what she was searching
for? No. No, she wanted to work hard, prove herself, get ahead, have a byline
that meant something. Be a good girl, be responsible, pay her bills…
“I need a real drink.” She splashed some wine into a glass
and gulped it down, pacing. “You don’t understand. I had a tidy life. I had a
job I loved, an apartment I could afford, no pets or kids or strings. I worked
like the devil to gain respect in my field. Everything was in place.
Everything!”
Even to her own ears it sounded as if she was talking
herself into something. Or out of it. She refilled the glass, shaking her head.
“This isn’t about you or your band. This is about my life.
Any fool with fingers can blog. I need to be good—I need to be great. This is
my last chance to hang on to the shreds of my life. If I don’t do this right,
the rest will be just…just firebombed.”
“It already was,” he said, watching her through narrowed
eyes, his head tipped back.
She halted in her pacing. “What?”
“It’s already firebombed, yeah? So you don’t even know it
yet but you’re on that strange journey right now, the one that scared you so
much.” He smiled, a real one this time, not the sexy smirk he had given her
before. “And you’re doing fine.”
“Well, I guess. I’m not technically on fire. I haven’t had
my arm trapped by a boulder.”
“There you go. Now that we’re being honest, you can admit
you came back to see me again.”
She put the wineglass down. “In part.”
“‘In part.’ Not good enough but that’s all I’m going to get
from you right now. Curvy brunettes are the mules of the female world. Come
here.”
Josie walked to where he sat. God, he was spectacular.
He took her hands in his. “You’re going places you’ve never
gone. It didn’t start when you came to the hotel. It started with me in a
shabby little dressing room in the City of Angels Arena.”
“I told you, I didn’t come for that.”
“No, but it’s what you left with.”
Stop lying. For once in your life admit the truth to
someone who already knows it. Admit the truth to yourself.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to continue?”
“Yes.” Her voice was spider-web thin, not even a whisper.
“Take that off,” he said, gesturing at her tank top. “Go
slow and maintain eye contact.”
She pushed up the hem of her shirt, lifting her breasts.
Bram was already hard, his bulging erection making the stretched leather shine.
She toyed with her top some more, twisting the fabric and rolling her shoulders
to loosen the straps. Teasing a man was new to her but she liked the feeling.
It was almost as if she was the one with the power. She pulled the top off and
dropped it to the floor, wishing she had big enough boobs for a bra.
“That’s nice,” he breathed. “You’re a natural. Pants.”
He unlaced the leather cords at his crotch while he watched
her slide off the jeans. She stumbled a little trying to toe them over her
boots and leaned down.
“Eye contact. Look at me.”
She took a deep breath. Getting her balance was easy but
maintaining it while wrestling with jeans was trickier. She almost fell over
when Bram’s cock emerged, as thick and hard as a weapon, pointing at her like
an accusation.
Josie took a step toward him.
“Naughty girl.” He smirked, stroking himself. “You know what’s
next.”
Damn. She couldn’t help it. There was something magnetic
about him that literally drew her to him. And being mere inches away from that
cock, well, that was good too.
“Punishment.”
“Later, yes. You’re allowed one lapse and that was it. Come
closer.”
He took her waist in his hands, running them down her legs,
over her ass and up her back. They were firm and warm and Josie’s skin tingled
everywhere he touched her.
“Skin like thick cream, delicious. Do you ever see the sun?”
“Not really.” Melanie called her a vampire because of the
hours she kept and her horror at the thought of her skin freckling.
Mel would kill to be in my place right now. But I can
never tell her about this. Or anyone
.
“Up with me, hands against the wall.”
She climbed onto the couch, sitting straight up with her
knees on either side of his hips. His cock was a tantalizing mere inches away, pointing
angrily at its target.
Bram squeezed both cheeks of her ass and pulled her toward
his face. She could hear him breathe deeply then let out a small moan. He
flicked his tongue experimentally against her clit. The jolt zapped through
her, breaking her hold against the wall.
“Brace yourself, Josie,” he murmured. Again he applied his
tongue to her pussy, rubbing it through every crevice, pausing only to invade
her with a warm, wet probing. Juice ran down her thighs as he nibbled and
licked. She began to squirm.
“Oh fuck. Oh god…”
Bram pulled away. “Not yet. You’re not ready to come.”
But she was, more than ready. Her clit throbbed but he
teased her, moving his tongue to a new fold when her thighs began to vibrate.
She tried to clench up and stop the orgasm that was rolling up inside her,
inexorably as a tidal wave.
“Good girl. You’re learning. It’s time for your punishment.”
He punctuated this with a brutal squeeze on her ass cheek and pushed her off.
“Have you ever been spanked?”
“N-no.”
“High time then. Right, on all fours.”
Josie clambered down, one part of her feeling as if she was
drowning in a vat of bubbling blood, taking her career with it. But the other
part shut that up, the one that wanted—craved—Bram’s punishment and whatever
else he deigned to give her.
“Aye, a lovely sight, that. You’ve got a nice round ass for
such a little thing. Ready?”
Before she could answer the smack came, hard and sharp.
“Ow!” She looked over her shoulder accusingly. Bram was
naked now, stroking his cock with one hand, the other upraised to strike.
“Wait out the pain,” he said gently.
She did. What had struck her as pain was more surprise. A
warmth spread through the place he’d spanked her. It felt good—almost
comforting.
Another crack lit up her other cheek. She gritted her teeth
and waited for the sharpness of the sensation to dwindle. Bram spanked her
again, dividing his blows, with less force than the initial ones. His hand was
sure and strong. He had obviously done this before. She tried not to arch her
back with the jolt with every smack but when she did she could hear him suck in
his breath.
“That’s a beautiful sight. You’re taking it like a champion,
Josie,” he said from behind her. She braced herself for another blow but
instead felt his hands kneading, caressing, smoothing over the burning skin.
A long, rough lick wetted her backside. She wanted to turn
around and see what was coming next but the threat of spanks becoming lashes
stopped her.
He licked her again, trailing his tongue over the globes of
her ass. She felt as if her muscles were melting. Without thinking she lowered
herself to her elbows, raising her hips.
“That’s good, baby. Hold still.”
It was hard to follow instructions when the tongue probed
between her cheeks. He spread her with his hands and applied the tongue again,
pushing and swirling. Her pussy was flowing. She longed to rub her clit while
he tongued her ass but stayed still. It felt naughty and evil and so good, the
semi-rigid invasion wetting her very core and the gentle bites nipping her cheeks.
He slipped a finger inside her pussy and her head shot up.
“You’re so wet for me,” he groaned, slowly finger-fucking
her until her head felt as if it would explode.
Teeth nibbled at her ass, the tongue swirled again, tasting
every inch. She had thought she’d be numb but the burning skin on her behind
had calmed and it was tingling now, every nerve open to sensation. His tongue
entered her tight hole as he shoved his finger deep into her pussy. She
followed his rhythm, swaying back with each wet probing as the crowd had swayed
at his command.
“I’m gonna come, Bram,” she panted.
He pulled both finger and tongue from her body just as
another stroke would have sent her over the edge.
“Right you are, but you’re going to come my way.” He laid a
kiss on her backside.
What did that mean? Her nerves were on fire, her skin
hypersensitive. She licked her lips and waited for whatever came next.
Without warning he spanked her hard and fast, one after
another. The blows seemed to set off waves that entered her body and reached
something deep and primal within, some hidden button of ecstasy. Unable to stop
herself, she began to moan.
“Come for me, Josie. I want to taste your ass when you come.”
As if she could stop herself. At each smack her clit swelled
and throbbed. She was panting hard and whimpering, arching her back to welcome
the blows. Her legs began to tremble as the orgasm rose from her core and this
time Bram spread her cheeks and buried his face in her ass. She exploded, her
vision going black but for a spray of dancing stars.
It was only when she collapsed onto the floor that she
realized she still had her boots on.
“Look at me,” he said, his breath ragged.
She sat up. He towered over her, pumping his cock with his
hand, eyes slit. God, it looked delicious, that huge organ slipping in and out
of his long fingers.
“Do you want to taste me, Josie?”
She could only nod.
He guided her head and Josie fixed her lips around his
shaft, tasting the pre-come. He was hard as iron, the big vein throbbing. It
was too big to fit in her mouth all at once so she wrapped a hand around the
base and sucked on his cock head, her eyes upraised. Bram groaned.
“Fuck, you’re good.”
His hips bucked and a stream of thick, salty fluid shot down
her throat.
Panic set in as her head cleared. But Bram was holding out a
hand. She took it and rose.
“Bram, I shouldn’t have…we shouldn’t have. It was totally
unprofessional.”
“Codswallop. You starting in with that now? I always give
the people what they want, love. And this is what you came for.”
Was it? Well, yes, but only in her deepest, darkest, most
impossible-to-realize fantasies. Not in real life, where she had a job and an
apartment and a twelve-year-old car and she only went on bad dates and had
lame, serviceable sex. This whole scenario, what they’d just done, it wasn’t
her.
She didn’t deserve to feel so good.
“Any road, it’s not like your putting this in your blog.”
Bram continued, striding away. “I’ll be in the shower. Don’t dally.”
Josie picked up her clothes and headed toward the bathroom,
her head spinning. Was her reluctance really about low self-esteem? No, it was
something else. It was her vision of herself—as ambitious Josie Arrington. She
was a girl who worked hard, not a girl who got spanked and squirmed in pleasure
while a rock star ate her ass.
But she kind of wanted to be.
And Bram was right. It wasn’t as if any of this would be
published.