Outsider
Authors: W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh
Tags: #vampires, #speculative fiction, #dark fantasy, #dreams and desires, #rock music, #light horror, #horror dark fantasy, #lesbian characters, #horrorvampire romance murder, #death and life, #horror london, #romantic supernatural thriller
By
W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh
Outsider
Copyright © 2012 W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh
Smashwords Edition
Cover Design
by Jane Timm Baxter
Cover Photo
by W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh
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This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment
only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
The author is grateful for your appreciation of their work;
although if you would like to gift or share this eBook, please do
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reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased
for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and
purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of
the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales,
organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely
coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the
publisher.
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Respect to Never The Bride: you rock!
Respect to Girlschool: you rock!
Grateful thanks to my first readers, especially
Charlotte Brennan, Jane Timm Baxter and Jim Baxter, and Jeannie
Decker. Your feedback was greatly appreciated. And grateful thanks
to Elyse Draper.
A novel by W.
Freedreamer Tinkanesh
“
I don’t talk much, don’t usually dance /
But you caught my eye / I took a chance/ I took… a second look”
(Never The Bride)
“
The obsessive fan is usually an
inadequate pathetic personality who can’t form relationships with
real people, and so lives in a fantasy world. Any reality usually
defeats such people.” (Shirley Conran in “Lace”).
Did it
all start that way for Sid Wasgo? Yes and no. If she wrote “Tequila
After Dark” to remember her first encounter with Second Look, and
yes, take her revenge on the rock singer, there had been a prelude
to this first chapter. Back in time, she had been a singer, too.
Back in time, a friend had mentioned Second Look. For some unknown
reason Sid had assumed they were just another women’s band playing
folk music. She couldn’t be bothered. Back in time, she had been
feeling lost and despondent with her music, wondering which
direction to take, wondering where to perform, wondering what to
do. Was it still worth it? Did she still have the spark in her?
Back in time, a friend with more piercings than she could count
insisted on playing her one of the Second Look’s CDs. Sid had
relented and decided to get done with the chore. But she wasn’t
prepared for the onslaught of raw emotion. The first bar had been a
swift arrow to her forgotten heart and a more than tough blow to
her under-stimulated mind. She forgot how to breathe. And when she
remembered how to speak, she asked:
“
Could I borrow this CD to make myself a
copy?”
Was it the voice, powerful, vindictive? She
had always wanted to sing with such gusto and rock power, but had
never known how. Was it the music, aggressive, direct? She had
always wanted to play screaming riffs and lethal leads with her
guitar, but had never known how. She had never felt that way
before. There was a bright and blinding light expanding in her
heart. So overwhelming that she didn’t know if it was pleasure or
pain. Later, she realized that these two women called Second Look
had done the totally unthinkable, something that no one else in a
million years could have ever done: they had made Sid feel
redundant. What was the point in carrying on with an uncertain
career, trying to achieve something, when someone was already doing
it, and doing a bloody good job at it! She was shocked. She didn’t
know if she wanted to hate or love Second Look.
A year later, yes, it took a long and busy
year, Sid was strolling in her local park, enjoying the beginning
of the summer, the peace of the blue sky and the green trees, when
she spotted a battered copy of Hot Tickets in the middle of her
path. She picked it up, checked it was only dated from the day
before and, satisfied, sat down on a conveniently nearby wooden
bench to read the gig listing. She hadn’t done so for too long a
time.
Life was going slow, but fine, even without
much music. She scanned the names, knowing already what she’d be up
to the next evening. When Second Look jumped at her. Bold lettering
on the printed page. She read and read, and read again. Her eyes
were not hallucinating. Her heart was suddenly swelling with light,
beating out of rhythm, engulfing her soul. Second Look. Second Look
would be performing the very next night in her very borough!
Throwing her into a conflict of interests… She had said a long time
ago she would attend a women’s benefit up in North London. But,
but, Second Look was a powerful beacon pulling her into the light.
Her blood was pulsing in tight bursts against her tattooed skin,
threatening to break through.
* * * * * * *
The first Second Look gig she attended turned
into a totally unusual evening for Sid, somehow. In “
Tequila
After Dark
”, she had simply written out the three friends she
had accidentally dragged along. The one she had never met before
responded to an Irish name that Sid didn’t remember beyond the next
five minutes, and Nat, who simply fancied her, accent and all, had
actually brought her along. Nat, whose impossible-to-stop chatter
irritated Sid, was an acquaintance of Sid’s and a friend of Judy’s.
Judy, stout and low in her comments, was the tallest of the lot.
They were way too early and wandered to the nearest chippy. They
strolled in the park, devouring chips and chatting away, but Sid’s
anxious mind was already by the stage, already listening to the
music.
She found a one-pound coin on the pavement
outside the Blue Moon, shining for her eyes only, and later on,
uncharacteristically, spent it on an A4-size poster of the band.
Nat, considering the two performers good-looking on the photo, got
herself a bigger one, furthermore irritating the currently
impatient Sid.
From then on that night, everything happened
to Sid with a tinge of extraordinary. She contemplated the ceiling
of the music lounge painted dark blue with lazy clouds and vague
stars. She felt too restless to stick to the same corner and hang
out with her friends. She chatted with the roadie selling Second
Look paraphernalia. Yes, said the woman with a dark ponytail and
without reserve, Terri the singer had more than the one dragon
tattoo featured on the poster and Dawn, the keyboard player, had
none. Sid herself was hiding under the shabby, long sleeves of her
black, hooded shirt, Native American totem poles from shoulders to
wrists, similar works in progress down her legs, some Navajo
designs on her chest and abdomen, and, of course, a very realistic
Smirnoff tarantula on her jugular. Because she was into vodka,
sometimes. But not tonight.
She was impatiently scanning the punters
steadily crowding the music lounge, easily spotting groupies with
their Second Look t-shirts in the humming hubbub of conversations.
A soundtrack punctuated the consumption of various beers in many
pints and unexpected disguises. She recognized Melissa Etheridge’s
voice. And suddenly, she saw them.
Being shortsighted, she didn’t exactly see
the performers nor picked them out of the crowd because of a
different style of clothes, she had learned to trust other senses;
she was forever learning to live and cope with her extreme
sensitivity. She simply knew, like a spontaneous knowledge, like an
outburst of intuition, that these two women, one with blonde hair
stopping short of the shoulders of her shiny, red top, the other
one with coppery, wavy hair reaching to the top of her long
sleeves, who had just walked into the room and were now talking
with an anonymous punter, were Dawn Ferndale and Terri Harley,
collectively known as Second Look. How could she be so sure? It was
something about them, something different and familiar in their
auras, their energy fields, and their vibes. Something echoing
Sid’s. Ironically enough, in other circumstances, Sid wouldn’t have
noticed the blinding light shining all around them; Sid would have
never given them a second look.
The two women made their way through the
crowd, greeting friends and long-term fans alike. By the time the
singer stepped onto the stage, Judy’s friends were squatting the
last round table before the exit, and Sid and Judy were standing,
waiting, a few feet from the stage.
The woman with red reflections in her coppery
hair knotted a black bandana around the microphone stand and spared
them a quick look. The keyboard player ignored them, more concerned
with her various instruments: a double keyboard, a minidisk player,
various effects machines stacked on the side, and proudly erect on
a guitar stand a beautiful Ovation 12-strings.
When the singer greeted the crowd, she
commented on the presence of Second Look virgins in the audience.
Sid knew exactly what she meant: people attending their gig for the
first time. But she didn’t want to be a virgin. Suddenly the word
felt offensive and invasive. Uncharacteristically she shouted at
the performer:
“How do you define a virgin?”
”What did you say, Babe?”
“I’m no babe.” She knew it was only a word
but she couldn’t help reacting. Was she premenstrual?
“Ok. What did you say, Girlfriend?”
“I’m no girlfriend either. How do you define
the word virgin?”
The performer, who had the wits and the sting
of a Scorpio, answered:
“Someone who’s never been to any of our gigs.
And I can see: you are a Second Look virgin!”