Rush (Pandemic Sorrow #2) (3 page)

Chapter 4

The next day I sat in a crowded bar listening to James, my prick of a manager, berate me about my behavior. I’d managed to ignore most of what he was saying, the drone of his voice fading into the hum of conversation and the clinking of dishes echoing up into the ceiling.

The waitress topped off the water I’d barely touched. She was staring at me, face red and chest somewhat heaving. She was young, most likely a senior in high school, so all I did was wink at her to give her a little thrill, something to brag about the next day while she sat out gym class because of cramps.

She laughed and yanked the pitcher back toward her. The sudden motion caused water to slosh over the side onto the table. And when she turned to walk off, she tripped over her own feet, catching herself on the bar top before scurrying off from embarrassment.

“Rush, you fucking dumbass! Stop ogling that jailbait and listen to me. You can’t just do shit like that!” James scolded me.

“What, wink at a girl?” I gulped back the last bit of my lager.

A grimace tightened over his face and his skin flushed red. Slamming his fist over the counter, he growled through his teeth. “No, you can’t go around choking girls. Stick ’em with your dick, just keep your hands off their necks!”

“Look, I was just doing what she asked. That’s all. So really, I was just doing my job. Following the
rules
, you know, fucking fans and all?”

He whacked me in the back of the head and my muscles tensed up. My instinct was to deck him for slapping me across the head, but I just clenched my jaw and fought back the desire.

“Use some fucking common sense. What if you’d killed her? How would that look? What would that have done to the band? My God,” he huffed, lowering his voice, “do you know how much all those lawyer fees would have cost, you can’t…I mean, it was a charity event.” His voice lowered even further to a raspy growl. “A
charity
event! That would have made it even worse. The tabloids would have had a fucking field day with that shit. ‘Pandemic Sorrow puts on show at local charity event. Bassist murders fan.’ Great way to start this tour out, huh?”

He shook his head, shoved a soggy fry into his mouth, and laid into me again. “I know none of you have any responsibilities and you only think with your dicks, but you got to always think of the band.”

My eyes focused on the mush flying from his mouth, and then scanned to the right, stopping on a hot chick leaned against the bar and staring at me.

His ranting faded into the background as I playfully arched a single brow in the woman’s direction.

“Did you hear me, Rush? Got that? Get it through your stupid,” he thumped my skull, “head, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” I brushed him off. My gaze was still locked on the woman fucking me with her eyes. I lifted my chin a little and the sides of my lips suggestively curved up.

“Now they’re gonna have to sign waivers. That’s just what we’ll do in case any of the rest of you Neanderthals decide you want to play fantasy maker. Shit. Just let the fact that they’re fucking the hottest band out there be enough!” He wiped the greasy residue from his face and tossed the napkin on the counter. “A damn headache is what you are. You and Jag both, massive fucking migraine headaches!”

I tapped my fingers over the tile counter and grumbled, “Oh, just fuck off already, dude!”

James swatted his hand at me. “Keep your shit together. I’ve about had it with bailing you shitheads outta jail and outta lawsuits.” He made his way to the door, disappearing into the crowd.

I sat there using my tongue to force a hunk of meat out from between my teeth while I watched the girl across the room. Girls stared at me all the time, but when they were brave enough to act like I didn’t scare them, well, that got my dick hard.

Her eyes were honed in on me, completely hazed with a film of lust, of want, of need. She was striking, but then again, aren’t most women with a hungry little pussy? Long black hair, huge eyes, and one of those Coke-bottle figures you can hardly find anymore. My dick jumped imagining how fan-fucking-tastic she would look bent over a chair with my fingers digging into the sides of her curvy hips.

But not damn near as good as Jules would.

For a second all I could see was the image of Jules butt-ass naked and bent over the bed.

Shit. Get her outta your head.

The girl traced her hands down her frame, accentuating just how feminine and available her body was.

Leaving my tip on the bar, I stood up and took two steps in her direction, which caused her plump, fire-engine red lips to curl up. I stopped, freezing in place. I thought about how easily I’d gotten carried away the night before and tried to come up with an excuse as to why I didn’t need to fuck her.
Eliminate temptation.

There was some ridiculous hope in her. She knew who I was. She knew that I was famous, which meant I was filthy rich—I was a rarity. Any girl who knew that wanted me because of the fame. I could have been—and actually pretty much was—the biggest ass, absolutely condescending and disrespectful and that didn’t faze them. I could act however I wanted, and I would still get laid. Being an asshole was part of my job. I was a rock star. I had to act like one. I had to uphold the reputation of the band, which meant that after shows and while on tour I had to fuck fans. I always had beautiful, easy women at my beck and call. Actually, I had them lined up and waiting for me in a room after shows. And I really couldn’t have had it any better, because sometimes an easy fix was exactly what I craved, what I needed.

Funny that when you can’t have the one thing you really want, you’ll bury that desire in anything else that can grant your mind—your heart—some type of distraction. I was addicted to being needed. I was a sucker for the way a woman felt pinned beneath me and panting. I needed that rush from an orgasm, the meaningless physical connection. At least that’s what I thought I needed.

Really, I would have given anything for alcohol or drugs to serve as the relief for that empty, hollow want devouring me, but all a line or a pill did was make my body feel good. The part of me that needed fulfilling could only be done by another person, and that sucked because it made my issues completely dependent on someone else. And thanks to the lifestyle I led, relationships were impossible, so my issues were completely dependent on strangers.

Maybe I was an addict of sorts, or maybe I was just sick. I needed sex.

Chapter 5

The music faded out, the thick crowd around the stage clapped and whistled, and the girl crouched down to collect the rest of the one-dollar bills scattered across the stage.

I watched the next one strut out, sashaying her hips as she took center stage and seductively, one by one, wrapped her fingers around the slick, silver pole. I didn’t hear the DJ introduce her because I was too busy admiring how plump her ass was, thinking about what kind of sound that would make when I slammed up against it.

My eyes strayed down to my phone and the messages I’d sent to Jules.

You busy?

              Jules: No. What, are you on your                             way to jail?

Haha. No.

              Jules: Ok. You just wanna ruin                                           my peaceful time without you                                           then, huh?

Possibly.

I just like to fuck you.

Shit. I didn’t mean to type that.

*fuck with you.

              Jules: Yep. I know. Surprised                                           you don’t have some girl                                                         straddling you right now.

Who said I don’t?

              Jules: Goodnight. Don’t get                                           arrested.

I slid my phone in my pocket and directed my attention back to the stage. The music blared through the speakers and she brought one leg up around the pole and spun around, her blonde hair catching in the wind and trailing behind her.

“I’m gonna fuck
her
,” I stated, tossing back the remainder of my Stella.

“What?” Jag pointed to the stage. “That one, Creampuff?”

“Yeah.” I bit down on my bottom lip while I thought about the dirty things I could probably talk Creampuff into. Fuck Jules, she was a waste of energy.

Jag kept sniffing, trying to get the rest of the coke he’d just snorted up his nose. “Man, whatever. She’s a professional. She’ll make you pay. We,” he paused, and thumbed over his nose again, “are fucking rock gods. We don’t
pay
for sex. What the hell is wrong with you? What is it with you and prostitutes, anyway?” He wiped under his nose one last time before falling back into the red velvet covered seat.

“She’s not a prostitute. She’s a stripper.”

The bass shook through my chest and the lights reflecting from the disco ball shimmered over the girl’s perky tits, casting an iridescent rainbow over those jiggling orbs of pleasure.

“Dude, it’s the game,” I chuckled as I locked eyes on the girl shimmying her ass to the guys behind her. She arched her perfectly manicured eyebrows at me, and I suggestively stroked my hand over my crotch.

Jag shook his head. “There’s no fucking game in piping down a stripper-slash-prostitute, Rush. It’s a given that they’re gonna fuck you; well, it’s kind of a given that any chick would fuck any of us—except for Pax, drummer and all.” Jag laughed, then emptied his bourbon into his mouth.

“No—no, you fuckface!” He didn’t get it. “It’s the game of can I get them to
fuck
me? Not have sex with me, not service me—I want them to
want
it.”

The flash of bare ass distracted me momentarily, pulling my eyes away from Jag. “Prostitutes have sex—sex is just letting me stab them with my dick. Fucking, that is when they ride you so hard your dick almost snaps off. There is want, desire, need. They
need
your dick in them, and not for the money. No,” I said, laughing and admiring the fleshy piece of sex gyrating in front of me before continuing, “when you get them to fuck you, you’ve flipped on a switch that they’ve been taught to keep shut off. I want them to start out expecting me to pay, but by the end of it, I want them to feel like
they
should pay
me
.”

I smacked the girl on the ass. “I want to play the best game of mind fuckery there is. Flip the script. Make them unable to take my fucking money because they feel guilty.”

Jag snickered. “Guilty?” His eyes trailed up to the brunette twerking it on the stage before shooting back over in my direction. “You want to make a prostitute feel guilty? Prostitute aren’t for mind fucking, they’re just for body fucking.” He laughed again, but this time his laugh was more one of misunderstanding.

“Maybe guilt isn’t the right word. But you know, I want them to enjoy it so much that—” I leaned in closer to him. “You know when you get paid to do something it kind of loses its luster? I mean, look at us,” I thumbed at him, then myself, “we get paid to fucking play music and—”

The tasseled waitress interrupted me. “Another beer?”

I glanced up at the waitress, stopping momentarily to glare at the beaded shit hanging from her tits. “Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled.

I redirected my attention back to Jag, picking up where I’d been interrupted. “And we—”

Jag grabbed her by the hips, jerking her down to him. “Bring me two top-shelf bourbons. And do you feel like you enjoy serving alcohol to skeezy men less because you’re paid to do so? Hmmm, princess? Would you enjoy,” Jag bit down on his bottom lip and popped the waitress on her lack of ass, “this more if you weren’t paid for it?”

She giggled and covered her mouth. “I love your music. I love
you
—both of you. My God, I would do…” she trailed off, a fog rolling over her eyes as they pulsed open from the fantasy playing out in her head.

“Exactly,” Jag gloated, settling back into the seat and pulling in a deep breath. “Two bourbons, one Stella, and I’ll let you suck my dick free of charge.”

She smiled again and trotted off.

“You were saying what, fucker?” Jag’s hand rubbed over his pocket, feeling for his stash of coke. “That getting paid makes shit less fun? You’re a fucking dumbass! What the hell kinda sense does that make?”

“I mean, hell, I enjoyed it more when we weren’t making ass-loads of money. It was fun. We had a goal, a dream, and now,” I tossed my hands in the air and shook my head, “we have to do it to get paid. We depend on it. We live
on
it, not
for
it.”

Jag stood up and reached down into the pocket of his ridiculously tight jeans. “Whatever, man. You’re fucking stupid. We’re famous for a living and I enjoy each second of it—well, at least the music part of it, the sex part of it, and the drugs. Oh, and the free shit. Yep, I enjoy most of it. And sluts, well, I’m sure they enjoy fucking for a living. Hell, if the guy’s worth a shit, how could they not? Getting paid to fuck, really? Sign me up!” He started off, turning back around to ask, “You want some blow?”

I shook my head and he walked off to snort another few lines in the restroom, leaving me alone by the side of the stage.

My phone vibrated with a text.

            
 
Jules: You’re at a strip club                                           aren’t you?

Jules knew me too well. Without hesitation, I unbuttoned my jeans, pulled the waist out, and snapped a picture of my limp dick. Laughing, I attached the image and typed in: Does he look like he’s at a strip club?

I sat there taking it all in. My life pretty much revolved around sex, and I couldn’t figure out how it had started. A few years ago it was a passion, not an obsession. It was for fun, not for a needed sense of calm. Maybe it had been the last little piece of my life I felt was in charge of, and now, I wasn’t even sure I had the control anymore.

To the public, Jag seemed like the whore of the group; he in no way compared to me, but the lead singer always gets the most attention. When he was alone and doing drugs, I was fucking. We were both addicts; his would probably kill him, mine—well, the worst it could do was make my dick fall off.

The waitress came back and set our drinks on the small round table just as Jules responded to my message.

It was a screenshot from Tumblr of a guy gripping a cock that had to have been photoshopped, because no cock is that damn big. Underneath it she’d typed
:
next time make it worth my while.

The waitress was still standing in front of me, shifting her legs on her six-inch platform stilettos. I peered up from my phone. “Thanks? Is that what you were waiting on? Me to acknowledge you? Sorry, I just got sent a picture of this really huge cock.” I flipped my phone around and showed her the picture.

All she did was giggle, and then she nervously cleared her throat. “That piece of paper under his shot glass.” She pointed down to the table and swiped a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “It’s got my number on it. You guys can call it
any time
. I’d be more than happy to…” another annoying giggle burst out of her, “do
whatever
you wanted. Either of you, both of you—all four of you.”

I nodded, forcing my mouth to twitch up into a grin. “That generous offer is appreciated. I’ll be sure Jag gets this to put in his collection of back-up fucks, okay?”

The strobe lights cut on, flashing in beat with the bass, and it almost caused me to miss the smile falling from her lips. Shame flickered in her eyes for a brief moment before an angry glare crawled over her face, and then she stormed off.

I watched the girls on the stage and caught a glimpse of Jag leaning up against the bar, surrounded by strippers. Several of them were combing through his hair, some were rubbing over various parts of his body. Jag ate that shit up, but the mob was growing larger, and we didn’t have security with us.

Strip clubs weren’t usually that bad because other than the strippers, there were only a handful of women in there. Dudes would come up and ask for our autograph, but they didn’t try to gang up on us and rip our dicks off, which, from the looks of it, is exactly what was about to happen to Jag.

I flipped my shades down, forcing my way through the crowd of sweaty men, and couldn’t contain my laughter when I saw the look of fear plastered to Jag’s face.

“Hey, ladies,” I shouted, and their heads snapped around. “The most we can do is three at a time, so half of you are going to have to get put on the wait list.” They all stared at me, not one flicker of care about the comment I’d just made crossing their faces. “Two blondes, one brunette. Talk about it among yourselves to see who gets to go first.”

Jag jerked one arm free from a girl. “I could take four. I’m into trying new things. Let’s make it even, two blondes, two brunettes.” He wiggled free from another one. “But right now, I have a drink waiting for me, so this little fuckfest will have to happen when I’m ready.”

About that time, one of the club bouncers shouldered his way through the crowd. “Break it up!” His narrowed eyes scanned over the girls as they moved away from Jag. “Get back to work.”

And with that, they filed off.

“Sorry, man. They get a little out of hand with celebs sometimes,” he said before walking away.

Jag shrugged, smoothed out his crinkled shirt, and we made our way back to our table.

“Man, how many of those girls are you gonna take to the back after a while?” Jag snickered.

I shook my head and said, “None.”

“Oh, shit, man. Come on.”

I emptied the rest of the warm beer into my mouth and looked back up to the stage at the girls now grinding on each other.Another text came through from Jules. I opened it and read the message
:
You’re at a strip club being dirty. I’m in a nice relaxing bath, still trying to clean your filth off of me. A year later. She’d attached a picture of her feet propped up in a tub, bubbles covering her legs.

Even though I knew she was joking – well, even though I was pretty
sure
she was joking, that comment pissed me off.
Washing my filth off her?
My thought on that matter was that if I could just have
her
, I wouldn’t need to be filthy. Maybe that was what all this was…all these girls, maybe they were just a way to numb me up so I wouldn’t know how bad it sucked that I couldn’t have Jules all to myself.

Stop being such a pussy-ass dipshit! You sound like a pathetic dick dribble.

I shook my head, then stared back up at the stage. Maybe I would take at least one back, but sometimes it just made me feel less guilty when I pretended like I wouldn’t. Sometimes just acting like I didn’t have a problem gave me that sliver of control back for a fleeting moment.

Believe it or not, when we signed our contracts we actually signed a legal agreement to abide by the rocker code of conduct: play music, stay in the spotlight, party to the point of death, and fuck fans. There was only one “thou shalt not” in that entire contract, and that one rule was what really fucked my world up: Don’t fuck around with people from the record company. That made Jules off limits.

If she wasn’t our assistant manager, I could’ve had her.

I could handle every aspect of fame; the drugs, the notoriety, the fact that I no longer had privacy. The thing I couldn’t handle was that the one woman I wanted, I couldn’t have. It had been a damn year and I still wanted nothing more than to have her again. It was fucking torture having to be around her all the time, knowing damn well I couldn’t have her the way I wanted. Sometimes I thought that was where the problem lay, in that tiny detail. I wanted something I couldn’t have, so I tried finding it anywhere I could. And when I thought about it like that, I realized I didn’t even have control over who I could be with, and all that did was make everything worse.