Strings

Strings

Hard Rock Harlots

Book One

by

Kendall Grey

Published by Howling Mad Press at
Smashwords

Copyright 2013, Kendall Grey

STRINGS

Copyright © 2013 by Kendall Grey

Published by

Howling Mad Press, LLC

P.O. Box 660

Bethlehem, GA 30620

United States of America

howlingmadpress.com

All rights reserved as permitted under the
U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means,
or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior
permission of the Author. For information regarding subsidiary
rights, please contact the Publisher.

Edited by Jennifer Sommersby Young

Cover design by Renee Coffey

First Smashwords Edition: April 2013

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

The author acknowledges
the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the
following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Starbucks;
Facebook; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 7-Eleven;
Diet Coke; Batman;
Do You Wanna Touch
Me?
; Playboy Bunnies; YouTube;
The Crunge
; Band-Aid;
Richie Rich; Laundromat; iPod;
The Lemon
Song
; Fender Stratocaster;
Popsicle;
The Sound of
Music
; Coke; Boy Scouts; Hershey’s Milk
Chocolate.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
you’re 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 this author.

Discover other titles by
Kendall Grey at
Smashwords.com
. This book
is also available in print at most online retailers.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Renee Coffey for designing another
beautiful cover; Noelle Pierce for early feedback, suggestions, and
sprints at Starbucks; Emma Smith for the list of hilarious sexual
euphemisms; Jenn Sommbersby Young for stellar editorial guidance,
patience, and friendship; Maya Lynn Watson for brainstorming the
awesome series title, “Hard Rock Harlots”; the members of the
STRINGS Facebook group for keeping me motivated with awesome visual
stimulation, kind words, and unwavering support.

As always, big love goes to my friends and
family for putting up with my riotous shenanigans, foul mouth, and
filthy mind.

Dedication

This book belongs to the readers who
believed in me and to all the artists who make the world a
beautiful, better place.

May the strings that bind us never break

May our wild asses forever shake

May our unquenchable fire keep our dreams
awake

Table of
Contents

Acknowledgments

Dedication

My Boyfriend Left Me for
Jesus

Pussy Grenades and Ass
Bunkers

Up, Down, and All
Around

Shit, Meet
Fan

Man Pasties and G-String Banana
Hammocks

Hand Job? Blow Job? Rim
Job?

Interlewd One

Need a Hand?

A Little Bit High, a Little Bit
Low

Anal Probing and Bunk
Hosing

Interlewd Two

Gang Bang in Progress: Do Not
Disturb

I’d Wear a Dick Hat on
Stage

Womanballs in
Bikinis

Pissing Dudes and Rogue
Ejaculators

Interlewd
Three

Reality’s Ruthless
Revelations

For The Rock

Stage
Christening

Strings

Slap My Bare Ass and Call Me
Sassy

Codas, Vows, and Data
Plans

About the Author

My Boyfriend Left Me for
Jesus

Twenty-five years ago today, I exited my
mama’s womb center stage and stormed Planet Earth, guns blazing,
taking no prisoners. Crashes of lightning and thunder announced my
birth. A cyclone killed nearly 600 people in Bangladesh and left
half a million homeless. I’m not saying I had anything to do with
that shit, but when a force like mine is born, the Universe takes
notice. Cause and effect. Yin and yang. Pomp and circumstance.

Mom says I screamed nonstop for an hour
after she squirted me out. I’ve taken a few breaks to catch my
breath since, but for the most part, I’m still screaming today.

My name is Letty Dillinger, and I was born
to rock your face off.

If you come to one of my
shows, you’ll leave either wanting to
be
me or wanting to
do
me.

My music has that effect
on people. Or it
will
once I bust out of these shackles of banality and show the
world what I’m made of.

I’m the lead singer and bass player for an
all-chick, ’70s-style rock band, Cherry Buzz Float. Yeah, the
name’s a little lame, but guys like cherries and buzzes and tits
that float on the water.

Me and my bandmates play up the bad-girl
attitude to appeal to our audience, but I’m not really that
pretentious. For me, life is about the music. That amazing ride you
catch when the notes and rhythms snap into place, and you connect
with the human beings involved in shaping audio beauty.

As much as I love the
orgasms my bass gives me when I sit on the monitor and hit a low C,
music is even better when
people
jump into the fray of physics and take it to a
higher level.

Music is about my drummer Jinx—the female
version of John Fucking Bonham on crack—beating the shit out of her
skins in perfect sync with my bass vibrating the walls like an
earthquake.

Music is about fishing for the right notes
to match Kate’s awesome guitar riffs and complementing her
screaming highs with my window-rattling lows.

Music is about freeing the lyrics my heart
holds dear and watching meaning root, blossom, and spread like a
virus across our fans’ faces.

Music is about The Rock, the roll, and the
crazy shit that comes with the territory.

At least when I’m on stage, it is.

Real life is a lot less glamorous. I only
play live a couple times a month these days. The band’s not really
moving in the direction I’d like it to, and I sure as shit ain’t
making any cash playing frat parties for drunk, rich squids.

Fuckin’ dreams. Who needs ’em?

I live in Athens, Georgia. It’s December 1.
Cold as a witch’s tit in a brass bra. The college kids are wrapping
up fall semester and heading home soon. Trixies, squids, and
townies troll downtown, drunk and looking for temporary love when
they should be banging their books at the library. I glance
wistfully out the window from my barstool perch. Instead of raising
hell with my friends, I’m sitting alone at BAR-k, the bar whose
clever name salutes the local football team (go Dawgs!), on my
birthday, wondering where my life went wrong.

“
Why the long face?”
Bartender Rob tosses a stained white towel over his shoulder and
leans across the nicked wood. He rests his meaty elbows in a puddle
of liquor leftovers. I eye the spot and manage to keep my tongue in
my mouth.

No licking the bar. You’re not drunk enough.
Yet.

I do love me some booze, and I’m living off
the coins I found in my couch cushions until payday. With a
calloused index finger, I stir my vodka martini—the one birthday
present I allowed my broke-ass self to buy.

“
The short version?
My boyfriend left me for Jesus. I’m stuck in a
dead-end waitressing job, clogging people’s arteries at Fat
Johnny’s Barbeque Shack, making jack shit. I’m earning even less
busting ass at the gig I
want
to be doing.”

The part about my boyfriend is a white lie.
He’s really just a guy I was bonking for a while. Technicality. But
the rest is one hundred percent truth.

“
No one gives a mangy
monkey boner about
art
anymore. Nothing but a bunch of zero-talent sellouts in this
fucking town.” I meet Rob’s eyes. “Man, I’m twenty-five today, and
I have nothing to show for it.”

Rob straightens. “My mama always said, ‘If
you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.’”

I shake my head. “Fuck that. I’d rather
starve than sell out.”

Yeah, I’m a little rabid about this
particular stick-to-your-guns philosophy. Some people find strength
in religion. I believe in music, and I defend it with everything
I’ve got, even when things don’t go my way.

I played the unfortunate role of a human
pinball paddled back and forth between my divorced parents for most
of my life. In my darkest moments, solace and light came from
listening to my mom’s ’70s cassette tapes. For a few years, music
was my only friend. Nobody else understood me. It helped me through
the rough patches and gave me motivation to pick up the bass at
fourteen.

Even though I haven’t made it yet, music is
still the one thing that keeps me steady and sane. You don’t fuck
with shit that does you right. Especially when it’s all you’ve
got.

I just wish…

If wishes were horses, beggars would
ride.

“
Happy fucking birthday,”
Rob says.

“
Yeah, cheers, asshole.” I
raise my glass and swallow the whole drink in three big gulps. Rob
snickers and wanders over to a customer waving bills at him from
the register.

The guy one seat away from me laughs, so I
glance at him. He’s hunched over the bar like he’s guarding his
drink, with his head turned toward me. Five o’ clock shadow,
pierced eyebrow, dark brown fauxhawk, plugs in his earlobes—not too
big, though. He wears a black wool pea coat-looking thing, jeans,
and a pair of dark sunglasses.

“
Something funny, Shades?”
I ask.

“
Your boyfriend leaving
you for Jesus.” He has kind of a gruff voice. His face is okay, but
it’s hard to tell what he really looks like with those glasses
covering his most important features. I like his hands, though.
They’re rough like mine.

“
I knew something was
wrong with him when he complained about me asking for anal. What
guy doesn’t want anal?” I twirl my empty glass by its long stem.
“He was kind of a dick trickle, so it’s not like I miss him or
anything. Though the sex was decent. Better than my current
prospects.”

Damn, I’m dying for another drink. Maybe
just one more. I’m pretty sure I got a couple bucks stuffed in my
car’s ashtray for emergencies. I shoot a bird at Rob, who nods.

“
Definitely something
wrong with a guy who doesn’t want to sodomize his woman.” Shades
takes a sip from his glass. A wrist tattoo peeks out from his coat
sleeve. I can’t tell what it is.

“
Nah, I wanted to
sodomize
him
. He
wasn’t on board with the plan. That’s when the Holier Than Thou
shit started. ‘Jesus doesn’t approve of butt-fucking.’ Jesus this.
Jesus that. What the hell, man? Don’t you think Jesus would want
you to be happy? How will you ever be happy if you don’t try new
things? Christ, it’s just a dildo up the ass. Loosen the fuck
up.”