PART I: The Rest of the 80s: Phoenix, Arizona, September 11, 1985

PART I-The Rest of the Eighties

PHOENIX, AZ

September 11, 1985

            “Woman…you know I need your love…tonight!”

            That long note on a high F was suddenly interrupted by an unpleasant hacking sound.

            Randy Blackstone noodled arpeggios on his leopard-spotted Stratocaster. “See, I told you you were losing your voice.”

            “Shut up, asshole.” Steven Ivey, the blonde lead singer, clipped his wireless mike back onto its stand and started coughing again. “I can’t believe I caught a damn cold.”

            Double bass drums broodled behind me, the rumble followed by a shuffle beat. Terry James enjoyed playing far too much.

            “Maybe you shouldn’t stay out so late,” I hollered over the crashing of cymbals. 

            “With a girl who likes to slather up with oil and run around naked in the desert all weekend,” Randy added.

            “I thought that was your girlfriend,” Terry shouted at me, snapping his drumstick down onto a splash cymbal, tossing it up in the air, and catching it.

            “Fiancée,” I amended. “And besides, she’d rather slather up with chocolate.”

            Randy blew out a puff of air. “I’d like to see that.”

            “So would I,” I joked.

            Steve pulled a Kleenex from a box on the drum riser. “You guys suck. I’m sick and all you guys can do is kid around.”

            Randy, Terry, and I made faces behind the singer’s back as he blew his nose.

            Nigel Hiseman’s crisp British accent chirped through the monitors. “Hey! Jon Warren!” 

            I looked up from my fretboard, practicing a new lick I’d invented, a variation of Steve Harris’s solo in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and a Stanley Clarke tune.

            “Your shagging partner’s here.”

            Speaking of beautiful woman slathered in chocolate…

            I smiled wide, pulling my bass over my shoulders and tossing it to Jeff Parker, my bass tech. Yes! She was home!

            Terry, still pounding away with his double-bass drum pedal, snapped his gum. “I know someone who’s getting laid tonight!”

            “It sure as hell ain’t you!” I said, shaking out my hair, hoping I didn’t look too…shaggy.

            He flipped me off, still drumming.

            I leaped off the stage and practically ran up the aisle to the gorgeous female standing next to the mixing board. Her jet black hair cascading over her shoulders, her slender legs clothed in tight denim, the swell of her breasts more than evident underneath her hot pink stretchy top. Season Cooper, or rather, “Trovisar,” smiled, and was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.

            And in less than a month, she would be my wife.

            I started singing. The song that was playing when I first kissed her lips. “Baby, when I think about you, I think about love…”

            By the next line, she was in my arms, her legs wrapped around my waist, her fingers in my hair. I sang to her, kissed her mouth, sang some more. “Darling, if I live without you, I live without love…” Kissed her again…

            She laughed, a sound that was more music to my ears than the heavily-distorted “pop” metal I’d been playing for the last hour. “Put me down!”

            “No way.” I gripped her firm buttocks, keeping her anchored against my hips, making sure she knew exactly what we’d be doing later. I kissed her mouth yet again, feeling her breasts through the torn-up Motley Crue t-shirt I was wearing, her exotic perfume making my head reel.

            “God, I missed you.” I was breathless. Paul Rodgers finished the chorus in my head. 

I feel like making love…

“I was only gone a week,” she said, her hands caressing my shoulders, my upper arms.

“That’s the longest we’ve been away from each other since we met, you know that.” I couldn’t stop kissing her - her cheeks, her jaw, her neck. I rubbed my nose against her chest.  If only we weren’t surrounded by a bunch of stupid musicians…

“Hey! Cut that mushy shit out!”

Randy’s voice boomed through sixteen stacks of EV speakers, Terry’s drumming still plugging along. “You’re gonna ruin our tough guy reputation.”

“Oh, like he hasn’t done that already.” Bryon Kinzey, our rhythm guitarist, added, tweaking the tuning on his Ibanez guitar. “He’s the new Steve.”

The blonde singer, still wiping snot from his man-made nose, glared at the guitarist. “You’ve got a real sense of humor, asshole.” He tossed the Kleenex, clearing the phlegm out of his throat.

Bryon smoothed down his honey-colored mustache with his middle finger.

“At least Jon isn’t doing it with everybody in the tri-state area,” Randy said.

“Shut up.” Steve started coughing again.

I ignored all of them, setting Season down on the floor, still holding her close, my fingers laced around hers, gazing into her emerald green eyes as if for the first time. Yes, she’d only been gone a week, but it seemed like a lifetime.

“You look great,” I said.

“So do you.” She stood on her toes, rubbing her nose against mine. “Did you and Randy start working out?”

“Some.”

She stroked my arms again. “I think it’s starting to show.”

“I got another muscle I need to work out.” I ground my pelvis against hers and she giggled.

“I’ll bet you do.”

Terry started playing the opening drum beat to our most sexually suggestive tune, a smart little ditty called “Shock Me,” and I recalled the spectacle she and I had made of ourselves at Tarax’s last show in L.A. less than two weeks ago. It was mainly my fault, but I was…losing my sanity that night because I thought I’d lost her, after all the shit we’d been through last summer…but the next day I bought the five-carat diamond that now sparkled on her left hand, and I was the happiest man alive.

“Jon!”

“That sounds like my manager,” I mumbled, my eyes never leaving her face.

“And mine,” she said.

I looked over my shoulder. Barry Lifkirg, stroking his graying beard, his clipboard tucked under one flabby arm, a smoking cigar clenched in his teeth, stared down at me like a disgruntled father.

“Can you quit pawing at that poor girl long enough to finish rehearsal?”

I grinned like a naughty schoolboy. “I’m going home.”
            “No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am!” I turned completely around, standing Season in front of me, her back to my chest, my arms still around her waist. I couldn’t believe she was finally here, next to me again. I didn’t think I’d ever been more excited about seeing a woman after a long absence. I was usually glad they went away and stayed away, except when I needed them for sex. Although I did need Season for sex, she was so much more than that. She was life support.

“I’ve got better things to do.”

“You got that right,” Randy quipped into the microphone. He lit one of his Marlboros and smoked poured through his nose.

Terry, who’d finally stopped drumming, guffawed.

Barry pointed to his watch. “You’ve got another hour and a half. We said five-thirty.”

I grumbled into Season’s hair, her smoky vanilla voodoo scent making more blood rush to my loins. “I hate my life.”

“No, you don’t.” She pulled away from me, though I held fast to her delicate wrist. She pressed her forefinger into my chin. “Go do your job.”

Why did I have to rehearse the same fifteen songs I’d been playing every night for the past six months for another hour and a half? Because it wasn’t the same fifteen songs. Steve and Barry just had to change the set list for the European crowd, adding the heavier, metal-inspired songs in place of the more mainstream “pop” stuff.

I wrapped my hands around her neck and kissed her, wanting to whisper vulgar requests in her ear. “Think dirty thoughts,” I said. “You’re gonna need them later.”

Steve was hacking up another lung as I climbed back onstage. “Think you can concentrate for a little while longer?”

I watched as she took a seat on the front row near my end of the stage, throwing her long hair over one shoulder and crossing her legs.

“No.”

“You’re possessed.” He rolled his eyes and coughed some more.

I winked at my fiancée. “No shit.”

Jeff, standing beside me with a fuchsia-colored Fender Precision bass guitar in his grip, had lost his patience and was pushing the headstock into my ribs.

“Take this thing, please,” he said. “I’m ready to go home, too.”

I strapped on the guitar as Terry yelled, “Waitin’ on you, psycho, dope-smoker poon-hound.”

“We’re back to that again?” I asked. Actually, our name-calling ritual hadn’t let up since two weeks ago in L.A. “Jailbait junkie.”

He threw a stick at me.

* * * * *

She loved watching him work, and not just when he played, his strong fingers stroking the fretboard of his bass like they stroked her skin, or how his lean body swaggered across the stage to the heavy backbeat, his long, thick, dark hair waving over his shoulders. She admired his leadership, his interaction with his bandmates, his diplomatic way of correcting mistakes, his knowledge of theory, chord structure, and musical form, his biting sense of humor…she saw how they respected him, followed him, admired him. No man could ask for more loyal friends, and she couldn’t ask for a better man to share her life with.

God, how she loved him.

 * * * * *

My mind started to wander.

“Oops!  Sorry!” How many more times could I flub that riff? It had to be the song itself, the lyrics describing oral sex and the rhythm like that of a strip-tease number. It was that same song…

“Okay. One more.”

Terry clicked his sticks together four times.

Third verse again. Second phrase. Bass solo…

“Shit!”

All I could do was laugh. “Really, really. I’m sorry!”

Terry put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “You animal.”

I tried not to look at Season because then I’d really be in trouble. Randy, laughing, said something about sticky fingers, then Bryon added a comment about other things being sticky, and soon the four of us-bassist, drummer, rhythm and lead guitarists-were cackling hysterically.

Steve was the only one not enjoying the juvenile banter.

“What? Are you so distracted you can’t play the bass anymore?” He stood with his arm propped on his mike stand, his fist on his hip, a surly frown on his almost girlish face.

I made a feeble attempt to suppress my laughter. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Besides the obvious,” Randy said, and started coughing like a tuberculosis patient. “C’mon, Steve, don’t be an ass.” He was perturbed by his long-time friend’s increasing inability to find humor in anything.

“We’re going to Europe for the first time ever,” the androgynous singer reminded him. He turned and coughed again, struggling to speak. “Do you have any idea how tough that crowd might be? It has to be perfect!”

“And it will be,” I said, my own humor fading into something just this side of completely pissed off. “You gotta lighten up.”

He cut his eyes over at Season, and I didn’t like it. At all. He stepped away from the microphone. “I hope it’ll be perfect. It’s a good thing she’s not coming with us, or we’ll have to cut this song.”

Randy caught the clench of my jaw and the forward lurch of my body and immediately stepped between me and the singer. “You’re out of line, Steve.”

I stared Steve down, wanting to ram the headstock of my bass into his groin. Barry’s voice buzzed through the monitors.

“What’s going on up there?”

We glanced back to the sound booth.

“Steve’s being a dick,” Randy said.

“Jon can’t play the guitar anymore!” Steve complained. “He’s too busy…”

“Watch what you say, Steven,” Barry warned. “Finish your rehearsal and let’s call it a day.”

Steve, his feathers more than ruffled, shook his golden mane, and puffed himself back into the cocky SOB he was. “Don’t screw up my show.”

“I won’t,” I grumbled.

“Good.”

My show. It was always his show now. 

“It’s not about you,” he said, jerking my chain some more. 

“It’s about all of us,” Randy said. “Jesus, just cut it out.”

I motioned to Terry. “From the top.”
The drummer shrugged, popped his gum, and clicked four more intro beats.

I reigned in my concentration, playing my solo perfectly when it came back around. I stewed quietly about Steve and his shitty comments, not knowing if he was jealous of my engagement itself, the publicity it generated, drawing attention away from him…or just what. I wondered how much heroin he’d shot up this week.

Rehearsal dragged on for another half hour. After the last note died away, Terry leaped off the drum riser and hooked his arm around my shoulders as I did some last minute practicing. Into my mike, he asked, “So Season, do bass players really thump harder?”

I rolled my eyes, strumming my top strings.

“I know they do,” she answered, walking to the edge of the stage. Oh, that sway of hips…

“But drummers have more rhythm!” he squawked, bumping his hips against mine.

“Get off me!” I said.

“And guitar players have faster fingers,” Bryon added, handing his guitar to Rodney, his new guitar tech.

Randy started doing some hammer-ons, a la Eddie Van Halen.

“So what do singers do?” Terry asked, watching Steve prowl angrily off the stage.

“They suck!” Randy said, hoping Steve might laugh.

He didn’t.

Terry giggled salaciously and elbowed me. “I know that’s for sure!”

I was only slightly embarrassed, far too well aware of Terry and his voyeurism, especially when it came to me, and another particular singer.

“They just squeal a lot,” I said, seeing a hint of color flushing Season’s cheeks. And I’m gonna make you squeal all night and into tomorrow…

Terry shook my shoulders like a boxing manager. “Did you take your vitamins today?”

“Piss off.”

He cackled, and leaped off the stage, taking Season in his arms. “It’s good to see you, Seas.”

“You, too, T.J.” She hugged my best friend back. “How’s your mom?”

The ever-cheerful drummer’s face clouded a bit, but he covered his anguish quickly and efficiently. “She’s okay.”

When he didn’t elaborate further on his mother’s battle with ovarian cancer, Season asked, “So who’s planning the bachelor party?”

His black eyes sparkled, and I feared the worst. “Well, y’know, we coulda had the Playboy Mansion, but no! You two wanna get married here! In the most boring city in the country!” He waved his arms and spun like a little girl, his stringy black hair twirling around his head.

“So they opted for the Hustler Club,” I said, pulling the Fender over my shoulders and handing it to Jeff.  The faithful tech and I shared a handshake and bade each other farewell.

Season raised her eyebrows and referred to her upcoming lingerie party. “Ooh, the Hustler Club! And all I get is Gina’s house.”

“And no strippers for you,” I teased, leaping off the stage.

She pushed out her bottom lip. “No?”

”Not unless you hire him.” The lanky, six-foot-four drummer gave me a juvenile shove.  “Dirty dancing ballroom motherfucker.”

“No soul white boy,” I countered, shoving him back.

“Bastard son of an exotic dancer!” Another shove, plus another…this went back and forth for a while, along with the name-calling.

“Hay-hauling redneck wanna-be!”

“Trombone sucking band nerd!”

“Okay, okay!” Season broke us up like a soccer mom mediating unruly adolescents. “Break it up!”

I pulled my car keys out of my pocket, and wrapped my hand around her neck, drawing her to me. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah,” Terry said, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of his faded jeans. “Go slobber on each other someplace else!”

“What? You don’t wanna watch now?” I laughed, as Season took my hand and started leading me up the aisle of the auditorium.

“Well, I want to…” Terry grinned that Poltergeist clown doll grin. “But I’ll just wait for the video!”

Sunglasses down and keys at the ready, I almost ran across the parking lot to the Austin-Healey, Season struggling to match my long strides in her high-heeled boots.

“Hey! Slow down!”

I hurriedly unlocked the passenger door, praying there weren’t a bunch of paparazzi lurking around. I was so glad we didn’t live in L.A. anymore. My and Season’s relationship was so highly visible now, especially after I’d proposed to her onstage at the Forum, and I feared for what little privacy we had.

“Why is the top up?” she asked, knowing how much I preferred the convertible cover down when the weather was beautiful and clear like it was today.

“It just is,” I said, not wanting to waste any more time. She climbed in, and I raced to the driver’s side, slamming the door and jamming the key in the ignition. The engine idled as I leaned over, throwing strong arms around her slender body and closing my mouth over hers, plunging my tongue between her teeth, grateful for the tinted windows. I was like an overanxious prom date ready to leap into the backseat, which unfortunately the Austin didn’t have, or we could do this right now, and I wouldn’t have to endure the half-hour ride home.

I came up for air, only to kiss her again and again, longing to touch her everywhere, but the cramped two-seater wouldn’t quite allow that.

She laughed, trying to restrain me. “What are you doing? Somebody might see us.”

I couldn’t stop smiling, like a wicked pirate ready to ravish the young virgin. “I missed you,” I said, reluctantly sitting back in the driver’s seat. “I can’t help myself.”

She pushed my hair over my shoulder and bit my earlobe. “Neither can I.”

I clicked my seatbelt into place, wincing as it strapped across my lap. I stomped on the clutch and threw the British sports car into first gear.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Some obscure European pseudo-metal band was playing on KKLT, the volume cranked.

Seems like I’ve known her a thousand years

We’ve been together all through our lives

She know the way love should be

A fire burning endlessly

I drove like a speed-freak, cursing slower drivers, Season’s left hand clasped firmly in my right. At the light on McDowell, I raked my lips hungrily across her knuckles, humming along to the lyrics.

“Your Elavil must have finally kicked in,” she observed.

“I don’t think it’s just that,” I said, unwilling to discuss my medicinal orders as she stroked my jaw. I sucked her fingers into my mouth and licked her palm. “I’ve been stuck with all the testosterone I can handle for the last few days.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Some female distraction would benefit me immensely.” The light changed and I let go of her just long enough to switch gears, the Austin roaring down Scottsdale Road. I reached my free hand around her neck, massaging the area behind her right ear. She bit her pouty bottom lip and closed her eyes, tilting her head further into my grip. 

I couldn’t wait until we were on the interstate.

“I thought you’d be glad to be back at work,” she murmured, running her fingers idly along my forearm.

“Not with Steve and Randy at each other’s throats every five minutes.” I twisted her silken hair in my fingers, my thigh quivering. “It’s been a real picnic.”

My sarcasm melted quickly as she reached through the elongated armhole of the Motley Crue shirt and pinched my nipple. I grunted and nearly sideswiped a Volvo. I barely heard the honking horn.

“Is it that bad again?” She continued to touch me, fingering the gold cross around my neck. 

“I try to stay out of it.” My hand moved to her chest, sliding my palm underneath the neckline of her top and squeezing the swell of one perfect breast though black lace. “I’ve got more important things to think about.”

Summertime girls, you make my whole world go ‘round

The way you lift me up, I’ll never come down, oh no…

Thank you, Y & T.

Yes! There’s the exit ramp!

“In just a minute we’ll be on I-10,” I said, taking her chin in my palm. “Then I’m gonna need some roadside assistance.”

She smiled that wide, beautiful smile that made a small dimple on the right side of her mouth. “Road side assistance?”

I laughed. “Side, forward, backward, on top, on bottom, upside down…” I pulled her face closer, kissing her mouth and still keeping an eye on my left turn. Tires squealed as I threw the car into high gear and sailed past cars already crowding the outside lane.

She gripped the door handle for a moment, as the speedometer needle leaped up to eighty. She eyed me suspiciously. “You’re gonna get us killed before we’re even married.”

I glanced furtively in all mirrors, changing lanes to zoom past a semi and a UPS truck. “Yeah, but what a way to go.”

As soon as the majority of the traffic was behind us, I released the seatbelt and relaxed further down in my seat, keeping a firm hand on the steering wheel.

“I don’t have to explain myself, do I?” I asked, winking at her.

She shook her head at me. “You naughty little devil.”

I laughed low in my throat, taking her hand and placing it over the bulge between my thighs. “A week’s a long time to wait.”

She unhooked her seatbelt and leaned closer, her lips barely touching the lower part of my neck, right where it met my shoulder. “You once waited for six.”

I shrugged uneasily. “Yeah, that was dumb.”

“Now, hold on.” She removed her hand from my crotch and I hastily reached to put it back. She slapped my hand away. “Wasn’t it eventually worth it?”

I blew out a long, heavy sigh, remembering making love to her for the first time, back in July, after abstaining from sexual activity for over a month. I picked the worst possible time in my life to quit having non-descript, casual sex, because the next day she walked into my life, wearing black leather and red lipstick and I was down for the count. She was the most amazing creature I’d ever laid eyes on, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life going down on her…every day…

God, yes, it was definitely worth it.

I fought the hardest inner battle I’d ever fought those first few weeks, trying to stay true to those strange new feelings without tearing her clothes off every chance I could get. No other woman I’d ever known had been able to get into my head so easily, with just a glance, a touch, a hint of a sly smile. She’d laugh and I’d melt like an ice cube on a hot sidewalk, she’d cry and I’d crumble like dried clay in the desert, she’d scowl at me and I’d rage like a hurricane on the Gulf Coast in late summer, primarily out of fear that she’d be gone, and I’d never again be able to feel her-her body, her presence, her sweet soul…She held my life in her hands, and without her I was nothing more than a useless and broken fool, left with a beat-up bass guitar and not a single pair of jeans without a hole in one knee.

Right now, I didn’t even want to be wearing my jeans.

“Y’know,” I began, wrapping an arm around her twenty-three inch waist and slipping my hand beneath her top. Damn, her skin…“It’s been a long time since anyone’s done me in a car.”

“You mean I’m not the first?” 

I felt her breasts against my ribs, her lips tugging at my ear, her hands deftly unhooking each button of my fly one by one. Unfortunately, no, she wasn’t the first, not even the first in this car, but from this day forward she would be the only one to do anything to me anywhere. I didn’t respond, in word, and turned on the air conditioner. It didn’t work very well, but I had the feeling it was gonna get really warm in here.

Even less traffic now, and I was able to keep a steady speed of about ninety-five. I prayed fervently I wouldn’t see a state trooper.

Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P. sang:  I’m a wild child, come and love me, I want you, My heart’s in exile, I need you to touch me, ‘cause I want what you do…

I sucked in my breath suddenly, feeling a tender but warm grip on my manhood, a warm tongue sliding across my collarbone.

My foot slipped on the accelerator and the car started to sputter. I geared down, and back up quickly, and wondered how much it would cost to put cruise control on an eleven-year-old foreign car.

She giggled seductively. “You sure you can drive this thing?”

“You just play with your own gear shift.”

I put my hand to the back of her head and gently…well, maybe not so gently, pushed her downward.

I groaned aloud, pressing my shoulders against the headrest, desperately trying to keep my eyes open and on the road. I death-gripped the leather-covered steering wheel, sweat breaking out on my forehead.

I passed car after car, her fingers clasped around the base of my length, her wet, searing mouth swallowing me, pulling at taut skin, sending wave after wave of pulsating heat through my legs, making in difficult to keep my foot on the pedal.

I almost missed the turn to Fountain Hills.

The Austin’s speed dropped to about seventy-five. “Just because the car’s slowing down doesn’t mean you have to,” I grunted.

The rumble of laughter in her throat vibrated against me and I gritted my teeth, struggling to prolong the pleasure. I switched gears, maneuvering the car like a faulty carnival ride, veering onto Highway 87. Home was only fifteen minutes away at this speed.

Ted Nugent now on the radio.  You’ve got me tied up in love, babe, you’ve got me, tied up in love…

Hmm…perhaps we’ll try that later…

No other traffic now, just trees, chaparral, and open road.

I wove my fingers through soft, ebony hair, feeling it against my stomach as her head moved up, down, slowly, then rapidly, and back again. I swallowed hard, took hot, dry air into my lungs, wondering if I’d need something to wipe steam off the inside of the windshield. I wished it was night, then she’d be across my lap, and I wouldn’t be in her mouth…but that would come soon enough.

Like I was going to any second now.

I ran my hand down her back, reaching under tight denim and nylon, between her shapely buttocks, my fingers discovering juicy folds of skin. She murmured and sucked at me hard, and with a heavy sigh I spilled into her mouth, nearly losing control of the wheel, my foot again sliding off the gas pedal. The Austin veered dangerously near a guardrail as we sped over a hill, coasting downward into the sleepy burg of Fountain Hills, Arizona, one of the fastest growing suburbs in Pima County.

Ted Nugent had quit tying people up and now Joe Elliott of Def Leppard was singing about not fooling himself.

She sat up, gingerly wiping her bottom lip, purring like a kitten enjoying a saucer of milk. She snapped her seatbelt back into place.

“How’s that for roadside service?”

I was too busy clearing the smoke of sexual fireworks out of my brain to hear her. My voice was a weak, ragged gasp, each word a long, drawn-out syllable like I wanted to savor every vowel.

“I love you.”

Home. As much as I loved the road, I was becoming more and more appreciative of my desert hideaway, surrounded by national forest and protected wilderness, where the media would be hard-pressed to nose into my private life, unless they wanted to risk being eaten by a bear or a coyote.

I pulled into the garage and felt great relief as the door closed down behind us.

Alone at last.

My jeans refastened except for the top button, I touched her face again before we got out of the car. “Do you love me?”

“Of course.” She shimmied out of her seatbelt again and stared at me, her green eyes wide and shadowed in the dim light.

I had a feeling I needed to be peeled from the driver’s seat. Damn, she could give head better than anyone alive. I played my thumb across her lower lip, pulling her even closer. She smelled of male sex and crushed magnolia flowers, and I could feel my second wind returning with no effort whatsoever.

“You got anything left?” she asked, kissing the heel of my hand.

“You have no idea.” I pulled the keys out of the ignition.

“We don’t have to stay down here in the car, do we?”

I laughed. “Oh, no. I need a lot more room to operate.”

She leaped out of the car  “So do I.”

I got out, took her bags out of the trunk, and slung one over each shoulder. “Did you come back with more than you took?”

“Maybe.” She walked backward toward the stairs leading to the living room.

“Better be some lingerie in here.” I followed like a drone to the queen bee.

She gripped the stair rail and swung around like a pole dancer. “Maybe,” she repeated.

I slapped her bottom with an open hand. “Get upstairs, wench.”

She laughed that hearty, carefree laugh that made my ears tickle, and bounded up the stairs.

“Hold it!” I reached the living room landing, just to the left of the kitchen entrance, and set her bags on the hardwood floor.

“What?” She stopped suddenly, before racing up the steps to the loft, where the real fun was soon to be had.

I leaned against a rough hewn support beam, lacing her fingers in mine, pulling her slender, perfect body next to me and she smiled seductively.

“I can’t believe you’re stalling,” she said, referring to what she could feel against her stomach. 

“Oh, I’m not stalling,” I said, moving my hips side to side, making her giggle like a hot coed. “You just have to promise that you don’t go running around telling people about what you’re gonna find upstairs.”

“Oh, all that romantic prepwork you did this week?”

Dammit, Terry. I should never have taken him shopping with me. And when would he have told her? Oh, yeah, he answered the phone yesterday when we were cleaning house. I knocked the back of my head against the support beam. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

“He didn’t give me details…”

“That’s amazing.”

“He just said you were getting all ‘romantic and shit’.” She kissed the indention in my chin, my least favorite feature, second only to the bushy eyebrows. “He’d never seen you so…oh, what word did he use? Something like “giddy” but that wasn’t it.”

“Just don’t let this ruin my rock and roll bad boy reputation,” I said, sounding a lot like Randy back at rehearsal. “We still need to appeal to the eighteen to twenty-five male demographic.”

“But women are more fun to play for,” she said. “Even for me.”

“Yeah.” I let go of her hands and she raced up the stairs. With a sly smile on my face, I waited patiently for her reaction before I joined her.

“Oh! This is great!”
            I took the steps two at a time, then propped myself against the other support beam at the top of the landing. I found her sprawled on the bed, an antique pine queen-size with a railed headboard, covered with my grandmother’s patchwork quilt. She was surrounded by asters, her favorite flower, and white roses, clutching a lavender silk gown to her chest. There was a chilled bottle of chardonnay on the nightstand and as many candles as I could find sitting on every other surface in the room.

I smirked, quite proud of being “all romantic and shit.” And Terry wonders why he can’t score with decent women. “You like it?”

She lied on her back, her almond-shaped, sparkling eyes peeking over the gown as she held it up to her face. Her voice muffled, she said, “I love it!”

“Put it on.” 

            She leaped up and scampered into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar so we could talk. “You didn’t have to do all this just for me.”

            “Yes, I did.” I picked up a box of matches and started lighting the candles. “You deserve it after being gone.”

            And especially because of why she was gone. The trial to put away her former manager would take place right after our honeymoon, and I had to make her life outside the legal bullshit as happy and as comfortable as I could.

            I lit candle after candle, trying to think if I’d ever felt this way, if I’d ever gone to this much “trouble” to please a woman, if I’d ever been this “romantic and shit.” She deserved flowers, chocolate, wine, expensive gifts…just material items, I know, but if those were a true representation of what I felt for her, the personification of what she meant to me, how I owed her my very life, then so be it.

            “Atlanta just sucked,” she was saying. “The weather was horrible and it rained the entire time. But the label said they were going to do everything they could to get our money back.”

            “Did you see your mom? In New Orleans?” I asked as the smell of various candle scents permeated the room.

            “Yeah, she’s really excited about the wedding.”

            I heard the bathroom door open.

            “She says Dad will be back from Montana just in time. How does it look?”

            I turned, and my heart stood still.

            Radiant, glowing, beautiful…all those words a man can’t run out of to describe the woman of his dreams. The gown, edged in cream-colored lace, clung to her every curve, revealing the soft contours of her breasts, accentuating her hourglass waist, flowing over her slim hips, the hem barely brushing the tops of her gorgeous legs. Her pale skin caught the evening sunlight pouring through the window behind me; her ebony hair draped over one shoulder, falling almost to her waist.

            The match I was holding burned down and scorched my fingertips. I swore and slung it to the floor.

            My voice was a hoarse rasp when I finally found it. “Come here.”

            She walked toward me, her delicate bare feet padding across the rust-colored carpet. I cupped my hands around her neck, her arms sliding around my waist. She tilted her head upward to kiss me, but I held back, taking time to examine her sweet face, tracing each feature to cool my burned fingertips: arched brows, high cheekbones, perfectly-formed nose, full, doughy lips, sleek jawline.

            She blinked, licking her lips, and I drew in a sharp breath. 

“What is it?” she asked.

            “You still wanna marry me?”

            Straight white teeth nipped at her lower lip, and she blinked again, a glisten of moisture in her eyes.

            “More than anything.”

            I heaved a long, heavy sigh through my nose as if her words were like oxygen providing my first breath.

            “I missed you so much,” she said, spreading her hands up my chest, touching the hollow of my throat. “I hated that you couldn’t come with me.”

            “I wanted to,” I said. “I couldn’t do anything about it.”
            “I know,” she whispered, lowering her gaze.

            “Look at me.” I caught her head in my hands, weaving my fingers into silky black strands of hair, shuddering at the moisture in her eyes that made them glitter like peridot. “I promise you, with all that I have, nothing like that will ever happen to you again.”

            She sniffed, sobbed, and I rubbed my thumbs under her eyes, erasing hot tears as quickly as they dripped from her eyelashes.

            “As long as you’re with me, nothing…”

            She squeezed her eyes shut and I made her look at me again. 

“Nothing, no one,” I whispered forcefully, “will hurt you again.”

She stared right into me, and I was lost for a second, finding my soul there, where I’d always be able to find it should I ever lose it again, like I’d done so many times since we’d met just four months ago.

“I’ll kill the next sorry bastard who tries to hurt you.”

“Don’t say that…”

“I mean it.” I stroked her tender mouth with my thumbs, pressing my fingertips into taut muscles behind her ears. “And you’ll never have to face anything alone again. I’ll always be here.”

The fruity vanilla scent of the candles and her own hypnotic perfume stirred my senses, and the need to be serious was done.

“And with that in mind,” I grinned, pressing my forehead to hers, “we have wine…” I kissed her temple. “We have food…” Now her cheek. “We have all night…” The jaw… “All day tomorrow…” Her throat… “And the phone is unplugged.”

At last her mouth, easing my tongue through her lips, so hot, moist, savoring her like the luscious, sexual female she was.

She pulled the ragged Motley Crue shirt over my head, and stroked my ribs, moving her mouth from mine and fusing it to the middle of my chest, trailing her tongue to one nipple, taking it into her teeth. I massaged her shoulders, feeling the world fade away as the sun sunk below the mountains outside, her hands releasing the buttons on my jeans.

She sat me down on the bed, starting session number two of what she’d done in the car, but now it was better, with more room to move around, and my hands could touch her instead of the steering wheel. I was completely naked now, leaning back and crushing flower petals under my elbows, her hands and mouth closed around my erection, my head spinning with a high better than cocaine. I watched her, her hair sweeping over my hipbone, the silk of the gown soft against my inner thighs, her lips stroking and teasing down each side of me. She took me all the way down her throat and I groaned aloud, throwing my head backward.

“Stop,” I rasped, feeling the tingle from deep in my loins, fighting back the wave. She could always do that.

She stood, and I pulled her onto my lap, feeling slick heat against one thigh.  She positioned herself so that my penis was tucked just inside her outer folds, and with one arm around her waist, I used my other hand to peel back intricately woven lace to find a pert, taut nipple surrounded by dark, red skin, taking it in my mouth much like she’d done to me, rolling my tongue around it with hot, heavy strokes. She clutched the back of my head, whimpering, slowly sliding her pelvis back and forth, making me harder, and hungrier to be inside her.

I rolled her onto her back, pushing her further onto the mattress, kneeling between her legs.  She lifted the gown, and it pooled beneath her breasts, offering her smooth, flat stomach.  She raked her hands over it, then her breasts, still covered, touching her own body as I would, and my legs trembled, my swollen head barely touching soft, short hair between her thighs.  But that could wait.

I wrapped both hands around her left thigh, sliding my palms upward, kissing the back of her knee, her velvet calf, the curve of her ankle bone. She pushed her hands into her hair, then pulled her fingers over her cheeks, sucking one finger into her mouth. I dragged in air, aroused by how she touched herself, and I moved to touch her other leg in the same fashion as the first, watching scattered petals attach themselves to her hair and skin, now glistening with perspiration.

I reached down to touch her, sinking two fingers into wet, searing folds of skin, and she moaned aloud, arching her back and twisting her neck to one side, her hair covering her face.

“Yes…yes…” she gasped, reaching down and clasping the hard marble between my legs.

“Oh, God.”  I locked my jaw, one hand still clutching her leg, my cheek sweating against the side of her knee.  I probed her, felt her, my fingers damp with female honey. I eased downward, trailing my lips down her thigh, feeling her hands release me as drops of sweat poured down my back.  My arm tucked under her leg, I flattened my palm over her belly, and lowered my mouth onto her, latching onto a firm, hardened piece of skin.

She cried out, louder this time, threading her fingers into my hair and lifting her pelvis upward, her heel digging into my lower back, her inner thigh pressed against my ear.  I loved doing this to her, how it pleased her, made her body ripple with excitement, prolonged the maddening ache to mate like a wild beast. I loved her taste, her heat, the sounds she made as my fingers plunged in and out of her like a machine, my tongue lapped at her like a thirsty animal. I could feel it building, the quiver of her legs, the quickening of her breath…I removed my fingers, pushing her thighs backward with strong hands, and clamped my mouth down harder, driving her over the edge. She climaxed over and over, wailing like a porn actress, tugging at my hair.

I finally came up for air, wiping a palm across my chin, her scent urging me on, to feel her again after two weeks of being alone, with nothing to occupy my time but my bandmates’ constant complaints about rehearsals and my own frantic attempts at wedding plans. Her body rocked with labored pants, her hair spread wickedly over the quilt, both breasts, the peaks rock hard, spilling out of the gown and covered with rose petals, her eyes languid and dark emerald, gazing up at her lover…a man who never dreamed he’d ever be fortunate enough to have this. 

I leaned over, fighting the urge to take her too quickly, bracing my hands on either side of her shoulders, my eyes locked with hers, watching her face as I covered her body with mine and entered her slowly and steadily.

Jesus…

A long, loud groan emanated from her mouth, open wide, and I hissed through clenched teeth, feeling smooth muscles squeeze down on me, hot enough to burn my skin. She dug her nails into my chest, whispering my name, pleading to love her.

I stroked wet hair and flower petals away from her face, taking her mouth with mine, sliding my sex deeper into her body, her cries muffled, and I was losing myself, sinking into oblivion.

“I love you,” I whispered raggedly, retracting my hips only to gently push forward again.  “Tell me you love me.”

“I love you.” Her voice was light and breathy, like a little girl, a far cry from the throaty rock diva who could outsing most men in our profession.

“I promise it will always be like this,” I said, my lips brushing hers. One more long thrust…two…three…fueling the fire. She gasped with each move, pushing my long hair over my shoulders and twirling it in her fingers. 

“Season…”

Her name on my lips, I clasped both her hands in mine, holding them over her head, taking leave of my senses and letting my body take over, thrusting into her with hard passion, fighting for air, light, anything to sustain that primal need she’d awakened in me, that voodoo hex that made it impossible for me to survive without her. She moved with me, our bodies attuned to each other like the music we played:  her cries the squeal of a distorted guitar, mine the rumble of thick bass strings, the bed thundering percussion, hard, heavy, raucous, and dirty, crescendoeing with lust and frenzy into a pyrotechnical encore that shook foundations.

Long live rock and roll.