I don't care who you sleep with, but don't you ever SING with anyone else!!

She said this and her whole demeanor turned into a smile.

He should have asked her then.

Begged her.
Got down on his knees and not allowed her to let go of his hand until she agreed to be by his side for the rest of his life.

Because he betrayed her.

After their tour ended, he didn't push to bring her along on the Reunion Tour of The Band. Just didn't mention it. The Cute One was trying to bring his 27year old wife onboard, she was a Star Collector\Fucker if ever there was one. Unstable, Fiery Latina, she had him pussy whipped. All the other Boys in the Band were embarrassed for him.

Especially when they overheard the fights; she'd throw shoes against the wall. Scarring him in the process.

Backstage before rehearsal:
"Nice shiner! What happened to you?"
"I walked into a door."
"You sound like a battered wife!"
They both walked away when they realized how true that statement was.

And so he just couldn't bring any of his own issues to the show. They only needed one female backup singer. The Funny One had his sister and The Rich One had 3 sons and a daughter, plus the opportunistic in-laws.

No room for HER.

And so he went on tour, again and again. Invited her to come along, even. Blue jean Baby, LA Lady. Everything seemed fine.

And them he was Bogart in "Casablanca", rain falling on the note that told him that she wouldn't be coming.

Why she had to go, I don't know, she wouldn't say.

And things were never the same.

Their First Time

After the concert, after everyone has left, after they are done with discussing the details for tomorrow's event, he casually invites her to stay and help him finish up the champagne.  As if it's still part of her job.  Not a perk, a responsibility.  He still imagines her in her perfect little Catholic school uniform, although she gives off the attitude of wearing a nun's severe black habit.

Champagne never gave him a buzz, so he still drinks it.  It's the one alcohol that he still allows himself. Well, and a beer every now and then.  But only when he's smoking a joint.

It's more out of habit to offer the rest to her, girls like champagne; it makes them bubbier.  And it works with her. They've been flirting heavily in the past week.  She even has been taking the lead.  Maybe the rock star pheremone has gotten to her.

He approaches her, leading with his lips.  A smooth, clean move that usually ends up in a kiss.  But she's too giggly.  He giggles a bit himself, more as a rescue than a genuine laugh.

"What is it?"  he asks finally.  The more he looks at her, the more beautiful he sees her.  Young skin, pale against her dark hair; her smirk and the playfulness of her expressions.  Levels of complexity in her eyes they he hadn't noticed before.

"You're the Rock Star.  I can't do it.  You were my boss, my rude boss, and now you are this rock star.  All those women!! I just had no idea!"

"It's past midnight, would you kiss me if I went back to being your rude boss?"
She giggled at that even more; this was beginning to feel like rejection.
"I mean, lately, it seems like you want to . . ."
"Oh, I do!! I'm not backing out, or being a cock-tease or anything, I just have to stop giggling"
"Because from what you said the other night . . ."
They had come so close . . .. staying up late, planning the logistics for the concert/fundraiser.  Getting him ready to be a star took more planning these days.  Especially in that house still haunted by his ex wife.  #2.  How he used the word "Punk" to describe her.  Or Goth.  And how she misspelled "skeleton" on the wall of the Halloween room.  Which ruined all pretensions to seriousness.

The girl had gotten a tour the first night they had gotten together to mail out "Save the Date" postcards.  They had begun to make out stuffing envelopes for the detailed invitations.  And just this week, the reminder donations had to be out exactly the night before the concert, by request of his boss.   What had changed other than his incredible performance onstage?  He found the same old fear of failure factor, present in his touring days.  Not being able to live up to the rock star role in the bedroom.  He was even intimidated by himself.  But even Cary Grant is not Cary Grant all the time, and he had to figure out a way to stop being himself in the moment.

After a few more minutes of hesitation nuzzling, he got a brilliant idea.

"Why don't YOU be the Rock Star?"
What?
You just played an incredible concert and I am the star struck fan!

He dropped to his knees in a sexy, worshipful gesture.

More giggling.

But there was a certain light in her eyes.

How about if I go outside and come back in. Seriously!  Give yourself a minute to prepare!!

While he was out of the room, she grabbed a feather boa, left behind by a rich and sloppy drunken admirer of too many years who had talked her way backstage and then up into the hotel room by doing god-knows-what to all the Security men.  He recognized her and excused them for a period of no longer than 10 minutes.   She was shocked when she imagined what actually happened. The boa ended up on a lamp.  The hotel room had a certain Zsa Zsa Gabor overdone glamor which matched the groupie, and she played up the setting.  Even adopting a terrible an inconsistent accent.

And so they began a charade, him declaring himself as "Roomservice" in a deep tone.  A fan's story of sneaking into her hotel room.

She began to enjoy it.

And laugh like a woman in charge of herself.

DJ Moment

He wanted to surprise her with Cole Porter.  Something easy, in his range.  Something that Jimmy Stewart got away with.

==
At the radio station, early or late, noone else around, he found her crying. They often did the too-early shifts together, and when needed, the too-late shifts.  There was always a lot of coffee and very little light.

"Hey, where's the news?!" He rounded the corner of the cubicle before he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

She looked away quickly.  "It's here, " tearing the sheet off the old fax machine.  The slick paper and the purple ink always rubbed off on his hands and he'd stare at his fingers in the control room.  Turning knobs, wondering how he'd gone wrong and why he didn't merit his own engineer.

"You're crying!"  He declared.  He was getting very good at these declarative statements; no matter how early it was, he could still identify reality.

"No," she shook her head, avoiding his eyes.  When he came close, she backed away, as if he were going to attack her by giving her a hug.  She was still new at being his assistant, and he knew he was failing her.  She had introduced herself as a lifelong fan (which only served to make him feel old, not honored.  She'd been watching his 22 year old self on tv.  The time machine.)  And all he ever did was yell.  He was an even worse boss.

"Look, I'm sorry if I raise my voice all the time,"  he was following her down the hallway of carpeted cubicles, back towards the control room.

"It doesn't matter.  It's not you," she called over her shoulder.

He heard the record ending, and as always, pondered the size of his listenership.  How much dead-air they would take.  It might even be his signature style.  But he never let it go longer than a few seconds. And he was due for a bunch of business, the ads, the station id, the news.

Instead of chasing her to the Ladies room (he didn't even know her THAT well, yet), he went back to work.

She walked in, just as he was coming back from commercial.  Even though he was reading the news off the blurry paper, he felt her eyes on him.  He even tried to make eye contact when he could.  As soon as he finished reading, he was able to set the next record by feel.  His hands moving, carefully in sequence, to get the record moving, to pull up the sound on turntable 2, already cued up.  To turn off his mic and the other faders, just in case the used car commercial was repeating itself.  He held her eyes, waiting for her to talk.

"When  I was a kid, I'd watch your show with my brother.  He was a year younger than me.  He loved it because I loved it.  It was only on in the summer, and we'd go out and play-usually a variation of the plot of whatever show we saw.  He was killed when he was 11. Today, it's his birthday.  And it marks the same number of years that I had known him as he's been gone.  And somehow, even though I know it's not true, I've always throught that you were a witness to him, to us playing together.  Like you shared all those mornings. And I'm completely aware that you aren't--"

She stopped talking just as the record finished and he announced the next one.  It was their signalling language, nodding to each other when he went back to steering the big ship (The Titanic).  He was a pilot, a captain, making sure the music kept rolling on.  Silence was the crash, the train wreck.

"That you weren't there. But after he died, I confided to your poster.  And it was a great copng mechanism.  And I don't expect that in real life----, I just wish that I could cnfide in you and that you would be kind enough to listen.  And instead, all you do is yell at me,"

His hand had been resting a few inches from hers, the music was playing, but the room was silent and motionless.  He reaches his hand out slightly to rest his fingers on hers.  But the music ends abruptly, Something's wrong with the continuity of sound; the great ocean is turbulent again.

She leaves the door slightly ajar, breaking the sanctity of the dj booth, but at this hour, it was only them anyway and no other sound will leak in.  The entire office is silent.

Shit!

Thoreau's Journal: 04-May-1852

R.W.E. tells me he does not like Haynes as well as I do. I tell him that he makes better manure than most men.

==

After a while, her nap was rudely interrupted.

She hadn't remembered falling asleep, probably something that happened when the music lulled both of them into a lovely quiet space. A lot of ghosts gently entered into the space then, a familiar feeling of love and the old tenderness.  Just yesterday, he was stroking her cheek.  Some dream of their lovemaking got conjured up and she remembered the hollows and muscles of his body.

But there was something wrong.

"Shit!" he shouted.

She smelt it too.

It wasn't a metaphor or a declaration of frustration.  It was literal.  Her eyes opened and almost immediately began to water.  He had shat himself in the hospital bed in his dining room.

His nurse had called in sick yesterday and the day before. In fact, she was just beginning to regret speaking to her at all when she arrived.  She had betrayed him and somehow volunteered herself as his last living caretaker.

His face was turned to the wall, depressed and humiliated.  She jumped up, ready for the task.

"No worries, a little shit doesn't scare me. I've heard you sing,"

He smiled at that. When he looked at her, his eyes seemed to be watery.  She couldn't tell if it was his age or sickness or if he was starting to cry out of gratitude.

She gave him a tender sponge bath at 3am, running her hands over the body she knew so well.  The biceps that had always been so strong (as solid as his prick) were gone, replaced by bone and slippery skin.

She had to resist the urge to kiss all of his old freckles.

She made jokes instead, which was just as good.