Climbing the Rock

Chapter 1B: The Power of Music

Salinas Bend, in the 1970's, was a 200-acre Heritage City park located in the relatively rural southern section of the city. Situated along the Sacramento River, which formed Heritage's western boundary, its primary purpose was a boat launching facility and family picnic area. That was during the day. During the weekend night hours it served as a favored location for students from three local high schools to hold their keg parties. Hundreds of teenagers between the ages of fifteen and nineteen would descend upon the park after 10:00 PM, parking their cars in the boat trailer lot and setting up kegs that the more business oriented among them would purchase and then charge two dollars per person for an unlimited refill policy, at least until the keg ran out, which typically gave each purchaser an average of eight to ten plastic cups full of cheap beer per keg. Since the site was so isolated from the rest of the city-it was surrounded by dozens of square miles of farmland upon which onions and tomatoes were grown-the partygoers could be as loud and obnoxious as they liked with little risk of the Heritage Police making an appearance. The Heritage PD did, of course, occasionally show up to break things up, but this was more for form's sake than anything else. They actually liked having the majority of the south area's teens gathering in one, known spot in the middle of nowhere instead of breaking up into a dozen or more parties in more populated areas.

As a member of the stoner clique, Jake was a regular attendee of the Salinas Bend keggers during his junior year. Typically he just kind of hung out, sticking close to a few friends, watching the antics of others while he smoked a little weed and got pleasantly buzzed on beer. He was the quiet one, saying little unless he had something important to say, which wasn't often. He had long since learned that his peers were not terribly interested in politics.

On the night in question, Jake was sixteen years old and still a virgin. He had made out with a few girls before, had even done some light petting, but such encounters were very few and very far between. Since getting his driver's license two months before he had been borrowing his parent's 1972 Buick station wagon to get him to the weekly parties on the theory that having his own transportation would improve his success rate with the opposite sex. It was a sound theory that might have held water-even with the wood panel siding on the wagon-if not for the fact that Jake was so painfully shy around girls he rarely got one alone long enough to sustain a conversation. And so, on this evening, like so many others, he was just standing around in a group that consisted mostly of males, sipping beer and maintaining a stronger than average buzz, waiting for some kind soul to pass a joint in his direction, saying little, mostly just watching and dreaming.

And then he heard it. The sound of an acoustic guitar being strummed. His ears perked up and sought out the source of the sound. It was coming from the midst of a group of about twenty people on the other side of the parking lot. A bonfire had been built out of broken up pallets and was blazing away. A male figure was the center of this group's attention. He was sitting on the top of a picnic table holding a guitar, strumming open chords on it. Even over the babble of conversations and the sound of multiple car stereos belting out conflicting tunes, Jake could hear that the guitar was out of tune. He headed in that direction, no one in the group he had been with even noticing his departure.

He knew most of the people gathered around the picnic table. They were a mix of juniors and seniors from his school, about half girls and half guys. In the stoner clique, as with any clique, there are cliques within the clique. This group was the elite among the stoners, the hard-core and coolest, the rulers of the clique as far as such a thing existed. The guitar player was Eric Castro, one of the premier members of the ruling clique, one of the hardest of the hard-core. Castro fancied himself a musician because he owned a guitar and had learned to play a few chords. He and a few of the others in this group were always talking about how they were going to get a band together. The guitar he was playing was little more than a toy, a knock-off of a knock-off of a Fender Grand Concert. The strings were of the cheapest quality commercially available. The finish was scuffed and scratched. Jake thought that if he paid more than $15 for it, he had been ripped off.

And yet, despite the out-of-tune sound, despite the toy-like quality of the instrument, everyone in the group was staring at Castro with rapt attention as he finished strumming the open chords and started to play the opening of Simple Man by Lynard Skynard. His playing was only barely palatable. His fingers moved clumsily over the strings as he picked out the first few bars over and over again, never launching into the heart of the song.

"That's, like, so cool," crooned Mandy Walker, a chubby, jiggly stoner girl sitting next to him.

"Yeah," agreed Cindy Stinson, a skinnier, younger girl who sat on the other side. "My brother can play, but nowhere near as good as you."

Castro shrugged modestly, obviously proud of his alleged skill. "It takes lots of practice and dedication," he said solemnly, having to stop playing while he talked since he could no longer look at his fingers. "I picked this acoustic up just to play around with at the park. You should hear me on my electric."

"I bet it's awesome," Mandy said. "You'll have to play for me sometime."

"One of these days," Castro said, inflecting just the right tone of non-committal. He began to pick at the strings again, playing the opening to Love Hurts by Nazareth this time. He made fewer mistakes on this riff but played a lot less of the song before starting over.

The Castro concert went on for almost fifteen minutes, which was the amount of time it took for him to go through his entire catalog of acoustic jams he'd been taught or had managed to pick up by looking at tablature charts. Jake watched in fascination the entire time, not at Castro himself since he was not good enough to even qualify as a hacker, but at the group of people watching him. They had abandoned the recorded and broadcast music to watch him play a few simple chords. They were not talking to each other or joking or engaging in the age-old game of flirtation, they were watching, enjoying. He was making something that approximated music and they were listening to it. There was a magic at work here. He could see that as plain as he could see the alluring bounce of Mandy's tits beneath her halter. If Castro could produce magic by mangling a few popular songs, what would Jake be able to do? Even with the low self-esteem he had for his music producing abilities, he knew without a doubt that he was exponentially better than Castro. What would these people do if he were the one playing for them? No matter how his mind tried to degenerate this thought, to whisper that they would laugh at him and ridicule him, that they would take the guitar from his hands and throw him in the river just to see the splash, he knew it wasn't true. It couldn't be true.

"I need a hit," Castro announced, setting down the guitar behind him. "Whose got some fuckin' weed?"

While several people scrambled to pull out a joint to share with the rock god in their midst, Jake began to walk forward. Later he would tell himself that it was the alcohol coursing through his veins that made him do something so wildly out of character. And perhaps that had a little to do with it. But it was unquestionably more than just liquid courage. Jake wanted to play for these people, wanted to see the adoration in their eyes directed at him.

"Wassup, dude?" Castro greeted Jake as he saw him standing before him, giving the standard head nod one gives a lesser whose name one can't remember.

"Nice guitar," Jake told him. "Do you mind if I... you know... check it out?"

"Do you play?"

Jake shrugged shyly. "A little bit," he said.

Castro smirked. "No shit?" he said. He picked up the guitar and handed it to Jake. "Here you go. Let's hear what you got." The expression on his face implied that this was going to be amusing.

Jake took it, hefting it a few times, getting the feel of it. It really was a cheap piece of shit, hardly worthy of being called a musical instrument, but it was magic in the making all the same. He stepped a few feet to the right and sat down on the other side of Mandy, who was ignoring him as she usually did. He ran his finger across the strings, producing a strum.

"Oooh yeah, baby," Castro said with a laugh. "You fuckin' rock, man."

"Fuck yeah," some other wise-ass put in. "Eric Clapton, eat your fuckin' heart out."

This produced a round of laughter from the crowd, a brief and mildly contemptuous round. Jake ignored it and strummed the E string a few times, listening to the tone. He reached up and adjusted the tuning knob half a turn.

"Hey, what the fuck you doing?" Castro said. "I just tuned that thing."

"It must've came out of tune when you were playing it," Jake told him. "I'm just getting it back."

"It sounds okay to me."

"Well, it's hard to tell without a tuning fork and all this noise out here. I'll have it close in a minute."

"Now hold on a minute..." Castro started.

The pivotal moment in Jake's life might have ended right there. Castro didn't want a little dweeb messing with his guitar and was about to snatch it back. Jake would not have fought him for it. If it were taken from his hands he would simply go back to his original group and go on with his evening. But then Doug Biel, a fringe member of the ruling stoner clique vying for full membership, stepped forward with a hand carved marijuana pipe and a butane lighter. "Here, Castro," he said. "Hit some of this. My brother picked it up in Hawaii. Best shit you'll ever smoke."

"Maui Wowie?" Castro said, immediately losing interest in Jake and the guitar.

"Bet your ass," Doug assured him. "This shit goes for twenty-five an eighth."

"I haven't smoked any Maui Wowie in a couple of months."

"Well fire it up, brother. Fire it up."

Castro took the pipe and the lighter from his hands and took a tremendous hit. He then passed the pipe to Mandy, who sucked up a hit almost as big. She passed the pipe over the top of Jake, to John Standman, who was sitting on the other side of him.

Jake didn't mind. He continued to tune the guitar, striking each string a few times and then adjusting the knob, working entirely by ear. By the time the pipe was sucked dry and passed back to Doug, he had it about as tuned as the cheap, saggy strings would allow. He strummed a few open chords and then grabbed a G chord and began to play.

He picked out a simple medley at first, a slow simple piece of his own composition. His left hand moved slowly and surely over the unfamiliar frets, his calloused fingertips grabbing and pressing with exact pressure, drawing sweet vibration from the strings as the fingers of his right hand picked at them.

The conversation around him stopped. The re-stuffing of the marijuana pipe stopped as well. Eyes turned to him in surprise and wonder.

"Wow," Mandy said, looking at him and acknowledging his existence for perhaps the first time ever. "That's pretty good."

"Thanks," Jake said, giving a slight smile. "I use this as a warm-up exercise when I play."

"What is that?" asked Castro, his mouth open wide, his expression that of a man who has just seen his pet dog start to talk to him. "Is that Kansas?"

"No," Jake said. "It's nothing. Just a warm-up to get the fingers limber."

Castro seemed to have a hard time with this concept. It was nothing? How was that possible? The only thing that could come out of a guitar had to be either random noise or something that one heard on the radio, right?

Jake began to play faster and with more complexity, his left hand making chord changes, his right strumming harder. As always happened when he played, his digits seemed to act independently, without conscious thought, transforming the notes and rhythm in his head instantaneously into music emitting from the guitar.

"Wow," he heard Mandy whisper beside her, something like respect in her tone now. She turned her body so she could see him better.

He picked up the tempo a little more, his fingers hitting the strings harder, changing chords faster, as his confidence increased. He looked at Castro and was gratified to see his mouth still hanging open. Nor was his the only one.

He did a brief solo of sorts, picking out a glowing trip up and down the neck and then settling back down into a strummed melody-an instrumental version of one of the songs he had written. He gradually worked that into an improvised riff that he played around with for a minute or two before working that into the opening bars of All Along the Watchtower.

"Yeah!" someone yelled out from the crowd.

"Play it, man!" someone else yelled.

Jake played it, his hands belting out the rhythm to one of his favorite songs like they had so many times before in the privacy of his bedroom. Later, he would not remember making a conscious decision to start singing. If told earlier in the day that he would break into song before a group of twenty people from school (a group that was growing bigger by the second as people from other groups heard the music and drifted over to see who was making it) he would have judged the teller a liar or insane or both. Singing was a secret thing he did, like masturbation, a private thing, like taking a shower. But when the opening bar of the song worked its way around again on the guitar, his mouth opened and he heard himself belting out:

"There must be some kinda way out of here"

"Said the Joker to the Thief"

"There's too much confusion"

"I can't get no relief"

His voice was as clear and crisp as it always had been, this despite the cigarettes and the beer he'd imbibed in tonight. He wielded it perfectly, instinctively, utilizing all the lessons he'd learned over the years and coupling it with his own natural ability. His audience did not make fun of him as he'd always feared they would. They did not laugh at him. They did not mock him in any way, not even those, like Castro, like John Standman, who were known for such behavior. They watched him, their eyes aglow, their mouths open as he made music for them and before he got to the second verse, many of them were tapping their feet to the rhythm, were nodding their heads towards each other in confused respect.

He sang out the verses and strummed along, mixing his voice and the guitar nicely, never missing a chord, never forgetting a word, never having to look at his fingers to find the right fret. When the last verse was complete he ground out an acoustic guitar solo, his left hand once more moving with blurring speed up and down the neck, his right hand finger-picking out each note. After about thirty seconds of this he began to strum again, a slower, heavier version of the opening bars before finally working up a fancy flourish of strings to bring the song to a conclusion.

And then it was over and silence descended. But only for a second.

They did not applaud him, but only because that was simply not done in such an informal setting. Instead he was greeted with a chorus of appreciative phrases. "Yeah!" the most common, followed closely by "bitchin'!", "nice!", and, that perennial favorite "fuck yeah!" He was clapped on the back by several people, asked where he had learned to do that by several others, told he was fuckin' radical by others yet. Mandy's reaction to him was quite gratifying as well. She leaned into him, her large breasts pushing into his upper arm, her Maui Wowie scented breath blowing softly in his ear.

"That was tight," she told him. "Really fuckin' tight."

This time it really was the beer that made him speak wildly out of character. "Just the way I like it," he told her. He started to blush automatically, started to berate himself for saying something so stupid, was preparing, in fact, to apologize to her out of simple instinct. And then he looked in her eyes. They were shining at him and it was she who was blushing.

"Do something else!" someone shouted out, demanded of him.

"Yeah," other voices chimed in. "Let's hear some more."

A chorus of agreements followed, followed by a few shouted requests. "Zepplin!" was of course the most frequently heard. "Do some fuckin' Zepplin, man!"

Led Zepplin, to the teenage stoner crowd of 1976, was revered about as much as Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary were in the Vatican. Jake was no exception to this worshipfulness. While he didn't know how to play every song they had released, and some of them didn't translate very well to an unaccompanied acoustic guitar, he certainly had a vast and well-practiced regiment of their work in his head. So, brimming with the excitement of discovery, basking in the glow of something very like group adoration for the first time in his life, he gave the people what they wanted. His fingers began to move again, strumming up the opening chords of Rock and Roll.

He played it as effortlessly and as smoothly as he'd done Watchtower before, his voice ringing out in perfect harmony with the guitar chords. People were now swaying back and forth as they watched, some mouthing the words along with him. Mandy had now turned completely toward him, her knee touching his lower thigh, her boobs bouncing up and down alluringly as she moved to the rhythm. He cast appreciative glances at this sight as he played, noticing with black excitement that the friction of her movements (or perhaps something else?) had made her nipples erect beneath her shirt. She saw him looking at her but did not turn away in disgust as she probably would have only ten minutes before. Instead she smiled back at him, her eyes unabashedly looking him over and seeming to like what they were seeing.

Yes, he thought as he poured out the second chorus and prepared to launch into another solo, I think maybe I like this. I think maybe I like it a lot.

By the time he finished Rock and Roll, the crowd around him had grown to well over fifty people, with more still streaming in his direction. Nearby car stereos had been shut off so he could be heard better. The cries for more, more, more, continued, as did the shouted requests for particular bands. He played some Foghat next, churning out Fool For The City and Slow Ride. He then mellowed a little, showing off his fingerpicking skills by doing a rendition of Dust in the Wind. Some of the guys groaned a little at the slow tune but the effect on the girls was something he immediately catalogued and vowed to repeat as often as possible. They all but swooned over him as he used his voice to its best advantage. Remembering something his father had told him once during a lesson, a hint about performance technique, he made a point to look at his audience as he sang, making eye contact with several different girls, as if he were singing to them personally. Some blushed and looked away. Some smiled back at him. A few chewed their lips nervously as they held his gaze. None seemed to mind his eyes upon them, particularly not Mandy, whose gaze grew dreamy as they stared at each other all through the second chorus.

In all, he did twelve songs that night, going heavy on the Led Zepplin and Jimmy Hendrix. He did one more slow song-Yesterday, by The Beatles-near the end and then closed the set with the hard driving Tush by ZZ Top. His audience, which now included almost everyone present at Salinas Bend on that night, continued to shout out requests at him but he wisely elected to adhere to one of the golden rules of performing: Always leave your audience wanting more.

"I gotta take a break for now," he said, putting a pained expression on his face. "My hands are getting sore and my voice is getting kind of scratchy." This was not the least bit true. He often played and sang for two or more hours in his room and usually quit because of boredom instead of finger or voice fatigue, but it was a lie they bought and when he handed the cheap guitar back to Castro he took it from him without further protest.

"Dude," Castro said, looking at Jake as if he might be hot. "That was fuckin' cool. I didn't know you could play."

Jake shrugged, reverting back to his shy persona now that the performance was over. "I just mess around with it a little. Thanks for letting me borrow your guitar."

"Mess around a little? Shit. I mean I'm pretty good and all, but you're even better than I am." Castro said this as if this admission pained him greatly. "You play electric too?"

"A little bit," Jake said, not mentioning that he owned two electric guitars-cheap Les Paul knock-offs at this point in his life-in addition to having access to the four his father owned.

"We'll have to get together and jam sometime, you know what I mean? You ever think of joining a band?"

"Well..."

"Hey, dicknose!" Castro shouted to Doug before Jake could answer. "Where's that fuckin' pipe? Give my man here a goddamn hit!"

Jake was given not just one hit of the potent Hawaiian bud, he was given three and he was soon in the stratosphere. Someone else handed him a fresh cup of beer. The radios came back on and the majority of the crowd drifted away but Castro and his immediate circle continued to talk to Jake, telling him about this concert they'd been to, that song they knew how to play, how famous their band was going to be once they got it together. Jake nodded and responded in all the right places but barely heard a word said to him. His attention was instead on Mandy, who had scooted even closer and was now almost snuggled up against him, her breasts making frequent and seemingly accidental contact with his arm.

Eventually the conversation shifted away from guitars and music and onto other things like cars and movies and drugs. The focus shifted off Jake as well as Castro and the other ruling members fell back into their more natural patterns. It was then that Mandy tugged his arm.

"Let's go fill our cups up again before the keg runs out," she said.

"Uh... sure," he replied, standing up.

They walked over to the keg, taking up position at the end of a line of about thirty people. As they moved slowly forward towards the tap, Mandy held onto his arm possessively, cuddling close to him. She was not able stake her claim on his conversation as easily as she staked it on his person. All those around him in the line commented on his performance, asking the same questions he'd been asked back in the group, making the same observations. Two more people asked him if he would consider joining their band when they put one together. He answered politely and monosyllabically, more than a little overwhelmed with this sudden attention.

Finally they reached the head of the line, where the keg was stored in a park services garbage can filled with half-melted ice. Jake primed the keg with the hand pump on the tap. He filled Mandy's cup and then his own.

"You wanna take a walk with me?" she asked as he handed her drink to her.

He swallowed a little nervously. "Sure," he replied, nodding a little too forcefully. "That's a good idea."

She led him away from the parking lots, toward the river. As they walked, Jake's mind reviewed what he knew about this girl he was going off alone with. She was sixteen and, though not the best looking of the stoner girls, was one of the favorites among the guys, which accounted for her membership in the ruling clique. It was said that she loved making out, loved having her tits played with and would do both of these activities quite freely with anyone who could get her alone. Getting to third base was reputed to be a little more difficult but certainly within the realm of possibility if one did a decent job working his way to second base. Only a select few had actually fucked her. No one had ever claimed he'd scored a blowjob from her, although there were occasional, unconfirmed reports of hand-jobs. Jake wondered what he was in store for. Would he even get to first base? Sure, the power of music on her attitude had been quite magic, almost supernatural even, but he wasn't playing music any more. Would the spell last? Or would she suddenly remember that she was with a virtual nobody and storm off? He wasn't sure. This was well beyond his minimal experience. The other girls he'd made out with had been those as shy as or even shier then himself.

The boat launch area was one of the darker parts of the park. It consisted of a sloping concrete ramp and a fifty-foot dock that protruded out into the river. There were no streetlights here because the facility was not intended to be used at night. They walked out onto the dock and sat down at the end of it, both of them taking off their shoes and socks and rolling up their pant legs so their feet could dangle in the semi-warm water. The sound of crickets chirping easily overrode the sound of revelry coming from the parking lot.

"Nice and peaceful out here, isn't it?" Mandy asked as she snuggled up next to him, her warm, soft body pressing into his.

"Yeah," Jake said nervously, taking a drink of his beer in an attempt to quell his dry mouth. "Very nice."

Her foot began to rub against his under the water, her bare toes caressing him. "Romantic even," she whispered.

He was shy, but not dumb. He put his arm around her, pulling her closer to him. She cooed a little, laying her head on his shoulder.

"You have such a beautiful singing voice," she told him. "Who would've thought? And when you were singing Dust in the Wind to me..." she shivered a little. "Wow. When you were looking in my eyes while you sang it... I knew there was connection there. I mean... didn't you feel it?"

"Yeah," he said, putting his head even closer, snuggling his nose through her brown hair. "I felt it."

"That's such a romantic song," she crooned. "It just gets you, you know?"

"I know," he whispered, even though Dust in the Wind really wasn't a romantic song at all. Quite the opposite in fact. It was a dark song about the inevitability of death and about how meaningless the actions of mere humans really are in the great scheme of things. But Mandy really didn't need to be enlightened about this, did she? He thought not.

She tilted her face up to his and he kissed her. Her lips were full and soft, very sensuous. They exchanged slow, soft kisses for a few moments and then her tongue slid out of her mouth and into his. He swirled his own tongue against it, not caring that she tasted of beer and cigarettes. He tasted the same, he was sure. She was a great kisser, he discovered, which was hardly surprising considering the amount of practice she'd had at it.

It didn't take long before she laid back on the dock and he lay forward, half-atop her. They continued to kiss each other, deep, tongue dueling, spit swapping French kisses, the kind that gave "making out" its name. His hand rested on her hip for a while and then slid up and down her bare leg beneath the hem of her denim shorts, feeling the soft skin there. It felt very nice, very feminine. He caressed here for the better part of five minutes before moving his hand back upward, onto her stomach.

"Mmmm," she cooed into his mouth as his hand rubbed her tummy through the Black Sabbath T-shirt she wore. He made larger and larger circles until he was just below her breasts on the upturn, just above her waistband on the downturn. He didn't risk going any further. Never before had a girl allowed him this much liberty on a first encounter.

Mandy came to his rescue. Seeming to sense his hesitation, she broke the kiss long enough to whisper, "You can touch them if you want. I like it."

He trembled a little but did as requested. His hand came up and landed softly on her left breast. He squeezed it experimentally. It was soft and pliable and oh so sexy.

Mandy broke the kiss again. "You can touch them underneath my shirt," she said softly. "That's kind of the best way."

"Yeah," he said, his mouth rendered otherwise speechless.

She giggled and pulled his face back down. Their lips connected and their tongues made contact once again. He brought his hand down to her waistband and began to tug on her shirt, trying to untuck it. Here he encountered problems. Her shorts were so tight upon her that the shirt didn't want to come free. He tugged harder and harder, moving it only a quarter inch or so at a time.

"Hold on," Mandy said. "You'll rip it."

"Sorry," he mumbled, embarrassed, feeling like what he was: inexperienced.

She giggled again. "It's okay," she said, pecking at his nose. And then, to his aroused astonishment, she reached down and unbuttoned her shorts. She then slid the zipper down, opening them wide. "There," she said, her tongue licking up the side of his face to his ear, where it swirled around the lobe. "That should help, shouldn't it?"

All he could do was nod. He reached down and pulled on the bottom of her shirt out of the shorts. As he did so, he was treated to a loin-stirring view of her white panties in the V of the unzipped zipper. His cock, which had been hard enough to jackhammer pavement ever since she suggested they go for a walk, suddenly throbbed a little deeper.

"Here," Mandy said, pulling her shirt up a little, revealing her belly. Though somewhat chubby she was not fat. The skin here was smooth and sexy looking. She took his hand and put it under her shirt. "Touch me," she told him. "I like your hands on me."

He went back to kissing her as his hand slid even further beneath her shirt. When he encountered her bra he shoved it underneath without waiting for permission. Now her bare breast was in his hand and he felt he was in heaven. Only once before had he actually touched a girl's naked tit and that had been Gloria Canderson's back in the ninth grade. Gloria's had been barely large enough to require a brassiere. Mandy's was far too big for his entire hand to grasp at once. It was bigger than a softball, the nipple nearly the diameter of a dime. His fingers found that nipple and began to play with it. The effect on Mandy was impressive to behold.

"Yes, yes, I love that," she sighed against his mouth. "Kiss my neck while you do it."

He moved his mouth down and began kissing her neck, licking at the salty skin, occasionally offering a slight bite. He had no idea what he was doing but it seemed instinctive and he was certainly enjoying it.

And to think, he thought as his cock throbbed and his head spun with sensory overload, this all started because I played the guitar, because I sang. Music does have a power! A very potent power.

It wasn't long before her shirt was pushed all the way up along with her bra and his mouth found that engorged nipple. After less than a minute of his suckling, her hand grasped his again and positioned it where it was wanted, where it was needed. This time the direction was down. He felt the soft skin of her lower stomach as his knuckles forced their way under her shorts. He felt silky panties. He delved beneath them, feeling crinkly pubic hair and then wet, hot, slippery lips. He curled his finger inward, sliding between those lips, feeling the clutch of her body, and both of them moaned.

This was an entirely new experience for him and he reveled in it. His fingers, made limber and strong by years of guitar playing, pushed in and out, stroked up and down while his mouth continued to suckle on her engorged nipple. He had read about the clitoris in porno magazines he'd acquired over the years and in a mysterious publication he'd found in his parent's dresser drawer entitled The Joy of Sex. It took only a few minutes of probing around before he discovered a wet, slippery lump just atop Mandy's slit. He rubbed it a few times just to see what would happen. The effect was quite dramatic.

"Ohhhhh, ohhhh," Mandy moaned, a shudder working through her body.

"Are you okay?" he whispered.

"Uh... yeah," she said. "Do that again. Whatever you did, do it some more."

He did it some more, rubbing up and down, back and forth. Mandy continued to moan and soon her hips were bucking up and down.

He didn't make her orgasm, but only because she stopped him before he could get her there. She had other things in mind. She sat up suddenly and looked him in the eye.

"Take it out," she said softly.

"Take what out?" he asked, genuinely confused.

She giggled. "You know what I want out. C'mon. Sit on the edge of the dock again and I'll... you know... jack you off."

She wanted him to take his cock out! Right here. Right now! Holy shit! He took a moment to be self-conscious about his size. It wasn't small by any means but it wasn't huge either. This trepidation lasted only a moment though. She wanted to put her hands on him! To make him come with her hands! He wasn't about to turn this down.

He scrambled forward until his feet were in the water once again and then reached down for the button on his jeans. He undid it, pushed his zipper down, and then raised his hips up long enough to push his jeans and underwear down. His cock, hard, throbbing, dripping with pre-come, popped out in all its glory.

"Mmmm," Mandy said, edging up close to him again. Her soft hand dropped down and closed around it, feeling it, testing its heft. "Very nice."

"Uhhh," was all he could manage to grunt out. It was the first hand other than his own to touch him there and it felt astoundingly good.

She began to stroke him up and down, softly at first and then with greater speed. As she did so she kissed the side of his face, his neck, his ear. It went on for no more than a minute or two before she whispered in his ear again. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes," he whispered back.

"I'll put my mouth on it if you promise not to tell anyone."

"What?" he asked, startled, convinced he hadn't heard her right.

"Do you promise?" she said. "Cross your heart and hope to die? Because I don't want a reputation as a... you know."

He had heard her right. And she was serious! "I promise," he said. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

She kissed him on the ear one more time. "Keep an eye out on top of the hill," she told him. "If someone starts to come down, tell me."

"Right," he said.

A moment later her head went down into his lap. Her mouth closed over his manhood and he felt the exquisite sensation of her lips and tongue slurping at him, moving up and down on him. It was even better than he'd imagined it would be.

"Oh, God," he groaned, fighting to keep his eyes where they belonged.

It didn't last long. After all the teasing and flirting and making out and breast feeling and vagina fingering, he was on quite the hair trigger. Within a minute of her starting he felt the spasms start, felt the waves of pleasure building within him. He remained cognizant enough to warn her that he was going to come in case she didn't want him to go off in her mouth, but she kept right on sucking away, increased her pace in fact. A few seconds later he exploded. She kept sucking through it all, swallowing every drop.

They went back to the party a few minutes later, walking hand in hand up the hill. No one commented on their closeness. No one asked what had or had not happened while they'd been gone. He was talked into giving another brief performance. He played three more songs, Fly by Night, by Rush, Satisfaction, by The Rolling Stones, and, for Mandy, whom he stared at through most of it, Tequila Sunrise, by The Eagles-again, not exactly a romantic song when one analyzed the lyrics, but he'd already determined she was unable to make that distinction.

Shortly after that, Mandy, who had come to the party with John Standman, asked him if he would be kind enough to give her a ride home. He was kind enough, but they didn't go directly there. Instead, they stopped at Homestead Park just south of downtown. This was the largest of Heritage's city parks. It contained the city zoo, a nine-hole golf course, the city softball complex, a huge duck pond, and more than a thousand acres of general parkland. Access roads twisted and turned throughout the entire thing. Though all of the access gates were locked at 10:00 PM when the park closed, Mandy, whose father was a fireman for the Heritage County Fire Department, possessed a key that allowed them to open one of the gates and then close it behind them. They drove into the bowels of the facility and parked as near the exact center as they could get. Once there, they spread a blanket out on the seventh green of the golf course-a par four of 328 yards with a severe left dogleg. It wasn't long before they were both naked.

"Yessss!" Mandy yelled. "Oh God! No one has ever... ohhhhh!"

Jake's face was between her legs, lapping away at her swollen clitoris while his fingers plunged in and out of her. Though she was a bit ripe from the exertions of the past few hours, he found the taste and smell very much to his liking. He became addicted to cunnilingus on that night.

This time the orgasm came for Mandy, and it came with a power and violence he had never suspected. Her hips bucked up and down like she was in seizure. Her legs tightened around his neck to the point he could barely breathe. She screamed so loudly he feared that someone in one of the expensive houses that surrounded the park might hear and call the cops.

And when it finally ended she pulled him atop her, her hands grabbing at his naked ass, squeezing it, pulling on it.

"Fuck me!" she demanded, her mouth kissing his lips, her tongue licking at the vaginal secretions there. "Oh God, fuck me hard. Fuck me now!"

He was desperate to do just what she demanded. His cock was once again throbbing and begging to be used for its most important purpose. But he was just cognizant enough of what was going on to hesitate. "What about... you know... uh... I mean... I don't want to get you... you know... pregnant. I don't have any rub..."

"I'm on the pill!" she told him. "Now do it. Fuck me, Jake. Fuck me hard!"

That was all the convincing he needed. This being his first time, he fumbled around for a few moments, trying to find the exact angle he needed. But his fumbling was brief. She was so wet from his oral ministrations and her orgasm that once the head of his penis found the channel he slid right in with one smooth stroke.

"Oh, God yesssss!" she moaned as she felt it.

For his part, he was back to mumbled verbalizations. The feel of her tightness around him was even better than her mouth had been. This was nirvana. He began to thrust in and out of her, his butt rising and falling, a wet, squishing sound coming from the junction of their bodies with each stroke-a sound that disturbingly resembled that of macaroni and cheese being vigorously stirred prior to being served. It went on for five minutes, then ten, his orgasm kept at bay by the earlier one he'd had in her mouth. For the most part, Mandy just laid there beneath him, panting, kissing his mouth and his neck, her hands stroking his back, his ass, his face. She had nothing that resembled an orgasm, didn't seem to be anywhere near one. This was disturbing to him. He wanted to please her as much as she was pleasing him. He did not want to leave her high and dry.

And then she whispered the words in his ear. It was the first time he heard this in such circumstances. It would not be the last.

"Sing to me," she panted.

"Huh?" he panted back, sweat dripping from his face and onto hers.

"Sing to me again," she told him. "Look me in the eyes and sing! Do Dust in the Wind!"

This struck him as more than a little strange. Singing during sex? What kind of strange-ass shit was this? But the world was more than a little strange, wasn't it? It wasn't like she was asking him to choke her or pee on her or something like that. He focused his eyes on hers and began to sing.

"I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment's gone,"

"Oh God," she panted, her fingers tightening on his back.

"All my dreams, pass before my eyes a curiosity."

"Yesss, Yesss!" Her hips were now thrusting upwards, meeting his every stroke.

"Dust in the wind. All they are is dust in the wind."

She clenched at him harder. By the time he made it to the part about how nothing lasted forever but the earth and sky, she was screaming again, her fingernails raking into his bare back, her pelvis battering into his. She came and came hard, violently in fact. Never in his life would he be fooled by a fake orgasm after this.

Her orgasm triggered his own. He poured himself out into her body.

Chuck O'Donnell came back three minutes before they were to go on. His smile was now so wide it looked a bit maniacal. Apparently he had dipped deeper into his cocaine supply. He put one meaty arm around Matt's shoulder, the other meaty arm around Jake's, hugging them against him like a wise old father. "How you doing, guys?" he asked. "You ready to go out there and rock?"

"Fuckin-A," Matt told him, nodding calmly, taking a drag off his latest cigarette.

"Bet your ass," Jake responded, with more confidence than he felt.

The other band members chimed in with similar epitaphs, each making a point to include at least one profane word.

"Good, good," O'Donnell said, hugging the two front men just a little tighter for a moment before finally releasing them. He turned to Jake. "Now all I have to do to introduce you guys is turn on your main microphone amp, right?"

"Right," Jake said. "The mic itself will be hot once the amp comes on." He swallowed nervously, wondering if he should really mention this-it might offend O'Donnell-or just trust him to know. Finally he decided to take no chances. "And... uh... if you could be careful to not touch any of the volume or tone knobs on the amp..."

O'Donnell gave him a look that was half amusement, half-irritation. "Son, I've been in this business since before you were even a protein molecule in your daddy's nut sack waiting to get made into a cumshot. I'm not gonna touch your settings or adjust your microphone stands or bump your guitars or kick loose one of your cables. Trust me."

"Sorry," Jake mumbled. "It's just that..."

"No need to be sorry," O'Donnell told him. "You were just making sure I didn't fuck up your sound check. I won't. Now then, as soon as I'm done introducing you, you guys walk out-walk, don't run unless you want to trip over your own cables or overbalance and fall on your face in the front row-pick up your instruments, turn on your amps, and start playing. Keep the between-song bullshit to a minimum. These people came to hear music, not to listen to you run your mouth. And if you do talk between songs, no political shit." He looked sharply at Jake as he said this. "Its okay to put your politics in your music, but don't preach to these people. They don't wanna fuckin' hear it, and I don't want to lose customers because someone was offended by your anti-nuclear bullshit or something like that. Understand?"

"Yeah," Jake said with a nod. "I understand." In fact they had rehearsed very little between song banter into the act, nothing more than the usual "How you doing tonight?" and "Everyone having a good time?"

"Good," O'Donnell said. "That's what I want to hear. And I'm sorry Michaels and Hathaway gave you boys such a bad time. People get a little famous and they let it go to their heads. But do mind what they said. Forty-five minutes is your set and you have fifteen minutes to get your shit off the stage after that."

"Unless there are encore requests," Matt said.

O'Donnell chuckled. "Of course. Unless there are encore requests." He checked his watch. "I got one minute to seven. About time to get this show rolling. You boys ready?"

They agreed they were ready.

"Then lets do it. Give these people a hell of a show."

With that, he walked out onto the stage. The crowd was mostly sitting at tables or gathered around the bar. A few people were wandering from place to place. Most were veterans of the club scene and knew that O'Donnell's appearance on the stage meant the show was about to start. The babble of conversation grew quieter.

He walked over to Jake's microphone amp, examined it for about two seconds, and flipped on the main power switch. There was a slight pop from the amp as it came to life. He then walked over to the microphone itself. He did not tap it, knowing that to do so would potentially knock it out of alignment. Being almost six inches shorter than Jake's six-two, he had to stand on his toes to get his mouth close enough.

"Good evening," he said, his voice booming through the room, "and welcome to the Friday night live performance here at D Street West."

There was some scattered applause and a few whistles, nothing terribly enthusiastic however.

"As has been the case for the past six weekends," O'Donnell said next, "our main event for the night will be Heritage's most favored and respected local band, those crazy boys in leather, those wild advocators of the illegal and immoral, The Boozehounds!"

This time the applause was louder, longer, and had some enthusiasm to it.

"Morons," Matt said, just loud enough for Jake to hear. "They're cheering a bunch of hackers, not because they're any good, but just because they don't suck as much as every other local band."

Jake kept his mouth closed. He had heard Matt's argument about The Boozehounds many times before. Besides, his nervousness was now reaching a peak. Were they really about to walk out there and play for these people? Were they really?

"But first," O'Donnell went on, "I'm pleased to present to you our opening act. This is a new band doing their very first live performance for you tonight." He chuckled. "So cut 'em a little slack, huh?"

There was some laughter at his words. A drunken voice from just behind the front row shouted out: "Fuck 'em! Bring on the Hounds!" A few other voices echoed this cry and a round of spontaneous applause erupted for a few seconds.

O'Donnell waited until it died down and then said, "Well, I'd love to, but the Hounds are still backstage warming up with their pre-set groupies. You know how it is? They get real cranky if they don't get a little skull before they come on."

More laughter greeted this.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Matt moaned. "Let's just get this shit over with."

"So anyway, I think you'll like these five young men I've slated for the opening slot. They're good musicians doing all original material and they're one hundred percent, bona fide Heritage grown, just like all the bands here at D Street West. Let me introduce to you now, for the first time in any venue, but certainly not the last... Intemperance!"

The applause was light, nothing more than a few people being polite. There were no whistles, no calls, no encouragement from anyone other than Michelle and her table and a few others, scattered around the club, who knew Matt or Coop or Darren (Bill had virtually no friends-certainly none he knew well enough to invite to a concert).

"C'mon guys," Matt said. "Let's fuckin' do it. Remember. We rock."

"We rock," everyone else repeated in unison.

Matt held out his right hand, palm down. Jake slapped his down atop it. Coop's hand landed atop Jake's. Darren's came down next. They all looked at Bill, who was staring at them, mesmerized.

"Put your fuckin' hand down, Nerdly," Matt growled. "We need to get out there."

Bill finally got the idea. He slapped his trembling hand down.

They held the position for a moment, a spontaneous act this time, but something that would be repeated every time they performed together after.

"Let's do it," Matt said.

"Let's do it," the rest echoed, drawing strength from this gesture of camaraderie.

They walked out on the stage. As they did, the stage lighting clicked on, bathing them in hot, white light. The crowd quieted a little, waiting, sizing them up.

It was Bill's job to power everything up. He stood by the master soundboard, his fingers hovering over the panel. To avoid a feedback whine he waited until Jake, Matt, and Darren had picked up their instruments and walked away from the amps they were leaning against. Once they were clear, he hit the switches one by one. There were a few pops and a slight hum. Jake swirled the guitar pick in his fingers, resisting the urge to strum the strings a few times to get the feel and check the sound, and walked to the microphone before him. He felt the heat of the lights burning into him, could see the dim faces of the crowd. They were all looking up at him, their expressions as widely varied as the people themselves.

From behind him came the ting of one of Coop's cymbals, an accidental strike as he sat down, Jake was sure. A muted bass string followed it as Darren took a grip on his instrument. Jake twirled the guitar pick in his hand once more. We're gonna fuck this up, a pessimistic part of his mind insisted. No way we won't. We're too nervous, too inexperienced to pull off a forty-five minute set for a crowd like this. We're a fucking garage band!

"No," he mumbled to himself, far enough away from the mic to keep the word from being picked up and broadcast. He took a deep breath. "We rock," he whispered. "We fuckin' rock."

He leaned forward, his mouth close to the mic now. "Good evening, D Street West," he said, his voice echoing through the venue. "We are Intemperance. Welcome to our show."

With that, it was out of Jake's hands. That was Matt's cue. He didn't hesitate a second. His pick came down and struck the open low E and A strings, the most basic of rock guitar sounds. It blared from the amp, the distortion and the effects giving it a somber, almost dark tone. He let it reverterbrate for a few moments, long enough for the crowd to realize things were starting, long enough for the more musically sophisticated among them to think, Big Fucking Deal. So he can play an open chord. And then his fingers clamped down on the neck at the sixth fret, halting the sound. The pick struck again and again, rapidly, surely, while his fingers danced over the low E, the A, and the D strings in a complex pattern, blasting the unique riff for Descent Into Nothing out into a crowd for the first, but certainly not the last, time.

This got the crowd's attention, as had been the intention when Matt and Jake decided to open with this song. It was a powerful riff, complex and moving at the same time. Attention grabbing. Matt played it four times in a row without accompaniment, ending the fourth with the open low E and A for a few seconds and then a brief mini-solo grind of the higher strings. As the guitar solo faded out Bill came in, playing a five second solo of his own on the piano. That too was allowed to fade out, leaving a brief silence in its wake. The crowd was looking at them, silent, considering, contemplative, their judgment now reserved, at least for the time being.

Please, Jake thought, staring out at the crowd, his fingers poised to start playing his part of the song, his nervousness and stage-fright now at its peak, don't let me fuck this up.

Coop hit his drumsticks together-one, two, three, four. On four, Jake's pick came down, hammering out the backing riff. Simultaneously, Matt began to play the main riff, Bill's piano backed the both of them up, and Coop and Darren began providing a solid beat for the rest of them to keep time to. It came out of the amps with a near-perfect blend, the combination of the five instruments producing sweet rock and roll music.

Jake's body began to move with the rhythm, his shoulders and head shaking back and forth as his fingers picked the strings and grabbed the frets, finding the right spot every time and at exactly the right moment by feel and instinct-feel and instinct instilled by practice and repetition. He looked out at the crowd, watching their faces, seeing heads nodding, seeing lips pursed in surprised respect, seeing the contemplation in many faces becoming deeper. So far, so good. Now it was time to see how they liked his singing.

The opening reached a minor crescendo and then settled into the main rhythm. As it did, Jake leaned forward, his mouth two inches from the microphone. He had another brief moment of sheer terror. What if they hate my voice? What if my voice breaks? What if I forget the words? But it was too late to back out now. He was committed. The only thing to do was the best he could. When the music reached the proper moment his mouth opened and he began to sing.

"All at once it's upon you

"The pleasure and the need,

"You never know just when it begins

"Just when it starts to seed."

His voice did not break. It sounded as good as it always had, amplified with crisp reproduction by the voice amp. Nor did he forget the words. They flowed from him with ease, as easily as they did in rehearsal, or the shower, or while driving his car. His fingers continued to do their work on his guitar as the words came out of his mouth, dancing over the backing rhythm with hardly a thought, the movements actually helping him keep time.

"But it will take root within your soul

"And where it stops... nobody knows

"Compelling bliss, sweet sweet pain

"Down you fall, down the drain"

They changed tempo, Coop pounding out a roll on the drums, Bill hitting a flourish on his keys, Matt and Jake synchronizing a throbbing power chord atop it all. This led them into the chorus, that mixture of Jake's solo voice and five-part harmony.

"Falling without purpose

"Sliding without cause

"No hands held out before me

"No more hope for pause

"Descent into nothing

"Life forever changed

"Decent into nothing

"Can never be the same"

The bridge consisted of Matt pounding out the opening riff again, playing it four times in the raw, without accompaniment. The crowd cheered as he did it, erupting into a chorus of shouted yeah's and whistles. When Jake chimed back in to put them on the next verse, his nervousness was all but gone, his fears forgotten. They were doing it! The audience liked them!

They went through the second verse and the second chorus. There was another flurry of drums and piano and then Matt launched into his guitar solo. If there was any remaining doubt in the audience that Intemperance was a little more than your average opening band, it was dispelled right here. The solo was loud and complex, fitting in perfectly with the rhythm of the song. There seemed an emotion tied to it, emotion as strong as what Jake projected with his voice. Despair, helplessness, and inevitability-the theme of the song-came pouring from Matt's fingers, washing over the now-transfixed crowd.

Jake knew what they were experiencing. You could tell Matt was good by listening to him play a riff... any riff. He was fast, accurate, and almost supernaturally musically inclined. But when you heard him solo you knew you were not dealing with someone who was merely good. You knew you were not dealing with someone who was merely great. A Matt Tisdale solo showed you in the first few seconds that you were dealing with someone who was brilliant, genius even, someone on the same level as Eddie Van Halen or Clapton or Rhodes. Jake-now standing well behind Matt, shoulder to shoulder with Darren, his fingers still belting out the backing riff-could see expressions of awe in the crowd, could see guys leaning towards their friends and speaking into their ears, knew they were saying things like "Holy fucking shit! This guy can play!"

The guitar solo went on for almost ninety seconds. In the last ten seconds, the rest of the band halted their own instruments, allowing it to finish off as a true solo. Matt played it out flawlessly, his fingers whirring near the bottom of the neck, pressing and releasing the high strings and then holding the last note and engaging a slow pull on the whammy bar, increasing the pitch. Just before it faded out, Coop played a brief drum solo and then the rest of them launched back into the main rhythm.

Jake sang out the third verse and then the chorus once again, now totally into his performance. Sweat was starting to bead up on his forehead and under his arms as his legs moved him back and forth, as his shoulders kept time with the beat, as his fingers moved across his guitar. They repeated the entire chorus one more time and then settled into a coarse repetition of the last two lines.

"Descent into nothing, Descent into nothing,

"Life forever changed

"Descent into nothing, Descent into nothing,

"Can never be the same

They did this four times in a row, the backing music become louder, angrier with each one. Finally, on the very last line, Jake sang it out slowly, drawing the words out.

"Can never... never... nevvvvver be the saaaaaaammmmme."

As his voice stretched the final word Coop did a final flurry of drums, Matt did one last winding down solo, and then the five of them together hit a two-beat flourish and stopped, ending the tune.

The audience erupted immediately into applause, yells, whistles, shouted encouragements. It was not quite earsplitting, but it was close. Jake let it wash over him, drawing power from it. There was absolutely no doubt that this was genuine applause, not the polite acknowledgment reserved for most of The Boozehounds other opening bands.

Listen to that, he told himself, a smile on his face, a lightness in his being. They loved us, at least so far. They fucking loved us! This was what performing was all about. The $250 they were getting for the gig wasn't shit compared to this feeling, the feeling of an entire roomful of music fans cheering for you, telling you that you rock! There really was a power here. A power and a magic.

When the applause began to die down Coop gave them another four-count with the drumsticks and they launched into Who Needs Love?, one of Matt's cynical pieces about the dark side of male-female relationships. It was a grinding, fast-paced song, the lead riff yet another impressive demonstration of Matt's guitar skills. Jake-though he had a more idealistic view of interpersonal relationships himself-nevertheless sang the lyrics with raw emotion and a hint of desperate anger, just as he knew Matt had intended them to be sung. Thanks to Bill's careful sound tuning before the show, the audience heard every word and responded to it, seeming to catch some of the emotion, particularly during the chorus.

"Who needs love?

"Love will force you to commit,

"Will make you feel that this is it,

"Life goes on and there you'll sit"

"Who needs love?

"A lie formed to make you choose,

"Just put your neck into the noose,

"Those who love will always lose."

The applause following this song was even louder, sustaining itself for longer. There were more cheers, more whistles, more yeahs and fuck yeahs. They played their third song and then their fourth with equal response. Before launching into number five-a slower song, almost a ballad, heavy on the piano and Jake's acoustic guitar sound-Jake asked them if they were having a good time tonight. They damn near hit the roof in their affirmative outpouring.

"We're having ourselves a hell of a time as well," he told the audience. "It's an honor to be playing here at D Street West and an honor to be opening for The Hounds."

"Fuck The Hounds!" someone yelled out.

"Yeah, fuck The Hounds!" a few others put in.

The applause that erupted from this was the loudest so far.

In all, they did eleven of the sixteen original songs they had to date. By song number six Jake began to realize that he wasn't in as good of shape as he needed to be if this was going to be a regular habit. He was sweating freely, drops dripping down onto the stage and even into the front row of the audience. His shirt became damp, as if he'd run a mile. His heart pounded almost alarmingly. His breath became a little on the short side, though he did not allow it to become so short it would effect his singing voice. He sipped from a glass of water between songs and hung in there, driven on by the intoxicating sound of applause and cheers.

The last song of the set was one of Jake's, a tune called Living By The Law, which was a political piece about the proliferation of lawyers in society. They started it off with a musical duet of the two guitars, Jake finger-picking a beautiful acoustic backing while Matt played a mournful solo. They gradually increased the tempo of the duet until it reached a point where the acoustic could no longer keep up. At this point, Jake stomped on one of his petals, changing his sound over to full electric distortion, allowing him to grind out a riff instead. They kept this up for another minute, continuing to increase the tempo the entire time, building up to a peak at which point Jake stopped playing, allowing Matt to launch into a full-blown guitar solo that lasted four minutes and displayed every bit of his considerable genius to the crowd. That led him into the main riff of Living By The Law. The rest of the band chimed back in and they belted out the song perfectly. They ended with an extended flourish of guitars, drums, and piano that went on for almost a full minute and then it was over. The applause and cheers exploded through the venue once again.

"Thank you," Jake said, gratitude and pleasure plain as day in his voice. "Thank you so much. You're all great!"

They applauded even louder as the five of them linked their arms around each other and took a bow.

"Enjoy The Boozehounds and have a good night," Jake said into the microphone. "We'll see you again soon."

They walked off the stage, back into the alcove. Jake checked his watch. It was 7:43. They had finished up two minutes early.

"That was fuckin' awesome!" Darren yelled, clapping everyone within reach on the back. "They fuckin' loved us. Loved us!"

"We rocked!" Coop said, his grin ear to ear, his poodle-hair saturated with perspiration. "We really did!"

Bill looked overwhelmed, as if he couldn't really believe he had just performed before an audience-that he had in fact done a blistering two minute solo of his own that had earned him a standing ovation (a fuckin' standing-O from a hard rock crowd for a goddamn piano solo! Jake thought in wonder). Matt simply looked thoughtful, a strange expression on his face that looked a little like expectation. They would now wait for the applause to die down and then they would start clearing their equipment off the stage.

Only the applause didn't die down. It grew louder. They began to clap rhythmically and shout a word out in unison, over and over. The word was more.

"They want an encore," Coop said in wonder. "Can you believe that shit?"

"Let's give the people what they want," Matt said. He turned back toward the stage.

"Wait a minute," Jake said, grabbing him by the shoulder. "We didn't rehearse an encore. What the fuck are we supposed to do?"

"Almost Too Easy," Matt said, naming off the first song-another of Matt's fuck 'em and leave 'em tunes about women-they had done together as a band, a song that pre-dated Jake and Bill's tenure. It was a grinding, simple song full of loud guitar riffs, frequent solos, and heavy backbeat. "We've done that one enough. We know it cold."

"Are you really sure we should do that?" Bill asked. "Won't it piss off O'Donnell?"

"I seriously doubt that," Matt said. "Come on. Let's do it."

They did it, walking back out onto the stage, back out into the hot spotlights. The crowd roared its appreciation at their reappearance. They picked up their instruments and took their positions. Another four-count by Coop and they launched into Almost Too Easy. Matt was right. They knew it cold and performed it flawlessly. The crowd loved it and demanded another.

"Business as Usual," Matt told them over the roar, naming a song they had initially rehearsed to be part of the set but had been forced to cut in the interests of time.

Everyone nodded and there was another four-count. The sound of Intemperance filled the hall one more time.

The crowd demanded even more after they left the stage but that was all they were going to get for tonight. They were following a golden rule, after all. Leave them wanting more.

The calls for the encore went on for some time, dying down only when someone turned off the stage lights and turned back up the house lights. A few minutes after this Michaels and Hathaway came stomping back, fury on their faces.

"What the fuck do you assholes think you were doing?" Michaels demanded. "Your set was supposed to be forty-five fucking minutes. It's five minutes to eight!"

"Just giving the people what they want," Matt told him with a shrug. "Just giving them what they want."

"Oh you're real fuckin' funny," Hathaway said. "Now we're running late. Our set starts in thirty-five minutes and your shit is still on the stage!"

"What's the big deal?" Matt asked. "It's not like you guys do sound checks or tune your instruments or anything."

This infuriated both of them. "You fuckin' hackers!" Michaels screamed. "We were playing on this stage while you assholes were still listening to Sonny and Cher on your parent's eight track players! How dare you..."

"And you're still playing here, aren't you?" Matt said. "What's it been? Eight years? Eight years and you're still playing in Heritage and you have the nerve to call us hackers? Did you hear that applause they gave us tonight? Did you hear them calling for encores? Did you hear them yelling out 'Fuck The Hounds'?"

"Let's see what O'Donnell has to say about this," Hathaway said.

"Yes, why don't you do that?" Matt suggested. "In fact, here he comes now."

O'Donnell had a lot to say actually. None of it was what Hathaway and Michaels really wanted to hear however. He congratulated the members of Intemperance on an outstanding show, telling them it was the best performance by a first time band he had ever seen in his life.

"You boys are going places," he gushed. "Holy fucking shit. Come to my office when you're done clearing the stage. I want to schedule you for the next couple of weekends if you're up for it."

"No," Michaels said firmly. "That ain't gonna happen."

O'Donnell turned slowly towards him, his face neutral. "How's that?" he asked softly.

"I don't want this band opening for us anymore. They're rude, unprofessional, and they ran far past their allotted time. If you want to sign them, sign them for nights we're not here."

O'Donnell seemed to think this over for a moment. Finally, he said, "There's gonna be a lot of nights you're not here if you ever tell me how to run my establishment again. These boys will be performing when I say they're performing. If you don't like it, you're free to play some other venue."

Michaels' face was so red it looked like he might explode. "We're The Boozehounds!" he shouted. "If we're not here, no one is gonna come to this fucking place. We're what brings the crowd in."

"For now," O'Donnell agreed. "But I think that's gonna change real soon."