Snowblind

Chapter 21: Life is Good

37,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico

January 1, 1996

Laura Kingsley and Celia Valdez sat side by side in the first row of the first-class section of the United Airlines Boeing 777 as it flew from Los Angeles to Miami. The plane had lifted off from LAX at 7:30 AM Pacific time and was scheduled to land at MIA at 3:05 PM Eastern time; just over thirty minutes from now. Occupying a good chunk of the other first-class seats on the aircraft were the members of Celia’s band. Coop and Charlie were sitting together two rows back, Coop pretending to sleep while Charlie chewed his nails. Little Stevie, the young lead guitarist and Liz Watertown, the middle-aged pianist, were sitting together in another row, talking softly; apparently still under the illusion that no one knew the two of them had been engaged in an on again-off again sexual affair since shortly after the first tour had started. In yet another row, Eric Pale, the new violinist, sat staring out the window at the clouds and water below, his face nervous but composed. Sitting next to him was Larry Candid, the tour manager, who was extremely worried about his seatmate’s ability to control his anxiety before the show tonight. Celia had forbidden the strange and creepy young man from taking any of his Xanax within eight hours of stepping onto the stage, acting on the theory that it could affect his performance. Candid had a large supply of the benzodiazepine drug in his emergency kit and Eric had been given one just as they had boarded the plane, but he could have no more until after the show.

Laura had been asleep in her seat since the plane had leveled off three and a half hours earlier. She sat with her head tilted sideways, soft, girly snores coming out of her mouth every now and then. Celia herself had dozed on and off during the flight, but Laura had not moved a bit. Celia had noticed how exhausted her sax player had been back at the airport, with bags under her eyes and a weary look on her face.

“Late night?” Celia had asked her then.

This question produced a smile from the redhead. “Yeah,” she replied. “You could say that.”

She offered no further details and Celia had not asked. She assumed that Laura and Jake had stayed up late having one last session of steamy sex before parting for several months. She and Greg certainly had, although she was nowhere near as tired from the experience as Laura seemed to be. Maybe it was because Laura wasn’t a morning person.

Laura finally stirred and woke up when the plane started to descend. She opened her eyes, sat up straight, yawned a little, and then wiped the drool off of her face with the back of her hand. She looked out the window for a moment, saw the gulf coast of Florida approaching in the distance, and then turned back to look at her seatmate.

“Well, good morning, sleepyhead,” Celia said lightly. “Nice of you to join us.”

“Wow,” Laura said, yawning again. “Are we really almost there?”

Celia nodded. “Should be on the ground in about twenty minutes, I would think.”

“Nice,” Laura said. “I guess I was kind of tired.”

“I guess so,” Celia agreed.

“I gotta pee,” Laura said. “I’d better go do it now before they turn the seatbelt signs on.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Celia said.

Laura unbuckled herself and then stood up slowly. Celia clearly saw her wincing as she performed the maneuver and then wincing again as he squeezed herself in front of Celia’s legs and out into the aisle. She continued to watch as she stepped gingerly forward and opened the door of the first-class bathroom and stepped inside. She was in there for the better part of five minutes, until the captain announced that the flight crew were going to be collecting all cups and plates and that everyone should buckle in and return their seats to the upright position. When she finally emerged, it was clear she was limping a little bit. And when she sat back down in her seat, she displayed another wince of pain.

“You okay, Teach?” Celia asked her.

“Yeah,” Laura said, buckling in gingerly. “I’m just a little sore.”

“Really now?” she said with a grin. “A good kind of sore?”

“One of the best,” Laura told her with a smile. “Although I think I’m going to have to pop some Tylenol or something before we hit the stage.”

“I’m sure Larry has some in his little black bag,” Celia said. “How late were you and Jake up last night?”

Laura blushed a little. “Uh ... well ... we were up until ... I guess it was close to two in the morning.”

“Two in the morning?” Celia said incredulously. “Madres de Dios, Teach. And you had to get up at ... what? Five-thirty or so?”

“Five-fifteen,” she said sourly.

“Well now,” Celia said, shaking her head a little. “I guess you had a lot of fun then.”

She nodded, a mischievous little smile on her face. “Yeah,” she said dreamily. “There was a lot of fun to be had last night.” She looked around as if to see if anyone was listening in on their conversation and then, in a low voice: “It wasn’t just me and Jake that had fun.”

Celia’s eyes widened. Is she talking about what I think she’s talking about? “Really now?” she asked, her voice low as well.

Laura nodded. “Do you remember me telling you about ... you know ... the little agreement that Jake and I have?”

“You mean ... uh ... the agreement about you being able to ... uh ... explore the softer things in life?”

“That’s the one,” Laura said. “And ... uh ... last night ... we had a guest over.”

“A guest?” Celia asked, interested. She is talking about what I think she’s talking about. Holy Mother of God! “When you say ‘we’, do you mean that Jake was there too?”

“He was,” she said.

“Wow. Who was the guest?”

“If I tell you,” Laura whispered, “you have to promise to keep this to yourself.”

“Of course,” Celia promised. “Is it someone I know?”

Laura nodded. She took another quick look around and then leaned a little closer to Celia. “It was Molly.”

Celia was surprised, and more than a little aroused by this revelation. “Molly?” she whispered. “Eric’s landlord? The one we met on Christmas?”

“That’s her,” Laura said. “She came over for New Year’s Eve dinner.” She smiled. “And then we had dessert.”

“So ... Molly is bisexual?”

“Uh ... well ... a straight-up lesbian, actually,” Laura said.

Celia nodded. “I thought there was some kind of weird vibe between you and her on Christmas. So ... you and she ... you know?”

Laura nodded. “That’s why I’m so sore,” she said. “My hoo-hoo feels like it’s on fire. And my nipples ... holy God, they hurt every time I walk or move my shoulders. She must’ve sucked on them for an hour, even bit them a few times.”

“Wow,” Celia said again, feeling herself getting a little wet now. “And where was Jake while this was going on?”

“Well ... Molly was okay with letting Jake ... you know ... watch us.”

Celia’s eyes got wider. Her wetness got wetter. She suspected her nipples were now standing up. “Jake watched you?”

Laura nodded again. “Just the first part,” she said. “He even participated a little.”

“Participated?” This was just getting kinkier and kinkier by the second.

“I gave him ... you know ... a blowjob while Molly was ... uh ... down below doing her thing. And then, when it was my turn to do that to Molly ... he talked me through it.”

“Talked you through it?”

“I’d never done it before,” Laura said. “And Jake does it all the time. He’s very good at it.”

Yes, he certainly is, Celia thought, remembering that night in Portland. “And Molly was ... uh ... okay with that too?”

“She seemed a little taken aback by it at first, but she got into it pretty quick.” She smiled proudly. “I made her come, Celia. It was so ... so... erotic.”

“You liked uh ... doing that to her? Eating her out?”

“Yeah,” she said dreamily. “She was clean, and smooth-shaven, and dripping wet ... and she smelled really good, like me, kind of, but different. It was really hot to do that. After the first time, Jake let us be alone.”

“Really?” Celia asked. This was kind of surprising to her.

“He did,” she said. “He was a real gentleman about the whole thing.”

I didn’t know that was in the gentleman code, Celia thought, but she saw Laura’s point ... kind of.

“Anyway,” Laura continued, “once Jake left the room, we spent another ... God ... two hours or so in there, just doing everything that two women could do to each other.”

Celia was getting even wetter as she imagined all the things two women could do to each other. And Molly was an attractive woman. “Strap-on dildoes?” she whispered, letting one of her deep, dark fantasies slip out of her mouth.

“Uh ... no, not that,” Laura said. “We didn’t have one. But she did teach me how to ... you know...”

“No,” Celia said. “I don’t know.”

Laura blushed a little more. “How to ... uh ... trib.”

“Trib?” Celia asked. She had never heard the term before, could not even begin to imagine what it meant, but was quite intrigued. “What’s that?”

Another quick glance around for eavesdroppers. Another lowering of the voice. “It’s when a woman gets on top of another woman while they’re naked, like in the missionary position, you know, face to face, boobs to boobs, and then they ... well ... we rubbed our pussies together.”

“Wow,” Celia whispered, envisioning this. “And ... this felt good?”

“Not as good as when Jake is ... you know ... fucking me, but yeah ... it felt really good, having a soft body on top of me. She ground herself into me just like she was a man but spent a lot more time kissing me than a man. I think her tongue was in my mouth for like ten or fifteen minutes straight. It was nice. Different. Made me come something fierce.”

“Madres de Dios,” Celia said.

“Anyway,” Laura said, “it turns out that Molly really likes to suck on my nipples. That’s why they’re so sore. And my hoo-hoo got a pretty good workout too, what with all the eating and licking and tribbing. And then there was Jake after Molly finally left around one in the morning.”

“Jake?”

“Well ... yeah,” Laura said. “He was pretty geared up after Molly left. He came in and spent another hour fucking and licking me before we finally went to sleep.” She took another look around and then leaned a little closer. “A funny thing. He wouldn’t let me take a shower or even brush my teeth before he did it to me. He said he wanted to smell and taste what I’d been doing. Do you think that’s a little ... uh ... depraved?”

“No,” Celia said, speaking without thinking.

“No?”

“I think it’s really hot,” Celia said.

“Really?” Laura asked, surprised.

“Really,” Celia said, knowing that she was going to have to break out her dildo as soon as she got to her hotel room.

Laura smiled. “Good, because I thought it was pretty hot too. I just wanted to know whether or not I was depraved.”

“Maybe a little depraved,” Celia told her. “But it’s a good kind of depravity.”

Laura thought that over for a moment and then nodded. “I guess I can live with that.”

“What happens now?” Celia asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well ... when you get home from the tour, are you going to see Molly again ... you know ... that way? Is Jake going to be there if you do? Will this be an ongoing thing?”

Laura shrugged. “We didn’t really talk about that,” she said. “Not me and Molly or me and Jake. Molly knows I’m going to be out on tour for at least the next three months, but what happens when I come home just never came up.”

“I see,” Celia said, knowing that if what had happened to Laura had happened to her, she would be endlessly worrying about what came next.

“I guess we just see what happens when I get home,” Laura said. “Maybe it will happen again, maybe it won’t.”

“What about while you’re out on the road?” Celia asked next.

“What about it?”

“Well ... are you going to be doing the sort of thing you did in South America? You know ... when the tension gets a little high?”

Laura smiled. “I have Jake’s permission to relieve my tension in that manner,” she said.

“So ... you’re going to do it then?” Celia asked, fascinated by this whole conversation.

“Yeah,” Laura said. “I’m going to do it. Not every night, but when I start to feel the need.”

“I see,” Celia said again. “Well ... good for you.”

“Hopefully, it is,” Laura agreed.

At 7:25 PM that evening, Celia and her band were backstage at Miami Arena, all dressed in their stage clothes and watching the countdown clock above the stage left door tick down the last five minutes before showtime. As planned, there had been no opening band. Celia’s performance would be two hours and thirty minutes in length, with one twenty-minute intermission at the one hour and ten-minute mark. Outside, on the arena floor and in the stands, seventeen thousand, five hundred and eighteen fans waited with varying degrees of patience or impatience, their babble of overlapping conversations clearly audible to the band. The tickets for this show (as well as every show in the first leg) had sold out within two hours of being offered for sale two months before. Not a single fan out there had paid less than seventy-five dollars for a ticket. Most had paid considerably more.

Celia’s outfit was a simple one. She wore a pair of black slacks that were form fitting to her legs and bottom, a silky maroon spaghetti-strap top, sleeveless, that displayed only modest cleavage but did form to her breasts quite alluringly. On her feet were a pair of black Nike cross-trainers which, while not the ‘sexy shoes’ that many female performers favored, were very practical for a two hour and thirty-minute concert. Her long dark hair was flowing down her back, neatly and professionally styled by Gloria Rodgers, one of three hairdresser/cosmetologists employed by the tour, and held in place by a significant application of super-hold hairspray. She had no makeup on her face, as she was pretty enough to go without it and the hot lights and aerobic exercise would have caused it to run by the fourth or fifth song anyway. Her fingernails were cut short so as not to interfere with her guitar playing, and were painted a shade of maroon that exactly matched her top. She was feeling the familiar sensation of stage fright common to all performers, especially on an opening night of a new production. At the same time, she could not wait for the timer to count the rest of the way down so she could step out on that stage and start performing.

Laura was sitting in a chair just adjacent to the stage left door, next to an ice chest full of Gatorade bottles, just in front of a staging area where Celia’s and Little Stevie’s guitars (three for Celia and four for Stevie) sat waiting, each one under a label describing the particular tuning of the instrument and which songs they were intended for. Her stage outfit was a dark-green and white summer dress that fell to just above her knees and outlined her figure quite nicely. She had a pair of white sneakers on her feet, her legs bare. Her hair had been done in a single tight braid that fell down between her shoulder blades. Like Celia, she had no makeup on her face. She was feeling a fair amount of stage fright as well, particularly regarding the five-minute sax solo she would perform to open the second set. Though a veteran performer of the Bobby Z tour, that had been some time ago now and she had never performed for an audience of this size. Still, they had rehearsed this show extensively over the past two months and they were as dialed in as they could possibly hope to be. She too was eager to get out there and start playing, but she would have to wait a little longer than everyone else. There was no saxophone in Playing Those Games, the opening number.

She glanced over at Eric, who was standing next to her, his DZ Strad Model 800 acoustic violin in one hand and his freshly rosined bow in the other. A small wireless microphone was fastened to the body of the instrument, just underneath the strings between the two sections of the bridge. It was mated to a receiver that was plugged into the primary wireless receiver attached to his belt in the small of his back, which then transmitted the signal digitally to the amplifier (Laura, Celia, Little Stevie, and Charlie all had similar setups, differing only in how the signal got to the receiver). He was dressed pretty much as he always dressed: in a pair of black jeans, black shoes and a black button-up shirt. His hair had been neatly styled, however, and he looked almost handsome. His eyes, like always, were cast downward, but he had an almost serene expression on his face.

“You ready for this, Eric?” Laura asked him gently.

“Good to go,” he said with a nod.

“Really?” she asked.

“Really.”

“What about ... you know ... the anxiety?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t have any at the moment,” he told her.

“None?” she asked in disbelief, wondering if he was actually on the verge of some sort of breakdown.

“None,” he confirmed. “I don’t get anxiety about performing in front of an audience. It’s not a social situation.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s not,” he said. “It’s a performance. And I love to perform with my instrument. It’s one of the only times when I’m truly free of the fear. I can’t wait to get out there.”

“Oh ... I see,” she said. “That’s very interesting.”

“Isn’t it?”

The timer ticked down to zero. The house lights went down. Seventeen thousand plus fans began to cheer in anticipation. The band, minus Laura, walked out onto the stage and took their places. A spotlight came on, illuminating Liz as she played the opening notes of Playing Those Games. The audience, recognizing the melody, cheered even louder. Eric began to play as well, accompanying Liz for the opening, stepping close to her so the spotlight illuminated him as well. And then another spotlight came on, this one focusing on Celia, standing front and center on the stage, no guitar in her hands. The cheers grew louder. She walked up to the microphone stand and began to sing the opening verse of the piece into the wireless mic. When she reached the part where it went up-tempo, the rest of the stage lights clicked on, illuminating the entire stage. Little Stevie began to grind out the primary riff. Coop began to pound on the drums. Celia pulled the microphone out of the stand and began to strut around the stage, singing out the lyrics into it. The audience, most of whom had been standing ever since the lights went down, danced and waved their arms in the air to the rhythm, a good portion of them singing along.

Laura watched from her spot near the stage door, her nervousness ramping up a little as the tune progressed. And then, when Playing ended (to a deafening roar of crowd approval, the likes of which she had never heard before), she stood up. Jory Black, one of the stagehands, was holding her alto sax in his hands. He gave it to her. She turned her back to him and he switched on the receiver attached to the back of her waist. He then patted her on the shoulder.

“Go!” he told her.

She went, stepping out onto the lighted stage and taking her position. Rog, another of the stagehands, was running back off the stage after delivering Celia’s twelve-string to her. It was time to play. She had no further time to think things through. Coop gave her a four-count with the drum sticks and she began to play the opening melody for The Struggle. The crowd expressed its enthusiastic approval of this tune as well. She played her notes with flair and expression and she played them well, feeding off the energy of the crowd.

Jake is right, she thought as she swayed and gyrated to the rhythm while Little Stevie ground out the guitar solo, this really is the best part of being a musician.

The first set went off without a hitch. They played a mixture of Celia’s tunes from the first two albums and the new one, staying away from the very biggest hits like Why? or Should We Believe?, saving them for late in the second set and the encore. They played I Love To Dance, the biggest hit from the La Diferencia days and the only tune in the show that Celia did not write herself (on the last tour, she had refused to do it, but Jake had talked her into it for this tour since there was considerable audience demand for it, and they had lots of time to fill). They closed the set with It Never Happened, the current Top Ten release from the new album. As with all the other songs, much of the audience sang along with her on Never as she played her guitar and sang.

The house lights came up and the band stayed in the stage left area, drinking Gatorade and cooling down a little. Everyone was sweaty from being out under the hot lights. Laura felt trickles of perspiration running down her back and she knew there was a sizable wet spot on the back of her dress between her shoulder blades. Celia actually had to sponge off her armpits a little. Eric was the sweatiest, since his black clothes were soaking up the heat more than anyone else. A few high fives were passed around, but conversation was minimal. They were in the groove and they knew it. There was no need to discuss anything.

“All right,” said Larry when the clock ticked down to less than thirty seconds. “It’s time for you to do your thing, Teach.”

“I guess it is,” she said, her nervousness now back. She stood and took her instrument from Jory once again (he had polished it during the intermission break and it was now gleaming). She turned her back to him and he turned on her receiver. The countdown clock reached zero and the house lights went down. The audience began to cheer once again.

“Go!” Jory told her, slapping her on the shoulder again.

She went, strolling out onto the stage alone. A single spotlight illuminated her and her saxophone and the cheers grew louder. She stepped to the center of the stage, just to the left of Celia’s microphone. She began to play the five-minute solo she had rehearsed up.

She played it flawlessly, not missing a single note, her timing and phrasing exquisite. The audience loved it, cheering loudly throughout, particularly in the middle, when she was playing with an increasingly rapid tempo and really blasting out those notes like a machine gun. She brought the tempo back down slowly, playing out a lengthy, sorrowful piece for about thirty seconds and then she went back up-tempo for the finale. Once the last note was played, she held her instrument aloft in triumph and basked in the deafening applause and cheers, feeling them wash over her.

They love me, she thought wondrously, her body flooding with dopamine and endorphins, her unconsciously self-administered reward for playing as she did. They really do love me.

Celia and the rest of the band came back out on stage while the audience still cheered. Celia gave her a big hug and then walked over to her microphone.

“Laura Kingsley on the alto sax!” she yelled into it. “How about that, huh?”

Another wave of cheers for Laura washed over her. She could not help but grin.

“Is she badass, or what?” Celia asked the audience.

The audience agreed that she was badass.

When the decibel level died back down to reasonable again, Celia, who had just been handed her 12-string acoustic by Rog, stepped back up to the microphone. “All right now,” she said. “Thanks for sticking around for the second half of the show. We’ve got another hour or so worth of music to play for you.”

Another wave of cheers.

“We’re going to do another song from the La Diferencia days now,” Celia said. “This is one of the songs that I wrote, one of the songs that didn’t get a lot of radio airplay back then, mostly because those putas that run the recording industry wouldn’t let me play it the way I wrote it and didn’t bother trying to promote it. Well, here it is now, the way I meant it to be played. I hope you like it.”

A four count by Coop, and they launched into Bring Me Home, one of the deep cuts from La Diferencia’s last and least successful album. On that album, the tune had been recorded with the primary melody played by a synthesizer, the backbeat played by electronic drums, with very little electric or acoustic guitar, no saxophone, and the tempo at one hundred thirty instead of the eighty to one hundred it was meant to be performed at. Now, there was no synthesizer at all. The primary melody was Celia’s acoustic guitar, with a secondary melody by Laura’s sax and frequent alternating and harmonizing fills by Little Stevie’s distorted electric, Liz’s piano, and Eric’s violin. The drumming and bass were natural and set the beat authoritatively. Much of the audience had never even heard the tune before and those that had probably had not cared much for it. But they loved it now. Though there was not as much singing along as other tunes, it was obvious from the cheers and the clapping along with the beat, that they approved of the new rendition.

After Home, they went on a five-song set of the hits from the first and second Celia Valdez solo albums, ending it with Done With You, which was rounded out by an extended session of dueling solos between Laura on her alto sax and Eric playing his distorted electric violin. From there, they played two more songs from the new album followed by Carabobo from the La Dif days, and then finishing out the set with Should We Believe?

They exited the stage once again, listening to the stomping of feet, the clapping of hands, and the shouts for “More-more-more!”

“All right,” Celia told her band after five minutes. “Let’s bring it home!”

They brought it home, stepping back out and performing a three-song encore consisting of What Is Love? from the second album, Audacious, from the new album, and Why?, from the first album, which was Celia’s biggest hit of her solo career.

The band took their bows and left the stage for the final time. The house lights came up despite the renewed calls for more. The show was over, and the audience began to file out of the arena, most of them wishing there had been more.

Dinner after the show consisted of roasted tri-tip, asparagus spears with a cheese sauce, garlic mashed potatoes with gravy, a small vegetable lasagna for Charlie the vegetarian, and a cheesecake for dessert. There were the usual tubs of beer, bottles of red and white wine, a small bar stocked with hard alcohol, ice, and various mixers, and a stash box filled with high-grade marijuana and a pipe.

Laura drank down another bottle of Gatorade and then poured herself a healthy slug of chilled chardonnay. She then stuffed the pipe full of ganja and took a few rips of it before passing it around. Coop, Little Stevie, and Liz all took a few tokes. Charlie smoked some of the weed too, but he rolled his own joint as he was too germophobic to participate in the communal pipe ritual.

Everyone ate their dinners and then it was time for showers. Laura, Celia, and Liz all took turns in the female dressing room, where there was only one shower, while the boys got through things more quickly since there were communal showers in the male dressing room. When they returned from bathing, the requests had been delivered. There were only two groupies on this first night, one for Coop and one for Charlie.

They made their way out to the chartered stretch limousine and piled inside for the short trip to the downtown Miami Hilton, where suites had been reserved for all of them.

“Feel like a little drink in the bar?” Celia asked Laura as Coop and Charlie headed upstairs with their groupies and the rest of the band filtered off in different directions.

“No,” Laura said. “I’m gonna go call Jake and then crash out.”

“I understand,” said Celia, though she seemed a little disappointed.

Liz and Little Stevie ended up joining Celia in the bar for a few nightcaps while Laura headed up to her room.

“How was the first show?” Jake asked her when she got him on the phone.

“We nailed it,” she told him, smiling at the memory. “It was probably the most exciting performance I’ve ever done.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said dreamily, taking another little puff on the joint she had brought with her. “More than seventeen thousand people in the audience, sweetie. It was so loud. They had so much energy. And when I did my solo ... it was just ... awesome. Listening to them cheer for me. For me!”

“You blow a good horn, hon,” Jake told her.

“I really do,” she said, as if just realizing this. She smiled again. “I only wish I was there to blow your horn right now.”

He chuckled. “You know what to do when you the pressure gets high,” he told her.

“I know,” she said. “But it’s not there yet. Besides, I’m still pretty sore from last night.”

“It was quite a night, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” she agreed.

They talked for a few more minutes, said their ‘I love you’s’, and then hung up. Laura did not promise to call him tomorrow, though she knew she probably would. Jake had a deeply rooted complex about promising to call every night. Laura understood. He had told her the story of Angelina, the girlfriend he had had when he left for the first Intemperance tour all those years ago. He had promised to call her every night when he left. He had never spoken to her since and still felt a considerable amount of guilt about that.

She took one more toke off of her joint and then poured herself a glass of wine from the minibar (Aristocrat Records was picking up the tab for all hotel expenses). She sat on the balcony and looked out over nighttime Miami, letting her mind drift wherever it wanted. And where it wanted to drift the most was back to the previous night, when she and Molly had been naked in bed together, pleasuring each other. And what it liked to think about the most was how hot it had been to have Jake watching them.

Life was good.

It was close to one o’clock in the morning when she finally went to bed. She turned the air conditioning on high, stripped down to her panties, and then snuggled up under the covers. It took her awhile to fall asleep. She was accustomed to having Jake’s warm body in bed with her and his absence was quite distracting. Finally, she did drift off and slept deeply and well until 9:00 AM, when the phone rang with her wakeup call.

She got up, took care of her morning essentials, and then got dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a pullover shirt. She combed out her hair and put it up in a ponytail. She took her birth control pill, washing it down with water from the minibar. She then packed up her travel bag, made a quick look around the room for any stray belongings, and then headed downstairs.

She and the rest of the band met in the hotel’s café and ordered breakfast. Charlie and Coop were looking a little worse for wear, but everyone else seemed to be pretty rested and relaxed. Laura ordered eggs benedict with a fruit cup on the side instead of hash browns. It was delicious and filled the hole in her belly quite well.

“Is everyone ready for the first travel day?” Liz asked as Celia signed for their meals and added a generous tip (this too was covered by Aristocrat under the touring contract).

“Damn right,” Coop said enthusiastically. “It’s great to be back on the road.”

“And exposed to all these foreign microbes again,” Charlie said sourly.

“Well, Charlie,” Celia said, “if you’re afraid of strange microbes, maybe you shouldn’t be socializing with groupies after the shows.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Charlie said. “I always make them shower first. And then I wear gloves on my hands and two condoms on my member. And, of course, I never kiss them.”

“Of course,” Coop said with an eye roll.

“I think that might have been more information shared than was really required,” Liz said.

“Hey now,” Charlie said. “You can never share too much about antimicrobial practices.”

“Yeah ... actually, I think you can,” said Little Stevie.

“And you just did,” Liz put in.

Charlie pouted at being rebuffed. Eric, per usual, contributed nothing to the conversation.

Laura and Celia shared a glance. They were both looking forward to the trip to the airport on this first day. They would once again be flying on the King Air 350 between venues and Suzie Granderson, who neither had seen since their trip to Palm Springs nearly eight months ago (Celia had talked to her on the phone a few times though, including just the week before the tour) was once again going to be the pilot-in-command of the aircraft for the entire tour. She had actually turned down a regular assignment in Seattle just so she could be assigned to the Celia Valdez tour. Laura knew, of course, that Celia had a girl-crush on Suzie and that Suzie had the major hots for Celia. She also knew that, on the trip to Palm Springs, Suzie had developed at least a physical girl-crush on Laura herself. And Laura, though she found Suzie just a little bit on the masculine side for her lipstick lesbian tastes, did have to admit that the woman was attractive in her way. And she was very fun to hang out with. It was going to be interesting to see how the dynamic worked as the tour ground along.

They loaded up on the bus and were driven to Miami Executive Airport, south of the downtown area. There, they unloaded, bags in hand, next to the parked King Air. Suzie and her new copilot—an early thirties man with an actual mullet (what is this, 1985? Laura thought when she first got a gander of him)—were standing next to it, both in their jeans and Patterson Aviation shirts. Suzie, seeing the band walking over to her, let her professional face drop and immediately rushed over to them, starting with Celia. She threw her arms around her and pulled her into a big hug.

Celia returned the hug enthusiastically and even kissed the pilot on the cheek. “It’s so good to see you again!” she gushed. “I’m so glad you’re going to be our pilot for the tour!”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Suzie told her. She then turned to Laura and held out her arms to her as well. “It’s good to see you again, Teach.”

Laura hugged her, enjoying the feel of her firm body against her. “It’s good to see you too,” she returned. “It’s going to be cool having you fly us around.”

“Yes, it is,” Suzie said with a smile that Laura took to be a bit flirtatious.

Suzie then hugged Little Stevie and then Liz and then Coop. She did not hug Charlie, knowing of his germ phobia (and also because he kind of creeped her out) but did verbally greet him and assure him that the HEPA filters and the ultraviolet downstream sterilizers (neither of which actually existed) were in full operation and ready to protect him from those dreaded high-altitude microbes.

“That’s a relief,” Charlie said, obviously speaking the truth. “Then the ultraviolet sterilizers have been shown to be effective in testing?”

“Goddamn right,” Suzie assured him. “Not a single high-altitude microbe made it downstream of the sterilizer. Not even one.”

“Fabulous,” Charlie exclaimed. “Hopefully, the technology will start making its way to the commercial airlines soon.”

“Hopefully,” Suzie agreed. She then turned to Eric, who was standing apart from everyone, his eyes looking at the tarmac, his bag resting on the ground. “And here’s a face I don’t recognize. The new violinist?”

“That’s right,” Celia said. “Eric Pale, violin prodigy. Natalie, as you know, is getting married to your former copilot soon and she elected not to go out with us.”

“Yeah,” Suzie said slyly. “I remember the last tour. Those two got pretty close. She’s living with him in Texas now, right?”

“Right,” Celia said. “Apparently his ex-wife dragged out the divorce as long as she could, but it’s finally official now.”

“I guess she had reason to be bitter,” Suzie said. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you, Eric.” She held out her right hand.

Eric, keeping his eyes firmly cast downward, shook with her briefly and muttered something that might have been “nice to meet you” or might have been just a multi-syllabic grunt.

“Eric’s a little shy,” Laura said when she saw Suzie’s questioning look. “He has social anxiety disorder.”

“I see,” Suzie said.

“I took my Xanax on the way here,” Eric said softly. “It should be fully therapeutic by the time we take off.”

“That’s uh ... good to know,” Suzie said.

The copilot with the mullet had wandered over by this point. His face was handsome, and he was in good shape. He was tall, taller than your average pilot. His eyes were gray and his hair a dark, dirty blonde. And it was a mullet. Laura could not quite get over that part.

“Hey, everyone,” Suzie said. “This is Njord. He’ll be the copilot for the tour.”

“Nord?” asked Laura. “That’s an interesting name.”

“It’s spelled N-J-O-R-D,” Njord told her, giving her a little flirtatious smile of his own. “The J is silent. Njord is one of the Norse gods, like Thor and Odin.”

“Your parents named you after a Norse god?” Laura asked.

Njord shrugged. “They were hippie stoners,” he said. “And they were really into Norse mythology at the time they had me.”

“Interesting,” Laura said. And what’s with the mullet? she did not say.

“I just got hired by Patterson from West Slope Air,” Njord told her, though she had not asked.

“West Slope Air?”

“Up in Alaska,” he said. “I was a bush pilot, mostly flying Cessna Caravans from village to village.”

“That sounds ... uh ... exciting,” Celia said.

“Exciting and dangerous,” Njord assured her. “I’ve got a thousand stories from that stint.” He gave a salacious look at Laura. “Maybe you and I could sit down at the bar tonight after your show and I’ll tell you some of them.”

“Wow,” Laura said, “that sounds like fun, but ... well ... I’m usually pretty beat after a show.”

“Oh,” Njord said, “well maybe we could...”

“You know who would like to hear some of those stories though,” Laura cut in. “My husband. He’s a pilot too. Maybe you’ve heard of him? Jake Kingsley?”

“Uh ... well ... of course I’ve heard of Jake,” Njord said. “But he’s not here with us, right?”

“Not currently,” she said. “But he does plan to fly out and visit at some point, maybe travel along with us for a week or so. Did I mention he’s the jealous type?”

“Oh ... I see,” Njord said, obviously a bit dejected.

“I think you just got shot down, Nordie,” Suzie said with a chuckle.

Njord nodded. “Actually,” he said, “I think I just got strafed on the ground before I could even take off.”

“A good analogy,” Celia said. “And before you even think of it, I’m married as well, and even if I wasn’t, you would have no chance with me.”

“All right then,” Njord said with a sigh. He shook his head a little. “I thought this was going to be a fun assignment.”

Suzie smiled and shook her head a little. “Now then,” she said, “how about we go over the rules and procedures this one time, just to remind everyone who was here before what they are and to instruct Laura and Eric on how we do things.”

“Sounds good,” Celia said, suppressing a chuckle of her own.

She went over the rules and procedures, giving pretty much the same speech she had given before their first flight on the last tour, making a point to emphasize the allowed baggage weight, the prohibition against smoking anything on the aircraft, and that nothing other than urination, defecation, or hand-washing would be done in the aircraft’s washroom.

Once the lecture was done, they lined up to have their bags and themselves weighed. They then boarded the aircraft and found their seats.

At 10:45, Eastern Time, the King Air lifted off for the one hour and twenty-minute hop to Orlando.

There was another show to do tonight.

Jim Ramos had not been able to spend Christmas with his family. Instead, he had spent most of it in a Houston hotel suite getting drunk and taking bonghits with Matt Tisdale and a couple of groupies Matt had scrounged up from a shopping mall. In retrospect, he undoubtedly ended up having a better time, but he did miss out on seeing his parents and his sisters and his nieces and nephews on the holiday.

The next day, Matt underwent cardiac ablation therapy in the catheterization lab of Methodist of Houston hospital, the procedure performed by Dr. Daniel Kaplan, the interventional cardiac radiologist who had personally learned the procedure from the pioneers who had developed it at Stanford. The procedure went “as planned” according to Dr. Kaplan and Dr. Rostami, the cardiologist, and there was (statistically anyway) a better than ninety percent chance that Matt would no longer be plagued by episodes of SVT.

“Well then,” Matt replied from his ICU bed that night, “if the fuckin’ Iranian and the Jew agree on that shit, it must be true then, right?”

The two doctors shared a look with each other and then nodded. “That’s right,” Rostami replied.

Matt was discharged from the hospital on December 28^th after being given strict instructions to change his diet to a low-carbohydrate based regimen, to avoid alcohol, and, most important, to cease and desist from any stimulant use at all.

“Yeah, yeah,” Matt told Rostami after hearing this lecture, “you bet, doc. I’ll take that under serious consideration.”

“You’d better,” Rostami warned. “We did not cure you of all that ails you, Matt. We just made it harder for you to go into SVT. You still have all the underlying problems. You still have considerable occlusion in your coronary arteries and you still have an enlarged heart. Your blood pressure is still too high. And you’re still well on your way to developing type two diabetes.”

“You’ve convinced me,” Matt assured him. “I’m turning over a new leaf come the new year.”

“That’s good to hear,” Rostami told him, patting him on the shoulder.

On the way to the airport, where Matt had booked two first class seats back to LAX, Jim asked, “Were you serious about turning over a new leaf with the new year?”

“Fuck no,” Matt scoffed. “I was just saying that shit to get that fucking A-rab to shut his ass.”

“Ahhh,” Jim said. “Of course.” He then felt compelled to point out, “Most Iranians are not actually Arabs, you know.”

“What?” Matt asked.

“You said ‘that fucking A-rab’,” Jim said. “But the vast majority of Iranians are not Arabs. They’re Persians, more closely related to Caucasians than anything else.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” Matt asked.

Jim shrugged. “I used to bone an Iranian chick,” he said. “She was an ED tech at one of the hospitals.”

“Yeah?” Matt asked, interested. He had never had himself any Iranian gash, after all. “Good pussy?”

“It was okay,” Jim allowed.

Matt seemed disappointed by this. “Just okay, huh? Well, anyway, for the record, if I want to be corrected on my ethnicity and race misconceptions, I’ll give fuckin’ Nerdly a call.”

“Sorry,” Jim said.

They flew back to LA. Matt gave Jim a ride to the rehearsal warehouse so he could pick up his car. After that, they parted ways. Jim went home and spent a few days visiting family and generally just resting up from the three months he had just spent. And then, last night, New Year’s Day, he received a phone call from Matt.

“Dude,” Matt said, “you got anything going on tomorrow?”

“Uh ... no,” Jim had told him. “Just resting and relaxing as much as I can before we go back out on tour on Thursday.”

“Uh ... yeah, well the tour is what I need to talk to you about.”

“You do?” Jim asked slowly, feeling a little worm of dread. “What do you mean?”

“It’s nothing to talk about on the phone,” Matt told him. “I’ll be at my LA pad tomorrow. How about you drive over around two o’clock or so and we’ll talk this over.”

“Uh ... sure. I guess I can do that.”

“You’re the man, dude,” Matt said. “You got something to write on?”

“Yeah,” Jim said, picking up a pen and sliding the notepad that always sat next to the phone over.

Matt gave his address and the code to get into the parking garage. Jim wrote it down.

“And bring the football with you,” Matt added.

“Right,” Jim said, the dread growing. “I’ll bring the football.”

And now, as he pulled into the parking garage of the twenty-three-story residential tower where Matt owned his LA condo, that dread was still with him.

He doesn’t need me anymore, Jim thought. Now that he got the ablation, he has no more need for a tour paramedic. He’s going to fire me, and I’ll have to go back to working the streets in a rig.

This was a much more distressing thought than it had once been. He had grown to quite like being a tour paramedic. It was exciting and fun, he got laid more than he would have ever thought possible, and he didn’t have to spend twelve hours at a time in a hot, cramped ambulance dealing with what amounted to eighty or ninety percent bullshit and drama.

And the paychecks! Matt paid him extremely well and he didn’t have to spend hardly any of his own money out on the road. His meals and travel and lodging and booze were all taken care of by Matt. Sure, he had banked almost everything he had made so far and his credit cards were all paid off now and his bank account and savings were both in the five-digit range, but he couldn’t live off of that for very long if the revenue was suddenly cut off.

And then there was the drug testing! He had developed a little taste for marijuana while working for Matt. If he went back to his regular gig, the first thing they were going to do was drug test him. It was standard procedure whenever anyone returned from a leave of absence of any kind. If he tested positive for marijuana, he would not only lose his job, but likely his paramedic license as well.

Jesus fucking Christ, he thought as he entered the lobby of the building and approached the doorman who guarded it. How fast everything comes crashing down.

“Can I help you?” the doorman asked, eyeing Jim suspiciously.

“Uh ... yeah,” Jim said. “I’m here to see Matt Tisdale in twenty-three-oh-five.”

The doorman’s manner suddenly shifted from suspicious to subservient. “Ahh, yes,” he said, nodding. “You must be Mr. Ramos.”

“That’s right,” Jim said. “Jim Ramos.”

“Go right on up,” the doorman told him. “Mr. Tisdale is expecting you.”

I’m sure he is, Jim thought sourly. His hatchet in hand. He headed to the elevator, walking slowly. Oh well, it had been a good run. It had to end at some point. He made a vow to accept his dismissal with dignity and grace. After all, Matt would probably give him a decent severance payout, wouldn’t he? He thought maybe he would. Matt was abrasive, crude, the very epitome of misogyny, but he did take care of those who worked for him.

He rode the elevator to the top floor and then stepped out into a spacious hallway lined with oil paintings. The doors up here were quite far apart. He walked halfway down the hall until he came to the one with 2305 on it. There was a doorbell button there. It had a custom-made placard above it that read, in bold, raised script:

IF I DID NOT INVITE YOU HERE

DO NOT RING THIS FUCKING BELL

“Quaint,” Jim muttered. He put out his finger and rang the fucking bell.

A blonde woman answered the door. She was very attractive, dressed in a loose spaghetti-strap half shirt that showed off her impressive breasts and her smooth belly. Her hair was down on her shoulders. She had on a pair of tight shorts that displayed her legs quite nicely. Though she had no makeup on, Jim recognized her immediately. This was Mary Ann Cummings, who Matt had been boning for years. Jim had seen and enjoyed (and whacked off to) more than one of her feature productions (he was particularly fond of her performance in Mississippi Yearning, especially the scene where she and two other chicks had a dyke-out threesome down on the bayou).

“Hi,” she said with a smile. “I’m Kim.”

“Uh ... hi,” Jim said. “Jim Ramos.”

“Come on in,” Mary Ann (Kim! Her real name is Kim! Jim’s mind screamed at him) said. “Mattie’s expecting you. He’s in the entertainment room.”

“Uh ... thank you,” Jim said. “It’s very nice to ... uh ... meet you, Kim.”

“Thanks,” Kim said brightly. “It’s nice to meet you too. Thank you for saving Mattie’s ass all those times.”

“It’s what I do,” Jim said.

“And I hear you do it very well,” she said. “He talks about you all the time. He really considers you a friend, you know.”

“Really?” Jim said as he entered the living room of the condo. It was done up in modern style, with black and gray furnishings and glass tables.

“Really,” she assured him. “He’s not the most expressive guy in the world, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but he really does like and respect you.”

“That’s good to know,” Jim said. I guess that’s why he didn’t fire me over the phone.

She led him down a short hallway and into a larger, more spacious room. This room had a large window that looked out over downtown Los Angeles and its high-rise buildings. The floor was hardwood. There was a huge television sitting on the opposite wall with several couches and recliners arranged around it. There was also a large bar in the corner. Matt was sitting behind the bar, a glass of what was probably Jack and coke sitting before him. He was currently using a razor blade to crunch up a few lines of cocaine. A bong with smoke still trailing out of the top of it sat next to that.

“Jim!” Matt greeted when he saw him. “How the fuck are you?”

“I’m doing okay, Matt,” Jim said, walking closer. Mary Ann (Kim!) patted him on the shoulder and then disappeared back down the hallway.

“Come on over and have a seat,” Matt said. “Set that football down somewhere.”

“Right,” Jim said, setting it next to the larger of the couches, suspecting that he was never going to pick it up again. He walked over and took a seat at one of the barstools.

“What can I get you?” Matt asked. “Seven and Seven?”

“Uh ... I’m good at the moment, Matt,” Jim said.

“Fuck that,” Matt scoffed. “Drink with me. And how about a little bonghit? My man Chuckie scored me some shit from Hawaii. You ever smoke Hawaiian bud before?”

“Uh ... no, I never have,” Jim said.

“You gotta fire up some of this shit,” Matt told him. “It’s the fuckin’ bomb!”

“Uh ... I’m good, Matt, really,” Jim said, thinking of that future drug test. Maybe he could use his savings to delay going back to work until the pot was out of his system? “Maybe we could just ... you know ... get to the subject of the meeting? I like to just get things out in the open as soon as possible.”

Matt nodded wisely. “That’s a good policy,” he said. “The fucking preliminaries bite, don’t they? But you have to have a drink with me. I fucking insist.”

“All right,” Jim agreed. “I guess I’ll take that Seven and Seven then.”

“My nigger,” Matt said. He pulled down a water glass and held it under the ice dispenser, filling it. He then poured the glass half full of Seagram’s Seven whiskey and filled the other half with Seven-up from the spray dispenser. He dropped a little plastic stirrer in and handed the glass over.

“Thanks,” Jim said, taking the glass.

“You need a lemon wedge or some pansy-ass shit like that?” Matt asked.

“No ... this is good,” Jim said, although he was accustomed to a lemon wedge in his Seven and Seven.

Matt picked up his own glass and hefted it. “To getting to the fucking point,” he toasted.

“The fucking point,” Jim returned, clinking his glass with Matt’s.

They drank.

“All right,” Matt said. “Here’s the deal. We need to talk about the rest of the tour.”

“Yeah,” Jim said sourly. “I figured that was what this was about.”

“You did?” Matt asked.

Jim nodded. “I’m pretty good at reading the writing on the wall, Matt,” he said.

“No shit?” Matt asked. “Why don’t you tell me what it says then?”

“Well ... it seems pretty obvious,” Jim said. “You hired me to get you out of SVT when it happened. Now you’ve had an ablation that fixed the SVT. You don’t really need me anymore. So, you brought me here to let me know my services are no longer required.”

Matt looked at him pointedly. “That’s why you think you’re here?”

“Of course,” Jim said. “What else could it be? I do appreciate that you brought me here to tell me in person instead of just doing it on the phone.”

Matt nodded his head a few times. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess that was pretty cool of me, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Jim agreed. “And I understand why you came to this decision.”

“I’m glad you understand,” Matt said. “I’m sure you’ll also understand that I’m not going to be paying you for any of those hours after you gave me the Adenosine on the airplane.”

Jim looked at him. “Wait ... what?”

“Why the fuck should I?” Matt asked. “I told your ass to go home. You’re the one who chose to stay in Houston with me. I mean, why the fuck should I pay you when you weren’t technically on the clock?”

Is he fucking kidding me? Jim thought angrily. He then decided it was an appropriate question to ask out loud. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Of course I’m fucking kidding you,” Matt said with a laugh. “You thought I brought you here to fire you? What the fuck, dude? You really think I’m that fucking cold?”

“You ... uh ... didn’t bring me here to fire me?”

“No fuckin’ way,” Matt said. “You’re my man, homey! I like having you around. I told you that shit a couple times before. Knowing you’re there with that fuckin’ football gives me piece of mind. I like having piece of mind—almost as much as I like having a piece of pussy.”

Jim was confused now. “So ... you’re not firing me?”

“No, I’m not fucking firing you. How many times I gotta say that shit?”

“Then ... why did you bring me here?” Jim asked.

“To talk about the tour, just like I said,” Matt told him.

“What about the tour?” Jim asked exasperated.

“I was talking to Crow and Doolittle over at National yesterday,” Matt said. “Now that those quacks fixed my heart, the fuckin’ suits wanted to talk international tour.”

“International?”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “That means between nations and shit. After we finish up the second and third legs here in the states and Canada, they want us to hit up Europe, Asia, and then South America.”

“Wow,” Jim said. “That’s a lot of touring.”

“Fuck yeah, homey,” he said. “And international is different than domestic. First of all, we’re talking first class air travel by commercial jets between all venues. In addition, we get lots of extended breaks between venues because the fuckin’ equipment has to travel by ship and takes a while to catch up with us. And that, of course, means lots of time in fancy-ass hotel rooms and lots of time to nail down foreign gash. We’re talking French gash, English gash, Italian gash if those fucking prudes let us play in their country, even Eastern European gash since they’re planning to book us some dates in Poland, Ukraine, and Russia. Have you ever scored any Ukrainian gash before?”

“Uh ... no,” Jim said, still trying to process that he wasn’t being fired. “I never have.”

“Me either,” Matt said, “at least not from the motherland itself. But those Ukrainian bitches are fuckin’ hot, dude, as long as you get them before they turn thirty. After they hit thirty ... well ... it’s like someone pulled a pin on a life raft. They explode and start wearing those fucked-up hats. Anyway, I can’t wait to get out there. I got my fuck map all ready to add some new sovereign nations.”

“And you want me to go with you?” Jim asked, just for clarity.

“I don’t just want you to go with me, I fuckin’ need you. You’re my medic! If I’m gonna be traveling around in these fucked up countries in Eastern Europe, Asia, and fucking South America, where the healthcare systems are corrupt at best, lethal at worst, I want my medic on duty at all times.”

“I see,” Jim said, envisioning the possibilities (and starting to ponder the thought of Ukrainian gash), “but ... well ... how long will all of this take?”

“Six months beyond what we’ve already got scheduled,” Matt said. “Is that a problem?”

“Well ... uh ... no, not really,” Jim said.

“You seem a little hesitant,” Matt said.

“Not at all,” Jim said. “I’m just trying to sort through this.” In truth, he had no intention of turning this offer down, but was simply wondering whether it would be a good idea to just give up his apartment and put everything into storage until the gig was over. Was there any sense in paying four digit rent on a pad he was not going to set foot in for another nine months?

“How about I help you sort?” Matt asked. “I’ll sweeten the pot a little.”

“Sweeten the pot?”

“Starting with the international tour, your daily rate goes up to a thousand.”

Jim’s eyes widened. “A thousand dollars?”

“Fuck yeah,” Matt said. “That’s like a thirty-three percent raise, right? Call it hardship pay for having to be out of the country.”

“That’s very generous, Matt,” Jim said, his mind already adding up the raise in his head.

“Fuck yeah it is,” Matt agreed. “I take care of my people, Jim. And you’re one of my people. And the best thing about pulling in that kind of coin in Europe and Asia and South America is that it’s income not made in the US. It’s not subject to US taxation. You get to keep fucking all of it.”

“Really?” Jim asked, adding a few more zeros to the loose number in his head.

“Fuckin’ A,” Matt said. “That’s what my accountant tells me anyway. So ... that’s the deal. You in?”

“I’m in,” Jim said.

“You’re the man,” Matt said, clapping him on the back nearly hard enough to hurt. “You sure you don’t want one of these bonghits? It really is the shit.”

“You know,” Jim said happily, “you talked me into it.”

“My nigger,” Matt said again, opening up his stash box. As he pulled off a sizeable piece of Hawaiian bud to stuff into the bowl, he asked, “What do you got going today? Anything?”

“No plans,” Jim said. “I was just resting up before we headed back out. I’ve already seen all the family and friends I really care to.”

“Why don’t you hang out then?” Matt asked, sliding the bong and a lighter across the bar. “Kim has a couple of her actresses coming over to talk some business.”

“Actresses?” Jim asked, looking up. “You mean ... uh ... porn actresses?”

“That’s right,” Matt said, “although they prefer to be referred to as ‘adult film actresses’. Anyway, these bitches are pretty much always hot to trot. After the meeting is over, there’s a good chance for playing hide the salami with them.”

This day was getting more interesting by the moment. “Well ... I suppose I could stay for a bit,” Jim said.

“I thought maybe you could,” Matt said. “Now here’s the deal, I want the porn actresses for myself. I’m thinking a threesome out on the balcony would be a good way to wrap up the Christmas break. Your job will be to keep Kim occupied.”

“Wait ... what?” Jim asked, sure he had misunderstood.

“Keep Kim occupied,” Matt said. “You know ... take her in the bedroom and fuck her? You do think she’s hot, right?”

“Uh ... yeah, of course she’s hot,” Jim said, “but ... she’s your ... your ... you know?”

“She’s my primary gash,” Matt said. “That don’t mean she doesn’t get to fuck other dudes. You just have to sheath your weapon when you nail her. I’m the only one who gets to fuck her bareback, and vice-versa.”

“But ... what about ... I mean ... how do you know she even wants to ... you know ... do it with me?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Matt asked. “You’re a good-looking guy. I’ve seen your schlong and it’s a reasonably sized one. She’ll fuck you.”

“Wow,” Jim whispered. “This is kind of weird for me, Matt, I gotta tell you. And I’ve been through some weird shit with you to this point.”

“It’s a weird world,” Matt said. “Just don’t ask her to do one of those fake orgasms for you. That’s a turn-off for her. Instead, you should concentrate on giving her real ones. She’s quite capable of firing off several times in a row. She likes having her nipples pinched while you nail her from behind. That almost always sets her off. She also likes it when you stick it in her ass and rub her clit while you butt fuck her. And if you eat a good pussy, that’ll get her as well.”

“Uh ... okay,” Jim said, wondering if he should be writing this down. “You’re sure she’s okay with this?”

“I’m sure,” he said. “She gets to fuck me all the time. It’s a novelty when she gets to take down some strange schlong.”

“I see,” Jim said, envisioning having sex with the porn star he had seen in many a movie.

“So ... you in, or what?”

“I’m in,” Jim said.

“Righteous,” Matt said. “Now pick up the lighter. This bong ain’t gonna hit itself.”

He picked it up and took a huge hit, feeling the potent bud go almost immediately to his head. He was still employed, had even gotten a raise, and soon there was a good chance he would be fucking Mary Ann Cummings.

Life was good.