Sarabande, Ch. 13
Tracy saw his girl follow Britta into the backstage area, her hands full of brocades and feathers. Surprised to see her up; the sensible thing to do is to sleep it off. He would have awakened her, like Prince Charming, with an electric kiss of love…
Oh, lord, he felt so good. Sometimes, it’s all true; his guitar was his cock in his hand, his voice held all his power. And every time he glanced over, he saw them, Angel and Stella, the promise of good times to come. Look at the kind of dames fame calls forth. He flashed them a smile as he ran for the dressing area behind the bass speakers where Britta waited with a towel for his hair.
“Got me a girl,” Tracy sang in time to the instrumental. “Man, you know you dig her, you dig her, you know you do, do, do!”
“Hold still, please–” Britta laughed. She began to peel the sweat–soaked trousers down his jittering legs.
“Ooh-whee baby,” Tracy covered his crotch with both hands. “Don’t look, Britta, you might get to wanting it… You see my bitch? My new woman? yeah, you wanna, wanna, wanna?” The nonsense words just rolling out, lord he felt fine. “You gonna get you a girl tonight, Miss B, gonna get some L.A. coozie?” Britta ran her fingers through his curls, silently. “What’s up with that, baby?” Tracy sang. “Don’t fight with your woman, don’t make her blue, you gotta, gotta keep true love true–”
“Don’t be angry, Tracy?”
“No, no, no anger…” he sang. “What anger, baby, I love the whole world, no lie.”
She was buttoning his gold brocade shirt. “Stella made love with me,” she said, her head down. “But please don’t be angry with me, I didn’t do it?”
–Goddamn, oh, goddamn, I’ll fire the bitch. I should have known. The bitch is Stella, I can’t fire her, how dare she mess with my employees– He tried to get calm, tousling the blond curls at his chest. –Poor little slut. Poor, stupid, little hippie, you just got raped, and by another woman. Don’t use that word, what do I say?– He listened to the music, two minutes longer till he’d be back on. Britta was smiling. “Did you dig it?” he said at last.
“Oh, yes,” Britta said promptly. “I think she is very nice. She likes women quite a lot?”
–She likes anything she can make bleed– Tracy knew she couldn’t be into a soft little thing like Britta. He made his mouth smile. “I bet you just tore each other’s clothes off, and just kissed each other all over.” –You just been raped, don’t you realize it?–
Britta thought that was cute. “No, no,” she chuckled. “She did not take her clothes off, because she said it’s too hard to put on, her dress. I said I’m a dresser, I’ll help you, but she said that she could not wait… That she was too hungry… This is an American expression?”
“Yeah.” Oh, the magnificent bitch. It was a message to him, she was sending it in a code she knew he could read. Tracy showed his teeth. “Yeah, well, baby, everything she knows, she learned from me, me, me!” Stella in black velvet, like a panther with her kill. –And me in the corner, with my throat cut– The erotic ache he’d been enjoying all through the first set was suddenly need, as painful and exhilarating as anything he could remember. “Get away from there!” he ordered as she began tucking his shirt in, and he zipped up his own fly.
“Feel better?” Alegra asked over the music. Stella nodded. Tony darted to their side of the stage;
“Stella! how’s the show?”
“Omigod, look at that–” Alegra said, and giggled.
Tracy strode towards them in gold velvet and midnight blue satin, hair down, his musketeer’s hat floating its huge plume over his shoulder. He pulled it off as he reached them; “S’cuse us,” he said to Alegra, and grabbed Stella’s arm, jerking her aside.
“You cunt,” he told her.”I just talked to Britta.”
“Are you angry?” she asked apprehensively.
He laughed shrilly. “Yes!” he shouted into her face.
Heads turned around, startled. There was a sudden wave of tension, palpable and solid, all around them –Well– she thought –It’s gonna end with a bang, after all.–
“You cunt, you bitch! You– Shit, Stella, you got me so hot I don’t know how I’m gonna do this fucking show.” He glared, biting his lower lip. “I fucking love you, you hear me?” He turned away to watch the stage, bouncing from leg to leg. Stella rubbed his shoulders, gloating suddenly in a sense of possession.
“Yeah, bring them to their knees, Tracy Bell,” she growled into his hair. “Make them beg for mercy,” –Oh, Mother– “and when you do ‘Tease Me’… Just imagine I’m under you on that stage floor– I always do.”
“I’m gonna fuck you till your teeth rattle,” he said murderously.
“Ooh, I’m scared.”
“You stick around, baby.” He crammed his hat onto his head and ran onto the stage.
Thunder greeted him. He spread his arms, began the countoff. Two hundred percent and change. Her gift to him. Twenty thousand people, his willing victims, his to fuck senseless. Stella was in every shadowed corner, licking blood from her lips, and he couldn’t shove it to her. Several times, his heart began hammering at a speed he was sure would kill him.
*******************************
Stella stood stock-still, after he left. She jumped at Alegra’s touch, turned, and grabbed her, squeezing her painfully tight.
“I got him, I got him, I got him,” she half-chanted under her breath. “Mine, mine, mine, he’s mine, Alegra–”
“Ouch, Karen!” Alegra wriggled. “What’s going on? Is it okay?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s okay.” She loosed her grasp. The song crashed to its end. The roaring audience hushed expectantly.
“Omigod,” Alegra said. “‘Tease Me’… I’m not ready for this.”
Onstage the lights went blue and dim, the band’s tempo slowed, Karl’s drums thudding. Marco got up from his keyboard, and donned a guitar, strumming softly with Toffer on bass and Gina’s keyboard, creating a whining, pulsing rhythm. The first yearning, sliding note came from two guitars playing as one, Tony and Tracy side by side. “Who are you, baby?” Tracy said softly into the microphone. “What are you going to do to me? Tell me your name tonight.” and the song began.
With a snap of your fingers
You bring me to my knees
Stella winced. The song was the most blatant statement Tracy had written to date, so erotically charged for her that she could never bring herself to listen to it in anyone’s company. Well, she had no choice, now.
Your eyes freeze me
A cold cold sweat
Ooh…
She wandered over to the lighting tower, to get alone, but Alegra followed her.
I fear you when you Tease Me…
Alegra cuddled into her side. She wrapped her arms around the girl and listened to Tracy feel his way through his song of obsessive lust. As the tempo began its speedup Alegra clung to her, her heart pounding. When Stella looked over at her, their eyes met.
“That’s your man,” Alegra said; “Just like you always said he would be, so how about that, Miss Thing?”
“Yeah. How about that.” – Oh, Mother,– she thought. –If he’s really mine, I can’t think of a sacrifice big enough for you. You’ve changed my life. Even if this ends tonight.–
Tracy’s voice climbed into the falsetto for a verse, then wound masterfully back down the scale. Marco was back at his keyboards near the girls, his eyes half-closed and trancey.
Do you have to be so cruel
You know it’s only you
So hard, so hard
Just tell me what to do
Three booming chords poured out. Stella shuddered. Tracy’s screams were orchestrated just a fraction behind the beat;
I’m begging you begging you begging you
Look baby look I’m on the floor
I can’t take no more
I surrender I’m yours
Tease Me…
Throwing down the guitar, he leapt straight up, his body twisting in mid-air before he whirled across the stage in a dance of frustrated need.
“Jesus on a stick,” a masculine voice grated, nearby; “He looks like a titty dancer”.” Muffled laughter greeted this. Stella turned, startled, to see a group of roadies standing mesmerized. “Hey, Rourke, get your pecker hard?” The man addressed ignored the jibe, leaning against the tower support watching the show. “Rourke always got a hard one…” The others guffawed.
Relieved the spell was broken, Stella essayed a grin; “Are your panties wet?”
“Omigod… That’s, like, the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Rourke stepped to the edge of the stage to aim a fog machine.
When Tracy came off-stage at last, he was streaming wet and nearly staggering. “C’mon, girl!” he took her hand, and they sprinted ahead of the band, through the halls.
“We can get ten minutes before the encore,” he panted as they tumbled into the room. “But that’s pushing it… Get outta here, Britta, would you?”
“Oh! You will not hurt her, please?” she said in consternation.
“It’s okay,” Stella said. “Just come back in a little while, okay?”
“Baby.” He kicked his boots off. “Help me get outta these clothes.” It took the both of them to work his pants down his sweaty legs. He sank onto the sofa, pulling the gold brocade pirate’s shirt over his head. “Oh, Stella,” he said, in his whining voice. She sank to her knees, before his opening legs, his hands touched her head, pulling her in.
“I can’t stand it,” he said. “I can’t hold it, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts… It’s all yours, I’m giving it back.”
“It’s all right, baby,” she said exultantly. “Come to mama.” She took him into her mouth, swallowed around him once, twice, and he came, his arm across his mouth to muffle his shriek. Again he spasmed, and again, until she had to swallow twice. She kept some of his spunk in her mouth, climbed up to give it to him, and his body jerked one last time, brown cat’s eyes staring up into hers. “Oh, lord,” his whisper.
“Mine,” she confirmed. She leaned in to press her crotch against his mouth, felt his hot breath through the dress. Then he ran for the shower. Stella ran to the door, to call Britta, who smiled conspiratorially as she came in. Stella repaired her lipstick yet again.
Tracy stepped from the shower, and Britta went to work on him, pulling on his wine brocade pants, while Stella pulled a pick through his hair, to get it into a ponytail. He held her shoulders for support while he stepped into his high boots.
“Forget the trenchcoat, okay? It’s just too heavy.” He looked tired. Stella felt tired. “It’s been a weird weekend, ain’t it?”
“Twenty-four freaky hours,” she agreed.
“I pushed you too far, I’m sorry.” He glanced at Britta; “And you got the punch, I’m sorry. ”
“Are you okay?” Stella asked her.
“Yes!” she said, irritated. “I enjoyed it. I wasn’t made to stay there, you know.”
“There, you see?” Stella pulled his head to hers for a slow, deep kiss. His arms encircled her, tenderly.
“Tracy, they’re gonna tear the seats out, you don’t get back up there!” a voice shrilled from the hall.
“Come and hear me do these two songs, okay?” He kept his arm around her shoulders as they went out the door. “I’m tired, I don’t want to go to dinner. Do you think we could go straight back to your crib?”
“Sure, Tracy Bell.” She smiled; “We can light some candles, and eat the rest of the ice cream, and go to bed.”
He stopped walking, to touch her lips softly. “And we’ll do it like friends do.”
Stella stroked along his jawline, caressed his Chinese eyebrows, his little-boy chin. “That sounds like a great idea.”
“Yeah,” he said; “Friends.”
