Summer in Galveston

I’m writing this for some friends. I hope they like it!

All characters are over 18. Contains lots of drug use.

* * *

Chris mopped his forehead, glancing behind him in the weirdly-lit side avenue in Church Street. The houses here looked sinister in the moonlight, squat shapes on short stilts, most of them run-down. A dog whined a few streets over.

Summer on the Gulf, when the air at nine pm still felt like the soupy, greasy mess it had been in the afternoon. It was like the setting sun had no effect at all. Fucking weather. His eyes squinted ahead, under a buzzing streetlight up at the end of the block, toward where Broadway Annie had told him she’d be.

Well. More like “implied.” That was the problem, dealing with druggies: they were always so unreliable.

She loomed up from between a couple of houses as he stepped through the broken glass in the gutter, smiling that gap-toothed smile of hers. “Hey, Chris. Long time no see.”

“Yeah.” She was clearly bad with faces, or maybe her mind was scrambled by blow; he’d bought from her not even a week ago, before that big party at the old Ft San Jacinto site. The Last of the Raves, they’d called it, which (as it turned out) was not really a theme geared for cocaine. Ecstasy had been everywhere, though, old-school like the early ’90s, and that had been okay with Chris too.

Until the cops showed up.

He’d wormed out of there among the swampy, bug-infested grasses, slinking away west toward the ferry, his stash already given to a couple of girls who’d spent the rest of the night ignoring him. And now here he was, back for more, trying to score off what little he could spare of his week’s wages before this weekend’s Party Like It’s 1999 event over at Wayne’s house. He had no idea what to make of that theme: after all, it was 1999. But he figured they’d at least play some Prince, and that was good enough.

Especially if he showed up with an eight-ball. “I’ll take an eighth,” he muttered, ducking out of the streetlight. Not that this seemed like an area the cops usually came to. Seemed like an area with plenty of knife crime, though.

“No shit.” Broadway Annie licked her lips doubtfully. “Prices are high these days, my friend. Four-twenty.”

“Bullshit,” Chris barked. “The pot number?”

“Funny coincidence, huh?” Annie spat on the scraggly lawn beside her. “If you want, you can go try to score off Lars over on P Street or whatever. Or I’ve got Scuzzy Joe’s beeper number. But they’ll tell you the same deal, dude.”

“I only have, like, three hundred,” Chris lied. A big drop of sweat fell through his eyebrow and puddled on the bottom of his glasses lens. Fucking summer in Galveston…

“No you don’t,” she giggled. “I know what they pay you at Blockbuster, dude.”

“But I had to pick some up last week,” he hissed pointedly. “From you.” His head swiveled around, not liking this neighborhood at all. Not one bit.

“Oh. That’s right.” She frowned, cocking her head. “Can you do four?”

“Three-fifty. Maybe.” It was more than he wanted to spend, by a damn sight, but what else could he do? Showing up at a party empty-handed was never a good plan. He was a nobody from nowhere, and this was the most marginal of party towns; he needed the help. “Possibly.”

“Fuck, dude.” Annie scratched at her belly, under the ratty crop-top. “I mean, this shit’s pure. I can’t do three fifty.” She watched him closely. She was obviously high, but that hadn’t blunted her business sense. “Three-eighty. And then you’ll be able to clear out of this piece-of-shit part of town,” she wheedled, “head on back up to, like, Cedar Lawn,” she brayed, laughing loudly, “or wherever the fuck you live.”

“You suck,” he groused, burrowing into his back pocket for his wallet. Goddamn, she was so loud! She’d draw attention. “Three seventy-five.”

“Fine,” she laughed, “and you? You swallow.” The deal was done swiftly under the cloud of mosquitoes as the dog kept barking in the next block.

* * *

He slunk his way into the party a couple nights later, his eyes already bulging from the coke, wearing an outfit that would have looked about right five years before, at a Nirvana concert. Now it was a little bit dated, but who gave a shit? This was Galveston, not New York. Nobody cared how you dressed.

Chris walked through a welcome cloud of Prince, looking for Yu, Jen, and Miles; they were always cluing him in to parties they never ended up going to, which Chris thought was kind of shitty. But he forgave them, since he usually ended up getting laid. Or eating pussy, anyway. Sometimes he got tip-offs from Patti, too, or Lolo. Kara had some hookups, and Mark. But for the most part, he usually ended up with Yu, Jen, and Miles, though to be fair they all tended to leave in different ways…

It was a typical house down near the Beach, on those monotonously regular checkerboard streets in that part of town. The farther you got from the Gulf the lower the tax bracket, and this place was about four blocks back. Stilted, like all the rest of the city, with a nice sloped front lawn leading to a mini-plateau that held the house, now garish with purple strobes.

Chris patted his pockets, making sure he still had his coke, then wormed his way toward a bucket full of ice and beer. Perfect: it was Pabst, which was basically water. Because water was what he was craving, and he took the can down in one long, foamy pull. “Thanks,” he said to the shifty-looking kid behind the bucket.

“Yeah.” The kid looked like a loser, like he was some kind of medical resident or something. “Fifty cents, dude.”

“Whatever.” Chris tossed him a couple of quarters, then filched another can before diving into the tangle of bodies in the front room, where the strobes were at their most psychedelic. It stank in there, sweat and puke and hormones, and Chris soon found himself grooving randomly with his stolen beer held high.

About five songs later, Chris felt his gums start to regain their sensation after that first long snort off the dashboard of his car. Patting his pocket once again, he slipped out from among the random writhing bodies to head for the bathroom. His can, long emptied, he tossed into a corner beside a couch as he marched from the room, pointedly ignoring the glare from the weasel at the Pabst bucket.

The bathroom, its door wide open, contained a skinny man barfing in the toilet while a short, sprightly blonde girl sat perched on a bathroom counter strangely devoid of a sink. Chris did a double-take as he made it through the door and saw the girl’s skirt bunched around her upper thighs. Then he figured out why he couldn’t see the faucet. “You’re peeing in the sink?” he marveled.

She shrugged and nodded beside her at the puking guy. “Toilet’s taken,” she explained.

“Makes sense.” She had a friend, he saw now, wedged in there behind the door with a vapid look on her face and a skimpy tanktop on her body. “Um. Do you mind? I was just going to do a line.” He gestured toward the counter next to where the pissing girl’s hip curved enticingly down toward her butt.

She peered back at him with interest. “Wait. You’ve got blow?”

“Sure.” Chris drew himself up and felt a wide, foolish smile spread over his mouth as the girl hopped off the sink and jerked her clothes back on in one practiced motion, leaving just an eyeblink for him to see where her mound swept smoothly down to a hairless pussy.

“Eyes up here, man,” she laughed, adjusting her miniskirt; she didn’t sound offended. He obeyed, lingering on a pair of breasts pushed up by what had to be a bra of impressive design, the kind of bra made to give maximum cleavage from minimum raw material. Her face had broken into a cute smile by the time he reached it. “Go ahead, man, do your thing,” she added, waving an airy arm toward the countertop.

Chris had played this game before; the spark in her eyes told him that she had, too. He thought of his lost $375 a split-second before he thought of that tempting glimpse of bare pussy, and obviously the money had no chance. “I’m Chris,” he winked, the cocaine and that cute smile making him bold. “Care to join me?”

The skinny guy retched on, unnoticed.

“Fuck yes!” Simpering prettily, the girl in the miniskirt turned to her taller companion. “Come on, Ashley! Meet my new best friend Chris!”

“New dealer? What now?” Chris glanced at the girl by the door, who now drifted the few steps across the room to put her arm around her friend. “So nice to meet you, honey. If you’re chopping up, do me one?” She fluttered long, shiny lashes. “Pretty please?”

Chris found himself gawking at the girl’s tits, displayed just as impressively as her buddy’s. They stood there, young and flushed and confident, and without even thinking about it Chris reached straight into his pocket for the rest of Broadway Annie’s merchandise. He cleared his throat and raised his eyes for the second time in as many minutes. “You’re, uh, Ashley?”

“Fuck yeah.” The taller girl watched him carefully as he went through the ritual: the credit card, the baggie, the quick rhythm of the lines. “My shameless friend with no patience for the toilet is Megan.”

“Charmed, I’m sure!” the blonde bubbled. She arched her back impressively, and Chris felt his grin grow.

Three lines. The rest of his stash. He didn’t think about the money it represented. “Be my guest,” he told them grandly, waving an extravagant arm at the counter. All three of them ignored the puker at the toilet, now panting into the bowl. “Um. Here. Let me get a twenty,” he added vaguely, his hand slapping his back pocket; he hoped he had more than just a single.

“Nah, we’re good.” Ashley breezed forward with a rolled $20 bill, hips swinging as she crossed to the counter, and Chris watched as she bent at the waist and took a healthy snort. “Holy shit,” she gasped, eyes wide. “Feels fucking good.”

“Move your skinny ass, bitch,” Megan purred, but Ashley ignored her; she only had eyes for the mirror, where she was dabbing at her nostrils as Megan curled around her with the twenty. One long sniff, and almost a hundred of Chris’ bucks disappeared up the girl’s pointy nose as he watched. “Mmm,” she moaned, straightening, her eyes alight. “Thanks, Chris.”

He was impressed when she leaned forward and gave him a cool, open-eyed kiss on his mouth, her lips light and airy and very confident. “Don’t mention it,” he murmured, but then her smirk was back as she passed him the rolled-up bill, and he was on that last line like it was all that tethered him to whatever was good and cute and sexy in the puke-stenched bathroom, the powder slipping up into his nose with its usual silky ease.

The house pulsed around him as he straightened, the music feeling like it was welling through the walls. “Fuck,” he managed, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his flannel, but then Ashley’s thin arm was winding around his waist and Megan had taken his hand and they were whisking him back into the purple-strobed heat of the party.

They danced predictably: take the kind of woman who’ll piss in the sink, then snort back a line, and add some creative lighting and loud Prince, then see how she dances. That’s what Chris got, in spades, as Megan and Ashley flung their bodies around in time to the crashing beat of “Let’s Go Crazy.” He did his best to keep up, the two of them bookending him firmly with a heady mix of churning hips, thrusting tits, and sweaty faces.

He didn’t even realize he’d put his arms around the both of them until, quite unexpectedly, he found himself with two handfuls of equally impressive ass. Megan giggled loudly, her breath in his ear; Ashley was already leaning absently in to brush her lips across his neck, and even as the dance went thrashing on Chris felt his cock stir, then twitch, then begin to stiffen.

His nose was full of the smell of them, wending up through the powder, shooting straight to the part of his brain that was becoming more and more sure he’d get laid tonight. And probably by two at once! He’d never done a proper threesome before, and as his mind started filling with fantastic possibilities, his cock made a bigger and bigger lump in his Levi’s. He turned his head blindly, assuming he’d meet Megan’s parting lips, the evening shaping up quite nicely indeed…

A large, unpleasant hand clapped onto his shoulder. “What the fuck, asshole?” came a loud, belligerent voice in his ear.

“Hands off my girlfriend, you little shit!” A second voice, along with a second hand on a second shoulder. When Chris’ eyes snapped open, he caught a dreamy, knowing look on Megan’s face as her eyes slid sideways to one of the guys behind him.

“Oh hi, Kevin,” she purred. “You guys are late.”

“Obviously.” That first voice, apparently Kevin’s, dripped sarcasm. “It this little bitch bothering you, Meg?”

“Yeah.” The second hand tightened. “Get. Your. Fucking. Hands. Off. Her.”

Chris could practically hear Ashley’s rolling eyes as she replied. “Calm down, Derek. This is Chris.”

“No.” Derek had a raspy voice. “This is fucking dead meat.” Chris felt himself pulled violently backward, the bodies around them glancing curiously over before shrugging and getting back into the party.

Kevin’s voice was a brutal snarl from the other side. “Why don’t we head outside, Chris?” The hands were claws. “Maybe we can have a little talk out there, about how you should and should not treat my Meg?”

Chris just stared helplessly at Megan, who shrugged; he swung his head around to turn his pleading eyes on Ashley, but the taller girl was already taking Megan’s arm, the two of them continuing to dance with not even a glance at Chris.

Fuck. Chris had played this game before, too. He usually lost.

And, as Derek and Kevin hauled him unceremoniously from the living room, past the vapid Pabst kid, and straight out the front door and down the steps into the muggy air of yet another sticky Gulf night, he knew he was about to lose this time, too.

* * *

“Dude.” Miles was sipping yet another whisky, which he clearly knew all about. “Your face looks like shit.”

“Even worse,” Jen agreed from the other end of the couch. She was enjoying the single-malt too, though she clearly knew nothing about it. She was more into rye.

“I mean really, Chris,” Yu went on in his usual reasonable tones, “if you’re going to go to these parties and get beat up, you should learn to box. Or at least wrestle.”

“Definitely,” Jen agreed. Chris scowled.

“Or, fuck,” he suggested, “my good buddy Yu could come along to one of these parties once in awhile and, you know, help me out?”

“I was busy,” Yu sniffed. He shrugged apologetically. “You know how it is. Girls…”

“Look, there’s another party in a couple weeks. Over near the university.” Miles sipped once more at his drink, then frowned. “Would you describe this as ‘smoky,’ or more like ‘dark?'”

“I’d describe it as ‘whisky,’ you fucking yuppie,” Chris growled.

“I’ll go with smoky.” Miles kept a notebook. “Anyway. This party… it’s going to be fucking sweet.”

“Flooded with girls,” Jen giggled.

“I’m told there are going to be, like, dancing chicks. In cages…” Miles’ eyes took on a faraway look. “There’s a concept I can sink my teeth into, now that I think of it. If you know what I’m saying.”

“Well, shit,” Chris mused, “I can certainly sink my teeth into some dancing-girl pussy.” He rolled his eyes, the left one still all swollen. “You guys won’t even show up,” he groused.

“Oh, come on. Relax. It’ll be great.” Miles raised his eyebrows. “Do I need to say it again? Girls? In cages?”

“Whatever.”

* * *

Scuzzy Joe had come through with another eighth, and it was a damn good thing too; Annie hadn’t been answering her pager lately. “Look, man,” Joe had said proudly, “I’ve got a keyboard on my new cellular phone! Like, an actual keyboard!” He’d flipped the long, black phone on its side and cracked it open. “I paid like eight hundred, man. Well, like, in trade. For some blow.”

Chris had frowned. “Every phone has buttons.” He’d heard about these new phones, but he’d never used one.

“Nah, dude, a keyboard.” Joe had winked. “Like a beeper, but you can type on it. I can even check my AOL.”

“No shit?”

“Everyone’s going to be buying one of these fucking things, man.” Joe had counted Chris’ money carefully before handing over the baggie. “Perfect.”

“What about this Y2K shit, though?” Chris had read about it in the Daily News. “They say everything electronic is about to shit the bed.”

“Well, whatever man. At least you can be flying high while your Dell is conking out, right?” He patted Chris’ arm lightly. “Later, my man. Enjoy!”

So Chris had scampered out of yet another shitty part of town, the shadows long and the dumpsters smelly, headed for yet another party at yet another stilted house, with yet another eight-ball in his hip pocket, the sameness of this life starting to get so oppressive: it was time to move, he knew. Out of Texas, at least, up north to somewhere cooler. Literally and figuratively. Back to New Hampshire, maybe…

And the new century might just be a great time for a fresh start.

He dressed carefully, in his red-laced Doc Martens and his nicest jeans: the party was supposed to be a rager. Rumor had it there was a band, an actual band; Yu, who knew a lot of people on the local music scene, had been all pumped for it. The squared-off streets for blocks around were jammed with parked cars, which seemed promising, and the actual house itself had a big garage with a lift; the guy probably did customs. Its big metal door was wide open, and as Chris reached the driveway he stopped, dumbfounded, when he caught sight of what was inside.

Girls.

In cages.

They were more like kennels, actually, made of chain-link fencing. The host had put them up at the edge of the loft, and a long line of girls was waiting on a set of industrial-looking steps, waiting for their chance to dance. Probably there was some dude up there giving them ecstasy afterward.

He did make out Miles at the edge of the crowd in there, his face tipped dutifully up toward the cages, and with a sense of relief Chris stepped up and clapped him on the back. “Fuck, dude, you weren’t lying.”

“Right?” Miles looked mesmerized. “I’ll remember this scene for years, man. Jacking off.” He shook his head. “Look at them. The whole idea, man…”

“Jesus,” Chris agreed, his spirits soaring, “there’s pussy here for days.” He felt that welcome surge in his pants. “Dude. How is it inside the house?”

“No idea. I’m not leaving this shit,” Miles sighed, his eyes widening. “Fuck. Look at her tits, pressed up against the fencing…”

She was amazing, her hair bleached out like Lita Ford’s from back in the day, her body writhing in the cage. “Phoah.”

“I know,” Miles nodded. “I’ve been staring at her for like ten minutes.”

“Her friends, though…” The other two cages contained a matched set, a redhead and a brunette with short fluffy Roxette hair, the two of them snarling catlike at each other to the raucous cheers of the men below. Both wore shiny Spandex, lots of it. “Like, are those pros?”

“Who knows?” Miles licked his lips. “I’m not moving until those girls stop moving.”

“Yeah.” Chris glanced around, already parched. “I’m heading in for a beer. Want one?”

“In a bit, man. I’ll see you later.”

“Cool, cool.” Chris’ nose ran as he turned away and meandered across the driveway, paved with loose shells, and past a garden where some chick was already kneeling in the shadows by a palm tree, sucking off a guy with a mullet. Chris nodded at him as he went by, and the guy raised his beer bottle in reply.

Fucking great party, already.

He pulled open the cheap aluminum storm door, its screen already flapping at the corner where some drunk partygoer had shoved on it. The house shook with the power of the bass, which was impressive: it was a big house, built on one of those double-lots the developers had snatched up after the 1900 hurricane, when the whole city had been a clean slate. This place was tall, stone, with an air of solid majesty at odds with the blowjob he’d just passed in the backyard.

He ended up coming in through the kitchen, the only place on that kind of house where an old aluminum storm door could ever have been acceptable. He saw people in there already, one of them asleep across the table, the other pawing through the fridge. Curious, still twitchy with the line he’d done in his car, Chris peered over the guy’s shoulder. “Dude. What are you looking for?”

“Cilantro, man.”

“Huh. No shit.” It was probably a measure of how high he was flying that Chris didn’t find that unusual; he just patted the guy on the shoulder and then followed his ears, the noise of music and people growing steadily as he found his way through a nice pantry, past a bathroom only lightly dusted with vomit (for it was still early), and toward a broad living room with a live band tinkling away.

“Well!” The voice was vaguely familiar, with a tinge of sarcasm, floating toward him from over near the coatrack. “Hello there.”

Chris turned, already smiling vaguely; he’d met a million people last year, when he’d been playing guitar in the coffeehouse circuit, so he often got greeted by random people at parties. But this voice was more recent. He felt the smile freeze on his face once he placed it. “Oh. Shit.” He made himself walk toward the smirking girl. “Your boyfriend’s not lying in wait around here anywhere, is he?”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” came the smug reply, for the voice belonged to tall Ashley in a cutoff tanktop and a pair of denim shorts that rode high on her smooth thighs. She winked and arched her back slightly. “Look, no hard feelings. Right? The boys were out of line.”

“No shit.”

“Yeah. I told Derek I wouldn’t put out for the whole week after that, because of what he did to you. Which made him pretty fucking pissed, I’ll tell you.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “Classy.”

“That’s me, to a T,” she sang, her eyes flickering up and down his body. They lingered on his hip pocket. “So, like, are you holding?”

“Jesus.” It came out as a snort. “You’re really something. After last time?”

“Yeah, well, you know.” She sidled closer to him, the scent of her hairspray filling his nose. “I figured, like, just to show we’re all friends again.” Her smirk grew.

“All?” He made a show of peering around. “Your partner in crime is hanging around someplace?”

“Megan? Yeah. She’s dancing.” Ashley touched his arm, sending a little chill into his balls as he glanced uncontrollably down at those firm tits he remembered. “Stay here. We’ll be right back. Okay?”

Chris watched her leave, thinking about the way her buttcheeks peeked out from the bottoms of those shorts, licking his lips while he wondered absently how her pussy would taste. Not that that was an unusual thought for Chris; he was a man who could happily spend hours devouring a woman’s pussy, but somehow the memory of her lips on his neck on the dancefloor just a few weeks ago made the whole thought that much clearer, that much more potent. He shivered, reaching down to adjust his dick.

“Chris!” Megan came slingshotting out from the living room, bounding toward him with a dizzy grin and her blue eyes shining. “Fuck, man! I can’t believe you’re here!”

She ran into him like a pool ball off the rails, shoving him back against the halltree as his arms fumbled around her. He tasted her lipgloss after she smeared her mouth across his, then blinked foolishly at her as she eased back down to the floor. “Shit, dude. Did Ashley tell you what I did to Kevin after he beat the crap out of you?”

“No,” Chris grinned. The girl’s enthusiasm was infectious.

“I blue-balled him. Like three times. And I told him why, too.” She slapped his face gently. “That wasn’t fair, man. We felt bad.”

“So bad.” Ashley sidled up with a solo cup. “But you’re here. And we’re here. Let’s just forget about the whole thing, huh?” She took a deep swallow, then held the cup out to him. “Go ahead, man.”

Chris glanced into the cup, seeing fruit bobbing there in a small lake of everclear. The girls stayed close, their bodies touching his while he drank the rest of the cup dry, conscious of Ashley’s lipstick staining the rim. “Fuck. That’s strong.”

“Right?” The girls glanced at each other, Megan dimpling cutely. “Not as strong as your little white powder, though,” she winked.

“I think he’s holding,” Ashley stage-whispered, her hand snaking into his hip pocket. Chris barely had time to realize it was in there, her fingers burrowing along his hardening shaft, before she pulled out the little baggie he’d bought off Scuzzy Joe. “Aha! Thought so.” She blew him a kiss. “There were other things in there too, though, weren’t there?”

“Fuck.” Chris just shook his head, starting to get into this again. After all, no matter how many times you lose the game, you always want to play again. “Want to dance, girls? We can pick up where we left off?”

“Sure.” Megan took the bag from her friend’s fingers. “Bathroom’s this way.”

* * *

Smiling, still buzzing hard, Chris passed from the bathroom to the big living room where the band wailed. The girls had shooed him out after they’d each snorted their lines, telling him to wait by the band. “We’ll be there soon enough, babe,” Ashley purred, closing the door firmly behind him.

It didn’t even occur to Chris that she might be lying again, his coke once again safely up her nose.

He hit the living room as the band struck up “Smoke on the Water.” At once, his ears picked up a problem. Obviously the kids dancing over every square inch didn’t hear it, swirling around with glo-sticks and booze, but Chris certainly did. “Fuck.” His eyes found the bassist, a buddy of his named Mark, so he figured he’d get answers soon enough. He noticed an open Sam Adams on a side table, more than half-full, and he didn’t even think about it before he drained the bottle. And then, eyeballing the band doubtfully, he turned into the crowd and started dancing.

They took a break after two more numbers, finishing up a loud version of Tom Petty’s “American Girl” before, to general applause, they put down their instruments and waved gaily at the crowd. “We’ll be back in a few, comrades!” the lead singer cried, her face flushed, and then Chris burrowed into a cooler for two beers and waited as the crowd filtered around, seeking new partners or going to take a piss or get a beer or whatever.

“What’s up, amigo?” Mark found him after a few moments during which nobody paid attention to him. Of course not; he was the bass player. “Nice to see you, kid!”

“Hey!” Chris passed over one of the beers. “Yeah, since the spring? That festival over in Houston. What’s up?”

“Oh, you know.” They found a seat on the bottom two stairs. “Girls and shit.”

“They’re all here,” Chris blurted, still hopped up. “Pussy for days, man.”

Mark laughed. “I play bass, kid. I only score with girls who think it’s a guitar.” He took a deep swig, his eyes flickering sideways at Chris. “Speaking of which.”

“Yeah.” Chris had heard it, but he’d never have brought it up. “That dude on guitar sounds like shit.”

“He’s new. And a shredder,” Mark said dismissively. “Not terrible, but he’s got no feel really. He turns every song into a G&R set.” He smiled. “Which isn’t so bad if we’re covering G&R. But.”

“Yeah.” He glanced around, the people happy and buoyant. Lots of smiles. “This is a great party.”

“You know Yu? I saw him upstairs a little bit ago.” Mark took another sip of his beer. “Listen, um… You still play? Want to sit in?”

“Fuck no.” Chris felt a little thrill, though, just to be asked. He’d been a minor fixture on the budding coffeeshop scene the year before. “I couldn’t do that to the guitarist, man. But thanks.”

“I’m telling you, it’d be great.” Mark winked. “We could set it up like the singer and I want to do something really complicated that Todd doesn’t know how to play? Which, frankly, we do,” he chuckled. “He doesn’t listen to the rhythm, and that makes it harder for her to sing. Nobody would mind, man, I’m telling you, and if Todd gets all huffy and leaves?” Mark shrugged. “Hell, then you can just finish out the whole set and we’ll pay you instead.”

Chris laughed. “Pay me? This is a house party in Galveston. What are you guys making, fifty bucks each and unlimited beer?” He nodded, though. “Maybe. I’d love to sit in, to be honest. I haven’t played out in months.”

“It’s settled, then!” Mark beamed. “I’ll go talk to Todd, maybe suggest he find a girl and a bedroom. No harm, no foul. He’s playing an Ibanez, if that’s okay.”

‘Yeah, I saw. Not my favorite, but whatever.” Chris stuck his hand out. “This is really cool, man. Thanks!”

“It’ll be fun. Look, don’t go away. I’ll go talk to the rest of the band and we’ll start up again in about ten minutes. Stevie Ray Vaughn, maybe?”

“Cool! Maybe some Hendrix.”

“Dude. You might be overestimating us.” They laughed. “See you then.” Mark disappeared into the crowd, leaving Chris with a warm glow that had nothing to do with the cocaine. Only then, his coke-addled senses skipping from one detail to another, to another, did he realize that playing during the next set would not let him dance with Megan and Ashley during the next set.

He cursed himself, then glanced around to see if the girls were even there. No sign of them. Well, fuck it then. His eyes strayed toward the Ibanez in its case against the wall.

* * *

If Megan felt sort of bad about ditching Chris, Ashley soon set her straight. “We can dance with him later, if you still want to.”

“He’s cute, is the thing. I think he’s Italian.” Megan gnawed at her lower lip as they waited in the upstairs hall for the crowd to start filtering back downstairs. The music had just started back up, with the blistering guitar riff from SRV’s “Pride and Joy,” after an oddly extended series of experimental-sounding chords. “I kinda like him.”

Ashley tossed her dark hair. “I mean, sure. He’s cute.” She smiled. “He reminds me of that Uncle Jesse guy from that show? From a few years ago? I sort of like his scruff, to be honest. That’s the thing I hate about Derek. He’s smooth as your pussy.” She sighed. “Sometimes, I just like feeling some scraggle down there when I get eaten.”

“Yeah, right?” Megan slurped up some jungle juice. “Isn’t he coming over later? Derek?”

“He wasn’t sure. He’s working the dispatch desk tonight.” Ashley shrugged. Derek was a cop, which was convenient since she liked her nights free. And single. “Sometimes he gets bored, borrows a cruiser, and picks up Kevin for some food.”

“Yeah, they came over to my place last month. Totally unannounced.” Megan rolled her eyes. “I could have been naked! Or, like, screwing some guy. Which would be a bummer, because you know. I don’t need to break up with Kevin right now. He makes more than I do.”

“I know. Still.” Ashley’s eyes narrowed as she caught sight of a nice-looking guy in the bedroom nearby. “There are other fish in the sea, Megan.”

“Mmm.” The shorter girl nodded slowly. “The frat boys.”

“We should make them fuck us.” Ashley leaned down. “I’m sort of moist, to be honest,” she giggled.

“Eww! I hate that word.” Megan smacked her friend’s arm. “Still. You’re not wrong. I think it’s the blow.” She stared speculatively at the guys. “See that one on the left? With the mullet?”

“Jesus,” Ashley sighed. “He’s fucking dreamy.” Her eyes took on a faraway look as the hallway started to thin out, the music drawing everyone toward the stairs. “I’d lick his grundle,” she decided.

“Do what now?”

“His grundle.” Megan shook her head, leaving Ashley to roll her eyes. “His taint, Meg. The part behind his balls.”

“Oh! That.” Megan pursed her lips, considering. “Hell. I’d do a line off it.”

“Yuck!” They both giggled, their laughter pitched high in their serotonin overload, the coke buzzing in their heads. The walls shook as the guitar wailed. “Is it just me, or does the band sound better?”

“It’s just you. Or the coke, anyway.” Megan nodded, her body moving to the music. “No, I think you might be right. It sounds fucking great.”

“Let’s ask Captain Mullet to dance,” Ashley whispered. “I bet Chris has found some other bitch by now.”

“Good plan,” Megan nodded, but that’s when a flood of girls came surging from another bedroom and overwhelmed the frat guys. “Motherfucker!”

“Snooze, you lose,” Ashley agreed, wiping at her nose. “Shit.” The house shook with the sound of the wailing guitar. “That really does sound great.”

“Goddamn.” They watched, eyes slitted, as the new bitches flowed past, now carrying the snickering frat boys in their wake. Megan’s fingers tingled. “Fuck. I want to dance!”

“Let’s go downstairs.” Ashley was feeling antsy, too. “Hell, we’ll just find Chris.”

“Right!”

“We’ll let him feel us up. It’s the least we can do.”

“Right!”

“And then, when the time’s right, we’ll take Captain Mullet outside and make out with him.”

“Right!”

“We might even give him a blowjob.”

“Right!” They linked arms, eyes wide and beady, following the crowd into the reverb-drenched living room. “We might even lick his… his grundle!”

“Fuck yeah.” The crowd eddied at the base of the stairs, people sorting themselves, pairing off, already moving to the twangy commands of the guitar player. The girls waited about three steps up, scanning heads. “Do you see Chris anywhere?” Ashley had to yell in Megan’s ear. Nothing about the band had been this loud before the break… “I can’t find him.”

“Dude.” Ashley felt fingernails digging into her arm, even through the cocaine numbness. “What the fuck?”

“Huh?” Ashley stirred, ignoring a flannel-clad loser that stumbled past on his way up the stairs. She glanced over to see where her friend was staring. “What?”

“Look, Ash.” Megan was staring wide-eyed over everyone’s heads, into the corner where the singer was belting out Vaughan’s lyrics, all bluesy, into her mic. “The band. Look who’s playing fuckin’ guitar!”

“What the…” Her voice trailed off, her mouth curving into a wide grin, as she looked past the singer, past the highly forgettable bass player, over the drummer’s head, to see the scraggly face of the guy on the axe. “Well. Hello there…”

* * *

Chris was feeling the music, the notes flowing off the strings and out of Todd’s cheap amp with that fluid ease that only happened during performances when his mind was checked out and his fingers were able to take over. It had taken him a few chords to get the tone dialed in right, the Ibanez sounding… passable. Like a Tele neck pickup, almost, which was good enough for a boozed-up house party with women in cages.

He was halfway through the second number, a stripped-down version of “Voodoo Child” that he could just about hold down even without a wah pedal, when he glanced up from Todd’s fingerboard and looked straight into two familiar-looking pairs of tits, currently spilling out of the tanktops of two familiar-looking females who’d just hooted up the last of Scuzzy Joe’s cocaine with him. Megan and Ashley, now standing open-mouthed at the edge of the crowd, with a tangled mass of arms and hair whipping behind them as a tableau, both of them staring back at him with an odd look in their eyes.

Fuck.

He kept sweeping Todd’s pick over the strings, the rhythm stuttering, the dancers all moving in unison, but now that he’d caught sight of Megan and Ashley? They were his audience, the two of them swaying in unison, arms linked and eyes shiny. He felt himself smiling as the pick kept chopping at the strings, his greedy eyes drinking in their swaying bodies.

“Shit.” Megan leaned over toward Ashley, eyes wide. “He’s really good.”

Ashley just nodded, her gaze riveted to Chris’ face; she waited until he made eye contact, then winked and licked her lips. “We should fuck him,” she smirked. He smiled back with that heavy-lidded look a lot of musicians got when they played. “Look at his hands. Imagine what they can do.”

“Mhmm.” Megan was having trouble keeping her hands out of her pants all of a sudden, her body a mix of jittery cocaine buzz and sudden, panty-dampening horniness. She felt an ache in her tits and knew her nipples were poking out like bullets. Ashley was right: Chris’ left hand fluttered among the frets, and a fevered thought struck them both when they thought about what those fingers would do once they were inside a pussy.

Or, hell. A pair of pussies.

“We totally should. Fuck him,” Megan agreed, her voice a rapid, breathy moan. “You should stick your tongue in my ear now, while he’s watching.”

“Eww.” The notes piled out of the amp and through the room, seductive, intoxicating. “No. No way.”

“Come on. He’ll think we’re lesbians. Guys love that shit.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Ashley wiped at her numb, streaming nose. “You remember last time? He was all over us. He’ll do us.” She nodded confidently as the band crescendoed. “I bet he has more blow…”

“Maybe some weed, too.”

“Right?” She bopped along to the music as the song crashed to a stop, the dancers going crazy. Ashley noticed a skinny dude off to the side, vaguely familiar: ah. The guitarist, from before, angling toward the grinning Chris. “Follow my lead, Meg,” she hissed low and fast, grabbing her friend’s arm.

“Right behind you.” The whole room surged toward Chris as he unwound himself from the tangle of guitar strap and output cable, waving at his crowd. “Fuck! Everybody loves him.”

Chris saw them approach, his eyes lighting up over a broad smile. “Hey, ladies!” he crowed, handing the Ibanez back to Todd; the kid looked at the instrument suspiciously, as if it had betrayed him. “What’d you think?” A beaming Mark, leaning past the mic stand, clapped him on the back.

“I was disappointed,” Ashley murmured in his ear, her voice sultry like the heavy night air.

He raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“Because I thought we’d get to dance with you.” She smiled suddenly, her lips slurping briefly at his earlobe. “Come on outside with us.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She backed away and winked at him, pressing her tits against his arm. “We’ll find someplace to go.”

“And dance?” His eyes shot straight down her top.

“Something like that.” Ashley smiled, pulling Megan forward, bringing her in. “Seriously. Come on out. We’ll party.”

“Fuck.” Some other chick came boldly up and laid a loud, wet kiss on his cheek, then faded into the crowd. “Sounds like fun,” he managed, his pupils huge.

“Especially if you have more blow for us,” Megan bubbled, leaning in to run her hand down his chest. “We would definitely have some fun.”

“I should, like, say some goodbyes,” Chris hedged, thinking of Miles and Yu. “Like, take a leak and stuff. Meet you in the backyard?”

“Sure.” Ashley waited until he was facing her, then leaned in for a single wet kiss, with a hint of tongue. “An appetizer,” she whispered.

“See you out back, Chris,” Megan breathed, letting her hand trail lower until it hooked his belt buckle playfully. She turned away, and the two girls disappeared into a vacuum swirling with new bodies, new faces, new smiles as Todd got himself tuned up and the band started getting ready to resume.

Chris stood there, grinning like a doofus, accepting hugs and pats on the back and, even, the occasional butt-grope. But the band was all tuned behind him, the party getting ready to crank back up, and it was time for him to go out back and do some groping of his own.

“Later!” he called, waving back at Mark just as the drummer started up with “Here Comes My Girl” (ah, Chris thought, more Tom Petty…). He exchanged high-fives with all and sundry as he crossed to the little bathroom, waited while the guy in there shook it off, and pulled out his dick to take a leak.

He’d been feeling himself get a little hard during the performance, around the time he’d noticed Megan’s nipples; the demands of the music had kept his mind off it, but still there was a hint of firmness there, that extra girth that usually accompanied a glance at a sexy girl. As his piss tinkled into the bowl, Chris tossed his head back with a sigh of relief: the purloined Sam Adams had run straight through him. He flushed, then studied himself for a second in the mirror over the sink: just a hint of white in his facial hair, and he wiped it away with a flourish as, whistling, he spun around out of the bathroom.