Oedipussy (10 page)

"I had a few questions that I wasn't sure about before we go on.” Hirons said, looking at a paper on the desk in front of him. “How old are you?"

"We're eighteen."

"Oh, good. Are any of you still in school?"

"Only for a few more weeks - we're pretty much done. They officially let us out of there by the end of May. It shouldn't make a difference to any of this."

"Well, just in case I'll have my secretary give you a copy of your contract and the packet to give to your school about the S.O.P. on that before you go...Questions?"

We looked at each other. Small smiles seemed to creep in the corners of Kurt and Steve's mouths. I felt like we were losing control in the moment we started to lose control of ourselves a little.

"Can we have a second to talk?"

"Absolutely. Can I get you guys anything while I step out?"

"We're good."

He left the room. He stood outside the floor to ceiling windows to the office as we celebrated. We threw papers. We knocked over the knickknacks on his desk. We danced on the chairs. We jumped on the coffee table. We jumped and hugged.

I felt like I was watching Hirons outside the room, watching us, his back to the second me. I felt like I was rolling over and over, watching him watch us, and us jumping and hugging in a cloud of soft euphoria. It was fat and strange. It passed strange, like an out of body experience.

"This is the best possible scenario," I said to the men. "This is better!"

"I know!"

"Yes!"

"Let's do it!"

"Should we talk to the lawyer?"

"Let's just do it and figure that out later."

"I agree!"

"We'll find a drummer!"

"Let's rock!"

We hit the lottery - we literally did nothing to face this kind of success as immediately as we had, and it was almost as if we were careening toward the futures that we all felt like we deserved. We were unique and enthusiastic, our engines primed for the future.

We screamed and bounced off of one another over and over and over again. It was the success and the moment and everything.

Then, we cleaned up and opened the doors to let Hirons back in. As he walked back in, we were calm and collected.

"We're ready. Let's do it."

We signed the contract.

On the way out we loaded up all the snacks we could carry, and another cab brought us back to the airport where we flew back home.

Hirons told us that we would be receiving our marching orders in the coming few days and performing our first shows in the coming week. He would set us up with gigs, and all we had to worry about was passing the last couple of weeks at school, getting another drummer, and showing up to the venues early and ready to play.

We made record time back to Twin Falls.

We practiced the second we arrived home. We played through our EP songs, and then set the other four or five songs that I felt were ready to perform to music and vocals. Steve was pretty sure he knew another drummer from school, and he could get him on board with joining the band to add percussion to the new songs.

"I'll bring him a tape. He'll be fine," Steve said. "I can bring him by after school tomorrow to learn the stuff so we can have a real practice on Saturday."

"Perfect," I replied.

"What about the coffee shop?" Kurt asked. "Did anyone talk to him about Saturday?" We hadn't, but it wouldn't be too difficult to tell the guy that John quit and that we needed to find another drummer. Did we even need to perform there anymore? If he was upset, it wouldn't be difficult to throw together a quick acoustic set. All exposure was good exposure.

"That should be okay - it isn't like he has a choice. Getting everyone together for a real rehearsal on Saturday is more important. That okay, Kurt?"

He nodded.

We finished up and everyone left. It was a long day of travel. Excitement. Energy. We had to take it out on our instruments before disbanding.

We needed bed.

We had school tomorrow.

"So, this is the one with the three-four bridge and then the chorus again, and we end with me fading out on drums. But if we are playing live and we do it last, I'll just keep going with the bridge as a vamp and every one can solo out..."

Kermit Polpecheck sat behind his drum kit, cool and collected. He was surprisingly malleable. He was lanky skin-and-bones. He wore glasses and a ratty flannel. The method and the execution was perfect for us, even if his image was a little dorky.

His rehearsal was a fluid discovery of the songs, and as he played he riffed on John's original beat but laid some extra half beats and rim pops onto each piece. He made the songs his own. He made them better. The paint was barely dry on our freshly minted illustration of the Ouroboros with accurate presidential avatars eating themselves. It shone from the front of his bass drum head, and his beat did justice to the image.

"The kid's got it. All of it," Kurt observed.

"Yeah. Great job, Kermit. Good find, Steve," I said. "Kermit, did you hear about the contract and everything?"

"No, Steve just asked if I wanted to be in a band and that it would require a lot of time and effort. I've wanted to be in a band for a while, so whatever."

"Well, we actually have a record deal and we are recording and touring soon if everything goes according to schedule."

"I didn't want that to be the reason you joined, but... you just won the lottery, man," Steve interjected.

"You good with that?"

"Like a job?"

"Exactly like a job. This is your full time job right now."

"Good."

The day before I finished up my final responsibilities in everything except for school - and I stayed home from school in order to catch up. I resigned from Kinkos, bought and registered a car, bought some luggage for my clothes and a tour crate for my amplifier, and spoke on the phone with Hirons about our upcoming dates for shows. We had a show on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night of the following week, so it was important to make sure Kermit was up to snuff.

Saturday came, and with it came our enthusiastic new drummer. We were well on our way to making it. The kid was fresh. He knew what he was doing after only two days, and his enthusiasm and effort made it clear he was the perfect fit. He was easy to lead, a team player, and willing to give everything up for the project.

"What do you guys think about changing our names for the sake of the band?" Steve was thinking brand, and it was practical. "You did that with John to Johnny X and I thought that was actually pretty awesome. No one is going to remember Polpechek or whatever your name is, Kermit."

"I'm with you on that," he replied with a laugh.

"Okay, so... Kermit Henson? Is that too much?"

"I like it."

"Okay. I like Kurt, but we are a little too close to another Kurt. Maybe that is brand recognition and will be good for our customer base?"

"I mean, that is my name," he responded.

"Well, yeah, but humor me for a second. Kurt Lobel. Kurt Lobel. What about Kurt Kobel? Double K thing.  Or Kurt Logan?"

"Kurt Logan is cool."

"Kermit Henson, Kurt Logan, Steve Harvester - do you mind if I keep my own? Harvester is cool.  And... Todd Keefe. What about Todd Irish?"

"Fine."

"Good. First names will be what sticks anyway, but..."

"How are we looking for Tuesday?" I didn't think we would have any problems, but I asked.

"Fine," Kurt replied.

"Yeah," Steve added.

"Okay. Let's call it a night. Kermit, do you want to come back the next couple nights and practice with just me to make sure you are good?"

"I'd be more comfortable with that."

"Steve, where did this guy come from?"

"Marching band."

"Perfect."

We disbanded for the evening. Everyone left.

When I finally climbed the basement stairs, Jenny was standing in the middle of the kitchen leaning on a counter. She wore a teddy and ate a piece of celery stalk. The greens at the end bounced. Her breasts hung in the red lace corset, the half-moons of her nipples popping over the hem of the demi-cup. She was radiant.

"What's up, Doc?" She bit the celery with a pop.

I walked over and grabbed her waist. I felt the ribbing on the garment tight against her body, her warmth tucked close. This was so unlike her, and that's what made it even hotter. She was a simulation of herself, doing something that grabbed my attention in the teeth and shook the life out of it. It was impossible to focus on anything but her.

"It's been days," I said. "I miss you - I need you."

"What have you been doing?"

"Securing our future, my dear." I began kissing her neck, her collarbone, and my hands molested her body. "It is done. We got a record deal, and we're rich, and we'll be touring the universe. Together."

"That sounds remarkable."

"So, you and I will be on a tour van and playing rock music and visiting all of the states and recording in Nashville. Is that okay?"

"Perfect."

She sat up on the counter and separated her legs and accepted my body against her. This counter, the same counter my family used to prepare meals was now the theater of our love making. It didn't matter.

We kissed, long and passionately. I ran my fingers over the ridges of the lace. Her body was incredibly tucked into the machine of the lingerie and I was enraptured with drinking up every inch with my fingers and my mouth. Red, red, kissing and smooth, and the glory of the moment was saturated with red.

"Where's your father been?" Mother's voice asked.

I opened my eyes, and Jenny looked at me. In her rapture, her eyes squinting with pleasure. Looked back and seemed to shake her head like, 'what?' I looked around the kitchen, and there was no one. I continued kissing her, and I answered her when I was able to retrieve my tongue.

"I don't... I haven't seen him..." Where has my father been? Why am I thinking about this now? "Business, as usual?" I kissed and kissed, and moved my lips over her neck and down to the top of her breasts. My lips trailed over the fleshy mountains, and back and forth with kisses that communicated. I communicated that this body covered in red lace was too divine for this earth. She was incredible.

"Your father is dead to us, now," Mother's voice spoke again.

"What-" I almost had a hard time stopping kissing. Jenny brushed the top of my head as my mouth travelled and sucked and I kissed her, "-did you say?"

"Your father is gone, now. He's gone forever."

"What?" I stopped kissing her and looked into her eyes, confused.

"What?" She was back to her normal voice. Was this my brain, or was it my ears from all the practice we've been doing? "Todd," and she pulled my face back into her chest.

The cups easily fell down. It appeared they were meant to. She looked amazing. She offered her symmetrical nipples to me to do my bidding. Her hair was blown out and lively, and her eyes closed and rolled back in her head. I kissed lower, and lower, and ran my face down between her legs. My mouth went to work, and I drowned in her musk.

"I need you," she breathed.

I pulled my pants all the way down and moved back up to her face. I kissed her as I tried to enter her, and it was no use. She was a wall. Dry. I thought I had spent enough time, but apparently-

"You need to be wet, too," she whispered. Without her moving from position, I bent over entirely and spit on myself. I was very close to my dick, and my spit wasn't going to help. I bent over and took the tip of my penis into my mouth. I moved down the shaft. It was big, and I had to maneuver my mouth a bit to choke it down. I was trying to spit, gravity dripping drool up my nose and across my face. I felt like if I could just unhinge my jaw it would work, and I choked my cock down some more and held it in the back of my throat until I could hardly breathe.

It was cathartic, and I never knew I could do this. I felt the muscles in my neck and my back start to ache. I released my dick, and it came slopping out of my mouth with a gooey mass of saliva gobbing off in sheets.

I unfolded myself and popped my head back up. With my eyes closed, I kissed Jenny and entered her hard and deep. She let out a surprised gasp of attention, and her pussy quickly accepted me in a slurpy mess. She moaned.

It was slow and hard, and I felt her body, and we kissed as my tempo increased to a fiery gallop. Her body was my mechanistic trap of human creation.

"Oh, Todd, honey." My mother called me, as for a favor. "Oh, dear. Heavens to Betsy." She was my mother speaking to me.

I opened my eyes and looked through the kitchen, around Jenny, and nothing. It was only Jenny. I was ramming her with my cock in an empty house. I returned my gaze to her. My eyes moved from her pussy lips hugging my penis as it pistoned in and out, up her body, and directly into her eyes. She was so hot. She breathed, her face was serious, and her mouth. The sounds, though. It all sounded as if...

As if on the center island in the kitchen, I was hammering my mother. Hammering and hammering and hammering my cock into my mother.

"What is it?" Jenny asked, or was it mother?

What?

The island began to move a little, and the hard stone of the countertop scooped down into a kind of bowl in the rock. A fuck-bowl that Jenny-Mom's ass perfectly contoured into. My eyes were popping out of my head like cylindrical daggers.

"What baby?" Jenny again, but my hip engines became uncontrollable. I was becoming the automaton, in, out, in, out, in, out, and it seemed like I couldn't control it. I was an engine. It was an engine that still wound down after the ignition was shut off.

She began shouting ecstasy, and I wildly hammered her. I didn't have a condom on. We normally wore one for birth control - and yet I couldn't stop the incessant automatic drilling.

I came, hot and decisive into her like a rush. In its power, I felt it rise in her throat as we kissed.

I felt sick. But as the image restored to normal, I was restored. Granite countertop. Jenny. Notmom. Hair amussed into a flopnest. Lingerie besoiled with sweat.

The scene dimmed. My eyes and my mind were heavy.

We showered, I think.

We went to bed, I think.

I awoke into the next week, and a rush of obligation.

The week was a trying one. Balancing school and a mini tour wasn't that big of a deal, except for the fact that we had to get on the road. It took a few hours to get there and back with the driving, the unpacking, the performance, the load out, and then getting everything out once we were back home. We needed sleep and food. All of this was possible since everything was relatively close, but it essentially didn't leave much time for anything else.

Jenny came to Tuesday's show, but was wrecked for school on Wednesday. The band was hurting. We swam through school with black Xs on our unshowered hands and black bags under our eyes. Our bodies read like a book of adventure and sacrifice.

We made it work, and the experience was formative. It was likely what small travelling bands with day jobs had to face. We squeezed in school work when we weren't moving things or driving anywhere, and we would trade responsibilities if we needed to do our work or snooze.

The venues were similar. Dark hole in the wall with one room and some piss-dank bathrooms. When we arrived, we had to stack our equipment up in a dark corner. Then we'd watch the opening bands perform, and in between each set there was a scramble to move and assemble our gear. If we were the headliners, there was no hurry to disassemble at the end of the night.

We headlined the Tuesday and Wednesday shows, and we played just before the headliners on Thursday and Friday. It was hectic and stressful, smoky and boozy. But the audience. The genuine, screaming, appreciative, enthusiastic, and electric audience!

Hirons called on Friday afternoon just before we left for the night's show.

"Hi, Hirons, it's Todd."

"Byron?"

"Hirons."

"Byron."

"What?"

"Yes. Listen, I am hearing great things about you boys, great things. What do you think about the venues and the crowds?"