Free Other Stories And Nothing But Time by Gerard Brennan Page B

able to look like whatever he wants. The world shouldn't be this ugly. I love him and I want to protect him and I'll find the bastards that humiliated him and they'll pay, oh Jesus, will they pay. But my heart's too weary to handle a big emotional scene like that. I just nod, and I can see in his eyes that it cuts him to the core. And I hate myself for feeling a little bit happy about that. I think desperately to come up with some wise words to make things a little better for him.
    “We shouldn't tell your ma about this.”
    His face goes stony and I've lost him. Christ, I'm such a coward.

Hard Rock
    (first published in Thuglit, 2009)
     
    The sweet scent of groupie sex hung in the air. I grabbed the tequila bottle by the neck and gulped down a mouthful. Another hotel room. They'd all merged into one. Especially since our manager had decided not to book us into five-star penthouses. He said the savings would buy us better equipment, but I was still battering out licks on the same old Les Paul I'd started our first six-month tour with. We'd just played the last set. No more shows. No more hotel rooms. And no more groupies. Except this last one.
    Buck-naked and handcuffed to the headboard, my last fuck of the tour smiled up at me. I stood at the foot of the bed, not wearing much more myself — just my silk boxer shorts and a smug smile. Her body was at my mercy. Five minutes she'd known me, but she trusted this much. I'd have passed it off as typical groupie dumb-bitch behaviour, but this one didn't strike me as the usual awestruck bimbo. She wasn't after a story to tell her friends. She wanted to give me a story to tell. I plonked my tequila bottle back down on the dressing table. She writhed a little on the crumpled sheets, just for show.
    “You ready to go again, rockstar?”
    “I need another minute.” I smiled to myself. “Just lie there and wait for me.” Like she'd a choice.
    “Oh, you're so mean, Joey D. Leaving me all chained up like this. I need some attention.”
    “What are you, some kind of nympho? I already fucked you twice.”
    “They were intro-fucks. Now that we've got to know each other, we can really go wild.”
    I shook my head, but my dick twitched in my boxer shorts. She was something to look at, all right. Her golden brown skin and black shock of thick curly hair spoke of Latin blood, but her stunning green eyes had an Asian slant. Hawaiian, maybe? Certainly a world apart from the flame-haired cailíní I'd pursued in my youth. Forget those frigid Irish chicks. I'd moved on to better things. I ran my fingers through my mane, a match for hers in length, colour and volume. Rock and Roll, baby.
    “Maybe a line or two of coke will get you going?” she said.
    Seemed like a good idea. I scooped the baggie and my little pewter straw from the round table in the corner of the room. I held it out to her.
    “Want some?”
    “No, Joey. I want you .”
    I poured some snow on the table.
    “Wait, Joey! Why would you want to snort off that old thing? Lay some of that powder on me, why don't you?”
    “Party on, my lady.”
    She giggled. “ My lady. What are you, a knight?”
    I ignored the wisecrack. She'd told me her name earlier, but I didn't care about that shit. No need for names in this business. Something you learned pretty quickly on the road.
    I powdered her from her tits to her trimmed pubes and got to work like a Dyson. She giggled as I disappeared the coke, working from the top down. I didn't get it all. Got distracted by that musky scent from between her muscled thighs. I tossed the straw over my shoulder and it pinged as it bounced off the wall. She raised her hips to meet my tongue, purring like a kitty cat.
    When I'd had my fill, I crawled up her body, licking patches of the missed coke off her skin on the way. My senses hummed. As we kissed, she hooked her toes into the waistband of my shorts and slid them down to my ankles. I reached out to the bedside cabinet for a condom. I always kept