Chapter 1
The Pied Piper
1
Calliope lived in a sideways world. Night after night, she stared glass-eyed at the colorful sea of hangers-on, wannabes, and never-wills. The velvet cushion of the couch warmed her cheek as she watched her party untangle without her. The Goddess of this backstage world, this rambling, cocaine-coated, stiletto-wearing bazaar, and she lounged on her couch trying hard not to sober up. Long ago, she had given up seeing it straight. Long ago, she had forsaken a reality of ups and downs for this side-to-side world.
If she closed her eyes, she dredged up a marketplace of Ancient Corinth, with traders and merchants shouting their wares, slaves bartering for their masters, animals defecating and bellowing their displeasure. The smell of meats being smoked, urine settling in the humidity, the ocean's rich salt air curling hair into unmanageable ringlets, and generally making the whole world reek of
But this could not be
A hundred voices tried in vain to shout over their own din. Glitter lay scattered about, cast off from the groupies and ravers that bounced up and down whenever someone they knew walked in. Calliope kept a close eye on the frowning smoke cloud that hung over the room – in her haze, it seemed to want to pounce and ravish her right there in front of everyone. An oversized, overstuffed, golden obscenity of a couch cradled her in its embrace, and she teetered on it in an addled stupor.
The room was pink. Seriously, someone was paid to plan, design, shop, and decorate this room entirely in pink. The walls, carpet, ceiling, chandelier, and marble accessories were all pink with the sole exception of the profane golden calf of a couch.
Calliope's dejected expression lazed about her face, as though it had made a nest there long ago. With dull enthusiasm, she wondered what day it was and her thoughts drifted to whose lap her legs rested upon. Whoever it was, it wasn’t her sister. Their hand was sneaking up behind her thighs and heading straight for her
Stasia.
Calliope risked a sideways glance to confirm her suspicions. Sure enough, it was the tour's green-coifed makeup artist. Stasia had spent many a backstage evening trying to seduce the rock star's illustrious girlfriend and Calliope had finally had enough of the heady advances.
She peered through sooty lashes and glared at the girl. Stasia's lipstick had smeared to the same side of her face as her smirched mascara had run, giving her a comical Harvey Dent/Two Face look. Calliope didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
“Get off,” she said.
“I'm trying to...”
“No, I mean it, get the fuck off,” Calliope dropped her tone to a growl.
Stasia cast a beseeching glance her way and tried to find a reason to stay where she was. She pet Calliope's thigh and Calliope brushed the girl's hand away with milder irritation than she felt. After another moment's thought, she pushed Stasia off the sofa. The girl landed in a heap on the floor, sniffed, pulled herself to her feet, and sulked off to the hair and makeup room.
A tiny, black plastic china-doll dress with cherry red piping clung to Calliope's slim frame and six-inch Mary Jane spikes were slipped over her delicate feet. Her fingers moved through her hair, smoothing the inky waves as she swung her sobering gaze toward the bar across the room. She sighed, there probably wasn’t much left of the bar and the concert hadn't even started yet. They were on the tail end of an eighteen-month tour, and 72 cities later, she had discovered the entire country could hold its liquor.
The dull roar in the dressing room became intolerable without a drink and she frowned. Accepting the inevitable, she searched the cushions for her silver cigarette case. Her Zippo gave her an attitude, and a teenager dressed like a bat offered her a light. She bent her clove cigarette into the flame and turned to thank the stranger.
He had been snatched away. Talking to “The Girlfriend” was a big no-no and he was being quietly admonished in a corner. Calliope cast her gaze elsewhere.
She stood on foal's legs that threatened to buckle at any moment, and navigated her way to the bar. Her face full of apathy, she plucked a pink tumbler from the pile, and poured herself a Dr. Pepper and Southern Comfort, a Deathwish. Cup in one hand and clove in the other, she ambled to the gold-framed mirror and tried to straighten herself out. She put her drink on the console and balanced her cigarette on the edge of its pink marbled top, where it rolled away and burned a hole in the plush new carpet.
While she dug through her bag for her hairbrush, she discovered a forgotten bottle of Percocet. Calliope’s gaze darted around, searching for the eagle eyes of her sister. She popped two Percocets into her mouth and washed them down with her Deathwish. The couch beckoned her like a beacon in a storm, and she settled back into its cozy depths.
The pink dressing room had probably never seen anything like Little Orphan Annie Christ, or their entourage of psycho-goth fans. Calliope had never met any of the people who were helping themselves to the open bar and taking up valuable oxygen space in her boyfriend's dressing room. They wore their backstage passes in the most obvious place they could find, like a bankrupt duchess wears the last of her family's diamonds.
Conversations in the room wound down like a broken toy when the door swung open and Annie stormed in. Devoid of his usual flock, he was alone, which meant he had been up to something, probably something illegal.
His face was painted for work with gray-white, flaky makeup, smoky eyes and huge jet-black mouth, which now quirked with annoyance. His long hair was in disarray, which made Calliope imagine he had been doing someone illegal. The room fell as flat as one of the used nitrous balloons people were grinding into the ridiculous pink shag. His dark glare focused entirely on her as he stalked through the room, performing the miracle of parting the
His shadow lingered about her place on the couch and she closed her eyes to will him away. All attention was on them, everyone watched.
Here was the Monarch of Madness, the Hierophant of Hysteria, the reason they were all here – Annie Christ, Rock Star Extraordinaire.
From where she sat, a door slammed behind her.
She debated giving in and hunting him down, but he hardly seemed worth the effort tonight. The Percocet hadn't set in yet, and she decided she had better go now before she couldn't later. Get it over with.
Calliope wandered over to the door of his personal room where he had sequestered himself. For one wild moment, she pictured herself running out of the
Her blurred vision focused hard on the door as she opened it, and cool darkness washed over her feverish skin. She worked her way across the room, and noticed something sparkle on the daybed. When she reached it, she found a copper-haired teenager lost in sleep. A black and blue afghan was all she wore and she had it draped over her face. Calliope pushed it out of the way.
Bliss. Her tan skin glowed in the darkened room and her rump burned a hot red from Annie's trademark spanking she had received for her rock star cookie. Calliope fingered the star charm on Bliss's necklace. This was Annie’s mark, and Calliope sighed. Girls that had worn this charm in the past had finished the night in the emergency room. Annie’s passion could sometimes prove hazardous.
Calliope tiptoed around the darkened room, afraid her ferret, Homer, might be sleeping in one of the clothing piles that lay scattered on the floor. Light from beneath the bathroom door caught her attention and she moved towards it.
Her search found Annie in the pink bathroom with the drummer. He was sitting on the lidded commode, while the drummer lay in the empty tub. Calliope closed her eyes against the sight of a needle disappearing into his arm. She leaned her forehead against the door’s cool wood.
“God damn, don't you knock?” He said thickly as though he had a wad of cotton stuffed beneath his tongue.
Calliope pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. She shut the door. “
“What, baby?”
“I said, ‘You're a cliché.’” She said louder so he would hear her. Calliope peeled herself from the door and went back to lie on her couch.
Back to her sideways world.
2
The door stood high and dry before Clio. She placed her palm against the painted wood to feel the rhythmic bumps and thumps of the party going on inside. Curious onlookers studied her, another beautiful girl in
She irritated her sister's lover. This wasn't a significant secret. He had no tolerance for her. His hatred rolled off him in waves like stink off a summer dump. It crawled along her skin and buried itself in her gut, where she carried it about all day. Consequentially, she was under the distinct impression her misery brought him the only bits of joy that lit up his life.
Clio was glad their time with him was nearly up, seven years had been too long this time. She hoped he would go the way Morrison had, quick and easy, with a smile.
Guilt picked at her conscience, she was quite aware her sister couldn't take another Jim Morrison. Calliope’s heart had broken when she had to leave him. The night he died, Calliope had declared herself an inspirational demon as she shaved her head in the sink of that pukey little
Maybe she had been right. Maybe the two of them were demons, inspiring music that moved the world only to leave the musician hollow and bereft of talent when his or her time was up. Demons or no, Annie Christ's time with Calliope was coming to an end, seven years is seven years, and it is all anyone gets. Even Ludwig von Beethoven.
Clio let out a shaky breath and entered the den of lions. Her gaze swept the room and she found her sister on the golden couch. She wove through the colorful crowd and sat next to her sister. Calliope laid her head on Clio’s lap. While stroking her sister’s hair, Clio thought of all the ferocious things she would say to Annie when they left him.
Calliope sighed and sniffed.
“You okay?” Clio asked.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, barely cognizant. This same scenario played itself out night after night.
Clio traced the tips of her small, white fingers over Calliope's face, and took the empty tumbler from where it was wedged between her sister and the cushions. A great sigh escaped from Clio and she got up to locate the bathroom.
Annie's personal room seemed deserted so she took the risk and went inside. Clio fumbled with the switch and the room flooded with light. Bliss grunted her displeasure and Clio flicked it back off. She stood by the door until her eyes adjusted, and Homer startled her by scratching at her boot. Clio scooped the ash-colored ferret up to her face and kissed his nose.
“What are you doing? You want out of here?” She frowned. “Me, too.”
Homer pushed at her chin with his two front paws as she nuzzled his face. She slid the ferret into her backpack where he eventually accepted his fate, and curled into a sleeping ball. Clio caught sight of the bathroom door.
Annie was making out with a green-haired boy in the bathtub when Clio walked in. She jerked the door shut, and shuffled out of the room at breakneck speed, hoping he didn't see her. All thoughts of ferocious good-byes left in the wake of her hasty retreat.
Once, Annie had cornered Clio in a hallway and tried to kiss her and put his hand up her skirt. She screamed and his scathing antipathy had been her reward ever since.
Clio knew that wasn't the only reason he hated her. He enjoyed watching the perfect Calliope spin out of control. Her decline kept her on a short leash, since she was usually too incapacitated to argue with him. Clio was the only one in their circle that kept her sister from utter self-destruction, and Annie loathed her for it. She only wished she could call him on it.
Back in the middle of the revelry, she tugged on her schoolgirl skirt, yanked up a slipping fishnet stocking, and tried to compose herself. Startling confrontations with her sister's lover always left her rattled. She grabbed a glass of champagne off the bar and downed it to calm her nerves.
Calliope had curled up into a ball on the couch and was purring with sleep. Abandoned, Clio scooted between the crowds and left in search of a less demeaning bathroom companion.
The long hallway echoed and rolled with the backstage mob – its pale green walls throbbed with noise that launched her migraine into overdrive. Clio thought she might vomit from the pounding in her temple.
The rabble in the hall stared at her to see if she was anyone to get worked up about, and upon discovering she was nobody, promptly resumed their merriment.
Clio spotted Crow walking towards her, and he smiled. Weakly, she smiled back. As usual, he was checking up on Annie, part of his job as Annie’s assistant. Crow was the only one who could cool Annie off, and he was held in high regard within the tour's inner circle.
Crow seemed the only sanity in Annie’s mad sea, and Clio sometimes found herself clinging to the boy like a life raft. Only lately had Clio begun to realize how terribly she’d miss Crow when they were done with Annie Christ.
The racket in the hall had reached maximum and if she wasn't certain before, she was now – she was definitely going to throw up. After dancing around a teenaged dominatrix in the bathroom doorway, Clio shoved her out of her way and dove into the ladies' room.
3
Annie emerged from his personal room as Clio ducked out. He sat on Calliope's couch, curled around her, and pushed her dress up.
With his lips pressed to her ear, he said, “This won't hurt a bit, baby.”
A tiny penknife appeared in his hands, and he punched it into the fleshy part of her bared buttock. A glass slide was fished out of his pocket, which he swiped the blood on and dropped in a plain envelope. If this captured the interest of a few of his party guests, they all turned away when he twisted his glower around.
Throughout all of this, Calliope had squeaked out only a tiny yelp, rubbed her butt, and pulled down the hem of her dress as she realized her nudity in her haze. Annie licked the envelope with his pierced tongue, and leaned down to lick some of the blood off her ass.
Crow opened the door in time to see Calliope's wound and hurried to the couch.
“What the hell happened?”
“She must have rolled over on my knife,” Annie said and shrugged. He pulled a wad of cash and a pen from a spiked rubber backpack that materialized from beneath the couch. An address was scribbled on the envelope. The cash was pushed into Crow's hands.
“Half for you, half for them. Make sure they know where the envelope's coming from.” Annie said as he stood. “Take that silly bitch with you.”
Annie showed him the door with a hard slap to Crow’s backside. He was supposed to be on stage.
“Now? I don't get to stay for the show?” Crow said.
“You always see the show, it's the exact same shit. Don't you ever get tired of concerts?”
The door slammed on Crow before he could argue anymore.
1 comment:
Post a Comment