Chapter 10 #5
He pressed his teeth against Roy’s arm, felt his hot palm against his nape, the slap of his pelvis against his ass, thighs rubbing against him.
It took a wonderfully long time before they stopped, because Roy seemed to know just how good it felt to DJ.
Or maybe it was just that it felt that damn good to both of them.
When he did stop, DJ was breathing hard, and Roy’s chest was expanding and contracting against his back.
Roy gently toppled them to their sides, his cock still inside DJ.
He kept it there, legs up under DJ’s, his ass in the cradle of Roy’s lap.
When he reached around to fondle DJ’s sensitive cock, resting against his thigh, DJ nearly whimpered.
Roy’s teeth were on his neck again, small bites that would leave temporary marks, but DJ would feel them for a long time afterward. Feel him all over and inside.
He’d had sex plenty of times. This was way beyond that. He knew it was more, even if it was too soon and not advisable to acknowledge it. But he wanted to. Maybe that was stupid, maybe Roy would think that was stupid. Maybe it was…
“Stop thinking. You’re tensing up.” Roy slid his arm around DJ, his other arm beneath his head, giving DJ a pillow. “It’s not just sex, Dory. I don’t do that. But it’s okay. I’ve got you. You don’t need to tell someone what the sky is when you’re both looking at it.”
A pregnant pause ensued as DJ rolled that over in his mind and put it to music. Roy chuckled, the rumble of it vibrating through DJ. “I’ll remember that line for you to write down later. Sleep. Take a break.”
DJ pressed his cheek harder against Roy’s firm biceps. The ache he’d carried from the airport was easier. When it returned, as he fully expected it would, he’d go to the studio. Maybe Roy would go with him in an off-duty capacity. That would make it even better.
Either way, it would be all right.
The studio space had the drum kit he’d requested, plus guitar stands for the two he’d brought.
A mini fridge held a few drinks and snacks. A TV mounted in an upper corner was on, but muted and had subtitles for the decades old sitcom it was showing, the kind that ran back-to-back for daytime TV watchers.
Maybe Cole, the sound engineer, had been watching it. He gave DJ a wave through the control booth viewing glass as DJ entered the live room. DJ wasn’t planning on putting anything down, but having an engineer was useful if DJ wanted to hear a playback, or have him add in some sounds.
Roy went into the sound booth and took his usual spot there, leaning against the back wall in that position he seemingly could hold for decades, nothing moving but his eyes. Total attention on his one focus. DJ.
It’s not just sex, Dory.
The best news he’d gotten all day.
DJ sat down behind the drums. There were several types of sticks to choose from. As he picked up a set, he remembered the first time Tal had played with him, Steve and Pete. Back when the gigs they played mainly wanted covers of existing songs.
Cole was already set up for the music Survival liked to use for warm-ups, so DJ didn’t anticipate a problem with his request.
“Give me everything but the drums from ‘Where The Streets Have No Name?’ U2?”
“You want the vocals, too?”
“Yeah. I’m just doing drums.”
“You got it.”
DJ’s fingers twitched over the guitar riff so well executed by The Edge, U2’s lead guitarist, but then his hands closed on the sticks, and he started in on the opening drum fill. He closed his eyes, and let his mind join the flow of the music, carrying the memories it brought.
Tal had shown up before their gig at a dive bar in Wadesboro, North Carolina. The bartender had known they were looking for a drummer and recommended Tal, so DJ told him to tell Tal to meet them there.
It was a dismal setup, a stage so cramped it could barely accommodate their equipment, and less than thirty people present, most of them drinking and not paying much attention to the band yet.
DJ deemed it a good spot to audition the drummer and see if he put in the effort even for an indifferent audience.
They’d done the U2 song first, an audience pleaser, and when Tal finished, he’d leveled a look at DJ and said, “Fun, but too easy.”
DJ told him to choose any song from their standing repertoire. “Burn” by Deep Purple came next. Thrilling and fast, he and Steve crowding the mic to do the vocals and pound out the guitar parts, keeping pace with Tal’s furious fills. Then DJ faced Tal for the guitar solo.
They’d finished the song with shit-eating grins. Tal had arrived at the audition as a single burning light bulb. Realizing he was going to be part of them turned him into a stadium of illumination.
Discovering they’d caught the attention and enthusiasm of those thirty people was the icing on the cake.
Later that night, they went back to Marjorie’s barn, their first rehearsal space, to jam some more.
DJ remembered them crashing and burning seventy seconds into “Dance of Eternity” by Dream Theater, which was about twice as far as he’d expected to get. But those haunting guitar notes…
Haunted. That was Tal. So lost he didn’t see he was in the back seat of a driverless car, headed toward a brick wall.
DJ wanted to really hit the drums. Beat it out, harder, faster. He rose and stripped off his Rush shirt, then sat back down.
“‘Burn’ by Deep Purple,” he called out. Cole gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up, and switched the music.
DJ picked up the sticks, twirling one with a flourish, then closed his eyes again.
Bam! That first beat. His arms flexed, hands came down, and the sticks made contact. The guitar entered the fray, normally his part, but not today. The drums set the underlying rhythm and that was the current he was riding. He worked it, making it angrier, needier. Sadder.
He connected to his brother's soul, his heartbeat.
You’re strong enough to beat this, Tal. Beat the drugs, beat the way you feel about yourself. Find the right rhythm. Like your drums, it will keep you steady, bring you back.
It was the best way DJ knew how to pray, sending his music to the heavens, the angels, to whatever Power was listening.
Music could do anything, transcend anything, reach anything.
The drums were the center, the heartbeat, and that was what DJ would lay his hands upon, to channel that healing to Tal.
Dibbidee dibbidee dum, a fast all the way around the world sequence, kick drum, snare, toms, hi-hats, ride and crash cymbals, working the main drum pedal. He heard the part where his guitar solo had started, him and Tal facing off, then Steve and Pete coming in. All together.
In this life, he’d seen the drugs win a lot. Creative souls were vulnerable, and addiction grabbed hold and ate them like a cancer, until there was nothing left to save.
DJ didn’t accept that. Couldn’t accept that. He was starting to sweat, but he was about to get sweatier.
“‘Painkiller,’” he shouted. Cole moved to comply. Against his eyelids, DJ saw Tal beating out the Judas Priest song.
From their first meeting, he’d recognized Tal’s anger and hopelessness. His soul already believed it was beyond saving.
You’ve learned differently since you’ve been with us. I know it.
DJ emptied his mind and let the music take him. It would be the first time in a long while that he felt this much without thinking anything, no songs coming from it. He would remember that later.
Much later.
When he finished, his head was bowed, chest expanding as he caught his breath. The silver chain of his ichthys was glistening from what coated his upper body.
He lifted his head to give Cole a good job, approving nod, but Cole wasn’t paying attention. The sound engineer was on his feet, staring at the TV. So was Roy, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, his phone to his ear and expression gripped with something DJ had never seen there before.
Shock.
DJ turned to look at the screen.
The sitcom had been interrupted by a special broadcast. A crashed plane filled the screen, smoke billowing, fire blazing across the runway. Flames leaped from crumpled metal, fire crews in heavy gear scrambling around them.
A voice in DJ’s head said, “Oh shit, no one’s walking away from that.” The wave of sympathy was what anyone with a heart felt, even knowing it wouldn’t affect them directly.
He read the words scrolling across the screen, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Didn’t want to make sense of it. But the words didn’t care.
Members of Survival, the world-famous rock and metal band, were believed to be on the plane…
Were. Were.
DJ surged up and forward. He forgot the drums in his way, so he fell over them, foot going through the main drum, the metal on the top edge slicing through his jeans. He didn’t feel it, wouldn’t remember how the cut got there.
Roy was in the room, helping DJ up, turning him away from the TV. He made a throat slicing move toward Cole and the television went dark.
“Call Moss. What…who…”
“I just spoke to him.”
The pain in Roy’s face, the grim knowledge, told DJ there wasn’t any hope.
Even his formidable bodyguard couldn’t stop the burst of rage and strength that propelled DJ to the corner.
He leaped up and grabbed the TV, pulling it off the mount in one wrenching move that crashed both of them to the floor.
But he was already up, and hurling the TV to the ground, determined to destroy it.
If he could destroy it, it was wrong. It was a lie. One of Tal’s nightmares.
The spiders weren’t there.
The TV hit the shambles of the drum kit, all of it becoming garbage. He didn’t care about his hands as he tore apart metal and plastic.
He roared and raged at Roy as he pulled DJ away from the wreckage and forced him back.
Others came into the room, but Roy snapped at them to get out, at Cole to close the curtain to the sound booth.
Giving DJ this time alone, his pain unwitnessed by anyone but the man charged to protect him from harm.
And in this case, to hold him together so the pain within didn’t tear him apart like he’d done to the TV.
No. It had to be wrong. It has to be.
Somewhere, DJ could hear the laughter of the demons who thrived on this shit. But Roy shut them down. He wrapped himself around DJ. Murmured to him in that rush of ocean surf thunder that drowned everything out.
When DJ collapsed to the floor, Roy surrounded and held him. Protecting his broken heart and soul the way he did DJ’s life. That steady core, the uncompromising strength, couldn’t change the pain. But it did give DJ something to hold on to.