What I Want

Chapter 1

PIA

Isign the last album cover and toss it onto the pile.

My wrist aches. My eyes are seeing double.

I’ve run out of cigarettes, and the bottle of champagne in front of me is empty.

I glance at the digital clock on the hotel bedside table and see it’s only just hit midnight.

Early. Too early to sleep. With no more alcohol in the minibar fridge and absolutely no desire to run down to reception for more cigarettes, I guess I have to reach for my other vice: sex.

But with who?

I pick up the album I just tossed to the side.

I study the picture of the four of us–Femme Fatale, “Europe’s leading punk-rock band with a terrifying, kick-ass lead woman,” according to Rhythm I’m probably not supposed to have favourites, but if I did, it would be him.

Geert is often too doped up or drunk to get it up.

Jakob has a tendency to cry when he comes, and worse, he likes to be cuddled afterwards.

Jon is generous and efficient and least likely to annoy me.

Plus, he’s even in the adjoining room, so I don’t have to go out into the corridor and risk getting spotted by a fortuitous photographer who managed to get in the hotel, leaving behind the handful of others who are camped outside waiting for us to leave tomorrow.

If only the boys hadn’t started fighting with Stephan fucking Greene last night.

If only I hadn’t had one line too many and saw red when I heard that English piece of shit tease us about our crappy tour sales, like I don’t already know that his spineless girlfriend is the only reason they managed to sell out in one weekend.

She is, after all, the only one of those hippies with a molecule of talent.

Nobody listens to Evergreene for his overcooked guitar solos and off-key howling.

Nobody goes to see them on tour because of his brother’s persistently chasing drumming style.

Most people completely forget about Clarence Oldman, who really does put the “old” in his name, and about George Redfeather, or whatever his name is.

Evergreene fans are, in fact, Cassie Everard fans.

She’s the one they want. She’s the one everyone wants.

And by all accounts, she hates that nearly as much as I do.

I don’t bother to knock as I open the connecting door that leads into Jon’s room.

I’ve been listening to his muffled strumming and singing all night through the wall.

He claims he’s working on a solo album, but this is one of many things he tells me to piss me off, and I don’t believe it.

Like Evergreene, he and both Geert and Jakob are nothing without their leading lady: me.

Which is why it stings that our current album hasn't yet reached the number one spot, and our world tour still hasn’t sold out despite our Grammy win.

“Jon, I—” I stop walking and take in the scene as I fold my arms. “Oh, God. Not again.”

To his credit, Jon doesn’t break his stroke, and he only casts me the briefest of looks. He grunts as he looks back at the magazine spread out in front of his naked body on the bed. Sorry, not naked. He has a sock on. One sock. With a hole that his big toe pokes out of.

“Who is it this time? Who’s the Playboy Playmate of the Month? Do share!” I climb up on the bed and look at the pages he’s studying with tense concentration.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” I pick up the magazine, dragging it away from Jon.

“Oi, Pia, put that back!” He abandons his angry-looking dick and leans out to get the magazine back, but I’m too quick. “For fuck’s sake.”

“I can’t believe you’re wanking over Cassie Everard!”

“What do you care?” Jon says, and he tries one last time to grab the magazine back, but I’m already on the move, sliding off the bed and standing opposite him on the other side. I flick through the pages of – I flip to the cover – oh, Vogue magazine. Very fucking fancy.

“A ten-page feature! One, two, three … eight outfit changes! What the fuck!?”

Jon finally admits defeat and finds some Y-fronts that look clean-ish. Once they’re on, he slumps down to sit on the bed. “You’re a real fucking buzzkill, you know that?”

“How does this turn you on?” I turn the magazine around to reveal a full-page photo of Cassie Everard emerging from a cornfield dressed in a white smock, her honey-blonde hair floating behind her, the sun’s dusk glow giving her a golden aura. “You can’t even see her tits.”

Jon turns his head enough to give me a dry look.

“You don’t need to see her tits to be turned on by her.

Look at her.” He points to the magazine, and his East-London accent really comes to life.

“She’s all butter-wouldn’t-melt, ready to be corrupted, sweet and innocent, girl next door. Who wouldn’t want to fuck her?”

“Fine,” I concede, throwing the magazine on the bed, closed. I’ve had enough of her big blue eyes and toothache-inducing sweet smiles. “She’s hot. Very fuckable. But she’s also the bitch who sold out a tour in record time.”

Jon sighs as he moves so he can sit against the headboard, long legs stretching out in front of him.

He’s topless, and the eagle tattoo across his hairless, brawny chest stares at me with its one beady eye.

“Of course, they sold out. And they sort of deserve it. They’ve had two number one albums in a row.

Five more number one singles than us. Let’s be honest, our Grammy win was a fluke. Pass me my guitar.”

I do as he says, mostly because I’m too busy arguing with him to realise.

“Oh, wow, two number ones for middle-of-the-road, hippie heartbreak albums of mediocre melodies and lacking lyrics? Please. We all know the American public has terrible taste in most things – pop music somewhere near the top of the list. It’s the tours that really matter.

You know I want the European fans more than I want the American ones. ”

Jon says something in response, but he’s started strumming and I don’t catch it. I realise I’m standing with my bad ear towards him, so I climb up on the bed and twist my body so my better ear can hear him.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing worth repeating,” he says again, but his eyes are closed. He’s playing around with a chord sequence that is new and doesn’t sound that terrible. But it’s too … soft.

“Up the tempo.” I nod at him as he opens his eyes. “Play it quicker, sharper.”

He stops strumming. “I like it how it is.”

“No, it needs to be … punkier.”

“You and your fucking punk.” He rolls his eyes.

“I thought we were a punk-rock band?”

“We were, but that’s clearly not what the people want. That’s why our album hasn’t cracked the top five.”

“There’s still time. It was widely acclaimed in most trade reviews.”

“But shunned by the major radio networks. And frankly, reviews aren’t going to pay my mortgage.”

I snort at him. “Well, you shouldn’t have splashed out on that seafront Malibu property.”

“And you should listen to me when I say we need to go where the market is. Slow it down. Soft rock. Electronic synths. Swap the anarchist anthems for ballads. Love songs. That’s where the money is.”

“Over my dead body,” I say firmly.

“Anyway, what are you doing here, interrupting my wank?”

I open my mouth to tell him the truth but close it again. His ego doesn’t deserve that kind of massaging. Besides, all this talk of Cassie Everard has made me feel less like having a quick fuck. “I was curious about what you were playing.”

“And you want me to ruin it by letting you shout over it?” He cocks an eyebrow at me.

“I don’t shout. I sing. Loudly.”

“Not if Martin or I have anything to do with it,” Jon says and goes back to strumming, slowly.

I wrinkle my nose at the mention of Martin Dowde, our manager, who I clash with as regularly as I change my underwear (when I can be bothered to wear it).

He’s not a bad man–he’s picked us all up and out of trouble more times than I can count – but he’s motivated by money, just like Silver Waters, our record label, and so, he mostly does their bidding.

“You’re boring me now,” I say, getting up. I walk to the door between our rooms.

“Pia!” Jon’s voice is raised.

“What?” I turn back to him.

“You didn’t hear me, did you? I was just talking to you, and you didn’t hear a word I said. You really need to get your ears checked out.”

I put my hands on my hips. “You really need to mind your business.”

Jon’s shoulders sink. “I’m your friend, P,” he says. “I care.”

“When we’re in London,” I say. “I’ll go get them checked then.”

It’s a promise, sure, but not to myself. Only promises to myself really count.

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Jon says with a smile that does remind me how handsome he can be. And that, when all is said and done, he is actually a good friend. “Even if you did interrupt my Cassie Everard fantasy and didn’t even suck my cock to say sorry.”

And there I am, back to feeling noticeably nauseated by him. What was I even thinking coming in here for him to fuck me? Maybe I really have turned a corner.

“Speaking of which,” I say as I head back to the bed and grab the magazine. “You won’t mind if I steal this.”

Jon laughs. “See, you totally get it! You want to get in her frilly silk knickers just as much as I do!”

“Can’t hear you!” I joke and blow him a kiss before disappearing into my own room with ten pages of Cassie Everard under my arm.