Page 121 of Beneath the Stain

The next reply was a gorgeous swell of sound.

“Oh, guys, my boyfriend done been gone a fuckin’ week. Are you with me?”

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh….

“’Cause it’sfree!”

“Free!” chanted the band.

“Legal!”

“Legal!”

“And you can’t say no! No! No! No! Don’t take away our….”

“Masturbation!”

The crowd practically rioted as the crackle of the opening chords clanged across the stage.

Trav had possibly never been so turned-on in his whole life. His sweet little fantasy of rimming Mackey as he opened himself up willingly was replaced by a harder, dirtier fantasy of Mackey with a dildo and a fist, fucking himself until he screamed.

He was in the back, screaming along with the crowd as the band spanked that monkey and made it their fucking own. Even Debra banged her head through the end of the lyrics, and the song only got hotter after that.

Toward the end of the song, when the band was riffing, Mackey did something truly terrifying—something Trav knew he did but hadn’t really counted on seeing in person.

Carefully, using the hands from the crowd, he stepped across the walkway from the stage to the rail holding the crowd back. He held his hand out for his mic and a pretty red-haired girl handed it to him right on cue. Over the sound of his band jamming, he said, “Are you ready? Are you ready? Did I stroke you enough? Are you ready tostroke me back!”

The crowd roared, and Mackey spread his arms and flew.

They caught him, hundreds of hands raised to pass him forward and backward as he screamed the refrain, trusting that they wouldn’t let him down. As the song wound down, he gestured back to the rail and was standing again in time for the final chorus, and Trav remembered to breathe. Mackey was covered in sweat, his makeup was running down his face, and he grinned at them, demonic as a rabid child, and they screamed in bloodlust back.

And then they launched into the next song, and he did it again.

By the time they hit “The I’m Sorry Song,” which had sort of a poppy, hooky edge that closed down the set nicely, Mackey and the band were sopping, the equipment was starting to short out, and the crowd was exhausted. Trav didn’t even have to look at the lineup to know that the next three bands had been outclassed and outplayed by a group of guys with shitty amps, a crumbling sound board, and a light board that had died in the middle of the set in a shower of sparks.

And a microphone stand that gave up the ghost about the same time, pissing Mackey off so much that he grinned at the crowd and kicked it off the stage, just like a misbehaving cat.

Trav couldn’t even blame him. And the crowd?

Apparently ate that shit up with a spoon.

The final chord sizzled through the air, and the crowd screamed raw freedom until the sound was palpable, inescapable, a real live entity like a tentacle monster, wrapping around every body in the place.

The band ran off the stage in a spatter of sweat and cheering from the band and tech crew ready to take their place, and Trav closed his eyes, letting some of the tension that had ridden him for the past two hours wash out.

“Are you sleeping?” Mackey called, and Trav opened his eyes, shook his head, and grinned.

“Recovering,” he said, and Mackey started trotting across the backstage bay. Trav got himself ready, because Mackey wasn’t going to stop, any fool could see it. It was Trav’s job to catch him—always had been.

“Recovering?” Mackey bitched, launching himself in the air and landing in Trav’s arms, wrapping his legs around his hips.

“Oolf!” But he really didn’t weigh anything, and Trav closed his eyes and convulsed his arms around the solidness he did feel.

“Recovering?” Mackey nagged. “You ain’t even begun….”

Trav took his mouth this time, tasting salt and lactic acid, but Trav didn’t care. Dirty, sweaty, salty, Mackey James Sanders, and Trav couldn’t taste him enough. The equipment and the roadies and the band and even the screaming of the crowd all disappeared, lost in the clash of teeth and tongue, the bitterness of Mackey’s running makeup, the hot, moist feel of Mackey body under Trav’s palms.

Mackey groaned in his arms and pressed forward, as erect and probably as hard and aching as Trav was, and Trav had the presence of mind to pull back. They werenothaving sex here in the loading bay of the Coliseum—