He awoke in a mass of crumpled bed sheets, groping for a sense of time and place. A moment’s glance around at the poster-strewn walls of the tiny room brought it back to him. 47th Street East, guy’s name is Eddie, that’s it. Hospitable type, friend of Jerry from the Mercury Lounge. Eddie had been only too glad to let him and Robbie crash out and had not even balked at the young drummer bringing along a girl. Hell, the guy had taken the sofa so that Robbie and friend could make use of the main bedroom. The horny couple had been at it several times during the night, the other side of a thin plasterboard wall.

Jared wasn’t used to being the silent listener to other people’s night-time athletics, but he was sure he’d disturbed enough sleepers in his time for karma to be due. Besides, Robbie was a good kid. He deserved his fun and by the sound of last night’s efforts he was getting into the spirit of rock-and-roll like an established pro. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, fuck – that’s it babe. Take it. Come on, take it deep. Etcetera, etcetera.

Jared wiped sleep from his eyes and downed the glassful of water he had placed by his bedside. Not one of his heavier evenings, but then he’d been under instruction, hadn’t he? No all-nighter, buddy, you’ve got a big day ahead and I want you at your best.

“Yes ma’am,” he’d told Vanessa over the phone, and had gone on to surprise himself with his abstinence. The second Mercury Lounge gig had gone well with resulting interest in the band members from several female music fans. Jackson had been deep in conversation with some writer-girl with cornrows and multiple piercings, while Max was fielding the competing attentions of two hot blondes. On any other night Jared would have shared the embarrassment of riches on offer, rather than leave Max to absorb all that attention. Damn, those girls want putting through their paces. They're looking for one seriously long, hard night. Instead the after-party was the quietest on record, spent shooting the breeze with amiable Eddie over shots of Jack Daniels, before suffering through Robbie and partner’s audio sex-cabaret.

Oh God, baby, fuck me good!

What – like this?

Yeah, yeah, like that – you know how to use your cock. Oh God, I'm gonna come!

“Your friend’s crazy-ass art project had better be worth it,” he muttered to the absent Vanessa. Time … He hadn’t overslept, had he? The clock on the nightstand told him it wasn’t much past ten. Good—his services, whatever they might be, wouldn’t be required until two o’clock. That provided enough space to ease gently into the day.

His sleep had been full of dreams fuelled by the antics in the next room; when he arose the top sheet hung off his cock like a cover draping an obscene museum statue. He brushed it off and groped around the room for the towel Eddie had promised, finding it dangling over the end of the bed frame. His morning hard-on was demanding even by its own standards. The Morgan family curse. He smiled ruefully on glimpsing his full-on boner in the mirror. The usual touch of pride was there too; it never went away, whatever he’d told the novice groupie in the band’s van. Damn, he needed the use of a shower cubicle and fast, or he’d be distracted by the needs of his cock all morning. He grabbed his toiletries bag as an afterthought.

The bathroom was down a short passageway and he took no trouble to cover up, not banking on the exit of Robbie’s conquest from the other bedroom as he progressed. He’d been indolently stroking his erection, dragging the towel, when she appeared full in front of him. On being confronted with his naked form she took a full step back, an “Oh my God” escaping from her lips.

“Damn, sorry.” In the circumstances there seemed no better move than to drop the towel over the end of his cock so that the effect of the concealed museum exhibit was resumed for her benefit. “There, all covered up,” he said with an apologetic grin and an open-handed gesture. He’d learnt it first back in his teens that embarrassment served him nothing.

The girl stifled a giggle with her hand to her mouth. She was a perky thing in a denim dress, with magenta-rinsed hair and a nose stud. “That’s quite a trick,” she remarked, staring at his cloaked manhood.

“What can I tell you? I’m a born showman.”

“I can tell. You’re the guitarist, right? You were hot. I mean … on the guitar.” She giggled again, not sure where to look, but amused rather than unnerved by his erectile nakedness. “Oh God …”

“I'm glad you enjoyed the show. Last night’s show. You got your money’s worth out of the band later on, if those noises you were makin’ were anything to go by.”

She blushed deeper than before, appalled and pleased. “You were next door? Oh my God, you heard it all …”

“Well yeah …” He indicated his concealed stiffness again and she almost creased with constrained mirth. “You kinda cut loose, girl. I just hope you put a big ol’ smile on Robbie’s face. He’s a good kid.”

“He’s a naughty boy,” she said, “but he’s a sweetie too. And yeah, you can bet I did.” Her gaze was drawn once again to his veiled extension. “You need to go sort that out, I think, mister.”

“I think so too.”

“Need any help?” She laughed like it was a joke, but Jared sensed that she wouldn’t have minded being called on her suggestion. The thought of some masturbatory aid in the shower was far from unappealing, but no—this was Robbie’s girl, even if she was leaving. The young drummer deserved his conquests to himself.

“Appreciate the offer,” he told the girl, “but I’m saving this for someone later on.”

“Wow. Lucky her.” She sidled by him, biting her lip with naked longing now that he’d gallantly let her down. “Have a nice shower, Mr. Guitarist. And a nice day.”

“Both, I hope.” He looked back over his shoulder to see her doing the same. “You checkin’ out my ass now?”

“Yeah,” she said, her laugh brazen now. “Got a problem with that?”

“Nope.”

“It’s a fine ass, like everything else you’ve got.”

“Well thank you.”

“My pleasure, baby. Have fun.”

He was half-tempted to call her back, but resisted the urge. Principles, damn ‘em. He’d shaken off enough in his time, but some kept clinging despite his best efforts to abandon them.

The encounter with Robbie’s just-fucked friend had served to reinforce his hardness and he was glad to put all his resolute inches under warming jets of the shower. A slippery feminine hand all over his length would have been nice, but this morning his own grip would have to serve. He washed the rest of himself down first as was his habit, saving the moment till last when he wrapped his palm around his shaft, enjoying the salve to his aching tension.

The magenta girl’s keening responses to whatever Robbie was doing to her might have prompted Jared’s dreams, but other women had vied for his head-space all night. They returned to him now and crowded around him naked as he lathered his cock—not least the elegant English rose who had soaped him so lovingly in spring sunshine. Self-possessed yet eager to please, her palm spreading the soap bubbles like it was an act of creation. Bone-hard under a tender caress … Fuck.

The tour had been sensational as well, a perfect merging of music and sex the like of which his adolescent self could only have dreamed. That busty adventuress in the back of the van, God he’d worked her over properly, helping her plumb the depths of her sluttiness. Her tits had bounced in a frenzy as she took him. He could see them still, along with the fever on her face as she embraced the moment’s grimy eroticism. It hadn't been his intention to take her ass, but hell—her naughty innocence had damn well screamed for it.

Oh, and the slinky bargirl in the back room mid-way through the gig, and then again after, giving her what she craved … Seizing the moment had never paid sweeter dividends than it had on that night. The risk of a stinging hand-slap was so worth it, when such a prize could be claimed. There were other memories too—less vivid but still delicious—melting into a kaleidoscopic whirl as his palm quickened and tightened against his bulging hard-on. Thank you, girls. He’d loved every last one of them, if only briefly, and cherished the hot wet memories with which they’d blessed this small-town boy.

Then the image from way back surfaced as it always did, however much he tried to keep it at bay—taunting, angering and inflaming him all in the same instant. Raven-dark hair and a flushed face, coral-red nipples pointed with desire. Compact breasts undulating on her lithe frame, as he watched through the cracked door … A raw porno acted out before him, the babysitter bulldozed from behind by the father of the Morgan family. It had been quite a sight for a teenage boy, to see such arrogance and pleasure on his dad’s face as the grown man sank himself over and over into the depths of that hot young thing. I’m the man … The cheating bastard had radiated that sentiment, along with sheer joy in his act of betrayal. He’d embraced his hard, selfish orgasm without shame, and sexy Natalie had loved the experience too—she’d ached visibly with delight as her one-time employer shafted her.

Christ, Mr. Morgan, that's a whole lotta cock …

And that’s one helluva tight fuckin' pussy. You sure you can take all a’ me?

Yeah Mr. Morgan, I can take it. I can take every fucking inch, Joe …

Well let’s see if you can, baby. Here we go, right to the balls …

Cue crazy orgasmic screams, as the Morgan paterfamilias rocked her world on his hard-driving dick.

Jared viewed them both in a seriously altered light from that day on, cock resolving hard for his ex-sitter even as he stewed with resentment at what she ultimately did to their family.

He had always resisted climaxing to that image of secret fucking and he did so now, thoughts groping around for something to match and surpass its tawdry excitement. He found what he’d been searching for in red hair and big firm tits scattered with freckles. More than a year had passed since she stripped for him, since he’d bounced her off all the fucking walls of that Motel 6, but the image was fierce in his mind—her robust sexiness, curvy and lissom all at once. Maybe she’d changed her look since then, but in their conversations her attitude was the same as on the day they’d met. All pure Vanessa, provocative, feisty and fuckable.

Bring it on, girl. I’m gonna do you so damn good today. Your bi friend can look on and wish, while I do it. Art project my ass—we both know what this is about.

His palm on his cock was a slippery fury—hard-pumped steel, with swollen balls ready to contract and offload. He was set to shoot it all free of himself with the red vixen filling his mind. Hold the moment. Hold it … He summoned up an image of how her face might look, when later that day she’d take him to the hilt. Come on, Red … Got some funny comment to make? Whatcha gotta say about this? Lemme hear you. Lemme hear you scream when you come on my goddamn …

“Hey buddy … Call for you!”

Eddie’s voice was sounding through the tiny bathroom. “What?”

“For you. You better take this, she’s giving me orders here.”

Jared let go his cock as it ebbed from the brink of orgasm. “Hang on …” He fought his way out of the shower and wrapped the towel around his waist so that it tented from his unassuaged erection. Eddie’s hand was proffering a cell phone around the door. The interrupted masturbator had no doubt as to who was calling. “Hello?”

“God, do you ever answer your own phone?” Vanessa’s voice was full of mock-exasperation. He was used to that. He liked it in fact, most of the time. “I had to go through Jerry to find out where you were,” she chided.

“What’s the panic? Maybe I didn’t wanna be disturbed, Red.”

“Look I know you’re in the shower, and no doubt you’re jacking off. Well you can take your hand off of it right now.”

“Sorry, what?”

“You were cranking it up, weren’t you? Be honest.”

“Well I mean what else would I be doing in the shower? Washing?”

“We both know which part you were washing. Did you come?”

“Did I …”

“Did you shoot your mess all over the shower wall, big boy?”

“I was about to do it before you showed up shouting directions. I gotta give it to you, your timing’s fuckin’ amazing.”

“So you didn’t.” She sounded mightily pleased. “I caught you in the nick of time—I love it. Okay baby, rinse that dick, but don’t stroke it again. I want you at the height of your powers today.”

“Red, I’m a twice-a-day guy. Minimum. I mean twice is a slow day, as you well know. I can finish off and be plenty ready for whatever …”

“You’re not allowed.”

“Ehh … like, what the fuck?”

“You’re not allowed, baby. I don’t allow it. I booked you weeks in advance and you’re damn well dancing to my tune for this. I made promises here to someone who trusts me.”

“What promises?”

“A big unsatisfied cock as pumped as it can be. And then I went and almost forgot to tell you. By the sound of it I pulled this one back from the brink, so put that motherfucker back in your pants and save it.” Her voice softened. “You can do that for me, can’t you, rock star?”

He laughed. She always made him laugh. “Yeah, for you Red I can do that. Guess I am dancin’ to your tune here. Just leave my mother out of it.”

It was her turn to laugh, that throaty dirty chuckle of hers. “That much I can do. You got the address?”

“Address, time, the whole deal.”

“And you’re still not going to ask me what it’s all about?”

“You’d love me to ask. I’ll find out when I find out.”

“In that case, I’ll see you when you get here.”

“Oh you will, Red. All of me. In my unsatisfied glory. Bye.”

She’d be grinning as wide as he was on the other end of that terminated call, of that he had no doubt. He didn’t meet many girls who had the nerve to plan a surprise for him and go insisting that he play along. The reversal felt strangely refreshing.

He kept his hands off his dick when he returned to the shower, treating himself instead to a luxuriously steamy shave. Then after brushing his teeth and tying back dampened hair, he towelled down, erection swaying like a tree in a strong wind as he dried around it. The phone he chucked back to his host, taking his unrelieved self back to the bedroom. There he threw on jeans and a tee-shirt both freshly laundered, however crumpled from travel. Guy’s gotta make an effort. This was the closest thing to a date he’d probably ever been on. Trust the Red girl to make it happen …

He picked up his battered sketch-pad from the bedside table and chewed on a pencil while perusing his current work-in-progress. The picture was of a certain rich guy’s daughter getting schooled by Jared and her step-mom; the scenario lent itself to the comic style he had developed in his so-called art. He’d already captured the stretch of the daughter’s mouth around his cock and began to sketch out the curve of her ass in preparation for naked step-mom’s spanking-hand. Then the image and the memory became too much for that morning’s unrelieved erection. He set the pad aside and departed the bedroom.

“Plans for the day?” Eddie inquired from the living area’s busted sofa. Football was playing on the TV.

“Yeah, hookin’ up with a friend. She’s the one makin’ plans.”

“Giving you a tour of Manhattan?”

“Well I’m hopin’ to see a few sights, for sure. Okay if I crash here again tonight, buddy?”

“You got it. I’ve got Jack and Jim on demand.”

“Nice.” Jared might need a shot of something strong if Vanessa lived up to her intrigue. “Later, bud.”

NYC was already hot, noisy and bustling when he hit the streets. He strolled two blocks down 47th, to the diner he had noted the night before, and sat al fresco, twirling the menu while late-morning traffic honked its way past. He’d just finished ordering breakfast, when The Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black rang out on his cell. It was Max.

“This is why I’ve got an allergy to these goddamn things,” he told his founder band-member. “They interrupt a good breakfast.”

“Man, you’ve got to get over here,” Max insisted in his pseudo-Cockney accent. “The two blond nymphettes have trapped me in their apartment. They’ve had me at it for hours and they’re still not satisfied. Seriously mate, they're going to fuck me to death. I need the Mid-western cavalry.”

Jared grinned at the lead singer’s plight. “Any other day, buddy … I got promises to keep. You can do it, my friend, I’ve seen you at work. Keep pumping and think of England. Rule Britannia, right?”

“Look, I’ve been pumping all night and these crazy bitches are still good for more. They're going to rule me! We’re near 72nd and Madison you can be there in no time.”

There was a scuffle, as of the handset being wrested from Max’s grip, and a girl’s voice purred panther-like into Jared’s ear. “Is that the guitarist, aka Mr. Sex?”

“Hey,” Jared said. “You got Mr. Sex right there with you, baby. What do you need with me?”

“Fuck, I need everything you got. Max here is gorgeous and we love him, but the poor guy’s gonna break if he doesn’t get some help. We need you here right now, don’t we, Silkie?”

Laughter like silver bells chimed in the background. “Yeah, sweetie, we need you bad. Like real bad!”

“We’re naked and wet, and we’re staying that way till you get here,” the more gravelly of the two blondes insisted. “We need all the heat you’re packing and Max here says it’s a lot.”

Jared made to brush off the invitation and realised before he spoke what the hell he was doing. Would the youngster who had set out from Sticksville, Michigan have conceived of the day when he turned down the opportunity to fuck two lithe blondes, one of them named Silkie? A vivid flash of memory brought them back to him from last night’s gig—a combined eleven feet’s worth of slinky deliciousness, all white-blond hair and honey skin. Either sisters or BBFs passing themselves off as such. 72nd and Madison would be—what—less than thirty minutes away? Within that time he could be pushing Silkie down onto his cock while going mouth-to-mouth with her husky friend, while Max took time out from the fray. Sweet Jesus, was he really going to turn this down?

“Baby, Max has been giving me good press and it all sounds fantastic, but I got somewhere else I said I’d be. Man of my word, y’know?”

“Fuck that shit!” She did not sound used to being turned down. “Get your cock over here now. We need the use of it.”

Christ—taming this horny bitch and her friend would be a hell of a fine way to spend Sunday. It was with the utmost reluctance that he said what he did. “You’re killin’ me here, sweetheart, truly you are. I got someone who can act as stand-in—he’s a good guy. You’ll like him. Gimme a chance and I’ll hook you up.”

She sounded sulky as fuck in response, but sufficiently horny to explore the alternative. Laid-back Eddie had enough charm and spirit, Jared figured, to deal with the situation, plus he had no doubt been driven mad by the sexual cacophony emanating from his own room the night just past. He made the call, indicating the roast beef and Swiss cheese sandwich on the menu to the waitress who had been hovering, as Eddie’s phone rang out.

“Buddy, you might wanna scratch your plans for the day. I got you an option that’ll kick whatever sports you’re watching straight into touch.” Eddie listened as he passed on the salacious details, along with a phone number for Max. The girls might want a photo of Jared’s proposed proxy. If so, the guitarist figured Eddie would pass muster. “The rest is up to you, my friend. A fair reward for good single malt and better company. You’ve been dealt a good hand, so play it well.” Massively grateful, Eddie assured Jared that he would.

You better, the itinerant rocker considered as he terminated the call. I’ve passed on one sweet afternoon’s action. His cock, he realised, had reasserted itself against the fabric of his jeans, the girls’ sex-hungry voices still loud in his head. Fuck …

“You all done, baby? I didn’t like to interrupt.” The waitress who had taken Jared’s order was standing over the table with his sandwich, and, in his increased state of arousal, he paid her more attention. She was a slim and dark girl with her wavy hair tied back, and her voice was straight off The Sopranos. Her russet mouth twisted into a knowing smile.

“You listen in on all your customers’ phone conversations?”

“Hey, only the juicy ones.” She set the steak and cheese-loaded sandwich before him and filled his water glass. “Sounds like you’re bein’ a real good friend.”

“I had to pass on something pretty special,” he told her, eyeing the tiny gold cross that dangled from a chain on her neck. Her cleavage was pale and scented. The name Julianna was tagged to her blouse. “Seemed like someone oughta benefit from my misfortune.”

“You’ve done your good deed for today,” she remarked, smirking down at him all trim and pretty. “My grandma would say your reward’ll be in Heaven.”

“Oh I don’t think it's a reward Heaven’s got stored up for me.” His grin to her was arch.

“Bet you’re goin’ down in style though.”

“You bet right.” The moment between them extended, Jared’s erection swelling fuller against his jeans.

“My shift ends at three,” she informed him. “Just sayin’ ...”

He had a mental flash of how good she’d look riding his cock, more so with the cross still suspended around her neck. His fascination with good girls turning naughty, he was sure, would never leave him. “And I’d like to be around for that,” he assured her, “but the same project that’s keeping me from that encounter ...” He tapped his cell. “... Is likely to occupy me all day.”

“Project …” She grimaced. “I hope it’s worth your time since you're giving up so much for it.” The tilt of her hips and the way she teased her even front teeth with her tongue suggested how much.

“You and me both, baby.” He observed her departure from the table, specifically how nicely her ass filled out the pants of her diner uniform. How many on-a-plate opportunities was the Universe expecting him to turn down that day? “Goddamn, Red, you’d better make this worth my time.” Only damn girl I’d do this for. The thought took him by surprise. It disconcerted him enough to make him pause before biting into his sandwich. He adjusted his thinking (an image of Vanessa’s jolting body as he shafted hard into her from behind served nicely) and filled his mouth with steak sandwich, the juice of the meat trickling down his chin.

Sex and food—the drives he understood. Since his latter teens he’d found himself able to satisfy one as easily as the other. Stick with what you know, fella. He ate his meal with gusto, building strength for what he hoped would be some serious physical exertion later on.

Julianna gave him the check and added her cell number to it when he tipped. “In case the rest of your Sunday doesn’t work out,” she told him, her smile somewhere between sly and embarrassed. He didn’t see how it would fail to do so, but tucked the paper slip into his back pocket nonetheless. You had to love those city girls for the initiative they took. The Italian-American sliver of loveliness would be more than worth his time if Vanessa-Cherry business didn’t live up to its considerable promise.

His pulse quickening, Jared descended into the bowels of the NYC subway network. His journey into the unknown was underway. Each day of his nomadic existence brimmed with potential, but there was something special, he knew, about this one. Not simply that the feisty redhead was involved, though that was undeniably a bonus. It was—and he shuddered in his moment of realisation—the voluntary forfeiting of control that set it apart. Christ, I have no clue what’s going on here, what’s going to happen today. It almost made him laugh aloud. The rumbling of the subway train ran through his body, the humidity in the compartment drawing sweat from his pores, but it was the sense of abandonment to a fate devised by someone else that ultimately absorbed him. All other occupants of the carriage—the well-heeled and the shabby, the contemplative loners and the laughing couples in their summer-wear—would have some notion of that day’s outcome he had little doubt.

Not me. I’m walking into fuck knows what.

Those memories were being evoked more potently than in the shower that morning. Hot, illicit memories, the true definition of ‘sinful’. He had transgressed that summer of old. He had let her play her game with him and the recollection was still a painful kind of sweet.

An excitement that he had not known since his boyhood welled in his belly and ran through his entire frame, prickling his nipples and pumping his cock hard as he sat there in the jolting train compartment. Shit. He’d have brushed away the thoughts had they not been so potent and pleasurable. Had they not made him shudder to his core …

What’s the matter, Jared sweetie? Don’t ya wanna talk to me any more? The taunting voice was as clear in his head, as when it had spoken in his ear all those years before.

He’d been soaping down a neighbor’s Ford Mustang for five dollars when she uttered the words, easing to an on-the-spot jog in her scant running gear. “No,” he replied, his circles on the back windscreen slowing momentarily, before he resumed his pace. “We both know why.” Things had been screwed in the Morgan household since his dad screwed her.

“But it’s not just ‘cos you're mad at me, is it, baby?” She threw herself back against the sud-soaked car, sweating breasts thrust out in the July sunshine. “It’s ‘cos you liked watching.” His arm stalled in its rotation and he leaned against the metal, heart thumping and cock extending involuntarily in his jeans. “You think you hate me, Jared ...”

“I don’t hate you. I don’t anything you.”

“Oh but you do,” she said, absolute assurance in that lightly panting voice. “You everything me, all at once. Confusing, isn’t it?” She’d hit it square. Hate and love and lust. How could you separate the feelings for your first crush, the sitter who had fucked your dad on his marital bed? “You want to do to me what he did, don’t you, sweetie?” She licked a film of sweat from her upper lip with her tongue.

He forced himself to meet her gaze, teenage libido trampling every other instinct. “Yeah.” His throat was dry and he swallowed to moisten it. “Yeah, Natalie, I guess I do.”

Her face creased into a mischievous smile, while he listened to the sound of his own hoarse breath. “Then maybe you’re in luck. I got eight weeks till college starts again. I think I’ll make you my project.”

She was still fixing him with a stare of sheer evaluation when he summoned his courage and made a grab for one of her breasts. The slap she administered to the back of his hand was sharp enough to arrest his heated attempt. “Down boy. You’re my project, not vice versa.” Her slim manicured finger poked him in the chest and her stare drilled into him, cruel and sexy. “You pull that shit again, Jared Morgan, and you’ll blow all chance of getting inside my panties. You’ll be thinking of your father doing it and jerking off to that instead. I’m considering giving you the summer all your high school friends could only dream of, but if you piss me off, I’ll drop you like a bag of dirt and go play with the big boys.”

Jared’s burgeoning teen ego hated to let her away with that. “I’m plenty big,” he said with as much swagger as he could marshal.

“I don’t care if you’re in the Guinness Book of World Records,” she snapped back, with a disdainful glance at his crotch. “You’re still the little boy I played Jenga with and sent to bed at nine. I’ll decide when you’re all grown up. That’s two strikes—one more and you’re out.” She took the hand which had so clumsily tried to grope her and clamped it to her tit. “Now do you want to play a real fun game—by my rules?”

Christ, had he ever …

Natalie’s rules had been harsh, but the rewards so sweet. “I'll make such a man of you,” she’d told him at a later date, “you’ll thank me all your life.”

Part of him did, even while resentment continued to burn.

Whatever Vanessa had in mind for him, she was a whole different proposition from the demon Natalie. And assisting with an art project was a far cry from a summer’s worth of sex games, where occasional rewards had leavened long-lasting frustration. The only linking factor was a relinquishing of control. And I said I’d never do that again. Guess it’s good for the soul. He had to inhale deep lungfuls of stale Metro air to slow his racing heart.

He emerged from the subway at 14th Street and 7th Avenue, having adjusted the erection in his pants that had threatened to make walking impossible. Once he’d gathered his bearings, he set off on a southward amble into the Village. Memories of Natalie clouded his mind like they hadn’t succeeded in doing for a couple of years and every step towards his rendezvous with Vanessa caused the fog to thicken.

Greenwich Avenue’s sunshine went some way, however, towards clearing his thoughts. The striped awnings and broad Z patterns of the fire-escapes up endless stories of brickwork made him feel almost at home. He belonged in the city—maybe this city most of all with its kinetic energy and crackling air of potential. Even on a weekend afternoon the street was alive with honking traffic, hot-dog vendors and street-smart shop owners hustling their wares. This was Vanessa’s kind of city too.

He checked his cell—still an hour before the appointed time. God, had he been this early for anything in his life? Sixty minutes to kill in the Village. Where better for a guy who had dropped out of college to embrace a more spontaneous existence? He sauntered along West 8th Street, basking in the aroma of crushed garlic and the siren wail of jazz saxophone. It was still in touch with its beatnik heyday, this place—rooted in the same subversive place as his beloved rock and blues. Life less packaged and more raw, crackling with sex and creativity. You had to love it. He ducked into a book-store on Broadway and browsed a while, before picking up a copy of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. It’d be a good read for the tour bus. He ordered a coffee in the shop next door and sat at an outside table, leafing through the opening pages of the poem—trying to feel his way into its rolling style.

Shit, no dice. He had no fucking prayer of concentrating on anything other than what the redhead had planned. And she’s sure as hell got something serious planned. It made him feel like that schoolboy all over again. The frissons of energy recommenced, accompanied by the surge of blood to his groin. Then he was shaking his head and smiling at his own reaction and at how she could get him in this kind of state. He checked his phone—less than fifteen minutes till his appointment with destiny. Damn—better freshen up. He stuffed the book unceremoniously into his back pocket. Ginsberg would have understood.

He bought a cheap toothbrush and paste from a drugstore along with a bottle of water, so that he could chug and rinse after he’d brushed. What in hell was possessing him that afternoon? Then with the blood pumping hard through his body, he made the rest of his trek—to the address he’d been given on West 3rd. Girl, this had better be worth the build-up, that’s all I’m sayin’.

Granite steps led up to pristine brickwork on a street that was lined with alder trees. Prime real estate. So how exactly did struggling artists afford the rent this kind of neighbourhood would command? Jared had never been quite clear on that.

He checked his cell—it was the dot of 2pm. Let ‘em wait five. Don’t wanna seem too eager, now do I? He passed the time in company of Ginsberg, the poet’s incendiary words rolling over him without many sinking in. Damn, you got me distracted, Red—gotta hand it to ya. At 2.05pm he breathed out his tension, scaled the steps and punched the top button on the intercom—the one for the loft apartment.

There was a significant pause before the box hummed into static life. “This ain’t a music gig you know, Mr. Rock’n’roll. You’re on my time now, and late ain’t fashionable.” Was it simply due to the direction his thoughts had been tending, or was that growl in her voice reminiscent of Natalie?

“Way to greet a guy doin’ you a favour, Red,” he pointed out to her. “Or does today include some business proposition I missed?”

“It might, if you behave.”

“For real? You see now you got me interested.”

“Like you weren’t already … You can’t bear not to know what today’s about. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Let’s say you’re right. Are you gonna keep me standing here all afternoon?”

“Well we do require a certain appendage of yours, and the rest of you comes attached. So …” The lock clicked its permission and Jared pushed open the door.

“Finally. Thank you.”

“Elevator to the top. Reception committee all arranged. C’mon, Rock-star, it’s time to get with someone else’s art. What the hell are you waiting for?”

TO BE CONTINUED