Every time I found myself formulating possible replies, I reminded myself of the way he spoke on the phone the day we met. How he dismissed letting down a friend as if it meant nothing. His behaviour smacked of casual disloyalty, a carelessness with other people’s affections I can’t afford to invite into my life. Not after the way I responded to him that day, my knees bending at a single word. He might be able to give me something I’ve denied myself far too long, but I could never trust him to take care while doing it. That’s a song I’ve already sung. It doesn’t end on a high note.
But the thought of him being out there in the audience tonight, watching me with those doe eyes and moving his body to the sound of my voice, is different. I can do anything I want from the safety of the stage. I can single him out within the crowd, indulge every craving and revel in his attention, then withdraw it all in the instant the final applause begins to fade. He’ll never even know what’s happened between us. What I’ve given him, what he’s done for me. A smile curves my lips, even as I look down with a muttered curse. I’m not supposed to walk on stage with a semi.
Shoving my phone back into my bag, I take a sip of water and check my reflection in the dressing room mirror. My eyes are bright with the usual performance fever. I’ve tamed my brown hair with a light application of gel, leaving a few locks to fall over my forehead. The muscles of my arms and torso are emphasised by the snug fit of my black V-neck, and my favourite faux-leather pants cling to my arse like a second skin. Johnny calls them my sex pants, but they’re a bitch to get into and even worse to peel out of, so using them to get sex would be counterproductive. I wear them anyway.
They’re part of a fantasy of sorts. An ideal I’d dreamed of personifying when I was a skinny kid mutilating the rock classics on my first guitar. There was a time I lived and breathed that fantasy, in every exhilarating moment of every creative day. The high was unlike any other, but it couldn’t last. No one can expose themselves to life so loudly and expect to escape unscathed.
I’m still in love with the fantasy, but these days I keep my embodiment of it confined strictly to the stage—where dreams can come true without the tarnish of ugly realities.
I push the memories away as my gaze snaps back to the mirror, to wide eyes and trembling limbs. I try to regulate my breathing, but it’s too late. A familiar wildness courses through me, dragging all those old emotions along for the ride. Longing. Nausea. Devotion. Repulsion. They mix at odd angles inside my organs, pushing outward as they search for a way to disgorge themselves. My hands curl into tight fists across my stomach. I need to get my arse on stage, release the building pressure before something inside me ruptures.
The door to the dressing room flings open and Gavin rushes in. He’s still wearing his office clothes, despite being at the venue for two hours. “That was the sound check from hell,” he grumbles, “but we got the cable working.” Dumping his duffel bag on the counter, he strips out of his suit and tie with superhero speed. “You all warmed up?” he asks, yanking on a pair of torn jeans.
“Yep.” Rolling my shoulders, I shake the tension from my hands. “Ready to go. You?”
“I’ll be raring in two,” he says, pulling on a t-shirt that shows off the tattoos on his arms. Next, he goes to town on his hair with a bottle of gel, before using a kohl pencil to add thick liner to his eyes.
My lips flatten at the hurried ease of his transformation. I’ve seen him do it dozens of times. Gav plays the part of the staid office worker convincingly during the day, but hand him a set of drumsticks and he’ll turn punk rocker faster than you can blink. What I’ve never understood is how he seems so content no matter which role he’s playing. How is he not suffocated by the monotony of everyday life? How does he play music without feeling like every quivering nerve is exposed to the open air?
Looking away, I drink more water and concentrate on the opening lines of our first song. I need to hold it together long enough to get in front of the audience. I’ll feel better once I’m on stage.
The door opens again to reveal a grinning Johnny, along with Oz, our bass player. “Zip your dicks and get your butts on stage, boys,” Johnny says with a smirk. “It’s showtime.”
Air punches into my lungs. Finally. Stalking out the door, I wrap an arm around Johnny’s neck and pull him with me down the hallway. “Let’s take this place apart,” I growl low in his ear.
“Hell yes, there’s my boy.” Laughing, he takes hold of my head and smacks a kiss on my cheek. “I missed you, mate.”
I smile at him. “I missed me, too.”
From the instant I step onto the stage, my gait changes. Walking becomes stalking. The quaking of my limbs settles into a ready calm. The last of the shackles fall away and all the parts I keep sedated emerge from their slumber. They stretch. They rise. They fucking roar.
Three hundred eager bodies fill the darkened venue as I take my place centre stage. Taking the microphone from its stand, I lick my lips and raise it to my mouth. “Hey there, Brisbane,” I drawl, my voice lazy in its sensuality.
The crowd erupts with a raw intensity that grasps at my limbs and drugs my senses. As Gavin’s drumsticks set the beat for our first song, I give myself over to their response. To the lyrics spilling from my throat. The sinuous movements of my body. The crowd. The lights. The noise. The hunger.
Him.
Toni’s lithe form is difficult to spot from up here, but every now and then a flash of platinum blond hair yanks at my attention. I catch glimpses of him writhing to the music, his perfect face upturned as he moves within the crush. His presence provides a point of focus, a place to direct my ardour, and I drive into it with reckless abandon. Johnny picks up on my mood first and he comes alive, his fingers flying over the fretboard of his guitar. Gavin and Oz soon follow our lead, and for two solid hours my favourite fantasy and stark reality merge into one.
This is what I missed when I first came back from Sydney three and a bit years ago. When I was too scared to sing a note, let alone perform for anyone. I missed the attention of the crowd, their demands for more. In these moments, I would do anything to give them what they want, to steal them away from themselves and propel them up into the rafters, holding them there for a weightless instant, before allowing them to tumble back down into the crash of Gavin’s drums and the wail of Johnny’s guitar.
This is when I’m most myself, in the giving, the surrender. But this is also when I’m most vulnerable. I understand that now. It’s why I only allow myself to give openly up here, on stage. Where I’m safe. Where no one can actually touch me.
By the time we finish our encore and leave the stage for the final time, the boys and I are riding a high of music and sweat and exhilaration. Blood continues to pump swift and hard inside my veins, but my body is gloriously wrung out.
Lifting the hem of my shirt, I wipe the worst of the sweat from my face before guzzling a bottle of water.
“Awesome show,” Johnny says, clapping me on the back before cracking open a bottle for himself. “You were on fire tonight.”
My smile is wide and easy. “You, too. I thought you were gonna launch off the stage for a while there.”
“What kind of a friend would I be if I let you head off into the stratosphere without me?”
Oz calls us over then, to begin packing up and loading out. We’ve long since learned to get it done quickly, before the adrenaline wears off. Oz takes charge of making sure every instrument and piece of equipment is packed into Gavin’s van in the correct order. Like puzzle pieces slotting together in perfect formation.
Back in my dressing room, I check my phone and find another text from Toni.The concert was amazing, Ned. We’ll be in the pub next door if you have time to join us for a drink.
My teeth clamp together, and I drop the phone on the counter to stop theyesin my head from spilling out through my fingers. It’s not a good idea. Something about Toni makes my knees want to kiss the dirt. As much as I wish it were otherwise, that’s not a safe place for me to be—not with someone like him. I relished his presence in the audience tonight, but this is where it needs to end. Some fantasies are best left unrealised.
