Unattainable

The energy in the lounge was nearly as intoxicating as the alcohol. Not that I would know since I quit drinking three years ago. The yearning was there–I felt it even while sipping on my coke.

There had been so many incarnations of myself in the last decade the number failed to come to mind. I was running thin. Starting life over was trying and every time I did, so I thought, I lost a little piece of the original me. I didn’t know how many pieces I had left before there was only the ghost of a person and nothing more.

Being in a lounge was new to me; usually when I got my fixes, I had been too young even to attempt it. By the time I was old enough to enter a bar, I had already quit. I had found other ways of obtaining my alcohol and fixes back in the day.

Judging this crowd, I didn’t think any experience in the world would have been able to prepare me for the atmosphere. Carli had said so in her lazy Deep Southern drawl, I was better suited in a library.

G, she had said, just get a pizza and a couple of chick flicks. You don’t really want to go out there. You won’t find anyone in a sport coat or tweed. It’s not your cup of tea.

I hadn’t the strength left to argue with her. There were limitations to playing the good girl, the innocent girl, and for one night, I wanted it all gone and just to be myself. I wanted to listen to rock–not metal but close enough–and sit in anonymity. I needed to reclaim just a little part of me so I could keep moving forward.

Carli knew some of the truth. My roommate was one of the most perceptive people I knew. My restlessness was more than just a need to get out. There was more to it than a simple need for music.

Isaac, my new ex-boyfriend, had said some nasty shit that afternoon. Unlovable ice bitch had only been one of the terms he’d used. The rest of it had followed in a similar vein. His darts had struck too close to the barbs already in my heart and I needed something that was familiar.

Not all that was familiar, I told myself as someone close by tossed back a shot. I could sit here without drinking. I didn’t need the alcohol. When my hands started to shake, I wrapped them around my glass.

No alcohol; surviving tonight, tomorrow, and every other day could be done without it. I didn’t need the liquid mind duller. The mantra was hard–very hard–to stick to sometimes. Especially here, but I had wanted the atmosphere.

While I’d never been to a lounge before, I had been to a rock concert. Well, more than one. The flyer promoting local musicians that had been sitting on the dining room table had been the perfect way to get out and away for a few hours.

The musicians currently being booed–props to them for sticking out their set–could loosely be called a band. There was more bad than good and I thought it was simply a matter of timing. Perhaps nerves and excitement screwed with their count. The vocalist could sing however, which made up for the full beat the drummer was behind and the half a beat the guitarist was behind. Maybe. Not to the crowd of mostly drunk patrons.

I had begged–and been denied–some clothes to borrow from Carli, so I wore what I could dig out of my meager supply. The style was a little out of place for this dive, but so far, no one had hassled me too much. I had left everything in Texas with my holier than thou art grandmother when I left at sixteen, and then after that… well, I was used to starting over.

Black, hole-riddled jeans weren’t as out of place as my Captain America print tank. I didn’t own many things that didn’t scream bookworm but this was one I was proud of. At least I thought it didn’t scream bookworm, not as much as my cat-eye glasses did, but I didn’t go out without them. And I supposed the classic dirt brown ponytail wasn’t very fashionable.

The white long sleeve under the tank was a must–I never went in public without a long sleeve under my shirts regardless of the temperature in California. Combat boots were a requirement in any fashion scene and I felt even though I stood out from the punk and Goth fashions I didn’t stick out in the ‘please kick my ass’ fashion. I was a scrapper enough that should anyone try they’d get a run for their money.

You’ll get better sound at a table by the stage.

Smiling, I swiveled in my chair to look at the bartender. I’m good here, tipping my head towards the stage I added, any closer to that and I might lose my hearing.

His fast grin was rewarding and he winked. We save the best for last.

I’m hoping so after this, I retorted and turned in time to see the guitarist finally get fed up with the catcalling. He threw his hands up in the air and stormed off stage.

I rolled my eyes. Really mature. He’d have been better off ignoring the crowd and trying to sync back up with his drummer. That band wasn’t going to last long.

The catcalls increased in vulgarity and everyone in the bar waited as the rest of the band took the guitarist’s cue and hastened off the stage. Gear was swapped out and the crowd, noticing the change, flooded the bar with their refill orders. With the size of the crowd, the waitresses were understaffed and it was clear that while they made good money on band nights it was almost not worth it.

You’re missing some help, I said quietly as the bartender worked his way back down the bar passed me. I caught his quick eye roll and grin. Poor man.

He seemed like a nice guy and he was built like a linebacker so it would be easy to believe he was also the rule keeper of the establishment. He’d only asked once if I wanted a shot and had apparently understood the tense body language and had poured the coke without me asking for it.

Who wants to fucking rock?

I jolted at the shout and turned back to the stage. There was no living in California without seeing beautiful people. Immunity to the very pretty had developed mainly because of the constant exposure, though self-defense was also a good excuse. If I went around California stopping dumb in my tracks over every pretty person, I’d never get anywhere, so it was a surprise when my heart clenched and squeezed–a very unwelcome surprise.

The guy that had shouted was what grandmother would have called a showboat or flash in the pan. His dark hair was wild and cut like a Mohawk but without the gel spiking it up and long enough to just barely dance over his shirt collar. His eyes were like bottled honey or Baltic amber.

All the women in the club apparently thought he was some kind of a God descended because they abandoned the bar and flocked to the stage screaming and cheering. Their age seemed inconsequential and it seemed there were just as many college girls as cougars acting like fools. I kept the snide comments internal. If they had any brains, they’d have realized there was only one of him and sixty of them. Fifty-nine other women were going to go home seriously depressed tonight.

You’re not going to get closer?

I never got your name, was my response. Getting closer was suicidal. There was nothing wrong with sitting at the bar well away from the manic.

Yancy. He smiled as the first lick of bass vibrated the walls. Listen to the boys. They’re good.

He wasn’t wrong. The vocalist was somewhere between James Michael and John Cooper in sound. The rich and deep tones sent the women at the stage into throes of…whatever that mewling was they were doing.

For the length of the first song, I tried to determine why all the women had lost almost all their IQ and turned into a screaming mass of pheromones. This wasn’t the first band to perform but the only one to gather this kind of attention.

The single guitarist had his blond hair swept back in a ponytail long enough to rival the one I sported. His slanted eyes were half closed and the little smile on his face was an indication of either joy or amusement–I couldn’t tell. Just from his features, I’d guess at Asian ancestry, not in the last generation but maybe two previous. Since the game was fun, I moved on to the next member.

Skater boi was the definition of the bassist. His red hair needed a trim; he kept tossing his head to move it out of his green or blue–it was hard to see from my angle to him–eyes. He was dressed like a punk skater too, which didn’t really match the other three. There was always one odd ball. Obviously Irish descent. Not much of a stretch there since all the recessives were dominant in him.

An open button down revealed beautiful olive skin and tight leather pants accented the man behind one of the biggest drum kits I’d ever seen. His hair was dyed to fade from black to white at the tips and was longer than skater boi’s but shorter than the guitarist. He provided a challenge to guess his heritage since I couldn’t see his eyes but from the leaner build than the others, and if the hair was naturally dark, I would guess with some Mediterranean heritage, though I couldn’t pin down which one.

They were all beautiful. A shame, really, since beauty didn’t get you far in California. Talent would, if there hadn’t been several hundred bands just like them in the city. Pity, since they were really good in an Egypt Central kind of way.

The band’s name had been distorted by the monstrous high-pitched noise of the female persuasion but I was sure Yancy would be able to provide it since he seemed familiar with the boys. I wanted to see about adding their music to my iPod for studying. Nothing was better for studying that straight up, unapologetic rock.

The vocalist paused between songs long enough to pull his shirt off over his head and toss it to the fanning women. They actually fought over it and the tearing fabric could be heard over said vocalist’s deadly laughter.

Asshat. He was obviously an adept performer, but did he have to be an ass about it? Fame, even small-circles fame, could apparently still go to a person’s head.

Life was unfair; did he have to be gorgeous without his shirt on too? What was it about ink on skin that made it drool-worthy? And the little silver bar that glinted from his belly button that almost made me drool. I’d seen my fair share of inked skin, I reminded myself. I’d seen my fair share of piercings. Been there, done that. Barely survived, my mind whispered.

A brushed Asian calligraphy tattoo went down the center of his torso. Since Cantonese was one of the languages I did know, I knew it to say Outcast. A weird sentiment to write in Cantonese down his chest. The calligraphy was the only tattoo on his front side as well. Unusual, but then again, maybe he hadn’t figured out what he wanted to put there yet.

An inked sleeve on his left arm was composed of… I leaned forward a little and squinted. A mermaid on his forearm reaching up to what looked like a humanoid form of a phoenix on his bicep. The phoenix was reaching down. An interesting take on the fish loving the bird or vice versa depending on who translated the story. The style of the tattoo was Mucha and that was impressive, as it probably was supposed to be.

A horse ran down his right arm. No, tripped, I realized when I saw the chains that seemed to run between the legs. And tripped over himself as the chains were dangling from a broken harness. A warning to pay attention to one’s surroundings while running forward? Perhaps something not as complicated as that.

When he turned for his water, his back flashed some kind of Alice in Wonderland collage that spread across his shoulders but narrowed as it went lower and disappeared into an open teapot.

What a clever artist. And grudgingly I had to admit that it had probably been painful to sit through all of those. That didn’t make the guy any less an asshat though.

Towards the end of the set, the vocalist looked towards the bar. I didn’t know if it was some kind of signal to Yancy, but I noticed him frowning. Why would a guy with nearly a hundred women at his feet be frowning?

The new face at the bar threw off my rhythm–not vocally–but my frame of mind. I learned how to keep singing, no matter the distraction, long ago. Everything from being flashed, to bras being thrown on stage, or even the rare woman climbing up to try and attack me. What was going on didn’t matter, I could keep on singing, but that didn’t mean my mind was clear of said distraction.

I didn’t know everyone–that was impossible in a town this size–but I knew enough of the locals in the scene that her face shouldn’t have been completely foreign. But it was and that was maddening. What was even worse was she hadn’t even approached the stage. I wanted to get a better look at her, but since I was confined to the stage while performing, she had to come to me. This wasn’t normally a problem, but that just perplexed me even more. Vaudeville was a pretty big band locally, and yet, she didn’t seem all too impressed.

She held some kind of in-depth conversation with Yancy and other than glancing over once–when I had taken my shirt off–she hadn’t really paid us any mind. We weren’t fucking background music. I was going to have to do something to get more of her attention, but what?

Turning to Dallas on the drums, ‘Searching’ next. I knew Quinn and Riley could hear me and I knew they’d go along with the changed set list. The perverse creature only turned to watch mildly as I screamed and jumped into the lyrics.

Searching for redemption

A little bit of help

Nothing is going my way

And I am walking alone

However indifferent she acted, I caught her foot tapping to Riley’s bass tempo. And then she went back to whatever she was talking to Yancy about. Last I checked, I was fucking hot and the women loved me. This one girl was ruining the entire evening.

After the set, I stomped off the stage. Fury pumped through me hot and wild. I almost had her when I saw her tapping her foot, but