Chapter 13: New Projects Start

We’re Putting the Band Back Together

January 8th – 9th, 2000

We slept in a bit, waking up to some slow, leisurely lovemaking. At one point, I looked across towards the door, half expecting to see Kaz standing there watching us, but of course she was still in the air, a few hours from London. I did a quick mental calculation, while I was resting after making love with Angie; it was 8:30 here, so take off 11 hours, making that 21:30 UTC. The flight was just under twenty-four hours, I thought, so leaving Sydney at 8:30 pm; she would get there in another eleven hours, she would be in the air for another eleven or twelve hours.

After breakfast, I sorted through my music, making sure I had everything I needed for the rehearsal session. I also unplugged the keyboard and amplifier, checking all the cables that I would need were packed as well. Angie and I could struggle with the Clavinova and get that down and into my car when it was time to get over there. I decided that I should see about getting a portable, stage version of the Clavinova; one that still had the good weighting of the keys, with a proper ‘piano touch’, but was easier to transport. Maybe once the filming was over, I could look around some of the music stores in town.

“Who will be there today,” Angie asked me. “Tell me about the others.”

I told Angie about everyone in the group, how I had been playing with Paul, Phil and Andrew since 1973, and how the others had joined the group over the years.

“Some of them will probably have their partners with them, too,” I said. “Megan never married, but has had several long-term relationships, I think.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting them,” she said. “They all sound interesting, and it will be good to put a face to what I have heard on your CDs and tapes.”

“Well, once we start seriously playing again, you will end up seeing a lot of them,” I said. “Although it sounds like Megan has the ideal rehearsal location, so at least we won’t have everyone around here playing – I’m sure that would start the neighbours complaining!”

After a light lunch, Angie helped me carry the equipment down to the garage, and we drove the few miles to Megan’s place. As well as our standard pub blues / rock songs, Mary Beth said Fifa and George had suggested we also try to get back to some of the music that we had played, years ago, at the Mirage and the Crystal Ballroom.

“Megan and Will, do you think you can still do those songs you had on your first album? The ‘Winters and Morris’ album, Fifa is talking about us coming out with another album in that style.

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “I think I can still sing that stuff, how about you, Megan?”

“I think we have several duets we can dust off that will fit that category,” she replied. “Was that in your plans too, Phil?”

“Most definitely, those duets back like you two sang together years ago will be ideal. Do you think you two can still do that?” Phil asked.

“I’m sure we can,” Megan said. “We’ll have to brush up on them, and we have several weeks to get ready, don’t we?”

“It looks like the end of February,” Phil said. “There’s no huge rush, we want to get everything sounding good.”

“Ok, let’s try to run through some of the older stuff first,” Paul said. “We did a good job the other month on the blues and rock stuff, we should try something else this time.”

We started with ‘Till There Was You’, ‘Hey There’, ‘Pretend’, and finished up with ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. We made a few mistakes, missing some notes, or missed the timing, but considering we hadn’t played together for a year or so, it was pretty good. We took a break, and discussed how that went.

Now it was Megan’s turn to sing, and we had to start with ‘Fever’, mainly to give Andrew a chance to show his abilities on the upright bass. Megan was brilliant at it, of course, and everyone applauded her when she finished. We then did a few more, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘My Baby’, ‘I’ve Got a Crush On You’, before finishing with ‘I’m Beginning to See The Light’. By the end of that set, we were getting things sounding pretty good, we still needed a lot of practice, but we were getting our timing right, and swapping the lead from each other smoothly.

After another break, we ran through the first set again, where I was singing, and we sounded much better than we did in the earlier attempts. My voice was still holding up, which pleased me; I was worried that I would be very rusty, not having sung much in the last twelve months. We then tried a few more songs, some up-tempo ones, and I was feeling we had quickly got back into the swing of playing together. Andrew’s acoustic bass was good to have; too, the different sound of it suited some of the songs.

“Ok, let’s try some of your great duets,” Bruce said. “Are you two ready for that?”

“I am,” Megan said. “How about you, Will? What should we start with, ‘These Foolish Things’? A slow, easy one to begin with?”

“I think we could do that, then ‘Baby it’s Cold Outside’,” I suggested. “Not that today’s the weather for that one.”

“Ok, let’s run through it first, just the music,” Phil said.

We ran through the song, and Megan and I hummed the melody. We tried the two a second time, getting the timing right, before we felt we were ready to try actually singing together.

“Remember, Will, visualise the scene,” Megan said. “It’s not the middle of an Australian summer, but we are in the mountains, in winter.”

“And we aren’t in your big studio, but a small mountain lodge, with a blazing log fire?” I said.

“Exactly,” she replied. “Are you ready?”

I nodded, and looked over to Bruce, who counted us in. For a first attempt, it wasn’t too bad; the music was fine, but Megan and I didn’t get the timing right in some places, and my pitch was bit all over the place. We would have to do a lot more practice if we wanted to sound professional. I remembered back when we first started singing together, how much practice we had to do before our first night. Not all of that practice was singing, I suddenly recalled, and my mind was flooded with the memories of what Megan and I did together that first year.

I quickly suppressed those thoughts; it was many years ago, and I’m sure Megan wouldn’t want to complicate things by being reminded of what we had done. And I certainly had more than enough on my ‘plate’ without adding to it.

“Shall we try it again?” Bruce suggested.

This time we were better, still a few fumbles, but more like it should have been. We then tried a second song, ‘These Foolish Things’, which went pretty well. Now it was time for what had always been our final song of the night, the duet version of ‘Unforgettable’. Of course, now that Natalie Cole had release the version of her singing mixed with her father’s original recording, people may think that we were copying her. But we had the recordings to show we – Megan and I – came up with that arrangement first. And personally, I thought that our version, at least when we were at our best, in 1976, was superior to hers.

I tried to clear my mind of all thoughts, except setting the scene for the song; Megan and I celebrating many years of being together. Despite my best intentions, the image of her in my mind shifted to a seventeen-year-old version, naked on my bed, and my erect prick was sliding between her breasts. That wasn’t what I wanted, and I stood up, and went to get a glass of water.

“I just need something for my throat first,” I said. “It’s getting a bit dry with all this singing.”

I returned with a glass of water and took a long sip. Not that I really needed the drink; I just wanted to clear my mind of those thoughts from many years ago. After a brief period, I felt ready; my thoughts were just on the song and the words, and I looked at the others, and nodded.

The song started well, we alternated lines, getting the timing and pitch reasonably well, until the final verse, just after the instrumental break.

That’s why, darling, it’s incredible
That someone so unforgettable
Thinks that I am unforgettable too

I had visions of Megan and me again, this time us naked, in the shower together, my prick sliding between her thighs against her pussy. I missed a line, forgetting the words, and hit several wrong notes on the keyboard. To hide my mistakes, I started coughing, and reached for the glass of water, and took another long drink.

“Sorry about that, folks,” I said. “I’m out of practice with singing this much. Can we take a short break?”

We all agreed that was a good idea and sat around in the lounge area. Angie sat on my lap and kissed my neck.

“You said you needed more singing practice the other week,” she said. “Just going through two or three songs a night isn’t enough.”

“And I don’t want to make myself hoarse for the filming this coming week,” I added. “Even though the soundtrack will be dubbed back in the studio, it wouldn’t be good for me to be croaking my lines.”

“Tell us exactly what it is you are doing, Will,” Paul asked. “Will you be the next big ‘face of Australia’?”

I spent the next ten or so minutes telling them about the tourism advertising campaign that Sue was producing, and the different scenarios that I would be talking about, and showing in the advertisements.

Everyone thought that sounded like a great opportunity, and asked questions about the filming process, what it was like in front of the camera, and how easy it was to learn my lines. I had to tell them I hadn’t really done much in front of the camera, except for some tests in the studio. Learning my lines was just like learning the words of a song; I would just keep going through them, saying them out loud, acting each scene until I knew each scene perfectly. Of course, that was easy to say now – the proof of the pudding would come on Monday.

After the break, we tried a few more songs, mainly ones where Megan would be singing, and we experimented with various arrangements. Bruce, Paul, Phil, and I talked and tried different things, until we felt we had something that would work. As the time was now just after five, we decided that we had done enough for today.

“Same time next week?” Bruce asked as he started to pack up his kit.

We all agreed, but as I was starting to unplug my equipment, Megan asked if Angie and I wanted to stay for dinner, and she and I could do some more rehearsing of our duets.

“I was telling her how when we first did this, we spent a whole week just going over and over our songs together,” she said. “Well, I recall we did more than just practice singing, but I didn’t tell her that; not all of it, anyway.”

“We did more than just practice?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know what she was referring to. “I guess we must have, then. Seriously, though, if Angie’s happy to stick around, we could do some more singing together, I am pretty much out of practice, as you could tell.”

After the others had left, Megan took us upstairs, to her apartment behind the studio. There was a comfortable lounge / dining room combination, with a small kitchen off to one side, and a hallway lead to a bedroom and bathroom. Over the front of the studio was a large patio, where Megan had an outdoor table and chairs set up.

While I went to the toilet – all those glasses of water were having their effect – Megan put a frozen pizza in the oven. When I returned, she and Angie were sitting out on the patio, each with a glass of wine. I pulled up a chair next to Angie, and Megan poured me a glass of wine. After we had finished eating, we went back down to the studio, and Megan and I played through some of the duets several times. I was able to keep my mind on the singing this time, and after an hour or so we were sounding much better. I decided not to push my voice too hard; I didn’t want it to be sore – or even worse – during the filming.

We decided to have another practice session, just the two of us, next Saturday evening after the main rehearsal. Megan initially suggested one or two nights during the week, but I told her I might be too tired with all the filming. So, with that arranged – and a pile of songs to practice, I packed my equipment up, and Angie and I drove home.

“She’s really nice, isn’t she,” Angie said when we were in the car. “And what you said about her singing, she is really, really good.”

“Yeah, she really had the best talent for singing of all of us,” I replied. “She can sing just about anything, and has, over the years. I’m sure being musical director for lots of big broadways shows really improved her musical ability, not just in performing, but music theory, arranging, how to make something sound good. She has a pretty good set up in her studio there, and the acoustics aren’t all that bad, either.”

“She was telling me that she will take on a few private lessons, but she doesn’t need to, money wise, and she wants to do things for the enjoyment of it now, not just to make a living,” Angie said. “I think she made a fair bit from her career in the States.”

“She probably did, and I know she did a lot of recording work over there, too,” I said. “Mainly backup stuff, studio sessions, things like that. A lot of commercials, too.”

“She told me that she still remembers that time with you, back from when you were at school, as the most fun though,” Angie said. “She told me all about how during sixth form, you both wanted to have sex, but situations and events conspired to prevent that from happening, at least until you both started Uni. At first, she was scared that she was pregnant, her period was a few days late, even though you had never had penetrative sex!”

“Did she actually tell you that?” I asked, incredulously. “If only we knew back then what we do now...”

Angie helped me carry my equipment up to the apartment, and reconnect it. Tomorrow I would have to practice the new songs, and the new arrangements; I wasn’t sure how much time I would have in the evenings this week, so I needed to plan the time I had available.

We talked more about music; Angie asking me what it felt like, playing and singing up on a stage, whether I got nervous, and how I actually remembered the music and words to each song. I described the technique that Megan had originally taught me, to picture a scene in my mind, so I was almost acting a scene as I was singing. I explained how it took quite a while for me to get that right; there needs to be just the right level of internal visualisation, the right level of acting, otherwise you end up forgetting what you are meant to be doing.

When we got into bed, I told her about the first time Megan and I were rehearsing together, and how we both got carried away with what we were singing about, ending up on my bed, almost making love. I went on about how we would stop on the way home from gigs, both turned on by singing together.

“How come it took you so long to actually have sex?” she asked.

“I’m not sure, it was really me, I guess, deep inside, I just didn’t feel ready, or was scared of that final step, something like that,” I replied. “There was the fear of her getting pregnant, at least until she went on the pill, or the fear of being caught. I think at the back of my mind, I was scared of taking that ‘final step’, going ‘all the way’, as we used to call it, and worried that might destroy our professional relationship, we might break up the band if things failed.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “I can understand that, how that would have worried you. True professionals, both of you, giving up sexual bliss for your art.”

I laughed at Angie’s description, as if it was like some artist starving in their garret while they created their life’s work.

“Well, you make it sound more, I don’t know, altruistic that it really was,” I replied. “It wasn’t for professional reasons we didn’t.”

“And what about my professional reasons for screwing one of my customers,” she said, reaching over to stroke my prick. “And peeing in front of them, too; I’m not sure what the code of ethics would say about that.”

“Well, I was the first to pee,” I replied. “Although you did everything possible to make it happen, as I recall. “And it wasn’t as if we had sex in the salon, on the chair. Mind you, that is a thought, isn’t it – what if we were naked, and you sat astride me, facing me, and while I was inside you, you started to trim my hair?”

“Oh, now that is a good suggestion,” she said. “But that might make me cut your hair all crooked, as I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands steady. Maybe I should just do you here, now?”

She sat up, and swung herself over my body, positioning herself just above my prick, and lowered herself so she could rub my knob along her pussy. Finally, she guided my prick to her open cunt, and slowly slid down, enveloping me in her warm, wet vagina.

“This is probably more comfortable than your chair,” I said.

“And we won’t get bits of your hair all over us, either,” she replied.

Angie rode me, coming twice in quick succession before I erupted inside her. She laid forward on my chest afterwards, with me still inside her, until I softened, and we fell asleep.

We took our time waking up in the morning, kissing and touching each other before our need to pee sent us to the bathroom. In the shower, we caressed each other, feeling our hot pee streaming as we kissed. With the hot water streaming over us, Angie turned so her back was to me, and bent forward, letting me slide inside her. This time, I came quickly, groaning loudly as I felt my sperm shooting into her.

Once we had cleaned ourselves off, and dried each other, we pulled on some clothes, and had breakfast on the balcony. After that, Angie started the laundry, while I practiced some of the songs from yesterday.

The day had turned out sunny and warm, so after a while, we decided to take a walk down to the harbour. We could see a few boats on the water; people out enjoying their weekend. We walked past the CYC and had a quick look at progress on the marina being built for the Olympics, until Angie led me further along the park to the point at the end, and sat on a wooden bench, with her feet propped up on the stone wall.

“Remember that night we came here with Jenny?” Angie asked. “When it was really dark, and we had to pee?”

I nodded.

“I was thinking about that night as we were walking up here, and well, it is a good thing I wore my skirt this morning,” she continued saying. “I also seem to have gone out without any underwear, too. Why don’t you sit there on the wall, just in front of me?”

She moved her legs out of the way, and I sat on the wall in front of her. She then put her legs back up, one on each side of me, and pulled her skirt up high, clear of her backside, exposing her bare pussy.

“I shouldn’t have had that second cup of coffee,” she said. “But I guess you are thinking right now that it was probably a good thing.”

“What is it, about us and coffee?” I said, smiling. “Isn’t that what started things off initially?”

“That was just a small part of it,” she said. “Oh, lean closer and watch, I’m about to start!”

I leant forward to get a closer view as she spread her pussy lips apart; a finger on each side, with her middle finger rubbing her clit. With a soft moan, I saw her pee begin to flow, a tiny trickle running down, over her cunt to her bum, and then dripping to the ground, where it started to make a muddy puddle in the dirt. The trickle quickly grew to a thin stream, curving in a silver arc from her pussy to the ground, and then as she loosened her muscles, a harder spray that started soaking her thighs.

“Oh, shit, I’m getting myself wet,” she exclaimed. “Damn, I can’t stop either!”

I watched intently, seeing the stream emerging from the dot of her pee hole, and rapidly expanding to a large spray. Some continued trickling down her pussy, running back along the seat under her arse. I was surprised at how much she was able to pee; it was only a few hours since we had our shower; I guess she must have drunk more than just two cups of coffee.

Angie managed to reduce the rate of flow, and the spray returned once more to a single stream, although a small amount kept trickling directly down her pussy. I reached across to her and placed a finger on her pussy, just next to where her stream was starting. She leant back a little further, and I slid the tip of my finger just inside her cunt, moving it in and out as she continued peeing. I could feel her hot flow trickling over my fingers, and a little spraying on my hand, but I didn’t let that stop me from letting my finger slide deeper and deeper into her.

She finally stopped peeing, and looked around to see if anyone was nearby, but the park was deserted, and the trees and bushes along the street shielded us from view.

“No one can see us, and the wall hides us from the harbour,” I said. “Do you want me to keep rubbing you?”

“Please, I want you to do that, I want you to make me come,” she sighed, leaning right back on the bench. “Can you rub my clit while you finger me? You have it in just the right spot, oh yeah! Right there, please,” she cried out.

I kept moving my finger back and forth, concentrating on where I felt her g-spot was, while at the same time rubbing around her clit with my other hand. Her pussy was soaking wet; my fingers kept slipping and sliding along her slit and down on either side of her labia.

Angie leant back more, placing her feet up on the wall, one on either side of me. I knelt down, getting closer to her, and I could clearly see her swollen lips, her engorged clit, and the wetness coating my finger as I moved it in and out of her cunt. I took my fingers away from her clit, and leant forward to kiss her pussy, touching her clit with the tip of my tongue. Angie moaned with pleasure, placing her hands on the back of my head to press me against her pussy harder.

I licked and sucked, tasting her juices, while moving my finger and rubbing her g-spot. I could hear her moaning louder, and little shivers started to make her hips and legs shake.

Then, with a low groan, I heard, and felt, Angie come. She wrapped her legs around my back, locking me against her as I kept licking. She was moaning, crying out softly as I felt her muscles contract and release; her cunt gripping my finger tightly. Eventually, she relaxed; her orgasm over, and removed her legs from behind me. I stood up, stretching my back, and leant back against the wall.

“That seemed like it was a good one,” I said, smiling. I could feel my face covered with her juices.

“Oh, God, you’re not wrong,” she said, still breathing heavily. “I think being outside, in the open, makes it so much more intense. I don’t think I can stand up just yet!”

“Well, see what that did to me, too,” I said, unzipping my shorts, and pushing them down to show her my erect prick. “And seeing you peeing made me want to go, but I can’t when I’m like this!”

“Think of something else, maybe sit next to me, and look at the boats,” she said.

After a few minutes, my prick had softened, and Angie took hold of my prick, and gently stroked my shaft, rubbing her thumb over my knob.

“Will you pee for me, Will,” she said softly. “Pee over my fingers as I rub your prick.”

I closed my eyes, and felt the warmth start to flow inside, and with a rush, it burst from my prick. I groaned involuntarily, and I heard Angie sigh. I opened my eyes to see her rubbing her fingers around my knob as my stream flowed over her fingers.

“Keep peeing, please, as long as you can,” she said softly. “I love how you are so hot on my fingers.”

I relaxed the pressure slightly, so my flow wasn’t so hard, and to make it last longer for her. I felt her fingers rubbing around my knob, spreading the hot wetness over my sensitive skin. My prick started to get hard again, and I had to squeeze a bit harder to keep the flow going. Finally, I finished, squirting out a few little spurts against her fingers.

She kept stroking my shaft, even when I had finished peeing, rubbing her damp fingers along the rigid flesh. She started rubbing faster, squeezing harder with her fingers, bringing me closer to coming.

“I want more spurting from you,” she whispered in my ear. “Come for me, Will.”

It didn’t take long, not with Angie’s skilful fingers stroking my erection, before I felt I was about to come. I closed my eyes, leant back, and opened my legs wider. I felt Angie lean over me, and place her lips around my knob, her tongue flicking over my pee hole. That was the final straw; I groaned softly, and felt the hot surge as I started to come. She swallowed each big spurt, stroking my prick as I erupted into her waiting mouth.

When I finished, she sat up, and released my prick. I opened my eyes, and saw her licking her lips, and grinning.

“Like to taste?” she asked, leaning over to kiss me.

As we kissed, and Angie’s tongue touched mine, I could taste my salty come on her lips and tongue. It still surprised and excited me, tasting my own come that way. Finally, Angie moved back from me, tucked my softening prick back in my shorts and zipped them up. We could still see the wet puddles we had left on the ground, but they were soaking into the dirt, and would quickly dry in the hot sun.

We stood up, straightening our clothes, and started to walk slowly back to the apartment. As we crossed the park towards the main road, Angie put her arm around me.

“I love us doing things like that outdoors, in public,” she said. “Well, not completely in public, not where people are watching us, but you know what I mean. It turns me on even more than usual when we are outdoors.”

“I love it too, Angie, but what if someone had seen us?” I replied. “Just how public do you want us to be?”

“Oh, not where we are highly visible,” she said. “Like we were there, with the wall and the bushes shielding us, or someplace where we can see a long way, but no one would be watching us. At least, where I could feel that someone might be watching us, if that make sense.”

“Yeah, it does,” I replied. “I should tell you sometime about some of the places Lori and I did it in. Maybe one night when Jenny and Sue are around.”

“You mentioned some of them,” she said. “But I would love to hear the details, and I’m sure the others would as well.”

After lunch, I spent several hours reading through all my lines, rehearsing each scene several times. What would make my role more difficult, at least for me, is they weren’t planning to shoot each complete advertisement in sequence; rather, various scenes from each one would be interspersed with other ones that had a similar background or location. I couldn’t rely on remembering each line as part of a sequence, but I practised each scene in isolation.

Angie patiently listened to me, and once I felt I had each scene memorised fully, she would tell me to go through the whole scene, and then made comments on how she felt I looked and sounded. By late afternoon I felt I had done enough rehearsing, if I didn’t know my lines by now, I never would.

Just before dinner, Sue rang, to make sure I had the details for tomorrow right – to meet them at the fish markets at 5:30 in the morning. My clothes would be in their film van, so for each scene I would change between filming. After the fish market scene, we would go to Darling Harbour, then some shops around the city, finally ending up at Glebe, in some of the little shops there.

After dinner, I decided to have a quiet evening, since I would be getting up around 4am, I would have to get to bed by nine at the latest. We watched TV for a bit, and then I had a shower, and went to bed.

Lights, Camera, Action

January 10th – 13th, 2000

As soon as the alarm went off, I leaned over and turned it off, resetting it to the normal time so Angie would wake in time for her job. I had a shave and shower, getting dressed in the bathroom so not to disturb her, then had a quick coffee before heading out. I had initially planned to take the train and light rail to the Fish Markets, but the light rail didn’t start running until almost 5:30, so I jumped in a taxi that was heading towards the city.

I arrived at the markets just before 5:30; the place was a hive of activity as the wholesalers pushed large pallets of all kinds of seafood towards the waiting delivery vans, and each store was packed with early buyers – restaurateurs, fish and chip shop owners, and the public – trying to get the best buys of the day.

I saw the film van at the far side of the car park and walked over to them. Jim and Darryl were getting their equipment ready, while Sue and Monica were going over some papers – no doubt the shooting schedule. As I arrived, Sue and Monica looked up from the papers, and greeted me.

“Great, you’re a bit early,” Sue said. “Monica, can you take him inside the van, get him dressed, and do his make-up will you?”

Monica led me into the van, which was originally a camper van that had been converted to a mobile studio. Just behind the front seats, there were benches and cabinets crammed on either side, with monitors, videotape machines, and various other pieces of equipment. Beyond the work area, sliding doors lead to a cramped changing area, where there were two racks of clothes on one side, and a small desk and mirror on the other.