Chapter 1: Cinco de Mayo

The Campus, outside of Atascadero, California

May 5, 2004

It was Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican holiday commemorating the Mexican army’s victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Although it is not widely celebrated in Mexico, it has become popular in the United States as an occasion for festivities—drinking and Mexican food in particular. Jake Kingsley, the band Intemperance, and Celia Valdez and her band participated in these celebrations. The event served as a welcome break during their busy recording schedules and preparation work.

For this particular Wednesday all band activity came to a halt at 12:30 PM, when the normal lunchbreak occurred. The catering company, operating under special Cinco de Mayo directives, brought in a full taco and burrito bar complete with acres of chips and gallons of assorted salsas. Jake had brought in his own supplies that morning. There were four bottles of Patron tequila, two gallons of traditional margarita mix that Westin had concocted for the occasion, two blenders, twenty pounds of ice, and two cases of red Solo cups. As the food was served, the blenders began to whir and the Solo cups were filled one by one. At the soundboard, Jake had shut down all inputs and had set the computer to play his tune-list of more than three thousand songs randomly, like a radio station that only played music that Jake liked.

The celebration of an obscure Mexican battle included more than just the two bands and the sound people. Family members and close friends of the band were encouraged to attend the festivities as well. Jim the paramedic had already been present at the Campus as Matt was paying him good money to be there and on standby, but Kim Kowalski, the former pornographic star and current internet pornography queenpin left the house she shared with Matt, Coop, and Jim to join them, driving her Mercedes convertible from the hills of San Luis Obispo city to the outer edges of the grape growing region. Also coming in from San Luis Obispo was Meghan Wu, the former Kingsley nanny and current wife of Massa Wu, Celia Valdez-Kingsley’s violin player for her latest effort. Meghan was a first semester nursing student and was supposed to be in her clinical rotation at Baptist Hospital of San Luis Obispo that afternoon but, much to Massa’s surprise, she had burned one of the two sick days she was allowed per semester to attend, claiming to her clinical instructor that she was suffering from gastrointestinal distress, which, depending on how one looked at things, was technically true.

Meghan arrived in her Toyota Camry just past one o’clock that afternoon, parking in the main rehearsal building lot amid the other vehicles. It was a beautiful day on the central coast of California, particularly inland, with the temperature in the mid-seventies and a pleasant breeze blowing from the southwest. As such, she was wearing a sleeveless white blouse, a beige skirt that fell to just above her pretty knees, and a pair of Nike tennis shoes with ankle socks. She was an attractive young woman, not glamorous or sultry in any way, not provocative in the least, just plain old girl-next-door cute with her brunette hair, brown eyes, and a respectable pair of medium breasts that pushed out her top quite alluringly. She was much more attractive than her fragile self-esteem gave her credit for, an aspect that added considerable charm to her personality, particularly with males.

The door to the rehearsal studio had been left open and the sound of music and laughter could plainly be heard emitting in from it. She walked through the unguarded doorway and into the cavernous building. Inside, a drum set sat on a wooden platform near the center of the large main room. The drums belonged to Coop, the drummer for the world famous Intemperance, who was using the studio for workups on a new CD. The drums were currently inactive, though several people—Jake Kingsley, Laura Kingsley, Celia Valdez-Kingsley, and her own husband, Massa Wu—were sitting on the edge of it, their legs dangling down, plates of Mexican food balanced on their laps. In chairs on the floor facing the platform were Matt Tisdale, Charlie Myers, and Kim Kowalski, Matt’s live-in whatever she was. Elsewhere in the room were two large tables that had been set up with the food and drinks. The smell was of Mexican food and marijuana smoke, with the former just edging out the latter for dominance.

No one had realized she was there yet so she looked around further. Her eyes locked onto Tiffany Moreland, the ditzy, slutty soprano singer who had been hired to sing backup for Celia’s latest solo CD. She had not laid eyes upon the woman since the end of Jake’s Millennial Tour back in 2000 but had no trouble recognizing her. Her hair was currently dyed blond with pink highlights, done up in pigtails that, instead of making her look innocent had quite the opposite effect. She had on a pleated blue miniskirt with a matching top that showed more bare skin of her torso than Meghan’s bra showed of hers. Knee-length white boots completed the outfit. She looked like she was ready to start dancing on a pole at any moment. She sat on one of the stools near the microphone stands, her food on her lap, her legs casually apart and displaying the entire crotch of her blue panties. She was eating and talking to Sharon Archer, who was sitting on a stool right next to her.

She cast her eyes away from Tif, fighting down a wave of jealousy and annoyance that wanted to wash over her. She trusted her husband and he had assured her that he would not lay one finger on the sexy singer even if she begged him to. And Tif had been told by Jake himself—the ultimate Godfather of both projects when you came right down to it—that Massa was on the “do not suck” list. Massa had assured her that Tif would not dare profane the list and, strangely enough, Meghan believed him. She knew Tif well enough from her exposure to her over the course of the Millennial Tour to know that Tif followed any directions given to her to the letter. She had to. She was so dumb that if she did not have a set of clear and concise directives to live by she would have died in some weird accident years before.

Her eyes took in the rest of the room. There was Coop the drummer and Nerdly himself sitting on another set of stools over by the soundboard. Coop was in blue jean shorts and a tank top that showed off his tattoos. He was munching on a taco and talking at the same time, obviously trying to emphasize a point. Nerdly was wearing jeans and a button up white dress shirt with a pocket protector. He was looking politely at Coop through the thick glasses on his face, paying close attention to what the man had to say.

Over by the electric piano, which was just in front of the left front of the drum platform, in chairs of their own, were Liz and Little Stevie, Celia’s keyboardist and lead guitarist, respectively, although Massa had told her that Jake and Laura were the two who actually came up with the riffs, fills, and melodies the two of them played in any given tune. Both were extremely talented musicians but not composers. They needed someone else to come up with what they played. The two of them were in a sexual relationship with each other, again, according to Massa. This despite the fact that Liz, at 48 years of age, was old enough to be Stevie’s mother. Meghan was unoffended and non-judgmental about the two of them. To each their own, right? She and Massa’s relationship was judged enough by others—most particularly her mother and two aunts. The fact that she was extremely judgmental about Tif and her sexual practices did not even occur to her.

The two National Records guys who played drums and bass guitar for Celia were sitting together on the other side of the drum platform, a little further away than anyone else at the gathering. She had been told their names but could not remember them. Massa had told her that the two of them were excellent musicians capable of picking up any rhythm introduced to them in mere minutes, but they were mistrusted by the other musicians, assumed to be spies sent by National to keep an eye on their progress. For this reason, no one socialized with them when they weren’t actually in the process of making music. The rest of the group assumed that they sat apart from everyone else because they felt guilty about being spies and/or were afraid of breaking their cover in casual conversation. Meghan, who had majored in Psychology at Cal Poly before dropping out after her junior year, suspected the truth was quite the opposite. The two of them could sense the mistrust the other musicians felt for them and stayed separate for that reason.

“Hey, Meghan,” said a voice to her right that belonged to a man she had not noticed in her scan of the room. It was Jim Ramos, the paramedic that was paid by Matt to hang out with him (and he even got to fuck Kim Kowalski whenever he wanted, Massa had revealed to her). She had only met him a few times but she recognized him. Long, curly black hair that was rapidly graying, some age wrinkles on his face, a graying bushy mustache (Meghan figured he was around 55 years old or so—he was really only 45 but hanging with Matt Tisdale had taken a toll on him), and cynical brown eyes that looked even older. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that proclaimed “I ♥Ukraine” on it. Jim was sitting away from the crowd as well, in an office chair he had brought in from somewhere else, his eyes able to instantly see anyone coming in the door.

“Hi ... Jim,” she said, hiding that she had been startled by his close presence without her noticing. “Nice to see you again.”

“You as well,” he said with a brief smile. “You’d better get some chow before it’s all gone.”

“I think I will,” she told him.

He was polite enough to only check out her legs and butt after she walked away from him. She did not see him doing it, but she felt it. She ignored the sensation and focused on her husband, heading directly for him. He spotted her when she was about halfway there and he smiled. She felt her heart burn with love for him when she saw this. He was the perfect man for her. He was gentle and mostly meek and would do anything she asked him to. And he looked at her with such adoration and love whenever she walked into a room after an absence.

“Hey, bug,” she greeted Massa, using the wifely term of endearment she had come up with for him shortly after they got married. It was based on her need to have her man cuddle with her and her man’s proficient efforts to provide for that need. She called him her cuddle-bug, which eventually morphed into “bug”. Of course, they did not share the origin for the term of endearment with others. The story was that Massa had once killed a fearsome, ugly bug for her and she had called him that ever since. Everyone seemed to accept that explanation, not knowing that Massa was deathly phobic of any bug larger than an ant and always called on her to make the kills or provide the wildlife removal service when such a creature invaded their home.

“Hey, honey-bunny,” he returned, standing up to give her a hug and a kiss.

“Fuckin’ honey-bunny?” Matt Tisdale remarked, contempt and disgust in his voice. “Fuckin’ bug? You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me.”

Massa and Meghan both blushed and kept their mouths shut. Both were somewhat afraid of the scrungy musician even if he was the best guitarist currently playing.

“Don’t you and Kim have terms of endearment for each other?” asked Laura. She had a little bit of taco sauce running down her chin, unnoticed.

“Fuck no,” Matt said. “That’s fuckin’ faggot shit.”

“What a strictly heterosexual couple calls each other is faggot shit?” Jake asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m not talking about slurping some dude’s fuckin’ schlong or taking one up the fuckin’ passage to Bangkok. I’m talking about a fuckin’ state of mind.”

“The faggot state of mind?” Celia asked.

“That’s fuckin’ right,” Matt said.

“Kim calls you ‘Mattie’ all the time,” Laura said. “I heard her do it earlier today. That’s a term of endearment.”

“She’s a chick,” Matt said, dismissively. “Chicks don’t have the same faggot boundaries as a dude does.”

“Faggot boundaries?” Jake asked.

“Don’t act like you don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about,” Matt said, shaking his head in disgust.

“Okay,” Jake said with a shrug. “I won’t act like that.”

“Sometimes he calls me his ‘primary gash’,” Kim said. “That’s kind of endearing, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Celia said blankly. “That is exquisitely romantic.”

“I like to think so,” Kim said with a smile.

Celia, Laura, Jake, and Kim all gave her hugs. When it was Jake’s turn she thanked him for inviting her.

“You’re part of the family,” Jake said. “A large, mostly dysfunctional family, but family all the same.”

“Massa said you wouldn’t come,” said Laura. “He said you would never take a day off from nursing school unless you were literally dying.”

She shrugged this off. “Sometimes you just have to take a break from the grind, right?”

Everyone in this bunch could certainly relate to that and did not question her further. In truth, however, she had a very important reason for wanting to burn one of her two sick days for this gathering. That reason was sitting on one of the stools wearing a pair of tight denim shorts and a sleeveless top that showed off her large, natural breasts quite well. She was a woman who knew everything there was to know about the pornographic film industry, including one key piece of knowledge that Meghan wanted to ask her about. But not here, not in front of everyone. She would need to get the former porn star alone to ask her the question she wanted to ask. And she would have to trust that the porn star could be discreet.

Massa led her around the room so she could greet everyone else. Everyone expressed happiness at seeing her. Tif, in particular, was quite rambunctious in her greeting, as if she had just met up with a long-lost sister.

“I was, like, soooo happy to hear you and Massa got married,” she told her after giving her a huge, affectionate hug that had made their breasts squish together. “I totally knew you two had a thing for each other.”

That didn’t keep you from sucking his dick once a week and letting him fuck you afterward, did it? she thought but did not say. “I guess you were totally right,” she did say, putting a passable fake smile on her face as she did so.

They left Tif behind and went to the food tables. There, she heaped up a plate with one burrito and two tacos. She was famished and everything smelled really good—even the marijuana, but she would not indulge in that until after she had finished with school and had a job. Massa got her a margarita from the self-serve bar and they found seats next to Coop and Nerdly. Greetings were made, hugs were given, and then the two bandmates went back to the intellectual conversation they had been engaged in.

“I’m telling you,” said Coop, “there’s no way in hell that I would take teleportation over a fuckin’ flying car. Flying cars are cool. Teleportation is fuckin’ boring.”

“But with teleportation,” Nerdly retorted, “you could travel anywhere on the planet instantaneously. Who cares if it’s boring. It’s instantaneous. You step into a booth in Los Angeles and in a second or two you’re in London. That is far superior to having a mere flying car.”

“You wouldn’t see any of the planet that way,” Coop countered. “With a flying car it’ll take you longer to get to London—you’d have to cross the fuckin’ ocean and shit like that—but you’d see everything on the way. The fuckin’ Grand Canyon and that weird ass arch thing in St. Louis. You could fly right the fuck by them! Even park on them if you wanted.”

“I seriously doubt that flying car parking would be allowed on the St. Louis Archway,” Nerdly said. “And I even more seriously doubt that any flying car would be able to carry you across the Atlantic ocean to make it to Europe. It could not carry enough fuel or fly fast enough. You would still have to take a commercial airliner across the ocean and rent a flying car at your destination.”

“What’s wrong with that shit?”

While Nerdly began to explain about mere adjuncts to the transportation of goods and people versus a complete overhaul, Meghan tore into her meal. She was famished, having eaten nothing but a few bites of leftover chicken cutlets since breakfast. She enjoyed her margarita as well, feeling the tequila go immediately to work on her brain, given her a little bit of courage for the mission she needed to run during the gathering.

It took almost an hour before the circumstances aligned. She had a conversation with Laura and Celia, updating them on her life and marriage to Massa. She and Massa had another conversation with Sharon, who told them endless anecdotes about the interaction between Kelvin and his baby sister Aurora. Finally, however, she saw Kim Kowalski break apart from a small group that had included Tif and Matt Tisdale and head for the corner of the warehouse where the office and the restrooms were located. Tif did not join her, but also did not stay with Matt. She wandered off and joined another group that consisted of Laura and Celia as the core members. Matt himself went over to join Nerdly and Coop, who were now talking about what super power they would want if they could be granted such a thing. Coop was going with invisibility so he could spy on all the bitches in the locker room. Nerdly was going with mind control because he could spy on all the bitches and manipulate them. Coop had to agree that this was an improvement but insisted that it lacked the panache of simply being invisible.

Meghan went over to the bar and poured herself another margarita. It was her second one and she knew she could have no more if she wanted to be capable of driving home. The frozen concoction packed quite a punch. She lingered there until Kim reemerged from the bathroom area and stood there, looking around, trying to decide which group to join.

Meghan made her move. She hurried across the large room until she was standing in front of the former porn star and reigning Queen of internet Porn. Kim had assumed that Meghan was on her way to use the restroom and paid her scant attention until she stopped in front of her instead of continuing by. She then looked at her, an inviting, enquiring smile on her face.

“Uh ... hi, Kim,” she said, her voice soft, meek, embarrassed. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“Hi,” Kim returned brightly. “What’s up?”

“Uh ... well ... you know, the usual,” Meghan said, feeling her face blush.

“The usual, huh?” Kim said. “Why are you blushing then?”

“Am I?” she asked, feeling herself losing control of the conversation.

“You are,” she said with a nod. “It would seem that you have something of importance that you wish to discuss with me.”

“Uh ... well ... yeah, actually there is,” she admitted.

“Something to do with the unique position that I occupy in this life and this universe?”

What a strange way to put it, Meghan thought, but ... well... “Yes,” she said. “That is true.”

Kim’s smile got a little bigger. “All right then,” she said. “Let me go score one of those margaritas and we’ll find ourselves a quiet little corner and talk.”

“Sounds good,” Meghan said, still blushing.

Meghan walked with her as she went to the bar and quickly poured herself a fresh one from one of the three blenders. She took a long sip and then nodded over in the direction of the back wall of the rehearsal space, the wall where most of the electric equipment was plugged in or hard wired in. There were some spare chairs and a few large wire spools there and the area was out of view of most of the primary gathering area.

“How about over there?” Kim asked.

“Okay,” Meghan returned.

They made their way over to the secluded location. Meghan sat down on one of the wire spools. Kim sat in one of the folding chairs. The two of them looked at each other for a moment and then Kim prompted her to speak. “You were the one who wanted to talk, were you not?”

“I was,” Meghan said, “it’s just that ... well ... this is kind of a delicate situation.”

“Just think of me as a doctor,” she said. “There is literally nothing you could say to me that would take me by surprise.”

“Can you be discreet like a doctor?” Meghan asked.

“I can,” Kim said, “but you don’t know me very well, do you? You know of me, of course, and you know what you’ve heard Jake and Laura and Celia discuss among themselves when you worked for them, but you have no way of knowing if I am actually trustworthy or not. You’ll just have to decide for yourself if I can be trusted, or if, should I betray your confidence, the information you would give me access to is dangerous enough that it can be used to destroy you.”

Wow, Meghan thought numbly. She’s pretty straightforward. Is that why Matt likes her so much? She doesn’t put up with any of his shit? The psychology major inside of her liked this theory. “Uh ... well ... I don’t know that the information would actually destroy me,” she said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t. It would be embarrassing if everyone knew about it though.”

“Then the worst you risk if I betray your confidence is embarrassment.”

“That’s right.”

“You have my curiosity piqued,” Kim said. “If you feel comfortable, please ask away.”

Meghan took a deep breath, still unsure of herself. But ... she did burn a sick day for this and she did now have Kim Kowalski, Mary Ann Cummings herself, alone in front of her. Might as well throw the dice, she thought. “Uh ... well ... it has to do with ... uh ... certain sex scenes that you film.”

“Certain sex scenes? I film a lot of sex scenes. Which ones are you talking about?”

“Uh ... well ... the anal sex scenes.”

“Okayyy,” Kim said. “What about them?”

“Uh ... well ... I’ve watched a few of them here and there,” she said. “You know ... out of curiosity.”

“Out of curiosity,” Kim said with a knowing smile. “Of course. What can I tell you about them?”

“Well ... I can’t help but notice that in all of those shots of ... you know ... people doing anal, they’re always ... uh ... clean.”

“That’s correct,” Kim said. “Most dudes who watch porn like the anal scenes a lot. What they do not like, however, is seeing the shot befouled with visible fecal matter from the anus.”

“Wow,” Meghan said. “You sounded like Nerdly there.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said.

“Uh ... yeah,” Meghan said, blushing furiously now. “Anyway, from what I’ve experienced in real life ... uh, you know, what I’ve heard anyway, is that real anal sex is not quite as clean as that.”

Kim looked at her knowingly. “What you’ve heard?” she asked pointedly.

She blushed even more, was unable to meet Kim’s eyes, but she forced herself to say, “Okay. Massa and I like to do that particular act. Well ... Massa does anyway. And I’m willing to do what makes my husband happy.”

The knowing smile did not go away. “Massa’s the fan of tapping the ass, huh?”

“Well ... uh ... I do kind of like it ... you know ... a little bit.”

“Just a little bit?”

Her look turned to exasperation. “Okay,” she hissed. “I like it a lot. And now we can’t do it anymore.”

“You can’t do it anymore? Why not?”

“He got a urinary tract infection from ... uh...” She couldn’t say it.

Things suddenly became clear for Kim. “Ahhh,” she said with a smile. “From the fecal matter in your anal tract.”

“Uh ... yeah, right,” Meghan said.

“And you want to know how to clean things up down there like we do when we film an anal scene.”

Meghan nodded, blushing furiously once again, about as embarrassed as she had ever been—even more embarrassed than when she had confessed to Danielle, her sister, about how she had come by her yeast infection.

“Okay then,” Kim said. “This is something I can work with.”

“How do you get them so clean for those shots?” Meghan asked. “There has to be a trick, right?”

“Oh, there’s a trick all right,” she said. “For twenty-four hours before filming an anal fuck, the actress stops eating and only drinks water. The night before the scene, she undergoes a soap suds enema to get everything out of there. Sometimes we even use the colon blow like we were prepping for a colonoscopy.”

Meghan’s face turned pale as she heard this. “Enemas? Colon blow?” That did not sound like a lot of fun.

“That’s for filming an anal scene,” Kim said. “It would seem that filming such action is not what you’re interested in, correct?”

“Uh ... correct,” she said. “We don’t want to film it. We just want to ... you know... do it and not have him get an infection because of it.”

“In that case, I think you could get away with a simple quick prep.”

“Quick prep?”

“Just what it sounds like,” Kim said. “A quick prep of the anal region to clean things up in there. We use that if we’re just filming an analingus scene instead of a full-on ass fuck.”

“How does the quick prep work?” she asked.

Kim smiled at her. “It’s simple. All you need is an old toothbrush, a little bit of baking soda, and some baby oil.”

Tif Moreland had a mission of her own she wanted to accomplish on this festive 5^th of May afternoon. It had been seven days now since she had last acquired a dose of her singing ointment and she feared her voice would start cracking soon if she did not rectify the situation. That deposit had been given to her by Huynh, one of the sound techs at the studio she worked at when she was not working for Celia Valdez Kingsley. She pronounced his name “Hoo-ee-inn-huh” and he had never once corrected her on her pronunciation (so she totally had it right, right?) but he did offer to help her out with her singing ointment issue whenever she asked. He had even been known to proactively check up on her at mid-week, concerned that she might be getting low on supply.

Alas, Huynh was still in Los Angeles and she was here in San Luis Obispo, which was like hundreds of miles away and she had totally not established a reliable source of ointment yet, or even an unreliable one. As she had told Jake Kingsley, the big boss of the production she was involved in, it was not always easy finding someone who would allow her to suck his dick on a regular basis. That was totally a counterintuitive thought (she had learned that word from Jake Kingsley—it meant the opposite of intuitive) but it was totally true.

Her prospect for the evening was Coop, the drummer for Intemperance. She had only met him for the first time a few days ago but she was intrigued. She did not know a whole lot about him other than he was the drummer for Intemperance, one of the most notorious bands in existence, and he did not have a wife. He was good looking in an older, bad-boy kind of way, and, since he was a rock musician, he had to like having his dick sucked, right? It was totally a requirement of his job.

She was able to make her move when Coop left a little group that included Matt Tisdale, Laura Kingsley, Nerdly, and Liz the keyboardist. The five of them had just smoked a joint, had even offered for Tif to join their group, but she had declined. She had a hard enough time finding her way home after two margaritas. Throwing marijuana on top of that would likely leave her lost and wandering around for hours, which was a great fear, almost a phobia of hers. She watched Coop go over to the bar to pour another margarita into his solo cup and then she made a beeline for him.

Tif was not bright enough to be subtle and she attempted no cleverness here. She was just smart enough to know that being smart was not her strength in the world. “How you doin’, Coop?” she asked him.

He looked her up and down for a moment, plainly liking what he saw. “Tif, right?” he said. “Celia’s soprano singer.”

“That’s right,” she said, flattered that he remembered her from the introduction two days before. “Listen, Coop. I have a little bit of a problem and I thought maybe you might be able to help me out with it.”

“I will if I can,” Coop said, casting eyes on her immense cleavage and bare midriff.

“You’re a professional musician so you know about female singers and their singing ointment, right?”

“Singing ointment?” he asked, but before she could answer, she could see that something had just clicked for him. “Ohhh, fuckin’ singing ointment. So that shit’s true then.”

“It’s very true,” she said with a nod. “We need it every seven days to keep our voices healthy and strong. All the hormones and things in it.”

“Wow,” Coop said, shaking his head in awe. He had heard from Matt (who had heard it from Kim, who had heard it from Mrs. Nerdly, who had heard about it from Nerdly, who had heard about it from Jake) that this hot bitch was so fuckin’ dumb she thought she had to swallow semen once a week to keep her voice healthy. She had sucked off Massa, the violinist who was now boning Jake’s old nanny, the entire Millennial Tour. Had fucked him too. He hadn’t really believed it though. After all, no one was that dumb, were they? But apparently they were and she was standing right here in front of him talking to him about ... about... “Uh ... we are talking about sucking dick here, right?”