Chapter 24: Concert. Cindy Wonder

We spent the next day rehearsing for the concert. Crystal and I had been coached to not use our singing voices, and to save them when we really wanted to belt out a song, so, many rehearsal songs were quiet whispering of the lyrics as we worked on our choreography on the stage. Terry, Dan, and a woman named Dee worked with us about our onstage choreography.

We broke for drinks and dinner at five o’clock – three hours before concert time. The first twenty minutes would be handled by our opening band the Hobo Palace. In an aside, Terry confessed to me that he “still had a soft spot in his heart for their lead singer – Cindy Wonder.”

My comment back to him was, “You don’t have a soft spot for her, you have a hard-on for her, and so do I.” He nodded in strong agreement.

I’d only met Cindy a couple of times before to talk to. Their band had rehearsed at an off-site studio in Sarasota. Just as we went into a VIP box up over the entire Forum arena, we saw their band start to setup their gear with the help of a dozen roadies. I watched Cindy wander around out of ‘costume’ – wearing cutoffs and a t-shirt. There was no doubt that even from a distance the girl was pretty, busty, and desirable.

Terry walked by me, saw where I was looked, and said, “Looks as though she has the same effect on you that she has on me. Maybe we can talk her into playing with us some day soon.”

I knew he meant trying to get her involved in some of our sexual games. I concluded that I wouldn’t mind that at all, and I suspected that Crystal, Ellen, and Claire wouldn’t either, providing she went both ways.

Dinner was quick and light; neither Crystal nor I wanted to feel bloated from a full dinner when we went on stage. Typically, we had two light meals the night of a concert – one before and one after. I recalled we barely ate before the start of a mission when I’d been in Special Forces; we wanted to be ‘lean mean fighting machines.’ The arena doors opened at six-thirty, and we watched the first arrivals for the concert file in and find their seats. Many had already bought t-shirts or other souvenirs.

We went down to the green room. Crystal and I had opted to share a dressing room rather than use separate facilities. We sat side-by-side putting on facial makeup that would make us look better for the television cameras. We’re weren’t going ‘on air,’ but we were going to be projected up onto four giant screens that hung in strategic locations over the crowed. Everyone would be able to see us ‘up close and personal’ on those screens, so we wanted to look our best. As usual, we’d also get a tape of the entire concert too. Crystal and I studied the tapes to see how we could improve our choreography, songs, presence, or onstage banter.

Exactly at eight o’clock, I heard the sound of the crowd rise in shouts and applause as The Hobo Palace started their first song. Cindy’s husky voice rang out over the crowd and came through into the green room over speakers loud and clear. We could watch them on stage on a TV in the room. The opening group was getting the crowd pumped up. Terry’s ability to spot talent such as this group never failed to amaze me.

The two bands and the roadies had worked out a drill where they could change the band instruments in fewer than two minutes in near darkness. So, as the Hobos finished their last number the lights dimmed, and some canned music of our band playing what I called ‘idle chords’ started to play. The music started without a defined melody, just random notes and chords, and slowly built in pace, volume, and texture over the two-minute period.

Crystal and I had left the green room and were each standing squarely on two “X’s” of masking tape on the floor at the end of two cleared aisles leading through the VIP seating to the steps up to the stage. One of the stage hands with a headset on stood near us and gave us a count down: 10 – 9 – 8 – 7 ... the music built up and definitely carried the prelude melody of ‘The Naked Truth,’ our current big hit, 6 – 5 – 4 ... I could hear the live band pick up the sound from the canned music – an almost imperceptible transition as the canned music faded away and our band got louder and louder, and the randomness left the music in favor of an actual melody – the crowd started to cheer and yell; 3 – 2 – 1 and the stage lights came up and two high powered spotlights illuminated Crystal and me as we started our run down our aisles and simultaneously up to the stage from opposite sides. The crowd was deafening in their shouts and applause.

Just as we reached our positions on the stage, we started singing the opening verse to the song. The crowd had been whipped into a frenzy by this time. Even our singing had trouble competing with the shouting and cheering. If we hadn’t been wearing headsets with boom mics so we could hear ourselves, we would have been all over the map with our singing – off key, off tempo, out of tune. As it was it was hard to hear, but we rocked the crowd. Everyone remained on their feet and screaming.

I shot Billy a smile and a got a huge smile back from him as he played his electric guitar next to me. As we sang we walked back into the band and alternated duets with each of the band members as they sang some of the chorus with us. I repeated the process with our backup singers. When I was singing, Crystal would dance around center stage flaunting her sexy body, a delight to men and women of all ages. I briefly wondered why I didn’t get a hard-on on stage with her.

Crystal and I sang for ninety minutes straight. We had saved ‘Texas Dawn’ for our encore, and when we came back out and did that number the crowd went wild all over again before they quieted down to appreciate the love song. There were twenty-one-thousand happy fans when the lights dimmed, and we vanished back down our exit aisle into the bowels of the arena. The applause and screaming continued for almost five minutes after we stopped. I heard the canned music come on again, this time at a lower volume.

Terry grabbed us just before we got to the green room. “Come on, we’re going up top again.” He led us to a private elevator, and a minute later we were back in the VIP box we’d had dinner in. Billy and the band members filed in a couple of minutes behind us. The Hobo Palace band was there too, along with cute Cindy Wonder. Below us, the crowd slowly thinned as each section of seats tried to exit the same door simultaneously. A few smart people remained seated, letting most of the throng leave. I could only imagine the nightmare in the various parking lots as all the cars tried to exit at the same time.

Terry thrust a glass full of ice with white wine poured over it into my hand, and a glass of champagne into Crystal’s hands. We were all giving each other accolades for our performances. Terry kept repeating how great we had all done; he was a superb cheerleader.

I walked over the Cindy, “Hi. I’m Jim Mellon. Tonight was the first time I’ve really heard you sing. You are really going places – you’re good.” I stood a head taller than Cindy. In close conversation, I realized I could look down the bodice of her peasant blouse and admire the natural wonders that God had blessed her with – two of the roundest, most natural, smoothest, firmest, and best-formed breasts I had ever seen. I made a mental note to myself that savoring the taste and texture of those mammaries would be a worthy goal from that time forward.

Cindy reached up and pulled my head down to hers so she could plant a kiss on my lips – a long kiss that instantly got my blood boiling considering the source and the promise the kiss held. She finally said, “Coming from you that is one high compliment. Thank you, and you were not just good tonight; you were fabulous. You and Crystal are my favorites and my role models.”

Crystal slid up next to us, and Cindy turned and met her with an equally long kiss on the lips; “And the same goes to you. The two of you were spectacular out there tonight. I watched your every move, and I learned so much about how to reach the crowd ... how to work the audience. It’s not just about singing well. You both have charisma and stage presence; you interact with the audience – even people hundreds of feet away. Watch me next time, I picked up at least a dozen pointers from you again tonight.”

Crystal was touching Cindy’s arm; “Thank you ... Jim and I listened to your entire set. You are good. I want us to do more with you guys instead of just having you open with us. We should join you or vice versa for some duets or group songs.”

Cindy especially glowed with the praise and the idea of singing with us. I could imagine how she felt; I’d been there only months earlier when I first met Crystal, and she wanted me to sing with her. Now, we could return the favor to one of the next up and coming country music stars.

Terry joined us. He was ebullient about how the night had gone. I knew that tomorrow he’d have a list of suggestions for how to improve our next concert, but that took nothing away from the genuine feelings of elation he showed. He hugged Cindy. He hugged Crystal. He hugged me.

Billy and Dan joined us, chatted with Cindy, Crystal, and me, and I introduced them to Cindy. Ellen, Nadia, and Claire arrived in the box, and we made more introductions to Cindy and now Hal Minor, the good looking band leader of The Hobo Palace. Billy and Hal immediately started to talk shop and sound systems in a vocabulary that quickly became a foreign language. Edie and Cal Becket, the man who ran the arena came in too. Everyone tried to talk at once. The party was joyous and made us all feel warm and successful.

Around eleven we broke up the party to head back to the hotel. We had several stretch limos waiting outside the VIP entrance. Crystal and Cindy had been canoodling away most of the party, their heads close together cooking something up, so I wasn’t at all surprised when the pair stuck together and got into the limo with me, Terry, and a few others. It only took us five minutes to get from the Forum to the Vinoy Hotel that time of night.

The closed bedroom door opened a crack, and Crystal said in a loud voice to get my attention, “Jim, can you come and help us with something in here?” It sounded as though she had some kind of project underway and needed some muscle.

Crystal’s tone of voice was unrevealing. A group of us had been sitting drinking in the living room of the large hotel suite; Crystal and Cindy had gone into our bedroom to ‘freshen up.’ I did note that they’d been in there quite a while.

I stood, grabbed my drink, and sauntered over to the bedroom door. When I opened it, I found the room seductively dim. In the middle of the large bed, Cindy lay naked and propped up on a pile of pillows. Crystal nestled between her legs eating out the younger singer who had a look of bliss on her face.

Crystal rolled slightly to one side against one of Cindy’s legs; “Oh, good, you’re here. I have this hole that needs filling and my tongue just doesn’t seem to be doing the job.” She pointed at Cindy’s gaping vagina that she had clearly had two or three fingers in until only a moment ago. Even across the room, I could see the opening into her body – a dark, warm, and inviting nest, surrounded with an abundance of beautiful trimmed pubic fuzz.