Chapter 7: New Year’s Day

Coos Bay, Oregon

January 1, 1992

The room was fairly bright when Jake’s eyes creaked open late in the morning of New Year’s Day, 1992. His mouth was a bit dry and had a sour taste in it—the taste of a little more wine than he was accustomed to the night before. His head throbbed with a mild headache behind his eyes and his bladder was full, straining for its contents to be released. The motley group of musicians and spouses of musicians currently inhabiting the beach house on the cliff had had themselves a little impromptu New Year’s Eve celebration the night before.

The house was completely full now, and had been for the past three weeks, since the overdubs had started. Mary and Tom, Greg and Celia, Stan and Cindy, the Nerdlys, Jake, Ben, Ted, Laura, Pauline, and even Phil were all taking up residence now. Every bed was full, every room filled to capacity. It was actually working out better than they had any right to expect—partially due to the camaraderie that had developed between them all during this long and sometimes painful process, and partially due to the set of house rules (they now numbered eighteen) that served as a guideline to keep order, or at least to reduce chaos.

The party had come together when Jake had brought home two prime rib roasts and all the fixings for the New Year’s Eve meal. Celia and Greg, who had gone shopping shortly after, had picked up a couple of cases of good wine from the Napa Valley. Mary and Cindy had then constructed a couple of impressive deserts. Ted and Tom had then pitched in for a pony keg of good beer. And so, the fourteen of them had stayed up until the turn of the year, eating, drinking, eating and drinking some more, while listening to music and gathering into groups to talk about anything and everything except the recording process.

And though everyone managed to get their drink on quite nicely—Mary, Laura and Ted had had themselves a particularly good time, Jake remembered—Rule Number 1 had been adhered to. Everything had been cleaned up and put right before everyone drifted off to bed. But there were probably going to be a few sour mouths and sore heads today.

And, alas, though it was a holiday for most of the world on this half of the International Date Line, it was not for the band with no name. Though they were allowing themselves to sleep in a bit in deference to the festivities of the night before, they had to get some work done today. They were considerably behind schedule with a few hard deadlines fast approaching. Ben’s leave of absence was over and he needed to report back to work by January 18—and even if not for that, his wife was due to have their first baby somewhere in the vicinity of February 2. That meant they needed to be sure that all of the bass work overdubs were complete for all of Jake’s and Celia’s songs before then. And Mary needed to be back to her high school orchestra by January 6, although they could still snag her back any Friday through Monday stretch that they needed her. Right now, however, they were smack in the middle of a section that featured Jake’s mother quite heavily and they needed to finish it as soon as possible before her next break.

Jake creaked his eyes open, wincing a little at the light at first, but then he quickly got used to it. He turned his head to the left, to the digital clock across the room, and saw that it was reading 9:23 AM. Not bad, he thought. A little over seven hours of sleep, give or take. Not that he had gone to bed at 2:23 AM. It had actually been closer to 1:00 or so. But he had not gone to sleep right away.

He turned his head to the right and beheld the reason for that hour and twenty-some-odd minute lag time. Laura was curled up next to him. She, like he, was naked. Her right arm was sprawled across his midsection and her right leg was intertwined with his. She was breathing softly, her eyes closed, her red hair in a tangled mess of disarray. She smelled strongly of stale alcohol and sexual musk.

They had had themselves quite the little session after hitting the sheets. Not that this was unusual. Since that first time they’d gotten naked together and engaged their compatible parts just over two months ago now, they had pretty much repeated some variation of the act every single night, and often during the morning hours as well. Jake had unleased a monster of sexual lust and desire in the saxophonist with that first orgasm—or, with those first three, to be truthful—he had pulled out of her that night. Since then, her appetite for more had been insatiable.

Jake had no problem fulfilling her desires. After more than a year and a half of nothing but meaningless one-night stands punctuated by long stretches of nothing more than his own hand and his own imagination—or the occasional porno mag—having an actual woman to care about, to form a relationship with, to call his own, and to have regular sex with was a blessing on the order of a miracle. It was amazing how such a simple thing as that could bring serenity to a troubled life, could put into perspective what had once seemed unfathomable.

I have a girlfriend again, he thought now, a little trepidatious about the thought, but mostly happy. And I will not treat her badly. I will NOT.

He rolled over, gently disentangling himself from Laura’s embrace, and put his feet on the floor. She groaned and grunted a few times and then slowly opened her own eyes.

“Bleah,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “I don’t feel so good.”

Jake chuckled and then leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. “The price you have to pay for pouring them down,” he told her. “I don’t feel so great myself.”

“What time is it?” she moaned.

“Almost nine-thirty. We all agreed to get to the studio by eleven-thirty.”

“We did?” she asked. “I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

“You were pretty drunk at the time,” he said.

“Well ... yeah,” she said, “but I remember what we did when we got up here. It was quite unforgettable, actually.”

“It was all right,” Jake said, waving his hand back and forth in a see-saw motion.

She looked at him in alarm for a moment, saw his expression and then concluded he was joking. “You’re an asshole,” she told him, not unkindly.

“I have certainly been accused of that,” he assured her.

“I didn’t do anything ... you know ... embarrassing last night, did I?”

“Other than giving my dad a lap dance, not at all,” he said.

Another startled look. Another shake of the head when she saw he was kidding. “A hemorrhoidal asshole,” she told him.

He laughed and then picked up the pitcher of water he habitually kept at bedside just for such occasions. Next to it were two glasses and a bottle of Tylenol. He poured himself a healthy glassful and then used it to wash down two of the little white pills. “You want a hit of this?” he asked Laura.

“Yeah,” she said. “I think I better.”

He set her up and then handed the glass and the pills over.

“Thanks,” she said, taking them.

“I’m gonna hit the shower,” Jake told her. “Might as well get it over with.”

“Let me go pee first,” she said, rolling over and putting her own feet on the floor. They had not yet reached the stage in their relationship where they could comfortably pee or pass gas in front of each other.

“By all means,” he told her, waving to the door.

She disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. He heard her shuffling around a bit, the faint sound of urine hitting the water in the bowl, the sound of the toilet paper roll spinning, the flush of the toilet, and then the running of the sink. She came back out, still naked, and he took a moment to admire her.

“Ugg,” she groaned. “Don’t look at me. I must look absolutely terrible.”

“Actually, you’re quite beautiful,” he said. “I never get tired of looking at you naked.”

This earned him a warm smile and a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Go take your shower,” she told him. “I’ll be in right behind you.”

“You got it,” he said. “Just give me a few minutes to uh ... you know ... take care of a few things in there first.”

“By all means,” she said.

Jake closed and locked the bathroom door behind him and then quickly took care of the first two of the three S’s of the morning routine and then brushed his teeth. He then fired up the shower to take care of the third S. The warm spray and the metabolism of the Tylenol served to knock his headache back to a faint ache. He left the water running and then opened the door back up.

“Shower’s free,” he told Laura, who was back in the bed, a pillow over her face.

“Thanks,” her muffled voice responded.

He toweled himself off and then stepped back into the bedroom area just as Laura was heading into the bathroom. She reached out and gave his wilted penis a playful stroke as she went by. He returned the favor by giving her a little pat on her shapely rear end.

She did not bother closing the door behind her so Jake kept half an eye on her nakedness as he put on a fresh pair of underwear, a fresh pair of blue jeans, and one of his t-shirts. He was just tying his shoes when Laura shut off the water and stepped out. She quickly toweled herself dry and then wrapped her hair in a white towel.

“Better?” Jake asked her as she came back into the room

“Much,” she said. “There is one thing I could use though.”

“Oh?”

She gave him her saucy smile. “Would you be a dear, dear, and eat my pussy out for me?”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Again?” he asked. “I just did that last night.”

“I like having my pussy eaten out,” she told him, stepping closer. “I like it a lot.” And this was true. She had never had that particular sexual act done to her until Jake had introduced it to her on their second night together. Since then, she had become quite the fan of it, particularly after one night when Jake had gone down and drawn four rapid fire orgasms from her with his skillful lips and tongue.

“I would have to brush my teeth again if I did that,” he said. “How about after we get home from the studio?”

“I don’t want to wait that long,” she said with a pout. “I really think an orgasm right now would help with this hangover.”

Jake laughed. “You’re suggesting that oral copulation to completion is medically therapeutic?” he asked.

“Shut up,” she told him, slapping at him. “Don’t use Nerdlyisms on me. I’ll tell you what. I’m not above bribery. Why don’t you stand up?”

“Why?”

“How about I make it so that both of us need to brush our teeth a second time?”

“Hmmm,” Jake said, already stiffening at the thought. “An interesting offer.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at him pointedly. “Do we have a deal?”

“Deal,” he said, standing quickly and turning to face her.

She unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his pants. By the time she pushed the jeans and underwear down, he was already hard, this despite the two ejaculations he had only seven hours before. She smiled as she pondered his manhood and her hand reached out to touch it. She stroked it up and down a few times and then slowly sucked it between her lips and went to work.

“Oh yeah,” Jake groaned, his hand caressing her bare shoulder as she slurped and sucked on him. Despite her relative lack of sexual experience in her life, she was actually pretty good at fellatio. Her dentist had apparently been a fan of the act and, as she had told Jake on one of their after-sex intimate discussions, so she had learned the best way to finish him off quickly. Though she had never enjoyed performing the act on the good doctor, she professed that sucking his dick was different.

“How is it different?” he’d asked her. “A dick is a dick is a dick, right?”

“No,” she replied, indignant. “A dick is not a dick is not a dick. Are you trying to say that all pussies are alike?”

“Well ... no,” he had to admit. “There are a lot of pussies I wouldn’t go within ten feet of with Matt Tisdale’s mouth, but...”

“No buts,” she said. “First of all, your dick is bigger, but that’s not the primary reason.”

“What is the primary reason?”

“It’s your dick, you idiot,” she told him. “It’s attached to your body and I’m quite hot for your body.”

He had pondered that for a moment and then nodded. “I can get behind that,” he told her.

“I thought you might,” she replied. “And I have something else you can get behind, if you’re ready.”

He hadn’t been ready, but he quickly made himself so.

Since time was a bit limited on this morning, she did all she could to make short work of him. She concentrated primarily on the head and glans with her lips and tongue while her soft hand jacked him up and down. The friction she was creating was delightful and he enjoyed it without employing any of the mental blocks he used to keep orgasm at bay under normal circumstances. Within three minutes his hand gripped her shoulder and the familiar waves of pleasure exploded throughout his body. He groaned, his legs wobbly, as he shot jet after jet of semen into her sucking mouth. She swallowed every drop and then licked her lips.

“All right,” she said eagerly, laying back on the bed and spreading her legs wide. “My turn. Get to work.”

He looked down on her, seeing the now familiar sight of her wet vagina, glistening and ready for action. She had trimmed her bush considerably since that first time, removing and maintaining the removal of all the hair save a quadrilateral patch of copper on her pubis. She had also told him that he was never to refer to her vagina, pubic hair, or any other part of her genitalia as “the fire” or any analogue of synonym of that phrase. That had been the dentist’s term for it and she never wanted to hear it again. It really was a pity. Though Jake loathed the dentist and men like him, sight unseen, calling a red-haired pussy “the fire”, as in: “I’m going into the fire” or “Let me stand next to your fire”, would actually have been kind of cool. Another reason to kick the dentist’s ass if he ever did meet him.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jake asked teasingly now. “You know this is illegal in some states, right?”

“No teasing!” Laura barked at him. “I fulfilled my end of the bargain. Now get your mouth down there and start eating.”

He got his mouth down there and started eating. He did not bother with a slow build up. He simply tongued her slippery lips up and down—plunging his tongue between them once in a while for good measure—until her clitoris peeked out of its hood to see what was going on. Once that happened, he slid two fingers inside of her and began to thrust them in and out while simultaneously latching his lips onto her clit and starting to suck.

“Oh sweet Lord,” Laura breathed. “That’s it! That is it!”

She came less than a minute later, her pelvis thrashing up and down on the edge of the bed, her legs tightening around his back, her left hand gripping his hair hard enough to hurt. Her right hand, meanwhile, picked up a pillow and she used it to cover her face and muffle her cries. This was due to Rule Number 17: Make every effort possible to keep audio in all forms from penetrating outside the walls of your sleeping area.

She thrashed and groaned and moaned for the better part of a minute before finally slowing down and eventually relaxing. Her legs and hand released their respective grips on him. She pulled the pillow away from her face, revealing a bright red blush of satisfaction.

“Oh my God, you are so good at that, Jake,” she breathed.

“My talents go beyond music,” he said. “Are we even?”

She nodded. “Even,” she told him. “I guess I’d better get dressed now.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, “but first, we’d better go brush those teeth.”

They went and brushed their teeth.

And so began the first day of the new year.

Jake and Laura came down the stairs together, into a kitchen and living room where most of their fellow housemates were already present. They did not try to hide the fact that they had just come from Jake’s room and that Laura had spent the night there. They had given up trying to keep their relationship on the down-low after only the third night of it. In the first place, there was no reason to hide their togetherness. True, Laura had been allegedly “engaged”, but everyone pretty much knew the score on that relationship. And in the second place, it was impossible to hide a sexual and romantic relationship when you lived in a house with other people. It just could not be done. Nerdly had told him after they’d come clean (so to speak) that everyone knew the two of them were together by the afternoon of day two, most because they’d heard Laura’s orgasmic expressions during that first coupling, the rest because they’d been told by those that had heard. And the fact that Rule 17 had been proposed and approved—with the specific wording: in all forms—on day three of their relationship did not seem a coincidence, as much as they wanted to believe it was.

Except for Ben and Ted, who were still absent, Jake and Laura were the last of the group to make their morning appearance. Mary was at the stove, putting the finishing touches on a large pan full of scrambled eggs with potatoes and kielbasa sausage. The Nerdlys were making toast. Stan and Cindy were setting the table. Pauline was on the phone—she often was these days. Celia and Greg were sitting at the table, drinking coffee with Phil. Tom was allegedly helping Mary but was actually just standing next to her, doing little.

“Good morning, everyone,” Laura greeted brightly. Jake echoed the sentiment.

Everyone except Pauline—who was barking something about how she was sick of having to deal with this shit every goddamn day—returned the sentiment in some form or other.

“It smells great, Mom,” Jake said. “Anything we can do to help?”

“Just sit down and have some coffee,” she told them. “Everything is under control.”

“You talked us into it,” Laura said, heading for the pot.

“Of course, you two will have primary dish washing and loading duties after we’re done,” Mary advised.

“Aww,” Jake whined good naturedly. “Doesn’t being one of the big bosses swing any weight around here?”

“I’m your mother,” Mary said. “I am always going to be a bigger boss than you.”

Jake smiled and gave her a brief hug on the way to the coffee pot to pour himself a cup. She smiled at the embrace, feeling that sense of love and contentment a mother feels when she has the sensation her child is doing all right. She, along with Tom, was most definitely in favor of the relationship between Jake and Laura, could not have been more delighted, in fact, for both of them. Jake needed a woman in his life, someone to stabilize him and keep him somewhat steady on the straight and narrow—as straight and narrow as Jake could be, anyway. And Laura ... Mary had really grown to like and respect Laura since first meeting her and had been appalled at the relationship she had been in with that married man—appalled on several different levels. She thought that Laura and Jake were very cute together and complimented each other. And they had so much in common—unlike her son’s previous long-term girlfriends going all the way back to Michelle, the religious fanatic who had publicly accused him of raping her and beating her.

After pouring his coffee, Jake looked at Nerdly, who was in charge of putting butter on the toast and was doing it with his normal methodical engineering. “Bill,” he told him, “I have to say, I have never seen such uniform distribution of a sandwich spread on a piece of heat-treated bread before.”

“Thanks, Jake,” Nerdly replied, pleased with the praise. “It’s all in the proportion picked up by the knife and the wrist action during the spread itself. I would venture to say that each piece of toast has an even spread to the edges within a tolerance of less than a millimeter, and an equal volume of butter on each piece within a milliliter of variance from slice to slice.”

Jake nodded approvingly. “That’s badass, Nerdly,” he told him.

“His name is Bill,” said Cindy, irritation in her tone. She had had more than her share of the fermented grapes the night before as well.

“Sorry, Cindy,” Jake apologized.

The Archers, as a group, were also quite in favor of the burgeoning relationship between the singer and the saxophonist, particularly Nerdly himself. Jake was Bill’s best friend in the entire world—except for Sharon, of course—and his oldest, most loyal friend. They had known each other for as long as either of them had memories in this life. They had grown up together, had played music together, had fornicated with band followers of loose morality together, had done illicit drugs together. Jake had been the best man at his wedding, his name signed on the ketuvah, or wedding contract with Sharon. He was the brother Nerdly had never had. Bill wanted nothing but happiness and contentment for him and had watched in alarm as Jake’s life had nearly spiraled out of control following the near simultaneous breakups of his relationship with Helen and the band Intemperance. He had noticed over the years that Jake’s stability and happiness levels were directly correlational with his stability and contentment in a romantic relationship with a woman. And Laura seemed such a copacetic companion for him now that she had abandoned the socially unsanctioned relationship she had been in before. Though he had liked Helen tremendously—he and Sharon had both been quite despondent for a time after the breakup—he too realized that Jake and Laura had much more in common. He liked her, and he thought, in time, he would like her as much as, if not more, than he had liked Helen.

The couple carried their coffee cups over to the large dining room table and sat down in the chairs across from Greg and Celia, next to Phil.

Phil was perhaps the worst dressed gay man that Jake had ever met. He was currently wearing a pair of baggy black jeans and a bright orange sweater that made him look like a county jail inmate, or perhaps a misplaced San Francisco Giants fan. This was typical of his attire, perhaps even a little quieter than some.

“How’s the morning going, Phil?” Laura asked him, reaching over to finger the material of his sweater.

“Pretty good,” Phil said. “Just wondering if you’re going to need me today.”

“We’re not,” Jake told him. “We have to get those bass and drum tracks laid down today. That is our mission. And even if we manage to complete it, we’ll still be working primarily on the outro. No vocals are likely to be recorded today.”

Phil nodded. “All right then,” he said. “Looks like a day off. Can I use your car again, Jake?”

“It’s all yours,” Jake assured him.

“Perfect, thank you,” Phil said, smiling, hoping that today might be the day he successfully found whatever gay community had to exist in this place so he could get himself laid. Having Jake’s Beemer would undoubtedly help in the second endeavor, if not the first.

Phil too was quite pleased with the relationship between Jake and Laura, and not just because the singer was nice enough to let him use his sixty thousand dollar car. He genuinely loved Laura as a man would love his own sister and he was quite happy that she had finally ended that horrid relationship with Dave the dentist—well ... Dave had yet to acknowledge the fact that the relationship was over, but that was just a formality. And though Phil had been a bit chagrined to find that Jake was not gay or even bisexual—what a goddamn shame that was!—he liked the man and respected him musically. True, he had quite a colorful past, some of which was dotted with reports of him not treating his girlfriends so nicely, but he had gotten to know the man over the past few months and he had a hard time equating those reports with what he saw and knew. Jake treated Laura well and he cared about her. And, based on the sounds he had heard coming out of that bedroom on a few occasions, he knew his way around the female anatomy. Those sounds, after all, had never come out of Laura’s bedroom when Dr. Dave had been in there.

“Just don’t leave me an empty tank,” Jake warned.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Phil assured him.

Jake turned back toward Greg and Celia. “What are you gonna do today, Greg?” Jake asked the actor, who was impeccably dressed in a pair of slacks and a dress shirt, as usual. Perhaps Phil could learn a few fashion tips from him?

“Well, now that there seems to be a break in the rain,” Greg responded, “I’m going to drive out and look at the site again.”

The site he was referring to was a 3000-acre parcel of beachfront dune property outside of the Coos County town of Bandon, about twenty minutes north of the Coos Bay Bridge off Highway 101. Currently owned by a land rich, income poor extended family that had held title to it since the days when the State of Oregon had been called Oregon Territory and the coastal regions had been accessible only by ocean going vessels, they were looking to unload it for the purpose of cashing in on land they had no financial means to develop. Greg, who had fallen in love with the region after visiting it the first time, had seen the potential of the property. Since it sat atop sand dunes, for the most part, it could not be developed into a dense residential and commercial area, but it would be ideal for an exclusive oceanfront golf resort worthy of the PGA tour. He was currently in the process of trying to find investors for the project and he was actually starting to get a few nibbles of interest, both from individuals and real estate development companies.

“You really think you’re going to get this thing off the ground, huh?” Jake asked.

“I am unequivocally going to get it off the ground,” Greg replied confidently. “My mind is set. When my mind is set, I accomplish what I’m after.”

Jake nodded. You had to respect an attitude like that.

“I’d love to come out and look at the area some time,” Laura said shyly. She was still somewhat awed by the fact that she was living in a house with Greg Oldfellow and that she could just converse with him whenever she wanted like he was a normal human being.

“Funny you should ask that,” Greg said. “I’ve been wanting Jake to come out and take a look at it as well. Maybe we could make a day of it the next time there’s a break in the action.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I would like to take a look. Maybe next Sunday?”

“It’s a date,” Greg said. “I’ll pencil it into my schedule.”

Greg was also quite happy about the new relationship between Jake and Laura. Though he considered the rock and roll musician a close friend—one of his closest true friends, as opposed to professional friends, hangers-on, and business associates, although Jake was, in fact, a business associate as well—he had not failed to pick up on the uncomfortable vibe that existed between his friend and his wife. It was a vibe he had first noticed when Jake and Helen had visited his new home in Palm Springs more than two years ago, when they had put on a little impromptu concert with their guitars after dinner. That vibe had grown considerably stronger, easier to pick up on in the past six months since they had started working closely together on their album projects. Of course, he did not understand what Celia could possibly see in the musician when compared to himself—Jake after all, was worth only a twentieth or so of what Greg was, was uneducated, and sang songs for a living, for Christ’s sake—that connection was undeniably there. But now that Jake’s attention was occupied with the cute saxophonist—Greg often wondered what she looked like naked, and how she was in bed (perhaps Jake would share some of those details with him they next time they pounded down some drinks together without the women present)—he was hopeful that vibe would dampen down to some degree. Not that he feared that Celia would actually act upon the vibe, because he knew she wouldn’t, and not because he thought that Jake would be so crass as to sleep with his friend’s wife, because he knew he wouldn’t, but just because the mere existence of that connection nagged at him, like a piece of meat stuck in one’s tooth, or a canker sore in one’s mouth.

“Be sure to bring your hiking shoes when you go,” Celia advised them.

“Yeah?” Jake asked.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “There are no roads on the property at all except for the little dirt access road that comes off the highway. And some of those dunes are huge.”

“I don’t even have any hiking shoes,” Laura said.

“We’ll get you some,” Jake assured her, reaching over and giving a playful stroke to her shoulder.

Celia noted the contact and then took another sip of her coffee. Of everyone in the house, she was the only person somewhat conflicted about the Laura/Jake coupling. Her instincts were to be opposed to it but she knew it was an instinct born out of irrationality and ... she had to admit it to herself, despite being loathe to ... jealousy. She loved her husband and enjoyed the life she had with him. Of that there was no doubt. But she had powerful feelings for Jake and suspected he had them for her. They had so much in common with each other, shared connections with each other on so many levels. Their shared love of music and their shared profession of making music meant she could talk to Jake about things that Greg was simply unable to understand or even comprehend. But it was more than an intellectual or a professional attraction she felt for him. There was an intense physical and emotional attraction to him as well. She thought about him all the time, about his voice, his smile, his sense of humor, about the way his eyes flitted to her when he thought she wasn’t looking, examining her body. There was a heavy degree of simple infatuation involved, but it was much more than that as well. Sometimes she wished she had never met Greg, that she had been single when Jake and Helen had broken up. And always she felt ashamed and guilty when these thoughts flitted to her forebrain.