Chapter 21: Life is Good

37,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico

January 1, 1996

Laura Kingsley and Celia Valdez sat side by side in the first row of the first-class section of the United Airlines Boeing 777 as it flew from Los Angeles to Miami. The plane had lifted off from LAX at 7:30 AM Pacific time and was scheduled to land at MIA at 3:05 PM Eastern time; just over thirty minutes from now. Occupying a good chunk of the other first-class seats on the aircraft were the members of Celia’s band. Coop and Charlie were sitting together two rows back, Coop pretending to sleep while Charlie chewed his nails. Little Stevie, the young lead guitarist and Liz Watertown, the middle-aged pianist, were sitting together in another row, talking softly; apparently still under the illusion that no one knew the two of them had been engaged in an on again-off again sexual affair since shortly after the first tour had started. In yet another row, Eric Pale, the new violinist, sat staring out the window at the clouds and water below, his face nervous but composed. Sitting next to him was Larry Candid, the tour manager, who was extremely worried about his seatmate’s ability to control his anxiety before the show tonight. Celia had forbidden the strange and creepy young man from taking any of his Xanax within eight hours of stepping onto the stage, acting on the theory that it could affect his performance. Candid had a large supply of the benzodiazepine drug in his emergency kit and Eric had been given one just as they had boarded the plane, but he could have no more until after the show.

Laura had been asleep in her seat since the plane had leveled off three and a half hours earlier. She sat with her head tilted sideways, soft, girly snores coming out of her mouth every now and then. Celia herself had dozed on and off during the flight, but Laura had not moved a bit. Celia had noticed how exhausted her sax player had been back at the airport, with bags under her eyes and a weary look on her face.

“Late night?” Celia had asked her then.

This question produced a smile from the redhead. “Yeah,” she replied. “You could say that.”

She offered no further details and Celia had not asked. She assumed that Laura and Jake had stayed up late having one last session of steamy sex before parting for several months. She and Greg certainly had, although she was nowhere near as tired from the experience as Laura seemed to be. Maybe it was because Laura wasn’t a morning person.

Laura finally stirred and woke up when the plane started to descend. She opened her eyes, sat up straight, yawned a little, and then wiped the drool off of her face with the back of her hand. She looked out the window for a moment, saw the gulf coast of Florida approaching in the distance, and then turned back to look at her seatmate.

“Well, good morning, sleepyhead,” Celia said lightly. “Nice of you to join us.”

“Wow,” Laura said, yawning again. “Are we really almost there?”

Celia nodded. “Should be on the ground in about twenty minutes, I would think.”

“Nice,” Laura said. “I guess I was kind of tired.”

“I guess so,” Celia agreed.

“I gotta pee,” Laura said. “I’d better go do it now before they turn the seatbelt signs on.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Celia said.

Laura unbuckled herself and then stood up slowly. Celia clearly saw her wincing as she performed the maneuver and then wincing again as he squeezed herself in front of Celia’s legs and out into the aisle. She continued to watch as she stepped gingerly forward and opened the door of the first-class bathroom and stepped inside. She was in there for the better part of five minutes, until the captain announced that the flight crew were going to be collecting all cups and plates and that everyone should buckle in and return their seats to the upright position. When she finally emerged, it was clear she was limping a little bit. And when she sat back down in her seat, she displayed another wince of pain.

“You okay, Teach?” Celia asked her.

“Yeah,” Laura said, buckling in gingerly. “I’m just a little sore.”

“Really now?” she said with a grin. “A good kind of sore?”

“One of the best,” Laura told her with a smile. “Although I think I’m going to have to pop some Tylenol or something before we hit the stage.”

“I’m sure Larry has some in his little black bag,” Celia said. “How late were you and Jake up last night?”

Laura blushed a little. “Uh ... well ... we were up until ... I guess it was close to two in the morning.”

“Two in the morning?” Celia said incredulously. “Madres de Dios, Teach. And you had to get up at ... what? Five-thirty or so?”

“Five-fifteen,” she said sourly.

“Well now,” Celia said, shaking her head a little. “I guess you had a lot of fun then.”

She nodded, a mischievous little smile on her face. “Yeah,” she said dreamily. “There was a lot of fun to be had last night.” She looked around as if to see if anyone was listening in on their conversation and then, in a low voice: “It wasn’t just me and Jake that had fun.”

Celia’s eyes widened. Is she talking about what I think she’s talking about? “Really now?” she asked, her voice low as well.

Laura nodded. “Do you remember me telling you about ... you know ... the little agreement that Jake and I have?”

“You mean ... uh ... the agreement about you being able to ... uh ... explore the softer things in life?”

“That’s the one,” Laura said. “And ... uh ... last night ... we had a guest over.”

“A guest?” Celia asked, interested. She is talking about what I think she’s talking about. Holy Mother of God! “When you say ‘we’, do you mean that Jake was there too?”

“He was,” she said.

“Wow. Who was the guest?”

“If I tell you,” Laura whispered, “you have to promise to keep this to yourself.”

“Of course,” Celia promised. “Is it someone I know?”

Laura nodded. She took another quick look around and then leaned a little closer to Celia. “It was Molly.”

Celia was surprised, and more than a little aroused by this revelation. “Molly?” she whispered. “Eric’s landlord? The one we met on Christmas?”

“That’s her,” Laura said. “She came over for New Year’s Eve dinner.” She smiled. “And then we had dessert.”

“So ... Molly is bisexual?”

“Uh ... well ... a straight-up lesbian, actually,” Laura said.

Celia nodded. “I thought there was some kind of weird vibe between you and her on Christmas. So ... you and she ... you know?”

Laura nodded. “That’s why I’m so sore,” she said. “My hoo-hoo feels like it’s on fire. And my nipples ... holy God, they hurt every time I walk or move my shoulders. She must’ve sucked on them for an hour, even bit them a few times.”

“Wow,” Celia said again, feeling herself getting a little wet now. “And where was Jake while this was going on?”

“Well ... Molly was okay with letting Jake ... you know ... watch us.”

Celia’s eyes got wider. Her wetness got wetter. She suspected her nipples were now standing up. “Jake watched you?”

Laura nodded again. “Just the first part,” she said. “He even participated a little.”

“Participated?” This was just getting kinkier and kinkier by the second.

“I gave him ... you know ... a blowjob while Molly was ... uh ... down below doing her thing. And then, when it was my turn to do that to Molly ... he talked me through it.”

“Talked you through it?”

“I’d never done it before,” Laura said. “And Jake does it all the time. He’s very good at it.”

Yes, he certainly is, Celia thought, remembering that night in Portland. “And Molly was ... uh ... okay with that too?”

“She seemed a little taken aback by it at first, but she got into it pretty quick.” She smiled proudly. “I made her come, Celia. It was so ... so... erotic.”

“You liked uh ... doing that to her? Eating her out?”

“Yeah,” she said dreamily. “She was clean, and smooth-shaven, and dripping wet ... and she smelled really good, like me, kind of, but different. It was really hot to do that. After the first time, Jake let us be alone.”

“Really?” Celia asked. This was kind of surprising to her.

“He did,” she said. “He was a real gentleman about the whole thing.”

I didn’t know that was in the gentleman code, Celia thought, but she saw Laura’s point ... kind of.

“Anyway,” Laura continued, “once Jake left the room, we spent another ... God ... two hours or so in there, just doing everything that two women could do to each other.”

Celia was getting even wetter as she imagined all the things two women could do to each other. And Molly was an attractive woman. “Strap-on dildoes?” she whispered, letting one of her deep, dark fantasies slip out of her mouth.

“Uh ... no, not that,” Laura said. “We didn’t have one. But she did teach me how to ... you know...”

“No,” Celia said. “I don’t know.”

Laura blushed a little more. “How to ... uh ... trib.”

“Trib?” Celia asked. She had never heard the term before, could not even begin to imagine what it meant, but was quite intrigued. “What’s that?”

Another quick glance around for eavesdroppers. Another lowering of the voice. “It’s when a woman gets on top of another woman while they’re naked, like in the missionary position, you know, face to face, boobs to boobs, and then they ... well ... we rubbed our pussies together.”

“Wow,” Celia whispered, envisioning this. “And ... this felt good?”

“Not as good as when Jake is ... you know ... fucking me, but yeah ... it felt really good, having a soft body on top of me. She ground herself into me just like she was a man but spent a lot more time kissing me than a man. I think her tongue was in my mouth for like ten or fifteen minutes straight. It was nice. Different. Made me come something fierce.”

“Madres de Dios,” Celia said.

“Anyway,” Laura said, “it turns out that Molly really likes to suck on my nipples. That’s why they’re so sore. And my hoo-hoo got a pretty good workout too, what with all the eating and licking and tribbing. And then there was Jake after Molly finally left around one in the morning.”

“Jake?”

“Well ... yeah,” Laura said. “He was pretty geared up after Molly left. He came in and spent another hour fucking and licking me before we finally went to sleep.” She took another look around and then leaned a little closer. “A funny thing. He wouldn’t let me take a shower or even brush my teeth before he did it to me. He said he wanted to smell and taste what I’d been doing. Do you think that’s a little ... uh ... depraved?”

“No,” Celia said, speaking without thinking.

“No?”

“I think it’s really hot,” Celia said.

“Really?” Laura asked, surprised.

“Really,” Celia said, knowing that she was going to have to break out her dildo as soon as she got to her hotel room.

Laura smiled. “Good, because I thought it was pretty hot too. I just wanted to know whether or not I was depraved.”

“Maybe a little depraved,” Celia told her. “But it’s a good kind of depravity.”

Laura thought that over for a moment and then nodded. “I guess I can live with that.”

“What happens now?” Celia asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well ... when you get home from the tour, are you going to see Molly again ... you know ... that way? Is Jake going to be there if you do? Will this be an ongoing thing?”

Laura shrugged. “We didn’t really talk about that,” she said. “Not me and Molly or me and Jake. Molly knows I’m going to be out on tour for at least the next three months, but what happens when I come home just never came up.”

“I see,” Celia said, knowing that if what had happened to Laura had happened to her, she would be endlessly worrying about what came next.

“I guess we just see what happens when I get home,” Laura said. “Maybe it will happen again, maybe it won’t.”

“What about while you’re out on the road?” Celia asked next.

“What about it?”

“Well ... are you going to be doing the sort of thing you did in South America? You know ... when the tension gets a little high?”

Laura smiled. “I have Jake’s permission to relieve my tension in that manner,” she said.

“So ... you’re going to do it then?” Celia asked, fascinated by this whole conversation.

“Yeah,” Laura said. “I’m going to do it. Not every night, but when I start to feel the need.”

“I see,” Celia said again. “Well ... good for you.”

“Hopefully, it is,” Laura agreed.

At 7:25 PM that evening, Celia and her band were backstage at Miami Arena, all dressed in their stage clothes and watching the countdown clock above the stage left door tick down the last five minutes before showtime. As planned, there had been no opening band. Celia’s performance would be two hours and thirty minutes in length, with one twenty-minute intermission at the one hour and ten-minute mark. Outside, on the arena floor and in the stands, seventeen thousand, five hundred and eighteen fans waited with varying degrees of patience or impatience, their babble of overlapping conversations clearly audible to the band. The tickets for this show (as well as every show in the first leg) had sold out within two hours of being offered for sale two months before. Not a single fan out there had paid less than seventy-five dollars for a ticket. Most had paid considerably more.

Celia’s outfit was a simple one. She wore a pair of black slacks that were form fitting to her legs and bottom, a silky maroon spaghetti-strap top, sleeveless, that displayed only modest cleavage but did form to her breasts quite alluringly. On her feet were a pair of black Nike cross-trainers which, while not the ‘sexy shoes’ that many female performers favored, were very practical for a two hour and thirty-minute concert. Her long dark hair was flowing down her back, neatly and professionally styled by Gloria Rodgers, one of three hairdresser/cosmetologists employed by the tour, and held in place by a significant application of super-hold hairspray. She had no makeup on her face, as she was pretty enough to go without it and the hot lights and aerobic exercise would have caused it to run by the fourth or fifth song anyway. Her fingernails were cut short so as not to interfere with her guitar playing, and were painted a shade of maroon that exactly matched her top. She was feeling the familiar sensation of stage fright common to all performers, especially on an opening night of a new production. At the same time, she could not wait for the timer to count the rest of the way down so she could step out on that stage and start performing.

Laura was sitting in a chair just adjacent to the stage left door, next to an ice chest full of Gatorade bottles, just in front of a staging area where Celia’s and Little Stevie’s guitars (three for Celia and four for Stevie) sat waiting, each one under a label describing the particular tuning of the instrument and which songs they were intended for. Her stage outfit was a dark-green and white summer dress that fell to just above her knees and outlined her figure quite nicely. She had a pair of white sneakers on her feet, her legs bare. Her hair had been done in a single tight braid that fell down between her shoulder blades. Like Celia, she had no makeup on her face. She was feeling a fair amount of stage fright as well, particularly regarding the five-minute sax solo she would perform to open the second set. Though a veteran performer of the Bobby Z tour, that had been some time ago now and she had never performed for an audience of this size. Still, they had rehearsed this show extensively over the past two months and they were as dialed in as they could possibly hope to be. She too was eager to get out there and start playing, but she would have to wait a little longer than everyone else. There was no saxophone in Playing Those Games, the opening number.

She glanced over at Eric, who was standing next to her, his DZ Strad Model 800 acoustic violin in one hand and his freshly rosined bow in the other. A small wireless microphone was fastened to the body of the instrument, just underneath the strings between the two sections of the bridge. It was mated to a receiver that was plugged into the primary wireless receiver attached to his belt in the small of his back, which then transmitted the signal digitally to the amplifier (Laura, Celia, Little Stevie, and Charlie all had similar setups, differing only in how the signal got to the receiver). He was dressed pretty much as he always dressed: in a pair of black jeans, black shoes and a black button-up shirt. His hair had been neatly styled, however, and he looked almost handsome. His eyes, like always, were cast downward, but he had an almost serene expression on his face.

“You ready for this, Eric?” Laura asked him gently.

“Good to go,” he said with a nod.

“Really?” she asked.

“Really.”

“What about ... you know ... the anxiety?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t have any at the moment,” he told her.

“None?” she asked in disbelief, wondering if he was actually on the verge of some sort of breakdown.

“None,” he confirmed. “I don’t get anxiety about performing in front of an audience. It’s not a social situation.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s not,” he said. “It’s a performance. And I love to perform with my instrument. It’s one of the only times when I’m truly free of the fear. I can’t wait to get out there.”

“Oh ... I see,” she said. “That’s very interesting.”

“Isn’t it?”

The timer ticked down to zero. The house lights went down. Seventeen thousand plus fans began to cheer in anticipation. The band, minus Laura, walked out onto the stage and took their places. A spotlight came on, illuminating Liz as she played the opening notes of Playing Those Games. The audience, recognizing the melody, cheered even louder. Eric began to play as well, accompanying Liz for the opening, stepping close to her so the spotlight illuminated him as well. And then another spotlight came on, this one focusing on Celia, standing front and center on the stage, no guitar in her hands. The cheers grew louder. She walked up to the microphone stand and began to sing the opening verse of the piece into the wireless mic. When she reached the part where it went up-tempo, the rest of the stage lights clicked on, illuminating the entire stage. Little Stevie began to grind out the primary riff. Coop began to pound on the drums. Celia pulled the microphone out of the stand and began to strut around the stage, singing out the lyrics into it. The audience, most of whom had been standing ever since the lights went down, danced and waved their arms in the air to the rhythm, a good portion of them singing along.

Laura watched from her spot near the stage door, her nervousness ramping up a little as the tune progressed. And then, when Playing ended (to a deafening roar of crowd approval, the likes of which she had never heard before), she stood up. Jory Black, one of the stagehands, was holding her alto sax in his hands. He gave it to her. She turned her back to him and he switched on the receiver attached to the back of her waist. He then patted her on the shoulder.

“Go!” he told her.

She went, stepping out onto the lighted stage and taking her position. Rog, another of the stagehands, was running back off the stage after delivering Celia’s twelve-string to her. It was time to play. She had no further time to think things through. Coop gave her a four-count with the drum sticks and she began to play the opening melody for The Struggle. The crowd expressed its enthusiastic approval of this tune as well. She played her notes with flair and expression and she played them well, feeding off the energy of the crowd.

Jake is right, she thought as she swayed and gyrated to the rhythm while Little Stevie ground out the guitar solo, this really is the best part of being a musician.

The first set went off without a hitch. They played a mixture of Celia’s tunes from the first two albums and the new one, staying away from the very biggest hits like Why? or Should We Believe?, saving them for late in the second set and the encore. They played I Love To Dance, the biggest hit from the La Diferencia days and the only tune in the show that Celia did not write herself (on the last tour, she had refused to do it, but Jake had talked her into it for this tour since there was considerable audience demand for it, and they had lots of time to fill). They closed the set with It Never Happened, the current Top Ten release from the new album. As with all the other songs, much of the audience sang along with her on Never as she played her guitar and sang.

The house lights came up and the band stayed in the stage left area, drinking Gatorade and cooling down a little. Everyone was sweaty from being out under the hot lights. Laura felt trickles of perspiration running down her back and she knew there was a sizable wet spot on the back of her dress between her shoulder blades. Celia actually had to sponge off her armpits a little. Eric was the sweatiest, since his black clothes were soaking up the heat more than anyone else. A few high fives were passed around, but conversation was minimal. They were in the groove and they knew it. There was no need to discuss anything.

“All right,” said Larry when the clock ticked down to less than thirty seconds. “It’s time for you to do your thing, Teach.”

“I guess it is,” she said, her nervousness now back. She stood and took her instrument from Jory once again (he had polished it during the intermission break and it was now gleaming). She turned her back to him and he turned on her receiver. The countdown clock reached zero and the house lights went down. The audience began to cheer once again.

“Go!” Jory told her, slapping her on the shoulder again.

She went, strolling out onto the stage alone. A single spotlight illuminated her and her saxophone and the cheers grew louder. She stepped to the center of the stage, just to the left of Celia’s microphone. She began to play the five-minute solo she had rehearsed up.

She played it flawlessly, not missing a single note, her timing and phrasing exquisite. The audience loved it, cheering loudly throughout, particularly in the middle, when she was playing with an increasingly rapid tempo and really blasting out those notes like a machine gun. She brought the tempo back down slowly, playing out a lengthy, sorrowful piece for about thirty seconds and then she went back up-tempo for the finale. Once the last note was played, she held her instrument aloft in triumph and basked in the deafening applause and cheers, feeling them wash over her.

They love me, she thought wondrously, her body flooding with dopamine and endorphins, her unconsciously self-administered reward for playing as she did. They really do love me.

Celia and the rest of the band came back out on stage while the audience still cheered. Celia gave her a big hug and then walked over to her microphone.

“Laura Kingsley on the alto sax!” she yelled into it. “How about that, huh?”

Another wave of cheers for Laura washed over her. She could not help but grin.

“Is she badass, or what?” Celia asked the audience.

The audience agreed that she was badass.

When the decibel level died back down to reasonable again, Celia, who had just been handed her 12-string acoustic by Rog, stepped back up to the microphone. “All right now,” she said. “Thanks for sticking around for the second half of the show. We’ve got another hour or so worth of music to play for you.”

Another wave of cheers.

“We’re going to do another song from the La Diferencia days now,” Celia said. “This is one of the songs that I wrote, one of the songs that didn’t get a lot of radio airplay back then, mostly because those putas that run the recording industry wouldn’t let me play it the way I wrote it and didn’t bother trying to promote it. Well, here it is now, the way I meant it to be played. I hope you like it.”

A four count by Coop, and they launched into Bring Me Home, one of the deep cuts from La Diferencia’s last and least successful album. On that album, the tune had been recorded with the primary melody played by a synthesizer, the backbeat played by electronic drums, with very little electric or acoustic guitar, no saxophone, and the tempo at one hundred thirty instead of the eighty to one hundred it was meant to be performed at. Now, there was no synthesizer at all. The primary melody was Celia’s acoustic guitar, with a secondary melody by Laura’s sax and frequent alternating and harmonizing fills by Little Stevie’s distorted electric, Liz’s piano, and Eric’s violin. The drumming and bass were natural and set the beat authoritatively. Much of the audience had never even heard the tune before and those that had probably had not cared much for it. But they loved it now. Though there was not as much singing along as other tunes, it was obvious from the cheers and the clapping along with the beat, that they approved of the new rendition.

After Home, they went on a five-song set of the hits from the first and second Celia Valdez solo albums, ending it with Done With You, which was rounded out by an extended session of dueling solos between Laura on her alto sax and Eric playing his distorted electric violin. From there, they played two more songs from the new album followed by Carabobo from the La Dif days, and then finishing out the set with Should We Believe?

They exited the stage once again, listening to the stomping of feet, the clapping of hands, and the shouts for “More-more-more!”

“All right,” Celia told her band after five minutes. “Let’s bring it home!”

They brought it home, stepping back out and performing a three-song encore consisting of What Is Love? from the second album, Audacious, from the new album, and Why?, from the first album, which was Celia’s biggest hit of her solo career.

The band took their bows and left the stage for the final time. The house lights came up despite the renewed calls for more. The show was over, and the audience began to file out of the arena, most of them wishing there had been more.

Dinner after the show consisted of roasted tri-tip, asparagus spears with a cheese sauce, garlic mashed potatoes with gravy, a small vegetable lasagna for Charlie the vegetarian, and a cheesecake for dessert. There were the usual tubs of beer, bottles of red and white wine, a small bar stocked with hard alcohol, ice, and various mixers, and a stash box filled with high-grade marijuana and a pipe.

Laura drank down another bottle of Gatorade and then poured herself a healthy slug of chilled chardonnay. She then stuffed the pipe full of ganja and took a few rips of it before passing it around. Coop, Little Stevie, and Liz all took a few tokes. Charlie smoked some of the weed too, but he rolled his own joint as he was too germophobic to participate in the communal pipe ritual.

Everyone ate their dinners and then it was time for showers. Laura, Celia, and Liz all took turns in the female dressing room, where there was only one shower, while the boys got through things more quickly since there were communal showers in the male dressing room. When they returned from bathing, the requests had been delivered. There were only two groupies on this first night, one for Coop and one for Charlie.

They made their way out to the chartered stretch limousine and piled inside for the short trip to the downtown Miami Hilton, where suites had been reserved for all of them.

“Feel like a little drink in the bar?” Celia asked Laura as Coop and Charlie headed upstairs with their groupies and the rest of the band filtered off in different directions.

“No,” Laura said. “I’m gonna go call Jake and then crash out.”

“I understand,” said Celia, though she seemed a little disappointed.

Liz and Little Stevie ended up joining Celia in the bar for a few nightcaps while Laura headed up to her room.

“How was the first show?” Jake asked her when she got him on the phone.

“We nailed it,” she told him, smiling at the memory. “It was probably the most exciting performance I’ve ever done.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said dreamily, taking another little puff on the joint she had brought with her. “More than seventeen thousand people in the audience, sweetie. It was so loud. They had so much energy. And when I did my solo ... it was just ... awesome. Listening to them cheer for me. For me!”

“You blow a good horn, hon,” Jake told her.

“I really do,” she said, as if just realizing this. She smiled again. “I only wish I was there to blow your horn right now.”

He chuckled. “You know what to do when you the pressure gets high,” he told her.

“I know,” she said. “But it’s not there yet. Besides, I’m still pretty sore from last night.”

“It was quite a night, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” she agreed.

They talked for a few more minutes, said their ‘I love you’s’, and then hung up. Laura did not promise to call him tomorrow, though she knew she probably would. Jake had a deeply rooted complex about promising to call every night. Laura understood. He had told her the story of Angelina, the girlfriend he had had when he left for the first Intemperance tour all those years ago. He had promised to call her every night when he left. He had never spoken to her since and still felt a considerable amount of guilt about that.