Chapter 11: The First Show Coming Soon

Everyone met as usual, in the kitchen, the next morning. Bob and Janell were the last to arrive and when they walked into the room hand in hand there was more than one surprised look.

"G'mornin'," Jan said cheerfully to everyone. She walked over to the counter and filled the two cups that were left there and brought coffee to her lover.

She set it down in front of him, then leaned in to give him a quick kiss and a whispered, "Thank you." Then moving around the other side of him, kissed Heather a bit more meaningfully, and whispered to her, "Thank you Hey, it was wonderful."

Heather smiled at her putting a hand to her back and giving a light "rub" letting her know she felt good about things.

Jan moved around the table giving everyone a quick peck, then settled in the chair between Maryanne and Michelle. A distant look appeared on her face while she slowly sipped on her coffee.

"Well, you look like you've had a good time Miss Janell," observed Chelly with a smile.

Jan just turned and nodded to her with a smile. Everyone knew to just let her revel in what she was feeling. All the girls were happy for her. All but Maryanne had experienced Bob by now, so both Heather and Chelly knew exactly how Jan was feeling this morning, but because it was totally new to her they knew her feelings right now were hyper intense. Heather and Chelly just smiled at each other knowingly, while Jan just drifted further into space sipping her coffee.

Maryanne and Bill just looked at each other with a smile. It was apparent they had also had a good time "in the studio", ahemm, listening to music. Uh huh.

There was the usual bantering around the table between everyone. Bob and Heather got up and started to invade the cupboards, and refrigerator for some breakfast fixings which they put on the stove, in the oven and worked at preparing together.

They were hip-to-hip at the stove and Heather looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was paying attention to them. Seeing everyone involved in something else, Hey whispered to Bob with a wry smile, "So?"

"She's a very passionate lover Hey," he said softly with a smile. "She could make a man very happy."

"A man huh?" she retorted quietly with a grin. "How about you? Could she make you a very happy man?"

He gave her a serious look, "Yes Heather, she could make me a very happy man, but I'm already spoken for by a woman that I am deeply in love with, and Jan doesn't feel the desire to totally give up girls."

Heather, understanding what she had just heard, squeezed his arm a little and kissed him tenderly. She needed to let Janell know that she was welcome to Bob when she felt the urge, and that she wouldn't object to joining them. Telling Heather that Jan was a passionate lover wasn't breaking news.

They sat around waking up and eating their morning meal before heading off to the gym then to work.

That's what Bob called it, but the girls considered it fun. How could life be better? They were looking at making a living doing something they truly loved. It was just a matter of getting the revenue stream started, and Bill had that clearly under control.

They wandered up to the studio about an hour later, each noticing there was a new, permanent sign installed prominently over the entry door. Smiling brightly, they all looked at Bob nodding their heads in approval.

"The Girls Playground" was now the official name of their studios. It was also going to be the name of their recording company. They were all beaming with pride. Bob just smiled.

"Ok ladies," Bob said in a mock commanding voice, "It's time to go to work." He made the sound of a cracking whip, which caused them all to giggle.

There was never a problem getting the girls to practice. They loved their music and could immerse themselves in it every day without getting tired of it. Knowing 1200 songs they wouldn't repeat that many, but for now they were working on the 200 they had chosen for the first tour. In their opinion the music was never "perfect" so it needed to be worked on, even after Bill came and said it was perfect then played the final mix for them.

Maryanne was extending her already incredible talents to engineering and production. Bill had taken her under his wing ... yeah, yeah ... showing her how production and mixing is done. After a few sessions with Maryanne, Michelle joined them to learn some production skills.

Right away Billy knew he was going to have a problem with Michelle, but it was the kind of problem he wished was common instead of so rare. Her ear was much too good. She heard little things that really make no difference in the final outcome, so he was going to have to teach her "discretion" and "temperance" or she'd end up driving musicians up a tree. Most of those things her ear picked up, Bill could hear eventually, but he really had to listen closely but it was all good!

The recordings got better and better, and Bill held back the finals until he had about 6 weeks' worth of "practices". Every now and then he'd come into room three and sit watching. Then when they took a break he'd ask one or more of the girls to come down to the "Fill" room for a quick re-run. It was usually very quick, and the girls didn't mind doing it, even if Bill didn't use it in the end. They heard and understood the results of their efforts.

Michelle was also quickly mastering her incredible array of new synthesizers. Maryanne had mastered all of her new things including the keyboards and synths that Bob had ordered for her. During some downtime she taught Bob to play the saxophone, and started working on the flutes.

Janell asked for and received a couple extra "special" tom-tom's and a wood block xylophone, to work a few of the numbers on the list. She'd also added 4 sets of bongos to the mix having a custom stand built for all 5 sets. She played them with sticks giving them a popping sound that was unique. Maryanne also had the quad bongos, but she beat them with her hands giving them a different sound than Jan's. When they played them together it made for a very unique sound that they actually worked into some of their Santana music.

When any equipment was enhanced, it was done 5 times, two sets that would go on the road with them. One set in Playroom number two, one set in Playroom number three and at minimum the drums in Playroom number one, which was the fill in studio. Playroom number one also contained identical synthesizers as well as most of Maryanne's instruments. The only instruments that were usually carried into Playroom one were the guitars that Heather and Bob played.

Finally the unveiling was going to be done. Eight weeks after the girls moved to Bob's, Bill had enough music to make their introductory album a double CD set. Twenty-six tunes played and mixed perfectly. There was going to be a bonus CD with the set, which consisted of a twenty-five minute medley of old Beach Boys music. Of course, surfer girl Janell loved retro surf music, and really, so did everyone else but had never considered putting the medley on an album.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here, but as it happened, the Beach Boys medley was one of the most popular sets they ever did and had to play at least part of it at almost every show. It turns out there are a whole lot of people who like retro surf music.

Billy already had a test CD of the set, which he brought to the house one afternoon. The "gang" was in practice mode working on the instrument pass off medley. It was a bit strange, but they were getting it little by little.

Bill hit the button on the intercom making the red light flash in the studio so everyone would know that the intercom was live.

Since Janell was facing the booth window directly, she saw Billy and the flashing red light so she stopped playing, making everyone else look at her.

"What's wrong Sweetie?" Bob asked quickly.

"Intercom and Mr. Bill," she grinned, pointing a stick at the window.

Bob knew what it was that Bill wanted, so he just waved to let him know to go down to the house and set everything up. They'd be down in about 15 minutes.

Well that practice session was duly over. Bob filled the room with high praises on the progress they were all making on the switch-a-roo they were working on.

Michelle was having problems with the guitar parts, but she was doing great with everything else, so Bob was contemplating changing the routine to where Chelly didn't have to do any guitar until she was comfy with it.

He mentioned it while they were coming down from their session, and everyone nodded their heads saying it might be a good idea, then all looked at Chelly who was tearing by this time feeling like she was letting everyone down.

It was Heather that walked over to her, wrapped her arms around Chell, and whispered something into her ear. Chelly looked up at her with surprise on her face then started to laugh hysterically looking at the whole group. We'll never know what it was Heather said, because neither of them would say, but it broke the tension that Chelly had put on herself.

"Chell, you're not letting anyone down," Heather said aloud taking her leader roll. "I know that's what you're feeling, but get that out or your crazy little head. We can all see that you are making an honest effort trying to learn the guitar. It's just not working for you yet. One of these days you'll pick the thing up and it'll all fall into place. Don't worry about it."

Michelle looked at everyone with anxious eyes, but received nothing but warmth, love, and respect for her effort.

"Chelly there is nobody in this room, including Maryanne, that can play those keyboards like you do. You are a master of those things. You think it's been simple for me to try to play those damned ivories? I've spent my life with a guitar in my hand. It's frustrating, I know! I know that sooner or later I'll get the keyboards down, but I'm having the same problem with your instrument as you're having with mine!"

"Yeah, but everyone else is learning everything else, but..."

"Don't worry about it. We can change the medley routing so that you don't have to do guitar until you are comfortable with your ability. I think we all want you to keep trying, and I'm happy to work with you and so are Bob and Maryanne. Just keep trying sweetie, you'll get it. You'll never hear criticism from any of us as long as you're trying."

Michelle looked at everyone smiling at her, and said very softly, "Sorry guys."

"Nothing to be sorry for honey," Bob interjected. "Let's go listen to some music!"

Janell put her arm around Michelle and when Chelly looked to her, put a soft, loving kiss on her lips and when the kiss was broken, they were both smiling and looking at each other lovingly.

"It's fucking me up to Chelly," Janell lamented. So you keep paddlin' on one side and I'll keep paddlin' on the other. Sooner or later we'll get the damned boat going somewhere in a straight line."

Chelly just looked in her eyes with a huge grin, kissed her lovingly and arm in arm they headed down to the house with everyone else.

Bob had the distinct feeling that Janell had a bed partner for the night. With the exception of Bob, Janell still seemed to be more comfortable with girls. It wasn't anything the others worried about. It's part of what love is all about.

When they got into the house they migrated quickly to the "music room" which Bob had set up for listening. It was just acoustically neutral so the sounds coming out of his vintage McIntosh stereo equipment was as pure as possible.

Bill had everything set up with fine wine for everyone already poured and placed. He smiled at everyone as they entered, and just asked, "Is everybody ready for this?"

Everyone nodded their heads, so Bill sat down with the remote for the CD player and waited for everyone else to find a seat and a glass of wine.

Everybody had been noticing over the weeks of work that Bill and Maryanne seemed to be "sweet" on each other so it was no surprise to anyone when Maryanne practically sat in his lap.

The other girls chuckled, and Bob just ignored it as Heather had done nearly the same to him.

Maryanne looked around the room and defensively asked, "What?"

"Don't worry about it Annie. We're all happy for you and hope that whatever it is, works out," said Michelle. Then looking at Billy finished, "For both of you."

Both blushed brightly at being "caught" but they looked at each other and smiled.

Bill hit the play button on the remote and the test CD started to play. About half way through the first song, the girl's mouths were all hanging down and their eyes were darting around to each other like they didn't believe what they were hearing. Billy was a fucking genius!

Bob just nodded his head and smiled. This is what he had heard on that crappy demo tape that Sara had passed on to him a few months ago. He heard this potential on that tape, and now some of that potential was being realized.

"Shit," he thought with a smile. "These Girls Can Play"

The album was released three weeks later and jumped to the top of the Billboard top 100-album list in less than a month. Word of mouth got around and many of the progressive radio stations were featuring their music every day. They all seemed to play the Beach Boys medley disc at least once a day. It was some of the most popular music the girls did.

Music lovers everywhere were scooping up the album in droves. Much of the music hadn't been heard in a lot of years, and it was refreshing to hear the new vocals with the original music. In some cases even the original artists were lauding how good it all sounded and that some were even better than the originals.

The company that Billy and Bob had formed to manage and release the CD, "The Girls Playground Music, Inc.", featuring "These Girls Can Play", struggled to manufacture enough copies to meet the demand. They had to farm out most of the manufacturing and got to where they were shipping 75,000 or 100,000 a week for a short time.

Worldwide acclaim was "demanding" the girls do a world tour at some point. Bob had to seriously consider that prospect, as outside of the USA they had sold 12 million copies to add to the 8 million in the states.

That was the first month and a half. The CD's were flying off the shelves as fast as the shops could put them out. Nothing had ever sold like this in the history of recorded music.

Once the CD was on the market, it was very apparent that a tour was going to be well received, even by the pissy assed critics. They were always waiting to rip up a new group, but there was nothing to rip, and their credibility would have gone into the toilet if they had started badmouthing the girls.

A couple had tried to pan the album, but with the public acclaim, and all the positive reviews the band was getting, the naysayers promptly changed their tune. It was reported that one even got death threats.

When the girls heard about that, they made public statements about this being a free country and the critics could say anything they wanted and shouldn't be threatened just because their opinion was different than someone else's. Of course they were wrong, but still entitled to their opinion.

Chelly and Janell really fronted the free speech effort. Heather was too worked up and pissed off about the whole thing and let Chell and Jan know that it probably wouldn't be a good idea for her to go out and talk to the press.

At one conference that the two had attended they really said what they wanted, and let the assembled masses know that it would be the last words they would speak about the incident.

"We've said it before and we'll say it again one last time," said a frustrated Chelly. "Everyone, including the critics is entitled to their opinion. This is supposed to be a free country that allows diversity of opinion. You, we, or anyone else may not agree with the opinion, but they are entitled to it."

"We don't expect everyone to love us," Janell added. "It's music and some people don't like the style of music that we do. That's fine; actually, both Michelle and Maryanne are trained classical musicians. On occasion we do play some classical music privately and they've both taught Heather and me some of the finer points. Do I personally like classical music? It's not my favorite, but that doesn't give me the right to threaten someone who does. That's just plain ludicrous."

"Nobody is forcing anyone to listen to our music," Chelly said. "If you don't like what we do, change the fucking channel for god's sake, and please, don't come to our performances."

"We're sorry if you don't like our music, but it's who we are and what we enjoy doing, so we're not going to change just because someone doesn't like us."

Janell looked at Chelly and started to laugh. Chelly looked at her and said, "What?"

Janell stuck out her tongue at her and said, "I don't like you. Nyah, nyah."

With that they both about fell over laughing at each other, but they'd made their point.

Jan looked at the crowd of reporters and tried to put it in some perspective for them. "Folks," she said. "It's purely economics. If you weren't buying our albums, or coming to our upcoming performances, which are already sold out by the way, then we couldn't afford to continue doing what we love and sharing it with all of you. Crap, we'd all have to go out and get real jobs. How depressing is that?"

This started everyone laughing. Then Janell put the final touches on it by saying, "Bottom line really is you can't go around threatening someone just because they don't like us or our music. I mean, come on. Grow up!"

With that the conference was over. The two of them turned around and left. They'd said what they had come to say, plus a little more, but they'd left everything on an up tone. When they got back to the ranch, Heather came up and hugged both Chelly and Jan thanking them for taking care of things.

"No problem Hey," said Chelly. "We just went out and told them like it is. Nobody is forcing anyone to like us. We really don't give a shit. Well, we didn't say it quite like that, but you get the picture."

"Yeah, maybe you should have said it that way," Heather laughed.

"Naw. No reason to cause other issues while trying to bury a different one," Jan added with a smile.

Bob came in one afternoon with a big grin on his face, and all the girls noticed immediately. It wasn't unusual for Bob to have a smile on his face, but this one looked like he'd just swallowed an oversized canary.

"What?" asked Chelly.

"Yea what," echoed Janell and Heather together?

Bob looked at them and laughed. They couldn't figure out what was funny, but they knew to just sit and patiently wait for him to spill out whatever it was that he was eating canaries over. So they just calmly made good eye contact with him without saying a word or showing anything on their faces.

"You guys are no damned fun at all," he chirped.

With an even voice and a totally straight face, looking right at Chelly, Heather shot back, "That's not what you said last night, Bucko."

All the straight faces disappeared into laughter, which got even heartier when they looked at Bob to see the look on his face.

Looking around the room with a smile while they stopped laughing, he said, "I'm glad you're all seated," he started taking a chair himself. "I just got the sales numbers that were almost up to date two weeks ago, and I just wanted to tell you that each of your bank accounts has increased by about four million dollars in the last six weeks. There's a lot more to come because that only covered the first three weeks and the next three will at least double that. That will catch us up to a few weeks ago."

Bruised jaws were the order of the day. All four of the girls were flabbergasted with the news.

"Sixteen million, Bobby?" Maryanne choked out.

"No, actually it's twenty-two million Maryanne. Four million got put into my account, and two into Bill's," he said with a grin. "And I don't really need the money!"

Laughing hysterically Michelle managed to squeak out, "Well in that case, you can put an extra million in each of our accounts."

With a serious look on his face Bob said, "I may just do that Chelly, it'll be easier on me at tax time."

"I was kidding Bob," Michelle retorted.

It was Janell that caught the discrepancy in the numbers asking, "Bobby, how come Billy only got two and we all got four?"

He looked at her and shrugged his shoulders saying, "I dunno, Jan, that's usually the cut for the producer. He gets more from other sources that we don't get and because he's part owner of the record company too he and I reap benefit from that."

"But isn't he doing as much work as everybody else?" Jan continued.

"Yeah, I'd have to say that's a fair observation. He's the one that's taking everything and making it sound professional but it's you guys that are playing the instruments. Bill knows what his cut is and he has no problem with it. Like you four and me, he loves his job and as you have found, he does it very well."

Then looking around the room and seeing a level of approval in the others eyes, Jan said, "Don't you think we should be giving Bill an equal share?"

Bob looked at her with a blank stare, but nodded saying, "If that's what you all want to do, that's what we will do. I agree with what you are saying, but what we did was what they refer to as 'Industry Standard'."

"I don't give a shit about industry standard Bobby," Michelle vehemently retorted.

Hearing agreement from around the room, Bob held up his hands and asked them directly, "Is that what you want to do? Give Bill an equal share?"

They all looked at each other, and then nodded to Bob with smiles.

"Okay, it's a done deal. I'm sure Mr. Bill will be very appreciative of your generosity!"

"Now here's something else. Billy and I are making oodles of money running the studio and the recording company. There are residuals there that you all don't see. Thus far you guys haven't seen a penny of that either so should Bill and I consider including a share for you in the "business side" of things? You are an important part of the overall business. Like, without you four, we'd be back where we were sitting around looking for something to do."

Maryanne, who had been quiet previously because of her budding relationship with Bill, said quietly, "I think that's up to you and Bill, just like it was up to us to change what we thought is fair to pay him. I'm not unhappy with what you said our banks look like, and I'm certainly not greedy. It's more money than I ever dreamed I'd have, and I also realize it's only the first check."

He looked around the room noting each face, and then said, "I'll talk to Bill about it. I think I'm right, we wouldn't be doing what we're doing without you four, so it only seems fair..."

Then as an afterthought, "Hell, Maryanne, when was the last time you saw him?"

Maryanne blushed but with a frown answered, "It's been at least two weeks now since he said he needed to go to LA for some monitoring of something or other. He's trying to keep someone honest and he hopes this is the last trip for now."

Her face immediately brightened significantly and she told them, "I did hear from him last evening, and he said he'd be here sometime today."

"Good, I need to talk with him," noted Bob.

"Can we take today off Bobby?" Maryanne asked with a wry smile. "We've been working really hard."

"I think that's probably a reasonable request Maryanne. We've all been concentrating so much on our rehearsals we've neglected the rest of our lives," he commented looking right at Heather, who returned his gaze with a lusty grin.

It didn't go unnoticed by the others, as they started with the "noise". Maryanne didn't participate to loudly because she knew Billy was going to be there and she just wanted to drag him off to her room for a bit of a romp. Does the word horny ring any bells?

Let's talk about the girls for a few minutes. I've already said that all four of the girls are absolute foxes, but I've really only described Heather in some detail.

This may be some repeat information, but let me give another brief description of the other three women that make up the band.

First will be Janell, beautiful Janell. She's your typical southern California surfer girl, with long, straight, sandy blonde hair, dark tan, with powder blue eyes that would melt titanium with little effort.

Not overly chesty, Janell probably has large B breasts over which she rarely wore a bra under the usual T-Shirt while at home. Because of the activity behind the drums, she always wore a fairly tight sports bra, usually in hot pink, when practicing or playing. Actually, her "uniform" while playing was kind of the band "joke", but she didn't care, she played her heart out and it showed.

She was the shortest of the girls, at 5'6" with a perfect body just like the others. I'd guess she weighed maybe 110 lbs, and had an incredibly pert bubble butt, Bob's favorite. Her legs were fairly long which served her well behind the drums.

She was also in incredible physical condition and had an arm and hand strength that was at least the equal of many men. Playing like she does, I'm sure her cardio conditioning is also excellent. She plays a two-hour set and isn't even breathing hard at the end, and let me tell you, she is extremely active while playing, so while not panting, she's soaked. In a standard 3 set show, she normally drains about a gallon of Gatorade, and at least the same in bottled water, probably more.

Sadly, at least from a man's standpoint, Janell is a gay woman. Well technically she's bi-sexual now but still prefers girls. She says she hasn't found any men in her life that she wanted to have that kind of relationship with. Bob was an exception, but with his hooking up with Heather she just accepted that "it wasn't going to happen." She was very surprised when Heather came to her and offered Bob. She'd never thought of the "sharing" aspect that Heather and Chelly had already worked out. Technically she was still a virgin until Bob rocked her world, and she continues to make regular visits to Bob's bed. Not as regular as Heather and Chelly, but more than you might expect from a seriously gay woman.

Michelle Tejano, is the girl that really started the whole thing. Well her mother did anyway, but Michelle is, like Heather, a tall woman at about 5'9' and probably weighed in at 120 lbs.

She had naturally red hair about shoulder length most of the time, and blazing green eyes. Her complexion, like most red heads, was very light and you were most likely to find Michelle in the shade of an umbrella when hanging out at the pool with the rest of the girls. She used SPF 10,000 when she was in the sun, but rarely spent a lot of time. She actually would tan eventually but strangely, unlike the other girls, a tan looked out of place on Chelly. I guess it was the red hair.

Like Janell, Chelly wasn't real chesty. Her breasts were probably in the range of small B's, and her ass, like the others, was to die for in Bob's opinion.

Chelly and Heather shared Bob most of the time. When either needed some physical attention all she had to do was say something to the other, and Bob would find one of them in the bed that evening. The other would just enjoy the pleasures of Janell and/or her SO, Terri, most of the time. Both spent many nights together with Bob and contrary to what most would think, the sharing never caused any issues at all, even when Janell became a regular part of the mix.

Saying Janell is "gay" is kind of a misnomer. All four of the girls were bi-sexual. The other three preferred men, but wouldn't turn down a woman. Michelle will tell you that Janell is the best, and the others just nod their heads in agreement. While nobody takes that admission as an affront, it's obvious they have all had a close sexual relationship for many years. Even Maryanne and Bill confirmed that relationship with the other girls did not change.

Speaking of Maryanne let me expound a little on her since she's going to be very naked very soon.

Maryanne Ellis, Annie to the girls, but no one else. If anyone else referred to her as Annie, they got a dark dirty look. Both Bob and Bill could get away with it but rarely pushed that button. They knew of her feeling about someone other than the girls using the name and in deference to those feelings chose not to.

Maryanne's another tall girl at about 5'8" with a body to die for. I wouldn't even try to guess her weight other than to say it has to be perfect. The rest of her was very proportional to her height and weight.

Her breasts were at least C's and most probably a D cup and she was one that had them tied up in a bra every day. Very rarely did you ever see Maryanne without her "over shoulder boulder holder". She always said, "I don't want them bouncing off my knees when I'm older, so I'll take good care of them now."

And she did. Billy was happy!

Her legs were perfectly shaped and long, very long. She didn't have a long torso like some women, and her ass, like the others was to die for.