Chapter 8 Part 1
G-note was quickly on the move again. They traveled to the next stop on the itinerary, Chicago with little incident outside of doing some local press before the show.

Dylan was not necessarily sad to be leaving L.A. to continue touring even though it was the site of his second home. The city was quickly becoming a bad memory for him. When he was there he though of Khrystine, and his thoughts turned from intrigue, confusion, and anger as he discovered an inability to connect with her on any level. She had no trouble relating to that Derek Thompson.



“You’re just bummed because you couldn’t sack her, if you’d gotten her, you wouldn’t be thinking about her now,” said Ant.

“Nah man, she’s special,” said Dylan softly.

“Special because she’s the first girl you’ve wanted but haven’t bagged since G-note, am I right,” said Ant.

“No. I, I think I like her a lot, but she doesn’t appear to like me,” added Dylan.

“’Course she doesn’t like you. You’ve met someone adept at your own game. She’s a playgirl,” said Larry Saucily.

“You don’t know that. That could be just a picture, people just take pictures all the time,” added Dylan.

“Well if it is just a picture, you sure seem mad about it,” said Larry.

“I’m not mad,” said Dylan running his hands through his hair.

“Yeah you are,” said Larry.

They continued talking about it before the show, and Dylan realized that this was the first time they had a conversation about a woman that extended beyond anatomy. He felt hot faced and ashamed. Khyrstine probably belonged with someone like Derek, instead of him he didn’t deserve her.

The show that night was off. Dylan knew it was because he was thinking about Khrystine. The last time he’d played Howling Woman she was front and center. And he wanted her to be his howling woman, though he knew that this was not the most pure thought.

“Man you were off tonight,” scolded Larry.

“I know, and I’m sorry man,” said Dylan sipping his beer.

“Don’t worry about it, happens to the best of them,” said Larry.

“Even AC/DC,” asked Dylan playfully.

“Yeah, even AC/DC. Man I’ve got just what you need. Come on, put that axe away,” said Larry pointing at Dylan’s Guitar.

He followed Larry, stowing his guitar in the dressing room.

Larry waved ant over who was escorted by three vivacious women, one blonde, one redhead, and one brunette.

They were wearing too tall hair, too short of dresses, and too much makeup for his taste. Funny that he never though that before, but there was none of the elegance to temper the sexiness. That was what Khrystine had, elegance to go along with all that kittenish sensuality. Their hair was overteased, they’d probably used 10 cans of hairspray collectively. Khrystine’s hair was beautiful and looked as though you could just walk up to her and run your fingers through it. He was doing it again, thinking of Khrystine. She was becoming the standard by which he judged everything, and she didn’t know he was alive.

One of the women pulled her bubble gum out twirling it around her finger.

“So we leaving or what?” she asked one of the women.

“Yeah babes, right away. Dylan’s been feeling kind of down lately, so I hope one of you ladies can be really, really nice to him. Why don’t the one of you’s that think you can be the nicest to him keep Dylan company,” added Larry.

“NO,” said Dylan firmly as the blond took Dylan’s arm.

“What’s the matter Dylan, come on, the security guard says they missed half the show just to come and meet us,” said Larry.

“You ladies want some autographs. I’m really tired. We just flew in from L.A. and,”

“Come on Dylan, one little drinky poo? So I can tell all my friends I had a beer with Dylan Taylor,” asked the blonde.

“Oh alright, what can it hurt. Budweiser it’ll be,” said Dylan.

Ant had called the limo service, and the service brought them back to The Libertarian, the five-star Hotel where they were staying.

Dylan did not like the idea of the girls going back to the hotel with them. He didn’t want to reinforce the image of G-note being a band with lots of groupies anymore. He wanted to be a different man, interested in more than just quick encounters with strange women. But he felt depressed because Khrystine had rebuffed him.

The blonde that was supposedly keeping him company clung to his arm and ran her finger over the bridge of his nose. It didn’t give him the jolt it usually did.

“Quit that,” said Dylan softly, hoarsely.

“What’s on your mind anyway?” asked the girl.

“You wanna know what’s really on my mind,” asked Dylan.

“Yeah,” said the girl, snapping her gum.

“How much I’d rather be somewhere else with a very special person,” said Dylan.

“I’ll be all the special person you need tonight,” promised the blonde girl.

***

Dylan never remembered leaving the limousine. He must have been totally smashed by the time they arrived back at the hotel room. His temples throbbed and his throat felt parched.

Worse, he could hear someone was loudly playing music in another part of the huge hotel suite.

He didn’t quite feel like opening his eyes, but he could see through his eyelids that he’d left the light on.

He opened his eyes slowly determined to shut the light off without staring directly into the light, thus aggravating his pounding headache.

His dulled senses could not prepare him for what he saw.

“Wow Dylan, you could sleep through anything,” said a femine voice.

He rubbed his eyes and realized she was the woman from backstage, and the limozine.

“What are you doing here?” asked Dylan.

His stomach felt sick. It wasn’t an entirely unusual situation to wake up in bed beside a strange woman for him, but that was pre-Khrystine. Whether he could win her to his side or not, he wanted to change, become a more virtuous man, one who had more inside of him than empty philandering. This woman beside him represented a failure of his dream, even if his senses were too dull to remember what happened between them.

“I’m keeping you company. You kept calling me Khrystine. But my real name is Megan. And I never got my autographed,” chuckled Megan.

Boy, she sounded as spacy as they came.

“When was I calling you Khrystine, I don’t remember any of it,” added Dylan.

“Well you seemed pretty out of it. Don’t worry about it, it comes with the territory. I mean, I’m with Dylan Taylor, and that’s the stuff dreams are made of, so I don’t really care,” added the Blonde.

How could he ask her what occurred between the two of them. If something did happen between the two of them and he didn’t remember she was likely to feel insulted. If something didn’t happen, she might think he wished it to occur. Would she be truthful about it either way if he asked? And if he’d been irresponsible enough not to remember what happened, if something did happen, he was probably not protected.

God, He didn’t deserve a woman like Khrystine. She was still crying over her dead boyfriend like an innocent. He knew she’d never do anything like this. He felt dirty and disgusted with himself.


“I, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Well, it’s nice meeting you Megan, even under these circumstances,” added Dylan.

“Yeah, you too. I want you to sign me,” said Megan.

She started to lift her blouse.

“Woah. Let me find some album or something and I’ll sign that,” added Dylan.

“You know, my girlfriends told me you were really wild. Maybe you are just out of it. You seem pretty tame to me,” added Megan.

Dylan shuffled through the drawers until he found some promotional materials.

“I did used to be more wild. But something changed. Here,” he said handing her signed glossy photos and a few promotional cds.

“This is weird megan, but goodnight,” said Dylan shaking her hand.

“That’s it?” asked Megan.

“Well, yeah. I need to go back to my own suite,” said Dylan.

The music was getting even louder and Dylan could have floated to his suite by himself on the sheer propensity of the smell of the smoke. G-note had rented the entire floor at the Libertarian during their stay, but the noise from the party was beginning to get so loud that his own ears rang. He heard a crash and a bang, and knew that a very expensive piece of furniture had been broken.

As he was exiting the suite, hotel staff was preparing to enter the suite.

“Mr. Taylor, we’ve gotten complaints about the noise. Would you mind telling me what’s going on in there,” said the staff member.

“I’m not quite sure myself. It’s just a party that’s gotten way out of hand. I’m going to my own suite. Feel free to say whatever you need to say to anyone in the room,” said Dylan stepping aside.

He washed his hands of the entire mess. While he loved his bandmates, and enjoyed the music, the crazy party lifestyle they tried to drag him into constantly was beginning to wear on his nerves. He was irritated at himself for waking up finding himself in bed with a strange girl, and even more irritated that he’d had more than one too many beers and his performance would be suffering tomorrow for sure.

He wasn’t gonna ever amount to anything worthy of Khrystine, and maybe his press was more accurate than he gave them credit for. Maybe all he would be cut out to be was a hardheaded playboy rockstar. He certainly made all the wrong decisions and tried to absolve responsibility for him. Khrystine was tea in the Hampton’s, and he was beer at the redneck motorcycle club. Didn’t matter what the staff said to g-note, or if the hotel called the cops, they weren’t gonna change. Could he change for the better?

***

- posted by Mahogany @ 3:50 PM