Los Angeles: December 9th, 1996
"Alright, alright... Calm down, everybody, let's just take it again, okay?" Marc heaved a sigh as he leaned back from the sound board and tugged his headphones back on. The recording engineer gave him a look, then shook his head.
Dance was fuming in the studio. "Again? Why fucking bother? Let's just forget it."
Cal hung his head, his fingers held away from the strings of his guitar, jittery and nervous. He didn't say anything.
"It's all good, okay? We'll just take it again from the top. Okay, whenever you're ready."
Dance shook out her dreadlocks and shot a glower in the direction of the recording booth. She sat down, took a deep breath, and started playing. Little whispers of wire sticks across her drum-head.
Cal leaned forward so that his hair fell completely over his face. He was bent over like a cripple, clutching to his guitar like a drowning man. He touched the strings, started to play and fumbled.
Dance sighed and started again.
Cal frowned, then tried again. He made it full thirty seconds into the song, then his hand slipped.
Dance leaped up, clutching her stick tight. "That's it!" she shouted, "We're done! Taking a break. Cal needs a break, okay? Come on, Cal."
"I'm okay," he muttered, adjusting his headphones and mic. A single tear slipped down his cheek and dropped off his chin.
Marc sighed. "Dance is right. Let's call it for the day, alright? We can try again tomorrow."
"Fuck that," Dance muttered, tossing her stick across the room and sweeping her headphones off. She gave Cal a quick hug and Marc another glare, then left the studio.
The recording engineer sat back, arms crossed and face impassive.
Marc killed his mic. "Well, we got the first three songs down, at least."
The engineer nodded slightly, and popped the chewing gum he'd been keeping tucked in his cheek during the session. "Guess so."
"We'll have better luck tomorrow."
The engineer gave him a look.
"What? Give me a break, man. It's an off day."
The guy shook his head. "Not sure your boy here is ready for the big time, boss."
"Oh, fuck off," Marc growled, tossing down his headset on the boards and getting from his chair. He went down the three steps and opened the padded door leading into the studio.
Cal hadn't moved a muscle since Dance left.
Marc touched his shoulder, and he flinched a little, but then leaned into him, resting his head against Marc's hip.
"What's going on, Cal?" Marc murmured. "I've heard you play this song, what? Half a dozen times, and you never had any trouble. I don't understand."
It wasn't just the one song, either. They had been in the recording studio for almost five hours. Getting the clean recordings of the three songs they had managed had only been accomplished after dozens upon dozens of takes. For some reason, Cal just couldn't play his songs.
"I don't know..." Cal said, his voice a horse whisper. "I don't know..."
"Can I help somehow... is there something you need, or...?"
Cal shook his head. "I don't know what's happening, Marc, I just... I keep freezing up. I've never recorded anything before and it just feels so... permanent. It keeps throwing me off, I just... I can't get out of my own head..."
Marc crouched down. He brushed Cal's hair back off his head. There were tears running down the young man's cheeks, trembling on the lashes of his ice blue eyes like melting snow about to drop from the branches of a naked tree in spring. His lower lip quivered slightly. Marc leaned forward and kissed him softly on the forehead.
Cal sniffed. "I'm letting you down... I'm letting everybody down. I don't know what's wrong with me..."
Marc shook his head. "Hey, come on. You're not letting anybody down. We're here for you, remember? So you're having an off day, whatever. It's not the end of the world. We'll give it another shot tomorrow, you can do it. You just need some rest."
"I can't do it... I don't know why, I just... can't..."
"Cal, forget it. Stop worrying, okay? You're just psyching yourself out. Come on. Let's get out of here. Get some rest. We got a show to play tonight, just focus on that. I promise it's going to be fine."
"What if it's not?" Cal lifted his gaze, his eyes finding Marc's and holding them in a surprisingly intense stare, a look of fear and desperate anxiety. "What if I can't do it? All this... performing, playing on stage, playing for Roger, recording in this studio... it's not me, Marc... What if I can't do it?"
"What do you mean it's not you? Of course it's you! You're a natural, Cal! You're the best goddamn musician I ever heard, and you're going to be a great big star someday, I know it. This is all just growing pains, and you're going to make it through this. I'm here for you, I'll help you, okay?"
Cal nodded reluctantly. "Okay..."
Marc clapped him on the shoulders. "That's what I'm talking about. Come on, let's get out of here. It's late, I'll buy you dinner."
Cal wiped his nose on his sleeve and nodded again. "Okay."
Marc wrapped his arm around Cal and led him up and out of the studio, out into the pale gold Los Angeles dusk.
* * *
The show that night was listless and uninspired. They played, but there was no fire, no life or joy in it. They moved through the set, one tune after another, dispassionately mechanical. Cal played well enough, but without verve, lurking at the back of the stage and playing with his head down. Not that the rest of them were much more engaged than he was; even Marc had found it difficult to summon up his usual enthusiasm on stage.
Dead. Inert.
Marc thought of what Cal had called their new album when they had first met, all the way back in Washington all those weeks ago. He'd been right, and now he was getting sucked into it, fossilized with the rest of them.
Roger's critique of their performance was somewhat less restrained than that. "Fucking pathetic! You looked like a third-rate high school cover band up there!" he'd railed, popping Vicodin by the fist-full as he dressed them all down. Nobody really argued back, they all knew they'd done poorly.
There was only one more show to go, and Marc could not wait for it to be over and done with. He'd collect his bonus for finishing the tour intact, pay off his debts and find somewhere to unwind. He would bring Cal with him, the two of them alone in Marc's mansion with nothing to do all day but make love and play songs.
He'd given Cal a copy of his room key and told him to come up to visit. Cal had blushed, but he'd nodded and taken it. Marc wondered what he might be imagining would happen, and he enjoyed it.
He wanted to write more, too. Not Cashmere songs, he was done with that, he'd decided. That was what had been holding him back and blocking him for so long. He needed to break away from Cashmere, it wasn't him anymore. He was going to refocus, find something new. Just him and Cal, playing together. They'd set up a little recording studio in the house, cozy and intimate, not like the big flashy LA studios. It would just be the two of them, nothing else getting in their way.
He'd had a dozen more song ideas since that night outside Vegas, all bouncing around in his head just waiting to be unlocked. He couldn't do it on his own though, he needed Cal. Soon. Soon this would all be over, and they'd be free.
He needed to cut his ties to all of this, he'd realized. Cashmere was the past, and the past could be a weight on you if you chose to drag it along after you all the time. He needed to put it behind him, find something new.
A future.
So he accepted Roger's scathing words calmly, without argument. Nothing could get him down now, because he had something which he hadn't had in a very long time: hope.
He wandered backstage on his own after the show, watching the crew take down and pack up all the equipment. Chuck tipped his hat and lifted his cigar at Marc as he passed. "Good show, boss."
"Thanks, Chuck."
The old crew chief shook his head. "Can't fucking believe we made it through this shit."
Marc laughed. "Another tour done, eh?"
"Don't count your chickens, boss. Still have San Francisco."
"San Fran's a piece of cake, Chuck, always is. We own San Fran."
"Ten years ago, maybe," he grumbled.
"What's changed?"
Chuck shrugged. "Nothing, far as I'm aware. But who knows? Just don't fucking jinx us this close to the finish."
Marc rolled his eyes. A lot of musicians were superstitious, only wearing a certain pair of socks all tour or always crossing the stage from the left or whatever the hell. The roadies were ten times worse, however. It was their own little world, their private mysticism that extended beyond the band itself to encompass the whole enterprise of traveling rock shows.
Chuck went off shaking his head, yanking at straps and tie-downs to make sure they were entirely secure, and bellowing furiously at everyone around him whenever he came upon one which failed to meet his standards.
Marc stepped up onto the stage, by now cleared of equipment and crew. An empty space. A holy space. He looked out at the vast empty area where the audience had once been.
This is what he lived for, to see these great empty places in the world filled up with people, all of them there for a single purpose, a single mission. This was his temple, his church, his real home.
He could never give it up, no matter what happened. He wasn't ever going to leave it for so long again. Eight years, unplugged from all that energy. It had drained him, left him weak, a husk. Cal had brought him back, but this was what he was living for, this place and those people who were drawn to it.
"What do you think, Mr. Warner?"
"Just Marc, Jordan. Nobody who's seen me drinking beer naked gets to call me Mr. Warner."
"Sorry, sorry. Marc." The sound guy said, rubbing his arms nervously.
"What do I think of what?"
"The mix. I've been working on it, and I think we really had a good balance tonight. Seemed tight." He bounced a little on the balls of his feet.
"The mix was great, Jordan. Sounded tight."
He grinned. "Thanks, Mr., uh, Marc. One more show to go, I think it's going to go really smoothly. The mixing, I mean, the sound."
"I'm sure it will."
He nodded, half to Marc and half to himself as he turned and hurried off the stage.
Marc left too, heading towards the other door. Wanda was backing up here things in the green room, putting them all back in her bag one item at a time.
"What are you still doing here?" he asked.
She pursed her mouth. "Could ask you the same question."
"I asked you first."
She rolled her eyes. "Oh my God, you're such a little boy sometimes."
"Aw, come on."
"Well, you are."
Marc flopped down in the big chair where she had applied his makeup and outfit only a few hours before. "What did I ever do to you, darling Wanda?"
"You want to find someone to do your cosmetics without bitching at you, be my guest. You want it done right, you deal with me."
He sighed dramatically.
The truth was, he was starting to think that the makeup had run its course. When this tour was done he was going to retire it. Even if Cashmere played again, which he was beginning to doubt it ever would, that Marc Warner was taking the stage for the final time in San Francisco. He was ready to put aside the mask and let his naked self stand before the crowd.
Wanda zipped up her bag. "Goodnight, Marc."
"Night, Wanda."
Then she left and he was alone again, his mind whirling with a thousand ideas for the future.
* * *
Roger was waiting outside his hotel room, a bottle of wine under his arm and two glasses between the fingers of his uninjured hand.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Marc asked, eyeing Roger inquisitively as he opened his room door and let the guitarist inside.
"You're seeing me off," Roger said, stepping through the open door. He set the glasses down on the bedside table and poured two rather sizable drinks.
"Am I? Why's that? You're going somewhere?"
Roger shook his head. "Too many questions, Marc. Drink first." He placed a glass in Marc's hand and threw back his own, chugging the entire contents in one long swallow.
"Are you supposed to be doing that?" Marc asked wryly, sipping his own glass rather more slowly. "Mixing alcohol and medication like that?"
Roger flopped down on the bed, snatching up the bottle and pouring himself another. "My God, Marc, when did you start worrying all the time? Was it always this way and I just forgot about it, or have you gotten timid in your old age?"
"Get your fucking shoes off my bed, Roger."
Roger grinned, and kicked off his tall leather boots. They thumped to the floor. "You know, I'm going to miss this. I didn't before. I thought this whole thing was going to be a pain in the ass."
"Wasn't it?"
"Of course it fucking was! A goddamn nightmare, really. But I'll miss it all the same."
Marc stood against the wall with his arms folded. "So why are you leaving?"
Roger made a face. "Come on. I can't keep tagging along, dragging this thing behind me." He waved his bandaged hand. "It's torture, watching you up there while I'm hovering on the sidelines like an invalid. Anyway it's almost over, and my home's in LA. I'll just stay here. There's nothing left for me to do. San Francisco's an easy gig. The kid will do fine without me hanging around. Nothing left for me to tell him, at this point. I'm not needed here anymore, Marc."
"You're still Cashmere, Roger. I love Cal and he's doing a great job, but he isn't you. This is the Cashmere reunion tour, and it's not Cashmere without you."
Roger took a long slow sip of wine. The blood red liquid sloshed in the glass. "Is it really, though? I mean, it's us, but we're not who we were back then. We're not the same. The band isn't the same, no matter how much we might try to pretend it is. Sometimes you can't go back. It's just... I don't know. You're the singer, you come up with a metaphor."
Marc sat on the end of the bed. "I know... I've been thinking the same thing. Something like that, anyway."
Roger sighed deeply. "I don't know. Here we are. We have all these...old times. But what's the point, right? Why bother." He drank straight from the bottle, not bothering to fill his cup again. He passed it to Marc and Marc drank.
Neither of them said anything. They just sat and listened to the silence.
"How long did you know about Joanna?"
"I don't know. Not long. I caught her on a bad night. Just came out."
Roger shook his head. "Poor thing. You know how bad?"
"I asked her; she wouldn't say. She's just said 'it's cancer,' which I guess says it all, really. Can't exactly be good."
"No, I suppose not... Why do you think she didn't tell me?"
Marc shrugged. "I don't know. Still loves you, maybe? Didn't have the heart to break the news."
"Come on. Don't go all sentimental on me. I hadn't seen Joanna in years. We lost touch a long time ago. There's nothing there."
"Not nothing, Roger."
He shrugged. "Water under the bridge... for all three of us, I suppose."
"I guess so."
"You ever think about what might have happened if we didn't break up back then?"
Marc snorted. "We would have fucking killed each other, are you kidding? You remember how it was back then."
Roger laughed. "I suppose you're right. But what if we hadn't? What if we'd been able to get over all that. Take a year off, maybe. Think of all the fucking music we could have made."
Marc lay back on the bed, breathing heavily. "I didn't have any music left in me, Roger. Not a fucking thing. I was tapped out. I don't know, maybe that was, in part, anyway... Maybe that's why we fell apart like that at the end. Maybe it was my fault."
"Well, of course it was your fucking fault, Marc, Jesus. I didn't realize that was ever in dispute."
"Come on."
"It was always about you, Marc. You were the center of all this. We'd never have gotten together in the first place if not for you. Never would have played a single song."
Marc leaned back, looking up at Roger. "You really think that?"
Roger just cocked an eyebrow and grinned.
"Huh."
"Anyway. I think it's time for me to go. You guys go play a good show for me, alright? I'm staying here."
"Alright then. If that's what you want." He sat up, facing the far side of the room.
"It's what I want." Then, after a moment, Marc felt Roger's hands on his shoulders, then sliding down his chest. He felt the other man's warm breath on the back of his neck.
He looked up at his reflection in the window before him. Roger had come across the bed on all fours and was looming over him like a great spider, his hands around Marc's shoulders and his mouth lowering towards his neck like a vampire about to bite. He shifted away a little. "What are you doing, Roger?" he snapped, a flash of annoyance surging through him. He was going to try and pull this now? After being so distant and acrimonious the entire tour long?
"Oh, come on Marc. One more for the road. Since we're here, talking about all the old times, and all..." Roger reached out and caught March's shirt, his fingers circling the buttons.
Marc grabbed Roger's hands by the wrists, holding them in place. "I don't think so. Like you said. What's the point of trying to get the old times back? They're gone."
Roger sighed. "Wow. You really do have it bad, don't you?"
"Meaning?"
Roger let his hands drop to his sides. "Your new boy. He might not be Cashmere, but he's yours, isn't he?"
Marc didn't say anything, but he could feel his jaw set.
Roger took another swallow of wine. There wasn't much left in the bottle, and Marc had only had a glass or two himself. "You're really going to turn me down for the sake of that pipsqueak? After everything we've been through? Everything we've done together?"
"Roger, you're drunk."
"Well, I may very well be, but I'm not entirely sure what difference it makes."
"You should go back to your room and sleep it off."
"Or maybe I should sleep it off right here," he said, slurring loosely as he slipped towards March, wrapping a hand around behind him. Marc leaned forward to help steady the guitarist, just to keep him from landing on his ass. Roger reached up, hands moving incredibly quickly, and he clasped Marc's face and pulled it against his own for a hard closed-mouth kiss.
Just then, at the worst possible moment, the hotel door swung open. Why the hell would room service be coming in now of all times? Then Marc remembered the key that he'd given to Cal, and the invitation he'd extended.
He tore himself away from Roger, breaking off their kiss only a fraction of a second after it had begun. But he was too late. Cal stood in the doorway, key in hand, paler than usual as he watched Roger and Marc inside the hotel room.
He dropped the key and just like that he was gone.
"Goddamn it..." Marc ran to the door, disentangling himself from Roger with a frustrated groan. By the time he got there the hallway was empty.
* * *
He searched for hours, up and down the length and breadth of the hotel with no sign of Cal. He asked for their room number at the front desk and ran up there to pound on the door. Either they were out or they weren't answering.
God, what if they were gone? Back in their silver van and off to Texas, or who knew where. Gone into the vastness of the great American wild.
And he would be alone again.
He trudged back to his room, cursing himself for being stupid, cursing Roger for being drunk, cursing Cal for misunderstanding. How could he think Marc would do that? After everything they'd been through together these last weeks.
They should have stayed in that house in the desert outside Las Vegas. Should have thrown their clothes out the window and let the tour move on without them. Just the two of them lost in the wilderness forever.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd been that happy. Just alone with Cal, touching him, playing music, holding each other in the long night.
It was no good. He looked everywhere, with no results. His search exhausted, he slumped through the lobby. A hundred unfamiliar faces walked by, a hundred unknown voices talking. Fake palm trees lined the halls, fake art hung on the walls. He sank into a couch and watched the people go by, holding out hope that he might see Cal among them, might get a chance to explain. It was so fucking stupid, he could clear it up in thirty seconds. Nothing had happened...
"Why so sad, cowboy?"
He leaned back, laying his head on the couch cushion. Joanna stood behind him, looking down with her head cocked to one side. "Oh... you know. Just the usual."
"That bad, huh?"
"Afraid so."
She came around and sat beside him. "What's troubling you?"
He shook his head. "Forget it. My problems are nothing compared to yours."
She snorted. "Fuck, I'm sick of talking about my problems. Sick of being poked and prodded and sobbed over."
"Sorry."
"Forget it. At least you had the decency not to try and screw me right, unlike some I could name."
He laughed bitterly. "Roger?"
She made a face.
"Christ, he's had a busy night."
"What's that mean?"
Marc explained, briefly.
She just shook her head and muttered under her breath. "Bastard, I wasn't even his first choice..."
"Do you think it was a mistake, Jo? All of this? Getting back together?"
She laughed. "After all this time, this close to the end, you're still asking that question?"
"Well, I still don't know."
"It was good, Marc. We got another chance. We got to be heard one last time. We all got to live again. And you met Cal. It wasn't all bad. A lot of it was good."
"I guess you're right..."
She nudged him. "You know I'm right."
"It all just feels so final. Before there was always this hope, this possibility. Like, oh, we could always get back together some day, do it again. Now we've done it, and... it's like... another possibility exhausted. Another chance missed."
"We didn't miss it, Marc. We took it."
"I just wanted... more. I don't know. I don't know what I expected."
"You expected to feel like you were twenty-two again. We all did, I think. I know I did."
"And?"
"And I feel like a forty-five year old with cancer. Nobody gets to go back, Marc. We have to move forward, have to make something new. Look at you and Cal. That's something new."
He sighed.
She nudged him. "What? I thought you were crazy about the kid?"
"I am. That's the thing."
"What do you mean?"
He hesitated, then gave voice for the first time to his deepest fear. "What if I'm not... good for him? What if I'm not right?"
"Come on! You're... well... you're Marc Warner. Kids like Cal fantasize about being with you. You the person that they dream about."
"Maybe I used to be."
She reached over and gave his arm a squeeze. "You still are, Marc. You always will be. Cal's lucky to have you. And you're lucky to have him. Just be happy."
"I hope you're right."
* * *
Marc sat alone in the recording studio, watching the hands of the clock crawling slowly around. The engineer was out to lunch. Cal and Dance were nowhere to be seen. The tour bus was leaving in ten hours.
Marc looked down at the spooled tape in his hands. He turned the plastic cassette over, listening to the clack of the heads in the body, feeling the weight of it. He read the words scrawled in black marker across label strip. Wilderlands Demo, Day 1. It was increasingly looking like there would never be a second day.
He went to the tape deck beside the coffee machine and slid it in. The sound engineer had compiled the three successful takes, winnowing them out from the days many failed attempts. He pressed play, and poured himself a cup of coffee. It was only lukewarm, but he hardly cared. He stirred a sugar cube into the dark liquid, poured a little dollop of cream in and watched the white swirl into the black.
There was a hiss in the speaker, then three clicks. Then Cal's voice came from the speakers, fragile and tender and soft.
"I'm not what I am. I'm what I've lost."
The guitar strummed a low chord, and the somber drumbeat came shivering in. Marc tapped the spoon on the side of the glass and set it aside.
"Forget what you hold, just let it go. I'm waiting for you and I need you to know. I'm yours."
He lifted the mug and drank slowly. The music washed over him, raw and hissing with the sound of the recording equipment, but the magic was there. It transported him now just as it had in the bar in New York, all that time ago. It was just as powerful, as potent. It wasn't a great recording, but it had captured something at least of the band's fragile majesty. It was still great, even divorced from the live performance it still had real power. They need to get more songs on tape, Marc decided, no matter what it took. Wilderlands couldn't be allowed to slip through the cracks.
"I turned away and I saw you there, and your brown eyes they met my stare. We were children in a kingdom of rain and fire both, and you were the thing that I needed the most."
"Where's everyone else?"
Marc turned. Cal was standing behind him with his guitar under his arm, hair shaggy and messy over his eyes. His clothes were rumpled and slept in, his eyes downcast.
"The engineer's out to lunch. As for Dance, I was hoping you would know," Marc replied. "I haven't seen her anywhere since yesterday." Marc hit the stop button on the tape player, and the sound cut out. Nothing left but the hum of electricity moving uselessly through the speakers.
"She was feeling a bit upset."
"Cal, let me explain."
He turned away. "You don't have to explain."
Marc stepped towards the younger man. Cal flinched a little, clutching his guitar case like a life-float. Marc felt something heavy inside him, a descending weight that tore at his spirit. He stayed where he was. "Yes," he said softly, "I do have to explain. I have to explain, because nothing happened that night. What you saw... it was nothing. Roger was drunk. He came onto me, and I told him to go sleep it off. He was so wasted, he tried hitting on Joanna after he left. What you saw was just bad timing, Cal."
"Oh." His voice was soft, but Marc thought it sounded hopeful.
"I love you, Cal. I love you more than anyone or anything I've ever loved. It kills me to think that something I did hurt you. It kills me."
"Marc, you don't have to-"
Marc interrupted him, crossing the studio floor and taking Cal in his arms. He squeezed him in a firm hug, then reached up to touch his cheek. He brushed Cal's hair back and stared into the younger man's piercing blue eyes. "You and I were meant to happen, Cal. Destiny written in the stars, or wherever the hell it gets put down. I'm yours. I'll always be yours. I've never wanted anybody else this much, never felt so close. It feels like I've known you all my life, like everything before this was just a prologue. It was just waiting for you. You make me feel like I'm alive like I've never felt before, like I've never been. I'm yours, Cal. Only yours."
Cal's eyes were sparkling with tears, diamond bright and swimming. He laughed, a watery and teary laugh, and he reached up to touch Marc's face, mirroring Marc's own posture. He shook his head a little, an amazed expression on his face. "Could you just shut up and make love to me?" he whispered through trembling lips.
"I thought you'd never ask," Marc murmured, drawing Cal close and pressing his mouth to Cal's.
They sank to the floor of the studio, wrapped in each other's arms as the world around them faded into nothing, like a fog burning away in sunlight. They kissed fiercely and deeply, clutching at each other, pulling at each other's clothes with clumsy urgency.
Marc's jacket fell to the floor, and his shirt, and Cal's shirt after it. Cal sank down onto his back and Marc lay down with him, their lips never parting. Their skin seemed to burn when it touched, a painless searing flame that leaped from one man's breast to the others. Marc's hands wrapped around Cal's naked back, caressing his taut and firm sculpted figure, his muscular beauty and lithe strength. He felt Cal's hands fumbling at his belt and pants, and then at his own. He pulled Cal close. He had never known a joy more total and complete then to have the other man's bare skin against his own.
They started breathing hard, their lips parting and coming back, brushing together.
Cal finally managed to pull Marc free from his pants and he gasped, in a kind of erotic agony as he clutched at Marc.
Marc slid his hands down Cal's back, slipping into his loose unfastened pants, holding his bottom squeezed and cupped in his hands, pulling him tight and close as he kissed him hard. He felt his eyelids sinking, drifting down as he slipping into a blissful sexual trance, a place beyond thought and being. A frame of mind of pure action and reaction, a sensual other-worldliness.
"I've always loved you, Marc," Cal said, struggling to speak.
"Don't talk," Marc whispered, drawing his hands out so that he could hook his thumbs into the waist of Cal's pants and drag them down.
He felt Cal's hard cock against him and he reached down to take it in his hand. It was smooth and slender, average length, with a crown of curling dark hair at the base. Marc's hand closed around it, shuffling up and down in smooth long strokes, holding it awkwardly between their bellies as Cal did the same for him.
They seemed to be in tune with each other, their bodies aligned on a level beyond the physical. The seemed to anticipate and respond to each other's movements and actions before they happened, simply knowing what the other would do.
Everything went gray and hazy and indistinct. Like being the edge of a dream, standing on the border between waking and sleeping. Like slipping into a hot bath while steam rose up around you in white clouds. Passion and love enveloped them like the folded wings of their guardian angels entwined.
Marc reached down lower, touching Cal there. Cal stared up at him, his blue eyes half-lidded and warm, inviting. His legs parted, his cock pressed down against his chest, pinned between their bodies. Marc entered him there, and a groan slipped from his lips. Cal's face twisted, and his laced his fingers together behind Marc's neck and bit down on his lower lips. He nodded, urging Marc in deeper.
Marc pushed his hips forward, filling Cal. Taking him.
"Don't stop... don't stop..." Cal murmured, the words spilling unbidden from between his lips.
Marc had no intention of stopping. He felt a delirious twisting pleasure surge through his entire body, like someone was pouring lightning in his bloodstream. He started to move, rocking back and forth gently, one hand sliding around to cup the small of Cal's back as the other grasped the younger man's cock.
His thumb moved in slow circles over the head of Cal's cock, stroking the sensitive glans as a thin clear liquid gathered at the tip and slid down. Cal's entire body arched, his head lolling back, eyes shut and mouth open as he panted and moaned, clutching at Marc and urging him on, faster, deeper, harder, more more...
He was like a porcelain angel, his body gleaming with a thin sweat, smooth and alabaster pale. Marc kissed his throat, the curve of his jaw, the lobe of his ear, his neck.
Marc could not find the words for the way he felt. There were no words, there was only this moment, and every moment across the span of his life. In that instant it seemed to him that all of his life had been leading to this very moment.
He is in his bed, covers pulled overhead. Eleven years old with a Sears catalog clutched in his trembling hand. The flashlight held under his chin quivers, light flickering. Vague half-lit images of women, breasts filling their cotton brassieres, the mons curve between their thighs. And the men. Sculpted chests, strong stubbled jaws and powerful arms. Their white cotton briefs bulging, seeming hardly able to contain what mystery there is beneath the tight cloth. The air is hot and close, his breathing fast. His hand rustles urgently beneath his pajama bottoms, faster and faster. He has been fearfully silent, all too aware of his parents sleeping in the next room, but now at this last moment he finds the urge of his body too intense to restrain. The bed-springs creak and groan, the covers shake and rustle. His breath comes in long moans and gasps of breath. His eyes shock open and the muscles in his legs tense. Something is happening to him.
He is in the men's room at the Sacramento club. Seventeen years old, standing at the urinal with one hand on the wall and the other hooked through his belt loop. Throbbing rock music crushes through the thin walls, like a vast pulsing beast, a herd of rampaging bison thundering by. He's sweaty and exhausted, his limbs surging with youthful energy. He still feels like he's dancing, still quivering with energy. The door swings open, clattering against the wall. He glanced over, sees the face of the boy he'd been dancing with. A young man in tight leather pants with motorcycle patches on his jacket and the faintest shadow of a mustache on his upper lip. Marc doesn't move as the guy stands there, but he can feel the other man's eyes on him. He hears the creaking of the leather pants and the sound of shoes on the tile floor. He feels hands on his hips and he doesn't move. They held each other while they were dancing, and stared into each other's eyes. He feels a hand slide around his waist and reach down to hold him.
He's twenty-six, lying tangled in a pile of warm male bodies in the back of the van after a show.
He's thirty-one, waking up in a hotel room next to a man whose face he doesn't know.
He's thirty-six, banging a fan in the stairwell because they couldn't wait to get back to the hotel room.
He's forty-three, looking at the man kneeling in front of him and pulling his zipper down.
He's forty-seven, and he's making love to Cal on the floor of the studio.
All at once, all together. They are with him always, somewhere buried inside. Every man in a dim ghostly echo, always whispering to him. And there is Cal. Just Cal. None of the rest matter anymore.
Marc shuddered, his body begin to relax. Cal looked up at him, breathing hard, holding him. He looked back at Cal, and he smiled. They smiled at each other. In that moment, everything was perfect. Marc wouldn't have changed a thing.
He brushed Cal's hair back, still deep inside him. He kissed the other man's cheek.
"God... you're incredible..."
"You," Cal murmured, "You are."
Marc grinned. "Hope I lived up to my reputation. Wouldn't want to disappoint..."
"No, no. You were-"
The studio door opened. Christ, of course the engineer would pick now to get back from lunch. Cal lifted his head, and turned deathly pale, all the color draining from his face as his eyes went wide with fear.
Marc pushed himself up on his elbows with a groan. He'd just tell the guy to get lost. They could record the demo another time. He was annoyed that Cal had been embarrassed, but he understood. They should have gone back to the hotel, or at least locked the door. He twisted a little, turning back and looking.
Stardancer stood in the doorway, quivering, fists clenched at her sides, lips pressed into a tight thin line. Her eyes were narrow and filled with tears.
Cal scrambled up, grabbing at his clothing in something of a panic. Marc rolled off him, dressing slowly, watching the girl in the door. Something wasn't right here. She wasn't just embarrassed or annoyed or even upset. She looked... betrayed.
Dance took a hesitant step forward, as if she didn't quite believe what she was seeing. "H-how... What are..."
Cal yanked his pants in, in something of a frenzy. "Dance, it's not what-"
"Don't tell me it's not what it fucking looks like!" she screamed, her eyes flaring. "Don't fucking lie to me, Cal!" She took a deep shuddering breath, then laughed. A bitter horrible dreadful sad laugh. "So. This is it then. This is how it's going to be. You're choosing him."
Marc frowned. "What do you mean, choosing? There's-"
"Shut up, stalker!" she shouted, casting a withering glare in his direction. "This doesn't fucking concern you. This is family business."
Cal wiped his hands nervously on the back of his pants. "Dance, just calm down, I'm not-"
"I know what you're doing, Cal," she said, her voice steely. The anger had evaporated, leaving only cold disdain. "You're choosing Marc. After everything, after all that we've been through. You're throwing me away for your rock star. I should have known better. I should have known you'd let me down." She shook her head slowly.
"Dance, you're being unfair, I didn't-"
She threw up her hands and shut her eyes, turning her face from him. "Don't even. I'm done. You hear me, Cal? I'm done. I didn't want this. Any of it, you know that. I didn't want to travel with Cashmere, I didn't want to record this tape, I didn't even want to be in California. I came along for you. For us. I thought that we were going after your dream, Cal... I guess it turns out we were just chasing a rich guy's dick for you. Fuck it. I'm done, I'm out. I'm leaving. If you want to keep doing this, you be my guest. Wilderlands is yours anyway. Keep it. But leave me out of it. Maybe your fucking boyfriend here will want to play with you instead."
"Dance, wait!"
But it was too late. She wasn't waiting. She slammed the door on her way out and she started running. By the time Cal got to the doorway she was already gone.
She left town within the hour, without another word to anybody.
* * *
The tour bus rumbled to life. LA dwindled slowly in the distance, until it had been left far behind.
Cal sat on the bed in Marc's cabin, hugging his knees against his chest and staring out the window. He wasn't talking. He didn't even meet Marc's eyes.
Marc took a look at the cassette in his hand. Wilderlands Demo, Day 1.
Who knew, maybe people would hear it someday. Maybe it would be passed around, maybe people would see in it what he had seen. Maybe it would become an underground legend, someday. Maybe. But this was all it would ever be. He'd been right in the end, after all. The next day would never come.