Adrian turned and looked at himself from every possible angle in the full length mirror. Even upside down and blindfolded, he’d still look a complete doofus in the leather jeans. Why the fuck had he wasted a week’s wages on them when there was no way he’d have the balls to actually wear the things anywhere? Not that he’d have the balls to go along to that gig tonight with or without pants.
Unfastening the zipper, he tugged at the leather but somehow it had welded itself to his sweaty skin. Adrian felt tears of frustration well up as he collapsed down to his knees and looked up at the mocking faces that stared back at him from every wall -- Nikki, Tommy, Axl, Duff, he bet a million dollars that they’d never got stuck inside their jeans.
They were his gods. They’d been his salvation through the last five years since he’d been sent from California to live with his Aunt Louisa in Battersea. Their music had kept him sane whenever he thought back to the rejection by his parents.
‘We’re sorry, Adrian but your daddy needs to get over his illness and he can’t do that with you around making all that noise.’
Illness. That was a joke. His father was a mean abusive drunk and if it wasn’t for his friends he’d never have got through the first thirteen years of his life. Now there was no more Kerry and Sam. No one to talk to and confide in. He’d not made a real friend since he’d lived in London. His aunt had been okay; unmarried and unused to children she’d pretty much left him to his own devices. Cooking his meals, doing the laundry and handing out money when asked seemed to be the extent of her parental abilities and Adrian could tell she found all of those difficult. She hadn’t batted an eyelid when he’d got himself a job in Halfords as trainee manager in the bicycle department and moved out to a bedsit in Tooting Bec.
It had been four months since he’d been living in the luxury of his own flat. 4a Barnaby Terrace was little more than a cellar with a kitchenette inside a cupboard and a shower room partitioned off by a curtain, but it was all his for forty quid a week. The posters of his favourite bands covered every wall and made the place a shrine to all that was rock and roll. Motley Crue, Guns n Roses, Poison, Faster Pussycat, LA Guns -- debauched and slovenly boys with dyed, backcombed hair and smudged lipstick, displaying their tattoos in porn star poses all over his room. Adrian had beaten off to them every night, kissed their two dimensional lips, fucked them up against the cold damp walls making sure that he came in a handful of toilet roll so as not to spoil his glossy illusion.
He didn’t do that anymore, not since two weeks ago. Not since he’d fallen in lust deep in the heart of Camden Market.
~/~
It was a boring Tuesday and he had the day off work. With nothing better to
do he spent it trawling through the second hand clothes racks and trying to
find something that would be cool and still let him be Adrian Griffiths. The
baggy jeans and t-shirts may have felt as comfortable as a second skin but they
were never gonna get him laid, not in a million years.
“Hello, gorgeous,” said a voice behind him.
He didn’t look at first. That would be dumb. That would make him look like the retard he really was.
“Hey, pretty brown eyed boy.”
He had brown eyes; big, stupid, sappy, pathetic, Bambi brown eyes that instinctively turned in the direction of the low lilting voice.
It was like a bolt of lightning snapping through the heat haze on that muggy summer’s day. Gone were his old Gods, relegated instantaneously to the third division of fantasy wankdom. Here was the future and it came in the shape of a short, skinny guy with blond spiked hair and bleached jeans and a Cult t-shirt that was ripped in half displaying a good sized amount of taut stomach. Adrian found himself imagining what it would be like to tongue fuck that slightly protruding belly button.
“Hi, gorgeous, I’m Quin. How are you today?”
Adrian was lost for words so he nodded and smiled, then stared blankly at the rack of jewellery in front of the sleepy eyed man.
“You musta had as good a night as I did, mate, you looked knackered.”
“I so wish.”
Oh no. Oh no no no. No, he didn’t really say that, did he? Quin was laughing at him but not in a bad way and, as a warm suntanned arm wrapped itself around his waist, Adrian thought he could finally die a happy man – a happy virgin? Not possible. Maybe he could die just a little later on…
“I’m in a band, see? We were playing up at the Royal Standard last night and well, one thing led to another, and I never made it to bed.” Quin grinned and his tongue curled up, sneaking its way over his front teeth “Well I made it to bed but didn’t get no sleep, ‘f you know what I mean.”
Was hyperventilating a cool thing to do? Adrian hoped so because he was just about at that point. “What’s the name of your band?” he asked, trying to distract his cock from wanting to make an appearance.
“LiL dEVILs. Hey, have you got your ear pierced?”
Adrian nodded. Sam had done it for him as a memento before he left for England. He’d been heartbroken when he’d lost that little silver stud last year, it had meant the world to him and he’d never bothered to wear one since.
“This is so you don’t forget me,” Quin showed Adrian the devil’s head earring then reached up and inserted it into the hole in his left ear, sealing it in place with the tiny butterfly. By the time Adrian had remembered enough words to thank him he realised that Quin had disappeared beneath the market stall. The voice was muffled but Adrian could still make out a few words “… forgot… got … CD here.” Quin dragged out a cardboard box and rummaged inside it, bubble wrap and polystyrene packing spilling onto the tarmac.
Adrian took the jewel case from Quin and looked at the cover. It was a cheap and cheerful production, the print job wasn’t too good but the boys in the band were stunning. He looked from the CD to Quin and back again.
“I look better when I got me face on and I’ve managed to get a couple of hour’s kip,” he said, grinning sheepishly.
Short, rumpled but sexy Quin was rapidly mutating into a full-blown rock god in Adrian’s over imaginative mind.
“I’d give it you for free but Roman would string me up by my nads if I so much as thought about it. He’s the bass player.” Quin pointed at a broad handsome man with a boyish grin and spiked long black hair.
“H-h-h-how much?” stammered Adrian, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.
“S’posed to be a tenner but to you, ‘cause of those pretty eyes, how about a fiver?”
Adrian handed over the crumpled note in a daze and took the CD, holding on to it as if it were made of platinum. He blinked owlishly then turned to walk away feeling an immediate absence which dissolved into a surge of happiness when he heard Quin’s voice and once again it was aimed at him.
“Hey, brown eyes, we’re playing the Marquee on the nineteenth. It’s a Thursday which ain’t so good ‘cause everyone’s getting some rest in before the weekend but it’s the Marquee, you know.”
Adrian nodded. The Marquee was legendary. All the best bands had played there.
“Roman says I should never have agreed to it ‘cause no one’ll be there, but I say fuck him. Anyway, have a listen to the CD and if you like us, come along and hear us live.”
There was a little boy lost quality about Quin which made Adrian feel the need to go along with everything he said. His interest in the man had nothing to with six pack abs and flirtatious blue eyes and cheekbones which belonged on a model. No, it was definitely that plaintive thing that worked best.
As soon as Adrian got home he played the CD over and over again until the dickheads in the upstairs flat were banging on the floor to get him to shut up. He turned the volume down but carried on listening, thumbing through the paper booklet and reading the lyrics as he lay on his stomach and humped the pillow, day dreaming about turning up at the Marquee transformed into the kind of Adonis that could easily seduce a rock star god.
~/~
Adrian scrubbed away the tears. So where was this big transformation? What had
he done in two and a half weeks to get Quin to the point of fainting in his
arms, overcome by arousal? He’d bought a fucking stupid pair of leathers
that were now superglued to his butt. He looked at his watch and then struggled
to his feet. It was four o’ clock and he had a couple of hours left to
decide his future. Sucking in his stomach and fastening the jeans back up, he
switched on the CD player.
“Take what you want and do what you wanna do.
Don’t let them break you, fake it, make it happen.”
The lyrics were written by Quin and they may have been bloody awful but they were a definite omen. That track was half way through the CD, which either meant someone was trying to tell him something or the disc was bust. He turned the stereo off and on and the CD began to play from the beginning. Yeah, it was the sign he’d been waiting for.
“Hey, Adie,” he said to his reflection. “Maybe these jeans look better when you’re wearing a shirt with them?”
Which shirt though? Had to be black for sure, but plain or band? Vintage or new? Motley or Guns? Looped or just plain crazy? He grabbed a beer from the useless refrigerator, popped the top and swigged at the revolting warm liquid. Good thing he never kept any food in there or he’d be dead from salmonella by now. He sighed. Food poisoning seemed a great prospect right now.
Covering both hands in dollops of firm hold gel, he threaded his fingers through his longish tangled brown hair hoping that it would instantly give him that sexy spiked look. But it just sat around his face in wet strands looking as if he’d been involved in an explosion at the grease factory. After half an hour he settled for vaguely tousled and refused ever again to acknowledge that he had hair.
To make up or not to make up, that was the question. Anything more than a hint of eyeliner made him look like a sad clown and that was not of the good. He opted for less is more, then went headlong into pure panic mode when he realised he was as ready as he would ever be.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Adrian peered tentatively at himself in the mirror and he
was … well, pleased wasn’t the word, but he looked a little less
ordinary than usual. Calming his nerves with another beer, he switched on the
portable telly his aunt had given him, twirling the aerial around until he got
a halfway decent picture. He couldn’t take in any of the news, just sat
there biting his nails and waiting for the time to pass quicker, or slower,
or hopefully stop altogether.