Eve and Dillon lie on the unmade bed. Naked. They have just finished making love for the second time. It was only an hour ago that Dillon arrived at Eve’s one bedroom in the Annex. Dillon has been on tour and he wants to screw.

They’re on the bed, pausing, watching TV. It’s Saturday, a lazy Saturday afternoon and there’s no breeze from the street. Just car horns and soot.

Eve’s television is small and has a muddy picture, making Jimmy Stewart look like a canned sardine.

But.

Kim Novak looks like a million bucks, even on a tiny portable with rabbit ears coming out of her head. A blonde beauty.

They’re watching Hitchcock. Vertigo.

“Madeleine.... oh, Madeleine...” Stewart holds Novak in his arms and kisses her deeply. Eve is entranced. She forgets to exhale the smoke from her cigarette.

Dillon lets his eyes wander from the TV to his girl. He sees her stripped- a fluff of dark pubic hair matted with sex, her tight stomach. Pale blue toe nails. He likes what he sees. He likes the bulge of breast and the almond hair curled around it.

But.

“No. It’s not right.” On the TV, Stewart sends the saleslady looking for another garment in the dress shop.

“Picky guy,” surmises Eve. She flicks a puff of lint from her navel.

“The gentleman certainly knows what he likes,“ says the saleslady. Jimmy Stewart doesn’t even hear her.

But.

“Get up.” Dillon pulls himself off the bed. The best idea he’s had in a long time floods his sleepless skull. It’s as good as being on stage. “Get up, baby.”

“What?” Eve wants to lounge. Dillon is always moving. Touring, moving. Always Nothing ever changes. “Where are we going?” she asks.

“I’m gonna dress you up.”

“What?”

Dillon pulls on some underwear and his leather pants. He fumbles in the pocket and recruits a wad of bills, his last payout. Three, maybe four grand. “I’m gonna dress you up. Just like Jimmy Stewart dresses up Kim Novak.” Dillon has seen Vertigo hundreds of times.

“He dresses her up?”

Dillon gives Eve a look, his “don’t play stupid” look. “What do you think he’s doing?” He pulls on his shirt, tucks it in. “C’mon, get dressed.”

She sighs. “I thought you were going to dress me?”

“Not here. Out there.” He points to the window. “Out there, babe.” He surveys his tussled blond hair in the mirror, tussles it some more with his fingers. He wipes the corners of his mouth.

Climbing off the bed, Eve finds and pulls on her white Saturday underwear. “Solo?” She calls him Solo when she loves him. “Solo, you weren’t with other girls or anything while you were away, were you? It’s just me, right?”

“Just you, babe.” He snaps on his watch. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

They take a cab downtown, to the chic stores on the chic streets with the chic people. The sidewalk cafes bulge with an audience. Summer is ending.

Eve snuggles up close to Dillon in the taxi, lays her head on his shoulder. She craves another cigarette but the sign in the taxi is clear and present. “No Smoking.” She nestles closer to Dillon and lets her eyes close. She loves his smell. Leather. Faded cologne. Smoke and anger.

Dillon thinks about Faye.

Faye has midnight black hair and green eyes that soak up everything. Everything. She stands at the side of the stage and watches Slang grind out their music, watches Dillon crunch chords on a glittered Les Paul until it feeds back in pain. Slang is loud, slick and tight. Sex rock. Five hundred bodies in the club dig the music. They contort in the front of the house, groove in the back.

Faye digs the music. Faye digs Dillon. He can feel those green eyes on him. He plays faster.

“Who’s that?” he asks Anthony backstage. They drink cold Dutch beer while the road crew snaps guitars back into their cases. “Who’s that doll?” He tips his bottle stage left, in Faye’s direction.

Anthony knows who Dillon is pointing out. “Faye,” he yells in Dillon’s ear. Uptight is on stage and they’re even louder than Slang. Uptight is the final act. They’re obliged to be louder. “That’s Faye. She works for the record company. Keepin’ an eye on us.” Anthony grins. All references to the record company are implicit. Us vs. Them.

Green eyes.

“Where can you buy good lingerie?” Dillon asks Eve. “What’s the best place?”

Eve is dozing but she cracks an eye to answer. “Splitz. The best stuff is at Splitz.”

Dillon knows about Splitz and he tells the cabbie to drive further down the block. The taxi weaves around a streetcar and runs a changing red. The commotion breaks Eve’s peaceful ride and she sits up to see where they are.

“You’re going to buy me new lingerie?” Eve doesn’t tell Dillon that she was at Splitz on Thursday night, buying slinky lingerie to celebrate his return from the road. The fabric is bruise purple with slits in convenient locations. She plans to model it tonight.

“It’s a start,” says Dillon. “Stop here.” He orders the cabbie to pull over in busy traffic. “Right here.”

Splitz is writhing with girls. Dillon pays no attention to any of them and seeks out a sales girl. He cannot call her a woman. Girl is the truth.

“Will you help us, please?” He takes the girl by the hand, leads her gum chewing jaws over to Eve. “We need some lingerie. Black.” Dillon rubs his chin, musing, looking Eve up and down. “Black bikini panties with lace, a matching bra. Nothing slutty.”

Gum chewer sizes Dillon and Eve up. “We got tons of that stuff over there.” She points to a rack filled with black fabric.

“Maybe you could select some items for the lady to try on?” Dillon is playing his role. He steps up on the stage.

“We’re kinda busy here.” Gum chewer is unimpressed. “Why don’t you look and then try the stuff on in the back.”

“Forget it.” Dillon can’t work with this girl. If there was a director and a producer, he’d storm off the set and demand a recast. “I should have known this was wrong. Forget it.”

“Dillon?” Eve stares at him with red embarrassment. “Let’s just pick something....”

“No! Goodbye!” Dillon spins away from gum chewing girl and takes Eve by the hand. “I should have known better.”

“Dillon?”

Inspecting the choice of clothing shops out on the chic street, Dillon sees gum chewing girls with speared makeup in every window.

They hail a cab uptown.

“I should have known better,” mutters Dillon. The taxi punches through holes in the congested streets like a rabid linebacker, leaving the sidewalk cafés and dark clubs behind. Dillon played many of those dark clubs, not so long ago. Five bucks a head and a case of beer in a rotting room out back. “I should have known better,” he says to a blurry city.

“Where are we going, now?” asks Eve. Always moving, she thinks. Always moving. She burns for a cigarette.

“You guys were great tonight.” Faye comes and sits across the aisle from Dillon on the rolling bus. The guitarists in Uptight play euchre against the rhythm section of Slang. High stakes. Anthony is a shark and Uptight have yet to figure it out.

“Thanks,” says Dillon. He can smell Faye. From the secure scent, Dillon figures she wears men’s cologne. A coke snort cologne. Straight to the brain.

“I’m Faye. From Hysteria.” Hysteria is Slang’s record label.

“Is Hysteria sending us a babysitter?” Dillon wishes Anthony was there to smile at his record company reference. Labels are scum. Paying scum.

Faye laughs. “No. I’m new with the label and I’m just checking out the acts.” It’s a real laugh. She’s not scum or anything close to it.

“So, do you like what you see?”

“I do.”

“Start promoting us then.” Dillon wants to be on top and he asserts himself. It is shaky footing. Faye is different than the girls at the shows, the girls who scream about nothing and thank you when you push them out of bed. Faye is different.

“I’ll do that.” She leans forward and Dillon catches the black strap of her bra, taut against caramel skin. She leans forward and whispers, “You guys should be the headliners. Not these clowns.” She waves her neat fingernails at Uptight, losing their money to Anthony.

Dillon likes her. She’s a woman.

“Where are we going?”

They’re uptown now, cruising the wide streets, shops with tall windows and first name only restaurants with oak doors. The cabbie cruises, waiting for a destination.

“Holts.” The answer slips into Dillon’s throat like the sum of 2+2. “Take us to Holts.”

The car veers around a corner. “Holts?” questions Eve. “Someone wants to spend some money.” She craves a cigarette more than her life.

There is a gap in front of the department store and the cabbie pulls into it, pops the meter. Eve’s passenger side door opens immediately and a gloved hand reaches into the taxi, holding firm.

“Good day, madam. May I?” The suited doorman holds out his hand to assist Eve from the taxi.

Dillon smiles broadly. “You may, kind sir. You may.” He takes Eve’s other hand and kisses it tenderly.

She giggles. “What a fuss.”

They are out of the taxi and on the sidewalk. Dillon flips the cabbie a twenty, expecting no change. He joins his girl in front of Holts, feels the dying heat of summer on his leather pants. It will be cool inside, he knows. Damn cool. He takes Eve by the arm.

“Shall we?”

They stroll up to the front of the store and the suited doorman holds the door open for them. “Enjoy your shopping, sir and madam.” He holds the door open wide. “Have a nice day.”

He means it, thinks Dillon. The sap really means it.

Inside, they are greeted by bronze tans and a bouquet of perfume. “Lingerie?” Dillon touches a young woman in white slacks, spritzing perfume samples.

“Second floor,” she answers readily. “Second floor, to the left.”

“It’s so simple.” Dillon wraps Eve from behind as they ride up the glass escalator. He’s excited again. Now they have the right place, the right characters.

“It’s so expensive,” says Eve. She kisses his neck. She doesn’t mind being spoiled now and then.

“Black.” They find a lingerie boutique on the second floor, hidden behind tube dresses and shameless furs. There are no price tags on anything. “Black,” repeats Dillon. “Black bikini panties with lace, a matching bra. Nothing sluh...” He catches himself. “Something tasteful.” Dillon has the attention of a saleslady. A real saleslady. She is steady, older, serious. She wears stylish clothes that speak words. “I know how to dress and I can dress you.”

As Dillon speaks, the saleslady peers at Eve over Kenneth Cole glasses. “You’re a four. Bianca!” She calls to another young woman behind the counter. A model. All model. “Bianca, get the rack of black garments. Put the lace near the front.”

The model moves. Things begin to happen. A rack of lingerie is rolled out and the saleslady pours over it. “This is fucking great,” he enthuses. Eve rests in one of the maroon velvet chairs.

“Come.” The saleslady beckons Eve to rise and advance towards her. “Come, my dear. We will make the man happy.” She is European. She talks about “the man” like a son- sweet and naive. Make your man happy, dear and life is so much easier. She takes Eve by the hand. “Come with me.” She holds bras and panties in her other hand, leading Eve to the changeroom. “Bianca, a cappuccino for the gentleman.”

The ladies are gone and in four strides of Bianca’s long model legs, the rack rolls away again. Dillon is left alone in the lingerie boutique. He fingers some of the slippery fabrics. He thinks about Faye.

“Sugar?” Bianca pronounces it, “Shue-gare?”

“Huh?”

She holds up a small, white porcelain cup. “In your cappuccino?” Cuppa-shino.

“No. Yes. Yes, sugar.” He takes the cup that she brings and sips the sweet grounds. The blend is strong.

“Madam will only be a minute.” Bianca returns to the counter and continues to sort bras on a sidetable. Dillon watches her sway. He wonders who she screws, if she screws? How does one begin with a woman like that? Or does it just never stop?

“Sir, if you please.” Madam Saleslady emerges from the changeroom, beckoning Dillon to follow her. “If you please.”

He trails after her, trying not to spill his cappuccino on the carpet. The cup rattles on the saucer. He balances.

“I think you’ll be most pleased. Just as you asked.” Saleslady rounds the corner into the changeroom. “Madam?” She calls to Eve. “The gentleman is coming.”

Dillon is pleased. Stunned. Eve stands shyly in the changeroom, wearing the black bra and panties her man has envisioned. She stretches an arm coyly to the wall and leans suggestively. “What do you think, big boy?”

She’s a knockout. The panties clasp Eve’s firm hips and the bra holds her breasts tight, the cleavage shadowed into a freeway meridian. Dillon can see dark nipples through the lace.

“The gentleman is satisfied, yes?” Madam Saleslady is gathering up the other items. She knows the answer.

“Uh, yeah. Wow.” Dillon bobs his head and abandons his coffee. “Yes, yes, it’s perfect. Perfect.” Even as his head spins, it is working, imagining.

“Cash or charge, sir?”

“Hmmm?”

“Will this be cash or charge?” Now, Madam Saleslady looks at Dillon over her glasses.

“Cash. She’ll wear it out.”

“Of course.” The saleslady leaves them alone. “Bianca!” She leaves them, calling for the model.

“It’s perfect.” Dillon approaches Eve and fingers the fabric. He runs a thumb down her bare leg. “Perfect,” he whispers absently. “Turn for me.”

Eve feels goosebumps rise on her arms. “You like?” Dillon’s thumb print and the store’s precise air conditioning bring shivers. She revolves for Dillon, lets him see the rigid shoulder straps, the elastic snap of her ass. She still craves her cigarette. There is no smoking in Holts.

“Perfect.” Dillon leans and kisses her on the buttock, half lace, half skin. She shivers once more. It is not the cold this time.

He steps back and escorts his eyes up and down. “Now...” He begins to dream. “Now, the dress.”

Slang plays a show in Winnipeg and Faye is still with the tour, riding the sagging bus, beating Anthony at euchre. When they arrive at the motel, Slang is whisked away by car to a radio station and interviewed. Uptight is left behind to sleep.

“Be good to them, Marty.” Faye goes with the band to the station and sits in the booth, beside Dillon. “They’re going to be big.” Dillon can smell the coke buzz of cologne once more. With Faye beside him, he finds his mind wanders- wanders into her mind, wonders what she is thinking, who she is, what she wants. He wanders from her mind, down her neck, down her top, down...

“Is that something you want?”

Anthony and the guys guffaw. The question from DJ Marty is for Dillon and he misses it.

“Say that again?”

More laughter on the air and Marty repeats the question. He wants to know if Slang, kings of the clubs, can and want to graduate to play the bigger houses? Are they ready?

“Absolutely,” answers Dillon. He leans into the microphone for all to hear. “Absolutely.” He discovers Faye’s hand on his leg while he answers. She gives him a squeeze.

That night the show rocks. The club is packed and chairs get broken. Uptight gets booed off the stage.

In Holts, one floor up, they find the dress. Dillon has just dropped two hundred and forty on the lingerie and it feels like baby skin under Eve’s jeans. Expensive, yes, but she likes the sensation. Enraptured. She seeks an ashtray on the off chance.

“Black,” answers Dillon to the question of colour. The saleslady in the eveningwear department is smaller, more demure. All business, she pulls out a small pad and pencil, making notes as Dillon speaks. Eve wonders fleetingly where Dillon’s fashion inspiration has originated.

“Short, with one, no two- two inch straps on the shoulders. Tight.” Dillon can think of no other words to use. He has to see it now. He’ll know the right dress when he sees it.

There is another flurry of activity and dresses are pulled from the racks, hung on hooks in the changeroom. Another assistant appears and Eve is taken away, stripped and groomed. She is paraded in front of her leather-panted Jimmy Stewart.

“No, that’s not it. Shorter here.” Dillon points with a bare wooden hanger to Eve’s thighs. He sits, a king on his impromptu throne, legs crossed and gazing. Judging. “The fabric is not right. It hangs too much.” He feels frustrated, unable to describe what he means. He doesn’t know the language of fashion. The saleslady does. She speaks it.

“Try the next one, Katrina,” and Eve is whisked away. Dillon waits patiently. He waits with a guitarist’s finger in his mouth, imagining.

“Most men don’t take so much interest in a lady’s attire,” says the reserved saleslady. Her accent is American, her blouse crisp white, her skirt beyond the knees. She could be a school teacher.

“I’m not most men,” quips Dillon. He figures Hitchcock missed this line. He has never taken much interest in what his women wear, but right now it seems like the most important thing in the world.

The next dress is not correct either and Eve yawns when she is told to rotate. Dillon checks the back. The fit is better, the fabric gritty. The length is still too long.

“I think I know the dress you mean,” says the demure saleslady finally. “I know what it must be.” She instructs Katrina and returns to Dillon with a shy smile. “Very sexy,” she utters. “A sexy dress.”

The dress is short and silky. It hugs Eve’s body. The straps are precisely two inches thick. Dillon thinks of a black panther stalking the night. His old band, Burn, used to do covers of 98DA, another Toronto band. “My baby’s black, she walks like a panther,” went the chorus. Dillon can see the chords in his head as he watches Eve strut. Perfect.

“How’s this?” Eve quizzes him. She feels a chill once more. She can see other shoppers gazing at her as they pass by eveningwear. She feels naked. She feels pretty. “How’s this one, Solo?”

But Dillon has already moved on. “What size shoe do you take, babe?”

Regina. Saskatoon. The lineup is switched in Saskatoon. Uptight leaves the tour in a huff and Slang takes over as the headliners. They get more money and more press. There are autograph seekers and groupies at the club doors. Faye drops out for a few days in Calgary but returns to the tour when Slang play an outdoor festival near Banff. Dillon thinks about her constantly while she’s gone.

“That was wild! Fantastic!” Faye greets the boys when they come off stage, takes Dillon’s drenched guitar from him and hands it to one of the many crew members. “You’re amazing.”

The crowd is electric, the night air sweet with pot and recklessness. Thousands cheer mercilessly for Slang to return. Faye slaps Dillon on the butt. It is more than a slap. “They love you. Get out there!”

The first pound of drums induces an outburst from the crowd like nothing Dillon has ever heard. It is not the drunken roar of the clubs but the simultaneous explosion of thousands of throats. It is appreciation. The appreciation and willingness of the masses.

Slang drives through three more songs. The pace is furious. They leave the stage with salutes, the crowd still wanting more. The buzz is like deep sex, like...

Cocaine. There are lines of coke in the green room. The sign on the door actually reads, “Green Room” and Slang are invited inside. Anthony and the boys snort hungrily at the powdered glass but seeing Faye pass up on the offer, Dillon declines too. She smiles at him from across the room. “You’re going big time,” imply her lips. “And I’m taking you there.”

Dillon wants to get inside her so bad his jaw locks. He covers his sweaty head with a fresh towel.

Faye disappears into the night on business and Dillon is half glad, half devastated. He knows something terrible, something fantastic will happen if they are left alone at night. He sleeps by himself in the motel room, the rest of Slang out, wired, becoming famous.

Dillon is awoken the next morning by the phone. The other beds in the room are still empty.

“Hello?”

It’s Eve. “You’re all over the papers out here, Solo. Every paper has a story on the festival. You brought the house down!” She gushes into the phone.

“Yeah?” he gets out. He’s still asleep, dreaming about someone else. He feels guilty. Guilty and caught.

“You’re a hit. When are you coming home? I miss you.”

Dillon sits up in bed, leans his head and back against the chilled wall of the motel. “I don’t know. We may be adding some more dates if things are going so well.” He realizes he is naked in the bed.

“Oh.”

He can hear the disappointment in Eve’s voice and it irritates him. He tries to envision her on the other end of the line, lying on the bed in her apartment, the street pushing in through the open window. He forces Eve through the bubble of Faye, sees her once more- the hair, the makeup, the jeans and full lips. Eve, he thinks. Eve. She was the first girl he’d met who didn’t want him to give up his music and get a real job. When he had no money, Eve didn’t care. She didn’t know how to play the guitar and begged Dillon to teach her.

He has never questioned the unconscious transition from one girlfriend to another. But now he is. He discovers that he misses Eve too. But, he doesn't tell her.

“I’ll be home soon, baby. We got to strike while the iron is hot.”

There is a knock on his door. It is not the rest of the band returning. They wouldn’t bother to knock.

Eve says she loves him and hangs up. Dillon wraps himself in the bed sheet and opens the motel door. Faye. It is Faye in snug black jeans and a green satin top to match her eyes. She’s barefoot.

“Up you get.” She takes in his cotton skirt and grins. “Very nice.” She peers over Roots sunglasses. “Very nice outfit.” She stares at the muscles in his arms.

“We’re leaving?” Dillon has no clue as to the time. Noon? Five? He fights an erection.

“We just got an opening gig, honey. 50,000 seats in Vancouver.”

When Dillon describes the shoes he wants , the demure saleslady nods with approval and understanding. She picks up the phone and pages ladies shoes.
“Greta. We need a size five in numbers 89954 and 89952. Can you send them over, please?”

The shoes arrive in white boxes, in the hands of another assistant, another model. They are unpacked and Eve, still in the stunning dress, looking ready for the Grammys, sits in Dillon’s vacated throne and allows Miss Demure to slip simple leather shoes, black and surprisingly comfortable, onto her feet. The fit is irresistible.

“I think Cinderella is ready for the ball,” says the school teacher, stepping back to admire Dillon’s vision. She tilts her head from side to side. “Yes, quite ready.”

Dillon also stands back and begins at the toes, taking in the shoes, the shapely curve of Eve’s shaved legs, the beginnings of a dress, the stomach, the simple breasts. All is perfect. He sees her as she was, as she....

But.

He stares at Eve’s almond hair, cutting six inches from its length, dying the strands.

“I’m hungry, Solo.” Eve stands up. She figures there will be smoking allowed in the restaurant. “Let’s get something to eat.”

Dillon pulls the wad of cash from his pocket. ““Later,” he insists. “There’s one last thing. What do we owe you, ma’am?”

They take the escalator up one more floor to the salon, beckoning with red doors at one end of the cream tiled aisle. It reads simply, “The Salon” above the entranceway.

The afternoon is growing late and closing time is closer. When Dillon explains what he wants to the stylist, a young Italian man with the body of a dancer, he encounters resistance.

“What?” Eve looks at Dillon to see if he is serious. “You’re not serious? I don’t want my hair dyed black!”

“Sssh!” He shushes her. “We’re here to have fun Trust me.”

Eve trusts him, but she is no longer having fun.

The stylist tries to reason with Dillon. “The lady seems uncertain. This will take some time. Perhaps tomorrow you will know better.....”

“No! Today.” Dillon cuts him off. “It has to be today. We have special plans tonight.”

“Dillon! There’s nothing...” Eve gives up. She gives up when she sees Dillon reach into his pocket once more for the wad of cash.

“How much?” he asks the stylist. He peels off bills. “How much to get the job done in two hours?”

Eve spies an ashtray. The situation immediately brightens.

Dillon and the stylist come to an agreement. The young man uses his dance moves and transforms the room into his studio. He begins preparations with a great flourish. Hands are clapped, bodies scurry.

“I’ll wait right here for you, baby.” Dillon settles into one of the salon’s salmon leather seats. “Right here.” Eve is lead away by the stylist, an apple green smock swaddled around fifteen hundred dollars of dress and silk lingerie.

“My purse,” she says to Dillon, reaching back in vain like a passenger on a ship leaving port. Her cigarettes are in the purse.

“Right with me.” He pats the tan leather. “I got it. Don’t worry”

She is led around the corner into the studio. Dillon settles back into the opulent chair. His eyes close.

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

He opens his eyes to see a pretty girl, a pretty young girl sitting across from him. She thumbs a magazine.

“I don’t think so.”

She doesn’t give up. “On TV or in a magazine? Are you in a band?”

“I don’t think so.” Dillon closes his eyes again.

Vancouver is hot. The rain has been canceled, leaving the humidity to fill in. Slang rolls into town early in the morning on a new bus . They ramble through an empty hotel lobby, take rooms on the top floor. Victory comes and goes like a torrent. Anthony and the boys sleep, but Dillon cannot. He stands out on the balcony, watching the grapefruit sun rise out of the ocean. The city wakes up.

He looks to his side and is surprised to see Faye, four balconies over, standing at the edge, watching the sun also rise. She turns and sees him.

“Can’t sleep?” she shouts over the breeze.

“No. Not at all,” answers Dillon. Not without you, he wants to say.

Slang is the opening act at the Coliseum. The buzz on the street is magnetic. This band will rock your socks off. Go early.

All day, a musician’s day, noon to six, Slang sees the insides of a hotel room. There is Perrier and gourmet coffee, tiny sandwiches with spicy crab and dill egg salad. They see interviewer’s faces, one after another- black, white, Asian. TV, newspaper, radio. Reporters ask the same questions and then ask them over again. Dillon feels his head shrink with each answer he gives. He is in the best form for interviews. The rest of the band is bogged down in a chemical hangover.

But.

After a light dinner and nap, the second wind of rock and roll begins to blow and on the way to the Coliseum, driving in the record company’s limo, Dillon can sense the the band’s punch climbing. They lean their heads out of the tinted windows, point excitedly. Here we come, Vancouver. Here we come.

Dillon has not seen Faye since the morning, since their shared experience on the balconies. She was not present during the interviews and he doesn’t know why.

Out on stage, Dillon’s guitar is thunderous. Even he is stunned by the vibrations that his one hand and six strings can produce. So much force, so much power.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Slang!”

The crowd applauds, the echo of thousands of hands reverberating around the arena. Dillon pauses in mid riff, listening, listening to the roar of what could be the surf on Vancouver Island, what could be the sweet sound of success. He crunches down on his guitar, fills the space with distortion, juice, sex rhythm.

The band crashes in after sixteen bars, dead on. Tight. Cool. Perfection shoots through Dillon’s veins and up his spine in shivers. He laughs. This is the best, he thinks. The fucking best. I’m alive.

The band squirts fuel into the Coliseum. The show jets off, spins out of control. Slang has never been hotter.

The songs are a blur, the stage banter a blur. Time passes and Dillon feels nothing, numbness. Each song is better than the next. I’m free, he gushes. “I’m free!” he shouts into the microphone and the crowd cheers .

There she is. There’s Faye by the side of the stage. There she is in her black dress and shoes, her hair swept back and tight. There she is, grinding to the music, smiling at Dillon. It’s a head rush. Just like a sunrise, it’s a head rush of freedom and they share it together. Dillon plays harder, faster. The band keeps pace. He looks at Faye, magical Faye in the most beautiful clothes he has even seen on woman. Everything is perfect, right down to the tint of lip liner. He wants her. He wants Faye very much.

“She’ll blow your mind....” sings Anthony and Dillon knows the words are written for him.

The show goes on and on. One encore. Then another. The promoter tells Slang to get off the stage. The headline act is pissed. Slang is showing them up.

“Remember this night,” says Faye to Dillon when the show finally ends. With his shirt around his neck he gives the frenzied crowd a wave. So long for now. “Remember this night.” Faye’s black dress is close to him, her luscious scent in his nose. “This is when it all began. Right here, right now.” She kisses him on the lips with joy.

He grabs her and kisses her back. “I want you,” he says. “I want you right now.”

“Me too,” she whispers in his ear. “I really do. But.”

 

He can hear hairdryers and breathy voices.

“It’s him. I’m sure it’s him.”

“He looks different.”

“He’s famous. Fame changes you.”

A stunned Dillon pulls away from Faye. “What’s the matter?” He wants her, needs her. She looks so beautiful. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.” She breaks his gaze and looks down at the plywood floor. “We shouldn’t have played this game. I can’t finish it.” She touches him on the face, a gentle swipe. “Someone else came first....” She kisses Dillon, softly.

And she is gone.

But.

She has returned. Dillon opens his eyes in the salon, his head tilted back in the leather chair. He opens his eyes to see Faye walking towards him, her hair down, the black strands neatly brushed. The dress, the shoes, the lip liner, it’s all there.

Faye has come back to him.

“Is this what you wanted?” Eve’s voice comes from where it doesn’t belong, from Faye’s mouth. “Is this all that you imagined?” She is breathtaking.

“Your hair. Put it up. Put it up behind your head.”

Faye obliges.

They return to the street and the doorman hails a cab for them. He doesn’t notice Dillon has a different lady on his arm, different than the one he entered the store with. The doorman calls them sir and ma’am.

The cab drops them on Eve’s block. She steps from the taxi and fumbles in her unmatching purse, pulls out her cigarettes. She lights one.

“What are you doing?” demands Dillon from behind her. “What are you doing?”

“Having a cigarette.” She pulls on the embers.

“No!” Dillon snatches the cigarette from her mouth and stomps it out on the pavement. “No. No smoking. You don’t smoke now. You never did.”

Eve is mortified. She looks at Dillon and realizes he is not the same man she began her afternoon in bed with. His eyes are glazed, his demeanor ripe with bitterness and frustration. He is angry with her. She watches it creep over his face.

“What’s the matter? What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” he snarls. He holds the door open for her. “Just go inside.”

Eve steps past her stranger and into the building, climbing the stairs to her apartment. She feels silly in her dress and shoes, arriving home in eveningwear while it is still daylight. Her head feels alien, heavy, as if the black dye has added five pounds to her skull. She doesn’t master her own body.

She turns the key in the lock of her apartment, opens the door. She is hit with a gust of breeze through the open window, white curtains flailing around the sill. The traffic blows in with the breeze.

“I’m going to take a...”

Dillon is behind her, his hands around her waist, prying. He kisses the nape of her neck, her ear, her shoulder, by the fringe of the two inch black straps. He kisses her. He turns her to face him and kisses her on the mouth, an open kiss. “Close your eyes,” he demands and she does so. They kiss again. She drops the tan purse to the floor with a clunk.

“Here we are,” he whispers hoarsely. “Here we are, together again.”

“Yes.” The cigarette is once more suppressed. She is surprised at how turned on she is by his touch. “It’s just the two of us.”

He kneels and delicately slides the lace panties out from under her dress. Slowly. “This is what I want,” he confesses.

They go to the bedroom and lie on the bed. Dillon is on top of Eve. She keeps the dress on, the hair brushed back. The lip liner remains unsmudged.

“I saw you first,” he murmurs.

The love making is straight forward. Eve comes quickly but it is a competition for Dillon. He talks to Eve throughout, boyish fables. His voice is strained and curt. He loves her, he tells her. He sucks the black strands of hair. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I knew it could be like this. You and I.

He cannot finish.

To the side of the bed rolls Dillon, naked, in tears. Eve has never seen him cry before.

“I’m sorry.” He sobs. “I’m so very sorry.”

Eve takes his hand and tries to soothe her lover. In the reflection of her small TV, she sees a dark haired woman she has never met staring back.

And she wonders who the guitar playing man is lying next to her.