Obedience 16
Disclaimer: I don't own Green Day, but they are on my birthday list
Part sixteen of fuck knows. As many as it takes.
Goes hand in handcuffs with
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/2962887.html
http://timrod.livejournal.com/11658.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3013587.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3014728.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3015214.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3016092.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3018511.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3020971.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3022119.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3023458.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3027082.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3028124.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3035264.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3036514.html
http://comingclean.livejournal.com/3037484.html
Disneyland was a hazy memory when the time came for us to pack up for the tour. From the moment we got home, so much of our lives centred around music - publicity photoshoots and interviews for the new album, planning meetings, band practice - most of which we managed to do at home for the least disruption to the kids’ routine. We were starting on the east of the country, and they were staying at home with Mom for the first few weeks, until we got close enough for them to travel without long flights. It was going to be hard, especially as Ollie was at that lovely stage where he did something new every day, but it kinda goes with the territory. We promised to Skype each night as close to bedtime as possible, and so our packing included a small pile of story books, which looked pretty out of place in the holdall Mike put together for our personal bedtime entertainment. We flew out to New York a day before the first show, and settled into the bus that was to be our base for the next couple of months.
The word ‘bus’ does not do it justice. The vehicle is on two levels, with a basic kitchen, a small but practical bathroom (it even had a shallow bath that I could stretch out in. Not Mike, though.), and a huge lounge space, one corner of which serves as Mike’s mobile gym, and two bedrooms upstairs. It’s much smaller than a hotel suite, but we can crash after a performance without waiting for a car to get caught up in busy night-time city traffic, and better still, cutting out the need for early lobby calls and frenzied packing before we move on. Usually, by the time we wake up in the morning, we’re already at our next destination. Purely for reasons of privacy, we chose the bedroom at the back, the one that wasn’t directly over the driver’s head, and made the space our own, then we headed over to Frankie’s ‘party bus’ for a very short celebration of the next few weeks before trailing back to our hotel on wheels for an early night. We’d had a crack-of-dawn start, setting out for the airport before seven, and after all that, our flight had been delayed, meaning we didn’t touch down in JFK until early evening. It was a bit of a blessing in disguise in one way - we were able to blow off a dinner date with the suits from the label with a relatively clear conscience, and after our brief pizza-and-beer fest, and a quick call home, we turned off our phones and went into ‘do not disturb’ mode. Actually, mine had been turned off all day. I wasn’t feeling particularly sociable.
We love touring, no question, but I always retreat into myself at the start of a run of shows. I don’t think I’ll ever change. I go quiet for two, maybe three days, don’t even eat or drink much at a time when I need most energy, but there is nothing anyone can do to snap me out of it, trust me, Mike has tried just about everything, and if anyone was to get through to me, it would be him. Tonight, I was even more subdued because of missing out on goodnight cuddles, and Mike had picked up on that, being super-attentive to me all day - he’d hardly left my side, and when he was next to me, his hand was always there if I reached for it. I really am so fucking lucky to have him, and to keep him when I get all moody like this. Back in the day, I had been prescribed meds to get me through the worst of the anxiety, but they left me like a fucking zombie, so I quit those last tour, around the time we made our first decisions about having babies. This tour was going to test how I coped without them.
Our bus was parked in a quiet corner of the lot behind the venue - we’d been offered a hotel for the first night, but there seemed little point. We were trying to avoid the hassle of hotels, and the buses were comfortable, parked up in a patrolled compound, and actually, probably more private. As soon as we left Frankie’s place -deliberately parked on the other side of the compound - we walked in silence, hand in hand back to our little sanctuary. Inside in the warm, my saint and saviour started to undress, sitting on the end of the bed to take off his ridiculously stylish boots, which seemed to be fastened in three different ways. He must have felt me watching him, because he gave me one of his goofy smiles. I was four garments ahead of him, because I dress for comfort when we travel, and I was naked before he had made much of a start on his shirt The automatic Daddy in me just had to help. He dropped his hands to tackle his pants and left the buttons to me, and when his bare skin was finally revealed, I could not resist brushing my lips over my initials on his chest. He smiled again, no goofiness this time, just that soft, sweet smile that he reserves for me and the kids, cupped my chin and kissed my nose to thank me. That was my first test, and I bombed it. It was as if every scrap of confidence and self-belief had been removed from me along with my clothes. I sniffed, he kissed me again, I buried my nose in his shoulder, but even his fabulous, familiar scent didn’t help.
“Mike, suppose I fuck up? I mean, it’s been years …”
He shrugged. “We’ve had longer breaks.”
“But the new stuff, it’s so different.”
“The album’s great, Billie. I’d have told you months ago if I thought it was shit. Frankie, too, not to mention Rob, the Jasons….”
My heart knew he spoke the truth but my head wouldn’t let me believe it. I rubbed my tears away on his skin, still sobbing, and he wrapped his arms around me, waiting for me to regain at least some control of my emotions.
He could have bombarded me with cliched reassurances, with well-meaning words and gestures, but he knows better than that, knows exactly how to cope when I get overwhelmed by self-doubt and stress, that I am beyond a simple ‘it’ll be fine’, or a ‘snap the fuck out of it’. What I need is time and space - well, that and a couple of good shows - and I will be back to my normal asshole self. But for now, he held me in absolute silence until I stopped shaking, then simply lifted me into bed, turned off the light and held me like a living straightjacket. Minimum words, maximum action. He murmured in my ear, as quiet as he would be if the kids were in the room with us.
“Do you want me to stay here, Baby, or go sleep in the other room?”
It was a no-brainer. As withdrawn into myself as I was, he was there to provide exactly what I needed - security, comfort, and empathy.
“Stay. Stay with me.”
“Okay. I love you.”
With him close and calm behind me, stroking my stomach and occasionally kissing my hair, I think I fell asleep as fast as I ever did with a bloodstream full of meds.
*****
I started the next day with a jolt, woken from the beginning of a nightmare by the nightmare itself. My movement roused Mike - although, knowing him, he was already wide awake - and I got a squeeze and a gentle kiss to my ear to calm me before I could remember the horror in my dream.
And a prod in the ass from the mother of all morning wood.
The whole previous day had been sex-free for Mike, too. An early alarm call, airport lounges, planes, my pre-show jitters - none of them are helpful to the terminally horny, and my little wobble last night meant that he had no outlet for his pent-up sexual energy, not even a quick five-knuckle shuffle after I had fallen asleep. He was trying hard (hah!) not to make his arousal obvious, but you know, Mike the Magnificent … His ass must have been hanging over the edge of this much narrower bed than ours at home, and still there was barely room in there for the three of us. He apologised and sort of twisted onto his side a bit, and I felt like the world’s most evil cock-tease. Not being able to get it up has to be the worst side effect of these episodes.
“It’s me who should be apologising. Shit, why do you even stay with me?”
“Masochism?” Even in my darkest moods, he can make me smile. “Or because I love you for more than just your hot little body?” I rolled onto my other side, and our eyes met for the first time today. Mine felt puffy and sore from last night’s tears, and although Mike’s lips were curled into a smile, his baby blues did not reflect happiness. He’d cut and re-bleached his hair to make it more manageable on tour, but it was still shagging over a lot of his beautiful face. I put that right with a quick finger-comb, and stroked his cheek on my way down to rest my hand on his hip.
“I love you, too. More now than ever.” He stopped my descent into another dip with a kiss, this time to my quivering lips, and although I opened my mouth, he didn’t push it into something that he’d guessed - totally correctly - I was not ready for. Fuck, he’s incredible. He pulled back a little and stared at me, taking in every detail of my face. “I must look like shit.”
“Nothing a shave and a shower won’t fix, although you could do with a hair cut and you’ve got roots. Man, have you got roots!”
“Yeah, I know. I was gonna do it some time soon. Got bleach and dye in the luggage. Not sure which way to go.”
“You’re gonna dye your hair in that fucking tiny bathroom?”
“No. I was gonna do it before a show. Use the dressing room shower, let them deal with the mess. Fuck knows, they make enough money out of us.”
“Good plan. You ready to get up? It’s just past nine.”
“Dunno. What’s the schedule?”
“11.00 press call, 1.00 lunch, 3.00 soundcheck.”
“Fuck.” Press. My least favourite word when I feel like shit. “You?”
“Yeah, I’m going downstairs for a work-out, take a shower. You stay here as long as you need, Love. Frankie and I can deal with the vultures, you just get some rest.” He eased himself to the edge of the bed and pulled a fresh set of sweats from the suitcase, and I watched his bed-pinked skin disappear under grey jersey, filled with love and guilt and nostalgia. The front of the pants did nothing to hide his erection, in fact I think they made it even more obvious, and all I could think of was the first time I saw him trying to hide a boner with clingy sweat pants. I shuffled over to his side of the bed and whispered his name.
“Mmmm?”
“You can’t work out like that - hard.”
He blushed all the way to his newly-blond hairline. “Yeah, well .. I …. I was gonna go down by way of the bathroom …”
“Let me.”
“Huh?”
“Let me deal with it.”
“Billie, you don’t have to ..”
“Yeah, I do.” I pulled down the pants that he’d only just pulled up, and his cock sort of sprang out at me, nearly hitting my nose. The air rang with two small, nervous laughs, and with my husband, best friend and tower of strength smoothing and tugging at my hair, I slid my lips down his length, as deep as I could physically manage.
I didn’t come. I didn’t get as much as half hard, even, but that was fine. This was about pleasing Mike, not me, although I still enjoyed making him feel good. Afterwards, he left me in bed, where I listened to him grunt through his work out, then, after his shower, he went to blind-side the press with vague comments about me needing to save my voice. He woke me at lunchtime with a sandwich and a bucket of coffee, and he laid out my clothes whilst I showered myself into a more human state of being. We actually arrived at soundcheck ahead of everyone else.
My man can work miracles.
*****
I said earlier that Mike had tried everything to get me out of these dark moods. Turns out I was wrong. This tour, he had one more thing he wanted to try …
The sound check went great. So did the show. We hadn’t played New York, or anywhere else, for that matter, for over five years, and the place was packed out. Most of the crowd knew our old stuff, and even the new shit was well-received, and Frankie was in performing -monkey mode, clowning around to distract the fans from the fact that the front man was not quite up to speed. I hope nobody noticed. I think I did a pretty good job, at least Mike told me I was doing just fine every time he walked over. Even so, I could not open my eyes during my final encore, not until I’d got rid of my guitar. I’d got through it, and that was a huge weight off my mind, although the fear of failure was still there. I could feel my legs shaking, and Mike must have noticed, because immediately, he was at my side, arm tight around me. We took our bows, but just as I thought we were going to leave the stage, Mike grabbed me around the waist from behind and lifted me into the air, presenting me to the crowd like that fucking lion cub in the Disney movie we’d watched with the kids a few times since September. When he put me down, I attempted to throw a punch, genuinely angry, but he blocked it, like he always blocks it, and, oh, so casually, chucked me over his shoulder to carry me into the wings. The crowd loved it. We could hear the screams of approval echoing through the corridors, all the way back to the dressing rooms below the stage. A giggling Frankie slipped into his room, and Mike dropped me to the couch in ours, kicking the door shut behind us with a shout to our drummer that he shouldn’t wait for us. Good call. I was going to kill him slowly.
The plan was to get out of our soaked clothing, take a quick shower and join the others for food and a small after-party with more of the dreaded press and industry insiders. Our next show was only four hundred or so miles away, an easy night’s drive, but we were not going to stay late.
It turned out we weren’t going to arrive early, either.
I was still catching my breath, both from the show and from Mike’s display of Tarzan skills, spread out on the sofa with him kneeling at my feet, grinning.
“You motherfucking ….”
Before I had the chance to yell at him some more, he put his finger to his lips and shushed me. All I could hear was the metallic clangs as the stage was dismantled above our heads, and the crowd stamping and chanting our name, but that was, apparently what he wanted me to hear.
“Listen. They loved you.”
“Us. They loved us. Mike ….”
He carried on as if I hadn’t said a word. “That really was a great show. New York’s tough, but that was one of the best.”
I agreed with him, reluctantly, because I was still pissed. “Yeah, first nights can suck.”
“Mmmm. Suck ….”
I tried to kick him but my show-weary legs were not that flexible. I made do with batting his ears with my knees. “Mike! Let me up. I gotta …. Jesus!”
I screamed because his hand landed over my crotch, kneading firmly at the wet fabric. It felt nice, I’m not going to lie, even though he knew sex was the last thing on my mind, yet when I protested, he shushed me again, and rubbed harder.
“Just relax, Billie Joe, that’s it.” His voice was melting ice cream, cool and sweet, his hand hotter than hell. “I think I know what you want.”
I couldn’t speak. My cock, which had shown pretty much no interest in anything for two days straight, started to react to his insistent touch. True, there was a small pulse of interest as I blew him this morning, but compared to my usual standard, nothing. Now, his regular circular movements were bringing me back to life in that department, dousing my anger with his soft, loving words which penetrated the fog surrounding my stressed-out brain. When my belt and cramped position were making further expansion an uncomfortable prospect, he undid my buckle, button and zipper with the most incredible stealth, then nudged me up to expose me fully to the cool air of the room. He had to peel my clothes from me, inside out, they were so soaked with sweat, and he didn’t bother to untie my shoes, something that wardrobe would thank him for later, but I was already beyond caring. His hand was now on my flesh, his movements as sure as they are on his bass strings, and I realised what he was doing - turning my anger and anxiety into another, stronger and more positive emotion. The way he looked at me, touched me, spoke to me combined, and it dawned on me that more than anything, I needed to regain mastery over my body, even if everything else was out of my control.
It took forever for him to get a workable erection out of me, but he didn’t give up. He used his hands, his lips, his tongue in turn, patiently coaxing me into something resembling a state of arousal, two steps forward, one step back. If he was licking me, he was stroking my thighs, if he was using his fingers to squeeze and encourage, he was kissing my knees, hands - anything he could reach. I unbuttoned my shirt, pulling the garment open so that the bunched fabric didn’t obscure my view of his gorgeous concentration face, my breathing noticeably altered, surprised at my own reactions. He swapped again, and as his fingers closed around me, he lifted his head to speak.
“You alright with this, Darling?”
Fuck, I melt when he calls me that. I gave him a small smile. “Yeah. I’m alright, feels good. Don’t know if I can ..…”
“Don’t worry about that, Love. Just enjoy it, and if it stops feeling good, tell me.”
I gasped out a response as he took me into his mouth again, his eyes half-closed in pleasure, humming louder each time my cock got even the slightest bit harder. He must have spent thirty minutes, maybe longer, doing something that would normally happen in a heartbeat - in fact something that usually happened before we had even left the stage. I’ve lost count of the times we’ve run to our dressing room to fuck fast and hard, with the adrenaline from the show still coursing through our veins and the crowd noise still ringing in our ears, and the memory of those times helped me in my current situation. Tonight, long after the crowd dispersed, we heard Frankie’s shower run, heard him singing to himself as he dressed, and Mike was still only part way through the process of getting me stiff enough to work with. But the slamming of the neighbouring door meant another barrier to me letting go was lifted, because nobody was going to overhear us, and although that isn’t usually a problem around Frankie, tonight, for some reason, it seemed to be a very big deal. Mike swapped back to his hand when he heard the door shut, his mouth once more free for cooing soft words of love against my inner thigh.
I have no clue how much time passed after Frankie left, but Mike established a beautiful, calm rhythm despite the fact that his arm must have been killing him after close on three hours of playing. I’d sort of assumed that if I was going to finish, it would be in his mouth, but as the vaguest hope of an orgasm became more solid, he showed no sign of moving closer. As he does so often, he read my mind, answering a question that never left my lips.
“I’m not going to suck you. I want to watch you come.”
I shivered from head to toe. The room was cool anyway, and the sweat was drying on my skin, raising goosebumps everywhere - but not all of them were because I was cold. Mike adjusted his grip, grabbing me closer to my tip and started a gentle twisting motion with each stroke, his gaze flickering between my eyes and my slit, and immediately I felt my cock flex as it filled, we both guessed as much as it was ever going to under the circumstances. Licking his lips, Mike gave a running commentary, like he was narrating the filthiest talking book of all time, and I was the hero. I’ve never heard so many compliments, either. I’m surprised he didn’t give me a fucking round of applause when I started to ooze, encouraging the clear, bright bubbles to burst and trickle not only to serve as a natural lubricant for my cock, but also as decoration for his fingers. The sweet words came faster, his hand worked harder, and suddenly, two days of frustration and anxiety melted away, and my mental and physical release was on me.
“Mike …. it’s …… shit, it’s gonna happen.”
“Yeah?” He looked as surprised as I did, but after all his hard work, he really shouldn’t have been.
“Fuck, yeah. Mike … fuck, Mike!”
He’d said he wanted to watch me. I don’t think he blinked for a full two minutes, staring at the milky fountain cascading over the both of us, the couch, the floor, fuck, I even checked the ceiling afterwards, the sensation had been that powerful. And when it was all over, he clambered up to me, running his sticky fingers through my hair and waiting until I opened my mouth before kissing me - a proper, deep and sensuous kiss that I instigated, that actually seemed more than worth the wait.
All kissed out, we slowly stripped, piling our soaked and stained clothes into the laundry bag wardrobe had provided and showered together in probably the smallest cubicle on earth for the shortest time, driven by a new guilt that we had left Frankie alone to face the press, god help them.
*****
The post-show reviews mentioned how alive and energetic we seemed at that first show, as if our gap from touring had never happened. If they wanted to see energetic, they should have seen my miracle worker and me in the small hours of the morning, making love like we did as teens left alone for the first time, on a messy bed on the top level of a luxury tour bus as it hurtled on to our next destination.