Reunion Tour
You’re a cocky little thing up there. The way you wriggle your ass—I can’t wait to stripe it with my belt. I watch you from the side of the stage. If this were a festival in Europe, my band would be headlining, but here in our home country, yours gets the number one spot. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t smart a little. I may have to take that out on you as well. It’s a win-win, really, the way you bat your lashes—your head twisted up to me—when my hand comes down on your flesh, always defying me to give more. And, when it comes to you, I never fail to have more to give.
You shimmy to the edge of the stage, lifting your arms high above your head, giving your fans—and me—a glimpse of your pale, taut belly and the little silver ring driven into the delicate skin above your belly-button.
“No one will know what it means,” I said when I arranged for Lisa to administer the piercing. “Only the two of us.” Now, every time you flash it, every single time you bare this glittering symbol of whatever we have between us for the world to see, something pierces me, too. A wave of something I don’t wish to define washes over me. I’m old enough to recognize it instantly, but still foolish enough to deny it.
Because you drive me crazy, make me feel things I haven’t felt in years. Not even taking the stage again, after a nine-year hiatus, flanked by Tommy and Matthew and Sam, my brothers in arms since 1981, affected me in the same way as the first time I saw that glint in your eyes. All it took was one glance, and I knew.
You flick your head to the right, momentarily pinning your eyes on me, and the whole motion thunders through me, leaving my panties drenched. Speaking of, you’re wearing a pair of mine underneath those leather pants—the ones that hug your ass so sublimely I need to catch my breath every time you present your back to me on the stage.
“Please allow me to present to you the next big thing,” my manager said. “The Harriettes.” You were obviously their leader, the way you hung back a bit—the way I learned to do all those years ago—to allow the others to shine during moments of lesser importance, like being introduced to a band long past its prime.
“Oh my god,” your bass player giggled. “We are such huge fans. You are our biggest inspiration.” It sounded a bit rehearsed, what with her not even been born yet the year we broke through. You appeared smarter, more composed, shrouded in that cool sort of silence that no one can take issue with.
When we shook hands, though, I detected the slightest hint of sweat on your palm, and when you met my gaze, I knew. I’m old enough to know.
You take your first of many faux-modest bows. After five months on the road, I know your routine by heart. I can only imagine the adrenaline coursing through your blood right now. Not that it doesn’t still happen to me, but the years have taken away the highest highs. I’ve learned to put it all into perspective more, to see the long-run—the end game. But I hope you’re enjoying this moment because it truly is glorious. Unencumbered by self-consciousness, lifted up by the incessant roar of the thousands of people in front of you, that one moment you sang and strutted your ass off for the past forty-five minutes. The higher your high, the more you’ll want me after.
You and your band members exit the stage, walking right past me, as usual. The first time it happened after we’d been together, it hurt a little bit, but I never held that against you. It would be like holding being young against youth. You’re pumped, ready to go back out there, to soak up whatever precious minutes of adoration you have left after your gig. Yet, for all your bravado, your magnetizing stage presence, and your—admittedly—raw, powerful vocals, you never let it go to your head.
“I need you to do this to me,” you said, the first time. But I didn’t need you to tell me that.
I wait patiently, glaring into the bright lights of the stage, the corners of my mouth lifting spontaneously as the people out there scream your name, scream for you to come back. Our own fans, like ourselves, are older now, and rarely call for encores in this unbridled, shameless, self-effacing way.
When you shuffle past me again, it’s as though I can smell you. Your sweat. The state of arousal you’ve worked yourself into during your set.
“I’ll be there,” I whisper to no one but myself. “I’ll be there when you come down.”
