My Love, My Drug, My Release

Paul's Perspective

When I finally collapsed into bed after what felt like an interminable day, I found myself unable to sleep. Occasionally I was hit insomnia, but that usually resulted with me having too much energy and staying up all night writing songs or painting, and it normally came after taking drugs. But Sunday night I ached for rest, prayed for exhaustion to overtake me, but I merely tossed and turned, Linda snoring happily beside me. I realized, several hours after midnight, that I was being kept awake by the smell on my pillow: Lo's scent, her shampoo, her sweat, her morning breath.

Aggravated, I shoved myself out of bed, thankfully not waking my wife. I couldn't stay there, couldn't lie awake all night thinking of her.

Stumbling down to the kitchen, woozy with exhaustion, I poured myself some gin from an old bottle in the back I rarely touched, adding a bit of tonic water to help it go down easier. Better black-out drunk than sober all night. 

I tiptoed over to the entrance to the green room but turned around at the last minute. My most recent LP hadn't done well with critics, not at all, and I'd been put off music again, almost as strongly as directly after the Beatles split. Nothing inspired me, nothing stirred that passion inside me anymore, there were no great ideas, only feelings and sensations. This drink burned my throat on the way to my stomach, Lorraine's smell kept me up at night, Mary's giggle made my heart warm in my icy chest, but I couldn't put that into a song, didn't know how. 

Past the curtains, the sky was still dark, dawn hours away, and no fans crowded outside the gate due to the heavy rainfall. Despite my better judgment, I found myself in Lo's room. I shouldn't say 'I found myself'- I knew what I was doing when I climbed the stairs and opened her door, even as I tried to feign innocence. Leaning against the wall, I watched her sleep, her body rise and fall with every breath, hair splayed across her pillow.

My throat tightened, chest constricting painfully, eyes watering slightly from the emotion. I'd never known this kind of agony, never wanted someone so desperately who was so far out of my reach. Every day, women threw themselves at me; on tour, they'd claw each other's eyes out to get near me, get near any of us, but I've known rejection. As a boy, as a man, girls turned me down, but there was always hope. Even if they said no because I was too smug or too fat or they had a boyfriend, they still existed on the same playing field, things could always turn around. But not for Lorraine and me; she'd always be off-limits, out of bounds, even when she was of age. Would I ache for her this desperately if she were within my reach? I didn't know. All I knew was that with every day, my desire grew stronger, like an infection in the blood, until the pleasure faded away entirely and only the pain remained. 

I didn't sleep the rest of the night, staying Lo's room until daybreak. When she started to stir, I went down to the kitchen, traded my gin and tonic for some coffee and a strawberry yogurt, waiting for the rest of the household to join me.

"Morning, my love," Linda said, kissing the top of my head, still in her nightgown. "You're up early. Is there any more coffee?"

"No, sorry, I didn't think to make more than one cup."

She rolled her eyes when she thought I wasn't looking and went to make more coffee, my knuckles going white around my mug. Thankfully, Lo jogged down the stairs in her school uniform before I could lash out at my wife.

"Is Earl here yet?" she asked. Earl was our new driver.

"Not yet," I said.

We stood there in uncomfortable silence, or at least it was uncomfortable for me. Linda made coffee and Lo sifted through the fruit basket nonchalantly. I wondered if my wife ever felt the tension in the room between her stepdaughter and me, or if she just assumed we were in the middle of a fight or simply didn't have anything to say. 

"I think I'll go outside to wait for Earl," Lo said, but not before peeling a banana and taking a bite out of it, which put a perverted image in my head, and made me feel ridiculous.

"Do you want a fill-up?" I'd been so busy watching the teen leave, I hadn't noticed Linda come up beside me with a fresh pot of coffee.

"No thanks."

Hearing my depressed tone, she sat down, taking my hand. "What's wrong darling?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me; I can see you're not yourself."

I sighed, putting my face in my hands, partially muffling my words, but they were clear enough. "Lo's lying about what happened the other night. Richards gave her something, a drug- I don't know if it was junk or what- but that's why she came home sick and feverish."

I expected her to tell me to back off, give her space, that Keith and Anita wouldn't do that, but instead, she said, "Alright, let's call them over."

"Really?"

"Yeah, if they're giving our daughter heroin, we deserve to know."

Our daughter. At first, those words filled me with a sense of pride, of familial love, and then I almost immediately felt dirty and ashamed. I didn't deserve those words, hadn't earned them. And even if I could smother my emotions and be a parent, protect Lo, I'd still have my perverse inclinations. 

Linda picked up the phone, flipping through her address book to make sure she got the number right, and invited them over, all politeness. As time carried on and we waited, my guilt faded away, replaced by steely determination.

When the doorbell rang, I jumped up, a bit too eager to confront the Rolling Stone and his girlfriend. 

"Hello Paulie," Anita said upon seeing me, before I could even welcome them inside. "Sorry we're late, we just hired a new driver. Lovely chap." She turned to wave to a man beside their car, and it felt like my stomach froze over solid. They'd hired Robert, our old driver, the one I fired.

Oooh, bit of a cliffhanger. Props to @ArabianKnights for sort of calling this ahead of time. This chapter is a bit short, but I've been having a bit of writer's block all around. It's hard because this story is getting very long and has changed from what I originally intended, new characters and plot points popping up all the time, but I'm still planning on the story ending the same way, and so I have to figure out where all these plot threads are going and how they are going to arrive where I want them to. If you like this chapter, please vote, add, share, and comment if there is anything you'd like to see more of!!