little t&a

sittin', thinkin,' sinkin', drinkin'

Gene really didn't think too much of it at first when Paul vanished just after the tour. He didn't take it personally, the way Peter did, and he didn't get too quizzical about it like Ace did. The whole band was burnt-out on each other. The days where they had to share hotel rooms were gone, and the days where they wanted to share vacations were gone, too. Gene couldn't pinpoint when it had gotten like that, and it made him a little regretful, sure, but it was just another inevitability. The Beatles had made it ten years before imploding, all those hurt egos just smushing together and screwing everything up. KISS had four years under its belt now, and already he could feel things faltering.

So maybe Paul was trying to ease all that via his disappearing act. Spend his tour break at home, probably with a bevy of girls lining up at his front porch, and come back refreshed and ready for another nine-month stretch with only a wall between him and his bandmates, assuming Ace and Peter didn't tear a hole in it on a drunken whim. It made sense. The first time Paul didn't return his phone call (the tinny sound of his $400 answering machine the only response), Gene wasn't concerned. The second time, Gene assumed Paul had gone to a disco, or was spending the night at some chick's house. The third time, Gene immediately called up Bill, who said he hadn't heard from Paul, either.

That was cause for concern. Paul could, and did, blow off anybody but their manager. Still, Gene figured he'd give it one more day, and one more lay, before he started to investigate.

That was the plan, until he got his mail late one morning. There was always a fat stack of it. The actual sackfuls of fan mail would end up at some office, where a poor secretary was stuck stuffing envelopes with their pictures and a canned response. Sometimes a real sleuth would find his address, and he'd open those out of sheer novelty, when he had the chance, only to be disappointed when the writer turned out to be a twelve-year-old who'd spent his paper route money on several books of stamps, and mailed the same letter out to every Gene Simmons in the greater New York phone book. Every so often he'd get the good stuff, like a saucy letter from a college girl, with photos and pubic hair taped inside. "See you next time in Sacramento." He never wrote them back, but he'd put the photos in a separate album from his conquests. Almost a hope chest of photos, there.

Gene thumbed through the newsletters and errant bills so quickly he nearly missed it. A glossy postcard, with Buckingham Palace on the front. It couldn't have been a piece of fan mail, but he didn't know anyone who'd bother writing him, either. He flipped it over out of curiosity. Weird.

He recognized the scratchy longhand before he got to the signature. Not that it took long. Thee address was almost lengthier than the postcard message.

"Gene—Do you know anything about curses? Write me back soon. Thanks, Paul."

–

He called up Peter about it that afternoon, still baffled. He didn't really think Peter would have any insight on it—Paul and Peter hadn't been as close as they used to be, though that went for everyone—but he surprised him.

"I haven't heard from him. I figured you had." Peter was chewing gum as he spoke. Gene could hear the smacks through the receiver. "Why the fuck would he send you a postcard? You live closer to him than I do."

"That's what I'm trying to find out."

"Talking about curses..." Peter trailed. "Shit, I went over there last week. Didn't call him up first, just thought I'd go over like I used to. I banged on the door and some chick came out and screamed at me to go away. I told her who I was and she just stared at me."

"Paul doesn't pick girls for brains."

"It was kinda weird, though. Picky bastard usually gets blondes."