No Quarter (NOLA's Own #2) (36 page)

Our big surprise from Sheri was about to show up as we waited in Lili and Lewis’s room, smoking a few joints and drinking a few beers.

“Did you get us Halloween strippers?” guessed Lili.

The woman had been refusing to give us a clue. She would just smile and shake her head with each outlandish guess as to what it could be, so it had become a bit of a game for us.

We were all dressed and ready to go. Vivian was the most festive out of all of us, wearing Flipper’s favorite colors—purple and black. She had on black-and-purple striped tights with knee-high black go-go boots, a poufy black miniskirt with purple taffeta ruffling, and a custom-made black tank top—courtesy of Sheri—with
NOLA’s Junk
on the front in glittering silver letters and
Little Drummer’s Girl
on the back.

We’d all gotten this little gift from Sheri. Alys’s had
Lady X
on the back of hers. Lili’s read
Junk’s Photographer.
Sheri’s only had
Head Bitch
on the back of hers, which we’d all booed because she had every right to proclaim herself as Jason’s Bitch. Of course, mine read
Baby Girl
.

I had my favorite wide-legged baggy jeans that I usually wore to concerts and my scruffy black Chucks that had have seen better days. I let Sheri do a badass updo—my bangs styled back to give me unnecessary height, slick on the sides with some gel, and pulled into a severe ponytail. It was rockin’.

A knock sounded at the door, and Sheri excitedly bounded toward it, letting in our surprise.

“Ta-da!” she cried.

Two women walked in, bearing makeup cases that put Lili’s to shame.

“What…” gasped Lili.

“This is Karen Schaffer and Jenny Thompson, and they’re going to be turning us into sugar skulls!”

“Shut the fuck up!” crowed Vivian.

Karen was an oddity unto herself with a head full of blood-red dreadlocks and a face full of piercings. She was not an attractive woman, but when she smiled, I could definitely see her sex appeal. Jenny was plump and cute with her black Betty Paige hairstyle and twinkling brown eyes.

“We’re bringing a bit of New Orleans to LA for Halloween! If Our Boys are going as voodoo skulls, we have to be ready to look the part for them, too,” stated Sheri.

Right then, I couldn’t agree more.

The women got to work, applying what felt like Spackle on our faces.

“These two are world famous for their sugar skulls,” Sheri informed us. “We’re in good hands.”

Karen was the one who did the amazing details while Jenny created the base and chose the colors. For myself, Jenny had chosen several shades of green for the eye socket color, shot through with pale shimmering pinks. My lips were the shimmering pink on the inner part, which slowly transformed into green on the outer edges. Karen had quietly nodded with approval before gluing green, pink, and white crystals around my eye sockets. She created a pink-and-white lotus over my Third Eye and another on my chin. The leaves she painted on, trailing curling lines up along my jawbone on either side, on my cheeks, and above my brows, connected both lotus blossoms.

By the time the last crystal was fixed in place and the last tiny brush added the final detail, our faces shimmered with colors and gems.

“Oh,
Kenna
,” breathed Alys.

Lili nodded vigorously behind her in agreement.

When I was finally able to see my reflection, the face staring back at me was in awe of the fine artwork these women had created. Looking closely at all my friends, I could see the same sort of detail had gone into their faces as well, but mine…I loved it. It was
me.

“Lili, we need to get pictures of these masterpieces before the night ruins them!” I told her.

“Here, let me get some of all of you in a group shot,” offered Jenny.

With a slight hint of trepidation, Lili handed her baby over to the makeup artist, but Jenny assured her that she was a photographer herself. She had brought her own camera to take photos of us for marketing purposes and would treat the camera as if it were her own.

We took some nice shots, some with exaggerated posing, and a few vulgar ones. Hey, we weren’t ladies at our basest natures. Jenny took headshots of each of us, and we all signed waivers to allow them to use our photos for whatever they needed to.

At seven o’clock, we headed down to the lobby where our driver greeted and escorted us to the limousine. My excitement was building up as we pulled out of the porte cochere, my brain finally registering that we were going to a concert.

There’s the buzz I was missing!

Joyous laughter bubbled forth, and Alys and Lili started giggling, too. It always happened like this. My excitement would infect them, and we’d all be high on pure happiness by the time we got to a venue.

Sheri and Vivian gave us confused looks, but soon, the laughter infected them, too.

About twenty minutes later, the limo pulled up to an entrance behind the Hollywood Bowl, and Sheri handed us our backstage passes, which said
Crew
on them.

“All access, ladies. Quick heads-up,” Sheri said as we pulled the passes over our heads, careful not to mess up our faces. “Groupies.”

“Oh God,” Alys whispered.

“God has little to do with these creatures. Not all of them are mean, you guys. Some of them really are good people. But I know the girls who are here tonight, and they’re not. Well, Camryn’s cool, but the rest? Not so much. They are here for Our Boys—and once they figure out who Lewis is, they might want in his pants, too.”

“What?” gasped Lili.

“They are vicious.” Sheri was looking directly at me. She nodded, as if reading my mind. “You will be considered Public Enemy Number One, Kenna.”

“Why me?” I squeaked.

She rolled her eyes. “Because you’re the legendary Baby Girl. All of you need to know that these are the girls who have done
everything
for the guys over the last few years. They all want to be indispensable. We have to keep a cool head, okay?”

“Okay,” we chorused back.

“Do they know you’re with Jason?” Alys asked her quietly.

“I don’t know. Jason always chose to be with me over them, and because of that, I’ve been the butt of their humor for a long time. I would love to eradicate most of them off the face of the earth—”

“Damn!” I barked.

“But they do a lot of grunt work on the road, so they’re hard to get rid of. For the most part, they traveled in the roadie bus, which is another reason they hated me.”

“What’s their purpose here tonight then?” I asked.

She gave me an arched eyebrow. “They are welcome because they do so much for them, not just sexual stuff either. So…just be prepared.”

Fucking greeaat. Just another itch I can’t fucking scratch. First, Camryn, and now, a small army of skanks who want
back
in my man’s pants. Awesome.

Our happy high thoroughly dissipated as we exited the limo. A security guard checked our passes and opened the heavy metal door. Inside was fucking pandemonium. People were running all over the place. Ignoring them, we followed Sheri’s militant squared shoulders through the maze of corridors and equipment.

Alys slipped her hand in mine. I knew she wanted to run in the opposite direction, stressing out over some vile bitches. We had had to deal with so much of it when we were kids. We’d never really thought we would experience it as adults. Nevertheless, here we were, feeling as though we had to go back to school and confront the mean girls.

“It’s going to be fine,” I whispered to her.

Lili heard me. She looped around behind us and took Alys’s other hand.

Too soon, Sheri stopped in front of a door that stood cracked open, a laminated piece of paper reading
NOLA’S JUNK
taped to it. Laughter and music were coming through that crack, both recognizable male voices and the tinkling bells of alien females.

“Ready?” Sheri asked us, plastering a smile on her face.

“No,” the four of us replied.

“Right.” She wrenched the door open.

Alys was threatening to snap my fingers.

Vivian followed Sheri, Lili followed Vivian, and Alys wouldn’t budge. Patiently, I waited for her to find her balls.

“I hate girls,” she whispered to me. “I really hate them, Kenna.”

“You love me and Lili. And Sheri. And Vivian. We can’t just throw them to the wolves.”

She nodded and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Don’t worry,” I told her softly. “I’m Public Enemy Number One
,
remember?”

She nodded again.

“Come on.”

Tugging on her hand gently, we walked over the threshold. Inside, it was just a regular type of room, a few ratty-looking sofas and chairs with a pile of duffel bags in one corner. I recognized one of them as Phil’s. A table was set up along one wall with an array of different beers and liquors and plates of finger foods.

“Oh, how cute! Sheri, you brought a bodyguard!”

“Damn,” I huffed under my breath.

Alys was squeezing my hand so hard that I was losing feeling in my fingertips.

There were four of them—five, if we were counting Camryn, who was standing in the far corner of the room next to a vanity covered with pots of makeup. Positioned between my
half-naked
boyfriend’s spread knees as he sat on a stool, she smeared black paint over his eyelids. No shirt on, his blazing heart on display for all to see, he looked relaxed, peaceful even, his hands resting with fingers splayed over his black Dickies-clad knees.

The massive submissive. I want him like that…ready to let me unleash whatever perverted shit is going on in my head on him. Damn, my mouth is watering!

Recently, I had begun fantasizing about having him on his knees, his head bowed, with his arms tied behind his back while I did all sorts of wonderfully wrong things to him. I liked the idea of him begging me to let him come, of roughing him up a little if he did too soon.

Maybe there’s something wrong with me. I have never had any desire to subject another person to that, but the more I think about doing it to him, the more it turns me on. It’s his fault, tying me up in the first place!

“Hiring lesbians for protection now, Sher-Bear?”

That comment yanked me out of my thoughts of doing wickedly depraved shit to Phil and back into there and then. Slowly, I turned my head toward the nasty little piece of fairy trash sitting on the long sofa who had attempted to insult us with that remark.

“Well, hiring straight female bodyguards wouldn’t be all too smart. They’d go for the guys and leave her to fend for herself!” A girl in a slutty nurse getup laughed. That one had some serious cleavage.

“That’s not a lesbian,” said a sexy witch next to the fairy. “It’s obviously transgender. It’s a fucking giant! I guess
that
would be the muscle, Sheri?”

My jaw dropped in shock. Never, in all my enormous glory, had I ever been mistaken for a
man
. My tits weren’t exactly proportional to the rest of my large feminine body, but they were there. Phil loved my tits, and I never bothered with wearing a bra, so I could give him easy access.

“No, that’s definitely a she-beast,” said the fairy.

She-beast? Are you fucking kidding me?

The other girls tittered, but I noticed that the guys had grown quiet. Jason had stopped strumming his acoustic guitar from his spot in a recliner adjacent to the couch housing the two bitches. Vivian had hurried to Flipper’s side, desperately clasping his hand, and they both watched in horror from the refreshment table.

“Sheri, why don’t you and your lesbo-detail go irritate someone else? We got the guys covered here,” said the snarky fairy.

“What the…” came X’s voice from somewhere behind us.

Alys gripped my hand tighter, and she took in a shaky breath. I could sense that she was fighting back tears. I wanted to reassure her that this was nothing, that we had made it through worse. The mean girls at school had been smart, but these creatures were just mean without the brains.

I was staring down the fairy, a sharp burn of loathing searing at my heart. From the corner of my eye, I saw Phil rubbing The Tattoo. Then, he gently placed his hands on Camryn’s waist—
I’m going to tear his fucking hands off—
and pushed her back a step.

Jason busted out laughing, his painted face splitting into a gaping evil grin, and I had to admit,
that
was what really hurt. Sheri turned and glared at him, and Lili hissed behind us.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jason said, snickering. “What did you call her?”

Wow…I had actually thought we were friends.

“She-beast?” piped up the fairy.

“With the midget in the back, they could be a circus freak–dykey threesome!” said the slutty nurse, laughing.

“Lewis!” roared Lili. “Take my camera!”

From what I could hear, Lewis took the camera and the woman whose neck it was hanging around in a bear hug.

“Aw, stop it!” chimed another cute witch. “You’re hurting their feelings! If you really piss off the she-beast, Phil will be the only thing that can hold it back!”

It. That bitch just called me an
it.

X stormed to the door and shouted, “
Tiny
!”

Gods above, this sucked. I had been prepared to hold my own and fight for my man, but I hadn’t prepared for a firing squad shooting me down over my size and athletic build. I knew Phil loved me, adored every inch of my six-foot self, but to be torn down like this…at twenty-four years old, as a doctor with a solid reputation. I guessed that heartache of being constantly teased as a kid…never really went away.

I closed my eyes, wishing I could close my ears, too.

“
Make them stop
!” Alys whispered brokenly.

“No!” laughed Jason.

Motherfucker!

“This is priceless!”

“Jason!” shouted Sheri.

“Seriously! They have
no clue
what they’re doing! It’s fucking hilarious!”

I opened my eyes and glared at Jason, and in return, he smirked and
winked
at me.

What’s he playing at?

But the tight knot suffocating my heart eased up a little. I understood that he was somehow on my side.