FicWad

Slash

I’ve never been down to Tiajuana in all the years that I’ve lived in LA and I’m fucking excited as hell! I can’t look at Duff though; his disappointment in my falling off the wagon and shooting up again is palpable. I hate letting him down and the guilt burns inside of me; a glowing, nagging, ball of shame that makes me want to get high even worse so that I can numb that feeling out.

Right now I’m numbing it out by sucking on a bottle of Jack in the back seat of Izzy’s piece of shit car and laughing at his description of his sexual conquests the night before. Stevies stories always go the same fucking way: the girl always has the biggest, roundest tits (Stevie’s a boob man), she sucks dick like a porn star and she squeals when he fucks her. I’ve heard this story about different girls about a million times over the years. In truth he will fuck anything that moves and has big tits that he can rub his face hin. He was into hair pulling and calling his women bitches. It’s all about dominance for him; he needs to feel like he’s in charge and calling the shots since his control over sex was taken fro him at such a young age.

I remember how bad he wanted into some of those clubs so badlythat he started hanging around the back doors of places like the Roxy and the Cathouse offering to do odd jobs if they’d let him in at night. I was still really into BMX at the time so I didn’t care about getting into clubs; I had a chick and her mom would let me stay over and we fucked all night. Who needed clubs?
But I started noticing a change in Steven; his eyes got this haunted look and he was jumpy as hell. He had bruises in weird places like around his upper arms or his wrists but he wouldn’t answer me if I asked him about them. It was only later that I learned that the club owners were getting him to trade sex for letting him in underage. Sometimes they would drug him so he’d be compliant and sometimes they’d just hold him down or tie him up and fuck the hell out of him. I found out one night when he came stumbling down the stairs into my basement bedroom all bloodied and bruised and smacked out enough to tell me what had happened. I didn’t know he was on smack; I just thought he was drunk or something. We were about 15 by then and this had been going on for two years. I was horrified when I found out what he’d done or what had been done to him but he wouldn’t let me tell my mom. He just used my shower and made a few ice packs and passed out on the couch in my room.

So to this day his sexual experiences are marked with phrases “Yeah you little bitch, just shut the fuck up and take it while pulling the chicks hair hard enough t rip it out. He also only likes to fuck doggy style so he can smack their asses. I on the other hand prefer to lay on my back and let the girls ride me; they can decide how much they want or don’t want and I like watching them (and feeling them) sliding up and down so that the head of my dick stroked their g-spot until they came; I loved the way they spasmed around my cock and how wet they were when they came. I lived for pussy back then but that started changing as I got older.

When I was about 17 my dick started getting hard watching guys in bands and their tight leather pants and I would fantasize about being held by strong male arms and a guy’s hand wrapped around my dick. Then I met Duff when he auditioned for Road Crew and it quickly became Duff’s touch I imagined and Duff’s mouth sucking me off when I was jerking off. He had a girlfriend though so I never knew he wanted me even back then. I’d catch him staring at me every now and then and the way he leaned up against me while we were playing suggested he was interested. Then that night we met to audition for Izzy and Axl he made it clear he was interested and I was terrified, I was elated, I was horny as hell and eternally grateful he had experience and patience and that he wanted me as badly as I wanted him. He was everything I had fantasized about and then some and he’s been so good to me. I love him more every day; and I couldn’t ask to be treated any better or loved any more than I am. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for him including trying to quit doing smack again.

I had been ok, not great but ok since I got clean a couple of weeks ago but all it took was that one incident to throw me over the edge again. The heroin just wiped the bad feelings away like nothing else could. I’d been buying valium from Izzy and using it but it only worked so well and mostly made me sleepy. Heroin was pure bliss; like nothing was wrong and all the anxiety and the shame that came with the memories I couldn’t get rid of, it all went away when that needle slipped under my skin. I prefer it to being drunk too; drinking is hard on my stomach and when I wasn’t on heroin I had been drinking. Duff’s drinking ALOT. I worry about it because I see his hands shaking when he wakes up and sometimes he drinks so much that he throws up and then just drinks some more. He tries to hide it from me but I know.

Fortunately it’s not hurting our sex life any which is good because in addition to the fact that we both have the normal raging hormones of young guys I crave the intimacy with him even more after all the things that had been done to us; it bonded us together in some kind of shared pain. We both knew exactly how the other felt and how to respond when one of us was down or woke up panicking from a particularly bad nightmare or just got despondent from depression. I’m starting to panic even without nightmares now though; in the shower, when I wake up alone in the morning if Duff’s at work (and yes, he still works, he says the cooking calms him), any time I see a limo parked somewhere and I wonder if some other poor fuck is getting the same treatment Duff and I got. I don’t like strangers touching me which is sort of hard to avoid after our shows now because we have so many fans; people are all over us, especially girls.

Sometimes I have to leave the dressing rooms packed full of people and run outside for air. If Duff sees he’ll follow me and talk me the through the attack; walking me up and down the street trying to get me to breathe, feeding me valium, holding me through the shuddering sobs that inevitably follow that Duff says are caused by your brain sending a rush of chemicals out to calm down your system and that crying allows your body a natural relief from the stress of what it just went through. He’s had these anxiety issues for years; ever since he found one of his friends dead from a heroin overdose so he’s talked to enough doctors about it to know what he’s talking about when he’s explaining it to me. I’m just trying to hide from Duff how often it’s happening though; he doesn’t need any more to worry about; he worries about me enough as it is when he needs to be concentrating on healing himself. Only time and love are going to heal us though.

Even though it broke my heart that Duff was there with me in the back of that limousine having some guy take him against his will having him hold my hand and tell me to look at him and only him and his eyes that silently told me to hold on, that it would be over soon, those things got me though the hell that was happening to me. If he hadn’t been there I would have cried through the whole thing or hyperventilated and passed out. Duff’s presence let me know that there was a world outside of that car where things were different, better than they were in that second and that I was loved no matter what and that there was a heart that was embracing me even in those horrible minutes where we watched someone else violate each other’s bodies. It’s totally sick but nothing could have bonded us more and I know that he’s just as devoted to me as I am to him and I’m pretty sure that he’s just as desperately in love as I am.

But even as I think all these things I’m driving to Tiajuana to score dope and I know that I’m hurting him and making him worry. I try and push the guilt away by concentrating on what’s happening in the car. Izzy has Aerosmith blasting on the radio and we’re speeding down the highway towards the border. Nikki and Izzy are both singing along with the radio while Steven’s tapping a rhythm out on the back of Izzy’s seat much to Izzy’s irritation. “Popcorn stop drumming on the back of my seat or I’m gonna drum my fists into your face man!” Izzy says with a smirk on his face that lets Steven know he’s joking about hitting him but serious about wanting him to stop hitting his seat. Steven laughs and ruffles Izzy’s hair before sitting back in his seat. Izzy curses and tries to smooth his hair back down.

“Aww who you trying to look pretty for Stradlin? Your little redhead’s back in LA. Got a thing for for the blonde hairball back there? Or maybe the kid?” Nikki teases.
“God damnit Nikki I don’t have a thing for either one of them; I just don’t want to walk around looking like I have a bird’s nest on top of my head ok? Want me to fuck up your hair?” Izzy snaps.

Nikki slides closer to the window and further away from Izzy. “Don’t mess with the hair man,” Nikki growls and pats down his spiky, black mane. “So why is Red always worrying that you got a thing for Curly back there? He’s always glaring at the two of you if you’re talking and he gets all touchy and possessive of you when Slash is around; what’s up with that?”

I groan in annoyance from the backseat and Izzy rolls his eyes; we’ve both had enough of Axl’s stupid jealousy that never seemed to die. “Axl’s just naturally jealous for one,” Izzy grumbles. “ Also, I told Slash he had a beautiful mouth the first night we met and that I bet Duff was going to make good use of it and Axl got all pissy about it. Then I saved Slash’s ass from a truck driver who thought Slash should be the one to pay for the ride he gave us on the way to Seattle and Axl got himself into a similar situation several years ago only I wasn’t there to save him. He got away from the guy but I’ve always felt guilty that I wasn’t there and Axl wasn’t mad about it because he hitchhiked out of town without telling me because we’d had an argument but when I beat that guy in the head with a bottle when he had Slash pinned up against a wall Axl was jealous even though he wouldn’t admit it. Then when I was living with Duff and Slash after Axl kicked me out I spent most of my days alone with the kid because we worked similar shifts and slept a lot of the afternoon away and Axl didn’t like that either. Axl’s just ridiculous; he can’t stand the thought that I may have looked at Curly Sue that first night even though he looks at whoever he wants and expects me not to get pissed off. Even though Axl knows that Slash and Duff are head over heels for each other he still can’t get past this idea that he has.”

“Shit, Axl’s the one who actually fucked him right?” Nikki asks with a knowing smirk. How does he know that shit? Did Izzy tell him? Izzy nods with a somewhat hurt look on his face. Guilt swells up in my chest and I feel my whole body turn red in embarrassment. Tears spring into my eyes.

“Nikki…no, it wasn’t like that!” I see Izzy’s sad eyes in the mirror. “ Izzy I’m sorry,” I stammer, my voice breaking. “I’m so sorry, I always have been, I told you that.” I tell him catching his eyes in the rearview mirror again.

“I know Slash, it’s not your fault, it was never your fault, I know that, I told you that day I wasn’t upset with you and I’m not. Axl…just should have known better. He should never have put you in that position or have talked you into it; Duff and I told him not to let anybody touch you and that included him; I just thought he would have had the sense to know that. Apparently his ambition knew no bounds though. I’m never going to stop being pissed at him for sending Duff out with those guys from Avi even though he didn’t know what would happen and figured Duff was big enough to take care of himself and I’m never going to forgive him for making you go through what you went through that night with him. It’s like he took your innocence Slash and he goddamn well knew he was doing it and he didn’t fucking care. He thinks everyone should pay their dues and he wanted a record deal at any cost; even if that cost was your humiliation. He told me when I went over there the next day that you were scared to death and I saw how guilty and ashamed you were in the bathroom that morning. He should never have put you through that. He should have thrown that guy out on his ass. But everyone’s just a pawn in his game to get what he wants which is to be a rock star. That’s the fucking Axl Rose side of him and I don’t like that side.

I love Billy, Billy was the guy I grew up with and fell in love with. Billy was sweet and loved making music because it fed his soul. But he was so fucking wounded and fucked up inside because of his damn stepfather beating him and fucking him all the time; he’d crawl into my bedroom window at night a bloody, terrified, mess. All I could do was try and clean him up, let him stand in the shower until the water ran cold, and then hold him while he cried. I want to kill his fucking dad to this day and I swear to god if I ever cross his path with a gun on me he’s a dead mother fucker because he turned the sweet, shy kid I loved into the asshole most people see now. When we’re alone most of the time I get Billy back and I love him with all my fucking heart. But everyone else gets Axl and Axl’s an asshole.

"Kid I’m so sorry for what he did to you that night. I know he didn’t hurt you or anything and he tried to make it as easy for you as he could and I know he thought that was the best he could do for you and he honestly thought he was protecting you by doing it himself and letting that guy watch instead of letting that creep touch you and he did protect you in a way but I wish he’d done more. I just want you to know I’m sorry that it happened and I’m sorry he didn’t just get rid of the guy and I’m sorry for how you felt that night and how you still feel inside about it. I just want you to know that I’m not angry at you and that Duff’s not angry at you and it wasn’t your fault. Even though you might have enjoyed it physically I saw something break in your eyes the next morning so I know you’re confused and guilty and ashamed; I see it in your eyes when you look at me sometimes and I see how you can barely look at Axl. If there’s anything I can do it make it better kid I will. You and Duff are my best friends; you especially and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you and I’m sorry you were hurt like that by somebody I love.”

I’m pretty sure that’s more than I’ve ever heard Izzy talk in all the time that I’ve known him except for the times he’s cried to me about Axl. I’m sort of stunned into silence; I didn’t know he had such strong feelings about what happened between Axl and me. I really didn’t know how much guilt he held about Axl sleeping with me; I thought he’d be angry more than anything else. I certainly didn’t expect all of what he just said. I just sit there; shocked into silence for a second and then say “Izzy it’s ok, it’s not your fault either. I would never think that.” The look of relief I saw sweep over his face when I said that just about broke my heart.

“Can I do anything to make it up to you?”” he asks in a shaky voice.

“You don’t need to make it up to me Izz,” I whisper. “But can you lift your ban on supplying me smack? I know Duff doesn’t want me on it but I’m hiding the panick attacks from his Izzy; I have them all the time. I feel like I’m going to have a nervous breakdown or something; I’m just waiting for it. I just act like everything’s ok because he’ll go into caretaker mode and he needs to worry about himself right now and not me and I want him to let me help him and take care of him. He has more panic attacks than me and terrible nightmares about wht happened to him that night with those guys from Avi and a lot of the time he dreams that they’re hurting me. He’s worried enough about me; I’m not going to tell him how fucked up I really am. He’ll either drink himself to death or he’ll have a heart attack and I can’t let that happen to him!” I say hearing my voice rise with anxiety.

“Hey, kid, it’ll be ok,” Nikki says turning around to look at me. “The same shit happened to all of us in the Crue; why do you think Vince is such a total asshole? I was a wreck, probably as bad as Duff is right now, I was literally going off the deep end. I fucking OD’d twice! But I got through it eventually and I didn’t die. Duff won’t either and neither will you and neither will Izzy and neither will Popcorn over there right?” Nikki says to Steven and me. Steven nods with a smile on his face. He’s high as shit on qualuudes.

“How’d you get through it?” I ask him.
He sighs. It took a long time and even now sometimes shit sets me off, smells, sounds, just different things. Buisniness guys in tweed jackets really freak me the fuck out…he sort of trails off for a seond. But I’m Nikki fucking Sixx and I can survive anything. I did some more smack, I just cut back so I didn’t die again. We went on tour, that was the best thing, kept me busy every day. New city every time you wake up, thousands of faces screaming for your music, chicks every night, it was fucking awesome; I love fucking touring! I also spent a lot of time drinking and talking to Tommy about shit because it happened to him too, he was right there with me a lot of times; I mean literally right beside me getting fucked too. I wrote music about how angry I was, I keep journals, tons of them. I play out my anger onstage.

If I’d had somebody that I loved as much as you love Duff that loved me back the way he does you I’d have fucking clung to them like a life raft in a fucking hurricane because I needed somebody to love me; it would have helped. You and Duff can help each other stand up and be strong again. Thank God or whoever for Tommy because he was all I fucking had and I guess I was all he had because we were on the road he didn’t bring Bobbi with him; she was a crazy bitch. I didn’t bring Vanity either; she was even crazier. I just needed the friend who had gone through the same shit I had. I’m not going to tell you not to do the smack, it fucking helped immensely to be honest but I will tell you go home and tell Duff the truth and tell him that he had better dare not go into mother hen mode that that’s not the shit you need; tell him you need a partner and that you’ll get through this shit together. He’ll listen and if he starts mothering you tell him to knock that shit off.” I just nod at him, when did he get so wise? “And you Stradlin,” he continues and turns to Izzy, “you be honest with Red. Tell him you’re pissed as hell at him and why but that you don’t want to be and tell him how much you love the real him, tell him how much you love Billy. Tell him that if he wants to be Axl around people that don’t matter and strangers fine but that you only want to see Billy with the guys in your band and always when you’re alone. When you get famous you need to know that somebody loves the real you, the you that’s inside, not your image, not the idea of you, but the person you are in your heart, you got me? It’s what he’s really looking for he just doesn’t know it.” Izzy nods at him. “Alright, that’s enough of this sniffly bullshit; you want me to drive Stradlin?”

“Fucking no I don’t want you to drive, I want to survive this trip, not end up in the fucking morgue!” Izzy snaps and gives Nikki a half smile.

“Adler, you got qualuudes on you I know you do, start fucking passing them out or we won’t give you any of the smack we score! I know you get as many as you want from those little stripper whores you fuck!”

Steven laughs and pulls a handful of pills out of his pocket. He hands two to Nikki along with the bottle of Jack he and I had been sharing and Nikki downs them. “Want some Stradlin?” Nikki says evily.

“I said I fucking wanted to live through this trip dumbass, I can’t take that shit and drive, we’ll end up dead or in jail and even if I’m in hell I’ll hear Axl yelling at me so no thanks!” Izzy says and actually laughs. I don’t care what Axl thinks or how much crazy shit they get into Nikki’s sort of good for Izzy; he brings out something happy that’s buried inside of him most of the time.
Nikki hands the bottle to me and Stevie gives me a couple of pills and I swallow them. “You want another one dude?” he asks me where Nikki can’t hear over the radio. I nod and he passes me one more and I down that one too. He pops a couple more and soon he and I are giggling and laying all over each other in the backseat the way we have since we were 13.
Nikki glances at us in the rearview mirror. “You two are fucking idiots together do you know that? Your intelligence level gets cut in half the minute you two are in a confined space together.” Izzy laughs and Steven and I just giggle more. It’s probably true. I suddenly get an image in my head of Steven fucking that girl at Nikki’s party in the hot tub; how his ass moved so fast it was almost a blur and I bust out laughing so hard I start snorting.

“What the fuck is so funny man?” Steven asks.

“I just remembered what you looked like at Nikki’s house, when you were in the hot tub fucking that girl, you were pounding her so hard and fast you looked like Flash Gordon or something!” I dissolve into more giggling.

“Shut up! You’re just jealous! It was the coke, it gave me sex super powers! That chick fucking loved it! I fucked three more girls after her while you guys were busy racing around in go carts, two of them at the same time! My dick just wouldn’t go down even after I came it was fucking great!”

“I’m not jealous, I’ve had enough fucking chicks, I can have em any time I want, we all can, they can’t stay away now that we’re signed, they think we might get famous and so will they! It’s bullshit! Nothing but fucking hangers-on. Those two pretty blondes from the Cathouse, Melanie and Amber? The stuck up ones that wouldn’t give us the time of day? They came over last week practically begging to blow us. Duff and I were the only ones home and they brought fucking pizza and beer and a bag of blow! So we just sat on the couch and let them suck our dicks; then we did some blow and fucked the hell out of both of them! We came and traded them off and they were all for it; fucking wouldn’t even speak to us three weeks ago! After we were done with them we threw them and their clothes out and locked the door. We kept the blow and the food. The fucking unbelievable thing is I came home the next day and Izzy and Axl had them up in their bedroom! They fucking came back for more! Fucking money grubbing whores!” Steven snorts and takes a huge gulp of whiskey.

Izzy laughs. “The pussy was good though. Axl stole $500 bucks off of them too!”

“You’d better not let Angela find out or she’ll be ripping their hair out!” I warn him.

“Yeah, she’s a fucking little scrapper,” Izzy says with a smile. “ I like her that way. She’s fun, she’s a good lay, and she fucking knows her place is after Axl. She’s not a whiny bitch like Erin. Angie’s her own person; she doesn’t need me to make her happy, she just likes having me around. If I’m not there it’s fine too; she’s made a lot of friends and she plays piano did you know that?” I shake my head. “She’s been getting me to teach her some guitar too and she learns fast. One of her friends sings, they’re thinking about starting a band. Just for fun, nothing serious. I like that she does her own thing and doesn’t put pressure on me. She’s just usually up for whatever.
Erin though, man she hangs all over Axl and complains that he doesn’t pay enough attention to her and she starts fights with him and then they go have this angry, rough, make-up sex. I hate having sex with him when he’s like that so I just won’t; she must fucking love it because she pushes his buttons until he gives it to her; then he’s fucking mad for the rest of the night. I don’t get it; I hate dealing with his ass when he’s like that.”

“Some chicks just like it rough man,” Steve slurs. There’s this one girl I fuck sometimes, Amy, she likes for me to spank her. Fucking weird.”

“Whatever Popcorn you love bending her over your knee and you know it, I hear you doing it and calling her a bad little bitch!” I shriek and we all start laughing.

Izzy suddenly gets serious. “Give me that whisky,” he says. I hand it over and he tosses it out the window.

“What the fuck?!” Steven asks.

“Border crossing!” Nikki exclaims gleefully. Steven stuffs the rest of his bag of pills down into the hole between the seats where the seatbelts come out and we try and sit up straight and look sane. Izzy’s gun goes into a secret hole cut into the bottom of the seat cushion. Man Izzy’s got this car tricked out with all kinds of hiding places; a pimped out piece of shit drug mobile.

Of course four long haired dudes arouse suspicion and we get hauled out and searched and they threaten to arrest Nikki when he tells them that he’s smuggling a giant imported sausage across the border. He just laughs like a maniac and starts to unzip his pants but the border cops tell him that if he displays his imported sausage they will taze said sausage immediately on the highest setting possible. “Nobody likes burnt sausage, leaves a bad taste in your mouth,” Izzy warns him.

“Guess you’re right,” Nikki grumbles. But how about a moon pie?!” he yells and laughs that sicko laugh of his and drops his pants and moons the border patrol! Instantly there’s a zapping sound and Nikki starts convulsing on the ground. He stops for a second and I wonder if he’s dead but I hear him chuckling of all things!

“I like my moon pies heated,” the border patrol agent says with a smirk. Nikki just keeps laughing, laying there on the ground with the prongs of a taser sticking out of his ass! The rest of us just look at each other in mute horror and disbelief. “Anybody else got anything they need warmed up?” the border patrol agent asks. We quickly shake our heads and he tells us we can get back in the car. The tazer gets pulled out of Nikki’s ass cheek and he stumbles his way back into the passenger seat twitching and jerking the whole way. As soon as the door shuts a slew of broken curse words comes out of his mouth and Stevie and I collapse into giggles once again.

“My god damn ass has two holes in it and they’re burnt! Looks like somebody poked me wit a fucking fork to see if I was done! Fucking pigs!” Nikki rants.

“He warned you man!” Izzy laughs.

“Shut up Stradlin! Next time I’m going to tell him you’re carrying a poisonous snake and that you’re going to throw it at em and we’ll see how fast your ass gets tazed!” Nikki threatens. Izzy, Steven, and I just continue to laugh. The laughter is cut off though when we turn down a street full of roadside peddlars all banging on the glass trying to get us to buy something: flowers, clothing, cheap sombreros, indian blankets, corn cakes, tons of stuff. Izzy slowly drives down this street and turns through a few more until we end up outside of a seedy looking bar. He parks the car and tells Stevie and I to stay inside and he hands me the keys “just in case.” Izzy and Nikki, who have all of our dope money, get out and walk into the bar looking like they own the place; show no fear right? I look around and there’s a few guys walking around drinking from bottles leaning up against various buildings.

“Hombres!” Steven growls loudly into my ear scaring the hell out of me due to his close proximity and I jump and punch him in the arm laughing.

“Fucking idiot Stevie!” I yell and we both start giggling again. Izzy and Nikki come out of the bar pretty quickly and jump back into the car. “Did you get it man?” I ask Izzy.

“We got it. Everyone want a hit now?”

“Fuck yeah,”Nikki growls. Spoons and lighters are produced from pockets along with rigs and water bottles and plastic lemons. We end up opting for the lemon juice due to the thickness of the tar; the acid in the juice will break it down. One by one we cook up our hits and inject them into our arms. I feel an instant rush. Nikki and Izzy look disappointed. They both shoot up again apparently don’t get the results they want. Nikki says as soon as they get back to the states he’s going t start paging Jason, Nikki’s dealer who’s been MIA since last night. Since the smack isn’t up to par Nikki wants to fuck some whoresl! He said that he night as well get some cheap good looking pussy while were down here.Nikki directs Izzy to drive a couple of more blocks and pull into a parking lot. The lot has s few cars in it but not that many. Nikki looks around the car at all of us “I’m paying, whose going?”

“Oh me!” Steven crows excitedly!

“Don’t touch me when you get back in the car fucker; I don’t want whatever disease you’re gonna catch in there!” I tease him.

“How do you know I don’t already have one?” Steven jokes

“I don’t want to know! I’m just assuming that if you touched me your hands are clean!” I tell him with a shudder.

“Never assume…” he laughs and runs to follow Nikki. They walk into what’s obviously the whore house across the street and Izzy looks at me.

“Want to take a walk kid?” he asks.

“Yeah, I saw a green shirt some guy was selling a few blocks over that I wanted to get for Duff. He’ll rip the sleeves off of it and it’ll look hot as hell on him!” Izzy laughs and gets out of the car.

I follow him, slumbling through back allies and up a couple of wide streets before we get back to the open market we drove through. People swarm around us but all I want is that shirt. I eventually spot the guy walking around with the shirts on poles and buy the green one for Duff and Izzy talks me into getting a red one for myself. Izz buys two packages of hand rolled cigarettes, one for himself and one for Axl I assume. We stop in a little store on the way back to the car and buy two glass bottles of coke and the icy liquid feels wonderful after walking around in the hot sun.

We get back to the car and both of us collapse into the shade of the backseat and leave the doors and windows thrown wide open. We sit and wait for Steven and Nikki and smoke and drink the soda we bought in silence. A lot was said in the car on the way down here that we both need to think about. Finally I turn and look at him and ask “Do you think Duff is going to be mad at me when I get back?”

“No, he won’t be mad, he knew why you wanted to come; if he didn’t want you to come he would have said so; he’s not like Axl, he won’t give you a guilt trip about it when you get home. If he said it’s fine it’s fine,” Izzy says.

“How do you put up with Axl’s shit all the time? That would drive me insane,” I mutter.

“Yeah, well, I just keep having to remind myself that I love him; and I do; I just also want to kill him sometimes. Why can’t he just be more like you or Duff, just laid back and not worried or uptight about everything? Sometimes I just want some peace! A kiss without wondering when I’m going to get bitten or sex I didn’t have to fight for.” He sighs and puts his head in his hands. I turn my head and look over at him across the backseat; he looks so defeated. My mind is racing with thoughts: that kiss we shared that night in the alley, how it didn’t change anything with Duff, how it had calmed me down enough to be able to deal with Duff. My thoughts wander over to that night I slept with Axl and I feel panic coming on and I try and breathe hard and deep and quietly. Izzy looks up and sees the look on my face change with each thought ending with the frightened look when the thought of that night with Axl crossed my mind. Somehow Izzy, being part clairvoyant I swear; knows and moves across the backseat and holds my hands in his. “It’s ok kid, settledown, the smack’s just wearing off a little, want some more? I shook my head at him. “You’re thinking about Axl aren’t you? That’s why you’re giving me that look isn’t it?”

“What look?” I ask him confused.

“The pleading I’m scared and ashamed look..”

“I didn’t mean too!” I pout and tell him “You really need to stop trying to see into my head!”

“I’m not trying Curly Sue; it’s just that easy. Look, this is how it is: You look to me to tell you what to do and take care of you in some way, offer you a little bit of comfort until you can get to Duff who is your ultimate source of comfort, the other half of your heart and soul. For me-you are my comfort in a lot of ways you give me a soft, safe place to land when Fireball’s thrown my life out of control. I know you and Duff are always there but especially you because we end up spending so much time together. I know that no matter what I can turn to you and you'll be there for me and share your last breadcrumb with me because you're just that sweet! I love that sweet, innocent heart that's inside the guitar god! I love my friend.”

“Izzy, your like our thug mother hen or something, everyone in the band runs to you when we’re in trouble!”

“Yeah well you’re the cocky, fluffy, young rooster everyone wants to get with who has no idea of his powers; he just likes everyone, just goes around, doing his thing.”

“You’re silly Izzy,” I tell him.

“Well you started it by calling me a thug mother hen! I was serious about you giving me a soft place to land though, you always do.”

“I was serious about looking to you to make sure I was safe and find out what do next, You always know the answers to everything.”

“No I don’t,” Izzy snorts, “I just figure out how to get by and what people need. Like right now I figure you need some way to stop all of the thoughts that started racing through you r mind when you thought about Axl, am I right?”

“Yes,” I sigh. “ I wish I could find a way to think about none of; I want to forget it all.”

“I can do that, at least for a little while,” Izzy says and scoots across the seat towards me and suddenly his lips are pressed softly to mine. As he promised it’s the most comforting thing outside of Duff I can think of.

“Izzy,” I mumble against his lips.

“You want me to stop?” he asks.

“No,” I whisper and start to kiss back. Like the first time we kissed I just relax into his arms. I’m safe here and I know it and he knows the same thing. It feels good, mildly sexual, hot enough to make me want more but at the same time I know that he won’t tell Axl or Duff and cause some kind of drama; this is just for us. Whatever yearning there is between us that we’ll never act on, whatever it is that we mean to each other comes out sometimes in these kisses and man can Izzy kiss. I move my hand up to stroke his cheek softly and he runs his hands around my back; putting one on my back and twisting a couple of my curls through the fingers on his other hand. His mouth is all softness and comfort and every now and then an contented groan escapes him and he runs his fingers down my cheek and the side of my throat. I just sigh in happiness and enjoy the feeling. I don’t want anything else even though I’m hard as a rock and so is he; neither one of us tries anything more than petting above the waist. Finally, when I spot the other two standing on the porch of the brothel with their backs to us I pull away. “Feel better?” I ask.
“Yeah, he sighs. “You?”
“Yeah, sometimes I just need to be sure of you, that you have a good heart,” I pant.
“Yep, I need the same thing from you; I need to know that there’s someone out there that loves me just for me and always will. Thanks.
“No problem.” We sit just looking at each other for a second and then the silence is broken with what sounds like fire crackers or a machine gun, hard to tell which, and Izzy and I duck down behind the back seats of the car. There’s the sound of girls screaming and running and all sorts of shit and I’m scared to death…until I hear Nikki’s wild cackle overtop of it all.

“Stampede!” he’s yelling. “It’s a stampede of whores! Look at em go!”

“That crazy son of a bitch! Izzy growls and looks up over the seat. Half naked girls are running everywhere and Nikki and Steven are running for the car. They get closer amd Izzy jumps back in the driver’s seat just as the other two slide into place.

“Go!” Nikki yells, It’s a whore stampede go before the cops come!” Steven just once again dissolves into giggles.

“”Nikki what the fuck did you do?!” Izzy asks piloting the car awa from the insanity breaking loose behind us and bac towards the border.

“I set off a bunch of m-80s in some flower pots or vases or shit they had in there, they thought it was guns, they were nuts!! It was fucking great!" He and Stevie give each other gigh fives over the back of the seat. Idiots! We can hear the sirenns in the distance and haul ass back to the border checkpoint and make it safely across without Nikki getting his ass tazed again. Stupid fucker! Although Izzy and Nikki don’t seem to have gotten very high I feel great and I just spent the past half an hour making out with Izzy. Now I’m going home to Duff; couldn’t get any better really…today was a good day.