Prologue
There comes a time in every man’s life where he must face his demons.
It sounds cliché, I know.
But I break the mold.
Because I’ve faced my demons.
In the flesh.
And I’ve won.
But it’s the ones inside your head that don’t die.
They keep living.
My personal demons? They’ve gotten worse since the incident.
They’ve grown now.
They own me.
When I was fifteen years old, I made a deal with the Devil—or at least one of his spokeswomen—on the muddy red banks of Lake Shasta, California. I wanted talent, fame, and fortune. The demons upheld their end of the bargain. They gave me everything I ever wanted. I joined a band called Hybrid, made my way to guitarist, and propelled the band into stardom. We gave Led Zeppelin a run for their money. We got pu**y galore (no, not Honor Blackman). We had everything.
Including the final thing. My final wish. That Hybrid go down in history.
We did. There was a music journalist brought on by Creem magazine to cover the whole event. Our last tour (unbeknownst to anyone but me and our manager, Jacob). Her name was Dawn. She was young, beautiful, and our biggest fan.
Dawn saw it all. She recorded it all.
And, somehow, she saved me.
First it giveth, then it taketh away. The band broke up. The unthinkable happened. People died.
I should have died.
This was all supposed to end before I turned twenty-eight.
Yet I lived. Dawn lived.
And I was given another chance at life. To live free of the Devil’s shadow. To live my life the way it should be lived.
I really should be the luckiest S.O.B. on the planet. The fates that took away Morrison and Joplin and Hendrix—that wasn’t my fate after all.
Somehow, I won.
But victory is as bitter as the Quaaludes on my tongue. How can I really live with myself when my whole life has been loaned? I lost the people closest to me. They died, they suffered, for my selfishness.
How dare I be allowed to go on, to run free, when I brought this upon them and myself.
And so I haven’t.
I’m not free.
My name is Sage Knightly. One of the few surviving members of the metal band, Hybrid. I’m about to embark on my first solo tour, to be the rock star I was always meant to be.
But something tells me I’m not coming out of this alive.
And neither is she.
Chapter One
Sage
April, 1975
The pink lips at the end of my dick were some of the nicest I’d ever seen.
But the chick’s tits were even better.
I put my palm against her forehead and pushed her head back until my dick bobbed out of her wet mouth.
“Lie down,” I told her. “On your back. Grab your tits and get ready for me.”
I was being commanding and a bit of an ass.
It wasn’t like me.
But nothing was like me lately.
And I didn’t really care.
She did as I asked. She was a pretty young thing, a few years above jailbait, with long brown hair she probably ironed every day. I didn’t remember her name, and I didn’t bother asking. I just called her ‘Babe.’
I called the other one ‘Sugar.’ Sugar had Farrah Fawcett hair, blond and teased and frosted like a cake. Sugar was in the same Detroit hotel room as us, currently on the other bed, riding my bassist, Tricky. And by riding, I mean f**king him senseless, reverse cowgirl style. All she needed was a hat in her hand. Tricky was even more f**ked up than me, from our nightly cocktail of vodka, beer, and cocaine. Sometimes we’d throw Quaaludes in there, too. Tonight, though, we wanted to make sure our dicks were working.
Two chicks at once: every man’s dream and every rock star’s prerogative. Sugar and Babe were good friends, or so it seemed, probably raised in some hippie commune, believing in the free love that was still trickling in from the ‘60s. They weren’t shy being naked, and they didn’t hold back when they made out with each other, not even hesitating when Tricky told Sugar to get her fingers up in Babe’s bush. Naturally, they were fans of Hybrid, before I had basically killed the band. Killed Mickey Brown, Bob our bus driver, and Graham Freed, too. But Graham didn’t count. He was the only thing that didn’t count. Everything else made me bleed.
The singer, Robbie, my best friend, wouldn’t speak to me. Noelle, our bassist, was still mentally ill from what happened.
I didn’t need to be reminded of that. Every time Sugar or Babe would open their mouths and wax on about how much they loved Hybrid, it was a knife to my f**king heart. It never stopped hurting. So the next best thing was to f**k the shit out of them—no more talking. Just suck my dick, get each other off, get me off. Give me peace. Make me forget.
I was getting there. I was getting there.
Babe pushed her massive tits together, and I squeezed my dick between them, my eyes rolling back in my head from the friction. Jesus. That’s what I was talking about. What I wanted. Just vibes buzzing along, nerves on fire, space travel inside your head.
I was f**ked up and f**king. I was going and coming.
I drove myself between her tits, not bothering to look at her face or listen to her overdramatic moaning. How this was fun for her, I didn’t know, but maybe it was always her fantasy to have Sage Knightly’s king-sized c**k between her tits. It was finally coming true. A story to tell her friends.
The fantasy is never as good as the reality, not for me anyway. Not that I really fantasized about anything other than coasting along and feeling nothing. Even my music was slipping away at a time that I needed it the most. Sex and drugs and booze and sleep. This was my new life. The rock and roll played somewhere in the background, a reminder of where I came from. But I didn’t even know if it was where I was headed.
When I felt my balls tighten, I pulled away and looked over my shoulder at Tricky and Sugar. She was coming so loudly that I was certain someone was going to complain. Whatever, man. I could have been Jimmy Page in here with a chick and a Great Dane; would that have been better?
“Hey, Tricky,” I called out to him. “I need her.”
Tricky grunted, his grip tightening on her small waist, his face furrowing as he approached climax. I guess I was being rude, bugging him right then, but damn if I didn’t care. I just needed to get off, and I needed Sugar to do it.
A world of want.
My lips curled at that thought, the title of my song that became a hit and let the world know that I still had “it,” even as a solo artist.