Absolution

Chapter One: Chastity

1986

Jon lay in the starched-up hotel bed, studying the ceiling. The show had ended hours ago, but the ringing in his ears was just now starting to recede enough to allow him to think. Jon didn't wear ear plugs because they affected his ability to stay in tune, and he didn't want to be off-key for people who might have paid a week's wages just to see him perform.

Rolling onto his side, he stared at the wall. Being the proper frontman involved engaging the audience, and tonight's show was no exception. The girls in the front row were... well, they were the girls in the front row. Miniskirts that flashed their lack of panties, deep-cut spandex on top, accentuating their lack of bras. While it was true that they were usually among the girls that got sought out for the after parties, it bothered Jon that they came to the show looking like that expecting to get to screw the band-- or just someone.

The last groupie Jon had slept with was over two weeks ago, and she had her pubic hair shaved into a heart shape. It was supposed to be sexy, Jon guessed, but his stomach turned a little. Had she really prepped like that in anticipation of fucking a guy she knew only from the radio? Or had she just expected to get fucked by someone considering the explosive sexual energy that accompanied these shows?

Did it really matter to her if it was a band member, or a roadie or just some random dude in the crowd? Jon had started out imagining that any girl he had sex with was there for him and only him. Just like the girls Richie was with wanted to be with Richie only, and the same for all the guys. He'd quickly found out that most of these girls would do anyone they could get their hands on, and sometimes multiple guys a night.

Jon had gone ahead and done the deed with heart-girl, but it was the first time he really thought about the dynamics of having sex with total strangers. Something clicked into place that night, and he hadn't had sex since. Not that he didn't want it, but when they were on tour, he just didn't have access to any girls he knew longer than a few hours (or whose names he actually knew).

Still, the girls in the front row were invariably whored up, and the memory of them still turned him on, even if the thought of actually doing them made him a little sick.

Jon flipped onto his back again and tore the blankets off. It was too warm for blankets, especially now that he had a hopeless boner he couldn't will away. Back when he was a virgin, he couldn't jerk off enough. But now, when there were so many girls who would have given anything to sleep with him, Jon thought there was an element of loneliness to the whole self-satisfaction business. But he was fully aware that he thought way too much about these kinds of things. Way more than any other guy he knew, anyway.

Sighing, he rolled out of bed and rummaged through his carry-on bag for the tube of lubricant he kept with him. There were condoms in there, too, but they hadn't been touched for two weeks. The lube, on the other hand, was half gone and it was the fourth tube he'd bought since the last condom had been used. Sometimes it took three or four go-rounds before he could sleep.

Jon climbed back into bed and closed his eyes, trying to rustle up some specific mental image to assist him, but now that it came down to it, it was mostly a blur. He did everything he could to sex up his performance without being outright smutty, and each girl thought he was jonesing just for her, but that was just what a good frontman did. If the girls knew how much he wasn't thinking of sex during the show, how focused he was on acting sexy rather than feeling sexy, they'd all be chasing Richie instead.

Richie.

Guitars and ladies were the only things the man needed in life, and Jon often thought that if Richie could find a way to fuck a sexy little superstrat, he'd probably have no more use for the women. He wondered how much use his best friend was getting out of some of those front-row women right this moment. Richie had been on tonight, after all. Leather jacket, torn up and skintight jeans, cowboy boots. Flirting with the audience, really shredding the shit out of that Les Paul. The women had loved him tonight, but then again, they did every night. One slut had even flashed her tits to the guitarist and Richie had responded with a smile and a flick of his tongue. It was so quick, barely noticeable, but Jon had noticed.