souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 144: "hello, mr. bush!"

The three of them reached the end of the block, complete with that Pearl Jam song at their heels like a cold wind; Marla tucked her hands into her pockets as she awaited Sam and Alex right behind her. Sam took a glimpse down at Alex's legs and his hips: nothing more than a little piece of denim to protect them from her wandering eyes.
There was a part of her that wanted to draw more of him, and the next time she had to make sure that she had the bottle of alcohol ready. A bottle of alcohol and a big plate of food: both of those things would loosen him up a great deal and she could have him in the best pose ever.
Right on his side and with his hips cocked out a bit to accentuate the shape of his body. His bare legs spread out before him. His body with its beautiful curvature to it and his arms lanky and strong.
There was something dangerous about it, however: she could see Alex drinking too much, so much that he passed out before her instead of posing pretty for her. She also foresaw him beckoning her to an encounter with him right there on the floor, drunk and in no mood for that sort of thing anyway. If he was to have a drink himself, then she had to have one as well.
A little alcohol never hurt anyone after all.
She and Alex approached Marla there on the corner, there with her hands tucked into her pockets: the glow of the streetlights shone down on her orange hair to where it looked as though she had a gold and tangerine halo right over the crown of her head. Her eyes seem to have an extra sparkle to them, even in the darkness.
A gust of warm breeze swept up behind her and little stray locks of orange hair picked up over her head like little streamers.
"Remember that drawing I made of you and Charlie?" Sam recalled once they came within earshot. "The one where you took a picture of yourselves outside of L'Amour and then I drew it? Remember that?"
"I do," Marla replied with a thoughtful look on her face.
"Just seeing your hair right now made me think of that," Sam confessed, and then she stopped for a second. "What'd you do with that old camera, by the way?"
"I still have it! I just don't really use it much, though."
"You ought to," Alex suggested, "y'know, take this from me. A guy who's traveled the world a bit. Take your camera with you when you go back up to Scarsdale or wherever you go throughout the state."
"I would take it with me," Sam told her, "I'd totally take it with me." To which Marla showed them an ensuring little smile.
"You know, I usually do see a lot of things up the road and often times, I find myself thinking, 'that would be great as a photograph or a reference for Sam to work her magic on at some point.' I think I'll do that when I leave on Sunday." She showed him an even bigger smile. "Thank you, Alex."
"I'm just doing what I can," he confessed with a little shrug of his shoulders.
"Do you guys want some ice cream or something?" she offered them. "I've got a lot of money now; I can totally do it for you guys if you'd like."
"I'd like some," Alex replied with a little smirk, and Sam nodded, especially since she knew that she could work her way up from there. She knew that there was no way she could get him to pose for her again, not without something inside of him.
Another round on the block, and Marla took them both to the ice cream parlor right down the street from their apartment building, and Sam realized that was the ice cream place she and Joey went before she moved back out to California. Marla offered to buy them both a bit banana split to share, but Sam was reticent about it, especially since they put a scoop of coffee ice cream in the bowl with the banana and the cherry on top. No way that was going to sit with either of them all too well.
Instead, she bought the three of them big sundaes with hot fudge and smooth cream on top. Sam knew that Alex had eaten a great deal back at the apartment: a big bowl of ice cream on top of that and he would be like putty in the palm of her hand. It helped that they walked home together with their ice cream in hand: every so often, she took a glimpse over at him as he put a big spoonful of vanilla and chocolate ice cream covered in hot fudge and whipped cream into his mouth. She showed him a smile as he nourished his body with all of that delicious stuff.
Once they reached the front step of the apartment building, he was half finished with it. It was a rather large bowl to boot, and Sam knew he was getting there when they stepped into the elevator and he set a hand on his stomach.
"Think my eyes were bigger than my stomach," he confessed.
"Hey, I got you the big one, Alex," Marla pointed out in a singsong voice, "all 'cause you wanted it. I'd hate to see it all go to waste."
"I don't know... I'll try." He stuck the spoon down in the last large scoop of vanilla ice cream.
"Well, you sure were hungry at dinner earlier," Sam recalled as she took out her room key. The doors slid open and they came face to face with a tall man with long black curls down to his shoulders and bright blue eyes: the difference between him and Alex was he lacked the gray streak on the crown of his head.
"Hey, Danny!" Sam declared, and Dan Lilker gaped at her in surprise.
"Hey, Sam! Sam I am!" The three of them stepped out of the elevator; she put her arms around him.
"Holy shit, it's been a while," he declared as the doors closed behind them. "How've you guys all been?"
"We've been living!" Marla told him with a twirl of her key ring around her index finger. Dan set his hands on either side of Sam's head as if he beheld a masterpiece of sorts.
"I like you with the blonde highlights," he said.
"Just a little something different going into the new decade," she explained with a slight ruffle of her hair. Dan then looked up to Alex and the bowl of ice cream in his hand.
"Hey, you!" he greeted him with a raise of his hand; Alex raised his free hand for a big high five as part of their greeting.
"He's got a mouth full of ice cream," Marla told him.
"I'm envious," Dan confessed with a chuckle, "I've got to head on down to Jon's house and talk to him."
"What for, just out of curiosity?" Sam asked him; she never realized just how much she had missed Stormtroopers of Death until that very moment there in the hallway.
"I'm having to put my band on hiatus," he replied with a solemn look on his face.
"Stormtroopers?" Sam gaped at him.
"No—Nuclear Assault," he clarified, "just on hiatus, though. We don't really have a lot of money and our latest release was bit of a bust. So, I'm putting the operation on hold just to figure things out a bit."
Alex finally swallowed the large bite of ice cream.
"Man, that always blows," he said with a lapping of his tongue as if he was a dog.
"Tell me about it," Dan groaned, "Scott and Charlie are doing nothing to revive Stormtroopers. We had a show with Anthrax themselves last year and then I haven't heard a thing from either of them."
"That explains why I haven't heard anything about it in the past few years," Sam muttered to herself.
"It also explains why I'm literally having the worst luck with the whole operation, too," Dan continued; he then frowned at Alex. "What's going on with you, too? I heard Testament got a new guitarist."
"Got fired," he replied, "it wasn't their call to make, either."
"Holy shit." Dan gaped at him.
"Yeah. Poor Eric was about five seconds from just bursting into tears, too. Doing what I can, though. I'll be heading back to the Bay Area in a couple of days, though. I'm here because these two girls are friends. I'm doing what I can with the time I have here as well as out. It's all just to figure things out myself." He took another bite of ice cream and Dan shook his head.
"Whole operation's going straight to hell," he muttered, and then he gave his dark hair a toss back and rubbed his hands together. "Anyways, I gotta go."
"Keep in touch," Sam told him as he pressed the button and the doors slid open.
"Always!" The last thing she saw was his smile as the doors closed.
She led Alex and Marla back to her apartment, but the latter doubled back to her place to check on Genie and also for something else. Meanwhile, Alex took his spot on the couch with his leg out before him as if he was still a teenage boy. He leaned back against the arm and he set the bowl upon his stomach. Sam chuckled at the mere sight of him there.
"What?" he asked her as he took another spoonful for himself. He still had a little bit left there on the bowl but he was almost done with it all.
"Just laughing at how adorable you are right now," she told him; he swallowed it down and tilted his head back to the top part of the arm.
"Holy Moses," he groaned out and he rested both of his hands on his stomach.
"That was a lot of ice cream, I'll give you that," she told him with a wag of her finger. She reached down and picked the bowl off of his lap.
"A lot of ice cream—and every last part of it delicious," he pointed out; he lifted up his shirt and he unbuttoned his jeans to ease the pressure on his waist. He kept his shirt lifted up from his waist and Sam thought about running her fingers on that smooth skin, on that "happy trail" as he called it. But a knock on the door caught her attention, and she turned to find Marla there in the doorway with a little glass bottle in hand. Inside was a dark root beer colored liquid; in her other hand were three brightly polished bulbous glasses.
"What'cha got there?" Sam asked her.
"I hope you guys have room for some brandy," she told them with a twinkle in her eye. She turned to Alex and let out a quiet little giggle at him. "Surely, you have room in that tum of yours for some brandy, Alex."
He let out a low whistle. "I dunno if I've even had brandy before," he confessed as he ran his fingers through his black hair: the light patch on the crown of his head glimmered under the light on the ceiling.
"As long as it's not dessert wine," Sam told her.
"Oh, no, this is totally different from dessert wine," Marla assured her, "although it is similar to an extent. I actually got this the other day, literally right before I came home, all because I wanted us to have a little something special when either Bel or I come back home and we relished in all the smorgasbord of food that our town has for us." She set the glasses down on the coffee table before Sam and Alex, and then she pried off the cap. That rich smell of alcohol filled the room and Sam couldn't hardly contain the feeling of butterflies within her stomach.
"If anything, Alex, this'll help your tummy digest all that yummy food," Marla assured him as she poured a glass for him. He swallowed and he lifted himself into an upright position, still with one hand on his stomach. He straightened his spine and he held still with both hands on his knees. From underneath his shirt, they could tell that he had overdone it a bit as his svelte slender belly had a bit of slight roundness to it, right by his waist. His eyes drooped and he ran his tongue along his bottom lip as if he was dying of thirst. A little drop of alcohol and he would be as perfect as he ever could be right then for Sam.
"A little something to drink for you and me," she offered him the glass of brandy as if she was offering him a chalice of some sort. Alex swallowed and he took the glass for himself: his long lanky fingers caressed the base of the glass like the heads of serpents. He took a whiff of the brandy and he wrinkled his nose a bit.
"It's awful strong," he confessed in a low voice as he took a sip. He shook his head at that. "Woof, that'll put some hair on your chest."
Marla lifted the collar of her shirt and she took a glimpse down onto her chest.
"You sure about that?" she asked him.
"Take your tops off once you each have a sip," he teased her, "I'll be the one to look anyways."
"Not so fast, big boy," Sam scoffed with a wag of her finger as she took a sip from her glass as well. Like wine on steroids: the richness and fullness hit her right square in the mouth like a fist. "Damn."
"Yeah, it's definitely something to go with a rich dinner like Thanksgiving or something like that," Marla explained as she took a sip for herself, and she stuck out her tongue. "Not a bunch of ice cream."
Despite that, Alex continued to sip on his brandy until he leaned back against the arm of the couch once more, so full and relaxed. Sam thought about getting her journal right then and there to draw his body. Genie meowed right across the hall and Marla picked up the bottle.
"That's my cue," she confessed, "I'll see you guys tomorrow." She put her arms around Sam and held her close to her.
"You know what?" Marla suggested. "How 'bout you both come on over for breakfast?"
"I'd love to!" Sam declared.
"Yeah—yeah, I'd like that," Alex sputtered; he had one hand on his stomach and his other hand onto the brandy glass, still with a little bit of it at the very bottom. His eyes had shuttered and he parted his sensual lips in the most relaxed he had ever been, as far as Sam knew anyways. Forget drawing him, she wanted to come closer to him. Move in closer to his beautiful body and feel it against her fingertips, and then draw it. She wanted to experience him like she would experience anything else.
"Have fun," Marla whispered right into her ear, and Sam flashed her a wink at that. She headed back out of the apartment and across the hall to her apartment to check on Genie. Sam turned to Alex and downed the rest of her brandy in a single gulp, and she set the glass down on the table. She then peeled off her top and she rounded the table towards him. He opened his eyes and he locked onto her own.
"Samantha, Samantha—I can't," he begged her.
"Why not?"
"I'm tipsy, whaddya think?"
"C'mon, Alex, let's have a little fun," she coaxed him. "I want to touch you and relish in you before you leave for NorCal soon."
"I'm tipsy as hell and I feel like I'm carrying triplets, I'm so full. The brandy helps but not much, though. I feel like I could literally roll right off of this couch if I'm not careful."
Another knock on the door caught them both off guard.
"Who the hell is that now?" she demanded, and she picked up her shirt from the arm of the couch. She held it to her body as she opened the door part of the way. Lars stood there with his hands tucked in his jean pockets.
"Oh, hey, Lars," she greeted him and he flashed her a little grin.
"Hello, Sam." And then he eyed the door between them. "Is—this a bad time?"
"Kind of, yeah," she told him with some haste.
"Oh. Well, I wanted to give you this—" He handed her a little folded piece of paper; careful not to expose her bra and her bare skin, she reached out with her free hand for the paper. "Seeing as you are the manager of our new band and whatnot. I also came here to apologize to you and to Alex for mine and Dave's behavior lately. I didn't want it all to come to that or to this for that matter, but I feel like if we are to record something, we shall do it separately."
"Okay," she said with a bit of a nod to her head. "It's okay. Apology accepted. Sometimes things happen and you have to address them as best you can."
"We have the studios up here in New York as well as back home in San Francisco," he continued, "and thus I am putting you in charge of organizing it all. That is, talking to Aurora again."
"I have to talk to her anyway," she pointed out with a little gyration of her head.
"If nothing, I shall join you and see if I can talk a bit of sense into her," he promised her, and he flashed her a wink. "That's what that piece of paper is—my new phone number."
"Gonna need all the back-up I can get," she told him as she took a glimpse down at the paper.
"Anyways, you have a good night," he said, "I am flying back to the Bay Area tonight. Taking the red eye."
"Safe travels and talk to you soon," she declared with a little smile and she shut the door. She stood upright and gazed on at Lars' number right there in her hand. She then turned to the couch, where Alex had gone away.
"Where'd you go?" she called out. "Alex?"
"Back here," he moaned, and she slung her top over her shoulder. She switched off the light and she headed down the hallway to the guest room, where he had lay down on the bed, flat on his back. He hiccupped a bit and shifted his weight to feel more comfortable.
"Forgive me—I just—I couldn't take another minute on that couch," he confessed to her in a low voice. "The arm was hurting my neck."
"That's okay," she assured him. "I want you to be comfortable anyway. That's my whole modus operandi, too. I want you to be comfortable."
"This bed is so comfy, too," he added. "I needed something soft to cradle me. If I move even a little bit, my stomach just sloshes around."
And Sam realized that he was in no position for any sort of movement.
"You're going back on Sunday, you said?" she asked him.
"Yeah. It's Saturday, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it is." He lifted his head and looked at her with a dazed expression on his face. "Shit. So that's why you're wanting to touch me and all that."
"Yeah. And now you've got a swollen belly full of food and brandy and in no mood for any of it."
"I kind of feel bad about it now," he confessed, but then she clapped her hands together once.
"Tell you what: what if we cuddle and then I drive you to the airport in the morning?"
"Sounds good by me," he told her in a broken voice and she gently patted his stomach. At least Lars had gone back home at that point. "Keep your top off, too."
"Gladly." She set her blouse on the back of the chair there in the corner of the room, and then she doubled back to him. All that food and liquid in his stomach made him roll over with a bit of caution.
But Alex lay down on that guest bed, right on his side, and little tendrils of jet-black hair spread across his face. She switched off the light and with the grope of her hand, she made her way over to the bed. He breathed through his mouth and he breathed at a quick clip, as if he had been running a mile. She lay down behind him and snuggled up behind him: a perfect fit of his hips and thighs against her own.
Sam put her arms around him and held him close to her body as they lay there in bed together. She put her nose up to the base of his neck and the back of his hair and she took in the soft aroma there at the roots, the blackest of hair on his head. She closed her eyes and she gently set her hands on his stomach: he wasn't exaggerating as she could feel he was so full that he had tightened up from the waist up. Even with the taut skin, he was still soft to the touch.
She lifted up his shirt for a better feel of his skin there. Soft and smooth and as tight as the fitted sheet on the bed. She thought about reaching down for the button on his jeans: she thought about putting her hands between his legs for a feeling there, but she knew he was in no position for it. Instead, she sighed through her nose and she held him close to her like a teddy bear.
She drifted off to sleep in seconds flat and she awoke to Alex flat on his back and with her hand still upon his stomach. The pressure was off there but he still felt full from all that he had eaten and drank down in the mere hours before. He was still sound asleep and she took a glimpse over her shoulder to the darkness through the window in the room across the hallway. Instead of getting up again, Sam returned to the boy next to her and she slid her hand up to his chest to feel his steady heartbeat and the gentle warmth inside of his chest.
For a second, she thought back to the times she spent the night with Cliff, and especially how he was so reticent in touching her as well. She wished he could have touched her more when he had the chance and he had plenty of chances to boot. She thought about his family and she wondered how they all were doing in the wake of it all. That thought then led to her regret to not speaking to them all that much in Cliff's wake, but then again, there wasn't much she could do for them at that point given she had moved clear across the country from the Bay Area. She also had lost their numbers in all of her movement about the country.
For all she knew, the Burtons didn't even want to speak to her anymore. For all she knew, she had become the artist and they wanted nothing to do with her for the rest of their lives. Sam slid her hand down Alex's waist and his hipbone, and gently stroked him there, right underneath his shirt. So soft to the touch.
She missed Cliff every day and there were those small moments whereby Alex or even Joey would do something that would remind her of him. Those small moments made her go back to those memories, but there was nothing that she could do at that point. Cliff was gone and he would have wanted her as well as his own band mates to move on from it all. Wherever Metallica headed off to next was up to them and she knew in her heart that Cliff would be on board with it all.
She fell asleep again and she awoke to Alex's fingers on her hip. Sam opened her eyes and she had a face full of his chest. She then lifted her head and she looked right into his face.
"Just like at your parents' house," she recalled in a broken voice.
"Yeah, except we're missin' the 'Alex, oh my GAWD, what're ya doin'!'" he cracked with a straight face and she burst out laughing at that. She buried her face into his chest and he started laughing at that himself. She lifted her head again and she gazed right into those deep-set blue eyes, as clear as the day outside, even if they were shrouded in early morning shadow.
"I gotta use the little boys' room," he told her.
"When's your flight, too?"
"Ten thirty. It's a quarter to six so we've got plenty of time."
"Okay. How's your stomach, by the way?"
"A lot better," he said with a gentle pat. "All that food went through me, too, so—you know."
"Yeah." She climbed up and she let him off of the bed. He hesitated for a second with one hand on his brow, and then he stood up and padded over to the door. She sighed through her nose and she awaited him as if she was awaiting her prince. Within time, he returned to the guest room with his hands clasped onto the waistband of his jeans and a little grin on his handsome face.
"What you grinnin' for?" she teased him.
"Just feel like it," he said, "I'm going to need to grin and smile a lot from this point onward, you know."
"Absolutely," she replied with a little nod of her head.
After a cup of freshly brewed coffee and a change of clothes on her part, Sam then drove Alex to the airport for his next flight back out to the Bay Area.
"I'll call you when I get there, too," he assured her once she turned into the driveway.
"There's a part of me that wants to go out there soon," she confessed to him.
"You should! Like what you suggested a while back—you and I should have another road trip of some sort again. A summer road trip together up to Crater Lake or something."
"I gotta see my dad's new place in Marin Heights anyways," she pointed out.
"There you go! All the more reason to come visit us. Before we hit the road, we'll visit the place Lars and James scattered Cliff's ashes, too, as like a good luck blessing of some sort."
"We should always do that," she pointed out as she took the spot closest to the front door. She switched off the car and they both climbed out in unison. He slung his travel bag over his shoulder and they walked together to those big sliding front doors; she thought about holding hands with him but she wondered how he would object to that, especially since they weren't even a couple or anything that resembled to a couple at that point, either.
He kept his sunglasses on even as they reached the shade together, but he still recognized the long-haired man who strode out the front doors before them. He wore a dark fedora upon his head and he had slight, thin eyebrows that curved across his brow like a pair of light-colored commas and a round, full face. He gestured to Alex, who then took off his sunglasses for a better look at him.
"John—Bush, is it?" Alex asked him with a wag of his finger at him.
"Yeah," he replied in a gravelly voice. "Alex Skolnick, right? The kid from Testament?"
"Yeah!"
"I've seen you at a couple of Armored Saint shows in the past, I thought you looked familiar!" He then turned to Sam, still with a smirk on his face. "And you must be Samantha. I've heard a lot of things about you."
She shrugged her shoulders at that. "I get around," she confessed. "Anyways, what're you doing here? Where's the rest of Armored Saint?"
"I'm Joey Belladonna's replacement," he replied with a little twinkle to his eye. Sam and Alex gaped at each other.
"Seriously," she blurted out.
"Seriously," John echoed her. "Really, seriously, for real. I'm meeting with the guys in about thirty minutes, too. So, I gotta skedaddle. Talk more later?" He gestured to Sam.
"Yeah, sure. I'm just dropping him off, so—"
"I'll meet ya at HQ," John said with a wink and then he put on his sunglasses and walked on to the parking lot for the bus stop across the way.
"What, he's taking the bus?" Alex was taken aback by that.
"Apparently?" She turned back to him, still stunned by that.
"It's only the beginning, Samantha," he said to her in a low voice.
"It is only the mere beginning," she echoed him, also in a low voice. They kept on walking to that gate in question, and Sam treated Alex to one more hug before he boarded the plane. She just wanted to feel him one last time before she had the chance to see him again, whenever that would be.
"Give your parents hugs for me, too," she told him.
"Of course! I'll talk to you soon." She thought about blowing him a kiss before he stepped aboard the plane, but she never did. She instead watched him down that corridor and then he disappeared around the corner. She turned to the big windows to her right; she watched the plane take off right before her eyes. She held back for a moment as the plane disappeared into the blue sky overhead, and she headed on back to the doors. She had to get to know John now.