Michelle Mankin: Irresistible Refrain

Why couldn’t I accept the way things were? I didn’t belong with them anymore, no matter how much I wished things were different, and Bryan was never going to be mine. My gaze followed him after his mom and sisters left and he moved to take the stage.

I hopped down from my corner perch and wandered closer as Bryan and the guys got ready to perform. I’d arrived too late last night to see the show. I watched King take off his shirt as he climbed up onto the drum riser, and my eyes widened at what I saw. I shook my head in appreciative disbelief. When had King gotten those guns? He used to be the chubby one. Not even remotely so now. He was as cut as an Abercrombie and Fitch model, a sexy Latino one with his square jaw and bronze skin and dark closely cropped hair.

My gaze drifted over to Sager, the other half of Tempest’s comic duo. He and King had been best friends as long as Bryan and War. Everyone in the band knew their constant joking was really a coping mechanism, their way of dealing with the crap they’d been through. Their humor was as much a part of who they were as the clothes they wore, although Sager wasn’t wearing much right now, just faded jeans. The lanky bassist had recently dyed his curly brown hair jet black. Long uneven wisps of it framed his angular face.

Bryan came over and said something to him that I couldn’t hear. Sager nodded, pulled his signature newsboy cap down lower over his brown eyes, and pointed his hawkish nose to the floor as he tuned his Fender.

Bryan’s gaze flicked to me.

And I couldn’t make myself look away. Those light colored eyes of his I could stare at for hours if the rest of him wasn’t equally as enthralling. The thick black ink of his tats scrolled fluidly over the bulges of his biceps down to his wrists where an assortment of black leather and silver bracelets were stacked together. Just like the other guys, he was shirtless, and I found myself lusting after the sexy lead guitarist of Tempest. His chest was smooth, his abdomen flat, and his narrow hips were laced into a pair of tight black leather pants. War called to him and he turned away, giving me a view of his backside.

Even his ass was perfection.

I swallowed to moisten my dry throat.

Bryan sauntered across the stage in heavy biker boots and met War at center stage. War clapped him on the shoulder before plucking the mic out of its stand. Giving me a wink, War then faced the audience, his hands draped lazily over the mic stand waiting while a man in wire rimmed glasses finished the band’s introduction.

His spiky platinum hair gleaming beneath the stage lights, my brother plugged in his favorite Gibson Plaintop, made an adjustment on his footboard, gave Bryan a thumbs up, and flashed me his infamous double dimpled smile.

I smiled proudly back. I didn’t envy Dizzy his success. He deserved to be out on that stage. He was one of the best rhythm guitarists I’d ever heard, though I was a little biased for sure. His steady reliable pacing gave Bryan the freedom he needed to go all crazy on lead. My heart squeezed. I’d missed my easy going brother so much. Maybe if he’d been around, I would’ve had the guts to leave Martin sooner.

2 weeks prior

“Go ahead and leave, bitch,” Martin told me in that same disaffected voice he always used whenever I threatened to leave. Which wasn’t often anymore.

After all what other choice did I have?

I had no money, and I wasn’t welcome back in my uncle’s house. I’d tried to go back there the first time Martin had hit me. “You’re just like your mother,” he’d told me.

Turns out he’d been right.

I pressed my lips together, my vision blurring as I stared at my arms. Just looking at them made me long to shoot up again. I hated what I’d become, and I hated Martin, but I loved the drugs more. I craved that next high more than food or water, more than oxygen, more than life, more than love. I’d do just about anything for that next fix. And that’s what gave Martin the power he had over me.

My gaze slid to Martin as he slipped the Glock into his shoulder holster and pulled on a jacket. His eyes hard and dark as flint met mine. He was handsome, except for his eyes. If the eyes really were windows to the soul, I should have realized much sooner that he didn’t have one.

His gaze was cold, emotionless, and calculating as he studied me. A growing sense of unease flooded my body, making my pulse pound and my respiration increase. There’d been thinly veiled statements from him lately, pressure to do things that I’d been able to deflect, but didn’t know for how much longer.

When we first met he’d been kind, and I’d believed there’d been something worth having between us, but now I was just as certain it’d been wishful thinking. I’d been wrong about so many things.

One thing I was sure of- guys just wanted a piece of me. They would say or do what they needed until they got it, and then they were gone.

Bryan was the first to make me feel that way. I never realized how much I needed and took his approval for granted until it was withdrawn. My throat clogged remembering his callous dismissal of what I’d thought we shared.

What a stupid little girl I’d been.

Never welcome.

Never wanted.

My mother had been right all along.

A part of me, the part with dreams, the beautiful part, had been snuffed out by darkness. Fear had replaced hope and apathy had replaced fear until all that remained was this empty frame, a place card for the woman I’d once been, still pretty to look at, but hollow inside.

Martin grabbed my shoulders, squeezing just hard enough to hurt. I looked up at him, gritting my teeth together, keeping my expression as neutral as possible. I’d had to adapt quickly to survive his sadistic streak. He enjoyed breaking people down so he could control them. Most of the time he didn’t get physical, as long as I didn’t show weakness. It was strength he admired. My backbone. What remained of it anyway, that he respected.

“I’ve got some China White coming in tonight.” His coal black eyes searched mine. “I’ll bring you a bindle.”

“Alright.” My lips curved up into a thin caricature of a smile.

His answering grin was a travesty as well, feral and predatory. He didn’t even try to hide his disdain for me as he went out the door. Why should he? He had me. He knew that. He always seemed to know everything. Just like he’d known how susceptible I’d be to him and his brand of fake charm the first night we’d hooked up together.

I’d had an idea who Martin Skellin was before that night. His reputation had always scared me away, but after being tossed aside by everyone I’d ever trusted, I hadn’t really cared what happened to me or who I did it with.

I should have…

because although Martin was attentive in the beginning, using his influence to get me a job singing at a local club, his true colors began to bleed through shortly afterward. He was into some serious illegal shit. I woke up nights, seeing and hearing things that I wished I hadn’t. Suspicion became a reality that I tried but couldn’t ignore.

Then Tempest hit it big and Martin had a new game to control me, a more effective way to break me down. He began showing me articles and pictures of the guys and loved to point out what a big success they were without me. I tried pretending it didn’t matter thinking eventually he would give it up and move onto something else, something less painful, but he hadn’t.