Crystal Passion Ch. 12

So in those hours Judy and Crystal spent together I visualise the two women writhing together in the midst of a tangle of naked men whose huge erect penises were either inserted into all or some of their orifices and spurting semen all over them. And into this stew of masculine fucking, sucking and spunking, I envisage a soundtrack of heavy metal guitar, energetic but unimaginative drum beats, and singing that sounds like either a cat being strangled or a man barking through a mouthful of gravel.

The sooner Crystal got bored with all that shit the better!

But even though by Friday we'd all got used to the idea of hardly not seeing much of either of them, it was a surprise for us all to be packing up our equipment for our gig at the Penitence and there still to be no sign of Crystal or Judy.

"Where the fuck is she?" wondered Jenny Alpha as she loaded Crystal's acoustic guitar into the back of the non-descript removal van we'd hired for the day. "Still fucking Judy at a fucking opium den?"

"She will be here when the gig begins, won't she?" pleaded Thelma. "It's not gonna be much of a Crystal Passion band without Crystal."

"And what about Judy?" remarked the Harlot. "Who'll do all that rock strutting stuff if she's not here?"

"Matt can help out," said Olivia, whose arm was around his waist. "He plays a mean guitar."

"I fucking hope we won't have to resort to that!" Philippa sniffed.

"Crystal's never let us down before," I said with the confidence and authority that came from being one of the band's original members. In fact, after Crystal herself, probably the original member.

But my optimism was misplaced. Even after the equipment was set up on stage, Crystal still hadn't arrived. We had to rehearse with Tomiko on the sound desk with Skull lurking in the shadows clutching a can of Bud and snorting a line of Coke. Philippa, Thelma and the Harlot stood in for Crystal's role either by playing acoustic guitar, as only Philippa was able, or by singing her lyrics, as Thelma and the Harlot could both do (though their voices had none of Crystal's porcelain beauty). And as Olivia proposed, Matt stood in for Judy: easily able to mimic her Rock Star strut and Axe-Man flourish, and surprisingly good (given the rushed circumstances) at learning and playing her riffs.

But when the real Judy Dildo turned up with barely half an hour left before we were due on stage and to witness Matt subbing for her, she was instantly dismissive.

"What the fuck is this shit?" she said. "Gimme my guitar and I'll show you how it should be done."

"And Crystal can take responsibility for the acoustic guitar and vocals too?" Philippa pleaded.

Judy seemed genuinely alarmed. "Isn't Crystal here?"

"Fuck no," said Thelma. "We thought she was with you."

"She was but..." began Judy. "Well, fuck it, she's not with me now."

"So where is she, Judy?" I challenged.

"She ain't here is all, is she?" said Judy defiantly. And then rather more conciliatorily and with evident distress in her voice, she asked: "You're absolutely sure Crystal's not here? You're not shitting me?"

"We wouldn't fuck about when it comes to something like that," said Jane. "Where the fuck is Crystal?"

"Erm..." said Judy hesitantly. "Fuck! She's not here? Fuck! Shit!"

And with these oaths Judy Dildo strode off towards the Penitence Club's exit. And then with a theatrical gesture that was probably unintentional she slammed the door behind her and was gone.

"Fuck me!" said Jacquie, who'd never much liked Judy. "What's got into her?"

"I think there's a good chance we won't see Judy playing her guitar tonight after all," Olivia remarked. "It looks like you've got the gig," she said to Matt who was at least as startled and bemused as the rest of us at Judy's outburst. "You've just passed the audition. You've got all the votes."

"Well, at least we don't also need a fucking drummer," declared Jane.

"But there's still no sign of Crystal," moaned Philippa.

"Fuck!" Thelma exclaimed. "Am I gonna have to be Crystal for the night?"

"You and me both, sweetheart!" said the Harlot with a slightly deranged laugh.

"I'm sure Crystal and Judy will turn up in time for the gig," I said.

"Well, we've just got to assume they won't," said Olivia. "We'll have to expect the worst and prepare for it."

"So tonight it's gonna be Matt Dildo and Thelma & Philippa Crystal," remarked the Harlot.

And so it was to be.

I'd never before performed on stage in front of an audience without Crystal Passion and it goes without saying that the Crystal Passion band without its titular leader wasn't the same at all. Of course, as far as the audience of check- and tee-shirted young men with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other, the only differences to what they expected was that the guitarist was a man and that there was absolutely no nudity. None of us had the heart or inclination to strip off, not even the Harlot. And certainly neither Thelma nor Philippa who were more anxious about having to sing the lead vocals on songs they knew well but whose lyrics they didn't understand any more than did the rest of us. It just wasn't the same to hear Thelma intone: "The son comes home with nothing to show. The father gives him a fortune of snow. The worst is loved the most. And the best is left to last." What seemed so profound voiced by Crystal sounded banal and faintly bizarre coming from Thelma and Philippa.

At least we were spared a refrain from the audience of "Take 'em off!" or "Show us your tits!" And this was mostly because of Matt being on stage and his obvious love for the rock riff. It just didn't make sense for an audience of men who valued their heterosexuality to demand that Matt should rip off his clothes and display what was actually quite a handsome asset (not that I ever did more than glance at it while he was fucking Olivia on her bed). And given that this was primarily a Rock audience who'd come to see a Rock Band, Matt's frequent quotations from the great rock riffs of history (such as 'Purple Haze', 'Come As You Are' and 'Sunshine of Your Love') managed to satisfy those who might otherwise have been clamouring for the sight of a lot more female flesh.

During every moment and every second of the gig I was expecting, hoping, almost praying for Crystal Passion or even Judy Dildo to appear at the side of the stage with a smile and the reassurance that everything was alright and that their earlier non-appearance had been nothing more than a hiccough. But no such luck. We powered through our gig, playing a set that was pretty much identical to our previous one at the club except that we were more content to let Matt indulge himself in his Rock Guitar dreams of glory than we'd ever have allowed Judy. And that was because it was a relief for us all, including Philippa and Thelma, to just fade into the background gloom and stay out of sight.

We gave no encore although there were many in the audience calling for more and Matt was ready and eager to jump back onto the stage.

"I'm just not in the fucking mood!" said Jacquie.

"Keep your sonic dildo strapped away, sweetie," Jane dismissively advised Matt. "None of us are going back there however much the fuckers shout out for us."

"Forget about it, lover boy," said Olivia, forcefully grabbing Matt's crotch. "We can make sweet music elsewhere."

"Still no sign of Crystal or Judy," remarked Andrea.

"They're probably in a fucking twelve man orgy somewhere," remarked Jacquie snidely. "Judy's always liked cock and rock and now she's tempted Crystal over to the fucking dark side."

"It's not like Crystal," I pleaded in her defence.

"But it's fucking just like Judy," snarled Jane. "I fucking hate that bitch."

"Yeah," said Jacquie, expressing for the first time what has since become the orthodox account of events according to Polly Tarantella. "Ever since Judy joined the band, it's been headed towards disaster. And ever since we arrived in America—the land of fucking racist metal heads—Judy's led us all down the slope towards destruction. Fuck it! She's the bitch who got us to play naked in Detroit. And she's the bitch who's turned Crystal Passion into some kind of all-girl Rock Band."

These weren't the last words said about Judy as it became increasingly apparent that Crystal hadn't been hiding in the toilets or sitting despondently in the dressing room or waiting outside the Penitence with some perfectly understandable excuse as to why she hadn't made it to the gig. There was still no sign of her anywhere.

We were in a very sombre mood as we hoisted our equipment along to our van, which hadn't been vandalised this time even though the same group of Christian protestors had been protesting at exactly the same spot on the street as before. My guess is that nobody thought it worth the effort of vandalising a battered old van with the smudged-out name of Wayne Sentry & Sons barely legible under all the grime and rust.

"Was that the worst gig we've ever done?" Jane wondered.

Matt was visibly hurt by Jane's dismissal so Olivia stood up for him. "We just weren't able to play as well as we would've back in the UK. Events haven't been kind to us. But we did a fuck of a lot better tonight than anyone would've predicted given that we've lost our lead singer, our song-writer and both our guitarists."

"I thought you guys were awesome," said Joe loyal as ever to his best friend and probably envious that it hadn't been Jane who'd failed to turn up for the gig.

"Well, whatever," said Tomiko who was visibly bored with the discussion and held a spliff between her thumb and forefinger. "Anyone wanna share some blow?"

When we got back to the hotel, I helped Bertha and Jenny unload the band's equipment from the van not so much because I needed the exercise but because I wanted to put some distance between me and Jane and Jacquie. Much as I loved them, I wasn't able then (and I've been no better since) to handle the sisters when they got angry. And, besides, I was angry too. And like Jane and Jacquie I also blamed Judy Dildo for the fact that Crystal hadn't turned up for her own concert.

What the fuck could be more important than that?

When I entered the foyer of the Paradise Hotel, with Jenny Alpha loaded down with Tomiko's sound deck and Bertha sharing the burden of my keyboards and tangled cables, there was a palpably weird subdued atmosphere. Although everyone was gathered around the reception desk and sitting on the polyvinyl chairs, nobody was talking. Not even Matt and Joe.

Shit! Had our rooms been burgled? Had there been another bust? Had some bad news come back from the UK?

"What's going on?" I asked not sure who I was actually addressing.

And then I noticed for the first time that there was a strange man in the centre of the foyer and that he was dressed in the almost casual official uniform of the South Carolina police with the archetypal broad-brimmed hat.

"I'm afraid I've got bad news for you, ma'am," he said.

"It's about Crystal, isn't it?" I said, suddenly letting forth the flood of tears that I'd been holding back all evening. "Something's happened to Crystal. There's been an accident. She's in the hospital."

"I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, ma'am," said the police officer. "But it's worse than that."

And indeed it was.

Crystal Passion was dead.

And not just dead. Violated. Savagely abused. And then discarded.

And discovered—not many hours after her last breath—alongside the banks of the Catawba River: a broken doll bruised and bloody and pierced by knife-wounds, her nose crushed and her clothes nowhere to be found.

But most of all: dead.

It was hard for me to take in a single detail, but what was becoming increasingly apparent to me as I wailed and wept was that I would never speak to, laugh with or play with Crystal Passion again.

In fact, I would never see Crystal Passion alive ever again.