Filthy Punk

DOMINIC

Backstage, the green room was silent. My bandmates and I were sprawled across a black lounge, exhausted after our show.

The Vale was a semi-decent venue to perform at, but it was only a downtown bar, so we hadn’t expected such an exuberant crowd. As tired as we were, though, this only meant good things—growing notoriety and a loyal fanbase.

“Micah, you were so hot!” Chloe, our lead vocalist’s girl, curled her arms around his neck and sat in his lap. Micah playfully bit her neck with the remaining vestiges of his energy, making Chloe squeal.

“Thanks, babe.” He grinned and kissed her.

For a guy who looked like mugging someone would be high on his list of priorities, Micah was the biggest sweetheart to Chloe. It almost made me sick.

“Get a room, you two,” I drawled.

In unison, they gave me the bird. I scoffed, blowing smoke from my vape.

“I can still hear them outside the door.” Sin, the second guitarist, was half-undressed, with only his skinny jeans on. “How the fuck are we gonna leave this place?”

The muffled voices outside the door, a mix of drunk slurring and dramatic love declarations, dramatically increased in volume as a lanky figure squeezed through the door.

“Billie, you’re a legend!” screamed one girl from behind him.

“Billie, sign my cleavage!” Another pleaded.

Disgruntled, Rick, our band manager, pushed our drummer boy through the door before anyone else could bust in. We all eyed Billie as he stumbled up from the floor, all shaggy-haired and swollen-lipped.

His brows knitted together when he saw us staring. “What? I needed to take a piss.”

Micah snorted, pushing Rick over the edge. “You think this is funny? This kid ran off and almost got torn in two by a bunch of groupies!”

Micah’s face fell. “Rick, I didn’t—”

“I tell you, the more you get popular, the more cautious you have to be. Billie has done nothing but ignore caution and jump the gun!”

Micah stood to address Rick calmly, but it only seemed to ramp up Rick’s anger. I blocked out the rise in their voices and the adoring shouts from outside and took another long inhale of my vape.

My phone screen lit up on the armrest.

I sighed, a ring of smoke disappearing into the air. It was my sister. If it were my brother, Brody, I would’ve dismissed it. He’d been pestering me all week with texts about their upcoming holiday dinner. Coming from Ashley, though, it was a plea.

It’d been six months since the last time I’d checked in. The estranged relationship I had with our father for the last six years made it so that I wasn’t exactly fond of visiting.

I left Ashley on read for a little while, watching the three dots.

I scoffed. Of course, my father still threw big parties. His guests were never middle-class folk either. They were important people associated with the Harrods’s family name. Father had no social skills to harness genuine friendships.

Working as a Hollywood executive, however, he wanted to maintain connections and control his inner network with an iron fist. It was “evidence” of his hard work and success. “The best breadwinner a wife could ask for,” he once said. I couldn’t stomach it anymore. It was all so fake.

The Bellemeres were longtime friends from my father’s circle. I had vivid memories of Neve, my siblings, and me playing with each other at my father’s summer estate in Port Royal. She used to be bad at hide and seek, so I’d hide with her.

We spent so much time together, and I considered her one of my best friends. But in high school, something changed. Boys like me didn’t associate with girls like her. She became a student leader, and her overt perkiness was an insufferable pandering act. For Neve, being nice was like charity work.

It scarred me. She had grown more and more distant until she stopped acknowledging me altogether, like her friends convinced her that associating with me was a bad idea. But then, all of a sudden, she was there again, and things happened between us that had never happened between us before. I thought what we shared was just the beginning—until I saw her on Jacob Lane’s arm the next day. It was a tough pill to swallow.

I wasn’t sentimental about Neve. “Fuck this,” I mumbled, shutting my phone.

Micah was screaming at the top of his lungs. “Go home, Rick! We don’t need you!”

“Gladly!”

Rick slammed the door, leaving us to fend for ourselves. I turned to Micah. “What the hell are you doing? We need him now more than ever.”

“I always thought we deserved better,” Billie interjected.

Micah crossed his arms. “Dom, we don’t need a manager anymore. I’ve learned a lot from Rick over the past year. I can organize our gigs.”

Like that would be any easier. Managers took a load off their artists’ shoulders. They booked gigs, ensured the venues were in order, and had everything the band needed.

Publicity would become an even bigger beast to tackle too. Altogether, Micah would barely have time to make music—quality music. We’d run ourselves into the ground.

“Whatever, Micah,” I said, an edge to my voice.” See you Thursday.”

I didn’t want to go out into the crowd, but I couldn’t sit in the green room any longer. The moment I stepped out, Micah and my bandmate’s protests were drowned out by the screaming crowd, who pushed band posters and markers in my face.

I threw out my hands, barricading myself as I tried to make my way to the back entrance.

“Sorry, guys, but I’ve got to go,” I said as I inched along the corridor. My words caused a few whines of dismay from a couple of girls who heard me. A few voices in the crowd booed. I hadn’t moved very far when security guards finally made their way toward us.

Two men stood before the green room door, shooing the fans away, while another guard escorted me to the back of the building.

Moving out into the parking lot, I was happy to see there were only the band members’ cars awaiting us. The cool evening breeze felt refreshing after being in a cramped space, and I sucked in a few gulps of air. I thanked the security guard before getting into my black truck.

“Took you long enough,” came a feminine voice from inside the cab. I stiffened, only partway in the driver’s seat, and my heart lodged in my throat. Who the fuck broke into my car?

I was ready to lunge toward the stranger when I recognized her face. Cynthia was squatting in the space below the passenger seat. She looked real proud of herself too, grinning at me like the Cheshire Cat with her wicked black lipstick.

I slumped in my seat with a groan. “Cynthia, I’m not in the mood.”

Cynthia was a longtime groupie of mine, and I’d mistakenly hooked up with her more than once, giving her the idea we were something more. I’d made it clear our relationship was the no-strings-attached variety, but I could sense her holding out on the off chance I’d change my mind. It wasn’t happening.

Her soft black hair tickled my shoulder as she leaned in. “Relax. I couldn’t get through the crowd inside, so I thought waiting in the car was my best option.”

I glared. “And you stole my spare car keys?”

Cynthia chucked the spare onto my lap. I gritted my teeth, debating whether to get into it with Cynthia now. But then a wave of exhaustion consumed me at the thought. All I wanted was to go home after a draining afternoon. I’d deal with it later. I locked my key into the ignition, and my eyes flitted to her hand on my thigh.

“Tell me what happened.” Her ice-blue eyes pierced through me like I was a wall of glass, reading every hidden emotion. I hated such open shows of concern. There was something incredibly uncomfortable about someone being able to read me. Maybe I could divert our conversation to something more…cathartic?

“Nothing but stupid shit with the manager.” I dismissed her concern before leaning toward her, my lips curled. “Did I mention that what you did was a criminal offense? Do you know what I do with criminals?”

Cynthia’s dark eyes became heavy-lidded, her breath fanning over my lips. “What?”

She didn’t care about me. She only liked the idea of me. At least that was something mutual between us. I pressed my mouth to her ear. “I give them punishment.”

Cynthia giggled, her body shivering when I pulled her over the console and squeezed the back of her neck, sucking on the tender skin there. It bloomed a reddish purple. I grinned, feeling her grind on me, and I slapped her thigh, causing a hitch in her breath.

“Good girls get dick. Not you,” I chided. Cynthia groaned, turning her bucking enthusiasm into worshipping me with kisses, teeth, and tongue. Her body caged me into the car seat, and my blood roared at the press of her body against mine.

My phone screen lit up from the little compartment under the stereo, and I almost ignored it.

From my vantage point, I saw Princess_4u’s name, and my heart raced. NSFW Twitter was a godsend because I could indulge in fantasies I’d never take part in—in real life.

Princess was the quintessential goodie-two-shoes in the way she dressed: conservative, never giving too much away in the dirty pictures she sent me. But our online relationship had expanded to conversations and occasional sexts.

I was obsessed with her.

I didn’t have much to go by, but I imagined it was Princess grinding on my lap, in her ripped stockings and soft cotton underwear. I raked my hands down her back before reaching for her ass, holding her against me as I dominated her sweet little mouth.

If we weren’t in a car, I’d have my way, with her tied and bound, unable to move and only able to writhe under the unrelenting pleasure I’d give her till she was on the verge of passing out.

But then Neve’s face came to my mind, at least how I remembered her at age fifteen. I’d buried the memory deep in the recesses of my mind. We’d had a moment together under the bleachers late after school.

“Fuck,” I moaned into her mouth. I shouldn’t have done it, but when Neve said she wanted to experiment with me, that she didn’t trust anyone else the way she trusted me, I was a goner.

Then she never talked to me ever again.

“Dom,” Cynthia’s voice broke me from my lustful daydreaming. I had a firm grip on her hair, pulling her head back so that it exposed her neck to me. In this position, she couldn’t move. “You’re pulling my head too hard.”

I loosened my grip. “Sorry.”

Sometimes, my anger came through my libido. It was very cathartic, but there was still a deep-seated desire within me I couldn’t ignore. I wanted to take it out on Neve, make her pay for how she made me feel, as stupid as that sounded. If I saw her at this miserable party, perhaps these feelings would stop. Hell, at the very least, I’d enjoy ruining the atmosphere of my father’s shindig.