Whitney Holliday looked over herself one last time in the mirror. She couldn't believe this; when she was growing up and raising her family, she imagined retiring and living alone with her husband in their home in the suburbs of Philadelphia, with her son and daughter off to make their way in the world. How cruel a trick fate had played on them all: her husband had run off with another (younger) woman when she was forty-three, and her twenty-two year old daughter Christy had moved back in with her a year later after finishing college. It wasn't her daughter's presence that bugged Whitney; it was the lack of a masculine presence. She had her husband had always had an active and pleasurable sex life, even after he started his affair that led to the demise of their marriage. When he left, it was like an addict quitting cold turkey: she was always agitated, irritable, and just generally unpleasant to be around.
Now Whitney was forty-five, and she had gotten used to the lack of physical intimacy she endured, and having Christy around made life more tolerable. They became better friends than they had been while she was growing up. Tonight they were going to a club in downtown Philly to watch a rock concert by Christy's boyfriend's band. She had dressed modestly enough: a sleeveless T-shirt with a pair of blue Capri jeans and non-descript boots. Although she longed to meet a man, if only to fuck her senseless for one night, she never wanted to come across as desperate. Christy came into her mother's room and looked with her mother in the mirror. A lot of mothers are confused as siblings with their young adult children; these two women fit that analogy perfectly.
"Ready to go? You know Brian's gonna be upset if we're late." Christy asked.
Whitney laughed. "And why is that?"
"Because this is their first big concert; it means the world to them, and you know what that means..."
"It means the world to you?" Whitney shot back. "Don't worry; I've just finished putting the finishing touches on my outfit."
"Cool, I'll meet you at the car!" Christy kissed her mother on the cheek and bounced downstairs.
Twenty minutes later the two had arrived at the Black Rose, the venue hosting the concert. The building was filled with teenagers and twenty-somethings, the typical draws for underground local house bands. Whitney felt completely out of place and thought about slinking out the door, but Christy pulled her to a table practically directly underneath the stage. Now completely embarrassed and with no back-up escape plan, Whitney could only sit through what she considered the horror show that her daughter called music. The opening act had finally finished and the second attraction was coming up. A bass chord echoed throughout the building as a spotlight shone on the bass player. Strangely enough, Whitney recognized the bass line; it was 'Seven Nation Army' by the White Stripes. Apparently the band used this as their introductory number, because an additional spotlight came on as each element was blended into the song: drums, vocals, and finally, the guitarist. None of them had shirts on, and they were all heavily tattooed. After the song was over they introduced themselves:
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are Tattooed Thunder! I'm Jason, on vocals, on drums is Brian!" After Brian banged out a few notes on the drums, Jason introduced the other two band mates in a similar fashion: Jeremy on bass and Stacy on guitar. Stacy flipped Jason the bird, after which Jason corrected himself and introduced him as Astacio. Whitney remembered that Brian was the one Christy was dating, which was a good thing because for the rest of the show, she couldn't take her eyes off of Astacio! He actually did have a wife beater on, but his tattooed arms were still exposed, and as fast as he moved them playing his guitar, Whitney was enthralled by every flexing and contraction of his biceps and triceps. Her fixation wasn't lost on Christy, because midway through the concert she pulled Whitney into the bathroom and asked if she wanted to meet him!
"What? Are you insane?" was her reply.
"Mom, come on! You've been staring at him the whole time!"
"Okay, he's a good guitar player," Whitney replied, trying to worm her way out of the conversation.
"Mom, good musicians make you wanna get up and move, not sit there staring at them! We're going backstage afterwards anyway."
"Why?"
"Um, maybe so that I can go see Brian?"
"No, I think I'll wait for you out front. Besides, he can't be much older than you."
"Well, I'll let you find out for yourself."
Whitney finally relented. "You are insistent, aren't you?" The two ladies went back to their seats and finished watching the show. Eventually Tattooed Thunder finished their set and gave way to another band. Christy and Whitney hurried to the backstage area, only to be confronted by a burly bouncer. After a few moments of fruitless arguing, Christy dialed Brian up on his cell phone. Brian almost immediately came to the doorway and personally escorted the ladies past the security guard and into the band's dressing room. Christy introduced her mother to Jason and Jeremy, who were sitting with Brian around a laptop computer. Christy then pointed off to the corner, where a lone man sat with a pair of electric guitars. "And THAT is Astacio." Astacio stopped what he was doing at the sound of his name, but didn't look up. Whitney hesitantly took a seat near him, when Jason cracked, "Don't worry about him, he doesn't bite." The way the young man was being compared to an animal didn't sit well with Whitney, but before she could say anything, Jeremy chimed in with, "I don't know about that; remember that day we set him up with Becky, and the next day she had hickeys all over her neck?" This mention caused the previously mute Astacio to burst out into a fit of laughter. "Never again will I agree to go out with a woman you guys try and set me up with. We hooked up that night, and the next morning she was already making a "Things-I-Have-To-Change-About-You" list. That's when you know you are too damn good: when you've got a girl calling herself yours, or better yet, you hers, after just one night." Brian threw his two cents in as well: "Well, Mr. Too Damn Good, how come you don't have a woman?"
