Just a Guitarist in the Backup Band

"Dismissing is a hard term."

"But accurate. Answer the question or no signature."

"Yes."

"Question 6: did you continue to have sex with these men the next day and the next night."

"Yes."

"With how many men and women did you engage in sexual relations during that 48 hour period. There were five men with you at the pool."

"All 5, and one of their secretaries."

"Question 7. Did this behavior continue over the two week period in Brazil?"

She sighed heavily, and was openly crying now.

"Yes."

"How many individuals did you favor with sex during your 3 weeks with your clients in Bermuda and Brazil?"

"9."

"How many of them took precautions to prevent spreading STD's or provided documentation that they were clean?"

She started to cry hard now. And couldn't answer.

"I'll take that to mean none. Last question. How many days on your honeymoon and the two weeks in Brazil that made up our first three weeks of marriage did you have sex with people other than me, and how many days did you have sex with me."

She dropped her head into her arms and cried bitterly.

"See! You couldn't lie, could you?"

He signed the papers, slid them back into the Manila folder she brought them in, placed it neatly in her briefcase, latched it closed, and slid it across the table to her.

"I was living very well without you Gina. Now the heartache won't go away. You didn't want a husband, you wanted a husband doll to play with when it was convenient. You can stay here until you get control of yourself. I'm going down to the bar for an hour or so to give you some space. Bye Gina, I hope you find what you want. I hope it makes you happy."

I walked out. When I walked back in, the room was not empty. As I walked through the sitting area to go to bed, I heard something move behind me, and the lights went out. I woke up with my hands zip tied behind my back, my ankles zipped together, and my knees and elbows held apart by a length of wood to which they were strapped. A mountain of Blue eyed blonde muscle stood before me with his arms crossed and no expression on his face. Gina sashayed into view.

"Sorry about the knot you're going to have on your head. But drastic times call for drastic measures. Gunnar here is an Olympic wrestler here in Germany. He offered to help me in exchange for a new car. He likes Mercedes. I like insurance when dealing with violent subjects, which means you."

She reached down and grabbed my balls, and pulled hard. I gritted my teeth and groaned in pain, and she squeeze harder. Her face came close to mine, and her hair cascaded around us.

"I like these baby. You have a very nice set. It's a shame they are attached to someone so shy and meek as you."

I thrashed to get away, and even flung my head forward in a lame attempt to head butt her. But she was ready for me, and so was Gunnar. He sprung to his feet and pulled my head back to the bed by my hair. Between Gina's vise-like grip on my genitals and the use of my hair as a leash, the pain grew too great and I yelled at the top of my lungs. The big German's paw lashed out, and I went out again.

When I woke up Gina was hovering over me again, smirking.

"I am so glad I brought Gunnar. You aren't very violent now, are you Jimmy? We added a back board to your bed gear! These straps will lock your shoulders down, this big one immobilizes your hips and this neat little head piece will keep you from trying to break my nose with your forehead. I didn't like that Jimmy. You need to be punished. This, my darling husband is a flogger."

She produced a long whip-like gizmo, with a leather wrapped handle and several long leather straps.

"The thing I like about this flogger is that it doesn't leave serious welts and marks right away. The individual strands are too wide to cut and too heavy to crack like a whip. Yet over time they can be quite painful. Tonight I plan to find out how far I can take you. First your punishment will be more annoying than anything. Then your skin will be beaten raw. It will get redder and redder until you start to bleed. Then the leather lashes will go to work on laying open those tiny welts and your punishment will be quite painful."

She began to work my body over with the flogger. The first few lashes were directed at my chest. It felt much like she said I would. There was minimal pain, but the sound of leather on flesh was alarming, and adding the shock of contact left me very unsettled. I felt my skin getting raw, and began yelling for her to stop.

"There, there baby. I know that you can't be comfortable. I tried to do comfortable, but you didn't care. I put you in a soft cushy bed in a beautiful home, but you chose that crappy little one bedroom hovel in Soho, didn't you? I let you drive my Porsche but you chose your old Ford van. Then there is my body. Just think of the comfort a man can derive from a lifetime with this body. But you chose...nothing instead. Jimmy, I just can't do nothing. So instead of comfort, all I have left is this."

The flogger hit squarely on my genitals. I knew it wasn't as hard as she had hit my chest, but she didn't have to. Talk about discomfort.

"Now let's review what bothered you. You were happy enough to marry me. You even trusted me enough to sign a premarital contract without closely reading it. Then afterwards you changed your mind because of my working routines. The catch is, you had to share. It's right here in our contract. You didn't read that did you? You see, for all your Romantic blithering about the power of music, all that power did was blind you to what was really going on. Me. I'm what is really going on. I wanted you, my pet, the first time I saw you. So I took you. It wasn't by chance. I studied you. I researched you. I profiled you, then made myself into the girl of your dreams. I seduced you with your own dream of a perfect wife."

She began to flog me again. This time attacking my legs, she swung harder. The skin is tougher there, and I could endure more. She knew exactly what to do. The strange thing was she actually smiled as she flung her arm around in a figure 8 pattern, striking continually on both her backhand and the fore. You could see the exhilaration in her face. But eventually she stopped. Her eyes gleamed with joy when she spoke to me.

"Now here's how it is going to be. While you were sleeping earlier, we posed you and took pictures of you enjoying Gunnar's significant genitals. A quick email to the gossip rags would be all that it takes to give you a very different kind of rep in your business. The gold digging wannabe musician is also a raging homosexual deviant. That will kill any chance you have of selling those beautiful love songs, Jimmy. The young women who would actually believe those lyrics buy songs that take them to dreamland with their perfect man. And your quiet wholesome image? Well let's say wholesome isn't the word to describe these photos.

So here's how it is going to play out. I changed my mind. I don't want a divorce, I want a pet. You agree to tear up the divorce papers you signed, and recommit to our relationship. You agree to stick with our contract. You finish your tour, then come home to me. If you don't, you are going to be tragically injured in a mugging one night, and your fingers will never play a guitar again. Got it?"

Gunnar, untie him, then let him up. He did. She produced the papers.

"Why do you need me to tear them up? They are your papers!"

"It gives your consent."

I didn't have a lot of choice. So I tore them in half.

"Now lie down on the bed again, this time on your stomach."

I did, and was bound again, but this time to the bed posts. I heard the leather tongs which through the air before I felt them slap on my ass. They were lighter this time. As she was beating me, Gina told my how much she loved working over a helpless man. She described the sensual feel of the flogger in her hand, and similarly the satisfaction of making me twitch in pain compared to the feeling of making me cum. Then she collapsed on my back and dry humped my ass as she whispered in my ear.

"There are many ways of achieving the high of sensual abandon. I can take you to some amazing places, my pet. Or I can use you to send myself there without you. So if I take a client as a lover, just consider yourself lucky I am making myself happy, because I will always come back to you, and amaze you with how good I can make you feel. When you share me, others will get a piece of me. But your piece will always be the biggest, and it will always be better after I've been with someone else. So be a good pet. Stay out of my business, including my sex life. In return, I'll stay out of yours. Which means your fingers will stay unbroken and able to play the guitar for years and years. Oh, and after you've shown me you can behave and get with the program, I will destroy those pictures. Gunnar!"

Gina got up off the bed, and Gunnar climbed on. I felt him lower his body onto my back, and then his massive cock press between my ass cheeks where it found no trouble zeroing in on my asshole.

"Mistress Gina promised me a good fuck tonight. Maybe I should do you! You felt very good when we posed the pictures."

Gina giggled in the back ground. I winced.

"No? Ok. She and I will go away fuck. The phones are unplugged. We took the battery from your cell, but you can find it hidden when you get free. Your left hand will be cut free when we leave. Your right hands and feet are restrained by a locking device with a combination. One combination is your birthday. One is your apartment number. The other is the last four digits of your social security. You just don't know which combination opens which lock. By the time you are free we will be gone. Be a good pet, and she will make you happy. Be naughty and I will get to fuck you...and that will make me happy, I will like that a great deal."

A rag was held to my face that smelled like medicine. I passed out. When I woke up, I found things just as Gunnar said. I tried my numbers on the first lock, and was free in a flash, the others released as promised as well. But a look at the clock told me I had been out all night.

Never confuse quiet and complacent with weak. This round definitely went to Gina. But we were in this for the long haul. My time would come. However, I knew I couldn't turn this around in a flash. She was miles ahead of me in her planning and deceit. I had to catch up fast. First, I knew not to trust her. However being a musician had taught me valuable lessons about knowing your audience and about practicing something countless times before performing. I had research to do. Then I had to practice.

I continued on Marsh's farewell tour. It wasn't long before Marsh and my band mates were talking about my playing. Apparently I had found a spark and was playing with a new fire. Go figure. Gina didn't break me in Munich. She pissed me off.

We arrived in London for the farewell performances. In the midst of my new fire, Marsh had begun playing less and less. His comping, the chordal backing a jazz player lays down behind a soloist, was becoming more and more sparse. He also tended to lay out more frequently, and indeed had taken to stepping of the stage at least once in every performance. He fessed up about it at lunch before our first London show.

"Fellas, I'm having a hard time playing. I can barely get my left hand to work some shows, and we're going to be playing two a night for the next three days. I'm considering canceling these shows."

Jazz musicians have a unique bond. They spend so much time together reading each other's minds musically, they develop a sense of how each other is thinking non-musically. It hadn't taken long after Munich for Marsh to ask me what I was upset about, and he let me know the other guys were just as concerned. I explained my wife and I were having issues, and without giving away the threats she had laid on me, we talked through things. I felt a lot better. He was happy, but admonished me to "keep the heat on the guitar" though.

When the dust settled after Marsh dropped his bomb, they reached a consensus to cancel and go home.

"No fucking way."

Everyone started talking at once, convincing me it was the best thing. Marsh deserved to go out on top, not like a bird with its wings clipped.

"Who the fuck wants to clip his wings!? And who the fuck wants to let this damned disease rob him of his grand finale!? Not me! Marsh, you wanted this extra tour to play out your string in victory. Let's finish in style."

"How?"

"Let me take care of it. All I want is a little trust and some time to make some calls. I've got some favors coming to me. I'm cashing them in. Go get some sleep fellas."

My first call was to Keri Cole.

The next morning, the Times had the same headlines in New York and London. Marsh was playing his final concerts this week, and was retiring because the Parkinson's had advanced rendering his left hand undependable for performance. Rebroadcasts of my video conference interview with a buddy at NBC had aired almost immediately on the Today Show in New York, but due to the time zones were just airing then on BBC morning programming. All of the networks and the print coverage the broadcasts had spawned were spinning hard on my response to their concern that Marsh only had one hand to play piano with.

"Don't doubt what Marsh Douglas can do with a piano and one hand? This isn't your kid brother who took lessons for a year and walked away, this is Marsh Douglas!"

The guys ragged me about my press appearances at the sound check, but Marsh was in good spirits. We usually took a limo to the venue, and a crowd was waiting by the stage door and pressed Marsh for autographs. When we stepped on stage, the SRO audience went crazy. The vibe was electric and the band was hot as hell. I slid in to cover the changes, so Marsh didn't have to worry a bit. About halfway through the set, Marsh started to tire, so I whispered to him between tunes to grab the mic and say something.

He was eloquent, and started to choke up when he had thanked the audience for his career. I grabbed a mic and told the audience while Marsh was signing a few mementos we had Georgia Cross to sit in for him. Georgia was a London-born protege of his, and had been forging a brilliant career of her own having released several albums to critical acclaim over the last 5 years. Marsh signed and schmoozed, Georgia lit the piano on fire, and the audience was mesmerized. Marsh played the finale and an encore before we broke for dinner.

The late show ran the same way, except Jonathan Crawford took Georgia's spot spelling Marsh. Jonathan's career had paralleled Marsh's, and for the encore this time, he and Marsh played a four hand...check that three hand duet version of All of Me. The next day we had Arturo Diaz, a Latin piano star throw a little Mambo flair on Marsh's break and that night we let the piano go dark while Orrin Ashby, the famous sax player that Marsh had given his big break, joined us the next night. On Sunday afternoon, they actually sold seats on the stage at a ridiculous price, the demand was so great. Jonathan Crawford returned, and he and Marsh played almost a complete set of their own.

Sunday nights show held the biggest surprise. When Marsh left the stage, Keri came out in a solo spotlight, and began singing All Of Me directly to Marsh. Marsh was stunned at the sound. Keri had become a pop icon, and her voice was immediately recognized, but not in the context of crooning with a jazz combo. The sound was so fresh and different, Marsh stopped schmoozing and took a seat at a table to listen. Keri finished to wild applause.

"Marsh, we've never met in person, but I know your music well. My mom was a huge fan, and taught Me the lyrics to every standard you recorded. You were my karaoke when I was little! And you taught me so much I can never thank you enough. She ran up and gave him a huge hug, then brought him back to the stage. We did a couple more songs with Keri and Marsh's right hand, and finished big."

We flew home the next day, and the following Wednesday night, we played an American farewell. There were literally dozens of guest performers, including jazz legends, the guests we had in London, and other alumni of Marsh's bands over the years. Keri sang All Of Me as she had in London, but the rest of the band sat out, so it was just she and I in a duet. I asked them about it later, and they said we had such a chemistry in London they decided to get out of the way.

My eight month tour with the legend that was Marsh Douglas was over. The live recording we made of the tour and tributes made us each a fortune. Keri decided she and I needed to work together some more.

Where was Gina?

"I'm sorry Jimmy, but I've been so busy with work I decided to cut you some slack and let you play your little tour without me. I heard it went well, and you really didn't look shy on TV at all."

When did quiet and shy become incapable?

"But now that you're back, there is a little matter of husbandly duties you have been shirking while galavanting about Europe and Asia for the last eight months. Now I have calls to make and work to do. Be a good pet for me and strip, then I want you to lick my feet clean, and massage them. You'll find oils on my cosmetics table. Then you can kneel beside me where I can reach you and pet you until I finish. When I do, you can lick me to orgasm and wash me in the shower. If you do a good job, I will let you sleep in the same room as me tonight, although at my feet on the floor. You have a long way to go before you get back in my good graces."

I didn't have time to object. She slapped my face.

"You were about to say something you shouldn't. So that was a kid slap because it saved you from punishment. If you think the flogger hurt in Munich, wait until you feel the sting of the cane. Now thank me for saving you from that fate."

I swallowed my fury and apologized. I needed time to collect an answer to her blackmailing photos.

"Then kiss my ass."

Slap.

"In the time it takes for you to think of a wise assed objection I will always be able to slap your face. It looks red now. Don't earn a third."

She grabbed my face and squeezed until my jaw opened and my facial features distorted beyond recognition.

"I. Love. You. But I will not tolerate insolence or misbehavior."

She kissed my mouth, tonguing me deeply, then drew back and slapped again.

"I. Love. Kissing. You."

She kissed me again, even more deeply and longer, and without the squeeze. Instead her hands both caressed and massaged my face. When she pulled back again, she slapped me again, the hardest yet. The force rocked my jaw, and for the first time I understood how people described a concussion as a bruise on the brain.

"I. Love. Slapping. Your. Face. Just as much. So I'm happy either way. You decide how you want it. Now kiss my ass then get busy with my feet!"

I kissed. Then I licked. Then I rubbed. I lotioned. I rubbed some more. She said "enough." I kneeled and waited. She passed on the pussy service, and changed clothes quickly. I'm going out. You may relax tonight. Sleep at the foot of my bed, whether I am back or not. She didn't come back. I woke on the floor the next morning when Carol, the housekeeper woke me.

"I'm so sorry sir. You'll get to know mistresses moods, and things will get better. I'm afraid she sees this as your training session."

"Damn Carol, what did I sign up for?"

"Mistress excels at trapping people in unfair contracts. You should know, those contracts could never hold up in court. She must have something she holds over your head. She is good at staging blackmailable situations."

I found Carol to be a fount of information. My research on my wife had begun. I also spent some time with Charles, the driver/gardener/handyman. It turned out that Carol was with Gina because she had been caught stealing money from the store where she worked. Charles was there because he loved Gina, though he knew he could never love her the way he wanted. He was especially tiny "down there," and had a penchant for wearing women's clothing. She used him for entertainment purposes dressed as Charlotte, and for real functions as Charles.I was finding out very interesting things, but hadn't scratched the surface. However I was sure, my time would come. I could do this. I could take everything she threw my way. I would win in the end.