Untold Stories of Alan and Melody

Story 1: Set Fire To The Rain/The First Breakup

Set In the first two months of them dating

"Goddamn you!" Alan snarled. "Five minutes I'm back and I see you gettin' cozy with that son of a bitch loser!" he picked up his car keys he'd left on Melody's end table and shoved them into his pocket angrily as his girlfriend appeared in the hallway with her hands on her hips, indignant.

"I am not getting it on with him!" she hotly denied, raking her fingers through her semi dry hair and walking over to Alan. "Maybe if you paid more attention to me I wouldn't be wandering with my eyes!"
He stopped and glared at her. "So you are getting it on with that idiot art gallery owner! The guy's nuts!"

"He pays attention to me, Alan!" she retorted. "He sees me like a lady, a true one with sexual desires and he would know how to please me. We've been dating over two months now and you don't... you're not physically demonstrative towards me. I need affection! I need some physical assurance that you still find me attractive!"

"You're getting it from him so you don't need me!" hazel eyes glaring nastily at her, Alan turned his back and left, slamming her door shut loudly.

"That's not what I meant!" she started, then stopped. "Moron. If he can't understand what I want, more's the pity." it was something her aunt said many times over the course of her life and as she got older, she understood the saying completely.

Turning, she went into her workroom and began to bury herself in work. An amp needed rewiring and that was going to take most of her time. The young engineer always buried herself in work whenever she was troubled as a means to distract herself from her woes.

At the same time, Alan couldn't be so complacent. He drove home, nearly sideswiping an old Chevy, yelled obscenities to a rude biker who kept cutting him off, and badmouthed several pedestrians walking on the sidewalk.

Finally arriving at his apartment, he stomped upstairs, let himself in, threw his keys down on the table, then plopped himself down on the couch.

"That jerk," he muttered, draping one hand over his eyes. "he's got some balls to go after my girl."
Remembering the scene, Alan groaned and tried to will himself away from thinking about it.

While performing with the Blues Brothers band on a gig in Calumet city, he'd come out of the side door from the stage area, looking for Melody and wondering if she wanted to grab a drink with him. Mopping his face with a towel, he slung it over his shoulder and walked down the alleyway.

Turning the corner, he saw Melody with another man. He was about 6 feet tall, fat, wearing a tie-dyed shirt and cutoff jeans. The guy had dark brown hair in a crewcut, and wire rimmed glasses. Melody was giggling while the guy wrapped his arms around her and began speaking into her ear.

Jaw falling to the ground, Alan quickly pulled himself out of his shock and went back inside to the hot atmosphere of the club. Sinking down into a chair, his mind replayed the image over and over until break time was over. During the rest of the night, he found that he could barely look at Melody at all. She was acting like nothing had happened, but to Alan, his world had just come to a screeching halt.
The very next day, Alan had seen the guy walking around on the street with some other girl. To him, the guy was a player and would have several girls all at once, though he saw no need to tell Melody. She had to figure that one out by herself.

When they'd gone out on a date that night, Alan had difficulty coming up with conversation topics, but Melody had steered him in one direction early on. She'd told him that she had met an art gallery owner who was interested in showcasing her photography.

Who was this guy? he'd questioned.

Eric Meade, she had told him.

Alan had known of Eric Meade, a local hotshot guy who was a leftover hippie from the flower years. Meade ran the gallery while his sister Lucinda Holt owned a few flower shops in the west and east ends of the city. Meade was a character, but by all accounts he'd heard, the guy was as crazy as they came. Alan had heard Duck talking to Steve about Meade once. The bass player had reluctantly let his daughter go out with Meade and she had regretted it the second she had gotten home.

Duck had told him that she had said Meade tried to grope her, initiate foreplay, though it was only a first date. When she tried to stop him, he replied that it meant she wanted more so he started acting more obscene. It wasn't until she had the sense to get out of his car and hide in the bushes did she realize what a pervert he was. Meade had just left her there in the forest and she walked home, unable to shake the memory of him nearly raping her.

The guy was a womanizer, Alan reasoned. Loved 'em and left 'em. He honestly did not see why Melody liked the man at all.

About two weeks later, Melody's showcase was up and running, Alan was admiring it when he heard her giggling from the back room. Walking in, he saw them in an embrace much like before, and later on after supper, he confronted her.

Melody's reaction had been predictable, telling him about her needs and what he wasn't doing for her that Meade would do. Not wanting to hear any of that, he cut off her tirade before it got started, broke off the relationship, and left.

For the next month, Melody had begun seeing Meade on an almost daily basis. Alan was out in the recording studio doing work for some freelance artists and one of them had convinced him to go and see a musical exhibit at the Meade gallery. Reluctantly he did so, hoping that Melody and her new boy toy wasn't there.

Bad luck for him that both of them were smooching and giggling in the far corner where nobody could see them. Alan ignored them and checked out the exhibit all the while his heart was sinking, seeing them in the corner of his eye.

"Who's that guy?" Meade had asked, slightly turning up his nose.

"My ex." Melody had her hand on Meade's pants. "Don't start any trouble."

"Me? Would I do that to you?" they resumed their makeout session and Alan couldn't take any more. He left, disgusted by how fast Melody had moved on. There had been some interest in his direction by other women, but he had the annoying habit of seeing Melody's face on each one of the women.

He was pining for her now and seeing her with her new boy toy getting cozy made him mad. Alan decided to exact revenge and snared the first available female he could find. He took her to the gallery where Meade and Melody were still smooching. Even though he and the lady did genuinely like each other, neither one of them went beyond handholding, much to his consternation. The trumpet player did want to show Melody that he was moving on as well, but the lady told him she liked him as a friend and there was no chemistry between them.

They dated for a total of two weeks and then vowed to stay friends. Alan liked her, but she had been right about them not having a spark or chemistry.

One night Alan was up late, thinking about Melody as he couldn't sleep. He got up and put his robe on, then pulled down a picture album. The trumpet player had taken her on tour with him a few times in the past and she had loved every minute of it. They had made out in several places, though they mutually weren't ready for the real sexual relationship.

It was funny, but as Melody had lambasted him for not being more open with her, physically demonstrative and the like, he had been about to take her to bed with him and rock her world. Spectacularly bad timing on her part, though. If she only knew.

That same night, Melody was about to walk into the gallery when she saw Meade and some blonde woman standing in the foyer, apparently making out. Her heart sank in a hurry as Meade turned to face her.

"Get out," he said rudely. "you're old news and you won't have sex with me."

"Wha-" Melody's jaw fell open. "You!"

"I said OUT!" he shouted. "Freeloader! You cost me money every time you come in here."

"I do no such thing! I add to the clientele because I'm a hot piece of ass! You said so yourself." she defended while the blonde smirked. People had always said that Meade was a good guy, yet they never elaborated. Melody had wondered why that was, but she was finding out first hand now.
"I only said that so you'd let me do things to you." there was a vacant look in his eyes which made Melody think that there wasn't anyone home in the head. She knew he had a disease in his brain and now she wasn't sure if it was the disease or if he'd always been a slimeball.

"Didn't get you very far, did it?" she smiled in retaliation as he turned red in the face. "You couldn't get my motor running at all. You don't have what it takes."

"Get out! Before I call the cops!"

"Gladly," Melody smirked as it began to rain. "have fun and go lock yourself up at the ha ha house. You need some R&R with the other loonies in rubber rooms."

Steam nearly poured out of his ears if that was humanly possible. He grabbed her arm, giving her a nasty bruise and she retaliated by giving him a vicious punch in the face, breaking his nose.

"Self defense. Go fuck yourself. By the way darlin'," she said to the blonde barbie. "he's only for himself and nobody else. He'll spurn you like he did me. No wonder he's all alone and only thinks with his dick. Just ask his ex wife and ex girlfriend."

"You told me you weren't married!" the barbie sputtered indignantly. Melody laughed wickedly and walked away.

Her gleefulness evaporated as soon as she turned onto a different street. Rain pelted down and thunder rumbled in the distance as she found herself going to Alan's apartment building and knocking on his door.

Her old boyfriend wore a look of bewilderment at the sight of her, sopping wet on his doormat. "Hi, Alan."

"What happened to you?" he snorted and brought a tissue up to his nose. Melody noted that Alan had a faint flush to his cheeks and saw that he was sick with a head cold.

"Meade dumped me," she said forlornly.

"Tell me the whole story." they parked on his couch after Alan draped a towel over her shoulders. Melody told him the entire story, how Meade had picked her up one night at a diner after breaking up with Alan, how he made her feel like a special lady.

"I knew even then that something wasn't right with him," she confided. "there's no sense of humanity behind his eyes at all. He has no spirit and really no personality at all. All he wanted was as many girls to bang to he could."

"Why exactly did he pick you? Didn't he know you were with me?"

"I said I was just coming off a breakup and he wanted to be the rebound man. Anyway, he was all about the physically demonstrative, but there was no connection between us. Not like the one we have."

"I see. He's not a smart person and I know he's prone to violence."

"So I found out. He's just another guy wanting some free sex off of some harlot wandering around," she leaned into Alan with a smug grin. "he didn't get that far with me. Got tired of waiting because I wouldn't do any more than give him a hand job."

"You have integrity and that is what a guy like him hates." Alan coughed raspily into his hand. "Go get changed and put those clothes in the washer. I still have a few of your things you left here."

"Does that mean you're forgiving me?"

Alan smiled and chucked her under the chin. "Absolutely. Your revenge was not giving him what he wanted so it's all the more sweeter."

"Just as long as we're clear."

"You're forgiven. I'd be more physically demonstrative, but I'm ill at the moment. I'm sure you understand."

"Absolutely."

During the next few days, Alan was still sick and Melody stopped by every night for a few hours to check in on him and make sure he was comfortable.

Two weeks later they were at the airport, getting ready to go on a gig with one of the bands Alan worked for when they noticed Meade and the blonde barbie at one of the gates. They seemed to be arguing and the barbie stomped away.

"Trouble in paradise?" Alan nudged Melody and they smirked. The barbie stomped past them, then stopped and gave Melody a look.

"You were right," the barbie told her. "just wants sex. I wanted the honest relationship but he wasn't going to go that far with me. He seems to have a revolving door full of women."

"You'll find someone." Melody said confidently.

"I see you did. Congrats."

"Thanks. He's the best." they engaged in a smooch while Meade walked by, muttering to himself. He saw them as the barbie walked away.

"Get a room!"

They broke the kiss as Alan hollered back. "Get a girl!" Melody laughed as the intercom announced their flight was boarding.

"People who think with their downstairs regions will permanently be alone," Alan announced casually as he strapped himself into the seat on the plane. "you had high expectations that only I can fill for you."

"I'm very glad for you." they kissed as the announcements began.