Excuse me while I kiss the sky

-Jimi Hendrix

He was sweating, palms clammy and fingers jittery as they felt the cords of his acoustic guitar. The bright spot light was searing hot as beads of sweat slipped down his weathered face like acid rain. The crowd waited like venereal gremlins waiting to be regaled.

White white light every-fucking-where, he squinted out to the mob of rock fans and took the biggest punching breath of his rocker life.

Begin. Damon shut his eyes and began strumming.

This was what Rock gods felt like every time they climbed they sky, shot through the matrix. This was it, the thrill of the throbbing audience, the damn lights that spark your insides until you're just a ball of flame…a fucking Halley's Comet. This is what he missed, entertaining an audience that understood the nuances of Rock n roll.

He was contagious, infectious, the perfect disease spreading through the bar like an insidious chemical fire. The guitar riffs sent a surge of rebellion through their rattling bones, creeping into their nerves like a toxic flame. The crowd pulsated, their devil horns in the air as he claimed them. He still had it; he had not lost it yet. Seattle was his salvation.

#

Three-day old beer sweat stench, crusty jockstraps and the damp floors of a backstage dive bar. This was home for Bonnie and a part of her loved it, couldn't imagine anything better than conducting an interview with a band among the fumes of old sodden socks and coconut hair gels. The other part had been looking forward to the Rolling Stone job interview; a nice air-conditioned office overlooking the Broadway theatre would have been a pleasant change from the tedious murk of animal print and leather shimmering under blurred fluorescent lights.

Here she was with no New York and no Rolling Stone just a three year relationship with a man who had not fucked her in weeks.

The sheer beauty of feminism.

"Tuck it in boys, "she yelled guzzling her Starbucks coffee "lady walking, lady walking"

She weaved her way around the sodden bunch of bristly men with tatted bodies and plastic leather grunting like drunken pigs in a pen.

"Which one of you boys is Salvatore?" she asked as her eyes darted around the basic dressing room.

"That'd be him" a husky one spoke up gesturing to the corner of the room with his chin before taking a powerful snort from the jagged white lines on the mirror in front of him.

Bonnie's eyes shot to the corner, to the bulk of lean muscle undulating under a smooth golden skin. Her eyes did a languorous crawl from the sweat speckled pectoral muscles on his hard chest to the taut tendons of his abdomen. His fitted black jeans sagged all the way down to his pelvic muscle and something in her swelled and a strange heat crawled into her cheeks.

"Are you Salvatore?" she asked clearing her throat.

"Who wants to know?" he drawled nonchalantly packing in his guitar, not bothering to look up at her. The affected Southern accent caught her off guard. It did not match his obvious Italian heritage.

"I'm Bonnie Bennett" she said shoving her hand out to him "I'm with the Mainstay magazine"

"The what?" he looked up, blue blue eyes dazzling like a damn cerulean Greek sea as he raked a hand through his damp raven hair.

"Mainstay magazine, it's a rock maga-"

"Oh, never heard of it, "he smirked as his eyes travelled the length of her body, lingering on her sweat soaked cleavage. His eyes sprang back up at her face, lips unfurling into a broad grin.

"I believe we have an eleven o'clock" she said trying to ignore the fact that he was peeling her clothes off with his tormenting eyes, attempting to ignore the fact that she kind of liked it.

"No can do mam, "his voice was a languid drawl as she watched the shrug roll off his broad shoulders.

"No? We had an appointment. I called your agent last week and-"

"I fired my agent this week" he said casually slipping into his white t-shirt.

"So you won't talk to me?"

Great another Neanderthal whose about to get a rude awakening, Bonnie thought rolling her eyes. She was drained and hung over from Kol's beer soaked mouth and a disheveled rocker giving her hell at ten o'clock in the evening was the last thing she needed. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

"I don't do interviews… but dinner, "he winked "now that, I can do"

"Listen Salvatore, you need to be a professional if you want to make it in this industry and refusing interviews is not-"

"Are we done?"

"Actually no, I'm not done" she shook her head, eyes narrowed.

"Cause I'm famished and if you don't want…what's your name again?'

"Bonnie. B.O.N.N.I.E …Bonnie" she said it slowly so that she could het all the vowels out of her dry mouth.

"Bonnie, I'm heading out for dinner" he announced throwing his weathered guitar case over his shoulder "you comin?"