“Hey…” My voice died in my throat as eight different eyes met mine. Every colour from green to darkest brown was represented there, as well as some I would have previously assumed were coloured contacts, but they all had something in common—their expression. Each looked at me with a steady, flat gaze I’d long associated with the mean girls. Well, I wasn’t at high school anymore.
“I’m the photographer for the tour. Mind if I take some shots?”
“We know who you are.”
I looked down the lens at the spokesperson for the group, her hair a sleek bob, her eyes glittering in the artificial light. She had on what I’d always assumed was the rock chick uniform—a tight miniskirt, a spaghetti strap tank with the band’s logo on it, and a whole lot of eyeliner.
“Yeah?” I said. She was beautiful and intimidating, but I wasn’t going to let that shit get to me or I’d never carry off this job. “You’re all gorgeous. You want in on the promo shots or not? They’re revamping the website with my photos.”
That seemed to throw off the resting bitch face of most of them, eyes darting to each other. This was obviously a close group of women for whatever reason, but what I was offering was threatening that.
“We’ll do this for Hartley,” a girl with an impressive mane of dark green hair said.
Fae then, and that hair might not be dyed.
“What do you want?” the first girl said.
“Names would be a good start, then we talk and I’ll shoot you. It’s spontaneous, not posed, though if you’re keen for some of them for a portfolio or something, I’m happy to help.”
That seemed to be the right thing to say. Bob girl leaned forward, revealing an impressive expanse of tawny skinned bosom. “I’m Chyna, she’s Amber,” referring to the green haired girl. The others went through their names, and I settled down in a spare chair, the lot of them a buffet of female flesh. Some sat with legs elegantly crossed, some lazy cats leaning over the arms or backs of the furniture. I took an ensemble shot, fiddling a bit to try and bring all the jewel like tones of their hair, eyes, skin, and clothes. It took a little bit of playing with the setting as the light was all over the place, but when I finally had what I wanted, I turned the LCD display around so they could see the image.
“Wow,” a girl with waist length purple hair said. “You’re actually good.”
And there we had it, the cause for the hostility.
“Yeah, I am, and you guys are beautiful. The camera freaking loves you. I’ve been given a pretty loose brief. What if I ask the band if we can do a sequence with the lot of you? The male audience is bigger than the female, and you’d be their perfect fantasy girls.”
“You’d talk to the Hartley?” Amber said.
“The Hartley? Liam or Johnno?”
“Liam,” Chyna said, her tone saying a whole lot more.
“Sure, I’ll talk to Liam for you, if you want.”
“I guess you will,” Chyna said, her chin tilting up. “Up until this tour, we didn’t need that, so don’t act like you’re doing us any sort of favour. The court’s talking about you being some big thing—”
“Chyna, no,” the purple haired girl said.
“—but I don’t see it.”
Fuck, did I have time for this? I looked deeper into the backstage area, saw all the people setting up the stage and the lights. Could I afford to skip it? It appeared that we were going to be in the same court, at least until I made a decision about what I wanted.
“Obviously, I’ve been inserted somewhere you don’t want me to be,” I said.
“Damn right, you have,” Chyna said, sitting forward, the gesture oddly impetuous when contrasted with her sleek visage. “I was building something with Liam, and with Billy—”
“And there’s no reason why you can’t continue that. I’m here to take photos first and because Johnno’s my preceptor. That’s it.” The women blinked at me, unconvinced. “OK, since I met them, since I transitioned, I’ve touched one band dick—Johnno’s. I’ve seen Jake get it on with a group of models.”
“Pfft…that man would hump a fire hydrant,” one woman said.
“Well, he was sucking Liam’s dick before we got here.” That caught their attention. They all leaned forward as I described the details in as few words as possible. Their hungry looks, the reality of seeing my first live sex show was kinda a lot to get my head around. “So you see, I’m not fucking the lot of them. I’ve only had sex with Marlow, and that’s the way it’ll stay for the immediate future. You want Liam, Lucas, fuck, even Johnno. We haven’t hammered out any kind of exclusive deal, so go right ahead. I’m not going to get in your way.”
This seemed to set the cat amongst the pigeons as the women all started to chatter amongst themselves, but Chyna held her hand up for silence.
“You’re giving us permission to do what we’ve always done. We’re the Concubines. It was us in the bed in the back of the bus. We got our marching orders yesterday without so much as a by your leave, and got relegated to the roadie bus. For you.”
“A choice I had no say over,” I said. “Don’t be that girl, the one that lashes out at who she perceives as a rival.” I got to my feet. “Liam’s the one you want. He made the decision. Take this shit up with him. I’d be happy to be sleeping in Jen’s bus.” I didn’t wait for her answer, just looked at the rest of them. “Look, Rutherglen’s got this whole porn Garden of Eden promo thing going on, and I reckon you guys’d be amazing for it. We might be able to get a whole Suicide Girls thing happening as a side income stream, build you guys a profile. Just a thought. Now, I’ve got to report to the band and see what I’m supposed to be doing. Lemme know if you’re interested later.”
“You’re not her, you know,” Chyna said, forced to take a step to say her piece as I went to leave. “There’s a part of Liam you’ll never have.”
I knew what she was saying, everyone did. Rhiannon, the only one who’d ever got past the fortifications Liam built around himself. She was a spectre that haunted everything he did, a ghost everyone he worked and lived with had to deal with. But as the girls’ smiles grew sharp, I just shrugged.
“That threat would make more sense if I wanted anything from him. I figure that statement applies better to you than me.”
I don’t know why I felt more confident as I moved deeper into the backstage area. If I was human, I would have walked on out of here, said no a million times over. I couldn’t compete with those women on any level. But for some reason, transition had brought with it a confidence. Nothing they’d said was inaccurate, but I didn’t care. Maybe it was the bag banging on my hip, evidence of my purpose. It wasn’t just that, though I realised I had a job to do and I had as much right as anyone to be here. So what was it?
At school, I’d been the target of plenty of girls a helluva lot bitchier than Chyna and with less actual beef with me. Just being that odd little girl with the brain glitch was sufficient for random girls to start on me, which had been where Jen came in. Beautiful, connected enough to scare off even the hardest of heads, it’d been a large part of our friendship. But dealing with this without her support, it put an extra spring in my step that carried me all the way through the chaos to the band.