"I think I like this whole having our own rooms thing," Matt was saying as they boarded. "Now that we have some privacy I was able to try out a few new things with my groupies last night."
"What kind of things?" Jake asked, wondering what there could possibly be that Matt was too embarrassed to do in front of others.
"Well," Matt said, "I always wanted to see what the whole water sports thing was about."
"Water sports?" Jake asked, folding down his bunk and tossing his bag up on it. "You tried water sports?"
"Yeah," Matt said. He shrugged. "It was all right. I don't see why all those weirdos in the porno mags get off on it though. I wasn't nothing spectacular."
"Wait a minute," Coop said, folding down his own bunk. "Are you talking about pissing? That kind of water sports?"
"Yeah," Matt said. "What's the big deal?"
"We're you pissing on the bitches or were they pissing on you?" Darren asked.
"I tried it all," Matt replied. "I had two of them up there last night. First I pissed on them."
"Where at on them?" Darren asked, seemingly fascinated.
"Their stomachs, their tits, their pussies."
"Did you do this on the bed?" Coop asked.
"No, in the fuckin bathtub, you moron," Matt told him. "Anyway, it didn't do much for me, other than relieve my bladder. So then I had them piss on me. They squatted over me and let go all over my cock and balls."
"That is purely disgusting," Bill said, though he seemed fascinated by it as well.
"It wasn't that bad," Matt said. "It was a little hotter than me doing it to them but nothing mind-blowing or anything. The only part that actually gave me a boner though was when they pissed on each other. That was so nasty it was hot."
"How'd they do it?" Darren asked. He was nearly drooling.
"Well, first they were making out with each other and then they pissed while their pussies were rubbing together. Then, later, after I'd already drilled them a few times, they sixty-nined in the tub and pissed in each other's faces."
Greg had come on the bus during this story and had caught the tail end of the conversation. He seemed genuinely appalled. "That is the sickest thing I've ever heard of, Matt," he said. "That is truly abusing Heavenly Father's gift of sexuality for perverted ends."
"Hell yeah," Matt said. "Give me a gift - any gift - and I'll abuse it any way I can think of."
Greg shook his head, took a moment to compose himself, and then put his grin back on his face. "Before you all climb in your bunks to sleep off last night's licentiousness, I do have something you'll probably want to see." He held up a copy of Spinning Rock magazine from a stack he carried under his arms. "The latest issue just came out. And look who's on the cover."
The picture was one of the few the group had actually posed for during the twenty-four hours Gloria Castle had followed them around back in New York City. It had been taken just prior to their hitting the stage at Madison Square Garden. They were dressed in their stage garb, Jake and Matt standing in the center of the shot, the rest of the band gathered in the background. But it was not the picture that captured Jake's attention. It was the print below it.
DESCENT INTO DEPRAVITY, it read. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF WHAT MAY BE THE MOST DEGENERATE ROCK BAND OF ALL TIME.
"The most degenerate rock band of all time?" Jake asked.
"Isn't it beautiful?" Greg said. "I just read the article. I couldn't have written it better myself. You boys performed splendidly for her, just splendidly. The publicity you'll get from this will be better than any advertising we could have taken out. In fact, there is already an article in the Portland newspaper's entertainment session about it. They're outraged at you boys. Absolutely outraged! It's beautiful."
"They're outraged?" Bill asked.
"And that's good?" Coop chimed in.
"Of course its good," Greg said. "Negative publicity is the best kind for a rock and roll act. Remember Ozzy Osbourne and the bat? Well that little trick you did with the cocaine in that trollop's buttock crack is going to be just as infamous. You'll be remembered forever for that thanks to this article and the follow-ups that will be done in the mainstream newspapers."
"She wrote about the coke in the groupie's ass crack?" Jake asked, horrified. His parents would see that article! Angie would see it!
"She wrote about the entire party at the hotel room," Greg confirmed. "The drinking, the drugs, the sex, everything! But the cocaine in the buttocks is the centerpiece of it all. And then there are the pictures!"
"The pictures?" Jake said, feeling a little sick to his stomach now.
"Oh yes indeed," Greg said. "The most gloriously depraved pictures I've ever seen in a mainstream publication. I imagine she had to get special permission to print some of them since they're borderline pornographic."
"Yeah?" Matt said, excited. He snatched a copy of Spinning Rock out of Greg's hands. "I need to check this shit out."
"Oh Jesus," Jake moaned as the rest of the band grabbed copies as well.
The bus pulled out of the hotel parking lot and began heading for the freeway. Jake listened to the hoots and yells of Matt, Coop, and Darren as they paged through the magazine, checking out the article and the photographs. He simply sat for a few minutes, staring at the caption on his copy, afraid to even open it. Finally he decided he might as well get it over with. He opened it up and consulted the table of contents, turning to page 19, where it started.
The first thing he saw was a picture of himself in the shower. The shot was only from the stomach up but it was quite obvious what was going on. His head was back, an expression of bliss on his face, his hands reaching downward, disappearing at the bottom of the frame but set in the universal position of a man receiving a blowjob. The caption below read: Lead singer Jake Kingsley enjoys the attention of a young female fan while showering after the show at Madison Square Garden. The group demands that five young ladies are brought back for such activities immediately following each performance.
"Oh my God," Jake said. "I can't believe this."
"I know," Greg said, nearly orgasmic with joy. "Me either. People will be outraged. This might be one of the best selling issues of Spinning Rock of all time."
There were plenty of other pictures as well - shots of the beer and liquor table, shots of the groupies being led backstage after the show, shots of the hotel room with all the girls in it just before the clothing had started to come off. Each one had a caption beneath explaining just what had been going on when the shot was taken. Jake looked at each one and then returned to the beginning and started to read the article itself.
I was recently asked to spend twenty-four hours with one of the hottest upcoming bands of the year, Intemperance, as they visited New York City for three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. I thought I would merely be interviewing another rock band, something I've done dozens, if not hundreds, of times in my ten years as a Spinning Rock journalist. What I encountered instead was a one-day trip into the darkest, most depraved recesses of gross intoxication and sexual perversion I have ever witnessed.
And that was just the beginning. The entire article took up twelve pages of the issue - almost ten thousand words. She touched only briefly on the background of the band members and how they had come together, covering the entire subject in three paragraphs. And one of those paragraphs contained an out-of-context quote from Jake that seemed to say he had learned to play guitar only so he could get laid. The subjects of the album, the tour, and the show itself were covered by another six or seven paragraphs. The rest of the article was almost entirely dedicated to describing in graphic detail the events that took place after the show.