Shiraz

Shiraz

By Gisell DeJesus

Copyright © 2012 Gisell
DeJesus

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13:

978-1514649503

ISBN-10:

1514649500

Copyright 2015 Gisell De
Jesus

The right of Gisell De
Jesus to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents Act
1988

This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the
author's imagination are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales entirely
coincidental.

All rights reserved. “No
part of this book, publication, may be reproduced, stored in, or
introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any written,
electronic, recording,  or photocopying without written
permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in
the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles and
reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the
publisher Gisell De Jesus.” Any person who does any unauthorized
act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal
prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Prologue

Ryan

Six cities in six nights
were beginning to invade my dreams. While still comatose, I took a
trip across the ocean on foot. I was gliding across the water,
picking up speed as I drifted away from the shoreline. I saw the
clubs in every city, a blur of flashing signs and beaten-up
interiors that invited music like mine to play until the sun began
to show itself again. Our melodies and solos followed underwater,
gliding through the ocean like a newly freed serpent.
I looked down at the aquamarine canvas beneath me, past my waist
and legs.  Apparently I had decided to cross the water naked;
this fell in line with how I had gone to sleep. I scanned the
surface and noticed something keeping pace with me, a giant fin
trailing closely behind. I figured this first to be a massive fish,
anxious to ask me why or how the hell I was running on water. The
jade-colored fin approached the skin of the water, the scales
reflecting the light of the moon.  
This was no fish. The body of the fin curved into a torso, a pale
bare back starting at the hips.  She moved with the finesse of
a dolphin, goading me into moving faster as she picked up speed.
How exactly was I controlling my movement?  Was she pulling
me?  Was something in the sky guiding our bodies?  I had
never seen anything like this . . . was it a mermaid? If so, I had
a yearning to go wherever she did.
Before I had time to enjoy this ride, it was over.  I heard
the telltale ringing even inside my dreams, and even as I fought my
brain’s natural process, I knew I was being pulled from the dream
and thrust back into reality.
The alarm app on my phone was set to slowly pry me out of a
hopefully deep sleep.  I instinctively grumbled in the
direction of the nightstand, rolling over to my left side and
pulling most of the bed sheets with me.  I reached for the
phone, yanking out the charger in the process, and silencing the
maddening piece of technology which had become vital to my
existence.  
10:00 A.M.  Not bad for a rock star.
I sat up, rubbing the seven hours of sleep from the corners of my
eyes, opening them, and waiting for the spots to clear out.
 Our show last night had been fantastic . . . two hours of
solid material and not one technical hitch that I noticed.
 Being the drummer, I had the least to worry about, except for
cracking a stick or two in the middle of a set.  The crowd was
in love with us, although I knew most of the attention was on our
singer.  She and the rest of us had not been to the States in
years, so our upcoming show had us all on edge.  I still got a
rush out of live music, but an unsettling void was beginning to
creep its way into my skin.
I threw the sheets aside, exposing the rest of my body to the
still air of the hotel suite.  That figure from my dream had
obviously intrigued my balls, and I stood at about half mast.
 I gave my cock a generous squeeze but lacked the desire to do
anything else.  A wank would have felt as empty as the rest of
the bed.  I had been through plenty of women by now, as it
came with the territory and the lifestyle.  It was an endless
ocean of affairs, never resulting in any true connection after I
came.  The years were piling up, and as I approached my mid
thirties, I began to wonder how long it would be until I gave up on
the idea of a partner in crime who I actually connected with.
 The couple hours of night after a show are hardly enough to
divulge your life story to someone who might not even be interested
in anything more than your body.
I fumbled around the blacked-out bedroom and turned on the
bathroom light, quickly finding my toothbrush on the sink.  We
had the first of two shows tonight in a new city, and I had made it
to this hotel room alone after four hours of rehearsal. Our
equipment was safe in a truck, which meant all of us were only
responsible for getting ourselves to and from each venue.
Something was buzzing back in the bedroom.  I spit and
rinsed, toweling off my lips before investigating the source of the
noise.  The alarm was turned off, but I had a message.
“Moving back our last rehearsal by an hour.  Rest up if you
like!”
Our singer had amazing timing.  If I had known an extra sixty
minutes were coming, I would have stayed in dreamland and followed
that mermaid to the end of the ocean, maybe even checking out what
was underneath her scales.  As it stood, I was more than awake
now.  
I located my clean underwear set out for the day and rubbed my
stomach, still satisfied with my abs but absolutely starving for
breakfast.  A room service menu was laid on the table of the
living area of my suite, much brighter than the den I created in
the bedroom.  A three-egg omelet with toast and potatoes . . .
someone already had tailored this menu for me.
I dialed room service, who very politely took my order and assured
me I would have it delivered promptly.  I placed the phone
back in its receiver and sat down on the couch, picking up one of
the gritty private eye novels I found at the airport upon first
coming to the States. This stuff was a guilty pleasure for me;
they all read exactly the same, full of chain-smoking ex-cops who
had fucked up a few too many times and decided to go into business
for themselves while they kept a wise-cracking lady in the office
who may or may not have a thing for them.  For me, it was a
chance to relax from the grind of constantly shuffling from place
to place while on tour.
I managed about ten pages before a polite knock at the door
interrupted my train of thought.  I was hungry enough to
completely ignore the fact that I had yet to put on any real
clothes.  Oblivious to my lack of pants and shirt, I opened
the door.  A room service waitress, dressed for work in black
slacks and a white buttoned blouse, greeted me with a smile while
pushing the cart into the living area, placing my food directly on
the dining room table.  As I walked back to the bedroom to
grab cash for a tip, I caught her blatantly staring at my body out
of the corner of my right eye.
“We also included coffee and water for you, sir,” the server
mentioned when I returned from the bedroom.  She had arranged
my plates as if she were my personal mistress, partnering
silverware with a mug of coffee, the steam still seeping out of the
top.  I preferred tea, but I would have sounded like an
absolute shit.  She must have been no more than 20, the face
of a student who was doing this for some extra spending cash while
she advanced toward a degree that would be with her in five years
before she realized she was still bringing people food to their
rooms.
“Thank you . . . Erin,” I answered, feeling bad that she was
forced to wear a name tag at all times, constantly on call to dance
and smile for people.  I signed for the food and handed her a
twenty while she did her best to not show how blown away she was by
the generosity of a big tip.
“Oh, wow . . . thank you as well, sir!”  She slipped the bill
into her apron.  “Is there . . . anything else you would
like?”
Our eyes met for about half a second.  In that moment, and
with the way she worded that question, I have no doubt I could have
explained who I was, who I played for, and in mere minutes, thrown
her into the bed and made her forget all about working here and
joining me on tour.  I’ve seen it in a woman’s eyes before,
and even been blatantly propositioned by them with such an offer.
         
“That will be all.  Cheers.”
She smiled again, a slight hint of disappointment in the corners
of her mouth.  My stomach growled again as she shut the door
behind her.  The remote to the TV was also conveniently on the
dining room table, so I flipped on CNN to catch up on the rest of
the world while I indulged in breakfast.
I would never have been prepared for the next 24 hours.

Chapter 1

Melinda

Having worked in a hospital for
several years, I have discreetly overheard many people say, “They
should give those nurses some rollerblades for how fast they
go!”

Well, I’m still waiting on my
pair.

This was my eighth hour on
a shift I was not scheduled to work, so my feet are screaming with
anger as they are not very happy with me. The rest of my
body
ooh’d
and
ahh’d
in cosign to my aches. After five years of rotating between
everything from pediatrics, to emergency, to surgery, back to
pediatrics, it all became one big blur. Trying to balance the many
unanswered pages from arrogant doctors and the struggle to keep
every patient happy as well as informed, I have came to the
realization that instead, I should have went to school for my
doctorate. Finally registering how much more they make over the
span of a few months than I will in a year, at this point I
wouldn’t mind going back to school just to come out with a degree
that says I can sit on my ass all day. “I love my job,” I say to
anyone who asks, but we
all
know the truth here. Yes, my job generously pays
every bill I have, keeps a roof over my head, my refrigerator
stocked well, but what good is that when I spend more time buying
coffee at our portable Starbucks than making a pot at
home?

Speaking of coffee, I need another
one.

“
You’re all set, Mr.
Lazenby. The doctor will stop in to check on you in a few hours.”
 

“
Yeah, sure he will,” the
diabetic grumbled just after giving no response to the injection I
has just given him. As for irritable patients go, he was tolerable.
Hospitals are at the very bottom of ideal vacation spots, somewhere
between the DMV, and a mall on December twenty fourth. At St.
Patrick’s Hospital, Greg Lazenby was a frequent flyer due to a bad
combination of genetics and putting a little too much sugar in his
coffee for so many years. He was a petulant man, but I’ll take that
over getting my ass pinched by a dozen of other old, dirty creeps.
 

My ass is nowhere to be found
underneath these baggy articles of cloth we call scrubs, but I
guess that doesn’t stop a horny grandpa from trying.
 

What was I just about to
do?
Oh, right . . . coffee
time.

I told the unit clerk I would be right
back, without being bothered to wait around for her response, I
hurriedly skipped through the double doors. The elevators were only
half the journey as I made my way downstairs. The tiled floor
needed a helpful yellow brick road for anyone in distress when
finding their way through the maze of units, especially if you are
craving for another shot of caffeine like me.