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NOTE: These stories are
intended for a mature audience.

Self-Possessed
A Guest Quarters story
by
Erica Hildebrand

"Her voice is like the song of the Sirens,
who with their sweet melody entice the passers-by." 
-Malleus Maleficarum

"I don't have all fucking day," Sara said while she waited at the checkpoint.  Throngs of concertgoers passed by, conversations humming in the background while the man rummaged through her flowers.  His black t-shirt read Stadium Staff, the letters stretched across his broad chest.  Sara grimaced as he pawed through the thorny green stems. 

"Be careful, it's so-o-o dangerous," Sara said, fluttering her hands in mockery.  "What the hell would I hide in a flower arrangement, anyway?"

"You've got an hour to kill, lady, just relax."  He finished checking the four-dozen roses and let out an appreciative whistle.  "This is a hell of a thing." 

Sara tucked the bouquet into her left elbow, armpits sweating from anxiety, and stepped towards the entrance.  The guard's hand clamped down on her shoulder. 

"What now?" 

"You," he said.  He swept his wand detector across her arms and torso, and then jerked his thumb towards the ticket gate before continuing with the next person he'd flagged as a risk.  

The usher creased Sara's ticket as he tore off the admittance stub, sending icicles of tension to her shoulders.  She smoothed the ticket against her jeans and tucked it carefully into her purse's side pocket, hoping the crease would not show beneath the glass of the picture frame at home. 

The Hershey show had maxed out her credit card.  She'd endured nosebleed seats at the earlier, more expensive tour shows, and still didn't know how she'd get a ticket for the next one in Pittsburgh.

A thrilling sense of vertigo overtook her as she descended to the stadium's floor.  Second row, center stage.  Her anxiety shifted to excitement.  From this vantage, she could read the small Bose logos on the front of each amplifier.  Stadium lights shone on the enormous, silver-glittered letters hanging behind the stage: R.G.

Reggie.

That's what everyone in the online fan clubs called Rhiannon Gold.  That's how Sara had addressed every fan letter she had ever sent, every year since she was twelve.  Reggie never responded, but Sara knew she was busy writing music, and forgave her.

Ever since Sara started asking about magic, though, the letters had come back unopened.  She must have made an impression. Sara peeled her lips back.  That was fine; all it meant was that she needed to communicate in ways that couldn't be ignored.

As the arena gradually filled with Rhiannon Gold's fans, the cacophony grew, and Sara's patience thinned. 

Reggie's group of young women appeared from behind the staff area and filled the first row of seats, huddling together.  They wore hooded sweatshirts stitched with Reggie's signature emblem: a silver sixteen-point star.
 
Sara's gaze fixed on them. 

Kindred spirits.  They were the ones who had made it into Reggie's family.  They were the ones who had succeeded where Sara had not.  Her smile faded.  Not yet, anyway.

The lights dimmed and the crowd cheered for the opening band's set.  Sara shoved at her seatmates to make room. 

When Reggie's band arrived, Sara's voice was the first to fire up the crowd.  She knew them all by sight:  Judah, the drummer with waist-length dreadlocks; the two guitarists and the bassist, all cocaine thin; Alice, the blonde keyboardist and backup singer.  They took places at their instruments and a quiver of excitement struck Sara in her groin.

She stood and gripped the back of the chair in front of her when the fog machines began pumping.  Rolling mist spread across the stage.  Judah started the beat.  A shadow appeared within the mist, the guitars growled a loud chord, and then . . . she was there.

Reggie's bright red hair shone translucent underneath the stage lights--half provocateur, half matron.  Her glittering gown of multi-colored scarves trailed on the ground behind her, and the sleeves rippled in the breeze of the air vents.  

The roadies in the front row all lifted their hands towards their boss, their god.  Sara, in awe, stretched her fingers towards Reggie.

From the moment Reggie launched into the first song with her signature contralto--a perfect vehicle for long rock screeches--the concert passed in a rush of ecstasy.  The beat of the drums shuddered up through Sara's legs, the bass reverberating in her bones.  Stage lights washed over the crowd, blues and greens and purples pulsing with the chords, brilliant against the giant letters R.G. above Judah's head.

Twice during the concert, Reggie sauntered to Alice's keyboard to sing a duet.  They shared a smile of years-long friendship and linked arms when they harmonized while Alice played one-handed.  The women's closeness fueled a glowing golden nimbus around them, and Sara's jealousy curdled at the sight.  No one else, as far as Sara knew, could see it. 

The roadies huddled in their hooded sweatshirts, even when the heat from the stage lights and the mass of people raised the temperature in the stadium.  But several times, when Reggie sang a song, one of the roadies--a different woman in each case--peeled off her hoodie and then her undershirt in hippie ecstasy.

The woman raised her arms to the stage, stretching the shadows in her ribs and vertebrae.  Stage lights illuminated her in unnatural shades of blue and green, veins and arteries iridescent beneath sweat-slick, lucid skin.

There.  There was the magic.  Sara didn't know what the magic did, but after that song ended, the woman quickly pulled her clothes back on and huddled against the roadie adjacent to her, shivering in afterglow.

The set ended, and Sara cupped her hands around her mouth and screamed adoration, drowned out by the deafening roar of the crowd.  The air still hummed with audio residue from the speakers. 

"Reggie!" Sara waved her arms, sleeves billowing like semaphore flags.  "Reggie!"

She shoved her way into the first row.  Dozens of other diehard fans surged towards the stage and reached up with outstretched fingers.  Reggie made her way slowly across the stage, touched people's hands, accepted their gifts and passed them to the security guard that shadowed her.  She clasped hands with every one of her roadies, smiling into their faces with maternal love.  Sara seethed with jealousy.

Sara, squashed on either side by the crest of fans breaking against the stage, held out the four-dozen roses as high as her hands would reach. 

Her heart bloomed as Reggie neared.  Reggie would keep these flowers, might even invite Sara up on stage with her.  Reggie took the flowers and moved on, passing them back to her security guard.  She did not make eye contact. 

She did not touch Sara's hand.

Sara stood in shock.  Why had Reggie ignored her?  The crowd jostled her from side to side.  Reggie drifted further away down the stage, took her bows, and left. 

But Sara would not be cast aside.

***

She followed the drab cinderblock corridors, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.  Her footsteps echoed back from the blank walls.  If she could find Reggie backstage . . .

But she must have gotten lost.

She started to panic that she would not be able to find her way out of the stadium's bowels, let alone find the band's tour buses before they left for Pittsburgh.  Then, combining relief with frustration, she found the loading dock.  The door locked shut behind her, leaving her in the darkness of the outside.  The night air was chilly for late spring.

"Hold it right there," a voice said to her left.

The man wore a Stadium Staff shirt--the first she'd seen since the concert ended.  He shined a flashlight in her face, and she held up her hands to shield her eyes.

"It's all right, I'm with Rhiannon Gold's band," she said, falling into the lie easier than she thought she would. 

"You missed the boat, kid.  Band left." 

Sara gritted her teeth, and stalked out towards the parking lot before he started asking questions.  "Damn it."

As she walked around the now silent stadium's perimeter to her car, she heard humming.

Sara slowed her gait and looked for the source.  A trail of soft lights floated on the breeze like dandelion fluff.  She edged closer to the source from which the lights flowed, and heard the rattle and gentle hiss of an aerosol can. 

Sara edged around a delivery truck.  A scraggly kid with a goatee stopped humming and stared at her.  The blue lights popped and dissipated, like bubbles.  The boy turned and ran, leaving his paint cans and graffiti behind.

"No, wait-" but he didn't stop. 

***

Sara climbed into her rusted-out Ford Fiesta, steered onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike and drove for the next four hours until she reached Pittsburgh. 

Twice, state troopers cited her for speeding. 

When she arrived in the city she coasted through the streets, searching each hotel for Reggie's buses.  She hoped none of them could fit into any of the garages, out of view.

Her car lurched and downshifted.  The gas gauge's needle quivered below the red line.  She parked and got out. 

In the alley across the empty street, a Three-Card Monte dealer folded up his card table for the night.  The man tucked it behind a dumpster and walked out into the street, whistling, shuffling his deck of cards.  As he whistled a swirl of pink sparks, like moths made of light, flickered between the cards.  Sara stopped to watch.  Just as the man caught sight of her, an all-night city bus rolled by, obscuring her view of him.  When the bus passed, his hands were in his pockets.  Why wouldn't anyone just let her watch?

"Hey, you!" she called, but he turned and bolted. 

After three blocks of chasing him, she popped a blister on the sole of her foot. 

"Fuck!"  She stumbled and caught the heel of her shoe in an oily puddle, and was forced to stop. 

Sara hobbled onward, bobbing up and down on the broken heel.  She went two blocks further before she sat down on a stoop and tore off her shoes, fighting the growing bitterness.  If she found Reggie, everything would be better.  Reggie would take care of her.  Reggie would laugh at how silly this whole chase was.  Reggie might even tell the anecdote at concerts, and then she would point Sara out, and smile at her, and the crowd would cheer.

Stomach rumblings interrupted her fantasy.  She had eight dollars in her pocket.  Not enough to help with gas, but it would buy her a meal. 

Sara hobbled onward past more blocks of silent businesses.  The only place she found open was an old city diner; she sat in a window booth, humming the tune to Reggie's "Coffee and Cloves" under her breath.  She looked at the prices and decided she could afford a plate of fries if she was stingy on the tip. 

Loud, bawdy laughter came from the corner booth, and she glanced that way.  Sara stiffened when she recognized Judah's braids.  The drummer sat with the bassist and Alice, the backup singer.  Laughing with uninhibited drunkenness, they stood, paid at the register, and stumbled out. 

Sara shoveled a handful of fries into her mouth and slipped out to follow them.  The waitress yelled behind her that she hadn't paid. 

She tracked the band to the Hilton, through the brightly lit lobby and into the hotel bar.  The lights were all dimmed, and the bar was otherwise empty.  Sara stopped at the doorway to watch.

"Like I told you, it's closed," said Alice.

"Nope.  Self-serve," Judah said, climbing over the polished wood of the bar and tumbling with a loud thud into the bartender's station. 

Sara finally worked up the nerve to approach them.

"You've been following us for a while," Alice said without looking up.  Judah and the bassist, surprised, took notice of Sara.

Sara froze.  "I wanted . . . I'm a really big fan."

"Stalkers always are," said Alice.

"Aww, come on Allie," Judah slurred as he straightened from behind the bar, hugging a bottle of whiskey.  "She's cute."  He nodded to Sara.  "You wanna party?"

"Oh God, yes," Sara said, heart hammering inside her chest.  "Are you going to Reggie's room?"

The two men shared looks with each other and laughed.  Sara's cheeks flushed with embarrassment and anger.  Didn't they think she was serious?

Judah and the bassist soon had her doing shots of whiskey with them.  Sara's gaze kept wandering to Alice.  Sara had not seen her take a drink since they arrived, and every time Sara glanced that way, she received Alice's full, silent attention.

***

Sara dug her hands into the hotel sheets for balance as Judah rocked her forward on her knees with his thrusts.  The tips of his dreadlocks tickled her bare thighs, and the hot intrusion stretched her from deep within.  They both grunted in satisfaction without intimacy, though Sara's came from being in such proximity to someone so integral to Reggie's band.   

Afterward, Sara peeled herself away and took a shower.  She tilted her head back, and let the water scald her face.

She dressed in her old dirty clothes.  Because of his dreadlocks, Judah didn't have a brush or comb, so she ran her fingers through her hair as best she could. 

Judah snored.  Sara bent to where his torn jeans lay in a crumpled heap and fished out his wallet.  She froze when he rolled over onto his back, fearing he might wake up.  Her attention drew to his hand--a strong, sinewy hand, fingers curled in repose, resting on his stomach.  The urge to crawl back into bed itched at her, but she wasn't here for him. 

Sara flipped through his wallet.  He had some cash on him--eleven dollars.  That was all a famous band's drummer carried?  She took it. 

Maybe he had some scrap of paper with Reggie's room number on it.  No such luck.  Sara dropped his wallet on the carpet, thinking.  Alice had been suspicious of her.  Why?  Sara wasn't doing anything wrong.

A thought dawned on her.  Judah had a special key just to reach this floor.  Wouldn't they have reserved a block of rooms together?  She could just go around knocking on doors.  But if she did that, she would wake other people, and they would probably stop her and send her away before she had a chance to even see Reggie. 

She picked up the hotel phone and dialed room service from the reference sheet on the desk. 

A man's voice answered.  "Hotel services.  May I help you?"

"Yes, we need fresh towels up here, now," Sara said, her heart pounding in a mixture of fear and excitement from acting as Reggie's personal assistant.  It made the recent soreness of Judah's work throb anew.

"Okay, miss," the voice said.  "I'll have some linens sent up to Five-Sixteen right away."

Damn it.  He must be able to tell she called from Judah's room.

"No, it's for Rhiannon Gold," Sara said, trying to sound angry, and quickly hung up before he asked for Reggie's room number.  She turned the ringer off, and hoped she had been curt enough to sound authentic.  Judah mumbled and turned over, then continued snoring.

Sara cracked the hotel door and peered out, waiting, praying that they didn't call back Reggie's room for confirmation.  Extra towels were free, weren't they?  She rummaged in her purse and pulled out her cell phone to watch the minutes stretch by.  It was almost five in the morning.

Seven minutes passed before the hotel serviceman walked down the hallway.  Sara climbed to her feet but kept the door cracked.  She pressed her eye to the crack and tracked him as he walked.   

He stopped and knocked on a door across the hall, three suites down.  A young woman answered, clad in a large terrycloth robe and a wool cap.  She cupped a steaming mug between her hands.  She looked sallow.  "We didn't order these."

"Someone called from Room Five-Sixteen," the serviceman said.  "They said it was for Five-Twenty-One."

"Ugh, that retard.  But we do need more.  I'll take them."  The roadie shook her head, took the towels from his outstretched hand and shut the door.

Sara waited until the hallway was clear, then left Five-Sixteen and walked to Five-Twenty-One, self-consciously running her fingers through her damp hair in another effort to comb it. 

She held her breath and knocked.  Too late, she thought she should have brought more roses.

A different woman answered the door, wearing a scarf and pea coat.  Her lips were blue.  Sara flinched; did the woman have hypothermia?  The woman tucked her hands up into her armpits and shivered.  Her face was ashen, eyes sunken into shadows.  "Who are you?"

"I . . . um . . ." Sara hadn't thought this far ahead.  "I'm looking for Reggie."  The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could think of something more intelligent.

The woman frowned and tried to shut the door but Sara pushed into it.  She couldn't be denied now, not when she was so close. 

"Please, I need to talk to her!"

"Get the fuck out of here, psycho."

Sara shoved her way into the room and then shut the door behind her.  "Look," she said, holding her hands up, "I'm not some sort of crazy stalker."

The other roadie was on the phone, speaking quietly into the mouthpiece.  The first stood in front of Sara, preventing her from going deeper into the room. 

"I know about the magic!" Sara blurted out. 

That gave both roadies pause.

"Another watcher?" one of them asked the other. 

The door clicked behind her.

"This pre-dawn shit has got to stop," a voice said as the door opened.  Sara recognized it as Alice's.

"That's how I like my bagels.  Fresh." 

Sara shivered from head to toe at the sound of that deep, purring voice.  Slowly, she turned, but soon went motionless with pure adulation.

Reggie wore an old hemmed wedding dress, beer-stained, with a tuxedo tailcoat over top, and a green plastic bowler hat, the Saint Patty's Day novelty kind.  Her clunky boots looked as though she'd taken scissors to a zippered Harley leather jacket.  Her long red hair hung free and crimped down to her waist, and her lipstick sparkled like a red Corvette. 

She and Alice carried tote bags full of sweet-smelling bread.  Reggie indicated Sara with a wave of her key card.  "Who's this?" 

Alice moved between them.  "The one I told you about."

"We've got security on the line," a roadie said.

"It's okay," Reggie said.  "It's okay."  In Sara's periphery, the roadies visibly relaxed.

Reggie held out her tote bags.  The roadie hung up the phone, came and took them from her. 

"Thanks, Clo," Reggie said.  She settled into the upholstered chair and pulled a cigarette from behind her ear.  While she lit it, she hummed in a warbling vibrato.  Color returned to the roadies' cheeks.

"You put magic in your music," Sara said, her voice hoarse.  "I've seen it.  I wrote you about it in my letters.  It's some sort of witchcraft, isn't it?"

The skin around Reggie's violet eyes crinkled.  The tips of her bangs caught on her long lashes.  She reclined like a queen of Egypt.  "What's your name?"

Sara told her.

"I'm sorry, I don't remember your letter."

Those words made Sara want to die.  Her sinuses pulsed in pain, and her cheeks became slick with sudden tears.  "But I want to be with you."

Reggie regarded her for a long time behind the drifting curtain of cigarette smoke.  She shared a glance with Alice, who nodded. 

"You've got the vision," said Reggie, voice muffled through lips clenching the filter.  She plucked the cigarette from her lips.  "But it's music you're missing.  That's the secret ingredient."

"No one wants this more than I do," Sara said in a tumble of words.  "You're my guiding star.  I've followed you for ten years.  I never knew what magic was until I first heard your music."

Sara started to move towards her, but found she could not.  With a rising sense of dread, Sara watched Alice, lips puckered as she whistled a tune, stretching splayed fingers out towards her.  Pale iridescent light poured from her fingers, pushing against Sara's chest.

"Sorry, Sara," Reggie said.  She waved towards Alice, and Alice released the hold.  "Wanting isn't enough.  My coven's recipe needs that special ingredient to function.  And my babies," she gestured to the roadies, "are already more than a handful." 

That sent Sara aflame. 

"You've hit your quota, is that it?"  Sara rushed at Clo and grabbed her by the throat.  Her flesh was like ice.  "I'll make room!"

Reggie held her hand up and Sara's vision flashed white.  All of her jealousy and anger evaporated in the white-hot lurch of searing agony.  Her voice echoed off the walls long after the pain had faded, and she was reduced to tears as she clutched herself on the carpet.  But it was nothing compared to having Reggie angry at her.

"That's not how it works," Reggie said.

Those words sparked the sudden urge in Sara to plunge a knife into Reggie's chest, and that image frightened her beyond anything else.  "Please," Sara cried.  "Please, if you can't use me, kill me.  Kill me!"

"You don't mean that."

"Yes I do!  What good am I if I can't do anything for you?  Please!" 

Reggie sighed, and again looked at Alice while the roadies huddled together by the kitchenette.  "What do you think?"   

"Her vibe's a total downer, but it's gifted vibe.  Judah will have to be cleansed."  Then she added with a shrug, "We could always use material for a new song."

Reggie nodded, staring into space, thinking.  Her second album's cover had immortalized that expression.  "Imagine how much she's seen.  With vision like that . . . it would be a hit." 

Reggie's violet gaze locked on her.  "Okay.  Deal, if you're offering.  I promise you, kid, I'll take extra special care of it.  You can't get it back.  You've never known what it's like to miss it. 

"But when you'll do," Reggie's expression softened, "you'll know how essential it is."

Sara struggled past the tears.  "Then take it.  It's yours."

"Wrap her a bagel to go," Reggie said. 

Then she started singing, soft and low.  Sara fell unconscious as the magic hit her once more, this time without pain, as gentle as a parting embrace.

***

Sara pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up, wrapped the robe tighter and readjusted the blanket on her lap.  The chills seeped in as the song ended and the tape clicked off.

Biting cold choked her heart and lungs. With shivering fingers, she reached across the table's stack of collection notices, past the frame with the creased concert ticket, and hit rewind on the tape player.  The tape whirred, the rewind button clicked off.  She hit play again and leaned back, icy numbness taking an even greater hold on her.

"And now, the new single from Rhiannon Gold's latest album, due to hit the stores on Labor Day.  R.G.'s got quite a punch with this one . . ." the undercurrent of the song lifted from the background.  "Self-Possessed is topping the charts."

As the song played, the warmth seeped in, edging her internal winter back up a few degrees.  When she bought the album next month, the quality would be clearer.  The closer to the voice she got, the warmer she got. 

At the song's chorus, her heart fluttered like a grass bud blooming through frost.  For three and a half minutes, she flushed with the faint tingling of bliss brought on by the song that kept Reggie's adoring fans happy.  The song that made Reggie happy.

Her song. 

END

Erica Hildebrand lives in Pennsylvania, where giant bat attacks are seldom and board games are serious business.  She loves storytelling and plans to work on a graphic novel project (maybe two) in addition to her writing.  She has a soft spot in her heart for superheroes, dinosaurs, and the conquerors of antiquity.  A graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop, her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in M-Brane SF, Everyday Weirdness, and the Queer Wolf anthology.  Her comics have been published in Space Squid and Kaleidotrope.  More information can be found at www.ericahildebrand.com.  She is very excited to be a guest author here at the Edge of Propinquity.

Story by Erica Hildebrand, Copyright 2010
Image by Rory Clark, Stopped Motion Photography, Copyright 2010