Page 1 of The Biker's Virgin
CHAPTER ONE - OLIVIA
Olivia picked up the electric guitar and marvelled at how heavy it felt in her slender hands. She ran her hands down the strings, they felt metallic; different, yet strangely familiar.
“Don’t touch that.”
She whipped her head around to see where the stern voice was coming from. Her dad’s friend Steve leaned against the open door-frame of the garage. He butted his cigarette out on the pavement and approached her.
“Why do you have it in our garage?”
“Your dad said that I could use this as rehearsal space for my new band until the barn is cleared out.” The tall, lanky, middle-aged man took the guitar out of her hands and replaced it on the metal stand.
Olivia looked at the aging hippie and saw how Steve must’ve once been a very good-looking guy. His long gray hair had once been golden, and certainly a lot fuller, and he would’ve had a bronzed tan from all the time he spent surfing. Now his face was textured like leather from all the sun damage, and his silvery gray pony tail looked ridiculous with his bald head. She shook the vision of young Steve out of her head and noticed that with his long ponytail, his head looked like a raccoon that had been shaved, and she couldn’t help but giggle to herself.
“What are you laughing at kiddo?”
Kiddo. She was 21, and all the adults in her life still thought of her as a kid.
“Nothin’ Steve, just thinking about a raccoon video I saw online.”
“You actually watch videos for fun? I thought that you spent all of your time practicing that cello of yours.”
Olivia was home from college where she was majoring in Classical composure focusing on the cello. She had been playing since she was a child when the massive hollow body of the string instrument dwarfed her diminutive frame.
“The raccoon was playing the piano,” she replied slightly defeated.
“Ha, thought so. Makes sense.” Steve parked his skinny butt on the stool behind the drums. “Have you ever played the guitar?”
“A little bit of classical at school, but on an acoustic with nylon strings, nothing like that beast.” She pointed at the bright blue electric guitar.
“Pick it up, let’s jam!”
Olivia yearned to pick up the guitar, but her self-conscious nature took over.
“Nah, if it doesn’t have sheet music, I can’t play it.”
“That’s a shame, you should really learn how to feel the music, man.”
‘Zeesh, what a hippie. Go smoke another one, Steve’.Olivia thought to herself.
“See ya, Steve.” She turned and left the garage just as Steve broke out into a raging drum solo.
She ran upstairs and grabbed her cello, and instead of reaching for her sheet music, she closed her eyes and held the bow in her hand. She could hear the beat from the drum kit emanating from the garage and she started playing along with low notes and a slow tempo. As she doubled the tempo and started to tap her foot, she really felt herself getting into the rhythm. It was like someone else was inside of her trying to get out. Her playing became feverish as she combined her classical training with the feel of the bass from the drums. She was shocked when tears welled up in her eyes, and she dropped the bow to the floor. What was wrong with her? She was always stoic, emotions were something that she knew how to hold inside very well.
Ever since she was a child, she was marked as a prodigy. She had been whisked away from home every summer to attend camps with maestros. She spent her childhood evenings, not hanging out with friends and playing outside, but inside, her cello between her legs. As a matter of fact, that’s the only thing that had ever been between her legs. She’d never had anything even remotely close to a boyfriend.
She sat on her bed and let the tears flow freely for the first time in years. She was a skilled cellist, but that was it. She needed to experience life but didn’t know how. She grabbed the yellow crocheted blanket that her mother made before she died, clutched it around herself, and stared at her face in the mirror. Puffy, blood-shot blue eyes stared back at her. She never wore makeup and her long brown hair, although healthy, was long and shapeless. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose and a plain round face. She’d had a bout of acne in high school, but now her skin was like porcelain. She dropped the afghan to the floor and pulled her hair back from her face. Was she pretty? She didn’t know. She let go of her hair and curled up on the bed under the warmth of the yellow afghan and fell fast asleep.
