Page 1 of Rockstar Untamed
Chicago, Illinois
January
Bodhi Creed breathed in the scent of the crowd; sweat, excitement, almost frenzied adoration. He stood at the front of the stage, taking in the love of his fans as he finished his song, putting everything into the final few chords. His voice soaring and dipping with perfect pitch. He knew he could make people shiver with the sound of his voice. He finished the song and took his final bow, taking his time to wave to the crowd as he left the stage, his whole system flooding with adrenaline.Who needed drugs when performing could make you feel like this?He grinned to his crew and his band as he walked back to his dressing room, thanking each of them personally.
There was a reason people loved Bodhi Creed. It wasn’t just that he had pulled himself out of a hellish path from a drug-fueled death during his early career or that his face could sell anything as much as his singing voice. It was that he was genuinely a humble man, offstage and on. He had his demons, what rock god didn’t? But now, nearing forty, he still appealed to fans of all ages.
Bodhi walked back to his dressing room, pushed the door open and almost choked. Poppy, his personal assistant of two months, had been ‘cleansing’ his space again, burning sage and wafting it around the windowless room. She grinned at him. “Hey, boss.”
She had bright pink hair, tattoos up and down her arms, and wore clothes that would make a fetishist blush.Shelooked like a real rock goddess, Bodhi smiled fondly at her more than he ever did.
God, he was tired. This had been the last date of the tour that had lasted well over a year, and he was exhausted, drained, ready for some down time. Bodhi knew himself, it was times like these he would have, back in the day, reached for the bottle or the white stuff. The thought of cocaine now made him feel sick. Jimi Hendrix, Layne Staley, Scott Weiland, Shannon Hoon, he used their names as a mantra to stay away from drugs now, even when he was depressed.
NowAs he ran his hand through his dark curls and slumped down onto the sofa, a cold soda in hand, he looked for respite in other ways. His good friend, Claudio Fonseca, an artist, had invited him to go stay at his farmhouse in the Tuscan hills for the summer, picking olives and chilling out. Bodhi couldn’t wait. Two months of Italian sun, wine, food and relaxation in the company of good friends. He could see his mom at her home in Florence. Bodhi longed to go back to Italy. His American father had brought the family over to America just after Bodhi had been born, and growing up in Seattle, Bodhi had longed to know the place he had come from. When his dad died, his mom sold her house and went back, begging Bodhi to go with her. But by then, he was a star, and he needed to be in Los Angeles for his career.
He looked up as the door opened and Franklin, the theater manager, stuck his head in.
“Sorry to interrupt, Bodhi, but there’s a kid out here to see you.”
Bodhi was surprised. A kid? Usually, his groupies were nubile young women. “Show them in, please. Thanks, Frank.” He always,alwaystook the time to talk with his fans, despite how tired he was, without them, he was nothing.
A kid with dark curls, not older than ten, pushed shyly into the room, and Bodhi got up to greet him. “Hey there, what’s your name, kiddo?”
The kid blinked his huge green eyes up at Bodhi, seeming dumbstruck. Bodhi didn’t see the woman who had entered behind the child until she spoke softly.
“His name is Tim, Bodhi.”
Bodhi, recognizing the voice immediately, looked up, and a shock ran through him.
“Gemma?”
The blonde woman smiled at him. “Been a long time, hasn’t it?”
Bodhi stared at her, still stunned to see his former lover. She was Bodhi’s senior by five years, had not dulled her beauty, but there was a haunted, desperate look in her eyes.
“Must be about ten yea…” Bodhi broke off, realization dawning, and he gazed down at the young boy standing between them. Dark hair, bright green eyes. Bodhi’s eyes. There really was no question.
Gemma looked at him, her eyes filling with tears as she watched him put the pieces together. “I’m sorry to do this to you, Bodhi…I really am. But I’m not doing so well. I need to go away for a while, alone. And I thought it’s time. It’s time for Tim to know his daddy.”
Bodhi’s whole body felt as if he’d been hit by a sledgehammer as he gazed down into the face of his son.
Miami, Florida
Sailor King followed her minder through the mall. It was cool, almost chilly, inside the spacious building, but Sailor didn’t mind. Even January in Florida was too hot for her. Her dark hair stuck to her forehead and to the back of her neck. Monica, her minder, gave her an annoyed look.
“What’s wrong with you today? You know Bartholomew will punish me if we’re more than two hours. We haven’t even found your wedding dress yet.”
Sailor stared back at Monica blankly. She felt so tired lately, so hopeless that she had stopped taking the anti-depressant tablets they had given her all her life, and now she felt as if her brain would go mad. She didn’t want this, didn’t want to be married to a man more than twice her age. She knew within the ranks of the organization that she was ‘lucky.' Other girls were clamoring to be partnered with Bart Foy, their leader, their captain.
But Bart had chosenher. She had known the unease of his lascivious gaze on her body; her curves, her flat belly, her full breasts since she was a teenager. He had held her face in his hands when she was just fourteen, an entire decade ago. It had been decreed, she would be his new wife when she reached the age of womanhood, in their ideology, it would be her twenty-fifth birthday, which was in a few weeks.
Bart Foy had been married twice before. His first wife was Tamsin, about whom nobody knew much. They had been married before Bart formed the ‘Children of Love’ commune, deep in the Florida Everglades. His wife had left him after refusing to join him in his ‘mission.’ Bart’s second wife, Clotilde, was a beautiful, loving, Frenchwoman with dark brown hair tumbling down her back and a sweet nature. She had joined the group as a teacher for the children and Sailor had been one of her wards. She had been particularly close to Clotilde, Tilly to those who loved her, and when, one shocking, horrific night, Tilly had been found dead, Sailor had been devastated.
Bart made them all walk past Tilly’s body, laid out on the shrine in their temple. “I want you to look, children. Look what sin can bring.”
Sailor had always wondered what he meant. When she found out, from hushed whispers in the schoolyard, that Tilly had been having an affair with another man, and that she had been stabbed to death, at around eleven, Sailor knew what that meant.
The terror when Bart had chosen her for his next wife had been all-encompassing, but she had buried her head in the sand, thinking the day would never come. Then three months ago, he had summoned her.
