The Wrong Roadie

I'm Riley, I'm thirty-four, and I've been thinking about this for longer than I want to admit out loud.

Here's how it went. Two years ago I was a park ranger working the overnight desk at a station in the northern district, nothing to do but watch the weather feed and read. That's when I found the forums. Then the erotica. Then the realization that the stuff I'd been reading until three in the morning was stuff I wanted, not stuff I was curious about. There's a difference. Curiosity is a nice word for wanting.

I had two vanilla relationships in there somewhere. Fine guys, both of them, but when I tried to bring up what I actually wanted they got this look, like I'd asked them to help me move a piano. So I did what everyone does. I made a profile.

Most of the messages I got were garbage. Guys who thought dominant meant rude. Guys who wrote paragraphs about themselves and never asked a question. Then Kara. Thirty-eight, drummer in a touring band, and her profile said, in plain words, firm, no-nonsense dominant, clean scene, no drama. Her first message to me was four sentences and one of them was a question about my limits. I answered it and then sat there grinning at my phone like an idiot.

We messaged for three weeks. She was careful. She asked about safewords before she asked my last name. When she found out she'd be playing a hometown show in March, she said, "I'm at a venue downtown that night. If you want a real scene instead of another two months of typing, come by after soundcheck. We can negotiate in person and you can walk away if anything feels off."

I typed yes so fast I made two typos.

* * *

The Echo Pit is the kind of venue that used to be a warehouse and never quite stopped being one. The back entrance is a steel door in an alley that smelled like rain and old cigarette butts. I'd dressed under my coat, which felt ridiculous, and I stood there for a minute getting my nerve up.

Then a guy grabbed my arm.

"Hey, you're the new stagehand, right?" He was maybe forty-four, wearing a lanyard with four badges on it, and he had the energy of a man who had not sat down since Tuesday. "Oh thank god, Pat Cruz, I manage the band. I begged the hall for extra hands, they sent me one guy and he quit at four. You have hands, right? Great. Take this."

He pushed a cable spool into my arms. It weighed about as much as a canoe.

"Wait, I'm not..."

"Monitor board, down the hall, left at the beer coolers. Guy named Oscar. Tell him it's the good XLR, not the cursed XLR, he'll know." And he was already walking, so I followed, because the spool was heavy and he seemed like he knew where he was going.

That's when my phone buzzed. Kara.

"Where are you. I'm at the loading door."

"Back door. Some guy named Pat gave me a cable spool. He thinks I'm a roadie."

Three dots. More dots. Then: "That's Pat. Oh no. Oh NO. Okay. Do not tell him why you're here. He finds out I brought a scene partner to a hometown show and it becomes band gossip by the encore. Just play along for five minutes. I'll fix it."

"I'm holding a cursed XLR spool, Kara."

"I know. I'm sorry. Five minutes."

Five minutes turned out to be a lie the universe told me. I delivered the cable, got handed a gaff roll, got handed a folding table, and got thanked by two different crew members who called me sweetheart, which I did not care for. I was texting Kara updates like a war correspondent.

Then Pat found me again, looking triumphant, which scared me.

"Riley! Great name, by the way, very roadie. Okay, favor. There's an amp stuck in the green room, needs to go to the stage but my hands are full, the drummer's in there doing her pre-show thing anyway, she'll show you where. Just wheel it out, you're a lifesaver, I owe you one."

He shoved me through a door before I could say anything and there she was.

Kara was shorter than I'd pictured, in a tank top, sticks in one hand, phone in the other, and when she saw me her face did a whole thing. "Pat," she called through the door, "this is Riley, my... roadie."

"Knew you'd like her!" Pat said from somewhere. "She quit at four, this one has stamina!"

The lock clicked. We were alone.

"Okay," she said, low and fast. "I am so sorry. This is not how I planned this. Pat cannot know why you're here or the next seven years of my life become a running joke on the tour bus."

"So I'm your roadie."

"You're my roadie until the coast is clear. Then you're my guest. Then, if you still want it, and I very much hope you still want it, you're mine for the rest of the night."

My knees did something unhelpful. "You can't just say it like that."

"Sorry. Breathe. We're negotiating right now, for real, right this second, fast version. Safewords stand. Red stops everything, yellow slows down. You still good with those?"

"Red, yellow. Yes."

"Good. Here's the modified scene, because Pat just handed us one. Until the coast is clear, you obey me. Anything I tell you to do as my roadie, you do it, quickly and without arguing, because if you argue he'll smell it. And when everyone clears out and that door locks again, if you still want it, you kneel for me and we do this properly. Do you agree to that?"

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

Oh. Oh, that hit different when it wasn't typed. "Yes, ma'am?" I tried.

She smiled, and it was not a small smile. "Good girl. First order. There's the amp. Move it to the door. The one thing you cannot do is break your hands, so lift with your legs."

"Why can't I break my..."

"Because of what I'm planning to do with your hands later. Move."

I moved. It was a heavy amp and I nearly put my back out, but I moved it, and she watched me the whole way with her arms crossed, and honestly the watching was doing more to me than the typing ever had.

The door handle rattled. "Kara. Is my studio gear in there? The pedalboard with the blue tape?" A guy's voice, loud, twenty-nine going on twelve.

"Freddy, no, out," she yelled. "It's not in here. Check the van."

"The van's locked."

"Then it's fate, Freddy. Go away." The handle rattled again and stopped.

She looked at me. "That's our guitarist. He's been looking for that pedalboard since February. He will interrupt us again. He always does."

"So what's the plan, ma'am?"

"The plan is you're the roadie until Pat stops hovering, which is after the set, so you're going to be my roadie through the show, which means you'll be standing side stage watching me play. Then the venue empties. Then that lock clicks. Then the real scene starts and I stop rushing." She checked the time on her phone. "Thirty minutes to doors for our set. Can you hold out that long?"

"I've held out two years."

"I know," she said. "I read your messages. Twice." She opened the lock, paused, and added, quieter, "I want it noted, you carry that spool very well."

Then the door opened and Pat's voice came with it. "Riley. You're a miracle. Okay, next thing..."

* * *

Pat's next thing turned out to be a list. He handed me a Sharpie and a case list and told me the drummer liked her water room temperature, not cold, and then he finally, mercifully, left.

Kara locked the door behind him and leaned on it.

"Okay," she said. "He's gone for at least ten minutes. He's got a load-in problem at the merch table, I heard him on the phone. Ten minutes is ours." She pointed at the amp I'd wheeled to the wall. "Get on your knees behind it. If anyone comes in, you're checking the cables."

I knelt. The floor was concrete and cold through my jeans and I loved it, which was a sentence I'd have laughed at two years ago. Kara crouched next to me, close, her shoulder against mine.

"Look at you," she said. "Two years of talking about this and here you are on a dirty green room floor."

"You put me here."

"I did. And the thing about ten minutes is this. We can spend them talking, or..." Her hand came to rest on the back of my jeans, flat, just resting. "Or I can use them. Your call. Do you want this?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then hold still."

The first smack wasn't hard. It was more of a question, and my answer was that my whole body leaned back into her hand. The second one was harder, and the third one was real, and by the fifth I had my forehead against the amp and my fists closed on my jeans and I was making a noise I couldn't name.

"Color," she said, quiet, right against my ear.

"Green. God. Green."

"Good girl." She rubbed the spot she'd been working, slow, then landed two more in the same place. "You take this well. You take orders well. I want you to think about that all through my set. You're going to be standing side stage, sore, thinking about whose hand did it."