Jamie slept better that night than she had for a long time. When she awoke, it was almost ten in the morning. Danny was no longer beside her but she could hear him in the kitchen. She wandered into the kitchen following the smell of bacon cooking. He was making scrambled eggs and bacon and toast - nothing too adventurous but very welcome nonetheless. "Tea or coffee?" he asked as she stood in the doorway. She chose coffee, white but no sugar.
"What I want to tell you is for your ears only," he told her. "You need to understand where I am coming from before you can answer some questions I will ask at the end. As it is such a lovely morning, shall we sit outside and eat and talk. There is very little chance anyone will overhear us."
"I was raised on a council estate just outside Manchester. Harry lived a few doors away and Keith just around the corner. We have known each other almost the whole of our lives and we went to both the same primary school and the same secondary school. Keith's mum was a single mother and she earned her living as a piano teacher. That's why he was such a good pianist. In junior school we had music lessons and Harry was given both a tambourine and a bongo drum to play. He had natural rhythm. Keith, naturally, played the piano. I was given the triangle but was useless at it but it seemed I could sing. In the Nativity Play, I had to sing a solo and I loved standing in front of everyone and singing my solo.
"When we transferred to secondary school, we had access to many more instruments and Harry took to the drum kit like a duck to water. We had a project in our second year where we had to get together in small teams and compose and then play it. Harry, Keith and I formed a team and refused to let anyone else join. That was the first time I ever wrote a song. We called it 'Red and Blue' after the colours of Manchester United and City. In all honesty, it was an appalling tune but it impressed our music teacher. None of us were academically gifted, so getting praise from a teacher was special.
"After our end-of-year exams in our second year, the music teacher asked us if we could play a few songs for the rest of the class. We accepted without having any idea of what we could play. It was Keith who came to the rescue. His mum had several music sheets of recent hit songs and we chose three to practice and eventually play. The other kids were enthusiastic about our performance, as was the teacher. Over the summer holidays, we learned another half dozen songs.
"We also found out that we were popular with lots of the other school kids; especially both Harry and Keith who had grown into good-looking teenagers. I was only included in the popularity stakes because of my association with the other two. It was also noticeable that there were many girls who wanted to hang out with us. The other two took advantage of the girls' interest in them and lost their virginity shortly after their fourteenth birthdays. It would be two years later before I lost mine."
"But you've made up for it since," Jamie grinned.
"We'll get to that later. The following year at school there was to be a school concert just before the Christmas holidays. We were given two slots, one before the interval and one before the end of the concert. Both received rapturous applause. In the New Year, we were asked to pay for half an hour at a 16th birthday party for one of the other kid's older brothers. We would receive £10. From that performance, we received requests to play at other parties. By this time, Harry had his own set of drums and Keith had a mobile keyboard. Harry's dad ferried us around and ensured we didn't drink alcohol, or at least, not too much.
"Both Harry and Keith had a string of girlfriends and often swapped with each other. No girl had a second chance. If the girl didn't have sex with them, the boys dumped her. There always seemed to be plenty more anxious to please them.
"As we got older, we began to receive requests from the odd pub or club to play for an hour or so. Harry's dad acted as our manager and by the time we were sixteen, we could earn £30 a night for an hour's playing. It was around that time that we were invited to perform at a girl's 17th birthday party. One of the songs I sang was one by the Bellamy Brothers - If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me. Later that evening, the birthday girl invited Harry to her room. Unknown to me, Harry told her that I was a virgin and had never had a blow job. If she corrected those two omissions in my life, both Harry and Keith would partake in a threesome with her. I learned all this the next day. Anyway, to cut a long story short, she sidled up to me and asked if I thought she had a beautiful body. I gulped and said 'yes'. "Then let me hold it against you," she smiled seductively and invited me to her room, almost dragging me with her. She undressed quicker that I knew a girl could undress and, standing naked in front of me, insisted I undressed too. I couldn't take my eyes off her so she undressed me. She told me she was on the pill and invited me to touch her. Being a novice, I didn't know what to do so she gave me instructions. Fortunately I'm a quick learner. Sadly, I didn't last long. As she had promised Harry she'd give me a blow job, she did just that. And then she said as she'd sucked me off, I should do the same for her.
"Once again, she had to give me instructions and it must have worked because she had an orgasm. By this time I was hard again so she decided I should have another go. And once again she had an orgasm. She said she'd enjoyed being my first but she had someone else coming soon so I had to get dressed quickly and leave. I assumed that going down on a girl was what a man did, so I did it every time I had a girl. And because I did, I suddenly started getting more girls propositioning me. I started getting girls coming to me at school offering themselves. A few of them had also been with Harry and Keith and they told me that neither of those had ever gone down on them.
"By the time we left school at eighteen, we had officially formed ourselves into a group called 'Manchester Magi'. We toured mostly in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire, sometimes playing to audiences of two or three hundred. As we became more popular and our name better known, we attracted attention of 'The Order of Magi, Manchester's Magical Society' who said our name was confusing and we should change it. So we did. Harry's dad suggested we became 'Salford Trinity' because Salford was in the M3 post code area where we lived and we were three. We had that name for two years but we didn't appear to be breaking into the big time. We were still playing mostly covers of popular songs. We were pretty eclectic in our music styles but hadn't really developed our own songs.
"After two years we decided Harry's dad was no longer fit to be our manager. After every gig when we stayed away from home, he handpicked half a dozen girls to come back to our room for sex, except he insisted they had sex with him too. Then one day we almost found ourselves in serious trouble. Two of the girls he picked one night were identical twins and only fifteen years old. If we'd had sex with them we could have been charged with rape. Harry's dad would certainly have been charged, but we were twenty-two so would probably be charged as well. The two girls kicked up a fuss but we insisted they went home."
"How did you find out the girls' ages?"
"Keith and I heard the girls telling another of the girls that had been picked for us that their parents had bought the tickets as a pre-birthday present. When asked when their birthday was they proudly stated it was in three days time and they would be sixteen. To be fair to Harry's dad, they did look older than their age."
"We found a new manager, Mike, and he immediately told us we needed to find a new name. 'Salford Trinity' sounded too much like a church group. I've told you how we chose 6Feet3 as our name and our new manager liked it. Mike also suggested we write and sing more of our own music. 'Sweet petite girl' was our first top 40 song. It reached 39 but it was progress. On the back of that, Mike booked us in some bigger venues further from our base. As a result, our popularity grew. The second song to break into the top 40 was 'Curiosity' which reached twenty one. After our first top ten - 'Misbehavin's fun' we were booked as support act for the 'Ransom Withheld' mini tour."
"I've got all those songs on CD," Jamie told him.
"I never knew you were such a fan."
"I tried to convince myself I was your sweet petite girl but sadly I'm not petite."
"Maybe not petite, but very sweet, generous and gorgeous. If I'd known you as I do now when I wrote the song it might have had a different title." Jamie actually blushed when he called her gorgeous. "That pretty much brings you up to date until we first met. I feel the need for a walk. I'll continue when we get back. Are you coming with me?"
Ten minutes walk from his house and they were walking along a sea cliff. The air on top of the cliffs was invigorating and the view across an almost deserted beach was spectacular. Jamie was a little disappointed that he didn't take her hand but the conversation was easy and wide ranging. After an hour they stopped at a pub and had a delicious home cooked steak and kidney pie with new potatoes, green beans and lashings of tasty gravy. They decided against a dessert as the meal had been filling.
"I'm surprised no one has recognised you," Jamie commented as they walked back along the cliff towards his cottage.
"Well, you didn't at first. That actually made me very relieved. I still need time to recover from their deaths and I need time to decide what to do next. Mike is keen for me to start a solo career but I'm not sure I want to go on tours, or just play venues, across the country on my own. It could get very lonely. Oh, I know I'd soon have loads of new friends but how genuine would they be? Mike is being very thoughtful allowing me all the time I need to come to a decision, but I can't leave it too long."
"Does Mike know where you are?" Jamie asked.
"No, but we talk on the phone most weeks just to catch up with each other. I have a new phone and Mike is the only person who has my number. I ask him to tell my parents that I am well but need privacy. He says that they understand and are grateful for my messages."
"You must have been very lonely since the accident. How have you coped?"
He explained that he had moved round the country regularly. He had adopted the name 'Dennis' or 'Denny' and a surname of 'Henley'. Initially he wore a disguise so he could go and get food and other necessities. Over time, he had let his hair grow long, grown a beard and lost weight which made his face thinner. Coloured contact lenses and dark glasses had further helped his disguise. He had moved to his current cottage two weeks ago and had rented it for two months. Much of his time was spent walking the coast and the cliffs. He spoke to people he met but no one had challenged his identity. Yet he had to admit that he was lonely. That was one of the reasons he had gone out for a meal the previous evening. There always seemed to be someone in the bar afterwards who was ready to talk while he listened. It was fate that placed him in the right place at the right time to see Jamie. He had noticed her as she walked into the restaurant and couldn't resist seeing if she recognised him. At first, she had seemed happy and he felt happy for her, although he wished he could have a chat with her sometime. Little did he realise how much her evening was to change and how he would then come to her rescue.
Before going back to his cottage they collected the rest of Jamie's things from her old home. When they arrived back at his cottage, he fetched them both a beer and he prepared to continue his story.