The Guitarist

Georgia Wearing 

Content Warning: Sexual Language, Sexual Themes, Drug Use

The Guitarist

He looked like Alex Turner. The headlining Guitarist jerked his head at me,

pointedly, towards the backstage door. I followed him, giddy, giggling into the lip of

my glass.

I hadn’t seen a man up this close before. His eyes were dark, almost black, and the

pencil liner in his waterline had dried and flecked, small shards now on his

cheekbone. He looked worn in, scruffy, an alley dog. The music of the opening band

was close to deafening, and I couldn’t make out the words he was mouthing until he

leaned in, pressed his lips against my ear, and yelled his name. I yelled mine, my

throat stretching as I tried to be heard above the squeaky guitar solo. He grinned, his

fingers interlocking at the base of my neck before pushing upwards, knotting deep

into the thick curls of my hair.

His mouth was warm, and seemed endless, my tongue couldn’t escape his no matter

how much it sought out the soft flesh of his cheeks, trying to time out behind his

teeth. He twisted me around and pushed me up against two tall speakers, his boots

and my heels tangling in the pile of cords and cables.

I could barely focus on anything but his hand, flat against my abdomen, that was

feeling out the layers of my skirt and underwear. I felt the cold silver ring on his right

finger brush against my skin before he found me. I could feel the fingers that had

expertly plucked at wiry cat-gut strings during the sound-check strumming and

stretching me. I buried my face into his chest to hide it in case we were caught

and from him, to conceal my excited expression.

My mind focused only on how good a virginity story this would be; I’d be able to brag

about it while other girls would only have sad shit to say. I’d be able to gloat about

getting tongued and fingered backstage by a micro-rockstar. I’d bluff maybe that

we’d also fucked and that he’d finished just as an MC called him to the stage, and he

had to slip away, jogging, zipping up his pants, and running on stage, having to act

cool and focused while still rock hard.

Meanwhile, I tried to respond to his movements, guess what the next step was and

beat him to it. I sunk my teeth into the slippery collar of his leather jacket, it tasted

like gasoline. Looking back, he’d probably sourced it from an alleyway or in the lost

and found for publicly disgraced indie artists. There were, after all, a number of

ousted Wellington artists who had played two gigs, inflated their egos, and started

hitting women.

I opened to each of his black paint-polished tally marks, taking three before he heard

something. He slipped out and stepped away, with the courtesy to walk backwards

and smile, bite his lip, and give me a ‘call me’ signal.

I bragged about it afterwards, being pushed up against the barricade, lifted by the

mosh like a sacrificial groupie being offered to a moustached, mulleted god. He took

a break during the second song to pour out the remainder of his vodka Redbull over

his left hand, washing off my slick. I didn’t wait for him after the show; I was hoping

he’d suck the rest of me off his fingers or leave me lingering on his guitar strings.

The Guitarist, Again

I was scrolling without looking, the way you do when your brain is somewhere else. I

knew it was him before I’d even registered the photo. I scrolled back up; it was a

photo of him and a girl. It seemed ‘friendly’; they were at a house party, tapping their

beer bottles together, unsmiling, trying to out mog each other. I checked if he was

tagged, he was. His account was filled with professional shots of him bent in a half-

moon over a twilight-covered guitar, hair covering his eyes. I scrolled further than I

should’ve, to a year ago when his hair was a washed-out blue and he hadn’t yet

pierced his ears. He’d posted pictures of guitars, old friend groups from high school,

and old girlfriends. They were all thin with pin-straight black hair and heavy goth

eyeliner. I tapped on their profiles and studied them. A few were objectively prettier

than me, a couple uglier, but they all shared his look—ripped vintage clothes and a

penchant for partying in vandalised bunkers. But maybe I was a break in the pattern.

His account followed me back, and I tried to draft him a message.

Urban_brUmby: Hey

And then deleted it.

Urban_brUmby: Hii, idk if you remember me but we kinda hooked up at that new

boy gig a couple weeks back, was wondering if you wanted to grab a drink?

I obviously deleted that and finally decided on:

Urban_brUmby: Hey, I’m heading out and would rather drink with company

I saw him typing and threw my phone down on my bed, not wanting to watch his

reply come through.

SoChaotic: i’ve got some time after band practice, where u wanna go?

Urban_brUmby: You choose, tired of all my usual haunts

He held my hand as we descended a dark set of stairs in a tucked-away alley. He

pushed the door at the bottom, and it swung open. Inside, the bar was dimly lit.

Stripped animal skulls were nailed to the walls, and at the edge of every dark booth

was a folded faux fur blanket. In one corner, a large black piano gleamed, crowned

with a waxy old candelabra. At the bar, we snuggled up next to each other. He was

wearing the exact same thing as the night of the gig. I’d painstakingly selected

something that could come off as effortlessly cool; dark washed jeans, a mini silk slip

dress worn as a top and a short fur coat that smelt like an attic. It was an attempt to 

look like I knew more about Courtney Love than just how to replicate her outfits. He

ordered a straight whiskey, bottom-shelf. I asked for a cocktail menu, and the waiter

placed both his hands on the bar and gave me an odd, theatrical grin.

'We don’t have a menu here, see, we’re kind of like a cult, tell me how you’re feeling

and I’ll deliver something on par with that.'

I was planning on doing the exact opposite of talking about feelings. I looked

between the waiter and the Guitarist, who was watching me as if this was a test he

put every girl through. What could I say that would be both normal and intriguing.

'I’m feeling warm and a little complicated. But don’t make me anything with gin, I

hate gin.'

The bartender flourished a nod and began pulling out bottles and shaking ice around,

the Guitarist swallowed a mouthful of whiskey and tried to hide a grimace. Clearly,

he wasn’t drinking it for the taste. A waiter walked by and placed a candle between

us, the hot wax spilled, and a clear tear slid over the edge, solidifying halfway down

before it hit the table. The candlelight cast shadows around our eyes like we were

wearing masquerade masks. My drink arrived; it tasted like gin.

Even though he’d drunk three glasses of whiskey he still tasted like cheap dive bar

beer. His room had been cold when we arrived, messy, a testament that my being

there was unplanned, unless he didn’t care what the girls he brought over thought of

his place. It was my first time being in a man’s bedroom. He didn’t have a bedframe,

just a mattress on the floor, but it made the space feel more spiritual, taking

‘grounded’ literally. While we kissed, I looked around, his guitar gleamed in its stand,

shining, almost silver as the moonlight hit it. His room felt antithetical to mine. His

was stripped-back, involuntarily minimalistic. I enjoyed kissing him, his lips were

cold, each movement practiced. It felt like being eaten softly. He pulled off my

clothes and threw my fur coat to one side. It slumped over like a dead animal. He felt

strong, despite his thin, tall frame. I tried not to hesitate or look self-conscious as I

unclasped my bra. I didn’t want to expose that—aside from what we’d done behind

the speakers—I was a virgin.

I resented the idea of being handled like a fragile object. I wanted sex that was just

sex, not a tutorial or a gentler version of it. And yet, I still wanted everything to slow

down so I could enjoy each new sensation, each new texture. The new expressions I’d

unlocked—hunger, focus and a half-lidded look I couldn’t decipher. He leaned down

and started feeling for something beside his bed, grabbed it and pulled back to tear

open the gold condom with his teeth, asking while he did it if I wanted to keep going.

I nodded, and he hunched over and slid it on. It hurt going in, like a piercing. But

then it felt like he’d unlocked something. I gripped him. I felt full, complete,

connected. I refocused, listened to my own heavy breaths, my moans, tried to steady

them, make them sound hot and harmonise with his. My hands anchored to his

chest, my back arched, bouncing on him like a pornstar. I caught my reflection in his

mirror and focused on it, on the feedback a second perspective gave, I arched my

back a bit more and tilted my head back. And then his whole body softened and he

slid out. We both pulled away from each other and lay side by side, catching out

breath. I finally understood it, the zeitgeist of sex.

In the shower, we stood next to each other, scrubbing separately, neither offering to

wash the other's back. Later, damp, under his sheets, he wrapped himself around me,

our naked bodies pressed together like it was nothing. As soon as he fell asleep, I

slipped out of his arms. I wanted him to wake up to me gone. To leave behind the

impression that one-night stands were second-nature to me. I walked home—my

underwear bundled up in my purse—past mothers walking their kids to school and

working professionals rushing toward bus stops. My cervix ached but I felt healed

somehow, as if chakra’s were real and my sacral one had been serviced. An imbalance

within it was allegedly the root cause of emotional issues, lack of creativity and self-

worth. Maybe that’s why I was struggling so much with my assignments, I needed to

have sex. I did paint when I got home and my strokes did feel looser.

I started to spend my sleepless nights at his gigs. I watched the stage from the

balcony as it rotated musicians. I invited my classmates out with me, so it’d look like

I had friends he needed to impress. I scrawled, ‘I fucked the guitarist’, on a graffitied

bathroom stall wall. I started to prefer sleeping in his bed, when I was in his space it

felt like I was balancing out my yin. I looked so much softer, more feminine, standing

in his room than my own. My breasts more pronounced when I wore one of his band

tees. I slept better in his clothes than I ever did in my lacy sweetheart sets. I enjoyed

learning how I could initiate, make him hard simply by pressing my body into his

crotch, parting his legs and pushing his guitar out of the way. But he wasn’t as

devoted to masculinity as I was to being feminine. He was a man by default. He

wasn’t assertive, his directionless starving artist lifestyle which had once seemed new

and exciting had grown repetitive, the gigs stopped to ‘work on new music’. I started

to outpace him, one round was no longer enough, I needed more. Sex became an

addictive, dirty kind of art I kept wanting to make. He’d finish, roll over and groan

when my naked body pressed up against him again. I was exiled to the side of the

bed, to the bathroom, to fuck myself.

Then he started to whine. We’d be opposite each other, half-dressed at midnight and

he’d be bent over crying. He wailed about both being undiscovered and being known.

He kicked his guitar and shredded pages of lyrics, his face scrunched up as he tried to

squeeze out tears. He moaned about his parents’ divorcing when he was six,

alternating between infatuation with his life and disillusionment. He confessed that it

was only when he was drinking, heart-broken, or depressed that he could write good

lyrics. That he had to be miserable for good art to leak out of him. I watched on as he

deafened himself with Billie Holiday and Pink Floyd, played in an attempt to

generate sadness. While he thought I was sleeping I listened to him mutter out new

lyrics and tried to figure out if any of the lines were our relationship, our sex, dressed

up with metaphors.

But I enjoyed his company too much to let go, the feeling of a man next to me, his

weight, those few moments he held me and not onto me. It had been long enough

that we became attached concepts. Strangers stopped me on the way to class to ask if

I knew about a possible new show, whether I was going to another brand’s event. I

was never there to hear it but he must’ve started to experience it to, questions about

me, my name hanging on the end of his. One morning, in doggy, he leaned down and

whispered in my ear.

'I love you.'

I said it back.

Somehow, we worked. The next day when someone brought him up in passing, I

casually shared that we were slowly getting serious, we didn’t have a label for it, but

we didn’t need to. I posted a photo his friend had taken of us backstage, his arm was

around me casually and he was looking at something out of frame, but it was us,

proof that it wasn’t all words and graffiti.

The next morning, he messaged me.

SoChaotic: let’s stop seeing each other.

Art Smells

Sleep had provided a temporary escape from everything, but I had to wake up,

a deadline was coming up, and my canvas was blank. The art I’d been making while I

was mentally absent exposed the extent of my emotional mess, it was disorganised,

directionless. To my lecturer, it might’ve looked like grief, the death of my non-

existent cousin impacting my ability to make art. To the people who’d seen me at

parties, who knew those in the music scene, my art exposed the extent of my

emotional mess. A deadline was coming up. My canvas was blank. I thought about

his lyrics. I painted the Guitarist.

I positioned him hunched over a smashed-up guitar. Amongst the broken pieces, a

Luzon bleeding-heart dove is limp. The broken pieces around it bend inward like a

punched-in skull. I actually asked a classmate for their notes on Audubon’s bird

paintings, to help me replicate the feathers. The slate-coloured bird was playing

dead; its bright red feathers in the centre of its chest a deception. I painstakingly

replicated the sweat-soaked strands of hair that had covered his face, every time he

performed under the stage lights. I didn’t know why I was doing this, why he was the

only thing I felt compelled to paint. As I worked, I didn’t feel anything. He’d become

a series of shapes, a subject with no say in how he changed, how I altered him to

better fit the brief. It didn’t feel like an original idea, it felt like a response. When I

finished, the paint was gleaming, the light reflected off the still wet brushstrokes. I

used my fingers to blur his facial features into an unrecognizable blue. I blurred

everything below his eyes, his nose, his cheekbones and then with the edge of my

palm made one swipe across his brow as if to wipe away his sweat. I left his eyes,

looking down at the bird, it was necessary to retain the original focal point.

During the post-hand-in class showcase, I stood by my portrait. My sleeping pill

hadn’t quite worn off so when I had to provide critique, I had to actively tell my eyes

what to focus on. I hadn’t even thought about critiques when I’d handed my painting

in, I didn’t have time either. When the discussion reached me, there was a pause, a

moment where it felt like some people who’d intended to say something as soon as

they had the chance chose not to. I caught someone’s head turning to exchange a

look with the person next to them. But nothing came out of it, instead the focus was

placed on whether I’d successfully made the bird look alive enough to sell it ‘playing

dead’.