Sperm
by Sarah Crabtree

   She is there.

   Although he doesn’t know it yet. He is caught up in the frenzy of his glittering guitar;spellbinding the blondes and wasters in the front row. He only knows the power he has on stage. In the cold stare of the city streets he is a short guy in tight jeans. He needs no name. His charisma walks before him like an evil little tart. He pretends not to notice their eyes wandering to the grip of his crotch. They all want him. But he chooses not to know that.

   All he ever wanted was to play like John Lennon. Or was it Buddy Holly? Death has deified the pair. Each viewed the ugly world through misty specs. Each sang. Each died. As he knows he must.

   So what have we decided to call him? I know, let’s call him Shine. Because he sparkles without polish. If anybody was born to be a star, then he is the one. Hair like charged copper and eyes that bore into the vagina. Only, of course, he is unaware; like all natural stars, being charismatic is a chore to be dealt with and suffered. Yet he’s not the one to suffer. Leave it to her.

   She is the one.

   And he still hasn’t spotted her. He doesn’t know she bears a small, black mole to the right of the nipple on her left breast. Will he ever see it? Only history can tell. And sometimes even the truth becomes fiction.

   She wants him to want her in precisely the same way she wants him. She wants their eyes to fuse in perfect disharmony, as the world around them strips naked and falls helpless to the ground.

   But she has already spotted the opposition. She watches the tiny, perfectly-formed girl with the thick, blonde hair, performing somersaults with her head. Tonight she will be giving him head. It’s a matter of fact. He feeds off his fans in the way a butterfly dips into nectar. And that way the bozos stay sweet.

   He wants to be a songwriter. Only he doesn’t really know it yet. There are too many things in the way: his fidgety cock and his innocence. And it really is such a huge one, God bless him. However did he manage to grow one so big? Memories of the school changing room and clutchings behind the bike sheds shimmy into the gutter, ready to be swept up for future features, when there’s nothing else much doing.

   But she – her name is Tanna – isn’t interested in his cock. It’s far too big an issue for a fourteen-year-old who’s scared stiff her tits won’t grow any bigger. It’s his mind she wants.

   Just one look. Let it be. Give me the confidence to stride down the stairway, push my way through the stoned crowd and take him for my own.

   But it’s much too soon. She hasn’t suffered enough. There is so much more pain to come. The taunts, the laughter, the mocking at her inability to get a boyfriend. It’s all about to start. And she will be the superstar of the freak show.

   Right now, the cute blonde in the front row has caught Shine’s eye. He has already exchanged signs with the roadie offstage. The blonde will be slipped a note and invited backstage. She’s already a veteran of the rules of the game. And already she knows how to break them.

   For now, Tanna concentrates on his gold guitar. She watches his fingers flying through the riffs. The excitement makes her breathless. At least the body of the guitar hides his manhood. She’s still a dot, dot, dot, girl. Stupid bitch. Go find a life beyond the fifth declension.

   "Tanna! Stop daydreaming and concentrate on your work!" yells her Latin tutor.

   It’s Monday morning and Tanna’s still hooked into the weekend. Her ears are buzzing from the poor acoustics. Next weekend she will buy the band’s new single and while away the early morning studying the pop magazines for pictures of his face. There’s nothing else doing. Her library card has expired and all her other friends have boyfriends. They say she’s a saddo. But she doesn’t care. One day her time will come and she’ll show them all. Even the cute blonde will find her life in the gutter.

   Again she is there. It’s two years later. Shine has faded a little. He still has the accoutrements, but the record buyers are fickle. All the little schoolgirls have moved on. Some of them are pregnant, some of them have jobs, and a few have steady boyfriends. Tanna is working towards her A’levels. Even she doesn’t listen to his records quite so much. Tanna has other hobbies now. Tanna has plans. She doesn’t have a regular boyfriend, but it doesn’t matter. He would only bore her with his stupid boytalk. And he probably wouldn’t want to play the games Tanna enjoys.

   She’s old enough for really big secrets now. It’s not just ways of pleasuring herself, but it’s the stuff she writes, too. She has a whole folder of it hidden away at the back of her wardrobe: poems, song lyrics and stories. She tried to pluck up the courage to send Shine a set of lyrics. Other girls have offered him their bodies, but Tanna wants to give him more. She wants to give him her soul. But the letter to the fan club is returned "Address unknown".

   And still the years rock on and on. She hasn’t heard of his whereabouts for a while. Maybe he’s gotten married, or is working in Germany. She’s hung around with enough muso types to know how popular British music is on the Continent. Maybe someday she’ll save up enough money and courage to go there and see for herself. But it’s hard getting time off now she’s a fulltime typist for XYZ Insurance Operatives. It’s just to tide her over, of course, until something better comes along.

   Only it hasn’t yet. She’s pushing thirty now and the only proper sexual experience she has had was a one night stand in Amsterdam with a Middle Eastern air pilot. He wanted to meet up with her again, say for another one night stand at Heathrow, but what was the point? She screwed up his details and threw them into the Motel bin.

   There had to be something better out there.

   And then she started dreaming about the Sperm. How it was trying to find her. She knew it was out there somewhere, willing her to become as one with it. But where should she search? Her body clock was about to explode as her egg content diminished.

   And then it happened. A one-off gig at the local University. Of course it wasn’t the original band. Only two of the originals remained. Shine, of course, and that drummer. She’d heard rumours that the other guitarist had overdosed, the keyboard player was teaching chemistry at a private girls’ school and the saxophonist was last seen trainspotting.

   She felt maudlin for the first time in her life. Digging out the scrapbooks of yesteryear, she pawed through the cut-outs of the band in its prime. Why did it all have to change? She should have tried harder to track them down before. Why did life have to get in the way of fun? Now they were a half-baked tribute band. None of the students would remember them. Why a university for God’s sake? Were they really that desperate for gigs?

   She nearly didn’t go.

   She wore black that night. And danced in the shadows. It would have been easy to get near the front this time. All the blonde madness had evaporated. Maybe the blonde had a dayjob now. Dayjob, blowjob. Who was gonna get lucky tonight?

   And suddenly he was there. Still had the great hair. But the jawline was happily-married. Shit. This wasn’t written in the script. Yet she knew it had to be her turn. Her whole body was crying out for this. Tonight. The guitar glittered, the vodkas downed and her eyes glowed into his.

   The invite backstage just wasn’t so great. The roadie seemed to be falling out with the gig organiser.

   "Forget them," whispered Shine. He pointed to a broom cupboard, and then dragged her with him.

   It was quick and it hurt was all she remembered from that night.

   And then she remembered a ripped poster and getting into a fight with that bloke with work. The one with the specs like John Lennon or Buddy Holly. The one who always seemed to care. Like he had no life or something.

   He cared so much that she had to sleep with him.

   Six weeks and a blue-line later, she took stock of the busiest month of her life. So this was what work and rock and the whole crock of shit was all about. As she lay on her thin, single bed she tried to remember exactly how it had felt the first time. Not the first kiss, but the first time the feeling swept over her.

   She wanted to kill herself now. Right now, she wanted to die. How could she look after a baby?

   The bloke at work took care of it all. He even had a name. Eric. Jeez. Even a white wedding for the front.

   Harra-Lyn was born on the 14 December. She didn’t look like anybody except a baby. Eric arranged the mortgage, the christening and even chose the nappies. The Eighties skipped into the Nineties and Harra-Lyn kept growing. She grew like an exotic plant into a copper-plated beauty.

   Surely not?

   Nobody gigged anymore. The band struggled to stay in the music industry, while its diehard fans resurrected its memory on a webpage. Gossip spread like a cankerous wreck breaking up on a polluted beach. The ageing, the weary and the stoned clubbed together in a sordid heap and named themselves the Keepers of Glam.

   When Harra-Lyn started nursery, Tanna played on the great Cyber Web. She found a message board and posted under a false name, but foolishly revealing where she had been on that starry night back in the Eighties when the band had played her local Uni.

   She received a strange e-mail and was tricked into its kind tone.

   "Wanna meet up sometime? There are still a few of us saddos who dress up like teenagers and enjoy a gig in some smelly pub. It’s a great laugh."

   And so she joined in the little games. The teasing, the cryptic messages…and she fell into the trap.

   "Is it possible for a sperm to live inside you for several days?"

   "Do sperm fight inside you?" she asked Jeeves and got a number of interesting answers and pop-ups.

   "Would you like to enlarge your penis?" asked another e-mail.

   No, she thought sadly. I couldn’t handle it the first time.

   She went to the band’s last gig. She didn’t really want to. But one of the saddos had gotten hold of her phone number and had insisted she go.

   "Go for Shine’s sake," she growled.

   And so she did.

   She was shocked at the state of him. Whatever it was that was wrong with him was obviously slowly destroying him.

   I don’t wanna know, she told herself. Whatever it is, I just wanna be outside of all this. I don’t need this kind of crap. I have a child to bring up.

   But as he riffed into the bars of her favourite song…their hit…their only hit…as he turned to stare into the crowd, she pushed her way to the front, and her eyes took his.

   Help me, his eyes said.

   Give me something to hold on to.

   Too late. Much too late, she decided. But still their eyes bore into each other. The smoke rose and fell, the crowd clapped and sung. Somebody was waving a banner. It was all irrelevant. This was here and now. Harra-Lyn was tucked up safely at home. A product of a careless sperm.

   And suddenly she saw into the soul she had sought for so long. The evil little tart of charisma had turned into a demon. Shine was desperately trying to fight it. But the demon was growing with each second as the music played.

   Help me.

   I can’t. She felt the tears come. She felt all the love, all the hurt being sucked out of her.

   And then the nightmares came. He was screaming for her to help him. To save him from this thing that was taking him over.

   She blocked the incoming calls.

   Evil little tarts, she said, as she stuck her knife into the chicken kiev. A sticky green sauce oozed onto the virgin flesh.

   He died six weeks later. So many questions unanswered. So many loose ends.

   Tanna admired the child’s copper bangs.

   Surely not? She asked herself again.

   He’s gone. Forever. But the music stays.

   And she is here.

   Tanna shuddered as she heard Eric unbolt the front door.

©2003 Sarah Crabtree