Superstar-Chapter 16

Here's a new chapter of Superstar. Thanks for everyone who has read this and I hope you're enjoying it. Howard High is on a break until I finish up enough strips to start posting again. Anyhew, thanks again and here...we...go!

Chapter 16: The Red

The melodic strains of “Mt. Airy Road” by George Benson and Earl Klugh floated through the air and surrounded Terry in a cocoon of sound. Normally, the song would relax him and put him at ease.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t working.

Terry was way too agitated to relax and his mind wasn’t in his apartment with George and Earl, it was wherever Dom was; probably in Rob’s bed.

He was convinced that Rob was talking some smooth, playa-mack shit that flowed into Dom’s ears with the desired result of Dom droppin’ her drawers. The more he thought about it, the angrier Terry got. He jumped up and started to pace back and forth. Visions of Dom and Rob doing the horizontal lambada pissed Terry off to the highest point of pissitivity. A red haze clouded his vision. Terry realized that he loved Dom and he wanted her, angrily wanted her, for his own. 

He turned off the music. It wasn’t helping him anyway. He couldn’t hear it over the imagined screams of passion ringing in his head. Terry flopped into a chair, breathing hard and fast. His gaze settled on his electric guitar sitting in the corner. Terry stalked over to it, turned it and the four track recorder on and set-up a microphone. Even out of his mind with jealous anger, old habits held firm.

Terry stomped on the distorter effect on his pedal board and let fly all the confused, frustrated mishmash of emotions in his heart. His hands flew over the fretboard of his guitar as all of it poured out through his hands. He lost track of how long he played, but when the last note finally died in the air, Terry felt purged, clean, the weight of the last few weeks miraculously removed from his shoulders.

The situation with Dom had gotten to him so much, Terry hadn’t been able to write a song. That’s a serious thing with him because music sprang from Terry like a fountain. A song idea always flitted through his mind, guitar lines, bass chords and piano licks was something he heard in everyday noises. To say that he had writer’s block was akin to a death sentence to Terry. He was able to play other people’s compositions, but couldn’t come up with anything of his own. Until now.

Terry rewound the tape and listened to what he’d just given birth to. The sound was raw, chaotic and aggressively hostile. He was a little shaken that something like that could come from inside him. Ideas on how to harness that sound and shape it into a song came to Terry’s mind.

He ran to get his keyboard, bass guitar and drum machine. The muse came to visit and Terry started building a song around that powerful guitar line. All thoughts of Dom or Rob disappeared as a wave of creativity swept him away.

When he finally finished, Terry rewound the tape and listened to the song he’d just composed. An acres-wide smile came to Terry’s face.

“Helluva way to get past a writer’s block,” He chuckled.

(c)2014 W.L.Sherrod & Courtney Sherrod