The Legend of Arturo King Read online

  The Legend of Arturo King

  L.B. Dunbar

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  © 2015 Laura Dunbar

  Cover Design – Kari Ayasha

  Photo Copyright https://covertocoverdesigns1.box.com/s/7aezolgvz72poclu49jy

  Format – Brenda Wright

  Edit – Kristina Circelli / Red Road Editing

  Other Books by L.B. Dunbar

  Sensations Collection

  Sound Advice

  Taste Test

  Fragrance Free

  Touch Screen (coming 2015)

  Sight Words (coming 2015)

  Legendary Rock Stars Series

  The Legend of Arturo King

  Dedication

  For men and woman who fight for what is good daily,

  And for musicians everywhere who bring us joy with their song.

  * * *

  I was submerged in darkness. A feather-light, floating feeling surrounded me, and yet I felt heavily weighed down. The sensation was still pleasant, comforting even. I was warm, maybe too warm, but I didn’t move. I was peaceful except for the steady beeping noise in the background.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  I was relaxed enough that I felt disconnected from my body. I could hear voices and wanted to respond, but I couldn’t compose words. My tongue felt thick, filling my mouth, but, quite simply, I didn’t have the energy to speak.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Tones came and went in my head. A rough older gentleman’s voice was almost musical. Music? I needed music somehow, but I didn’t know why. Another voice was female. She sounded slightly hysterical, talking too quickly for me to follow the stream of conversation, and occasionally sobbing in between words. A softer female voice was closer. She spoke of love, but it wasn’t a voice I connected with love.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  There was a voice only in my head that reminded me of love, and that voice was absent from the background. The music I needed to bring me out of the darkness was that sound. Her voice. Where was she? Why wasn’t she here?

  Four months earlier…

  Arturo

  I paced the stage as I sang the heartfelt ballad about lost love. A thin sheen of sweat glistened off biceps I’d worked hard to tone, accentuating the tattoos up each arm, fully exposed under the sleeves of my light-gray T-shirt. My dark jeans hugged me tightly, and I felt a trickle lick down the muscles of my back, slipping into the waistband of my pants. I shook my dark hair, cut short and choppy, and a bead of sweat on the side of my face kissed my stubbly cheek. My eyes closed to focus on the words, and a collective sigh of the ladies in the crowd was heard as I imagined them watching the deep brown sparkle disappear for a moment. I was told at times it looked like I was in ecstasy as I sang this song.

  As lead singer of the Nights, I knew my body made girls sigh and my husky deep tone made them weep. Yet it was almost ironic that our rock-n-roll band was first known for this tune. I was to the point I was almost bored by it. As I sang the lyrics that brought tears to female eyes, I opened my own again to scan the crowd absentmindedly. Singing should have involved letting my heart out, but I just wasn’t feeling it tonight.

  Oh, the crowd at the Round Table was energetic and that vibe could keep me going for hours. The unusual cylinder construction of the underground bar made for some amazing acoustics, and with a screaming, jumping audience, the volcanic pulse of the place was heart pumping. The problem for me this evening was that I was over the “love” I lost in this song. It wasn’t someone I fondly remembered. It was more an ideal of someone from an unclear memory involving one lonely night, two sweaty bodies, and too much alcohol.

  That night was eight years ago, when an innocent, horny boy of seventeen couldn’t keep his manhood in his pants. After he plowed through the girls at various high schools, he attended a college party with his older brother, Kaye Sirs. That boy was me, and I was extended the invitation for sibling’s weekend. I looked older than my youthful teenage body, moving with ease within the fraternity party. Shot after shot, girl after girl, I made my way through the throngs of people to collide with a senior beauty that latched onto me, quite literally. I bumped into her as I tried to elbow through the co-eds, causing her to stumble backward. As a gentleman, I reached for her before she tumbled over and that set off the remainder of the night. The older college beauty clutched my biceps as I wrapped my arms around her, and I wasted no time in pulling her against me. In return for my assistance, she kissed me immediately – open mouth with tongue. I almost took her there against the wall in the middle of the party, but she led the way to a vacant bedroom and I graciously followed as a high school boy about to make it with a college girl.

  I was sullen about that night for almost six months. Missing the feel of her body, the pleasure in how she moved against me. The passion in what she taught me to do. The lust in the ways she let me do her. She became my muse for the first song I wrote solo without the band, and this catapulted my career as a songwriter. Nights went from high school battle of the bands to headliners at the local bars during college and a future world tour after our second major album.

  Of course, all great bands appreciated the start they got at the Round Table. It was owned by Leo DeGrance, a shrewd but honest business man, who collected emerging bands like kids might collect baseball cards. He studied them. He tutored them. He gave them a start. If he liked them. If he liked your sound, your dedication, and your ability to listen to directions, including constructive criticism, Leo and the Round Table could take you to the top. If you refused, you just kissed your chances of a career goodbye.

  My father knew Leo from some other time, some other place, but I didn’t want to think about that tonight as I continued to scan the crowd. The walls were in shadow to me, but I knew the architecture of the Round Table well. A dirty brick façade gave the place the feel of a medieval castle. Bright lights highlighted the stage with a glow of fuchsia and yellow, but low lights of blue dimly lit the standing-room-only pit floor. The stage was semi-circular in order to fill in a section of the rounded room. A similarly shaped bar lined the opposite wall, lit with the gleam of liquor in warm shades of amber, citron, and crystal clear. I desperately wanted one of those bottles to numb the words I sang. The memory it caused.

  Closing my eyes briefly, forcing myself to sound forlorn and heartbroken, my thoughts flipped momentarily back to my father. Thinking about him almost did the trick to make me sound full of lost-love angst. Almost.

  Hoping to find Leo, I searched the crowd one more time, but I knew he was not present tonight. Something about his daughter graduating from college this evening, I recalled. Leo didn’t often share the personal side of his life, and I respected the man enough to not ask questions. I was surprised when Leo willingly gave the information about his daughter’s important evening, but I couldn’t recall anything else from that conversation. I didn’t remember much about her. It was two mornings ago when the band arrived to practice before the bar was set to open. Despite the bright sunlight of New York City, the dark dungeon of the Round Table gave no warning of the time of day, or night, for that matter. I had the vague sense that the close of this set would put us a
t almost midnight, and I did hope my old friend would make a brief appearance regardless of the late hour.

  I drew near to the guitar riff that my best friend, and lead guitarist, would play in a moment. I’d known Lansing Lotte the longest out of my band mates. Dark hair, wavy, and laden with sweat at the moment, Lans set the ladies’ hearts on fire. He had a killer dimpled smile and bright blue eyes. He looked almost angelic and I knew that pretty face caused the band many a problem. Lans’ and my history went deep, and our friendship was loyal.

  Perkins Vale, or Perk, was our drummer. He wanted to be part of a band so desperately that he taught himself to play drums in his secluded forest home. Perk’s mother liked to emphasize the necessity of seclusion in his ‘learning to play’ phase because the sound of his banging would have surely disturbed any near neighbors and discouraged his continuation in developing his talent. His determination to be the best won out in the long run and he was a damn fine drummer. He joined our group shortly before college. What surprised people most was his large body and the tenderness with which he could command each beat. I noticed Perk’s brown eyes were closed and his shaved dark head was covered by a backward baseball cap, soaked on the edges with his exertion. Perk was lost within himself when a concert raged on.

  Tristan Lyons rounded out the group on stage as the bass guitarist. As nephew to a very powerful man, who was one of my many nemeses, Tristan was a risk to take on at first; however, he approached me and our friendship grew in despite of the family rivalries. We were able to work out an unspoken agreement of compromise on all things related to the family segregation. Tristan also had light-brown hair, curling up his neck, longer on the top, falling into his eyes at the moment as he concentrated and watched his own fingers caress his guitar. His focus on rhythm was inspirational and I had actually witnessed a woman once have an orgasm as he strummed his strings frantically across his classic Fender. It was almost embarrassing to witness. Almost.

  I closed in on the last line of the refrain and turned to look at Lans, signaling the direction of the crowd and the shift of the song. I had been clutching the microphone on the top of its stand, both hands wrapped around it, holding firm. I often told myself to think of the mic as a woman. Caress it in passion or clutch it in lust. It made no difference as long as this prop seemed an extension of my instrument, my voice. I released the mic slowly and shifted my own body slightly to angle to the right toward Lans. Glancing over the crowd, what I told myself would be one final time before I pulled my head back into the gig on stage, I saw her.

  She was a vision in white. Literally. Her long flowing dress stood out amongst the crowd of dark T-shirts, darker jeans, and occasional bare skin. Her skin was bare in places as well. Slender arms hung at her sides, completely exposed. The pull of the dress bodice was up around her neck in some fashion that also exposed her shoulders, an area that I found could be very sensitive on a woman. Her shoulders just might redefine sensual in my brief opinion as I further took her in. The dress fell to the floor, but I could sense that those hidden legs were long, and the way the dress hugged the undisclosed portions of her body, I knew she was slender, sleek, and sumptuous in all the right places. Her hair looked dark, long and wavy, but the blue glow of the floor lights hinted at some brighter highlights.

  I couldn’t make out the color of her eyes at first, but then she stepped forward under a light as if she were coming to me. They were lake blue and I felt them pierce my soul. I saw a sparkle in them as my own locked with hers. She stood still for a moment, suddenly frozen in my trance. I watched her lick her lips and I felt that lick in my pants. I didn’t want to look away as a wave of … something … crawled through my body, but she did.

  She turned to her left, but I couldn’t see who stood there in the shadows. Her head returned forward and she seemed to be listening to the guitar, taking in the stage, but refusing to look again in my direction. I felt like I was willing her to notice me instead of the blank stare she focused above the bands’ heads. I almost turned to see what could be so interesting behind me. Almost, but I didn’t dare to look away from her.

  She moved after a slight shift again from her left. She was obviously parting ways from someone near her and she slowly made her way through the crowded pit floor. As if the audience knew someone otherworldly was within their presence, the crowd parted slowly as she approached each person, making a clean-cut line across the wooden floorboards without another glance in the direction of the stage. Watching her walk sparked an extra beat in my heart and a throb in my pants. If she was sensual just crossing the floor, I dared to imagine what she would be like in my bed.

  My vision focused solely on her subtle movement. Silky, I would have described her. She moved slowly, as if she were a ribbon sliding, slipping, through dark water. The white dress continued to glow from the dim blue lights, accentuating her slither through the waves of people. I was only vaguely aware of the guitar riff coming to an end at my left and I reached blindly for the microphone. This was a move that took no thought for me. It was as natural as breathing to hold the warm metal. I felt a slight catch in my throat as the words were climbing to escape my vocal cords. Lans hit his last note and I held my breath for the pause before a new cord was hit and the words burst forth.

  It was the last look, of last night

  In the last moment,

  That took my breath and made me see

  You might be lost before you found me.

  You cried my name, as you came,

  I took that pain and

  Made you see, you might be lost,

  But you found me.

  My own words took on new meaning as I trailed her final motion. This tune had a new emphasis and I knew I was singing to her like a siren calls a sailor. There was just something about her presence, even if I felt she was suddenly ignoring me. She seemed to pause as I poured myself into those lyrics. You found me echoed in my head as I pinned her with my eyes. She moved her long hair over one shoulder, causing me to suck in a breath at the full exposure of her alabaster back. From behind, she was completely revealed; only a slip of cloth at her neck must hold the dress over those supple breasts I massaged with my eyes moments ago, and even without full light I knew that toned back held dimples at the base above the low sling of material that clung to her backside and draped down to the floor.

  I noticed her breathing was slightly accelerated as her graceful shoulders lifted like a shrug and it certainly couldn’t be from overexertion crossing the crowded bar floor. She moved as if she floated. She had not returned my gaze, which I knew she must feel caressing across her soft skin. It could only mean one thing to my veteran assessment of women. She wasn’t interested, and that never happened to me. Women were always interested in me.

  I realized suddenly where she stood. She had paused before a door to the left of the bar. I knew this door. It was made to blend seamlessly into the wall, looking like heavy olden bricks, like the surrounding walls. Only the keypad to the right gave away any semblance of a passageway. A person needed a special access code to pass through that door into the hall behind.

  I watched her press her fingers deftly across the silver numbers and push the door gently inward into a darkened passage beyond without a single glance back over those sexy shoulders in my direction. I had to know who she was as the door closed, cutting off my view of her. It was almost instantaneous that I knew I wanted her, but this whole scene could only mean two things were true: she was somehow connected to Leo DeGrance, and she didn’t want me. And I believed them both. Almost.

  Guinevere

  I let out a large breath through moist lips as I slumped against the solid metal behind me. The door closed with a soft thud and a sharp click of the lock, blocking off any other sounds, especially the haunting voice of Arturo King. I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath until I felt all the air escape me in a loud sigh, and after that I laughed. For a brief moment, I thought Arturo King had actually made eye contact with me and I made a
foolish move. I stepped toward him as if he were singing to me, calling me to come to him.

  I imagined him untying the halter collar of my thin white dress and pulling it forward to expose me when I met his eyes while I watched him from the shadows. Of course, that was silly. He couldn’t have seen me from where I stood next to my father. But as I crossed the crowded room of my father’s famous underground bar, I felt as if Arturo’s eyes continued to undress me. I knew I was being ridiculous. It was all a fantasy. Arturo King would never be interested in me, for me. I was Guinie. Even my name sounded babyish, pronounced like Ga-winnie, and Arturo King would never be attracted to someone childish. Not to mention, I was the daughter of Leo DeGrance, famous proprietor of the Round Table, a bar known for bands, both upstart and world renowned.

  I pushed off the door forcefully, relieved that the end of the long day had finally come. Today had been one of the best and worst days of my life. I finally graduated from college – the New York Metropolitan Music College as a matter of fact. It was an honor and a privilege to attend such a prestigious, and rather selective, school. However, the honor had been the school’s more than mine, as my father was Leo DeGrance and he was a major contributor. While my father was actually fond of the underdog, the band that worked its way from the garage at midnight to the main stage of the Grammy’s, he was also appreciative of those with cultured talent, which he believed I had refined.

  This credit led to the bad part of the day. I had also learned earlier in the day that I did not make the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. My initial callback skyrocketed my hopes of getting away from New York, the Round Table, and my mundane life, and I felt quite certain of my audition performance, allowing my confidence to grow at the prospect of making a name for myself without being attached to my father. I was even hopeful that I had caught the interviewers’ attention despite the questions regarding my relation to Leo DeGrance, but it had all been in vain as my audition had not been enough and neither had my name.