Electric Cowboy

Chapter 1: Social Disease

Multi-colored lights flashed in a sequenced show, sparking up a rainbow all across the stage and dance floor. A crowd surged on the floor, screaming, dancing, jumping, and singing. Pacing along the stage with a mic in his hand and his guitar swung low along his hip, was Julian. Sweat dripped down his bare chest and dampened the long black hair that was already tousled from his time on stage. The speakers pounded out the music loudly, accompanying his clear, slightly husky voice as he sang.

“You can read it ... in the papers ... in some places it comes in thirty-two flavors, but you wouldn’t tell no one your favorite ... if you could...”

When he’d turned fifteen, he and his friends had formed a Bon Jovi cover band, Electric Cowboy. They mixed up Bon Jovi songs with much of their own work, and the crowds loved it. Now he was twenty-three and, according to most of his close family, going nowhere. Julian had struggled (barely) through high school, but he’d never bothered with college. However, he wasn’t worried; they made decent money off of their gigs, and his parents were rich, anyway. That’s what comes of having two parents who are world-famous artists, he thought, not to mention that his father inherited a fortune long before he became famous.

“Senorita’s in the kitchen, she’s a fistful of dynamite ... You call 911 but you can’t stop the fun tonight ... it’s alright!”

Julian had the talent for art, but no desire. He lived for his music. While he’d heard the story of his parents’ deep, devoted love and the things it had pulled them through, his views were more ... pragmatic. He firmly believed that love like that happened only to a rare few, and he wasn’t one of those few. So Julian threw himself into his music, and he felt, as he often said, that girls were only good when they were naked, anyway.

“You can’t start a fire without a spark, but there’s something that I guarantee ... You can’t hide when infection starts, because love is a social disease...!”

Both of his younger siblings, a brother and a sister, had taken on his parents’ love of art. They both had his mother’s brown hair and his father’s green eyes. Only Julian was the opposite, with his father’s black hair and his mother’s gray eyes. He thought it was suiting that he was so different from the rest of them, really. And although he loved his family, he’d never been very close to them.

When he was younger, he’d been so impressed by his mother and father. Julian had loved looking at the pictures his father had once painted of his mother. He still liked those pictures; in the oldest ones, his mother had hair down to her knees. Now she kept it shorter, somewhere around her shoulders, and he found it a little disappointing. He’d always thought that she looked like some kind of angel or fairy in those pictures. Julian had been the type of boy, when he was little, who used to dream about meeting fairies.

“So you telephone your doctor, just to see what pill to take ... You know there’s no prescription, gonna wipe this one away...!”

Julian had stopped believing in fairy girls when he realized that he’d never find one of his own. Girls weren’t sweet and innocent the way they’d been in his mother’s day. Probably not too many of them were then, either, he thought. He’d had a few girlfriends, a lot of flings, but never anything serious. They’d always ended up seeming so petty and shallow to him. That was why Julian didn’t believe in love.

“You can’t start a fire without a spark, but there’s something that I guarantee ... You can’t hide when infection starts, because love is a social disease...!”

---

Julian stared at the wall of his room in his parents’ house, feeling somewhat disgruntled. He stayed there about once a week to make his mother happy, but he never liked it. His old room was still decorated with all the old pictures he’d drawn when he was younger, when his parents still hoped desperately that it would be his calling. When Julian was ten, he had finally told them that he didn’t really like drawing, and they hadn’t protested when he wanted to stop. After that point, he drew nothing ... except for her.

The pictures were in a folder hidden in his bottom dresser drawer. He’d started drawing them when he was eleven and had continued until he was fourteen. Earlier on, she was a fairy, with hair the same white color that some kids had before it turned to blonde or brown, that hung down to her knees and was always flowing wildly. She had big blue eyes as clear as crystal, and she was always smiling. When he’d been younger, she’d been a girl like him, with cute pixie wings and little sundresses.

As Julian got older, she changed with him. His fairy had become just a girl who was growing into womanhood. Her lips became fuller, and her body became curvier, but she never lost the sweet, innocent look in her eyes. In his mind, she was spunky and full of mischief. When he’d been younger, she was the one who took him on imaginary adventures, and as he got older, she was the one who haunted his dreams. He’d named her Avalon, and she’d been the love of his life.

Now he hated her. He hated everything she represented, all his foolish, naïve childhood thoughts. Sleeping in this room reminded Julian of her and all the things he would never find. He climbed out of bed, grumbling to himself, and dressed quickly. After brushing his hair and pulling it into a sloppy ponytail, he left the room, relieved to be free of it. The sound of voices told him that his family had already sat down for breakfast. In Julian’s family, his father did all the cooking, and if there was anything he liked about staying the night, it was the food.

“Well, well, well,” his younger sister, Cosette, chirped. “Look what the cat dragged out of bed! And you look like you’ve been dragged!”

“Haha, very funny,” Julian retorted, plopping down next to his younger brother, Sebastien.

“Someone’s in a charming mood,” Bastien said brightly, flashing a boyish grin.

“I’m tired,” Julian responded shortly. “Last night’s gig was tiring.”

The morning chatter was the same as usual. He listened to his sister talk about graduation and her plans for next fall, and his brother talk about his upcoming show at the museum. His mother listened with half an ear while nibbling on a piece of toast and sketching something on a napkin. She seemed incredibly distracted today, Julian noticed. Her hair hung in a lopsided, messy ponytail and her shirt was an old, paint-covered one. Although silver strands mingled with the brown, and there were laugh lines around her eyes and mouth, he could see what it was that originally drew his father to her.

“Astrid, honey, didn’t you have something you wanted to ask Julian?” his father said suddenly.

His mother looked up, blinking. “Oh, yes. Julian, I’d like you to do me a favor and visit my class today. They’re all fans, most of them and...”

“No way!” Julian interrupted. “I’ve told you before, Mom, I don’t do that sort of thing. I don’t want a gaggle of girls hanging all over me.”

“Let me finish,” his mother continued calmly. “It’s one of my students’ birthdays... she’s just turning twenty. She’s awfully shy and quiet, and she doesn’t get along too well with the other girls. I thought it would make her feel good.”

“Is this the one you were telling me about?” his father asked. “The one you said reminded you of yourself at that age?”

Astrid nodded. “Yes. Except she has a little more spunk to her, I think. She doesn’t get along with them, true, but a good part of that is because she isn’t afraid to talk back to them.”

His mother grinned brightly, and Julian couldn’t help a sudden spark of curiosity. Mostly his mother complained about her students and how flighty they were. A lot of them hadn’t seemed to graduate past the boy-crazy phase when they graduated high school. I haven’t heard anyone about this one, he thought. At least, not that I remember. Admittedly, he didn’t always listen as well as he probably should, although he would think something like this would have caught his attention.

“I don’t want to spend the afternoon giving out autographs...” Julian hedged, despite his curiosity.

“You won’t,” his mother said simply. “And she, at least, is unlikely to ask for one. She’s incredibly shy around boys.”

Better and better, Julian thought, grinning. The ones that came off as innocent and sweet were always so interesting. Usually, they were hiding some crazy, slutty part of them beneath the surface. Hmm, he thought, maybe she’ll want a birthday...

“Julian!” his mother said sharply, interrupting his thoughts. “I know exactly where your mind is going, and you can forget it right now. She isn’t that type of girl. So, are you coming, or not?”

“All right,” Julian conceded at last. “Let me go get changed.”

He stuffed some scrambled eggs and a few links of sausage between two slices of toast and chowed on it as he went back to his room. Despite what his mother said, Julian knew better. All girls were that type of girl; some of them just didn’t know it yet. At the very least, he’d get a few phone numbers. Girls are only good when they’re naked, he thought as he began to change. That’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it will always be.

---

Julian had arrived sometime after his mother, maybe a half hour after the class had started. Already he was surrounded by chatty, excited girls. His mother was watching with more amusement in her gray eyes than seemed necessary to him. She perched on her desk in a very un-Professor-like manner, still wearing her paint-covered shirt and that sloppy ponytail. Julian scanned the crowd of excited girls but saw no one who could have matched his mother’s description.

“So, uh ... where’s the birthday girl?” Julian asked uneasily.

“Backroom,” a brunette, Ashley, answered. “Ava! Hey, Ava!”

“She never comes, you know,” a blonde chirped in. “Come out of there, Ava!”

Julian’s mother gave a heavy sigh. “I’ve told you girls, it’s really quite easy. Avalon!”

For a moment Julian just stared at his mother, shocked. No one had ever seen the drawings of his imaginary girl; how could his mother know that name? It took him a moment to realize that she wasn’t looking at him at all. There were rustling sounds coming out of the back room, as though someone was struggling around piles of paper and bins of paint. Someone probably was. Julian turned his head to see what was going on.

“Yes, Professor Lafayette?” a soft voice asked.

Julian stared. He couldn’t help it. The girl who had appeared in the doorway was ... Avalon! Despite the glasses perched on her small, pert nose, he could see crystal blue eyes even from across the room. Her hair was pale, white-blond, plaited into a thick braid and coiled atop her head. There was so much of it and it looked heavy. A few strawberry freckles splattered her nose and high cheekbones, a pencil was tucked haphazardly behind one ear, and her mouth was deliciously full. Instead of sundresses, though, she wore old, faded jeans and a t-shirt stained with paint beneath an apron equally paint-stained.

“I wanted to surprise you for your birthday,” his mother said. “This is my son, Julian. You know of him ... he’s the leader of Electric Cowboy.”

Those blue eyes watched him intently as she slowly closed the distance between them. The room was strangely quiet and Julian felt a chill go down his spine. She stopped in front of him, her expression changing only the barest hint, for only the barest moment. He could have sworn he’d noticed a flash of curiosity and interest in her eyes. Then she held out her hand to him, and without thinking he took it, giving her a firm handshake. Although the others stared in surprise, she seemed hardly daunted.

“Pleasure to meet you,” she murmured, her eyes never leaving his face.

“Uh, yeah,” Julian stammered, feeling a little unnerved. “Um ... Avalon ... right?”

She nodded. “Avalon Vandeer.”

“Nice to meet you,” Julian said. “So I uh ... I heard it was your birthday today ... and that you’re a fan...”

“I wouldn’t call myself a ‘fan’,” Avalon mused. “Just someone who likes your music...”

Julian opened his mouth to protest that that was a fan, then stopped. Noticing the sudden spark of mischief in her eyes as she turned to gaze upon the other girls, he thought he understood what she was saying. When he thought of fans, he thought of screaming, fawning girls. Avalon certainly wasn’t that type. Everyone else was just ... people who liked his music, who respected his band. Which, as far as Julian was concerned, was much better than being regarded as a ‘fan’.