The Bet

Hello friend, and welcome to my entry into Literotica's 2024 Summer Lovin' Contest. You don't have to have read any of my other stories to enjoy this one. It's a slow burn that takes a while, but it'll get spicy.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

~~ Front Royal, Virginia - June ~~

"M-o-o-o-o-m! Where's Layla?" I could hear my son, Eric, yelling from the hallway.

"Did you look in the barn?" my wife Jill called back from the sink, where she was braiding her hair.

"I swear if his head wasn't attached..." I chuckled. I hopped out of the walk-in shower to the bench where my prosthetic foot waited for me.

"This might be the longest I've ever seen your hair," Jill said, ruffling her fingers through my damp scalp. "Another few weeks and you could put it in a cute little topknot."

"Blame your sister for going on vacation last month and me having to cover a shift during my regular appointment this month," I grumbled. I balanced on my good leg to pull up my underwear, sat down again to pull the neoprene sleeve that held my foot to the stump of my left leg up over my knee then reached for my jeans. "Been awhile for you too. You've got almost an inch of roots showing."

Jill turned to look in the mirror, teasing her bangs with one hand. "I know. I was thinking of seafoam this time, instead of my usual. What do you think?"

"Your hair, your choice. I'm still calling you Blue Girl no matter what color you dye it."

That earned me a smile. I returned it in the mirror as I pulled on my sports bra and t-shirt, then reached for my little tub of hair gel. My hair was a little too long to spike up into my normal flat-top, but I could at least slick it back to keep it from flopping down into my face.

During our incredibly brief courtship the summer we met, Jill's hair had been dyed an electric blue. In the nineteen years we'd been together since then, it had become a monthly tradition of ours to go to her sister's salon in Fairfax. Me for my usual flat-top hair cut and her for a trim and, every two or three months, a new dye job. Her hair had gone through many different hues over the years, from dark blue, to royal, to a deep almost purple to many multi-colored variations. Through all the years, I'd called her Blue.

My Blue Girl.

I moved to stand next to her as she resumed teasing her hair. She was frowning at the mirror.

"More like gray girl," she said, "I can't believe how many I have coming in now. If I didn't dye it I'd look like Emma Frost soon. Definitely in need of a coloring session."

"You look perfectly yummy to me." I rose onto my tiptoe, pulled down the neck of her t-shirt and kissed the spot where her neck met her shoulder, causing her to shiver.

"Hey! Don't get me going, Suzanne and Larry will be here any minute."

"Spoilsport." I gave the spot a little nibble, causing her knees to buckle.

"Eep!" she squeaked, "Jo, stop!"

I laughed. "Fine. We have all weekend for that, I suppose." I took her hand and we went in search of our son.

Eric wasn't in the house, but his backpack was sitting in front of the open sliding door to the barn, so we ambled down the steps and across the yard.

"Did you find her?" I called as we walked into the barn.

"Yeah, I'm back here," I heard him call from the workbench towards the back.

We lived on the farm where I'd grown up with my mom and dad and little brother Steve. It had a big ranch-style farmhouse, a smaller one-bedroom cabin we used as a guest room when we had visitors, a hanger for my dad's old Bell-47 helicopter and the barn. On the outside it appeared to be just like any old wooden barn you'd find on any old farm, but inside it was something else entirely. The walls were weather-proofed and half of the inside was set up as a music space. Four microphones stood in a semicircle on the dusty wooden floor, with a drum kit, an electronic keyboard on a stand and an old upright piano forming the other side. A large cabinet with glass doors against the wall revealed a number of guitars and various other instruments. One of the cabinet doors was standing wide open.

"Hey bud, this is a barn, but you weren't born in here. Close the cabinet doors when you get something out," I said, shutting the door.

"Sorry, Mama." Eric called from the workbench near the double-doors at the back of the barn where I parked the tractor and had my home gym.

"Whatcha up to?" Jill asked, as we walked over to him.

"Replacing my strings. It's been awhile and I figured I should do it before I leave so I don't have one pop while we're on stage." Eric had Layla, his '75 Fender Telecaster, laid out on the workbench, an old towel underneath.

"You know it's totally okay with me if you ever want to take off that Pride sticker. It's beat to hell," I told him for probably the hundredth time, jerking my chin towards the faded rainbow flag I'd put on the guitar's black lacquer finish years ago when it had been my instrument.

"I know, Mama," Eric said, for probably the hundredth time. "I like it, though. It heads off a lot of dudes from dropping homophobic bullshit on me before they find out I have two moms," he said.

A little corner of my mind acknowledged I kept saying that to him because it thrilled me to hear his matter-of-fact pride in his moms.

"Language," Jill said, though the amused tone of her voice belied the rebuke.

"Sorry, Mom. Anyway, girls think it's hot, so that's two reasons to keep it," he said with the trademark Collins smirk.

We watched him thread the last string through the bridge, up to the headstock and through the tuning peg. He used a winding tool on the tuning knob to quickly tighten the string, clipped off the excess with a pair of snips, then strummed across the strings, tuning by ear.

"Nice work, bud," I said. "C'mon, let's take her for a ride." I went back to the instrument cabinet and pulled out my usual choice for barn jamming, a dark red Gibson SG that had been my dad's. I settled the strap over my shoulder, as my boy did the same with his Telecaster. We both plugged into one of the small amps around the edge of the circle and clicked them on. Jill took a seat on the piano bench to watch as the electronic hum from the amps filled the barn with the promise of rock and roll.

I nodded at him to take the lead. His music tastes were pretty modern. I expected him to pick some new song I'd never heard, which was fine. He liked to try and stump me, but I was pretty good at improvisation.

He touched the distortion pedal on the ground with his right foot, then surprised me by launching into a series of heavy rock chords. It only took me the first five notes to recognize Van Halen's version of You Really Got Me.

"Hell yeah," I said under my breath, kicking one of my own pedals, spinning up my volume knob and launching into the rhythm chords. I played underneath him, letting him solo and throw licks all through the song. Eric wasn't Van Halen (I mean, who was beside Eddie?) but he had his own style that suited him well.

As we jammed, I saw Jill out of the corner of my eye, tapping her feet and drumming her hands on her knees, watching us with pride. Eric wasn't quite as good as me, but that was only because I had over thirty years of playing experience on him. He'd surpass me one day, maybe soon. He was a pretty good lyricist and songwriter too, which I was decidedly not. He and his band were already making splash around our corner of Virginia, playing mostly original stuff. I wasn't going to be surprised if music turned out to be his career.

He walked out the solo and the silence afterward was broken only by the low buzz from our amps and the distant crunching of a car slowly coming down our gravel drive.

"Good timing," I said, taking my guitar off and setting it in one of the stands around the circle. "Sounds like they're here. What made you pick that one?"

"I miss playing with Grandpa," Eric said, his eyes downcast to the worn floorboards.

We'd lost my father the summer before. He'd had a stroke, then a bigger stroke, then the biggest and final one, all in the space of a week. Dad had been a classic rock fiend. He'd almost refuse to play anything else, except on rare occasions. But Eric had been game his whole life, anytime Dad wanted to jam. They'd spent hours in the barn together, and Eric had learned every song Dad had ever thrown at him.

"Me too, bud." I put my arm around his shoulders and gave him a squeeze. It was a reach. The kid was taller than me, and gaining fast on Jill.

I looked out the barn door, and across the field to the big oak tree at the edge of our property. I couldn't see from this distance, but I knew where the two headstones were for my mom and dad in the protective shade of the old tree's mighty branches. I gave a wistful smile. Still miss you both, I thought towards them.

"Better get Layla in her case," Jill said as we heard the car park outside the barn and car doors opening. "You have extra strings? Your pedal case?"

"Yes, Mom," he said in that tone only teenagers can manage. He pulled Layla's battered travel case out from the stack in the corner and gently laid her inside, just as a tall, gangly African-American boy the same age as Eric sprinted into the barn, trailed by his mom, dad and sister.

"Ready dude?" The boy asked.

"Heck yeah, LJ! We're gonna kick some butt!" Eric said with enthusiasm as they high-fived.

"Hey Larry, Suze," I said.

"Thanks for taking them, Larry,'' Jill said. "Jo and I haven't had a weekend to ourselves in months."

"You owe me, grasshopper," said Larry Lawrence, Senior. "A weekend at a junior Battle of the Bands is going to leave me with a headache I'm sure."

"We'll take the kids some weekend this summer when you guys want a break," I said.

"Yes!" Larry's wife Suzanne gave an exaggerated fist pump, drawing noises of protest from her kids, which prompted laughter from the adults.

"S'up, Suze?" I asked Suzanne. We exchanged our usual greeting, a complex series of hand slaps, finger snaps, and fist bumps, then spinning around and bumping butts. We still loved doing it after three decades, mainly because it never failed to make our son's eyes roll.

"How you doing, Esme?" Jill asked the teenage girl who had trailed Larry Jr. into the barn.

"Good, Aunt Jill."

"You ready to keep these bozos on the beat?" I asked her.

"Hey!" Eric and LJ said together.

"You know it, Aunt Jill! Everyone knows the bass is the real rhythm driver!"

"Says you!" Larry Jr., snapped.

I was teasing, LJ was quite the drummer.

"Save it for the car ride to Reston you two," I said with a grin.

"Thanks a lot, Jo!" Larry complained.

"What's y'all's plan?" I asked.

"Gonna try and get to the venue by two, check it out, see if we can get a quick sound check. Then we're having dinner with Liz and Addison. They're meeting their friends Megan and Kat at the Lost Dog and invited us to crash the party."

"Nice. Tell 'em we said 'hi'."

"Man, we gotta win guys," Eric said. "This could be our big break!"

The winner of the battle of the bands contest our kids were entering won a full day in a professional recording studio. The kids had been talking about it for a month, arguing about what songs of theirs they'd want to record to cut their first official demo.

"Settle down kiddos," Jill said. "Don't count chickens. Just make sure you have fun on stage. Let the rest take care of itself."

"What she said," I agreed. "Now go on, get outta here. Us moms gotta get some practice in."

Jill, Suzanne and I walked the kids and Larry out to his SUV, helped them load up then watched them drive away until they turned onto the road leading back to town.

"Let's get to work, ladies. I want to get that Keiko Matsui song down for tonight," Jill said.

"Let's do it!" Suzanne said.

We walked back into the barn and I picked up my SG again, while Suzanne got the spare bass she kept in the cabinet, an old black fretless Fender. Jill sat at the piano and we started a run through of Falcon's Wing, a song by the Japanese jazz piano artist Jill had picked out.

The rock band, The Rotors, that we'd all been in along with Larry and my brother Steve, had petered out, mostly due to the time pressures of kids and careers. We still did a reunion concert every summer in Arlington, and usually managed to pack the house with the group of friends and fans we'd made over the years.

Awhile back I'd had myself a mid-life crisis, getting into a funk that lasted a few months, until Jill had figured out that I was unhappy about not getting to perform anymore. That's how things usually worked between us, Jill figured out what was wrong with me before I did.

One day I'd been noodling around in the barn with a Rippingtons song, Before Sunrise. Jill had joined me, improvising on her keyboard. That night at dinner, she'd mentioned there was a jazz festival in Manassas in a few months. She talked me into recording a demo, one song each by Russ Freeman, Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour. We'd also done one piano song by David Benoit to show off her skills.

Jill submitted our demo, and to my surprise they invited us to play a thirty minute set on the opening day of the festival. (For minimal pay.) We'd recruited Suzanne to make a trio and worked up a half-dozen songs. On the smallest stage and as the first act of the day, we hadn't expected to make a splash, but by the end of our set we'd drawn a fair sized crowd. We'd been a hit, and since then had gotten moderately successful. We'd played the same festival every year since, plus a couple others. Last year they'd moved us to Saturday night to the main stage to open for the featured performer.

We'd also scored a regular gig at the fancy brew pub in downtown Front Royal last year. They'd started having a regular jazz night on the third Saturday of every month featuring us truly, a departure from their usual rock or folk live musical acts. We didn't draw quite as many people, but the manager told us the crowd we did pull in spent a lot more on fancy cocktails and wine, so financially it was a wash for them. We even played at a jazz club in Georgetown, D.C. three or four times a year when they were hard up for an act.

"That was tight, Jill," Suzanne said after we wrapped up our third play-through of Falcon's Wing, "I think that's songs ready."

"For sure, let's lead off the second set with it tonight," I agreed.

"You think? Feels a little rough in the second half," Jill said.

"Nah, you got it babe. You're better in front of a crowd anyway."

It was true. When Jill first started playing with The Rotors she'd been so self conscious. But after a few years she'd become a natural performer. She was always better with a crowd than in rehearsal. I was so proud of her.

"You know, tonight is maybe my favorite night of the month," Suzanne said.

"Me too," I agreed. "I always look forward to hearing you say..."

~~ Later that night ~~

"Ladies and gentlemen," Suzanne said into her mic, "We are The Bluebirdz." Then we launched into our usual opening number, Room 335.

The song was Larry Carlton's ode to the famous Gibson ES-335 hollow-body guitar model he favored. The exact same model currently resting on my thigh.

For our tenth wedding anniversary Jill had given me a Gibson ES with a Blueberry Burst top. I'd complained about how much money she'd spent (mainly because she'd upstaged my gift of diamond earrings to her), but it was my most prized possession. I'd named her Little Wing, after the Stevie Ray Vaughan version of the song that was the first tune I ever played on her, the night Jill had given her to me. She was pretty much all I played when we performed, except the rare occasions we wanted a less electric sound, then I'd switch to Belle, my white Yamaha acoustic. But most nights I wouldn't even pull Belle out of her case.

The song was a great opener for us. It had some rock elements that would hit our audience right in the face, and let them know we weren't about that 'smooth jazz', Kenny G shit. It also straight-up stole the organ line from Steely Dan's Peg, which was a useful hook for older folks who had happened to come to the brew-pub for dinner and weren't necessarily jazzophiles.

I finished my first long part, transitioned to background chords to give Jill the lead, to the sound of several yeah!'s and woo!'s from the audience. I looked back and made eye contact with Suzanne on her electric upright bass and we shared some nods and grins as Jill's fingers danced through her organ solo. She killed it as usual. As good as Donald Fagan, in my own opinion. I'm sure I'm biased though.

We always set up in a tight triangle, Jill stage left, seated behind her keyboard, me stage right, perched on a tall stool and Suzanne in the middle and slightly behind us. We played in the corner of the restaurant, rather than the outdoor stage they had for most live music.

I had no idea how Suzanne could practice on a standard Fender bass, then perform on an electric upright, but she did. Anytime I gave her shit about it she just said it was because she was a better musician than me. As if. But she was the Warren County school district's primary strings and orchestra instructor, and she sure could do some pretty bow work when she took a solo.

At our first practice, Suzanne had taken one look at my guitar and Jill's hair and announced that we had to call ourselves The Bluebirds. We later had to change it to Bluebirdz, because we found out there was a blues band named the Bluebirds from the eighties and nineties with about a dozen albums. But it was still so perfect we didn't even bother to brainstorm other names. Jill, as always, wore an elegant black dress. I was, as always, in a black dress shirt and slacks. Tonight I also had thrown on my silver vest to fancy up a bit, since this had potential to be a 'date weekend' for me and Jill. Suzanne, as always, was wearing a brilliant blue evening dress to compliment Jill's hair and my guitar and complete the Bluebird theme. She'd amassed quite a collection of blue dresses since we'd formed our group. Tonight it was a sleeveless number with spaghetti straps and a slit up the side that showed a lot of leg as she played her bass.

We finished the song to a round of applause and moved straight into one of our own compositions called Life Flight. Unlike The Rotors, which had pretty much been a straight cover band, about half of what The Bluebirds performed was original material. I'd been a shit songwriter when it came to rock or pop songs, I was definitely no lyricist. But with Jill as my co-writer, it turned out we could write some pretty slick jazz tunes.

We'd even recorded a live album of our originals with the help of an old friend who used to be The Rotors sound guy. We'd sell a couple download codes after most shows, people who wanted to support us. Suzanne wanted to get a vinyl record pressed to sell as merch, but we hadn't quite gotten popular enough yet to lay out that kind of money. We did sell t-shirts, with three cartoon birds holding instruments. Jill had done the artwork.

We finished Life Flight, and transitioned smoothly into a cover of Spyro Gyra's Shakedown. Then we went on a run of about eight of our own compositions. We ended the set with Gail Jhonson's Keystroke, showcasing Jill again, and finally the Santino Surfer's Sun Rise Swell. I'd recently discovered the band from the twenty-twenties decade and had immediately worked up arrangements for a half dozen of their songs. They weren't traditional jazz, but they were definitely a vibe. The song made Little Wing seem to come alive in my hands, like she was the fourth member of the band.