Hard, hard hard day.

The music from that night still pounded in Munky’s ears, even though he had been lounging around the hotel room he would share with Jon for quite some time. All he could think about was Head, playing with him, his teammate. Together they created one maniacal rock god. That night each note from Head echoed to him like words

(shoulda told her face-to-face my friend. What if she plans to fuck someone while you’re gone…be fucking someone when you come back to her with arms open wide)

But the most heart-wrenching thing of all—what stayed with him long into the night—was Jon’s pained voice. Every song came from a place deep within Jon. Each song was a turmoil, a conquest, a brew of all his confusion. Onstage he became what he hated about his life, about himself. Everything he felt came pouring out honestly, through his screams as well as his whispers. Munky, Head, David, and Fieldy merely provided the soundtrack. They were just the vehicle of Jon’s message.

As sick and twisted as Jon’s lyrics were, it was even more disturbing that millions related to them. There were an uncountable number of kids that KoRn reached, kids who had voices in their heads, kids who were abused, kids who went through things most adults couldn’t fathom—and didn’t want to.

Korn hadn’t reached adults for a specific reason: after a certain point in one’s life, one doesn’t have the patience to listen to oneself anymore. Most people become completely engrossed in the System, nine-to-five jobs, bills, and their widening gut. Not many face what they went through as children, never mind trying checking out how their kids feel. They can, they figure, hire a therapist for that. They plop their babies in front of the television and let the media raise their kids. It’s easier that way. Burying bad memories of the early years leaves people with a pleasant, picture-perfect memorabilia of being young. Childhood terrors therefore stay with adults all their life, just bobbing underneath the surface. All the violence and fucked up shit in this world, Munky believed, were from a bad childhood forced into the bowels of the mind.

Oh, he didn’t know how right he was about that!

Korn didn’t ignore the children. They were the children’s voice.

That’s why adults didn’t listen.

Tonight, as with the other nights for the past month, Munky was left with the one song that got to him so much. That night, Head looked at him from the other side of the stage. They never ever looked at each other, though they were one of the same. Ever. And yet Head did it tonight. Munky’s finger had slipped off of the guitar as the singing fans joined in with Jon. 20,000 voices singing the same words back to KoRn, as frantically as Jon himself:

Jimmy was sure that if he could go back, he would slap the bitch who had "tricked" him, cut off her nipples, and hang them over the stage as a prop.

But he couldn’t take it back, could he? No matter what happened from here, he could as well undo the past as he could meet Jesus and take a Polaroid. As he settled into bed, he grabbed one of the cheap pillows from underneath the starchy sheets and hugged it. He was getting everything that came along with slighted love. He couldn’t blame the alcohol, the groupie, or his loneliness. He could only blame himself.

Yes, he could only blame himself.

Jon wasn’t here yet. Munky had offered to share the only leftover first-class suite at the hotel that night, because there was no guarantee Jon would show up at all if he saw a pretty face. Jon could get any ass, whenever he wanted it, no matter her age or her modeling contract. Maybe Head and the rest of them—even Munky—saw this all in the wrong light. They could get any woman they wanted, anytime! Shouldn’t they take advantage of it every once in a while? He was only human, goddammit, and he should act like it.

Besides, what she had done to him had felt so good. As he lay in bed he felt it again. Her body was silk; her long red hair rubbed against his lower abdomen as she kissed him in places Kaitlin refused to. He told the bitch she didn’t have to do it, to kiss him and take him in her mouth, but she did and…Christ.

He made sure that the hotel room was locked and quietly drew the curtains. When he was done, he tentatively reached into his pants. In privacy, he exorcised his desires. There was a light in his eyes as he felt it coming. All he could think of were those kisses, and the way she so bravely mounted him like the dirty whore she was….

Whore. That’s what he needed. A little whore.

Who gave a fuck about Kaitlin? This was his life. He knew that in twenty years he’d be some washed-up loser, anyway, with a pot-belly and a brittle moustache, smoking a Winston through yellowed teeth and reminiscing of his young days, when he could get it up and have a go without Viagra. Would Kaitlin be there? Absolutely not. The cunt would run as soon as he got home. Or maybe before he came home. He didn’t really care either way.

Or did he?

Kaitlin would leave. As women age and their boobs droop, their dreams soar. She’ll go off to be some big-shot lawyer. She’s waited for the opportunity to drop his ass for years. He was sure of it. So, should he suffer tonight, knowing that it didn’t matter anymore? Besides, he had already told her he wasn’t faithful. Did it really count, then, how many times it happened?

"Shut up," he shouted to himself. As his own liquid dried on himself, he pulled up the covers from his bed and jumped in. The bed springs bounced. He winced. Christ. What was he thinking? Who was that talking? Had it been common sense?

"No, just your dick trying to trick you," he decided out loud. He had to stay strong. Kaitlin loved him, and she was going through hell right now. And he had the audacity to think bullshit like that…?

He fell asleep, his legs tightly together and his heart aching beneath his own guilt.

He awoke about an hour later. He couldn’t take it anymore. Kaitlin would leave. She would make him a single man…why not start taking advantage of it? These were the horniest years of his life. Fuck Head and the rest of them. Jon hadn’t come to the room…Jon was the smart one. Munky was going to be smart, too. Zipping up his pants, he left the room and looked down the long white corridor, which was as blank to him as the halls of his own house would soon be.

He could give a flying fuck.

In the elevator he wiped the pillow creases from his face. He checked his pants for cum; made sure that his hair was decent. In the lobby of the hotel he picked up a list of the local bars. It would only take one. As he walked away with it, an old man and a young woman—dressed quite scantily for her age, followed.

After circling the lobby a couple of times he got back into the elevator. The piece of paper wrought a sudden change of heart. What was he doing? What if Head found out? Just because he was confused right now didn’t mean that he had to fuck around on Kaitlin again. He could just go up into the room and stab the bed for hours. For once the idea had prospect.

A hand stopped the elevator just before it closed. As it sprang obediently back open, the girl and the old man entered. The old man was silent as he cued it to the top floor—the same floor Munky was staying in—and the slow descent began. He checked to make sure that there were no cameras, and then he spoke. "She’s a rookie," was all he said. The little blonde blushed fiercely, her palms sweating against her tight red miniskirt.

At first Munky didn’t know if he was talking to him. "What do you mean?" he asked when he saw the old man’s glare.

"She’s a starter. First time. A virgin. I’ll give her to you for cheap." He took out his hand from his pocket. He extended it in a handshake, but Munky withheld. What the hell?

"I saw you looking at her."

"Sir, I’m not interested—" But he was. Despite himself.

The old man seemed unphased by this, for at a cue, the young girl pressed herself voluptuously against Munky and grabbed his crotch. He tried to move away, but the obtrusive pleasure sunk in. Instinct forwarded a quick payment. Before he knew it he was leading the young girl into his hotel room and flicking off the light.

The girl had been brave in the elevator, but when Munky tried to undress her on the bed, she was tense. She shrunk away as he kissed her on the neck, as he struggled to slip his hand into her velvet bra for a firm, cheeky breast. The rage rose within him. This was a young girl: maybe fifteen, with the body of a 20 year-old and Mandy Moore’s innocence. Fuck yeah.

He didn’t stop even when she begged him to; the blood rushing through his body wouldn’t let him stop. He had paid $1,000 for her. He was gonna have fun with her. When she started shrieking—just before he ripped off her thong—he stuffed his boxers into her mouth.

He had no fucking clue what he was doing. All he felt was that lust, the loneliness. Kaitlin was a numb cunt, and he was irate. Didn’t she understand that sometimes people make fucking mistakes?

The garbled sounds from the girl turned him on even more. Now she was thrashing. Well, he could have none of that! He held her slender hands in his and forced himself between two tense legs. Without a condom. Even after five years, Kaitlin still made him use a condom. She refused to go on birth control. He had used up enough rubber on her to make a Latex jumpsuit for Fieldy, but she didn’t care. Did that bitch feel? He didn’t think so. He almost lost it as the cherry popped, as her innocence dissolved into a trickle of scarlet blood. Her face was as scarlet as her innocence, red and tearful, but he could care less. He came hard and fast and deep. His orgasm was monstrous, ripping through him violence less than a minute after he had entered her. He had always wanted to do this with Kaitlin…but no. She would never go for a quickie, either. He always had to drag it on and on until she’d had a whole bag of cookies…

Her body was a rag doll after he pulled out. Limbs askew. Ragged breathing. He made her promise not to scream as he tugged at his boxers. He took them out. She was silent, biting her lower lip.

Good girl.

He made her suck on him until he was hard again. As soon as he was he flipped her over, took her hips and yanked them up towards him. This time the little cunt didn’t beg at all. She had a really nice, firm ass, the skin tight and the shape round. Mmmm. Kaitlin never let him do her this way, either, never let him take her from behind. It would hurt, she complained. It wasn’t clean, she complained. It was dirty and nasty to want to do it this way, she complained…she would bleed, she complained, and would get hemorrhoids in a couple years, she complained…

Bitch…

"Uuh," Munky grumbled in his sleep. His fist held bundles of sheet, and his legs writhed.

Moans came from him periodically, and Jon watched with interest from the bed beside him until he woke up, sweating. As his eyes shot open he almost sobbed in relief. He clapped a hand over his mouth.

Just a dream. All of it. Just a dream.

Thank God. He wanted to puke. The entire thing: the rape, the rape of a young girl, the rape of an innocent soul. He tried to hide his gigantic erection under the covers, but it was too late; Jon had seen it. Jon was raped as a child: that single fact ran through his head as he looked at Jon guiltily.

"So, are you going to fill me in on this hot and heavy dream or am I just going to have to use my vivid imagination?" he asked lightly. Munky wondered why he was up. He looked quite comfortable. He had been watching Munky as he slept. The thought sent a shiver up his spine. He didn’t want Jon to watch him while he slept. He also wanted to take his pillow down to the lobby and get another room, but that was out of the question. Something in Jon’s crooked smile made his stomach turn.

"It was nothing. You know how it is."

"Yeah. Jimmy?"

"What?" Munky asked. He turned from Jon and pulled his covers over his shoulders.

There was such a fargone look in Jon’s eyes. All Munky could see was Jon taking off his skirt onstage to reveal his Tommy Lee Short Shorts. And then, later on, caught with a Playgirl magazine in his dressing room, his Short Shorts at his ankles.

Nope. No one knew the real Jon.

When Munky had first met Jon in 1993, he had been so quiet, so reserved. He had been tall; inexorably thin, a young man who had seen more than most twice his age. Now he was going crazy. Munky would like to comfort him…but as Head and David learned the hard way, Jon took comfort a little too far.

They refused to tell Munky about it. They never mentioned it; the look when Jon went into his private room told all.

Munky felt Jon’s finger traipse over his shoulder. Munky swiped it away. Jon was standing at Munky’s bedside. He sat on it. The springs gave into his weight, jauntily this time. "Have you ever wondered what it feels like to—"

"No. Jon, go to sleep. We have a show tomorrow."

But he didn’t stop. He kept on going, pulling the covers from Munky’s shoulders. Munky pretended to fall asleep, thinking that he might go away. He didn’t. Munky finally sat up. Jon was fully on the bed now, one knee over each side of Munky’s torso. "Go away, man! Dude, I’m not like that! What the fuck’s wrong with you?"

"I know how to touch you," Jon whispered. "I know how to make you feel so gooooood…" He ran a hand down Munky’s chest. And then he burst out laughing. Munky sighed. Another one of Jon’s sick, homophobic jokes. He should have known, but at midnight in the wake of a fucking nightmarish dream, he hadn’t been in the mood. Besides, he could have sworn there was something more in Jon’s vacant gaze. Munky forced a dry laugh. Jon was like that.

As soon as Jon burst out laughing, he rolled off of Munky, the bed coils springing as he fell onto the space next to him. "Man, what’s up with you?" he asked as his eyes teared over. To him, it was hysterical. For once, Munky had actually taken him seriously.

Munky rolled away from him and punched his fist into his pillow. "I just don’t fucking like you getting on me like that, man. That’s so—gay." For lack of a better word. "Don’t fucking straddle me like I’m your bitch."

"Sorry, honey, I’ll be more considerate of your feelings next time," Jon whispered in Munky’s ear, cooing to him. He snuck in a peck on the cheek before Munky grabbed his pillow and wacked Jon with it, so hard that Jon sailed off the side of the bed and onto the floor. Now it was Munky’s turn to chuckle, and Jon, rubbing his butt beneath his boxers, laughed too. They both laid in their own beds, and after a few minutes of silence, Jonathan said, seriously, "Sorry if I made you nervous there, man. I--"

"S’ok."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Goodnight Jon."

"You do know that you’re my bitch, right?" Munky could just see Jon’s maniacal grin in the dark, and decided to humor him this time.

"Yes."

"Ok. Good." Munky tried to close his eyes again. Tried counting down from one hundred backwards. Even after Jon’s breath became deep and even, Munky stayed awake, looking at the ceiling, half-wanting to sleep, half-dreading it. What was waiting for him when he closed his eyes next? He found out when he finally did slip back into oblivion: a repressed memory .

Munky was an adult, and there was something that was about to surface.