A Certain History

Jade sat down, unbeknown to her just metres from Jose, one of Miguel's brothers who was keeping a close eye on her, and watched the hills in the distance all changing colours as they undulated and moved in strange shapes before her eyes. They had all been up on the trip for four hours now and since Miguel had told them his special brand of mushrooms lasted for eight hours there was no coming back down to earth for any of them just yet. Sitting in the sun and watching the hills roll, each changing to a different shade of purple Jade found her cigarettes from her pocket and lit one, sitting and watching for what felt like only a few moments, but what was in fact two hours until the hills stopped rolling and all of a sudden there was nothing but a rumbling noise in the distance.

Getting up, her ears hearing the noise picking up pace and getting louder Jade could see a brilliant white line moving from the hills towards her, the sound becoming like thunder. She walked a little faster, her legs almost reaching a jog as her curious mind wanted to investigate the bright whiteness and the sound behind it. On she ran, until finally she saw what it was coming towards her and froze on the spot. There, at a flat out gallop were thousands of bright white horses all charging towards her.

'Shit, I can't run out of the way in time, shit they're going to trample me! SHIT!' She exclaimed as the noise of thousands of pounding hooves grew deafening as she stood and watched the animals all charging for her. She huddled herself up and covered her head in her arms, waiting for the pain of them to trample her to death, yet when she felt the air blowing past her at an alarming rate no trampling happened. She could hear the horses neighing and snorting, and when she finally felt brave enough to look she saw them, by the thousand all galloping past her, swerving at the last moment so they didn't hit her. She held her hands out and felt their soft white coats on her fingers, their silky manes over her hands as they sped past, and the euphoria she felt as she was near deafened by the sound of their hooves was so glorious she couldn't put words to it. Then suddenly the noise completely stopped and the horses vanished all bar one. A huge black horse stood alone six foot from her, and she knew him instantly; it was Kenzo, her horse.

'Hey gorgeous boy! Kenzo, hey come here!' she said as Kenzo made a sweet whickering noise from his nose, pleased to see his beloved owner. She reached out and stroked his muzzle, pleased to see him too but knowing somewhere in the back of her head he wasn't really here, he was back in his stable in California. She wondered what the purpose of seeing him was, why he had come to her when suddenly he squealed and turned on his heels to gallop away.

'Kenzo come back! Come on boy come back!' Jade shouted, yet the black horse ran away and didn't return. Jade looked back and suddenly saw what had made him run; her biological father stood with a gun in his hand.

'Robert Pavey' said Jade, speaking words she didn't intend to. Why was her mouth talking when she had no control over it?

'Jade Pavey' he replied, lowering the gun.

'My name has never been Pavey you asshole!' she replied. Robert chewed the inside of his cheek for a few moments before answering in his thick Irish accent.

'One day it could be, if you let me back into your life' he replied. She looked at him in sheer disbelief, then suddenly lunged at him, grabbing the gun from his hand and throwing him to the floor.

'This is for my mother' she snarled, then shot him over and over in the head at point blank range, until the fragments of his skull blown apart with the gun all suddenly turned into a silvery liquid and ran into a pool. The rest of his body liquefied too and followed along into the silvery pool which suddenly took shape and began to rise up from the ground. When it was properly formed Jade saw the image of her 'real' father standing in front of her, eyes wide with a smile that lit up his whole face. She smiled back and ran into his arms.

'Some parts of your future can been seen so clearly right now, but you will have to wait years, and face much sadness for them to appear again' he said to her as he held her in his arms.

'What do you mean dad?' asked Jade, feeling him rub her back.

'You will find out one day sweetheart, one day you will know' replied the hallucinated form Steven as he held his eldest. Jade just looked up at him and smiled before resting her head into his chest and basking in her father's adoration. She stood and felt him hold her tightly for a few more moments before asking him another question.

'How long is this trip going to last dad? I know you aren't really here' said Jade, before hearing a voice she didn't expect.

'Well you must be fairly up in the air still if you're calling me dad' replied Jim as he rested his chin on Jade's head. She looked up suddenly and saw who's arms she was really being held tightly in.

'What's going on? Am I really seeing you or are you just a mirage?' said Jade.

'No I'm here for real dude, Corey and I started coming back down again about a half hour ago. Some things are still weird but I think I'm over the intense stuff' said Jim, his voice changing in strange ways to Jade's still trippy mind.

'What time is it?' she asked, still being held tightly.

'Six o' clock, we've been out of it all day roaming around apparently' said Jim, this time sounding a little more normal. Jade figured she must have been starting to come down too as her vision sharpened and her ears felt like they had popped. Holding her hand and walking her back to where Corey was sat in conversation with Miguel, telling the friendly but fearsome looking Mexican man all about his trip, Jim guided Jade into a seat and let her sit with her head down for a bit. Apparently sickness could plague you as an after effect of these mushrooms, which Jade proved by being sick twice into a bucket Miguels wife had rushed over with upon seeing her sit and heave.

'Smoke some of this, it helps' said Miguel passing her a joint. Jade could hardly believe almost eight hours had passed since she had first swallowed the mushrooms, it seemed like only an hour. After drinking a special herbal tea Miguel's wife had raided her stocks for to help her queasy tummy Jade watched as Chris and Jen came ambling back, both coming back down with the same sickness Jade had suffered too. Once they had been given the same tea and weed combination they all sat and talked with Miguel about what they had seen. The weaselly looking man liked to know about his customers experiences.

'I saw all these white horses, all galloping at me. Thousands of them there were' said Jade as she described her trip. Suddenly Miguel and all of his brothers smiled and nodded knowingly.

'They say that if you are visited by the horses, you are blessed. You experienced something special there' said Miguel as Jade, finished her drink.

'Why only me though? Why didn't anyone else see them too?' she asked.

'Not everyone is lucky enough to receive such blessings, sometimes only half of what you see is created by your mind' said Miguel cryptically. Jade made a puzzled face for a few moments then smiled, figuring it best just to humor him rather than ask anything else. It was only a trip after all. They stayed at the bar until gone 1am before driving back to the hotel, with Jade taking the drive very slowly just to be on the safe side and feeling glad when she got into bed and more or less passed out as soon as her head touched the pillow. She needed a good nights sleep for what was to come, which would be where the carnage of the tour really kicked off. It must have been something about not playing for almost a week that did it, but the energy that poured out of both bands when they finally played the Mexico shows was so great several riots broke out in the audiences, and all four venues across the Mexican leg of the tour were trashed, Geffen and Roadrunner records equally footing the bill. It didn't stop in Mexico though.

For the remainder of the US leg of the tour the bands and crowds alike went wild. To name each and every show where the mayhem happened would take forever, but by the time the bands boarded a plane to take them to Europe the list of damages read as follows-

32 trashed hotel rooms
15 venues suffered damage from rioting (including burst water pipes, smashed windows, seats torn out)
6 assorted members receiving life long bans from various clubs along the way
1 arrest in Houston, Texas for street fighting (Jess vs a drunk guy calling her a 'whore')
1 near charge of arson (that couldn't be filled since the perpetrator- one Mr S. Wilson was trying to set fire to himself rather than public property)

The tour was getting a lot of press, and for all the talk going on outside of the tour about the carnage thus far, there was equal amounts of it going on inside the tour, but over a different topic. Band members and roadies alike were all talking quietly among themselves at just what was going on between Jim and Jade.

'So they are sleeping together right?'

'Friends that fuck or something like that?'

'Are they actually together? They look like they are'

'Do you think they just don't want anyone to know they are an item?'

The above is just a handful of the comments made, mostly by roadies, about the two J's. Not that it was anyone else business but theirs, but anyone who wanted to know (bar the obvious of fans and press) got told the simple truth; 'We are friends with benefits, nothing more and nothing less'. It was all only a matter of time though before the two aforementioned started to talk.Some fans had seen them looking more 'together' than friends at after show parties, and through word of mouth and careless whisper the rock press had now got wind of it too, something Jade had hoped they wouldn't try and stick their noses into. But such as it was, journalists started to ask questions whilst interviewing her. Interviews that went something like the one Corey was reading in a copy of Metal Hammer somewhere between Manchester and Birmingham on the UK leg of the tour as he curled up in his bunk with a cup of coffee.

MH - Jade, thanks for taking the time to sit and talk to us. Well from what we've been hearing it sounds like you've had one hell of a tour so far then?
JB - Yes, that's putting it mildly! We had a few worried days down in Mexico when Craig was ill, but he came bouncing back like the rest of them (Slipknot's sampler along with a few other assorted members was struck down with food poisoning just after the tour rolled into Mexico six weeks ago).
MH - And what do you have to say about the amount of damage left in your wake so far?
JB - I would like to keep a dignified silence on that.
MH - I don't think most people would see how you guys have behaved that dignified! All those who don't understand what it is to live and breathe rock and roll that is!
JB - We're a band on tour, we go out and we have fun, simple as! If people have a problem with that, then that's their problem, not mine.
MH - Okay, that leads me onto the next question. A lot of talk has been going around about what might or might not be happening between you and a certain member of Slipknot, care to shed any light?
JB - I've no idea what you are talking about!
MH - So you haven't heard the rumours stating you and Jim (Root- Slipknot's guitarist) are dating then?
JB - Of course I have, but there's no truth in it at all. Don't believe everything you hear.

After asking her this particular question, I notice her tone towards me turns colder than an Eskimos glove and decide that perhaps I might have hit a raw nerve here. Fiercely secretive over her private life I can only guess my little question has rattled the first lady of rock so I move on, before that look in her eye gets any more dangerous......

'God, leave her the fuck alone!' exclaimed Corey from his bunk as he skim read the rest of the interview, and laughed. He could feel Jade's venom towards the interviewer gathering momentum as it went along, with all the riduculous and personal questions he was firing at her; he was surprised she hadn't just got up and walked out which was a stunt she had become quite famous for nowerdays if she didn't like what she was being asked. He hated the fact that just because they were famous she and his good friend and band mate Jim were now being harassed into exposing their private lives, it pissed him off big time. It was one reason he would never let anyone, media or otherwise, take pictures of him and his wife together. He wouldn't stand for his beloved to be harrassed in the same manner. Later on that evening in a hotel room in Birmingham, the two culprits found themselves talking over it too.

'Well any move I make outside of my life in the band seems to get swooped upon by some journalist or another so I saw this coming' said Jade, resting her head on his chest as she heard the final noises from their partying coming to an end outside their room.

'Well, I don't give a shit either so they can say whatever they want, makes no difference to me' replied Jim, curling a strand of her hair around his finger.

'Good, because what happens when it's just us should be between just us...... no one else needs to know how perverted you are' said Jade, rolling onto her front and beginning to kiss his chest.

'Oh and you're just little miss innocent I suppose?' asked Jim, looking down at her pulling a very cute expression.

'Of course I am, just a sweet little angelic girl being corrupted by a big, sexy, dirty minded man' said Jade before pressing her lips to his in a kiss so hot it guaranteed not another word was uttered between them for at least that moment in time. Jade felt his hands slide down her arms and up over her back as they kissed, his fingers trailing up and down her spine in a similar skilled way she had watched them travel up and down the neck of his guitar, and he possessed much skill at both pursuits. His talent was definitely a turn on. She sucked his tongue and stroked his soft black hair as he hands continued to wander, grabbing her ass and kneading the soft roundness of each cheek in his big hands as her mouth broke from his and kissed and sucked on his neck.

Jim moaned softly, very content to have his bed partner of choice back just there. In the last week the partying had become so fueled both were usually too out of it to even kiss each other, let alone share some of the steamy sex that they had grown to enjoy from each other. At that moment, whether it be journalists, crazy parties or the tour itself, they were both just glad it was back to being them left alone to do whatever they pleased to each other.......