Battle of the Girl Bands, Part Two

Battle of the Girl Bands, part two
“I can’t wait to see my favorite band!” Jodi said, as she and Penny entered the busy theatre.
“Who are they again?” Penny asked.
“I told you. The Jays!”
“Okay, but who are they?”
Jodi rolled her eyes. “They’re only like, the best New Wave band coming out of the Riverside area! I’m gonna have them sign my program guide.”
“Okay, but remember,” Penny gently chided her dark-haired friend, “We’re here to cover the whole Battle of the Girl Bands, not just meet your favorite group.” The editor-in-chief of the Riverside University Torch had sent her best reporter and photographer team to the Arts Center to cover the unique showcase of female talent. Women-only rockers from all over the country had descended on this little University in the hopes of becoming the next Bangles or Bananarama.  Rumor had it major record labels had sent scouts. “I don’t care if you hang out in their dressing room beforehand,” Penny told her friend, “But once the show starts I need you front and center, snapping shots.”
   With that explained, they split up. Penny went to interview the organizer of the Battle while Jodi darted off to photograph different bands. Penny knew her pal was really just looking for the Jays, but as long as she got plenty of shots of other bands that was fine.
   Riverside U.’s auditorium was attached to a main building full of classrooms that were today being used by the twenty or so different bands. Each impromptu dressing room door bore the name of its group inside. Jodi eagerly walked down the hallways in search of her favorite band. She encountered and photographed plenty of other female musicians along the way, but her heart skipped when she finally found the classroom with the sparkling pink star-shaped sign that said “Jays.”
   She knocked on the door. The conversation on the other side of the door stopped, froze. Jodi knocked again, no sound but a few whispers of people who seemingly wished she’d go away, in stark contrast to the nervous energy of the dozens of musicians she’d encountered so far. Jodi knocked again, “Hello? Press.”
A stocky girl answered by opening the door just a crack, her chubby cheeks bordered by the doorjamb and door. “Yes?”
“Um, I’m from the RiverSide U. Torch, wanted to take some pictures.”
“Well, we’re very busy. Come back after the show?”
“What do you mean, we?”
“Eh?”
“Well you’re not in the band anymore, right, Christine? I read about it in Riverside Riffs. Ms. McGill replaced you. Um, I mean, no offense.”
“I’m singing for just today. That blonde bimbo of a replacement caught the cold.”
She tried to slam the door, but Jodi had literally stuck her foot in the door.
“Oh please! I’m your biggest fan, see?” Jodi held up a picture of the jays that was in Riverside Riffs. “Jenna, Jessica, Julie! I know their real names too. Couldn’t you just let me take one photo?”
Coldly, Christine lowered her gaze, fixed her eyes Jodi’s. Then she let go of the door, threw it wide open, and took a step back.
“Why don’t you come in? You’ll see we’ve made all sorts of changes.”

* * *    
  For the first time of the day, Penny was worried. Jodi had wandered off but agreed to meet her in the center of the front row, press only seats, at exactly 2pm. That was a half an hour ago. The show was about to start. She could believe a different sort of girl was off somewhere, smoking weed or hooking up with a cute roadie, but not Jodi. When push came to shove she always put professionalism first. So where was she?
  The press seats were filling up with men in suits, women in blazers and skirts, everyone wearing plastic ids around their necks. Thousands of young people began filling the three decks of red velvet seats. Lights dimmed, cigarette lighters dotted the arena. The show was about to begin.
   Penny jolted upright. Jodi should have, would have, returned by now. The girl reporter ran up the center aisle, out into the lobby and took a hard right to the doors that led to the classrooms/dressing rooms. She combined her charm with her press ID to get past the security guard, then made her way down the hall as briskly as her heels and tight pencil skirt allowed. She asked punk girl drummers and guitarists with multiple piercings where she could find the Jays, knowing Jodi would’ve swung by their dressing room sooner or later. A girl with a purple spikey perm told her to try the last classroom on the right. Penny went and knocked,  “Press. Riverside University Torch.”
  No one answered, but she could hear whispering.
“I need to talk to someone,” she persisted.
“We’re changing in here,” a female voice shouted back.
“That’s okay, it’s just us girls.”
“Go away!”
“I’m just trying to find my friend.”
“She’s not here. Now get lost!”
“Either open the door or I’m coming in!” Penny shot back.
A stocky girl about Penny’s age threw the door open. “What!”
“I’m looking for my partner. About 5’4, dark hair, big fan of yours. I’m guessing she came by.”
“She’s no fan of ours, believe me.”
“Are you kidding? You are the Jays right?”
“We haven’t seen her. No one has been by our dressing room this whole time.”
The stocky girl stubbornly stood blocking the door.
“No offense,” Penny led in carefully, “But can I just peek in real quick and have a look? It would make me feel so much better.”
   The powerful young singer took a hard look at Penny, trying to decide what to do, knowing the longer the seconds dragged on the more suspicious she looked. “Fine,” she sighed, stepping aside, “But make it snappy.”
   Penny saw nothing amiss in their dressing room, but the miniscule hairs on her forearms perked up anyway. She couldn’t finger what was wrong, the room looked exactly like a female band’s dressing room should. Girl clothes lay scattered on the floor, the female rockers having changed out of their jeans and short sleeves for nylons and sparkling tops. Guitar cases and black duffel bags sat piled in one corner. The Jays stood or sat, fingering their instruments. The four other women of the band were not the prettiest to look at, broad shouldered and taller than her own 5’7, but that didn’t matter, she supposed. Still….
  Sensing she still wasn’t at ease, one of the members chimed in, “You see,” she winked in a throaty voice. That one better not be on vocals, Penny thought. “It’s just us girls. If we see your little photographer friend, we’ll be sure to find you.”
   Penny nodded and pivoted on her heels in a perfect half circle to leave, sending her red locks whipping behind her.
“Grab her!” The girl band leader ordered.
  Instantly a sweaty palm clamped over Penny’s lips and smothered her entire lower face in a calloused, hairy hand. The other hand grabbed her wrist and twisted it up to the center of her own spine. Penny writhed and kicked but the woman was incredibly strong. Only it was no woman. Penny’s subconscious had been sending her signals that she ignored, but now she finally got what was troubling her. Everyone in this room except her and the stocky girl was a man, but that wasn’t why she’d tried to bolt.
“Idiot,” Christine admonished her partner in crime, while he held firm to his writhing hostage. The other members began circling, ropes and gags in hand. “She never mentioned her friend was a photographer. Now she’s onto us. Isn’t that right, you nosey little bitch?”
“MMM HMMM!” Penny nodded furiously.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna tie you up, gag you, and stash you in a duffel bag.”
“HMM-MMM!” Penny shook her head, green eyes narrowed into beads of rage.
“You may not like it, but you’re not gonna fight us. Not if you want to see your little friend again. We’re gonna stuff you into a sack, wheel you downstairs, where you and your little Jodi will sit out the rest of the concert. If you make a sound or if I even think I hear a sound, I’ll snap your neck, then one of use will sprint downstairs and finish off Jodi. Got it?”
   Penny had given up fighting by now, resigned to the futility of it. She looked the ringleader in the eye coolly and gave a quick nod, “MM-HMM.”
“Good. Tammy dear, take your hand away. If she screams, kill her.”
“You’ll never get away with this,” Penny shot back, not a nanosecond after Tammy removed his slimy paw. The reporter’s defiance made the transgender gang chuckle. The idiot who spilled the beans began looping rope around her wrists.
   “Oh hush,” Tammy huffed back while he tied her up, “Your little friend said the same thing.”
   “What’re you thinking, we won’t tell?” Penny gasped, “You can’t umufffng.” Her protests were cut short by another fake Jay pulling a thick white cloth into her mouth and tying it off around the back of her head, snaring her scarlet locks. Her oval face was now framed by red hair trapped between the gag and her cheeks. Christine took a step closer, until criminal and captive were nose to nose.
   “Tell whoever you want that the Jays were impersonated by a bunch of men, while the real ones were bound and gagged in the basement,” she gloated evenly, “See what that does for your career.” She stepped back, raised her voice. “Tie her feet, then stuff her in a sack,” she ordered her thugs. One of the men-women tossed Tammy another length of cord, which he swiftly looped around the girl reporter’s slender ankles, squeezed tight, and tied off. He then scooped her up in his powerful arms that were hid in a pair of pink sleeves, rainbow bracelets jangling around his forearms. “Sorry sweetums,” he said. Another male Jay had slapped an opened tubular duffel bag on the floor, the sack collapsed and crumpled around the round bottom. Tammy gently set the helpless journalist’s feet into the center of the circular bag, then pulled it up and around her, packaging her to be shipped downstairs. He forced her into a crouch, yanked the bag up and over her head, watched her red-haired scalp slowly vanish as he pulled the drawstring and sealed her in.
   Christine was at the ready with a flat cart, a long cold metal slab on wheels that roadies used to haul around subwoofers and other good-sized speakers. “Put her on there,” Christine ordered, “I’ll take her downstairs myself.” The bag was squirming and letting out high pitched girly groans.
“Quiet!” Christine kicked the bag. The bag shutup.
    Satisfied, she put her palms on the handle bar and pushed. As she started to wheel the sacked hostage out of the classroom, she called to her cross-dressers, “I’m taking this nosey little thing downstairs. Practice our opening number.”
  She wheeled the cart with bagged Penny on top, to the cargo elevator, to the basement room where the other hostages where. Once they were in the room,  Christine loosened the sack’s purse string just enough so that Penny’s redhead popped out.
  “Hmmm?” the captured girl inquired, her head looking this way and that like a curious prairie dog. Her sweaty green eyes took in the odd sight of the five Jays tied up together in a circle and hoisted onto crates, bound legs dangling uselessly above the grimy cement floor. Penny then pivoted her head left and saw with relief Jodi, bound and gagged but seemingly unhurt, next to a hogtied mature woman in a business suit, both them locked in the caged corner that housed the auditorium’s electrical equipment. The only sounds coming from the hostages were squealish peeps and heavy breathing through nostrils.
“See?” Christine assured her, “Your friend is all right. Why don’t you join the party?”
  Not as strong as her male counterparts, she pulled Penny out of the bag and dragged her to the cage by the ankles. She unlocked the padlock that kept the door locked, shoved Penny in with Jodi and Ms. McGill, then slammed and locked the cage door. Grinning at her accomplishments, she snapped a Polaroid of just Jodi and Penny, sitting side by side, gagged and bound hand and foot, knees just below their startled faces.
   The Jays, Ms. McGill, and the pair of girl reporters all looked at her blankly and not comprehending.
 “You still don’t get it do you?”
The seven women had no way to reply.
 “It’s simple. Those boys not only make for some pretty ugly women, they sound terrible. They don’t know it, but they do. We’re gonna go up there, stink up the joint, and the Jays will be ruined forever. I know, no one will believe they’re you. Why not?  Hardly anyone has seen you before, and the lighting is terribly dark up there on the stage anyway. Later on, we’ll come down and untie you. I suppose you’ll try to people the truth, but who will believe you? They’ll laugh in your pretty faces. Any band would want to claim they were tied up in the cellar while someone impersonated them after the shitty performance we’re about to give. Those boys are about as pretty as a pack high school cafeteria ladies, and sound as sweet.”
   “Oh really?” A throaty male voice asked. Before Christine could turn around a sweaty palm came down over her mouth, the same disgusting hand that had snared Penny. Tammy now had Christine in his powerful vice-grip, one hand on her face, the other twisting her arm behind her back. Her eyes ballooned into saucers. The other girls looked on, confused but calm. A couple of peeps shot out from the circle of bound musicians but otherwise the hostages looked on objectively, not sure if this turn of events helped or hurt them.
   “Well, this unpretty young thing is making some last minute changes,” the transgender villain declared. He forced Christine onto the ground, taking his hands away as he pulled out a rope.
“Tammy, I didn’t mean it,” the humbled girl begged, “I was just saying that so that ow!” she cried as he rapidly bound her wrists, tied off the cord, then took the ends of the rope and bound her ankles, hogtying her with speed reminiscent of rodeo cowboy hobbling a baby steer. “You crazy faggot!” Christine rocked back and forth pointlessly against the ropes, “What’re you doing!”
“My, my, you are a catty little bitch,” Tammy said, unwrapping the shiny green silk scarf he’d been wearing to cover his Adam’s apple??? “I hate to use such a pretty scarf on such an ugly thing as yourself, but I’ll have no more hateful talk from you.” He tugged the scarf between her pouty lips, gagging her, then stood over his conquest. “Like my rope work? My boyfriend taught me that.”
“Muffer fooker maggum sum ov a fif!” Is how Christine’s gagged profanity came out.
“Right back at ‘ya, young lady.” He picked up the padlock key she’d dropped, unlocked the cage and swung the door open. Christine knew what this meant and begged, shaking her head and looking at him with the dewiest doe eyes she could muster, “NOOMM! EEVE!”
 “Sorry, little lady, in you go.” He picked her up, roughly set her down in the corner with Ms. McGill, Penny and Jodi. The three other bound women looked down at her sneeringly, captor now captive. Christine glared up at her former ally, who slammed the cage shut and locked her in with her own victims.
“You see bitch,” Tammy explained, “I was meant to be like you. Like all of you!” He declared to every girl in the room, and to the whole world. “Everyday I go out dressed like a man, knowing I’m supposed to be a woman. Then this, this bitch,” he pointed to Christine, “Tells me I’m beautiful and have a lovely voice, and she needs me. And I agree, me and the other girls – and that’s what we are, okay?- so that we can be our true selves, if for at least one night. Well, we don’t need her. We’re gonna go up there, bring the house down. For once, just this one time, we don’t have to pretend. We don’t need her. My voice is prettier than any of yours.”
  He sang a couple of the Jays hit numbers, making everyone in the room wince as he pierced the high notes with glass shattering awfulness. When he was done, he curtsied and left, leaving the girls behind.
    As soon as he slammed the door, there was an orgy of struggling. The Jays writhed and fought pointlessly against the expertly tied ropes, prodded on by knowing that their careers would be over if “Tammy” and the rest of the cross dressing troop made it to the stage. Ms. McGill writhed for the same reason, while Christine knew she’d be going to jail if found like this.
   Jodi and Penny meanwhile sat calmly while trying to think of a solution. Their first instinct was to try and free one another, but this proved impossible. Tammy’s expert knots would take a pair of practiced hands, as he had crossed their forearms so their fingers fluttered uselessly apart from their sister digits. It would be impossible to pick his hitches with just one set of fingers, especially in the dim basement whose only light came from the weak red of the electric exit sign over the door. The room had the eerie glow of a submerged submarine. It was just enough light, however, to provide Penny with another way out.
    Through the heavy ceiling, the Jays could hear the dull thuds of metal and rock music droning on as they were forced to listen to the competition they’d been knocked out of. They’d finally quit fighting and waited for their careers to be over. A few sniffled. They also heard their fellow distressed damsels struggling in the caged corner. Jen was sitting opposite the cage and could just see that the red head had worked her way onto her back, tied hands painfully pinned beneath her as her tied-together long legs were kicking a metal box on the wall, skirt falling almost to her waist. What the hell?
   The sound of the reporter’s heels rapping against metal momentarily distracted Ms. McGill and Christine from their own struggles. Each bound young woman looked at Penny’s seeming madness, her fused legs pounding at the box. Not knowing what she was doing and not able to do anything about it anyway, they both went back to trying to get loose. Only Jodi seemed to have an inkling of what her friend was trying to accomplish, nodding approvingly as her friend kept hammering away.
     Then suddenly, silence. The music from up above stopped. The girl reporter stopped kicking, dropped her bound legs with a thud and gave a relaxed sigh through the gag, “hmmmmphh.”
   Somehow the room’s single bulb switch on and brightly pained the widened pupils of the girls’ eyes that had been acclimated to darkness. This calmed the pair of girl reporters, but it confused and disturbed the rest of the women, and soon a cacophony of mmphs and mummps filled the room.  The sounds of the rusty door creaking open and men talking did nothing to calm them.
  “Good thing the emergency lights came on, Hal,” a cigarette voice said as the door opened over the sound of dozens of keys jangling, “We gotta see who’s been monkeying with the fuse box and WHAT THE HELL!”
   The pair of maintenance men found themselves staring jaws agape at nine pretty captives. “The room’s full of tied up broads, Hal. Hold on ladies, we’ll have ‘ya free in just a sec. Hal, got your knife?”
   Hal went to work freeing the Jays. After their gags were removed the Jays thanked him profusely (“You are, like, my knight in shining armor!”), planting kisses on his grizzled cheeks just before they hopped off the crates they’d been forced to sit on for the past three hours.
   Penny and the other women in the cage would take longer. Hal’s partner, Gus, had to find a pair of bolt cutters to snip off the padlock. It was more than a little humiliating for the four women to sit tied up in cage as if in a human zoo, while maintenance men, Jan, Jen, Jenna, Julie and Jessica, and eventually a cop, gawked.
   Finally, the lock was snapped. “Place that one under arrest,” Ms. McGill said as soon as the cop pulled the cloth from her face. Still bound, she motioned to Christine by nodding in her direction.
“We know,” the policeman reassured her. “Now hold still. Gus, hand me that knife, huh?”
  “So I guess, like, that’s it?” Jessica asked, rubbing her sore wrists, “That little bitch won after all. The show’s gotta be cancelled.”
“Nonsense!” Ms. McGill trumpeted, free and back on her feet now, dignity fully recovered.  “The show must go on. I want you girls upstairs and ready in five minutes. Pronto!”
“Ma’am, if I may…” said the cop.
“You may not, officer! We have a contest to win. C’mon girls, hustle!”
   Fearing Ms. McGill more than the cop, the girls quickly shuffled out the door, trailed by their Mother Goose.
   “That’s why they’re my favorite band,” Jodi said, once she was ungagged.

Conclusion

“So, like, how did you think to kick open the fuse box?” Jessica asked. The show was over, the Jays and pair of sleuths were relaxing back in the hotel room.
“Yea, that was like, totally awesome!” Jenna added.
“Penny’s just amazing,” Jodi said before her friend could answer, “She has those killer instincts.”
“I don’t know about that,” Penny blushed, “But I figured if I could kick open the fuse box and knock the power out, someone would come down to investigate. It was lucky really, that the box wasn’t locked. I guess with that cage they figured they didn’t need to.”
“Luck nothing. You’re like MacGyver!” Jen replied.
“So, what, like, is gonna happen to those weirdos?” Julie asked
“They melted off into the dark when the lights went out,” Penny answered, “But I figure the cops will find them. Only so many drag queens in Riverside.”
“Those queens’ll be popular in prison!” Jessica giggled.
    Ms. McGill popped her head into the doorway. The girls groaned. It was never good news that brought her into their room.
  She began with rare praise. “First, congratulations on first prize. It was probably pity, but we’ll take it. Second, party’s over. Sorry,” she said to Jodi and Penny, “But these girls need to get up early. We gotta ship out to LA, a scout wants to do a recording session. Shoo!”
   Knowing better than to argue, the two female detectives left.
       A couple of months later, Jodi burst into the newsroom of the Riverside Torch, grinning ear to ear, vinyl album in hand, “Penny, look at this!” she squealed in delight, “It’s the Jays first album. See, each one of them signed it!”
  The album’s cover photo showed Jan, Jen, Jenna, Julie and Jessica bound, gagged and tied together in a circle while sitting on wooden crates in the basement of the auditorium. The album’s title in glaring pink cursive writing splashed across the top, “Bound for the Top!”
   Reading her friend’s confusion, Jodi explained, “They decided to use one of the Polaroids that nutcase took. Said it makes them look strong and vulnerable, or something.”
“I see…” Penny answered.
“And look, isn’t this awesome?” She pulled the album from the jacket, showing the record still in its slipcover. “They included a picture of us! We’re famous!” On the bottom right corner of the paper sleeve, beneath the credits and names of the songs, was the snapshot Christine took of the two girls tied up in the cage. Below the humiliating photo read the caption, “Many thanks to our friends Penny and Jodi. We couldn’t have done it without you!”
“I guess album sales are through the roof!” Jodi bubbled with delight.
“I’m sure that’s true,” Penny answered, then shifted uncomfortably in her wheeled office chair and went back to her typing.