It was inevitable that Arthur would move in with me. But what no one could have foretold was the way he would become an indispensable part of my work.

Oh, Arthur couldn't sing to save his life. Nor was he particularly good with figures. But he had the 'eye'. He could look at a would-be musician, and without even hearing him audition, Arthur could tell whether or not he would be worth the effort it took to groom him for stardom.

When I casually asked Arthur if he would like to run a record company, I had no idea that he would actually be good at it. Mind you, I wasn't just throwing him a bone. But I never dreamed that he would be able to spot talent the way he does.

Of course, Arthur only does it part time. I insisted that he wasn't going to waste his youth catering to rock stars and cranks of dubious persuasion. (Yes, I meant myself, but Arthur is far too charitable to count me in the ranks of the people we...um...service.)

I wanted him to go to University. Arthur, with his lower middle-class background, never would have made it on his own. His grades were mediocre at best, but what he lacked in application, he had in potential. He wanted to be a writer. A journalist. So I made an opportunity for him.

Money does have its uses, and it was more than time for money to work in our favor instead of against us.

Sigh. There are those who thought it unbalanced our relationship even more than it already was. He was young. I was, well, I prefer the term 'mature', much the way Miss Jean Brodie referred to being in her 'prime'. He was relatively clean-cut. I was, well, I'm not sure how I would describe the way I look. Eclectic, perhaps.

I wasn't buying him a degree. I knew he could do the work. More than anything else, I didn't want Arthur to stay with me simply because he had nothing else to fall back upon.

I wanted him to be with me because he loved me to distraction. And why not? I glittered prettily enough for both of us. He could pretend that I didn't exist while he was at school...as long as he came home to me every night.

But he didn't forget all about me. He loved me with all of his heart. He regaled me with surrealistic tales of his fellow classmates, and I loved the way he brought his other life home with him.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather live at school?" I asked apprehensively.

"No," he said in his quiet voice that poured itself like dark caramel over my senses. "I'm happy the way things are."

Sometimes, when I looked into those deep brown eyes, I just wanted to weep for whatever quirk of fortune put him in my way that night. I don't know if my life would have been worth living if he hadn't fallen in love with me.

*****

"I'm glad you're home," I said, hearing the front door of our flat open and close.

Arthur dropped his backpack into the nearest chair and sat down in my lap. "Hello," he said, winding his arms around my neck. "I missed you all day."

"Then I've taught you well, my angel," I said softly, drinking in the sight of him like a thirsty man craving water.

"Don't be cheeky. It doesn't suit you, Jack," he teased.

I nudged his lips apart and slid my tongue inside his mouth. He was so sweet, my darling boy, and he always gave me what I needed. When I could bear to break away, I whispered, "Did you have a good day?"

"Boring, mostly. But I met someone. At the school cafeteria."

Words like that struck dread in my heart. "Y-you met someone?" I asked, striving for a casual tone that I was far from feeling.

"Not that kind of someone, Jack," Arthur hastened to reassure me. "A kid. A little younger than me. He plays the guitar."

"Well?" I asked as though I was interested. Inside I could still feel myself quivering. For a moment, I had lived through the tortures of the damned, thinking that Arthur was leaving me for someone his own age. I never wanted to feel like that again. But I imagined that it would happen again, no matter what I wanted.

"He's bloody fantastic. Curt should meet him."

"Curt would hate him on sight, my dear. Especially if he plays as well as you say."

Arthur frowned. "I want to sign him, Jack."

"Then go ahead, sweetheart. I trust your judgment. You know that."

"There's just one thing."

I raised my eyebrows inquiringly.

"I don't think he's a solo act. Y'know? He needs a partner. Someone who can sing."

"Hmm...we don't have anyone at the moment. But I'll take a look around this weekend and see what I can find."

"Thanks, Jack! You're the best!" Arthur kissed me the same way he did everything else. With unbridled enthusiasm.

"So...when do I get to meet this paragon of virtue?" I asked dryly.

"I invited him to dinner tomorrow night," Arthur said, anxiously worrying his lower lip.

"Awfully sure of yourself, weren't you?"

"You want me to have confidence in meself, Jack, don't you?"

I sighed and gave my young lover a rueful grin. "You love throwing my own words back at me, don't you?"

"Sometimes," Arthur said, bending his head to nuzzle my neck. "I'm partial to these. I love you."

I tangled my fingers in his hair, which was getting entirely too long, but I didn't have the heart to tell him to cut it. He would always look beautiful to me. "I love you, too," I murmured.

*****

Dinnertime at our house is rarely at our house. Arthur and I are indifferent cooks at best, and so we're familiar with all of the best takeout in town.

Pizza seemed like a safe enough choice, given that I knew virtually nothing about this young man. But nothing could have prepared me for the shock I got when I opened my front door.

There, standing before me, was a young man, not much younger than Arthur. His hair was dark brown, and he wore it short, though the top seemed to have an alarming tendency to flop over his forehead in a vaguely trendy way. His eyes, however, weren't dark at all. They were a vivid shade of blue, but framed by sooty black eyelashes, the contrast was quite startling. He was astonishingly pretty for a boy.

And he looked entirely too much like Brian Slade must have when he was younger.

"Jesus," I swore without even realizing.

Arthur popped up at my elbow and exclaimed, "Hello! Jack, this is Bruno. The guitarist I told you about. Bruno, this is Jack-"

"I know who he is," Bruno said shortly.

I blinked. He was a surly little thing. Well, that didn't matter. I was well used to the vagaries of rock stars. A kid with all that intensity and no place to put it didn't bother me. I could teach him how to channel it into his music. That was where it belonged.

"Won't you come in, Bruno?" I invited graciously.

"I'm in, aren't I?"

Charming. No manners either. I gritted my teeth and prayed that Arthur, who was never wrong about people, hadn't suddenly made a colossal error.

"What kind of a name is Bruno? Are you perhaps from Italy?" Starting a conversation had never seemed so hard before.

"What kind of a name is Jack Fairy?" Bruno asked sarcastically. "Do you know Tinkerbell?"

"Not personally, no," I said coolly.

Arthur looked aghast at his new discovery's behavior. "Bruno!"

Bruno gave Arthur a tight smile and relented. Begrudgingly, I'm sure. "Sorry," he said sulkily. "I'm not real good with people."

"I'll see what we can do about that," I replied.

Bruno rolled his eyes. At least, I'm fairly certain that was what he did. His hair was so thick and full and it covered a good third of his face at times. That was a shame. He really did have extraordinary eyes.

"Well, I can see you've got the attitude down pat, but I'd like to hear what you can do musically."

"I already played for 'im. Why do I have to play for you, too?"

"Some people...like...to play. It shouldn't be a hardship," I declared. "Or trust me, you'll never get anywhere."

Bruno sighed, a decidedly heavy sound for one so young. "I like to play well enough. It's just...I can't fucking sing, okay?"

"I'm working on that."

"You are?" For a moment, Bruno's expression was hopeful. Then it faded back to the guarded expression he usually wore. Unless I missed my guess, there was a tragic story in Bruno's past, and there was still a great deal of emotion churning just beneath the surface.

He did play for me. Quite beautifully. It wouldn't be far wrong to say that he brought tears to my eyes. But he was right. He couldn't sing.

I nodded to Arthur, who breathed a sigh of relief. "You'll find him someone, won't you, Jack?"

"I'll try."

*****

Frenchy La Rue's was just like any other club during the week. But on the weekends, the place was packed because Saturdays and Sundays were dominated by the karaoke bar. It was very much a hit or miss situation. Some weeks I could find nothing but diamonds in the rough. Other weeks there was nothing but flotsam.

I was lucky. There was one distinct possibility striding out onstage now. His hair shone like burnished copper under the lights, and his eyes, from what I could make out, were somewhere between blue and gray. He had a rather charming cleft in his chin, and a smile that would break the hearts of girls and boys, if I was any judge.

His body was not spectacularly above average, but ironically, it was his softness that drew the eye. His expression had an openness that I liked. He was every bit as emotionally accessible as Bruno was not. It was a match made in heaven.

Until he opened his mouth.

Oh, he could sing. He had a lovely voice. Though it was hard to tell. He fumbled with the microphone until it practically fell out of his hands. He bent over to pick it up and cracked his head on the stand when he attempted to stand up again. Then the music started. Oh, no. This would never ever do.

It seemed that young Robert was a Curt Wild fan. But Curt Wild, at his most inebriated, could not have sounded as bad as he did. I had a great affection for 'Gimme Danger'. It was the song that had brought Curt back together with the love of his life. Brian Slade.

But now, to quote Curt, there was nothing left but "ugly memories".

He thrashed rather effectively, but he almost killed himself in the process. To make matters worse, the audience was laughing at him. It couldn't be the song. It had to be him.

He didn't know the slightest thing about how to work an audience. But he knew how to alienate them. He gave the people booing in the first row the finger, and suddenly the raw intensity I saw there was mesmerizing.

There was something more to him than met the eye. Why, I wouldn't have been surprised to see him whip out a gun and aim it at the head of the nearest patron. "Shut up!" he screamed. "Shut the fuck up!!!"

Well...he certainly had my attention.

I could teach him how to behave in front of an audience. But I rather liked what I saw. He reminded me of someone.

"Oh, my God," I hissed. There was a reason that he seemed so familiar. Aside from his passing resemblance to Curt, which I blamed on his choice of song. He reminded me of Arthur. Shy, awkward, almost to the point of pain. And yet there was a sweetness there, coupled with a defiant edge, that was very, very attractive.

I wanted to meet him. Before the audience stoned him to death.

I approached the stage and said softly, "Get off the stage while you can, dear boy. I'm afraid you've pushed them past their threshold for bad karaoke."

"Who the fuck are you?" he asked belligerently.

Ah, yes, not quite like Arthur. More like Curt, that. "I'm Jack Fairy."

"Never heard of you."

"Let's cut to the chase, shall we? You've got a voice, but you don't know how to use it. You mess with the audience's heads, and your choice of material is dodgy at best."

"Gee, thanks."

"You could be someone."

"I'm already someone," he contradicted. Now that I had heard more than one or two syllables cross his lips, I noticed that he had a definite Scottish burr.

"You could be someone else. Someone good."

He blinked at me. I wasn't sure if he was sleepy or he just didn't understand what I meant.

"My name's Robert."

"Nice to meet you, Robert. Can I call you Bobby?"

He looked puzzled, his lips pursing together in a thoroughly disarming way. "Nooo..."

I could hardly wait to see what Bruno thought of his new partner.

Then again....

It was going to take a lot of work.

End