Sunday, Mike decided to teach Minako Blazing  Mercury's full set because the band had to protect itself in case Jessica was overburdened by the combination of her schoolwork and her band responsibilities. The quid pro quo with that was if the group made it big they would pay for Minako's college education at any school of her choice, if she had her own band they would be Blazing Mercury's opening act for a tour and if she didn't  have a band they would find a job for her in the Blazing Mercury's organization if she wanted it. That would only vest, though, if Minako did 20 gigs as their full set stand in. For several hours at Mike's house, Jessica went through all of her guitar parts with Minako and that process continued for three weeks until Minako could perform everything in their song lineup.

Adrian was becoming more interested in Minako's potential as a keyboard/guitar player like Paul Raymond or Kerry Livgren. The bad side is if they asked her to formally join she would be another mouth to feed in the royalty food chain unless they canned Jessica, who already had her name in the writing credits of a dozen of their songs. So at that point the deal made was that Minako would be allowed to do middle and high school gigs while Jessica would play all the others. Jessica, in her heart of hearts, didn't like this, but also comprehended the rationale for this. For Minako, it beat hanging out at McDonald's or the mall with her friends on Friday nights with grubby teenage guys attempting to seduce her with lame lines she had already heard a hundred times before, especially since she had a Master now who was learning to play himself. In fact, she was teaching him, too, now.

The week before the street fair gig, Tony showed up at Jessica's house to tell her that he had hired a six man tv crew, comprised of out of work or between jobs experienced Hollywood camera operators, and wanted to cut a deal for a DVD of the show. Tony was putting $25,000 of his own money into this shoot. Jessica's dad got Mike on the horn and they negotiated a contract whereby Tony would be paid 25% of the wholesale price proceeds from the recording while the band would determine the distribution channels and own the master for it in perpetuity. with no further obligations to Tony other than  the royalty payments. Adrian didn't think that at this stage of their careers the video would get much traction, so he and the other band members signed off on it, believing that, at best, they would get a nice souvenir from the concert and Tony would unfortunately take a bath as an overenthusiastic fan. .

At that point, Carl decided that the band was going to need to get its business affairs in order and had them incorporate for tax and other reasons just in case. He retained a music business attorney and had the group's members go to his office, where they basically got a lecture on how the music business worked. Mike had already researched that topic extensively, though, and a lot of what the attorney had to say was old news to him. Nonetheless, it was good to have a legal pro to peruse any contracts that might be offered them down the line.

Like they did the previous year, they rented a bunch of equipment for backup purposes and tweaked it the day before the show and rented a truck to lift it all to the venue. The next morning, they loaded in and went  and enjoyed the street fair before returning around five to get dressed, tune up and do a little acoustic rehearsal. As these things inevitably do, the concert was running an hour late when they were finally announced. They all took their places and some lame ass dj told the crowd, which might have numbered a thousand at that point, who the band was. They launched into their first song and, akin to their show at the tiny bar in the valley, people seemed kind of nonplussed. There was little outward reaction before they dove into the second tune. Much louder applause. After "American Iron," the crowd size was growing and their approval more vociferously made. When they finished "Astral Migration," the complex and bombastic seven minute instrumental opus, the punters were yet more numerous and way louder. They succeeded that with the midtempo pounding rocker, "Cataclysm Accomplished," a protest song Mike, Adrian and Jessica wrote about the Iraq War, which featured a mournful solo by Mike and Adrian's funereal bridge. It was met by thunderous applause. "How come we've never heard of this band before?" a lot of the audience members were asking themselves. It was dark enough and there were enough people watching them now to where they couldn't see where the crowd ended. Next up was "Everyday Monster" and with Travis decrying the depredations of corporate schemers and school bullies and stalking the stage like it was his personal property, Jessica and Mike uncorked scalding lead after scalding lead and then an intricate harmony part while Adrian did his best Jon Lord impression on organ.

They were now 50 minutes into their set and they were killing. It was time to lighten things up with a paen to street racers, "Rat Rod," where Mike basically pushed some of Richie Blackmore's guitar vocabulary to its most scathing extent before segueing into the song that had the riff that Lizzy devised, "The Future is Murder," the title of which was lifted from a line in a Leonard Cohen song. The audience was headbanging, fist pumping and cheering up a storm through a tune with two more tasty harmony sections and a concluding cadenza by  Jessica. None of the audience knew these songs beforehand, but what they were listening to now definitely suited their taste.

"Ripped, Rent and Split" was another searing instrumental and the lead breaks were all constructed with the origin of that phrase in mind, an execution method once used by a Chinese emperor, which maintained the frenzy the crowd was in. Travis appeared again and announced, "An Acre of Massacre," Adrian setting the mordant mood with his organ before kicking into a grinding riff reminiscent of Maiden's "Wrathchild." Now it was time for the last song of the main set, "Endless Rain". Minako tentatively walked on with her SG as her name was announced and waved to the crowd. Adrian and Ben initiated the tune. X Japan has a strong cult following in L.A. and as soon as many on the grounds recognized it, they sang loudly on the first chorus as Travis' terrific vocal had the same effect on the women in the crowd it did on the girls in and around the band. The people kept on singing, the band stopping for a full minute just to let the audience warble before bringing it to a close.

The cry for an encore was immediate and deafening. Travis put Jessica on his shoulders and they all ran on  stage doing "Hateful Soul" before linking right to "Constellation of Power," which had two tempo changes in it and the architecture of the solos and the way they fit with the keyboard part was achingly beautiful. They loped off stage and the audience was still up for more. They did a dark, moody ballad, "Promiscuous Moon," and then put it with "Circus of Depravity," which was more or less a showcase for the  technical skills of the band members, an incendiary, almost thrashy,, bit of symphonic metal. They all assembled at the front of the stage and said thank you and goodnight to the crowd. But the punters had to have more and an argument broke out between Mike and the promoter backstage to be allowed to do another encore. The tanked up audience was getting louder about wanting them back and wouldn't leave. Finally, the LAPD told the promoter that if he didn't allow the band back on stage they would take him to jail for disobeying a lawful order, disorderly conduct and incitement to riot. The sergeant in charge gave the band three more songs, but also ordered them to let the crowd down emotionally. They headed back onstage with a slow, classical flavored piece, "Requiem for a Loser," the midtempo "Farewell Civilization" and then decided to close with UFO's "Doctor, Doctor," Jessica digging the way her intro lead rebounded off of the nearby buildings and down the road before the build up and then the main rhythm riff came in.

That sated the audience and the show ended without incident. The band and Minako accounted for all their equipment and arrived home just after midnight drunk on the reception they were given by the assembled onlookers, with the only real debate being just how many people were applauding them. They waited to see how the video of the show would look.

Mike and Jessica were majorly jacked. They showered together and then laid in bed naked going over practically every last second of their set before falling asleep as the sun began to rise.

Tony finally brought the DVD over to Jessica's the following Friday night after he had gotten it edited down. The band members, Mike's brother and Minako as well as Carl and Jennifer all sat down to watch it in anticipation. Like they did with the video of the street fair show as an Iron Maiden tribute band last year, watching and hearing themselved play was an almost out of body experience for Mike, Minako and Jessica. "Holy shit, we were kicking ass!" Mike celebrated. "Fuck yeah, we were," Adrian repeated. The video and sound quality were tremendous and Minako could hardly wait to show her parents and her brother her part of it. The only thing was that Minako's performance wasn't going to be on the commercially available copy and neither was the UFO song because of copyright reasons. Tony printed up 500 copies without the problematic tracks on them and hoped for the best.

The musicians went into Jessica's room and they created a You Tube page for Blazing Mercury and uploaded the first five songs along with their Facebook, homepage and other information. They linked to it on the band's homepage. "Shit, we need to create a P.O. Box and a Pay Pal account, too, if we're going to try to sell this thing," Mike realized.

The following Monday was the first day of college for both Mike and Jessica. Mike picked Jessica up at her school and  they tied up some of the loose ends so that they would be able to sell the video. They didn't even bother to go down to their P.O. box for the first week even though they got a ton of inquiries about the video on their home and Facebook pages. Astonishingly, they managed to sell out their first run of it in that first week. When Mike visited the P.O. box the following Monday, the clerk there had three boxes full of orders for it. They immediately printed a thousand more copies and those were gone by the end of the ensuing week as well. By the end of the September, they had sold 30,000 copies at $10 a throw, which meant that not only did Tony get the $30,000 total he spent on filming and editing it, but he was already $40,000 up. By that time, they had also gigged at Jessica's university in the early afternoon where the events manager, after having seen their video, made them sign a contract that stipulated that they would play their 1,000 seat indoor theater at a later date. They went down a bomb at the open air amphitheater they played at and it was way overfilled with a standing room only crowd. That would be the last unpaid show they ever did.

By October, they  had played three sold out nights at the Roxy, a total of six shows, in L.A. and the DVD sales were above 50,000. The money they had made in September they put into advertising on You Tube, also doing a studio version of the songs that were on the DVD since many people want album with just music and no audience noise. Jessica's dad hired his company's head web designer to run Blazing Mercury's website so that they didn't have to go through ITunes and so could keep more of the money from downloads.

They were besieged by interview requests from music websites and magazines. Mike didn't want the band associated with anything lame, so they stayed away from the usual media suspects and stuck solely with favored internet outlets and specialist magazines in order to target a young and heavy metal loving audience. They also got themselves a logo and artwork for t-shirts thanks to artists at Jessica's and Mike's colleges who were willing to accept royalties rather than upfront payments. They cut a deal with a big internet retailer to package and distribute the cd's and DVD. The major record labels then came sniffing around, but Mike and Adrian told them to fuck off so that they would have a lot more control over their product, especially keeping the price of it down. Lizzy received a $3000 royalty check in the mail. She called Mike and asked him if it was real or if his brother was punking her. She would receive an even more generous one three months hence and the checks would continue to come periodically from there.

Mainstream terrestrial radio stations were surprised to receive cease and desist orders from Blazing Mercury's lawyers for playing their songs, the letters saying that they didn't want to be associated with a dying industry. Adrian and Mike knew this would get them millions in free publicity because what they did was so unusual and, by February of the following year, they had made $4 million before tax and were preparing for their first world tour, which would include stops at Wacken and the Reading Festival as well as Japan. Jessica quit school after her first semester to ride this train she had helped create. Mike had already dropped out in September once he saw the DVD moving. Her dad kept his regular job, but was running the band's corporate affairs when he got home, emphasizing to them that this was all one shot income, so they had better bank it for the day when they became has beens, which, for all they knew, could be as soon as next year.

They released their second album in January and it was an immediate success, selling 3.5 million copies, as was the tour of 2-5,000 seaters. One of the secrets was that they put a lid on prices so that kids didn't have to choose between going to the show or buying the cd, but could do both, and those prices also helped suppress the free downloading of their material. Their merch prices were also lower than other bands' were, so they far made up in total income what they gave up in profit margin plus they had their fans designing their shirts and their stage show and kept trying to find other ways for their fans to make money off of them in a way that helped the band. The idea was to end the music industry's tendency to talk down to the fans by collaborating with them.

One other smart thing they did was shoot all the shows on that first tour and make them available on DVD, which basically made the bootleg market for their material a dead letter and it took advantage of the super fans who had to have everything a band does. They printed accurate tabs of their songs on their website and collected advertising revenue from those page views, too, and allowed fans to upload their versions of Blazing Mercury's songs to their website and then the band members picked a monthly winner and gave them some gear. Server space was cheap, much cheaper than trying to win and retain fans through sheer force of advertising.

Five years and four more albums later, Mike and Jessica, who decided to finally get married at age 22, were burned out. Adrian's wife just had their first child and wanted her husband to be present during the early part of the offspring's life and Jessica really wanted to go back to school, get her MD, have kids and be able to return to playing guitar for fun. Neither her or Mike would ever have to work again, even if they divorced. The following February 1st, at age 25, Mike and Jessica, as well as the 31 year old Adrian, declared themselves ex-rockstars and announced the breakup of the band. There would be no reunion tours and no more albums. Rather, they were going to drop off the radar screen and try to just enjoy themselves the rest of t heir lives and raise the kids they expected to have together.

The media made a huge to do about this, asking inanely if more people shouldn't follow the example of the pair, citing, for example, how many corporate execs continue working into their 70's and 80's when they could have stopped 25 or 30 years earlier and still lived comfortably. "Isn't there anything these assholes won't  blow out of proportion?" Mike grumbled to Jessica, as they sat on the couch of their New Shore home, which was just on the next block from the one she had grown up in.

"God, it feels so good to not have to answer for anything and just play music for its own sake rather than trying to create a product out of it all the time," Jessica Alyea  said to her husband. "Fuck yeah," Mike agreed.

He had now known Jessica for going on nine years. He brushed her hair aside and saw how beautiful she looked to him still. "Jessica, thanks for making the last few years so easy," he said. "We had some pretty hectic and stressful times but yet you seemed to always lend them an air of calm grace," Mike burbled.

"Mike, I know how hard you were working to make things happen and how much you worried about every little detail. I admired that burning desire inside you so that I wasn't burdened by any stuff that I didn't really want to deal with. As crazy as things got on the road at times, I knew they were handled. I really appreciate that." she softly complimented. "Thanks ip. I knew that once I got things under control you were there waiting for me. That was pretty huge," he returned. "I'm especially grateful that you didn't let the claustrophobia of the tour bus get to you so that we weren't yelling at each other just out of general irritation." "To be honest Mike, there were times I was pretty annoyed by not being home or having some space to myself,  but I knew it wasn't your fault and, besides, if it wasn't for you coming up to me one day in high school I wouldn't have toured the world the way I was able to at such a young age and I would be knocking myself out getting my MD right now. Now I have more options because of you. You really are my Master and always will be."

Mike smiled and thanked her for what she said. "How long have you been off the pill now fucktoy?" he asked. "About two months now Master." "Fucktoy is ordered to conceive a child for her Master. Does fucktoy understand?" "Yes Master. Thank you Master."

Mike picked her up off of the sofa and carried her into their Japanese style bedroom and gently laid her down on the rice filled mattress that was supported by a lacquered dark brown platform. "I will undress my fucktoy," he said when he saw her begin to reach for  the button of her blouse. "Yes Master. Thank you Master," she agreed. Mike pulled the t-shirt over his head and then undid his belt and pushed his jeans to the ground, doing the same with his boxers, leaving him completely naked.

He sat next to Jessica and cupped her left cheek in his righthand and gently kissed her. He did it again, only with just a hint of tongue. "Will fucktoy be a diligent mommy for her Master's child?" Mike inquired. "Yes Master, Your little Asian fucktoy will raise Master's precious gift with all the strength in her mind and body and all the love in her heart," Jessica promised. Mike tenderly kissed her again, smiling. "Will fucktoy continue to love her Master even when her belly is at its biggest?" he interrogated. "Your little Asian fucktoy will love Master always and will wait patiently until his gift emerges from her belly," she swore. He kissed her sweetly again, stroking the underside of her chin with his index finger. "Will fucktoy then want to bear Master a second child?" he wanted to know. "To be presented the gift of one of Master's children is a blessing; to be presented two is an honor because that tells your little Asian fucktoy that he truly believes in her competence and love as a mother," she answered. With that, he slowly unbuttoned her blouse and dropped it to the floor on top of his own clothes. "Your Master wishes to remember what fucktoy's belly was like before she became with child," he teased, rubbing her stomach with his righthand. This made Jessica very hot, as the idea of conceiving at that moment resonated deeply with her psychologically. She was majorly wet now.

His fingers brushed her erect nipples over and over. "Will fucktoy produce lots of milk to feed her Master's child with?" Mike asked. "Yes Master. Your little Asian fucktoy will rejoice the first time your child suckles her breast and every time after that." He grasped both of her hands and kissed them. "Will fucktoy hold his child in the same loving way she does her Master? "Yes Master. Your little Asian fucktoy will use her hands to comfort your child in both good times and bad." "Will fucktoy provide her Master's child with the necessary guidance it will require?" "Yes Master. Your little Asian fucktoy will use the guidance she has received from Master as a model for that which she will give to his child," she said. He  kissed her on the lips tenderly once more. "Does fucktoy promise to use her mouth to read to her Master's child and provide it with loving words, encouragement and kisses?" "Yes Master, she will root for his child always and educate it properly."

He undid the button and then pulled down the zipper on her jean skirt, leaving her in just a pair  of white panties and ankle socks. "Does fucktoy promise to provide a good environment for his seed to grow in?" "Yes Master. Your little Asian fucktoy will everyday look forward to more growth in her belly because that means she is closer to receiving Master's gift." "After fucktoy goes through the ordeal of pregnancy will she want to keep receiving Master's seed?" "Your little Asian fucktoy feels closest to Master when his seed is inside of her."

He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her passionately and she kissed him back just as hard. He stuck his righthand down into her panties and felt the heat and wetness of her pussy. He stood up and grabbed the waistband of her underwear and pulled it off. "Does fucktoy wish to be bred?" "Oh God Master, please plant your seed inside me!" she breathily implored. He  climbed on top of her and pushed his hard, throbbing cock between the walls of her hungry cunt. "Oh God Master, your little Asian fucktoy wants you so badly," she sighed. He began to move his cock in and out of her slowly. "Oh Jesus, fucktoy's pussy is heaven," he exclaimed. He wrapped his arms around her upper back and kissed her heatedly as he gradually worked up a head of steam with his hips, his baby maker coring her in twain, her sex stuffed with dick and her vaginal muscles wanting his man milk. She began to moan almost musically, she needed his seed so much. She wanted a life inside of her, she hoped he would drive his sperm as far into her as he humanly could and she felt joy as her mind considered her change of status into a mother, the reason she was put on earth. "Oh yes Master, oh God yes," she gasped while he drove his spear into her over and over, Jessica hoping to feel the moment when sperm and ovum unite. Her mind was in a totally different space now. Not sub space and not the one she usually was in during coitus, but something more psychologically profound to her that she couldn't express in words while he pounded his cum rifle into her, her  womb in its sights.

Jessica couldn't remember when she'd felt so hot, so wanton, so desirous to have Mike's sperm injected into her, her benwa ball trained pubic muscles clutching tightly on his penis while it continually carved a path right up the middle of her. Oh God Master, ohhhhhhh," she whimpered. She was so worked up now she could hardly stand it. "Please Master, your little Asian fucktoy wants your seed," she almost desperately  rasped, her breathing now increasing in its frequency by the second as she instinctively needed to have him empty his balls  into her. God, she wanted that load so much, worse than anything she had ever coveted before. "God Master, I'm cumming!" she screamed and felt as if the heat from it would melt her from the inside out as her vaginal walls aspired to provoke him to eject his fluid upward and onward. He felt his balls tightening and becoming heavier, wanting to feed the sperm into her baby factory and continue his family line. She felt the heat of his body that was pressed against hers, his grunts and moans ever louder and with a rougher edge to them, his cock feeling like it's going to burst. Suddenly, he felt the latch to the floodgates inside of him break and his cum flooded into Jessica's love canal to begin their journey to creation. "Thank you Master," she gratefully accepted while he collapsed on  top of her exhausted.

Three months after that she was beginning to show. Mike kissed her and her belly every night before they went to sleep as if he was kissing his soon to be baby daughter good night, too. Jessica was now no longer the Asian girl in the wheelchair, but mommy.

The End