The hand, freshly polished red nails glistening, whipped through the air and struck the startled woman across the face. The struck woman fell back against the wall from the force of the blow and glared at her attacker and accomplices.

“You disgust me!” Wild Honey Pie shrieked.

“It’s all your fault,” Eleanor Rigby added, stepping closer to the woman she’d just struck.

“Mark doesn’t want anything to do with us anymore,” spoke up a third woman, Prudence. “I mean, he hasn’t paid much mind to us since you’ve been around, but lately, it’s gotten real bad. Did you know, before you came, Lucy and Lady Madonna were his favorites?”

“And now, what are we?” Lucy snapped. “Nothing!”

“You tell her, Lucy!” Lady Madonna encouraged.

“You’re just here because Mark felt sorry for you,” Eleanor Rigby sneered. “Bought you off of that other musician guy. You’re like his f***ing little pet.”

“Does he give you a treat every time you do stuff for him in bed?” Lady Madonna quipped.

“You know, I’ve always wondered if maybe he was… you know, not right,” Prudence mused aloud. “Hey, Taste of Honey, I bet you’re just his beard. What do you think of that? You’re either a pity **** or a beard.”

Andi, the aforementioned Taste of Honey, who had remained silent until this point, doing her best to ignore the groupies as they mocked her and struck at her, straightened her back. She squared her shoulders and gave each woman a look of pure hatred.

“You all make me sick,” she finally spat out. “Jealous b****es, the lot of you. I owe Mark my life. And you know what? If that means being his pet, being his beard… hell, being his ****ing servant, then so be it! It’s a lot better than what I was dealing with before I met him. None of you would last a week, what I had to go through. And as for your speculation about the bedroom activities, here’s a little something for you to ponder: I’ve probably done about as much with him as Eleanor Rigby, here.”

Prudence, Wild Honey Pie, Lucy, and Lady Madonna looked perplexed at this last remark. However, Eleanor Rigby was far less confused.

“You little--!” she screamed, leaping at Andi.


Andi slowly opened her eyes and groaned. Her face and arms hurt a lot. At least she wasn’t being beaten up; she was in one of the private rooms. At this sound, Mark hurried over to her side.

“Hey,” he whispered. “You okay?”

“Not really. I feel like I went a couple rounds with Tyson and Foreman,” Andi wearily replied.

“Close. Eleanor Rigby beat you up pretty good, and I think the others got in a couple whacks, too. I had to pull them off of you, and I got Doc to patch you up. It’s a good thing you can’t see your face… someone better cut off Rigby’s nails; she clawed you up. You’ll heal, though.”

“I don’t care,” Andi muttered, trying to roll over so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

“Hey, what’s wrong? I mean, aside from what happened?”

Andi shook her head. “Don’t worry about it,” she snapped, turning her back to him.

Mark sighed and rubbed her back. “The fight was about me, wasn’t it?”

“Kind of. They hate me. You know that. They think I get special treatment. No, they know I get special treatment. And it ticks them off.”

“Well, you’re not some stupid groupie. Of course I’m going to treat you better. You mean more to me.”

“Yeah, well, if you heard some of the stuff they thought, you’d want to retract that statement,” Andi responded bitterly. “You know, sometimes I wonder why you even bothered. All this bull**** just isn‘t worth it, sometimes.” She rolled back over and frowned at Mark. “What was I, Mark? Some special project? Something to make you feel better about yourself?”

“Andi… you, of all people, should know better. It’s not like that. What the hell kind of person would I have been to just leave you there, after what I saw? And look how well you’ve turned out. You’re a better person now.”

“And now, since I owe you for saving my life, you own it?”

“You know you were free to leave at any time.”

“It’s just not that simple.”

“Is that so?”