I met Chris through my husband, as I meet everyone through my husband. By now I think most of the people I’ve met in my lifetime have been through Michael. One of the drawbacks of being attached to an instantly recognizable person.
His band’s pop cultural relevance isn’t as immediate as it once was, not even as much as when I met him. But their fans are cult-like, even as they age. Google the name “Michael March” or the band “Second Chance” and you find endless articles, images, gifs, even fanfiction. A startling amount for a band in their twenty-first year together. More and more, though, you find interviews with younger bands, eager up-and-comers, who cite Second Chance’s Ready, Set... or even Six-Foot Drop as the first CD they ever bought.
Some of the young musicians single out Michael himself as their personal hero. They worship his self-possession, his grace, and, whether they admit it or not, they’ve lifted his entire aesthetic. It’s obvious in the photos that accompany these interviews that become more and more airbrushed over the years.The asymmetrical haircuts, the horror-themed tattoos, the drapey black cloaks and sweaters, the pancake makeup and so-called “guyliner.” This breed can all be traced back to my husband.
Ten years later, Michael isn't the same man he was when I married him. I can't hold that against him, though: he’s actually never been that man at all. The man we all thought he was. When I married him I didn’t know any more about him than the kids singing his praises in Kerrang! and Alternative Press do now.
I met Michael at a photoshoot for his Satanic Panic line, which was new at the time. It was an occult-themed line of T-shirts that would expand as far as chunky plastic jewelry before folding.
I was trying to model then. I was twenty and somewhere along the way I’d confused an aptitude for cosmetology with the calling to stand - or sprawl - in front of cameras. I received a misleading-yet-encouraging amount of work with niche companies because of my niche look. I externalized my goth inclinations as much as possible back then: I didn’t have Vogue Italia proportions, but corsets helped and places I modeled for shrugged at my average height and accepted my curves because I knew how to hide them when I had to. It took time for me to realize my aspirations wouldn’t take me much further, and working with a rockstar name like Michael March would be the apex of my modeling career.
Over the course of a short lifetime, I’d become attuned to the signs of mutual attraction. I didn’t sense it often, so when I did I felt every wisp of hair on my body was standing on end. My cheeks warmed and I found myself winding my fingers in and out of my hair when I spoke to Michael for the first time. He was beautiful; there was no question. We met during his false eyelash phase; he wore eye makeup I envied. The length of his asymmetrical black hair hung in his face and a silver hoop stood out on his lower lip. At first glance he looked much the same as he had in Second Chance’s early years, but he was no longer youthfully lean. He had hard, compact muscles he now worked to maintain, and his face was equally hard.
He had lifted the corners of his mouth in a tight smile as he shook my hand, and hadn’t smiled again in speaking before or after the shoot. His lack of emotion made me feel that he took me seriously, and I was young enough that that feeling was all that mattered.
I don’t remember what we spoke about specifically, only the feeling he gave me and that that feeling carried over when we shot together. I’d shot with many men, of course, but with Michael there was a different chemistry than I’d ever experienced before. Almost as if I had no ownership of it, as if this “chemistry” was all his to share or withhold as he wished, as if he’d share the same chemistry with any other woman who could have been in my place. He didn’t work with me like other men had, and he didn’t work against me like some of the worse models did. He manipulated my body as he saw fit, and my body somehow knew what his was asking.
He moved slowly, like we were underwater.
He faced me toward the camera, pulling my hair back with one hand and running his other icy hand up the front of the tee, over my bare stomach.
He turned me to the side and pulled my hair back again so that my back arched away from him, faced his tee toward the camera, and planted one foot through my legs so that his thigh rubbed up against me.
He turned me away from the camera so that my tee’s back design faced forward and jammed his hands into my back pockets, his tattooed arms encircling my waist.
I was young. I’d thought this mattered. I thought it meant something that our bodies spoke to each other in this way. I thought it mattered that I seemed able to read him without thinking, or that he knew how to direct my body better than I could direct it myself.
It was years before I realized that this physical connection meant nothing. It was several more years before I realized that this connection actually meant more than I’d ever realized, that this should have been a warning.
It was when I met Chris that I finally realized that, ultimately, a connection like this could mean everything.
Begin at the beginning: LIKE RATS - Prologue
