Prologue: Hi, I'm Hathor...

Thursday, November 1st, 2007
Somewhere near Newark, New Jersey

I’ve never been so excited in my whole damned life. Never. Not when I bought my first car, not when I moved into my new house, not when I got promoted at work. I’ve also never been so nervous in my whole damned life. I'm fidgeting like a two year old in church, and driving the guy next to me abso-frickin-lutely nuts. He's about ready to rip this laptop out of my hands and bean me over the head with it. OK, so now you’re asking yourself “what’s her problem?” I’ll tell you in my own way and in my own time. Just be quiet for a minute and let me take a deep breath and gather my thoughts.

* inhales deeply, holds breath for a few seconds, and exhales slowly *

I’m writing to you from the train. I’m on my way to New Jersey to the Prudential Center to see Bon Jovi. This is the first solo trip I’ve ever taken to somewhere fun. (I’ve traveled for business but that, by definition is definitely not fun.) I’m meeting some new girlfriends for the first time, and have the opportunity to meet one of my long-time idols, and longer-time crushes: Richie Sambora.

OK, let me back up. Hi, my name is Hathor, and I’m a Jovi-holic. I’ve been a fan of the band, their music, and all that they stand for, for more years than I haven’t. I have joined several chat boards and have made tons of online friends, and have only recently begun to dabble in the genre of fan fiction. I use the name “The Goddess Hathor” as my handle both when I write and on the boards. Maybe you’ve seen me around?

So, here are some personal things to know about me. I’m 37, currently unattached, of Italian descent (so I have beautifully tanned skin practically all year-round), and fantastic. Really. I’m 5’8” tall, have a few more pounds on me than what’s fashionable these days, but I fill out a pair of jeans and tight t-shirt well enough to make you give me a real slow, appreciative, lingering once-over. I’ve got soulful brown eyes and thick, luxurious, wavy brown hair that falls to just below my shoulders and is streaked with red (natural) and caramel (synthetic) highlights. That just about covers it.

What’s that?

Oh – my personality. Thanks for asking. Well, I’m funny, smart, and fiercely loyal to my friends. I’m mean to my enemies, bursting with self-confidence and above all, a smart-ass. So much so that the girls (and guys) on my most recently joined forum call me GSA, for “Goddess Smart Ass”.

OK. Let me tell you a little about this forum.

I found this neat football forum where there were actually other women posting. It’s refreshing to get another gal’s perspective on the game, you know? We really aren’t all as dumb as those “color commentators” the networks have on TV. They give female football fans a bad rep.

There were a couple of guys hanging about on the forum, too. They’re Giants fans, from New Jersey, but I tried not to hold that against them. They went by JerseyCowboy7800 and GiantsJunkieInLA. Jersey told us we could call him “Kidd” (which in hindsight should have been a dead giveaway), and the other guy was making all sorts of sexual innuendo comments about his “vine” so we called him Tarzan. That eventually got shortened to ‘Zan’, and that’s what we call him. From the outset, Kidd had a thing for this woman poster called “FemFBFan4Life” and didn’t play with the rest of us too much. Zan, however, was an incorrigible flirt, and we ladies started calling ourselves Zan’s Harem.

Much to the guys’ chagrin, it turns out most of the other women on the forum are Jovi fans, like me. So, when we girls are alone on the board, we chat about the Band and what they’re doing, and what they do to us when they sing this song or that. Honestly, I’m not all that surprised that we have that in common; I haven’t met too many females between the ages of 4 and dead that don’t know about them. Hell, even my 87-year-old grandmother thinks Jon is cute.

So, anyway, we girls get to chatting, and it comes out that some of us are fan fiction writers. In hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have let out that I was THAT Hathor, although, I suppose, how many Hathors can there really be?

I was flirting shamelessly with Zan (really, we all were, and he started it) because, well, I’m a flirt. I’m technically a “Gutter Girl” which means what you think – that my thoughts usually stray to the gutter. That earned me another moniker on the board “Triple-G” (which is short for “Goddess Gutter Girl”, but makes me sound like a wrestler – I like it.) So, I was telling this guy how I write these deliciously raunchy and sexy stories, and he made some comment about maybe reading one. Yeah, like he would.

In any event, I made him a deal that if his Giants beat my Patriots in their pre-season match up, I’d share one of my stories. In return, if my team won, he’d meet me and another girl for drinks when we went to NJ for the shows. My team won, and I had mixed feelings about meeting this guy. I mean, it isn’t exactly unheard of for creeps to hang out on chat boards and lure unsuspecting women into trouble. I was also a little disappointed that he wasn’t going to get to read my story, so I sent him the link anyway, under the guise that I wanted a man’s opinion. Am I a shameless hussy? Yep.

Well, imagine the panic I felt when I found out that not only was this guy the subject of more than one of my stories, but the one I sent him the link to featured him and was the dirtiest one I’d written yet. Oh yeah. This was the King of Swing himself, Richie Sambora. I like to have died right then. I got over it though, mostly because he didn’t seem to be offended or disgusted. I was even more nervous now about the meet.

Well, of course, now we knew that the other guys who were on the board were Jon and David. In all, there are four of us ladies who know their true identities. We were mortified, because, well, we were gushing about them, and I know they can skip over that part of the board posts, but hell, they’re human with egos, I’ll bet they read most of it. One of the ladies, Samantha (she is FemFBFan4Life), is hooked up with Jon now. It’s really sweet the way they are together. Well, what she shares with us is really sweet, anyway. The other three of us, myself, Lucy, and now Stephanie, are all going to the show together. Lucy has actually met up with Richie already, and they are an item. As a die-hard Richie Girl, that broke my heart, but she was so happy, I felt like a bitch for even feeling that way.

We girls hadn’t originally planned on going to the concert together, so we had to score tickets on eBay. We spent WAY more than we should have, but hot damn, we got tickets on the floor on Richie's side of the stage, a couple rows back. We are gonna have a hell of a time.

OK. So, let me FINALLY get to why I’m so excited that I can’t sit still, and I’m annoying the shit out of the guy next to me (sorry, Marcus). The three of us (well four, if you include Sam) are GOING BACKSTAGE after the show! Holy shit. I thought we were just gonna meet up with Richie in a bar or something for drinks afterwards (we’re staying at the Hilton, which is really close to the Pru, and it has a gorgeous bar). But no, we get the ultimate fan experience. Not only am I meeting one of my long-time idols and longer-time crushes, I’m meeting the whole lot of them. I’ll say it again. Holy shit.

Well, the train is pulling into Newark now, and I’ve gotta get this last bit out. We didn’t tell Richie what the rest of us look like, and we didn’t tell him we got seats on his side of the stage, close enough to smell us. I’m sure he’ll find Lucy in the crowd, though, and he’ll figure it out.