Quint

Emily Quint started a punk band with two girls she went to high school with and called herself Em Quint. She had the perfect smeared eyes and bloody mouth, and when she played guitar she hunched over and stuck out her chin, like she was trying to suck it into herself. When she was 17 she had a body everyone paid attention to, and it helped her band win the local slot on the nearest stop of the Warped Tour. She met Stretch there, hanging out backstage trying to steal a beer, but she knew exactly who he was already, everyone did.

She lied about her age at first and he took her back to LA, he had her change her name to M. Quint. Her band mates were invited but they waved her off, they had lives to complete and colleges to go to. M. Quint dropped out and when she turned 18 they married. Stretch had a label and he hired his friends to back her up. He told her to lower her register and gruff up her voice, he started writing her songs. When she played out people didn't take her seriously, they snickered and talked about how she was mimicking Stretch. They said he probably tuned her guitar for her.

By 27 Quint's first marriage was over. Stretch was the same man she met when she was 17 and it had become the bored strumming of the same open chord. She didn't get along with the friends he installed as her band, and she was frustrated with the label he wouldn't let her leave. He had announced her as the opener for his next tour without asking, he liked to keep her close, and she had booked a string of her own clubs. It was the last fight, she had all of her stuff moved out of the house by his first date on the road.

Quint was shocked at how few musical contacts she had that weren't connected to Stretch. She started playing solo again, like the days before she was 17 and taught those girls bass and drums. Her style had become spare and haunting, and she was noticed by the singer of an up in coming indie rock act. They started collaborating, he loved the bruised memories of her songs. They made a record together, then became an item. People scoffed, they thought she was such a man eater, and she could only leach her personality from her boyfriends.