Sounds and Spirits

by Josie Kerr

  “Unzip me,” she repeated and turned around. She held her hair up and felt Tobias’s warm hand on the back of her neck. He hesitated for a moment, then began to lower her zipper. She grinned when he sucked in his breath when he discovered she was wearing her new lingerie set as she stepped out of the dress. She carefully placed the layers of silk and organza over the back of a chair before turning back to Tobias and beginning to unbuckle his belt.

  “Let me do this for you,” she said, knowing he was going to protest. “Please?” Then she sank to her knees and took him into her mouth.

  “Holy!” Tobias exclaimed. He kept his eyes locked on hers. Her gaze never wavered as she pleasured him with her mouth, and soon he uttered a guttural yelp as he climaxed. She never took her eyes off of his. When he was finished, she placed a playful peck on the tip of his penis, winked at him, and stood up.

  “I think the car will be here soon,” she said, and she stepped back into her dress. “Zip me again?”

  “Sure thing, Liddie.”

  Tobias drew the zipper up and fastened the hook-and-eye closure at the top of the dress. She turned around and beamed at him. “Better?” she asked and giggled when he blushed.

  Tobias nodded, but then his forehead creased in confusion. “How the hell do you still have lipstick on?”

  “A girl’s got to have some secrets,” she said as the phone rang. She answered, listened for a moment, and then said her thanks and hung up. “The car’s here.”

  “Well then, I guess we got done just in time,” Tobias said with a laugh.

  Liddie giggled again, and then she and Tobias made their way downstairs to get to the car.

  ´*•.¸(*•.¸ *¸.•*´)¸.•*´

  The red-carpet entrance wasn’t as traumatic as she’d feared. She didn’t trip or fall, and Tobias had been on the scene long enough that people knew who he was and that he wouldn’t spend a lot of time trading banter with the red-carpet interviewers. Tobias introduced her, she smiled, and then he whisked her off to the next set of people. Liddie thought her face was going to be frozen in a smile by the time they ran the whole gamut, and when they got to their seats, she was out of breath.

  “You okay, darlin’?” Tobias leaned over to her and gave her kiss on the cheek. “You handled everything like a pro. Now you can just sit back and enjoy the show, right?”

  “Right.” She gave him a wink to let him know she really was all right, if just a bit overwhelmed.

  Of course, there wasn’t a lot of “just sitting back,” because people kept approaching Tobias and congratulating him, and then he would introduce her, which would be followed by e some small talk. This was repeated about a million times, and she was ready to shriek. Her saving grace was Tobias, who had loosened up once they got to their seats, and while he stood to shake hands and greet various people, as soon as he sat back down, he had his arm around her or was holding her hand. It made all the difference.

  Tobias squeezed her hand, and Liddie turned to look at him. “Thank you for coming with me,” he said, his face serious. “It really means a lot to me.”

  “Well, it means a lot to me that you asked.”

  A smile lit up his face, and then the house lights flickered on and off to signal the five-minute warning to the start of the ceremony.

  “Here we go, you two. Hang on; I have a feeling it’s gonna be a wild ride tonight,” Marty whispered in a conspiratorial voice.

  Tobias chuckled and squeezed her hand again, but for the first time that evening, he seemed nervous to her. It had to be nerve-racking, waiting to see if he won or lost, and then performing with people he wasn’t used to playing with added another layer of stress. Liddie didn’t know how he did it, but as she sat in the darkened auditorium, it hit home that if she was going to be in Tobias’s world, she was going to have to get used to it as well.

  Tobias was high, but not on weed or hooch or any other kind of artificial joy. He’d been the upset winner for every category in which he was nominated, plus he’d managed to sound reasonably intelligent during his acceptance speeches. But most importantly, Liddie was by his side, just the way he’d hoped and imagined she’d be one day. He was going to have to leave her for a bit now, though, as he was slated to perform in an all-star “jam session,” which, of course, was not extemporaneous at all and therefore was not a real jam session. But the crowd loved these tributes, and he relished the opportunity to play with some people he didn’t normally encounter, so he gritted his teeth and agreed to do it.

  Now, he was taking advantage of the intermission by backing Liddie into a quiet nook and kissing her silly before he had to get ready to perform.

  “I’ll be back before you know it, and then after only a few more awards, we can get out of here and celebrate properly.” He nipped the side of her neck, and she made a little noise that threatened to undermine all his self-control. “We were invited to the Mercury after-party, but I’m thinking we might just need to blow through and head back to the hotel.”

  “Whatever you wanna do, Toby.”

  His laugh rumbled through his chest. “I’m just saying, festivities just might start in the limo on the way to the after-party.” He kissed her again, and then again. “You still have lipstick on. That is so crazy.” One more kiss. “Okay, darlin’, I’ll see you after I present and perform, okay?”

  “Okay, Toby. See you back there.”

  Tobias winked and ambled off, and Liddie watched him walk away until he rounded the corner. She decided she’d better take advantage of a bathroom break while she could, so she slipped into the ladies’ restroom. A quick glance in the mirror on the way to the stalls told her that while she might still have lipstick on, the rest of her face was a shiny mess. Yikes. She’d take care of that in a moment.

  Liddie used the time in the seclusion of the stall to take some deep breaths and recharge. She closed her eyes and, as much as possible, blocked out the noise of women coming and going. That is, until she heard Tobias’s name.

  “I just do not get it. He was with Candy before—what’s so special about this woman?” one woman said.

  A second woman responded, “Apparently, they were high school sweethearts or something, but then she had a thing with Tobias’s father. Can you believe that? Disgusting.”

  “He must be stupid, then. Once a cheater, always a cheater. And to cheat on you with your own father? She’s got problems, as in mental issues. There is no way I could ever forgive someone who did something like that to me.”

  “Poor Candy,” the second woman said. “Did you know she took care of Chet all those years and he didn’t leave her a dime? But I guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, because, you know, she got hardly any spousal support. Such a shame. She should have gotten way more, especially because they didn’t have a prenup!”

  “Well, I don’t think prenups were a thing when they got married.” Someone turned on the tap, so Liddie had to strain to hear. “Though, it was kind of tacky on everyone’s part, the way they just flip-flopped. Makes you wonder if they shared everything all the time, right?”

  “Oh my God! Gross!” the second woman shrieked. “But they obviously have something going for them. Maybe they have really big dicks . . .”

  Liddie had heard all she needed to. It’s not as if she was going to bust out of the stall and go all shock and awe on these women, but enough was enough. She took a deep breath, plastered a smile on her face, and stepped out of the stall.

  “Honey, they have really big bank accounts. That’s all a girl needs. She can put up with anything else, am I right?” Woman One said, until she caught a glimpse of Liddie emerging from the stall. “Oh, shoot . . .”

  “How y’all doin’?” Liddie chirped in her most saccharine voice. She began to fastidiously wash her hands, sneaking looks in the mirror to gauge the women’s reactions. The women’s smiles were frozen on their faces as they tried to have a surreptitious conversation with their eyebrows and eyes.

  “Okay, ladies. Let’s
cut the crap. I heard every nasty, mostly untrue word that you two uttered, and I’m going to set the record straight. Chet Harper raped me when I was seventeen. Candy had been screwing Chet since she was fifteen, including all the time that she was married to Tobias. She didn’t do crap to take care of Chet. In fact, she abandoned him as soon as he got sick. That’s why she didn’t get anything. So y’all can keep running around with Candy, but beware that the company you keep reflects on you. Y’all enjoy the rest of the ceremony.”

  Liddie put her hand on the door pull but paused before she left the restroom. “And for the record, the biggest thing about Tobias is his heart and his kindness, but, honey, everything is physically proportional, and that, my dear, is mighty fine.”

  She marched out the door and made her way back to the auditorium. She nodded at Marty, who was sprawled out and looking at his phone while he waited for things to start back up.

  “Hey, Liddie. I was wondering where’d you’d gotten to.”

  “Hey, Marty. Yeah, I had to verbally kick some ass in the ladies’ room, but it’s all sorted now.” The lights flashed off and on. “Oh, seems like I got seated just in time. I’ll talk to you in a bit.” She turned around but could hear Marty cackling behind her, a big smile spreading across her face as the lights dimmed and the emcee stepped out onstage.

  “We’re going to open the second half of our ceremony with the best of the best. The folks who are behind me on this stage need no introduction because they embody the sound and spirit of all genres of modern singers and songwriters.”

  The emcee stepped off the darkened stage, and a tall figure stepped up to take his place. Like a train whistle in the night, the familiar strains of “Orange Blossom Special” cut through the dark, a spotlight slowly illuminating Tobias’s six-and-a-half-foot frame as he stood with his Dobro. He progressed into the showier portions of the song at breakneck speed, and the crowd went wild. A fiddler stepped in to take over, and as Tobias handed off the song with a flourish, the crowd erupted in noisy applause. Soon other musicians joined Tobias and the fiddler, each taking over the melody and sometimes moving on to another piece or bending the original tune until it was almost broken. Liddie recognized newer, popular songs that garnered radio play sprinkled in with the standards as the musicians created their tapestry of sound. And then, one by one, each musician faded out and into the background until, once again, only Tobias could be seen and heard. He wasn’t playing anything standard, though. He wasn’t even performing anything he’d recorded. As Tobias ended the performance, he was playing something new, something special, something he’d only shared with Liddie to date. When his hands stilled but the note continued, the crowd rose to its feet as one, but Tobias was gazing directly at her, and only her, and she knew that her heart was his and always had been.

  Tobias had hoped to slide unobtrusively back into his seat, but that wasn’t happening. He’d waited until a small intermission, but people still managed to shake his hand and comment on the performance, though the only person whose opinion he cared a bit about was Liddie. She wasn’t saying anything, but her eyes were bright and she was looking him in adoration, and yeah, that high came right back. She clenched his hand, he squeezed hers, and they sat with their fingers intertwined until the last award of the night.

  In general, Tobias didn’t really care if he won an award or not. He was purely happy to be recognized, to be nominated. Tonight, he had a knot in his stomach as the two announcers switched off reading the list of nominees. He gripped Liddie’s hand tighter when he heard his name reverberate over the sound system. Liddie put her other hand over his as they got ready to read the winner’s name, and Tobias closed his eyes.

  “Songwriter of the Year goes to . . . Tobias Harper!”

  Tobias didn’t hear anything else because Liddie was shrieking in his ear and grabbing him around the neck in a hug and giving him big, sloppy kisses on the side of his face. He kissed her full on the mouth and then made his way to the stage, accompanied by his music, to accept his award.

  His speech was a variation of those he’d made earlier in the evening, the difference being they allowed him time to actually thank people by name. He ran down the list of usual suspects: Mick, Marty, his brothers. But then he cleared his throat and stared at the heavy cut-glass award in his hands.

  “I won the first one of these when I was twenty, for a song I first recorded when I was eighteen and wrote when I was sixteen. They say good things come to those who wait. I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but I think they might be right. I waited thirty years for Liddie Hopewell to come back to me, and if my luck holds out, I’ll have another thirty years to be a pain in her ass, whoops, excuse me, butt.” He could hear the audience laughing, but his eyes were riveted on one person. “So I wanna thank whatever force brought Liddie back into my life, and I wanna thank Liddie for putting up with me. I love you dearly. You’re my muse, and my heart.”

  He held the award over his head and took a step back for the emcee to close the show. He saw Liddie blowing him kisses, tears running down her face. He knew without a doubt that she would always be in his life. He just had to make absolutely clear that he wanted her to be his partner, because she was already his muse and she’d never not been in his heart.

  The house lights came on, and people started filing for the exits as Tobias bounded down the steps to get to the seats where he and Liddie had been seated. There was a knot of people gathered around Marty, who was handing out cards and generally schmoozing with his newfound potential clients. Someone was talking with Liddie, who caught his eye and beamed. Her wide smile alerted the group that Tobias approached, and he spent the next ten minutes or so being congratulated, expressing his thanks, and trying to resist the urge to knock everyone out of the way and pluck Liddie from the crowd and carry her out like some sort of caveman would.

  He resisted, but only barely. Marty could sense his agitation, so he directed everyone to give him their contact information, allowing Liddie and Tobias to escape out the side door and into a waiting town car.

  “To the Mercury after-party, sir?”

  Liddie cocked an eyebrow at him, and he could read her mind. The after-party location was only a few blocks from where they were staying. They could pop into the after-party, make an appearance to satisfy Marty, the press, and the academy, and then scoot out, probably without being noticed.

  “Yes, that sounds good. But I do have a request: take the long way.”

  “Yes, sir.” The driver raised the barrier and set off slowly, finally escaping the snarl of cars outside the venue. Liddie gave Tobias a wicked grin before sliding into his lap and straddling him with her knees on either side of his hips.

  “Congratulations on your wins, Toby,” she whispered, her breath tickling his ear.

  “Thank you, Liddie darlin’. The fact that you came up here and shared this night with me? That was a score beyond my wildest dreams.” Her smile grew wider, and Tobias covered her mouth with a hot, hard kiss.

  “You need to get busy if we’re gonna do it in the back of a limo,” she murmured against his mouth.

  “I guess I’d better do something, then,” Tobias said with a laugh. And then he did.

  ´*•.¸(*•.¸ *¸.•*´)¸.•*´

  Liddie was very conscious of Tobias’s hand on her backside as she stood next to him while people jockeyed for his attention. He was surprisingly relaxed and affable as he chatted with people as he sat beside her, but then again, he’d been doing this a long time and knew how to handle himself, though she supposed the orgasm he’d had on the limo ride to the after-party hadn’t hurt.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I thought we’d be able to slip out sooner,” he murmured in her ear. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  Liddie rolled her eyes. “Please, Tobias. This is a huge night for you. If you can’t be the center of attention now, when can you be? Jeez. What is that look for?”

  He placed a sweet kiss on the side of her mouth. “You are amazing.
Absolutely amazing.”

  She shook her head in wonder and smiled at him. “I’m just glad I could be here.”

  “God, we need to get out of here so I can properly thank you.”

  Marty wandered by and muttered, “Piranha Party coming up on my left. Fair warning.”

  Tobias’s colorful expletive caused Liddie to raise her eyebrows in curiosity, but his scowl made her worry.

  “What’s going on, Toby?”

  He groaned and gave her a pained expression. “There was a group of women who were friendly with Candy. Marty always called ’em piranhas because they were all toothy and ate men alive.”

  He seemed surprised when she cackled.

  “Oh, I think I met them in the restroom earlier.” Liddie rolled her eyes. “They were charming.”

  Tobias’s forehead creased. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  She waved him off. “I cleared up some misconceptions. It’s all good.”

  “Yikes.” He snickered. “Man, I would have paid cash money to see that. I’m gonna say it again: you’re amazing.”

  “I think you’re pretty nifty, too.” She gave him a light smooch on the forehead before sighing contentedly.

  “Fuck it—let’s get outta here.” Tobias sprang out of the chair and, following another kiss, pulled Liddie close to his side and went over to Marty. “We’re headed out, Marty. I’ll give you a call tomorrow or the next day, okay?”

  “Sounds good.” Marty clapped Tobias on the back. “Congratulations, man. This has been a long time coming. Liddie, thanks for keeping this idiot in line.”

  “Oh, the pleasure is all mine,” she said with a giggle that grew into a laugh when Tobias’s cheeks flamed at her sassy comment.

  She felt rather than heard the rumble of Tobias’s growl. “Come on, Liddie. Let’s make this party private,” he said in a low voice. “Marty, see ya.”

  Liddie could hear Marty cackling as they walked away.

  They walked toward the ballroom doors, arms looped around each other’s waist, not talking but simply enjoying one another’s presence. They’d just reached the door when a hard thump made Tobias stagger and sent Liddie sprawling.