by L. B. Dunbar
“Why?” she said softly.
“Because I don’t think that’s what you need. Or what you want.”
“I don’t get what I want. I only give. I only get taken,” she muttered.
“What do you want?” I asked gently, biting my lip that wanted to kiss her shoulder, kiss her silly, and make her forget that there had ever been anyone else. Forget that there had ever been someone who took her.
“I…I don’t even know anymore,” she sighed.
My heart broke; I had wanted her to say she wanted me.
I held her until I felt her relax and her breathing slow. I knew her noises and I recognized the sound of her sleeping. When I thought it was safe, I removed myself from the bed and stole out to my living room and my kit. I wouldn’t be able to play with her sleeping, so I picked up my sticks and air played. I closed my eyes and worked through the motions: a beat, a beat, a tap to the cymbal, a beat, another beat, and a tap to the cymbal. I wasn’t thinking in terms of musical notes. I had never learned to read them anyway. I learned to play by sound. It seemed to be inside me and I could imagine in my mind, the music. I played through three Nights’ songs without actually touching the drums, when I opened my eyes and saw the outline of Hollister in my bedroom door. She was leaning against the frame, her head resting on it as her arms were crossed over her chest. She had slipped into the t-shirt that I took off and tossed on the floor earlier this evening.
We stared at one another for a minute before I spoke.
“Did I wake you?”
“No. I couldn’t sleep. My mind is all over the place.”
I didn’t respond. I wanted her to tell me, but I wasn’t going to push.
She walked slowly toward me. Her hips swayed and her movement was seductive. I swallowed hard as my mouth watered. I wanted her, but as I told her: not tonight.
I was balanced on my stool, feet held wide behind the kit as she continued her slow approach. My sticks were in each hand and I transferred them to one hand. She came all the way around the set and hesitated for a second.
“Can you teach me how to play?”
My eyes opened wide in surprise. I responded by shifting for her to stand between my open legs. It would be easier to surround her, and I tried to hold steady as she stood before me.
“Here.” I placed one stick in her hand, positioning her fingers to hold it correctly and then helped her with the other. I tried not to touch her, but my chest brushed her back as I reached around her. My body betrayed me as it always did when she was near. I had replaced my jeans, but obviously not my shirt.
“Rest against me?” I asked hesitantly. I needed her to relax, almost sitting. I could have given her the stool, and tried to instruct from the opposite side, but I wanted to feel her against me. I sensed somehow she wanted the same thing from me. She melted into me and rested on my most vital part. I had to concentrate and ignore my aching hardness.
Placing my hands over hers, I began to tap the drum.
Ta-dum. Ta-dum. Ta-dum.
“It’s your heartbeat. It’s the steadiest rhythm. Go with the beat.”
I could tell she was concentrating. She was stiff as she moved at first.
“Feel the rhythm,” I said, and I placed my fingers over her heart. I was too close to her breast, but I tapped against her chest.
“Ta-dum. Ta-dum. Ta-dum,” I said softly. She fell into rhythm rather quickly. I remembered her mentioning that she sang. I’d only heard her once.
“Sing something. Maybe that will help. Go with the rhythm in your head.”
She played for a few more minutes before she stopped.
“What did I play?”
“I have no idea,” I responded. I was trying too hard to not concentrate on her sitting on my erection and the curve of her ass as it fit against me so perfectly. She giggled softly, and I felt that sound everywhere, but especially in the place I was trying not to think of.
“What’s this?” she asked, her voice faltering. She held the stick higher and examined the gold band on the bottom of the smooth wood.
“It’s a ring,” I said. I could never wear it; it was too delicate. After being picked on for wearing my father’s ring, I didn’t dare wear a feminine one. When I got my first sticks from Arturo, I slipped the ring onto the end as an inspiration and it fit perfectly. I kept these sticks with me for years until the band became famous. Now I only used them at home where they were safe.
“It’s…it’s my ring,” she said quietly. She shifted to look at me over her shoulder, but she didn’t move off of me.
“It really was you,” she said on a choke.
“It really was me,” I repeated back to her.
“You’re so different,” she said, as if she seemed surprised.
“Well, I hope so,” I chuckled.
“You still have it after all this time?”
“I do,” I said. I had a flash of placing a similar ring on her finger and saying those exact words to her, but she shattered my image.
“Throw it out.”
“What?” I choked.
“Throw it away.”
“Why?”
“Because he made me wear it,” she said standing up.
“I…I never thought of it like that,” I said, staring down at the ring. I’d always thought of it as hers, and I wasn’t sure I could part with it, despite who gave it to her.
We were both staring down at it as if we expected it to remove itself from my stick.
“It was my mother’s,” she said softly.
I looked up at her, but her eyes were still focused on the ring.
“He stole it from my nightstand when he took me. He claimed it was my destiny to wear my mother’s ring as his bride.” She shivered and I wanted desperately to erase the memory; to wipe clean her past, but I couldn’t.
“He ruined everything for me. He ruined me.”
“No,” I said adamantly. “No. It was wrong. It was horrible, but in some ways he made you. He made you a fighter. He made you strong. He made you compassionate.”
“I was all those things before,” I said softly.
“I remember.”
“What do you remember?”
While I wanted it to be time I told her the truth that we had met before the tent, I felt her mind held enough for tonight. When I didn’t reply, she spoke again.
“Another night?” she said repeating my words from earlier.
“Time for more sleep,” I said, in hopes of changing the subject and I stood behind her. My chest brushed her back again. I was still rock hard, but I had to try to ignore myself. I wanted to run to the shower to hide and relieve myself, but it would have to wait. I placed my palm against her lower back, guiding her out from behind my kit, and then slipped my hand to hers to lead her to my room.
“If the offer still stands, I’d like to meet your mother and go to Lake Avalon with you,” she said meekly.
I couldn’t hide my smile, but I bit my lip to downplay my excitement. I only nodded in acknowledgement, but she caught me. She smiled slightly at me and my heartbeat tripled compared to her tap on the drums.
Hol-lis-ter. Hol-lis-ter. Hol-lis-ter.
The road trip…
[Perkins]
I didn’t travel home often after I left at seventeen. I had just finished high school and my mother finally relented that I could leave. After meeting Jon Goneman, I discovered that he had been a member of my father’s band, the Valentines. He knew my father was partying too hard, and he knew my father went to that fateful hotel room. His guilt kept him at arm’s length from my mother, but always within viewing distance of Didraine and me. He told me he was full of remorse at my father’s death, thinking he should have done something to prevent it. Knowing that Alan Vale left behind two small children and a wife, Jon took it upon himself to be our silent guardian angel.
He hadn’t necessarily saved me from that fight with Reddington Knight, but he saved me from my mother. He immediately began to train me in the
ways of music. I wasn’t classically instructed, but Goneman taught me how to feel the music. He showed me how to give into its power and let the rhythm guide me. I learned to play by ear. The skills I developed from him helped me prove myself to Arturo King, who accepted the return of his iPod as a sign of my loyalty to him. He also was willing to give me a chance.
I was rough at first. I could only follow the song in my head, not the beat of Arturo and Lansing, and I stumbled a few times. Arturo was a bit more patient than Lansing. He encouraged me to keep trying, and he would nod his approval when I got it correct. Goneman happened to know Mure Linn, Arturo’s mentor, whether from living and roaming the woods, or as longtime friends I couldn’t tell, but they had a respect for one another in regards to music. Mure was clearly in charge as he led Arturo, but Mure was also open to suggestions from Goneman that helped me grow as a member of the band.
Nothing had ever felt more right in my life than to finally be included in this group. I had been picked on and bullied for standing out, but now I found a spot to blend in. When Arturo and I were ready to leave Lake Avalon, Lansing followed but had to live with Arturo’s mother, Ingrid Tintagel. On the other hand, I was free of motherly constraints, and I was at once relieved and frightened. My mother had controlled so much of my upbringing by homeschooling us and keeping us out of the limelight of the musical world, not to mention forbidding us to listen to music; that once I was in the city, I felt like a fish out of water.
Everything was overwhelming to me: the big city, the hustling traffic, the crowded bars, and the women. They threw themselves at me. At all of us, and I didn’t know how to respond. I tried to rid myself of my fantasy of Hollister SanGrael, a girl who was lost to me and never found again. It never felt right to be with other women. Short kissing sessions were the furthest I had gotten with any woman, until Hollister.
When she said she would go with me back to Lake Avalon, I understood she was taking a large risk, both in her own strength to return to the area and her trust in me that I would protect her. We travelled the four-hour ride by talking occasionally, sitting in long stretches of silence, and singing. I wasn’t a singer; I played the drums, but I knew songs and Hollister had an amazing voice. She sang along with the stereo until I turned it off and asked her to sing me something special.
She started out humming, closing her eyes, and then her voice carried softly through the truck. I was mesmerized by her sound and the song enveloped me. It was soothing, and if I dare say, romantic, about longing, love, and waiting. I almost felt she had read my mind as the words she sang could have come from my head, or more importantly, my heart. I had longed for her, waited for her. In some ways, I was still waiting. She finished on a low note and I glanced at her sideways while I drove.
“That was absolutely beautiful.”
She smiled sheepishly.
“I have another one,” she said meekly, as if she was afraid I would deny her the chance. As if I would ever deny her anything.
“Please,” I encouraged and she began again. She started in the same manner, humming as if to warm up and then she broke into a falsetto. The song was lyrical, almost religious, and it too was a comfort to hear. It was promise. It was hope. It was love. She sang with a softened tone and my concentration on the road was faltering at the lulling sound of her voice. She finished with a fade out, and I was truly stunned at the glory of her voice. I felt like I’d been tagged, a sweet dart of drugs causing me to feel warm all over. I had to pull off the road for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” she said looking around, as if something had happened to the truck.
I sat facing forward, still mesmerized, my hand lightly hanging over the steering wheel. I wiped my other hand down my face and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“You didn’t like it,” she asked softly.
I don’t know what came over me, but I turned abruptly to face her and reached over for her chin. It was only a second before our mouths collided and I felt I could taste that song within me. I wanted to drink in the promise, the hope, and the comfort within those words. I wanted to savor the love that lingered on her lips. I wanted to draw her voice into me, filling me with her song. I kissed her hard as if I could capture the lyrics before they fell away completely.
While startled at first, she kissed me back with no less pressure, as if she was willingly giving her sound to me. She sucked my lips as if she wrote the lyrics on mine, and when her tongue caressed mine, I felt like she was offering her voice to me. Here is promise. Here is hope. Here is comfort swirled within our joined mouths as I took and she gave, and then I stopped.
She was breathless next to me with her gray eyes opened wide. I could have laid her down in the front seat and taken her. I wanted to have her, but that’s why I stopped. She had already been taken from on so many occasions. I needed her to give herself to me.
She bit her lip to hide a smile. Something that was glorious and rare from her.
“I hope you don’t mind. I just had to kiss you.”
She held my gaze for a moment and then the sweetest of color crept across her face. She nodded as if she understood. I pulled back to shift the truck into drive and returned to the highway.
Meeting his mother…
[Hollister]
Here’s the thing with Perkins. His kiss was amazing. He could kiss like no one I’d ever experienced, and no one I wanted to remember. I’d only had two men in my life and neither was a kisser. Jordan was all business: missionary and purposeful. Michael was all sweet words and soft caress: wrong and inappropriate. Neither brushed my lips more than a handful of times. Perk seemed quite happy to kiss me and he did it often. He’d never surprised me like he did in the truck. It was always as if he was asking permission when it happened, but he knew how to kiss and it stole my breath. Every. Single. Time.
It was getting harder and harder to resist him. Not that I was resisting, but I was following his lead. He was patient. He hadn’t stolen off to the shower when I was present, but I don’t know what he did when I wasn’t around in regards to himself or other women. I didn’t wish to believe he had a harem of followers. Perkins seemed innocent enough that if he did, he’d probably tell me. Despite having a reputation, he wasn’t in the media like Lansing Lotte, the Lady Killer, or Tristan Lyons, the Heartbreaker, who had so many women they were nicknamed ‘flavors.’ It was hard to admit, but I trusted that Perkins Vale was faithful to me.
On that note of trust, we began to wind through the curving narrow road surrounding Lake Avalon. It already held the presence of winter as the wind blew fiercely and the leaves seemed to be scattering in a rainstorm of color. It was beautiful and melancholy at the same time. We pulled onto a hidden driveway, and my heart began to race as we were blanketed by brush on either side of us. The memories were beginning to flash. I wanted to touch Perkins. I needed a connection with him, but he was staring ahead, his hand draped over the wheel again as he navigated us through the browning shrubbery. We eventually pulled up to a moderate house. It was a home you’d find in any suburb of New York City. A home that appeared rather comforting and safe with its two-story, colonial style.
An older woman exited the front door, a smile on her face, and I had to assume she was Perkins’ mother. She was dressed in a modest dress and her hair was a mousy gray. I sensed she appeared older than her actual age, but she practically glowed with excitement to see her son. I worried for a moment that she would be disappointed in meeting me. I smoothed a hand over my hair, something I never fussed over, and brushed down my jeans to wipe the moisture of nerves from my hands. Perk opened my door and held out a hand for me.
We walked hand-in-hand to the low porch of his maternal home, when another woman exited the screen door. Strawberry blonde hair and dark eyes that matched Perkins’ met mine and she instantly recognized me.
“Holli? Holli SanGrael?” Raine Valentine dropped off the porch in one step and was embracing me, while I continued to hold onto Perk’s hand. I didn’t have
time to return the hug when she pulled back and held me by my upper arms.
“Holli? It’s really you, right?”
I could only nod in my disbelief. Raine Valentine was Perkin’s sister, Didraine?
“You know each other?” Perk asked in wonder.
“Know each other? We went to school together. We were friends.” She hesitated on the final statement.
Raine had come to the city when she was fifteen, almost sixteen, just like me. We were the new kids at the exclusive academy, and we seemed to gravitate to one another as kids who were not born into privilege. She did not know about my affair with Fr. Mike McMann, but I knew that she was a rather wild teenager. Her sexual experience might have far outweighed mine in the private high school.
“Raine?” I questioned.
“My nickname,” she clarified rolling her eyes. “When Mother allowed me to go to school, I used the nickname, instead of my real name, and added the false last name.” Still holding onto my arms, her gaze wandered to my hand joined with Perk’s.
“Perkins, you didn’t say she was the girl you were bringing home. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited it’s you. How have you been? When you disappeared, I did everything to find you,” Raine said in a high pitch tone. “I even went to your uncle’s home.” Here Raine wiggled her eyebrows, as if he was a sinister man and the old manor house was an evil lair. As it had been years since I’d been there, that’s how I remembered it, too.
“You know where her uncle lives?” Perk spoke with a sense of disbelief.
“Well, yes. She’s Elaine Corbin’s cousin. They own the old Corbin estate.”
“Dammit,” Perk muttered under his breath and rubbed his hand over his hair in that soothing manner. His face looked ashen, and I wasn’t certain why.
At this point, his mother approached, reaching out for her son who broke his hold on my sweating palm. He embraced her and she held on for a moment longer than I could tell Perk intended.
