by Meg Ripley
“You’re serious about that?” I nodded.
“I fuck things up in relationships,” I told her. “I guess I figured the longer we weren’t in an actual relationship, the longer it would be before I fucked it up—and as a result I fucked it up anyway.” I laughed. “I’m an advanced student of fucking up.”
“I do the same thing,” Fran said, smiling wryly. “Okay so what are we going to do about this? And about the tabloids and all that other shit?” I shrugged.
“We’re going to ride it out, as far as I’m concerned. People will get bored of it soon enough, right?”
“What are you going to do when Molly Riot and Juniper Woolf are recording separate albums?”
“Record an album with my band, and see you in my off hours, if you’ll let me,” I replied, smiling a bit again. “This doesn’t have to be complicated.”
“It already is,” Fran told me. “You’ve made it complicated and so have I and so has the fucking industry—everyone’s goddamn guilty of it.” She sighed. “So, what are we going to do?” I pressed my lips together.
“Right now, if you’re willing to do it,” I said slowly, “we’re going to work on a song together. If that goes well, we’ll work on more.” I held my hands up, to try and keep Fran from saying anything else for a minute. “Alex…” I shrugged. “He doesn’t care if I work on my own material. Maybe the label will want to release it; maybe they won’t. But we can work on it, and see where that goes.”
“And we’re going to work on your stuff as well as my stuff?” Fran raised an eyebrow.
“Until we run out of each other’s stuff to work on and start working on stuff together,” I suggested. Fran smiled slowly.
“Are you going to leave Palmela for me?” I snorted, rolling my eyes.
“Sorry, babe, but Palmela is with me always. I won’t ask you to leave Angelo in the dust, if it makes you feel any better. Besides, we both have tours in the future.”
“We’re really going to do this, then?” I thought about it for a second and then nodded.
“I sure as hell at least want to try. Now come on and get into the fucking studio with me.”
“I’ve been doing shit takes all day,” Fran said, standing. “Don’t be shocked if I suck on this one, too.”
“I will be shocked,” I told her playfully. “Just play along with the fucking song and we’ll record it and work it out, okay?” I stopped her, putting my hands on her shoulders. “And if you want something from me—to talk, or to like, be committed or something—just fucking tell me. Don’t keep putting it off.”
“Take your own advice, asshole,” Fran said, before leaning up onto the balls of her feet to kiss me on the lips for just a second. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“You’re up, kid,” Les told me. It was after hours again; it was actually almost nine at night, after everyone had gone to wherever they were going to camp out to celebrate finishing up the EP. I’d somehow managed to talk Les into staying late for the rest of the recording sessions, so Fran and I could work out the material we wanted to do together.
I’d also talked to Ron about the possibility of releasing it. “I don’t want it to be some bullshit thing of me going solo—that’s not what this is about,” I’d told him. “But it could be marketable, especially after the EP.” He’d said he’d look into it with the label once Fran and I had something to show for our after-hours sessions.
I’ve never thought of myself as much of a vocalist; Alex had joined the band so early on when we’d formed that there hadn’t been a point in even trying, apart from the occasional backing track for a song here and there. But Fran and I had been working on material together, and she’d insisted that for the song we’d started out with, she absolutely wanted me to contribute more than guitar. She wanted me to sing it with her.
I stood up and went into the vocal booth, right next to the control room. Fran had been working on vocals to one of my songs—a ballad, unlike anything I’d done with Molly Riot before—so she was still in place, headphones on, right in front of the mic. I took another quick breath and grabbed the extra set of headphones in the booth, putting them over my ears. “Let me see the lyric sheet again,” I told Fran. I still wasn’t sure what she had in mind was a good idea; but I was willing to go along with it. Fran had spent the day working on vocal tracks; she and Alex had done the last of them a couple of hours before, including a schlocky, gimmicky duet that we had decided on for the EP: it had involved all the members of both Juniper Woolf and Molly Riot, and it actually—at least in the rough—sounded good, in spite of the fact that we’d all been hamming it up.
I read over the lyrics again one last time, focusing on the parts that Fran had highlighted for me. “You’re sure you want to do this?” Fran had laid down a backing vocal a few days before, a guiding track that she was going to sing around while I did my parts. I thought it sounded perfectly fine that way—but she had her own vision of the song. I have to respect that, I guess, I thought wryly. If I expected her to pay attention to what I wanted for the songs I’d written, I could only go along with her on her stuff.
“Put up the playback, Les,” Fran said into the microphone. I grinned as she lit a cigarette quickly. She’d cut back during the week, to try and keep her voice as sharp and clear as possible, but we were just about done with all of the recording we were going to do for a while. I heard the count-in and then the melodic guitar-and-piano opening of the song, and finally the guiding vocal that Fran had laid down. She blew a plume of smoke away from the microphone and began to do her part around the original, adding a few flourishes here and there.
I came in on my first cue, in spite of the fact that I was pretty sure I was going to sound like a fucking toad. I plowed through it anyway, glancing at the lyric sheet every so often and then looking at Fran. She seemed pleased—but I thought mostly it was due to the fact of having actually made me do the vocal, rather than my performance itself. We switched off, me singing my part and her singing her bits, and by the time we came to the end of the track, I was actually starting to feel comfortable with the idea of singing.
“Running it again,” Les said through the headphones, and before I could do more than get my own cigarette lit and take a breath, I heard the intro to the song again. Once again, Fran took up her part and I did mine, a little more confidently the second time; at least I didn’t have to look at the lyrics sheet as many times.
We came to the end of the track and I stood there for a moment just staring at Fran, wondering what she thought. “It’s a fucking hit,” she said, half into the microphone and half to me. “Les, can you play it back for us?”
“Come in here and listen to it on the system,” Les suggested. I shrugged and took the headphones off; I still didn’t quite believe it was any good, but I wasn’t going to rain on Fran’s parade. She grabbed at my hand as we left the vocal booth, and I grinned at her.
“You’re really into this idea, aren’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? It was my idea in the first place,” Fran told me tartly. “You’re not allowed to say you don’t want your vocals on the track until twenty-four hours from now, by the way. I want you to sleep on it.”
“You’re going to wait until it’s been twenty-two hours and then you’re going to have sex with me and make me think it’s awesome, aren’t you?” Fran snorted.
“I’m an open book to you, apparently.”
We went into the control room and sat down while Les finished calling up the track we’d just worked on. Even if it’s shit, don’t react until you see what she thinks. I knew that Fran’s part would be fine—but I was seriously doubtful at my own ability to hold up against her.
I heard the count in and sat back in my chair, determined to listen as objectively as possible. As the intro came up, I felt my muscles tensing, waiting for the sound of my own voice. But when I came in on cue, it actually fit the song. I stared at Fran in shock. We actually sounded good together—her sop
rano and my baritone worked. I shook my head as the song went on, not able to completely believe it, but not able to discredit it either.
“I told you,” she said, sticking her tongue out and reaching over me to grab a half-finished beer that she’d left behind to work on another vocal, “it’s a fucking hit.”
“I can send this off to Alex, to Ron, and to the label,” Les suggested. I shrugged.
“Let’s hold off on that, I think,” I said, glancing at Fran. “The EP has the priority right now.”
“It could go on the EP as a bonus,” Fran suggested.
“Let’s give it a day,” I insisted. But in spite of how cautious I was being—and the fact that I still doubted that the rest of the band would take me working with Fran the way that Alex had—I had to admit that I was actually excited about how good we sounded together. Ideas started to form in my head, and I pushed them aside. “Come on,” I told Fran, reaching for her hand. “We’re done for the night—right Les?”
“If you say so,” he said with a shrug. “Who am I to argue?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I pulled Fran into my apartment, barely remembering to close the door behind me. “Since everyone’s partying, let’s party,” I murmured in her ear, pressing her body against mine.
“Sounds…mm, sounds like a good deal to me,” Fran said, bringing her lips up to mine. I kissed her like my life depended on it, letting my hands wander over her body.
“Think I’ve got beer…and some of that weed you gave me last week,” I told her, beginning to move towards my bedroom.
“Later,” Fran told me. She grinned up at me and her hands squeezed my ass. “Right now…” Fran ducked her head to the side and kissed along the column of my throat. “You sounded like a damn badass on that track,” she told me, and I laughed.
“You’re all turned on by my singing? That’s what this is about?” I reached down and wrapped my arms around Fran’s hips, lifting her body up against mine, off the floor. “I should sing more often.”
“You should,” Fran agreed. She kissed me on the lips again and we reeled through the apartment, making our way towards my bedroom. We tumbled onto the bed almost before I realized we were close to it, and Fran laughed, squirming and wriggling underneath me. I kissed her again and again, slipping my hands up underneath her tee shirt, under her skirt, touching her everywhere. I felt her hands on me, too—tugging at my shirt, struggling with the buckle of my belt, the fly of my jeans. I was already starting to sweat—it was full fucking summer heat in Miami, and I’d set the AC in the apartment to 80 before I’d left that morning.
Our clothes started to come off, and I tried to get my mouth, my hands, everywhere I saw exposed skin; I could taste the salt-sweet taste of Fran’s sweat, smell the scent of her perfume clinging to her cleavage, at the base of her neck, down near her hips as I worshipped her with my mouth. I was hard as a rock already; my cock was aching, but I wanted to make it last—and I knew if I just went straight to the main event, I was going to waste more time than I wanted waiting to get hard again. I looked up at Fran’s face as I came to her hips and smirked. “Good thing you did so many vocal warm-ups today,” I told her, rubbing my cheek against the spot between her navel and her wet pussy.
“Going to give my voice a workout?” Fran snickered and I nodded.
“Better believe it, baby.” I spread her legs a little more open and slid down between them, breathing in the smell of her: I don’t know how she did it but she was absolutely mouthwatering. I buried my face against her soaking wet folds and went to work, licking and sucking, teasing her every way I could think of while she twisted and squirmed and bucked underneath me. I rode the tension wave in her body, building her up over and over again, flicking my tongue against her clit and then dipping down to the sweet, wet folds underneath.
“Fuck—Jules…you’re such a bastard…sometimes…” Fran’s hips twisted under my arms and I chuckled, sucking her clit between my lips and swirling my tongue around it. She was so close to coming I could taste it—soaking wet, almost sizzling on my tongue. I finally gave her what she wanted and felt her gush against my face, felt her hips moving and her thighs trying to crush me while she cried out again and again.
As soon as the noises started to go soft I was on top of her, licking my lips and then kissing her again, touching her everywhere. It felt like I had molten rock pooling in my hips; my cock was so hard it almost hurt. “Let me know…when you’re ready for more,” I told Fran, barely able to breathe.
“Go for it,” Fran told me, smiling up at me with dazed, hazy, wild eyes.
“Really?” I rocked my hips against hers. “You’re up for this already?”
“Always,” Fran said, nodding eagerly. I shifted against her and then, in an instant I was sliding inside of her, pushing past the flexing muscles at the front of her pussy and in deeper.
“Fuck, Frannie,” I groaned, almost shaking; it was almost too much for me. I had to hold still for what felt like a fucking eternity, buried inside of her while her muscles tightened around me in erratic little spasms. “This never gets old, does it?”
“Never,” Frannie agreed. She kissed me everywhere, and as soon as I could I started moving, thrusting deeper and deeper inside of her. I fought to hold back, to keep it going as long as possible without losing control, but after a few minutes I couldn’t help myself anymore: she was so tight, so hot and so wet that it was impossible to fight the urge to go hard and fast. Fran wrapped her legs around my waist and we moved together, touching each other everywhere, kissing and licking and sucking wherever our lips could reach.
I buried my face against her tits, nuzzling, kissing, my hips slapping against hers as I felt the tension mounting somewhere in the pit of my stomach. All at once, I felt the tension dissolve, breaking with a snap, and I felt Fran shudder underneath me as we both came. I didn’t even care anymore—I was too wrapped up in the feeling of her body around mine, the sounds of her moans, the way she smelled and tasted. I came for what felt like hours, pushing deeper and deeper inside of her, riding through the climax that ripped through me so intense that it was almost painful.
All the strength in my body left me all at once and I collapsed next to Fran in the bed, dripping with sweat and panting for breath. “Some party,” I said, turning to look at her.
“This is just act one,” she said, giggling softly in the darkness. “As soon as we catch our breaths, we’re doing this again.”
“You’re not worried about losing your voice?” I smirked at her. Fran laughed out loud, curling up close to me.
“I don’t have any recordings to do for a month at least,” she said. “Make me as hoarse as you possibly can, lover boy.”
“It’s a deal,” I said, reaching over to give one of her heavy tits a playful squeeze. “But let’s grab a beer first. It’s too fucking hot in this house.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Once more I found myself in the rehearsal space with the rest of the band, alone, after Ron left us to “discuss this issue amongst yourselves.”
“Fucking déjà vu, man,” I said, glancing at the other members of my band. Somewhere, on the other end of the city, I was pretty sure that Fran was going through something similar.
“We should get this over with,” Alex said, shifting in his chair. “So, what’s the deal?”
“The deal is that Fran and I have been working on our own material for a while,” I said with a shrug. “While we were working on the EP, we stayed after hours and recorded some stuff.”
“And talked to Ron and the label about releasing it?” Nick looked skeptical.
“A little,” I said, finding a cigarette in my pack and bringing it up to my lips to light it. “It’s not like I want to break up the band or anything—but you guys know I’ve done my own thing on the side for years.”
“We’ve known that,” Alex agreed. He glanced at Mark and Dan, who I had to admit were looking less than thrilled. The label had offered me and Fran th
e chance to put out our own album—apart from the albums made by Molly Riot and Juniper Woolf—after the already-slated albums were done. “Personally, as long as you’re still committed to the band, it doesn’t bother me at all,” Alex said with a shrug.
“How can he be committed to the band when he’s doing side projects with his girlfriend?” Mark looked at me gloomily.
“You fill in for Mikey all the time,” Dan pointed out.
“This isn’t the same as that and you know it, Daniel,” Mark told Dan sharply. “He’s actually working on material and talking about putting an album out.”
“If you don’t want us to put it out, then we won’t,” I said with a shrug. “We really just did the recordings to do them.”
“So why did you even show them to the label anyway?” Nick raised an eyebrow at me. I took a drag on my cigarette and flicked the ash off the end.
“We thought if the label saw anything in it, it might be fun to do,” I told him. “I don’t want to quit the band, I don’t even really want a break from the band. I just wanted to do something different, so I did. Fucking sue me.”
“You’re sure that you’re going to be able to keep up with the extra commitments you’ve got going on?” I looked Nick dead in the eyes, and then looked at the other members of my band.
“I am having a really hard fucking time being philosophical about this,” I said as calmly as I could. “Alex hooks up with his damn sobriety coach from rehab and no one cares. Nick gets involved with the journalist who’s supposed to be blogging our tour—and starts a photography project with her—and no one the fuck cares. I get together with someone and suddenly everyone fucking doubts me?”
“It’s another musician, from another band,” Dan pointed out. “It’s different.”
“What’s different is that for once in my goddamn life I actually want to do the right thing with a girlfriend and all anybody here can say is that I’m betraying the fucking band.” I shook my head. “You guys were the ones who wanted me to play nice with her—I didn’t even want to do the fucking tour or the EP in the first place.”
