“So my looks give me special privileges around here?” I asked, leaning into the view of the camera and earning myself a freshly-polished face with a flower crown filter.
Zalayah was quick to snap the picture, giggling as she uploaded it to her Snapchat story with the caption, “Studio Vibes” as she replied, “Are you kidding me? Your looks give you special privileges everywhere.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now get to writing, superstar. We don’t have all day,” I reminded her as I went back to my chair in front of the control surface, creating much needed space as I tried not to read too much into her words.
But she closed the distance between us when she slid her chair back my way and asked, “You have important plans or something?”
“Nah. Just not trying to spend this beautiful sunny day holed up in this dark ass studio,” I said, though I really meant I wasn’t trying to spend the day holed up in the studio with her.
Not that there was anything wrong with her. But the more I was around her, the more I noticed things about her that I had no business noticing, like the cute ass double dimple in her right cheek when she smiled and replied, “Me neither. So stop talking so I can focus.”
She crossed her legs under her in the chair the same way she had done the day before, then she picked up the headphones and slid them halfway over her ears as she typed what I could assume were lyrics on her phone. And for whatever reason, I couldn’t stop looking at her, my list of observations growing to include the way she sucked on the middle of her lip while she wrote and the way her nose wrinkled whenever the words stopped flowing at her fingertips.
But apparently I was staring too hard as she peeked up from her phone to ask, “What?”
I cleared my throat, trying to find the words that wouldn’t make me sound like I was creeping on her. But nothing sounded as good as the truth when I started, “I uh… I’m glad I took you up on this offer.”
She seemed surprised, dropping her phone to her lap as she asked, “Really? Why so?”
“I guess it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. You’re actually… nice. And talented. Really fuckin’ talented.”
“So you really thought I was just some talentless bitch before now?” she challenged, though I could tell she was only teasing by the smirk that quickly grew on her face.
And since it was clear she was joking, I decided to do the same when I replied, “Not those exact terms, but…”
She gave me another little shove, the two of us laughing together as she said, “Well I’m glad I could change your mind, Gabe. Can I call you Gabe now? Are we cool like that?”
“Yeah. We’re cool like that,” I told her with a nod as she reached across to give my hand a squeeze. But then it stayed there, and we stayed in this space, and her eyes began to zero in on mine as the air changed to something much more… intimate.
Her thumb grazed my skin as she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, peeking down at our connection before peeking back up to find me a little closer than I had been. It was almost like she was drawing me in, gently tugging at the puppet strings connected to my body as she slowly began to meet me halfway.
And then my phone vibrated.
Zalayah immediately dropped my hand and I closed my eyes, releasing a heavy sigh and trying to decide if whatever had my phone buzzing was a blessing to save me from making a mistake, or a curse for interrupting what felt like a special moment. But I quickly decided it was the latter once I read the text message.
“I miss you. I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it. I love you.” - Shy
Zalayah
The vibe was perfect, my lyrics were on point, and the beat had me ready to start twerkin’ in the middle of the studio. But the only thing I could think about when Gabriel played the song back for the hundredth time was, “My mom is gonna lose her shit over this song.”
The relationship between my mom and I was… complicated. I loved her to death, and of course she loved me. We had been through everything together, just the two of us, so our bond was sealed as tight as it could be by default. But being both my mother and my manager while also only being sixteen years older than me came with both pros and cons.
Half of the time, she was more like a big sister than a mother, wanting to share clothes and having a lot of the same interests as me. But whenever I got too comfortable in that assumption, she’d always be sure to crack the whip and remind me who was really boss. So yeah, we had gone through some of the typical teenage struggles in the past, we had battled over ticky-tack stuff involving my career, and we had even come close to going to blows when my mouth got a little slicker than she liked. But at the end of the day, she was still my mother and I owed her… everything, including her opinion on my latest conquest, though it was clear Gabriel didn’t see it the same way.
He was still busy bobbing his head along to his masterpiece as he insisted, “You’re grown, Rose. I can assume you didn’t just up and guess all of this stuff you sang about.”
That was yet another complicated relationship in my life; myself and sex, myself and men in general. While most people believed being an “it girl” in the industry meant you could have any guy you wanted, weeding out the ones who were actually interested in me and the ones who were more interested in my stature practically cut the list in half. And then that half was cut into another half between the guys who were decent human beings and the ones who actually lived the fast life they rapped or sang about.
Except for Liam.
Liam teetered the line between decent and edgy, and with a budding singing career of his own at the time, he understood the demands of my career better than anyone. Exchanging numbers at an after party quickly turned into FaceTime calls and texts in between obligations, which eventually turned into flying out to see each other whenever we could. We fell hard, and fast, and it honestly seemed like the perfect arrangement until Liam started feeling himself a little too much. The person who had once been as humble as they came had transformed into an arrogant superstar overnight, touring the country on the merit of one hit song and using our relationship - me - as a talking point whenever he could.
He was talented, no doubt. But being “Zalayah’s boyfriend” had catapulted him into real stardom to the point that he was able to drop me and stand on his own. In fact, I’m pretty sure the fact that he was now the hottest eligible bachelor after our break-up made him even more popular. But I wasn’t bothered by that as much as I probably should’ve been. Even though we didn’t end on the best of terms, I still cared about him enough to be happy for his success. And truth be told, I had more important things, mainly my own career, to worry about. But when he started doing interviews that one way or another aired out our dirty laundry, that’s when I became offended.
At first, it was simply him being his naturally charismatic self and indirectly answering questions about whether or not he had taken my virginity.
He had.
Then it turned into him answering questions about who had the best sex out of the different entertainers he had been linked to.
Apparently, there was nothing like being a girl’s first.
Then it developed even further when people began to press him with questions about whether I was some sort of animal in the bedroom, or was I as sweet and gentle as my songs made me out to be. His answer usually had something to do with how great I was in bed while also noting that he proudly taught me a few things which I knew played into his brand as the R&B sex symbol. But it also exploited me in ways I hadn’t expected to be considering, well, it was the truth.
At the time, I trusted Liam with my naiveté. And since it was in my nature to be the best at whatever I did, learning how to be an exceptional lover had quickly become a priority. So each time we went at it was partly sexual and partly educational as I absorbed the details of my own sexuality while also picking up on the various ways to please him. It was fun to try new things, to explore each other’s bodies beyond the realms that I was tau
ght in my independent study human growth classes. But I didn’t think that exploration would come back to haunt me in the form of promotional interviews for his music. I didn’t expect to end up dodging questions about it left and right for a month straight when trying to promote my own innocent ass album. And I certainly didn’t expect it to bring about a whole new fan base that was solely interested in me for the things Liam had spoken about, leaving all sorts of inappropriate comments on my Instagram pictures and constantly sending unsolicited pictures of their dicks to my direct messages on Twitter.
Thankfully, things were getting ready to change. Instead of being forced to play into the virtuous persona, I could finally own the other side of me. I’d finally be able to speak about sex as freely as he had. And I could even talk about the way those early experiences with him made me irresistible to the handful of people who came after him even though they had all signed non-disclosure agreements that meant they couldn’t even talk about it themselves.
But considering Gabriel wasn’t quite clued into any of that, I simply shrugged, gnawing on my lip as I admitted, “Some of it.”
“Well I think she’ll be proud. Her daughter is officially a certified fre…”
I held up my hand to cut him off, closing my eyes as I whined, “Stop. I’m not ready to think about it yet.”
“Well you better get ready. This song is gonna be all over the airwaves. Edited, but still all over,” he insisted as he pressed the button to play it back with a smile on his face. A smile that had been nowhere in sight when I first showed up to the studio, but now couldn’t hide if it wanted to.
Am I responsible for that?
In my mind, I knew I was supposed to be nipping my little crush in the bud. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder where Gabriel fell in my spectrum of halves. I mean, he had made it crystal clear that he wasn’t interested in my stature since the moment I met him. But as far as general interest in me? That was still a cloudy subject considering what felt like a real connection between us even though it was interrupted by his phone going off. And he wasn’t an industry guy, not in the traditional sense at least. Yet he also hadn’t proven himself to be a true “good guy” either.
Maybe he was more of a Liam, one who teetered the line between categories until one eventually stood out from the rest. Or maybe he didn’t fall into any category at all which meant I’d be putting my psychology studies to use to figure him out.
Just the thought had an idea spilling from my lips before I could really think it through. “Hey. You said you didn’t have plans. Would you wanna… maybe… go to lunch with me, or something?”
Going to lunch seemed like the perfect casual setting for me to get to know a little more about him - a.k.a. collect my research - a task I could hide under the guise of us getting more comfortable with each other since we’d surely be doing more work together in the future.
He seemed surprised by my offer, his head snapping back as he repeated, “Go to lunch? People like you don’t get to just, go to lunch.”
I shrugged, locking my hands on top of my lap as I explained, “Backdoor entrance, private room at the restaurant, maximum security. No matter how famous you may think I am, I still have to eat.”
“Yeah, with your label folks, or your manager, or some magazine doing an interview. Not with regular ass niggas like me,” he said with a deep chuckle that went straight between my thighs.
In fact, I was forced to squeeze them together so that I could tell him, “I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t wanna eat with a regular ass nigga like you.”
“So now I’m regular?” he challenged, staring me down with a raised eyebrow that rivaled Dwayne Johnson’s when he was only known as The Rock.
With that on my mind, I could only laugh as I defended, “You said it first!”
Thankfully his gaze broke, returning to the easygoing smile he had already been driving me crazy with. “I’m just messin’ with you, Rose. I guess I can go eat with you or whatever. Now that you done worked me to death trying to get these songs together for you.”
“We made it happen though. Good teamwork. Perfect chemistry,” I told him, not even realizing the weight of my words until Gabriel turned my way wearing an expression that was far from friendly.
It was… sexy; making my heart thump a little harder as he licked his lips before agreeing, “Yeah. Perfect.”
The thick, suffocating air was back as he continued to stare at me long beyond the point of a normal peek. And while I wished I could’ve acted on the impulse to stick my tongue down his throat, I chose to clear my own instead when I turned away and said, “So! What do you have a taste for?”
“You.”
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
What I expected to be the explanation I was honestly dying to hear, one that matched the look he had just given me moments ago, was only a clarification of letter-sounds I must’ve selectively missed in my dirty mind when he repeated, “I said, barbecue. You know, some ribs or somethin’.”
My lust instantly turned to disgust, my face scrunching as I told him, “Yuck. I don’t eat pork. Or beef. And you shouldn’t either.”
“What about chicken?”
“Eh… occasionally,” I answered with a shrug.
And apparently my lack of interest in his suggestions had him flustered as he turned my way to ask, “Well, what do you eat then?”
I shrugged again, twiddling my fingers as I told him, “Salad. Fish. More salad. More fish.”
“Aww come on, superstar. You gotta live a little. Ain’t nothin’ like a piece of white bread slathered in barbecue sauce,” he said with a look that showed his obvious appreciation for what, to me, sounded like a struggle meal.
But since I didn’t want to play the bougie card, I played the honesty one when I replied, “I don’t really eat much bread. Especially not white bread.”
The more money I made, the more people I was able to hire to keep my body in check, which included the nutritionist that had cut most carbs from my diet. But it was clear Gabriel wasn’t interested in playing by the same set of rules when he insisted, “Well you are today.”
I played with the idea in my head, quickly chucking it up to a necessary sacrifice for being able to spend more time with him. I mean, for my research. “I guess a little taste won’t hurt. But that’s the best I can do.”
“According to that song you just made, you’re tryna do more than just ‘little tastes’ these days,” he said teasingly, earning himself a shove in the shoulder that made his chair roll away.
My cheeks were flushed with heat as I reasoned, “It’s just a song, Gabe.”
He scooted his chair back my way, getting close enough to change my breathing pattern when he asked, “So you don’t really want your nigga to use his tongue to lick you up and down like an ice cream cone in the sun? That’s what you said in the song, right?”
Instead of looking at him, I kept my eyes trained on my lap. “That’s what I said, yes. But that also has nothing to do with what I taste in everyday life.”
“So you just take and don’t give, Rose? That’s a little selfish, don’t you think?”
Truth be told, my sex life had always been the other way around. I gave, I pleased, I purposely made my skills addictive. And maybe it was Liam’s selfishness that played into that, making it all seem more necessary than my own satisfaction. But there was a different kind of satisfaction in watching a man’s toes curl in response to your tongue, a different kind of ego stroke that came with making a man growl from his gut in response to your exceptional thigh stamina when riding his dick. There was a special sense of pride in having control over if and when a man came.
I could only imagine what it was like to have a partner even equally as determined as me. Then again, I suppose it was up to me to set the standard, to make the rules. Just like I was taking control of my music, of my career, it was time to let that energy flood over into all aspects of my life.
So inst
ead of feeling shy about the conversation, I owned it when I finally answered, “A taste of this is a privilege. If anything, it’d be selfish for me to keep it to myself.”
Gabriel looked more impressed than anything, his lips pursed as he nodded and said, “I can fuck with that. Matter of fact, write that down in your little phone diary. That’s definitely going on a track.”
His approval made me giggle as I followed his directions, typing away on my phone as I told him, “I guess we’ll see if there will be anymore tracks in a couple of days. But for now, let’s go celebrate with some… white bread.”
&
“Slow down, Rose. It’s not going anywhere.”
I was sure my face was covered in barbecue sauce, but that was the last thing on my mind as I slopped up the leftover sauce from my piece of chicken with the already soggy white bread and shoved it in my mouth like it was the best meal God had ever created. And in the moment, it truly was the best meal God had ever created as I told Gabe, “I haven’t had food like this in years. Forgot how good it was.”
“Obviously,” he said with a chuckle as he calmly devoured his ribs. Ribs that smelled and looked heavenly enough to tempt me to go against my own foodie rules and ask for a taste.
But considering how much of a pig I was already being, I held back, finally wiping my face with a moist toilette as I asked, “How do you stay in shape eating food like this all the time? I’m already thinking about how many miles I’ll have to run before this photoshoot I have next week.”
Even though I worked out with my trainer four times a week and trained with my choreographer Amerie three times a week now that she was spending more time on the West Coast, I knew there wasn’t enough exercise in the world to out train a bad diet. But of course, Gabriel wasn’t nearly as fazed as he insisted, “This little meal is not gonna make or break your body, little mama. Trust me. But to answer your question, I only work out every once in a while. So I guess I just have a fast metabolism.”
Heated Harmonies Page 6
