by L. B. Dunbar
I paused for effect as I met his challenging eyes.
“You wanted me to play for the 4Gs. Something even I didn’t know I wanted for myself, until you talked me into it. I do want to play with them. I will continue to work with them. And you will support me as I do this for myself.”
It was the most determined speech I had ever made in my own defense, and while he glared at me for a moment, his mouth was on mine instantaneously. He vanquished it. This was capture and surrender. My surrender, but I met him force for force. I was not giving in. I wanted this, but I suddenly wanted him, right here in the middle of the bar. Our lovemaking the past week had been intense and I had taken more control than usual. Arturo did not seem to mind as I grew bolder and more demanding. I wanted it rough and dirty, and he was more than willing to give it to me that way.
A throat cleared beside me and I pulled away from Arturo so quickly his mouth followed me while his eyes were still closed.
“Before I need to clean anything up off the floor, we need to practice.”
I laughed at Trinity’s words, but Arturo didn’t. His eyes were begging me to concede to him, and as much as I didn’t want to deny him anything, I couldn’t give in on this. I needed this for myself. I needed to be able to drown myself in the music and let my mind forget just for a little bit how close I came to giving something to Mel against my will and giving something to Lansing with my will.
I shook my head to clear it, and the motion broke the stare-down with Arturo.
“Go back to your own practice, Arturo. I’m fine.”
“I’ll wait while you play.”
“No, Arturo. Go.” I tried to tease, but could see he was holding firm. “Please, Arturo. I just need some space.” This caught his attention.
“Space from me?”
“Not exactly.” I swallowed, but I knew he didn’t believe me and I just couldn’t get into an intense discussion with him now. I just wanted to play the cello.
“Okay,” he finally acceded, and I looked up at his eyes to see them avoiding mine. “Call me when you’re finished?” His voice matched his eyes, full of hurt.
“Of course.”
Arturo
That first week was hard, but now we were days away from the end of August and the start of our world tour. Guinie had grown distant from me in some ways over the last few weeks. We still continued to make love, but she was like a crazed woman. She demanded it at all hours in all places, and I wasn’t sure there was a surface left not christened by our naked bodies. I wasn’t complaining, because she was amazing. Her body responded to mine and each time we collided together I felt like it was the first time over and over and over again.
One thing I did notice was the intensity of it, though. She never wanted to slow down and let me worship her like I wanted. She demanded harder, faster. I wouldn’t deny her, but at times I felt she made those demands as a way to escape into something, or escape from something, and I worried it was me.
At times she would be excessively quiet and other times she was extremely skittish, especially if the whole band was around. I eventually started to take it as a sign that she was nervous about the upcoming tour and I was growing hesitant as well. I didn’t feel right leaving her behind to travel the world, but she didn’t want to feel like a groupie being dragged from show to show. I promised her I would call every day and come home if I could, but she just ignored those comments. I wanted us to get married before I left, but she said she wanted to wait until I didn’t feel the pressure and could concentrate on a wedding. She wanted us to share the experience, and I had to say I kind of did want to be part of the planning with her.
Tonight was the concert we promised my mother back at the end of May - her charity concert for abused women. I felt a stronger desire to help these women after the close call we had with Guinie. This function would be our unofficial kick-off to the tour and the energy of the band was reaching that frenzy that I thrived on. We were excited to play for a crowd after three months of respite. We were three songs shy of a third album and we were going to perform one of my new songs tonight as a trial. Things were lined up and I felt like I was in a good place for the night.
I should have known better with how the night started in the apartment. Hours before the concert, the band planned to break and regroup at five at the Round Table. Guinie was home. The girls had taken the night off to come to the concert. I wanted them to be one of the acts, but Guinie refused. She said it was our night to shine as the headliners, even if we were only singing two or three songs tops.
I walked in to find the place eerily quiet. No Talia. I called Guinie’s name, but she didn’t answer. Like a bird following a trail, I noticed the bread crumbs … articles of Guinie’s clothing were strewn over the floor. I picked up a shoe, then a skirt, a T-shirt, and finally a bra. This last item was draped over the doorknob of our room, and I opened the door to find Guinie standing before me in a long, white, gauzy shift.
The material did nothing to hide her lush body, but it softened her and made her look like the angel that graced the floor of the Round Table on a fateful night in May. She stood next to the bed looking sheepish, like the girl who was innocent and new at sexual encounters when I took her to my lake home upstate. She smiled shyly at me and I remembered that girl who had an orgasm from a kiss. Based on Guinie’s extreme adventures in sex lately, I might have thought this was some kind of kinky dress-up act and she was playing the coquette, but I didn’t think so. The way she looked at me, she wasn’t playing at anything.
I was frozen for a moment as I drank in her body and swallowed her smile into my mind. I wanted to etch her image in this moment into my heart and my memories forever. I dropped the clothes in my hand dramatically and she broke into a giggle. I knew from the first time I heard that sound that I loved it. I loved her smile instantly, and I loved her now for the rest of my life.
I approached her slowly and saw her chest begin to heave under the material. I wasn’t ready to dive in and remove it, and I hoped, for once, she would slow down and let me lead with tender, loving care. My hands cupped her cheeks and she closed her eyes. I leaned in to kiss her, her lips responding to my patient seduction. I tasted those lips like a fine wine, taking my time to sip and savor. Holding them in and sniffing for flavor and releasing them to start the process again. She followed my lead and drank me in as well until my tongue licked her and she sighed in invitation.
I entered her and a slow waltz began as I dipped and crossed her tongue. We swayed into each other and her hands gripped my hips, but I didn’t release her face. Not yet. I hadn’t had my fill of her lips, her tongue, her mouth. I broke free eventually and began a slow trail down her chin, over her jaw, and across her neck. I was mapping out her body in my memory, taking a photographic image through my mouth of her warm skin.
When I reached the edge of the white material, I wasn’t sure how to release it so I simply pulled it from the side. I noticed a small ribbon and tugged enough to loosen the tie. The shift fell open and pooled at her waist. I lowered myself to take in her breasts, each getting a turn with my hot mouth and rough tongue lapping and sucking on her. I was so hard I was ready to burst forth from my jeans, but I continued to torture myself and graph her body. Her topography was hills and valleys and I made my way across her flat stomach to the valley I desired.
I separated her legs with a nudge of my head and spread her with my tongue. She gasped in response, her hands gripping my hair. She didn’t tug at it like she had been known to do these past weeks, but slipped her fingers through it, massaging my scalp. I continued to navigate her folds and ridges, drinking in her wetness. I wouldn’t get my fill until she came, and she did not disappoint. It was a sweetness she hadn’t shown in a while. Instead of a fierce release, this was a slow cascade, and I looked up to see the gorgeous pleasure as she came apart slowly. Her eyes opened to meet mine as I knelt before her with my mouth on her. She looked drunk with desire and I was ready to fill her again.
/> I stood and ravished her mouth in my typical manner, but not for long before I scooped her up and laid her on the bed. The remainder of her garment had slipped off of her and she lay bare and willing before me. I took a mental snapshot before I hastily removed my own clothing and crawled between her spread legs. I balanced myself on my elbows on either side of her and continued to kiss her. Her hips were tilted upward, finding a friction against me in her most sensitive spot and I let her play on me, spreading her wet against me in preparation. When I brought the tip of me to her entrance, she bit her lip. She was trying to restrain herself, but I could tell she was on the edge; she needed me and I slammed into her.
She let out an oof sound, but the smile that spread across her face could make me write a thousand songs in her honor. I was gentle after that, pulling to the edge of her, teasing her with want before thrusting forward to fill her and have her surround me. This rhythmic torture continued until I could tell we both needed to hasten the pace. I began to rock into her swiftly. She was moaning and I could tell she was close. I needed us to go together; I was losing control.
“I love you,” she whispered and I felt my heart almost stop. If I could freeze any moment it would be this one, buried inside her with those words on her lips.
“I love you.”
“Say it,” she whispered, “as you come.” She smiled again sheepishly.
It tipped me over although I wanted her to join me. “I love you, Once.”
I felt it with every atom of my being. I felt it as I spread myself inside her and she said, “I love you, Future,” before she released a second slow orgasm that lasted and lasted. I pulsed into her and she milked me, and it was the most heavenly moment. I felt filled with her love while I filled her with mine.
If only that moment could have lasted.
Guinevere
I had to be with him, like I imagined it would be on our wedding night. I hadn’t agreed to marry before the tour began because I thought it was too much, and with the situation involving Mel Agent, planning a last-minute wedding was more than I could handle. But I wanted him to know how I felt. I wanted him to understand before I broke his heart and told him about Lansing Lotte that I was his, and only his. His once. His future. And he was mine.
After tonight’s concert there would be too much rushing around. The band planned to leave in two days for Los Angeles and from there they traveled to Europe. I couldn’t keep straight all the locations, but I had a ticket to the Paris show where they had a few days’ break and I would stay at Ana’s with Morte and Ingrid. I wasn’t looking forward to that combination of housemates, but I knew I would miss Arturo and do anything to see him in one month’s time.
I couldn’t tell him my guilt the night before he left, so I had planned to tell him tomorrow morning to give us time to talk about anything. I also knew after tonight’s charity concert he would be on a high. All bands were when they finished playing a familiar crowd and the Round Table would be no exception. Fans paid a high price for tonight’s performances, but it would be well worth it. The collection of bands Arturo managed to ask for a favor was unbelievable and the smaller venue would make this one powerful and intimate concert.
The bar was packed when I finally arrived. I had dinner with my father in his home while bands converged in the little room considered a green room to the side of the stage. The space wouldn’t hold them all at once, but it was a meeting spot and Arturo asked me to meet him there when I was done with my father. My dad was jittery that night, unable to focus much on our meal as we ate. I knew he was just as excited with the collection of groups down below, all of whom were startups when they met him. I also knew that Dad wanted this night to raise the money Ingrid needed for her foundation, especially after what happened to me.
Arturo took on a new attitude toward Ingrid’s charity for women of abused relationships. He often expressed his relief that nothing extreme had happened to me. What happened to me was extreme enough, and too close for comfort in his opinion. I didn’t have an opinion. I just tried not to think about any of it, including what could have happened if Lansing hadn’t found me. This brought my thoughts back to Lansing Lotte.
Over the past month I had rethought about that night when I was sixteen years old and foolishly infatuated with someone older. I believed I had that night ingrained into my memory so well that I would never forget any part of it, but as I grew older, I thought back and decided I might have formed that kiss into a fantasy of my own, more than a reality of what it was. A silly sixteen-year-old with a crush on a high school senior. As I recalled that party lately, I agreed with myself that I might have actually misinterpreted Lansing’s intentions on that night. I held on to the promise of a phone call when it might have just been a closing to the kiss.
I couldn’t shake the more recent kiss, however, and it disturbed me. It had been exactly the same as I remembered him tasting all those years ago, and that brought back a flood of memories. His promises might have been unclear, but the kiss was not. I wiped my lips with my napkin to clear my thoughts. I had to tell Arturo. There were so many things I had to tell Arturo. This was all just guilt that wouldn’t allow me to let the kiss go.
I didn’t go down to the main floor for a while after I excused my father. He was too antsy and I finally told him with a laugh to leave. He seemed so relieved, like a child waiting to open Christmas presents, and he finally had the okay to rip away the wrappings. I went into my father’s office, where I had the best view of the space below. The Round Table was such a strange structure with its circular configuration, but my father loved this bar. He already explained that he hoped to train me to manage it and take it over as he moved into his new position with Camelot Records. I wasn’t exactly sure I was the right person to be in charge, and I knew in my heart I couldn’t tell him the truth. I wasn’t really interested in running the Round Table. I was fine being a part of it, but not the head of it.
Arturo was more than ready to be the head of things. He said he’d manage the Round Table, and take charge of Camelot Records just as soon as this mission of his was complete. The world tour would be like a crusade. He planned to capture the hearts of his fans with his hits and entice them to follow him onward with his new songs. He planned to tease them with only two from the new album, which he claimed he’d dedicate to me. I didn’t want to break his spirit, but I hardly believed I inspired a whole album of songs.
From my position against the glass in my father’s office, I could see the first band take the stage. The crowd below was lively as always, like a living, breathing organism of its own, pulsing and pumping to the beat. This band would only be a teaser, a warmup to the warmup before the Nights, who were letting the few bands that followed them be the headliners. I could see Arturo in the group off to the right of the stage. He was in his element with fellow band members and music lovers. A roped-off area held the girls at bay, but many tried to lean over the barrier to make some kind of contact with the rock stars.
I had a sudden sickening sensation as if my heart was caught in my throat and the bottom of the rollercoaster just tipped over the edge. A cold sweat of panic brushed over my skin and I wasn’t even sure where it came from. I leaned forward to rest my forehead on the cool glass; at the same time I felt Arturo’s eyes reach for me. There was no way he could see me from three stories down, and even if he could have sensed my presence, the one-way glass wouldn’t have allowed him to see me, but I still had a sense of him searching for me and I felt trapped, like I couldn’t get to him.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but I suddenly saw the Nights take the stage and I had to break my trance. The Nights would only be playing one song, one of their new songs, and I needed to get to Arturo. His song was for me.
I moved as if I was swimming underwater, swift and purposeful. When I entered the bar from the private entrance, I sucked in air as if I had broken the surface. I felt the energy take over and I forced my way through the crowd. I didn’t have a direction ot
her than to try to get as close to the stage as possible. I needed Arturo to know I was there for him.
The force of people was oppressive and I wasn’t paying enough attention to those surrounding me until I literally walked into a young girl who was trapped by Mel Agent. My heart raced with fear for both her and me. Mel wasn’t allowed within fifty feet of me according to the restraining order my father was able to pull with his legal connections. I didn’t know how he made it within fifty feet of the Round Table, let alone inside it.
I turned to the girl, who looked pulled in on herself. On further inspection I realized she wasn’t a girl, but a young woman, possibly a few years older than me. She had on a huge Army jacket that draped her like a dress. Her raven-black hair was shielding her face, her head bent forward and her hands clasping the front of her coat, perhaps to hold it closed. Mel Agent was clearly trying to talk to her and she was clearly trying to ignore him.
I had no sense of the sound around me. The music seemed to mute in my own ears as I tried to listen to what Mel was saying to the woman, and, at the same time, trying to get in between them to prevent her from leaving with such a poor human specimen. She didn’t seem interested in his offers and I realized she might be one of the fifty women from the local shelters whom Ingrid invited. She wanted the women to have a night free from worry and enjoy themselves with something frivolous in their complicated lives.
Within moments Perkins Vale had his arms around the woman, and Arturo was being hauled backward by Tristan Lyons. At the same time I was surrounded around the waist and carried away as well. My champion was Lansing Lotte once again and he deposited me before Arturo to the left of the stage near a staircase to the second-floor emergency exit. I realized that I’d missed their whole performance. I’d missed Arturo’s new song for me.
