A New Romantic Erotic Short Story
"She's Playing My Song" by Will Belegon
The strangely familiar melody turned into words he knew by heart. Chris had to stifle the urge to bolt from his seat, grab the pretty young singer, and demand the source of what he was hearing. He fought down the impulse and took another sip of his beer, forcing his features to remain calm. If the woman on stage had caught his startled reaction, she showed no sign of it. With only a few dozen people in the audience, it would not have been unusual for her to notice.
She continued the song, and he decided that he liked her version. The simplicity of a single acoustic guitar and a gentler pace suited the lyrics he had written so many years before. In his mind, the booming drums and screaming of a long-haired, spandex-clad front man made a dramatic contrast to the bare chords and the tiny club they sat in tonight. Instead of flashing strobes and a smoke machine, a single spotlight shone on the woman on the stool, her guitar on her knee.
She couldn’t possibly have been old enough to hear the original. Nor would the limited airplay it had received justify it finding its way into a nostalgia collection. He listened to her voice and wondered how it would sound in a few years as it matured. Pictured the budding rose perched on the stool blooming into full womanhood and wished he could see her again in a few years. Pictured a real woman, instead of a girl, wrapping that voice around his words.
The mystery was delicious, and he knew that his original plan of having a beer and taking off was now history. He had to stay and ask her how she knew his song.
The juxtaposition of past and present was distracting, and he was glad when the song was over. When she moved to another, he could see through the haze of memories and concentrate on her. It was hard to tell her height with her seated on the stool, but she wasn’t particularly short. Her skin was the color of a café mocha latte, and her hair fell to her shoulders in thick black curls. Her lips moved around the words of the song like they were savoring the flavor of each note, reluctant to let a syllable pass without their caress.
Musically Inclined by Marty Provost
But despite her attractiveness, her voice overpowered everything. Her playing was average. Her voice was anything but. It rang out, clear and true. Each word separate, each note sung with power and grace. Nor did she fall into the inexperienced singer’s trap of trying to do too much. She understood subtlety.
When she finished, he surprised himself by standing to applaud. He wasn’t the only one. She set her guitar aside and moved into the room, as she passed by she gave nods of recognition to most everyone. She must be a regular performer here. He wouldn’t have known. He had not been in this club for nearly twenty years.
“I don’t know you.”
Her speaking voice was as melodic as her singing. She said the words as a pre-emptive question, asking in that short sentence many others. He smiled, wondering if she thought him an agent or a producer.
“No, I haven’t been here in a long time. You have a lovely voice. I didn’t recognize most of the songs though. Are they originals?”
“Almost all. I sing a couple of standard covers.”
“One of those covers is hardly a standard. And it didn’t sound quite that way when White Steel played it on the Sunset Strip.” He kept a smirk off his face as her eyes widened with surprise and then narrowed again, as though searching for the secret he was keeping.
“No one’s ever recognized that song before. How do you know it?”
“It’s mine.”
Her questioning gaze turned into a glare, almost angry. “No, I was taught that song by the man who wrote it. Who are you? Wait. Don’t answer that yet.” She looked at him with more intensity, then nodded once, decisively. “Tell me this instead. Do you have some time? I want to talk to you, but there are a few people who came here tonight to see me and I want to say hello first. Will you wait a few minutes?”
“Yes.” He was familiar with the ritual. Shake hands, laugh with them, and make sure they want to come back the next time she played.
“Okay. You have me intrigued, mister…?”
“Call me Chris.”
A satisfied smile emerged and lit up her face in the dim light of the club. “Nice to meet you, Chris. I’m Tina. Just let me spend a few minutes schmoozing, and I’ll be back.”
She turned and headed for a group against the back wall that had been the most boisterous of her admirers, trading light hugs and kisses on the cheek with the girls and receiving a couple of back-slapping embraces from the guys. One stood out from the rest by virtue of his height, easily six foot eight and wearing a ‘UC Irvine Basketball’ tee shirt. She whispered something to him and gave him a hug before leaving to circle the rest of the club.
Boyfriend. Chris kicked himself for the thoughts that had crossed his mind as he watched the sway of her ass in those jeans when she walked away. She wasn’t interested in a man twice her age. She just wants to talk about the song. Maybe you once had instincts about when a woman wants you, old boy, but you obviously can’t read them anymore. Laughing at his internal monologue, Chris returned his attention to his beer.
“So, tell me Chris, you got a car here?”
Her return surprised him. He had been lost in the past, memories of when he had written those lyrics. “Yeah, a rental. Why?”
“Good, 'cause my ride is leaving.” Tina looked over her shoulder and waved. The basketball player, a guitar case in his hand, waved back and headed outside. “So now you’re my ride. You can deal with that, right?” She slipped into the chair next to his, grabbed his Coors Light and took a swig.
“Are you even old enough to be drinking that?”
“I turn twenty-three next month. I ain’t that young. And you ain’t that old, unless I miss my guess.”
“Old enough to be your father.” Chris tried to adopt a Mike Brady type of expression.
“Barely. You’re what, forty-two? Forty-three? I don’t judge people on age, Chris, don’t judge me on mine. Your age only matters to me in one way.”
“Oh, and what’s that?”
“It means you really are old enough to be the guy who wrote that song. Now, how about we get out of here?" She gestured in the direction of the man on stage, plugging in a Stratocaster. "Once Jim starts playing, we aren’t gonna be able to hear ourselves anyway.” She reached over to take his hand, stood, and pulled him to his feet. “You do have a place we can go?”
“My hotel is close, but…”
“Perfect. C’mon, Chris.” She spun on her heels and headed for the front door, not looking back to see if he was following.
***
The conversation in the car was generic. Random musings about the weather, sports teams that neither of them truly cared about. He told her he was from New York but had grown up here, trying to find a subject to catch her interest. She just stared out the window and mumbled things that would keep him talking. A few times, it seemed he caught her staring at him while he paid attention to the road, but he didn’t trust himself. Because the looks he thought she was giving him made no sense.
Finally, as they pulled up to the hotel, he called her on it.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what, Chris?”
“Like I’m a puzzle you need to figure out, like you’ve known me for years, like I’m an ice cream cone you’re going to eat?”
“Well, which is it, Chris? Are you a puzzle, an old friend, or my dessert?”
“Fuck if I know.” He jumped out of the car and tossed his keys at the valet, then stalked past her into the lobby of the hotel. He heard her behind him. This time it was his turn to walk away without looking back. He knew she would follow as surely as she had known he would twenty minutes earlier. He headed for the bar.
She caught his arm, jerking him to a halt. “I’ve had enough to drink.”
“Yeah, well I’m not sure I have. I can’t figure you out. What the hell was I thinking, bringing a kid like you back to my hotel?”
“C’mon. Let’s find out. “She pulled him toward the elevator and he followed, trapped again by her beauty, her mystery, and a sense of the familiar that he could not place. There was an elevator in the lobby already, and she pulled him inside while the door was still opening. “Which floor?”
“Top one. Tell me something. Where did you learn my song?”
As the elevator doors closed behind them, she stepped forward and draped her arms around his neck. “From the man that taught me how to play guitar. Talk about that later. Tell me about the girl, the one the song’s about. You loved her then. But it didn’t last, did it?” Tina stared into his eyes. He looked down into liquid chocolate irises and remembered eyes of brilliant blue in another life. Eyes that inspired him to write about breaking through walls.
“No. Jenny broke my heart and everything else in my life. Why do I feel like you already know that?”
“Because she’s not here now, of course. Any woman who left you is a fool, Chris.”
The kiss surprised him, despite the fingers wrapped around his neck and the heat in her eyes. For a second, he hesitated. She was so young. She hadn’t known him for more than a couple hours. Once again, he kicked himself mentally for allowing things to get this far. He didn’t want to be a one-night stand, a whispered fantasy to her girlfriends. There was no dignity in it. If only she were closer to his age.
But she was kissing him. She started it. He returned her kiss, throwing his typical caution aside as he tasted the dark wine of her mouth. Her lips were full and soft, but the muscles of her jaw were strong. She forced his lips apart and her tongue danced across the space between them to slip inside his mouth. He cursed the bell that rang to announce his floor, and she laughed as she dragged him into the hallway.
The laughter and the joy in her broke his last bonds of propriety. He tossed his misgivings back in the elevator, willing them to be thirty stories away. He rushed past Tina, keeping hold of her hand and pulling her to his room. He threw her against the door and when her mouth gasped open, he captured it in a kiss that didn’t hesitate to grow deeper. Fumbling the card from his pocket, he inserted it and turned the handle.
They fell into the room. He pulled the card and spun her away from the slamming door. His hands found the curves of her ass, and he lifted her easily, carrying her to the bed. As he dropped her, she released her hands from his neck and started to unbutton his shirt. Leaning over, he grabbed the bottom of hers and lifted, her hands abandoning his buttons while the shirt came over her arms and off. He immediately dropped a hand behind her back and unhooked her bra. She shrugged it off her shoulders, and he paused to stare at the wonder of her breasts.
She giggled at his fascination while she finished with the buttons and pushed the shirt off his shoulders. It caught at his elbows because his hands had moved to her chest. His thumbs circled her large areola and flicked across her nipples, as she bit her lower lip to suppress the groan.
Letting his shirt fall, he pushed her back on the bed and lay beside her, taking the lip from her teeth with his, sucking it into his mouth, letting their tongues dance before he trailed kisses down to her tits.
Her fingers began to work at his belt buckle while he took a nipple into his mouth, circling it with his tongue and applying suction to the entire top of her breast. . A faint taste of vanilla soap combined with the milk chocolate of her nipples and the lighter color of her breasts to create an image of a chocolate swirl cupcake in his mind.
The belt opened. She pulled at his zipper and pushed at the sides of his khakis. As they crossed his hips and gravity took them, her fingers found the hardness of his cock. He jerked at the first touch, inadvertently biting down on a nipple. She moaned her approval of his teeth.
He wiggled his hips to get his pants to fall off his knees. Her fingers encircled him and gave a brief pull, then left him to begin working on her own jeans, untying the scarf that served as a belt.
He gave a final kiss to each breast and sat up to pull away his shoes and socks, tossing slacks and boxers across the room. Naked, he turned to watch as she pushed the jeans over her hips, lifting the lushness of her generous ass off the surface of the bedcovers. The small black thong she wore highlighted as much as it hid.
She kicked the jeans away and rolled toward him. Recapturing her lips, he sucked her tongue into his mouth and caressed it. He felt it roll before she became more aggressive, and their tongues began a war, each trying to dominate. His hands stroked the side of her, running from the blades of her shoulders over the valley of her waist and back up the slope of her hip. The softness of her skin and the yielding flesh of her bottom did as much to feed his desire as her fingertips, which had again found his hard cock. She traced her nails along the shaft and across the head, then ran her fingers back down. He felt the calluses’ of a guitar player, ones he had lost due to lack of practice.
He hooked his fingers under the strap of the thong. It moved haltingly due to the lopsided pull and he reluctantly left her lips to sit up and use both hands. He took both sides and lifted. She raised her hips in response, and he pushed this last garment wore to her knees. He had to lean over her to finish removing them. The move positioned his head close to her now bare pussy. Truly bare, for she had shaved the hair away like so many women now did.
Without consciously deciding to do so, he dipped his head down and tasted her. No vanilla here, but a silky touch on his tongue that was indescribable. Her hips rose again, involuntarily this time. Her cunt pushed against his lips, and he responded to the invitation, hearing her breath catch as he licked the edges of her and thrust his tongue beneath the hood that guarded her clit.
He circled the hard button that was hiding there, and a small cry escaped her lips. He sucked it into his mouth. Hard, like he was trying to get the thick part of a milkshake up a straw. Her breathing grew ragged and half-words escaped her mouth. The fingers that teased his cock wrapped firm around him and pulled.
A warm and moist heaven encircled the head of his cock and the mumbled cries became vibrations as she took him into her mouth. He sucked again at her clit and the game their tongues had played moments earlier became a new battle, each of them trying to force the other to back away and gasp with pleasure. Gently, he collapsed to the bed and pulled her over him, his fingers buried in her ass cheeks, his neck straining to keep his tongue in contact with her pink flesh while it moved with the bobbing of her head. Her nipples rubbed across his stomach, tracing circles and lines of sensation that almost tickled, and might have if not for his focus on her lips and tongue running up and down his shaft.
He conceded the victory to her, and let his head fall for a few blissful moments. She giggled around his glans, recognizing his surrender. She pursued his retreating willpower, and he opened his eyes to watch her as his cock disappeared into her mouth between the framing curves of her dangling breasts. Almost, he lost control and she sucked harder as his hips bucked.
Not wanting to end things that way, he sat up again, gently pulling at her shoulders. She reluctantly abandoned her efforts at his cock, staring at him with woeful eyes, begging to resume her game. He gave a slight shake of his head and lifted her to kiss him while he reached for the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out the condoms he had brought but not expected to use.
She grinned at the sight of the box. “Were you a Boy Scout, Chris?” She reached over, took the box from him, and pulled out a foil packet. “Allow me.”
“I was only a Boy Scout briefly. They wanted me to cut my hair. But I do believe in being prepared.”
She smiled as she removed the latex ring from its wrapper and pulled it over his cock, rolling it down the shaft. “That’s a good thing. Show me how prepared you are now.” Her hands ran over the muscles of his arms to his neck.
He lifted her and placed her in the center of the bed before sliding up her body. He paused, the head of his cock resting against her lips, looking into her brown eyes.
“Fuck me,” she whispered.
He pushed in slowly, the heat of her almost overwhelming, the strong muscles of her cunt grasping at him. Her short fingernails found purchase in his back, and she thrust to meet him, as though willing him to abandon his gentle pace.
“I said fuck me,” she breathed. “Do it now. And hard!”
He obeyed. He slammed his hips down and she cried out, a joyful noise that carried a note of longing and fulfillment. He pulled back and rammed forward, feeling the slap of her thighs on his, pushing as though he could force more of him inside her. Her nails raked down, and he turned that sweet pain into even greater force. He fucked her with the abandon of youth that she reminded him of, with the pain of years that had passed, with the joyful intensity of his desire. She arched beneath him. He felt her push harder, felt her contract around him. Watched as the beads of sweat from their efforts appeared on her forehead and felt the drops run down his.
Her cries grew in pitch, and her breathing grew more rapid and shallow. She shuddered, and he felt a wave ride through her muscles once and then twice. With the third wave, he joined her. His legs stiffened and the muscles of his calves locked while the force of his lust flooded out of him and into her. He bit his lip to keep from crying out, and her fingers left his back to pry it loose.
As her cries subsided and she caught her breath, she stared into his eyes. “Never hide your passion from me, Chris. Let me hear it next time. Let me hear you voice your pleasure.”
“I will,” he promised her. “So, that means there will be a next time?”
“Many,” she grinned, and lifted her head to kiss him while he wondered again at that smile and why it looked so deliciously familiar.
***
Chris wasn’t sure what woke him, the sun on his face or the sound of the shower and her singing in it. He lay still for a moment, eyes closed, stretching his arms and legs. He hadn’t woken up this sore for such a delightful reason in years.
The shower shut off, and he heard Tina step out, still singing as she dried off. It wasn’t his song or one of the other songs from last night. It was a song that tickled at the edges of his mind. He felt like it should tell him something. He thought of Tina kissing him for the first time last night, in the elevator, her eyes gazing into his soul. So déjà-vu, so much like…
“Holy shit!”
“What? Chris, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” Tina stood in the doorway, concern on her face.
He looked at her in the morning light and remembered. Now he could see it, in the curve of her cheek, in those eyes, even in the way she cocked her head as she stared at him in puzzlement.
“Cheryl. That’s why you asked about Jenny. Cheryl was Jenny’s best friend, but I met Cheryl first. We even went out. One date. We had fun, but then she called it off. Something about her family not being able to deal with her dating a white boy. Two weeks later, she introduced me to Jenny. After that, she was always there, but in the background. Are you… I can’t believe I’m asking this… are you…”
“Mom never forgot you. She never wanted to back away. Then when she saw what Jen put you through… Mom never forgave herself for that. She always told me how you handled all the abuse, how you were always loyal and good. She told me about how you beat up a guy that had his hand down her dress after a show, while she was screaming for him to stop.”
“Wow. This is just crazy. What is she gonna say about this?”
Tina looked sad for the first time since he had met her. “Mom got cancer. It’s been four years. Dad wanted to find you a few times. Mom wouldn’t let him. She thought you’d been hurt enough. Before she passed, she told me if I ever met a guy like you, not to let him get away. I grew up hearing about you, listening to the music you and dad used to play. I really have known you for years.”
He couldn’t catch his breath. This couldn’t be real. The music they used to play? He suddenly realized who her father must be.
She smiled, dropped the towel and walked toward him, sunlight glistening off the dew on her mocha latte skin. As she slid under the covers and put her shower-warmed skin against his, Chris knew he was lost. He couldn’t resist her.
“Oh fuck. He’s gonna kill me.”