Exhale and Move On

by K. L. Shandwick

  “Sounds crazy when you say it like that.”

  “Well, I think it’s pretty clear after all this time he couldn’t give me up. That’s not to say there weren’t other women, I know there were. Most women would say I was weak, and I’d let him treat me like a door mat, but that wasn’t so either. Unless they loved each other the way we do, they’d never understand the true meaning of unconditional love.”

  “Is that why you’re tolerating me in the mix?”

  “Despite my personal struggles with accepting the situation, I think you know I want you around, Rick. You’ve known Lennon a long time and I’ve heard the way he talks about you. Now I’ve seen how he is with you when we’re intimate I can see it's not only sex that’s going on between you.

  “Did someone mention sex?” Len asked as he came over fresh from the stage and interrupted our heart-to-heart. Grabbing Coral around the waist, he swept her off her feet and spun her around. Coral giggled and looked giddy at his attention and it gave me yet another glimpse of them as a couple.

  A tinge of jealousy made my chest tight when I looked at them, and I felt the weight of burden on me to slot into their long established relationship. I’d already recognized that there was a hell of a lot of history to combat before I could ever hope for full acceptance from Coral.

  With all those thoughts in mind I’d asked myself the one pertinent question—did I want the relationship with them both enough? Each time I looked at them, touched them, or they touched me, I’d felt a shift inside and my gut feeling told me I did.

  The last but one band, RedA, whipped the crowd up into a frenzy before we took to the stage, and the tally from the fundraiser sat at $37m by the time I strutted on out there. The spectators should have been hoarse from all the hours of singing and screaming, but it was nothing to the roar and general cacophony that met us as we picked up our work tools and turned the volume up on the last performance of the night.

  As soon as Aaron, our drummer, hit the first four bars, the audience anticipated the song and the noise volume cranked to a deafening level. Usually I sang with one earpiece in, but my ear automatically tuned in to their melody instead of my own. Quickly tucking the other one over my ear I pushed it in place and began to perform.

  The atmosphere was electric, the noise deafening and the crowd frenzied with lots of pretty girls on their boyfriends’ shoulders high above the rest. Taking over the stage we spliced the crowd in half and dealt them the best audience participation session I’d ever seen in my life. It didn’t seem to matter whether they were our fans or not, the sea of faces sang their hearts out to the beat of the tune Cobham Street had sung for twenty years.

  I glanced up at the massive totalizer that kept tabs on the donations and saw we were less than four hundred thousand away from a staggering $40m total. It felt surreal, and I was a little freaked out that a chat with a guy who worked as part of both mine and Alfie’s crews would have led to all that money being raised.

  Four numbers later, my band of Kenny, Marc and Aaron were drenched from the heat and the exertion they had put into their performances. When Aaron did his drum solo all the bands involved filed out onto the stage covering it end to end, several rows deep. The followers in the audience were at fever pitch with a new wave of loud cheering each time another band joined the last on stage.

  Once again, as soon as everyone was in place and Aaron’s performance was complete, the mass of people instantly stopped talking. “Hey there! Thank you. Let me tell you, everyone, you rocked the fucking house today,” I said addressing the audience. A thunderous swell of noise built from the crowd at the back and by the time it reached us at the front it was a deafening roar.

  I turned and glanced at all my rocker friends behind me and their faces beamed in awe and held the same pleasure I felt inside at having done something good. My eye caught the sight of someone I knew standing in the VIP section right at the front and I felt my heart tear.

  My old flame, Jasmin, stared up at me, her sad face haunting me even though I felt I had done the right thing earlier in the day. I realized it was probably the last time I’d ever see her that day and wondered if I was really ready to close the door forever without letting her have her say.

  When I saw Jasmin standing at the front, I had a moment of madness and took the decision to get Jasmin back and hear her out. I quickly ran over to the side of the stage and had Jed go find her and take her to the green room until I was done. He was told to bring her back after the gig was over.

  Singing “Winds of Change” the Scorpions’ tune was completely fitting in my view even though the lyrics were written with a completely different objective in mind. It wasn’t often we as rock stars stood together like brothers and soldiers fighting for a common cause. Competition was par for the course in our game, but this was our glory night, and hopefully tomorrow’s children of those affected by Hurricane Katrina would benefit from the moment of magic we'd created for the fans of our music.

  Band after band headed up to the front and took their bow and the onlookers roars of appreciation never waned in volume from the first to the last. Eventually our unique day’s work came to an end, and the partying began.

  We’d raised close to $41m, and the donations had started to slow, but we were in awe that something so easy could change the lives of so many. Immediately after I was asked would I do it again, and I stated that I’d definitely take part in something I believed in, but I felt that after one such event it is always better if new blood heads up a gig like that. My reasoning being to capture the imagination of the public it is imperative to give them something different. An opinion both Gibson and Alfie agreed with.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Exhale

  Dripping in sweat, I dragged my t-shirt over my head and wiped it down my chest as I headed back to the dressing room. I had to get out of my jeans as my legs were stuck to the rough material and I hated the uncomfortable damp feeling I always had after each performance. Jed followed behind and told me Jasmin had been shown into the Green Room for when I was ready to see her.

  Twenty minutes later I looked and smelled much cleaner and fresher. I opened the dressing room door to see Jed leaning against the wall. He pushed himself straight and ran a hand through his hair.

  “All set?”

  “Actually, can you bring her back here to my dressing room? I don’t want a show for everyone and I’m not sure I won't lose my temper with her.”

  “Yeah, okay, but you’re leaving the door ajar.” I glared at him until he added, “For your own security, Rick. God knows what she could say if you’re in a room with her on your own.”

  Even though Jed pissed me off because he felt I needed protection, I knew he was right. I knew nothing about Jasmin or the life she’d led for the previous twenty years and she had already proven she wasn’t to be trusted after the way she moved on as soon as my back was turned.

  Pouring myself a drink, I wandered over to the sofa and sat in a casual pose, threw the neat whiskey to the back of my throat, and felt the burn as it made its way down to my stomach. I was placing the glass on the small side table when a sharp knock on the door caught my attention.

  “Jasmin’s here,” Jed said and pushed the door wider for her to come inside. My eyes flicked from her face to her gorgeous curvy figure and my heart squeezed tight as the memories of how soft she’d felt in my arms as a girl flitted through my mind.

  “Thanks for changing your mind about seeing me.”

  “Let’s just say I’m intrigued as to why now… I mean after all this time?”

  “I have tried twice before, but your guy, Steve… your manager? He asked me who I was and when I explained he told me to go take a flying fuck,” she said making quote marks with her fingers.

  “Sounds like Steve,” I said suppressing a chuckle behind a cough. “When was that?”

  “About a year after I got engaged. I came to see you because I wasn’t sure if I had made the right decision.”

>   “Is that so?” I asked and tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. If she had to see me to know, then she hadn’t felt the same way about me as I had toward her. “And if you’d decided you had—what? You think that I’d have taken you back?”

  A commotion outside the door distracted me and Jed’s voice told someone to wait, but Coral burst through the door, pulling Lennie behind her, and stopped abruptly when she saw Jasmin standing in front of me. Len looked to Jasmin and then to me with a questioning look on his face. He was an intuitive guy and could sense something was off. I figured he thought I’d brought her back to fuck like she was some groupie.

  “Sorry, we didn’t realize we’d be interrupting something.” It was clear he thought he’d stumbled in on something, perhaps from the way I’d asked for space before the gig and because she was alone with me straight after.

  “Not at all, come on over here, sweetheart.” I beckoned to Coral to sit on my lap. Lucky for me she was very compliant and swept right in front of Jasmin to position herself on my knee.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Coral asked glancing up adoringly from me to Len. My eyes followed hers and I felt the tension roll off Len as he stood quietly by. His jaw clenched and ticked as he checked Jasmin over and from the look in his eyes I knew he saw her as a threat to us.

  “Sure. Jasmin and I go way back.”

  Jasmin smiled sweetly, and I didn’t miss the confidence she obviously felt after all the history we’d shared together. But, for me, that’s exactly what it was—history. She may have held a position of power over me once, in fact she probably still had until today.

  My heart had hankered after the girl Jasmin had been before she’d shit on me. It had taken me until now, until I saw her again in the flesh, to let those feelings go. “What are you standing there for, Lennie? Come and sit next to me,” I demanded and held a hand out to him. Len looked to Jasmin then back to me before he did as I asked.

  Reaching out, he placed his hand gently behind my head and pulled my face toward his. His smell, his smile, and the hungry look he gave me made my heart squeeze tight in my chest. “I just want to say you were fucking awesome out there tonight. It makes me hard to think back on it.”

  Len’s eyes were stormy with lust as he closed the space and took a greedy kiss. I knew what he meant because I had felt the same way when I saw him perform so his passion in our kiss was matched by my own.

  I could have cared less that Jasmin was standing right there, and I heard her gasp in the realization she would never be what I needed because the woman on my lap and the man on my lips were at that moment becoming everything to me, and I was no longer within Jasmin’s reach.

  Coral bent her head and began gently kissing some exposed skin on my neck as Lennon’s tongue continued to consume me. Having them both lavish their attention on me sent shivers of delight down my spine and the electric buzz of pleasure that ran through my body made my nerves vibrate with excitement.

  Suddenly I had an overwhelming feeling of being worshiped and wanted, and the emotions running through my heart and head were different to anything I had ever felt before. It wasn’t as if I was weak or not used to being desired, but it felt as if they were staking their claim on me.

  Len broke the kiss and pulled my hair gently giving Coral greater access to my neck. “That’s it, baby, make him hard for us,” he said in a low husky voice. My heart fluttered when his words were added with him watching her mouth on me.

  I glanced up at Jasmin and saw tears in her eyes and for a second I felt a tinge of sadness because I guessed she wasn’t happy in her life or else she wouldn’t have been here. Then I remembered the years of hurt and shook the feeling off because life is what you make it and she’d made her choices back then.

  Maybe Jasmin really felt she’d made the wrong choice, but I was a firm believer everything happens for a reason. For many years she was the one thing that made me waver on that. Since I had been with Lennie and Coral, I wondered if perhaps they were the reason for me.

  Could it possibly have been because I was never truly a one-person kind of man, and it took half a lifetime for me to understand that? Either way seeing Jasmin gave me closure on a part of my journey that had felt like my heart had been frozen in time.

  “This is sick,” Jasmin said. For once she had nothing much to say, but I knew she’d never understand what this meant.

  I patted Coral’s leg, and she stopped what she was doing to look at me. When I began to move she automatically got up and sat on Lennie’s knee instead, her hand trailing across my broad chest as she did so. Reaching out to Jasmin, I held her by her elbows and bent my knees to look her in the eye.

  “For a long, long time I hated you—years of hate at how you hurt me. Years of thinking I wasn’t good enough for you. I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I forgive you, sweetheart. You were right to look for something better because I wasn’t in your league back then. And now? Now I’m the guy you see before you,” I said gesturing to Coral and Lennie.

  “I’m not fucked up or perverted… just complex. It’s taken a long time and a lot of soul searching to arrive at where I am in my heart today… and it’s with them. Lennie and Coral are my future and I’ve finally left what I thought I had with you where it belongs—in the past.”

  Stepping forward, I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a genuine hug of affection because I felt no malice toward her anymore. I heard her inhale deeply, her chest expanding in my arms making our hug tighter.

  Once, I’d have given anything for Jasmin to be where she was in that moment, but although she still felt soft she didn’t touch my heart the way Coral did when I held her. I looked past her to Coral and saw her watching me, her head resting on Lennie’s shoulder and I relished in the close bond that had been growing between us. I knew then it was time for Jasmin to leave.

  Pushing her to arms-length, I smiled and dropped my arms, freeing myself from the invisible tie she’d had to me for almost half of my life. “It was nice to see you again, Jasmin. Thank you again for coming. Jed will show you out, sweetheart,” I said, leaning forward and planting a small kiss on her forehead. "Take care of yourself.”

  If I’d expected challenges to who I was or toward my behavior from Jasmin, I got none. I think she knew there was nothing she could say that would make what we were to each other any different. As she left she simply nodded, bowed her head and turned away from me. Jed was suddenly standing by the door. I wondered how much he’d witnessed, but I didn’t care because I felt our threesome was no longer a question but a fact.

  Quietly, Jed opened the door, allowed Jasmin to leave, and pulled it shut behind him. As soon as she’d gone I felt my chest decompress. I realized I’d forgotten to breathe for a few seconds. I inhaled deeply, turned toward my couple and exhaled and moved on with my new beginnings.

  Len held out an arm and welcomed me back on the sofa beside him and Coral immediately ran her fingers through my hair.

  “You had me worried for a couple of minutes there,” Lennie told me.

  “Nah, she’s a blast from my past,” I said shrugging off what she’d meant to me at one time.

  “Still, the way she looked at you, and the heavy air in the room when we came in, gave me a bit of a jolt.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I stated in a serious tone.

  “Good,” they both agreed at the same time. Both Len and Coral leaned forward at the same time to kiss me, bumped their heads together, and we all laughed.

  “After you, Corrie,” Lennie told her and stroked her hair as she leaned in to take my mouth with hers. “So fucking hot,” he added when I kissed her hungrily back. Coral left Len’s knee and straddled mine, her hot ass gyrated in circles the second she was situated in place.

  Lennie stood and walked around to the other side of the sofa and unzipped his pants. "Someone needs this in their mouth, I don’t care who.” He sounded desperate. Hell, I was desperate to penetrate something myself afte
r all the testosterone we’d built up from the gig.

  Coral broke from my mouth and took him in hers, and I shoved her down on the floor to her knees. I rose to my feet, my cock bulging at the seam of my fly, and undid my pants. Pushing my jeans over my hips allowed my hard, heavy length to fall free and Coral’s hand immediately grasped it like she’d been waiting for it all along.

  Between us she sucked one and then the other, rubbing our cock tips together and sliding them over each other. The feeling of skin on skin, her wet tongue lapping one and then the other made me fit to burst with lust. I reached down and grabbed her breast and squeezed it tight. Coral gasped around my cock and I nudged it further into her mouth. She was stroking Len, and he looked at me like it wasn’t enough.

  I lifted Coral to stand, swung her around, and pushed her down on the sofa then quickly disposed of her jeans. Her breath heaved and panted but she laughed at the ferocity of my actions. Dropping to my knees I stuck my face between her legs and breathed the scent of her pussy deep into my soul.

  My mouth watered, and I glanced to Len who was watching intently as I traced a finger over her damp thong and circled her clit. The rough lace and the sensation of my action had her arching her ass up to meet it like she needed more. We all did.

  Sliding the small damp garment aside, I slid my finger into her delicious warm wet pussy to the knuckle then slid it back out. It glistened with her arousal and my dick twitched as a reminder it wanted some action. Lifting my hand to my face I ran my finger past my nose then sucked it into my mouth.

  Coral’s eyes darkened with desire as she watched me lick her nectar off. The look on her face begged me to eat her out and not one to disappoint, I obliged.

  Sliding my hands to cup her ass in them, I lifted her up as my face dipped to her beautiful nectar and my tongue slid the length of her crease from her ass to her clit. A mewling noise escaped Coral’s lips as she murmured, “Oh, yeah,” in a small breathy voice and tilted her pelvis more in an effort to gain more traction.