Punk and Zen

by JD Glass

  She placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Do you not like the work we’re doing?”

  That was so far from possible that I just shook my head wordlessly. The developing material had the hallmarks of greatness, I could feel it.

  I took a breath, then another. I had to say this, had to get it out there and in the open, because I couldn’t take the shyness, the longing distance when every single time she was near me, and even when she wasn’t, I could hardly breathe because all I could think, all I could feel was her—her presence, the taste of her breath on my lips, and the custom fit of her on my hands, the flash of her eyes when she came, and the exquisite softness of her skin as it melted into mine.

  “Samantha,” I said finally, looking into her eyes, eyes that made me want to jump in and swim through her, “it’s not the music—it’s us.”

  Samantha shifted her hand from my shoulder and stroked my face, lightly rubbing her thumb along the rise of my cheekbone. “Love, do you need time alone? Am I making you uncomfortable?” She gazed at me earnestly.

  I let go of her hand and caught her face lightly between my fingertips. “You’re making me crazy,” I whispered, glancing at her lips before I pulled her to me.

  God, I’d missed her, the taste of her mouth, of her breath as she breathed against me, her body molding to mine. When her lips parted it was as if my skin remembered everything we’d done, and blood pounded through my neck as images of all I wanted to do to her, with her, slammed through my mind.

  “The feeling is quite mutual,” she breathed into my ear as her fingers curled around the nape of my neck and dug lightly at the muscle. I licked the sharp ridge that defined the hollow of her throat, and my hands eased down her sides, memorizing again her shape.

  Samantha’s body eased before me until we were leaning against the board, and it was either her hip or my arm that brushed past the “on” switch for the DJ section of the board and set music flying through the room, a beautifully evocative trance piece by Bjork (she used to sing lead for the Sugarcubes—incredible stuff!). It couldn’t have been a more ideal moment, except it got better.

  Samantha tore her mouth from mine as my hips eased between her thighs. “Is this your choice, then?” she asked, holding my face in her hands, pinning me with her gaze, her eyes a deep midnight blue as they searched mine.

  I searched myself, outside in, skin to soul, and back again. I kissed her, softly, thoroughly, then pulled away from her slightly. “Dance with me?” I asked, a quiet breath against her ear. I let my hands wrap around her waist and pulled her gently to me, away from the board.

  She followed and we moved out onto the open floor. I touched my lips to the vein that jumped in her neck as we swayed together. It occurred to me that at some level, even though I had to leave New York to go on tour, I had run away from Samantha, not then, but after, after Ibiza, after I’d given up trying.

  Her hands were warm, strong, loving, as they held me, and her cheek rubbed against mine. I was again struck with how absolutely safe I felt with her, how completely, utterly loved, without expectation, without reservation, and then it hit me—I hadn’t welcomed Samantha home to me, she’d made me feel at home with her.

  That scared the fucking shit out of me.

  She’d asked me if this was my choice. Choice? What choice did I have, really?

  “Samantha?” I asked lightly, afraid to break this beautiful spell.

  “Hmm?” she responded, a soft burr as her lips brushed against my ear.

  “Fuck the demo,” I said, “take me home.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

  Jóga

  I know that you don’t want us to fall apart

  Don’t be afraid—it’s love we made

  The truth? It’s in your heart

  “Face The Rain”—Life Underwater

  ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

  I don’t know why it took me so long to admit, to know, what I guess was so obvious to everyone, even me when I wasn’t so busy trying to pretend it wasn’t true.

  But when we got upstairs, in my room, in my bed where we groaned and cried and whispered the most solemn and holy of promises to each other, and it seemed even the very walls glowed and echoed back at us, I knew where I belonged when Samantha welcomed me to her, wrapping herself around me when our bodies met, drawing me to her, in her, as we continued the dance we’d started earlier, part of the dance we’d started so long ago.

  When her fingers scratched into my back—long, intense, sharp lines down my spine—I swore I heard music (don’t laugh too hard, but it was Vivaldi’s Suite in D Minor, specifically), and I closed my eyes as I bit down lightly on her collarbone, then laid my ear against the pulse that beat under her skin.

  “Do you hear music?” she asked me, her voice low and halting as her cunt moved gracefully under mine.

  “I do,” I whispered into her neck and kissed just under her chin when she angled her head. “I can hear your heart beating.” She opened her eyes, diamond bright for me.

  Samantha massaged along my ass, then traveled up my back, tracing across my shoulders and up my neck. She cradled my face. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,” she said. “I missed you so much…” She slipped her fingers down to touch the sword that still hung from my neck, pressing it into my skin.

  “Don’t…ever…leave me again,” she said, and I was startled to see tears in her eyes. I instantly wanted to make that hurt go away, so that she never cried for me, over me, again.

  “No, baby,” I promised, “I won’t.” I meant it. I kissed her eyes and tasted her tears and gently kissed those lips that were so soft I was afraid of bruising them. “I never,” I kissed her chin, “want to be away from you.” Taking one of her hands, I caressed her scars, her marks, with my fingertips. I kissed the hollow of her throat, and as her legs relaxed around me I slid down her ABC body.

  I let go of her wrist and rounded my hands over her flawless breasts, my lips tracing as much of her skin as I could, tasting the slight sweat that covered her, until I finally, finally, reached that place I’d wanted for so long. I reveled in the scent of her, of us, and as I dipped my head to kiss the short light hairs that covered her, Samantha laid her fingers on my head.

  I glanced up across the tanned expanse of her stomach, past the sharp definition of ribs and past her breasts, to find her looking back at me, eyes dark, full of love and a hunger that matched my own. She lightly drew her fingers through my hair, then ran them down the side of my head until her thumb brushed against my cheek.

  “Bring your hips up here.” She smiled at me. “I want to taste you, too.”

  I was surprised, because as much as I wanted to taste her, I also wanted to know what it would be like feel those tender lips wrapped around my clit, that perfect kiss, her tongue jammed in my cunt.

  But to share such marked intimacy? The thought made my gut tighten with need and the rest of me shy.

  I rubbed my cheek against her palm and kissed it before I said anything.

  “I, uh, I’ve never done that before,” I admitted, watching my fingertips scratch lightly at the outer bounds of her pussy, run lightly in the groove that marked her thigh. “I mean…” I didn’t really know what to say; I shrugged and finally looked up to see her smile had gentled.

  “Me either,” she said, “but I want to—with you.”

  Wow. That was just so, so…I didn’t know what to say, really, because as appealing as the idea was, it scared me too. This was some whole new level of, well, of something, anyway. But…if I was going to try to make a life with her, and I knew, the way I knew that my heart was beating so loudly that I could hardly hear myself think, that was what I wanted—a whole life together—I was going to have to either get over it or let it go.

  “Unless…you don’t want to,” she added, the slightest of tremors marring her words.

  No…I wanted to, I definitely wanted to, but first I had to get rid of the shake I had heard in her voice, and I almost flew back up her body to r
eassure her, half on, half off her.

  “God, no,” I told her earnestly, staring into her midnight-ocean eyes to convince her. I combed her hair with my fingertips and carefully kissed her. “I’m just…you don’t have to do that,” I said, looking deeply into her eyes again.

  “Nervous?” she asked, smiling her half-smile, that gentle, loving expression.

  I had to kiss the corner of her mouth where her lips quirked.

  “A little,” I admitted.

  “Then we’ll go slow.” Samantha sat up slightly to wrap her arms around me and nibbled on my lower lip, which sent shivers through me. I shuddered as I shifted carefully, sitting next to her.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” she murmured into my throat as I greedily enjoyed the slivers of sensation she shot through me.

  But it was time, more than time, to return the favor, and I stroked across her waist, her ribs, the defining lines of her as I gently pushed her back and forged a new trail down her body, headfirst.

  I still lay to the side of her, and when I returned to the place I’d started from, I hesitated—this was a completely different angle and I was struck, struck hard, by how very vulnerable she was to me, in her need, in her love.

  So soft, so open, so damned defenseless, and I wanted to cover her vulnerability, shield it from the world and keep it safe. I felt so humble in the presence of the trust she showed me, my heart caught up in my throat and lurched with it.

  I outlined her edges again and rubbed my thumbs lightly against her tendons. “You are so damned beautiful,” I whispered, “you’re killing me.”

  She shifted under me as I finally lowered my head and kissed that open vulnerability with all the feelings that threatened to overflow through me because I was just so in love with her that my body felt heavy with it. I had never, ever, loved anyone the way I love my Samantha.

  She inhaled sharply and let her breath out in a short gasp as my lips touched her, a cushioned descent between softness, to touch down on the warm slickness of her, and I scraped my lower lip against her clit, from base to head and back again, then kissed her as I would her mouth. Oh, sweet, she was so sweet.

  “Please, baby,” she said as she slipped an arm under my waist, “I need to taste you,” and she literally shifted me over her. God, that she was strong enough to do that—it sent a shock through me, a combination of surprise and primal lust that made my kisses change from tender to the raw need to have her, and, careful not to rest the full weight of my body on her, I, thank God, finally, oh God, slipped my tongue inside her just as she settled me over her.

  “God…” she huffed out, the word blowing hotly against my want before she wrapped her arms around my ABC hips and pulled me to her.

  Christ almighty, she spread my cunt with her tongue and sucked me in. She reduced me entirely to the primitive, the primordial, and our bodies pressed along their length as I wrapped my arms around her thighs and drove farther into her, the scent and taste, the feel of her absolutely gratifying as her lips moved me.

  She reached up along my back and dug lines into my muscles, moving me, urging me on and shifting lines of place, of person, because I was so lost in her, lost in the feelings her tongue built in me, in the creation of the third, the “us,” that I don’t know when I noticed the pattern to the sparkling lines she drew on my spine.

  She drew a single vertical line with her fingertip, then stopped, rubbing her palm across my back. A vertical line with a connected horizontal. A circle. An angled line connected to another. Three horizontals and a vertical, then she again rubbed her palm across my back. Writing. Samantha was writing on my skin what her tongue was spelling in my cunt, what hers said to my mouth as I loved her, too, and told her in the same way, her clit, swollen and hard, between my lips and under my tongue. I reached for her arm, and she released my back to grasp my fingers, to entwine them with mine.

  She squeezed my hand and let go, to grab my hips with gentle strength, then took her mouth away for one agonizing second. “Fingers, baby…please,” she gasped before she plunged into me.

  So incredible, so intense, I couldn’t help but twist my head for a second as my lungs clutched for air before I buried my fingers and mouth in her.

  I’d gone way past riding the wave. I was a drop merged in the ocean, we were the wave together as our rhythm synched and every thrust, every roll of our bodies as we slid against and within each other complemented, met, matched. We matched.

  She’d been orphaned by cruel fate and me by cruel intention, but when we were together, none of that mattered—we just wore our scars differently.

  As her legs tightened around and against me I could feel my own mounting tension, a tremble in my stomach as I tried not to crush her, and with my free hand I outlined “I love you” on her flexing thigh, like she had on my spine.

  There it was, that power holding us fast in its grasp as we climbed and raced and built to that fine-line point that was the clit that pulsed and grew between my lips and under my tongue, the pussy that wrapped around my fingers with hungry love, and the lips and tongue and hands that held my cunt entrapped, enthralled, always needing and needing only her.

  One more thrust, one more pull and another, and instead of falling apart I was falling together, the pieces of me I had thought dead or disappeared flying back to settle where they belonged, where I belonged, and I was so fully complete that when Samantha came in my mouth and tight on ABC my hands I thought I might simply burst with the pure joy of it.

  I kissed her pussy tenderly as I withdrew, pressing my lips to her with adoration, with reverence, for what she had offered, for what she had so willingly shared. I cupped her in my hand and rested my head on her thigh. She bit lightly against my muscle before I just as carefully shifted off her.

  She sat up and I joined her. We wrapped ourselves around each other, a warm tangle of arms and legs as we leaned back against the wall and her lips searched for mine, then found them. I enjoyed the feel of our lips, the combined flavor that was uniquely us, and Samantha let me continue my languid exploration, joining me as we learned each other all over again. I put that charm, that tiny blade, around her neck again—I had promised I would when I got home.

  I lay with my cheek drowsily pillowed on the yielding plain of Samantha’s stomach, my fingers splayed along her ribs, the other resting on her thigh. The soft hairs of her pussy rubbed against my sternum as her legs warmed either side of me, and I curled between them.

  When the lightest feather-touch of fingertips ran through my hair, I kept my eyes closed. I was so comfortable and warm I didn’t stir when I felt the sheets that we’d kicked to the bottom of the bed slide up against me and fall softly around my shoulders.

  I still didn’t move when I felt them tuck around me a bit, because it was just so nice where I was, and I was so peacefully tired.

  But when the feather-light touch returned briefly to my hair and was followed by a kiss on my forehead, I opened my eyes in the early sunset.

  “Kitt?” I blinked and asked sleepily. I shifted my head slightly to see her, and she carefully sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Shh,” she soothed, “go back to sleep.” She rubbed my arm lightly through the sheet, then stood.

  “Okay…” I sleepily agreed and snuggled under the sheet. Samantha shifted beneath me, but didn’t wake. The leg behind me pressed tighter along my back as her hand came to rest on mine.

  “Nina, do you want me to put the lamp on?” she asked, standing in the doorway.

  I opened my eyes again and shook my head. “No…but thanks.” I gave her a small smile and closed my eyes.

  ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

  It was hard saying good-bye to Carlos and Enrique, and I not only promised to keep in touch, I promised to visit—and I ABC would, too. If there was some way I could work it out, I’d go back to Spain; I loved it there. Hell, I wanted to live there.

  In the end, we flew back to New York after stopping for two weeks in London to hand in the demo, argue
out a recording and touring schedule, and work out new contracts since we’d now created a new musical unit that wasn’t Adam’s Rib and wasn’t Loose Dogs, either, while Fran had gone two days ahead of us to get the paperwork started—and believe me, there was a lot of it.

  Samantha had a lawyer—excuse me, a barrister—she worked with, and in fact, it was the same one Graham used, and offered to do introductions, but I’d already been working with Mrs. J (and Jer’s last name was really and truly Jenns)—she knew my shit. Besides, I was already ignorant enough about our own legal system, never mind working with a foreign one, and frankly, she’d done great stuff for Adam’s Rib, all things considered.

  Maybe things might have been a little different had we actually spoken with her before we’d signed our first contract, but…you live and learn and sometimes you get a bloody nose, and if you’re lucky, you live through it.

  Samantha and I were pushing to get the recording done at a reasonable pace instead of the rush Enzo was asking for so we could spend some quality time together—and not just in the studio. We had stuff to work out for ourselves.

  We had a solid plan with the timing we had in mind: we’d tour in the spring and into the summer instead, which would pack a bigger punch on our new release.

  Yep, those were the plans Samantha and I had, well, that and we were really and truly going to do the crazy thing and get married. We discussed it on the flight back to Heathrow from Madrid. How had she put it? Oh yeah, over twenty thousand feet in the air, she asked, “Can we get married before you decide to join a new band and go tour Borneo, then give it all up to live with the aborigines in Australia?” She was nuts, but she was nuts about me, and that’s kinda sorta what really mattered.

  I laughed, though, and told her if I was going to give it all up it would be to bodysurf on the West Coast or, better yet, Hawaii. I’d start swimming and never stop until I was one with the great blue. She leaned over the seat, then wrapped her arms around me and laughed. “Only if you take me with you,” she said, “only if you take me with you.” I heartily agreed.