STORY EXCERPT

She had arrived in the rehearsal space the band had taken, all nerves and caffeine. She had spent hours researching what other interviewers had asked them, combing through their media presence. She preferred to ask questions her interviewees weren’t expecting, questions that she found important personally. Whenever, in her research, she found herself wondering idly about some question, she wrote it down. When she arrived at the interview, quiet Dmitri, the bass player, had spotted her first, gave her a reserved, almost wintry little smile and gestured a welcome. Robert, one of the guitarists, had been chatting with him, and noticing Dmitri’s attention shifting away, followed his gaze. “You must be the reporter,” he’d said, all smiles and conviviality. Angharad had found herself shaking his hand, accepting a friendly hug. “Hey, she’s here, guys!” he called back further into the room. Angharad found herself surrounded by males, briefly overwhelmed by the welcome she got. Dmitri didn’t hug her, but he offered her his hand, quiet and gentlemanly. Nick, towering over her, shook her hand and then pulled her in by it, kissing her on either cheek. Paolo had taken her hand but then kissed it in greeting before hugging her. Sylvain, the band’s darkly brooding de-facto leader, had greeted her last, with a cordial handshake and a brief hug.

“How do you guys want to do this interview?” she’d asked, trying to be both businesslike and approachable. “As a group together, or separately?”

“Grab a beer, ask us questions,” Robert replied, gesturing Angharad to the fridge in the rehearsal space. The room was poorly lit, a bit grimy from years of musicians playing in it. The carpet was almost threadbare, the furniture so worn it was a wonder the couch was able to stay upright. A slightly moldy smell, compounded by spilled beer and cigarettes, lingered in the still air. But there was also something homey and comforting about the space. Posters that had clearly come from the band members’ own homes were plastered on the walls, a few paintings and drawings. The drum kit sat on an area rug that was in good enough shape to be Paolo’s personal property. Angharad took her recorder out, set it on a table in the middle of the band, and politely declined Sylvain’s offer to open her beer for her, taking out her keychain with it bottle opener from a brewery’s gift shop, a gift on her twenty-first birthday. She started by making regular conversation, taking sips of her beer and making eye contact with whoever was speaking in a casual way. When everyone started to loosen up, she interspersed her interview questions with the regular chatting, making the things she wanted to know the natural progression of what they were talking about.

Dmitri was quiet, and Angharad hoped against hope that the audio pickup on her recorder was strong enough to capture his voice. He limited himself to only occasional comments, mostly nodding support for whoever else was talking. He didn’t make much eye contact with her, even when he was directing a comment at her, instead talking to one of the others or to his shoes. Robert was jittery, energetic in a manic way, cussing and smoking, friendly like a large-breed dog, but much sharper and more astute in his commentary. Angharad let herself get bullied into another beer when she’d finished her first. Robert stood up to refresh his own, and his eyes noticed that her bottle was empty. He’d grabbed two bottles and had them both open before she could protest that she was hardly there to drink their beer. Sylvain alternated between limiting himself to monosyllables, particularly early in the interview, and waxing philosophical, explaining the work ethic of the band, their chemistry, and anything else under the sun that related to the conversation at hand.

Paolo kept his eyes on her throughout the interview, smiling or laughing at her jokes, answering her questions with an energetic earnestness. Like her, he fidgeted constantly. When Sylvain told Paolo that the incessant tapping was getting on his nerves, Angharad, startled by sudden embarrassment into noticing the way her leg was bouncing up and down in counterpoint to his strange rhythm, tried to still it. “Aw, Syl, now she thinks she’s annoying you, too,” Paolo said to Sylvain, making Angharad blush that he’d noticed. “Tell the pretty lady she’s fine.” Sylvain had smiled ruefully and told her that he didn’t mind her fidgeting, but Paolo’s tapping got on his nerves at times. Nick, somehow both part of the group and detached from it, watched her constantly as well. Angharad was comfortable with Paolo’s consistent regard, but something unnerved her about the way Nick watched her. It wasn’t predatory or leering, but there was something in his gaze, as if he was trying to figure her out, trying to work out what she was doing, who she was. Like he’d seen her before and couldn’t quite place her. When he spoke in his calm, confident voice, colored just slightly with French soft consonants, Angharad found herself listening sharply, drawn in by the way his voice seemed to bring down the temperature in the room with its controlled cool.

ADULT EXCERPT

Nick sat back, and Angharad watched his eyes, taking in the sight of her, bright in the semi-gloom of his bedroom. The bed he had thrown her on was huge, with a wrought-iron frame and soft blue-and-white sheets. The light came in through windows high up on the walls, not enough to fully brighten the space but sufficient for them both to see. “This goes first, I think,” Nick said, lifting her upper body slightly, his hands pulling her shirt up. Angharad helpfully held her arms over her head and leaned in for a kiss when the shirt was past her face, thrown somewhere of no consequence.

Nick’s hands found her breasts and squeezed slightly before crushing her body to his, kissing her deeply again. Angharad tried for his T-shirt, and this time, finally, she was successful, pulling it over his head, breaking the kiss for only an instant and banishing it to some dark corner, pressing her body against his. “This is hardly fair,” Nick murmured into her lips, his hands reaching around to unclasp her bra. “You’re not allowed to be any less naked than me from now on,” he told her firmly, easing the bra away from her body, his hands claiming her breasts again. She marveled at how ideally they fit into his hands before he distracted her with his dexterity, somehow holding them and teasing her nipples with each hand at the same time.

“Oh,” she gasped, her body shifting into his, her head thrown back, pushing her breasts more firmly into his grasp. And then she gasped again when he ducked his head down and his lips found one of her nipples, stealing the spot from his fingers. She shuddered with pleasure as he licked and sucked and carefully nibbled, the fingers of his other hand teasing. She felt the heat travel all the way down in a flash to her pussy, felt her legs wrap tightly around him.

“Oh, Nick,” she panted as he switched to her other breast, his fingers taking over in teasing the saliva-slicked flesh. Her hands moved wildly across his body, exploring the plane of his chest. Her fingertips found his nipples, and she gently teased them, barely running her fingernail in circles around each. Nick groaned into her flesh, pushing his hips up into her own, rocking his lower body against her. She could feel the heat of his body through his jeans, feel him hard already, straining at the confines of his clothing, right up against her through the lace of her panties.

He pinned her against the bed, his hands darting underneath her skirt while he covered her breasts in kisses. One hand slipped between her legs and stroked her through the thin fabric, already damp from her arousal. “Mmmm.” He looked up at her, smiling. “You always are in such a hurry. I should’ve known you’d be this wet already.” He barely ran his knuckles along her pussy and slipped one finger around the lace to caress her mound slowly. Angharad tried to push her hips down for deeper contact, but he withdrew, his hands moving up to the waistband of her underwear. He pulled them down in a decisive movement and then eased them down her legs, teasing her with slowness. When he had them off, his hand was between her legs again, his fingers probing the silky wet labia, slipping between the folds and slowly stroking up and down. Angharad shivered, wanting more, needing more. When she tried to push her hips down, she felt him pin her down by the hip, and she opened her eyes to look down at him, to see him grinning up at her, pleased with his strategy. “I want you to beg,” he told her, his fingertips slowly caressing along her slit, featherlight. Angharad tried to squirm, to push her hips free of his control, with no success. He chuckled, moving his hand away, looking her in the eye as he brought his fingers up to his face and licked them.

“I am not going to beg,” Angharad told him, crossing her arms over her chest. Nick laughed and slid his hand between her legs again. She tried to close her legs, lock him out, but he had already thought of that. He had draped her legs around his body so that when she tried she only brought their bodies closer together. He touched her tenderly, his clever fingertips finding the area around her clit but never quite touching it. Angharad bit her lip, willing herself to remain strong, not to give him the satisfaction. Still keeping her pinned, Nick leaned down and secured one of her nipples in his lips again, looking up at her while he licked and sucked, and watching her face when he suddenly nipped her with his teeth.

Angharad’s upper body arched up, a sound somewhere between a moan and a gasp and a cry wrenching its way out of her throat. “Please!” she said without thinking. Nick’s lips moved to her other nipple, kissing it before he began working on it with his tongue like the previous one. Angharad’s apprehensions of a repeat performance dissolved, and she ran her fingers through his hair, trying to push her hips down into his teasing fingers, when she felt the sharp pleasure-pain of his teeth again.

“Oh! Please, Nick,” she moaned, arching into him again, her hand clenching his hair close to his scalp.