Still Life with Strings

  He bites me again, a little harder this time, and then stands. Before I know it he’s undoing his pants and whipping out his cock. I’m still bent over the edge of his bed, waiting, my impatient sex quivering with anticipation. When I feel him part my lips and position his cock, my muscles clench, needing him inside. He pushes in slowly, easing through my tight channel and feeling every inch of me around him.

  “Every part of you is perfect,” he breathes, both hands going to my hips and holding on.

  He thrusts into me once hard before he starts to fuck me with quick, delicious pumps. I fist the duvet, trying to keep my arms from falling limp. When he’s inside me, my entire body gets so full of pleasure that I can hardly focus on doing anything.

  “Perfect,” he says again, this time sounding like he’s gritting his teeth. “I love doing this to you.”

  I can only moan in response. The sound of our skin slapping together fills the room, and I can feel my wetness running down the inside of my thighs, I’m so turned on. There was hardly any foreplay between us, and still I’m soaking wet. He reaches around the front of my body and between my legs, finding my clit and rubbing fast circles, coaxing me to a sharp orgasm. I moan loudly as I come, my channel tightening and releasing around his cock.

  “Wow, babe, you feel amazing,” he murmurs, kissing the back of my neck, still thrusting into me.

  He keeps going after I’ve orgasmed, clearly not ready to end this yet, savouring me. When he finally comes, the sound he emits makes me shiver. His arms tighten around me, and he doesn’t pull out. Instead he guides us onto the bed so that we’re spooning. He kisses just below my ear, creating tingles at the base of my spine. I feel him softening inside me, and then he finally pulls out.

  “Let’s get under the blanket,” he tells me, all husky and sleepy, as he pulls the duvet out from under us and then over our bodies.

  “Are you tired?” I whisper.

  “I could go another round if you want, but I’d rather sleep. I love sleeping with you, Bluebird.”

  I turn around in his hold, trying to keep from sinking into him and just letting myself sleep. Tracing my fingers over his beautiful face, I say softly, “I can’t stay, Shane.”

  His body tenses and he frowns. “Why not?”

  “It’s another rule I thought of. No sleepovers. Plus, I need to get back and check on the kids.”

  “Shut up and sleep. That’s a ridiculous rule,” he says, his arms turning to steel around me, clearly getting ready not to let go. “And we both know Alec is there to keep an eye on April and Pete.”

  “Shane,” I start, but he interrupts me.

  “No, babe. I’m sorry, but I’m not accepting that rule. I can deal with only seeing you every three days and I can deal with not touching you in public, but I can’t fucking deal with you not sleeping here. I need this.” He pauses, face serious. “Please.”

  The agony in his features makes my chest pound. God, I feel like a bitch right now. My resolve withers away, and I press my lips together.

  “Okay. I’ll forget about that rule, then,” I whisper tenderly, my words barely audible while my heart urges me to forget about all the rules.

  He kisses me softly and gives me an intense look. “Thank you. Now go to sleep.”

  Resting my head on his shoulder, I close my eyes and let sleep take me. That night when I dream, I dream of drowning in deep, dark water, and Shane’s music pulling me back to the surface.

  Twenty-Two

  Familiar music drifts into my consciousness, dragging me from sleep. I turn over in the bed, naked but all wrapped in blankets. I discover the music is real when I blink open my eyes and see Shane sitting in a chair by the large window, topless. The blinds have been pulled, bright light streaming in, and he’s holding his violin. I love how the muscles in his arms move when he plays.

  I know I’ve heard this song before, but I can’t seem to put my finger on what it is. I smile at him sleepily and he smiles back, continuing to play. Glancing to the side, I see a big glass of orange juice on the dresser alongside a plate with grapes, cheese, and crackers.

  “Is this my breakfast?” I ask softly, and he only nods, smiling again.

  My heart does a somersault in my chest. I’ve never been brought breakfast in bed by a man before. Picking up the juice, I take a long gulp, those butterflies wreaking havoc with my insides as his beautiful playing penetrates something deep in me. I put the juice down and pop a couple of grapes in my mouth before starting in on the crackers and cheese. I feel like the most special girl on the planet right now, being entertained by a world-class musician while I do something as mundane as eat breakfast.

  A couple of minutes later Shane’s piece comes to an end, and he puts his violin down. I have a sheet wrapped around my chest to cover my modesty. He steps over to the bed, bow still in his hand, and uses it to lower the sheet. I’m too busy eating to stop him, and the sheet falls free. He sucks in a breath, his eyes drinking me in. I’m struck with a memory of fantasising about him stroking my body with his bow, as though playing me like an instrument.

  “That was a sneaky move, Mr Arthur,” I say, attempting a scolding tone as I set down the plate and pull the sheet back up and around my body.

  He gives me a hot look. “I’m not going to apologise.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think you would.”

  He perches on the edge of the bed and runs his hand from my collarbone and over to rest on my nape. “I ran you a bath,” he says low, leaning forward to nip my earlobe.

  “Oh, and I suppose you showered already?” I ask back teasingly.

  His grin is evil. “Nope. I was hoping we could share.”

  “Hmm, that depends.”

  “On?”

  “How big is your tub?”

  He lets out a loud bellow of a laugh that makes my sex clench. Yeah, I definitely want to share my bath with him. He stands, shucking off the trousers he’d been wearing before holding his hand out to me. I take it and he leads me into the large bathroom, the tub filled with warm water and bubbles. I step in and sink under, sighing in pleasure at the sensation.

  A moment later Shane climbs in behind me, pulling my back flush with his chest. His entire body is wrapped around mine, and I can feel his erection pressing against my lower back. He runs his hands up and down my arms for a long time and I stay still, eyes closed, enjoying being touched just for the sake of it.

  His hands move to the upper part of my chest then, before sliding slowly down to my breasts. I moan softly, and he grunts. When he reaches my nipples, he pinches them lightly, and then his hands continue their descent below the water. They get to my belly and still, his thumbs rubbing small circles into my skin. Then one hand lowers between my legs, which have fallen open. He strokes my throbbing lips and then fingers the petals of my sex.

  He keeps stroking me for so long that I feel like I might burst. Finally, he moves lightning fast as he plunges two fingers inside me. I let out a sigh of relief, rubbing my bottom against his cock, which is now rock hard. We continue to play this game. I swivel my hips in circles and he groans, clearly enjoying the friction. He keeps his fingers inside me, moving slowly in and out, all lazily sexual, as his other hand moves to my aching clit. He rubs as slowly as he possibly can, and I feel an intense orgasm coming on.

  I want him to come, too, so I keep swivelling my hips. I move my own hands to my breasts, moulding them and pinching my nipples, letting out a long, erotic sigh of pleasure. Shane practically hisses when he sees me touching myself.

  “Fuck,” he mutters, breath heavy and humid against the side of my neck. “Come,” he goes on. “I want to feel you come all over my hand.”

  “Please,” I beg, needing him to rub me faster, but he continues at his slow pace, building an inferno inside me. I tug on my nipples hard, causing pleasure to ripple right down between my legs, where both his hands are hard at work.

  “Oh, shit, I’m gonna come,” I pant, my muscles clenching.

  I
feel him spurt all over my lower back as I orgasm hard, crying out wildly with the release of it. Once I’ve ridden out all the waves, my body melts back into his and I shut my eyes. I’m glad we’re not facing each other, because if we had been, he would’ve seen something scary on my face just now. Something far too serious for what’s supposed to be casual sex.

  We stay there in that exact position for a long while. He whispers sweet things in my ear and I try not to let them get to me, but they do. I need this man far more than I care to admit. After a time Shane turns on the tap and lets in some fresh water before he washes every part of me clean. I’m too shaken by my own emotions to stay and do the same for him, so I climb out of the bath once he’s rinsed my hair and wrap up in a towel. I need distance.

  But I don’t want it.

  In his bedroom, I gather my clothes and start to get dressed. I’ve just finished when I hear my phone ringing in my bag. Pulling it out, I see it’s Ben calling and hit the “answer” button.

  “Hey, Ben, how are you?”

  “Heya, honey, I’m as good as gold. And you?”

  I cough. “As well as can be expected.”

  “Have you fucked that sexy beast of a man yet?” he questions blatantly. Typical Ben. I swear he doesn’t get embarrassed about anything.

  “That’s none of your business, you nosy bitch,” I respond with a laugh, and he makes a delighted sound of surprise.

  “Oh, my God, you have! Spill the beans — what’s he like?”

  “Uh, I can’t really talk right now,” I hedge just as Shane walks into the room, a navy towel wrapped low around his waist. My eyes travel over his abs before I focus back on the phone call.

  “Ah, you’re with him as we speak, aren’t you?” he says, all hushed intrigue.

  “I might be. Listen, I’ll call you back later.”

  “Yes, you fucking will, biatch. But wait, I have to ask you something. A friend of Clark’s has a holiday home in Kerry, and we’re driving down to stay there next weekend. It’s a long weekend, so we can chillax, have a little mini break from life. You know, the usual. Lara’s mum’s going to take care of Mia for a few days, so she’s coming, too. What do you think?”

  “Well, it sounds great, but I’ll have to check the rota at work. If I have shifts, I can probably get someone to cover for me.”

  “Excellente! Would you like to bring the sexy beast along as well?” Ben asks hopefully.

  My eyes shift to Shane. He’s put on some boxer briefs and is rubbing his hair dry with a towel. “I’ll ask him. See what he thinks.”

  “Cool. Talk to you later, babes,” says Ben, making a smacking kissy noise with his lips.

  I hang up the phone and turn to find Shane watching me.

  “So, what do you have to ask me?” he says with a grin.

  I narrow my eyes, trying not to grin back. “How did you know I was talking about you?”

  He shrugs. “Lucky guess.”

  I search for my hairbrush in my bag and quickly fill him in on Ben’s offer. He tells me he doesn’t have any shows that weekend, as there’s a traditional Irish group playing a string of concerts, so he’s all in. I feel slightly breathless at the idea of spending an entire weekend with Shane in the same house. If we do this, we’d definitely be breaking one of my rules.

  I vaguely remember wanting to do away with all the rules last night, but the memory makes me too nervous to keep thinking about it. I start to comb my hair, preparing to style it into a braid, and Shane sits back down in the chair he’d been in when I woke up this morning. He’s dressed now in a T-shirt and lounge pants. He picks up his violin and bow, and starts to play another song.

  I recognise this one as well, and finally I figure out where I know them from. Both pieces are on the Bohemia Quartet record I have. The one that lulls me to sleep most nights. I can’t believe it took me this long to recognise the music. It sounds a little different when it’s just the violin and not the whole quartet. There’s something vital about the stripped-down version, like a person singing a capella.

  I’ve always thought that if there was one instrument that’s most like a human voice, it would be the violin.

  I want to ask him who he wrote the album for. It’s called Songs for Her. I looked up who the composer was and discovered Shane’s name. He continues to play as I take out some mascara and lip gloss, applying a little before putting both away again. Oh, hell, if you don’t ask, you won’t receive, so I might as well ask.

  “I have that album, you know,” I admit somewhat shyly.

  He pauses playing and glances at me. “You do?”

  “Yeah. I actually downloaded it that first night you walked me home. I was curious.”

  A pleased expression comes over him. “And have you listened to it?”

  I give him a sheepish look and sigh. “Too many times, Shane.”

  “Really?”

  I nod and turn back to the mirror, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear. Then I speak up. “I know you wrote all the songs, but who are they for?”

  He gets a faraway look in his eye and turns to stare out the window. “The answer to that question is a little weird, actually. I wrote them for a girl I never met.”

  “Huh?”

  “I was in my late teens and had just started playing with the quartet. Our manager had gotten us a couple of gigs over in the States, and I was packing up all my stuff, preparing for the long stint away. There’d been this story in the news for ages, about a girl who’d gone missing. I can’t even remember her name, but I was watching the news when her body had been found buried close to the Dublin Mountains.”

  I’m hardly breathing as I listen to him speak. My heart is pounding. I can’t function enough to form words as he continues, “People had been talking about the girl for weeks. It was a huge deal for someone to disappear back then, probably because the population was smaller. She was blonde. She actually looked a lot like you, Jade, which is why I was so struck by you when we first met and you took off your wig. You had all this pale blonde hair, just like she did.”

  Finally I find my voice, but it’s barely a whisper, “So you wrote the album for her? The missing girl?”

  Shane shakes his head. “No. When her body was found, it was all over the television stations. Reporters were trying to get an interview with her family. There was a clip of her mother talking to one of them, and her sister was there. At one point the camera focused in on the sister, and I couldn’t look away. She wasn’t talking, just crying silently beside her mum. She had all this crazy purple hair and a tonne of eyeliner on, so it was all running down her face like a mask of sadness. I’d never seen someone in so much pain as that girl. It made me want to cry for her, made me feel so much, like I’d lost something as big as she had.”

  He stops speaking, and I can’t move. I just keep staring into the mirror at my own face, watching as tears slowly begin to fill my eyes.

  “That night I composed so much new music I felt like my hand might fall off. It was all for her. In the morning I had to fly out, but I continued composing the songs over the next few weeks. Up until then the quartet had only ever recorded covers. Songs for Her was our first and only original album, and our most popular one, too. I was so busy travelling to ever find out if they caught the person who killed the girl. In a way I didn’t want to know. Even if they found her murderer, there’s no happy ending to a story like that.”

  My eyes meet his through the mirror. “No, there isn’t,” I reply, no tone to my voice at all.

  I can’t get my head around what’s happening. First the painting he’d had of me, and now this. Is this like some fucked-up version of serendipity or just a complete and total coincidence? A consequence of living in a tiny city where lives can become so strangely intertwined? I stand up and straighten out my clothes, picking up my bag and throwing it over my shoulder. I might not have wanted distance before, but I do now.

  “I have to go,” I say, not looking directly at him.


  He seems to be lost in thought, running his fingers over the body of his violin, like he’s trying really hard to remember the lost girl’s name. He glances up at me then, about to protest me leaving, but then he sees the look on my face and falls silent.

  “Sparrow,” I whisper.

  “What?”

  “Her name was Sparrow,” I finish, just before I turn on my heel and walk out the door.

  ***

  I catch a bus back to my house, and it’s still early when I get there. I hurry up the stairs to my room and pull out my costume. After the morning I shared with Shane, I need to become someone else for a while. Putting the white paint on my face, I feel like I’m erasing it all. Erasing my confusion that we were somehow in each other’s lives years before we ever actually met.

  He wrote an entire album about me, an album I’ve been listening to on “repeat” for nights on end. As I put on my wings, I consider opening up my window and flying away, like Mary Poppins with her umbrella. I leave the house in full costume, walking down the street, receiving the usual curious glances from people who don’t know me or my story.

  They know nothing about Jade Lennon. The girl whose twin got killed by a sick psychopath. Let her dress up like fucking Santa Claus if it makes her happy.

  I reach my regular spot and set up as usual. As I stand on my box, I feel better because I don’t have to be me. I can focus only on my breathing, focus on it so hard that no thoughts enter my head. Not a single one. I can listen only to the sounds of footsteps on the path, forever passing me by, and no thoughts enter my head. Not a single one.

  There’s no violin music this time. No sweet melodies to transport me into a scene that exists only in my own mind. I look across the street, and he’s standing there alone, outside the very same shop from the first night we met. He doesn’t have his violin. He’s frowning at me, studying me so intensely he looks like he might burst a blood vessel.

  I never move. Not once.

  After a long time of me not moving, Shane buttons up his coat because it’s getting cold, and walks away. I stand there for many more hours, until the day darkens to evening. When I step off my box, I feel like I might need a chiropractor, because not moving has given me a pain that runs down my spine.