You sigh and push the guitar away. You think this song writing class is trying to kill you; first you get paired with your girlfriend, with whom you try to avoid joint projects, and then you realize she really isn't that good at the instrument she's learning. She was kind of forced into it, you think to yourself with a smirk. Tori turns from the piano to face you. "What's wrong, Jade?"
You shake your head. "It still doesn't sound right. You're playing major chords." She frowns.
"I haven't learned minor chords yet." You bob your head, not really to acknowledge what she said. It was more to acknowledge she'd even spoken.
"Try this," you say as you try to take the razor's edge off your voice and sit next to her, repositioning her fingers on the keys. "Now, play that and hold it for four beats." She does so and looks at you questioningly. "That's E minor. This," you say, repositioning her hands again, "is A minor. And this," one more time, "is B minor."
"I didn't know you played piano." You scoff, letting the venom bleed back into your voice.
"I didn't know you were so bad at piano." She chuckles at the barb; nothing has changed since you two started dating. "If we're going to write blues, you need to learn blues. This chord progression is a basic blues pattern."
"Why did we pick blues again?"
"He said do something unexpected. With you, pop is expected. With me, rock or metal is expected. No one would peg either of us for blues."
"Ok-a-a-a-y. And what about the lyrics?"
"We can't even worry about those, yet. You still suck too bad at this whole blues thing. Jesus, Vega, one step at a time." You lift yourself from the bench, letting your left hand trail up her arm before moving to the collection of CDs lining the wall next to the stereo. "Just listen to this," you mumble as you place the CD in the tray. "Bessie Smith, the empress of the blues." You turn to her and genuinely smile. "This song is called 'Black Mountain Blues.'" Her eyes grow wide as she listens with rapt attention.
"I never would've guessed you'd be so… knowledgeable about blues music." You smirk.
"Are you fucking kidding me, Vega? That's why we picked it. It's real music about real people. Real pain going on in real lives. Real love, real heartbreak. Real rage." You change CDs. "BB King, 'The Thrill is Gone.'" She looks at you appreciatively, and you continue, softening your tone.
"It's not the canned crap we're expected to churn out once we graduate. It's not over-processed bubblegum pop where you always get the girl at the end of the day, and if you don't, you cry in your beer like country music. It's strong, it's independent, it's forceful, and it's so very real and alive." You move close to her, and her eyes glitter at you. She's never seen this side of you, you know.
"I like it, Jade." She licks her lips, eyes shifting from you to the stereo. "You're exactly right." You raise an eyebrow in response. You wouldn't have pegged Tori Vega for a blues fan either. She stands and kisses you gently. "It's deep." You bob your head in a nod again.
"It speaks to the soul, not the libido. Now, just try to copy the beat to this song," you grumble as you finish your tirade and sit back down. You lift the guitar, and she tests the chords you just taught her. You play them on the guitar. "It's a triplet. One-and two-and three-and four." Your numbers slur into your "ands," and she narrows her eyes at you. "Let's play the chords a few more times, and then I'll shift to a lead. Remember, we're in E minor."
The two of you play the progression several times, slowly. You occasionally add a slight trill to your chord changes, just to provoke her. She glares at you a few times, knowing she doesn't yet possess the skill with her instrument that you do. After the eighth repeat, you close your eyes, and your fingers automatically find the scale you're looking for. E minor pentatonic. You never venture to the lower strings of the guitar; you're too busy trying to express to her the concept of real bullshit in real lives. The steel slides under your calloused fingers, and it's only after you cycle through the last few bars and back down to a conclusion that you realize she's stopped playing and narrowed her eyes on your fingers, specifically your fret hand.
"What is wrong with you, Vega? You need all the practice you can get." Without a word, she crosses the room and pulls the guitar from your hand. She almost misses the stand as she puts it away, out of your reach, and pins you to the couch.
"Couldn't help it," she mumbles as she kisses you hard; it's forceful and passionate like the music in the background stuck on repeat. The opening wails of the guitar repeat themselves; you'd forgotten about it while demonstrating to her the very soul of the genre. Her hands find your waist and you pull away, gasping for air. Her lips root themselves to your neck, and you can't suppress a groan. If you'd known what a turn on playing guitar near her was, you'd have revealed that you played much sooner. "Sit up," she demands as she tries to strip your shirt away. Maybe blues really did speak to the libido for Tori, or maybe it was watching you be passionate about something without being angry. You still her hands and stare into coffee-colored orbs, a warning message.
"Bedroom," you hear her murmur, pushing off you lightly. You really don't want her off you, but you really don't want your parents walking in on you as your girlfriend attempts to strip you. She stands and grabs your hand. You're surprised as she practically drags you upstairs; you shouldn't be. She's always been the more dominant one in the bedroom.
The instant the door shuts behind you, she pins you to it and captures your lips again. Her fingers slide the lock in place and trail up your back, under your shirt. "Off," she demands, and again you think you should be used to this. The one word demands, the sheer speed with which she can strip you bare… it's a rush every time, and you don't think you'll ever get used to it.
Of course, you always push her back. You stalk toward her, away from the door, and tug on the hem of her shirt. She swats your hands away and jerks it over her head, losing it to your carpet. "Bed," she demands. You grab her shoulders and kiss her roughly, still standing in the center of the room. "Now," she grinds out as she shoves you backwards. Your knees connect with the edge, and she crawls on top of you. Your eyes slide shut as you lean into the kiss. Not to be outdone, you drag your nails down her bare back and unclasp her bra. She slides it off her shoulders and tosses it away; this prompts her to turn her attention to your own bra. "Up," she whispers against your cheek before moving to a sitting position and grabbing your hand, wrenching you upward. You smiles as your bra flies off into oblivion, joining hers. Your hands entwine behind her shoulders and you pull her close, enjoying the feeling of skin on skin. She moans quietly.
You kiss her sweetly as you lay back down, dragging her with you. Her hands stay anchored to your waist; you think she wants to relish the contact as much as you do. At least, if the feeling of erect nipples against your skin is any indication...
You break the kiss and hold her close for a moment, trembling. Only she has seen you tremble like this. Only she has seen you so completely overwhelmed that you can do nothing but shake. She'd held you that first time, whispering sweet nothings to your hair and silently freaking out that she broke Jade. You'd stumbled through your explanation later, all claws and fangs like an angry cat swiping at the human it loves. She'd tried to tease you; you shut that down quickly.
You lock eyes with her and smile. She blinks a few times rapidly and blushes. She laughs nervously and shakes her head, probably trying to decide on foreplay. You let your fingertips trace the lines of her stomach as you shift further onto the bed, and she shivers. Her fingertips trail down your shoulders hard enough to leave bruises; your nails dig into her waist hard enough to break skin. By some miracle, you don't. She flicks a fingertip over your nipple and your teeth find your bottom lip instantly in a failed attempt to suppress a moan. Tori's eyes cut to you and she smirks.
"You like that?" You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. Fuck it, you decide, groping for the catch on her pants as you bypass foreplay all together. You need to feel her, and you need to feel her now. You look into her eyes, and the emotions there reflect your own. She swiftly jerks your pants off; you only barely manage to suppress a squeak at the sudden cold when you realize she'd taken your underwear too. "I wanna fuck you, Jade," she mumbles in your ear; the lust in her voice is almost enough to finish you right there. You only barely manage to tug her pants off before you thrusts two fingers into you roughly; you aren't really shocked to find that she's not wearing underwear. She wears them much less often when she's expecting to spend time with you, it seems.
Of course, you two in the bedroom isn't much different than you two out of the bedroom. She nips and kisses at your skin, still twisting her fingers inside you. Each little gasping breath is punctuated with some barb about your differences—"god…damn…know it all"—but it really isn't that different. Your own hand has found where she wants you, and it's a contest to see who can outlast each other. You're both moaning, skin, sweating and panting, and neither of you can keep up with the pace of the other. And of course, you have to win. You don't win every time, but you put forth your best effort. Just like in acting and singing, Tori bests you in fucking half the time. This time, though, you have to win. You have to show her you know what you're talking about.
You push her roughly out of you and onto her back as your teeth find her earlobe. You stretch the length of your form against her, and she shivers. She tries to pull you close, but you don't allow that just yet. "And you," you growl back, fingers twitching against her sordidly, "thinking you fucking know it all, Vega." Her eyes flash and she shove you back; the breath is knocked out of you as you fall off the bed and hit the floor roughly. She pounces; you register somewhere in your mind that Victoria Vega is your blues. Your eyes widen. Hers widen in response, in confusion.
"Jade?"
"Tori." The chords weave together seamlessly in your mind. She's the real bullshit going on in your real life, but it isn't exactly a bad thing. She's your lover, your rival, your song. She's your thrill, but she's certainly not gone. "Kiss me. Kiss me like you love me, not like you want to fuck me." The words come out unsteadily. You've never told her you love her. She blinks a few times, but complies. You wrap your arms around her neck and let yourself go in the kiss. She pulls back and you feel your body revving down disappointingly. You aren't sure how you feel about that versus your startling realization.
"Jade? Are you okay, Baby?" You nod and smile.
"Just… slow down," you whisper. "Treat me like… like our song." The look of confusion on her face deepens, and the lust recedes slightly from her eyes. You lean up, hell bent on kissing it away. "Slow. Like I'm something deep and wonderful to you."
"Of course," she laughs slightly, hands teasing your hips. Your fingers trail along her spine in response, trying to impart your realization to her without words. Her mouth finds your ribcage suddenly, but she's not biting until you bleed and sucking until she forms dark bruises like she used to. She's kissing; she's soothing.
Your mind clicks again. Tori is your blues because she soothes your soul. She's the one who causes you the majority of the pain you feel, but the bittersweet side of that is her role in soothing that pain, too. Your eyes slide shut as her tongue finds what she's looking for, and all thoughts are ripped from your mind.
Black-painted fingernails run through her hair, only for your fingers to tangle there. Her hands hold your hips down as you instinctively buck off the carpet; you know you can't last long against the stampede threatening to break loose in your veins. Your legs slide around her shoulders, and you think you hear her sigh. It sounds like a contented sigh, and it makes your head fall back against the carpet. Somehow, you failed to notice her sling one arm over your waist as the other hand creeps up your thigh, just on the inside. You gasp her name as she slowly, but confidently slides two fingers inside you.
The normal angerlustlovecompetitionneedwant that buzzes through your veins during sex is gone, replaced with something else entirely. The thrill may not be gone, but the hard, bitter edge is. It's much softer, much sweeter, and it isn't until she twists her wrist the final time, curling her fingers just right, until your legs shake and lock around her, until her head is resting on your stomach and you're spiraling, spiraling, that you realize what it is.
You didn't just fuck this time.
Your soul sinks back into your body and you finally open your eyes, sharp color meeting soft brown. She smiles, and you know she felt it too. You relax your grip on her hair and play with it idly, not bothering to lift yourself from the carpet.
"You're my blues." She shifts and rests her chin on your stomach, a curious look on her face. "I'm real and I'm alive because of you. You're my blues, and I love you."