Over two-thirds of us list NIN's "Closer" as our favorite dirty song. americnxidiot might enjoy this.
Stephenie owns anything Twilight specific; I own the poetry.
Edward:
My feet hit the asphalt in a steady rhythm, and my legs became a metronome for the song that was beginning to take shape in my head. It was something new, something brooding about watching a girl while she slept, wondering if her dreams were about me or someone else.
I'd woken at dawn; the sky was slow to brighten through the low clouds, but I'd watched Bella sleep in the half-light, fascinated by the expressions flickering over her face. Her mouth would move with whispers, and sometimes I could hear a breathy word or two. She said her mother's name aloud once, and I wondered at the fact that she called her parents by their given names, unless speaking directly to them. She rarely referred to Charlie as "Dad", when talking about him; he was "her father." I wondered if she'd ever felt like a kid; what little she'd said made me think that she was the one to take care of her parents, not the other way around.
"Phoenix," she'd whispered once, and I had to actively push my immediate dark response aside. Of course she would miss her home and her friends; she'd been here only three weeks. I just didn't know how to stop the strange agonizing feeling I got when her phone rang with that particular ringtone. I'd heard it in the hall last night, and walked into the library and watched her face, as she glanced at the screen. She had the softest smile and a hint of pink on her cheeks, and I felt like I was interrupting something intimate, and I hated it; I'd give anything to have her look at me that way.
But then she said she'd told him about us, and I almost felt sorry for the bastard. Whatever she felt for him didn't matter. She'd given herself to me, not him; I'd kissed her first, I'd taken her first, and the look in her eyes when she asked if we were going to sleep in the same bed was for me alone.
I'd stared at her as she slept, feeling voyeuristic, a strand of her hair twirled around my fingers. I contemplated looking through her iPhone, to see exactly what she told him, but that was wrong, and Alice would somehow know and kill me, and I would have to tell Ordinary_Girl, and even though she would understand I didn't want her to think ill of me.
"Edward," she'd said, still dreaming, her voice husky from sleep, and all thoughts of anything dissolved in the heat that rushed through me. Her lips were parted slightly, and moving, and I touched her bottom lip with my fingertip, and then she was awake, gorgeous brown eyes sleepy and blinking. She smiled, and my heart pounded with the sweetness and the blatant desire in her gaze. I kissed her, hoping my breath wasn't sour, and she nestled close, soft and smooth and warm, her hair an insane mess of curls and little braids, and then closer, until she was on top of me, hips rocking and soft wet bits pressing on my morning wood. She'd taken me inside without introductions or preamble and this time I was able to go slow, and I led her hand to touch us both where we were joined, to feel me sliding in her folds. Her fingers were curious, despite the shy blush on her face, and the duality of that was delicious.
And I had to stop reminiscing about it, because sporting a huge boner while running was uncomfortable, especially in compression shorts. I picked up the pace, not quite sprinting, but pushing hard until my calves began to ache with heat. Rain started to fall through the pine trees, a light drizzle that cooled me down, and the song in my head shifted, a slower beat, and I slowed to a smoother stride. A new tune slid into my head, a minor key canon that spiraled out into the grey morning, and the words of something I'd written a couple weeks ago started to fit the cadence. Jazz would like it, there was a lot of room to play with instrumental bridges between the sets of phrases, and the tune was simple enough that Rosalie would have a field day with variations. I'd even like to see what Alice could do with the harmonica.
I toyed with it all the way home, and went straight to the basement to lay a track down for the melody before I lost it, tapping it out on the piano; I'd find the words and give it to Jasper to play with later.
I wondered if Bella was awake; she'd fallen back asleep after she rode me this morning, snuggled onto my chest, mumbling a protest when I slid out from under her to go running. I was still soaked from sweat and the rain; I needed a shower before Esme and I made breakfast. I didn't want wake Bella up, but the thought of showering with her made me hard all over again; I'd wanted to ask last night, but I chickened out.
But when I came up the stairs she was up, hair already wet from bathing, drinking coffee with my stepmother in the kitchen. The look that she gave me made me want to drag her off the stool and back to my bed again, but I took the steaming mug Esme gave me and went to shower alone.
While I was drying off, I logged on and typed in the lines that had formed while I was watching Bella sleep, and then headed back down to help with breakfast.
Bella:
We tried to help Esme with our dishes, but she pointed towards the basement door, and Edward took my hand and pulled me down the stairs. I was jittery, which was stupid, because I'd sung with him already, at the nightclub in Port Angeles. He could tell I was nervous and tugged on my hand, pulling me close for a kiss at the bottom of the steps.
"Relax," he said, and I did.
He sat at the piano, on the edge of the bench turned long ways, and I sat behind him because that was how we were together. I didn't lean into his body; I wanted him to have all the movement he needed to play, but I slid my hand up under his tee-shirt so I could feel him and the energy through his muscles, his spine. He played, a light refrain to Angel from Montgomery, and I sang, simple and clear, and it was nice, but afterward Edward looked at me and frowned. I glared back.
"It's not right," he said.
"Yeah," I agreed, "you didn't sing with me!"
"You wanted me to?" he asked.
I nodded, and we tried again, but we were just two young voices and a pretty piano, playing a song that was too old for us; it was a ballad about age and lost dreams, and we sounded silly.
"I have an idea," he said. He ran upstairs, and a minute later came back with a handful of thumbtacks and paper clips and a tie-dyed silk scarf that could only have been Esme's. He handed me half the paper clips and we wedged them onto the strings in arbitrary places. He took the gauzy scarf by the corners and flipped it out like a sheet across the entire inside, and then he stuck the metal tacks into the felts of random hammers, and closed the lid.
He played a few scales, and I was amazed; the piano now sounded like an old west honky-tonk saloon instrument, tinny and muffled and in bad shape, but still in tune.
Then he strapped a wireless mic over my ear and dropped the pack into the back of my jeans, squeezing my ass as he did so, making me jump and blush six shades of red. Alice giggled in the doorway, eating a folded over piece of French toast with her fingers. Jasper swiped at a drip of maple syrup with his thumb before it hit the floor, and licked it off.
"Can I tweak levels?" he asked Edward.
"Yeah, just nothing weird."
Alice crawled under the piano and lay on her stomach with her feet in the air, and after the light above the door went on, Edward began.
I sang, sliding in and around the piano, matching the plunky sound and then rising above it. Edward joined me in the chorus, almost hesitant, a rough and muted baritone to my alto. He paused at the bridge, and from under the piano, Alice took the melody on her harmonica, a sweet wistful lament while he played a harmony. She was incredible, windy and light, seeming to drift with the keyboard, but actually leading it. I was stunned, and nearly came in late on the second verse. I answered her, drifting the way she had, and then slowly pulling back to the focus I had at the beginning of the song. At the second bridge, she mirrored my voice, dreamy blues, and this time Edward's voice was the support in the chorus while mine was tentative. We closed the song with Alice trailing away the last note.
The light went off, and Jasper bolted into the room and hauled Alice out from under the piano by her bare feet, flipped her upright and stared at her. She smiled up into his eyes, still as a statue, speaking to him in a language older than time, and then exploded in a flurry of denim and black silk, batwing sleeves wrapped around his shoulders and legs around his waist, and he spun around, laughing.
Edward looked at me and shrugged, grinning, and we all went to the booth and played back the recording. It was lovely and surreal, like I knew it would be, kids dreaming of breaking out of the moulds that their parents set, afraid of going nowhere. What I didn't expect was the way that Alice sounded; away from the mics, she sounded distant and the piano strings picked up reverb and fed it back with a haunting undertone that added echoes.
I hugged Edward, and a bouncing Alice and then Jasper to be fair to everyone.
"Thank you so much," I said. "Charlie is going to love it."
Jasper looked at me, perplexed. "You just did this for your father?"
"He likes this song. I sing it while doing dishes." I smiled. "I'll need to make some sort of cover art for a jewel case. He's not into the digital age, yet."
Edward pinched the bridge of his nose like he had a nosebleed.
"I told you, man. No concept, no clue, no idea," he said, his voice pained. "C'mon, help me take this shit out of my piano. I did bad things to it."
"Can we at least get a picture of what you did?" Jasper asked him, frowning at me. They took some phone snapshots and then picked out the office supplies.
I turned to Alice, stung.
"Jasper has some difficulty understanding musicians with only small to moderate ego complexes."
"I have an ego," I mumbled, examining the rhinestones on my toes.
"Yes, you do. And when you finally learn how to use it for more than fending off bitchy gossip girls, you'll conquer the world."
"Hey. I did okay with them. They pretty much left me alone by Friday. Now they're all taking bets to see how long I can keep him."
She sighed and rolled her eyes.
"So, I'm guessing I have a month, right?"
"Bella," she said, "I don't think you understand."
"Less than that, huh?" Something ugly twisted in my chest.
She looked at me, and her lips were moving, searching for words, and in that moment she looked very much like Edward.
"Look, Alice," I said, locking down my heart and keeping my voice steady, "I have no groupie girl fantasies of being the one to finally win the heart of the rockstar. He wants me right now, we're having fun, and maybe if I don't get too heavy and read too much into this, he and I can still be friends when he moves on." "Liar!" my heart screamed at my brain.
She continued to stare at me.
"And no matter what happens with your brother," I continued, "I want us to be friends."
Her eyes were wide, and she was still silently moving her mouth, trying to say something.
"What?" I asked, and then tried to joke with her, "Please, Alice? Angela can't help me with my hair like you can, and I'd much prefer to sing with a harmonica than a sax, and Lauren is a bitch and Jessica is scarier than T-Legs!"
"Who is T-Legs?" she finally spoke.
"Some senior named Tanya who stares at me all the time. Has legs so long they make her arms look short, kind of like a Tyrannosaurus," I joked.
She laughed in surprise, and I giggled with her, and then harder at Rose who stood in the doorway with an eyebrow arched. She jerked her head out to the studio.
"C'mon," said Alice, "Let's go play with the boys."
"Okay, folks, it's my turn," called out Emmett.
I sat down on the floor, opposite them, with my back to the wall. "Liar, liar, with your pants on fire!" my heart sulked, as I looked up at the beautiful boy adjusting the microphone.
Jasper set the tones with a few grungy bass chords, and Rose picked them up, hard road blues, then Em brushed in a back rhythm on cymbals, and leaned into a boom mic hung off a hook from the ceiling.
"Baby did a bad, bad thing…" He sang all gravel and guts, and Alice played a tiny toy harmonica, muffling it in her fingers, a distant descant accent, and the contrast between the two was funny, and I laughed until Edward took the melody, and strange things happened to my body where he liked to put his fingers.
"You ever love someone so much you thought your little heart was gonna break in two? I didn't think so," he crooned, voice all sex and velvet and warm things, like his thighs when I rode him in bed this morning, and his palms on my breasts, cupping me, circling my nipples with his thumbs, holding me steady while I rocked my hips, and-
He was staring at me, with his eyes wide and intense, and I felt my face flame hot. He sang the next line with the devilish half-smile that told me he knew what I was thinking about, and I looked away, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me upright and sang to me. I laughed, and the energy coursed through us where we were touching hands, and I felt like I could have danced if I wanted. I joined in on the last refrain, adding my voice to the climax, and he laughed with me as Jazz and Rose closed with some heavy chords.
"I bet the girls love that one," I whispered to him.
"Do you?" he asked, his lips brushing my ear.
"Am I a girl?"
"Oh, yes," he breathed, and brushed the back of his hand down the side of my breast.
"Hey!" called out Alice, "are you two gonna fuck or sing?"
He stood still, staring at the nipple under my t-shirt that had hardened to his touch.
"What?" I asked, embarrassed but laughing.
"I'm trying to decide."
Rosalie played an impatient chord, jarring the moment.
He sighed. "I guess we should sing. For now."
"C'mon, already! I've been working on this all week!" Alice was ready to explode. So was I, for other reasons.
"What are we doing, darl'?" asked Jasper.
"Low Spark." Alice grinned evilly at their looks of horror.
Edward shrugged. "I can play it, but I don't know the lyrics."
"I have them," I said. I pulled out my phone, noticing an update alert from Debussy_88, but thumbed over to my playlists. I'd read it later, when I had a moment to myself. I pulled up the words to the classic Traffic song.
"Can you sing them?" he asked.
I grimaced, but nodded. "I can do Ricki Lee Jones better than Steve Winwood," I said.
He made a face. "Kiki Ebsen would suit your voice better."
"Who?"
He seemed pleased that I hadn't heard of her, and I thought about last Wednesday and his disappointment that I knew Ellery. Was he trying to impress me?
"GUYS!"
"I'm out," said Rose. She detached the cords from the amp, and took my spot against the wall, cradling her guitar in her lap.
"I can follow," said Jazz
"What do you need?" Emmett asked. Edward snapped the time with his fingers, and Em picked it up with a light snare backbeat.
Wasting no time, Alice belted out the opening jazz solo, dirty sax whine on the largest of her harps, twirling around the room, black silk shirt flaring out behind her, an iridescent blackbird singing blues. It would have seemed ridiculous, this tiny little girl making so much noise, but she was really good, and she owned it.
I stumbled through the lyrics, and Rose followed on the floor, unplugged and silent, miming the chord changes. We made it most of the way through the song, but after Alice's second solo we got out of synch, and fell apart, laughing.
"Okay, so we have homework!" yelled Edward.
"I need more cowbell," said Emmett.
"My cheeks hurt," complained Alice.
"I've heard that before," approved Jasper.
We played 'Hello Operator', and they worked on an instrumental I didn't recognize, but loved, and rehearsed some A3 songs. When things began to wind down, and Carlisle called through the basement door to say that dinner would be ready soon, they talked about next weekend, and everyone seemed to assume that I would be there, too. I couldn't have been happier.
At dinner Carlisle mentioned that Aro had asked if Breaking Dawn would be interested in playing an early set the Friday after next; a band had canceled and he was looking for a replacement to fill the slot. Alice immediately called the number her father gave her. She was very professional on the phone, asking about times and tech and sound checks, and then accepted the gig for the group. As soon as she hung up she squealed like a little girl, and hugged everyone in the room.
"You'll come, too?" she asked me.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world!" I laughed.
After dinner I packed my stuff that was in Alice's room, and sat on her bed, not wanting the day to be over. Early evening streaked strange shadows past the dressmaker's forms in her room, headless torsos that stood watch over her secret designs, keeping me company.
I checked my phone to read Debussy_88's update, wondering at Edward's ire last night. Did he not want me to tell people about us? After our kiss in front of the whole cafeteria it was pretty well known that we were involved, and since Edward didn't date there wasn't any point in pretending it wasn't sexual.
My anonymous friend had written:
-in progress
She sleeps in the snow
White of my sheets;
The grace of her lash
Lies long on her cheek.
Is it my face she sees
when a smile parts her lips-
My hands in her hair,
The touch of my kiss.
Does she dream of a boy
In a faraway place-
Her heart in his hands
His kiss on her face.
I burn in her fire
I'm tortured to ash,
By the pain of desire
And the grace of the lash.
I sat in the half-light, trying to put my thoughts into words; finally, I typed: I wish I were a muse to inspire such words.
He didn't respond, and after a minute I slipped my iPhone into my bag and met Alice and Edward at the Volvo.
He kissed me before I got in, long and hard, and I pulled him to me.
"Come back," he whispered.
"I will," I promised.
Edward:
We pulled up to Bella's house, and Charlie was already back from the fishing trip. Esme had sent him a care package of dinner leftovers, and Bella let out Alice to give it to him. I walked her to the door, trying to keep from hovering over her and failing miserably. She invited me in anyway, and we played the CD we'd burned earlier for her father. I leaned in the doorway, watching the girls dance around the room, and Charlie sat still as stone.
After it was over, he turned down the volume and hit play again. The girls ran wandered off to the kitchen, and I shoved my hands in my pockets, trying to come up with something intelligent to say other than I'm having sex with your daughter, please don't shoot me.
"She's good," said Chief Swan.
I nodded. "Really good."
"She have any idea she's that good?"
"I don't think so," I said. We listened for a few minutes, and the refrain came around, with my voice on the backup vocals.
"That's you."
"Yes, sir."
"I thought she was going to sing this with James what-ever-his-name-is," he said.
"They sang something else." I wasn't quite able to keep the bitterness from my voice.
The moustache turned down. "Everyone knows John Prine wrote 'Angel from Montgomery'."
I had no clue what he was talking about, but nodded.
"I knew he was full of crap, but I pushed her to do it anyway," he shrugged. "He doesn't have a record."
"Yet," I said.
Charlie Swan's eyes snapped to mine. "Something I should know about?" he asked.
You should probably know that I invited your daughter to my house and someone tried to drug her, but I drank it instead, and I took her virginity, but she's the best goddamned thing that has ever happened to me, and please don't shoot me…
"Nothing I can prove."
He looked at me, and I froze, intimidated by the depth of his observance.
"So people will try to take advantage of her, then?"
I blanched, and then realized that he was indirectly talking about James.
"Yes, sir." Puzzle pieces shifted in my head, aligning for different reasons.
"Can you keep her safe, son?" he asked.
I looked at him and saw pity on his face, mixed with distrust. He knew, I realized. He knew I was in love with his daughter.
"As much as she'll let me," I said.
"Yeah, well, good luck with that." He grinned.
"Yeah," I smiled back, thinking of Bella's ability to draw trouble.
"Edward, are you ready to go?" Alice called from the kitchen.
I turned to Charlie, not knowing if I should shake his hand or something, and I wanted to have a second alone with Bella, or an hour, or another week of days like today, but then her father pointed to the stereo, where my voice led the last refrain.
"You're not so bad yourself, kid," he said.
"Thanks," I said, turning towards the kitchen with a stupid grin on my face.
Alice gave me a long look as we walked to the car, the 'we have to talk' face, but I silently begged her to wait, to let me have this day a little longer, and she relented, pulling her tiny silver harmonica out of her pocket. She played, complex variations of children's songs, the notes trailing out the windows of the Volvo, and I took the long way home.
I worked with Rose on 'Low Spark' for a little while downstairs, not ready to go up to my empty room, but then I got an alert that Ordinary_Girl had written, so I went upstairs to the computer, thinking I might work on the lyrics I was playing with today, after I read what she wrote.
She'd changed her status to DAMNED, and her profile song was "Heart Attack and Vine", by Tom Waits. Her update was titled:
Variations on God When He's Drunk.
Liar, liar, with your heart on fire,
Making whoopie with the devil
And now your soul's on the wire,
You never meant to love him
But his hands are so divine,
You gave him all your secrets,
And now you've lost your mind.
See the little awkward girl
Her hair is all a mess
Got adoration in her eyes
That she doesn't dare confess.
You never meant to need him,
But it was only a matter of time
He kissed your skin
And stole your heart
And now you've lost your mind.
I typed: Hot rhyme and rhythm, extraordinary blues. Will you tell him?
Waiting to see if she might respond, I puttered around my room, tossing laundry in the hamper. I changed my sheets but left the case on the pillow that Bella had used. My phone buzzed, and the computer chimed right after.
Tell him what? That his eyes are drawn onto the inside of my lids, and I see them awake AND sleeping? That I dread bathing because I'll lose the smell of him on my skin? –Ordinary_Girl
I would want to know.
I don't want him to know. It's obsessive and weird and it hurts. –Ordinary_Girl
What if he feels the same way?
My hands shook as I typed the words. What if Bella felt the same way? The next words echoed my thought.
Have you told Spark? –Ordinary_Girl
No.
Then don't push. –Ordinary_Girl
I'm sorry.
I shook my head at myself, and at her, wherever she was. We were having a quarrel, and it was kind of funny. I stood, and moved to the windows that walled my room, looking out at the trees and the night sky. What was Bella doing right now, in her tiny room with the strings of lights and purple quilt? What was she thinking? My phone buzzed, behind me.
Do you ever wish you could go back to when you didn't feel this much? –Ordinary_Girl
No. Do you?
Sometimes. –Ordinary_Girl
What song do you sing while doing the dishes?