When Regina entered the club, it was half-full and the evening concert had already started. There were three people on stage: the singer, Emma, and a drummer in the back. Ruby, the singer, scantily dressed in a black mini-skirt, an unbuttoned white shirt tied over a red bra and her hair up in a huge messy Amy-Winehouse-style bun, was whispering a ballad into her mic. The drummer accompanied her with light brush strokes. Emma was wearing boots, tight black jeans, and a white tank top that Regina found excessively vulgar. She was playing a dark-red acoustic-electric guitar with an ebony fretboard and mother-in-pearl inlays. Quite a beautiful instrument, Regina noticed in spite of herself.
Regina sat at the bar and ordered a whisky. After some consideration, she called back the bartender. "Make it double," she demanded. Sipping at her drink, she did her best not to take personally the singer's appalling husky voice, the terrible triviality of the binary rhythm and the general lack of interest of the so-called melody. No imagination here, and hardly any music at all as far as Regina was concerned.
Then the song came to a bridge. Ruby stopped singing – which Regina thought was really a good idea – and Emma played a guitar solo.
Regina put her drink down, intrigued. The style was not conventional, but after what she had just heard, it wasn't bad at all. Emma had quick, deft fingers, an acute sense of rhythm, her chords were bold, and her playing showed real melodic creativity. Regina was hard to please, but as a musician she always acknowledged talent when she heard it. Emma hadn't lied – she could actually play.
When the band took a break, Emma had already spotted Regina sitting at the bar for a while. It was hard not to. Regina was dashing in her dark-red silk blouse, by far the most attractive woman in the room, and men kept trying to buy her drinks. Emma joined her. "Hi," she said. "Have you come to see me? Is something wrong with Henry?"
"Thanks to you, everything is wrong with Henry," Regina answered sourly. "Is there a place where we can talk more privately? If one more idiot offers me a drink, I might just throw it in his face." Suppressing a smile, Emma gestured Regina backstage. "I only have a few minutes," she said. "You should have called or come earlier, I'd have more time."
"We'll make do, my dear." Regina looked absent-mindedly around the empty dressing room. Curiously, the side of the room that looked like Emma's, judging by the guitar case and by the awful red-leather jacket on the back of a chair, was quite well-kept and tidy compared with the other one – obviously Ruby's territory – where utter chaos reigned.
"So?" Emma asked.
"So what?" Regina pounced. "I'm quite sure you're in a better place than I am now to tell me what's going on in my son's head! He won't speak, he won't play music, he won't study. The only thing I seem to be able to make sure is that he stays at home."
"For how long?" Emma replied. "Do you really think he'll accept to remain locked in much longer? This is not the answer."
"This is all your fault!" Regina accused. "Since you are such an experienced mother, what are you suggesting?"
"All this happened because you wouldn't let him see me anymore," Emma reminded her. "Do you still think it was such a good idea?"
Regina hated Emma for lecturing her, and twice as much for being right. "I'm here, aren't I?" she snapped. "Now, let's find a way to end this situation."
"I could visit Henry at your apartment," Emma offered. "The three of us could talk things through. I'll bring my guitar to motivate him into accepting a few compromises."
"He's such a pigheaded little -" Regina growled, glaring at Emma as if she were sole responsible for each and every one of Henry's faults.
"You do realize I'm trying to help you deal with your son, right?" Emma asked without thinking, affronted by Regina's resentful look.
"You mean your son?" Regina heard herself say. Immediately, she wished she hadn't. Henry was her son, she had raised him from infancy, and even if he really was a challenging kid, especially these days, she'd rather die than admit to anyone else that they had any rights over him. Yet it was just what she had done, and in front of his biological mother too.
Emma looked at Regina silently, unsure about what to say. On the one hand, she could swear that Regina didn't really mean that, no matter how thin Henry had worn her lately. Regina might not be good at expressing it, but she loved her son. On the other hand, even if technically she had given birth to him, Emma doubted she really qualified as a mother. She had known Henry for just a few weeks, and still had no idea how to be a parent. Emma was a welcome distraction for her son right now, but for all her faults, Regina was the one who had always been there for Henry.
After her last statement, Regina blushed as a sickening wave of shame washed over her. To her confusion, her eyes filled with tears, that she desperately tried to hide by turning around and taking deep breaths to pull herself together.
"Hey," Emma said, gently putting her hand on Regina's shoulder. "I know you didn't mean that. Neither did I, for the record. Don't worry, we can work this out."
Regina faced her, now incensed, her eyes still glittering with tears. "There is no "we"! I am Henry's mother, not you!" she hissed hotly. "You should never have come back in his life! I hate you!"
Emma said nothing, looking at her with an understanding look on her face, so unbearable to Regina that she literally jumped at her and started kissing her fiercely, grabbing her with borderline roughness. Emma, who hadn't seen that one coming, was overcome at once by a massive influx of sensations, most of them deliciously thrilling, although she could feel once again the underlying threat in Regina's fierce kisses and touch.
Emma was aware that this was a power game. Regina, hating the fact that she needed her to deal with Henry, was trying to get the upper hand on her again. But as she kissed Regina back, seizing fistfuls of her silk blouse to untuck it from her skirt and delighting in the feeling of the brunette's smooth skin under her fingertips, she just couldn't bring herself to care. She had feared the kiss from the other night was only an accident and would never happen again, so this time she just wanted a chance to finish what they had started.
Promisingly, Regina got Emma's tank top out of the way in no time and sent it flying across the room, nibbling hard at the blonde woman's nipples over her bra in her haste to take her over. Pinning Emma against the wall, one hand busy undoing the button of her jeans and impatiently sliding underneath, she had her at her mercy, already panting and writhing in pleasure, when the dressing room door suddenly burst open.
"Emma, what the f – Oh, sorry to interrupt!" Ruby was standing in the doorframe, not looking even remotely sorry, and eyeing them shamelessly with a crooked smile. "Break's over, Em," she said. "Need you back on stage now!" She left reluctantly, ogling Regina with obvious interest.
Regina, who hadn't given one inch of ground yet, suddenly let go of Emma and backed away, tucking her blouse back in. "This is not over," she growled.
Emma couldn't tell if it was a threat or a promise. Her heart was beating wildly and her blood almost painfully throbbing between her legs. "I fucking hope it's not," she sighed.