A Voice Lost and Found

I normally don't like giving head, and I've only swallowed once, swearing I would never do that again, but this wasn't about me. I was going to take this man as close to heaven as he had ever been, taking him as deep into my mouth as I could without gagging or hurting my still sore throat. He started to gently writhe, I knew he was about to come, and when he started shooting semen in heavy squirts, I was ready for it and took it all. I swallowed but had to come up for air and then swallowed again, I went back down and cleaned him up.

It wasn't actually that bad, not like I remembered, but I had never been this motivated before. I smiled at him and then crawled up and draped half of my body over his, squishing my breasts into the side of his chest while he wrapped an arm around me. He started to say something and I put my hand to his mouth to stop him.

We laid like that for a while, savoring the feeling of full skin contact until I brought my foot up to his boxers. Hooking a toe into the bottom of his fly, I pulled them down and to the bottom of his legs where he took over and wiggled them off of his feet.

I took his flaccid penis in hand and gently massaged it, bringing it back into a hard erection. Reaching over to the condom I left on the nightstand, we each used our free hand to assist in opening the package before I rolled it onto him.

My ribs were still sore, and I think he understood, thankfully he didn't try to roll over on top of me. Instead, he rolled onto his side, and we entwined our legs in a scissors type position, with his erection right at my entrance. He paused, looking at me with a face that was still unsure, knowing he had permission, but still struggling with himself whether this was the right thing to do or not. It was cute as hell, but I couldn't wait anymore. I was completely wet, and I made the final decision for him, thrusting my pelvis where he easily entered all the way in me. We found a rhythm together and he tenderly made love to me. One arm still holding me, he used his free hand to find my clitoris and used his fingers like he was playing piano while we took our time, riding each other into a trembling, blissful orgasm.

While he was softening but still inside of me, I propped myself up on one elbow and using both hands, signed the word, "awesome," to him, then crawled over and onto him. Morning breath be damned, I gave him a deep, lingering kiss, opening my mouth, inviting his tongue which he wasted no time in sharing. It was our first real kiss, and it was as passionate as I could have hoped for.

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We were having coffee on the back patio which was fortunately completely private, overlooking the canyon. I was wearing nothing but one of Billy's tee shirts, and he wore just his boxers. It was already getting warm outside that morning, warning us that it was going to be a hot summer day. I could tell from his mood that we were going to skip sign language practice.

He started by asking if we were going to discuss what just happened. I replied that we could talk about it if he wanted to, but what would be non-negotiable is the fact that we were going to do that a lot more. Later today even.

I could tell by his face that he was going to argue with me, so I stopped him by placing my mouth on his. He pulled away and said, "Stop that."

I signed to him, "What's the problem? Don't you like me?"

He said, without signing, "Yes. Very much. But, . . . but, . . . ah, fuck. You couldn't understand." He slumped back in his seat and said, "I told you, I don't want to take advantage of you. You are dealing with a traumatic life changing experience. You are too vulnerable right now."

I signed back, "Bullshit, I took advantage of you. Bigger picture, I've been taking advantage of you for weeks." He wasn't buying it so I took a different tack by saying, "You saved my life. More than once. You are now obligated to take care of me. Get used to that. That means taking care of me in bed too." He recoiled from that, the look on his face made me regret my signed words immediately. It must have come out sounding like I was looking at him as just a casual fuck, like he was one of my groupies after a concert.

I tried to fix that, leaning in to kiss him again, reaching to put my arms around his neck but he backed me away. He mumbled something to himself and then he got up and left me on the patio.

OK, that kind of hurt. I know I was mean to him before, when the band was together, but that was then. I've been nothing but nice since I got my shit together in my head. I've changed. He, of course, was nice by nature, sweet even, caring, but it was because of him that I'm now a better person. I was sure of it. He didn't just save my body when he rescued me, he saved my soul. Why was he rejecting me?

Then it hit me. I understand now. He's in love with me.

I turned that around in my head for a few minutes and got up, going to his bedroom where he was getting dressed. He wouldn't look at me but signed that he was going to the grocery store to get more beer and stock up the refrigerator, then asked if I had any special requests. It sounded like he was going alone, which was unusual, he had only left me alone a couple of times, starting when he went out to get me clothes so I could leave the hospital. Other times, his sister would bring supplies or I would go with him to the store.

I nearly panicked at the thought of that. I touched his shoulder so he would look at me and signed that I wanted to go with him to the store. He said that I didn't have to and I told him that I wanted to.

That's when his cell phone rang and ended our back and forth. It wasn't lost on me that his ring tone was one of my songs. He took the call, but the conversation was all one sided. His body turned to jelly and he slumped down, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, thanks for letting me know." He dropped his phone on the floor and looked at me with big tears forming in the corners of his eyes. He said out loud, "Emily passed away."

In the relatively short time I've gotten to know Billy, I knew what a crushing blow this was to him and instantly knew his heart just broke in half. He was devastated. I rushed to him and threw my arms around him, he embraced me back and buried his face into my neck.

In between sobs he said, "She was just a kid." I held him tighter and didn't let up until his sobbing had subsided.

Eventually he composed himself and we went back onto the porch with some more coffee. I signed to him how sorry I was and how unfair life can be. We spent the rest of the morning just moping around while I stayed as close to him as possible, holding and rubbing his hand.

When I get into a funk, I know that playing music is generally the only thing I can lean on so I dragged him over to the piano after we had a light lunch and he sat down on the bench next to me while I played for him. That seemed to do the trick and his mood gradually improved.

We took a break and he said to me, "Remember I told you I had a job for you when you were ready. Well, that time has come, are you up for it?" He didn't ask like it was a question, yet I had been questioning myself what it was all about ever since he brought it up. I couldn't imagine what it could be since he didn't appear to have a paying job himself. One time I asked him about what he did for a living and he laughed, saying, "I'm a successful bass player in your band, remember?"

He led me into his 2-car garage where an old Jeep and his Honda were parked, and to a door in the back that he unlocked with a key from his pocket. I hadn't been through that before now, but I entered an addition he had built behind the garage that was about the same size as the garage space in front. Inside was a full-blown music studio lined with soundproofing material and musical instruments in stands that lined the studio. In the center was another grand piano like the one in his living room. At one end was a mixing board, a computer, and various electronics. Just being in a studio again gave me a thrill and I could feel the adrenalin rush through me in excitement.

He spoke to me slowly out loud and in sign, "I was talking to Sarah Strange one day, and you came up in conversation, I was telling her what a big fan I am of your music. A few weeks later, you signed to open for her and I learned that you were building a band for the tour. I just had to be in that, so Sarah used her influence and got me in at bass, the only spot you still had open."

I was stunned. He stopped signing and started speaking faster as he got excited. "Jen, you are an extremely talented songwriter. I have so much admiration for your gift that I just wanted to be near you, hoping some of that would rub off on me. Getting to watch your ass every night on stage was a nice side benefit too." He added that last part with a grin and exaggerated wink, I felt myself blush.

He got serious again and went on, "Your first album was brilliant. It wasn't just a bunch of random songs; it was an epic story. Listening to your songs in order, the way you introduced the characters in the first two songs, then their awkward meeting leading up to their painful breakup in the next two songs, followed by them seeking each other out and reconciling, all leading up to the grand finale to the album, the happy ending. It went beyond the music; your songwriting told a story. Then you followed it up with your most recent album, where in another epic journey, you write about yourself and your search for meaning and love. It was like I could feel your emotions through the lyrics. From start to finish, just fucking brilliant."

I just stared at him. He got it. He really got it. Nobody had ever told me that they understood like that before.

I pulled myself together and rushed to him, throwing my arms around his neck and bringing him down for a deep, lingering kiss. He returned it and when we came up for air, he had a large smile on his face, matching my own, I'm sure. Then he pulled himself together and pushed himself at arm's length and I read in his face a flash of anger with himself for letting me in again.

I signed, "So if I'm so good, why didn't I chart higher. Why wasn't I stringing together number one hits like Sarah Strange?"

He nodded in understanding but was ready with an answer. "First, Sarah Strange isn't that good. Do you know she can't play an instrument and has a stable of songwriters who write it all for her? She's just about the vocals, and she's not very good at that either. She's popular because she sluts it up and her fans want to spend their money on dumb little poppy tunes with great T & A. Notice that the songs of yours that did chart were closer in pace to the music that Sarah's fans like."

I braced myself, I knew I wasn't going to like what he said next. He said, "Secondly, you did too much. You yourself played all the instruments on your recording, except for the drums, which you synthesized. You played so your vocals and lyrics would shine, but that left everything else flat. If we were to re-record those albums with a complete band behind you, playing together and not for your voice, I bet you would have been leading your own world tour instead of being an opening act."

Ouch that hurt. But maybe he was right.

Only I'll never get to re-record those albums, I'll never get to sing again. The weight of that thought was crushing.

I started to tear up and he brought my chin up with his hand and said, "Hey! None of that. Bring me back the smiling face, no more tears. Now, please sit with me at the piano."

We sat and he began to play. It was a good song, I had heard him play it before in the afternoons we spent around the piano in his living room. He stopped and asked, "Remember that one?" I nodded. He played portions of several other songs, they were also good and ones I remembered him playing before.

"The thing is, Jen, they need lyrics. I was kicking around some ideas, but I just don't have your talent. Would you write them? I have a number of usual buyers for my music, and if you write the lyrics for us, we'll split the proceeds 50/50. What do you think?"

I completely lost count of how many times this man had left me stunned in the last 30 minutes.

His music was good. Real good. Some of those songs had been bouncing around my head for weeks, I can't believe he didn't tell me that those were his. I didn't care about that now; I was too impressed with what I had learned. My excitement built slowly but then turned into an unstoppable freight train. Fuck, yes, I could write the lyrics to those gems. In fact, I already had words running through my head on some.

He asked, "Well?"

I gave him my answer first with my biggest smile, followed up with another sloppy, deep, lingering kiss which he returned.

Then he put me at arm's length again and laughed. "OK, OK, just stop that. What do you need to begin?"

==============

He gave me the key to the studio and permission to play and write wherever I wanted. I was familiar with the equipment, and he showed me where he had stored the recorded songs on the studio computer. Though he had played them all for me on the piano, he recorded most of them with a guitar. He was a good guitar player, but beyond skill, the hooks and riffs he arranged in the songs were awesome.

I started right away and in earnest, finding myself hard to stop once I got going. I had picked out what I thought were the best eight songs, only a couple being ballads. I would write, then test them out, then continue to polish them through numerous rewrites. Sometimes I would have to stretch or shorten some of the rhythms to get the syllables of the lines in time but would always run them by Billy first. He never had a problem with it, he gave me carte blanche on his songs the whole way.

The daily routines we had built up over the last several months together were all upended. I would impatiently rush through a little sign language in the morning and then would hit the studio where I was more comfortable writing than at the living room piano. Sometimes Billy couldn't peel me away from the studio, he would bring me lunch and dinner in there at times, but I tried to make a point of taking a break for a beer with him every evening. Billy spent most of his time with me, patiently watching me work through my process. Sometimes he would have to beg me off to bed, I was keeping late hours working through the music, and other times Billy would fall asleep on a couch in the studio while I would work into the middle of the night.

The nights that we did go to bed together at a reasonable hour, I kept my hands off of him under the covers. The mornings were another story, I had him at my mercy and was able to tear down all his walls somehow. I would ride him until we shared some great orgasms together, then we'd wash each other up in the shower before starting our day.

I was drying myself off after one of those showers when I thought about how much I enjoyed the intimate time spent with Billy. My life had changed so completely, first immediately after the accident where I just wanted to die, and now in the last few weeks where the music gave me hope. Naturally, I was still supremely sad about my loss, but I was feeling pretty good about my new life.

===========

We had rerecorded the music to be in sync with the lyrics, which Billy gushed over. I asked Billy to sing when we recorded them, but he flat out refused. He seemed very sensitive to his singing voice, something I couldn't understand because I thought he had a nice voice when he sang to the children in the hospital. He had a style to his vocals that were really unique to him, something that few artists ever pulled off, like Dylan, Bowie, Young. He should know that.

A potential buyer was going to come in and hear what we had made in a couple of weeks. To add to what we had put together, we spent that time creating some new songs rather than tackle a pretty sizable playlist of music on Billy's computer that still needed lyrics. It was a lot more fun working to create something from scratch together, side by side.

We had been having a really good time together. I stole kisses whenever I could, and we made love whenever the mood struck me instead of just in the mornings. He even went down on me a few times, and damn, he was a maestro with his tongue and fingers between my legs. He was better at playing my clitoris than any of his musical instruments.

Everything was going great until the final week before we unveiled the music to his potential buyer, who was some kind of big-time manager for a popular musician. In that last week, Billy's mood changed, getting more despondent each and every day. It started with him looking at me with a certain sadness on his face, then he stopped making eye contact, refused to kiss me, and we stopped making love altogether. By the final night, he wouldn't even come to bed, sleeping on the couch instead.

I went through the previous week over and over in my mind, trying to figure out what I had done to bring on this behavioral change in him, but couldn't think of what it could have been. If anything, it was my behavior that had changed in the preceding weeks as I got more and more attached to this man. When I would push Billy for an answer, he would just sign back, "You wouldn't understand."

When the day came, I was excited for someone to hear our music. Billy had set the music up on a DVD and we had entered the lyrics as text that would display as subtitles on the screen as the music played. I wished I had gotten Billy to sing to the music, it was frustrating that our customer would be experiencing our work as if it were Karaoke, but he flat out refused. Billy had it all set up to show on his big-screen TV when the doorbell rang.

Billy received them and then brought them inside where I was waiting in the living room. It was a man and a woman, and I was in shock when I saw that it was Sarah Strange. She rushed over to me and gave me a hug, saying, "Oh, honey. I am so glad you survived that wreck. What a terrible thing that happened."

I was introduced to the gentleman as Paul Nichols, Sarah's manager. The guy leered at me and stared at my tits while shaking my hand. Meanwhile Sarah hugged Billy, then resumed hanging all over him like when I saw them together on tour.

With her arm interlocked with Billy's, she looked at me and said that she missed me on tour. It felt like a genuine sentiment, but I felt a wave of jealousy. I didn't like this bitch hanging on Billy at all.

Then she told Billy that with a scheduled break in the tour, she flew back to hear his music firsthand and not through just her manager this time. Wait. This time? Billy has sold her music before? I looked around the room at all the replica Grammy and Golden Globe statues, and it struck me, holy shit, they're the real deal. I got dizzy and had to sit down.

Sarah and Paul sat down too and Billy went to start the music. I shot up from my seat and that made Billy freeze. I signed, "No. Stop. Don't. You can't sell her our music."

He signed back without speaking out loud, "Why not? Over the last few years, we negotiated that she would have the right of first refusal on anything I have."

Sarah and Paul sat there confused, obviously not understanding ASL while I signed back, "It's not yours to sell. It's OURS and I don't want her to have it." I had signed with my gestures a little wildly and with emphasis, surely fucking some of it up, but Billy got the gist of it. He looked confused. I added, "You promised me 50/50, so I have a say in this."

Billy said, "Excuse us," to his guests and grabbed me by the hand, dragging me into the kitchen so we could argue in private.

He signed, "Honey, there's a lot of money involved here for you. She pays top dollar, our tracks are going to all be huge hits, I just know it. You'll be free. You can buy a place of your own and be free of me, independent again. You'll have an all new career in the business."