The Day The Music Died

"As gay as they come I'm afraid," chuckled Heather, inhaling some more of the drug.

"You and that woman last year, were you..." Fiona trailed off, lowering her voice to a hushed whisper. "... lovers?"

"For the most part, yes," shot back Heather, very business-like.

Their drug-addled minds were immune to shock. They kept talking like they were picking out items on a menu.

"I answered three questions, so you owe me a dare," said Heather.

"Fine, give me a dare."

Heather held Fiona's chin and turned her face to hers. Their eyes met and Fiona's heart missed a beat. The room was silent and the vapours of their collective intoxication shrouded the walls and ceiling. The only audible sound was the clock, ticking away with metronomic frequency. Fiona's eyes remained locked on Heather's red lips, waiting patiently for them to part and give her dare.

"Kiss me."

Heather removed the last of Fiona's dress and dropped it beside her. Fiona was now naked, except for her white thong. Heather stepped back to see the woman in her lush entirety. Fiona somehow seemed smaller without her dress. Her slender arms joined her petite frame giving the appearance of a fragile porcelain doll. Heather looked at her pert breasts and saw a small, ugly bruise just under one. Fiona looked down, ashamed. Heather placed a palm under her chin and brought her face level with hers.

"Did he hurt you there?"

Fiona did not reply. She had a forlorn look in her eyes. Tears wanted to come out, held back by her

iron resolve. The invisible tears drowned her broken heart, but they would not show themselves.

She couldn't be vulnerable ever again. She had promised herself as much.

"Don't hold it back, Fiona. Feel sad. Feel angry. Let it all out."

Fiona Cahill looked into Heather's eyes, her mind spinning with thoughts. Heather said the next sentences softly into the smoky air.

"Don't hold anything back. I can take it."

In a flash, Fiona pressed her against the dank wall. Her eyes blazed with a soulless anger and her fists clenched around Heather's dress.

"He violated me," she said, tears welling in her eyes. "I screamed and begged for him to stop, and he laughed."

One of Fiona's hands found their way under Heather's dress and cupped her sex. Her index and middle fingers immediately parted Heather's wet folds and plunged deep within the other woman, making her gasp and push against the wall. Fiona looked at Heather, their eyes inches apart. There were rivulets of wetness flowing down her cheeks, tears she had held back for a long time.

"Why me? Why always me?"

The two fingers began sawing in and out of her at a frantic pace. Each stroke drove them in, right to her knuckles. She twisted and turned them, causing Heather considerable pain, but she leaned back against the wall and took it.

Fiona bit into Heather's shoulder, eliciting a sharp cry. Her lips stayed fixed to the skin, feeling the drip of blood spreading from the wound. Heather winced, but did not attempt to remove her mouth. There were four fingers inside her now, spreading the vaginal walls which clamped down on them with a velvet grip.

Heather felt Fiona move lips across her shoulder, spreading the blood. The pain was superficial, drowned by her onrushing climax, her body was teetering on the brink of carnal ecstasy. Heather felt her orifice stretched beyond its limits and all five fingers pushing inside her. Her eyes opened wide with shock and she opened her mouth to scream, but her scream was stifled by Fiona mashing her lips against Heather. They tongued hungrily, Heather tasting her own blood from the other woman's mouth. Her tongue imbibed the metallic taste.

"Every man I ever met only wanted one thing. Once they got it, they threw me aside."

Fiona never expressed herself. All the taunts she heard, the people who used and abused her, the nights she cried herself to sleep. Every night, she found a way to lock all of it behind a door and wake up with the audacity to hope for something better in the morning. The door creaked and lurched, struggling to hold back all her demons. After Lincoln raped her, something buckled. The door reached its limit and tonight, it gave way.

"I cried all alone on so many nights. Sometimes I cried just so that my parents would listen to me, but my Dad always said that it was a desperate attempt to get his attention."

Fiona pumped her fist in and out of the young lawyer. It was not with the sadistic pleasure which her rapist had shown while pounding into her. It was not with the rage which her father had shown when he threw her out. It was not with the disdain, condescension or apathy people had shown her all her life.

It was her subconscious finally giving way to a lifetime's worth of trauma bursting at the seams of her mind. It was a soulless, desperate anger that knew no reason or purpose. It was an anger that had lived too long in the shadows of her mind.

"I have taken too much all my life and I just can't take it any longer."

Finally, she let the shadows out.

Heather's body went limp against the wall, supported only by the fist still inside her. Her skin was plastered with a layer of sweat, glistening off every pore. A tenacious bead of sweat hung off her eyelash as she gasped and came back down from her cloud of orgasm. They were close enough to feel each other's heart's thump in unison. Fiona looked tired from her exertions and slowly let the clenched fist out of her vagina. Heather felt the chilly air lick her gaping orifice.

"Twenty five strokes," Fiona sobbed. "It took him twenty five strokes before he was done with me. He made me count each of them as he fucked me, harder and harder. I was so scared."

Her face contorted with a returning rage and she mashed her lips into Heather's once more, forcing her tongue inside. She mauled her face for a few seconds before grabbing her by the hair and yanking her off the wall. Heather squealed momentarily before her head was slammed down over the dusty divan. In one motion, Fiona lifted her dress and saw her upturned bottom. The pale flesh quivered and pulsed under her caress. Heather took a deep breath.

"Twenty five times. Start counting," said Fiona softly, raising her hand high above the prone body.

Heather felt a sense of peace amidst the storm. She was about to suffer the long overdue consequences of her vile actions.

The sharp meeting of Fiona's palm on her round ass and the accompanying jolt of pain made Heather feel traces of atonement.

"One."

"Are you okay?" asked Fiona timidly.

The adrenaline rush dissipated as quickly as it came. As soon as the effect of the drugs passed enough for her to crash down to reality, her eyes immediately went to the supine lawyer lying on the floor. Her dress was crumpled, bleeding shoulder exposed and skirt hiked way up to her waist, exposing her bruised, glistening vagina.

Heather blinked and forced her eyes open. Most of her body seared with excruciating pain. Her nether regions burnt. She turned to her side to relieve the pressure on her joints. A thin rivulet of blood seeped out from the bite on her shoulder and flowed down to her elbow. She sat up and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. Fiona peered curiously at her.

"Are you okay?" she repeated softly.

Heather did not say anything, but nodded her dishevelled hair. She tried standing, but winced the second her groin brushed against her dress. Every square inch of skin reminded her of the pain.

Fiona got some ice from the freezer. She placed one of the cubes at the wound. Heather flinched at the sudden cold. She took the cube and rubbed it along the wound, letting the area go numb. In spite of all the pain coursing through her body, Heather felt serene and content.

The pain engulfing her being served to remind her of how she treated others. She was finally punished for what she did for a living.

"Some more ice," squeezed out Heather. She twisted the ice tray and took out some more. Her ass was scarlet with successive hand prints. Every minor movement stung. She stood up gingerly, wincing every few seconds.

"Does it still hurt?"

"I'll be fine," croaked Heather. "Just need to rest for a bit."

"I don't know why you did that," Fiona said quietly. "But thank you. I really needed it."

'Me too,' thought Heather, not daring to say it out loud.

"When did you start playing?" Heather asked, lighting up an Ultra Fine.

"Ever since I could hear, I loved music. It's a strange kind of love," said Fiona wistfully. "People have come and gone, but my music has always been there for me."

"You really love your music, don't you?"

"It's all I ever loved. Music got me through the day. Each time Dad hit me after coming back from a bar. Each time Mom called the cops and forgot about the incident when they showed up. I would go to my room and play my guitar till I fell asleep. This guitar..." Fiona held it out, choking a little. "... this guitar has been there for me at some of my lowest times."

"What about your first performance?" asked Heather, exhaling a wispy ring. "How was it?"

"It was for my high school's annual concert. Poughkeepsie is not a big place and it was a big deal for me. I had a solo performance of four songs. The second I felt the glare of the spotlight, everything changed. The crowd disappeared. There was only me, my guitar and a microphone."

Fiona paused to lean back against the wall. She looked at the dirty ceiling emptily.

"I got a standing ovation, but I was so far away from that stage that I couldn't hear them. I was on a cloud of melodious harmony, every bit of me tingling in the aftermath of my music."

She snapped her head down to look at Heather and laughed.

"Of course Mom kept mentioning how much of a slut I looked like on stage during the entire drive home and Dad had spent most of my performance sleeping off his last few drinks. Through music, I found a way to stay disconnected from it all, in a small world of my own," Fiona went on, taking a drag herself. "The music inside me kept me going. That day in that office with Lincoln. That was the day the music died."

"The day the music died..." mused Heather aloud, letting a thin stream of smoke rise up. "I should get going now. It's getting late."

Inwardly, she knew that she would make a beeline for her favourite lesbian bar to fuck and forget about her rotten day. It was the simplest defence mechanism she knew of, and the most pleasurable.

"Please stay a bit longer," Fiona said. Her earnest gaze caught Heather's attention.

"The paperwork for your million dollar settlement isn't going to do itself, you know?"

"I know. I know," affirmed Fiona. "It's just that..."

Fiona opened and closed her lips, but the words got lost in transit from her brain to her tongue. Heather peered at her through the smoky haze, waiting patiently for a reply.

"Why did you do all this?" she spoke up in a small voice. "You risked so much and you hardly know me."

"I know you," Heather said. "Even before we met I knew you – a victim of circumstances. I've known you all my life."

She stood up, immediately leaning on the wall for support as a twinge between her legs reminded her of her recent fisting. Fiona wrapped her arm around her shoulder to hold her upright.

"I'll be all right," huffed the lawyer.

Fiona craned her neck forward and planted to a soft kiss at the base of Heather's neck. Her lips lingered on the skin for some time, before planting one more kiss an inch above.

"Don't, Fiona. I'm still sore."

Undeterred, Fiona kept kissing until she reached Heather's earlobe. She wrapped her tongue around the fleshy part and sucked it between her lips. Her tongue proceeded to lick around the edge of her ear and even probed the inside before slipping out. Heather closed her eyes, hoping wanting it to stop.

It was too much like love. More like it than she wanted.

She pulled her head away and turned to look at Fiona. Fiona pushed her against the wall and brought her face so close that Heather could see every fleck of grey on her crystalline green irises.

"We can't."

"Tell me to stop then," said Fiona. "Tell me."

Heather did not say anything. Her pulse became erratic and her heart thudded against her ribs. Fiona was closer than ever, her green eyes shimmering and her red lips contemplating a leap of faith. The stillness in the room was absolute. Every metronomic tick of the clock could be heard.

Lips met. Tongues met. Souls met.

Hearts might have met too, had it not been for Heather's carefully constructed walls. Those walls kept her from being vulnerable.

Vulnerability is for the weak. Heather Franklin would never let herself be weak.

Fiona let her hand slip between Heather's legs while she lay on her side. Her lips softly kissed up the lawyer's spine and her other hand found the pert breasts hidden under the business shirt for so long.

Heather closed her eyes trying to resist the strong pull of pleasure from between her legs. Fiona's fingers, deft from strumming her guitar, found her clit and began to rhythmically dance over the sensitive mound of flesh. She placed her thumb just above the engorged nub and used her index and middle fingers to brush it.

The lovers lay entwined. Fiona channelled her love for music to her fingers. Heather went from a lawyer to a woman to an instrument. Fiona found the imaginary strings controlling her arousal and played them. Her fingers left the clit and traced a long path down her inflamed labia and back up, never pressing too much. Heather could not suppress a low moan when the fingers gently curved inwards but immediately came out and continued to caress her outer lips.

It was a symphony of arousal played on the human body. Fiona plucked away at her instrument, gradually mastering its intricacies and nuances. Soon, she knew the motions to cause the low moans and ones to make Heather give out a short gasp. She held Heather's waist and turned her on her back. Her eyes traced up the flawless torso and found the face of the lawyer staring at the night sky through the balcony. She had a look of detached despondency.

Fiona clambered up her body and brought her face level with her saviour's. Heather turned her gaze to those captivating green eyes.

"Run away," she said. "Run far away from me and from this place."

"I might," Fiona smiled. "But first I need to thank someone."

She brought her lips to Heather's and pushed her tongue past her reluctant lips. The tongue found its inert partner and coaxed it into a sensual duet. The kiss was slow and measured, tentative, exploring and savouring every moment of intimacy. They kissed ardently for a few long minutes.

Fiona made her way back down between Heather's spread legs to see her wet folds invitingly laid out for her. The fingers were becoming more urgent now, increasing the tempo of their loving cadenza. Higher and higher, the tempo rose, cresting Heather's arousal. A stirring formed deep within her and gradually morphed and grew. She did not feel the stinging pain in her nether regions any longer, washed away by the expert ministrations on her clit. She was seeping fluids, dripping out and glistening against the dim light cast across the room.

The feeling was abruptly halted when Fiona pulled her fingers back. Heather immediately felt vacuous at being left hanging. An instant later, she felt a warm tongue lapping at her slit. The two talented hands were now on her breasts, pinching and pulling at her nipples, sinking into her pliable flesh. Eddies of pleasure radiated from the areolas and seamlessly merged with the warm sensation spreading through her torso. Her orgasm ebbed and flowed, coming closer to the rapture of climax each time.

Heralded by Fiona's fingers pushing entirely into her, the orgasm peaked in a volcanic climax.

Her body was taut like a stretched string and her senses blacked out, letting go of reality to be swept by a tidal wave. A tsunami of orgasmic bliss coming from a bottomless sea of arousal. It caught her and sucked her into a vortex of sinful pleasure, pulling her deep inside itself. The feeling engulfed her, permeating her skin all the way to her molten core. Every nerve ending in her body burnt itself raw to cope with the sensory overload. Pain and pleasure melded into one entity before overwhelming her brain into the airy nothingness of sexual nirvana. The world changed colour to a psychedelic whirl and glared into her clamped eyes.

Heather felt liquid spurt out of her. Her skin seemed to glow with the heat of climax. It was earth-shattering in its magnitude, yet tender in its execution. She felt weak and woozy, still riding the aftershocks. The hot surge traversed her entire body and gradually dissipated into a quiet memory in the private crevices of her brain.

It nestled right alongside the part of her brain which dreaded anything remotely resembling a loving relationship. The rapists and murderers she defended daily never came close to scaring her as much.

Even as Heather felt her orgasm die down, she saw Fiona lie on top of her and gently stroke her hair. She smiled awkwardly, almost seeking approval from the satisfied woman. The breathless smile etched on the face glistening with sweat told her all she wanted to know.

They kissed again, desperate to make the evening last longer than it had a right to.

"I really have to go now," Heather said, realizing that the streets of the Bronx grew unfriendlier by the minute.

Fiona stood by her side quietly as she dressed up. Heather still felt unsteady on her feet, wrung out from the experiences over the past few hours. Every bit of her ached in the best way possible.

"You take care, Ms Cahill," she said, resuming her business-like mould. "I will probably call you to the firm tomorrow to sign in a few places. The ADA will be curious as to what made you change your mind, but I'll handle that."

Fiona nodded and pursed her lips. Heather came over and hugged her tightly once before drawing back. She saw Fiona lean forward to kiss her and turned her face.

"It's a bad idea."

"Why?" asked a clearly smitten Fiona.

"I can't love anyone unless I learn to love myself first," Heather said. "Maybe one day I'll take that step, but not today. I'm not ready yet."

She looked at Fiona's iridescent eyes, watching her hopes and dreams swirling all the way to her soul. Maybe, just maybe, she could still live her dream.

"Don't give up on your dream," said Heather. "Not now. Not ever."

Before Fiona could muster a response, Heather fled the dingy apartment and ran out of the building, jostling past several late night pedestrians. She did not stop until she stood on the subway platform, doubled over and gasping for breath.

She looked like quite a sight, with her dishevelled face and messed up hair. Her gait remained awkward and erratic as the last remnants of drugs let go of her senses.

In short, she fit right in with the rest of her late night passengers.

"You really did it?" asked her incredulous boss.

"Yes," said Heather, putting down the signed affidavits and non-disclosure agreements. "Tell Lincoln's manager to have the cheque ready by end of business today."

"Mind if I ask how exactly you pulled this off?" continued her boss, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "I've seen many such cases in my career and I was willing to bet anything she would drag us all through a trial."

"Guess you don't know human beings as well as you think," shrugged Heather. "Now, what about the other part of our agreement?"

Her boss raised his arms in despair.

"I guess I'll have to sign your promotion then. Damn, will I miss your talents on this floor," sighed her boss. "Oh well, congratulations Heather Franklin, you have officially made counsel. There is one last formality left though."