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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


 


            I awoke later that night feeling something very wrong.


            It was a little windy outside, and the trees swayed gently, the branches sometimes brushing against the French doors which did not help that sense of something out of whack.  I sat up slowly, my eyes blinking to adjust to the dark.  Chills raced down my spine for no apparent reason, but I just felt someone else in the room with me.


            Then I saw him.


            The figure shimmered, coalesced, and became almost solid right in front of me.  My mouth went dry and in spite of being plenty warm beneath the blankets, I felt as if a bucket of icy water had been dumped on me.


            I had to be dreaming.  I had to.


            But Kei’s ghost was right here, in my room.


            Shane Hanamura, Kei’s best friend and the original bass player of Dominion’s End, dead by his own hand was right here and though I was petrified, it did not seem to want to do me harm.  The eyes just seemed forlorn as he regarded me.  His lips seemed to move as if trying to speak.  His form was solid and yet not; I could see through him.


            Now this was the part in horror movies where if I had any of the sense god gave me I would have ripped the door off the damn hinges, ran screaming down the hall and out of the house at the top of my lungs, jumped in my car and took off like NASCAR driver.  I should have been running for my life and not falling down like the stupid girls who ended up as psycho murderer fodder.


            The rational part of me that didn’t believe in ghosts was more than sure this was some elaborate trick.  Kei, Tsuchiya and the rest of the band might believe it due to some unresolved issues, but I didn’t know Shane.  I could be completely dispassionate.


            I padded softly towards the apparition, my hands outstretched; the closer I came to him, the colder the air became around me until my fingers were practically numb from the cold.  Shane did not move as if he wanted me to experience his presence.  A thin smile appeared on his forever-youthful features.  His eyes were deep sockets filled with pain, regret, sadness.


            As expected, my hand went right through and it was as if a million knives made of ice had gone through my flesh and right into the marrow.  I yanked my arm away so fast that I thought I’d heard the snap of bone.  My skin was positively icy and I just stood there, frozen in shock.


            When Kei found me the next morning, I looked like he had when I’d first gone to him.


            His face was a mask as he put his arms around me as he rocked me against his heat.  “Do you know that Shane never appeared to Jessie?”


            As he cradled me in his arms all I could think was, ‘lucky her’.


***


            I stood underneath the hottest shower I could, the water practically scalding and I didn’t even feel it.  Whatever I’d touched felt as if it had drained every ounce of warmth that I’d ever have.  I wasn’t quite ready to call it/him a ghost.


            The bright sunshine that greeted me belied the dark terror of the night and did nothing to dissipate it.  The sunlight seemed to make a mockery of my confusion and my terror.


            “What the hell does he want?”  I was practically sloshing coffee all over me and Kei had to pry the cup from my fingers.  In spite of it all, I was going into full-blown panic mode.  “Is he mad because I didn’t believe you and he’s just trying to make a point?” I shouted into the empty air.  “Fine, Mr. Spook, I saw you now can you please go away?”


            Kei’s warm fingers cradled my chin tenderly, his eyes full of understanding.  “If it were only that easy, Eva.  As far as what Shane wants, it’s easy.  He’s reminding me of the price I paid for all of this,” and his hand waved around, encompassing all the material trappings that went with the band’s success.  “I broke my promise to him, about us making it to the top together, no matter what.”


            I needed desperately to understand because my mind just couldn’t grasp what I’d seen.  “So he runs around like some albatross around your neck because you had to let him go?”  I wasn’t feeling exactly charitable at that moment.  “He’s been hanging around you for how long? You had nothing to do with it!”


            “But I didn’t stand up for him until it was too late.  Shane knew he had a drug problem and he was about to check himself into a rehab center when Tsuchiya told me that the label wanted him gone.  I just stood there and when given the choice of success or going back to my father as a failure, my silence said everything that needed to be said.  All I cared about was sticking it to the old man and I was willing to do whatever it took to do that.”


            “Kei, you didn’t do anything wrong.  Drugs have claimed a whole lot of musicians; it’s the nature of the beast.  Besides, how many rock stars have gone into rehab only to start up again?  It’s like a cliché and sad to say Shane got caught up in it.  Not your fault.  It’s the business and it’s not for the weak.”


            The guilt that swept over Kei was like a shroud.  “You think I haven’t told myself that?  You think I haven’t had this argument with myself for the past decade, because that’s how long Shane’s been a part of my life.  And it doesn’t matter where I go, he’s there.  Reminding me of the price I paid.”


            I wanted to shake him, but didn’t trust myself.  Hell at that point I didn’t even know what was happening to me, save that I’d been visited by the ghost of a long-dead bass player.  I wanted to laugh hysterically.  I wanted to grab my shit, call it quits and head home where everything was nice and normal, and where I wasn’t lusting after a gorgeous and mercurial guitarist and being terrorized by a ghost.


            Maybe that rental loft wasn’t such a bad idea after all.


***


            Work would be my solace.  Work made sense.


            After surfing the web for fabric stores in the city, I left Kei’s home and drove down to SoMa.  Even though I didn’t have the rest of the band’s measurements, it just didn’t matter.  I wasn’t inclined to stay in that not-so-fun house any longer than necessary.  Scared didn’t even come close to what I was feeling.


            I liked my perfectly ordered existence.  Granted most people my age had standard nine to five jobs and certainly didn’t count comic book artists, part-time knights, professional Dominatrixes or a guy named Dragon as their friends.  In spite of seeming somewhat bohemian, I was an extremely responsible adult.  My bills were paid on time, I filed and paid my taxes and even drove a responsible sedan.  My workroom sometimes looked like chaos, but it was controlled chaos.  Everything was in its place for a reason.


            Not so with Shadowside.  I felt out of my depth in more ways than one.  First Kei, now this damn ghost or whatever it was.


 


            The fabric warehouse was just that, cavernous, packed to the rafters with huge bolts of fabric, trims, accessories of all sorts and just being somewhere normal (at least for me) helped to somewhat restore my equilibrium.  After a helpful associate pointed me in the direction of the laces, I wandered deeper into the recesses of the store until I found exactly what I was looking for.  I bought the entire bolt, and in spite of not having the slightest idea with what to do with it, bought a heavy brocade shot through with silver thread.  I found several supple pieces of leather that had been originally purchased by someone who’d then changed their minds.  Added to the growing pile of purchases were laces, trims, a pound of brass buttons, elastic and just before the associate was about to ring me up, I tossed in a bolt of ruby red velvet that looked iridescent in the light and thought of making myself a dress.


            Part of the advance had been wired to my account per Mr. Tsuchiya’s instructions and it was rather nice to have that many zeros attached to one’s bank balance.


            Keep my mind on the money, and the money on my mind.


            Fitting everything into the Sentra took a little work and reminded me why I’d made plans to buy an SUV.


            One task down, I was in no hurry to go back to the real life Haunted Mansion.  I’d have to eventually, and perhaps face whatever it was going on there, but at that moment with the sun still high in the sky, I just needed some breathing room.  If I wasn’t so freaked, I would have seen to Kei, but he’d lived with the thing for decades.


            Since I wasn’t heading back to Los Angeles anytime soon, I needed some new clothes and other accessories for my stay in San Francisco.  I drove through the city, taking in Upper Market and Mount Sutro while headed towards 19th Avenue to Stonestown Galleria.


            San Francisco has two distinct weather patterns and it all depended on what side of Mount Sutro one lived on.  The Avenues were known as the “fog belt” and for good reason.  The cloud cover was thick on this side whereas in SoMa it was warm and sunny.  People who thought they’d arrived because they had an ‘ocean view’ were quickly disappointed when they realized that the sun broke through the fog less than one-hundred times a year if they were lucky.  Thankfully I’d brought a jacket.  It didn’t matter if the temperature got up to the 80’s, it wasn’t smart to leave home without one.


            I spent the next hour or so being pissed off at a snobby saleswoman who didn’t quite get that most normal people eat food, not regurgitate it up like a fucking mother bird feeding its young which is why most normal women weren’t size negative twos.  If I had time, I would have made my own damn jeans that actually fit, but instead settled on purchasing a few pairs of my standby 501’s.  The only good thing was I could tailor them to fit later.   I also bought a few cute but comfortable shirts, some underwear and a pair of adorable ballet flats.  Of course being a lipstick junkie I simply could not pass up the MAC counter and bought two lipsticks and a lip-gloss in shades my more conservative mother would have had kittens over, since she wore nothing but browns and plums.


***


             A few hours later with new clothes, my materials and a couple of books (I couldn’t resist the used-book store I’d accidentally discovered having made a wrong turn down Clement Street), I was back in front of Shadowside, feeling a little less jittery.


            I rang the doorbell several times before it opened and there stood Jessie, a look of smugness on her model-perfect features.  She looked fashionably disheveled.


            She sneered in her fashionably bitchy way.  “I thought you’d left.”


            “I thought you’d taken a flying leap off the Golden Gate Bridge.  Guess we can’t always have what we wish for.”  I pushed past her as Kei appeared from the living room.  I looked at him disgustedly.  “Please don’t tell me it’s not what I think, okay?”


            “It’s not.  In fact you just showed up at the tail end of an argument, which she had already lost and she was on her way out.  The bitch is obviously too stupid to understand that when I say we’re done, I mean it.”


            Jessie’s face went stark white.  “But-but, we were…”


            I’d never seen him look so ready to cut someone’s self-esteem to ribbons.  “No, you were trying to get my clothes off. I told you before your skills in that area are non-existent.  It always felt like you were imagining someone else while you were fucking me.  Maybe you should ask Eva about what it takes to please a man since you have no clue.”


            I jumped in then, not for her sake, but because that was way too much information and was giving her the wrong idea.  “Look, I’ve got a bunch of stuff for the costumes in the car.  I could use some help in bringing it inside.”  The wave of anger that surrounded him followed him like a wave as he stalked past her as if she were invisible.  I turned to Jessie whose fists had balled against her body.


            “I thought I told you he’s mine.  You need to remember your place.”


            Whatever goodwill and equilibrium I might have had towards her was gone, especially with that last part about remembering my place.  “And I thought I told you if I wanted Kei bad enough I could have him and there wasn’t a fucking thing you could do to stop me.”  I knew I was playing with fire, but being back in this place wasn’t helping nor was Jessie’s attitude.  “When this gig is over, I take the other half of a fat and hefty paycheck and go home with a nice bit of publicity under my belt.”


            The look on her face said volumes.  “Everyone wants to fuck a rock star, even someone like you,” she said, giving the last word nasty emphasis.


            Looking her up and down with something like disgust, “No, not every woman is a nasty ho’ who’ll spread her legs for the first thing that says it’s a musician.  Oh wait, I’m insulting ho’s, I’m sorry.  You’re lower than that.   Besides, I’d have a problem sleeping with Kei considering his dick was in you and well, I can just imagine what you might be carrying.  I can only hope he had enough sense to wrap it up twice.”


            She blanched, then pointed a thin, expensively manicured finger at me.  “This isn’t over.  You act like Kei’s going to protect you, but he can’t do it forever.  Then we’ll see how tough you are.”


            Before I could respond in kind, a gust of icy-cold air suddenly rushed through the hall from a direction that was not the front door.  Jessie and I looked at each other and for a split second, we were both frozen in terror.


            She recovered her equilibrium first saying, “Fuck this!  We’ll see how long you last here,” and she spun on her expensive heels and out the door.


            I stood in the entryway trying to make sense of what the hell had just happened and trying not to lose it again when I felt a pair of strong arms fasten around me.


            I met Kei’s intense gaze, his dark eyes shimmering with grey flecks.  I was drawn and held in that gaze and for that moment never wanted to leave.


            “You’re right you know,” he said softly in that rich, silky baritone that reverberated through my ears and flowed all the way down to my toes, “You could have me.  You already do.”


            I needed to tell him that I thought Shane had just ran Jessie from the house, but with the whipcord strength of his arms wrapped around me, talking about something that could have just been the wind didn’t seem very important.  His lips were far too close and memory shot me back to the last kiss we shared.  I should have moved away, said something typically and sarcastically me.  I should have done a lot of things, but Kei was a solid and undeniable presence against me, hot and undeniably male.  I understood better than I ever had why this man made millions of females wet their panties, and why his crazy ass ex was willing to threaten me to keep him.  It had nothing to do with the rock star persona; Kei Matsuya drew people to him.  He was like a walking fuck-me advertisement.


            I slid my arms around his neck and pulled him hungrily towards me.  I’d been tap-dancing around this too long and I was sick of it.  Moreover, I needed something to block out what might have been Shane and everything that engendered.


            It was heady stuff, his mouth crushed against mine, his lean hard body imprisoning my own.  My greedy fingers sank into the thick velvet madness that was his hair, sliding like living silk against the webs of my hands.  I brought strands of it to my lips, imprinting the texture upon them.


            His lips were at my throat, breath fanning against my face. “You already have me, Eva Vincent,” Kei groaned against the hollow of my shoulder.  “I was yours the moment you walked through my front door.”


            “Shut up.” I decided right there and then to put this dangerous fire out so that I could spend the remaining time doing what I’d come up here to do.  “Don’t promise me anything Kei,” I whispered as his hands slowly lifted the hem of my t-shirt.  “Let’s just get this insanity out of our systems.”


            It was insanity.  As he devoured my mouth, stealing my breath and sharing his own, my hands ran up and down his body as far they could go.  I gripped the firm cheeks of his ass, savored the flexing of the muscles in my palms. It was like holding a wild stallion that wanted to be given its lead and hell, I wanted to ride...badly.  Just the thought of his naked ass in my hands as he plunged into me had me moaning.


            We were getting hot and heavy in the middle of the entryway, front door partially open and though no one could see us from the street or from the driveway, it just didn’t matter if they could.  We were practically vacuum-sealed to each other’s mouths and he tasted so good.  That first kiss was nice in spite of the circumstances.  This one was bad, in a good way.  Kei’s mouth on mine throbbed with a passionate message that echoed between my legs.  I couldn’t speak, couldn’t verbalize what I wanted and if it meant leaving the seductive sweetness of his mouth, I didn’t want to.


            Somehow he’d pinned me against the wall, my hands trapped in his as the kiss deepened.  I no longer knew where my lips ended and his began.  Our hips began a slow naughty bump and grind.  His cock was hard, it wanted out and I wanted it in.  I felt the subtle tremors inside of me, the wetness slicking my walls, my clit eager for his touch or his tongue or both—I wasn’t greedy.


            There was no time to feel the cool air against my skin, air that moments ago had turned inexplicably chilly—no, I wouldn’t think about that—as Kei lowered the straps of my functional white bra.  There was no time for my nipples to pucker and harden before his mouth began its unrelenting onslaught on my senses.  Kei’s oh-so-gifted tongue swirled and danced on my breasts, his string-calloused palms encased them in possessive heat.


            I’m an auditory sensualist.  That is, you want to turn me on, make some noise.  I realized that sounds cheesy, and there’s definite room for error, but the sounds of sex, not just dirty talk per se, but the sound of a tongue sliding along my skin or the sound of a man’s body slipping inside of me when I’m totally wet and open, or better, the sound of a man’s lips between my legs—I can come from that.  Just the sound of Kei’s tongue flicking, licking, nibbling, sucking on my pebbled nipples had me going crazy.  I needed bed.  Him in it.  Now.


            My fingers dropped to his waistband, to the zipper and I was going to get this party started one way or another.  I felt his cock twitching in his jeans and my hands couldn’t wait to encircle that hot, hard length any longer.  My mouth watered for a taste of him.  I missed practicing my oral skills on a receptive partner.


            Just as one tooth was being loosened on the zipper, Kei suddenly pulled away from me.  He literally tore himself from my arms and stepped back several inches.


            “Kei?  What?”


            Lungs forced out air like bellows, hearts beating fast and furious.  Neither of us lowered our gazes.  Mine was lusty and close to begging; his was shockingly resolute and yet there was need that he was struggling for some reason to control.


            “Sorry.  I shouldn’t have done that.”


            “Yes you should have,” I fired back utterly confused at what just happened.  “And you have my permission to continue. In your bed, upstairs.”


            Kei shook his head.  “No.  I shouldn’t have started this.”


            “You know, there’s a word for what you are,” I said archly, putting my t-shirt back in place with fingers that had just been seconds from lowering that zipper.  “It’s not nice to lead a girl on and leave her hanging.”


            “Nothing about this situation is nice, Eva,” Kei’s sweat-sheened arms glimmered in the fading afternoon sunlight.  His eyes glimmered with lust.  “I don’t feel nice.  I’m horny as hell and if I had any sense, I’d have you upstairs in my bed with my cock buried so deep in you, you’d taste it.”


            I put my hands on my hips.  “Then why the hell am I still standing here with my clothes on?  I don’t need you trying to be chivalrous, Matsuya.  I’m old enough to know the game.”


            “I’m not being chivalrous.  It’s really not in me.”


            “What should be in me is you,” I shot back as Kei put his finger to my lips again.  That was becoming a trademark gesture of his.  I wanted to lick it.  “Look, if you’re not into me, just fucking say so.”


            Kei’s shook his head incredulously.  “Are you fucking insane woman?  That’s not even close to the truth.  I just want a little more than this.”


            “Dammit Kei, I’m not giving up my life to be your newest arm candy, so you can forget that!”


            He laughed bitterly.  “So, I’m good enough to fuck but nothing else.”


            “Precisely!” 


            I know it was cruel, but no crueler than what he was doing to me.  “I’m sorry but this just isn’t going to work.  I’m going to rent an artists’ loft for the next few months and work there.  There’s just too many distractions.”


              Kei’s arm fastened tightly around mine.  “Don’t you dare leave.”


            I angrily shrugged him off.  “I can’t stay here.”  My voice began to rise in panic.  “There’s a ghost and there’s your psycho ex-girlfriend and there’s this thing between us that you don’t seem interested in getting out of our systems!”


            “So we’re just a ‘thing to get out of our systems’?”


            “Why are you acting this way?  I’m giving you what you’ve been wanting from me all this time and you’re over-thinking it.  I know me, Kei.  I don’t confuse sex with love.”  I started pacing the floor, trying to keep the agitation and the irritation out of my voice to no avail.  “If you want to fuck then let’s do it so I can get back to doing what I’ve been hired to do.”


            I expected Kei to lose it, or better yet, expected him to make me lose my clothes.  I mean, what sane man wouldn’t want what I was offering without strings? 


            I did not expect him to burst out laughing.


            Oh wait.  Musicians and sanity are two words that should never be used in the same sentence.     


            I was standing there ready to jump his bones and his lean frame shook with laughter, a rich full belly laugh that would have brought me along with it had I not been so mixed up.  Worse, when he tried to draw in a breath to say something, he’d start again.


            “What. The.  Fuck.  Is.  So. Funny?”  I glared at him, wavering between horny and homicidal.


            I wanted to hate him for making a joke out of me, but shit, he even laughed sexy.  He pointed at me while gulping in air.


            Fine.  I wasn’t going to be his punch line anymore. Just as I turned to leave, Kei grabbed me by the waist and held me so tight against him I felt his heart against my chest.  The amusement was gone as if it had never been.


            “I’m not gonna be something you “get out of your system” like some goddamn cold.” His hands skimmed over my heated body like he already owned it, cupping my breasts, thrumming my nipples through the thick cotton of my t-shirt and bra.  “I don’t want your head anywhere near when I make love to you.  I want your body begging and so damn needy that you’ll be in tears.  I want your emotions so raw that when you come, you’re screaming to the sky.”


            He ground his hips sinuously against mine the way he’d done earlier and I opened my legs as far as I could, wanting him that way right now.


            I nearly fell to my knees when he gently yet firmly pushed away from me.  “Only then, Eva,” and he stormed back outside.


           












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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.