You wanna know what a man wears under his kilt, don’t you?
I pushed the heavy fabric up, up, up, his pale skin gleaming in the lurid red light, letting the fabric ball around his waist until he reached down, yanking it up, revealing the universal Scottish truth—a man wears nothing under his kilt.
I heard the gasp, then the choked back groan as I wrapped my hand around him, just feeling the throb for a moment.
“Up to your old tricks, boys?” Jimmy asked, his voice filtering through now. “Keep it on the down low. I don’t want vice coming in here, shutting me down for lewd displays.”
“Oh, it’s gonna get plenty lewd.” Liam’s voice was a low purr. “You can’t give us this shit and not expect it to get messy.”
“Then you can take the party downstairs. Go to one of the playrooms there. Knew I shoulda got you to play first.”
The last was a low mutter.
“We’ll play. If it’s unplugged, Jakey here can stay and keep the girls happy.”
“Mm…hmm!” Jake’s reply came out a mumble that became a yelp as I swivelled my hand up and down his length. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Told you it’s good shit. Makes everything so much more intense. You’re gonna go fucking nuts when you get downstairs. The whores they’re running down there? No limits whatsoever. Be careful about taking your girls though. It’s a fucking zoo.”
The fear in Jimmy’s voice alongside the sleazy desire was a strange mix, sending a shiver up my spine.
“But you better get up on stage. Sounds like your boy’s gonna blow.”
“Kira…”
Aen settled in the seat next to Jake, her legs neatly crossed, as my lover begged me for my attention. His cock thrust up into my hand, his hips willing to do the work, but I planted another on his abdomen, forcing him flat against the cushion.
“Baby, please…”
“They sound so sweet when they beg. I wonder, if it sounds as pretty to Kira as it is me?”
“I’ll say whatever the fuck she wants if she’ll just—Oh fuck!” I jacked him off with long, slow strokes, something that had his body thrashing under my grip. “Yes, yes, baby, that’s so fucking good. Oh, Kira…”
He gasped my name as Liam shouted it out to the crowd.
“You might have heard a lot about us lately. A lot of rehab this and bullshit that. Well, we’re the motherfucking Changelings, and we’re here to share some of the new stuff we’ve been working on. Not on sobriety, not on getting clean. You know us. We ain’t happy unless shit’s getting dirty.” A chorus of girlish shrieks sounded at that, along with deeper whoops from the crowd. “But one thing that’s been on our minds a lot lately is her.” More excited cries. It was the customary way the band used to open on “Ache,” alluding to the relationship with Rhiannon. “She’s where we’ve been, what we’ve been doing, everything we write about. Jakey over there wants to name every song for her, but we’ll start with this one.”
Listening to a new song by my favourite band always made my skin prickle with excitement. Was this going to be the next collection of sounds and words to transform my life, wrench me from my everyday existence, and transport me somewhere? I heard the opening notes, felt the hair stand up on the back of my skin, and knew even though this was an acoustic number, it wouldn’t make a difference. The song was going to slay me.
Liam had an incredible vocal range. He could wail, growl, and belt it out like an old blues shouter, but rarely, he did this—sing slower, softer, so that you caught every catch in his throat, the rasp of his voice colouring every damn word with a mix of pain and intensity. And this time, he sang about me. It was all poetic bullshit about some mysterious woman who was always out of reach. I wasn’t. They just found it so damn hard to know how. But despite the cliches and the gross romanticisation of me, I felt tears prick at my eyes.
How could I not? Liam sang a song about the pain of not being with me. Was it his pain, or all of them? I thought of Luc’s reticence and Jake’s desperation, Billy’s hard, biting words, and Johnno always reaching out a hand, despite knowing it was going to be knocked away. I pulled away from Jake, squirming up from under the table, but he hauled me onto his lap, my dress riding up. The damp fabric of my underwear scraped against his cock, but he thrust up against it, pushing into me slightly.
Was there a better metaphor for our relationship? Transcendent beauty and dirty, fucking sex, all rolled up into one bloody confusing combination that made my head spin. Aen took my hand, her eyes shining like mine were, a single tear falling free. But I couldn’t stay watching her, even if I wanted to. Liam launched into a chorus that repeated my name like a fucking prayer, and he watched me watch him as he sang for me, just me. My own tears fell, making my eyes screw down hard, as if that would stop it. Jake sensed my turmoil, rubbing big circles on my back as his cock strained to get closer to me.
Connection, Lilith said. You chose them. If you rush towards this rather than fighting it constantly, it won’t hurt so much.
But—
The time for but is over. You chose them. I would have suggested others more worthy, less savage, less cruel, but you kept choosing them. So embrace your decision wholeheartedly. These timid little bites of them are not worthy of you or them. They cannot hurt you any more than you let them.
So what? I’m just ‘with’ all eight of them? The idea seemed so ridiculous, a half sob, half snort escaped me.
You already are. You just have to accept it. Embrace it. Embrace them.
I leaned back against Jake slowly, and it felt like I was bending a spine of steel to do so, but something settled when I relaxed against his chest.
“Kira… Kira…” Jake was murmuring the words to the song along with Liam, his lips on my ear so only I’d hear it.
“I love you, Jake,” I said in answer, his hands holding me close in response, sliding up my ribcage, up my thigh.
“I love you, Aen.”
I turned to Aen, who watched my every move like it was the most fascinating, beautiful thing, and reached across to stroke her cheek before I turned to kiss her. I was dumped onto the seat between us, Jake pressing into one side, Aen on the other, my lips alternating between them.
Aen’s kisses were sweet from the sugar and salty from the tears until I sucked her lips clean. Jake’s were tentative at first, like he wasn’t sure he had a place here, and then they were all him—wild, taking everything they could and then just a little more.
“Baby…” he pleaded. “This is backfiring badly. Liam’s giving a fucking performance he’ll never be able to top with this pulsing between us, and…”
“And?”
“And I ache so fucking much. I’m trying to be good, wait my turn, not crowd you, but it’s hurting, Kira. More than even I can stand, and fuck, I’ve taken some beatings. I’d rather have broken ribs than this. I’d rather people—”
I shut him up by crawling back on top of him, but this time, my back was to the band, blocking his view of them. He didn’t need it, he could feel and hear every fucking thing they put into their song. His song, I realised. It wasn’t the crazy beat he’d played back in Billy’s room, but it was part of that. Stripped back, slowed down, that same pattern that kept circling back, to me.