The Musician and the Monster Read online

  “I don’t want to wait,” whined Ángel.

  Oberon exhaled huskily, a sound between a groan and a growl. “Oh, neither do I, really.” And then he slowly slid in, balls-deep.

  If he’d been bigger it would have hurt; instead, the burn was good. Ángel lifted up and pushed back, fucking himself on Oberon, mindlessly seeking pressure on his prostate and reaching for his own dick. But Oberon restrained him with his greater weight and strength, growling, “Be still, beloved.”

  “More.”

  Oberon entwined his fingers with Ángel’s and pinned his hands to the bed, forcing his legs farther apart with his own. “No. Be still.”

  “You are such a dom,” muttered Ángel, obeying. He was spread open, impaled, ass up and head down. He felt conquered, helpless, and couldn’t believe how much he loved it. The smell of Oberon’s pleasure rolled over him like an intoxicating drug; his cock, as deep inside Ángel as it could go, throbbed palpably.

  “Be still,” Oberon said again, his voice warm. “Just feel it.”

  And Ángel could feel it: with a surge, Oberon’s cock thickened and stretched inside him. Got . . . bigger.

  Ángel grunted. “That thing is full of surprises.”

  Another surge, another pulse. Oberon’s dick plumped and flexed and lengthened, opened Ángel wider, reached deeper inside him. Ángel moaned helplessly. He wanted to writhe, to fuck back on that cock, to rub against the pillow, to come.

  “Let me know,” Oberon said, breathlessly, “if you don’t like it. If you want me to stop.”

  A surge. Longer, thicker. Ángel pressed his face into the mattress and cried out. He tried to move again, desperate for friction, the pillowcase on his dick, the slide of that thick penetration on his prostate. Oberon gripped him, tried to hold him still.

  “Killing me,” Ángel complained hoarsely.

  “I hope that is a metaphor.”

  Oberon’s cock pulsed, swelled. Thick enough now to stretch Ángel open. It was almost too much; overwhelmed, he whimpered. “Oh, Jesus.”

  “Is it all right?” whispered Oberon.

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

  And now Oberon began to fuck Ángel with an easy, rolling movement. He released Ángel’s hands and raised himself up, lifting Ángel’s hips, thrusting voluptuously.

  “Oh fucking God, that is so great,” said Ángel, his voice ragged with pleasure. Pleasure so wild, he didn’t even know what he was saying. “Ob—oh my God, yeah.” Hotter and more intense than anything he’d ever had before. “Oh yeah. Oh fuck. Oh yes. Oh please.”

  But Oberon was so slow. The lingering grind and slide inside Ángel was exquisite but exasperating at the same time; Ángel’s heated dick and balls were brushing lightly against the pillow beneath him. “Baby,” he gasped. “Please.”

  “I love this,” Oberon said, his voice velvet in the dimness. His broad palm stroked up and down Ángel’s sweating back. “It’s been so long, beloved. Oh, you should see yourself.” His fingers tightened on Ángel’s hip, and he pulled out gradually, all the way, until Ángel could feel just the crown of his cock breaching him. “You don’t look big enough,” he whispered. “But look at you.” He slid back in, opening Ángel, the entire length of his fat shaft dragging heavily over Ángel’s prostate.

  Ángel could only manage a shattered groan.

  “I want to keep doing this all night,” Oberon whispered, sliding out. “I know you like it faster,” he said, idling. “But this.” He forged deliberately back in. “Ah.”

  Ángel’s hands were helplessly grasping the sheets. He was on the edge of orgasm. At this pace, Oberon could keep him there for hours. He tried to push himself onto Oberon, to increase the tempo, but Oberon simply wouldn’t let him. “You came already,” purred Oberon. “You don’t need to again right away.”

  Ángel made some kind of reply—he didn’t know what. A moan. A whimper. Oberon was stuffed so big and deep inside him, stroking so slow and thorough.

  “Or maybe you do,” observed Oberon. He brought his hand around to stroke Ángel’s abdomen, long fingers combing into his pubes and parting around the base of his dick, lifting him up and powering in at the same time. “You do need it. Now.” His hot fist stroked up and down Ángel’s dick. “Oh Ángel,” confessed Oberon quietly. “So do I.”

  It was too much. It was all over for Ángel: he was coming in a hard wave of delight and relief. He bore down hard on Oberon’s dick and spurted all over the bed and himself and Oberon’s hand, shouting with pleasure. He felt Oberon coming too: not breathing, not moving, just coming and coming.

  Ángel managed to push them both over onto their sides, and twisted around so that he could hold Oberon.

  Who was continuing to come.

  Ángel embraced Oberon while he shook, on and on, spasm after helpless spasm.

  “I got you, baby,” he whispered, resting his cheek on Oberon’s sweating forehead.

  Oberon seemed to prefer to be dominant during foreplay and sex, controlling the pace and the position and the dirty talk with an iron will. But during that minute-long orgasm he turned to pudding. Face pressed against Ángel’s neck, fingers flexing helplessly with every long, endless pulse. Overbearing top into mush. Just like that.

  Ángel cradled him tenderly.

  “We are always able to sense others, at all times,” Oberon had said to him once. “How they are feeling, what they are doing. We can always feel each other, through our skin. For us, that is comfortable.”

  That meant this. Right now, as Oberon gulped for breath and collapsed quivering into Ángel’s arms, he was transmitting on all channels. To Ángel, these were the most intimate, private moments of his life. But Oberon’s feelings of arousal, orgasm, and orgasm’s aftermath must be expressing themselves on his skin and broadcasting outward into the universe, in magic pulsations, for anyone to detect. No sense of privacy, and no sense of intimacy. Communication. All the time. That’s what made Oberon happy.

  And there was no one to pick up the magical signal.

  No one but Ángel, and the best he could do was inhale the smell rising from Oberon’s skin—like musk, like fruit, like cloves, like Oberon. He tightened his embrace around Oberon.

  He could never hope to replace the lovemaking of other fae. He could fuck and be fucked, but he couldn’t commune with Oberon the way he needed.

  He cradled Oberon in his arms, stroked his skin. “Baby,” he murmured, inadequately. “I got you.”

  Ángel woke up to an empty bed and tangled, aromatic, crusty sheets.

  He felt sore and loose-hipped. He flexed his limbs and wiggled his toes, making sure everything was still connected, before rolling out of bed. Skipping his usual treadmill run, he staggered to the shower.

  This development is not going to stay a secret for long. There might not be cameras in Ángel’s bedroom, but those sheets told a story. Lily would notice.

  Ángel let hot water pour onto his head and run into his eyes. He was not shy. But he felt a little shy about this.

  People would not understand.

  Oh, who cared if anyone understood? He’d had the most fantastic sex, and he was happy.

  He went down to the kitchen for his morning coffee and toast. Lily was there. She didn’t need to see his laundry: somehow she clearly knew everything. She seized his hand and squeezed it, her eyes big and full of concern, and pulled him into the walk-in pantry. Perhaps avoiding cameras.

  “Are you okay?” she whispered.

  “Of course,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “It’s fine.”

  She looked like she was about to cry. “It’s not fine! I’m so sorry, Ángel. This isn’t— I didn’t think he—”

  He gave her a little reassuring shake. “You know he’s a good person. You told me yourself not to be afraid of him.”

  “Yes, but— Ángel!” She was crying. “He’s kind, but you’re—you told me about the money—”

  “Oh. You’re thinking it’s a financial arrangement.” It
was a bit surprising how much that stung.

  “No, but he’s—”

  A monster. A python. “No, he isn’t,” said Ángel sharply. “And I’m not a hustler, Lily, okay? I don’t do anything I don’t want to do, and I don’t do anything for money.”

  She put a hand on the back of his head and pulled him down, touching her forehead to his. “I’m sorry, Ángel. I don’t think that. But we’re snowed in. The roads are closed. It’s seventeen degrees out. You can’t leave if you need to.” She smiled a little through her tears. “I’m worried about you. Even though I’m not your mother.”

  That made tears start in his eyes too. This was crazy. “I’m okay,” he said. “I promise.”

  “You don’t have anyone here to protect you.”

  “I don’t need protection. He’s not a monster, and I’m not a victim.” He squeezed her. “And you’re a lot nicer than my mother.” He bumped her forehead with his. “I’m just hungry.”

  Lily didn’t look convinced, but he knew that she was incapable of letting him go hungry. She wiped the tears from her face and made him toast and a poached egg. As he ate it, he said, ostensibly to her but also to the listening air around him, “I sure hope the security team isn’t getting ready to swoop in and rescue anyone this morning. Because it’s fine.”

  He took the tablet and sent a quick text-like email to Marissa.

  Thanks for sending me the link to Con’s most recent masterpiece.

  After several minutes, she responded, I thought you’d find it interesting. Would you like me to fly to Nashville and punch him in the throat?

  Por favor.

  He finished his toast and sipped coffee, then wrote, It made me regret my life choices. I definitely should have dated Taylor Swift. She, too, would have dumped me and then savaged me in a song, but it would have been a much better song.

  Long pause. He heated milk for another cup of coffee.

  True, wrote Marissa. Taylor Swift would never have perpetrated “you took my heart but you just wanted some.” On the other hand, judging from the caliber of Tay’s ex-boyfriends, she’s unlikely to have ever looked twice at your narrow Balsero ass.

  He grinned.

  O suggests that I write a song in response calling Con “feeble and sexually inept,” and that is a direct quote from the cultural envoy from the Otherworld. I’d like to work in “my narrow Balsero ass” too.

  You shared this with O?

  Carefully, he typed, All of the above, yes.

  Another long pause. Maybe she was texting Chandler for confirmation. Feeling a little nervous, like he had just come out to her, Ángel finished his coffee, rinsed out his cup, washed the moka pot, and put it away. When the tablet pinged again, it said:

  Don’t do anything dumb, Ángel.

  When have I ever given you cause to call my personal life dumb?

  You are hilarious, she sent. Remember the pool has a lifeguard.

  No need, he replied. I can swim.

  Over canned soup for lunch, he and Oberon decorously discussed hip-hop. They listened to Nas, Tupac, Rakim, and the Hamilton cast recording. They talked about how in the early days of the genre, people with no money, no instruments, and no musical education had still responded to the call to create music. The conversation ranged over topics. It never touched upon the personal, though.

  Ángel was starting to feel a little uncertain. Had last night been a one-time thing? Were they done?

  Hamilton prompted questions from Oberon about American history, and the etiquette of interpreting historical events using anachronistic musical styles.

  “I’m probably the wrong person to talk to about that,” Ángel said. “I don’t actually care, so long as the songs are good.”

  “Artists can use whatever they want?”

  “Well, pretty much. If they pay for it. Maybe even if they don’t.”

  “Really, Ángel. And you are a professional musician.”

  “Like you. Hey, do you pay for the songs that you send back to the Otherworld?”

  “Of course I offer to,” said Oberon. “That is, the DOR has intellectual property lawyers who handle it. I tell them which songs I want, and they secure the rights. Sometimes I talk to the artists. No one has outright refused me so far. Most artists allow me to send their songs to the Otherworld for free.”

  “Do you make artists pay for sampling yours?”

  “A pittance. I don’t need the money, but I’m interested in the impact of fae culture on Earth music. It’s impossible to quantify, but the permissions help me keep track of direct influences.”

  “How much money do you have?” wondered Ángel, thinking of the ten million dollars that Oberon had paid to his father’s victims.

  “More than enough.”

  After lunch, Ángel left Oberon in the arms of Kendrick Lamar and went for a walk around the estate. He half expected Chandler to come out to talk to him, but to his relief she didn’t. Plowing through the thigh-deep drifts of snow added a level of aerobic difficulty, and he was wet, sore, and tired when he made it back. He changed into dry clothes and settled in the swan chair with his guitar.

  He felt a little unsettled. Anxious. He checked the tablet to see if Marissa had anything else to say. She didn’t.

  He began playing the repetitive, rolling guitar lead from “Jane Says” by Jane’s Addiction: G, A; G, A; G, A. Again and again. It was easy to play and he liked the sound—it never changed. It soothed his nerves.

  After a while, Oberon came out of his office. As he seated himself in the turquoise chair, he made a small gesture with one hand as if to say keep going, so Ángel continued to play. G, A, G, A, round and round. Oberon picked up the Yamaha guitar and held it across his lap, not playing, twiddling the pick between his fingers.

  “Are you well, Ángel?”

  “Fine.”

  “Do you regret last night?”

  Ángel stopped playing. “Not at all. Do you?”

  Oberon ran a thumb down the Yamaha’s shining strings, and then quickly adjusted the tuning by ear. “No.”

  He began to strum “Jane Says.” Ángel smiled at him and played along. Oberon’s pick struck the strings with crystalline precision and Ángel said, “Relax. Let it sound a little buzzy. It’s not classical.”

  Oberon’s pick hand got looser. They played a few more bars, falling into effortless synchrony.

  “This is not a very complex song,” commented Oberon.

  “Nope.”

  “You are not entirely happy, Ángel?”

  Ángel shrugged. They played. Oberon began to improvise, keeping the G and A chords but adding variation. Ángel maintained the rhythm while Oberon created a new lead melody, building a new song around the cycle of G and A chords. For a few minutes the song soared like a gull, and Ángel closed his eyes, exhilarated. Then Oberon modulated up a step and Ángel tried, a beat later, to follow suit; the song tangled and went pear-shaped, and they stopped.

  “You’re so good,” Ángel said, smiling, leaning back in the swan chair and pulling his feet up, cradling his guitar across his knees.

  “It’s been a long time since I played music with anyone.”

  “We should do it more.”

  “Yes, Ángel, thank you. We should. Now, will you tell me why you’re troubled?”

  Not going to give it up, huh? “I’m— You know, I’m actually sort of a moody person, Oberon. You don’t need to come and try to make me feel better.”

  “I understand that,” said Oberon, his voice warm and soothing.

  The washy winter light slanted through the window and splashed across Oberon, shining on the yellow guitar top, on his streaky gilt-green hair, his beautiful, singular face. His skin was no longer scary-white but had gone a pale lustrous golden color, and his eyes shone like peridots.

  Ángel thought about the coil of different things that were bothering him. Where to begin? “Well, for starters. We didn't use a condom."

  "There are no sexually transmitted diseases in the
Otherworld." After a thoughtful pause he added, "It has been centuries since any fae had sex with a human, and there are new illnesses here now."

  Ángel belatedly realized that this was a question. “I don’t have any.”

  "Then I think it's fine."

  "Okay."

  "Is that really what's bothering you?"

  It wasn't, of course. "I’m really mad at the Otherworld. I still can’t believe they sent you here alone, Oberon. That you’ve been all alone for eight years. Can’t you tell them that you need to come home?”

  “No.”

  “Why can’t you? That poisoning thing that happened to you before—really looked like it was killing you.”

  “It was,” said Oberon. “It probably will, eventually, if I’m not assassinated first. But the veil . . . it takes a lot of energy for things to move through the veil from the Otherworld to here. Exponentially more energy to move from this side, back. I am not strong enough—I can never go back.”

  “Oh. Did you know that when you agreed to come?”

  “Yes.”

  “How could they make you do that?”

  “I volunteered, of course.”

  “Why?” Ángel’s heart was beating hard; he hadn’t even realized, himself, how angry he was. “To come here and die in a cage in the mountains, so that they can understand Hamilton? That’s just wrong.”

  Deliberately, Oberon plucked a complicated tune, pick flashing across the strings of his guitar, muscles playing in his left forearm as he shifted his fingertips over the strings. “Don’t let it distress you so, Ángel. I was the best qualified person to come, and it’s worth it to us—to me. I am a great adventurer.”

  “You are,” said Ángel, laughing a little. “You’re like Columbus, if Columbus had been by himself in a rowboat. And hadn’t done anything bad to the Native Americans.”

  “Complicated metaphor.”

  Oberon seemed to be soothing him with his voice, and steering the conversation to less troubling waters. But then he added, “That’s one of the points of information I’m intended to gather—how long one person can last here.”

  Ángel, who’d been relaxing into the sound of Oberon’s voice, sat up sharply. “That is fucked up,” he snarled.