Sidechain

Ethan nodded slowly, and his girlfriend squeezed in beside him.

"He was a good songwriter, but... it was weird. Usually he wrote these slower pieces that didn't fit with his own vision for the band. He was dead set on our psychobilly sound, but that wasn't what came out when he sat down to write. He was always fighting himself like that." Then she sat bolt upright so fast, and with so much momentum, that both Kelly and Ethan stared at her. "I have demos," she said. "Some of Kevin's demos. I mean, I have all of our demos. Hours and hours of us just fuckin-uhmm..." She trailed off, and peered around the corner into the kitchen.

"She's not listening," Kelly said, peering back over her shoulder.

The next sentence took her a solid second to build up to saying out loud. "Lucia had all of our demos. She s... she saved everything, bits and pieces of this and that, and I have all of that now. I bet I have... fifteen songs Kevin wrote? That we never did anything with? Twenty? I can get you a copy."

Ethan had been nodding slowly as she talked, but it became much more energetic by the end. "Yes, please."

"A few are full band demos, but most of his are just him and a guitar. I swear one of them is even about you," she said, staring into the distance, "but... I don't remember which one."

"In a good way?"

Vivian did not understand what was being asked of her until she met his gaze and held it. "I just remember him talking about it once. It might have been sad. I can't remember. A good chunk of his songs were downers."

"I wanna hear it," Ethan said, nodding again. "Whatever... Doesn't matter what kind it is. I wanna hear it."

Kelly gave him another squeeze, and it took Ethan sniffling loudly for Vivian to realize that he was maybe crying just a little. She felt a kind of pressure in the center of her chest that she didn't know how to identify, but it got worse the longer she looked at Kevin's lonely little brother, so she grasped in the dark for some small talk.

Vivian cleared her throat, and said, "So, how did you two meet?"

"At Lucia's bar," Kelly said, brightly

Reflexively, Vivian answered, "It's Helen's bar."

"Right," Kelly said, nodding and making a rolling hand gesture, "sure. I just meant... It doesn't matter. My ex and I went there for years, before they changed the name, and then, I stopped going for a while, and some of my friends dragged me there to get me out of my apartment."

"I was there to see Lucia," Ethan said, wiping at his cheek with the back of his palm and pretending like he had something in the corner of his eye. "Well, Graviton. I went to a show, and then Luc and I were talking at the bar afterwards."

Kelly's smile got smaller and more... intimate somehow. "I saw him smile at me from across the room, but... I was there with my girls. Like, a bunch of us? At a queer bar? There was no way he was going to approach me, so..." She turned and gave him a big smile. "I made it easy for him. Went over and sat next to him for a bit, and, kinda, snuck in a few compliments to Lucia about her playing. Opened up a little conversation."

"We hit it off right away," Ethan said, blushing.

"My girls were very adamant that I was going to go home with someone that night," she said, snickering, "but they were pretty surprised it was a guy."

"She's bi," Ethan said.

"Lingual?" Vivian asked.

Ethan got as far as saying, "No," to correct her, before he caught her very subtle wink. "Oh. Right. You probably..."

"Thirsty On Main attracts a pretty specific crowd," she said, looking down and trying to force a smile.

"She played us one of yours," Kelly said.

Vivian's head swiveled, like a dog hearing a frequency no one else can. "One of my... songs?"

"Yeah," Ethan added. "She plays your songs all the time. Not live. Just, like, over the PA. Tells people when you've got shows coming up."

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, a puzzle piece slipped into place. She'd never thought of her work as having any kind of inherently lesbionic appeal, but her shows were often largely populated by... a pretty specific crowd. Somehow, finding out that her ex-whatever had been plugging her work behind her back laid an oily taint on the success she felt she'd earned.

Fortunately for her, Vivian had a talent for masking disappointment, frustration, and sadness. She simply nodded.

He said, "She'll tell anyone who'll listen that you were the whole driving force behind Insanity Hall."

Vivian licked her lips to buy herself a moment to respond. Her attempt to change the subject for Ethan's sake had backfired badly, and found herself deep in a conversation she really didn't want to be having. She avoided talking about Lucia whenever she could, but their framing of Lucia as some kind of champion for Vivian's artistry was too much to handle.

And then, like the valkyrie she was, Delia dove in from the kitchen. Armored and shining, haloed in light.

"The blueberry pie will be ready soon," she said, as she settled in at Vivian's side. "Did Vivian tell you her new job is going well?"

Ethan perked up. "The home care thing you were talking about?"

Vivian nodded, and though she wanted to answer, her throat was still tight.

"I'm so proud of her," Delia said, and kissed Vivian lightly at her temple.

"It's perfect!!" Gladys called, from the kitchen. "It just needs to cool now!"

This shift in attention gave Vivian the room she needed to turn toward Delia, give her a grateful smile, and let her forehead come to rest against Delia's.

"I'm so proud of you," Delia whispered.

***

For the rest of the meal Vivian was quieter than usual, and Vivian was usually quiet. Delia filled in for her, as she often did, but Vivian was never very comfortable hiding behind her girlfriend. She was always moody and quiet when Lucia came up, and being moody and quiet when it came to Lucia, around Delia, always made her feel self-conscious and worried. She didn't like that it affected her so much.

So, as they sat in the back of the Über, Vivian let her hand wander very, very slowly. The driver was already giving them some furrowed brows in his rearview mirror, but fuck him. Vivian was feeling more grateful for her girlfriend than usual, and she was normally pretty grateful, and right then she wanted to fool around. She didn't know if Delia could cum, but she really, really wanted to shower Delia in attention.

The little brunette next to her was normally death on any public display of affection more explicit than a french kiss, but Delia was leaning into her. Fingers curling around Vivian's, and guiding Vivian's hand to the hem of her yellow dress. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the way Vivian was being a little bit more take-charge, which had been known to reduce Delia to a happy, squirming puddle, on occasion. Maybe it was that rare mercurial streak of hers, defiant and contradictory in every way. The risk-taking gene. The gambler.

It could have been any of them. It could have been all of them. When Vivian looked into Delia's eyes, all she saw was the same eagerness she felt in her own heart, glittering and new. Somehow, miraculously, still new. Even after all their years together, Delia could still make her feel like the giddy teenager she'd never really been.

Delia shifted, drawing one foot up and tucking it behind the knee of her other leg, and in that perfectly innocuous jostling she moved Vivian's hand to a deep place between her thighs. A little more shifting had her squeezing, and Vivian's hand was trapped in place, freeing Delia up to sling her arm over Vivian's shoulder with aplomb.

"So what are we listening to," Delia asked, tilting her chin up and engaging the driver through his reflection in the rear view. "I like it!"

Every Friday, Vivian and Delia wore each other's panties. It was one of Vivian's favorite traditions of theirs, dating back to one of the first times Vivian slept over at Delia's old apartment. While getting dressed in the dark, she'd put on Delia's much frillier pair and somehow didn't notice for an entire day. Delia, for her part, always wore some of Vivian's very functional, high waisted panties. While it was true that the more florid, patterned panties of Delia's were perhaps prettier to look at, they were also harder to do anything through. All the little bumps and irregular texturing made getting a feel through them very... tedious. Difficult.

Vivian's panties, though, were smooth and snug, and Vivian could find her way through them, to Delia's incredible clit, blind.

"Oh, I'm getting really into nightcore remixes of kpop," the driver said. "Do you like it?"

Delia said, voice quivering just a little, "Oooooooooo, yeah. Yeah, this is good."

Vivian knew how to play it cool. She kept her head turned to the side, looking out the window behind the driver. She didn't need to watch. She could tell from the way all the little muscle groups, from Delia's absurdly dense thighs to her surprisingly defined abs, tensed and flexed in curious patterns.

"Is that what that... that chipmunk vocals thing is? Nightcore?"

"Yeah! I love the way it sounds."

"Mmmhmmm," Delia said, doing her full bedside manner routine now. "Do you speak Korean?"

Delia's thighs were doing incredible things; a sort of squeezing and releasing that urged her on as much as it threatened to crush her wrist and hand. Vivian was able to keep her middle finger right on the button, working the shy, exposed end of Delia's long, hooded clit in tiny circles. Sometimes straight up and down, more dragging the fabric than applying direct pressure. There was an indirect relationship between Delia's comfort zone and her 'touch'. If they were just going down on each other, like a fleshy yin-yang, Vivian could go as far as using her teeth if she was careful about it, but if she was going to go for anal then everything else had to be backed off. A feather touch, if they were outside of her comfort zone, and a heavy hand when they were in it.

There, in the back of an Über, driving down the road at night, was farther outside of Delia's comfort zone than Vivian had ever been. It was thrilling. It was amazing. Her touch was as light as air.

"No," the driver said. "No, no. I mean, some of the words are already in English, but I'm mostly here for the vibes."

"Viiiibes," Delia said, nodding along with him. "Yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah." Then she added, "Yeah," which Vivian was sure was aimed solely at her.

This was trust. This was Delia putting herself, literally and metaphorically, in Vivian's hands.

It hadn't taken long for the panties to get damp, and they were very quickly soaked through in a way that forced Vivian to alter the way she was moving her finger to keep from making a sound. It was so tempting to try to slip her hand under the panties, get two fingers down there, and penetrate her, but Delia wouldn't cum like that. Once, several years earlier, Delia had lost a bet, and Vivian's reward had been that she used a strapon on Delia and Delia wasn't allowed to touch herself. By the end of it, Delia had gotten so worked up without ever getting near an orgasm that she gave up with a scream, quickly fingered herself to completion, and threw herself at Vivian more aggressively than ever, before or since.

Delia was good at asking open ended questions. A few words from her, and the driver would go for a full minute without any response or input needed. It was a nursing superpower, one of many Delia possessed.

"So this is, like... a hundred and sixty bpm," Vivian said. Her voice sounded strangled and tight, so she cleared her throat. "It's pretty damn fast." She could feel the moment coming, a shift in Delia's body language, and took over.

"I don't know anything about that," the driver said, shifting in his seat to make eye contact with Vivian. "I just know that I dig it."

Next to her, Delia started squeezing without relaxing. She ran a hand through Vivian's hair, and grabbed a fistful of it. The tiniest little grunt. Unbelievably, and against all odds, Vivian had made her cum, and it felt amazing.

From there, Vivian took over the conversation, trying to relate some of the production techniques she'd learned to talk about things she was hearing, and from what she could tell absolutely none of it got through to the driver. His eyes glazed over, and he took to nodding and saying 'yeah' to every third sentence, which was exactly what she'd been hoping for. Beside her, Delia caught her breath, composed herself, and was back to a normal level of color in her cheeks by the time they arrived.

When they stepped out onto the curb, it was nearly eleven. Delia pressed herself very close, and buried her face in Vivian's chest. The eight inch difference in height between them was normally not something Vivian spent a lot of time thinking about, but the rare moments when Delia was clinging to her, and sheltering under her, really brought home to her how small Delia really was. She had the personality of a neutron star, and Vivian was the only person who ever really got to see the woman behind that.

But then Delia surprised her completely by asking, "Are you okay?" seconds before Vivian could do the same.

"Me? Yeah, I'm... I'm fine?"

Delia smiled, and even in the dark Vivian could tell her cheeks had flushed with color again.

"I should be asking you that."

Delia snickered, and made a vague handwave as if to dismiss Vivian's concerns. "I heard you talking to Ethan," she said, leaning against Vivian so forcefully, as they walked, that Vivian was pretty sure she would have fallen over otherwise. "A lot of the time, when... she... comes up"—there could be only one she—"you get really... giving, but tonight was different."

Vivian squinted as she fished her keys out of her pocket and unlocked the front door. "Wait, you did that for me?"

Delia nodded, and as they stepped inside it was apparent that Delia was not just worked up after cumming; she was blushing, and nervous. "I don't understand you two at all. I never did, but I know that you... you go out of your way to try to reassure me. And I'm sorry I need reassuring. I don't mean to be needy, that's a me problem. I just.. I want to matter to you. I want to be important to you. I know that you, you know, you'll initiate things, physically, when you're worried, and I wanted to let you do that. I don't know what I'm saying. Is any of this making sense?"

Vivian stood, watching her everything work herself up to near-tearful hysterics, and although every fiber of her being was screaming at her to kiss Delia, and take charge, because Vivian was kind of masculine that way, she instead listened to her heart, her emotional core, which didn't often speak up at all. She took both hands and placed them on Delia's arms, and when she did Delia fell silent.

"You don't need to do anything you're uncomfortable with to make me feel better," she said, slowly, as she tried to herd disparate words into a coherent sentence.

"Okay," Delia said, as she reached up to wipe her cheek, "because that was really scary but also really hot and also could we never do that again?"

Vivian pulled her into another extremely tight hug, and kissed the top of her head over and over.

"I mean, it was really hot," she said, speaking directly into the center of Vivian's chest, "and your fingers are, oh my god, something else. I love it when you touch me. You always know how to touch me just the way I want. And need. I don't know how you do it." By the end, it almost sounded like she was sobbing.

After a minute, Delia took a deep breath and backed up a step, though she kept her hands at Vivian's waist and Vivian kept her hands around Delia's shoulders. "I'm not worried about her. I know you love me. I just hate seeing you get all bent out of shape when she comes up, and I wish I could make that easier for you. I've never had an ex like that. None of them were the one, so when it was over it was just... bye."

And then she did that thing where she looked up slowly, through her eyelashes, and Vivian realized that maybe one of those things Delia had just said was really important. After a bit of quick thinking, and process of elimination, she said, "Oh. Oh, no."

Delia's face went white. "What?"

"I wasn't ready for this," Vivian murmured, looking off into the distance. "I didn't... I mean, I hadn't been thinking about that. I've just been... Fuck, I've been so wrapped up in—"

"Vivian," Delia said, grabbing her very forcefully. "What are you talking about?"

Vivian dropped down to one knee, right there in the foyer of their house, and fumbled for Delia's hand. "I don't have a ring. I didn't—"

Delia screamed so immediately, and so forcefully, and so joyfully, and with such a sudden and complete shift in expression, that Vivian was completely dumbfounded. All she could think to do was barrel forward with the words on her tongue.

"I've just been so happy with you, that I've—"

"Yes," Delia shouted. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"But I don't have—"

"We'll go shopping together, you beautiful idiot." And then, because Delia was so short, she only had to crane her neck slightly to lean down, grab Vivian's cheeks with both hands, and kiss her.

"I've been trying... not to rush you—" Delia said, in between kisses, just as Vivian was repeating, "I'm so... sorry I—"

Neither of them made it to the end of those sentences. The kisses got longer, and more passionate, and by five after eleven they were upstairs in bed, completely tangled up in each other.

***

"Poor Man's Bluff is gonna be our Nevermind."

***

Vivian sat on the grassy bank of the Willamette River, in the midafternoon sun, and kept a near perfect rhythm. Since her accident, keeping good time had been both harder and easier. On the one hand, before her accident, she hadn't ever worked very hard at keeping good time, and she was always able to achieve a fairly effortless 'good enough' considering that Insanity Hall's punk ethos required them to play somewhat out of tune and somewhat out of time at all times. Since her accident, Vivian had worked very hard to get her musicianship back, and practiced a lot to keep it where she wanted it. The effort paid off, and she was happier with her playing than she had ever been, but it was work.

Beside her, sitting in the grass with a slightly smaller guitar, Vivian's thirteen year old niece Tiffany noodled around in the middle of the fretboard, improvising a solo on a riff Vivian had invented on the spot. The riff was loosely indie-alt, and Tiffany paired with it something that sounded straight out of Seattle circa 1989. She had a solid ear. Her rhythm playing left a little something to be desired, but as near as Vivian could tell that had more to do with broader muscle development, the kind of thing that would come along a little more easily with a little bit more puberty, rather than any failing in her skill.

Tiffany got through what she wanted to do, and just started playing a harmony/melody through line on the rhythm, which sounded good, and they played those for several bars before Vivian realized it was nearly time.

Tiffany matched her without any instruction, eagerly stuffing her guitar into its case and hustling along in Vivian's wake as they made their way back up toward the converted warehouse.

"How was school last week?" Vivian asked. "Anything interesting happening?"

Tiffany normally carried herself like an introvert, with her freshly-dyed blue-black hair covering part of her face and a downward tilt to her head. At this question, she added a slight slouch and an inward curl to her shoulders as she walked. "I kissed my friend Lizzy."

Vivian blinked. "Is Lizzy short for Elizabeth?" she asked, casting a sideways glance at her niece.