Introducing... The Slinkettes!

INTRODUCING... THE SLINKETTES!

By Katharine Sexkitten

"I love you," he groaned.

His long thick meaty cock slipped out of me as he lifted his sweaty body off, north of two hundred pounds no longer crushing me into the thin mattress, the night air suddenly cool as ice against the damp skin of my back, a stream of his fluid immediately finding a path and sliding out of me, downwards, sure to add to the wet spot, and as he spoke in his gruff, strained, tired voice, he snapped my panties back into place and slapped my ass, with more than just a love tap.

"Goddamn, you're the best fuck, Tina."

Leaving me to rest, because we both knew he'd be back again soon enough, he joined the rest of the band at the front of the bus.

Life, on the road.

I found some energy and pulled back the thin little drapes on the tiny windows that lined the rear of the custom-built bedroom, the back twenty-five percent of the length of the bus, and watched the world zip by, hazy street lights and glaring neon signs, my head turned to my left, my eyes barely open, all of me dazed and addled and drained, front-down on the bed, too exhausted to even contemplate moving.

It'd had been a really good gig tonight. He'd been at the top of his game, and more energetic than usual, and the band had played their brains out. The crowd cheered and stomped and demanded more, but we had miles to go and not much time to get there, before the next show, so we were back on the bus and rolling, without hanging backstage and partying, like most nights, denying the guys any chance for local pussy.

Not that that would have mattered with him. Even if he'd scored with any of the women who'd throw themselves at him, and he would have, no question, being the front man, he'd still end up on top of me later, once we were travelling again.

He had an enormous capacity for sex.

So did I.

It sounds like a billion other tales, from a billion other dreamers, but I always somehow knew I'd end up in show business. As a kid, not even old enough to go to kindergarten, I was singing. I probably sang before I talked. If a radio was on, I'd sing along with the songs playing, even if I didn't know them, and the weird thing was I'd pick them up almost instantly. I could listen to one verse and one chorus and more or less predict the rest of the song. It didn't matter what genre I heard, or how old the song was. Plus, I'd remember every single note and word, forever, and sing it back later, pitch perfect, always happy to stand in front of other people, known to me or not, and take the spotlight, belting my lungs out.

"That child has got a great ear for music," people would say, relatives and visitors to our house alike, "and for someone so small and dainty, what a set of pipes! What a voice!"

My first singing coach couldn't believe how such an otherwise-shy and soft-spoken person like me could belt it out as loudly as me. She kept prodding my parents to send me to the really-expensive pros, the opera coaches, and while it might have ended up being productive, they could barely afford to pay for her, let alone an A-lister.

For years, she claimed I was her favorite student, because I could sing anything she put in front of me, sight unseen, no matter the complexity or voice or genre. Low, mid, or high, I was a natural at hitting them all. I had the good fortune of learning all the notes on the staff before I was six or seven years old, music theory coming easily to my growing consciousness.

Also for years, she warned me. About the upcoming change.

The dreaded monster.

Puberty.

I could lose it all, she threatened, more than once. She'd seen it happen thousands of times. Girls and boys, hopeful kids all, with genuine talent, suddenly given no chance, bodies growing, including vocal chords, a rosy future tragically taken away by nature, affecting range and timbre and tone and volume, and since I loved singing more than anything else, for a few years I worried about what was coming, and how it could possibly deter me, or finish me altogether.

Luckily, I survived it.

I grew, body-wise. I developed. Some. Not much. Not as much as most of the kids around me.

My voice got a little bit deeper, but again, not much.

Happiest of all, I didn't lose any of my control, or my strengths. I could hit notes, make them pure and hold them, long as you need. And I could hit notes way up high, without having to work at it.

I was built to sing.

Not being church-going people, my parents still managed to convince a local pastor to let me sing in the choir, every Sunday, plus rehearsals a couple of times a week, where I was introduced to two things: music I'd never heard before, and people whose belief systems frankly shocked me. Gospel and grand traditional religious hymns expanded my musical and artistic knowledge, while the participants confused me, or in some cases scared me, most of them trying to teach me how to be incredibly close-minded about every subject under the sun, if I wanted to be like them, good upstanding pious citizens.

I didn't want to be. Not one iota.

I must confess that most of the otherwise-normal God-fearing folk mystified me, letting ancient mythical tales run their lives, unbelievable stories, many of which are just bizarre or don't even follow the rules of physics, and, sadly, most of which they took literally. Plus, they were always having to go through a bizarre ritual, confessing their 'sins', begging forgiveness for their jealousies and their petty acts of behavior, most especially all the cheating and fooling around they were rumored to do, which confused me even more and turned me off about religion in general. I kept thinking, if you just behaved respectfully and nicely all the time, you wouldn't have to beg once a week for some sky fairy to cleanse you.

On the other hand, it was a great excuse for laziness. Why bother to put out the effort to live a 'proper' life when you can just do whatever you want, no matter how evil or criminal, and get away with it by simply and efficiently begging for an out every Sunday? So, I ignored the hullabaloo and put up with all the rah-rah about God and Jesus, while furthering my education in what was really important.

The songs.

The music.

Barely thirteen years old, I got my first recording studio gig. They needed a plaintive child's voice, singing, for a commercial of some sort. I don't even remember what the product was, or the name of the company, or the jingle itself for that matter. I just remember the producer talking to me in the most condescending way, as if I was an idiot, useless at singing, or maybe star-struck by him, or the atmosphere, telling me that if I just followed his instructions to the letter, a simple and to me boring arrangement, there was a teeny tiny chance I might succeed, and then blowing everybody in the control room away with my first take, making up my own harmony and going a full octave above where he'd demanded.

Some of the musicians, who'd already recorded their parts, applauded vigorously, whooping and hollering, one of them actually shouting out that he'd never heard such an amazing voice. And so high!

The producer hated what I'd done, what I'd created, his ego harmed because I didn't do what he'd ordered, and he wanted to fire me straight out of the studio.

The client, however, loved it, hearing their own jingle in a way they'd never imagined, and positively fell in love with my performance.

I made my first paycheck from singing. Professional show business! And to this day I have no idea how much it actually was. My folks put it in a savings account for me, to earn interest and grow, for my future.

They were thinking, naturally, that it was just a one-time thing, a quirk, and wanted to plan for when I grew up and had to do the same normal things that they had to do, that everybody else had to do, like find a real job and get married and have two point five kids and a mortgage and bills to pay.

About two weeks later, riding in my Mom's car, we both heard the commercial come on the AM radio, and while she went crazy with enthusiasm, for the fact her own child was on the air, literally shouting out the open window to anyone on the sidewalks of our suburban neighborhood that her kid was "A STAR!", to me the glitter and glamor had long-since faded.

It was just a gig, that's all. Over and done. On to the next one.

People heard about the little kid who could sing, and I was asked to join another choir, this one non-religious, kids and adults, which suited me just fine. Once again I was introduced to new music, songs I'd never heard before, including genres I'd barely touched on, like Broadway show tunes, which was what drew me in. It was all the education I wanted or needed, and the knowledge being made available to me was vast, in terms of arrangement and composition and orchestration. I figured that I'd use the opportunity, for however long it lasted or however long I liked it, to learn what I could, breathe it in like oxygen, and move on when I needed to.

There was a hierarchy in the choir. Egos. In the adults, sure, that was to be expected. But there was all that stupidity to deal with in the children, too. There were kids who thought of themselves as better than the rest, or the stars of the show, and there were cliques as well, all of which I found unnecessary and plain old pointless. Let the best singers sing was my philosophy, so it instantly rankled a whole bunch of my peers, not to mention their 'stage' parents, some who'd been there for years, when the manager of the troupe picked me out during my first rehearsal and put me in the front, the leading voice on some of the songs. The anger and jealousy and immediate enmity on the faces of several of the bigger kids was as obvious as the nose on my face.

But I could sing better than they could.

By the time my 'change' had happened, about the only effect on my voice was an enhanced low-end, a little more depth and resonance and richness, without losing any of my high end. Body-wise, I was shorter than the norm, and thinner, with a round face and big eyes and hair that was long enough in the back to inspire my Nana to scold me and my Mom, every time she saw me.

"That child needs a haircut!" she'd say, in her raspy cigarette-affected voice, "but right now, let's hear a song or two!"

As soon as I started singing, any criticism of my hair length disappeared, like the puffs of smoke she'd spew out while listening to me.

Her favorites were the real twangy country and western songs, most especially "Stand By Your Man", by Tammy Wynette, so I always sang it for her, hitting it note for note, and she'd cackle with laughter every time, at how her puny little grandson could sound so much like an actual woman.

Little did any of us know.

My first introduction to inappropriate behavior, which is what my parents called it, was in the choir. There were a lot of adults around, mostly men, plus the stage parents of the kids, and in the most simple of ways my parents warned me to avoid all of the touchy-feely types. This was show business, after all, and there were rumors, apparently, that these kinds of groups could be rife with unwanted advances, and, even worse, gasps filling the air, illegal and immoral acts of depravity.

The worst kind of depravity.

The gay kind. The homo-sexual kind.

At the time, I didn't even know what gay was, never mind homo-sexual.

Because most everybody had 'heard' about grown men who like to sing in choirs, right?

They must be 'one of them'.

So, imagine my surprise at the first time I was offstage and actually witnessed it! I saw an adult, who must have thought nobody else could see, caressing and running their hand semi-discretely across the backside of one of the young men, who I knew had a car and therefore had to be at least old enough to drive, sixteen or better. It drew my attention, of course. My first reaction was to say something, or do something, or tell someone, just the way my parents had drilled into me, even though I spent most of my time trying to avoid conflict of any kind, considering how many of them hated me for usurping their stardom, but then the strangest thing happened.

The teenager turned to the woman, and that was the part that surprised me, because she had a kid of her own in the choir and I knew she was married, with a big rock on her finger, and it wasn't the worrisome 'gay' behavior I'd been warned about, and the young man, with his whisper-thin starter moustache and his faint nineteen-hair five o'clock shadow, instead of reacting in horror or shock, as I'd assumed he would, he just smiled. It wasn't forced, or put on, either. It was genuine. It was radiant. He beamed out his feelings.

The kid liked having his ass touched, I realized.

There was a dreaminess to their gazes at each other, brief as they were, when nearby noises made them realize others might be around and they stopped. For minutes on end I debated with myself, do I find a responsible adult and rat them out? And how do I know that she is a horrible molester of young men? Maybe the kid started whatever was going on, and she was more than willing to go along? Maybe she lived a sad life, with no affection, and nobody to love her properly, and this was her only chance to have fun?

They both seemed to enjoy it.

And hell, I had to be honest with myself, too. If a grown woman, any woman, but especially a MILF in a tight dress and whacks of makeup and high heels, if she wanted to rub my ass, I'd be more than willing to let her!

John Lennon's voice came up at me, in my head.

"Whatever gets you through the night, it's alright, it's alright."

By the time I got to high school, I'd been making a little bit of a name for myself as a singer. I did more commercial gigs, in recording studios, including three that got lots of airplay, two for radio and one for television, a regional grocery chain, each time wowing the producers and the musicians, singing what they asked of me and then offering other takes of harmonies to myself, or counter-melodies.

I got to hang out with the artists some. Initially I worried that there would be awkwardness, adults trying to behave nicely or having to behave differently around me, a little kid, even in my teens. But I was wrong to worry, because, for the most part, they were themselves and didn't seem to care who saw it. I don't think any of them, or hardly any, pulled any punches just because this baby-faced white boy was in the room.

There were bawdy jokes, most of which I didn't get at first. There was swearing. There was sexual talk, and innuendoes, of course, including one woman, a huge obese black woman who sweated like a construction worker outside in the heat even just sitting herself down in an air-conditioned studio, but who could absolutely sing the lights out, who constantly told the most shocking of jokes with the crudest of language. At times I figured she was going out of her way to be as shocking as possible, just to test me and see if I had a limit, because she'd look at me and smile, almost challenging me to say something.

The jokes that I got, I laughed at. The ones I didn't, I'd ask people to explain them, and then I might laugh, if it was funny. And it didn't matter, the color or background of all the musicians I met. Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, they could either play or they couldn't, that was the only thing that mattered.

They all seemed to move at a different pace than the normal folk I knew, not just physically but mentally as well. They were, for the most part, mellow. It was like they lived their lives the same way they made their music, in a groove. In the pocket.

And yes, at times, some or all of them were drunk or stoned. Or both. I knew what that looked like, and smelled like, because I'd done it a few times myself, with guys I knew at school, in the parking lot, behind the gym. But, none of these people ever offered me a toke or a drink, and I imagine they would have been in serious doo-doo if they had, because I was still young, even when I got to be old enough to get my own drivers licence, still looking way younger, with my round face and my big eyes and my long hair.

In school, I was considered a bit of a celebrity by a few people, because they could hear my voice on their radio or their television from time to time, and I was occasionally doing gigs at local theaters and such. It garnered me a bit of attention, actually, from the ladies. Girls growing into women before our eyes, some of them forward enough to tell me in no uncertain terms that I could be the recipient of all their affections, if I picked them as my 'chosen one'. That seemed to be the deal, as I interpreted things. I go public that so-and-so is my girlfriend, so she has some status of her own, and then I get hugs and kisses. Maybe. Some of them were darned pretty too, in their flouncy dresses or their skin-tight jeans, gentle curves and femininity everywhere, and I was like every other boy, filled with lusts and desires, desperate to get some of that 'sex' thing that good decent people talked about in hushed voices.

But, there was always a kind of invisible barrier between me and them, mostly in that I could hardly ever think of a thing to say to them, because ninety-nine per cent of what they wanted to talk about was plain and boring and didn't have anything to do with music, or soul, or the passion of the arts, which were the only things I liked to talk about.

Plus, the whole idea of commitment to one person, one woman, rubbed me the wrong way. I wasn't naïve, I knew people fell in love and such, and that was fine for some folks. But the idea of only being allowed to have romance or sex with one person, playing by the 'rules', that all seemed to me to be counterintuitive. Why not be free enough and open enough to enjoy relations with anyone you want, whenever you want? As long as both people are agreeable, what's so bad about that?

I agreed with Stephen Stills. "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with."

How could anybody disagree with that?

I was offered the chance to sing in a couple of different bands. One was a cover band made up of men a couple of years older than me, just barely out of high school themselves, dreaming of the life, all the sex and drugs and rock'n'roll they could get, but my parents got a sketchy vibe from the idea and said no on my behalf, which was disappointing, because I liked a lot of the songs they played. They did a bunch of Led Zeppelin covers, and, because of my upper range, I could hit every note Robert Plant ever did and then some. They didn't have any gigs lined up, or even prospects, but they had the dream, and that in itself was a cool thing.

The other offer was from a house band, a chance to do gigs in a nightclub, a drinking establishment, that I wasn't even allowed to be in at all because of my age, except it turns out the law of the land had a proviso in it that did allow underage people to be performers as long as they didn't do anything else. They were a pop/jazz group, mostly, playing a bunch of songs from acts I'd never been exposed to before, genres I'd not listened to much, which I really wanted to do.

My parents turned that one down too.

They were worried about my future, from the moral perspective.

Show business, they feared, might ruin me. I'd become an addict to something dangerous, or succumb to the worse elements of that kind of life.

Sex.

Any kind they could imagine. Maybe every kind they could imagine.

Sure, they reasoned, music was great, they liked it too. But, listening to music and liking it was one thing. The people making it were, on the other hand, to fine upstanding normal citizens, not to be trusted. Or, maybe more appropriately, they could all be trusted, to be perverts and drug fiends, with loose or no morals at all, and what kind of a life is that for the baby of the family?

In my senior year of high school, my fame finally got me laid.

The receptionist, in the front office, was a dour-looking woman, who never smiled, and would never have given anyone the impression that she'd ever enjoyed or even had sexual relations with anybody, uptight and formal at all times, prim and proper, and one day she cornered me in a hallway when nobody else was within hearing distance and flat-out told me she had an dear friend who had not only heard me on the radio but had seen me perform, at some Christmas pageant or something, and wanted to, and I quote, "wax your pony tail", which she said with massive confusion on her face, because it seemed like she had no idea what that meant, which made two of us, because I didn't understand it either.

I mean, I had a pony tail, like a few guys did, sure.

But, wax it? What did that mean?

Still, it sounded potentially naughty and certainly intriguing, so I agreed to meet the woman. The receptionist made it sound like I'd be doing her a favor, helping her friend out.

The friend turned out to be sort-of-attractive, in an older kind of way, who'd hustled me into her modest little house quickly, so the neighbors didn't see anything, wearing a floor-length robe, clutching it tight, so it didn't open up accidentally, even though it had a belt, like most robes, like mine at home. She kept giving me a look on her face, that seemed to be a combination of happy wickedness and worrisome anxiety all at the same time, as I closed the door.

For a few seconds, we just stood there, staring at each other, until she blurted out finally that she loved my voice, and how she'd seen me sing at some hall, with the choir, and how she thought I was the most 'darling' young man she'd ever seen, and then we shared some more silence, until I finally had to ask what 'waxing' my pony tail meant.

She grinned, showing me more teeth than I thought humans actually had, and after a huge intake of breath, steadying herself, she ripped her robe open in one dramatic motion and dropped it on the floor, and stood in front of me, stark naked.

"I'm gonna take your pony tail and slide it up and down and in-between my pussy lips. I'm gonna wax it."

There was no way she'd ever grace the pages of a fashion magazine, or a nudie-book. In front of me were long flat breasts that sagged and slid to her sides, a pot belly, and enough pubic hair for three people, a total forest of a bush that made me wonder how I'd find her hole, and she stood as if she had a back injury, her hips tilted forward a little unnaturally, as if she was overcompensating. She was nobody's idea of a hot body.

Still, she was a naked woman, offering me sex, and I was as stoked as I could get.

"In the bedroom, now!" she barked.

I practically ran down the little hall, heading for an open door where I could see a big bed, when she barked at me again, from behind.

"Not that one," she ordered, guiding me instead into a smaller room that was full of all sorts of junk. A utility room, is what I would call it, but off to one side was a cot, that looked like it was used by the military a hundred years ago, and she plopped herself down on it, smiling at me, and explaining, "We can't fool around in the same bed my husband sleeps in. Wouldn't be right."

Not interested in kissing, or warming up, she barked again and told me to strip, which got accomplished about two seconds later, which caused her to pause, and stare at my groin, my erection, and all I saw was a tiny almost-imperceptible nod, as if she wasn't necessarily surprised but also wasn't necessarily thrilled, and the next thing I knew she spread her legs wide and told me to get on my knees and turn around, yanking on my pony-tail, pulling my head and bending my neck backwards, her work commencing, getting my pony-tail wet so I could feel it, moisture on my hair, while she made strange moaning noises and gasps and heavy breaths. At some point being satisfied, she eventually let go of my hair, lay on her back, and told me to "climb on, baby."

Begrudgingly giving me one kiss, and a little tongue, she grabbed my head in her hands as I lay on her and instructed me to, "suck my titties". Her tiny little nipples responded immediately, as soon as my tongue touched them, becoming little hard nubs, absolutely filling me with a pride I'd never felt before, so I grabbed them with my lips, one at a time obviously, and sucked, her throaty guttural noises filling the room, and a short time later, when I bit down gently with my teeth on her left nip, she groaned out the words, "SWEET JESUS!"

Pulling my face off her chest, she almost crushed my head in her hands, her face all red, and gave me my next task.

"NOW! SCREW ME NOW!"

I poked with my hard-on, once, twice, and a third time, hitting her in different parts but missing her hole altogether, so she snaked an arm down between our bodies and grabbed me by the shaft.

I almost blew my top, right there and then! Just the feel of someone else's hand on my erection came close to ending my first sex before it even started.

Guiding me into her pussy, I became a man.

For five strokes.

Then I blasted off, figuratively and literally, my whole body seizing up and shaking, spewing out my juices, in lurching blasts, straight into her guts, and I almost scared myself with the sounds I made.

I could sing loud and high, but nothing like that afternoon. The purest clearest cry shot out of my lungs, a piercing sound even to me, almost lost in the after-effects of the biggest orgasm I'd ever had. And I'd had lots, being a very active and daily masturbator.

When I could finally clear my head, amongst the land of the living again, I opened my eyes and dared to gauge her reaction. She just looked at me, with wide eyes and a disappointed face.

"Is that it? Are you done already?"

From the highest of highs to the lowest of lows I raced. A kind of shame filled me, at not having been good enough for her, in some way or other. It occurred to me, of course, that while I'd had the happiest of endings, she didn't feel the same way, she hadn't gone over the top like me, which my brain rationalized wasn't fair at all.

The decision was made.

I slipped out of her, withered and drained, and before she even knew what I was doing, I'd slid down her body, my legs hanging off the end of the cot, diving my face in between her legs.

I'd heard of oral sex. Eating pussy. Eating at the Y. Lots of the musicians had made jokes or comments about it, the same as kids in school. I'd never done it, of course, but I felt like I had to do something to give her an orgasm, since she'd given me one.

My tongue dove right into her splayed lips, my nose banging into her lumpy hood, and just as I heard her gasp out, in a shocked voice, "NO!" I started licking, making her gasp out ten times louder, and then she grabbed onto my head with both hands, real hard, and pulled me, forcing my tongue into her pussy even more, as well as my nose into her little fleshy nub more, and instantly I was swallowing liquid.

Mine.

Salty and runny.

And then hers too.

Musky and tart.

The best part, after she almost crushed my head with her thick thighs, was that when she couldn't take any more of my oral loving and released her death-grip on me, I was miraculously erect again, and I didn't wait for permission this time, climbing up her body and sinking into her now red and raw vagina as far as I could go, banging into her belly with mine.

I lasted twenty-six strokes the second time. I counted.

We both enjoyed that.

After, when I was getting quickly dressed, because her husband might be home soon enough, she invited me to come back again, anytime, during the day, giving me her phone number on a piece of paper, telling me to call first just to check.

"You're a kinky little guy, aren't you?" she said, just before I opened the door to leave.

"Am I?" I asked, because some part of my brain really wanted to know.

Nodding, her eyes flashed some huge interest.

"Men don't normally eat their own stuff, you know? Most guys think it's sick, or faggy. But you did."

I nodded. Because she was right, I had, and there didn't seem any point in denying it.

"You like it?" she asked, genuine curiosity on her face, "you like the taste?"

And it struck me, that while there wasn't much taste to my cum, other than a strain of salty, almondy influences, there was in fact a huge aftertaste still in me. Lingering on my taste buds, in the depths of my gums, it seemed more vibrant than before, amped up, and, to be honest, so different from anything else I'd ever eaten that it stood out in a huge way. So I saw no reason to lie.

"Yeah, it's pretty good, actually."

I called her the next day, of course, because I'd had the most fantastic time, no longer a virgin, experiencing the touch and taste of another human, and when I got to her house, she'd decided to wear some lingerie for me, explaining that most men really got off on it, and I must admit that her bra and panty, which matched in color and style, were sexy, as were the stockings she had on, which had elastic in the tops to cling to her thighs, so they didn't fall back down her legs when she stood up, and even though they both had big bare runs in them, still teased my fertile imagination.

I kept thinking that on a sexier body, her lingerie would look even more amazing than it did. On a younger woman, maybe, or at least one who was in shape and took care of her body, those clothes would be a heavenly sight indeed.

Then I wondered what it was like for women to wear such things. How did that feel?

That was a thought that left me as quickly as it arrived, though. I had things to do.

We dispensed with the waxing. I fingered her for a bit, while I chomped on her nipples again, which she really seemed to like, until I decided the mood was right and managed to get myself into her pussy without her help, and to neither of our surprise, lasted exactly six strokes this time.

But we both knew what was next.

This time, she had me lay on my back, and crawled up my body, not an easy task on an old army cot, depositing her thick legs on either side of my head, lowering her hairy wet bush and pussy right down onto my mouth, and as soon as she released whatever muscles she'd been clenching to keep it all in, a whole flood of my cum seeped out into my mouth, like trying to swallow an entire glassful of something instead of taking it in in little sips and dribs and oozes.

I almost choked on it, but managed to swallow a huge lake of my own semen down, for the second time, again remarking to myself at how unusual it tasted, and the other-worldly affect it seemed to have on me, bringing back my erection in a heart-beat.

The woman, whose name I still didn't know, even though it was our second time together, tried to smother me with her genitalia. She kept pushing her folds into my face, trying to get my tongue in her as far as it would go, while putting the most amount of pressure she could on her pleasure-nub.

It worked, after a few minutes, when she started making a lot of "UH" sounds and then started squirting her spray, with its tangy taste.

Riding my face for longer than yesterday, she finally had her fill, and lifted herself off me long enough to clumsily scoot down my body, lining herself up and sitting on my erection like it was nothing, swallowing my shaft in one go, landing on my pelvis with her weight, her droopy breasts shaking, held in the bra.

She rode me for a good long time, and I was transported to a magical place where the entire world was erased, and there was only the exquisite sensations of nerves going crazy in my hard-on, travelling down into my innards and sending pulses of thrills in every direction through my body. With my eyes closed, and my hands on her thighs, I couldn't help myself.

I started singing.

Softly.

Amazing Grace.

How sweet the sound.

In total, I had sex with her on six different days. On our fourth day she finally told me her name. Edith. We started a seventh day, but I'd only just started eating her pussy first, switching the order around before the screwing and filling her with my cum, when she heard the sound of her husband's pickup truck pulling in their driveway, home early from work, and I had just barely enough time to get my clothes on in a mad panic and leave out the back door before getting caught.

I had to jump their fence, into a yard with a yappy dog that chased me, but I managed to get away unscathed, petrified that I was going to get killed by a jealous man, positively beside myself with thrills when it didn't happen.

Good times.

I didn't have to suffer the angst of wondering how I'd get a date on the big night, because I had to miss my high school graduation ceremony and dinner/dance altogether. I had a gig. Surprisingly, because they were worried about me pursuing music as a career, it was my Dad who somehow got me an audition with a group who had a four-night stand in the show lounge at the local casino, and were looking for one more background singer. They were called The Rhythm Merchants.

They were what my Dad said was a tribute group. A doo-wop band.

I had no idea what doo-wop meant, so he explained about music from the fifties and sixties, and he pulled out some old LP records he and my Mom used to listen to, and played me some classics. The Drifters. The Shirelles. Buddy Holly. The Supremes. The Four Tops. Elvis. The Beach Boys.

On the appointed day, I met the musical director, who was the piano player. His name was Maurice, though he said everybody called him Mo. I guessed him to be about the same age as my Dad. A tall light-skinned black man, with freckles, which I'd never seen before, and long straight dark hair in a pony-tail, no curls or afro, he looked almost horrified to see me, a short thin white kid with longer hair in a pony-tail, downright skeptical about even giving me the chance.

"How old are you?" he asked, and when I told him the truth, eighteen, just a couple of weeks shy of nineteen, he furrowed his eyebrows, like he didn't believe me.

"And you can sing?"

I closed my eyes, and took a deep breath, and began. 'I Will Always Love You', Whitney's version, in Whitney's key, doing all the same falsetto runs that she did at the end, note for note, a capella.

When I opened my eyes, Mo had an astonished look on his face, and there were eight other people staring at me. All of them were black, except for one solitary old white guy.

"Damn," the tallest black guy said, "if you'd tole me that was a little white boy singin, I'da never believed you. Not in a million years."

When he found out I could also read music, Mo looked like he'd died and gone to heaven. So he shuffled a stack of papers around and pulled one out.

"Sing voice three," he said, so I opened up the chart and sang.

'California Girls', by the Beach Boys.

Mo joined me on the piano, but I didn't need it. I sang the notes, perfectly. The two female background singers, both of whom were probably the same age as Mo and also black, just stared at me, wide-eyed, for most of the song, until at one point they just shrugged and smiled at each other before joining me, singing their parts as well. For that matter, so did most everybody else.

It sounded fantastic to me, all those voices together.

The next thing I knew, I was holding charts and singing and learning song after song, sometimes just doing 'oooohs' and 'aaaahs' and sometimes full lyrics, usually in choruses. The ladies, Rhonda and Tish, both older than my Mom, seemed a little standoffish for a while, but eventually they were smiling and nodding their encouragement. They both especially liked it when I started doing their dance moves with them, the coordinated shake, slide the hips to the left and follow, slide the hips to the right and follow, slide and follow, snapping fingers on the twos and fours, all that stuff.

The guys in the band noticed it too.

After a few songs, the bass player, the tall guy, looked at me and asked, "what's your name, boy?"

"Martin," I answered.

"Uh huh," he replied, in a drawl, eyeing me up and down. "Seems to me like you dancing that way makes you look more like we should call you Martina."

Everybody laughed, me included. I'd been around musicians, and I knew they were irreverent and zany and weird and strange in all sorts of ways, and besides, it was kind of funny.

From that point forward, everybody called me Martina.

I got the job.

Mo said he'd pay me scale, two hundred a show, which for four nights meant eight hundred, a fortune to me, the cash register in my head going 'ka-ching ka-ching', but just the opportunity alone to sing with the band, in a big show room, was payment enough for me.

I agreed to the money, of course. I'm not totally crazy.

After that first rehearsal, Mo asked me if I had ever heard the song "Sherry", by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, which I hadn't, so he gave me the chart to study, telling me that they had stopped playing the song because they didn't have anybody who could sing it well enough. Until now.

At the next and final rehearsal before the first night, he told the band to play the song, which surprised most of them, but as soon as I started hitting those high notes, they got totally into it, and put the song back into their set.

The day of the first show, when I should have been getting my diploma and a hearty handshake from the principal, I was trying to fit into the same kind of clothes that the band wore. The men all had tight dark pants, and dark satin shirts, and dark vests, while the two ladies wore skin-tight clinging shiny dark dresses, on their rather stocky bodies, with long poufy sleeves, plunging necklines, as well as fishnet stockings and tall high-heeled shoes. But none of the men's clothes fit me. Even the vest made me look like I was wearing a raincoat.

Mo had asked me the day before if I had anything at home that I could use, so I'd brought the only pair of dress pants I owned and a white button-up shirt, and sensible shoes.

Backstage, almost everybody cringed when they saw me dressed. Rhonda, just shook her head and tsked a few times and told Mo it just wouldn't do, and after rummaging through a big suitcase she came out with a dark long-sleeved shirt.

A woman's blouse, actually.

It buttoned up on the wrong side.

The material itself was life-changing, though. It was so soft, so silky on my skin, so exhilarating, that a shiver ran through my whole body. I'd never really thought about clothes at all, in my life. They were just something to wear, and in my case, something my Mom bought for me. But the blouse, a piece of women's clothing, was like touching my skin with the lightest of caresses, while my own clothes suddenly felt like sandpaper.

Just before we went on, Tish turned to Mo and, with a smile on her face, asked him, "Mo, why does Martina get to wear no heels?" and before he could say anything, she continued, "I mean, Rhonda and I have to dance all night in these ankle-busters you make us wear," and Rhonda murmured her agreement, "so how come the new girl don't?"

Mo just shook his finger at her and softly told her to lay off.

I noticed that he had really long fingers, which seemed to be appropriate for a piano player.

The first night went off without a hitch. The band was tight, and swinging, and the guitar player, Philip, who did most of the lead male vocals, was ripping it. It was the first time I'd ever played in a venue capable of holding almost two-thousand people, and while it wasn't full full, it was pretty close.

It's such a rush singing in front of a crowd, especially one that was really enjoying the show. I could feel the positive vibes bouncing around the room, the energy of the band combined with the energy of the music combined with the energy of the audience made me leap inside, in my heart and soul. I totally understood why people performed, night after night, as often as they could. It's like a drug, sort of.

It's addictive.

The band was staying at the hotel attached to the casino, while I got to drive home, in my Mom's car that she let me borrow, and sleep in my own bed. But before I left that night, there was a party, backstage, everybody laughing and drinking and smoking cigarettes and discretely toking on doobies, and they wanted me to be part of the celebration, so I had a toke, and nursed a beer. Nothing more than that, because I had to drive and my parents would kill me if I got pulled over with a DUI.

Wisecracks were made, moments were remembered, musical or otherwise, reactions from certain audience members were recalled, everybody saying nice things about the others, notes they hit really well or riffs that dazzled, and some of those nice things were directed at me.

Just as I was leaving to go out to where the car was parked, Robinson, the tall bass player, caught me in the hallway.

"Hey, Miss Martina," he drawled, "lemme ask you something?" and when I nodded okay he smiled, and made his voice a little quieter.

"You looking for some fun, on the side?"

I didn't have a clue what he was talking about.

He stepped closer to me, so I had to look up at his face.

"You know," he said, his voice now a whisper, "a little action, maybe? A little of the horizontal bop?"

Even with my relative inexperience, it seemed plain to me he was talking about sex, but what I couldn't understand was why.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well," he hushed out, looking around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping, "the thing is, I heard a lot of you little white boys have fantasies of getting a big black dick all up inside you," and his gentle smile became a leering grin, "and I'm just sayin, if you got that itch, I do believe I might be willin to scratch it for you. That's all."

The whole drive home, that's all I could think about. Instead of revelling in the great vibes from the show, or my own contributions to it, or just appreciating getting to watch amazing musicians play well, the one and only highlight reel playing in my head was Robinsons' offer.

I was stunned.

I kept asking myself. Is it true? Was he right? Did a lot of white guys my size and shape want to have sex with black men? I'd never heard of such a generality. And not only that, but why was he even suggesting it? I'm not gay, never had a thought about it, one way or the other. I mean, I'd only ever had sex six times, all with the same woman, and I liked it a whole fucking lot. So that had to mean that I'm straight, right?

Aren't I?

Adrenaline is a bitch, sometimes. It's great for the show, but it doesn't stop pumping just because the last song got played. At home, I was still buzzing with it, making sleep out of the question. So I powered up the old laptop I had and did a search, on black men having sex with white men.

My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when I saw how many hits there were.

Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. Thousands.

The first video link I clicked on, with the sound turned off so my parents couldn't hear, in case they were awake, was some guy named King Kong, who was very big and very black, dark-skinned, with a cross-dresser, or transvestite, or whatever they're called, named Candy, who looked like a sexy schoolgirl in every respect, except her face, which, despite the great job she'd done with make-up, was the face of a mid-forties white man.

No matter.

The clip started out with the King coming into view from the side, and laying down right on top of Candy, who'd spread her legs wide and up. And to my utter shock, instead of sticking his huge hanging horse-cock into her, he instantly warped my universe instead.

His big giant head leaned down and they began kissing.

Kissing!

I went instantly rock hard in my pants.

They were kissing, like a man and a woman, an act of intimacy that I'd presumed wouldn't happen between men, even if one of them was wearing feminine clothes. Seeing them kiss, softly and first and then evolving into mouth-open, tongue-flicking wars, lit a fire inside me, a new sensation, all the wires in my nervous system shuddering and quaking, and I had barely enough presence of mind to reach down and squeeze my erection harder than I've ever squeezed, just to abort the imminent explosion that I knew was coming.

These were my work pants. I needed them clean, for tomorrow night.

Once the shoes and socks and pants and underwear were off, I started to unbutton the shirt, reminding myself that it was actually a blouse, and the fire inside me started roaring again, thinking about how it felt on my skin, so delicate and delicious.

I kept the blouse on, while I edged for as long as I could, watching King Kong make love to Candy, from the initial making out to licking and sucking on her exposed nipples, to sliding her panties aside and lubing her up, and finally to him fucking her, which is the only way to describe it. It was startling, and shocking, and serious, and while I couldn't hear her, because I had the sound turned off, I could see her mouth opening a bunch of times, and it was obvious she was moaning, if not screaming, and I couldn't even imagine what it was feeling like for her to have such a huge tube of meat slamming into her, and buried in her body, pushing everything inside around, straining delicate tissues, and probably opening her tube up more than it had ever been, ever.

I wondered if such a thing hurt her at all. From some of the faces she made, it looked like it might, but on the other hand, most of her faces were the opposite, ranging from OH MY GOD kind of looks to complete frenetic freaking out faces, most of them with a huge grin, and closed eyes.

Then I watched a whole bunch of other clips, of black men having sex with white men. All of them were invigorating, but there were only a few that really touched me inside. Four, to be exact.

In all four of them, the white guy wasn't cross-dressing, but it didn't matter. The white guys were smaller in size, and feminine in behavior, almost to the point of being submissive, and yet not so. They were just gentler, more tender, I suppose, in how they moved and behaved. The black guys, all buff and gym-bodied, seemed to be leading their dance, and also measured far more than their feminine-acting lovers, in cock-size.

I saw the same faces that Candy had made. Some grimaces, but mostly unencumbered complete fantastical apoplexy, as if taking cock was both the hardest physical challenge they'd ever had to endure and also the most enjoyable.

Maybe it was enjoyable because of what they had to endure? I didn't know.

After I finally shot off, and after I stopped being dizzy afterwards, I had a pool of my own semen on my belly, and since I'd already eaten it out of Edith's pussy several times, it didn't occur to me to not have more.

And again, the aftertaste stayed with me, long after I went to sleep.

At the sound check for night two, Robinson just smiled at me, quiet-like, a mischievous upturn at the corners of his mouth, while Tish and Rhonda complained over and over again that they had to wear tight dresses and ridiculously high-heeled shoes and Miss Martina didn't, and I took it all as good-natured ribbing.

Mo, on the other hand, took me aside during the break between sets and, after fidgeting on his feet, finally asked me if I was cool with being called Martina by everybody, telling me that he'd make them stop if I didn't like it, while giving me the impression that he'd rather not have to, so I told him honestly that I had no problems.

Then he looked at me.

"Not even all the shit about the shoes?"

I shook my head.

"They're just having fun."

Mo shook his head, and then breathed out a huge sigh.

"No, little man, they aint," he said, quietly, "when you aint around, or when you can't hear, they won't stop bitching about it, believe me."

The look on his face was an education, in a way. I realized, standing there, that being the leader of the band meant he got dragged into individual petty stuff all the time, trying to keep everybody happy while steering the ship forward, which probably caused him a lot of headaches. Herding cats was one thing, and darned near impossible, but herding humans, many of whom who have huge egos, must be torture.

A big bold thought occurred to me, just popping into my brain. Maybe I could help him out, which would make me feel incredible, because I really liked him, and not just because he'd hired me. He was a kind person, a warm person, who seemed to always be positive, and tried to be gracious to everyone, and it filled me with a spirit of wanting to do something for him.

"Well, would it smooth things over for you if I wore them?" I asked, just off the top of my head.

Mo's head snapped up, his dark eyes matching the astonished look on his face.

"Really?" he asked, "you'd do that?"

I had to giggle.

"If it would help you out, then yeah, I could try," I said, surprising myself as much as him, "but, I don't know, I'd probably look ridiculous doing it, and I might even fall off them and sprain an ankle, or worse. I mean, I've never worn anything like that, so I might not be able to do the dancing stuff."

Mo just stared at me, without talking, for second after second.

"But I'll try. If you want. Unless," I continued, "unless you think it would be a distraction for the crowd."

"How do you mean?" he asked.

I shrugged.

"Maybe it would take away the spotlight from everybody else if the goofy white kid was teetering on high heels? Like a, well, like a circus sideshow act, or something? How would Philip like it if he was out front shredding and nobody was watching him? Or, would it make the whole group look, I don't know, comical? Because I wouldn't want that, you know? You guys are so good, so smooth, and maybe me wearing high heels would just be like a bad novelty thing? I've never had to think about that kind of stuff before, and it's your band, so I guess I'm saying that I could try, if you think it'd work."

Mo absent-mindedly bit his lower lip while he thought, taking his time, until he finally tried to put a smile on his face.

"Let me think about it, okay?"

After the second set, and the after-party, when I was getting ready for the forty-five minute drive home, Mo quietly whispered at me.

"Psst! Miss Martina!"

As surreptitiously as he could, he handed me a pair of high-heeled shoes, shiny and black, with the tiniest thinnest little spike at the back.

"I don't know if these'll fit you, but see. And if they do, practice at home, okay? Tomorrow night, before we go on, you tell me if you can wear them and still do the dancing stuff, without taking away from the vocals, okay?"

Robinson again managed to get next to me when I was by myself, in the hallway, getting ready to leave out the back door, asking about the lump under my coat, and when I couldn't think of a lie right off the top of my head, I showed him the shoes, begging him to keep it quiet, that it was just to get Rhonda and Tish off of Mo's back.

"Them bitches always cryin bout somethin," he drawled, "so it probly won't work," and then he smiled, ear to ear, "but I bet you look good in em."

Then he looked down at me with a leer in his freshly-stoned eyes and told me he wouldn't tell anybody, on one condition.

He wanted a kiss.

When I balked, my initial reaction of surprise and shock obvious on my face, he smiled and tapped one of his long fingers on his left cheek, giving me an out, that I didn't have to do anything gay or objectionable, just a simple peck, kind of like the Europeans do, so after a moment or two of staring at him, working up my courage, I nodded and stood up on my tiptoes, leaning towards him, ready to kiss his him halfway between his nose and his ear.

At the last second, he turned his head, and my lips met his lips full-on.

My eyes, which I'd closed, suddenly shot wide open, at the feel of his mouth on mine, and before I knew what was happening he'd wrapped his big long arms around me and pulled me into him, hugging me, squeezing me, his tall svelte body stronger than I imagined, while his lips began moving, caressing my lips, little snorts of his breath blasting out of his nostrils, right onto my skin, until his tongue tapped on my lips, asking permission to enter, and for some reason I was too shell-shocked to stop him, soon enough finding myself literally sucking on his tongue, because it was everywhere in my mouth.

Robinson was a way better kisser than Edith. He moved like the tide, cycling, between soft gentle lip massages right up to trying to lick my tonsils, and I let him, because it excited me to do so, to be able to just go with his flow, a willing and eager follower.

When he finally let me go, I had to stand in place for a minute and catch my breath, panting and gasping like I'd just run a marathon. Robinson stepped back, and looked down at me with a smug look.

"You white boys just can't get enough black lovin, now can you?"

Then he shook his head, gently, in awe and amazement, and wandered back to the party, turning at the last second and winking at me.

"See you tomorrow, Miss Martina!"

For the second night in a row I drove home not thinking at all about the gig we'd just done.

I was thinking about black men with white men, replaying in my head the video clips I'd fixated on the night before, the stark differences in skin color, and body shapes, and, much to my giggling delight, cock sizes.

When I got home, I went straight to masturbating, after stripping down to the blouse only.

Barely a few strokes of my foreskin later, it occurred to me.

Masturbating while wearing high-heeled shoes, as tight on my feet as imaginable, was even more staggering to my soul than just the blouse. I searched links to cross-dressing videos, and transvestite videos, watching for a couple of hours while men dressed as women cavorted and romped and took cocks into their mouths, greedily slurping on them, and then got themselves screwed and fucked and made love to by manlier men.

I couldn't begin to imagine how it must feel, to be penetrated and used like that, although none of them seemed to look like they were being used. It seemed to me that they liked it, a whole fucking lot. And, maybe they were using the men just as much as they were being used, and it was an even exchange?

All I knew was the white 'gurls', as they spelled it, seemed to really enjoy it a lot.

A lot.

Some of them even had orgasms of their own, while being fucked, great gobs of their cream spurting out of them without being touched, their whole middle sections rippling and quaking, obvious on the screen, making me wish I could turn the sound up and hear the noises they were making, which must be as exciting and strenuous as anything I'd ever heard.

I practiced in the shoes for hours during the day, hesitantly at first, trying to understand how to balance and how to place my weight without toppling over, initially completely gobsmacked at how women could possibly walk in those things and look so sexy doing it, but practice makes perfect, and it didn't take me more than about an hour to figure it out.

It was all about the sway. The hip sway. You keep your head and chest as one solid part of you, facing forward, but everything south of your sternum operates as a second unit, doing the sway.

You do that the right way, and the rest of it is easy, and it blew my mind, watching myself in the mirror, at how hot it looked as I strutted. And best of all, once I got the walk down confidently, my pony tail did the bounce, the one that I'd seen thousands of times in my life. Up and down, and side to side, the bounce was seductive. The bounce had always touched me, defining words like playful, and provocative, and delightful.

I almost peed my pants when my Mom knocked on my bedroom door, and I had to scramble out of the shoes quickly, before she walked in. Telling me that I should clean my 'uniform', my shirt that was really a blouse, since I'd worn it twice and probably sweated in it, she gave me a hands-on tutorial on the washing machine and the dryer, and how some clothes needed the delicate cycles. Some, she added, even needed to be washed and dried by hand, and when I asked which clothes, she smiled and said, "women's clothes, mostly," and then she added, "you know, like lingerie, or, well, high-end designer blouses, like that one you're holding," and then she paused, and smiled.

She knew. She was no dummy. She'd seen enough of them in her life. She'd worn enough of them. She saw that they buttoned on the wrong side, for a male. But she loved me enough to add nothing more, or embarrass me.

Then her eyes got a little misty.

"You're turning nineteen in just a few days, Marty," which is what she'd always called me, "and soon you'll be out of the house, living on your own, and I won't be doing your laundry for you anymore, so you need to learn stuff like this."

I arrived at sound check with the cleanest blouse in the whole wide world.

And a special smile, for Mo, when I nodded, letting him know.

If he wanted me to, I could wear the shoes and do the dancing.

He thought for a second or two, and then nodded, and silently mouthed the word.

'Okay'.

As everybody gathered onstage to begin, the big room empty except for us on stage, I made my grand entrance, in my blouse and my pants, like normal, but with three-and-a-half inch heels on, black as coal and shiny, with a strap across the top of my foot, exposing my toes, and a strap around the bottom of my leg, riding just above my ankles.

My pony tail was bouncing up a storm!

Eyes got huge as I walked in, the horn section not reacting much more than that, just gawking, and then Mo saw me, and smiled after a few seconds. Philip, out front, took one look and didn't care, a slight shrug on his shoulders.

Robinson grinned like he'd won a Grammy.

The ladies hooted and hollered and hugged each other and hooted some more, and when I got to my mic, and stood next to them, Tish reached over and pulled me to her bosom, giving me a big hug.

"Now we talkin, Miss Martina!"

Four songs later, everybody was happy with levels, and the set list was decided.

"Hey Mo," Rhonda called, and when he looked up she said, "how 'bout I give Miss Martina here a little make-up, for the show?"

I don't know who was more startled, me or Mo.

"What you talking about?"

Rhonda pointed at me.

"She wearing the shoes and the blouse, might as well go all the way and give her some color too. Make her look all pretty, you know? She got lots of hair, we could do it up. Put some shine to her face, some bright popping eyes, some lipstick. Get some paint on those toenails of hers, and her fingers too. I guarantee you all the drunks in the audience will take one look at this little white boy and go all E-RECT in their seats! They be thinkin she's a flat-chested white girl, is all."

Tish started nodding.

"Hell, she should be wearing a slutty dress too, just like us!"

Before I could even think about saying anything, Rhonda shook her head.

"We aint got nothing that small, Tish. She aint gonna fit in anything either of us got."

Tish agreed. They were both larger-than-average women, Rhonda being what my Mom used to call 'big-boned', and Tish not much slimmer.

"Um," Mo said, "hang on. I mean, c'mon, we don't want no freak show stuff, Rhonda."

"Freak show?" Rhonda blustered, "She aint gonna be no freak show." Then she looked at me, examining my face. "Matter of fact, this white boy already looks kinda girly to start. There's lots I can work with. I bet by the time I'm finished nobody will be able to tell the difference. She gonna be fine, just fine. Real fine."

And then everyone looked at Mo, including me. He was the leader, and made the decisions.

He took about thirty seconds to answer.

"It's up to her."

We had an hour until showtime.

They plunked me down backstage, in a chair at the make-up table, with all the big bright lights around the mirror, and then Rhonda and Tish started working.

"Watch what we doing, Martina," Rhonda barked out, "so next time you can do it for yourself."

Tish worked on my hair, putting stuff in it to give it body and fullness, before styling it in waves around the top and sides, putting it back into a pony-tail again, so I could have the bounce. Rhonda painted me, first with a powder that evened out my skin and made it all blemish-free, and smooth, before moving on to individual areas. Eyes, Cheeks, and then lips. My eyes took the longest time. She thinned out my brows, carefully drew on some liner, dusted my lids with a purple-mauve shade, and then made my lashes darker and thicker. In the meantime, once my hair was done, Tish came around and worked my heels off, and began applying nail polish, a deep dark crimson red.

The same color went on my fingernails too.

I made them promise that they'd teach me how to take it all off again, after the show. Especially the nail polish. I couldn't even imagine how my folks would react if they saw me with red fingernails.

Just a few minutes before we went on, they slipped some jangly hoops around my wrist, bangles is what they called them, and while the whole band gawked at me, from every angle, I gazed at myself, in the mirror.

Stunned.

I was stunned.

I was stunning!

Rhonda had been true to her word. I looked exactly like a flat-chested white girl.

Well, like a flat-chested woman. I wasn't a kid anymore. I only had eleven more days until I got to be officially called by the adult words.

Both sets went off without a hitch, the crowd singing along with us on a few songs, everybody partying, and we got a huge round of applause at the end. Everybody bowed, and when Mo, on the mic, introduced me as Martina, instead of Martin, the claps were thunderous. I was blushing, waving at the crowd.

One middle-aged man, right up front, had a small bouquet of flowers in his hands, and he was beckoning me with his free hand, so I swayed my way to the front of the stage and he handed them to me, and I had to bend over to take them, prompting Robinson, a few feet behind me, to say loud enough for at least me to hear, "damn that's a fine ass!"

Little trills of delight raced through me, his words just adding more fuel to the roaring fire that had been burning in me since putting on the shoes, and getting made-up. It felt like my heart was skipping, joyfully skipping, like someone elated, someone with not a care in the world, full of love and passion, the flood of positive energy of the moment propelling me forward.

Backstage, everybody congratulated me on both my show, and the flowers. Cully, one of the horn players, said he thought I was miles better than the first two nights, and he'd said I was good after each show, and meant it, so that was a huge compliment. Alcohol started flowing, while Tish sat me at the make-up table again, and handed me some thin foamy circular pads and an unlabelled plastic bottle, with the word 'remover' written on it in felt pen.

"There you go, Miss Martina," she said, before placing her hands gently on my shoulders, standing behind me, each of us staring into the others reflection, and then her face got a tender look to it, and she smiled.

"You do have a hell of a voice, girl," she cooed, "and you got balls, for doin the whole dress-up thing with us," and then she shook her head, as if something was remarkable, and whispered, "so you okay in my books."

Then she told me to go easy with the remover around my eyes. The remover would do the trick, but it was strong.

She was right, it stung. So my version of going easy and hers were a whole lot different.

Heading home, soaring on the adrenaline and the thrills I'd felt, I fully expected to run into Robinson in the back hallway, but it was empty, but just as I was about to open the back door and leave the building, Tish's voice yelled at me, and I turned back to look at her.

"Rhonda and I got us an idea," she said, a huge smile on her face, "so you be here an hour or so early tomorrow, ya hear?"

Out in the parking lot, as I made my way to my Mom's car, sticking up above all the other vehicles in the vast lot, I could see a familiar head, towering over the cars.

I could smell the joint he was smoking when I got closer, and it struck me he was standing right next to my car, which made me wonder if he knew that or not.

Seeing me approaching, he smiled, and breathed out a huge cloud of exhale, his upper face disappearing for a few wispy moments, and then held out his hand with the joint in his fingers, offering me some. I took a quick glance around, and there weren't any cops I could see, so I had a quick puff, feeling the smoke hit me in the back of the throat, followed a few seconds later by the warm body-encompassing blanket of the stone.

"This your car?" he asked, pointing at the Civic, and when I nodded, he said, in that slow drawl, "huh, imagine that."

"Yeah," I breathed out, trying not to cough, "imagine that."

Then he stared down at me, and grinned.

"Was hopin for another goodnight kiss, you dig?"

I giggled.

"I figured," I said, and took one more step towards him, going up on my tiptoes, ready for his kiss, when he gently shook his head.

"I was thinkin probably be more private in the car, you know? More dis-crete."

His teasing smile was intoxicating.

I got the key and opened up the front passenger door for him, but he shook his head again, just a little, and pointed at the rear door.

"Probly more leg room in the back, you know what I'm sayin?"

He got in the passenger side, while I went all the way around and got in on the driver side.

"You done great tonight, Miss Martina," he drawled, "I mean it, you were rockin it, girl."

"So were you," I answered, enthusiastically, "so was the whole band! It was a thrill being a part of it!"

He nodded.

"That's what it's all about, you know? Playin the music and feelin it, really feelin it, lettin it make you move, from the inside out."

I couldn't think of a thing to add, so I just sat there, beaming at him, waiting for some sort of go-ahead signal from him, for our goodnight kiss.

"Only thing better," he offered in that drawl, and then paused, staring into my eyes with dark seriousness, "in the whole wide world, the only thing better than makin music is makin love. Two people makin each other feel good, nothing better than that, no matter what anybody says."

And like a true believer, the words of his preaching filled me with a spirit, an energy, and a desire.

I leaned to my right, all the way, craning my neck and putting my head just under his, and offered my lips to his, and with the warmest satisfied smile I think I've ever witnessed, he kissed me. Softly at first, his bigger lips tenderly pressing into mine, pulsing slowly, until I gave up all my balance and landed on his body, never letting the kiss stop, and soon enough he had both arms wrapped around me and he was squeezing me into his body, taut and warm, and last night's session, which had seemed monumental to me at the time, paled in comparison.

We made out. His tongue and lips were everywhere, sometimes with ferocity and sometimes with the touch of a feather, totally in command, giving me the opportunity to literally let go of everything in the world and truly concentrate on one thing, which was feeling it, absorbing the pleasure. Just like making music, making love was all about being in the zone, one hundred percent concentrated on feeling it, not giving one iota of a thought to anybody or anything else. For minute after minute, we went slow to fast, and back to slow again. For minute after minute I learned every detail of his mouth, the shape of his long, thick tongue, and the fullness and energy of his lips, everything.

For minute after minute, I was vaguely aware that he had what felt like an iron bar in his pants, poking me in the side. So lost in the kissing, it took a while for me to understand what it actually was, and when I did, for a short time I took over the lead in the kissing, sparked by a passion I didn't know I had, while slowly sliding my hand down his body, from his chest, eliciting a very satisfied murmur from his lungs when I finally touched the significant lump in his pants.

I'd seen big cocks in the videos, of course, but all those images didn't prepare me for the shock. My only other experience in touching an erection was my own, and the difference between the two of us was like night and day.

Robinson was hung.

His kiss got stronger, and harder, as I felt him, and with my weight on him he had to wriggle his butt on the seat, trying to get more comfortable, his pants probably confining him, making it difficult for what he'd grown, until I realized that the only way to alleviate his problem was for me to give him some room.

So I manoeuvered my body, and took some of the pressure off him, which opened up space for my hand to lightly trace the shape of him, marvelling at his length, not to mention how thick he was.

He broke our kiss, to smile at me in that satisfied stoner look, and tell me what was on his mind.

"Take it out, girl," he drawled, "you know you want to."

For a second, I hesitated.

Did I want to?

The answer 'YES!' reverberated through my soul. Totally new to me, this man on man action, the natural trepidation I felt quickly got replaced with a much more meaningful thought, which was that the potential experience was just like music, just like a new form of song that I'd not dealt with yet, as if venturing into a genre I'd never had the chance to sing before, like maybe reggae or baroque, or even opera. I've never limited myself before, always eager to discover new styles, and while I'd grown up as an assumed and confident hetero, the idea of going to bat at least once for the other team, if for no other reason than to try it, had to follow that same creative experimentation.

If love be the music of life, as the old expression goes, then play on!

Fumbling with the snap and the zipper, while trying to not lose out on kissing him, I clumsily managed to get his pants open, and he joined me in shrugging them as far down his skinny legs as possible, until he was semi-naked from the waist down, his pants and underwear pooled around his shoes, and while I didn't want to ever stop his lips and tongue from making me feel incredible, I had to look.

I gasped out loud at the sight of it, and he giggled.

"Bet you aint never seen nothin like this, have you?"

His cock was shaking, little movements up and down and around, as if it was alive. As dark as chocolate, and rippled with veins, his helmet was almost purple, and shiny wet in the filtering light of the glaring parking lot illumination.

"Go ahead, girl," he drawled, "I know you wanna feel it."

I moved my hand, which was shaking with little tics and tremors, until it was about half an inch away from his shaft, nervous, and I could feel the heat coming off of it, astounding me, until he encouraged me again, the cumulative effect of all the videos I'd watched taking over, a desperate yearning desire swelling up, to be like the white men I'd seen, who were daring enough to throw caution to the wind, and follow the music in their soul.

When my fingers wrapped around his shaft, we both moaned out. His was way deeper than mine.

Instinctively, I began stroking him, watching my pale flesh move up and down his darkness, in awe of how it felt on my skin, the warmth and the rigidity and the serious eroticism of it, stopping myself from giggling at the way his balls would move in time with my hand.

The next thing I knew we were kissing again, his giant tongue in my mouth, leading me again, driving us forward, him in charge and me never happier to be the passenger on the trip of a lifetime.

Venturing my fingers and palm all the way up and down his pole, my skin got a little wet, his pre-cum pouring out of him, making my mouth water, and making my brain lose all sensible thought, consumed with one subject only.

I needed to taste it. I needed to see if it was the same as my own pre-cum.

So I stopped kissing him, my glossy eyes opening and staring into his dark fierce orbs, watching his self-satisfied smile reappear, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking and he was hoping for the same thing.

Leaning over, I put my face next to his belly, which was moving up and down with an increased tempo, just staring at his cock, from barely an inch away, stunned, like someone who's just discovered the secret to eternal happiness and can't believe their own good luck, until he whispered again.

"There you go, Miss Martina," he drawled out, his words and syllables even slower than usual, "it's yours if you want it. It's waiting for you."

Two seconds later, my tongue flicked out of my mouth, all my thinking over, letting my subconscious natural yearnings rule, and touched the very tip of him, right where the pee hole is, making him groan out loudly, and making me squirm, wriggling my ass on the cramped back seat of my Mom's Civic.

His taste was electric!

His pre-cum was syrupy, and tangy, like mine, only more so, louder and brilliant, and as the first tentative drops hit my taste buds, a gigantic shudder ripped through my body, from head to toe, and I moaned almost as loud as he had, and I realized he had one of his hands laid delicately on the back of my head, putting the tiniest almost-imperceptible downward force on me, encouraging me to go further, if I was so inclined.

He'd stretched his long other arm out and had that hand wrapped completely around my left ass cheek.

I swallowed his entire cock head, wrapping my lips around his round shape, the rim of his helmet wide enough to act as something to hold onto with my lips, and my tongue went berserk, back and forth across his curves, literally sucking up every drop of his juice I could get, because it was without a doubt the tastiest thing I'd EVER eaten, and I heard him whisper, "use your hand, girl" so I started stroking him again, from the base up to wherever my lips were, because there was no way I could get all of him into my mouth, faint images of white guys deep-throating black cocks trying to inspire me, even though I was a newbie at it, pouring all my energies and my dedication into pleasuring his entire cock, and his hips began moving up and down, slightly, with care, without pressuring me, because he must have known I was a rookie and he didn't want to scare me off, and with each bob of my head I tried to take more and more of him into my wet sucking mouth, the act of cock-sucking coming to me as naturally as singing.

And just like a new kind of music to my ears, having a man's cock in my mouth instantly satisfied my soul. My concern about whether I'd like it vanished, poof!, the entire act appealing to my desire to perform, to give, all my senses on fire, but especially taste, in almost-instant euphoria overdrive. Until watching the videos, I'd never imagined sucking a hot, pulsating, throbbing cock would touch so many nerves, and sate so many yens, and yet the fullness in my mouth, the flavor of his skin, how his pores flexed and reacted to my lips and tongue and saliva, all of it perhaps like sucking on a huge nipple, nursing lovingly in order to produce the life-giving white stuff inside, all of it was wonderful, and exciting, and, in a way, familiar, as if my very genes dictated that this was what they needed.

It didn't take long, no more than a couple of minutes, the whole time with him squeezing my bum and sliding one of his big long fingers up and down the crack of me, making me realize that if I'd been naked he would have had access to my hole, absolutely sure he would have immediately begun taking it, until he was seething bursts of air in and out of his mouth, putting a little more force on my head, encouraging me to take more, the pre-cum oozing out of him like someone had turned on a garden hose just a little, coming out non-stop but not in a gush, until, with my enthusiasm building and building, Robinson's whole body made one massive jerk, his ass lifting off the upholstery, and he grunted a long mournful moan.

Hitting the back of my throat like a cannon, the first rope of his cum felt like a soft bullet, and filled all the space, everywhere, bulging my cheeks, flooding my gums, and for fear of choking if it went down the wrong pipe I swallowed fiercely, barely tasting it, just in time for the second rope, which was about the same quantity, so I swallowed again, and again, and again, absolutely amazed at how much he could cum and how salty it was, like I'd just eaten an entire jar of peanuts in one go.

He kept cumming, and I kept swallowing, but there was so much of it that some slimy little dribbles seeped out from between my lips and his cock, running down his shaft, until he took his hand off the back of my head and I could hear him breathing out and in and out and in, like he was trying to control a heart attack, and I just kept swishing cum around in my mouth, wanting to taste more of it, wanting to not miss out on a single reaction to it, the way it made my spirits soar, until he calmly whispered, "clean it all up, girl," and I let go of the head in my mouth, and ran my tongue all the way down his shaft, to his pubic hair, where cum had gathered, slurping and swallowing as I went, desperate to get all of my reward.

Unlike most of the videos I'd watched, when it was all over, and there was no more juicy treat for me to enjoy, Robinson smiled at me and pulled my head towards his, his big lips taking over mine, his big tongue stabbing into me, the taste of his own spunk not bothering him one little bit.

We made out for another few minutes, until he finally broke our kiss, and gazed at me.

"Well?" he asked, "how'd Miss Martina like that?"

I was at a loss for words, except for one truth.

"It makes me want to sing about it to the whole world!"

Robinson nodded, hesitantly.

"Probly best that we keep this quiet, though, just between us, you dig?"

Taking a sliver of joy off my plate, I was nonetheless still ecstatic, heart-pounding bolts of powerful radiance bursting right out to my skin, but I understood what he meant, and nodded my agreement.

"Last night tomorrow," he drawled, "and then we out of here, back on the road. Maybe after we get all the gear in the truck, might be some time for you and me to say goodbye, all proper like?"

I almost strained my neck nodding.

Robinson grinned, from ear to ear.

"Be nice to find the time to tap that fine ass of yours too," he whispered, "if'n we get the opportunity."

My drive home was once again totally absent of thoughts about the gig, which, considering how I'd allowed myself to be made-up like a woman, and wear the shoes of a woman, was startling.

Every image, every remembrance, every thought that my overwhelmed mind could create, weren't about the performance. They were about kissing this wonderful man, marvelling at how it made me feel inside, never mind how it made him so obviously happy, and, of course, how it felt to hold his erection, and how it felt to kiss his erection, and how it felt better than anything I'd ever done, better than everything in the entire world to be honest, to suck his cock, and swallow his cum.

I wanted to do it again.

The videos I watched, still flying high on adrenaline, teased me. With more pride than I'd ever felt, I watched white men sucking black cock and kept shouting silently to myself that I'd been there and done that, and while it was my first it most definitely wouldn't be my last, and how I'd joined their league, or their level, or attained the same lofty goal, and how now I was entirely focussed on the next big step between men.

I watched white guys get fucked, over and over again, until I couldn't stand it anymore and, wetting a finger in my mouth, comparing it's disappointing thinness to the slab of meat I'd had earlier, I reached down and penetrated my ass, again and again, practically swooning at the insertion, but frustrated in having to deal with the tiny hairs that got in the way.

The next day my Mom went grocery shopping, while I had a huge task to accomplish. I plugged in my Dad's cordless moustache trimmer, to charge it, and then, using a hand-held mirror, I set about making my hole, my pussy, as smooth as a baby, so the next time I fingered myself, the next time something went into my bottom, there wouldn't be anything in the way. Hepped up on the thrill of doing it, actually being daring and risqué and norm-shattering, caution went the way of the dodo and the next thing I knew I was watching big clumps of my pubic hair hit the floor too, being insanely cautious when doing my ball sac, and then all the wispy thin hairs on my legs, and the one tiny little stand of hairs on my chest, between my pecs.

Until I was silky soft and smooth, all over.

I had no idea what was going on, but I showed up for my last gig an hour early, as instructed.

Tish and Rhonda were waiting for me.

"Look what we done for you, white boy," Rhonda said, reaching into a shopping bag and pulling out some fabric, holding it by the top and shaking it out, letting it fall flat, showing me my future.

They'd bought me a dress.

Similar to the ones they wore night after night.

Tight, and form-fitting, black and shiny, with a high collar and long sleeves and a plunging neckline and a short skirt.

"Now you gonna fit in with the rest of us," Tish said, "so strip, Miss Martina."

When I got down to my underwear, a little nervous about actually getting completely naked with these two women, giving them a face that hopefully conveyed my hesitancy, Rhonda took one look at my tighty-whities and shook her head no, tsking loudly.

"Uh-uh, girl," she uttered, "those cain't go under a dress, they just bunch up and look stupid. Take em off. We bought you some panties too."

Then she held up what looked like a single thread.

"All you sissies be likin the G-strings, is what we hear."

The shock of being called a sissy wore off about one nano-second later, when she held them towards me, dangling on the end of one finger, and gave me the eyebrow lift that told me in no uncertain terms that she was not to be disobeyed.

Tish made a 'tsk' sound and Rhonda just shook her head at the sight of me naked, with my shriveled penis, my almost-perpetual hard-on of late instantly disappearing when I began taking off my clothes in front of these two demanding women.

"I told ya," Tish said, looking at Rhonda, who nodded her agreement.

Sliding the panties on, a bare sliver of fabric just wide enough to cover my hairless genitals, the rest of it two thin wires, one around my hips and one going from the bottom of my testicles and cutting into and up my bum crack, a thin line buried between two pale orbs, like an electric cable, live and hot.

I shivered in delight, and my nipples got harder than they'd ever been. I could feel them throbbing.

"Girl's gonna need a bra too," Rhonda said to Tish, "and she's already got headlights!"

She pulled out something that matched the panties in color and style. Doing the spin motion with her finger, to which I immediately complied, she slipped the straps up my arms from behind and then worked the garment into place and then did me up, my chest suddenly held tight, like as a lover would do, turning me with her hands on my shoulders until I could see the make-up table mirrors, and the vision standing.

Long hair, in a pony tail, and a smooth hairless body below, naked to the world, except for the barest of panties and a bra that had see-through lace cups, where my erect nipples were plainly visible, I couldn't have been more surprised, and excited.

A lump rose in my panties.

"Time for make-up, Miss Martina."

They did me again, Tish on my hair and fingernails, which I'd wiped clean last night, leaving my toenails painted, and Rhonda on my face.

By the time they slipped some pantyhose on me, and then the dress and the shoes, it was like I was gawking at a whole new person. Standing sideways to the mirror at one point, I realized that the dress was so clingy, especially around my mid-section, that I actually had the shape of breasts. I actually had a roundness, the bra tight enough to push up my chest muscles a little bit.

The idea of looking like a flat-chested white woman became real, to my very eyes.

I was Martina.

As the guys in the band slowly filtered in for sound check, they all did double-takes. To a man, except for Philip, I saw shock and then smiles, even arousal from a couple of them. Philip just shook his head, as if it was just another strange thing in a lifetime of strange things, and he wasn't going to pay it any mind.

Robinson had a go-cup in his hand when he walked in, taking a sip of whatever he was drinking, and he almost choked himself when he saw me, the liquid going down the wrong way. A few coughs later, he stood there, with what everybody could see was a sizeable lump in his pants, and drawled out one word.

"DAMN."

Mo stared for a bit, and then went back to reading his charts.

I noticed again that he had really long fingers. Because of what had happened last night, I began to wonder, is the old cliché true? Do long fingers mean long dicks?

Just before we went on, Rhonda's voice cut through the green room.

"Hey Mo," she barked, and without waiting for a response kept going, "seems to me we ought to have our own name, just for the ladies."

"What you talking about?" he asked.

Tish piped up.

"Yeah, our own name. Should be The Rhythm Merchants, featuring us, the ladies."

Cully, the horn player, spoke.

"How bout the Slinkettes? All three of you look pretty slinky to me."

Beaming with pride, Tish and Rhonda instantly agreed.

I became a Slinkette.

For both sets, I had a blast. I was shaking and shimmying with the ladies, all three of us on our heels and in our slutty dresses, singing up a huge storm. Right towards the end of the first set, Rhonda's mic cut out, so she leaned over to Tish's mic, and in a fit of inspiration I leaned from the other side, so all three of us were singing around one mic, just like the background singers used to do it in the old days. I'm sure it probably ticked off the sound guys, because now they had to do a little active mixing, but we were beside ourselves with grins.

Right towards the end of the night, Mo got on the mic and got the crowd to applaud everybody in the band, one at a time, by name, until he came to the ladies.

"And last, but for sure not least, give it up for the sexiest singers on the planet. 'INTRODUCING... THE SLINKETTES!'"

All three of us took a bow when he said our names, Martina getting an exaggerated cheer, the whoops and screams from the crowd raising the roof.

By the time we finished the last set, the place was jumping. Saturday night meant the house was full, and I'm sure many, if not most of them, were imbibing alcohol, so the energy levels were huge, almost on every song they were singing louder than the band, and for fun we did two encores, including 'Stop, In The Name Of Love", by the Supremes, where the three of us ladies got to go crazy, doing the palm-out hand gesture every time we sang the word 'stop' while rocking the sway, Tish taking the lead and sounding just like Diana did, back in the glory years.

Flying higher than at any time in my life, I was happier and more excited than ever, but there was one nagging jolt of sadness running through me. Well, two actually.

One, the gig was over for me. The Rhythm Merchants would be leaving, tonight, together, right after the show, towards their next booking, the nature of touring musicians, and I would go home, all alone, to my bed.

And two, I wouldn't get any goodnight kisses from Robinson anymore.

Nor would I get to suck his cock again, which, besides singing, was the only other thing on my mind. Now that I'd done it once, experiencing the taste of him, the hardness of him, having my mouth filled with his thick flesh, and my belly filled his cum, I couldn't wait to do it again.

That made me doubly sad.

Backstage, there wasn't any time for partying. They had to break all the gear down and get it out the back door and into their truck, in a specific order, which they'd been doing for so long and so often that they had it down to a science, all the guys, even the horn players, humping amps and speaker cabinets and road cases, from the warmth of the building to the crisp chill of the parking lot, while the ladies got out of make-up and clothes and packed up wardrobes and got back to normal.

Sadly, the remover worked, and my boring male face reappeared, flickers of regret tingling through me, because I was never so happy all doodied up and looking pretty, but happily when I went to put on my underwear, after taking the panties off, because they didn't belong to me, Tish shook her head and told me to "keep the stuff". I looked at Rhonda for confirmation, and she just guffawed as she packed stuff up.

"Aint me or Tish fittin into any of that shit," she stated, matter-of-factly, "so's you might as well keep it. And besides," she said, with a knowing grin appearing, "you seem to like wearing it."

Then her eyes zipped down to my crotch, and back again.

At the very thought of being able to wear the panties again, my little man was suddenly perking up!

So I put the panties back on. The idea of wearing them under my boring guy clothes that felt like sandpaper on my skin took a little off my growing despondency over this being my last show, the sadness going suddenly ballistic when Mo sauntered up with a handful of cash in his hands, thanking me for my singing and my tolerance of all 'the bullshit', before he hugged me, and said his goodbyes. Everybody in the band hugged me, saying goodbye as well, and I began crying when Robinson took me into his arms, but he just whispered in my ear, "it's cool baby girl, you just keep singin and playin, you hear?" and then he was gone.

I walked out of the only door from the show lounge to backstage, my tears dried up for the moment, as sad as I could possibly be, with my knapsack of women's clothes and shoes on my shoulder, and almost crashed into a huge guy. By the time I caught myself from falling, or bouncing off of him, I looked up, and, totally surprised, recognized him, as he reached out to grab my arms, apologizing non-stop for running into me.

Nick Ryder.

He was in a band called The Elementals. They were not just a local sensation, but a regional one too. They had a couple of cool songs on the radio stations in town, and people talked about them as if they'd be the next big thing, the next group to get signed to a world-wide recording contract, the next stars of pop and rock. For a couple of years, whenever they booked a show in clubs and theaters, they usually sold out pretty quickly. They were known for clever songs with clever hooks, toe-tapping rockers and sensitive ballads, as well as for one other thing.

Nick himself.

He was more than easy on the eyes, and women of all ages agreed he was, as my Mom liked to put it, "a nice snack".

Tall, over six feet, and solid, one of those guys who looked like they spent a lot of their lives in the gym, he had movie-star looks. A tanned face with a strong jaw, an easy smile, gleaming white teeth, piercing blue eyes, and hair that was always styled to look not styled, what had always impressed me over all of that attractive stuff was his voice, which was a seriously strong and rich tenor, with some smooth baritone qualities mixed in.

Once we were both securely on our feet, he looked at me, at first casually and then with sudden interest, his eyebrows furrowing a little bit, like he couldn't believe something, and then he snap-turned his head and looked at the door I'd just come out of, adorned with a sign that said the words 'Performers Only' on it, and then he looked back at me, and his mouth came open slightly.

He looked at the door again, and the sign, and then back at me.

Then he pointed at the door.

"Was that...?" he asked, and then looked back and forth a third time. I could see confusion on his face.

"Are you....?" and he couldn't finish that thought either.

Finally, staring intently at my face, it was as if the light bulb went off, over his head, like in the comics.

"Martina?" he asked, that rich voice inhibited slightly, as if he was trying not to offend me, in case he was wrong.

I nodded my head, once.

Nick just looked at me, and I couldn't tell what the he was thinking. A mix of things, I assumed.

He looked back at the door again, one final time, and then back at me.

"Goddamn," he said, "I... I don't know what to say... I... it's like, wow, holy shit."

I didn't know what to say either. I'd never met a famous person before, even if he wasn't a national household name yet, and I couldn't think of anything that didn't make me sound like a bubbling fool.

So we stood in silence, and stared at each other, until he began to show a slow, wry smile.

"You've got a great voice," he finally said.

"Thank you."

He laughed. "Goddamn. I have to admit it... I had no idea, watching you sing tonight, that you're a... I mean... that you're not a... a... well, you know..."

"A real woman?" I finished his sentence for him.

"Yeah," he answered, his surprise and astonishment evident in his voice, followed by his next thought, the obvious question on his mind.

"So... why...?" and he pointed to the door again.

"Why was I dressed like a woman?" I asked, and he nodded five times quickly, letting me know he was extremely curious in the answer, so I told him.

"It was for fun, that's all. The two ladies in the band didn't think it was fair that the new singer got to wear normal stuff while they had to dress for the occasion."

His bottom lip pressed out just a wee bit, like he'd considered my answer and it made some sort of sense to him.

"You were great, really great," he replied.

"Thank you again."

"No, seriously," he added, "you were unreal great. Like, I fell in love with your voice on the very first song, and when you did the two Frankie Valli tunes, you completely destroyed the place."

Getting words like that from him, someone of his stature, took away from the sadness I'd been feeling, and it warmed me up again, in my heart, so I thanked him for a third time.

A few moments of staring later, he asked me if I wanted to get a drink with him, because he was hoping to talk to me about something.

"I can't," I answered.

"You can't have a drink with me?"

I felt a little embarrassed, but I told him.

"I can't have a drink at all," I said, somewhat sheepishly, "I'm not old enough. I don't turn nineteen until a couple of weeks from now."

He held it in for a few seconds, because he didn't want to make fun of me probably, but then he grinned.

"Okay. How about this, then? The hotel has an all-night restaurant. Can I buy you a cup of coffee before you go? I don't think it's a felony for that, is it?"

So I said okay, and then he asked for just a minute or two, so he could go in and say his congrats to the rest of the band, on what a great show they'd done, which made me realize he thought I was with them, that I was one of them.

"They're gone now," I said, stopping him in his tracks.

"They are? Gone? Already?"

That curious questioning look came back on his face.

"So... you're not actually one of The Rhythm Merchants?"

I shook my head.

"No, I was just a fill-in vocalist for four nights."

Then I babbled a bit and told him how I'd gotten hired, and how I drove in every night, and he nodded when I told him my neighborhood, like he'd been there before, and then he walked us through a bunch of hallways and we finally ended up in the restaurant, where we took a c-shaped booth in the back.

"I'm Nick," and he shook my hand, which was warm and tender and his hand enveloped mine.

"Martin," I replied.

"So, Martin, you've done lots of gigs before this one?" he asked, and when I answered no, he was stunned, doing his own babbling, about my stage presence and my control and range, and how he'd only popped his head in for a moment, at the beginning of the first set, only expecting to stay for a few minutes, but that once he'd heard the band, who were 'tight', and once he'd heard my voice, which was 'dominating', he had to stay, for both sets.

"I don't suppose you noticed me, under the lights and all, hell I know what that's like, it's so fucking bright on stage, but I took a bunch of pictures on my phone, and most of them are of you. You're beautiful, you know?"

The waitress broke her open-mouthed gaze at Nick and asked me three times what I wanted to drink, but I couldn't answer her, lost in thought about someone, anyone, taking pictures of me and thinking me beautiful, so Nick answered for me, ordering two coffees, which is the drink I'd agreed to have with him, and then he said we'd think about whether we wanted to order food later.

Sliding on the vinyl curved cushions of the booth with astonishing agility, suddenly Nick was sitting right next to me, his right leg touching my left leg, with his phone in his hand, showing me the first pic he'd taken and then cycling through the rest, most without saying anything, but making comments about a few. There was one shot of the horn section as they boogied that made him laugh, "they're having a blast, you can tell", and then again at a picture of The Slinkettes, although Rhonda's head is turned a little bit more than Tish and I, so you can't really see much of her face. But there were at least a dozen photos of me, that he'd zoomed in for, each one showing a different level of concentration and glee on my face.

My made-up face. With my thick flowing hair, and my tight slutty dress, and my silky legs, and my shiny high heels.

"You love singing. It's written all over your face. Look at that glow you have! I've known a lot of great musicians and performers who just look horribly awkward on stage, but not you. You were born for it."

I thanked him a bunch of times, for his kind words, especially coming from somebody who was a little famous, and destined for greatness. So I mentioned that I'd seen his band play once, at an all-ages charity show for the Children's Hospital, not exaggerating one bit that I loved their songs, and their stage show, and he thanked me a bunch of times.

"But it's not my band," he interjected. "I sing the leads, and play a little guitar, and help compose the songs, but it's not my band. It's a group effort, everything, from the writing to the arranging to the business stuff. I've known the boys since grade school, we're best friends."

When the waitress came back with our coffees, we were still sitting side-by-side, our legs touching. I realized quickly that I had no reason to object to a relative stranger sitting so close to me, because deep-down and at the surface, the touch of someone else was warm and heavenly, it was affirming. She handed him his cup and saucer with a glorious grin, but I barely rated an insincere smile.

Nick was just looking at me.

"I still can't believe that you're a guy."

Before I could say anything, he got a little red-faded.

"Wait, sorry, take two, I meant to say that I still can't believe that Martina isn't a woman. Obviously you're a guy. I can see that. And I hope this doesn't embarrass you, but you are a great... you know..."

"Drag queen?" I asked.

He shook his head, strongly.

"No, no, not like that. Drag queens are so over-the-top, you know? Which I'm totally cool with, by the way, like, it's a great gig and it's their shtick, their, you know, avenue for their creativity. So good for them, honestly. But no, I wasn't going to say drag queen."

Then he paused.

"I was going to say that, honestly, I thought you made a beautiful woman. Pretty, sexy, and hot. Not all done up like drag queens, not over-the-top with the hair and the makeup and the mannerisms. You had me convinced you were an alluring and sensual woman. A natural woman."

I felt my face flush a little red.

"Thank you."

Nick shrugged it off, but then his stare at me got intense.

"Like," he said, his voice subdued, "I was seriously going to ask Martina out on a date, that's how beautiful you were."

Before I could say anything, he spoke again.

"Are. Not were. That's how beautiful you are. Because you are."

The flush of red on my skin became an ocean.

Another awkward silence fell on us, his eyes boring into mine.

"Anyway," he finally offered, "you said earlier that you've done studio work, right?" and when I concurred, he kept talking, "which is why I wanted to talk to Martina."

With an easy smile and no pretense, just one musician talking to another, he told me that there was a major label that was "this close" to signing The Elementals to a three-record deal, with options for more, and they were currently in the studio recording a brand new song, with a producer picked by the record company and flown in from L. A., a song that Nick was sure would go big around the world.

"See, the thing is, I have this sound, in my head, that should be in the mix of the song," he explained, "although I can never pinpoint it, you know?" I didn't, but I let him go on. "Like, I don't know the notes yet, is what I mean, but I've been chewing on it for weeks, since we wrote the song. It's like, it's hard to explain, but it's like there's something in the distance, that I just can't reach yet, like I keep stretching my arms out to touch it, but it's just too far away, but I have to grab it, because it's the final touch on the song, the last step, the one that's going to blow it out of the fucking water."

Then his stare at me got more intense.

"Now, after hearing you sing, I know that you're the sound."

In my shock, I simply stared at him.

"Me?"

"You. Martina." Then he smiled. "Martina's voice. As soon as I heard it, I knew it was the sound. You have a certain big rich tone, right, along with all that power and control, and, like, holy shit, you've got a fuck-ton of range, high through low, and that's why I didn't leave the gig tonight like I'd planned. I knew it from the get-go, that you were the sound this song needs, hanging over top of what the boys have arranged."

The waitress, obviously agog about serving a celebrity, came back again and interrupted, asking if we wanted food, which Nick offered to buy for me, but I wasn't hungry.

Once she walked away, disappointed, he looked seriously at me again.

"So, would you be willing to do some recording with us?", and before I could answer he added, "we'll pay you, obviously."

Then he smiled.

"Whatever you want. We're using record company money, so there's lots of it."

So I of course said yes, and he took out a business card from his pocket and wrote the address down on the back of it.

"Can you be there at noon?" he asked.

"Tomorrow?" I asked, surprised at the immediacy of it, and then looked at my watch, "I mean, later today? That noon?"

Nick smiled.

"That noon."

He walked me to my car, after we finished our coffees and chatted about music in general, and singing specifically. He was curious as to my warm-up routine, so I explained how I did the usual humming trills that all vocal coaches teach, but then I get into a pattern of ascending and descending scales in thirds, and sang a little bit to him, quietly demonstrating, so as not to disturb the few other late-night noshers, and he marvelled at my process, making me promise him that I'd lead him and the other guys in the band through that same warm-up at noon.

When he reached out to grab my hand to shake it, like men do, for just a second I was certain he was going to pull me into a hug, and I instantly found myself hoping he would, but we parted after he let go of me.

I wore the panties and the dress and the shoes while I made love to myself, once home, almost two hours of black men with white men, the sucking and the fucking and making love, and some of them with real intimate kissing and caressing, which totally sent my heart flying, but perhaps because of Nick, I also watched some clips featuring white men with feminine-presenting white men.

When I blasted off, after my adrenaline had stopped pumping finally and the emotional and physical exhaustion of my day caught up with me, making sleep an imminent necessity, the last vid I watched was of a white 'Daddy', making love to a younger white man, late teens or early twenties, who wore panties and stockings and lipstick, but otherwise didn't go whole hog on a wig or make-up or clothes, and it was the most beautiful and lyrical presentation I'd ever seen.

The intensity in their eyes, as they went through the foreplay and oral and finally got down to business was chilling. Maybe they were just actors, paid to do a job, but there was no way either of them were faking how they felt. Primal desire beamed out of both of them. Daddy's animalistic need to penetrate was matched tooth and nail with his lovers' animalistic requirement to be taken, to be penetrated, to be filled with hot cock. The both of them got to a frenzied pace after extended minutes of gentle love-making, their bodies eventually slamming into each other, muscles rippling and flesh bouncing, until cum was flying from them and me.

I was ten minutes late to the studio.

Nick waved off my apologies, and introduced me to the guys in the band. There was Dave, the drummer, who preferred to be called Rivet, owing to his occasional daytime job of working at his family's metalwork shop, and Skip, the bass player, who embodied the old musician's cliché, which was that, other than Paul McCartney, the bass player was always the ugliest guy in the band. Gary, the keyboard player, who they all called Gray, a play on his name and the fact that barely into his twenties he already had a few white hairs on his head, mostly in his sideburns. And finally, Steve, the main guitarist, who had a lit cigarette dangling out of his mouth at all times, and looked like he was perpetually mellow.

While I was shaking their hands, I could see them give little looks to Nick, asides, like, this kid? This is the guy with the amazing voice? Are you serious?

The producer, a tall freaky older dude who was trying to look decades younger, was Keith. I didn't catch his last name, but he spieled of a list of people he'd worked with, and I'd heard of most of them. Three engineers all nodded their hellos, all of them uninterested.

To begin, they decided to warm up with one of their older songs, which I'd heard a few times, on the radio and at that one show, but before they started, Nick wanted to warm up his voice, so I ran him through my routine, and Gray and Steve joined in, because they did b. g.'s, all of them visibly impressed the second I started making sound, giving new aside looks to Nick, like, holy shit, you were right!

The engineers had set up an isolation booth for Nick to sing in, and one for me as well, so they could control the sound. The booths had windows in them, so we could all see each other. Everybody was wearing headphones. Since I had no part in the song, I stood and watched the band, and how they worked together, how they meshed their individual musical creations into one unified sound, which was thrilling, because they rocked it, to a man.

Moved by the spirit and energy of the music and the band, I began singing along, not even knowing the words, for my own amusement only, thinking that none of them could even hear me, adding to my warm-up routine for the most part, until at the end of the second chorus I was moved and belted out a harmony I heard in my head, and watched Nick's eyes open wide, almost shocked, and then he looked at Gray, who was looking back at Nick with the same reaction.

When the song was over, the last note fading away, the producer jumped on the talk-back mic, which we could all hear in our headphones, demanding to know "who was singing the ninth?"

I sheepishly put my hand up, and quietly said, "me."

Nick practically screamed into his mic.

"That fucking kicked ass!"

Gray agreed, as did the other three guys.

Rivet looked at me and asked, "where'd you learn to sing like that?" and when I shrugged and told him it just came naturally to me, he grinned.

"Lucky you."

Keith had the band play the song again, and again, recording it each time, until the fourth take, when he instructed everyone to come into the control room and listen to it. Everyone, even the engineers, looked seriously impressed, as Keith made minor little adjustments on the board during the play-back. A little reverb here, some chorus there, a gate on that part.

"Big fucking hit," was all he said, when it was done.

Gray stuck his hand up in the air for me, so we high-fived.

"Man, I thought that song couldn't get any better, but you fucking destroyed it!"

Nick kept staring at me, a huge smile on his face, almost smug, like I'd confirmed his opinions to his partners, or even outdone them.

Then the work began. They played the new song, that Nick had mentioned last night. It was called "To Be Real", a down-tempo moody song, but not slow enough to be called a ballad. Lyrically, it seemed quite emotional, as Nick sang them, someone sadly regretting past decisions, love unnecessarily lost, with a chorus that saw his voice soaring, right near the top of his range, but not so high that his voice was strained. I felt the remorse, the angst, and the self-critical regret sear into my heart, making me think he'd written the words himself, and that they came from personal experience.

I don't know why these things happen, but as soon as Nick talked about 'the sound' that he'd heard but couldn't pinpoint, like he'd mentioned in the restaurant, he used the word 'haunting', and that word instantly gave me an idea, so on the second pass, I sang simple notes, no words, above his voice, trying to match his emotions without getting all theatrical about it, and I watched the guys in the studio and the guys in the control room all, at one point or another, shake their heads in amazement or just grin or bop their heads harder.

When it was over, the last fading note of the synthesizer finally gone, I opened my eyes, and Nick was glaring at me, so much so that I worried I might have overstepped some line or something. Our mics were still open, still hot, and he breathed out his thoughts.

"Goddamn. That was beautiful."

Gray agreed.

"Fucking amazing, man."

We all went into the control room again, to listen.

Keith played the song three times, in a row, leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed.

"Jesus," was all he said.

Then, after people started talking and bragging that NOW the song was perfect, Keith asked me if I could sing a certain note, a different harmony, at a certain time, in the b-section, so I said sure, of course, and went back into the studio without the band, to add another track.

Nick followed me, and went into his iso booth, just to watch me.

I got it in one take.

Everybody crowded around the big board and Keith turned up the sound blasting through the studio monitors, the massive JBL's hung from the ceiling. He'd explained earlier that his nickname was 'High Gain', because he always turned up the volume to the max, enough to occasionally blow speaker cones, and he wasn't kidding.

I closed my eyes, and listened, letting the song get into me, letting it move me in the direction my heart wanted to take it, and when it was over I could just hear it as a top-forty chart-topper. It sounded great too, whatever processing and effects they were using.

When I opened my eyes, after the last note had faded away, everybody was looking at me.

Keith spoke first.

Turning to look straight at Nick, the old man smiled, and then grinned.

"The label is going to go bat-shit crazy when they hear this," he said, "I guarantee it. I've been doing this a long time, so I know what I'm talking about. You boys got yourself a massive fucking hit now. They'll be falling all over themselves to sign you, long term. It was already a great song, but the kid just made it fly."

They all looked back at me again.

Then Gray looked at Nick, and said, "hey, what about the Playhouse?"

Nick knew what he was talking about, but I didn't.

"We have a gig coming up," he explained, "a couple of weeks from now, at the Playhouse." I knew where it was, and how big a venue it was. "It's a showcase gig, the label set it up, and a whole bunch of the suits are flying in from L. A. to see us play. It's kinda our final chance to seal the deal."

And then, after a moment or two of silence, Nick gazed at me and grinned.

"You should come sing with us," he said, "be part of the band."

Gray nodded, like he totally agreed.

The other guys looked like they weren't objecting.

Gray said, to no one in particular, "he'd need to learn the whole set, in a hurry. And, we'd probably have to come up with new arrangements, maybe, on some songs, just to work in that sound, make good use of that incredible voice."

Keith clapped his hands together like he'd just won a prize or something.

"I can't wait to produce your first full record. Between the songs you already have and this new one, adding that kid's voice is just like icing on the cake."

Nick looked at Keith.

"He hasn't said yes yet."

Keith looked at me.

"What're you, a fucking idiot? Say yes already."

I looked at Nick, straight into his eyes.

"Yes already."

This time, he did hug me. Not as tall as Robinson, he still wrapped me in his arms, almost smothering me with his body, which was strong and solid, and after more staid hugs from everybody else, except for Keith and the engineers, who didn't hug me at all, he wrote the address down to their rehearsal room for me and told me, "tomorrow afternoon, three-ish or so, okay?"

Then he gave me a dub CD of a bunch of their songs, so I could learn them.

That night, after the house was quiet, and I was the only one still awake, I slipped into my Slinkette clothes again, the panties and the bra and the shoes and the dress, and masturbated for as long as I could, edging and edging until I couldn't edge no more, videos of men having sex with other men playing non-stop on my laptop, missing Robinson, and rueing that I didn't get to take his cock into my ass, just once, to try it out, the last genre of physical music I'd not tried yet, one particular movement from the symphony of my life that was still unrequited.

Rehearsals began. The guys were all supportive, and enthusiastic, especially when I added harmonies they hadn't considered, or hit the ones they suggested with all my energy, in a couple of cases freeing up Gray to change his keyboard arrangements slightly, which he was totally getting into.

Nick just smiled. All day, even during the songs, he grinned and grinned, positively beaming with the joy of making music.

At one point, I asked them why they were called The Elementals, and with a grin on his face, Rivet said, "because we met in elementary school and we're all mental."

When they finally called it a night, Nick hugged me again, and unlike the first one, I hugged him back, harder, and we just seemed to fit together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Outside, declining an offer to hit a bar with the guys, not telling them that I wasn't old enough, although Nick knew, I was almost jumped by about a half dozen women, rushing at me as I came out of the door, only to watch their faces get disappointed when they didn't recognize me, realizing that I wasn't in the band, at which point they gave up and stopped. They were all in their late teens, or early twenties, and dressed to impress. Tight jeans, and lots of cleavage showing on most of them. One of them was wearing the shortest mini-skirt I'd ever seen, her legs smooth and silky with some sort of hosiery, and while I did admire how sexy she looked, the prominent thought in my head was wondering how it felt for her to wear sexy, provocative clothes like that, and that maybe I'd love to wear a skirt that short one day, just to try it.

They were fans, I realized, hoping to get autographs, or maybe more. It is rock'n'roll, I realized, and the guys were men, so it was entirely probable that any of the women might have gone all the way. I'd heard the stories of the lore.

On the fourth day, I got there a little earlier than I was expected to, and when I walked into the big room, Gray and Steve and Rivet were huddled around Nick, who had his phone in his hands, all of them focussed on the screen. When Nick realized I was there, he immediately shut his phone down, acting like it was nothing, but I could see in his eyes that he was worried about something.

Then I put two and two together and came up with Martina.

He was showing them the pics he'd taken of me, that night.

Every one of them were just a little too enthusiastic in their hellos, trying to pretend like nothing out of the ordinary had happened, that nothing unusual was going on, and even though I felt a little weird about it, I played along and let them.

Rehearsal was electric. All of them were just cooking, the energy in the room undeniable, and more than once I could see each of them look at me, staring but trying to not get caught, and I could tell they were comparing the male me in front of them to the feminine me they'd seen in the pictures.

A couple of hours later, taking a break, Gray came up to me in the lounge, where I was making myself a cup of tea, and tried to act casual about things, idly talking about one song in particular, and how he loved what I was adding to it, and while I could tell he meant it, there was something else on his mind. Intuition told me he was trying to figure out a way to talk about Martina without running the risk of possibly offending me.

So I wrestled up some courage and gave him an out.

"Did Nick ever tell you about when he first heard me sing?" I asked, pretending to not know, and he replied that the story he'd heard was that I was a background singer for a lounge act, a truly generic description, so I filled him in with the details, the musical ones, the style of the songs, the doo-wop genre, as my Dad had called it, and he played along and commented on a couple of the song titles I mentioned, that he liked them, or didn't, until he wrestled up some courage of his own and smiled sheepishly and quietly said, "and Nick says they made you dress up?"

"It's show biz, right?" I asked, and he nodded, "so they wanted me to wear the same things the other background singers were wearing."

"But the other singers were women, correct?"

"Yes."

"So... so... they made you wear a... a dress? And, like, the shoes, and the make-up? The whole works?"

I nodded.

"That's the uniform."

He nodded, saying nothing, but bubbled like he had a thousand questions.

"Nick took some pictures, now that I think about it. Did he show you any?" I asked, still pretending to not know.

Gray hesitated, and then smiled, and then smiled some more, finally enthusiastically nodding.

"You looked hot."

I didn't know how to respond to that, other than blushing.

"If you don't mind me saying," he qualified.

And there was no point in denying that I'd worn the gear, and loved it, so I shrugged and smiled.

"I don't mind, I guess."

"You looked really hot," he added, with a bunch of emphasis on the word 'really'.

"Thanks," I replied, and then a thought entered into my brain and poured right of my mouth. "Nobody ever called me hot before, when I was just plain old Martin."

Now it was Gray's turn to blush.

The rest of the rehearsal was equally vibrant, everybody singing and playing with enormous energy, until Rivet had to leave for some reason, so Nick called it a night, even though it was barely evening, and the guys slowly filtered out, until just Gray and Nick were left, and me.

Nick and Gray exchanged looks, filled with nervousness.

"Martin," Nick began, his voice almost somber, "Look, I should have asked you first, so I apologize, and please don't be mad at me or hate me, but," and he took a deep breath, "I showed some of the pictures I took of you that night to the guys, so, just so you know, they know about Martina."

All I could think of to say was, "oh."

Then he looked at me like a schoolboy, caught doing something.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I really should have got your permission, right?"

I shrugged. On the one hand, it was completely out of the ordinary, and potentially embarrassing, but on the other hand, it was part of the public record, whether I liked it or not, so there was nothing I could do about it.

Plus, every time I thought about those four nights, especially the last one, when I was completely done up, as womanly as I could get, remembering how insanely excited it'd made me, and how I'd never felt freer or sexier, blood would rush inside me like cars at the Indy 500 and my heart would start beating faster, like it meant it.

"Okay," I replied.

Gray decided to get into the conversation.

"Have you...?"

And then he stopped.

"Have I what?" I asked.

He thought about something, exchanged another quick look with Nick, and then shook his head, like he wasn't going to go there.

"Nothing, don't worry about it."

"No, no," I insisted, "go ahead."

"Well," he started, and then paused, "have you ever thought about, I don't know, maybe doing it again? Doing it as part of the performing you?"

Nick almost jumped to his feet.

"Look, nobody's pressuring you, at all," he said, "we just want you to feel like you can be whoever you want to be, however you want to be, you know? We don't have any rules about style, or how we present ourselves, as a band or as individual people. Everybody is who they are, that's what the rule is. We're not stuck on image, or how people who play our kind of music are supposed to look like. The standard clichés. We don't give a shit about fashion, none of us. It's all about the music, that's it."

"And you guys have great music," I said.

"And you make the music better," Gray replied, right away, "every song, and we're fucking ecstatic having you sing with us, having you be a part of the band."

I wordlessly thanked him with a look.

"So," Nick took over, "you be you. You do you, on stage or off."

"Okay."

Then he looked at me, with an intensity that I usually only saw when he was singing his heart out.

"But we were thinking," he almost whispered, "that if you ever had the urge to be Martina again, that it would be totally cool with us. Especially on stage, you know?"

Gray jumped in again.

"It'd give the audience something gorgeous to look at."

I looked at him, seriously.

"They're already looking at something gorgeous."

Then I pointed at Nick.

"Him."

Nick looked more than surprised.

"You think I'm gorgeous?"

I had to laugh, out loud.

"C'mon Nick," I protested, "you can't be that naïve, surely. You're, like, a ten, on anybody's list. Even my Mom thinks you're a 'nice snack', that's what she calls you, and she's old," and he warmly smiled, "I mean, you have to know that, don't you?"

In his face, I could see something similar to Saturday night, after my gig, when he looked at me as if I was the one that was something special, and my blood started rushing around again.

"Every woman will be staring at you, not me, and I bet most if not all the guys too, even if they wouldn't admit it. Hell, I could be naked and nobody'd be looking at little old me."

Gray shook his head.

"I totally disagree."

"You do?"

He did a half-shrug.

"Sure, okay, lots of them will be watching Nick, that part's true. He's a good-looking guy. But," and he paused, "I guarantee you having Martina on stage would generate a whole lot of attention as well."

"Freak show attention," I said, "that's all."

"Bullshit!" Nick blurted out, "you had me fooled, that night, remember? I seriously thought you were, you know, a real woman, until I met you after you'd changed back into Martin. And it wasn't just what you were wearing, although that was frickin hot. It was the way you moved, the way the music moved you, the way you showed your absolute love for the songs and the energy you created, it was all so, I don't know, sensual. In a word, it was... well hell, it was breathtaking."

"And when it comes to pussy, Nick's a fucking hound dog," Gray added, "so if he was that attracted to you, to Martina, so completely enamored with her, just imagine how every other guy is going to feel."

"Didn't you notice?" Nick said, "The energy in the room here tonight? The guys were killing it, knowing what Martina looks like, and it inspired them. Whatever you want to call it, I don't know, let's call it mystique, having that in the room, that feminine vibe thing you send off, not just with your voice, combined with all the testosterone from us, it's that mix that might just catapult us to the next level. That's what could get us signed."

Then I watched him realize something, some random thought.

"But no pressure. I'm not saying if you don't do it we'll never succeed, no. It's the music, first and foremost. And your input, your, um... what's the fucking word I need?" and he turned to Gray, who answered, "sensibilities," which Nick nodded at, "your sensibilities, that's it, the qualities that you add, they come from a different direction than we have, and they make what we do so much better, so maybe, what we're thinking is, maybe if Martina was in the room, or on the stage, we'd just play better, with more passion, you know?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and yet the idea of it was pinging on my intrigue strings.

"You want me to dress up?"

Nick took a big step towards me and smiled.

"No, it's not what we want," he said, his voice calm again, "it has to be what you want."

I looked at Gray.

"And you aren't worried it'd be a distraction? Like, it might take away from what the band is doing to have a, well, to have a cross-dresser, or transvestite, or whatever you want to call it, up there?"

Gray shook his head.

"Nah. The whole androgynous thing is cool, has been for years, right? And I'm not saying you're androgynous, because you're fucking light years ahead of that. But, you know, Alice Cooper dressed up and wore make-up, and there's not anybody criticising that. Hell, Kiss made a whole fucking career out of wearing weird clothes and make-up."

"Boy George," Nick spoke out. "Pretty big success, and he was fucking ugly."

We all laughed.

"So I'd be a... a gimmick?"

Both of them jumped in.

"No, no, not like that."

Nick came up closer to me.

"You'd just be you," he said, softly, "that's all. And of course some people might figure it out, maybe. But so what? Are we worried that somebody might get offended at us? For having a... for having someone who is a little alternative? No! Fuck them."

Gray nodded.

"Marilyn Manson," he said, "he's way out there, to all the mainstream folks, and whether you like his songs or not, you have to admit he could sing and scream like nobody's business, and he was pretty big for a few years."

"Just think about it, okay?" Nick said, "no pressure from us, either way."

"And the other guys would be okay with it, if I did?" I asked, prompting both of them to nod.

"Are you kidding?" Nick scoffed, "Rivet said he'd ask you to marry him."

I said I'd think about it.

All three of us left at the same time, and again there was a gaggle of people outside the door, women, waiting for the stars, which wasn't me, which meant I could walk by all of them without any trouble.

I leaned back inside the door and warned Nick he was about to get mobbed by some hot women, so he peeked out the door and then leaned down and whispered in my ear.

"Yeah, they're hot. But, they're all trying way too hard to look sexy, whereas Martina, she does it without even thinking about it. She does it naturally."

All my masturbation that night was without videos. Instead, I created movie clips in my head, of Martina, in different clothes every time, the sexiest lingerie and the skimpiest dresses, super high heels, and long flowing hair, as free as the freest bird who ever lived, free to fly according to her own desires.

And in every single clip I created, a nearly two-hour montage, all of the men I was kissing and sucking and making love with looked an awful lot like Nick.

In my dreams, he always had a rock-hard body.

The next day, at rehearsal, I got the immediate vibe that Gray and Nick had told the others about the conversation we'd had, because they were all practically bubbling with enthusiasm, every song ripping along, even the slow ones, fueled by a group energy that was noticeable.

At one point, when Nick came over to me to work on the vocal phrasing of one particular line, while the boys took five, out of nowhere he looked at me, and, in a quiet voice, asked.

"You really think I'm gorgeous?"

I stared straight up into his eyes.

"What?"

"Last night," he smiled, "you said I was gorgeous. Did you mean it?"

I didn't have to think about it at all.

"You're the most gorgeous man I ever saw."

For second after second, we just gazed at each other.

"Goddamn," he breathed out, and was about to say more when the guys came back in the room.

My days were filled with making music with the guys, and my nights spent masturbating by myself, as Martina, wearing lingerie and a dress and high heels. Both made my spirits soar, and both made me orgasm, although the musical cums were strictly in my heart and soul.

Two days before the big showcase gig, a couple of things struck me.

One, I realized that if the gig went past midnight, I'd technically be an adult when it was over.

And two, I didn't have a clue how to do my own make-up, if I was going to go all the way and become Martina.

I found a quiet moment and expressed my concern to Nick.

"So you're going to do it?" he asked, enthusiastically, and I had to temper him a bit.

"Maybe," I said, watching his smile go ballistic, "but if I do, I'd need help, with painting my face."

Nick pulled out a wad of folding money from his pocket.

"I know a chick, Shelly, she does make-up for models at fashion shows and weddings and stuff, she'll help. And here's some cash," he said, handing me everything in his hands, "go buy whatever you like that you think looks sexy, whatever makes you think it yells out the word 'Martina', okay?"

I just stood there and gawked at him.

"What?" he asked.

"I've never shopped for clothes before, women's or men's. My Mom has always bought my stuff for me. I wouldn't even know where to start."

Nick pulled out his phone.

"Shelly'll help."

The day before the big gig I met Nick's friend Shelly, who was quite pretty, if you don't count the huge gaudy tattoo on her entire bare arm that spelled out the word, 'dyke' in horrendously huge block letters, at the front entrance of the mall, and I could tell instantly that she'd already seen the pictures of me as Martina, because there was no fooling around. She said a gruff 'hi' and took me straight down the aisle to one particular store, and I had to walk really fast, almost running, to keep up with her, and in less than half an hour I had a basket full of stuff, panties and thigh-high stockings in a variety of colors, and two specific sets of lingerie, bra and panty and garter belt and stockings combinations, one in a deep blue that was so dark I thought it was black, and one in white, as gleaming as freshly-fallen snow.

"Guys love the whole virginal thing about white," she said.

She didn't give me time to explain to her that I needed her help to become Martina for the band, for the gig, and not because I was trying to attract guys.

Then I remembered how all the Rhythm Merchants had reacted, especially Robinson, who'd ended up being the first man I ever kissed, and the first man I ever gave a blow-job to, as well as the first man I ever thought about having sex with.

My heart filled with joy, at those memories.

Nick's face appeared in my head, and I realized I was probably pursuing the whole Martina thing again just for him, or at least mostly for him. Gray seemed to like the idea too, and he was a great guy, but I didn't feel the same things about him that I did with Nick.

There was something there, I knew. From me at least.

Was he interested in me? Or, more to the point, was he after the feminine me?

Walking around a mall with a lingerie store shopping bag in your hands, when you're a guy, gets you looks from other people. Women and men would casually peer and then go on with their day, but some of them would commit to a second look, and even a third, and I could almost imagine what they were wondering and thinking.

Who's the lucky woman he's buying for?

If only they knew.

When Shelly and I walked into the trendy fashion store near the food court, I saw clothes that radiated to my senses. Just the materials of the skirts and dresses and blouses I saw alone were enough to give me a rising erection, a world of possibilities erupting in my brain from the silky satiny sleek fabrics, comparing styles and cuts, trying to determine which would actually look good on me and which wouldn't, seeing some garments that reminded me of what certain gurls were wearing in certain gay sex videos I'd watched.

Gurls like me. Gurls who wanted to let their femininity out, while still retaining their masculine raging sex drives.

Shelly claimed that her and the sales lady were complete strangers, and yet within thirty seconds they were acting like besties, including lots of laughs and longing looks and casual touches between them, which made me wonder if there was some lesbian vibes going on that I couldn't possibly pick up.

Shelly had an eye for stuff, that was for sure. Everything she looked at, studiously considering in her mind's eye how it might look on me, on my body, led to more than a handful of hangars in her hands, close to a dozen, giving the garments to me one at a time while I went into the change room, smiling at Penny, the sales lady, talking about how this was all for a special event, show biz, and Penny just nodded politely, probably seeing nothing but a great sales total for the day. I'd worn the only pair of panties I owned, thanks to Rhonda and Tish, so when I came out of the change room, to stare into the floor-length mirror along with the two women, there were no lines where there shouldn't be, no bunched-up tighty-whities under the thin soft fabrics.

Two dresses stood out, to me.

One was what they both called a 'body con' dress, as tight and clingy as anything, black as coal, except for two geometrically-shaped white parts, running up and down my sides, from hips to underarm, thin at the ends and thicker in the middle, rounded, that looked like footballs that had been stretched and elongated, and were there specifically to fool whoever was looking at me head-on into believing that I had an hourglass figure. It was eye-popping on me.

The second dress was like a dream. As thin as crepe paper, and long, all the way to the floor, it had a high collar, long sleeves, a peek-a-boo neckline, and covered every square inch of my body without showing any flesh. The material looked wet and clingy, on purpose, as if whoever was wearing it had just walked in out of a rainstorm and their dress was sticking to their skin, and was a color I didn't know what to call. It looked like someone had mixed the brown of milk chocolate with some ash-grey and mustard thrown in. I'd never seen anything like it, and couldn't wait to slip into it and try it on.

Between the bust and the hips it was gathered, 'rouching' the ladies called it, and there was a vent, a gap in the material, running from the bottom hem all the way up to just behind the knees, at the back. Shelly said the tightness of the dress, almost like a pencil-skirt, would inhibit my walking a little bit, but for just standing on the stage and singing it would "fucking rock".

Penny took one look at my groin, which was obvious under the material, because I was excited, and whispered into Shelly's ear, who looked between my legs herself and then nodded her agreement.

"Are we trying to fool the audience completely into thinking you're a real woman, or just shock them with the idea of a guy dressed like a girl?" she asked.

The only answer I could come up with was, "a little of both, I guess."

They both nodded.

"Then that's the dress."

Make-up and hair products numbered in the thousands at the store, and I was silently thanking the stars that Shelly was with me, because I'd have had no clue whatsoever what to buy or which brands to get, but like a tutor she explained everything as we walked up and down the aisles. Such and such a thing for this, such and such a thing for that.

"I'm only doing this favor for Nick once," she said, "because he got me a date with his girlfriends' sister one time, and she turned out to be the love of my life."

I looked at her with surprise.

"Nick's got a girlfriend? He's never mentioned that."

Shelly looked at me funny.

"His girlfriend at the time. This was a couple of years ago. As far as I know, he's single now, and from what I heard he's dipping every woman he meets. Every woman with a pulse, that is."

I had to giggle.

"Dipping?"

She shook her head, as if I was a child who shouldn't be asking stupid questions, so it quickly occurred to me that 'dipping' obviously meant screwing.

I couldn't believe how much the bill was, at the counter, for all the skin products and make-up that she bought for me, as well as the small pile of jewelry, necklaces and rings and bracelets and one set of earrings that were golden triangles, which she threw in the basket. When I informed her that my ears weren't pierced she just waved it off, saying "I know a place." Heck, just the shampoos and conditioners, each specially formulated for specific hair qualities, dry or oily or whatever, seemed outrageously expensive, and when I mentioned it, Shelly just shook her head, and groused.

"Welcome to the real world," she complained, "women always have to pay way more money for all our stuff. Just look at the clothes, for fuck sakes. Do you think men would pay that much for shirts and pants? Not a fucking chance. And don't even get me started on dry cleaning."

I looked at her with confusion, which she seemed to get right away.

"Haven't you ever noticed? Men get their clothes dry cleaned for half the price women pay," she said. "It's fucking highway robbery!"

The guy with tattoos everywhere poked a hole in each of my earlobes, and stuck little round dull-gold studs in them, so the holes wouldn't close, and gave me a lecture about keeping everything clean, to avoid infection.

I was shaking with nerves, trying to figure out what I'd tell my parents when they saw me. There was no way they wouldn't notice.

She'd agreed with Nick to one tutorial session for me, which sped by like the blink of an eye, and I was a little panicked that I'd never remember everything she said, most especially the techniques for applying certain things, so out of 'the goodness of her heart', she offered to show up to the gig as well, early, but I had to pre-arrange a backstage pass for her.

Rehearsal was smoking. The anticipation of what might happen the next day was foremost on everybody's mind, and that nervous energy got applied to each person's performance. Plus, there were a few shared grins, almost smirks, seeing me with my ears pierced. Skip, the bass player, did some runs that he'd never done before, sparking looks of amazement from all of us, and Steve, despite being permanently stoned, or maybe because of it, added a chunky quality to his guitar work on a few songs that totally banged.

Afterwards, Nick gave me a look, a questioning one, which I knew meant he was asking about my shopping trip and my training with Shelly, so I smiled and let him know everything was good to go. He exchanged a glance with Gray, who seemed to get it as well.

Inside the back door, getting ready to leave, we could hear people outside.

I watched Nick's smile fade a little bit, surprised somewhat at his reaction to the prospect of groupies outside, some of whom would be absolute fucking babes and any guy's idea of hot, and how maybe it wasn't stoking his fire.

As if he knew what I was thinking, he shrugged.

"After a while, they're all the same, you know?"

I didn't.

Edith, the middle-aged woman with the bad posture, was the only notch in my bedpost, so far.

"So you're not going to...?"

Nick laughed.

"C'mon," he scoffed, "don't be ridiculous. Of course I'm going to. Most of them might be boring, but it's still pussy, right?"

I nodded, like I knew what he was saying.

I walked past the crowd without any of them giving me a second look, and I went home alone.

Luckily, it was late, everyone in bed, fast asleep, so I was safe from being caught with pierced ears, until the morning.

Even though I wanted nothing more in the world than to make love to myself wearing the dress, I couldn't risk rumpling it, or worse somehow tearing it, or even more worse covering it in my cum, staining it, so I just let it hang on the back of my bedroom door, while I alternated between watching clips of feminine men getting anally taken from behind, to made-up images of Nick doing the exact same thing to me, to the dress, back and forth.

When I woke up, close to noon, Dad was at work, and Mom had left me a note.

Gone for the day. Clean your room. Have a great gig tonight. Knock them dead. Luv.

Sound check was insane. Standing on the stage, looking at out the vast house, with the wide balcony level, thinking about how many people would be there tonight, a sold-out show, while the sound guys for the theater ran around stringing cables and checking monitors, it all made me jump inside. I was almost quivering.

With a few hours to go before we went on stage, the guys had stuff to do, so they left, but I decided to stay at the venue. I walked around backstage, in the wings, thinking about all the musical talent that had played there over the years, all the amazing performers who'd graced the stage, giving their all, every second of every night, and not because that's what the audience expected.

They did it because it was as much a part of them as breathing.

I decided I was going to give my all too. There was no other choice.

The guys got ready before I did. Nick rightly figured it would take me longer, so they cleared out of the dressing room early, and gave me my privacy.

He was wearing skin-tight vinyl pants, dark, and an over-sized button-up long-sleeve shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, untucked and loose, like the mood he was feeling. The top four buttons were undone, showing off a good peek at his chest, which looked tanned and flat and smooth and as masculine as anything imaginable.

When he graciously waved me in, the last to leave, he moved in a certain way and his shirt rode up a little, and there, in all its glory, showcased in the skin-tight shiny pants, was the obvious and completely mesmerizing sight of his cock and balls.

My mouth watered.

If he's that big soft, how big is he hard?

Is he Robinson big?

Shelly came in late, and got me ready.

"What's the look for tonight?" she asked, and when I didn't know how to answer, she prompted me.

"Mysterious? Sultry? Bright? Subdued? Girly?"

I didn't have a clue.

"Or flat-out slutty?"

I opted for mysterious and sultry combined.

She trimmed my eyebrows. She gave me smoky eyelids. She made my lashes long and thick. She made my cheekbones rosy and shiny, and my lips burst out, lustrous in their gleam, a dark shade of red.

When all was said and done, I stood on the heels that Rhonda and Tish had bought for me, in my new form-fitting dress and my make-up and my hair cascading around my face, no pony-tail bounce tonight, the triangles banging softly against the side of my neck, with my junk held under and back between my legs by my tight panties, giving me a natural curve, and both of us just stared into the full-length mirror in the dressing room, neither of us saying anything.

Shelly waited for a few moments, and then whistled.

"If you weren't a guy I'd fuck you in a second."

Waiting for me, the guys all stood up straighter when I walked out, their eyes almost bulging, each of them commenting at the same time, so I heard a "wow" and a "holy shit" and one "goddamn", which I knew had to be Nick, before I stood in front of them and smiled.

"How long until we go on?" I asked, and Gray said twenty minutes, so I began our vocal warm-ups, Skip and Dave not participating in that, just standing and gawking at me while they warmed their fingers up, trying not to get caught with their mouths open.

Just before the show, standing in the wings, they did their routine, which was to put their arms around each other's shoulders, in a huddle, and someone would say something inspirational. Nick waved me in, so I stood on his left and felt his big arm around my back, his hand resting on my shoulder, his finger immediately gently toying with my bra strap.

"Guys," he said, his voice full of energy, "we all know what's at stake here, the pressure and all, but you know what?" and then he paused, "fuck all that. Fuck it. Fuck the suits from L. A. We're a great band, so I say let's just go out there and kick some ass and have fun."

A chorus of "YEAH' rose up.

Nicks hand slipped down my back, slowly, tenderly, while he was talking, until his big hand was resting on the top of my left buttock, and he squeezed.

When the house lights went down, the crowd went nuts. We all took our places, slowly, in the dark of the unlit stage, and then Gray started fading in a low keyboard wash, the opening to their opening song, called "Run Run Run". At the appropriate moment, Nick began singing, long slow strong tones, "Can you feel the flame?" and the crowd cheered, and on the repeat of the phrase, Gray joined in with his harmony, and the crowd cheered again. The third phrase had Steve singing his note as well, the three of them making an awesome chord, just like they'd always done, like many of the fans in the audience had heard before.

This time, they'd added a fourth repeat.

I came in with them, above all three of them, and the house started shaking, until Rivet counted us in with four taps on the hi-hat, at which point the whole band came in as the stage lights came up, which felt like a nuclear bomb exploding, and three thousand people started screaming.

Instantly a crowd formed at the foot of the stage, people, mostly women, jumping up from their seats and rushing forward, standing and shaking, moving to the beat, and I couldn't get over how many of these hot ladies had that look in their eyes, the one that says that if Nick or anybody else in the band asked them to strip off and lie on the stage and get fucked, right there and then, in front of all these people, they'd do it in a heartbeat and not regret it one bit.

One man caught my attention. He was with his girlfriend, or wife, standing behind her in the crush, with his arms around her middle, holding her tightly, while she stood transfixed on Nick, two big points on two big tits. He, though, had the same focus, but on me.

Nick's voice rocked. The whole band rocked. Smiles were flashed between guys, the kind of smile that can't be matched.

I hit my notes exactly as we'd rehearsed them. Soft and tender when they wanted it, or 'soaring', as Nick often described it, creating at times an almost-ethereal quality to what they'd composed.

As always, I let the music move me. I danced, to myself, for myself, feeling the drive of the beat, at times doing the sway.

Because it's all about the sway.

Every song worked. When we got to their big power ballad, the one that in rehearsal Gray had called their "wet panty song", the ladies down front were beside themselves with lust, it was written on many faces, and Nick was prowling the stage, which he did every song that he wasn't playing back-up guitar, leaning over and staring into their faces as he belted out his heartbreak.

When we launched into the newest song, 'To Be Real', I got to shine, and we played it better than it sounded in the studio. My 'haunting' vocal runs, especially towards the building crescendo, cut through the huge P. A. system, and when I opened my eyes, after the last note, it seemed like the whole audience were on their feet, cheering and clapping at me.

Just before the last song, Nick introduced the band, one by one, and they all got a huge roar. "And finally," he said, his voice booming, "give it up for our angel, the incomparable Martina!"

I blew him a kiss, and he gave me a look like he wanted to throw me down on the stage right then and there.

We did one encore, an up-tempo rocker, with some Latin feel to it, and while Steve was shredding a lead on his Strat, Nick wandered over to me and held out his hand, so I took it, and he turned me a little, this way and that, and I knew he wanted to dance, so I swayed around him and he swayed around me and just before he had to start singing again he leaned over and kissed me, on the cheek, which produced a huge yell from the crowd and the beginnings of an erection in me.

Backstage, all six of us were exhausted, and yet pumped up on adrenaline, in my case way more than I'd ever felt. It's a weird combination. Within minutes there was close to fifty people in the big green room, friends and family and bigwigs, everybody flying high with energy, including the suits, who were obvious from their California-tanned brown leathery skin. Alcohol was flowing, in every direction, and joints were being lit, by some, and the guys were as rapturous as humans can get, hugging and high-fiving and celebrating, including me in all of it. I'd never felt so elated, and so just completely fucking insane with emotion. I met Gray's wife, and Skip's girlfriend, but nobody connected to Rivet or Steve.

Or Nick.

Shelly was there, and one point I peered over and saw her talking to a smoking hot woman, a nine out of ten at least, a few moments later the crowd moving enough that I could see they were quietly holding hands, their fingers laced together, until Shelly flicked her head off to the side and back, the universal signal of 'hey, let's get out of here', and the smoking hot brunette nodded and turned.

Love was in the air.

The guys hugged me more than a few times, especially Nick, who was always crushing me into his big sweaty body, his scent divine, strong and masculine, and on one hug he was babbling in my ear about how great I was and how he was so happy to have met me, and even though there were a dozen or more women in the room who rated serious consideration for a 'hound dog' like Nick, he kept his arms around me as long as he could, while at other times, just passing by or moving about, he'd softly stroke my back, a couple of times caressing an ass cheek.

One of the suits cornered me at one point, all touchy-feely, leaning over way too closely for my comfort, to say a whole slew of nice things about my voice and my performance, and about me, calling me 'lovely' more than once, until he leaned closer and stuck his mouth right up against my ear.

"Listen, Martina," he whispered, "just remember. Most bands don't last too long. Two, three years tops for many of them. Now, I hope The Elementals go for a good long run, of course, I do, but," and he paused, to look at my eyes, all serious-like, "if they don't, or if you just get to a point where you don't want to make music with them anymore, or you want to pursue your own career, take the stage for yourself, be the star, you give me a call, right? I'm serious. You've got a fuck of a voice, honey, and with the right songs, you could be a solo artist and sell millions."

Keith the producer was there. He came up to me and stood, just scanning me, up and down, especially my face, before finally smiling.

"Fantastic show. Just fucking fantastic. I seriously can't wait to make a record with your voice," and then he grinned, "and, I'm curious, did you do something with your hair?"

At one point, one of the suits asked for everybody's attention, and the raucous room got quiet. He introduced himself as the head of A&R at the label, which he explained stood for 'Artists and Repertoire', which meant he and his team were the people who worked with each act, on the songs and the shows, getting them as good as they could get. He dropped some names of recent successful acts they'd signed to recording deals, some of whom I'd heard of.

"We don't sign just anybody," he bragged, looking around the room, "for every thousand acts that send us demo tapes, we'll work with maybe a dozen of them. But the truth is we'll only end up signing one, maybe two, to long-term deals. It's a big commitment, it's huge massive money, and we only take that step if the act checks all the boxes. They've got to have great material, and they've got to do great performances."

Then he paused, dramatically, until he reached into an inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers.

"This," he almost shouted, "is a contract for a three record deal," waving the papers, at which point he turned to Nick and the guys, "and if The Elementals are ready for the adventure of a lifetime, I'm ready to put down my autograph. Whattaya say, boys?"

In an instant I was in the middle of a crushing six-person hug, all six of us whooping and hollering. The suit moved to the coffee table between two couches and flipped the papers open to the last page, which was lines with names typed underneath, and everybody crowded around, not just the band.

The suit signed his name with an exaggerated flourish, and then handed the pen to Nick.

All five of them inked the deal, bursting with grins and whoops, pumped full of glee, fist bumping and shoulder smacking. Gray was the last one, and after he finished, he turned and held the pen out to me.

"There's one line left," he said.

I looked at the contract, and sure enough there was one empty line, above the name Martina.

I looked at Nick, and he looked like the happiest person in the history of the world.

"C'mon, Tina," he cooed, "let's go for a ride!"

The party kept going for another hour, maybe more. I was learning first-hand how much high-heels can hurt the feet, and found myself thinking about calling it a night.

A reporter, for the local daily newspaper, their 'Arts' columnist, told me he'd seen the band before, a few times, but they'd never been as good as they were with the addition of me. He called me exotic, a couple of times, and how exotic was what The Elementals needed to go to the top.

Then one of the suits announced they were heading to an after-hours club I'd never heard of, and that everyone in the room was invited, and the drinks were free, and most people began heading out.

Gray said he was going home, and after a last hug with all of us, he and his wife waved goodbye, promising to reconvene in a couple of days, at the studio.

With just stragglers left, I made my way to the dressing room, to begin deconstructing Martina. I carefully pulled the earrings out of my new lobes, putting the studs back in so my holes didn't close up, when the door opened and Nick walked in.

He looked like I felt.

Completely exhausted and completely hyped, at the same time.

"You leaving?" he asked, quietly, so I nodded.

"I'm beat, and a little bit tipsy, so I think I'll call it a night."

"You're not going to the club?" he asked, and I shook my head.

"I'm not much of a social butterfly, and I've already had a couple of drinks."

I watched his eyebrows furrow.

"Wait," he said, "are you old enough to drink?"

In the mirror, I smiled at him.

"As of about an hour ago."

His eyes went wide.

"It's your birthday?"

"I'm nineteen today. I'm officially an adult."

He wandered up behind me, staring into my eyes in the mirror, over my shoulder.

"Goddamn! Why didn't you say something? We would have had a drink, in your honor, to celebrate!"

I shook my head.

"I didn't want to take away any attention from the band, and the gig, and the contract."

He put his hands on my shoulders.

"I would have bought you a present," he almost-whispered, "something."

Curiosity got the better of me.

"Like what?" I asked.

In a typical man way, he stammered, having no clue, searching for a quick answer.

"I don't know, but something."

So I turned to him, looking up a couple of inches into his eyes.

"You've already given me the best present, Nick," I said, my voice quiet, "you've given me the gift of music."

He stared down at me and I stared up at him, and snippets of dream scenarios went zipping through my imagination, of him sweeping me up in his arms, making love to me, but even allowing myself to get my hopes up were, I also realized, just a dream.

"Least I could do is give you a hug."

In a flash, I lifted my arms, towards his neck, and he stretched out his arms to wrap around my back, and we pulled at each other, my head just naturally aiming straight for where his neck met his shoulder, the perfect spot, and my eyes closed in utter joy as we touched, body to body.

He squeezed at me, trying to get me closer, and I sighed and let him, and the initial separation that people do when they don't want to touch groins lasted about two seconds, when I got to mold my front into him, his heat spiking my internal temperature, and when I felt something move a little bit, pressed up against my lower belly, all my endorphins started geysering, rendering me unable to stop myself, and I softly kissed his neck, just under his earlobe.

I felt his whole body stiffen up a little, and he sucked in some air through his teeth, a moment of worry shooting up my spine, that I'd gone too far, when his fingers flexed, grabbing at my lower back, and he pulled even harder.

Against my belly, something moved again.

Just like playing music, and making music, you have to let the emotions and the energy of the moment take you, and move you, and lead you, and trust that you're being true to yourself, and like it had been scripted and rehearsed, we both moved our heads a little, him to look down and me to look up, the awe of the moment that I was feeling mirrored in his face, and for about five nervous seconds nothing happened, until his nostrils flared and he started moving his head and I closed my eyes and met him in the middle.

When our mouths touched, we both moaned.

When the wee tip of his tongue touched my lips, tenderly, asking to play, I opened up as slowly and teasingly as I could, and got to taste him at the exact same moment his hands slid down, molding onto the curves of my ass and grabbing, which made me snort out a blast of breath, right onto his cheek.

Then he got to feel something up against him move.

I let my fingers slide back and forth through the hair at the back of his head, pulling at him, trying to get more of his kiss, more of his lips, and more of his tongue, which was lively, and tantalizing.

We kissed for minutes on end. Slow, fast, soft, and hard, it all came as easy to us as the simplest arrangement. All the notes that are necessary and none more.

I couldn't count the number of times I thought about running my hands down his body, to feel the strength of his chest, until I could wrap them around his bulge, desperate to hold him, and caress him.

Someone banged on the door, at some point, so we stopped kissing, and just stared at each other for a second or two, before he let go and I let go and we stepped one pace backwards, the bang happening a second time, until Nick sighed and yelled out.

"WHAT?"

A woman's voice asked to come in, and didn't wait for answer, a blonde-haired categorically stunning woman wearing the tiniest little red dress I'd ever seen, breasts and ass hanging out everywhere, looking at Nick like she was tired of waiting for him.

"Are we going to the club, or what?" she asked.

Nick looked at me, and I gave him the smile.

Do what you have to do.

Staring at me, he told her something had come up, and she should go without him, a look of frustration and disappointment pouring into her eyes, and she almost sobbed out.

"What do you mean? What's come up?"

Tearing his eyes away from me, he gave her a tired smile, and just said, "band stuff."

After she turned and left, I gave him my best 'really?' look.

"She's hot," I reminded him.

"You're hotter."

"Are you sure about this?" I asked, immediately understanding that he was implying he was choosing, of his own free will, to have sex with another man, albeit one who couldn't have looked more NOT like a man if he tried. As far as I knew, that had never been anything in his wheelhouse.

"Goddamn, Tina," he whispered, "I just want to take you home and ravage you."

A new way of putting it, in my limited experience.

"I'm not like other girls," I whispered, smiling, and taking a step towards him.

He took a step towards me, so our fronts were once again barely an inch apart.

"No," he said, "you're not. You're better."

This time we only kissed for a few minutes, when he broke it off and said, "let's go."

He walked me right past the stragglers, outside the venue, waiting for autographs or the chance to be his 'chosen one', and we both smiled and waved and pretended like we had a deadline to meet.

In his car we buckled up and as soon as he put it in gear his big right hand landed on the top of my left thigh, rubbing and caressing, so I did the same to him with my left hand on his right thigh, which made him grin, and we hadn't gotten more than two blocks away when I slid my hand over, landing it right on top of his bulge, which was hanging to the left, trapped in his vinyl pants.

To my complete surprise, he slid his hand, molding his palm over my erection.

"How long a drive is it?" I asked, and when he told me half an hour, I replied.

"I can't wait that long."

Undoing the seat belt, I leaned over and got my head in his lap, between the steering wheel and his body, and I began kissing and nuzzling his lump, licking at the vinyl and tasting a trace of his musk, his sweat, from the show, which revved my engine.

I got the thrill of a lifetime watching my own fingers, painted a dark matte green, like rich lush grass, fumbling with his zipper, Nick having to wriggle and contort and help me out to get his skin-tight pants open and down far enough for me, all while keeping control of the car and not speeding, the risk of getting pulled over while we were doing what we were doing something both of us wanted to avoid.

And now that we were signed to a major label, something we probably had to avoid. I didn't read it, but I assumed there were probably morals clauses.

Nick was a man who always went commando.

There was no underwear to wrestle with.

Even in the unlit cab of the car, at night, there was enough unnatural city lights beaming in that I could see every inch of him, in beloved detail.

My mouth watered.

Robinson's cock was longer, but not by much.

Nick's cock was a little thicker.

My first blow job in a car was big and black. Number two was about to happen, with a big white cock.

The second my fingers delicately wrapped around his shaft, touching the pores of his skin, he groaned like a rutting moose, so I kissed the head of him, and he growled even louder, so I put into practice what I'd learned in the back seat of my Mom's Civic, and took the whole helmet into my mouth, caressing in a back and forth motion with my tongue, over and then under and then over and then under, and he seeped out a splooge of tangy nectar that made me groan and growl, craving more and more of that taste, and more and more of hot throbbing meat in my mouth.

I bobbed, I stroked, I bathed, I licked, I sucked, I nursed, I teased.

Determined to take all of him, right into my throat, I kept swallowing as I slithered down, thinking about how I opened my pipes up when I sang, to produce the roundest purest tones, with strength, so I did the same to Nick.

It was as if I was singing him to an orgasm.

Sadly, I didn't get the chance to get all of him in me, because with about an inch or two still to go, he yelled out, "GODDAMN, TINA!" and he slammed on the brakes, in the middle of the street, and as the car screeched to a halt, Nick's pelvis bucked and he flooded my mouth.

I couldn't swallow it fast enough, gobs of it streaming out of my lips and down his glistening shaft, gulping what I could in frantic survival mode, barely tasting his seed, which even in my relative inexperience I could tell was different from my cum, and different from Robinson's. For the merest of seconds, I wondered about whether what a guy eats influences his essence, because Nick's cum gave me the strong hint of something that was reminiscent of celery.

When no more was erupting out of him, I came off his shaft, taking a huge lungful of badly-needed air, before I launched my tongue and lips towards the pool of his sticky juice, gathering in his forest, and dripping onto his balls.

The car behind Nick's honked, and I felt him shudder to awake, and he hit the gas and pulled over the shoulder, crunching us to a stop, and throwing the car into park, while the impatient guy behind us pulled out and sped past, honking again.

Nick breathed in and out like a racehorse as I cleaned up what I could get, lapping like a kitten at the roundness and fullness of his testicles.

When there was no more to be had, I sat up, still licking my lips, loving the combination of him and my lipstick.

He just sat there and panted and stared at me.

"Goddamn, Tina," he breathed heavily, "that's the best fucking blowjob I ever had!"

I giggled out loud.

"That's the best one I ever gave. And it's only the second one I ever gave."

For minutes on end we sat and stared at each other, grins on our faces. Finally, he put the car into drive and we took off. At one point, I flipped down the sun blocker on my side of the car, because I figured it had one of those little lit mirrors, which it did, and I made a big show of redoing my lips, first with the stick, and then with a gloss.

He lived in one side of a duplex, with a short stubby driveway all his own, which he peeled into, and neither of us could get out of the car and to the house fast enough, although I had to go slowly, because walking in my dress meant short strides only, but that just gave me the glorious chance to sway while I strutted, just like Rhonda and Tish had taught me, and in the dim light outside of his front door, I could see his hunger, his eyes like fiery ice, his jaw clenching like he was chewing gum.

Speeding me past the living room and kitchen, he took me straight up the steep stairs to the second floor, guiding me into his bedroom, kicking the door shut while he swept me up into his arms and we started kissing again, devouring each other.

The next thing I knew I was laying on my left side, my head on his left arm, with my dress delicately placed on a chair in the corner, with Nick right behind me, spooning me, naked, his body taut and toned, priming me for some slow exploration later on, concentrating instead on his tongue in my mouth, my head cranked backwards, and his fingers in my ass, lubing me.

While I'd taken the dress off, after he romantically unzipped me, he was in his little bathroom, grabbing what turned out to be lube, and so I shot him a look as I lay down, one that asked why a supposedly straight guy like him would have such a product.

"Not the first ass I've tapped," he smiled, "but goddamn, it sure is the sexiest."

His previous anal experiences had served him well. He kissed me and kissed me and kissed me for a really long time, heavenly to me, giving him time to slowly and methodically open me up, one finger at first, letting me get used to it, until a second joined, giving me the same consideration, all the while getting me slick and wet, until I couldn't stand the anticipation anymore and breathed out into his mouth.

"Now Nick, please! Fuck me now!"

Not losing our kiss, he shook his head.

"Not like this," he groaned, until he left me, rolling me onto my back while he knee-walked his way in between my legs, glaring at me the whole time, the same way I was glaring at him, and then he lay his body down on me, until his face was right in front of mine, our noses touching.

"The first time, we do it right," was all he said, before kissing me again, taking my breath away, while he wriggled and flexed his body and got closer to mine, the tip of his gorgeous thick wet cock bouncing with his moves, until it sprang up and down my crack, twice, the third time pushing his hips at just the right moment, wordlessly entering me.

I saw stars, and I gasped, and he shushed me, and stopped thrusting, waiting me out, letting me determine the next push, letting my insides absorb the assault, and adapt to the intrusion, assuming new positions, recognizing a few seconds later that my breathing was slowing, the tenseness of my body relaxing, and he pushed some more, and the stars came back, brighter than ever.

"Relax, breathe," he kept repeating, into my mouth, and I shut my eyes like clamps and breathed out, from my diaphragm up, sending most of my fears and worries out of me with my air, and then he pushed again.

It took two more push and stops before I felt the base of him all the way in me, absolutely stuffed with his cock, both his belly and his balls at the entrance to my hole, my pussy, the last and most beautiful of etudes I'd never heard before suddenly as loud as if we'd been on stage.

I was almost bent in half, my silky thighs right up against my belly and bra, his thick body in between them, and with the gentlest of motions, almost as if we were starting the first song of our set again, the slow build-up before the band comes in and lights the house on fire, we rocked.

Feeling the soft tissues of my channel ripple with every movement of his cock, the ins and outs, the little hip waggles on every few strokes, he generated feelings and responses in me that were wild and new, and touched me in places that made me quiver, or vibrate with electricity, or howl in screaming delirium, from the inside out, and like the songs we played I let the music take me, and move me, as he did, the two of us performing an ever-increasing duet of passion, trusting our performances, and true to ourselves.

When I came it was unannounced, just appearing out of nowhere, without a cue, no count-in at all, one second not there and the next second taking over, consuming me, screaming out into his mouth, loud, louder than I'd sung earlier, and I could hear him smugly mumbling, "never had a woman do that before," before he got faster and harder, while I coated my belly with my own juice.

To lose oneself in a song was life-affirming.

To lose myself in the love-making, it was beyond paradise.

His kisses started becoming ragged, as he slammed into me, and as I held on for every ounce of him, my spine flexing to meet him with every thud, playing his body like a musical instrument, as he masterfully played mine, giving me a whole-body workout that would put professional personal trainers to shame.

I was building up for another cum, amazed I might even produce semen again, when he pummelled me for six hard fast strokes and then roared into my mouth while he slammed me one final time, his whole body tensing up, his jaw snapping shut, teeth rattling, and my only sadness was that I couldn't actually feel him blasting inside me.

But I knew he was, and I couldn't help but say the words.

"I LOVE YOU!"

It took him a couple of minutes to come down from his high, his body heavy and covering mine, not holding himself up anymore, pressing me down into the mattress, taking all his weight and wishing I could do it for the rest of my life, while I stroked his back and hair and kept whispering, "thank you, thank you."

When he finally breathed out a huge sigh, and lifted his head to look me in the eyes, exhaustion and elation all over his face, the grin that immediately appeared told me all I needed to know about whether he'd enjoyed it.

"I love you too, Tina."

We both crashed, the emotional and physical ordeal of the gig and our sex taking its toll. In what I assumed was only a couple of hours later, because it was still dark outside his window, I was roused from my deep satisfied slumber by Nicks' fingers sawing in and out my pussy, spooning me from behind, the other of his big paws holding my leg up in the air.

And I knew we were about to perform an encore.

Love is indeed the music of life, and to this day we play on.

THE END