Lustful Melodies

I didn't mean to walk into the green room. The door was supposed to be locked. A sign on the outside said CLOSED FOR REHEARSAL in blocky black marker. I turned the handle anyway, because the coffee in the lobby tasted like burnt regret and I heard someone laughing inside.

The laugh was hers.

She sat on a leather couch with her legs tucked under her, acoustic guitar balanced on one thigh. A half-empty bottle of whiskey stood on the floor beside her boot. Her hair fell in dark waves past her shoulders, and she wore a faded t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, showing the sharp line of her collarbone and the beginning of a tattoo that curled around her left bicep.

She looked up. Stopped mid-chord.

The silence felt like a held breath.

"Door was unlocked," I said. Dumb. The kind of thing you say when your brain short-circuits and your mouth keeps moving anyway.

She didn't smile. She studied me the way you study a stranger on a train, deciding if you want to know them or not. Her fingers rested on the strings, not playing, just waiting.

I should have apologized and left. That was the professional thing to do. I was supposed to be setting up lights for her set in twenty minutes. I was supposed to be invisible, a stagehand, a ghost in the rigging.

I didn't leave.

"You're the lighting girl," she said. Not a question.

"Genevieve."

"Pretty name for a pretty girl."

The way she said it made my stomach drop. Not flirty. Not playful. Like she was stating a fact she hadn't decided what to do with yet.

I leaned against the doorframe. "You're Margot."

"Last I checked." She set the guitar aside and reached for the whiskey. Took a long pull straight from the bottle. Her throat moved as she swallowed. "You want some? You look like you need it."

"I'm working."

"So am I." She held the bottle out anyway. "Consider it a professional courtesy."

I crossed the room and took it from her hand. Our fingers brushed. Her skin was warm. She watched me drink, and the whiskey burned going down, and I didn't look away.

"You're not supposed to be in here," I said, handing the bottle back.

"I'm not supposed to be anywhere." She capped it and set it on the floor. "That's the whole point of a tour. You exist in a constant state of trespassing."

Her voice had a rasp to it. The kind of voice that sounded like it had been used hard and put away wet. I wanted to hear her sing. I wanted to hear what that voice could do when it wasn't pretending to be bored.

"I heard your soundcheck earlier," I said. "The new song. The one with the minor progression."

She raised an eyebrow. "You were listening?"

"I was working. But yeah. I heard it."

"And?"

I could have lied. I could have said something safe, something professional. But the whiskey was still warm in my chest and her eyes were dark and unreadable and I was tired of being invisible.

"It needs more tension," I said. "The bridge resolves too clean. You've got this whole thing building toward something ugly, and then you pull the punch."

She went still. Not angry. Not offended. Just still, like I'd said something that mattered.

"Most people tell me it's perfect," she said.

"Most people are lying."

A pause. Then she laughed. Low and real, not the stage laugh, not the one she used between songs. It changed her face. Made her younger, softer, dangerous in a different way.

"Who the fuck are you, Genevieve?"

"Just the lighting girl."

"No." She stood up. She was taller than me by a few inches, and when she stepped closer I could smell her. Whiskey and sweat and something floral underneath, like jasmine crushed against skin. "You're not just anything. I can tell."

She reached out. Touched my wrist with two fingers. Light, barely there. A question.

I didn't pull away.

"You want to hear the song again," she said. "The one that needs more tension."

"I do."

"Then sit down."

She gestured to the couch. I sat where she'd been sitting. The leather was still warm from her body. She picked up the guitar and settled onto the floor across from me, legs crossed, the instrument cradled in her lap like something precious.

"I don't usually play for anyone but my manager," she said. "And even he gets the short version."

"What do I get?"

She looked at me. Really looked. Her eyes traveled down my body and back up, slow, deliberate, like she was memorizing the shape of me.

"The version that would get me canceled if anyone recorded it."

She started playing. The first chord hung in the air, dark and unresolved. Then she opened her mouth and sang.

Her voice was nothing like I expected. On stage, through the monitors, it had polish. Here, three feet away, it had teeth. She sang about a woman who tasted like cigarettes and forgiveness. She sang about a motel room in Oklahoma and a handprint left on a mirror. She sang about wanting something so bad it made her stupid.

The song built. The tension I'd mentioned, she found it. She dragged it out. The bridge didn't resolve clean. It broke open, raw and unfinished, and when she hit the last note she held it until her voice cracked.

Silence.

My hands were shaking. I didn't know when that started.

"That's the version," she said. Quiet. Almost shy.

"That's the version."

She set the guitar down. Crawled toward me on her knees. The carpet was thin and industrial, but she didn't seem to notice. She stopped between my legs, looking up at me, and her hands found my thighs.

"I want to show you something else," she said.

"What?"

"Come here."

She tugged me forward. I slid off the couch, landed on my knees facing her. We were close enough that I could count her eyelashes. She smelled like jasmine and whiskey and want.

She kissed me.

Not soft. Not tentative. Her mouth was hot and demanding, and her hand found the back of my neck, fingers curling into my hair, pulling me closer. I gasped against her lips and she swallowed the sound.

When she pulled back, her pupils were blown wide.

"There's a song in that too," she said. "But I haven't written it yet."

The door behind us creaked. Someone cleared their throat.

"Margot, you're on in ten."

Her manager. Standing in the doorway, looking at us with a face that said nothing.

Margot didn't flinch. She stood up, offered me her hand, pulled me to my feet. Her thumb traced a circle on my palm before she let go.

"Same time tomorrow," she said. "I want to show you what I write after I've had a night to think about your mouth."

She walked out.

I stood there in the empty green room, the taste of whiskey on my tongue, my skin still burning where she'd touched me.

The door stayed open.

I stayed where I was.