Chapter 2: The B-Side Breaks
The new beat was a cavernous thing. Slower, heavier, a pendulum swing of sub-bass that felt like a headache coming on. Josh watched her through the glass as it unfurled. Isla’s eyes were closed, one hand pressed flat against the pane, feeling the vibration.
She didn’t start singing. She began almost groaning, a low, visceral noise from the back of her throat that matched the frequency of the bass. It was less a melody, more a physiological reaction. The sound slid under Josh’s skin, into his marrow. He saw the cords of her neck stand out. Saw her swallow.
Her voice climbed, weaving through the skeletal drum pattern, a wordless invocation. It was beautiful and ugly. It was the sound of being cornered. Each phrase seemed to cost her something, a little piece of composure shed and left on the booth floor. She was tearing herself open in there, and he was the only one watching.
Something coiled tight in Josh’s gut. It wasn’t just admiration. It was a sharp, hungry recognition. He saw the sheen of sweat on her forehead under the red light. Saw the way her lips parted, not for breath, but as if to release something trapped. His own breathing felt shallow. The professional distance he wore like armor cracked, then shattered.
His hand moved on its own. It didn’t hit the stop button. It killed the master fader.
Silence.
A thick, sudden void.
In the booth, Isla’s voice cut off mid-cry. Her eyes flew open, confused, searching the control room. He was already moving, pushing his chair back with a screech. He didn’t use the talkback. He yanked open the heavy door to the booth and stepped inside.
The air was close, warm from her body heat, charged. The red light painted everything in monochrome tones of blood and shadow.
“Why’d you stop it?” she asked, her voice ragged from the take, headphones askew.
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The question was just noise. He reached out, his palm curling around the back of her neck, fingers tangling in the beads at the ends of her braids. He pulled her to him, not gently, and crushed his mouth against hers.
It wasn’t a question. It was a claim.
She froze for a half-second, a startled inhale against his lips. Then a raw sound escaped her, and her hands came up, not to push him away, but to fist in the fabric of his shirt. She kissed him back with a furious, equal hunger, her teeth scraping his bottom lip. The taste of her was of cheap coffee and something metallic, like adrenaline.
He walked her backwards until her shoulders hit the cool glass of the booth wall. The headphones ripped from her ears and clattered to the floor. The mic swung, knocking against the stand with a dull ping. Her body was small and strong against his, all taut muscle and sharp angles. He cupped her face, his thumbs digging into her jawline, angling her mouth to deepen the kiss. It was wet, messy, a clash of tongues and shared breath.
“Josh,” she gasped, breaking away for air.
“Shut up,” he growled, and his mouth found the pulse hammering in her throat. He bit down, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to make her cry out. Her hips arched off the wall, grinding against the hard line of his erection straining against his jeans.
Her hands scrambled for his belt, fumbling with the buckle. He shoved them away, doing it himself with quick, brutal efficiency. The buckle clinked loud in the silence. He popped the button of her jeans, yanked the zip down. The sound was obscenely loud. He shoved his hand inside, past the elastic of her underwear, his fingers sliding through the wet heat he found there.
“Fuck,” she hissed, her head falling back against the glass with a thud.
“You’re soaked,” he muttered against her ear, his voice rough. “All that from singing?”
“All that from you watching,” she panted, her own hands dragging his shirt up, nails scraping over the planes of his stomach.
He hooked his fingers into her waistband and underwear and pulled them down her thighs in one jerky movement. They caught around her boots. She didn’t wait. She kicked free, the fabric tearing. He pushed his own jeans and briefs down just enough, his cock springing free, thick and heavy.
He didn’t ask. He lifted her. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her boots locking at the small of his back. He guided himself to her entrance, paused for one second with just the head pressing against her, feeling her pulse around him.
Her eyes, dark pools in the red light, locked on his. “Do it.”
He drove into her in one deep, searing thrust. She wailed, a sound that echoed the one she’d made into the microphone, raw and unfiltered. The tight, wet clench of her was exquisite, a brutal vice. He held himself there, buried to the hilt, shuddering.
“Jesus Christ,” he choked out.
“Move,” she demanded, biting his shoulder through his shirt. “Fucking move.”
He pulled out and slammed back in, setting a punishing rhythm. The booth was tiny. Every sound was amplified: the slap of skin, their ragged gasps, the creak of the mic stand as they jostled against it. Her back slid against the glass. He knew his grip on her thighs would leave bruises. He didn’t care. He wanted to mark her, to brand this moment into both of them.
One of her hands braced against the wall, the other fisted in his hair, pulling hard. The sting only drove him deeper. He fucked her with a single-minded intensity, each thrust seeking the core of her. The artistic hunger from minutes before had transformed, mutated into this physical desperation. It was the same energy, the same need to connect, to consume and be consumed.
“Right there, fuck, right there,” she chanted, her voice breaking on each word. Her inner muscles clenched around him rhythmically, a sweet, urgent pressure. He could feel her coming apart.
“Come on then,” he grunted, his own control fraying. “Let me hear it. Let me hear you come.”
It tipped her over the edge. Her whole body stiffened, then convulsed. A sharp, broken cry tore from her throat, a sound so purely sexual it made his vision blur. He felt her orgasm ripple through her, milking his cock, and it was too much. With a final, deep plunge, he came, a hot, liquid release that had him seeing stars, his forehead dropping to her shoulder with a guttural groan.
For long moments, there was only the sound of their panting breaths fogging the glass. The red light hummed. The smells of sex and sweat and dust filled the cramped space.
Slowly, he let her slide down, her legs wobbling as her feet touched the floor. They leaned against each other, a tangled, sticky mess of half-undone clothes. He softened inside her, withdrew. The studio’s familiar hum seeped back into his awareness.
Isla reached out a trembling hand and steadied the microphone. She looked up at him, her lips swollen, her braids a wild frame around her face. A slow, irreverent smile touched her mouth.
“So,” she said, her voice hoarse. “That’s how you get a take.”
A short, surprised bark of laughter escaped him. He bent, picked up her torn underwear from the floor, and shoved it into his pocket. “Keep the level consistent.”
He left the booth, leaving the door open. He pulled his clothes back into order, his hands unsteady. He could still feel her, smell her on him. He sat at the console, the familiar landscape of knobs and screens feeling alien.
She emerged a minute later, her jeans buttoned, her hoodie straight. She picked up the fallen headphones, cradling them. She didn’t look at him. She looked at the waveform still frozen on the screen—the ghost of her voice, cut off.
“Play it back,” she said, her tone unreadable. “From where I stopped.”
He did. The cavernous beat filled the room again. They listened to her pained, wordless vocal, the raw build-up. It played up to the point of the cut-off, then silence.
It was the most unfinished thing he’d ever heard. And it was perfect. He hit save. The filename blinked: GHOSTED_ALTERNATE_RAW.
He felt her come to stand behind his chair. She didn’t touch him. She just looked at the screen.
“We should do that again,” she said quietly. “The take, I mean. Without the… interruption.”
“Yeah,” Josh said, his eyes on the vivid, jagged peaks of her vocal track. “Tomorrow.”
She nodded, collected her backpack. At the door, she paused. “You’ve got my underwear.”
“Collateral,” he replied, not turning around.
He heard her soft laugh, then the door sigh shut. The studio hummed, different now. It held the echo of her voice, and the deeper, warmer echo of what they’d just done. He saved the session one more time, and sat in the red-stained dark, utterly, completely ruined.