This is a lesbian work of romantic fiction. The characters within this story are strictly of my own making. Any similarity between them and people of real life is strictly coincidental and frankly... I would be extremely curious to know how they were similar. I love a good story. smiling If relationships between two women offends you in any way then please stop reading at once. If you are like the rest of us who come to Nifty, then you have already realized that love exists regardless of prejudice. For those readers, I hope very much that you enjoy this story. Comments are welcome, but please keep any criticism constructive.
Take care, ~Jayden
SHADOW IN THIS LOVE
The club was quiet, unusually so. The audience waited in a collective of breathes held, just praying for her to open her lips and sing. She was their siren, the woman whose voice could cast her spell on the masses, leaving them always to know complete and utter adoration, blind and intense devotion, but it was not the love she longed to have. Yes, the love of her fans had helped her through some extremely difficult times in her life, but now... as she sat before her piano she could only see one face, only hear one name and despite the masses beginning to quietly chant her name over and over again, it was not her own. It was the name of the woman she loved.
"I wrote this song," Cyrene began in a tiny whisper, spoken directly into the microphone, "about two months ago. You might know the one. It's called, 'Shadow.' "
With that, the entire crowd erupted into fanatic cheers. Then in awestruck love, their voices died away at the sound of the solitary piano beginning to play its final encore.
She doesn't see me as more than a friend She doesn't see that I am real Our eyes meet there's so much to say but I can't find the words to tell her how I feel She doesn't see me She doesn't know me I am a shadow in this love I am the embodiment of 'what if' but if she could only see just how much she means to me I'd devote my life to her Give her all that I had to give Her happiness would be my life's work but she doesn't see me She doesn't know me I am a shadow in this love
Her voice began to lock inside her throat as was always the case when she sang this song. She leaned forward, her long fierce red hair fanning ahead to create a protective barrier between the emotional musician and the world around her. Cyrene was grateful for the lengthy musical interlude, grateful for the time it gave to hopefully compose herself enough to sing the rest of the song. She drew in a wavering breath, commanding herself to sing if only for the last time. She wanted to release a dark laugh at the thought of it. She always vowed that it would be the last time she sang this song since writing it, but she always found herself in this same position with tears in her eyes and in her heart as she sang the song once more.
Don't turn away from me See into my eyes See that through this pain my love for you endures Only you can make me real I cannot be a phantom any longer I've made a promise that you will never know This heart, this soul, this body will be forever yours Can't you see me Can't you know me I don't want to be a shadow in this love
Her voice was joined by two of her best friends in the band, singing a series of mournful notes that accompanied the piano in a haunting melody which filled the air. When her finger struck the last key in a final piercing note, no one spoke. Silently, she lifted her head to look out over the quiet faces. They wouldn't cheer, she knew. That was fine with her. She knew that they were moved by her words and that was greater than any amount of applause she could have ever received.
A face in the crowd stood out from the others. Cyrene stopped, her body steeling. Pale green eyes swirled with a tempest of emotions. Horror. Shame. Pain. Anger. Hope. Love. Then finally, those portals to her soul revealed nothing as the mask of unfamiliarity was slammed down with resounding force. The redhead rushed from the stage with the knowledge in her heart that her mask was a floundering thing soon to die if she had to face the gray eyes she saw waiting in the crowd.
A woman with long white-blonde hair raced out of the club. Her gray eyes were glistening with tears. After having fought her way through the crowd, she stared breathlessly at the woman spiriting away on her motorcycle. Her head fell for a moment, her beautiful face riddled with disappointment. Then she slowly began to shake her head.
"No," Sky whispered quietly. "No, I am not going to let you run away this time. You owe me." She looked up, her eyes demanding answers. "You owe me an answer, Cy!"
The young blonde raced through the people outside the club, maneuvering her athletic build easily through the people buzzing about The Sirens. She hopped into her car with her thoughts consumed by tracking down her elusive best friend.
Sky arrived at a home overlooking the beach. She heard nothing coming from inside the house. There were no lights to be seen. And yet, she knew by intuition alone that Cyrene was inside. Gently, she knocked. She spoke softly against the door as her forehead came to rest against it. "I know you're in there, Cy. Let me in."
There was only silence.
Sky smoothed her fingertips softly over the door, a subtle pleading touching her voice. "Please, let me in."
Cyrene sat on the floor within her home, just opposite the front door. She had only managed a few shaky steps inside before collapsing in the entryway. Now, she rested with only the door separating her from the woman she loved more than anything. She wanted to ignore her, to perhaps even command her to go away, but instead she found her body turning toward the door, her side resting against it as her forehead lightly touched the cool surface. Her hand reached out to rest her palm to the door, ignorant of the fact that Sky's hand was doing the same. She closed her eyes tightly, the plea-filled quality of her friend's voice sending an aching pang of shame through her heart.
A sudden realization flashed through Sky's mind. "The spare key," she whispered. She remembered where Cyrene had hidden it even as her legs fervently carried her around the house.
The redhead's eyes widened in horror. She scrambled to her feet, running to get to the back door, but it was too late. Just as she had arrived at the doors leading to the deck and to the beach, she saw Sky standing on the deck, holding up the key as she stared into the house through the large windows running the spans of the wall facing the ocean.
Sky's eyes were wild with the same passion that she saw in those of her friend. She knew that they had both just raced for that key. She also knew by the emotion lurking on the beautiful redhead's face, that she had not been meant to reach it first, but she had and she was coming inside.
As Sky unlocked the back door, she watched Cyrene back away soundlessly, retreating into the shadows of the house. She stepped inside, unable to look away from where her friend had been, still confident that she was there. She could feel her eyes on her.
"We need to talk, Cy," she said softly.
There was no answer.
"I know you're there. I can feel you." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "I want to see you."
She watched as a ghostly vision stepped forward, just barely slipping into the moonlight.
"Why did you run?" Sky asked bluntly.
"Why were you at the club?" Cyrene countered quietly. "You haven't come to see me play in over a year."
The blonde looked down at her feet, wincing as she realized that that was true. She hadn't been to see any performances since last summer. "I'm sorry," she said. "I've been busy."
Cyrene nodded, hating that she had made Sky feel guilty even for a second, but knowing that she couldn't let her pursue this. It would only lead to hurt, she told herself.
Sky's thoughts began to clear. "That song," she started. "It was beautiful... so heartbreaking and tragic. Yet there was a certain hopefulness to its love." She studied her best friend, waiting for some kind of sign as to her thoughts and feelings, but saw only the mask the woman used to separate herself from the outside world. It pained her to think that she was using that mask against her now.
A small sliver of moonlight fell over gray eyes, shining on the pools of deepest emotion. Sky's voice dropped to a tremendous hush. "I need to know." She knew the depths of vulnerability, of wavering certainty. What if she were right in her theory? What if the answer to her question was what she suspected it to be? What then? "Is it about me?"
Cyrene tensed dramatically. She could not speak. Even if she had been able to free her voice from her throat, she would not have known what to say.
"Is it?" Sky demanded after an agonizing silence. "I need to know."
"Why does it matter?" the redhead managed hoarsely.
The blonde sighed, realizing that she wasn't going to get the answer to that question just yet. "It matters because I need to make some kind of sense of what has been going on. Do you realize that I haven't spoken to you for more than fifteen minutes at a time in over two months?"
Sky searched her friend's face. "I'm getting married in two weeks."
Cyrene nodded slowly. "I know," she said struggling for politeness. "Congratulations."
The breathtaking blonde raked her fingers through her long silky hair. "Two weeks," she repeated quietly. "And all I can think about is how I haven't spoken to you at all in two weeks."
Raising her head, Cyrene felt her heart daring to hope, but she pushed that hope away, disbelieving that she could survive the plummet of realizing that it was a false hope.
"You've stopped returning my calls. I've tried emailing you. Nothing was working so I thought that the only way to see you would be to go to a show."
"I guess, we've both been busy," Cyrene murmured. It was not completely a lie. She had been busy, but mostly she had avoided those calls thanks to caller id and chosen to not respond to the emails she had found waiting for her from Sky.
Sky crossed the distance between them, needing to be closer to her friend. "It's more than that, isn't it?"
"What do you want me to say?" Cyrene asked with an almost hopelessness about her tone.
"Tell me the truth, Cy! We've never had a problem doing that before." Sky focused her gray eyes on the woman so close, completely unaware of how much they embodied a storming vision of her name.
Cyrene swallowed her fear, swallowed the last of her timidness and forced herself to speak just barely above a whisper. "Yes, the song was written for you."
Sky had had her theories, but having actually heard the words spoken aloud and spoken by Cyrene, herself, made them that much more powerful. It made them all the more real. She reached out blindly behind her, managing to find a chair to sit down in. Her eyes were filled with uncertainty, with tears, but mainly they were filled with a need. She had to know why and when.... or even how this had happened.
"I'm getting married, Cy," she said weakly.
Cyrene crossed her arms over her chest and nodded silently.
"I know. That's why I couldn't say anything," Cyrene admitted finally. Her words put an end to the silence which had overtaken them. "These are my feelings and I will deal with them. Please don't worry about--"
Sky whipped her head around to face the woman steadily making her way toward the back door. "Don't you dare pull that proud shit with me right now, Cy. You don't get to tell me something like that then say that it is your problem and you'll handle it or whatever you're planning on doing about this!"
"What I'm planning on doing about this?!" Cyrene repeated in disbelief. Without realizing it, her voice had raised to the same heated tone as Sky's voice. "I wasn't planning on doing anything about this. You said it yourself, Sky. You're getting married! There is nothing to do about it. Your life is with--"
"It's my life, Cy! Shouldn't I get to say who it is with?"
Cyrene looked over her shoulder to the woman nervously fidgeting with the engagement ring on her finger. She wanted to ask if perhaps Sky could see herself with her. She wanted to say so much, but realized that this could easily turn into another direction just as quickly and leave her with a broken heart. "I didn't want to make your life any harder on you by pushing my feelings onto you."
"I had a right to know, to make the decision for myself. What gives you the right to decide who I should be with?"
Those words caused the redhead to flinch both, outwardly and inwardly. Cyrene withdrew into herself. "I'm sorry," she could only whisper.
Sky watched as Cyrene left for the deck. She stared after her with so many emotions clearly written across her face. With a sigh, she pushed up from the chair and sought to follow her friend.
Cyrene rested her hands along the railing staring out to the rolling ocean. She listened to the crashing waves, needing to take some comfort in them when her entire body ached to know anything other than the emotions drowning her now. Her body tensed with the feel of the woman stopping at her side.
"Were you just going to never speak to me again?" Sky asked with a pain in her voice.
"To be completely honest, I have been sort of taking things one day at a time," Cyrene answered. "I didn't really have a plan."
Cyrene drew in a slow deep breath for calm as she watched the tide roll in. Then as the tide went out, she exhaled. Her hands gripped more tightly to the railing and she gathered her courage in that moment. "I am in love with you, Sky. I don't deny it. I have been for some time. I never said anything to you because it was never the right time. It still isn't, but we are having this conversation and it is only fair that you know all of it."
"Damn you!" Sky whispered.
Cyrene turned away from the ocean. Her eyes were wide with shock. They quickly filled with sadness as she realized that Sky hated her for her feelings for her. She looked down, the tears leaving her lashes to fall like heavy rain to the wooden railing.
"Why now? Why are you doing this now?"
The redhead struggled to find the words. "I didn't plan for this to happen. I was never going to tell you. You were supposed to get married in two weeks and I would just--"
"Just go on not talking to me while I wondered if I hurt you, if I had lost my best friend because of some stupid thing that I had done," Sky interrupted. "And while I was preparing to get married, I was just supposed to keep thinking about you."
Looking to Sky with tears in her eyes, Cyrene was overcome with a longing, a desperate and consuming need to take her love into her arms, but as she turned to face the woman she felt herself shoved violently.
"Damn you!"
Cyrene felt the sting at her lower back as her hips impacted against the railing. She stared forward at the woman pushing and shoving at her chest.
"Damn you for trying to take this decision away from me! Damn you, Cy! Damn you!"
Wincing, Cyrene endured the brunt of every hit, of every shove. She did not move to stop the furious blonde. She only watched over her with tears and love in her eyes. Her vulnerability in that moment exposed her to the blow which might break her heart: the knowledge that Sky could not love her in return. Still, she waited, afraid to breathe for fear that Sky might slip away from her.
"Damn you for being all I can think about! Damn you for being the first thing that I think about every morning and the last thing on my mind when I go to bed at night! Damn you for loving me! Damn you for turning my world completely upside down!"
The hand racing toward her face was stopped by Cyrene's hand gently clasping hold of Sky's wrist. She stared deeply into the eyes wild with emotions, trying to gage the depth of what her best friend was feeling.
"And damn myself for loving you the way I do."
Cyrene moved the wrist in her hand to small of Sky's back, pinning both of the woman's wrists there. She leaned forward, unable to hold back any longer. Her lips claimed Sky's in a heated kiss meant to take the love she had longed for so desperately. With a tilt of her head, the kiss intensified to a passionate fury. She broke their kiss just as suddenly as she had started it, searching the eyes of the woman she loved, in that moment giving her one last opportunity to turn away.
Sky stared back evenly into the eyes watching her so closely. She shook her head slowly. "I won't turn back now, Cy. This is what I want." She sighed quietly at the next thought that entered her mind. "We've lost so much time already. Why couldn't you just have told--"
Capturing Sky's lips with her own, Cyrene kissed her love with the ache that she had known for so long now, silencing the woman forcibly. The feel of the lips moving with incredible softness against her own was so much softer than her most vivid fantasies had conceived. She breathed in, reveling in the sweetness of Sky's soft hair or the hint of summer still present within it.
There was a hunger that claimed her, a hunger which demanded that Cyrene lay claim to Sky's body the way that this woman had claimed Cyrene's heart so long ago, but the redhead tamed her unruly fires to a controlled and tempered flame. She swept the woman in her arms then carried her to her bedroom. Gently, she laid her onto the bed. Her body shook with love and lust as she moved to take her place at her new lover's side.
They laid together for some time. Their legs were interwoven by intimacy. Their fingertips roamed lovingly across one another's faces, mapping forever within their minds the features of the one they loved. They kissed with unhurried slowness despite the tension building with taut intensity in their loins. Hands shaking immensely with the reality of the task they were meant to preform, roved over exquisitely feminine forms, peeling away articles of clothing until only the cool breeze kissed by ocean mist drifted in through open windows to caress naked skin.
As though possessed by the spirits of ravenous animals, the lovers seemed to all but circle one another on the bed as they crawled with a feline eroticism on hands and knees. Gray eyes found emerald green in a heated stare of conquest and love. The beautiful women moved as one, finding a loving home resting on their sides. Lustful breath--- hot and wavering--- could be felt against the thighs blooming open before their awe-kept faces. Each woman reached outward to snake her womanly arms around a curvaceous waist, urging her lover closer to a hungry and waiting mouth.
Cyrene released a moan of lustful appreciation at the delectable scent flooding the air. She nuzzling blindly at the soft skin of satiny thighs, her eyes closing in that moment of passion when all her fantasies were made real. Her lips parted and in the silence of the night, she heard the raggedness of her own breathing mingling with an anticipating whimper from Sky and the subtle sound of her tongue leaving it home to find a new one in the honey-laden folds of warmest rose.
Together, Cyrene and Sky moaned. The sensation of a tongue's tip traversing silken lips left them each with warm tears moistening their lashes and their thighs.
Sky drew in a sharp inhalation at the pleasure she felt. She gripped more fiercely to the hips in her grasp, using her lover to steady herself as she swooned, but that dizzying feeling only grew once she knew the sweet headiness brought about by her lover's scent. Weakly, her head fell forward. She brushed her lips over the tops of smooth thighs. With a nudge of her jaw, she urged the legs which protected a sacred treasure to open. Once parted, she found herself staring into the depths of softness. She inched closer, her cheeks caressed by velvet thighs. With the tenderness of thousand lifetimes, she took a sensitive clit between her lips. She suckled at it as though it possessed life's nectar. The sounds that act elicited from her lover only spurred to further inflame her passions.
Tilting her head, Sky ran the length of her tongue between soft lips. At the moment that, she pierced the heart of her lover, she knew the joys of having herself filled in that same way.
Together, their voices grew more heated. "I love you" was whispered again and again between the ragged pants of impassioned breath. Moans were muffled by moist flesh, reverberating against heightened skin with delicious clarity until it knew the time of metamorphosis and evolved into animalistic growls of need, begging and pleading for the other to take her harder and faster. Passions grew. Love swelled and all was done with the ever-present stinging of nails in hips and lips on folds. Until at last, they screamed unable to contain the flood of emotions and sweet rewards that stained hungry expectant mouths. Then again, the words "I love you" were whispered again and again between the ragged pants of impassioned breath. Gradually, their breathing slowed to a gentle quiet and they cleaved to one another desperately.
They righted themselves so that they could clearly look into the other's eyes. They held one another with only the sound of contented breathing and the rolling ocean filling their moonlit room. Together, they stared into loving eyes, caressing and kissing when words could not give life to what they yearned to say.
Sky reached out with a trembling hand, her eyes filled with deepest love. In that brief moment, her ring caught in the pale light of the moon. Her eyes shifted to the promise on her finger.
Cyrene tensed, her eyes having followed the line of vision taken by her new lover. She took the hand in hers, guiding it away from her cheek. Her eyes stared down at the engagement ring while they laid tangled up in one another. She opened her mouth to speak, thinking that perhaps Sky had come to regret what had happened between them, but the hurt in her voice was such that it quickly put an end to her words. "Do you regret--"
Gathering the beautiful redhead in her arms, Sky held her love closely. "Shh, my love. I could never regret being with you." She met bewitching green eyes, adding, "Ever."
Cyrene took in a deep breath, breathing in the scent of her lover's hair. She nuzzled lovingly at the gentle skin of a graceful neck. "Then what is it, darling?"
"It doesn't belong there," Sky said looking down at her ring. She pulled away, just enough to clasp hold of the ring on her finger. She slowly removed the engagement ring from her finger then set down the ring on the nightstand near the bed. Moving back into her love's arms, she closed her eyes contentedly. "I'll talk to her tomorrow. I have to tell her that the wedding is off." She paused, holding Cyrene more closely. "Will you come with me?"
Cyrene held Sky with a sudden protectiveness flooding her. "Of course, my love." She kissed the top of her lover's head, whispering against her hair. "I won't leave your side."
"Promise?"
"I swear it. I am yours."
"And I am yours."
The End