Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

The manuscript that I had written for Margot was titled “The 100 Greatest Rock, Pop, and Blues Musicians of All Time.” A definitive list of the greatest musical artists since the beginning of the twentieth century as compiled by yours truly, based on my many interviews with those living and my research on those deceased. It was a comprehensive and definitive list, detailing the lives and achievements of everyone from Buddy Holly to Ray Charles, from Nina Simone to Joan Jett, from John Lennon to Elvis Presley. It was arranged as a countdown, starting at number one hundred and ending on number one, who was none other than the mysterious and renowned Robert Johnson.

Although he only ever recorded two albums, Robert Johnson is credited for having created blues music as we know it, which was the cornerstone of all other musical styles and genres that came after it. Born in Mississippi in 1911, he spent most of his life drifting through the south, playing on street corners for nickels and dimes, a penniless young boy with nothing but a guitar to his name. And yet he is now considered by many as the father of modern music. Yes, there were other blues musicians who came before Johnson. But none of them possessed his talent, his ingenuity, his ability to transform chords and redefine the way music was played.

But Johnson wasn’t always gifted.

In fact, he was regarded by his peers as one of the worst, most disruptive wannabe musicians they’d ever heard.

One night, in his early twenties, Johnson took his guitar to a Mississippi juke joint where blues artists Son House and Willie Brown were the main act. During the show, Johnson tried to impress various patrons by playing his own music, until Son and Willie pulled him up and told him just how bad he was. They told him he was talentless, a no-good nuisance, a terrible guitar player, and before the night was through, they kicked him out of the bar.

After that night, Johnson disappeared for almost a year and a half.

When he returned, his six-string guitar had seven strings on it.

When he played, he conjured up music like it was a spell, playing chords and notes that not only had nobody heard before, but was music that nobody even thought possible to play.

His fingers were puppet masters of the strings.

His songs became legendary… and so did the story behind his mysterious new talent.

One night, according to those who knew him, Johnson found himself in the middle of a crossroads—in the middle of nowhere—demanding to make a deal with the Devil. The deal was simple: Johnson was willing to trade his soul in order to become the greatest guitar player the world had ever known. When the Devil appeared, tall and dark, with a hat covering his face, he took Johnson’s guitar and played it, bestowing it with all his demonic magic so that whenever Johnson played that guitar, the world would stop and listen in awe and wonder.

The Devil even added a seventh string.

Unfortunately, Johnson barely had enough time to relish in his newfound talent and the short burst of fame it brought. At the age of twenty-seven, he was poisoned in a juke joint after choosing the wrong woman to take to his bed, and the wrong bottle of whiskey to drink.

While his legend lives on…

So does his soul…

In eternal damnation.

Dying at the age he did, Robert Johnson also has the morbid distinction of being the first to join what has become known as the “27 Club,” a group of musicians including Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Brad Jones, and Jimi Hendrix.

Musicians who all died long before their time at the age of twenty-seven.

Musicians whose talents were so rare and extraordinary, one has to wonder… did they make a deal with the Devil too?

The moon was gone, hidden behind a bank of storm clouds hanging so dense and low I felt as though I could reach up with a knife and gut them open. But full as they were, they refused to burst, instead pressing down on the humidity, thickening the air, making it so hard to breathe that I was panting as I walked cautiously through the dark toward the crossroads.

The dirt on the road crunched beneath my shoes. On either side of me, the cotton plants loomed dark and ominous, like the hedge of a maze promising a place to hide, a place to escape, a place from which one might never return.

In the night sky above, thunder rolled dramatically, and I flinched.

I had left Chet in the room. He seemed keen to stay, perhaps in the hope he might see Iggy again. I was glad I didn’t have to worry about him out here in the dark. Hell, I was concerned enough for myself.

And for Lovesong.

Up ahead the sound of the harmonica grew louder, and in the dark, I saw him.

At first all I could make out was his shadowy shape and the sight of his white linen shirt—is that why he wore white out here, as some sort of beacon?—but as I drew nearer, I could make out his features, his hands moving the harmonica back and forth along his lips.

He was sitting on an old wooden crate in the middle of the crossroads, and I realized it was the same box I had seen Iggy dancing on the day I met him. I also realized there was a strap running diagonally across his chest. It was his guitar strap, the acoustic guitar now resting against his back, the neck pointing down.

I was a hundred or so feet away from him when the harmonica abruptly stopped playing.

I took one step too far in the deathly silence, my shoe crunching on the dirt.

I froze.

Lovesong stiffened and slowly, silently, put the harmonica in his breast pocket.

He turned his face left and right, his ears like radars.

“Who’s out there?” he demanded in a stern, fearless tone.

I didn’t move a muscle. I even stopped breathing.

“I said who’s there?” This time his voice was even louder.

I realized I had stopped moving in an awkward position, almost mid-step, too much weight on my front foot, not enough on my back foot. I was beginning to teeter. I needed to shift my balance.

Slowly I increased the weight on my back foot.

The dirt began to crunch beneath my shoe, so quietly I could barely hear it.

But Lovesong could.

He turned his head to face directly at me, like he could see me, clear as day. “Who are you? I know you’re there, so tell me who you are! Whether you’re the Devil or not, make yourself known!”

Suddenly a crash of thunder split the sky with a BOOM so loud I startled and fell.

Lovesong heard me hit the ground, even over the crackle of thunder tearing across the sky right above us.

Instantly he broke into a sprint, heading straight for me, even though he couldn’t see, like a wild animal trusting his other senses, his instincts and his knowledge of this landscape more than enough to track me down.

I panicked and pulled myself up, feet scrambling noisily against the dirt, launching myself into a mad dash not down the road, but into the cotton fields that might conceal me.

I pushed my way into the forest of cotton plants. The base of the bolls, where the cotton sprouted from, was sharp and prickly, and they scratched at my arms and face.

Above me the clouds opened.

The rain was so heavy it pelted the cotton plants like bullets.

I glanced back and saw Lovesong tearing through the bushes behind me, my gasping and panting an easy target to pursue.

I don’t know why I was so terrified of letting him know it was me who had stalked him. I guess I didn’t want him to know that I knew about his strange midnight vigils, in case it might lead to him finding out why I was there in Clara’s Crossing in the first place. I had the childish hope that if I didn’t know his secret, he wouldn’t know mine, even though all our secrets were at some point bound to collide.

So, I kept running.

I mopped the rain out of my eyes.

My feet slipped in the mud, but I kept going, kept pushing myself forward, until suddenly—

The cotton plants parted before me and I was stumbling toward the doors of a shed.

I was disoriented.

I had no idea if I’d been running toward Clara’s Crossing, or away from it.

I just kept sprinting, careening toward the shed doors, hoping it was somewhere I could hide, from Lovesong, from the rain, from everything.

But as I reached the doors to the shed, about to haul them open, Lovesong came charging out of the cotton fields and crashed into me with all his weight, crushing me against the doors of the shed, knocking the air out of my lungs.

“Who are you? Who the fuck are you?” he demanded, digging his nails into my shoulders and forcefully turning me around to face him.

“It’s me!” I gasped and coughed, rasping for air. “Lovesong, it’s me! Noah!”

“Noah? What the fuck?”

The rain was still drenching us as his sodden fingers scraped the skin on my face, nothing like the gentle touch of our connection in the kitchen. He prodded me, he squeezed my skin, trying to identify me.

“Lovesong, you’re hurting me.”

“What are you doing out here? Did you follow me?”

“No. I don’t know. I followed the music.”

“Why? Everybody knows not to follow me out here. Everybody knows how dangerous it is.”

“Dangerous? How?”

“Because…” he didn’t want to finish his sentence.

So, I finished it for him. “You’re trying to summon the Devil, aren’t you? Is that what you’re trying to do? Lovesong, he’s never coming for you. Because he doesn’t exist. Stop trying to make some stupid deal with the Devil, because he doesn’t exist!”

“Yes, he does. And I’m not trying to make a deal, I’m trying to reverse one. The deal my birth mother made with the Devil. My music… in exchange for her soul. I need to reverse it. I need to give the music back… so I can get her back.”

“What?” I shook my head. “No! You can’t.”

“Noah, don’t you get it? I’d give anything to have her back, to get to know the person who gave birth to me, to have the chance to love her.”

“Lovesong, she’s gone. When someone’s gone… they’re gone forever. I know you don’t wanna hear that, none of us do. But it’s true.”

I saw the look on Lovesong’s face, anger and anguish, confusion and concern. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

Suddenly he reached behind me, yanked the rickety door of the shed open and shoved me inside. He followed and slammed the door, shutting out the rain.

I had no idea where we were until he flicked on a gas lantern near the door.

I saw brown cotton covering the floor in heaps and realized it was today’s harvest. We were inside Cybil’s shed.

“Ain’t none of this is your business,” Lovesong said angrily. “You don’t know nothin’ about the Devil. You don’t know nothin’ about what he’s capable of. And you don’t know nothin’ about me.”

“I know you’re smart. I know you’re just about the most talented musician I’ve ever heard play. But I know that gift didn’t come from a deal with the Devil.”

“How? What would you know?”

“I know you have a talent that most people would kill for. I know you may not be able to see musical notes on a sheet of paper, but I know what you see in your head is far more powerful. Far more beautiful. And that’s something you should never let go of. Don’t fuck up your gift, just because you think Heaven or Hell told you so. It’s yours. Fair and square.”

He stood there opposite me from a moment, still panting from the bolt through the rain… or was he panting because he was holding back tears? It was almost impossible to tell. Then, in a quiet voice, he said, “It’s okay that you don’t believe what I believe.”

“I know that. But you should know there is one thing I do believe in.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

I took in a breath and said, “You. I believe your talent is yours, not a gift from the Devil. I believe in you , Lovesong.”

A tear streaked down my cheek.

Thunder growled at the door.

And suddenly Lovesong stepped up to me, took my face in his hands, and kissed me.

He kissed me with a hunger, a yearning, that took me by surprise.

Yet I didn’t stop him.

Any sexual urges within me had been shut off for so long, I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to kiss someone. But suddenly my suppressed yearning, the desire to be with someone, was back, stronger than ever.

I kissed him ravenously, and before I knew it, he was pulling off my wet shirt and letting it slap to the ground.

He jerked his own shirt off, losing a button, never once letting his lips leave mine as his tongue delved deep into my mouth.

My chest heaved, my body wanting him so badly that I could barely control myself.

I yanked at his jeans, unbuttoning and unzipping them, making my intentions—my urgent need—more than clear as I shoved my hand inside.

My fingers seized his hot, swollen package and pulled his manhood free of his jeans, his dick instantly standing tall and proud, thick and stiff, the sheath of his foreskin sliding quickly down to reveal the large blooming head of his cock.

I wanted to drop to my knees, to take it in my mouth, but Lovesong stopped me, quickly unfastening my pants, unzipping me to reveal my own stiff dick.

My cock practically pounced free, our erections brushing against each other and forcing a moan of desire from my lungs.

We heeled off our boots. We slid our pants hurriedly down our legs and stepped out of our clothes. But just when I was ready for him to take me…

He suddenly slowed things down.

He pushed me backward, my feet stumbling blindly until my back pressed against the wall of the shed.

Then slowly, tenderly, he touched his fingers to my chest.

His hand traced my skin so delicately that I realized he was not just touching me, he was seeing me.

He was drawing a picture of me in his mind, his soft touch gliding over every contour, pausing over moles and scars, scanning each and every goosebump.

He was mapping a blueprint.

He was forging the metalwork of me, stacking the building blocks that made me.

He was creating me out of a vision only he could see.

I hoped he was creating a better version of me than the real one.

Isn’t that what we all wanted… to be someone better?

Or was I simply looking for someone to make me better?

I wanted him more than ever as his fingers trailed down my quivering abs, then raked their way through my pubic hair, coming to rest around the base of my hardened cock.

Gently he began to stroke it, squeezing it at the base and sliding all the way up to the bulging head. The up and down motion continued, gaining speed and pressure, and within seconds he was jerking me off.

I couldn’t hold my breath any longer and let out a groan and a rush of air. They were followed by short gasps as his other hand took hold of his own thick, hard cock.

He began to stroke himself, at the same time increasing the intensity of his strokes on my dick, rubbing my cock even harder.

He was strong, his grip forceful. If he kept going, I was going to blow all too soon. I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted this moment to last as long as possible.

“Stop,” I uttered.

He instantly paused his stroking, a look of concern on his face. “Are you okay?”

“I want more. I wanna taste you. I want you in my mouth, I want every inch of you in my mouth.”

He grinned and took his hands off both our cocks.

This time he couldn’t stop me from dropping to my knees, his dick stiff and bobbing up and down in front of my face.

The crown of his cock was large and bulbous, plump and purple, ripe as all hell.

I wrapped my lips around it, taking in that warm head of flesh, already tasting the sweet precum that started oozing from his slit.

My hands reached around and grabbed his firm, clenched ass cheeks.

I pushed him closer to me, taking in more of him, then all of him.

My tongue lapped up every contour of his thick, long cock, his veins throbbing, his shaft salty and sweet at the same time.

I began sucking, hard, while Lovesong moved his hips back and forth, breathy moans slipping from his lips.

I took him in and out, the head of his dick reaching the back of my throat, before sliding it out, teasing his slit with a flick of my tongue then taking him in again.

Again.

Again.

His breathy moans turned into long groans which turned into loud cries.

“I’m gonna come. Noah, I’m…”

Suddenly he gripped my hair.

He thrust himself forward and with a jolt his entire body quaked.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he grunted uncontrollably.

Then came the hot gush, cum filling my mouth in a deluge.

Swiftly I swallowed it down, gulping hard and fast, filling my belly with that sweet river of cum.

His abs pressed against my forehead, heaving hard before his breaths began to slow and the last of his cum drained down my throat.

Slowly he released my hair, and I released his dick, letting the swollen shaft slide from my smiling cum-slicked lips.

“Oh God,” he panted. “That was amazing. And it ain’t over yet.”

Gripping me by the shoulders, he lifted me off my knees and turned me around.

“Take us to the cotton,” he told me.

I led him by the hand across the shed, then eased us both down on a bed of cotton.

He positioned me onto my back and leaned over me, kissing my trembling stomach tauntingly, when all I wanted him to do was take my throbbing, yearning cock in his mouth.

Slowly he ran his hands up and down the insides of my thighs, urging me to spread my legs as wide as I could.

He lowered his face between my legs.

Then, with his tongue moist and warm, he began to lick my aching balls.

He lapped up my testicles.

He sucked on my ball sack.

He ventured lower and teasingly flicked his tongue in and out of my ass.

I let out a groan, a sound that told him I wanted more. He obliged, pushing his tongue as far into my ass as it could reach. He lapped at the flexing and tensing muscles of my passage. He slid his tongue out and licked at the curls of hair that ringed my hole. And when he was done, he ran his tongue all the way up my balls, up the length of my shaft’s main vein, until he reached the crown of my cock and took it between his lips.

With a moan of ecstasy, I squeezed his dirty blond hair in both hands, while he slid my cock all the way into his mouth.

He sucked hard and groaned with an untamed hunger. It reverberated up and down the length of my dick as his head bobbed up and down, faster and faster.

It wasn’t long before I could feel the pressure and pleasure building.

I felt my balls ascending, about to unleash their load. By way of warning, I panted, “I’m gonna come… I’m gonna…”

But before I could finish the sentence, the dam burst and the first surge of cum filled Lovesong’s mouth.

The suction on my cock was so intense I let out a loud cry.

He swallowed hard, then quickly pulled my cock from his throat and pumped my saliva-wet shaft hard with his fist.

I watched as the second surge of cum shot onto his face, splashing over his lips and chin.

Lovesong caught his breath, surprised and beaming with delight at the sensation of my cum hitting his face.

The sight of him licking at his chin made me come even more.

The third and fourth explosion of cum spooled over his cheeks, even launched as high as his forehead, until soon my orgasm slowed to a spurt and ooze that dribbled over his fist.

I panted for air, gasping over and over, “Oh fuck… Oh fuck…”

Lovesong turned his head toward mine and began laughing contentedly. His fist released my spent cock, and he licked his fingers, then he started wiping the cum from his face and licked that too.

“Here, let me help with that,” I said, taking his chin in my hand and guiding his face up to mine.

I kissed his chin, his cheeks, his forehead, lapping up my own cum, before my lips found his.

He stretched out beside me on the bed of cotton, propped up on one elbow, and there we kissed as the storm slowly rolled into the night.

Eventually he pulled away, then reached over to his guitar, laid it against his chest and started playing a sweet, simple melody. He didn’t sing, he didn’t say a word for a long time, he simply played a tune that appeared to be totally spontaneous.

I looked at him, a man completely comfortable in his own skin as he strummed at his guitar, his bronze muscles still shimmering from the rain, his cock thick and long and spent, lying flaccid on one of his sparsely haired thighs.

The sight of him in this rustic old shed was nothing less than perfect.

The melody he played was perfect.

He … was perfect.

I thought nothing could break the spell of that moment. And then—

“You loved him very much, didn’t you?”

The comment jarred me. I wasn’t expecting it. I propped myself up on one elbow. “What do you mean?”

“Your partner. The one who died. I know how much you loved him. I can feel your pain when I touch you. I can taste your grief when I kiss you.”

He stopped playing mid-chord.

He set his guitar aside.

Then, guiding his hand through the air as though it was drawn to the heat of my body, he laid his palm over my heart. “They say time heals all wounds, but that ain’t true at all. Sometimes the needle of life skips a groove on the record. Sometimes we have to go back to the start of the song and begin all over again. Sometimes we have to learn to move in time to a strange new melody, one we don’t know the steps to. But if our hearts keep beating in time with the music, then maybe… just maybe… we’ll learn to dance again.”

He leaned forward and kissed me, then said, “Love can’t make loss go away. But only love can make it fade into the background, little by little, until eventually, on a good day, we might be lucky enough to forget it’s even there.”

He kissed me once more and whispered. “Only love can teach us to dance again.”

It was late by the time we returned to the manor. We walked in the door in our sodden clothes—hand in hand, his fingers lightly tethered to mine—to find all the lights were off but for a lamp downstairs in the vestibule and another at the top of the stairs.

The place was quiet, still, and while I turned to head for the elevator, Lovesong pulled me back. “That rattly old thing’ll wake the whole manor. Follow me.”

He led me to the grand staircase, and we stopped at the foot of it. “Are you sure?” I asked, looking at the shadowy cracks, the bowed boards and completely collapsed stairs here and there.

“I know, it’s a little like a minefield,” he said. “Just follow my steps, I know exactly where to tread.”

With one hand still in mine, Lovesong led the way, up one step then the next.

Pensively I followed.

Sometimes he stepped wide over a hole.

Sometimes he steered me right then left.

Sometimes he told me to jump when he jumped, two or three steps at a time.

At one point I lost my footing and teetered on the brink of a collapsed step, about to fall in a hole and break my leg. But Lovesong tightened his grip and pulled me into his arms, safe from harm.

When we reached the top step, he turned to me and smiled. “There, that weren’t so bad, was it?”

“I guess not,” I said, glancing back over my shoulder and hoping I never had to do that again.

He pulled me into a kiss, our wet clothes slapping against each other, then asked, “Would you like to sleep in my bed tonight? If you’re ready, I mean.”

I wasn’t sure I was.

Perhaps I was almost ready to start letting loss fade into the background.

Perhaps I was almost ready to believe that I might someday love again.

But at that moment…

“I… I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m quite ready yet.”

Lovesong smiled and touched his fingers to my cheek. “That’s okay. I understand.”

Together we walked to the door to our room.

He pushed it open…

And instantly I saw that something was wrong.

My body tensed, and Lovesong felt it.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked urgently.

The French doors to the balcony were open.

The sheer curtains billowed gently.

And on the floor in front of the balcony doors sat Chet, staring at two objects that had been removed from my suitcase and purposely set out for me to see—the urn containing Joel’s ashes, and the cassette tape of Lovesong’s audition to Juilliard.

I let go of Lovesong’s hand and hurried into the room, scooping up Chet who trembled in my arms.

“Noah, what is it? Tell me.”

“Someone’s been in here again. They’ve pulled things out of my suitcase.”

“Is Chet okay?”

I nodded. “Yes. He’s scared but he’s okay.”

Lovesong came up behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder. “What’s been pulled from your suitcase?”

“Some things.”

“What things?”

“Joel’s ashes.” I stopped at that, not wanting to say any more…

That’s when I saw the words scrawled in mud on the floorboards next to the two items—

Tell him your secret!