Duet Noir

On this side of the glass, 96 channels of console with pots and faders stood rigid at the ready like a miniature army. Three-and-a-half-million dollars worth of gear mounted in neat racks, covered the back wall of the dimmed room, lit up with all of its colorful LEDs like city skyscrapers at dusk. The hard disk machine recorded everything to unlimited tracks and displayed them on the 52" monitor above the window. On the other side of the glass, the instruments stood still, the drum kit, glossy and black with cymbals suspended in silence. There were no perpendicular walls. The two booths faced each other in a crossfire, their glass sliding doors slightly askew from parallel. A large tube Neumann with pop screen hung suspended from a boom awaiting in each.

Charging eight grand a day for his own services, metal producer extraordinaire, Steve Lomax sat at the desk in his castored throne as he listened one more time to the demo with the rough vocal track dubbed over that had been couriered to him from Brazil on the weekend. The band had tracked all the music a month ago. The lyrics were finally done and Steve had to admit that they were actually pretty good. The song finished playing and he set the headphones down on the console, pushed back his long ash ponytail and stroked his goatee.

"Where the fuck is Hugh?" he grumbled as he eyed the clock above the door to his right.

OOC: This is a closed thread, thank you.

Aurora swept into the booth, looking pale and perfect, as usual. Her merlot and black hair was pulled back by silver pins that glinted with red and black semi precious stones, looking like ebony and blood colored tear drops. Mismatched eyes stared out from her angelic seeming face, and came to land on the man sitting behind the "magic board" as she tended to call it. At least, the controls on that board could create magic, in the hands of a master... and Lomax was a master.

Her eyes swept the small booth and the adjoining studio before her blood colored lips curled into a smirk. "Hugh's late as usual, I see. Here I was worried I didn't have time to stop for drinks." Her corset was green satin, the fabric stretched taught between black strips that ran vertical, showing where the boning of the corset was. She half expected Lomax to ask how she intended to sing in such restrictive clothing, but he'd get the same easy answer everyone did... She lived in these kinds of clothes. She could run and jump in stiletto heeled boots, and she could certainly sing in a corset.

the corset barely overlapped the bottom of low riding, hip hugging leather pants. The pants almost looked like they'd been slashed along the outside seams, as black leather cord was criss-crossed over the openings, flashing her pale skin. A pair of knee high heeled boots completed the outfit, which was nearly enough to make someone overlook the fact that she held a drink tray with three coffees in it in one hand and a sheaf of sheet music in the other.

"Hows life, luv?" her accented voice asked as she set the tray down on a small side table. She handed him one of the cups without asking if he wanted it, then fetched her own and moved to lean against the counter where the board was, next to him, but facing the opposite direction and leaning just far enough back to look down at him comfortably.

Rio was a blast. It was his new party haven since the band went on hiatus. Officially Crimson Addiction was still together, but ever since that night in Pittsburgh where Dragon walked out in a snit and the cops busted Leo, everything was hazy. Leo Jenkins had his day in court and chose rehab over jail. Whether he was serious about it or not was an entirely different matter. Loki was still the drummer. He had in fact laid down the killer drums tracks for this seven-inch with Armas from Black Heaven and Dave Dirty Sanchez from a million different bay area bands sitting in respectively on guitar and bass. The B-side was two short covers: Hugh doing a break-neck version of UFO and David Lee Roth's Shyboy and his duet partner's gothic rendition of Joan Jett's Do You Wanna Touch Me. Both songs were short. They fit well with the nearly six-minute A-side. It was the record company's idea. Since the band was in limbo, they wanted to keep things in the public eye. They wanted a duet single - a ballad - from them. The band came up with this dark, churning number. Hugh was there when they started tracking it during the Shyboy session before taking off for Brazil where they sent him the rough tape.

The flight was late, but only by twenty minutes. Customs was another matter. Even though Hugh traveled light and had only a carry-on to check through, they tried their damndest to detain him but couldn't find anything on the rock star. The female officer was dying to give him a strip search but her senior wasn't about to let any fun ruin anyone's day. Of course, Hugh had hit it off with one of the flight attendants (a drop dead Dutch number) and had offered her a ride to her hotel in the limo. A ride she got.

Then there was the interview. He was scheduled to squeeze one in before getting to the studio and it came with a photo-op so he was dressed for it. Silver tassels dangled from the shoulders and across the back of the black heavy road coat which hung open to show his dark red embroidered western shirt tucked into a chrome and pearl skull and crossed-pistol belt buckle. Black bell bottoms swished around silvery snakeskin elevator boots (he stood a deceptive 5'9") and the ensemble was topped with a black suede stetson and shades. Larger than life on stage and MTV, Hugh Jorgan entered Room A in body and flesh.

"'Ello then," he smiled charmingly and removed the shades to reveal light brown mascara'd eyes and high cheek bones. His voice was warm and considerably lower than his operatic blues-rasp. He slipped out of the coat and tossed it on the black velvet couch, which at one point was the black leather couch up until "that fuckin' tool James Hetfield" ordered it replaced because the "creaky sound of the leather annoyed him when he was trying to listen back to his shitty solo". All the big names in metal recorded at Malibu. Hugh eyed Aura's efficient frame without subtlety and discarded the stetson as well.

"Lovely as always," he complimented her.

"Good evening, Hugh," said Lomax coldly. It was still three in the afternoon.

"Everybody loves Steve," said Hugh. "He's got that great sense of humor." The producer was all business. "Been waiting long?"

Aura smirked as Hugh entered, and couldn't help but roll her eyes just slightly at all the flash and glam he put into his outfits. "'Ey there, Hugh," she said with a soft smirk before pushing herself off of the place on the counter she was leaning against. She handed him the third latte on the tray before brushing gently by him, her body briefly rubbing against his before she stepped out of range and grabbed her sheet music.

"Want to go over the solos first, or would you rather work on the duet?" She asked, looking over at their producer. Of the two of them, Aurora was definitely the more professional, though she had a way of making every little thing drip with sex appeal. Perhaps that was just the way she dressed, then again it could have just been because her body was built to make people stop and stare.
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Her energy enveloped him as she slipped past. It gave him a tingle in the back of his neck. He gave his attention to the producer who was leaning back in his throne and stretching, searching for the words to combat Hugh's glib grin. Then she came up behind him and handed him the coffee, not so subtly grazing his elbow with her breast. She didn't have to touch him to make him tingle again. Not that he minded.

Hugh nipped at the latte and winced, prompting him to find a spot on the counter to put the hot beverage down and search his discarded coat for his flask. Brandishing it with a sigh of relief, he returned to the coffee, deciding to sip it down an once or two to make room for the spike of whiskey. With his back to the room, the tail of his shirt was untucked - an oversight from playtime with the flight attendant. Other than that, it fit his slender frame well. His sleeves were rolled up revealing a myriad of silver bracelets obscuring his forearm ink. His tight butt shifted as he transfered weight from his right leg to his left. Then he tossed his long dark hair back and took a good swig of Irish whiskey latte. Facing the room again he wiped his chin with satisfaction.

Sheet music was so not rock and roll, but she knew how to make it sexy. He hadn't even heard her lyrics for her verse yet.

"First I'll need to take levels," said Lomax as he indicated the isolation booths. "They're both the same. First one out there gets dibs."

"Let's just roll from the top," said Hugh. "Once to warm up and once or twice more to nail it." He may have been considered less professional, but inly because being too pro was boring. The final track would be dynamite and it wouldn't take all night. That was professional enough.

Smirking to herself, Aura didn't bother to argue with either of the men as she carried her sheet music and latte both into the recording booth. Sure, for a lot of place, that was a big no-no, but people didn't argue with her when she said she wanted something. After all, her popularity might not be as big as Hugh's in the US, but she could rival just about any metal star on her own turf, which was admittedly all of Europe. She was also blissfully easy to work with, not a diva in the least, and she generally didn't argue with what the producers wanted.

And the record execs? She let her agent argue with them while she just focused on her music. There was a small twitch to her hips as she moved into the recording booth on the left hand side and got herself set up.

"Ready when you are, boys," she said in a tone that was half playfull teasing, half velvet, sultry and deep, teasing and somehow promising of things most men could only dream of. Not that Hugh had ever been able to unwrap this particular gift. She didn't fall into his lap like one of his fan girls, and she made him work for even the smallest bit of her good grace when it came to the more sexual side of things. The brush against his arm was just a tease, a gentle reminder that he was still going to have to try, that she wasn't going to be handing anything to him.

During one drunken late night phone call, Hugh had confessed liking the chase at times, though he'd also said she baffled him with how easily she could tease and then brush someone off. Aura had taken it as a good sign... she could flirt with and tease him, but he realized she wasn't going to just give anything up. And he was enjoying it.

Hugh watched the movement of her hips as she strode away across the floor to the far booth. He knew she'd been looking at his ass while he played himself bartender too. The pattern of her stark white flesh in the cross-strapping of her pants contrasted brightly against the black leather. Her hips were narrow but her shimmery green waist was even narrower, giving her shape. The pinned up hair afforded a full view of her slender neck, shoulders and upper back, the same milky white as her legs. Her bare arms were quite thin. He took another swig of his drink and starting to feel the warmth in his belly he wiped his lips and headed for the other booth.

He put the beverage on the ledge and donned the headphones. Approaching the mic, he cleared his throat.

"Rmm, hrmmm, now then," he began and gave Lomax the thumbs up that all was working. The producer hit the talkback and his voice came through the phones all tinny-like.

"Sing something loud for a couple seconds for me," asked Lomax. Hugh obliged, bracing his feet shoulder width, holding the cans to his ears and busting off the opening line to the Crimson Addiction song Dance Diablo.

"Rrraaaise the curtaaaaiiiin - start dealin' the hurtin!"

He held his raspy wail until Steve answered, "Good," through the talkback not lifting his eyes from the preamp he was adjusting in the siderack. The producer only needed a few seconds to get it into the ballpark. He'd fine tune it through the first take.

"Your turn, luv" Hugh winked across at Aura and her sheet music.

"Yes, Aura," Steve prompted her through the talkback. "Can you give me something full volume so I can dial you in?"

Hugh took another swig of liquor and was feeling just about ready to rock.

Alana sent Hugh a smirk as he told her it was her turn. With a slight nod to Steve, she pulled the headphones on. She'd always hated the things, to be honest. They were just so damn big, and her ears were so tiny, she was always worried they'd live red imprint circles around her ears and make her look like some oddly colored cat.

Adjusting her stance to give her more support through her diaphragm, she lifted her hands to touch her fingertips lightly to the headphones, assuring that they would still be in place despite the fact that she'd left the band that held them loose, not wanting to mess up her hair too much.

"Cry. Out. For the moooooooon." It was the intro to one of her most popular songs. It had gone platinum in Europe, and had even gained some popularity here in the states. Her knees bent slightly as she came to the climax of the line, "moon". She didn't have to push hard to bring the power in her voice forth, as well as reach a note near, but not quite, the top of her range.

When she completed the drawn out note, which was more than long enough for Steve to get things set, she looked over at Hugh and let her full red lips curl up into another smirk, winking at him. Perhaps her voice wasn't as raspy as his own, but her years of vocal training afforded her a healthy, powerful pair of lungs. It would be interesting to see how his almost bluesy rasp and her classically trained, almost operatic tone would mix on the final cut of the song.

With an amused shake of her head, she looked down at her sheet music, thumbing through it for a moment. "Sure you're not too hung over from whatever party you were at last night to keep up, Hugh?" Her tone wasn't condescending, though she'd never received any press coverage due to partying... all in all, Alana was rather pure compared to most other metal artists. When questioned about this, her answer was always the same. She had too much to focus on with her music to have time to be able to afford to spend all her free nights out at clubs and parties.

Hugh watched the muscles in her throat expand just before she hit her first note. Aurora was so well trained. Without even warming up, her tone was crystal clear. She was in complete control.

"Sure you're not too hung over from whatever party you were at last night to keep up, Hugh?"

Through the cans, each nuance of her tongue and lips was detected in detail by the microphone and accentuated through Steve's settings of the preamp and EQs - tubes and wires, and especially noticeable with no background music yet.

"There's a trick to not being hung over, luv," Hugh winked as he raised his spiked coffee and took another swig.

She stood in her booth, a moderately dimmed rectangle window suspended across the dark main room from his own compartment framing her, half-glimmering gently in green, half naked, a tantalizing creature composed completely of skilled, sophisticated femininity.

"Okay, I'm gonna roll it," announced the producer.

"Top," Hugh assured.

The preroll clicked the moderate tempo - one, two, three, four, one, two, rest, rest - and on the one the band came in together. Armas' first strum, a shimmering full chord of F-sharp, followed by the hit of the rhythm on two-and. Then the palm chunks on the last two sixteenth-notes of the bar on E and F-sharp leading straight to G to start the second bar, which fell to E again on two-and. That was the two-bar riff. It was loud and beautiful, gloomy and grinding heavy. After four measures, another three of the same only with layered guitar octaves shone through before one more bar was adorned with a flourishing lead. Finally, the guitar assault sustained and faded, giving way to a clean arpeggio of B-minor, G and two bars of F over a simple kick drum and lightly tapped ride. Hugh's voice crept in low and quivered eerily.

Dirty wings, finer things
what stricken do these dark clouds bring

Hugh saved his trademark rasp to reveal itself at 'dark clouds bring' - these three beats falling creepily on the octave, major-seventh and sixth of the F scale. Hugh's twitch of the mouth at this point showed that he felt he could do better. He didn't like his attack on the second line. It was too harsh, and he also thought he was flat on 'dark'. He cleared his throat audibly before the next line. He was still warming up.

If you seek, ye shall find
to chance upon your earthbind

Drums thundering and guitars crunching, the band built in crescendo through G-sharp and A, then moved into a steady rhythm of two sixteenth and a quarter, alternating bars between B-minor, G, A and G. Hugh turned up the power.

Fall ... fall ...
You fall to me
Fall ... fall ...
You fall to me

Then the last bar stopped abruptly and rested to allow a vocal line which Hugh delivered almost spoken ...

... from heaven ...

... as if the line were unfinished, and the clean arpeggio verse returned.

Aura listened to him open the song. It was a rough intro, but it was also their first shot at this. To think he'd be perfect the first time around would be expecting a lot.. even from her. Her first takes were never perfect, no matter how well trained she was.

Fallen from grace, timid and chaste
Wings as broken as innocence is shattered

The words felt a bit awkward as Aura tried to follow them on the sheet music. She'd practiced this several times... but hearing it with the full band behind it was very different than trying to hear it in her head. The look on her face said no matter how lovely it might have sounded to them, she wasn't thrilled with how it had come out. Her voice was soft, clear, emotional.

Her eyes glanced over at Hugh and she found some of that old schoolgirl crush bubbling up inside of her. She wasn't doing well enough. He needed to be impressed. She needed him to be impressed with her as a performer. Why, she didn't know. Perhaps it was the fact that she'd spent so long in her youth trying desperately to win his attention and constantly being overlooked. Perhaps it was the fact that she needed a "look at me now!" moment. Not that she hadn't had that the night she'd shown up back stage at their show and seen his eyes drink her in, all too appreciatively.

Cast out, cast down and crying for mercy.
Your arms are the place where my sin rests and I fall...

Fall... fall...
I fall to you...
Fall... Fall...
I fall to you...

She let her voice trail off here, pausing for a breath before adding, her voice still soft, tender, almost afraid.

..from heaven

Singing was a full-bodied physical activity. Hugh knew that well, unlike most rock vocalists that were untrained. With that in mind he observed Aura intently, reaching for another sip of his spiked coffee and then refolding his arms. With her round face daintly perched atop her stalk of a neck and one thin arm at her side, the other bent eloquently at the elbow holding the sheet music, Hugh drank her figure in. Not unnoticed between her spidery arms was the subtle straining of the corset and swell of her tits as she inhaled. It was her attempt to read the sheet music that he felt was not only charming and adorable, but also probably distracting her from her best performance. She was trying too hard and as captivating as the angelic tone of her voice was, he knew she was struggling with the take and capable of much better.

His interest was piqued on the last line of the chorus, her voice weakening just so, he closed his eyes and clutched the cans to his ears as the compression on the channel caught the subtlety of her breath in a brief moment of magic.

I fall to you ...
...from heaven

"I like that," he smiled warmly.

The music continued on into the long bridge, paced by a slow churning drum rhythm and sparsely pulled bass chords. Eerie harmonics were intermittently tapped on the guitar.

"I love how this part builds," Hugh commented while gesturing with his hands, "but I'm at a loss as what to sing here." He glanced at Aura and then at Steve.

"I was afraid of that," said the producer. "We can just do some background ahhs."

The bass track began to gather energy and Armas' guitar solo started to slowly wind around the rhythm like a vine.

"Maybe," Hugh smirked. "It don't really think it needs anything though. I mean it's just great how it keeps building and building, but it's just such a long bridge it's like maybe it's a bit empty." Hugh articulated his point with hand gestures and looked to the others for thoughts.

The guitar solo intensified and arced through some scales as the drum pattern became more intricate and the rhythm guitar tracks kicked in to give the whole mix meaty substance. It was dark and heavy and girating. It went on for nearly two full minutes, building and intensifying under Armas' solo that evolved into a full-on shred. Finally the whole thing crescendoed with a wailing harmonic tremolo over huge shots in E, D, (breaking off the scale) B-flat, and G, each separated by thunderous drum fills.

"The band is fuckin' top," Hugh approved with a devious nod and a thumbs-up. Then he looked expectatntly towards Aura and nodded the cue for them to sing their same verses with their opposing rhythms for the third verse and final chrous. The band cut into the B-minor pogression as before but instead of the arpeggio it was heavy grinding metal. Hugh widened his stance and filled out his diaphragm to sing in full power rasp.

Dirty wings, finer things ...

Aurora listened to the music play, eyes remaining closed and only flickering open to glance at Hugh in response to something he'd say. She didn't really pipe up about what to sing with the music, as to be honest, she figured it would be more a on-the-fly kind of thing if they did come up with something to sing with the instruments.

When it was time for the next verse to start, her eyes opened and she dropped her sheet music to a stand off to the side, looking through the window at Hugh as she stepped up to the mic again.

Fallen from grace, timid and chaste... Her eyes stayed on his face as she sang, her voice loud enough to be heard, but soft enough to let him just slightly overpower him. She wanted to be the fallen angel in the song, to really sound like that's who she was and what she was going through.

She bit her lip for a moment before letting her eyes flutter closed and continuing to sing. Wings as broken as innocence is shattered... Cast out, cast down and crying for mercy. Your arms are the place where my sin rests and I fall...

Her eyes opened again there, giving him a long look. It was obvious she was starting to really feel the music, feel the character. Every note slipping from her lips held more emotion to it than the last one, her face softened and her eyes went slightly distant.

"All right," said Steve encouragingly through the talkback. "That was getting better towards the end. Shall we try again?"

"Aura, you're beautiful," said Hugh. "You were begging me towards the end. Let's go again, quick while my blood is up." He grinned at his duet partner and then glanced at the producer, urging him to roll quickly.

The music jumped out of the earphones again, the grinding rhythm and shimmering guitar pristine and pure in the perfect studio environment. Hugh's chest broadened as he inhaled and his larynx dropped as he sang.

Dirty wings, finer things ...

His voice was more fluid this time, more dynamic, purposely withholding power at proper moments as to be cruelly subtle. His English accent was more prominent on this take, especially on a word like "dirty".

Aurora had just enough time to recover from her first take, mentally chastising herself for letting Hugh's close proximity make her more worried about him than about the music. A soft blush had risen on her pale cheekbones when he complimented her, but she said nothing and tried to clear her mind, to focus on the task at hand.

She left the sheet music on the stand nearby in case she needed it and sipped briefly at her coffee before stepping back up to the mic, waiting for her turn to sing.

Fallen from grace, timid and chaste...

She closed her eyes and let herself picture the woman she was singing for. Let herself begin to feel how the angel in the song must have felt. Idly, somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if this was how she might have felt herself if Hugh had payed her attention when she was younger and her parents had found out. High society never did loan itself well to mingling with those they considered beneath them.

Aura, for her part, had never been one to judge people by status or money or anything of that nature. If anything, she judged based on talent... and talent was something Hugh had never been lacking in. He'd been the bad boy, the forbidden fruit she'd craved all through her adolescent years and even now, as an adult, she found stirrings of those old feelings kicking back up in her gut.

Her eyes opened and she looked over at him as she sang, more raw emotion in her voice. It caused some of the technical perfection people might have come to expect to be eased, but it loaned itself better to the song as she sang than the perfection ever had.

Hugh spent most of the second take with his eyes closed, concentrating on sound alone with minimal distraction. He was definitely warmed up and dialed in, in complete control of his breathing, expanding his chest and diaphragm before each line and meting out the air with precision. Hid throat and lips added the character to his performance.

When the instrumental breakdown commenced, he thought about asking Steve to fast-forward but instead decided to take the opportunity for another drink, this time emptying what was left of the flask. His eyes narrowed and with a satisfying smile, he gazed back across at his picturesque partner, lithe and demure. His throat drank the whiskey, his eyes her figure.

It was time for them to sing again and so they finished the song, ending on the main riff truncated with a fermata on G, Hugh followed the guitar and held the note until the sustain of the cymbals died. His eyes lit up when he got an idea.

"Aura darling," he started, "Let's finish that last note with you taking the tone above me. I'm on G, you take A." Hugh looked at her intently, before glancing back at the producer. "Can we just do the end again?"

"Are you guys gonna do anything in the instrumental bit?" Lomax redirected.

"We can do that later I think," said Hugh, looking back at his partner for confirmation.

"You're sounding pretty good," Steve admitted. "Why don't I just roll the whole thing three or four more times - I'll skip the bridge - and I'll just put together a master take from your best lines."

"If you want," Hugh shrugged, but he seemed to already know what he wanted.

Aura listened to them going back and forth. She liked the idea of ending on A while he was on G, it would loan itself well to the contrasts in their characters. Her initial response would have been to want to run the end again alone, but the two continued on in their talk.

It wasn't until Steve suggested re-running the song that an idea came to her. "For the instrumental... why not do something where Hugh's talking as his character and I'm doing some ambient "ahhs" and such in the background? I mean, the entire thing comes off as a story anyway, might as well add a bit to it, don't you think, love?"

She glanced at Hugh as she said it, taking the down time to stretch her lithe body, the swell of her breasts straining hard at the corset she wore.

"For the instrumental... why not do something where Hugh's talking as his character and I'm doing some ambient "ahhs" and such in the background? I mean, the entire thing comes off as a story anyway, might as well add a bit to it, don't you think, love?"

Hugh watched her shift her hips and bend her back in a subtle arch. He knew that she was trying so hard to be coy, play things cool, but she was starting to slip. Her body language may have been subtle, but nothing was too subtle for Hugh. Even how she used the word "love", where previously it was meant teasingly, now was becoming more genuine. She inhaled and the tops of her breasts swelled, bulging delicately over the edge of the green satin giving him a tantalizing show.

"That's not a bad idea," Hugh contemplated. "But let's get to that later. Let's just do a couple more takes for Steve and then work out the bridge later." He winked at his partner. He had his own idea for the bridge.

Steve cued up two fresh tracks and rolled from the top again. Hugh had an idea rolling around that finally settled into form in his brain and in the moment he went for it, opening right on the first beat which was F-sharp, he sang B-flat with a momentary quiver of one semitone up to B.

Ahh-yaaaaaaaa

His voice sustaining in powerful temolo on B-flat, after the little quiver giving the intro a middle eastern feel. The part worked, at least as far as hugh was concerned. After that, he was basically making the producer happy, giving him his tracks. He knew that his second take (except for maybe one or two lines) was the keeper. He varied his phrasings in a couple of spots but didn't like the them as much as what he'd tracked previously.

As the instrumental started, the earphones fell silent for a second, before skipping ahead to two bars before the vocals came in again, making it easy to concentrate on just nailing the lead tracks.

The ending was what mattered. As it approached, he locked eyes with Aura, cueing her. He hit G and without losing her gaze, listened for the ninth chord that her A would make.

Aura lifted a hand to pat her hair, ensuring it hadn't come out of place as she listened to the song start again. She wasn't sure if she liked the way he'd responded to her suggestion, but she pushed the thought away, telling herself she was here to work and if the producer thought it was a good idea, nothing Hugh could say would stop them from trying.

She knew he was watching her as she stretched and prepared for the song to start again, and she slowly let the tension the stretch had built out of her muscles, her body relaxing and loosening. The notes he added to the song certainly added something to it, and she nodded her approval, though she didn't look at him as she did so, eyes falling closed as one hand lifted to press her fingertips gently to the cans over her ears.

She waited for the instrumental to be cut out, and let her eyes open to watch Hugh for his sign to sing. When it came, it couldn't have been more obvious. Mouth opening, she let her voice bring forth the A that would complete the moment of magic.

Her eyes were locked on his as she sang the note, and for a moment, she felt lost in his gaze and the music, as if he'd locked her into some trance for the moment.

She harmonized the A that formed the ninth chord with his G and as the two voices locked in resonance creating a hypnotic phasing in the headphones, Hugh looked into her mismatched eyes, one blue one green, one sad one naive. Fixing on the sad, he gazed into her, scrying the blue-lensed want in her soul at that moment. Although sequestered in separate booths on opposite sides of the studio, they had begun making love. The music was merely foreplay.

As the cymbal ring decayed and the guitar and bass held their sustain, he weakened his tone, scratching it out slowly as if his throat was drying up, leading her with his eyes for her to commingle her voice with his as the sound of the music decomposed itself. His larynx gradually relaxed to his speaking tone (much lower than his operatic rasp) and finished off with a breathy grunt of lustful rutting satisfaction.

Aura sang along with him, her eyes locked with his own. Somehow, within the core of her being, she knew something was starting between them. Something she'd been wishing for since adolescence when she'd first laid her mismatched eyes on him.

Now, years later, as adults, he still effected her the way he had back then... though on a more intense scale. He still set her heart to racing, her stomach did flipflops as they stared at each other.

She sensed the change in his voice just before it happened and his eyes mirrored what was happening with his throat. She understood, somehow, without any other guidance than what was in his eyes just what was happening between them.

Her voiced began to quiver just slightly, going breathy and weak. A soft blush colored her otherwise perfect porcelain cheeks even as her note began to weaken , slipping in to a small, almost purr like sigh. As the note recording stopped, she let out another shuddering breath and, blushing still, turned to pick up her coffee with a hand that trembled ever so slightly.

She was the embodiment of femininity. As her sighing voice commingled with his, Hugh's adrenaline began to pump. He kept his gaze locked upon hers even as the performance ended and she reached for her beverage. From the corner of his eye he noticed a quiver in her finger, triggering a rather predatory response. His chest began to rise and fall as he caught his breath and checked his arousal.

"That was good," Steve announced through the cans.

It was good, very good, Hugh thought. They'd have to listen back for anything technical, but the attitude was perfect. She was heavenly. They both were.

"Since Mr. Jorgans was so late and I'm starving, it's about time for lunch break," said the producer. "I'm going to the sushi place across the street. Anybody coming?"

"I ate before I came," said Hugh. "I think I'd like to just listen back for a bit while you're out," he suggested.

"You can do that, sure," said Steve.

Hugh grinned slyly towards his luscious duet partner and with his right hand, adjusted his groin.