Free Soul Siren by Aisha Duquesne Page B

to what real people
think
—”
    “That’s not always true, Mor—”
    “Show me the hard stuff, and I’ll show a guy that’s been slapped down. Or grown tired and faded away. Nobody is saying things in their music as strongly as you want to say them, not in the commercial mainstream in between the Madonna and Snoop and Red Hot Chili Peppers shit. You want to say this stuff, and you want the music to last? To become classics? I don’t think they’ll let you. I am telling you—you want to be provocative while you climb the charts? Shake your ass, don’t speak your mind.”
    “Morgan, that’s a horrible sexist thing to say!”
    He rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. I’m not saying that’s my opinion. Get a grip. At the end of the day you want to be a
musician
. A composer. You want to say things? Say it through the notes, the chords. Make
music
that’s provocative. Forget the words. Any fool can rhyme or paint a placard.”
    Erica stared at him, refusing to budge from her spot on the pavement.
    “Don’t give me the hurt puppy dog expression,” he said brutally. “You forfeited the right not to listen when you called yourself an artist! You’ll get people who won’t love everything you do. You’ll get asshole reviewers. Suck it up, young lady. The roller coaster hasn’t even started. Go prove me wrong.”
    “Christ, you do sound like my Dad sometimes,” she told him, taking his arm.
    “Your father was smart,” said Morgan. “He got out.”
    “Then why’d you stay in?”
    “For the same reason he sent you to me.”
    Erica thought she understood. Her father wanted Morgan to teach her how to love the craft beyond the glory. It was a rather bittersweet compliment to his talents, since that kind of lesson is best learned from the one who has failed, the one who stays behind to keep watch, to hold the sacred ground. This was the “Just in case” that her father communicated to me, that if Erica didn’t make it, she could keep the music. If she did succeed, then Morgan’s training would prove immeasurably beneficial. She walked with her arm linked through his, humbled by the knowledge, both of them saying nothing for a couple of minutes.
    “Why don’t you have a girl?” she asked.
    “What does that have to do with anything?”
    “Just curious.”
    “
Noooo,
you’re being nosy,” he growled. “And don’t think I’ve never noticed the wheels grinding with you.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “I want to go play chess,” said Morgan, and the subject was dropped.
    She admitted to me that she did creep into his apartment late one evening after that walk in the park. The freight elevator didn’t tip him off to her arrival because he was in the shower. Morgan stepped out of the bathroom, he told me later, to walk around and get out of the cloud of steaming vapour, towelling himself off as he paced around his apartment with only one lamp on near the television. And there was Erica standing in front of him.
    “Hi, Morgan,” she purred.
    He towelled the nape of his neck, not bothering to cover himself up. Erica told me he was “an impressive hunk of man standing like that.” Yes, he was old enough to be her father—he was her father’s contemporary, after all—but his body had chunks of compact muscle, his broad chest with a sprinkling of silver grey hairs, his wide smooth thighs the most youthful part of him. His cock was for the most part in shadow, his ball sack visible and hanging down like a tiny velvet pouch.
    “What is this?” he said, sounding more disappointed than outraged. “What are you doing here?”
    “What do you think?” she asked.
    She knelt in front of him, but he didn’t move. He looked at her as you would a child acting out.
    “Erica…”
    She reached her hands around and felt his buttocks, surprisingly firm to her touch, her caress working the circumference of his waist until her spread fingers rested delicately on his hips. His penis sprang to life, and