-11-

The guys all left on Thursday, taking the motorboat to Mariefred thus stranding Ash and Ginny unless they wanted to row to the mainland.

Ash refused to see them off. They’d be back long before he missed them—things were still tense—and while he wasn’t desperate to go on a ’round the world trip for a single performance that didn’t mean he wasn’t still pissed over the arrangements.

As he had the run of the place, Ash gathered his gubbins and settled himself on the mezzanine floor. The upper floor was bright and airy, and he liked to watch the way the sunlight dappled the walls and slopes of the A-line roof.

Also, the book nook was handy for some entertainment or as a place to crash. His problem with his fingers wasn’t the only issue, only the most noticeable one. Ever since his brush with death, he was forever having to take impromptu naps.

Having settled on the couch, Ash planted his feet on the coffee table, and opened up his laptop. The only thing missing was a decent brew. A hot drink was too much to carry alongside his other stuff when he could only rely on one hand, and stuff the notion of making two trips. He could live without the caffeine. He had a bottle of water that would suffice. It was healthier too.

See world. Effort is being made.

It didn’t take Ginny long to return from the jetty. Sounds of her bustling about downstairs drifted up to him. Ash flicked on some background entertainment while he deliberated over the melody that had come to him during the night. It looked like a series of blobs an underachieving toddler might make and call art. He’d jotted it down left-handed on the back of an appointment letter from the hospital psychologist. If anyone managed to decipher it well enough to play it, the result would hopefully sound rather more sophisticated.

It sounded amazing in his head. Now, if he could just write the accompanying lyrics he’d be set, and he’d have something to wave in the rest of the band’s faces.

Ash didn’t pretend that lyric writing was his thing. In the past, he’d been content to leave the actual song writing to Xane and Spook, only contributing the occasional idea or riff when asked to, but as everything else he valued had been stolen away, he needed a way of contributing.

Yeah, about that… It turned out that song writing was pretty damned hard, if you didn’t want something that sounded shit or resembled bad goth poetry. Being less pompous and wilfully clever seemed to be the answer. Straight talking, yep. Simple but effective phrasing: that too! Also, he needed a hypnotic chorus with an infective draw, so that listeners were reeled into the story being told. A song was a mini story, or in his eyes, the best ones were. He was pumping a lot of himself into this one, and even if it was dire, there was something very cathartic about bleeding all over the page.

Having written the same couple of lines and deleted them numerous times over, Ash hit up YouTube, seeking a break and inspiration. He was watching Christina, Mya, Pink, and Lil’ Kim shimmy their way through Lady Marmalade for the umpteenth time in succession when Ginny interrupted him. Okay, mostly he was watching Christina, ’cause big hair, seedy undertones, and fishnets got him every time. Like every friggin’ time. Also, this particular video brought back vivid memories of better times, like when Ginny had shown up out of the blue in Paris and enthralled him with her own interpretation of the Moulin Rouge. She’d been dressed in a similar fashion to Ms. Aguilera, only six times as pretty, and boy could she shimmy her tight little arse. Never mind what she’d done with the rest of her stupendously hot and supple bod. She’d given him the night of his life.

“Are you cheating on me again, babe?” Ginny asked. She was standing on the top step, the sunlight illuminating her, and looking as crazily beautiful as she always did.

“A guy’s got to get his fishnet fix somehow,” he sighed, and because he was pissed off added, “And you’re not humouring me.”

Rather than bite his head off like he probably deserved, since sex ought never to be a given in any relationship, she sashayed over to where he was sitting. “I’ve worn them. Me thinks your interest’s just been elsewhere.”

Possibly, that was true. Though he was pretty sure she’d been deliberately holding out on him. He noticed fishnets. Always.

She sat next to him. “Whatcha doing?”

“Nothing.” He blanked the screen. He wasn’t ready to share yet. “Did you want something in particular?”

She snuggled up to his side and took hold of his hand. “As it happens, yes. You might not have noticed, but we have the place to ourselves.”

“And?”

He knew what she was hinting at, but it gave him a perverse sort of kick to be obtuse about it. It felt weird knowing that in the past he’d have been ripping his clothes off and volunteering as her love slave right about now, with no more than she’d already said as a prompter. He didn’t feel he had a whole lot in common with that guy anymore. Iain had killed him. He’d stabbed him right through the heart and twisted the knife until all that was left was a twisted, mangled mess.

Yeah, so he was engaged in a pity party. That was his right, exactly as it was everyone else’s. Sure, he appreciated that he wasn’t the only one who’d had a hard time recently. The whole band had been subject to a ton of shit in recent weeks, what with Xane falling off the wagon and Elspeth’s nightmare exit from the band, but he’d had that and more. He was still living the aftermath of Karlstad every fucking day.

One of the things that continually bugged him was that none of them ever talked about what had happened. They asked him how he was doing, but never drilled into the details of what happened and how badly it had fucked up his life. Any concerns they voiced were only ever in the context of him getting better.

Ginny was looking at him with her lips pursed.

“Look, I’m not exactly feeling sexy at the minute.” He raised his fucked hand to remind her of how damaged he was.

“Do you really want me to get Ever Ready Ash out?” Ginny punched him on the arm. “And, actually I didn’t come up here with the intention of getting laid. If I had, you’d already be on your back. We talked the other day about you working harder to fix yourself. Well, I’ve created an action plan. A G-plan.”

She unrolled a huge sheet of curled up paper, that he’d only just noticed she was holding.

“What is this?” It didn’t look much like fun, although he noticed the word ‘licking’ appeared in a couple of places, and one column was titled ‘Love Slave Duties.’ Actually, it looked suspiciously like the rehabilitation exercise grid the physiotherapist had provided him with. The one he’d binned at least twice along with the information sheets and helpline numbers they’d tried to fob him off with.

“I can fix myself. I don’t need this. Not interested.” He reached for the laptop again.

Ginny slammed her hand down on top of the lid, almost jamming his fingers.

“Hey, you can at least hear me out before you go dismissing it. I know you’re pissed off, Ash. I get it, the world has screwed you over, but sitting around moping isn’t going to fix things. You want to play guitar and resume your old position in Black Halo when they tour, then you have to work to make that happen. No one is going to come along and wave a wand and fix you. The only person who can fix this is you with hard work and determination.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?”

She was on her feet. “I think we went through this the other day. Time’s short, Ash. They’re going to hire someone else if you’re not fit within a matter of weeks.”

Yeah, sadly he did remember that speech. He stared at her open-mouthed for a moment, before all his rage returned triple fold. He held it back though, trapped behind his gritted teeth. It made his nose sting and his eyes get all ticklish in the corners. “Performing stupid exercises isn’t going to do squat, Ginny.”

“How do you know? Have you tried them? Given them a chance? Or did you just dismiss them in the way you did the drugs, because they didn’t fit in with your view of reality?”

“I did them all back in the hospital. None of it worked, I still came out broken. Iain’s taken everything.”

Ginny’s shoulders dropped, and instead of yelling back at him, she moved the laptop from his knee to the coffee table, then straddled his lap. “Bollocks. That’s what I have to say to that. Most of what you love is still right here if you’d just open your eyes and recognise it.” She took hold of his bad hand and gave it a squeeze. “The exercises are as dull as fuck. No one would choose to do them, which is why I’ve livened them up. I thought we could do them together.”

“To what end?”

She touched his face. “You know what end. So you can play guitar again and continue being a shit hot rock star whom I like to fuck, and who makes all the girlies scream.” He couldn’t help but smile at the memories. “I’ll let you curse as much as you like while we’re doing them, but I’m not letting you wriggle out of this. You’re too damn good for me to allow you to fade away.”

“Ginny, I don’t wanna—”

She silenced him with a kiss. “Just say, ‘Yes, Ginny.’ And go along with me for today. We can review the situation at nightfall, if you still think it’s of no benefit.”

He rolled his eyes, ’cause…Duh! They both already knew what the outcome would be.

Ginny hooked one hand around the back of his neck, and placed the other on his jaw so that he was forced to look at her. “I’m not going to drop this. I am prepared to offer incentives: chocolate, caffeine, Danger Mouse, beer and fucking. They don’t have to be in that order, but that’s on top of the fact you’ll be able to lick with the best of them again by the time we’re through.”

“Just ’cause you will it, doesn’t make it true, Gin.”

She clucked, and shook her head. “I thought you knew me better than that. Failure is not an option, Mr. Gore. Also, I’m prepared to take a rather more flexible approach to the task than any of the medical professionals. We won’t be doing endless repetitions of boring activities. They’ll all be fun, and we’ll keep mixing them up so that none of them get dull. Everything gets old if you do it too often.”

“Not everything,” he disagreed, doing his best to be roused by her impassioned speech. “Wanking never gets old.” Not that he was in a position to put that theory to the test as doing it left-handed felt all wrong, and the only privacy he got was in the shower. It was pretty hard to jerk off when you were sharing a room with your girlfriend.

“Fine, I’ll add that to the program.”

“What?”

“It involves the use of your hand, and I’ll probably enjoy watching.”

Heat rose up his neck, until he knew he was blushing at the thought. Yeah, she probably would. She’d certainly enjoyed listening to him that time on the tour bus over the phone. “All right, show me the chart.”

She shimmied off his lap to do so.

The chart didn’t tell him a lot. It was divided into days of the week and a series of tasks with relatively meaningless titles.

“Complete the tasks and you get one of these.” She handed him a plastic wallet containing an assortment of stickers: Danger Mouse, some interesting girlie pin-up designs, and a variety of ‘You’re Awesome’ type slogans. None of them said, ‘Chocolate reward,’ or ‘Blowjob’ or ‘Fuck until you go blind.’ He chucked the wallet onto the table and slouched back against the sofa cushions again.

“Stickers! Gin, I’m not five. You can’t inspire me with stickers and a promise that I can stay up for an extra fifteen minutes on Friday night if I’m a good boy. My mam used to con my brother and me with this sort of crap when we were small.”

“The stickers are merely to keep track of what tasks you’ve completed. We’ll be using age appropriate rewards like I already said.”

“Really?” he drawled, refusing to temper his scepticism. “So what tasks are we talking about that are going to incentivise me to earn my good boy stickers?” He peeled several off one of the sheets and stuck them to the front of his T-shirt.

Ginny sucked in her cheeks. He knew she was biting back a retort, but he was dead tired of being treated like a naughty child that had to be appeased and cajoled and coddled. None of them were prepared to say what they were thinking to his face. Like he couldn’t tell that they all just wanted him to piss off and get on with his pity party somewhere else. That’s why he was stuck here and they’d gone elsewhere to perform without him.

“Hey,” she snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Come back here. I don’t like this tuning out thing you keep doing. When I’m talking, I expect you to listen.”

“I’m listening,” he sighed.

“Ash, you’re really not the only one who has lost something, you know.”

“What have you lost?”

She wearily shook her head at him. “You dumb fool, don’t you know? You, that’s what. You keep locking me out. Stop locking me out, Ash. I can help. I want to help.”

“I’m beyond helping.”

It hurt to see her face scrunched with sadness. He didn’t want her to be sad, or to bring her down with his misery. Ash’s nose tingled, and the corners of his eyes grew damp. Shit! Crying in front of her; when had he become such a wuss?

She clasped his hand and squeezed. “It’s okay to cry, Ash. Likewise, it’s okay to scream at the world and tell it how shit it is. Maybe we should. Come on, stand up.” She dragged him over to the balustrade so that they were overlooking the lounge below and staring through the wall of glass down at the slope of the lawn and the glittering water of the lake beyond. “Ready? After three, let all that festering rage out.” She counted down, and then let out a blood curdling shriek.

Ash covered his ears.

“You’re supposed to join in, dope.” She prodded him in the midriff. “Do we need to attempt it again?”

He shook his head. “My ears would prefer you not to. Maybe we could go back to you explaining your chart. What is it exactly that you want me to do?”

She followed him back to the couch, but stayed on her feet when he slumped into its soft embrace. “Well, like I said, there’s a whole variety of things. Most of them are Spook unapproved, that’s why we had to wait until he’d gone.”

“Unapproved in what sense. Did you consult with him?” Just because she’d called him out for being a suspicious, jealous idiot, didn’t mean he’d quelled all his doubts.

“Um, no… I just… You know how uptight he can be.”

“Only about his own involvement in any sort of sexual activity. He’s not a prude, Ginny.” And she ought to know it. Spook had participated in their sexual relationship more than he generally cared to dwell on. He hadn’t forgotten that Spook, the man who didn’t put out for anyone, had wrapped his mouth around Ginny’s nipples. It may well have been before he and she were an item, but it still happened.

“Fine, then nothing he’d agree to experience.”

Ash squinted at her sceptically. “Are we talking about the tasks or the rewards?” What sort of sad fucker was he that he was genuinely curious about her plans now?

“Tasks, rewards, both.” She leaned into him until her lips brushed the smooth patch of skin between his ear and where his beard had grown in. “Maybe you don’t believe I’m inventive enough to keep it interesting.” She planted a second kiss on the side of his throat, and this time nipped the skin between her teeth sending a shot of pleasure-pain zipping through his body.

Ash’s heart started galloping. How crazy starved of affection was he if all it took was one little kiss to have him salivating and his cock threatening to rise? Plenty, and he knew it. All he really wanted was for someone to take charge and tell him he’d wake up tomorrow and everything would be all right. Or failing that, to simply still feel wanted. No one wanted him around at the moment. He wasn’t important to anyone’s plans or vision of the future. He couldn’t even see a future. Leastways, not one he wanted to experience.

“Are you ready to work with me, Ash?” Her beautifully kissable lips pursed as she waited for his answer.

“You still haven’t told me a thing.”

“I think you’ll get more out of it if I save revealing the tasks until we’re ready for them, but maybe I could give you a visual incentive as to what might be coming your way?”

“Visuals of what?” He raised his head in time to see her kick off her shoes and then peel down her jeans. The boring button up shirt she had on came off too, and went sailing over the balustrade.

“Of what’s on offer if you work hard. Tempted?” She gave a sort of tip-toe turn on the spot, then winked at him.

Ash covered his mouth with his hand and swallowed hard. He didn’t want to bother with her tasks, but man…skimpy panties, corset, and fishnet stockings, she was seriously pandering to his weaknesses. He moved a cushion onto his lap. He was subtle about it, but she was onto him immediately, her carefully defined eyebrows quirking upwards slightly.

“Should I take that as an expression of interest?”

Fuck! She had him. She so had him.

“You like?” She tiptoed forward , and performed another 360-degree turn.

Ash swished his tongue over his dry lips. “Are those crotchless panties you have on?”

“Could be.”

“Crotchless,” he repeated, finding it hard to swallow around the lump that had formed in his throat.

“You don’t think they’re too sleazy, do you?” She performed the same open and close legged dance move he’d recently watched Christina and Co. perform in that vid.

Damn…damn…damn. When had these jeans got so tight? Jeez, talk about dangling carrots… “Fuck, Ginny.” He reached for her, but she backed off making, “Ah-ah!” noises at him. “Agree to the G-plan first, then you get to ‘Fuck Ginny’ if you’re a good boy who earns his rewards.”

“That’s sexual blackmail.”

She shimmied her butt at him. Ash pleaded, but despite his groaning and grouching, and promises to blow her mind, she stayed out of his reach and continued to taunt him.

“Fine,” he snapped. “Tell me what I have to do.”

“Sign the bottom of the chart saying you agree to abide by the rules of the G-plan, that you’ll work hard and be a committed student. And that you won’t slack off just because the rewards aren’t immediate.”

“Whatever.” He had a hard-on he’d very much like her to sit on right now, so yeah, he was in a bit of a hurry to progress with shit and get to the good stuff.

Ginny waited patiently until he picked up a pen and signed.

“There, I’ve agreed. Now what do I have to do?”

She grinned broadly at him. “Come with me to the bedroom.”