Three hours, two orders of pancakes and french fries from room service, and a box of Kleenex later, I finished my story. Taylor listened, as we laid under the black expanse. I stared at the polished black underside of the piano as I spoke, looking over to see his reactions only a few times, in the last hour he propped himself up with his elbows and looked at me. When I finished, he took me in his arms and hugged me so tightly that my ribs hurt. He then let go and we kissed, taking each other in. I cursed the moon for my promptness, and wished that any other day of the month that my blood could have come. I wanted to thank him for his quietness by taking him in again, but that could only happen in the shower now. I pulled off his white undershirt again and his musky boy smell made me mourn the lost opportunity again. Finally I got him to take my warm up pants off, with the consent that I would bare all with the annoying exception of my panties. I joked about dripping all over the place, but I secretly didn't want him to be turned off by the ever present tampon string, for some reason that made me smile, I thought it might traumatize him a bit. It was strange, I had never done anything like this with Mac, I never was very sensual with him, but with Taylor it was different, I still had butterflies in my stomach when I saw him. And I knew they would be here to stay.

I played the piano for him, doing silly songs, like 'Row Row Row your Boat' and easy stuff from 'The Little Mermaid', straddling the piano, imitating Tori Amos, which drove him nuts. Luckily he had never seen her in her early days, and thought I was being totally original. As I began to play 'Trust' from the Cure, his eyes brightened. He knew it. As I played I sang softly, mostly humming, because I didn't want to ruin the song, my voice really is not known for it greatness, as my friends have told me. My hips wriggled on the piano bench, swaying to the music, my eyes either focusing on him or closed. The song was simple, I only used the basic chords, but I managed to keep up with the right timing. I improvised a little bit in the end, trying to hold onto the connection I had with his eyes, with his being. His silky blond mane was pushed back behind his ears, as I finished, I went to him, and freed it a bit, running my hands through the tangled locks. I placed my thighs around his pelvic bone and I heard him moan softly. I lightly kissed his lips, as he brought me closer, our chests together. I felt his immediate excitement, then whispered in his ear to come to the shower. He swallowed, then looked at me and nodded.

I ran to the bathroom, trying to get rid of the tampon, I had it in the garbage the second that he came in and turned on the water. As he began to get in, I held him back. "Wait a minute." He gave me a pleading look, but I went in and cleaned myself, I didn't smell like a daisy, and I needed to wash up. I slowly opened the curtain and smiled a mischievous grin, "Wanna join me?" Taylor grabbed the curtain and forced himself in. I gave him my best smelling shampoo, and he began to suds me up. After a minute, when the tufts of bubbles began to run down my back, he filled his hands with the soap and ran his fingers all over my eager body, while I stood, gasping with pleasure under the steaming water. His hands slide over my back and chest, I could feel a slight pressure from his groin on my back. I rinsed the suds, then handed him the detangler, which he put way too much on, just as he finished I turned around, grabbed a body wash and squirted it on his body. I reached over and lowered the showerhead, so I wouldn't be squirted the whole time, at least not with water and lowered him on top of me, my legs enwrapped him. It was incredible. The soap made our rhythm faster. I could feel his skin much more acutely, his mouth found my own, and an orgasm rocketed through my body, I had never felt this kind of sexuality in my life. When we finished, we were both gasping. I rinsed the detangler and quickly washed his hair, which he loved, I kept my body close to his. Just as I was about to stop the hot water, his hands were on my waist, and before I could protest he was on me again, my legs around him, and another orgasm that was almost a replica of the previous one. He never complained about the blood, in fact, I don't think he even noticed. I got out first and put in another tampon, then dried him off.

"Lane?" I was rubbing his collarbone lightly.

"Hm?"

"Can we do that again, sometime?"

"Sure." He stopped my hand on his thigh and kissed me, growing more insistent by kiss. When we pulled apart, I handed him a new towel. "Your turn."

"Do you work out or something?"

"Why? Yeah, I run or do whatever machines the hotel has. Every morning, you've been messing up my routine lately."

"Well then, my sincere apologies, but it is something that I do not regret."

"Hm, whatever, I don't know about you, but I've got the munchies."

"Room service again?"

"Heck yeah. I want something really extravagant, I mean ridiculous. Seafood."

"Extravagant? For lunch? I just want a burger."

"Suit yourself." I grabbed my bathrobe, just as I was about to tie it, Taylor's hands were on my waist, and his tongue was in my mouth. He let go. "What was that for?" I smiled.

"You look really good." His eyes were serious.

I had started to eat the swordfish, which had just arrived, when Taylor went looking in my bag again. Since we both had older siblings the only natural instinct was to sneak through the other person's stuff. He had told me about how when he was 12 he had found the ultimate prize, a love letter that Ike had written. He laughed, telling me how it ended up in a fountain. Ike had been horrified, he had poured his soul into that letter, to a longtime girlfriend.

Taylor paused then, in the middle of snooping and bitterly smiled "I was horrid to him sometimes, but I was so jealous." I raised my head from my seafood. "Seriously, he was such a favorite, everyone always thought that I was the favorite in the family, just because I got the most letters. Bull." I sat there, chewing the fish, and looked at him expectantly. "I never told this to anyone except a couple people. I didn't think I could trust anyone, hey you gonna eat that roll?" I stared at him, unblinking, frozen in my last bite of the yummy lunch. I swallowed, then nodded. I had finished my story, and if he was going to tell me anything, then I wasn't going to ruin it by babbling out anything that came into my head, like 'how could say that? Your family is so big, big families are always supposed to be happy.' but instead I handed him the roll. I wanted quite badly to have my camera in my hand as he spoke. Black and white film, it would've been perfect. As I stared at him, he began again. "You know I've been with other women." My eyes widened, then I smiled, 'good, that's at least healthy' I thought.

"Tell me about them." I leaned toward him with interest from under the piano where I had taken my delectable meal. He blushed slightly.

"Well my first uh, girlfriend was Becky, she was a girl that lived by us. We kinda got together when I was 13, she's a couple months older than I am. We were best friends, but we, well, I mean, I changed a lot when Middle of Nowhere came out and we went on our publicity tour. We didn't break up till I was 15, it lasted a long time. It wasn't that serious, I mean, my parents are pretty strict when it comes to that stuff, but it was fun, and I really loved her."

"Taylor, let me tell you first hand, if you still have good feelings about your ex, you're pretty damn lucky." He smiled.

"We're still friends, she still comes to concerts, and our parents still do stuff every once and a while. I mean, I don't alienate her or anything." I finished my lunch, and swallowed my last swig of my bottled water. Then burped and giggled.

"Hold on, just sit right there." I said pointing to the piano bench. I jumped over to my bag, and carefully removed my camera from the heavy padding of sweaters. It was a big one, in my senior year of high school I had taken a beginner's class on photography, from there on I was nuts about it. I had hundreds of pictures from all over the US from my first tour. Mac had gotten me the camera for my seventeenth birthday, it had cost him a fortune. Which I actually ended up paying for most of it, since at a gig in a frat party, a drunken partygoer had broken his guitar, and he had to replace it for their next gig in a week. I hadn't minded, it was the thought that counted, right? I loaded the small cylinder of film into the camera, and brought two more rolls in my bathrobe pocket. As I cleaned the lense with an afterthought, I began to hear the faint tinkling of the piano. I had left out a couple sheets of music, mostly classical which I was teaching myself, I had bought the CDs of the suites in a music store last week, because I learned better by ear. The tinkling stopped with a brief rest, then I began to hear a perfect replica of the cd. A little choppy, a bit slow, but it got faster as he went along. He stopped, I could hear a slight rustling of papers, I remembered the other music I had on the stand, some Tori Amos, which I couldn't play at all, and some old love songs. There was a long pause then I heard the chords to my all time favorite song, 'Lovesong' from the Cure. I knew I had left the music out there, it made my heart cry a little to hear it again. But all too soon he stopped, then more rustling. Then came a song I wasn't familiar with, I slowly moved toward the open bedroom door, then I recognized it, the Beatles' 'Yesterday'. I slowly came in, tears came to my eyes, this relationship was going to be so hard to keep afloat, I knew he had to leave tomorrow, his mother didn't say where they were going, for all I knew they could be going back to the states for the rest of their tour. I needed to move on to another date in France, and would then be tramping around the UK for another 4 months. I leaned against the doorway and watched him from behind. He still had his pristine white towel on, as the chords progressed I felt as if he was finishing his improvised intro and was going to sing. I began to take my pictures, using the natural light from the window over the piano as his voice mourned a future loss.