When they'd been teenagers, Satoru had dated constantly. It was almost always arranged in some way, almost always a PR stunt. The agency offered up the prettiest boys from acting and pop and made them seem like trophies. If they hadn't acted like trophies, hadn't doted on her properly, Satoru had dumped them promptly. But some of them lasted for a few weeks.
Satoru was always horny, but making out was boring, and she wasn't really interested in doing anything more than that, so she just kind of accepted that was how things were. She always wanted sex, but whenever she had the prospect of doing that with someone, it wasn't appealing. So she just decoupled her desire from herself. When she got herself off, her fantasies were abstract things--walking along a beautiful beach alone--or externalized--characters in some book or movie that she liked. Occasionally she thought about Suguru, but that was usually when they'd quarreled or done something adrenaline-packed together, so it was only that her blood was high. It wasn't like she was thinking about doing things with Suguru. It was just the thrill of the trouble they'd gotten into together.
As an adult, with more control over her own life, she'd dated more exclusively. Testing out what she liked and never finding it. The relationships that lasted a few months were with other musicians, usually older men, and always as something that started as collaboration. A conversation about music, a jam session, a few nights together. Satoru kept the collaborations, had given a few of them places on her albums.
So she thought nothing of it when she went back to her room and masturbated to the thought of Suguru crawling over her like that. It was just the thrill of the challenge that excited her. That was all.
In the morning, Satoru showed up at the venue in high-waisted leggings and a crop top that kept falling off one shoulder. She was still showing about six inches of midriff, but now it was a higher section from her waist to the band of her black sports bra, visible in flashes every time she moved because the crop top was so short. In the bright daytime sunlight of the venue, she had on her black blindfold to take away most of that glare, though that did mean she had to keep Ijichi closer at hand to help make up for the loss of details and her peripheral vision.
Heading straight over to Suguru once she spotted her, Satoru smacked a sheaf of papers against her rival's chest. "Look that over," she ordered, intending to stand there and loom until she complied.
The arrangement she'd written for Suguru's song was like a single part for two voices, layered like a madrigal, rather than the logical two parts of a traditional duet. On the harmonies where they sang together, the two voices wove in and out, neither one possessing the melody alone. If the two parts were recorded separately, they'd both be discordant. In the sections where only one of them sang, Satoru had slightly modified some of the lyrics to make the two parts diverge.
Suguru's original song had been about yearning and regret, but the modified version created the first impression of a woman in conflict with herself over whether to leave a lover. But there was also the sense of a narrative of two lovers separating, reconnecting--unable to truly come together and unable to fully break apart.
When Satoru had suggested that maybe she'd do this as a cover of Suguru's song, she'd already known that she'd need Suguru to record it with her. No one else could do it. Handling the counterintuitive melody-harmony interplay of the voices required either exceptional technical skill (Suguru) or the kind of genius who could comprehend that level of musical complexity (Satoru). But more importantly, it required two singers with rare synergy, both to keep them in sync and to keep the tension between the two voices.
The whole thing was a display of mad genius, and Satoru wasn't sure that it would work, even if Suguru committed to trying it. Suguru's song was something special, strong enough to carry the weight of what Satoru had done to it, and Satoru knew that if it did work, the result would be transcendent.
no subject
Satoru was always horny, but making out was boring, and she wasn't really interested in doing anything more than that, so she just kind of accepted that was how things were. She always wanted sex, but whenever she had the prospect of doing that with someone, it wasn't appealing. So she just decoupled her desire from herself. When she got herself off, her fantasies were abstract things--walking along a beautiful beach alone--or externalized--characters in some book or movie that she liked. Occasionally she thought about Suguru, but that was usually when they'd quarreled or done something adrenaline-packed together, so it was only that her blood was high. It wasn't like she was thinking about doing things with Suguru. It was just the thrill of the trouble they'd gotten into together.
As an adult, with more control over her own life, she'd dated more exclusively. Testing out what she liked and never finding it. The relationships that lasted a few months were with other musicians, usually older men, and always as something that started as collaboration. A conversation about music, a jam session, a few nights together. Satoru kept the collaborations, had given a few of them places on her albums.
So she thought nothing of it when she went back to her room and masturbated to the thought of Suguru crawling over her like that. It was just the thrill of the challenge that excited her. That was all.
In the morning, Satoru showed up at the venue in high-waisted leggings and a crop top that kept falling off one shoulder. She was still showing about six inches of midriff, but now it was a higher section from her waist to the band of her black sports bra, visible in flashes every time she moved because the crop top was so short. In the bright daytime sunlight of the venue, she had on her black blindfold to take away most of that glare, though that did mean she had to keep Ijichi closer at hand to help make up for the loss of details and her peripheral vision.
Heading straight over to Suguru once she spotted her, Satoru smacked a sheaf of papers against her rival's chest. "Look that over," she ordered, intending to stand there and loom until she complied.
The arrangement she'd written for Suguru's song was like a single part for two voices, layered like a madrigal, rather than the logical two parts of a traditional duet. On the harmonies where they sang together, the two voices wove in and out, neither one possessing the melody alone. If the two parts were recorded separately, they'd both be discordant. In the sections where only one of them sang, Satoru had slightly modified some of the lyrics to make the two parts diverge.
Suguru's original song had been about yearning and regret, but the modified version created the first impression of a woman in conflict with herself over whether to leave a lover. But there was also the sense of a narrative of two lovers separating, reconnecting--unable to truly come together and unable to fully break apart.
When Satoru had suggested that maybe she'd do this as a cover of Suguru's song, she'd already known that she'd need Suguru to record it with her. No one else could do it. Handling the counterintuitive melody-harmony interplay of the voices required either exceptional technical skill (Suguru) or the kind of genius who could comprehend that level of musical complexity (Satoru). But more importantly, it required two singers with rare synergy, both to keep them in sync and to keep the tension between the two voices.
The whole thing was a display of mad genius, and Satoru wasn't sure that it would work, even if Suguru committed to trying it. Suguru's song was something special, strong enough to carry the weight of what Satoru had done to it, and Satoru knew that if it did work, the result would be transcendent.