Even Lovers Drown

Blake shuffled through the backstage hallways, her hands stuffed in the pockets of her skinny jeans. Screams of fans traveled through the halls, the ripple of guitars answering them. The first band was on stage, making their practiced entrance. Blake should have been in the dressing room with her band mates. She was supposed to be getting ready, putting last minute touches on makeup, fixing her attire, warming up, and getting pumped for the show, but she couldn't. She wasn't ready to face her band mates after another defeat.

It wasn't the defeat that bothered her most, though. Sure, she didn't like Saylor ignoring her. The embarrassment was there even if her band mates hadn't been there, and they would find out, probably the moment she walked into the dressing room. They would tease her. As much as she didn't like it, she could live with it. They weren't doing it from a place of malice, weren't trying to hurt her. And the bruised ego that came with rejection, that would heal when she stepped on stage and looked over the sea of screaming fans.

Saylor's fear bothered her.

Blake hadn't seen her face, was almost glad she hadn't, but she didn't need to. Her body language spoke volumes. The flinch, the whimper, the shaking. Alone, they could have been mistaken for a reaction to sudden noise, the slap of Blake's hands against the table. Together, they were signs of Saylor's fear. Even the tensing of her body must have been a sign of that. Blake could only imagine what those sparkling green eyes looked like widened with fear.

But she had seen the fear in them before. That morning, at breakfast. Fear had danced in her eyes, vibrant and heart wrenching. Those eyes had been enough to make Blake want to apologize. Until anger overshadowed the reaction. Saylor's fear-filled eyes had been seared into Blake's head. Had she looked like that when Blake hit the table?

Saylor was afraid of her. Deathly afraid of her. That's why she refused to shake Blake's hand when they first met. Not because she was trying to be rude but because she was afraid. That was the reason she tensed anytime Blake was around, the reason she seemed so against her. Blake had done nothing to her, and she found reason to be afraid of her.

Why?

Frustrated, Blake huffed, blowing a strand of curly blonde hair out of her face. She pulled her hands from her pockets and crossed her arms under her chest. If she had such a scary disposition, women wouldn't flock around her. Regardless of her money and fame, they wouldn't. And Davy wouldn't have told Saylor lies. He was one of the two friends who had seen her at her worst in high school, the other being Sage. Trying to ruin her chances with Saylor would be the last thing on his mind, especially with a set of merch workers to manage.

A light throb ran through Blake's head. She didn't understand Saylor's fear. She couldn't. Where it came from, she didn't know, and she couldn't work to change it if she didn't know. This fear thing was putting a big wrench in her plan to sleep with Saylor. Progress wouldn't be made until fear was out of the way. To top it all off, she felt terrible about scaring her and she had no idea what she had done.

A high pitched "You're Blake Andrews" broke her thoughts.

A fan. Great. She wasn't in the mood to deal with fans. She wanted to lie in her bunk and allow her mind to exhaust itself remembering Saylor's reaction and coming up with reasons for Saylor's fear. Or drink. Drinking was good. A little alcohol to turn her mind into a jumbled mess of unintelligible thoughts. Saylor's face would either disappear or become the single thing she'd think about. It was worth the risk.

Plastering her classic charming smile on her face, Blake turned around. Two women, not one, stood in front of her, both clad in the revealing clothing Blake was used to seeing on her older fans. Tight leather pants and painfully short shorts, low cut tops and exposed stomachs. Exactly what she expected, normally what she wanted.

She couldn't bring herself to want it today. The women's plump lips, exposed bodies, and pushed out breasts weren't enough. Saylor's frightened green eyes stuck in Blake's head, the heartbreaking scenes of their few moments together replaying. She wanted to know what she had done so she could rid Saylor of her fear. She didn't want to mess around with two fans

She had a feeling she was about to deny a potentially fun offer.

"What can I do for you today, ladies?" Blake asked.

One, the blonde, shrugged. "Oh, nothing. We're just hanging out."

The other, a brunette, nodded, her luscious curls bouncing. Flirty smiles donned both overly made up faces, and the triumphant excitement in their eyes gave away their true intentions. Hanging out? More like looking for her.

Blake would let them get away with the lie, wouldn't draw attention to it and have them ask for something she couldn't give them that night. They would leave at some point or she would find a way to dismiss herself before they could make any requests, and they would return to the seating area.

"Backstage?" she asked.

She wasn't even sure they were supposed to be back there while the show was on. At least, not without some supervision. Like security guards. There were too many things they could accidentally mess up. But Blake wouldn't ask because she didn't care. She just wanted to make a clean get away.

"What else would we do?" the blonde asked, accenting the statement with a cutesy giggle.

There it was, the subtle invitation, the one made in an attempt not to request any sexual interaction out loud. Blake had become a professional at catching them and knew how to lead the conversation to the appropriate area for those things. There had been a time when she couldn't, in the beginning of their music careers when she stumbled through awkward words and into tucked-away backrooms where fans taught her what to do. And now, she wasn't too sure how to avoid those situations.

"You could watch the opener," Blake suggested.

"Not our style of music."

"And what would your style of music be?"

"Yours," the brunette answered, twirling a curl around her elegant finger.

"Say Goodbye is the reason we came tonight," the blonde said.

Were they lying? Was Say Goodbye's performance really the only reason they came to the show? They did know the band's name, and Blake hadn't needed to introduce herself. But they could have looked the information up before showing up. Or they could have been fans who really did like the band and had a bit of celebrity crush on Blake. She could never tell. Women were too hard to read.

"Stroking the lead singer's ego, smart move."

"There's a portion of the lead singer we'd love to stroke more," the blonde said.

"We?"

"We like to share," the brunette said.

Blake bit her lip. Two women at the same time. Not her first threesome ever, but the first she had ever been offered on tour. They could sneak into the door marked "Employees Only" and have all kinds of fun before Blake met up with her band to get ready. Why was she trying to avoid this situation in the first place? She had no reason not to go through with it.

Terrified green eyes flashed through her mind. Saylor. Blake couldn't do this. All she would be able to think about was Saylor and her irrational fear. That would ruin their fun, get in the way pleasuring herself and the two women.

"I'm sorry but I'm," Blake took a breath, "I'm going to have to decline."

The blonde pouted. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I was supposed to be in our dressing room twenty minutes ago." Blake's smile returned, situation now under control. "It was nice meeting you both. I hope you enjoy our set."

"We will."

With a farewell nod, Blake turned and walked towards the dressing room. Her smile fell, replaced with a small frown. She had to deny a fan time with her, the first time she had ever done that. She felt worse about that than thinking about Saylor while with another woman. It took all of her willpower not to turn around and accept their offer. She didn't want them to think she didn't think they were attractive or that they weren't good enough or something equally ridiculous that would make them hate the band.

But the only moments her fans wanted with her were sexual. Younger fans very rarely approached her backstage. When the band did signings, they did ask for her autograph and picture but they never found reason to tell her they looked up to her or that she was some inspiration to stay alive and follow their dreams. She hadn't thought about it before, and the realization stung.

Maybe Andy was right. Maybe her fans would like her better if she was the old Blake. How the minds of her legal-aged fans would be swayed she wasn't sure. But she would get younger fans backstage who just wanted to talk to her and tell her they looked up to her. She wouldn't be having sex with women who claimed to be fans before every show. She would be able to talk to real fans. She would be relatable and a role model and she could save kids' lives just by showing them what she went through. That was what she had wanted when she first started singing with the band in high school, before they had a record label. That had been her dream before she changed.

Maybe this Blake wasn't as big of an improvement as she thought.