The Shadow Game

My name is Nicole, I'm thirty-two, and I've been with Tim for three years now. I'm a software developer, which means I spend my days solving problems that don't touch me. He's a guitarist in a local indie band, and he still gets to me. Mostly.

Mostly, lately, has been the problem.

Three years in, we've gotten comfortable. Dinner, couch, laptops, bed. He still kisses me goodbye every morning. But the fire, you know? The part where you catch your breath when he walks in a room? That had gone quiet on me.

So when he asked me to come see his band at The Rusty Valve, I said yes faster than I usually commit to anything.

"You sure you wanna come? It's gonna be loud and sweaty," he said, pulling his amp cables out of the closet.

"I'm sure," I said. "I kinda miss watching you play."

He grinned at that. He's thirty-three, has been in bands since before I met him, and he still lights up whenever someone mentions a gig. We met at a coworking space four years ago. Started dating six months later. Funny how you can know someone that long and still want to surprise them.

"You can stand up front by the monitors," he offered. "Best sound in the house."

"Actually," I said, "I might just float around. Find my own spot."

"Suit yourself. Cyrus runs sound, Brownlow's on the door, Shirley will be behind the kit. Say hi if you want."

Shirley, the drummer, is twenty-nine and joined the band two years ago. Nice woman, married, wants nothing more than for every show to end on time. Cyrus is the sound guy at the venue, thirty-five, all business. Brownlow, security, forty, chain smoker with a clipboard. I knew all their names. I wasn't planning on saying hi to any of them.

I had a different plan, and I didn't fully admit it to myself until we got there.

The Rusty Valve sits in the warehouse district, all brick and graffiti and one flickering sign. Inside it's dark and low-ceilinged, green room smelling like spilled beer, a backstage area so cramped you have to turn sideways. And there's a wing, stage left, where old speaker cabinets and coiled cables stack up against the wall. The single spotlight leaves that wing in almost total darkness.

I saw it and something in my head went click.

"Hey, I'm gonna go find a spot in the crowd, okay?" I told Tim as he hauled his gear backstage.

"Save me one near the front?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. I'm a free agent tonight."

He laughed and kissed my cheek, and I watched him go, sweatshirt and guitar case, disappearing behind the stage curtain. Then I walked out front like I was going to plant myself in the crowd. I even bought a beer for cover.

And then I turned around and slipped through the backstage door.

Brownlow glanced up from his clipboard. "You with the band?"

"Tim's girlfriend," I said. "He said I could hang back here."

That was technically true. He'd said I could come backstage anytime. He just didn't know what I was about to do with the invitation.

I found the wing and wedged myself between two stacked speaker cabinets. The darkness swallowed me whole. From there I could see the whole stage, the crowd beyond it, and Tim, who was tuning up with his back half turned to me.

Perfect. I could see everyone. Nobody could see me.

The band went on at nine. Shirley counted them in with her sticks, four clicks, and the floor jumped. The Rusty Valve had maybe a hundred people packed in, and they all leaned forward at once like a wave.

And then there was Tim.

I'd forgotten this, or maybe just let it go dusty. Tim onstage is not Tim on the couch. Tim on the couch wears socks with holes and argues about whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher. Tim onstage steps into that spotlight and the whole room reorganizes itself around him.

He moved with the riff, knees loose, hair falling in his face. His fingers walked the frets like they lived there. And his mouth. He mouths the lyrics when he's not singing them, lips shaping every word, and I used to tease him about it and now I couldn't look away.

Heat settled low in my belly. Real heat, the kind I hadn't felt in months, and it arrived all at once like a switch flipped. I stood there in the dark with my beer getting warm and thought, oh. Oh, there you are.

Second song, faster. Shirley hammered the drums and the bass came up through the floorboards and into my feet, my shins, my teeth. The vibration was physical. I could feel it in my chest. Cyrus had the mix loud and clean, and every note Tim hit landed somewhere in me.

Third song, slower, meaner. He leaned into the mic and sang, eyes closed, and the crowd sang the chorus back at him and he smiled like he'd been handed a gift. My face got warm. I pressed my palm flat against my stomach like that would settle anything. It did not settle anything.

He stepped out for the solo. Spotlight caught him full on, and the crowd noise rose, and his fingers flew, and I stopped thinking entirely.

My hand drifted down the front of my jeans.

Just pressed against the denim at first, over my pussy, palm flat, feeling the bass thunder up through the floor into my hand. I hadn't planned it. My body planned it for me. The vibration from the amps went straight through the wood and steel into my fingers, and every low note landed right where my palm was.

I watched him play and I touched myself through my jeans in the dark, hidden behind old speaker cabinets, and the sheer wrongness and rightness of it made me wetter than I'd been in a year. He was performing for a hundred strangers. None of them knew I was there. He didn't know I was there.

I could feel myself soaking through, the denim going damp under my hand. The solo built and built and I pressed harder, breathing through my mouth, hips giving these tiny pushes I couldn't control, and when he hit the final bend and the crowd roared I had to bite my lip to keep quiet.

That's when he turned his head.

Just slightly. Scanning the wings the way guitarists do between songs, checking Shirley, checking the floor. And his eyes stopped on the dark gap between the speaker stacks.

On me.

The light didn't reach there. I was sure of it. But he went still for half a beat, and then the corner of his mouth pulled up, and he turned back to the mic like nothing happened.

Oh no, I thought. Oh no, he saw me.

And then, hotter than anything so far: oh yes, he saw me.

The last song ended. Shirley clicked her sticks, the crowd yelled, the house lights stayed down for the encore break. Tim set his guitar on the stand and walked off into the wings, straight toward my hiding spot, loose and grinning.

He crouched down in front of the speaker cabinets, close enough that I could see sweat shining on his neck.

"Hiding in the shadows, huh?" he said, quick and quiet, with a laugh in it.

I put a finger to my lips. "Shhh. Get back out there."

He blinked. "What?"

"I want to watch more," I whispered. "Don't blow this for me."

"Nicole." He glanced toward the stage, where Shirley was twirling a stick and the crowd was chanting for more. "You're telling me you snuck back here to watch me in secret?"

"Yes. Now go. Encore. And Tim?" I grabbed his wrist. "Pretend you