45 — Women Want Only One Thing And it’s Disgusting

"I want to get a tattoo."

My blasphemous words shattered the peace and quiet of Calista's working corner, making her suddenly lose grip of the computer mouse.

"You... are you actually serious about that?"

Her mouth dropped open, as her eyes scanned me from top to bottom. Her expression went through multiple transformations within a span of seconds, somewhere hand-in-hand between astonishment and incredulity. 'She's always so expressive… when caught off-guard.'

I shrugged.

"Are you losing your shit?"

Calista muttered in disbelief.

"Maybe I am." I responded lightly, watching her reaction. "Maybe it's because of the fame. It might actually go up my head." I made a goofy gesture towards my head.

"It clearly already has!" She hissed, a look of worry flashing in her face for a brief moment before turning back into its usual resting bitchiness. "Now why the fuck would you want to ink yourself with some silly piece of art, which will only bring more attention to yourself and create problems later on?"

"Aaah~" My tone was gentle but with a delicious undertone of challenge in it. "Don't tell me you're afraid of a little problem, huh, sis?"

"Shut the fuck up."

She tried to playfully bump my shoulder but I leaned away. Calista huffed.

"What would you even get?" She threw the question out there, casually, as she continued dragging and dropping beats and instrumental notes on the DAW. "And it better not be something edgy like a skull or a dragon, because I swear I'll personally rip that thing off your skin."

"What? Scared your aesthetic sense will crumble into ash and dust after I step through that parlor and make myself more fuckable?"

Calista sputtered, nearly choking on her saliva. "Don't... don't say that. The way you say these things..." She held one side of her face and shook her head slowly, looking very aggrieved. My heart skidded over an irregular beat when I briefly caught her intense eyes, sitting above a flustered expression.

A slight flush, and eyes like bioluminescent plankton licking the shoreline.

"......"

"I know someone... if you want to get inked, just say the word, and I'll make a call, a'right?"

"Thanks."

"I'll definitely blame this whole thing on my failing mental health. No way is my little brother going around with some ink like a thug. A shameful family heirloom I carry on the inside is already too much as it is."

She was talking about the song she helped me produce.

I could only imagine how she must've been feeling at that moment, leading her innocent younger brother astray by bringing him into the dark and degenerate music industry, tempting his innocent ears, having his pale, unblemished skin defiled with inks, and then leading the world's populace to fall in love with the aberrant entity named 'The Silver' and thus spreading her evil influence like wildfire until not a single soul is left untouched.

I leaned against the side of the desk, watching her. "We'll carry that shame together, Cali."

Calista stiffened momentarily, but that surprise faded within seconds.

Her shoulders sagged, and a sigh came from her mouth. "Let's forget about all of that and do some work. I hate going to bed at night without finishing my tasks."

She turned back towards the screen, restarting the composition she had left incomplete when I walked in.

I skidded the chair closer.

The sound of the clicks of the mouse were rhythmically echoing throughout the room, following each other up with every second and sometimes a few pauses in-between.

The track she had selected had a hypnotizing chill beat with a powerful baseline that I could bounce around and get hyped for. She lent me one of her top tier professional headphones, and it sounded like I was at a party with all the beats and drums reverberating inside my skull, even at low volume.

Her focus was on a series of sliders and knobs, all of which were meticulously arranged in a neat grid. She was fiddling with the equalizer, fine-tuning the frequencies and adjusting the levels of bass, mid-range, and treble. But hey, what do I even know about this stuff?

Still, it was mesmerizing. Her movements were really quick, with no hesitation or uncertainty. I could never do that.

Of course, I wasn't merely being a potato and gawking at her skills, I was also interjecting every now and then to hum the melody I remembered of the song. Die for You, by The Weeknd.

Since Calista had never heard of it, it was going to be a challenge to get it right.

Still, I hummed the tune and sang the lyrics, and prayed that she could recreate it to the best of her abilities. If I couldn't get a perfect recreation of it, then I'd be satisfied with the second best thing, which was a well-done imitation.

With a guitar in hand, I strummed a few chords here and there, trying to match the beat and rhythm of the track. What did that song have that I could vaguely recognize? It was the harmonies, the dreamy vibe it had, the synth pads, a pulsing bassline, electronic drums and layers upon layers of instrumentation. It felt like a song from a different world.

Which, of course, it was.

Though I wouldn't deny that Calista was doing a damn good job at it so far. She was catching up with the tempo and the style of the song pretty quickly.

She stopped the track and rewound it back, listening to it again.

I just kept my head low, my eyes closed, and played the tune in the same, recurring way, mumbling along the lyrics to get the cadence right. My head bobbed, a smile on my face. Whenever I thought there was a detail or a snag in the melody that didn't match up with what I remembered, I pointed it out.

"One, two. Keep the bassline. Yeah. Okay. It's more like... umh... thump... thump... thump... thump thump." I lightly banged on the desk as a demonstration to the bass drum.

"I got you, I got you." Calista replied, nodding.

And we went on like this. Over and over and over again.

We spent at least an hour just refining and perfecting the track, until we had a rough draft that was decent enough for my ears.

"Alright." Calista leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms above her head. "I think this is as far as we can go for tonight." She saved the project file and turned around to face me. "What do you think?"

"It's perfect. Seriously."

She smiled, a genuine smile that made her eyes light up. "Glad you like it."

"Thank you for that." I scooted a bit closer and gently bumped my side against hers. Calista was a bit startled at first, but returned the gesture with a laugh. "Ah, I never know what's coming with you, you little scoundrel."

"Fuck yeah. That's how we roll in these streets."

Calista scoffed in a dismissive manner. "What do you even know about rolling in the streets?" She shook her head, letting out a snicker. "You're probably the only person who can get away with that shit, though, so that's something."

I wasn't gonna contest that. "Well, I have to be the coolest guy on the block."

"You're likely the only guy on the block." Calista huffed.

I wasn't gonna contest that either.

"Well, regardless." I let out a huge yawn, stretching. I was a bit sore all over the place, having sat there without moving for so long. "It's probably time I should head to my room."

"I suppose so. Yes. Time sure flies, eh?" She stretched her own arms over her head and looked at me. We stayed like this, both not wanting to get off our asses. That was one hell of a chore, wasn't it. But fuck if I wasn't getting excited about actually releasing the song to the world, no matter what it ended up being called.

"Welp, I'm gone. Catch you tomorrow, yeah?"

I stood up, about to head out.

"Hmm." Calista hummed quite loudly. I turned towards her "Wanna stay? We could... watch a movie or something."

She was being nonchalant, tilting the chair so far back that I was half-expecting her to fall backward at some point.

"You... wanna watch a movie together, tonight?"

"Hm?"

It sounded almost like a date or something. Calista crossed her leg over her other one and made her thighs rub together quite awkwardly. She glanced at her phone and quickly placed it down when my attention lingered on it.

"There's... nothing better to do anyway, right? Yeah. Let's watch something. You can pick the movie. I'll grab a bite and then come right back, yeah?"

Without giving me much chance to respond, she hurriedly grabbed a pair of oversized pajama pants and put them on, her short shorts now concealed beneath the longer garb.

When I found myself all alone, I wasn't in any real rush to leave. As if the scent of Calista still lingering around me was enough incentive to keep my arse nailed to that spot.

Calista came back in record time, leaving a cloud of dust behind her skidding heels as she reappeared in the doorway, hands gripping tightly around a big bowl of popcorn and a couple of sodas that she somehow found enough space between her fingers to carry, while clamped between her teeth were a couple of bags of chips, one of which dropped right beside me the moment she made it past the door.

"No rush, I guess..."

Her eyes found me the moment she got her breath back, and she huffed. "Sorry, I was really hungry."

"For some reason, I doubt that."

I had the most mischievous smirk in history painted over my mug.

Calista grimaced, as a tinge of red touched the surface of her cheeks. "Don't be so perceptive and sit on the bed. I'll set everything up and see to it that we watch the most unsexiest film ever created. Guarantee that you won't be able to sleep at night if you continue on like that, cheeky bastard."

A huff and a flick of the hair. What a spoiled princess, though in this world the spoiled one was me.

And… wasn't I supposed to choose the movie?

She didn't even give me time.

In the end, we settled on a random action flick. This was actually the first movie I'd watch since coming here. I didn't know what I was signing up for, but as long as it had guns and explosions and shit going around in slow-motion and stuff. All was good.

Everything happened so fast that within minutes of Calista kicking up the laptop on the desk and plugging the HDMI wire of the monitor into the laptop port, she flopped next to me on the bed in an unceremonious manner, holding a piece of fluffy blanket and then dragging it over our laps, keeping us together close.

Very, very, close.

I glanced to the left, only to find the soft ends of her blonde hair covering the side of her neck and reaching partway down her chest.

I decided to focus on the movie, which of course featured a highly attractive and competent female lead, getting caught in shoot-outs, jumping on moving trains and airplanes, rescuing the male lead.

So many explosions. And stunts. And fighting scenes. I lost count of how many people got shot by a hail of bullets. It was your everyday, generic action flick that went by in a breeze.

Every few minutes, or so, Calista would glance at me. That's what it felt like, at least. There was a lot of physical contact, what with stretching to grab chips, popcorn, pop open a can of soda and the usual bumps, nudges, and brush of the hand that came with watching a movie that didn't warrant attention.

The room was dark.

The only light came from the computer screen, where our attention should be, but wasn't. I couldn't concentrate on the movie. For one, it was boring as hell and looked like what you'd expect from one of Jason Statham's movies.

The main plot wasn't as bad. What really intrigued me were the parts where the main leads went around kissing, like... they kissed a lot. I didn't know if the male lead was a willing participant or if they used a stunt woman for that.

Were there that many kissing scenes in the movies here? Was that the thing? The story was thrown out of the window for the sake of sensual indulgence and gratification?

'Okay.'

I could work with that.

"Have you ever... kissed someone, Damien?"

I was startled, probably more than I should've been by the question. I snapped my eyes over to look at my sister, who was also looking at me with a rare expression of shyness, one finger playing with the ends of her hair.

"... Why do you ask?"

She didn't know.

There was no way she'd know about my little escapade with Freya, who was most likely sleeping like a rock right now.

"I was just wondering, you know, watching this stuff." She pointed at the movie. "They make it seem so easy, but... I doubt it's actually like that in real life. I mean…"

I narrowed my eyes, and she looked away from me to focus on the screen.

"You've never kissed someone?"

I was under the impression that she had kissed me, at some point. What with her earlier confession of nearly violating me—unless she skipped all foreplay and jumped right for the fruit. Possible.

She cocked her head a little, and the expanse of her neck curved elegantly under the silken strands she was playing with. She huffed, her cheeks quite red.

"Well… I've kissed you, but I don't remember what it's like."

Figured.

The couple in the movie was making out again.

There was a lot of tongue involved and some weird camera angles that made it feel more sexual than it should've been. Hell, from so up close, it looked more like a documentary about octopus tentacle-wrestling.

She scratched her cheek; an ancient tactic of subverting my attention, even though her skin didn't even itch.

"Wouldn't that make your question a moot point? We kissed, so you've already gotten some experience and so did I, apparently."

Calista poked me in the side. "Besides me, I meant!"

I laughed, but my heart was beating so fucking fast. "In truth, I've never kissed anyone else before you, either."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Never?"

"Nope."

Calista turned her head back to the screen, her fingers clenching around a handful of popcorn. She ate it, one at a time, slowly. It was a bit awkward, and I could feel that she was contemplating something.

"Would you?"

Half of her face was bathed by the screen light, which was flashing intermittently with gunfire and explosions. Because of-fucking-course right after a passionate love scene, they would have to dive straight into a massive shootout, why not.

"Would I, what?"

"Kiss someone? On the lips." Calista's voice was softer, as she stared blankly ahead.

"Yeah, sure. I'd kiss someone." I replied, absent-mindedly.

"On the lips." Calista added, as if clarifying.

"On the lips. Whatever. With tongue. Without. Upside down and in a helicopter, before and after a shootout or bleeding out in the snow."

I tried to go a bit comical there, just to brighten the mood a bit.

"Woah, really?" Calista said in an even more hushed voice. "Tongue?"

I nodded, grabbed a handful of popcorn, and shoved it all in my mouth. "I'd even let someone spit in my mouth, or spit inside of someone else's mouth, that'd probably be sexy as hell, I guess."

"Someone... someone's spit." Calista repeated my words slowly.

"My spit, her spit, our spit. I really don't care, I'm into that kind of stuff."

The whole movie forgotten, Calista scooted a little bit closer to me, and a thought shot across my mind—did she just scoot closer when I brought up spit exchange?

"Do... you like... kissing someone you trust?"

I needed to answer this as carefully as I could, because this was a really, really strange situation.

Then I remembered something funny I've read online.

'Women want only one thing and it's disgusting.'

As you can imagine, it was written and posted by a man. A long rant about the female imperative that boiled down to 'women want a penis' was also cited as evidence.

"Yeah. Well. I would... as long as they don't have a mustache and smelly breath."

My body remained rigid as her face lit up and was covered in an incandescent pink-like blush. Then she snapped her gaze away and back to the movie, appearing as unconcerned as one could be, though her breath was slightly more labored.

Thump.

A loud noise came from outside.

So loud that Calista jumped to her feet in surprise, looked at the window, then at me, then back to the window.

"Huh, what was that?"

She made her way to the window, parted the curtain and peered out. I was right behind her.

We couldn't see anything.

Then the security system's alarm went off.

Sorry for the delay everyone. Had to sort shit out.

I'm waiting for Subscribe Star to approve of my page, which is taking forever... which is why I had to make a new acc on Patreon.