There had been a time when she didn't sing. Countless years of non-song, of lies, delusions and hate. Dark years. Ten years ago she left her home for good. She was never to return. At least she fervently hoped so, because if she returned to that place, it would only be for torture, humiliation and slow, painful death.

For then years, she'd been a drifter.

Those years were but a grain of sand in a huge hourglass for one such as she, but she relished each and every single moment of it. At last she was free! At last she could wander wherever her fancy took her, without worrying about orders, interviews, performance and all those other dark and petty things that had ruled her world for so long.

The memory of song came back to her five years ago, spurred by a chance encounter in a bar somewhere in Canada. Back then, she'd occasionally dance or even ply the oldest trade known to woman to make money. She'd been down on her luck for a while and was getting desperate to find someone who'd pay for her affections. Hence the bar and her being in it.

There was a young wisp of a girl on stage; she sang like a newborn angel, and it nearly made the drifter cry. So pure, so innocent and so expressive. She forgot about her financial worries for a while, just listening to the girl sing. If there was any justice left in the world, the girl would be famous and get to sing for millions of people. Sadly, the girl was also one of nature's plain Janes, so there wasn't really much hope for fame.

Later that night the drifter got a paying "friend" who was generous and friendly. She hated using her "special talent" to wring more money out of them and to make them behave, so this was, all things considered, a good night.

A week later she still heard the girl's song in her head, even though the little bar in the little town was far behind her. They were such simple melodies, and simpler lyrics still -- but they had touched a nerve in her that refused to quiet down. She eventually caught herself humming under her breath and had blinked in surprise, but she kept humming into the night, tasting the sensation. It was technically winter, but she wasn't bothered by the cold. There was melody in her and it wanted out, out, out! The memory of her own voice stirred in her, and at last she remembered hos to sing. Once upon a time she had been very good at it, and had been known for it too. At least she thought she had been, but maybe that was just her vanity and pride speaking. They piped up from time to time, making things difficult for her.

Her singing came back almost effortlessly, though it took her a while to get used to the idea and to actually do it. When she finally did give in to it, it was good enough to let her make a meager living off it, rather than off the rest of her body. It was nice to have herself to herself and not have to share.

She had been hanging around in a nameless city for longer than she normally dared. The club she sang in was a rather good one, but not high class. It just felt comfortable to her. Homey. And the audience was good -- they tipped well and for the most part they didn't get rowdy and grabby. She took no small delight in granting requests; there were so many songs which were special to so many people. It made her feel warm and humble inside when she looked upon the faces and into the eyes of someone whose song she sang. Rare feelings indeed, to her. Humility didn't come easy, if at all, to her kind. They were infamous for it.

One evening a stranger came to the club. He was tall and grizzled, despite having a somewhat youngish look and stance. It was hard to guess his age, but most people would place him somewhere between 35 and 50 years old. They would be wrong, wrong, wrong. Judging from his looks, he had spent most of his life in the outdoors. Judging from his stance and movement, he had spent a good deal of this outdoors time in the military. However, his blond locks had grown long, so he'd been out of the fatigues for quite a while. The stranger drew admiring and hungry eyes from many a female in the room, and the bartender seemed to appreciate him as well. No wonder; as his years out of uniform hadn't saddled him with any love handles or surplus fat. He was all tight muscles and grim confidence, advertising to the world that here was a man who knew a nigh infinity of ways to look after himself. The man found himself a stool at the bar and perched on it, got a drink and looked up at the stage.

She was on stage, singing as she had done every night for three weeks. She was doing a request from an old man seated near the wall by the far corner of the stage. A short, wrinkled geezer whose back was stooped and whose hands shook from time to time. So far he'd managed to avoid spilling his beer. The old man had come every single night to listen to her sing, and only that night managed to scrounge up the courage to ask her. Shyly and ever so politely he had asked if she would sing Ella's "Ev'ry time we say goodbye" for him. She was happy to grant that wish, and now her voice filled the club, while she sang just for him.

"Ev'ry time we say goodbye, I die a little... Ev'ry time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little..."

The old man's eyes were shining with moistness, his face rapt with memories of youth and days of fun and games long past. The stranger at the bar looked at the woman on the stage and the old-timer. He would see how those gnarled, old hands didn't shake at all during her song. As she finished the last few notes of melody, the old man lit up in a smile that was all the payment in the world to her. She caught herself hoping that he wouldn't tip her. It would feel wrong somehow. That smile, all those wrinkles arranging themselves in an expression of such warm joy and grateful happiness... She felt her own face lighting up in a smile too, responding to him. It was quite impossible not to. Something about little children and old people, she thought. They had the best of smiles, contagious as few other things in this world. The smile of a little child so open and pure in shining delight. The smile of the old man or woman so endlessly deep and expressive. Every wrinkle and fold telling a story to anyone who cared to use the eyes for listening.

The stranger drank in silence, grey eyes guarded and inscrutable, face closed and calm. He too had lines telling stories and scars hinting of violence encountered. But there was something about him that discouraged the casual observer from looking to closely. An air that suggested you needed permission before reading any of his lines. His eyes kept darting about the room. Always alert but never intrusive, and they kept returning to the woman on the stage. She was on a roll, embarking upon another old jazz classic, filling the room with the cheerful tale of "Mack the knife". Most of the patrons bopped along with her, smiles spreading. She sang it Ella-style, with the whole second- and third verses fudged completely and the fourth scatted. He wasn't a bopping kind of fellow, the stranger, but his left toe, stealthily and unnoticed by the world, committed treason and started wiggling along with the beat.

She could feel his eyes upon her for the rest of the evening. Normally this would have made her more than a little twitchy, coming from a man like him. She did have a weakness for tough guys, but more often than not they were more trouble than she appreciated. This one seemed different though. His eyes weren't undressing her or possessing her or taking notes. Or maybe they were, but if so then he was more subtle about it than she was able to perceive. He didn't approach her during her breaks, something she found odd. They normally did. So he obviously wasn't really a "they". Her mind shied away from that train of thought. He was just another stranger in just another drinking place. Just like her.

Her repertoire ranged many, many styles and genres, so she kept the patrons entertained and made a handsome amount of tips that night as well as the other nights. It would keep her for quite some time. The stranger walked up to her just as she announced that the next song would be the night's final song. She paused and gave him a quizzical look. He seemed to want something.

"Will you give me the last song, lady?" he asked in a deep sonorous voice.

She blinked and for some reason she couldn't quite pin down, she nodded and gestured smilingly for him to name his request.

"Sing me a song of your own choosing, lady." And with that, he turned and walked back to perch on his stool.

She blinked again. Well now, that was certainly a request she didn't get too often. Wistful feelings darted around inside her, and pulled out a record from the collection in her mind. She smiled to herself. Oh, that one was cheeky. It'd be a good closing song for this evening she decided, and whispered something to the band. They all nodded and played up another old classic...

"It's the wrong time, and the wrong place
Though your face is charming, it's the wrong face
It's not his face, but such a charming face
That it's all right with me

It's the wrong song, in the wrong style
Though your smile is lovely, it's the wrong smile
It's not his smile, but such a lovely smile
That it's all right with me

You can't know how happy I am that we met
I'm strangely attracted to you
There's someone I'm trying so hard to forget
Don't you want to forget someone, too?

It's the wrong game, with the wrong chips
Though your lips are tempting, they're the wrong lips
They're not his lips, but they're such tempting lips
That, if some night, you are free
Then it's all right, yes, it's all right with me"

He actually smiled at her when she started singing, and she smiled back. The wisting grew stronger and resounded out into the song. Afterwards he asked her if she'd have dinner with him the next day. She saw no reason to turn him down, and so they agreed upon a time and a place to meet.

Dinner happened the next day at a nice little steakhouse. She smiled inwardly at that, because he was so very obviously a steakhouse kind of guy. It just fit. Not that she minded in the least bit, because the place was nice and clean and the man was handsome and polite. Despite his rough exterior, he carried himself with a dignity that spoke of good breeding or at least a diligent mother. He treated her like a lady, and she revelled in the rare luxury. The restrained possibility of violence that his aura hinted at should have bothered her. It didn't. Conversation was a little bit awkward at first, but after some careful testing and trying it went along quite nicely. Neither seemed to want to put the other one off, nor to reveal much about themselves. But since they were sitting so close to each other, they could both learn that the other hid many sorrows behind clear eyes.

He came to the club again that night, and listened to her sing. The next night, he showed up again. And the night after that. On the fourth night, she asked him if he wanted to go for a nightcap. He nodded and followed her. It was dry and not too cold outside, but that was all there was to that night. Nothing worthy of poetry, at least not at first glance. He offered her his arm, and after hesitating for a fraction of a second, she accepted. She tried in vain not to think too hard about how strong and firm that arm of his felt. And the warmth radiating from him... It made her long for something she couldn't quite remember, and she wasn't at all sure if she wanted to remember.

They talked over drinks, again testing out the waters of conversation. She learned that he too was a roamer, just like her. Rootless and restless, with no home to return to and no family to remember. He was irresistible, she decided. Tall and very fit, with a build slightly on the heavy side, a face that spoke of many experiences, those gorgeous, golden-blond curls he had tied in a pony tail and last but not least, the cloud-grey eyes that never faltered and always met her own blues head-on. They held so many secrets, as if daring her to come prying. Daring her to... And she realized with a slight start that he was indeed daring her to read him. He was daring her to try learning the secret stories written in the lines on his face, in the scars on his hands and arms and to come listen to the deeper tales waiting there in his eyes. And she wanted to. She really, really wanted to.

"I'm free tonight," he told her, managing an admirably straight face.

"Then I guess it's all right with me," she answered with a crooked little smile.

She went with him to the small hotel he was staying at. Slightly on the dingy side, but not entirely unpleasant. Lord knew she'd lived in far worse places. She was acutely aware of him the whole way there, and wondered if he was as aware of her. When they were safely inside his room, she half expected him to lunge for her at once. But all he did was help her off with her coat. The small hairs on her skin rose on edge as his hands touched her shoulders, and they refused to lay down when the hands disappeared to hang her coat away. She turned her head slightly to look at him, and watched as he took off his own jacket; a worn but clearly well cared for leather jacket that looked military to her. The smell of the leather tried to stir memories in her, but she refused them access. Instead she focused on him, a very easy task by now. He turned back from the closet where he hung their coats and looked at her quietly. Reaching out with a big hand, he gently touched her arm -- not hesitantly, but as if ready to pull back if she should flinch.

So instead she swallowed and twitched her lips ever so carefully. She could feel him against her, even though he was an arm-length away. The heat, the hard body, the smell of his skin. Warm, earthy and human, with a whiff of leather and a teensy hint of gun oil in it, or so she imagined. All of this was right there, and all she had to do was take one step and close the gap between them. It had been much too long since she had felt this way, so she stalled for a few moments more just to savour the building energies.

He closed the gap instead, by taking the step and invading her personal space. She yielded it without much fight. Big, strong hands placed themselves on her hips and squeezed them gently, pulling her carefully closer. A pair of now intense, grey eyes locked with hers and held them captive. Her hands, she found, rested on his upper stomach and she could feel them burning, or was that the skin underneath the shirt? She closed her eyes and breathed deeply as he moved his hands upwards along her waist and onwards past her breasts. One hand came to rest on the side of her neck, thumb grazing her cheek and fingers curling around the back of her head, and he kissed her.

And kissed her.

And kissed her.

She was vaguely aware of her fingers clutching the front of his shirt, but all she could really care about was his mouth on hers. His lips were hard as something very soft; he wasn't gentle but neither was he hurting her. The slight stubble around his mouth rasped against her skin and made her senses cry out even more. He worked methodically to cover every millimetre of her lips with kisses, and only after that could she feel his tongue joining the conquest. Her own tongue darted out to taste his lips, to lap at them and to drink from them. His other hand brought the onset of his response. It came up and grabbed the other side of her head, pulling her into a kiss so hungry she thought she'd suffocate from the sheer intensity of it. Pressing closer to him, her response was no less hungry. Eventually they had to come up for breath.

Breathing hard and flushing all over, she looked up at him and met eyes that finally spoke volumes. Want. Need. Loneliness. Desperation. Determination. Desire. And he looked into eyes that mirrored those emotions perfectly. Her hands roamed over his body, pulling at the shirt to get it up from the trousers. His hands were roaming too, finding softer and rounder shapes beneath the textiles than hers did. A short while later neither pair of hands had any more fabrics barring their way and went greedily exploring skin. He was so warm she imagined she'd burn herself on him, his hands so hot on her body it was almost painful. She buried her face in his chest, rubbing her cheeks against the soft mat of hair there, golden like that on his head and, she noticed a moment later, like that in his crotch. Then his mouth closed hungrily over hers again and she was whisked over to the bed where he proceeded to take her over. He was received with welcome, and the next while was lost to her in a haze of aching fire.