Diamonds and Rust

He already had a job at a music store, one that allowed him some flexibility, and a little cold-water flat where he was staying.

He would start with small club gigs on his own while he put a band together, starting with a best buddy back in Davenport, a bass player who was waiting for word that Billy was on his way up before he committed to move to New York.

Once he had a band, he'd graduate from the folk clubs to larger rock clubs in the city, then around to some of the college towns, which he hoped would lead to a record deal, regional, then national exposure, and on up the chain.

It was ambitious, but I quickly learned that Billy had an iron will where his life was concerned. It is telling that he has never had a manager. To this day, he does his own bookings, and handles most of his own affairs, although he does now have an office and a lawyer who sorts out his business and financials.

The first thing he did was change his name. Billy Crane does sound a lot catchier than Bill Cronovich, plus I think there were some issues with his family that were driving that decision.

It didn't take long for him to start getting gigs. The club where he'd first showed up gave him his first break, and before long he was performing five or six nights a week at various clubs.

He also moved in with me after the first of the year, and it was a magical time. There was no doubt we were in love and I think it inspired both of us. I know my writing blossomed during that period, although Billy always poked fun at my fumbling attempts at poetry.

But Billy inspired me; he was my muse every bit as much as I was his. He had such a way with words that I could run a passage in a story past him and he'd invariably find just the right way to phrase something.

Before long, Billy had enough saved up money to rent some warehouse space and began auditioning for a band. His friend from Iowa came over and I think that was the first sign of trouble.

Mike Sparks appeared to be a player, if you know what I mean, and he liked to take Billy out clubbing while he trolled for women. At the time, I didn't think Billy would join him in that pursuit, but I couldn't know for sure.

What I do know is that ever-so-slowly, Mike started driving a wedge between Billy and me. We never got along, and I think he made it his business to pull Billy away from me. Billy thought I was just paranoid, but based on what subsequently happened, I'd say I was correct.

At any rate, I finished my master's degree that spring, and had some short stories published in a literary anthology at the university. I always joke that maybe 10 people read them, but it was a start.

I started contributing to several magazines around the city, getting my name out there, while I started working on my first novel, a romance based loosely on my relationship with Billy.

Soon, Billy had settled on a band and they started performing together. They quickly developed a following, largely on the college campuses in the New York City area and then to New England.

God, it was such a magical time! I had become a regular contributor for -- and was drawing paychecks from -- several magazines and periodicals, honing my craft and making contacts.

And Billy was writing new songs that he would play for me in the privacy of our apartment. He would bounce ideas off of me, and I would push him on those rare occasions when he was hit with bouts of self-doubt.

I encouraged him to not be afraid to make bold statements with his songs, to be willing to be controversial if necessary.

He was -- is -- a very smart man, but he never went to college and was never exposed to that intellectual environment, and that's a direction I helped guide him into, shaping and sharpening his political views, and pushing him to express those views in his songs.

There were times, though, when he would be off for out-of-town gigs, leaving me alone to wonder if he was staying as faithful to me as I was to him. See, the history of my love life had always been one of disappointment, and I couldn't shake the vague feeling of dread that slowly grew as Billy's fame began to spread.

It was almost two years to the day of our first meeting when we enjoyed the most magical day of them all. It was snowing in the late afternoon, when Billy called me and he couldn't disguise the excitement in his voice.

"Meet me at Washington Square," he said. "I have something to tell you."

When I met him in the square, there was a fire in his eyes that I'd never seen before and he swept me up in his arms and kissed me deeply.

"What's this something you have to tell me?" I asked breathlessly when we finally broke apart.

He simply reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper and showed it to me.

At first, I couldn't make heads or tails off it, because it was written in legalese. But then the words, "three records," jumped out at me, and I realized what it was. Billy had signed an agreement in principle with a record company, and not just any record company, either, but a well-known national company based right there in New York.

"You did it!" I squealed.

Billy just beamed, and we did this giddy little dance in the square, with snowflakes in our hair and the wind on our faces. People looked at us like we were insane, but we didn't care; I think I could have died right then and been happy to do so.

"This calls for a celebration," he said, pulling me out of the square.

He led me to a fairly-upscale restaurant and we ordered the most expensive items on the menu, just because we could. We drank just enough wine to feel frisky, and we were eager to enjoy a more private celebration.

We were about halfway home, the snow still falling harder than ever, when Billy pulled me toward some storefront -- a grocery or something, pressed me against the wall and kissed me, and I mean he kissed me with a passion that was reminiscent of our first night together.

I could feel the heat of his body as he pressed in on me and we lost ourselves in the kiss. He was already hard and I could actually feel him dry-humping me. I finally had to push him away slightly, just to get some air.

"It's too cold to fuck out here, Billy," I laughed.

"Janice, never doubt one thing," he said with the most serious look on his face. "I love you, and I always will. No matter what happens."

Later, I would wonder what he meant, but then he kissed me again, not quite as insistently, but still with a great deal of passion, and everything else in my mind melted away.

Afterward, we walked -- no, floated -- the rest of the way to our apartment, and we started fumbling to get out of our bulky winter clothes.

By the time I'd gotten down to my panties and the wife-beater T-shirt I was using for a bra at the time, Billy was naked and sporting a rock-hard erection.

"I want you so badly right now I can't stand it," he growled.

"Then, take me," I said, and he swept me up in his arms and carried me to the bed.

He laid me own, peeled my shirt off and squeezed my tits with some force. My breasts aren't real big, but what I have is choice, with sensitive nipples that poke out like pencil erasers at the least provocation.

And they were throbbing hard as Billy rolled them between his fingers. I moaned softly as the lust mounted in me.

Abruptly, he got up on his knees on the bed, his cock proud and hard in front of him. No words were necessary; I knew just what he wanted -- what I wanted. I rolled over onto my stomach, lifted myself up slightly and slithered over until I was at eye level with his cock.

At first, I just rubbed the leaking head softly over my cheeks, sort of nuzzling the fount of my desire. After a few seconds of that, I softly licked the shaft, up and down and all around, before opening my mouth and drawing him in.

As I did, I looked up from what was, in all honesty, a subservient position, and our eyes locked. We knew in that moment that this was all about him, about his success, and I was just the facilitator.

Again, I would wonder about the dynamics of what was happening in our relationship, but at the time I was eager to go with the flow.

After staring at each other for several long seconds, while I gave him my finest hum job, Billy closed his eyes in reverie andd threw his head back in sheer satisfaction.

I still had on my panties, and as I worked Billy's wonderful cock back and forth in my mouth, getting it a little deeper with every suck and slurp, I reached underneath my body and rubbed my throbbing sex. I reached inside my panties and felt my wetness, the flood of my arousal.

I wanted the cock I was sucking on and I wanted it right there in my hot pussy.

Billy must have had the same thought, because he pulled away from me, almost wrenching his cock from my mouth.

"Turn around," he commanded, and I obeyed.

I rubbed my hard nips on the linen sheet, letting the friction spur my arousal ever higher, while I swiveled around and raised my butt into the air.

"God, you are horny, aren't you," he chuckled as he reached into my panties and ran his fingers through my labia and on up to my tingling clit.

"Oh, baby, fuck me," I panted. "Fuck me, puleeeeeze!"

That must have been what he was waiting for, me to beg him to fuck me. Billy simply pulled my panties off my hips, just down to my thighs, slid his cock between my legs a couple of times and thrust into me with as much force as he could muster.

"Oh, oh, my God," I fairly bellowed as the white-hot intensity of my long-overdue orgasm exploded through my body from the power and feeling of Billy's cock.

I'm sure I looked like some whore out of a skin magazine, with my face buried in the bed, my ass in the air and my panties stretched tight between my thighs. But I didn't care. The man I loved was fucking me like a king and I was enjoying every bit of it.

I thrust my hips back, trying to keep as much of Billy's cock in me as I could, but he wanted to play. He pulled almost all the way out, then plunged back in. Over and over he did that, even pulling all the way out a couple of times, driving me crazy with lust.

I'm honestly not sure how many times I climaxed; they all seemed to just run together in one hazy blur of pleasure, but I know that eventually Billy simply tore my panties off, tossed the remnants aside, grabbed my butt cheeks and began to fuck me with a ferocity that took my breath away.

Just about the time I didn't think I couuld take any more, I felt him swirl one of his thumbs around the point where we were joined, getting it nice and wet. Suddenly, he pressed that thumb to my sphincter, just rimming it.

I think I squealed loudly as he toyed with my asshole. I'd let him fuck my ass a few times by then. Strangely, I got more out of it than Billy did. For some reason, I have some nerves that respond to a bit of anal penetration, but he always said I was too tight for him to fuck me there comfortably.

He kept working his cock hard and fast in my quivering hole, painting my sugary walls with his potent juice. His cock was twitching like he was ready to come, but he somehow managed to maintain his control.

Without warning, his thumb penetrated my ass and he started working it back and forth, finger-fucking my with his thumb while he fucked my convulsing cunt with his powerful dick.

That was all it took for me to completely lose it. I thrashed on the bed in orgasmic convulsions and as he clutched my butt cheek -- his thumb securely wedged in my ass -- Billy growled deep in his throat and fired a spectacular barrage of cumshots as deep as I could ever recall him getting in me.

I mean, it felt like someone had stuck a fire hose in my pussy as he gave me his hot sauce, until he squeezed out a couple of smaller bursts, then collapsed onto my back, and I, in turn, fell to the bed with Billy on top of me.

At that moment, I thought there was nothing on earth that could tear us apart. We were like one, and I thought we'd cemented that unity that night.

Little did I know that it was really the beginning of the end of our relationship

^ ^ ^ ^

Christmas was approaching, and we had planned on spending it together at my parents' place.

Instead, Billy's label put him on a hastily-arranged tour as the second bill to one of their top-sellers and he was on the road, somewhere in the South, on Christmas Day.

That was depressing enough, but I was starting to anticipate some kind of deeper commitment from Billy, like a ring, but nothing was forthcoming.

And the sense of dread that I was losing him grew deeper and more pervasive as he devoted himself more and more to his career.

At first, he called every night, no matter where he was. But after the first of the year, he started missing a night here and there, then a few more until it got to where I was only hearing from him about once a week or so.

I thought things would improve when he got back off tour, but instead, he almost immediately disappeared into the studio to work on his first record.

As I said, his records don't sound slick, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of work put into them. Billy is meticulous about his work, and I knew that once I got to know him. Still, it felt like his single-minded pursuit of his work was resulting in cutting me out of his life.

Mind you, I was always welcome with Billy in the studio, but if you've ever spent time watching someone work in a recording studio, you know it's pretty boring stuff.

And, besides, I was at the point in my work where I was finishing up my novel and starting to pitch it to publishers.

My agent was getting me in the door with some big-time houses, and I didn't have time to just sit on my butt and listen to Billy and his band fiddle with their songs.

Things started coming to a head, though, when Billy and his band mates, usually Mike Sparks, began to hit some clubs after a show or after nights in the studio. He'd come in a little tipsy, but he'd always come home. It might be at the crack of dawn, but he always made it home.

Or at least he did at first.

Sometimes I'd go with him, and those could be fun times. But if I started going too much, I'd get the evil eye from Mike, plus I did have my own life and my own career that I was trying to launch. Unlike the music business, publishing houses work during the daytime, and I couldn't afford to spend a lot of late nights clubbing around town.

As spring segued into summer and Billy's first album neared completion, there were so many things pulling us apart. Promotions for the label, parties with all the, "right people," another tour, more studio work; it seemed like we were spending more nights apart than together.

And I soon started hearing that maybe Billy wasn't sleeping alone when we were apart. I'm not without my own network of friends, and they'd tell me they'd seen him at such-and-such club with some blonde or brunette or redhead -- it really didn't matter what type they were.

When we were together, it seemed like we were fighting more than we ever did. I thought Billy had become self-absorbed; he thought I didn't understand what was involved in creating a popular-music career and wasn't being supportive.

As it happened, what should have been the best day of my life turned into one of the worst.

It was a brutally-hot morning in August when I got a call from my agent. My novel had been accepted by a major publishing company and he had an advance check in an amount that was in the high five-figures.

I was ecstatic, but Billy wasn't there to share it with me, and that brought me down. He had flown to California the previous week to oversee the final release of his record and when I called his hotel number, I got a recorded message (this was a couple of years before cell phones became ubiquitous).

I spent all day with my agent at the publisher's office, looking at contracts and talking about promotions. It was heady stuff, but it was pretty complex and I had a headache when I left their office.

I got back to my apartment to find two messages on my answering machine. One was from Billy, the other was from a girlfriend who said she had something to show me and could we meet some place for dinner.

When I tried to call Billy, I got nowhere, so I left another message telling him about my day. Then I called my friend and made arrangements for dinner.

As soon as I saw her face, I knew she didn't have anything good for me. It was a mixture of sadness and pity, and she encouraged me to have a drink before she showed me what she had.

"I saw this in my dentist's office yesterday," she said finally, handing me a copy of a local celebrity tabloid that I normally avoided like the plague.

As I looked at it, my heart sank to my feet. There was a picture of Billy Crane kissing some well-known singer at a party in Midtown a couple of weeks earlier.

I remembered the night in question; he'd had to go to this party his label was putting on, and it was essential he should go. It was one of those schmooze events where he was being introduced around to company executives, the kind of do I absolutely hated.

I stared at the picture, then at the caption. It was apparent that this was not a quick little buss between two celebrities, but a full-blown lip lock, the kind I was used to getting. And the caption called the woman, "his girlfriend," and said they'd been dating for, "several weeks."

I think I started hyperventilating and I know I rushed blindly out of the restaurant. My friend followed after me, concerned, I think, that I'd blindly rush out into traffic. She held me while I cried my eyes out, telling me over and over, "he's not worth it."

"That's (gasp) easy for (sob) you to say," I croaked. "It's not (sniffle) your heart ... being b-b-broken."

And that set off another round of weeping.

Finally, she got me calmed down enough and we proceeded to get shit-faced drunk, and that's when I went from shattered victim to pissed-off jilted lover.

For the first and only time in my life, I let myself be picked up by a complete stranger, let him take me back to his place and let him fuck me.

I don't know why I did it. Being drunk had a lot to do with it, but I'd been drunk before and not come close to doing something that reckless.

Maybe it was just because I could, maybe it was for revenge, maybe for the reinforcement that I was attractive ... I don't know, but it wasn't worth it. It was lousy sex, and I spent the next two months worrying about whether the fucker had given me an STD. Fortunately, he'd worn a condom and he turned out to be clean.

Nevertheless, it was a risk I never should have taken, and I felt like a turd -- a still-drunk turd -- when I left his apartment with him sound asleep at 4:30 in the morning.

It was a little after 5 o'clock in the morning when I got back to what I now had to think of as my apartment. I looked at the telephone for several minutes, contemplating whether I should call, then picked it up and dialed the number and wished I hadn't.

A woman answered the phone, an obviously-drunk woman with the sounds of a party going on in the background.

"Who is this?" I asked softly.

"Who the fuck are you to ask, bitch?" she said belligerently.

"Just tell Billy his girlfriend called and that I know everything," I said.

"Bullshit," was all I heard before I hung up the phone and dissolved in more tears.

Immediately the phone began to ring, but I didn't have the energy or the will to answer it. I knew it was probably Billy, but I just wasn't in the mood to talk to him any longer. All I wanted to do was cry myself to sleep and that's what I did.

I woke up a few hours later to someone pounding on my door. It sounded like the Anvil Chorus and it just made my mood that much worse.

It turned out to be my friend from the previous night, checking on me. It seems that Billy had gotten worried when I didn't answer any of the dozen calls he'd made after I hung up the phone at 5 a.m. He'd finally called her, and she'd come right over to see if I done bodily harm to myself.