$ᴜɪᴄɪᴅᴇ ɢʀᴏᴜᴘɪᴇ // $ᴜɪᴄɪᴅᴇʙᴏʏ$

Chapter Two

Of course I knew something was wrong, knew he knew what Scrim and I had just done in the bathroom not even twenty minutes ago when I looked up and saw Ruby standing there. I sat on the dingy couch backstage with my beer in hand. He'd never spoken to me before, more than likely because he knew why I was here. Why I was always at each and every one of their shows. Not only to watch my favorite rappers perform, but to hook up with his cousin.

But we had already made eye contact, and everyone else had gone outside to smoke. I suspected he'd rather die than say something to me, but he was here in front of me, and he was obviously waiting for me to say something so he wouldn't have to. Speak, boy, I thought, like some sort of ridiculous internal sneeze. Like a reflex I didn't really want to have, but came anyway, unbidden.

Then I'd gotten a hold of myself and greeted him normally. "Hi?" I said, but it was the strangest thing. Somehow it came out sounding like speak, boy anyway. And even worse, I thought he might know it. The faintest flush spread over his face after I'd spoken, and when he finally managed to reply his voice was oddly quiet.

"Zaida, right?" He asked, and this time I really got a flash of something unwanted. That buzz, I thought, that buzz I got when Scrim would say my name, only this was different from the way I usually heard it. Usually I didn't know what to do with it.

But I knew right now.

I set my beer down and briskly walked up to him. All of these strange and new parts of me were very aware of how fumbly Ruby suddenly appeared. "Ruby, right?" I replied with sarcasm. Why had I replied with sarcasm?

"Uh, yeah." He stammered the minute I closed off the distance between us. "So..."

I resisted the urge to point out how awkward he was acting. "Go ahead, Ruby." I said, though again those weren't the words I wanted to use. The real ones were in the back of my mind somewhere, being ignored until I could think about all of this more clearly.

"Scrim wants to see you on the bus." He said, and that's when I knew it. I wasn't going to get the chance to think about this strange little buzz in the back of my mind at all.

And it was mainly because of this sudden and creeping sense of unease.

Of course, I had felt that the moment I walked backstage earlier. But it was more obvious now as I took in every little nervy tic of the man in front of me. He wasn't uptight exactly- it wasn't like that. He wasn't wound up inside himself, unable to escape. It was more like his insides had escaped far too much and were currently spilling themselves all over me. The urge to brush bits of him off me was very strong.

Scrim made me nervous. I'd thought it would be the same with Ruby when we'd finally interacted. But it seemed that I was actually the one that made him nervous.

"Lead the way then." I told him.

He did. He got ahead of me, every stride so immense that after a moment I actually found myself almost trotting to keep up. But I didn't let it show. He was so obvious in his movements that I anticipated his head turns, and always slowed to a halt. There was an element to it that was mildly disconcerting. Like something about him didn't quite match up or work, and it was my job to figure it out. Though I had no idea when the task fell to me.

Finally outside, he took me to the door of the tour bus. "He's inside." He said, and I noticed several things at once. I noticed his voice first, despite the fact that doing so was the wrong thing to be picking up on. I shouldn't be thinking about the odd raspy sound of it. He had just performed.

For a long moment I simply stared at Ruby, in a much meaner way than I intended. I looked down at his fingernails, chipped black paint and looked like he never bothered to clip them. His long curly hair was unruly.

And then I finally asked, without letting any of my deep, deep concerns about this entire situation affect me. "So why didn't Scrim come get me himself? Is he the boss of you or something?"

I half-knew what his reaction was going to be. And I was proved right when his mouth kind of flopped open and his eyes got bigger. "Uh- of course not."

I was so transfixed by his utter awkwardness towards me. My hands itched to reach out, I couldn't help myself. I fixed his unzipped jacket, a part of it hanging off one of his shoulders. I ran my hands down his hair to smooth out the frizz, then pointed a finger at the stain on his white shirt. "We're gonna have to do something about you, Ruby. A monkey could dress himself better than this."

My tone was a little too harsh.

"Yes ma'am- uh- Zai-"

Did he just call me ma'am?

"Ma'am is fine." I said, surprising myself, before turning to the door of the tour bus.

Ruby lowered his eyes and began walking away then, and before I opened the door, I turned my head to watch him waltz back into the venue. Everyone was standing outside the bus. Why would he have gone back inside alone?

And for a moment I was so ashamed. I couldn't do anything. I just stood there, thinking about that incredulous look on his face as I'd suggested a monkey could dress better than him. It was unforgivable, the way I'd just treated him within the few minutes we'd ever spoken. He and Scrim were practically my idols. The music they made spoke to me, saved me. It was insane the way I'd just interacted with him. I had to go back and apologize, I had to.

Though I'd wished I hadn't because the minute I stepped foot into the room backstage, he seemed to be crying when I saw his body sloping forward on the couch, his back to me. Shoulders shaking as though with emotion, everything about his gait was somehow sloppy and like he'd lost control of himself.

And yet I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wasn't upset. I had a strange understanding of his facial expressions. I could tell just from looking at his hunched shoulders and the way his arm was twisted around his body...

He was masturbating. He was absolutely, one-hundred-percent masturbating.

I could see his hips rocking forward into what was almost certainly the press of his hand, and when I made myself as quiet as I could, the sounds he was making became obvious. Little breathless sighs and moans that would probably escape anyone else- they'd think he was distressed in some way, and get his attention, at which he could turn and straighten himself and pretend to have been upset.

And now I could hear the slick slide of his hand over his cock. The sound was a little muted, because of course he was doing it under the cover of his pants. He had slipped one hand inside to work himself all quick and frantic like this.

The things I had said, his reaction, and now this, it was all horrendously exciting. My core clenched around nothing, in some kind of bizarre sympathy for his predicament. My clit swelled, ready to be touched or rubbed or, if only he would lick it. If I could just make my legs move and go to him right now, he'd do it, I knew he would.

Being belittled must have excited him in the same way it excited me. He was really going at it now, as if he was barely aware that someone could walk in on him at any moment. But I don't think he cared about anything but the feeling of his fingers wrapped around his cock, everything about his body language so intent on the task at hand. From where I was standing I could make out all the arousing little details, like the shuddering he did every time he hit it just right. But even then I wasn't prepared for his orgasm.

It seemed to lurch through him, and when it did he made a sound. More than a sound. I heard him say my name. He just blurted it out, full of a kind of reaching desire that I'd never heard from another person. Voice shaky and torn, hips bucking towards the circle of his own grip, body shivering under the stress of such impossible pleasure.

He just gave himself over to it, and I realized something in that moment. I realized my own arousal, clit still pulsing slow and steady. Wetness now making its way down my inner thigh, the whole of my lower body so thick and heavy with sensation.