Thread: Paradise Isle  (Fades & Good Girls)

Her laughter was like music. Not like her albums, with bubblegum and RB and energy borrowed from a thousand sources to be swirled into a technically competent and highly marketable sound that was both uniquely hers and calculated to be as broadly appealing as possible, as soulful she could make a soulless industry as could only be said of any artist, in any field, working in any medium. When she laughed, like that , it was an unguarded sound. The kind of pretty-little-thing laughter that tended to make octogenarians smile wistfully and comment on how someone like she could make them feel so young again, a clear-as-a-bell sound that came in just a little too hot on the mic. Nothing else she had said had managed to leave that kind of speaker-fry echoing among the audience, a tiny little detail that either made her amusement a result of honest shock or her having found the wrong industry. It seemed an impossible thing for her to roll surprise, delight, and the tiniest touch of embarrassment into that sound with any kind of intentionality. Even without the microphone held so near and dear to her lips, it wouldn't have been lost among the rest of the crowd's laughter and the catcalling whistles. If anything, Miss Grande managing to so guilelessly giggle at his threatening to bend her over his knee and spank her on such a grand stage well, threaten her on the stage, as his words sounded far more good natured in their delivery and intent than how they felt in the manner in which he deftly repurposed a classic of just you wait until we get home, young lady only encouraged the reaction from the crowd. Her laughter was like music, honest from the heart, and more revealing than it usually seemed on the surface. His charisma was sufficient to draw every eyeball in the room away from her with the anticipation of how he'd respond, a game of press junket tennis for every eye in the room, so it was easy enough to overlook her cheeks going ever so gently darker, her grip going ever so gently tighter, and her thighs tensing ever so slightly closer to one another. It was also painfully brief, as the loveliest things sometimes were, because she no more wanted to interrupt his address to her than anyone in the crowd wanted to exit from what they had assumed would be a farcical afternoon only to find that -- well, it was a farce in so many ways, wasn't it? But it wasn't the sort of fiasco that they had been expecting, taking on the tenor of an improvised play between two parties at a time. Not the scripted, gilded lines of c-list names explaining how they had cared more about throwing away any semblance of respect for themselves than they cared for one shining moment of attention in front of a monstrous man's ideals, but something where each party was both seeking and saying precisely what they wanted out of a negotiation in a context that went far beyond a boardroom's sterile interior. For Emilia, it was surrender to submission. For Ariana, it seemed to be boundaries. Even now, she had none. She did not wait politely while he spoke and finished his thought. Almost as soon as she had composed herself and he offered to tell her something , she began walking back toward him. She was not any more rushed in this than she had been in anything else, her tempo only barely faster than she would have been had her lacy skirts been a veil on her wedding day instead, and it made the stage feel and seem even bigger than it already had to approach his podium while they watched one another with canny appreciation that had not yet tipped over into the subsequent roles that the afternoon expected of them. Still, she could only slink so casually, and reached him far before he had finished speaking. Like a kitten who had heard the can opener far before it was ready to be opened, she might have even looked for an instant like she was going to continue by sliding around the podium and winding around his legs with an eager impatience, but then that might have all been in the eyes of those seeing their hopes rather than true reality. She stood instead directly in front of him, the glass between them, yet so close that she had no choice but to artfully angle her chin to maintain eye contact. Another display in the disparity between them, one taken purposefully. She was a consummate professional, and left no microphone feedback when she slipped her stolen device back onto the podium's stand where it belonged while he continued speaking, and set her boots down on the stage beside her with only the tiniest bend of her knees. She didn't interrupt a word of what he said, no give impression to him or anyone else that she wasn't listening intently just because she was multi-tasking. I'm not such a big girl, she admitted to him in a way that was with a taste of the coquette, a promise that she didn't always know what was best, and just a little bit literal. Her fingertips parted her jacket so subtly that from the crowd, she would have merely seemed to be peering up at him with quiet admiration for his words of encouragement, holding herself around her midsection as she had been holding the microphone. But for him and him alone, for the moment, she exhaled and did her very best to make the impossibly pert swell of her breasts seem as though she could have hoped to have stacked up to what had already been shown on stage today, and indeed still curvily displayed themselves to all who cared to continue taking in Emilia in all her branded repose. Ariana privately flashed him the triangle of warm flesh from her sternum upward, her lack of any kind of bra beneath perhaps suggesting she may not have been as on the fence as she had indicated, but perhaps also simply because it would have ruined the delicate line of teasing skin that had already gone down the front of her top. But now the tease was entirely in the youthful height of her tits, at a glance the kind of torso that would likely never have to even dream of knowing what it was like to age a day. Enough to nearly fill a palm, and peaked enough to beg to feel each contour of the same shifting and stroking across her attentive nipples. Instead, in merely a breath of time, their exposure only highlighted the tiny clench in her tiny jawline when she equally quickly covered herself again, drawing her jacket back inward and highlighting how it affected her to have her sensitive breasts teased even by the whisper of fabric dragging back across her chest. And it may have been only in imagination that the way her hands folded her top open and then closed wasn't to make it more apparent he was being given a glimpse the audience wouldn't see, but that she was deliberately exposing where fire would kiss such pristine and perky flesh should their tango reach its climax. From the audience, the slight way she lifted one knee, standing on the ball of one foot and angling herself forward just so, her words took on a promising tease even if they weren't privy to her private promise that she had been fibbing ever so slightly prior. Ariana wasn't thinking that she might be kind of a brat. She knew herself better than that. And I'm not so brave, she continued without missing much of a beat, her head turning delicately toward the crowd from her place at the podium. Without a microphone, her voice might have been lost in he darkness, but Jeffrey had a first row seat to the way she projected her voice with a little set of her shoulders and a minuscule extra tightness in her throat. She would be heard, even if those furthest back were going to need to strain to make sure they didn't miss anything. Choosing something that will be with you for the rest of your life isn't usually because you're brave, it's usually because you're not really thinking everything through, or because in the moment you don't necessarily care about what's going to be happening in five years because you might lose out on what's happening right now if you do. She rested one hand on top of the other right there on the podium, and up close, the fine ink that dotted her fingers from numerous little tattoos stood out more prominently against her skin in the lighting. But among the little phrases and designs on her elegant fingers, there was a simple little black heart that was filled out in a way that most of her ink seemed just a bit more ephemeral and subtle. She could well have been saying two things in essentially inviting him to examine her tats, or perhaps two versions of the same thing. The heart covered up her former fiancee's name, after all, which meant she hadn't been worrying about the possibility of five years from the moment that she had gotten it in the first place. And the presence of multiple such little markings and sweet nothings, from the venus symbol to a simpler outlined heart, to baby doll femininely written on the inside of one finger, suggested that Ariana wasn't all that afraid of marking her body in all manner of tiny, permanent ways. That she was looking before she leapt this time suggested that her consideration was a little more serious, didn't it? She turned then, all tight-lipped smile for the crowd, as she conversationally changed the subject. As if that was a thing she was allowed and expected to do, to keep changing the subject, never confirming nor denying what she was doing until they were all so maddened by her that they'd practically beg for her to either just shut up and be a slave or get off the stage and go home. But it was nonetheless effortless the way she dropped a marketer's dream and nightmare all at once. My new album is out today, she told everyone. This got a reaction from about half the crowd the half who knew she hadn't even announced a new album, even as she'd been releasing a few singles here and there. They were the ones who understood just how off-handedly she had tossed what should have been an absolute bombshell for any artist with her clout. It's called Sweetener , and I promise that I didn't just come up here to advertise it on a stage that was going to make sure everyone knew about it, she said, theatrically holding up her elegantly double-crossing crossed fingers behind her back in a way that made it seem like she was showing them only to Mr. Tremonti rather than all assembled. Not just, she clarified. I'm really excited about it. I think it might actually be my best one, but well, we always say that, she added with an effortless show of teeth in her grin, Honest to god knock me out, it is my most important one, because this will be my final album, she told everyone brightly when she hit the middle of the stage, walking a few feet forward into the spotlight while pretty much everyone connected the dots. Those who didn't might have nonetheless noticed that much like Emilia before her, she paused in an uncharacteristically candid little moment to remove her earrings and gently slip them into the jacket pockets of her ensemble. A portion of all proceeds from Sweetener for the life of its release , thanks to an agreement between Republic Records and Innovation Inc., will be donated to a fund benefiting the Entertainment Industry Foundation who are always working toward awareness and support for a wide number of causes, including cancer research, education, and so many other important things. So you know, bangers for a good cause, she promised with an affirming nod to that way of putting things. She damn well thought that her album was full of total bops, biased or not. On the laugh line, she finished running her fingers up through her hair, untwisting the tie and pinch of the twisties keeping her ponytail so high and tight. All proceeds for myself will be going to the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, who are so vital and care so, so much, she added. She might have buried the lede slightly, but hey, if they couldn't put two and two together as to why it was her last album then that wasn't necessarily her own fault. The way her massive wave of hair seemed to unspool behind and around her for emphasis, settling lower than some might have actually expected from the many folks who thought it was all nothing more than smoke and mirrors and extensions, nonetheless framed her face in a way that almost seemed to take a few years off her already youthful demeanor, going from the buttoned up business of a professional who owned her career and her audience and her stage to a young woman who was just a little bit wide-eyed over how quickly everything was moving. As though she herself wasn't the one who was doing that moving. As though she didn't know precisely what she was doing with each continuing step of her current leg of the performance, moving just fast enough now compared to her deliberate ascent to the stage as to keep the gathered press just a bit off guard while her fingers trickled through her voluminous hair and teased the waterfall of silk just a bit forward. It meant when she slipped her thumb against the button at her midsection, and the one below it, it seemed like an entire house of cards came tumbling down. And yet as she shrugged her shoulders and let her jacket come off of it, the attached skirts and lace and dress all very much a part of a singular piece of clothing, it fell to her feet with an elegant whisper of cloth and delicacy to leave Ariana standing in its pool as naked as Lady Godiva -- and as artfully draped, her torso just as hidden by the forward sweep of her tresses as it had been by her jacket prior, denying crowd their defiantly proud money shot of a denuded superstar in favor of a fairy-tale tease, of a Rapunzel who still needed the sanctity of her tower even as she was revealed to the world. Of course, it was not enough to do anything to hide the completely bare, girlishly perfect seam of her sweet little cunt. Last edited Mar 1, 2019