Chapter 1

The usual hum of conversation faded like magic as, without preamble or introduction, the tall curtains slid smoothly aside, and the brilliant circle of a spotlight's white beam lit up the two figures on stage. Both were seated, half toward each other, and half toward the audience. All conversation died and an hush of anticipation took its place. About half the audience leaned forward unconsciously, while the remaining patrons leaned back.

With no visible cue, two violins snapped from where they had been on laps, to be tucked beneath two chins, and two bows followed with only a split second's difference in timing. The first violinist, a short, black-haired beauty, began to play a languid melody. The second, a gangly Nordic-looking blond, starkly different, but just as beautiful, joined in ten measures later, a third apart, for the next twenty measures, providing a counterpoint to the melody of the piece, in an almost languid rhythm that made you want to close your eyes and sway with the music. The harmony was exquisite.

Almost imperceptibly, the tempo began to pick up, and the counterpoint began to stray from the third's harmonious accompaniment to the violin playing the melody. Suddenly, instead of accompanying the melody, it was fighting to replace it. The tone, and tempo of the melody didn't change, and the other violinist seemed to flex her muscles, demanding that she be allowed to romp and play, while the melody waltzed. Soon, the second violinist added a string, now playing two at once, her limber fingers flying along the neckpiece of the instrument.

Now, the melody, which had been so sweet and tender, began to sound plodding and sedate, while the second violin began building up a head of steam that threatened to leave the first behind like a two-year-old in a grown-up race.

With an almost audible jerk, the first violinist began to stutter the notes in the melody, playing two or three notes, where obviously only one was meant to be played. It sounded like the first girl had awakened from a dream, to find herself far behind, and was trying to find a way to speed up and join the second violinist.

The initial stuttering sound made many members in the audience wince, as if they thought the wrong notes were being played, but the stuttering notes took on a faster cadence, until it became obvious that, rather than being embarrassed, the first violinist was merely flexing her musical muscles too, in tempo with the second violinist's now flying pace.

Faster and faster both bows flashed in the spotlight. The upper bodies of the two women on stage began to sway and rock, as the violins dipped and rose and twisted in their hands. Back, and forth, the combatants raced, first one taking the melody by brute force of skill, while somehow, the other's notes blended in, before jumping out and wresting control of the piece away again.

The audience was enthralled. People actually took sides, deep in the recesses of their mind. They weren't just listening to a piece of music, they were watching and hearing an epic battle, and, somehow, it mattered who won.

The combatants began to tire, battle taking their youthful strength, as the music began to slow, again almost imperceptibly. A great sadness filled many of the hearts of the listeners, as they began to realize that this particular battle, would be a stalemate. There would be no winner. The flood of achingly vibrant music began to lose a note here, and two notes there, until it seemed like each violinist was giving away the melody, because she didn't have the strength to claim it now. The audience, with a jolt of almost palpable relief, recognized that they were hearing exactly the same melody and harmonious counter point, a third below, that had started the piece, but this time, the roles had reversed. The first violinist sagged, and the bow dropped to her lap, as the second violinist's sweet tones played the melody that had opened the piece, her instrument's sweet soprano tones filling the hall.

Then, on the last note, her bow, too, sagged, and then fell to her lap.

Had any members in the audience had the strength left to check their watches, they would have seen that twelve minutes and thirteen seconds had gone by.

The spotlight snapped off, leaving the huge auditorium in blackness, and there was the hiss of a thousand indrawn breaths. Then, staying off only long enough that people's pupils expanded, the light snapped back on, illuminating the two women, standing side by side, violins cradled lovingly in their left arms, bows hanging at their sides.

The audience lost its muzzy and tired aspect, a direct result of emotions that had been played just as hard as the two violins had, and leapt, as one, to its feet. The roar of voices began and soared upward, to be replaced by the almost frantic beating of hands together, as the two violinists bowed regally, bending at the waist. Then, with a blown kiss from each, they bounded, in opposite directions, for the wings of the stage.

The audience went crazy, begging and pleading for more. They had just experienced a world-class exhibition of musical skill, and it was like the memory of water that they couldn't reach, even though they were dying of thirst.

At first, the stage stayed empty, and the patrons cried, screaming for just one more measure of music as the spotlight stayed on the two empty chairs on the stage, showing that nothing would be happening. It was almost as if the light was taunting the audience, showing them the coffin of a dear loved one.

Then, the light snapped again, into twin beams, that lit opposite sides of the stage. The shorter girl, with the long, raven tresses, was holding her violin, as she walked slowly out on stage. On the other side, the taller blond, long-legged and svelte, carried a cello, its rounded, female shape in contrast to her slim, almost boyish one.

The crowd stopped their noise and sat as one, the folding seats making a staccato thumping noise as hands flopped them down, and posteriors held them that way.

The encore was slow, and sad, as if the two on stage were saying a heartbreaking farewell, and the audience was left with tears in their eyes as it sank in that, when this was over, the night would be over. They yearned for it to go on forever, but it lasted only long enough for their racing hearts to slow, and for breathing to return to normal, from where they had been taken by the previous piece.

This time, as the music faded, the spotlight faded too, dying, as the music died.

The crowd tried to regain their earlier manic demand for more, but their heart wasn't in it this time. Their lover had kissed them good night, and they knew they had to go home. Slowly they did, the hall emptying, a feeling of profound sadness left in place of the living bodies that had filled it.

Outside though, in the lights of the city, the dark mood vanished, as people came alive again, remembering what they had just witnessed. Again their hearts raced. Many looked for something else to do, to keep the party going. Many more stared into each other's faces, and sought some private place, where they could act out what they had just been through musically.

Much love was made that night, a result of the music the two women had shared.

Backstage, Daphne and Gabriella Stockton carefully put their instruments away. It was known that they wanted time alone after a concert, and no one bothered them. What was not known, except by their mother, was what they did in those private moments after they rocked the worlds of so many people.

Dapnhe stood, from tenderly placing her violin in its case, and her hands darted to the zipper of her sister's dress. Gabriella stood from closing the cello case, and felt the cool air caress her back as her sister's fingers did their work. Then she turned, to help Daphne out of her dress too. Both girls, naked now, went to two chairs, sat, leaned back, and sighed, as their fingers went busily between their legs.

There was no talk. They had done this many times in the past. It was what they looked forward to all night long, when a concert was scheduled.

Before the concert, in the privacy of their dressing room, they looked at their collection of favorite pictures, culled from magazines, or downloaded from the internet. They eyed the thick penises, some of which were plugged into wet pussies, and dreamed of what it might be like to have that penis plugged into their own virgin tunnels. Other pictures, were of gaping pussies, filled with thick, white fluid, and still others of naked women, misshapen, because of the precious things that grew within them, making their bellies bulge, and their breasts swell.

Then, thoroughly excited by their fantasies, they went on stage, and the sexual energy they had created, imbued their music with passion that routinely left much of the audience with tents in their pants, or a need to change panties.

Daphne, at fifteen, was the more sensual of the two sisters, exuding sex appeal, in both her physical persona, and her music. Gabriella, the tall Nordic blond, was athletic in the way she reacted to the hormones racing through her bloodstream. They teased each other throughout the concert. Afterward, orgasms were not only desired ... they were practically necessary. The girls would have gone crazy without them.

Deliah Stockton waited the prescribed fifteen minutes, and then tapped gently on her daughters' dressing room door. Reporters were waiting to talk to the girls. She heard the lock click, and opened the door, to find the girls dressed and ready to face the world. Both looked relaxed and calm.

"All done?" she asked, unnecessarily.

"Yeah," sighed Daphne.

Deliah, in addition to being their mother, had been the girls' manager ever since they had been discovered in a regional talent contest, when they were only ten and eleven. She had since been with them on two world tours. When she had discovered their carefully hidden secret - the routine, almost ritual way in which they prepared for a concert - she had been scandalized and horrified. She had kicked her own philandering husband out when the girls were five and six, and, since she had no use for men any longer, she had no use for sex either. All her time and attention went into her daughters' careers. Finding that her daughters were not only aware of sex, but actively fantasizing about it had shocked her. They had been eleven and twelve at the time.

She soon found, though, that this kinky little ritual made all the difference in the world, when they were performing. They didn't do it at home, during practice sessions. Practice sessions were to learn the music the way the composer had intended it to be played. But during actual concerts their interpretation of the pieces was directly connected to how they felt when they went on stage. If they were sexually excited, that imbued their music with something that couldn't be reproduced in any other way. If, as Deliah soon learned, they weren't sexually excited, they played beautifully, but with little or no heart. In one case, they were technical master craftswomen. In the other, they were shockingly brilliant in their interpretation of the musical notation on the dry and lifeless pages.

She had, therefore, acceded to their demands, ever since. They got half an hour to get ready for a concert, and fifteen minutes afterwards, to finally achieve the climaxes that would render them normal, teenaged girls, who just happened to be two of the most brilliant young violinists in the world.

It wasn't giving them much, really. Their lifestyle was typical of young prodigies. They were on tour most of the year, though it wasn't the grueling different-city-every-day kind of tour that rock stars complain so much about, as it stuffs their bank accounts with cash. Rather, they played at some exotic venue about once a week. Still, they couldn't go to a regular school, and therefore the list of friends their age was limited in the extreme. Dating hadn't been an issue thus far, but Deliah knew that beast would begin to snort and rear its ugly ... and horny head, soon.

That their list of people who wanted to spend time with them included Kings and Queens, or the best musicians in the world, wasn't much comfort. Most of those were at least twenty years older than the girls, and thought grown-up things almost constantly. Had they not gotten so much pleasure out of their music, the girls' world might have seemed dim indeed.

Which, one might hazard (wince), was why one of their favorite people was Deliah's brother, Bob Hazzard.

Now you know why I winced.

Bob, having entered his teenage years in 1981, had heard every Dukes of Hazzard joke in the book, usually aimed at him. Rather than hate it all he had embraced it, asking every girl he was attracted to if her name was Daisy when he introduced himself. He still went by the nickname he'd been unable to evade. Even his sister called him Duke.

At thirty-three, and having never found Daisy, he was single and well off, due to his talent for recognizing real estate that was cheap today, but would be valuable in months to come. He had the same carefree and somewhat irresponsible attitude as his erstwhile "cousins", Bo and Luke, as well as the same purity of heart those actors portrayed on the screen. He'd do just about anything for a friend, and just about everybody was counted in that category.

This is not to say he was not sophisticated. He had that knack that is so interesting, the ability to fit in with almost any crowd, and be almost indistinguishable from the natives, wherever he happened to be.

As they were growing up, Bob and Deliah had both been required to play an instrument in the band. Deliah had chosen the violin, because that would keep her out of the marching band. Bob, a year younger, got away with taking piano lessons, which kept him out of band all together, for the most part, though he did get suckered into accompanying the choir at school. That was because the teacher who directed the choir was young and pretty.

The ring on her finger didn't affect Bob's fantasies in the slightest, and, on a trip to the State Choral contest, part of his fantasy came true when the young woman divested him of his virginity. As is the case with much music, their relationship was glorious, stormy, and temporary in the sense that, once played, it was over. The teacher recognized the dangers, both legal and emotional, and as much as both would have liked an encore, it was not to be. Bob, in a burst of surprisingly sophisticated insight, understood why she refused him, and accepted that.

In truth, the memory of the physical music they had created together was part of what soured him on subsequent dalliances with girls his own age. It's hard to be happy with chopsticks, when you've played Rachmaninoff.

The old walnut baby grand piano he had learned on and practiced on, was still in the studio Deliah had built for her daughters, in the home they had both grown up in. It was rare for Bob to sit down at that keyboard, and not think of Donna Hamilton, the woman who had made him a man. It was perhaps for that reason that Bob was one of the few people who played well when his nieces were jamming with him. His passions, though unknown to Bob, mirrored theirs when his fingers stroked those keys. And he jammed with them as often as he could. They played a range of music, in the privacy of their home studio, that would have astonished concert-goers all around the world.

A violin can be played as a fiddle, and a cello can be plucked like a string base. Additionally, both girls had learned the use of the more adolescently acceptable guitar. Daphne, who was more tuned to acoustic sounds, was developing what she called her "private skills" on the twelve string guitar and five string banjo. Gabby, whose tastes in music went more toward ZZ Top, had picked up an electric guitar one day, and now owned four of them.

With an electronic drum track, and Uncle Bob, the girls could stretch to the max in their home studio, playing wildly and covering old rhythm and blues, bluegrass, and country tunes that made them feel like they were flying, while standing, more or less, stock still. The combination of their ability to cooperate on levels most humans couldn't even understand, and the competition resident in any good musician, just naturally resulted in their favorite "private" piece being Dueling Banjos, by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith, and Don Reno. Bob loved the sound of Gabby's whining electric guitar in the piece, even though it sometimes drowned out Daffy's banjo. He was thinking of buying Daffy an electric banjo, so she could compete. He'd never heard the song performed with all electric instruments before, but he thought it would be wild.

It was against this backdrop that a situation presented itself which would change the lives of Bob Hazzard and the Stockton women forever.

Deliah was on a simple shopping trip to the grocery store, just being a mother for once, when an SUV, going twenty miles an hour faster than the posted speed limit, ran a red light and T-boned her Camry, crushing it between another vehicle. Eleven bones were broken, and she lost a lot of blood before the fire department was able to rip the roof off the car and extract her from the crushed compartment.

The prognosis was good, as she lay in the hospital bed, immobilized by various casts and traction devices, but there was no one to take care of her daughters, not only in their routine life at home, but in the upcoming tour, scheduled in two weeks for Western Europe. The tour was contracted for three weeks, with ten performances in nine cities, a departure from their usual sedate concert schedule. Deliah had been loathe to make such an extended trip, but the money offered was so good that it would establish a trust fund for the girls that could, with proper investment, be the seed of a sum that could last them their entire lives. It was only for that reason that she had signed the contracts.