“Naked Words” | A New Genre is Born: The Acoustic Novel🎧✍️

🎧✍️ 12 BARS OF FREEDOM – Chapter: “Naked Words” | A New Genre is Born: The Acoustic Novel
By Shemzee
Dear Freewriters,

I’m excited to share something deeply personal and experimental — a new chapter from my upcoming novel 12 Bars of Freedom, titled “Naked Words”.

This is not just fiction. It’s something new.

I call it an Acoustic Novel.

What does that mean?

Each chapter of 12 Bars of Freedom comes with its own original soundtrack — music written and produced by me, Shemzee. The story and the song live and breathe together. They feed into each other. You don’t just read the words — you hear them. You feel them.

🖋️ About the Chapter:
“Naked Words” unfolds in the dim, smoky intimacy of a small room drenched in cheap rum and half-spoken truths. It’s a story about vulnerability, fear, and human connection. It’s about shedding more than clothes — shedding shame, expectation, and past ghosts.

This chapter is a turning point for two characters who learn that sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is to speak in the first person.

🎶 Soundtrack: “Vagabond Shoes” ft. Yavor
👉 Listen here: https://shemzee.bandcamp.com/track/vagabond-shoes-ft-yavor/

The music is bluesy, smoky, and drenched in longing — just like the story. It sets the mood, amplifies the emotion, and paints the scene beyond what words alone can do.

This isn’t just a story. It’s an experience — an invitation to step into the room, light a cigarette (or not), and sit in the silence between heartbeats and guitar strings.

If the idea of fiction and music as one speaks to you, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Could the Acoustic Novel become a new genre?

Thanks for reading (and listening).

✌️
Shemzee

...........................................
Naked Words
The small room was soaked in the scent of cheap rum.
A faint light entered through the open balcony door from the streetlamp outside. The ashtray on the table beside the bed was overflowing. Half-finished glasses, the dim glow of a candle, and a fragrant incense stick hinted at a failed attempt at romance. Clothes were scattered over the chairs, and the empty bottle lay forgotten on the floor. The room looked like a storage closet or a wardrobe broken into.
Stan rose from under the covers, reached out, and blindly searched for his cigarettes.
— So… what now? Are you going to leave? — a hesitant female voice asked, and in the darkness, a slender figure emerged, shyly trying to cover herself up to the chin with the short sheet.
— No, Stella. I'm not leaving. At least not yet...
— And… you're staying the whole night?
— Yes. Don’t you want me to?
— I... she would like you to stay...
— Why are you talking about yourself in the third person again? — he lit up, handed her a cigarette, then lit one for himself. — We talked about this... I don’t get it. If it’s shyness or discomfort... but I’m not a stranger. We just...
— That’s how... she feels... I feel more confident. Otherwise, I’m not comfortable.
He took a slow drag and hugged her.
— There’s no need to feel insecure.
Her shoulders flinched at his touch, then relaxed. She took a drag from the cigarette and began:
— She...
— No, not “she” — you! — he interrupted. — Speak in the first person, singular. Please.
— I... I can’t right now. Let me say it my way or not at all.
— Okay. Tell me about “her.”
— She feels insecure with men. Maybe because her father left her mother when she was little. Maybe because she’s been lied to so much... and most men haven’t been gentle with her.
— You, I repeat — you are a beautiful and smart woman, Stella. You’re not a little girl, don’t act like one, don’t be afraid of me. I’m not rough with women. I won’t hurt you. And I’ll stay — I enjoy being with you.
— Really? — she smiled.
— Really. Come on, put some music on. Your choice.
— Wearing the Inside Out?
— Floyd? Perfect. Go ahead.
She got up, wrapped in the sheet, went to the record player and turned it on. Soon, from the hissing vinyl came a blues tune that smelled of autumn sorrow, cigarettes, whiskey, and eternity.
He sat up in bed. Gestured for her not to move.
— Now’s the perfect — absolutely perfect — moment to forget your fears. I want you to take off that sheet.
— If you promise not to look at her...
— I won’t.
— Pass me the cigarettes.
He placed the lighter in the box and tossed it toward her. She caught it skillfully mid-air. Then she lit one, and at the first inhale, the sheet fell. Her body appeared pale in the scant light for a moment. She sat on the chair across from the bed and crossed her legs. He smiled. He knew it was unbearable for her to sit naked in front of him, but he also knew she deeply wanted it. That she needed a reason to dare. And... yes, she had dared.
Now, an ill-timed compliment would have ruined the magic of the moment, so in a deliberately casual voice he asked:
— Do you know who plays the saxophone in this track? None of the original Floyd members played sax, and without it the song wouldn’t be half as magical...
— Richard Perry — she murmured, enveloped in smoke.
— It’s not Gilmour singing, right?
— No. Rick Wright.
— I love that you’re a fan. That you genuinely love Pink Floyd. Once, when I was moving into my place, the landlady looked suspiciously at my guitar case and asked, “You’re not some kind of Pink Floyd, are you?”
She smiled. Her teeth flashed. A bit more and she’d burst out laughing. Stan didn’t stop:
— And I tell her: “No, ma’am, I’m neither Pink Floyd nor that other hooligan — Beatles.”
— Haha — she couldn’t help herself.
— I only like Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky...
— You didn’t lie. You do like him. Well, not only him... And if she’s Russian, you definitely impressed her by knowing Vysotsky’s patronymic...
She was acting completely freely now, as if she’d forgotten her nakedness. He rejoiced inwardly. He’d wanted to make her relax for a long time, and now he was finally succeeding. Even when they’d made love earlier, she was tense — passive, accepting, submissive, but there was no passion. No initiative. Stan wasn’t into that kind of sex, but he didn’t want to hurt her. On the contrary — he hoped to awaken something in her: sensuality, passion. He thought she’d relax under the covers, but he saw her truly relaxed only now — naked, smoking in the chair across from him. Maybe this is what she needed — a kind of interview or interrogation without clothes...
The track ended. She quickly reached out and placed the needle on another song. Apparently, she had her own playlist, different from the album’s order.
— What are we listening to? — he asked.
— What Do You Want from Me.
— Is that the name of the song? Or are you asking me?
— Both.
— I want you to relax. — Suddenly, it hit him that she was telling him something through the song titles. — I want you to forget your fears. Look at me.
— ...
— Fine. I want her to hear me.
She lifted her head and looked at him through the smoke. She was extraordinarily beautiful in that pose — she reminded him of a startled doe.
— I’ll ask her questions, and I want her to answer briefly and honestly. — His voice was quiet, but commanding.
She nodded and tossed her hair.
— What is she most afraid of?
— That he will leave... like all the others.
— All? Let her tell me. Who was the first? She knows what I mean. Who first disappointed her?
— Ashot. The Armenian. She fell in love like a fool. He... deceived her.
— And she’s sure?
— She caught him. Classic scene — with her best friend. In bed.
— Haha, I know him. He’s not generally a scumbag. I’m sure he felt awkward...
— He even fainted.
— Seriously?
— Yes. And she and the other one had to bring him back.
— Yikes. Let’s leave that. What does she dream of?
— Now? Or in general?
— Now.
— For him to call her. Now.
— Alright, Stella. I’m calling you.
— Her, Stan. Her...
— Okay. Let her come.
She got up and stepped toward the bed. Her hands gently laid him down, her thighs wrapped around him.
— Now?
— Now let him light a cigarette and let them smoke it together... while he’s inside her.
Stan was already intrigued. He’d been hard from the moment the sheet dropped and he saw her body in the dim light. As if she wasn’t the same woman he’d made love to earlier. He entered her very gently, and while inside her, he lit a cigarette, gave it to her to take a drag, and quickened his rhythm. This had nothing to do with the missionary act from before. She was ablaze and moved her hips facing him. There was no trace of her previous stiffness.
His hands were on her waist — confident and calm. Hands that give. Hers were behind her head — white, gentle, hands that could paint, caress, comfort. Also calm. Also confident. No one was rushing... there was no need. They passed the cigarette between them, its glow tracing smoky spirals of passion. They chased away the ghosts of fear, the shadows of doubt — until the simultaneous explosion turned them into primal humans, cast from paradise, who knew God through the trembling of their bodies...

TO BE CONTINUED