”When you find me in the crowd,” Maia’s voice, rough and breathy, parts the space between us. “You’ll be dripping out of me.”
She puts both hands on my chest to right herself, pushing off and stealing the little breath she had allowed me.
My cock slips from her. It had done its job but it is a greedy fucker. She shimmies her skirt into place, and with an awkward movement, lacking all the grace the gods gave her, moves her thong back into place. I look away, like that’s too intimate for us to share. She wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, as if she could rid herself of my defilement. But then she licks her lips, and I know I’ll be home there soon.
She flows to me. I haven’t moved, haven’t wanted to break the spell and acknowledge her leaving me. Again. She claims me with her tongue. Again. The taste of her coats my mouth like cheap chocolate, sweet and wrong. Hunger pulls my fingers up her thighs. She bites her lip and it hits me like sugar on the tongue. Manners and a paycheck the only thing keeping me from fisting her hair and sinking my teeth in.
The door creaks open, transmuting the dull thuds to pounding baselines and screaming chords.
“Are you joining us, my Liege?” Shi holds the door back with a single finger. His smile cuts me.
Maia traces her hands down my chest and leg, and then up her own, connecting us one last time with her touch, before turning for the door.
Shi doesn’t make it easy for her. He moves his hand higher, only slightly, forcing her to duck under.
“Fucker.”
“Cunt.”
They greet each other as warmly as usual.
And she’s gone. She says she’ll be in the crowd. She says to find her but I never do. I’ll still look.
Shi toes the door with his boot and leans into the frame.
“You good,” eyes flick down, “or are you gonna need a minute?”
I push my feet into the floor and bridge up, tucking in before doing up by belt. My jeans are too tight to be bothered by fabric clinging to wet skin.
Shi offers me a hand and pulls me to my feet, to him. He looks down at me from his infuriating two inch advantage. He wrinkles his nose. It’s his tell that we’re going to get in trouble but we’d make it to dawn. That’s our one promise. To get the other to dawn.
“Let’s go get paid.” He cups the back of my neck and pushes me out the door.
We navigate around buckets and boxes, through the hallway that serves as the backstage for this shitty little club. Niko hands my guitar over the kit. He’s practically sitting on our gear. No emcee to bless our appearance today. Trey is already strapped in. He kicks clear my space before the mic stand.
“Fame and glory.” Shi stretches his arm behind me to fist bump Trey. And thus the ritual begins.
I can’t look at them. I never can. Because they can see me.
I adjust my belt. It provides no more of a barrier than the mic stand and the guitar protecting my soft middle.
My throat burns, my skin prickles. I want to puke, flee, escape. But never hide. I can never hide from what’s up above. I scan the room quickly. Of course she’s not here. Not at my feet where I want her now.
I look up to what waits there. That’s easier to picture than Maia beneath me.
Then the drum like a heartbeat. Thud. Thud, thud. I don’t even hear it anymore, I feel it. The echo filling the void. That’s also part of the ritual. Niko knows I can’t do this, knows I can’t stand here naked and let them see me. He gives me his heart.
There’s a crackle in the amp and it’s tin foil on my synapses. Trey says he’s manifesting in ear monitors. It won’t help in a place like this where I can hear ice rudely agitating plastic cups. Not the elegant tink of glass.
I look up, always up, before I close my eyes and put the mic to my lips.
My voice is a hush, rough and breathy.
With Pleiades burning my neck
The rope coils waiting on deck
And your heels
Softer now.
Click
Click
Click
A single dead bar.
Leave me
The words rip from my throat with the baseline and highhat, an animalistic, guttural tangle of sound tainted with vowels and consonants.
And then I’m lost to the only other place that could find me.
The keys rattle in the dark matter, hitting my chest and snapping me back to here and now.
Trey rights my wrongs, and bends to pick up the keys, putting them in a place I’ll find eventually. Their chatter drags across me. Niko micro manages the gear and schedules, and bookings, and promos. He’ll write it all down. He knows it won’t get caught up in the webs between my brain cells. He knows. They know. They all know. I’m not quite myself. Yet.
Shi hands me a bottle. I don’t question its journey to my lips. It’s warm and wet and not in a good way.
I’m sure they are saying nice things, good things, professional things, but the only thing that’s real is their touch when they leave. Niko grazes my back. Trey has my arm. Shi’s palm cools my neck.
It’s all part of it. They know I don’t want them here and now. They know I can’t have them leave.
Then I’m alone in our make do warehouse. I’m the only one not in a walk up, sacrificing my living room to cut out a storage bill. It’s all good. No living happens here anyway.
In my bedroom. I turn the lights down, low. As I must.
I circle the bed, squaring the corners. Making it perfect. It’s the only thing I can make perfect.
It’s no longer black enough to comfort. The comforter. No. The Duvet. The void is always black enough. I tug the boot laces while eyeing the expanse, the bit of stolen luxury from a hotel that will never have me again. The down still bold enough to hold me up after all these years.
Jeans, socks, everything down to my rings, join the boots at a cairn before my bed.
I always think this moment will be different, profound, with trumpets or some shit. I always draw it out, anticipatory ecstasy in the main line. I lick my lips hunting for phantom sweetness as I crawl to the very center. I don’t stretch my arms out all the way. No, never do that. Never prematurely break the illusion of limitlessness.
I command this time, although he likes it when I beg. Jokes on me, my command is a plea.
“Take me.”