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drill

noun. the steps and positions that make up a marching band show.

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BAY SLEEPS WITH HER BACK turned to me.

Throughout the night she huddles into a ball on the edge of my mattress, and I feel so nervous that she'll fall off the side or slip out from the blankets that I keep restlessly waking to drape more of the duvet over her body, naked except for a baggy shirt of mine, which she tiredly crawled into after we took a shower.

In the shower, we didn't fuck or even kiss again. I think Bay has a very defined cut-off point in her physical affections: wild in bed, and then as soon as the post-orgasmic high leaves her, she's clear-headed and sharp-tongued again. The only time we touched was when she told me to turn around, holding a sudsy loofah, and scrubbed my back with an almost technical thoroughness, her fingers skimming lightly across my shoulder blades.

It was the first time that night I'd felt awkward. "What are you doing?"

"You have nice back muscles," she answered casually, "can an aesthete not observe them?"

"But you're not an aesthete," I pointed out, facing the hot spray. "Aesthetes find meaning in art and beauty; you're a self-proclaimed nihilist, so you find meaning in nothing."

Then Bay laughed and turned me around, pushing me one step back so that the showerhead washed away the soap from my skin. "When did I was a nihilist?"

"Sophomore year. At a party. You were high."

"Oh, then I was definitely lying. I lie all the time. Only angsty teenage boys who just discovered Nietzsche are nihilists." Her eyes dropped to my cock, now hanging limp, and flicked back up to my face. "Maybe I'm a hedonist."

I sucked in a breath, and met her darkened eyes.

We probably came close to colliding again just because of that little taunting smirk of hers, but I, thoroughly tapped out by our previous performance, resisted. I flicked off the water and threw her a towel as we stepped out. Pillow talk was never going to happen because by this point it was already three a.m., the party long dead, and we were both sobered up and wrung out of energy. Even if Bay didn't fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, I did.

Something had shifted in my world since we fucked; something in my ground was off-kilter, or something in my sky was the wrong shade of blue. I couldn't even tell whether such a change was threatening or not, because I didn't know what exactly had changed. I wanted to speak to Bay in the morning about it, I didn't want to wake up and find her vanished like the last time she stayed over.

I couldn't think of that morning (walking back upstairs from my cramped stay on the couch with a stupid smile on my face) without my gut twisting. My bedroom smelled like her, but the sheets were perfectly made, and my t-shirt was folded in a perfect square on the comforter. It felt like trying to grab the string of a drifting helium balloon and just missing it, doomed to watch it float higher in the sky until it disappeared or popped—sadder than the situation warranted.

But this morning, I wake up and she's here, real and warm and fast asleep.

Bright sunlight glares behind the curtains, my shadowy bedroom smelling of bodies and her sweat and shampoo. It's a fucking good smell. Bay's dark hair fans out in a wild tangle around her face. Her lips are dry but shiny, and I can see creases on her right cheek from where she pressed her face into my pillow.

I've seen hundreds of Bay's different faces. She crafts each one like a mask and wears them like a performer; she can be miserable or pessimistic or combative. She can be a leader. She can be a friend. She can be a team player. She can be anyone's wildest dream, and it's all intentional.

But she's never looked so innocent, almost childlike, until now. I could have watched her forever.

When her eyes blink open, two inches from mine, she actually gives me a lazy smile—eyelids drooping, face nuzzling into the pillow—before all the memories rush back and she remembers herself.

Bay narrows her eyes at me. "Don't tell anyone what we did."

Of course that's the first thing she says.

From three years of previous interactions—never seeing her appear with the same boy twice, taking numbers but never calling them, swatting away declarations of affection with complete apathy—I know Bay runs from attachments like they are deadly animals out for her blood. One of the first personal things she ever revealed to me: I like to fuck in so much privacy that my partner doesn't even know who I am. And that time we got high together, she had tons of disdain for romance and relationships. I know exactly what I am to her. Nothing.

"I won't tell anyone."

"Even if you want another notch in your belt," she adds.

A stab of pain lands deep in my chest, launched by the implication that I would wave last night around like sort of flag, make a trophy out of her.

"Do you ever stop with the character assassination?" I glare. "You don't want anyone to know, no-one will know."

"It will be like nothing ever happened?"

"Sure, why not," I return, making the wrinkles around the corner of her mouth even deeper.

I should have known nothing good would have come from having sex with the enemy. Before last night I truly believed I had all my priorities in order—family first, then my education, then music and everything else—including the principle of not sticking one's dick into a bear trap. (Bay is the bear trap.) I would have sworn that Bay was attractive to me in the objective, rational way. Any guy can spot an attractive person, but being attracted to someone and acting on that feeling are two entirely different matters.

So apparently I'm not as objective about Bay as I thought. I hadn't been planning to kiss her at all, but something about her admission (honesty from her is so addicting because it's so rare), the proximity and her magnetic eyes and the soft little breath she gave before she said "Yes," she means it, she wants to kiss me, all mixed together into a flaming disaster. Last night I was happy to burn in it, to burn in her. And I did.

Bay has raised herself onto an elbow, explaining why we should indeed pretend like last night didn't happen. I stretch an arm from under the blanket and tuck it under my head. I'm inclined to agree. It was way out of character for me. I don't make decisions that bad, that dangerous. She's too close to too much of my life; she could take me down on her way out.

"Sex means nothing emotional to me," she says, her mass of hair tumbling towards the pillow.

"I agree," I tell her. "Humans like to fuck."

"Exactly. It's a sensory experience," she hums, her silky bare leg brushing up against mine when she rolls to lie on her stomach, slowly sliding her knee upwards. "No need to attach any deeper value to it. Do you agree?"

I'm not misreading this... am I? When I nod, Bay smirks and drops her face over mine, sealing our mouths together. Instantly I put my hand on the back of her head to keep her there. I'm hard in seconds, one night's sleep enough to restore me completely. Bay's tongue swirls around mine in a tantalizing dance. Just as I'm tempted to grab her, roll us over and fuck her to high heaven, she hums pleasantly and slides out of bed.

"Alright. This was fun. Goodbye," she says bluntly. Is this how she leaves all her one night stands? Kiss and vanish?

Head spinning, cock pulsing hungrily, I can do nothing but gawk as she peels off my t-shirt and walks around my room, wholly naked, picking up her clothing. Her toned legs, the graceful planes of her back, those beautiful tits— damn it. I want her so bad.

"What? Where are you going?"

"I have classes," she says, wrapping her dress around herself and tying its satin strings back up.

"Which classes?"

Bay smiles, daintily tucking each foot back into her socks. "Do you really care?"

"Making conversation," I quip. "Wouldn't you say something about how conversation is the lubricant of society?"

"Terrible analogy."

"Conversation is the currency that facilitates all social transactions."

"Better," she approves. "Very Marxist."

"So which classes?" I ask again.

Bay picks up her tote bag and rummages around inside to check the contents. "Modern Political Philosophy and Linear Algebra. Goodbye," she says again.

"See you at rehearsal tomorrow," I mumble. She stiffens, lips pursing displeasedly. That makes me laugh. She's so upset I'm not someone to whom she can feed a fake name and number. She can't disappear from me. "You hate that you can't run away from this."

"Despise it," she spits. Then she walks back to the bed, looking rumpled but still sexy as hell, and extends a hand to shake. "Thanks for last night."

I chuckle, pushing myself up on my elbows. Bay unabashedly stares at my bare chest as I ask, "Do you ever tire of performing half-assed niceties?

"Say 'you're welcome'."

I take her hand and shake. "You're welcome for the orgasms."

Her pleasant smile drops into a grimace. "You just had to."

"Yep," I grin. "Have fun at class."

It's only five minutes after Bay leaves my bedroom, shutting my door softly, that I curse myself, my stupid hormone-addled brain. Can I be thirty-five years old and above my base urges already?

Because I realize that despite all my rational justifications for keeping sex out of our equation, one good morning kiss from Bay and I was ready to do it all again, all day long.

What the hell is wrong with me?

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Marching with an erection is impossible.

Fucking impossible.

Thank God I have my marching snare to obscure my hard-on, because if I had to do this drill practice like the wind instruments are (arms held up at right angles, well away from obscuring the crotch) I would die of shame.

Bay is in a loose pink t-shirt from the Halston Women in Science Association and tight black bike shorts. I would think she was trying to tease me, but over hundreds of practices I know this is standard attire—comfortable, breathable, practical—for her.

It's just me and my sick, sick mind.

It's been a week since we fucked, and true to Bay's word, it is like nothing ever happened. She bullies me as usual. We have our usual ceaseless verbal tennis matches, and other than an extra glint in her eye when she makes jabs at my sexual performance, no-one can tell I had her coming undone on my fingers, tongue and cock last Saturday.

I cannot get her out of my head. I've fantasized about fucking her in the drum storage cupboard, sliding the door shut on us and bending her perfect, pert ass over a shelf. I've fantasized about finding her smoking week at the Philosophy building and fucking her underneath the stairs, smothering her moans with my hand. I've imagined throwing another party just to get her into my bedroom again. Every memory I have of her, harmless or not, has gone into this testosterone-fueled machine that spits out new filthy daydreams just a hair's width removed from reality.

I have never felt like such an animal, out of control.

I hate Bay. I should be glad, relieved, that she's walking out with no changes to our current dynamic. She's a hurricane made flesh. It is unquestionably a good idea to keep as much distance between us as usual. I have three years of evidence, memories, and common sense to prove that when we collide, we are carnage, destruction. Feelings get hurt, band gets interrupted, bad reputations are made, people have to step in between us.

We are a disastrous idea on the highest planes of my rationality.

But on the lowest planes of inexplicable, irrational, blistering need, I want to kiss her breathless and make her writhe underneath me. I want to fling myself right into Hurricane Bay and let her consume me.

Once the marching band backward-slides into the next set, Keller's megaphone clicks on. "You're getting there too quickly, Callum! Twelve counts, not eight! Pace those long legs."

Shit. We don't want the formations to appear to the audience until the last moment, materializing from the two-hundred bodies like a magician's card overturned. In my periphery, I see Bay grin at my shortcoming. I shoot her a glare.

At least the embarrassment of being publicly called out makes my dick soften a little. The metal frame digging into my pelvis is so uncomfortable when my body is just as rigid.

"Back to Set 6," Keller says, and everyone on the football green dissolves into motion as we walk back to our dots, gold brass glinting. We're not marching with our instruments to play music today; we're building stamina for the transitions. "When the drum major is ready!"

Moon is the sub-theme of the next show.

Sun had sets looking like suns, rockets, and clouds. Moon has crescents filling up into spheres, stars and tides rising and falling. When we started rehearsing the sets and songs, Keller explained her interpretation of Moon: "The moon reflects the sun's light. Even if you can't see it in the sky, it's always there. This show is about the smaller, finer parts of life that aren't as obvious as the sun's brilliance. But they're consistent, and their effect is subtle but tangible. Daily habits. Daily conversations. It's about cycles, push and pull, the interplay between people and ideas that have nothing to do with each other, that are on opposite sides of the world, that are supposedly disparate and disconnected."

Sun, for which I played center snare, was positivity and hope. Look up.

Moon, for which Bay will play center snare, is reflection and connection. Look in.

Bay is beside me. When we march to our next places on the field, I try to catch her eye, but she keeps her eyes pinned ahead like a soldier. After practice is over, we have the usual responsibility of locking up the drums, but Bay lures one of her precious freshman into a riveting conversation about horoscopes. The freshman idolizes Bay and won't leave her side, which gives her a buffer and a convenient excuse to ignore me completely.

"We don't both need to return the key to Keller," she tells me, her doe-eyed freshman lingering at the door itching to find out Bay's Big Three. The implication is clear. Either she'll do it, or I'll do it—but we're not going to be alone together.

Plus the key chain is already in my hand. I sigh. "I can take the keys up."

After rehearsal I cook dinner, and after dinner I study, and after I study I call my family, and after the phone call, I go for a skate around the Halston campus. But lately there's only one thing that's remotely effective at making me sleep, and it is truly pathetic.

I step into the shower already hard and twitching, thinking of Bay's body, the soft skin of her thighs sliding past my ears, and her smell and her breathy moans of pleasure. I soap my cock up and stroke it roughly, but it can't replicate the slickness, the heat, the squeeze of her. Still, the fantasies and memories are enough to tip me over the edge, knees weak and milky ribbons shooting down the drain.

How do I get someone out of my system? I've never had this problem with anyone else. I have a healthy sex life, I have people I could message for booty calls, but she makes me feel like a fucking novice. And why her? Why Bay? Seriously. I hate her. I list all her flaws in an attempt to kill this fixation: she's rude, she's pessimistic, she's cruel and irreverent, she intentionally misunderstands me just so she can make me a villain in her story.

But that always gets me thinking of the mouth on that girl, and what she could do with it. Maybe my body reacts so differently precisely because we're rivals. My brain hates her, my body wants her, so when we got together, it sent my whole system into a conflicted overdrive the likes of which I've never known.

You hate that you can't run away from this.

That was what I told Bay the morning after, but in hindsight I was totally wrong.

I hate that she can run away from this.

I hate that I can't.

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a / n :

this is part of a special double update for Valentine's Day! hope you are celebrating love in all its forms, romantic, friendly, familiar, fur babies, love of places and memories and dreams, and of course self-love!

(continue to read Bay's post-sex angst)