▪️Saturday, December 19th, 2017▪️

▪️Los Angeles, CA▪️

The water rushes over Mike's hand that's going over my thigh with a soapy washcloth. His gentle movements soothe yet set my skin on fire. My hand throbs, but I stand by my decision to put the pills back into my pocket in the bathroom at the club. Mike dulls some of the pain. My focus is not on the misery inside me, but the gentle beauty in the shower with me. A sharp pleasure of seeing his naked form kneel in front of me, washing away the day's toll, etches new words on my brain. There's no music to go with them, but, inspired by the drops falling on the glass of the shower, I sense the light rain of a new melody landing on the lyrics.

"Higher." My lips break through the stream of water falling on my head. He made me very clean. It's time to make me very dirty.

Mike listens, and my stomach tenses when he reaches the point he rediscovered in the car. I inhale, and the pleasure that started as a light web across the surface of my skin convenes and grows into a pulse, a rhythm that climbs higher. I brace against the wall, not trusting my legs to hold me. The intensity obliterates any lingering uncertainty, and I rush to the peak, curl my fingers into the hard surface of the marble tiles, and groan into the ceiling. The pure ecstasy of the release drives another noise out of my throat. Not a moan, but not a word either.

He rises without letting go of my body, holding me up, while the waves of the aftershock rumble through every cell of my being. The spray crashes into the broad stretch of his shoulders and lands on my chest, reminding me we are in the shower, the hotel, LA, on planet Earth. My eyes are the only things I have the strength to move. I absorb the dark stubble on his chin and cheeks. His long dark wet eyelashes shield half of his pupils that are following the trail his hands continue to burn into me.

"I knew it," I say.

"Knew what?" Mike's eyes find mine.

"You are magic. There's no other way to explain what you do to me."

One corner of his lips goes up. "What do I do to you?"

"Make me forget the world."

"And that's a good thing?"

"It feels great. But it's scary. Like a drug. I want more, but I'm afraid I'll get addicted. I don't want you to ruin me."

Mike's finger runs along my jawline, collecting the beads of water, sealing the cracks, trapping the sensations of his skin against mine. I store it in the vault of my memory for later use.

"I'm as real as it gets," he says. "No magic."

"Your real is my magic."

He kisses my words as they leave my mouth, and I let go of the wall, digging into the wet firmness of his back. Slippery skin, soggy hair, pink splotches from the hot water beating on us slows down what would otherwise have been a frenzied exchange. It changes it into languid strokes that require a different resolution, one I don't want to do in the shower.

I tear my lips away from his. "Bed?"

Mike turns off the water and gets two towels off the rack outside the door. He wraps me in one and puts another one on my head, massages the liquid out of my hair.

"It's dry enough," I say impatiently.

He takes the towel off my head, runs it against his hair, wipes his chest and back, and ties it around his hips. The contrast of the dark hair of his happy trail and the tenting white towel kills any patience I have left. I put my palm on his biceps and guide him out of the shower. We make it to the closed door of the bathroom before I kiss him, to the entryway before I lose my towel, to the foot of the bed before his towel joins mine on the floor.

Mike rips the cover off the bed in one jerky motion, half of it trailing on the carpet, half still on the mattress. We fall onto the bed on our sides, and I throw my leg over his, drawing him flush to me.

All barriers gone, my willpower runs out. He needs to become a part of me.

"Condom." His voice begs. I lean back, regretting the gap between us, to find a packet in the drawer of my bedside table I put there when I unpacked. With this small barrier between us, I finally get him to join me. Make us one again. Being one with Mike has been what I've dreamed of since the moment I left him at the airport in Chicago. I can't imagine myself not wanting it. Not wanting him.

We don't last this time. I trace the melodies from my head into the hairs on his chest, feeling the muted beats of his heart, listening to the scratchy version of the cello of his voice naming my body parts his hand is travelling across. I could write a song that is nothing but the nooks and crannies of a lovers' landscape. When the sheet that covers us doesn't provide enough heat, I pull him over me, and absorb his skin through mine.

"I'll crush you." He laughs and props himself up on his elbows.

"Do it."

Mike lowers himself, but at the last moment, he rolls and pulls me on top. "I don't want to hurt you. Ever."

"You're not hurting me if I'm asking for it."

"What are you asking for?"

"I need for you to be as close to me as possible. Pretend you're part of me."

"No pretending necessary."

We reconnect, reinfuse, relapse, and I forget the pain, because the satisfaction lights me up and burns all other sensations out of me. I fall asleep to Mike's slow breaths, my forehead against his shoulder, our feet touching.

🎼🎵🎶🎙️🎧🎹

I wake up with his hand on my stomach and mine underneath his pillow. His long lashes paint shadows on his cheeks, his stubble almost a short beard now. Mike's face is relaxed; chest is rising and falling. The knock at the door takes my attention off the beautiful creature in my bed. That must've been what woke me up. I slide Mike's hand off, get up, and grab one of the now dry towels off the floor to wrap it around me.

I'm at the door when the knocking resumes.

"Shh," I say into the space that appears as I open the door.

"It's nine-twenty." Neil says louder than necessary.

"Shh." I put my finger against my lips. "Mike's still asleep," I whisper. "Give me five."

"You know where my room is." He walks away, and I close the door, trying to make as little noise as possible. The golden outfit from yesterday lies on the bathroom floor, crumpled and stinky. I slide the door of the wardrobe in the hallway and grab underwear, a T-shirt, and leggings. I pull them on in the middle of the entryway, grab my bag, and make sure my phone is still inside. I check on the still sleeping Mike and leave the room. On my way to Neil's room, I type Mike a message.

Me: Writing session with The Whats. Grab breakfast without me. Come get me for lunch at noon. Room 1024.

Me: Good morning.

Neil's room is bigger than mine. It has a separate living space with a couch, armchairs, and a coffee table covered in sheet music Neil writes by hand. The place is setup as a mini studio with a laptop, a microphone, an audio interface, a portable mixer, a keyboard, a MIDI controller, and a guitar. It's what I expected it to be, but for one thing. The rest of the bandmates are missing.

"So I'm not the last one?"

"You are. The last place we went to, proved to be a bit too much. I left at 2 a.m. and woke up to a text Poppy sent me around five that they just made it back. They'll see us at the soundcheck."

"Must've been quite a place." I snatch my bag I put next to one of the armchairs. "I'll head back to my room then."

"Why? It's not like they contribute that much. It's been you and me for the most part. Let's work and show them what we come up with. They can critique and edit, but you know we are the backbone of this album." He points to the keyboard and picks up the guitar. "I had an idea about the chorus for the Song River song we worked on yesterday."

Neil and I have been driving these sessions. It's not like I mind this arrangement. I've always written all my songs by myself and having four other people pull me in different directions, distracting me, makes it hard to listen to my instincts. Neil never interrupts me. He lets me write it out, play whatever is whirring in my brain, before he adds to it and suggests a change. He's a whiz with the sound engineering side of the process and keeps teaching me his tricks to treat the sounds we record in a way I've never thought about. I put my bag down.

"Seriously? You figured out the chorus? It was such a disaster." I lift the old-school music sheet off the coffee table.

"Let me play." Neil strums the guitar, and the new chord progressions should not work, but when I sing the lyrics alongside him, the melody weaves in and out of the chords, resolving and making it the statement of a celebration, giving it the tone of the anthem we want this song to be.

"Not bad."

We play. I sing. We record the pieces we are satisfied with, and the transformation leaves me sated. "This is it."

I'm wide awake. The traces of the words and the trickle of a tune of the song Mike brought out of me last night reappear.

"If we are done with this one, can I share something?"

Neil puts down his guitar and sits on the couch. "All ears."

"It's no more than an idea-"

"No need to explain. Just start."

I find my way to the keyboard and pick out the melody. I add some chords and on the third pass I sing the fragments of the sentences along.

The song emerges as I repeat, make changes, place new words, find the rhymes, and abandon the redundancies. The high I've experienced with Mike tingles across my skin. If the audience can feel it too, it would be the impact I want. Maybe the effect is on me only. Can I translate Mike's magic into words and melodies and pour the potion onto the unsuspecting crowds?

"You really like this tosser." Neil says it as if it's a certainty. He's not wrong. I like Mike. But Neil's not right. What I feel is so much more than like. More than want. There's not one word or one song that could bring the full scope of the colors Mike woke up in me. How much more of the true essence of me that I usually leave for my songs gushes out when I'm with Mike, as if I'm an open book and not a fake tome you keep on your shelf as décor.

"He's a good guy." I stop playing.

"Didn't think you like good."

"Who doesn't like good?"

"Good is boring." He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. "You are anything but. You'll drive him gaga, and he's too good for you."

"Now I'm bad for him?" My worst opinions of myself, the one that only comes out when I'm in the throes of pain or anxiety attack, the secret me I let no one see, Neil speaks about as if he's not guessing. As if he knows.

"I didn't say that." His smirk adds a rough edge to his denial. "Lover-boy could use some loosening up, but he'll never be able to keep up with you."

I glance at my crooked pinky and remember Mike's lips on them. "He doesn't have to. We balance each other. He makes me feel stable. Like I can trust him."

"Trust? How long have you known each other?" Neil steeples his fingers and rests his clean-shaven chin on it. "Trust takes years to grow, not weeks. Let's see what you think eight years from now. Or even five."

He looks serious, but I am as well. "Don't pretend you know me. I'm not what I appear to be."

"Aren't we all pretending? Hiding?" He shifts back and puts his foot on his knee

I turn off the keyboard and step away from it, away from Neil and his unwanted honesty. "I don't with Mike."

"So you told him about your meds?"

"Now you're giving me medical advice. Let's see what your manager says when he hears about it."

"Like I give a fuck what he says." A flash of emotion breaks through the calm. "I made him way too much money." Neil's hand shakes to an internal rhythm, hitting the air like he's playing an air guitar with it.

Now we are talking honestly. "You don't give a damn about much."

"Being rich has its privileges. Not giving a damn might be one I love the most."

Not honesty then. He's the one who's lying. I'm not sure if he's lying to himself or posturing in front of me, but I know he cares about a lot of things. Whatever the history between him and Poppy, he most definitely cares about the oldest member of their group. He cares about his music. His health. His image of a bad boy.

Neil's so much more like the guys I had fun with before, because it was easy to splash in the surface pleasures of the short encounters that lead nowhere, to not dive deeper. Mike's goodness pleads me to reconsider what I want my life to look like. It scares me but it soothes me as well. Having Mike's hands around me is better than my meds. I'd take him over this crap Neil is selling me.

With Mike, I can emerge from the dulled world my pain drives me into. With Mike, my life is no longer a fevered dream.