by H. L. Logan
There was one critical element that I’d forgotten to put up on in my guidelines circle. I wrote “LOVE” in block letters on a post-it and placed it right in the middle of the circle. Then, rolling up my sleeves, my dry erase in hand, I set to work brainstorming ideas for the project.
It was late afternoon when I’d filled up the entire wall of glass with my notes. Kendra had texted me to tell me that she’d be playing another show at Shadetree, and I was excited to see her once she finished work in the evening. I took several photographs of what I’d written, and then picked up my eraser and started to refine my ideas, wiping away things that on second glance seemed unnecessary.
My phone chimed in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see Kendra’s name on the screen. I smiled and answered it.
“Hey, you,” I said, continuing to wipe away at my idea board. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Melany,” Kendra said. Her voice was thin and distant.
“Kendra? What is it?”
“Can I come over?”
Kendra sat glumly at the dining table, her chin in her hands. Everything about her looked down and depressed; even her adorable ponytail seemed to be drooping. I retrieved my bottle of Yamazaki 18 Year from my liquor cabinet and poured us both generous portions, and then took a seat across from her.
“Try some,” I said. “It’s my favorite. Single malt from Japan is the best in the world right now, they say.”
“I can’t believe they fired me,” she muttered, and took a long swallow of whiskey. She looked at the glass. “This is good.” Then she sighed. “I mean, I can. I totally fucked up the inspection, so it’s my own damn fault. Not to mention all the other times I screwed up. Fuck, I’m useless. Can’t even keep a job at a shitty restaurant.”
“Hey,” I said, tapping the table with my knuckle. “You are not useless.”
“I needed that job, and I dropped the ball,” she said. “Everything was dependent on that job. My performance money was only supplementing it.”
“You said it yourself. It was a shitty restaurant. You can do better than a place like that. Besides, someone as skilled as you should be making money playing music. There’s no reason why your performance earnings aren’t going to go up. Especially now that you’re playing with Kaitlyn and Brianne. Keep performing. Put all your time into that. Let it become your full-time job, like it should be.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Melany, I can’t afford my rent based on what I’ve been making playing music. Monica is a nice person, but she’s not the type to let me stay rent-free. She’s already giving me a really good price on the room, probably the best I’d be able to find here. I’ll have to move back home to Manchester, and live with my piece of shit dad again.” She looked up at me, her dark eyes deep with distress. “Melany, I’m going to have to leave. Leave Rosebridge and everything behind. I’m going to have to leave you.”
I stood and came over to her, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and pulling her tightly against my stomach. She buried her face into my shirt and squeezed me around the waist. I could feel her warm tears through the fabric, and I stroked her hair.
“Shut your face,” I said, giving her ponytail a playful tug.
She looked up at me, her eyes puffy and red. “What?”
I smiled. “Come on, Kendra. Do you think I’d let that happen? You might not have noticed, but I own this huge-ass condo all to myself. You’re not going anywhere. Move your shit out of Monica’s place, and move in with me.”
She blinked at me, and I saw that Kendra had honestly not even considered this option. At that moment, I realized I understood her personality and way of thinking a little better than before. I’d known that Kendra was a very emotional person, it’d been obvious from the beginning, but now I realized just how emotional she could be. It was what fueled her passion for music, and it was also what had crushed her after her last relationship and caused her to spiral into anxiety, to the point where she physically couldn't even play music. She was also extremely proud, and when her mentor had rejected her, it’d shattered her perception of herself. This pride was also what prevented her from even thinking about asking if she could live with me. She had to take everything on herself.
“I couldn’t do that,” she said. “I’d feel shitty about it. I don’t want to freeload off of you.”
“Kendra, you wouldn’t be freeloading. First off, I love you. I want you to be here with me. Second, you’re working on your career. Eventually, you’ll be making bank, and if you want to move out or whatever, you can.”
She looked hesitant—her stubborn pride again.
“I’m deciding for you,” I announced. “We’re moving you in. In fact, we’re going to do it today.”
“Wait, what?”
I stood up and went up the spiral staircase to my loft room to get changed into something more appropriate for doing moving work. Kendra followed after me.
“Hold on, Melany!”
“What?” I said, putting on a t-shirt.
“I… but how? It’s almost the evening. We can’t move… I mean, I don’t have much stuff, but still. All the big things, it’ll take at least a day, and I’d need to pack everything.”
“We’ll get help,” I said.
“Who is going to help us with something like that at the last minute?”
I smiled at her. “Kendra, I say this in the humblest way possible. I'm a millionaire. I’ll find somebody that will do it. Come on, let’s go. We’ll take your car. I’m going to need to make some calls.”
An hour later, we had a full moving team packing and moving Kendra’s furniture into a truck, while she and I put her smaller belongings into cardboard boxes. Kendra must’ve asked me at least ten times if I was sure I was okay with this.
“Trust me, I’m okay with this,” I said. “End of story, okay?”
Monica poked her head into the bedroom. “Man, I go away for the weekend and I miss everything. You know you paid for this month’s rent already, dude. You don’t have to leave like, right away.”
“I know,” Kendra said.
“I’ll refund you prorated for the rest of the month,” she said. “Damn. I can’t believe I missed you jamming out on the drums again. I’m bummed.”
“I’m going to be playing a show next weekend. You should come check it out.”
“For sure, my dude. I’ll be there.”
The last to go was Kendra’s drum set. Kendra disassembled it, and then the three of us watched as the team of movers carefully took each piece of the kit out to the truck. By the time that everything had been loaded and was ready to go, it was early evening. The sun hit the horizon, throwing orange light across the street and against the windows of the houses down the block. A mourning dove cooed from the overhead power lines until it was startled away by the clatter of the moving truck’s rolling door being pulled shut.
“That’s it,” I said.
Kendra went up to Monica and gave her a hug. “You’ve been a real great roommate, Monica,” she said. “I wanted to thank you for encouraging me to get out there and play again. If it weren’t for you, I would never have been able to get back onto the drums.”
Monica grinned. “Hey, it was my pleasure. I’m looking forward to seeing your shows.”
We got into the car and waved goodbye as we pulled away, the moving truck following behind us. Kendra let out a long breath.
“Wow,” she said. “I didn’t realize just how much stress I was dealing with, worrying about the rent and all of that. I suddenly feel so much lighter.”
I took her hand and squeezed it. “Now you can concentrate on what matters. Get to greatness.”
“Thanks, Melany,” she said. “I don’t want to seem like I’m ungrateful for letting me move in with you. I’m so thankful for it, I just have a hard time getting over myself. When I moved away from Manchester, I told myself I’d stand on my own two feet. I had everything all planned out, with school and all of that. I didn’t want to have to rely
on anyone else. I guess I wanted to prove to myself I could do it on my own.”
“I’ve realized that everyone needs a hand sometimes. Sometimes, certain goals are just too great to get there on your own.”
“You haven’t had any troubles doing it all on your own,” she said.
“No way,” I laughed. “You’ve taught me a lot. You have no idea how much you’ve helped me.”
“Me? I’ve helped you?”
“It wasn’t until being with you that I realized what direction I needed to go with my project.”
“Really?”
“When I realized that I’d fallen in love with you, it changed something fundamental inside of me. I’d never been in love before. Having this love and sharing just a small amount of your passion opened my eyes to looking at my work in a new way. I realized I was going about it with entirely the wrong mindset. Greatness isn’t about creating something that will make the most money, it’s about creating something that people will love. I want to do that. Just like how your performances resonate with people, I want to have that in my work.”
We moved most of Kendra’s furniture into a long-term storage unit, set her drums up on a sheepskin rug next to the couch, and then spent the rest of the evening unpacking her boxes. She really didn’t have much—a very minimalist wardrobe, some sheet music, a few books on drumming. The biggest percentage of her belongings were drum-related—spare drum heads, sticks, drum keys, and other little parts. I also had few belongings, so finding storage space for her things wasn’t much of a problem.
I cooked dinner for us—chicken thighs braised in turmeric and fresh lime, served over a bed of couscous—while she continued to organize her things. We enjoyed our first dinner living together with a nice bottle of wine, and George Benson’s liquid-smooth guitar licks playing over the stereo. After eating, Kendra went back upstairs to finish putting away her stuff. I poured myself another glass of wine and went to the window to look at the mass of ideas I’d written out across the glass. It was a promising start, and definitely a change from the work I’d been doing before. I had direction again.
Struck by a sudden bolt of inspiration, I exchanged my wine glass for a dry erase marker and started to jot more notes and ideas onto the window. All sorts of exciting possibilities for the project were coming into my head now, and the more I wrote the easier the ideas seemed to flow from my hand. I thought of Kendra playing the drums, and how she’d close her eyes, completely immersed in the passion of the music. I tried to channel that energy now.
“This is good,” I said to myself as I took a step back to examine my work. I set the marker down on my desk and realized that I’d been at it for almost an hour. The lights of nighttime Rosebridge sparkled between the scribbles of text, and I could see the Beasley University Library off in the distance, a huge, 19th century brick building with a pointed clock tower.
I grabbed my glass and swallowed down the remainder of the wine, and then I went back to the kitchen to put it in the dishwasher. The gleam of Kendra’s drum kit in the living room caught my eye, and I found myself drawn over to it. I walked around it, taking in its gorgeous shimmering chrome frame. I reached out and slowly, reverently, touched the tom-tom’s battered head. It was thrilling to touch Kendra’s drums, knowing her amazing skill. They felt almost holy.
Not too long ago, I would’ve thought what I was doing right now was completely insane. I never would’ve thought I’d be in a relationship with a woman, let alone be madly in love with her, and living with her—all in such an insanely short amount of time.
Life is crazy. Who could’ve thought things would ever go like this?
I’d always been so sure I knew how my life would go, and so certain about my values and views on things. I realized now that anything was possible. Anything could happen—and it felt remarkably liberating. The thing was, I hadn’t even known I’d been a prisoner.
I went upstairs to see how Kendra was doing, and found her sprawled face down on the bed asleep. She’d knocked out in middle of organizing her things. I smiled—seeing her sleeping there on my bed made me feel ridiculously happy. I went up and sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her hair.
I love this girl, I thought, awed. I want to know everything about her. I want to be by her side and help her meet her potential. I want to help her succeed and do everything she wants to do.
I suspected that Kendra needed closure, even though she was so adamant that she didn’t want to return to school. She was stubborn as hell, after all. Whether or not she actually needed to finish with her schooling and get a degree, I didn’t know. I felt like Kendra could make her way as a professional drummer already, but it was possible she’d always carry a block with her the rest of her life if she refused to confront her teacher.
There had to be some way I could help her, but I knew I couldn't force her to go back to school, even if I did offer to pay for the tuition.
Kendra stirred and looked up, sleepily. “Hmmm? Oh, no. Did I pass out?”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling. “It’s okay. You had a pretty intense day today. I bet you’re drained as hell.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Man. What a crazy day.”
“Just sleep,” I said.
“No, I’m all dirty from doing the moving.” She sat up and smiled groggily at me. “I need to shower first.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I kind of like you dirty.” I leaned in and kissed her.
“Mm, yeah?” She drew her arms around my neck and pulled me on top of her. I slid my hand between her legs and could feel her warmth. She gasped.
“Seems like you’re awake,” I said, grinning.
Kendra didn’t waste any time going slow. She dipped her hand into my underwear, and I was immediately wet for her.
“You too,” she said.
I pushed her pants down her thighs and returned the favor, massaging her with my fingertips. We kissed as we touched each other, and Kendra moaned against my lips as the fingers of her free hand clawed at my back. She pulled me closer and nipped at my ear, and then sucked and kissed my neck down to my collarbone.
I wanted to taste her again, so I flipped myself around and positioned myself so that she could go down on me at the same time. I couldn’t see what she was doing, so when I felt her tongue glide across my opening, I groaned out in surprise. Kendra ran her palms along my ass and pulled me down closer to her face, alternating between sucking my clit and probing her tongue into me. It was hard for me to concentrate on what I was doing. She would do something crazy to me with her tongue or her lips, and I’d lose myself to a desperate moan.
I found myself feeling a little competitive. I wanted her to feel as good as she was making me feel—after all, I’d had more practice than she had—but it seemed like no matter what I did, Kendra was taking the trophy for technique. I continued to be surprised about how naughty and creative she was. Even though she was fairly reserved normally, her technique in bed was like her drumming—passionate and unreserved.
“W-wait,” I stammered, rolling off of her. “Keep that up, and I’m and I’m going to come right here. You’re too fucking good at that.”
Kendra turned onto her stomach and then pushed her ass up in the air, like a cat stretching. “You’re not done, are you?”
“Hell, no,” I said, jumping off. “How do you feel about trying out some more toys?”
“Sounds fun.”
I opened a drawer and retrieved a double-sided dildo.” Kendra’s eyes widened.
“Is this okay?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Hm,” she said rejoined her on the bed. “This doesn’t feel right, though.”
“What’s wrong?”
She smiled at me. “We’re not on a couch.”
I laughed and gave her a playful smack on the ass. I grabbed her waist with one hand, the middle of the toy with the other, and slowly guided it into both of us as I pressed my hips towards her.
Soon we’d gotten the toy all the way inside. Ken
dra grasped my hand where it held onto the dildo, and we worked a rhythm, pumping it in and out between us.
“Fuck,” I moaned, doing everything I could to delay my orgasm.
“Oh, fuck,” Kendra moaned. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop, I’m going to come soon…”
We kept going, our thighs pushing together, moving in perfect synchronization. Kendra cried out my name, and shouted that she was about to come. Climax hit me too, rocking over me like an unrelenting tidal wave of pleasure. We collapsed onto the bed together, the haze of the orgasm thrumming through my body. I wrapped her up in my arms and pulled her against my chest, nuzzling my nose into her neck.
“You tired?” I whispered to her.