by Katia Rose
He blinks in shock. “You’re bringing her to your place?”
I nod. “Yeah. She’s already been there.”
“Well, fuck. This shit’s serious, huh?”
“We’ve only slept together once,” I admit. “I don’t know if it’s serious. I don’t even know what it is. I like her, though.”
“I like her too,” Matt tells me, “and so does Kay, and so do the other guys. You found a good one. Now you’ve just got to keep her.”
I play with a coaster on the table, avoiding his gaze. This conversation just took a turn I’m not willing to get into right now. Matt clears his throat a few times, like he’s working up the nerve to say something else.
“How much does she, um, know?” he finally asks. “About...you?”
I narrow my eyes. “What are you asking?”
“I’m just saying, if you really do want to get serious with this, she should probably know about...like, your parents...and stuff.”
He’s on the edge of going too far.
“JP and Cole don’t even know about my parents, and you only know by accident. I’m not dumping that shit on Stéphanie. We’ve barely known each other for two months.”
Matt holds up his hands. “Okay, okay, I get it. I know it’s early. I just think it’s something you should think about. I mean, if the girl you’re dating doesn’t even know what your name—”
“My name,” I cut in, my voice so sharp he does a double take, “is Ace. Turner.”
He has the decency to look sheepish. “Point taken. Maybe I’m speaking out of line.”
I see Stéphanie crossing the room and stand up.
“It’s all good, man,” I tell Matt. “You guys enjoy the rest of your night.”
“I don’t think I have to tell you to enjoy yours!” he calls after me, as I make my way over to Stéphanie.
I look back and find him making a crude hand gesture. I flip him the bird.
Stéphanie slips under my arm again. We leave the bar with her tucked against my side. I kiss the top of her head as we make our way to the Metro, and it strikes me that I’ve never done that to a girl before.
She looks up at me and laughs. “You have glitter on your face.”
Maybe Matt’s wrong. Maybe I don’t have to tell her anything. What’s the past, other than a fading echo? When I’m with Stéphanie, I can barely hear the sound of it in my ears.
17 Body Gold || Oh Wonder
STÉPHANIE
I climb the metro station’s staircase and exit onto the street, bending over to retie the laces of my Keds once I’m clear of the crowd. I’m meeting Jacinthe for lunch today. She has back-to-back auditions, and I had to come all the way out past the Biodôme to meet her near some warehouse that’s being used to shoot a music video. We haven’t caught up in weeks though, and I didn’t want to miss the chance to see her. I haven’t even told her about Ace and I yet.
I make my way over to the building and stand outside, kicking pebbles off the curb and into the street. It’s September first today, but the weather hasn’t gotten the memo yet. I can feel myself sweating from just the short walk here, and I’m thankful I went bra-less today. I’m wearing a white sleeveless blouse that would have been a prime target for boob sweat stains.
The thought conjures up the memory of the day I met Ace, and I grin like an idiot. He still sticks out like a sore thumb every time he’s at meditation class or in the AMM house, but now instead of feeling that twisting uneasiness around him, I just feel a happiness that borders on bliss. Since the summer dance season has ended, I’ve got a lot more spare time on my hands, and we’ve seen each other almost every day.
We’ve also had sex all over his apartment, and I’ve started bringing him to my place when I know Molly won’t be home. We’ve yet to bring out the candles again, but there’s still a violent intensity to the way we fuck. I’ve never felt the kind of sexual connection we have with anyone else before; he seems to know exactly what I want even before I tell him.
I’ve cleared all the pebbles from an entire stretch of sidewalk when my phone buzzes with a text from Jacinthe.
Running a little late, chérie. Come wait inside if you want to get out of the heat.
I jump on the offer and push through the heavy warehouse doors. There’s an entryway inside, just some bare drywall and a desk with no one sitting at it. I loiter by the doors and try to figure out what the voice echoing from down the hallway is saying.
“Une, deux TROIS, les filles! Une, deux, TROIS!”
I smirk to myself. That’s definitely the choreographer talking. I listen to a few more shouted instructions, and then some rock music starts blasting.
And Ace starts singing.
“Once upon a midnight dreary...”
I know it’s just a recording, but I follow the sound anyway, stepping down the hallway like a moth being drawn to a light. I round a corner and almost walk straight into a huge, sectioned-off part of the warehouse. Lighting rigs and heavy black curtains hang down from the ceiling. Stepping back a bit so I’m out of sight, I watch as at least two dozen women dance along to the song, their bare feet crossing and re-crossing the length of the dusty floor. The choreographer shouts out the beats, and beside her, I recognize Indiana Jones from the loft party.
This must be the Sherbrooke Station music video.
I stand there spying until the end of the routine. For people who probably just learned the choreography an hour ago, the dancers do a fantastic job. I spot Jacinthe in the middle of the front row, moving with the same grace that’s won her a whole trophy room’s worth of competitions.
The dance itself is all wrong, though. The song is eerie—haunting, even, as so much of Ace’s music is. The movements of the dancers are too refined. Sherbrooke Station’s music calls for something much more raw.
“That’s it for today, ladies!” Indiana Jones calls out. “Great work. We’ll be in touch.”
I sprint back to the entryway just as the group starts heading right towards me. I pretend to be looking at my phone as the dancers file past.
“Stéph!” Jacinthe waves from a few feet away. “I’m just going to get changed, okay?”
I nod as she hurries away. After a few minutes, I’m left in an empty lobby again. I tuck my phone back in my pocket and peer down both sides of the hallway. When I’m sure the coast is clear, I speed-walk back to the room the girls were dancing in and pad over to the middle of the floor.
I can’t resist open spaces: gymnasiums, soccer fields, art galleries—it doesn’t matter where I am. If I see more than a few square metres of empty floor space, all I can think about is dance. I hum the tune of the Sherbrooke Station song, letting my arms twist like crooked tree branches and flap as if I have dark-feathered wings. My feet carry me through a few easy spins, and I’m just about to turn into a pirouette when I hear someone clapping.
“Bravo! Encore!”
I drop my arms to my sides and whirl around.
“Ace? What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
He crosses the floor from where I just came in and walks up to me.
“I’m—I’m waiting for my friend,” I stammer, suddenly embarrassed. “She was in the audition.”
“And you weren’t?”
I shake my head.
“You should have been. Whatever you were just doing looked fucking awesome. Is that part of the video routine?”
I shake my head again. “I, um...I was just playing around. I can’t see a room like this and not dance in it.”
He grins. “Of course—all the world’s a stage. We’re shooting some scenes of the band playing in here today.” He sweeps his hand around the giant room. “Kind of a step up from our first music video. It was filmed on a Smartphone at a Mexican restaurant.”
“A Mexican restaurant?” I repeat.
Ace shrugs. “To be honest, we were all kind of high. It’s not on YouTube anymore, but I’ll happily show it to you someday.�
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I laugh. “I’d like that.”
He reaches out to tuck my hair behind my ears. I try to hide my shiver. It’s been weeks since he first touched me, and I still feel breathless every single time he does.
“I should introduce you to the choreographer,” he tells me. “If what you were doing isn’t in the routine, it should be.”
I balk. “I’m definitely not critiquing a professional choreographer to their face, but...”
“But what?” Ace prompts.
“It’s just...the routine doesn’t really get the song. I think it could use some work.”
He gives me a searching look. “Do you get the song?”
I stare back at him, my throat going dry as he pins me down with his gaze.
“I...I feel a connection with a lot of your work.”
He starts walking backwards away from me, and I’m about to ask him what he’s doing when he stops beside the massive sound system.
“Show me,” he orders. “Show me how you would dance to this song.”
“Ace...”
He presses a button and the opening notes of the song begin to play, drowning out the rest of my protests. I put my hands on my hips and strike a defiant pose instead, but he just cranks the music louder and crosses his arms, giving me the look.
It’s the look that has made me drop my clothes to the floor for him a dozen times. It’s the look that’s made me beg and whimper, tremble and melt in his hands. It’s the look that makes me start to sway for him now, even as my thighs clench at the thought of him between them.
At first I’m too self-conscious to do much, but eventually the music takes hold of me like it always does, and I surrender myself to the sound. Dancing to the cadence of Ace’s voice feels almost as intimate as laying naked beside him does, almost as erotic as his tongue against my skin. I close my eyes and moan under my breath.
The music cuts off a moment later, just as I’m landing a leap. Ace lifts his finger from the sound system and crooks it, beckoning me towards him.
“Here.” His voice is ragged. “Now.”
I hardly feel my feet on the floor as I obey. He fists one hand in my hair, the other clamped like a vise around my waist as he kisses me hard. He parts my lips with his tongue, invading my mouth and working me into a heated frenzy that makes the rest of the world blur.
He doesn’t say anything when he breaks away from me, just grabs my arm and starts pulling me towards one of the huge curtains hanging from the ceiling.
“Ace, wait. What are you—”
“I need to do some things to you that I don’t want anyone walking in on.”
I swallow down the lump that rises in my throat, trying to keep my head straight.
“Ace, my friend is waiting for me. Also we’re in a—”
My sentence ends in a gasp when he yanks the curtain aside and drags me behind it, then slides his hands under the fabric of my shirt. The lust in his face intensifies tenfold when he meets the bare skin of my breasts.
“Fuck, Stéphanie...” He draws his hands away and steps back. “You have no idea how you looked dancing to my song, how it felt to watch you...”
“Ace, I should go.” I can hear my resolve breaking.
“So go.” He moves closer, dropping his voice to a growl. “Go now and meet your friend, soaking wet and aching for my touch between your legs...or go in a few minutes and meet your friend, soaking wet and aching from how hard I just made you come.”
“Merde alors.” I close my eyes and breathe in. “Just let me text her, okay?”
He lets out a dark chuckle and hooks his index fingers around the belt loops of my jean shorts. “Text away. I’ll keep myself busy.”
I stare at the screen of my phone, not even able to find Jacinthe’s name as Ace undoes the button of my shorts and then slides the zipper down. This is crazy. Complètement fou. Anyone could walk in here at any moment. Jacinthe is probably freaking out, and I’m sure people will be looking for Ace too.
Then he touches me over the fabric of the thong I’m wearing and my phone almost falls out of my hands.
“I thought you had a text to send?” he teases as he ghosts over my clit, his face just a few inches from mine.
I make a strangled noise and somehow bang out a message to Jacinthe that I’m sure is riddled with typos. I go to reach for Ace’s belt after that, but he stops me with the hand that’s not currently pressed between my legs.
“Just let me do this,” he urges. “Just let me touch you.”
He tugs my shorts a few inches down my hips and then starts rubbing circles into my lower back. I throw my head back and close my eyes, unable to do anything but give in to him.
“That’s it,” he croons, pressing his lips to my neck as his fingers finally inch their way underneath my thong. “God, you are wet. Did you like dancing for me?”
“Yes,” I pant. “Yes, I did.”
“I should have made you take your clothes off first.”
He slides a finger inside me. My hips buck.
“Good girl, Stéphanie. Here.” He guides my own hand down to join his. “Don’t you feel good?”
I’m soaked. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I start to worry about what my shorts must look like, but then Ace tells me to rub my clit and fits a second finger inside me. He starts thrusting into me, sliding almost all the way out and then refilling me at a pace so slow it would be torturous if it didn’t feel so good. I frantically stroke my clit, feeling the beginnings of a climax building inside me already.
“You’re going to come for me aren’t you?” he asks. “Right here, with only this curtain in front of us.”
“I...I...oh.” I can’t get a handle on any words right now. The only thing that matters is that he doesn’t stop.
“I want you thinking about me all day, do you understand? All fucking day, I want you thinking about what it felt like to have me touch you like this. I want you to think about what it felt like to come on my fingers while you tried to keep yourself from screaming.”
“Sacrement.”
He’s thrusting faster now, curling his fingers just right. He spreads some of my wetness onto my clit for me, and I stroke myself so fast I’m sure my hand must be a blur. I’m so close, so fucking close. Ace palms one of my breasts over my shirt and I cry out. When he moves his lips from my neck to my shoulder and bites down hard, I lose it.
I come so hard I see stars. The black curtains surrounding us turn into the night sky, and I stand there waiting for the constellations to fade, so dazed my knees almost buckle underneath me.
When I finally return to my senses, the first thing I’m aware of is Ace’s breath hot on my neck. He’s laughing, the exhilarated, breathless kind of laugh people make when they’re so overcome they don’t know what other sound to make.
“God, Stéphanie. The things you do to me...”
He trails a few frantic kisses up my neck and then steps away from me, sliding his hand from between my legs.
“Just look at you.” His eyes drink the sight of me in: flushed face, heaving chest, shorts barely clinging to my thighs. “You’re perfect. You’re fucking perfect.”
In that moment, with that look on his face and the aftershocks of an orgasm still sending tremors up and down my spine, I believe him. I’m flawed and I’m scarred. Some days I feel like a fuck-up and some days I feel like a fraud. I’m the farthest thing from the world’s definition of perfection, but I’m perfectly myself, and that’s perfect enough for him.
18 Slip || Elliot Moss
STÉPHANIE
“This has been sold out for months! How did you get this?”
Molly’s eyes are practically popping out of her head as she stares down at the tickets and backstage passes for La Rentrée.
I was going to bring Jacinthe with me to the concert two days from now, but she bailed at the last minute. Being Sherbrooke Station’s number one fan, I figured Molly would have her own tickets already, but I asked her if she wanted to t
ake Jacinthe’s just in case. It turns out I underestimated how difficult it is to get into La Rentrée.
“Ace gave them to me,” I explain.
I’m seriously fearing for the safety of her eyeballs now.
“Ace Turner gave you tickets?”
“Yeah, we’ve, um...He’s been coming to meditation a lot, and we’ve gotten close.”
With all the craziness at the dance studio and the time I’ve been spending with Ace, I’ve barely even seen Molly during the past few weeks. She’s taking some summer courses, and our schedules hardly ever line up. We’ve been living together for almost five months now, and I still know next to nothing about her.
“I know I haven’t come off as a very friendly roommate,” I explain, “but maybe we could go together? For some roommate bonding time? I could even introduce you to the band.”
I clearly went overboard. Molly looks like she just forgot how to breathe.
“Just, um, think about it and let me know?” I suggest.
She nods rapidly and then runs off to her room. I’m pretty sure I hear her screaming into a pillow, and I smile to myself.
My phone buzzes on the counter beside me. I pick it up to find a text from Ace:
Dinner tonight?
I tell him I’d like nothing better, but that I have plans already.
What could be more important than dinner with me?
I’m about to let him know that dinner with my mom falls into that category when an idea strikes me. I dial his number before I can talk myself out of it.
“How would you like to meet my mom tonight?” I ask, after we’ve both said hello.
I’m still shocked he agreed. I think he’s still shocked he agreed. Ace sits beside me in the Uber he ordered us, his knuckles white as he grips his knees and stares out the window.
“You okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine,” he grunts.
“You don’t have to be nervous.” I place my hand on top of his. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Actually yeah, it kind of is,” he snaps. “I don’t do things like this. I don’t know how things like this work. I don’t want to lose you just because it turns out your mom doesn’t like guys with tattoos or some shit like that.”