by W E DeVore
You’re always burning in my bones
You’re always burning me with fire
You’re always burning in my blood
You’re always burning me with fire
The music in her headphones abruptly stopped and all she heard was a steady shaker keeping the beat. After two bars of silence from Derek, Q impulsively clapped a heartbeat pattern that mirrored the absent bassline, no longer caring what his intentions for the song were, letting her own vision merge with his. Derek joined her hand claps for several bars before singing in a quiet, high, plaintive voice that sounded like a child crying for his mother, his eyes still closed.
I’m on fire
I’m on fire
I’m on fire
I’m on fire
As she listened to him sing, she slipped into a trance and she was isolated, again, in the darkness. Strong, cold hands gripped her throat as she struggled to breathe. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Her shoulders burned, struggling to hold onto the beam above her. Struggling to hold onto the only thing keeping her alive. Her lungs and throat scorching with pain as the breath that remained in her body turned toxic.
The music kicked back in at full volume and Derek took her left hand to stop her from clapping, bringing her back to the present. His eyes were still closed. As he held onto her hand, his fingers tightened around hers, urging her to sing. Q filled her lungs with air, joining him on a high harmony, crying out the desperation she’d felt seven months ago while waiting for someone to rescue her from her own death.
He squeezed her hand harder until her fingers felt like they’d break under the pressure and her voice reached the same volume as his, so that they sounded like a single instrument. She kept her eyes on his mouth, mirroring its movements with her own lips, her hand entwined with his, holding onto him as much as he was holding onto her.
I’m on fire
I’m on fire
I’m on fire
I’m on fire
Q let out a long grief wail of her own and it was his turn to harmonize with her. He continued to grip her hand as the music faded out. After several minutes of silence, he finally let go and she looked into the control room. Drake’s mouth was agape and Derek’s assistant was openly crying. Q brushed a tear away with her fingertips, trying not to notice how badly her hands were trembling from the cleansing release of finally screaming out all her fear and terror from that night the previous October.
She turned to Derek. He took off his headphones and stared down at the floor, steadying his breathing, his eyes focused on a fixed point. She waited for him to speak.
“You’re done,” he finally said. “Jesse will give you a ride.”
Q took off her headphones and stood to leave, her body still vibrating from the energetic discharge.
“You don’t want to listen to the playback to make sure?” she asked, dying to hear it for herself, to confirm that it really was as good as she thought it might be.
“No. We got it. You can go,” he said, still staring at the fixed point on the floor, exhaustion radiating off him.
She wasn’t sure what kind of catharsis was happening for him, but she recognized the pose, and impulsively put her hand on his shoulder. He took it in his, holding onto it nearly as tightly as he’d held it while they were singing. She wanted to help him somehow.
She leaned down and said in a low whisper by his ear, so that it wouldn’t get picked up by the mic, “That was something, Cincinnati. Thanks for coming to get me. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.” She closed her eyes, trying to find the words to express her gratitude. “You should be proud, Derek. I mean it. You created something really special.”
He held her hand tighter. His breathing was too rapid. Having been through multiple traumas herself, she knew a PTSD episode when she saw one.
She moved closer to him and whispered, “Listen to me, Derek. Let it go, now, and rest. Whatever it is. You can just let it go. All of it. I know it’s hard. And I know it’s scaring the shit out of you right now, but it can’t hurt you anymore. Whatever it is. It’s in the past and it can’t hurt you. But you have to let it go. Can you hear me, Cincinnati? You have to shove that darkness back into whatever prison you let it live inside of you and lock that shit back up. Lock it up tight and don’t let it hurt you anymore. Listen to me now. Don’t let it get a foothold. That’s what it wants. But you’re stronger than that, aren’t you? You’re braver than it could ever hope to be because you’re still here. So, let that shit go and don’t let it take anything else from you. Ever.”
She kissed his cheek and stood to leave, but he continued to hold onto her hand for a moment without acknowledging that he’d heard her. His breath slowly returned to normal. When he finally spoke, it wasn’t to her.
“Push that video, Jesse. Make it live now. Then we can go dark for a few days while I sleep. I’m sorry about this afternoon. Please, don’t quit on me.”
He let go of Q’s hand and she walked towards the door. As she opened it, he said, “That’s the last track. The album’s done now. At least, your part of it.”
“You find a way to do what I told you, Cincinnati. Get some sleep.”
He closed his eyes. “Thank you, angel. For everything.”
She nodded silently and left the studio, waiting in the lobby for Jesse to join her, trying to process what had just happened. Every song on the album had been lyrically disturbing, much more so than the one she’d just performed. She considered the fact that Derek Sharp may have one or two dark secrets of his own that he hid just as well as she hid hers. She shivered, not wanting to know what kind of memory could have driven him to the point of madness on a Tuesday night.
After twenty minutes, Jesse finally joined her, apologizing for the delay. She handed Q a flat gift box wrapped in silver paper with a simple, green velvet ribbon tied around it.
“From Derek,” she explained. “He was saving it until you were done. He says to open it when you’re alone.”
Q put the box inside her satchel and followed Jesse out to her car. As soon as they were inside, Jesse paired her phone to the stereo and handed it to her.
“You want to see it?” she asked.
“Fuck yes, I do. What the hell was that?”
Jesse pointed to the already twelve hundred views of the video. “That was magic. Just plain magic. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Q sat, mesmerized, watching the video and listening to the surprisingly good playback over the Bluetooth system in Jesse’s car. After it ended, she immediately played it three more times on the way to the Cove, closing her eyes to listen to it, unable to watch herself sing with Derek. Seeing her eyes fixed beyond him while her hands clapped and watching the darkness track across her face as he sang, felt too much like an intrusion; like spying on an intimate experience that no one else was ever supposed to see.
When she watched the salvation wash over her as she cried out the final notes, she saw it hit Derek at the same moment. And now that wave of therapeutic release they’d both experienced was available for public viewing and the views were growing exponentially.
“Why is the sound so good?” she finally asked.
“Drake gave me a board feed. We make it look like it’s spontaneous, but it’s pretty contrived. I have a special box for my phone to make it sound like a real recording. It’s just the video that’s raw,” Jesse explained.
“Who’s @archangel_nola?” Q asked, referring to one of the Twitter mentions in the post.
“You are,” Jesse replied. “I handle your posts, also contrived. Derek wanted it set up for the social media campaign.”
Q pulled out her phone and opened her Twitter app, searching up her alter-ego. She read through the posts for anything she might want to kill Derek over. Most of them were fairly innocuous and actually sounded like something she would write:
Waiting for the dark overlord to arrive and tell me how flat I’m singing today #scarification #autotune
“He w
anted it to sound like you. Hope it’s ok,” Jesse said. “I tried to make notes of things you actually said and Derek let me read your texts. I used your real feed to improvise the stuff for days when you weren’t in the studio.”
“You did good. It’s weird though, all this social media push. Does he always do this?”
“Never. He loves to do this on tour, to kill time, but we usually go completely dark for an album. I’ve been with him for ten years. I’ve never seen him like this, wanting to document the whole thing, not being able to sleep until it’s done. I think this might be his last album…at least that’s my theory,” she replied.
“Well, if you’re going to go out, you may as well go out with a bang. Not that I’m an expert in the musical stylings of Dark Harm, but it’s a hell of a record.”
As Q continued to look at her fictional profile, finding pictures of her and Derek in the studio, she suddenly felt a little sad that it was over. Working on music that wasn’t hers or her normal genre had been more fun than she’d admitted to herself. She followed the fake profile to keep tabs on herself, just in case Derek ever got any ideas of stepping over the imaginary line she’d just set as a boundary.
When they pulled into the parking lot at Lafitte’s Cove, Q turned to Jesse and asked, “Is he ok?”
“Derek’s always ok,” she said dismissively. “He just needs to get some sleep. He’s probably crashed now. Thank you. I was about to quit this afternoon.”
“That good, huh?”
Jesse shook her head. “Do me a favor, will you? The next time Derek calls you three or more times in a row, drop whatever you’re doing and just pick up.”
“Then tell him not to do it again unless it’s an actual emergency and I’ll consider it. Thanks for the ride.”
Q got out of the car and walked into the Cove. She glanced around at the few cars in the formerly packed parking lot and was dismayed. She went inside and was greeted by ten people; all of whom knew Ben personally and none of whom had she ever seen at the Cove on a Tuesday night.
She found Ben in his office, talking to Josh in a low voice. They stopped when she walked in.
“Where have you been?” Ben asked. “Thought you were coming earlier.”
She walked around the desk and sat in his lap.
“Derek came by the house while I was getting ready. He needed me to come record one more song.”
“Look at you, Uptown,” Josh teased. “Rock stars are coming to you, now.”
“Yeah, yeah, a psychotic Peter Pan on my porch at eight p.m. is everything I’ve ever dreamed of. Lucky me,” Q replied. “Everything ok?”
She looked from Ben to Josh and knew she’d interrupted something. Ben pulled her closer.
“Just boring business stuff,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”
Josh left the room and Q said, “Out with it. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Really,” Ben replied. “You feel like getting out of here? No sense in both Josh and I being bored.”
“I must be losing my touch, if me sitting on your lap is boring you,” she said, taking his hand as they walked out of the Cove to his car.
While they drove home, she told him about her strange recording session with Derek and her brand new social media alter-ego. Judging from the look on her husband’s face, he was only halfway paying attention.
As soon as they arrived home, Ben immediately went upstairs to change clothes and Q followed after him. She found him sitting on the edge of their bed still wearing his suit.
“You want to see the video?” she asked. “It’s really something.”
He nodded and she handed him the phone. She knelt behind him on the bed with her arms wrapped around his neck, viewing it with him over his shoulder.
When it was over, he stared at the screen for a few seconds before saying, “This is going to sound strange, it’s beautiful and all, but I don’t ever want to see that again.”
“Why?” Q asked.
He pulled her closer and looked at the still image on the small screen. “Because it’s like watching another man make love to my wife, and call me old-fashioned, but that’s where I draw the line.”
She sat back on the bed. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“The way you’re staring at him by the end…” he started.
Fuck.
She didn’t want him to know what she’d been thinking. That watching Derek was the only thing keeping her safe from the memory that had filled her. That for a few moments, she was back in the darkness, under the scaffolding, being held up by her throat, her feet barely touching the floor. That for a few moments, she’d remembered exactly what it had felt like to know that she was about to die.
“I had to watch his mouth, Ben. I hadn’t heard the melody before and the take would have been blown if I fucked up.”
Sensing her defensiveness, his posture stiffened. “Why was he holding your hand?”
“To stop me from clapping and to tell me how loud to sing. And honestly, probably because he needed to hold someone’s hand. That record is about to make him completely insane. Ben, it is Derek Sharp we’re talking about. You’re acting like you’re jealous or something.”
Q untied her shoes and threw them in the general direction of the closet, trying to give her hands something to do and to pretend to be as casually disinterested as possible.
It didn’t work.
“Yes. Derek Sharp, who is now showing up on our porch in the middle of the night to take you for a ride in his Porsche,” Ben said as he stood up and started pacing the room.
“Did you have a stroke or something?” she asked. “I was in the studio all day. He’s been calling me since lunchtime, but my phone was off. I told you all this in the car. It was just a session.”
“Yeah, well it looks like there’s more than just music going on between you two.” He took off his jacket and hung it in the closet. “You looked like you were having a goddamn orgasm when you screamed at the end of that song. And so did he.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ben. I’ve been playing music with men my entire adult life. Do you know how many bandmates I’ve fucked in that time?” She threw up her hands.
“Tony Balladine’s bass player,” he stated, undoing his cufflinks and tossing them carelessly on top of the antique vanity at the foot of the bed before he resumed pacing the floor.
“Bradley Leon is not a bandmate and it was a one-night stand five years ago. Jesus, when are you going to let that drop? Until you came along, I’d never even dated someone peripherally connected to QT and the Beasts, so take it easy.”
“Don’t tell me to take it easy, Clementine,” he barked. “You spend all your time with men. Most of them are single. You’re my wife. I’ve got a right to ask.”
Q wasn’t sure why her husband had suddenly decided that now was the perfect moment for a domestic quarrel, but she knew for sure, he’d decided to push the ‘GO’ button the moment he’d called her his possession.
“Oh, so I’m your wife, huh? What about the hundreds of women who’ve been driving clear across town just to hear you call them darlin’ for the last decade? You don’t see me flipping out. You went to jail for murder and I trusted you when you said you didn’t do it. But now, after all this time, suddenly me recording one fucking alt-rock masterpiece with an only halfway sane goth rocker is a problem.”
“Aaron,” he said.
He stopped pacing and put his hands on his hips.
“What?” she asked as he threw her off balance.
“Why do you spend so much time with Aaron? He’s not a musician.”
“You spend as much time with him as I do,” she said, completely aghast. “He’s your friend, too.”
“He’s single. Looks like a fucking Calvin Klein underwear model…”
“Yes, Ben, so do you. What’s your point?” she asked.
“My point is, that of all the people in New Orleans, you pick Aaron Sanger to pal around with. Why is that, Clementin
e?”
“Why is that? Oh, because I go riding on his sad cowboy cock every afternoon, didn’t I tell you? That’s why I’m working overtime to fix him up with your little sister.” She sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed her palms down her thighs, trying to maintain some rationality.
“You wrote him a song for his birthday,” he said.
“Jesus Christ, Ben, I write most people a song for their birthday. It’s my schtick.”
“Not like that,” he muttered.
“You said you liked it,” she argued. “I played it for you while naked, if you recall, so calm down already. You gonna tell me what’s really going on or do you want to escalate this up a notch? Because right now, I could really go either way. You accuse me of cheating on you some more and one of us is sleeping in the guest room for the first time tonight.”
“Fine. I’ll leave,” he said and moved towards the door, making good on her threat.
She picked up a pillow and threw it at him, hitting him in the back of his head.
“Don’t you dare leave this room, Ben Bordelon. You want to go? Let’s fucking go.” She stood up on the bed and took off her shirt, snapping her fingers at Ben. “Clothes off. Now.”
“What the hell has gotten into you?” he asked.
“I’d like to ask you the same fucking thing,” she said, unbuttoning her jeans and taking them off before throwing them at him. “I’ll fight with you all you want, but we’re doing this in our underwear. Just to keep you honest. Because you and me both know this has nothing to do with any one of my friends or Derek fucking Sharp,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Clothes off, now.”
He looked down at the floor.
Q tilted her head to try to see his face. “I thought you wanted to fight, motherfucker. Let’s fucking fight. I ain’t afraid of you. Let’s fucking do this.”