I tossed my phone to the desk and flopped back in my chair, unsatisfied and irritable, and in desperate need of some extensive alone time with my vibrator.
7
Sam
It was one of the chilliest October weekends of the year, and I showed up at Tiel's door with Thai food. She mentioned something about a recital earlier that morning and wanting to stay in tonight, and I was happy to oblige. We'd gone out most nights this week, and I was too freaking tired for much more than yam wunsen kung and a beer. I couldn't even get it up for a sharp outfit, opting instead for jeans, a Cornell hoodie, and a long sleeved t-shirt. I managed some rainbow argyle socks, but only because they were on top of the pile.
I heard her violin's squeal and hum from all the way down the hall, and though I had to think for a minute, I realized she was playing an old Rise Against song. I only knew it because she'd been singing parts of it for weeks, and now I couldn't get it out of my head either.
The sound rose with smooth fury, and I listened, just leaning against her door. When she stopped, I waited, hoping I'd hear it again.
Instead, I got a text asking where I was with the red curry and pad kee mao.
"Sorry," I said when she opened the door. "I was enjoying the show."
She glanced at the bow in her hand and shrugged. "Yeah, it is not where I want it yet. We're not posting that one anytime soon," she sighed.
Like a creepy dick, I Googled her last month. I didn't know what compelled me to do it, but I was sitting in my office one afternoon, talking myself off the ledge from another futile argument with Shannon, and decided to look up Miss Desai. It was that, or start another filthy text conversation and I couldn't walk around construction sites with an erection. Again. That was begging for trouble.
I expected to find her course syllabus, maybe a bio on the college website, and the standard social media fare.
I found a YouTube channel with two dozen clips, each boasting more than a half million hits. She played popular songs—Fall Out Boy, Tom Petty, Paramore, Muse, The Shins, Britney Spears, Hot Chelle Rae, The Who—and they were the most fucking incredible things I'd ever heard.
I watched every video, some more than once.
If I was anywhere near as talented as Tiel, I'd tell people about it every day. I'd tattoo the fucking URL on my forehead and announce it every time I walked into a room. It took some strategic questioning—and shots, shots always worked on Tiel—but she divulged the whole story.
It started with her posting a clip of a Panic! At the Disco track for critical feedback, hoping to get some advice on how to blend the sounds the ways she wanted them. Instead, she got requests for more songs.
Tiel kept improving the Panic! At the Disco tune, but posted others from her early morning studio sessions. She'd even started recording multiple tracks, each with her playing different instruments, and layering them into one like her own self-contained quartet. She rolled her eyes when I suggested she was an internet celebrity and the only virtuoso I'd ever met.
Being famous wasn't her concern; she did it for the music.
Once inside her apartment, she rehashed her morning with one of her kid friends, and how his parents arranged a small recital at their JCC, but he wasn't interested in playing. After some warm ups, he came around, but she sat beside him on the piano bench the entire time.
"That sounds like torture," I said, unpacking the boxes on her coffee table. I gave the particle board structure a baleful glare and mentally cataloged the wood in my workshop. I could build better shit while I was sleepwalking. She needed some furniture that hadn't been passed around grad school apartments for the past six presidencies.
"It's not," she said. She popped open two beers and carried them to the table. "If you don't push every now and then, you don't grow."
She talked about the tonality problems she was having with the Rise Against song, and while I didn't understand half of what she was saying, I liked listening to her while we ate. There were bridges and chord progressions hampering her progress, and her ongoing struggle to feel as competent with the cello as she did with the violin. She was honest about her weaknesses, and rarely hid behind them by overcompensating the way I did.
Intellect was always my cover. I'd yet to encounter a situation beyond high school where my vocabulary, my expertise, my extensive reading didn't protect me. Smart was intimidating, and it kept people from noticing anything beyond big words, off-handed references to literary texts, and endless amounts of sustainable preservation research at the ready.
Clothes were my second line of defense. If I was swagged up, no one noticed the bulge from my glucose monitor. An eye-catching tie, a fancy pocket square, some trendy color combinations. They were the ideal distraction, and I was careful to cut slits in my pockets to allow the tubing to thread beneath my clothes and through to my device without risking exposure.
It wasn't entirely self-preservation, though. I enjoyed shopping, and when I started pulling in respectable money, I liked building out my wardrobe with designer suits. It was true what they said about looking the part.
She pushed the empty container away and reached over, fingering the medical alert bracelets on my wrist and turning them over to read the engravings. She was quiet, and I hoped she wasn't noticing how my pulse popped into warp speed when her fingers brushed over my skin.
It didn't matter how many times in the past two months she reached for me. I still wasn't used to it, but not because I couldn't handle her touching me; it was because I could, and that realization was still mind-blowing.
"How long have you been diabetic?"
"Since always," I said.
"And this one?" She lifted the other bracelet. "You're allergic to all antibiotics?"
"Pretty much. I prefer natural remedies anyway. You'd never believe what you can cure with some apple cider vinegar." She gave me a sidelong glance clearly intended to communicate her distrust of my witch doctoring.
We settled in to watch a movie—The Social Network; her choice—and I kicked off my shoes, and draped her legs over my lap.
Within minutes of the movie starting, Tiel was talking. She always did this. She'd ask where she knew an actor from; I'd spend ten minutes searching IMDb. She'd want to know whether a specific song was on the official soundtrack; I'd pull it up on Amazon. She'd realize she'd chattered through the first half of the film and was confused; I'd recap it for her. She'd see an actress with great tits and hypothesize whether I'd fuck her or why I wasn't fucking someone like her in a coatroom at that moment; I'd ignore that entire commentary.
"You remind me of Mark Zuckerberg," she said, glancing at my jeans and hoodie. "Your style is obviously very different." She gestured to my feet. "I mean, those are some snazzy socks, young man, but you're smart and really cerebral, and more socially awkward than most turtles."
"Thanks?" I muttered.
"Don't look so offended," Tiel said.
She pulled me toward her until we were lying together on the sofa, her back against my chest and her ass to my crotch. I held my breath for a long moment, terrified that she'd feel the infusion site and glucose sensor under my shirt. They were on either side of my abdomen, and if she leaned in at a particular angle, she couldn't miss them.
"You're far more likable," she said, patting my thigh.
"Well that's good," I said, a breath rushing out with my words. "Because I doubt you'll find Zuckerberg wandering the streets of Cambridge these days, and he's definitely not bringing you Thai food and beer, Sunshine."
I studied her while she watched the movie, and ran my fingers through her thick, glossy hair. She kept it short, about shoulder-length, and it was a bone-straight curtain of sleek ebony. There was no explaining my attraction to her ear or the tiny constellation of studs trailing up her lobe, but I loved the silky skin just behind it.
I usually waited for a sign from her, some indication that she wanted a bit more than friendly cuddles, but she was busy analyzing the evolution of Justin Timb
erlake's music since his boy band days.
I didn't want to wait for that sign tonight. I wanted to touch her and taste her without invitation, but I'd backed myself into this goddamn friends corner with Tiel, and that meant I'd lost my balls and what was left of my mind.
In the process, I'd also lost my taste for slutting it up and hadn't enjoyed anonymous sex since August. I just couldn't convince myself to want that anymore, and none of it made sense to me.
My world was gradually shifting and reshaping itself, and all I knew was that I felt different, but different in ways I couldn't verbalize. There was the obvious—fewer blowjobs, less gin, more underground concerts, many more movie nights—but it was so much more. Part of me wanted to assign a name and some order to all this. A bigger part of me knew I wasn't rolling around rock bottom anymore, and for that victory alone I should focus on savoring the sweet woman in my arms and the quiet peace we'd found in this absurd friends-but-more-than-friends construct.
To be fair, I might have built the corner I was backed into, but I never stopped asking Tiel whether it was what she wanted.
Would friends do that?
Are we still friends?
Just friends, right? That's what you want?
The door was open for her to say no, hell no.
"Keep doing that," Tiel murmured, leaning into my hand. "You haven't said anything nice about my boobs all night. They're feeling neglected."
My fingers tangled in her hair, and I brushed my lips over that hidden spot between her hairline and the shell of her ear. It would be the perfect location for a tiny tattoo.
A little something only I knew.
"You're wearing that pink bra," I said against her hair. "The comfortable one you claim you've had forever. The one you took off through your sleeve a few weeks ago. It makes your tits look so soft and full, and fucking edible."
And fuck me, I wanted to tear her clothes off and drag my tongue around the heavy underside of her breasts, sucking and licking and biting until I had to feel with my hands, my cock, my entire being. I wanted to spend hours there, tasting her, mapping her curves, discovering what made her moan and arch.
There was so much to learn, yet buried deep inside that desire was the realization that I wanted something different with Tiel, something too fucking complex to start unless I knew what I was doing. The friendship we'd forged was significant, and I wouldn't destroy that by running in dick first. Sofa-cuddling and sporadic sexting paled in comparison to the hungry knot of affection that was growing in my chest, doubling and tripling and fucking exploding with every touch, kiss, glance.
And if I didn't find a path out of the friend corner soon, my balls would be blowing up like the Fourth of July.
8
Tiel
Dun-dun-dun-dun.
"It's all he'll play," Beth whispered. "It's been almost four hours, and he hasn't stopped."
Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-da.
She crossed her arms under her breasts, her nails worrying her linen sleeves. Everything about her was tight: her ballerina-rigid posture, the sock bun high on her head, the way her hands gripped her elbows.
She was girding herself for battle.
I didn't usually see Lucas on Fridays, but when Beth called this morning, I set aside my preparation for the classes I was teaching next week.
Peering around the doorway, I watched Lucas's narrow shoulders rising and falling as his slim, pale fingers slammed against the piano's keys. He played with the velocity of a classically trained pianist who knew the notes nearly as well as Beethoven himself.
"He's in it," I murmured.
"What does that mean?" she asked, her expression slightly horrified.
I gestured to the piano and the seven-year-old seated at the bench, but knew Beth wouldn't understand my meaning. "He's in that headspace where the only thing that makes sense is the music."
Her frown deepened. "It's been hours. He's going to be hungry and tired."
"Give us some time. We'll be fine."
Warily, Beth retreated. Hovering was her way, and if there was one thing I learned from seeing Lucas three times per week for the past year, it was that Beth would lie down in traffic for her kid. She'd fight and argue and nag for him, and she wouldn't stop until he had the very best of everything: doctors, therapists, dietary consultants, teachers.
I wasn't sure where I fit into that particular ecosystem, but jamming with Lucas was almost as entertaining as performing a live show. According to Beth, he loved music as a baby, and long before he received an official autism spectrum diagnosis, she found that music was the only thing that truly soothed him.
I studied him for several minutes, listening as he worked through the Fifth Symphony's first movement. It wasn't a typical repertoire piece for violinists, but I knew it well.
Miss Michaels, my middle school orchestra teacher, loved Beethoven. She tried her damnedest to get a bunch of kids from suburban New Jersey to play the Ninth Symphony without sounding like a dying trash compactor, and for that I'd always admire her.
I never felt like I didn't belong in that classroom. It didn't matter to anyone whether I was the weird girl who couldn't sit still. In that classroom, everything made sense.
If it weren't for Miss Michaels, I'd probably still be in New Jersey. She convinced me to apply for a private conservatory high school, and then persuaded my parents to let me attend when the admissions letter arrived. She spent months helping me practice for my Juilliard audition, and though my family was minimally pleased when I was accepted, it was Miss Michaels who said, "You have no idea how special you really are, do you?"
When Lucas started the movement again, I secured my violin in place and joined at the strings cue after the first eight notes. He turned when he heard me, his fingers moving as if independent entities, and a slight smile broke across his face. Shifting closer, I positioned myself in his line of sight as we played.
He wasn't comfortable with eye contact, but he did like watching my fingers.
We worked through the piece twice more, and then I showed Lucas how to gradually change the tempo—the molto ritardando motif—and we played that for another hour.
As we approached the final notes of the movement, his fingers stilled over the keys. He glanced at me and nodded, then hopped off the bench and left the room.
That was how our sessions typically ended.
I tucked away my instrument—I called her Jezebel because she'd seen it all—and Beth intercepted me before I could leave.
"Can I just hug you?" she asked as she wrapped her arms around me. She was oddly strong for such a skinny woman, and I squeaked at the force of her embrace. "I don't know how you do it, Tiel."
I wanted to tell her and all the families I worked with that I wasn't doing anything remarkable. We were messing around with the algorithms of music and manipulating the notes to bring order to the chaos in our worlds, and I enjoyed it as much as these kids.
But they didn't understand it the way we did. It wasn't just sound; it was our operating system.
My new friend, Seraphina, was the exact same way. She didn't talk, and spent our first session crouching in a corner, her head tucked against her chest as she drew her finger back and forth over her knee. The repetitive motion gave her a constant to focus on while the texture of her jeans against her finger gradually dulled to soothing pressure. These were the little mechanisms our brains invented to deal with stressful situations.
I played some One Direction songs on my guitar while she tried to melt into that corner, but after the fourth song, I noticed her glancing at me. Sometimes interest was enough to suspend fear, even for brief moments.
I wasn't in much of a hurry, so instead of heading directly for the T station, I stopped in Copley Square and settled on the grass. I loved these crisp, sunny late October days, and I wanted to soak it all up before wintery slush became the norm.
With my sunglasses in place, I lay back, watched the clouds, and hummed U2's 'Staring at the Sun.'
It was amazing to me how, in the middle of a bustling city, I could always find moments of tranquility. My cloud-gazing gradually descended into napping until my phone vibrated beside me. Glancing at the name on the screen, I considered letting it go to voicemail.
But that just meant I'd need to call him later.
"Hi, Dad," I said.
"Hello, Tiel!" he said. "I didn't expect you'd answer."
Yeah, that pretty much summarized my relationship with my family. But he should have understood. He knew what it was like to be an outsider in this family, to surrender so much of himself in order to assimilate.
Then again, it wasn't as though I'd surrendered anything.
My parents met when he was in college, and he interned at the accounting firm down the street from the restaurant. It was sweet, really, and if I removed it from the context of them being terribly disinterested in me as their child, I could admire the beauty of their story.
My mother usually covered the day shifts and spent the evenings looking after her nieces and nephews so the rest of my family could work the dinner rush. That was the order of things: life revolved around the restaurant. Instead of getting lunch to go, he started sitting at the counter and talking to my mother while she worked. They married less than a year later, and Dad had been managing the restaurant's finances ever since. Her parents weren't thrilled about her marrying a non-Greek, non-Christian guy, but considering they let him handle all the money, I assumed they made peace with it.
But that didn't mean our home wasn't a tidy melding of cultures. We were first and foremost Greek, and when the opportunity suited the situation, we were also Indian. The only outward sign of mixed ethnicity was my strange name.
Looking in from the outside, no one would guess that my father grew up in a traditional Hindu home. He embraced my mother's culture, customs, and faith. His Hinduism was like sprinkles on the sundae: an extra, a bonus, an if-we-have-room.
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