Days blurred into weeks, leaving Thad in a strange, shifting limbo. At first he buried himself in work, developing and testing new ideas, forecasting numbers, taking prep work from his station cooks just to occupy his hands. He kept his headphones dialed in to endless podcasts of people just talking, talking, talking. He didn't listen to the content, but the noise kept him from thinking.
When he did think, he thought big, contemplating not being rooted to this one restaurant forever. He'd traveled a little after getting out of the service, stupid, reckless traveling, but he had more money now. Maybe he could go to Europe, or East Asia, eat around, talk to chefs, learn.
He'd even called Gerard, the angel investor who'd been pestering him for months. Gerard was Mateo's contact, but Thad didn't care. He invited Gerard to the restaurant one night, and they'd eaten together, drinking good wine and talking about a potential future restaurant, something Thad would normally have avoided like the plague. But he was starting to see the allure of selling the place and starting something different, somewhere else. Who did he have here to keep him feeling rooted? No one.
Alice missed a few days of work after the blowup. She didn't call, and he didn't call. He thought it fairly likely she'd never come back. So when she did come back, smiling weakly at him and biting her fingernails, he reciprocated the smile, saying nothing, putting his earbuds back in. They worked in silent tandem together as they so often did, speaking only when necessary. While he worked, Thad told himself that Alice was strong and resilient, that she didn't need him to protect her anymore. She had chosen Mateo for that now, and Thad would be grateful for whatever little space she left for an old friend. Who knew how long Mateo would let her work for him, or how long he'd let her work at all. They never spoke of Mateo, or of Elena.
At night he'd keep the TV on, even while he slept. He watched porn every night, jacking off mindlessly, two, sometimes three times, rubbing himself raw to images of big tittied bottle blondes take it up the ass.
He went to the club every weekend, partly to watch the scenes, but also for the deafening noise and the feeling of being surrounded by people who were just as fucked up as he was. He didn't even try to take anyone home. A few women approached him and he halfheartedly listened to them, let them grind up a little against his dick as they stood together watching the scenes. But when the moment came for him to buy them a drink, take them into a private room, he let the opportunity pass. No, the club was just live porn for him these days. Something he watched instead of participating in. He'd come home late and crash, struggling to go to work the next day, fueled only on coffee and energy bars.
But he couldn't keep up his frenetic pace forever, he knew that the crash was coming eventually. And it came in the strangest of places, a young man playing a violin as Thad exited the streetcar one morning on an expedition to find a particular brand of mushroom powder.
The sound of the strings had hit him like a brick in the face when he stepped out of the streetcar, surrounded by people busily walking past. The bow caressed the strings, the long, plaintive notes slicing cleanly through his daze. He stood there, unable to move, watching the man's hand perch over the bow, his figure swaying as he played. Thad closed his eyes, all too aware of the ridiculousness of it, and it was Elena, in an emerald green dress, rocking back and forth as the music swelled from the instrument between her thighs. Elena's dark skin, luscious and exposed. Elena's hair, its waves cascading, calling out to him like a siren song. Her little half smile when she found his eyes at the party, when she wiped her mouth after deep throating his cock.
Thad had turned around, boarding the same streetcar he had just exited. He went home, even though he had planned to return to work after his shopping trip. He stripped and got into bed, pulling up the covers, and tried to sleep.
It was silent in his room for the first time in over a month, but it somehow didn't bother him. He still heard the man's violin, and it summoned the faint memory of Elena's song that night. He'd never figured out the name of it. He reached down, holding his dick in his hand, asking it if it wanted to be touched. But his cock lay limp, and Thad slept.
He woke to the sound of his phone ringing, and the desperate urge to pee. He took the call while standing over the toilet. It was Alice.
"Hey," he said gruffly, his voice hoarse from disuse.
"Hey," she said cautiously. "You ok?"
"Yeah."
"It's . . . it's almost 4. You coming in today?"
"Jesus," he swore tiredly. "Yeah, yeah, I'll be there in an hour."
"You don't sound good, Thad."
"I'm fine. I'm just tired."
"Maybe you're sick. You should go back to bed."
"No, I'm not sick," he insisted, but his voice sounded pathetic even to him.
"Remember your cardinal rule."
Thad's cardinal rule was
Don't come to work sick.
It was negligence of the first order for a restaurant worker to handle food while sick. Whenever anyone in the kitchen sneezed twice in a row, he sent them home.
"Yeah, maybe I'll stay home."
Alice was silent for a moment, apparently surprised at the readiness with which he gave in.
"Take a few days. We only have the platters going out this weekend, the guys and I can handle that without you."
"We need stuff from the market though."
"As if I've never gone to the market without you," she said drily.
He wanted to laugh, but he had nothing in him.
"Ok, I'll call you Sunday."
"Alright," she said softly.
He stood there naked, holding his dick over the toilet bowl, Alice still on the line. He should hang up, take a shower, eat something. But he just stood there.
"Are you okay, Thad, really?"
Thad sighed. There was nothing he could say to that.
"Go back to bed," she said in a motherly tone. "And if you don't answer my texts over the weekend, I'm coming over."
"Ooohh, I'm scared."
Alice laughed, and he felt the relief in her voice to hear him tease, even just a little.
He ended the call, crawling back into bed as Alice had commanded, thoughts of a shower disappearing as the urge to burrow was stronger than all else.
***
He woke again to the chime of his phone, groaning. He peeked his head out of the covers, and the sun was down. He'd slept all fucking day. Maybe he
was
sick.
He flipped his phone over, saw Alice's name, and groaned again. His stomach growled, and he knew he had to eat. But an unanswered text from Alice apparently meant company, and that he did
not
want.
The notification read simply: "Don't be mad at me for sending."
Thad frowned, confused, and opened his message app. As he started to type a reply, another text chimed.
It was a video clip of Elena.
Thad stared at the small rectangle on his phone, too surprised to press play. She was dressed in black, her cello poised. Behind her was a red velvet backdrop, like the kind at old theatres. He could make out banners of text on the top and bottom of the screen. It was a produced video clip, not Alice's personal recording.
He looked at his phone, holding it midair, doing nothing.
Then he put the phone down, took a long, hot shower, and ate a bowl of noodles. He drank a glass of cold water, and then another. He put on clean clothes, and brought his phone out to the kitchen island. Sitting on a barstool, he pressed play.
It was her showcase, he realized belatedly. Only a minute or so of a song, then it faded out, fading back in to her playing another. Just snippets, with her name in the top banner, and the name of the song and composer on the bottom. No sound from any audience. At the end there was a white screen with her program's name, and a link to watch the showcase in full.
She'd been so nervous. And while he knew next to nothing about classical music, he knew with certainty that she'd done well. Exquisitely well.
But she'd looked somber, the tight smile on her face at times not precisely one of happiness, but of pleasantry. She had worn black slacks and a black blouse, a far cry from a backless green silk dress with slits to mid-thigh. And she hadn't looked out at the audience at all. She had known he wasn't there.
Another text from Alice.
"?"
Thad exhaled a short breath, a fragment of a laugh. He typed a reply.
"Thank you."
Three dots appeared, then disappeared. Then Alice rewrote, and sent.
"She did amazing."
Thad hesitated.
"I knew she would," he typed eventually, locking and silencing the phone right after.
He got up, and put shoes on. It was time for a walk.
***
Thad couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt as he entered the club a few nights later, knowing that Alice and the crew were prepping the catering without him while he watched strangers fuck each other in a sex dungeon.
He didn't even really want to go, but he'd had several more relapses of lying in bed for long stretches, avoiding air and light and humans. It had begun to feel like the start of something worrying, so he had decided to go out. He'd thought maybe a hike, but it had rained, and had considered a movie, but couldn't find anything worth seeing. So it was back at the trusty fuck fortress.
It was a glow party night. Had Thad known this, he wouldn't have gone. The club took on a stupid vibe during glow parties, with people painting their faces and bodies, and idiotic giant glowing balloons being tossed around all night. A different crowd came out then, young people who liked to dance, and there was less of the real stuff to see. It was hard to flog to Aqua's "Barbie Girl."
He was watching a scene halfheartedly, distracted by the strobing colors. It was a professor/student detention setup, not exactly Thad's cup of tea, but it was better than a damn balloon. The girl had a great ass, and she wore a collar. She belonged to someone then, though not necessarily her "teacher" in the scene. She was a pretty good actor, looking truly repentant for whatever homework she'd failed to turn in, gazing up at teacher with eyes as big as saucers as she started to blow him.
Thad focused on the woman's mouth as it wrapped around her teacher's cock, the man's hand resting heavily on her head, holding her chestnut hair in a loose bun, the pressure encouraging her deeper. It was good, a little too close to Thad's sore spot, but he couldn't look away.
A chorus of loud feminine shrieks pulled the audience's attention, and Thad rolled his eyes at a group of women smearing glow-in-the-dark paint all over each other's naked breasts. When he turned back to the scene, his eyes caught.
It was Elena.
Thad blinked forcefully, distrustful of his eyes. But it was her, and she was dressed like a slut.
His breathing increased as he took in her getup. Her tight white crop top glowed an otherworldly bright blue in the blacklight, exposing half her stomach. Then a short, black leather skirt, black sheer tights, and the combat boots she had worn to the restaurant that night. He stared at that skirt, practically just a leather napkin, his gaze catching on the shine of a belly chain at her waist. Her mass of hair was slicked back into a high ponytail, and her lips were painted dark. On her wrist was a glowing white band, a sign that she was here on a vetted guest pass. A white bracelet meant she was off limits to men, untouchable. But every man here could see every curve of her body on display.
Where the
fuck
