Power Trio

Thekla’s cherry-red Alfons lets out a final snarl and then grinds itself silent beneath her pick.

“Great take.” Rahul’s voice doubles; first through the man himself, seated at a red-fringed rolling chair, then piped a millisecond later through her oversized headphones. “Excellent take, everyone. How do we feel? Do the rhythm folks want to come out and see what we’ve got?”

“I don’t know,” Kell’s voice is muffled through the door separating her and Evan from the guitarists and their recording engineer. “We were off from the click a bit during the second verse.”

“The click’s the click,” Rahul says. “You weren’t off from each other. That’s the thing. Why don’t let’s give it a listen and we can punch verse two in if we need it, yeah?”

Kell and Evan have an indistinct conversation. “Okay,” she calls, and there’s a rhythmic tapping on the door into the main studio. “Someone let us outta here.”

Thekla hops from her rickety stool and opens the door to what they’ve been calling the drum gulag. Kell pokes her head out and shakes her hair loose of the indents the studio ear cans made in it. “Honestly, dude, why does this door lock from outside? Making my ass feel like Fortunato in there.”

The main room of Rahul’s recording studio at Warcry would feel spacious if every corner wasn’t hanging with synthesizers, instruments, cables, spare batteries, one of those lucky fortune cats with the bobbing paw, speakers, euroracks, stompboxes, and various musical and metaphysical knickknacks. As it is, they’re all clustered away from the walls, terrified to touch anything (except for Sion, who’s been poking around inquisitively this whole time). It’s a snug fit, and the band’s divided itself in half. Thekla and Sion play out in the main studio, directly into Rahul’s recording interface. Kell and Evan are in the gulag, one soundproofed door away from the tinkering of their guitars.

Evan pokes his head out around Kell’s shoulder. “I want to go back and redo the intro. My articulation was trash.”

“One thing at a time, my friends.” Rahul taps at his keyboard, squinting up at the highest of his four monitors. “The key is getting the drums in a good place. Once we have that, we have the framework. The rest of the song hangs off it. So Kellax, ears up on this.” He clicks, then relaxes back in his seat and sucks a hit off his vape as Commodity Credit’s introduction blares through the room.

Evan does a cute wince when he hears a bum note in the intro, but Thekla thinks he and Kell sound great. She feels a private but fierce joy at how unburdened that thought is now. Kell and Evan sound fantastic together; she freely admits it. They interlock like one voice, like they’ve played together for years. Precise as a timepiece but with a raw organic energy. And both these extremely tall, extremely talented musicians, both of them, really want to fuck Thekla. She knows exactly what she felt when she was sitting on Evan’s lap last night. And it felt about as big as her (admittedly fun-sized) forearm.

Ain’t life grand.

The three of them are trying hard to act casual around Sion—who’s so distracted he probably wouldn’t notice if she was wearing a T-shirt that said KELL AND EVAN’S BRATTY LITTLE SUB on it—and around Rahul, an extra-large teddy bear of a human with a big smile, a bigger beard, and a zen attitude. “You’re gonna pay me by song, not by time,” he told them in Warcry’s lobby. “Time makes us rush and see each other as the enemy. If I’m going to know how to mix you, I need to know how you hang. And I refuse to charge for hanging time.”

But keeping her game face on is easier said than done. Brief moments of physical contact, shared looks, even just standing near each other, close enough to hear breath and feel body heat. It’s all been turbocharged with meaning and anticipation.

Thekla had entertained a fantasy that she’d break Evan’s will last night, that he’d flip her onto her back and take her right on the couch. He didn’t, of course. He’s an Eagle Scout. But there’s a beast lurking somewhere behind those pale blue eyes, she’s sure of it. She just has to whet its appetite, and eventually it’ll have no choice but to sink its teeth into her.

She has said nothing to Kell, but Evan must have, because she’s been giving Thekla these grinning looks all morning that feel as though they’re ratcheting a band around Thekla’s stomach, tighter and tighter. She can only pray Kell understands the gravity of the situation and intends to do something about it the next time they’re alone, because if these two big idiots don’t fuck the red out of her hair tonight, she’s going to implode.

On the plus side, if the recording is any indication, being face-clawingly horny is great for making rock music. Thekla’s only really recording scratch tracks in these early takes; the main thing they’re trying to capture is the percussion and the bass. But listening back, she ends up grooving along to herself, and with the way Rahul smiles and throws her the horns mid-track she knows that she’s traced this take in fire.

“There, you see?” he says, as the song ends in a wash of reverb. “Couldn’t even spot the speed-up. You might not be on the click, but you’re real tight with each other.”

Kell exhales hard through her nose. “Well okay. I guess I can let go of it.”

Rahul claps once. “That’s the spirit. We’re here making music. Biologically. Perfect imperfection, sister. That’s gettin’ rarer, you know.”

Kell laughs. “Rahul, my man, you make a podcast or something and I’m subscribing to it.”

“You joke,” Rahul says, “but I already got two. Okey-doke.” He slides back up to his console. “We’re gonna save that. And I tell you what, I think we hold on to that rhythm guitar part too, Thekla. Let’s take ten, do the needful, and then I’ll set up for Fossil Fuel, okay? You may yerb up at your discretion.”

He opens a mini-fridge next to his desk to reveal a forest of canned yerba mate teas. He pulls one out and pops the top, his fourth for the day.

“I’m gonna do a quick bodega run,” Evan says. “Anyone need anything?”

“All good here.” Kell reaches into the yerba cave. “I’m having a love affair with these things.”

“Can you get me a pack of smokes?” Thekla says. “I’ll get you back for it.”

“Sion?” Evan looks at the ash elf, who’s prodding at one of Rahul’s sequencers.

“Jerky, if you please,” Sion says.

“Any specific kind?”

“The kind they make out of meat.”

Well, at least he’s talking to them again.

Evan goes off on his errand and Rahul hits the john. Kell and Thekla, through unspoken accord, edge out of the room as Sion prowls through the electronics.

There’s a lineup of vending machines in an alcove off of Warcry’s studio hallway. Kell punches the combo for a bag of pretzels and the women watch in silent petition as the aging machine creaks and labors. Kell gives it an open-palm slap on the side and the bag finally dislodges itself.

“How’d it go with Evan?” she asks innocently.

“Like you don’t already know.” Thekla pulls the pretzels from the pickup box and cracks the bag open.

“Thekla, my pretzels!” Kell grabs the bag from her, but not before she’s popped a couple into her mouth.

Thekla shakes her head as she chews. “You and Evan over there in the spooky drum gulag gossiping about your poor goblin. It’s not right. This is your penance.”

Kell glances both ways down the hallway. “Would a kiss make it better?”

Thekla lets the orc crouch down to her level, then flounces past her. “Nope! I think I’m just going to steal the pinkskin from you and we’ll elope in Vegas.”

Kell falls into step with her. “You little green tease.”

“Welly well, look at Kell. She winds me up all night in her great big bed and then she doesn’t like it when it happens to her.”

“Wind you up.” Kell eats a pretzel. “All we did was cuddle, babe.”

“That is the kind of ignorant statement that shows how little you know about the hearts of fair goblin maidens,” Thekla says. “Maybe once we’re finished recording today, I’ll have time to give you a chaste farewell forehead smooch before me and Evan run away together.”

“Run away?” Kell’s voice goes soft and dangerous. Her hand lands heavily on Thekla’s lower back and slides downward. She cups a handful of pert green goblin butt and squeezes hard, forcing a gasp from Thekla’s lips. “Tonight, when I’m through with you, you won’t even be able to walk.”

“You are evil.” Thekla hurries double-time to keep up with her drummer’s long legs.

“Don’t fuck with an orc’s pretzels, Kamiyon,” Kell says.