Power Trio

Two days since the bonfire, and Thekla can’t stop playing with her engagement ring, twisting it round and round her finger. She gets all mushy and starry-eyed every time she touches it. Conna lost her fucking mind when she saw, crowing like a rooster and showering them with effusive demands to share the proposal story. Thekla made up a very sweet and convincing lie.

The trio decide that the fence-mending thing to do, if they’re sharing a label, is show up to the Masonry set. Thekla privately pumps a fist when she hears of the way Kell took out the trash with Ragan, but who knows what he’s been saying to Teo since?

Masonry finish their opener with a digital wash of static and a cacophony of applause. Beach balls bounce and drift before the decked-out soundstage’s massive speaker stacks, as the video projection displayed above Masonry pans through camera angles of its members.

“You wanna get up on my shoulders?” Kell asks as the applause ebbs.

“I’m good,” Thekla says. “Don’t want to bug anyone behind us.”

Kell fidgets, the skin of her forearm rubbing up against Thekla. “You sure?”

“You don’t need an excuse to touch me if you want to touch me, girl.” Thekla laughs. “We’re brides-to-be.”

Kell squeaks and scoops Thekla off the ground in a bridal carry, smushes her cheek-to-cheek. Thekla hears a deep inhale through the orcs’s nose. So far, she hasn’t perceived so many changes in the newly imprinted Kell that can’t be explained by being her moonstruck fiancée. The one thing she has noticed is that the orc has been sniffing her a lot lately, and doing this full-body shiver afterwards.

Thekla feels priceless and prized.

Masonry’s clockwork precision is bringing out the boogie in the fans near the front of the stage, pulling on the festivalgoers like a lunar tide. From Kell-height, Thekla’s got a good view on the digital screen. It cuts from Beaula, at the center of a shiny cocoon of electronics, to Ragan, who’s sporting one hell of a black eye. “Jesus.” Evan squints. “Look at that shiner.”

“I’m not proud of that,” Kell says.

“I am,” Thekla says. “He’s out of your life. It’s not on your head if that’s what it took to send the message.”

As Masonry’s final song oscillates through the clear afternoon air, Thekla makes her way to the outskirts of the crowd and around to the rear of the stage. She takes her flip-flops off on the grass and feels the dewy blades tickle her ankles as she approaches the stage. Here’s Anise, on the phone like always. Thekla gives her a wave and she returns it, lowering the phone for a moment. “Conna wants you at the Shrike show after this. She says be near the front so she can freak out about Samhain and the cameras can catch you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of missing it.”

“Did your drummer punch their guitarist?” Anise asks.

“You’d have to ask the drummer or the guitarist. You mind if I wait back here?”

“Not at all.” She gets back on her call and strides away. “Are you still there? Look, I have to scoot. I’ll talk to him. I know he’s reluctant. We’re all reluctant. Just let me get in front of him.”

Ragan’s off the stage first. He doesn’t even look at her. Thekla intercepts Teo as he’s coming down the steps. They walk together, watching the crush of the crowd filter itself out to the concessions and the merch.

“It was a great set,” she says. “You really had ‘em hooked into the sound.”

Teo chuckles and shakes his head. “We’re filler. It’s an honor, for sure. But we’re filler. We caught a break and drew a crowd between mainstage shows. But next year.” He looks out across the sloping hill. “Next year we’re a headline.”

Thekla recognizes something of the woman she loves in those eyes. The same far sight. “You take Friday we take Saturday, right?”

“If the orcs don’t kill each other first. Sure.”

She bites down around the blame she wants to throw Ragan’s way. “It’s all love, you know,” she says. “Outside of the orc thing.”

”I know. Hell, I feel like Sion might induct Beaula into his cult thing soon.” Teo snaps his gum. “I’m no good at the drama, you know? That’s maybe my big blind spot. I just wanted to make music. I didn’t think it was gonna feel like a marriage.”

Thekla gives Teo a light bump on the arm. “I know exactly what you mean.”

* * *

“We could be hyphenates,” Thekla says. “And just make everyone’s lives miserable. Thekla Houper-Falrak-Kamiyon.”

“Not doing hyphens,” Kell says. “I escaped the apostrophe. Not every orc gets lucky like that. No hyphens.”

“No Houper in there either, I think,” Evan says, coasting onto the off-ramp. “This is the perfect opportunity to solve the Houper problem. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier.”

“What about just Kamiyon, then?” Kell asks. “I mean correct me if I’m wrong, Thek, but you’re the only one of us who’s particularly attached to the surname.”

“I don’t know if I’d say attached,” Thekla says.

“Bitch, you have a bigass family crest back tattoo worth at least 3 grand,” Kell says. “That’s attached.”

“I didn’t pay 3 grand!” Thekla protests. “I did a lot of swapping.”

“I’d be a Kamiyon,” Evan says. “The Kamiyons I’ve met have all been cool.”

“It would give you a voice.” Thekla puts some actual thought to the proposition. “You’d be part of my delegation. I’d need to talk to the matriarch.” But inside, she thrills. Her husband. Her wife. Two new Kamiyons. Maybe she’s never gonna bear the clan a litter, but who else can say they’ve brought in a member who’s 6 foot 5?

“A clan voice. This idea just keeps getting better. Kell Kamiyon. KK. I love it.” Kell throws an arm around Thekla, bends down to inhale her hair. “Also, I think it’s hilarious conceptually if two doms take their sub’s last name.”

“Kell.” Thekla’s ears go peach pink. “Shut the fuck up.”

“This is putting the cart before the horse, but I worry that once we’re hitched, I’m going to have to call you my spouses and I hate that word.” Kell makes a face. “It sounds like you’re some kind of herb.”

“In my head we’re lovers,” Thekla says. “I might keep using that. You’re right about spouses.”

“We still aren’t into partners?” Evan asks.

Thekla clicks her tongue. “Shut up, dude. You can just use ‘wives.’ You’re on easy mode.”

“I am actually going to use wives too,” Kell says. “I have my goblin wife and my boywife.”

Evan shrugs his affable consent.

“Congratulations, by the by,” Sion says from the passenger seat. “I can’t say I approve of your otherwise unblemished romance propping up a decaying societal institution, but the rings do look lovely.”

Kell flashes hers. “Thank you, Benefice.”

“Can I ask you something, Sion?” Thekla leans forward to get eyes on the elf. “You have a lot of partners, right?”

“A fair few.”

“You have any you think of as, like, your primary?”

He gives her an amused look. “Do you?”

“No. But I just have two.”

“Keep practicing,” he says. “You’ll get out of rookie numbers eventually.”

“It just seems like with how many irons you’ve got in the fireplace, it would be tough to manage. We occupy your time more than any of them.”

“Well, of course I do,” he says. “With them, I’m only making out. With you, I’m making music.”

The towers of New Laytham rise from the horizon before their ribbon of road, catching the light with all the promise of a new sunrise.

* * *

Summer is ending. The wind off Lake Champlain brings a boreal bite.

The album is out. The album is selling. They get it on vinyl, even though they don’t have a record player. Kell hangs it proudly on the wall where a TV should probably go, eventually. Matte black, with a deboss of Thekla’s fairfolk skull design and LEGENDARY in block font. They’re going self-titled on the first release; coming up with the band name was already a bitch and a half.

They never figured out a new name for Thunder Thighs. It’s printed into their history now forever. Nobody’s perfect.

The bar fires Kell. She takes it with grace and the good cheer of a skyrocketing artist. “I’d fire me too,” she tells Thekla. “Last time I was there, it’d been so long I’d forgotten where we keep the fucking limes.”

It’s a blessing to have all their evenings open, because New Laytham wants as much Legendary as they can provide. They submit to Anise’s management and she lines up show after show after show. Converted warehouses in the Wharfs, LuDi concert halls, all-night hypebeast festivals at expansive Champtown soundstages.

Thekla sees herself on social media, not just in concert. Shots of her shopping for produce with Evan or biking with Kell through Mosaic park or posing with the beaming fans she runs into on the streets. She’s nearly inconsolable when someone uploads a candid shot of her making out with Kell in what she thought was a quiet community garden, one big purple hand clearly squeezing her ass. Her fiancés think it’s hilarious.

Trio Terrace is home now. It’s amazing how quickly that happened. Kell’s books on Thekla’s shelves. Evan’s basses on the wall, side-by-side with Thekla’s guitars. Thekla’s lyric notebooks spread out on Kell’s Cali King. Plants in the big breezy kitchen window and homemade dinners around the coffee table and getting to know the neighbors. This is Thekla’s life. It feels so massive and so cozy at the same time.

Their schedule is packed, but they make the most of their crash-time at the apartment, vegging out on their new furniture or basking on the fire escape coming up with farfetched wedding ideas. Or fucking, with toe-curling intensity, which her newly mated orc fiancée is eager to do just about all the time.

It used to be that Thekla’s considerable goblinoid libido burned the brightest of the throuple. But ever since the bonfire, Kell’s got her beat. Thekla will be puzzling out a sudoku, or singing in the shower, or putting away the dishes, and those long warm arms will come up from behind and the kisses will start creeping along her neck and she’ll barely have time to put her glasses somewhere safe before she’s being stretched across the nearest surface that will hold her weight (which, being a goblin, is most of them).

It’s a relief that Evan’s here to pick up the slack or Thekla would barely be able to walk. It doesn’t seem possible that just one lover could handle an imprinted orc. This woman is insatiable. With great effort and commendable patience from Sion, she’s managed to stop putting her hands under their clothing while they rehearse. Kell promises that at some point she’ll get used to the heady chemical cocktail that Thekla and Evan produce in her and be able to contain herself for longer than half a day.

They’re asked about the rings and repeat a pretty lie about a Niagara Falls proposal. They do an interview for a blog and an interview for a zine and an appearance on a radio show and on morning tv. They lay out some ground rules for these: no trying to pull another Scalar and do a gotcha or make the whole thing about Ray Houper. A few outlets they turn down this way, but not all of them. The word on Samhain is spreading to all corners. Evan Houper’s story has become Evan H’s story. And soon, not soon enough but soon, it will be Evan Kamiyon’s story.

The last show before Samhain, they play Vauxhill Hall, a grand and filigreed midtown proscenium, and sell it out. A packed general admission, more hanging off the balconies, shouting along with every song. They’re so familiar with their set that it’s as easy as breathing. They’ve been working on something, a billowy contrapuntal crooner with the working title of Lotus Eater, and when Thekla announces “Vauxhill, y’all want to hear a new one?” the decibel level vibrates the floor.

The green room to which they decamp is a far cry from the converted storage rooms of their past. It’s a well-appointed cove with leather furniture and a wall full of glowing vanity mirrors.

“We’re fucking rock gods.” Thekla collapses onto the couch. “We’ve fucking made it.”

“That was what, two thousand people?” Evan’s zipping his cables into his gig back. “One week’s time we’re going to be in front of about a hundred Vauxhills.”

Kell enters the green room like a mate-seeking missile, dives onto the couch and showers Thekla with kisses. She jabs a finger at Evan. “You get over here, young man.”

Evan laughs. “We have to start relocating these celebrations, Kell. We can’t dry hump in the green room.”

“Unfair,” Kell whines, but she straightens out, chastened. Thekla surreptitiously tucks her titty back in.

A shave-and-a-haircut knock on the green room door. Sion’s voice: “Are we decent?”

Evan opens the door and Sion swans in. One arm’s at the hip of Beaula from Masonry, the other is over Lucerne the kobold. “You’re going to have to come to the afters again, someday.” He retrieves his sweater. “Your public lacks you.”

“Someday,” Thekla promises.

“Sion says you’re engaged,” coos Lou. “That is just so winsome. When’s the wedding?”

“Soon,” Kell says.

“I’m thinking autumn,” Thekla says. “I love an autumn wedding. Maybe downstate. Changing leaves, small ceremony…”

“This autumn?” If Kell had a tail, it would be wagging. “Like next month?”

Thekla chuckles. “Next year, girl. Damn.”

“We’ll keep you in the loop,” Evan promises Lou.

“I was married once,” Beaula muses. “It was hilarious.”

Lou turns a shade of periwinkle as he gasps, scandalized and delighted. “You will tell me about this.”

“Not in front of the happy normies, dearhearts.” Sion steers his clique toward the door. “Don’t drill each other so hard you miss the plane, my lovely backup players. Ta-ta.”

A reassuring click from the doorknob, and Kell’s tongue is snaking back between Thekla’s lips. “Hon,” Evan gently chides. “We’ve got five minutes until the ride gets here.”

A frustrated whine in Kell’s throat. “Okay. Okay. But we’re going twice tonight.”

* * *

“My favorite part,” Evan says, returning to the bedroom with a bottle of water, “is that I don’t have to wear pants in the living room anymore.”

“Crazy you mention it. That’s my favorite part too.” Kell snags the bottle and takes a deep pull from it, draining it halfway.

“Phone.” Thekla gestures weakly at the nightstand, chest still heaving. “For you.” She catches her breath. “You got a whazzit. A missed call.”

Evan retrieves his phone and creaks back onto the bed, kissing her perspiring forehead as he unlocks it. She feels him go still.

Kell lays her head on his shoulder. “Who is it?”

“Tennessee area code,” he says.

“Ohh.” The pink haze recedes from Thekla’s brain. “Are you gonna…”

“Yep.” Evan redials and turns on speakerphone. He lays the phone in front of him on the bed. Thekla crawls over, uses Kell’s thigh as a pillow as the trio watches the call connect.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Evan H.” Evan’s got a hard-edged professional politeness in his voice. “You called me?”

“Evan! Hey!” A shifting sound on the line and the voice gets louder. “This is Uncle Houston.”

Evan’s mouth is a thin horizontal line. “Hi, Hugh.”

“Hey, Evan. How are ya?”

“I’m doing well,” Evan says. Silence as Uncle Houston waits for more; none is forthcoming.

“Well, hey. That’s good. That’s good. So Evan. We listened to the album.”

“Who’s we?”

“Whole family. The day it came out. And I’m calling to say: that’s pretty great stuff, Evan.”

“Thank you,” Evan says. “I’m with the band right now, actually. We’re all glad to hear you liked it.”

“Oh, you are. That’s good. Good deal. Tell ‘em we loved the vocals.”

“I will.”

Another lapse.

“Uh, Evan. I don’t want to… make anyone uncomfortable.”

“Sure.”

“He wants to talk to you.”

“Who’s he?”

A nervous, exhaling laugh crackles the connection. “Your dad, Evan. Just to congratulate you. We heard about the festival.”

“I see.”

“Thirty years after Thunderhead! Hell of a thing. Hell of a thing.”

“That’s right.”

“So. Yeah.” They hear Houston’s breath. “Can he call you?”

“I’m afraid not, Uncle Hugh. Sorry.”

“Evan. Look. Nothing anyone’s gonna say is… he isn’t angry, okay? About anything. He liked the album. He did.”

“Thanks for passing that along.” Evan picks the phone back up. “If that’s all, I have to go. Early night. We have a flight in the morning.”

“Wait a second. Just—I could put him on. He’s…” some muffled talking on the line. “He’d like to be civil with you. He’d like to apologize for some things.”

“If he’d like to apologize, there’s plenty of people who would be willing to hear it,” Evan says. “But that’s not something I need from him anymore. If you’d like, you can pass a message on to him, please.”

“Of course.”

“Tell him it wasn’t anyone’s fault that Mel Houper’s gone. Not the doctor’s or his or anyone’s. There wasn’t a reason. But he can take every bit of responsibility that Evan Houper is gone. He doesn’t ever need to seek any truth about that. He doesn’t need to wonder.”

Silence.

“Was there anything else?” Evan asks.

The call disconnects.

Kell closes her eyes and lays her lips on the nape of Evan’s neck. Her chest expands as she breathes him in. “Ours now,” she whispers.

“Yours.” Evan caresses Kell’s raven hair. He tosses his phone back onto the nightstand. “Someone mentioned twice? You still alive down there, Thek?”

“Pass me the water.” Thekla makes grabby hands at it. “I can rally.”

Evan hands her the hydration. The covers crinkle as Kell rubs up against them. “I really am going to get this under control eventually,” she says. “I promise. You guys are so good to me.”

“Don’t, uh.” Thekla lets herself be lifted and pressed up against her needy mate’s chest. “Don’t feel like you need to rush on our accounts.”