The Musician and the Monster Read online

  “Oh, and this,” said Ángel, hitting Play on a blurry online video, now a white-hot trend on Twitter. “This should answer that question. This is the gayest gig I ever played. I’ve had actual sex with men that was less gay than this gig.”

  The video showed Ángel on electric guitar, with Tonio Ortiz on bass and Marissa on drums, performing a raucous, gender-bending version of “Good Girls” by Elle King. Tonio and Ángel leaned into each other, their lips nearly touching the mike as they sang.

  “You look so tall,” said Lily.

  “I look taller when I perform.”

  Oberon asked, “What makes this performance particularly gay? Aside from the fact that you’re singing about being a bad girl.”

  “This was at a wedding reception down in Miami Beach right after same-sex marriage became legal,” explained Ángel. “These guys had been a couple for thirty years. And they never thought they’d ever get to get married, you know? So they, and all their friends—they really came to party. Holy fuck, did those old gay dudes know how to party. Jesus Christ. We could barely keep up, and we were the band.” The camera panned unsteadily around the reception hall, showing a sweaty swirl of dancers in their most flamboyant celebratory outfits.

  “That’s—” said Lily, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Oh my.”

  Ángel watched the video to the end. Marissa kept a rock-solid beat on the drums, her biceps flexing beneath her butterfly tattoos, and Tonio danced and flirted with Ángel as they played. Tonio was straight but an inveterate performer, and he responded to the energy in the room, strutting and leering at Ángel as he worked his bass. Ángel sighed at the loud, imperfect music, the noise, the sheer fun of it. He missed performing.

  He asked Chandler, “Is the DOR going to, like, address this? Issue a press release about it?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Do you think we should say something in the podcast?”

  “No.”

  “If no one mentions it at all, people will keep wondering,” objected Lily.

  “Address what?” asked Oberon.

  “I mean, we can just deny it,” said Ángel. “One sentence, and then on with the show.”

  “If you deny it, people will take that as confirmation,” said Chandler, exasperated. “Damn it, Ángel. We can’t afford to have this kind of speculation.”

  “I’m sorry. I do laugh like a girl.”

  “Speculation about what?” asked Oberon.

  “People want to know if we’re fucking,” said Ángel.

  “Oh.” Oberon paused. “No. I don’t intend to address that.”

  “Why?” asked Ángel, curiously.

  “Am I misunderstanding?” asked Oberon. “It would be a violation of your privacy to discuss that with people, wouldn’t it?”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Ángel, clicking on a Tumblr blog called Oberangler. It was full of manga-style fan drawings of himself and Oberon. Not too X-rated, mostly just kissing. “Carajo. I mean. I’m not Katy Perry or anything. I can’t imagine that anyone will care about this for more than five minutes. But now the God Hates Fags people and the God Hates Elves people will team up.”

  “They were already on the same team,” said Lily.

  “Probably true,” sighed Chandler.

  “The privacy being violated is yours.” Oberon regarded Ángel gravely. “You have avoided celebrity until now. Is it too much for you? Do you want to stop doing the podcast?”

  “Hell no.” Ángel glared at the tablet, the headlines laden with coded homophobia and racism. “Screw these people. Let’s record more today. What do you think about John Lennon?”

  A message from the Otherworld arrived that week.

  The rose bush in Oberon’s office began to softly glow at around nine in the morning. By evening it was brilliant, radiating golden light and an intoxicating floral scent, so powerful and heady that it filled the house and made Ángel dizzy. When the moon rose, the plant produced a small, oval wooden box filled with what looked like seeds. Oberon told Lily that he wasn’t to be interrupted, and locked himself in his office. Ángel brought him lunch on a tray but didn’t stay to eat with him, not wanting to interrupt his rapt concentration.

  At dinnertime, he brought him another tray. Oberon ignored him. His lunch hadn’t been touched.

  The next morning, Lily said that she hadn’t seen Oberon; he must have skipped his usual exercise routine and gone straight to his office.

  He didn’t come out for lunch. He didn’t come out for dinner. Ángel’s anxiety grew.

  Something was wrong. He was sure of it.

  Eventually, chewing his thumbnail, he went to the kitchen bank of monitors and queued up the feed for Oberon’s office.

  He was in there, at his desk. His head was down on his folded arms, his thick pale hair falling forward to conceal his face. The posture of his shoulders, his bowed head, spoke of dejection and defeat.

  “Lily, you can call John, right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I can call John. I can’t call out, though.”

  “Will you ask John to check the video feed of Oberon’s office? I want to know if Oberon has come out of there at all since the message arrived.”

  She called and spoke to her husband while Ángel stood and watched the monitor. After a few minutes, Lily hung up and said, “John says he’s been there all night. He hasn’t moved in hours.”

  “This is bad,” said Ángel. “He could be sick or dead or something.”

  “Yes.”

  “Someone should go see.”

  Lily nodded. She looked pale. She had known Oberon for years, but she was clearly afraid to go into that office. “Should I—should I ask Chandler to come?”

  “No. I’ll go. I’ll do it.”

  He went through the foyer into the music room, and then stood uncertainly outside the door of the office. His heart was beating fearfully. Why? Oberon needed help. Ángel was, bizarrely, Oberon’s closest friend, the only person who would do this for him.

  He pushed open the door.

  The stereo system was playing a fae song, pure, lovely, incomprehensible, and loud enough to reverberate through Ángel’s chest. Oberon was still slumped across his desk, arms folded, face buried, hair mussed.

  Seeds—the messages from the oval box—were scattered across the surface of the desk and on the floor. There was a sharp chemical smell in the air, like vinegar. Emotion, thought Ángel, magically expressing itself from his skin, with no one able to understand.

  Ángel approached the desk, reached for the tablet, and turned off the music. Oberon was breathing. Asleep?

  “Oberon?”

  He didn’t move.

  “Oberon.” Ángel pulled a leather armchair close to the desk and sat in it, then leaned over the desk, noting that the acrid smell was rising from the fae’s body.

  God, what if he was really ill? Was there a doctor on the planet who would have the faintest idea how to treat him?

  “Oberon!” he said loudly.

  He didn’t stir.

  Ángel drew a breath and, in full voice, sang the nine notes of Oberon’s name. Oberon’s head lifted with a jerk that made Ángel jump. His eyes, flat and dull, found Ángel’s.

  His face was as lacking expression as the head of a coin, but his skin was gray and shiny like wet cement, and the smell rolling off him was overpowering. Not vinegar—closer to ammonia. He stared at Ángel for a blank moment, and then closed his stony eyes and dropped his head back onto the desk.

  “Oberon,” whispered Ángel, shocked. “What’s wrong?”

  He bit his lip, and grasped Oberon’s hand. Oberon’s whole body lurched at his touch.

  Ángel sucked in a breath.

  God, somehow he’d forgotten.

  Electric tingles shot up Ángel’s arm. The hairs lifted on Ángel’s arms, on the back of his neck.

  He’d gotten used to Oberon, gotten comfortable enough around him to find him attractive: his body and scent, the graceful way he moved his hands. But o
h, Christ. The appalling weirdness of Oberon’s touch, the jolt of wrongness that contact with Oberon’s skin brought. Ángel closed his eyes, bit down on his cheek in the effort to not flinch away.

  Oberon’s palm felt cold and almost greasy. Ángel squeezed it.

  “Ángel,” whispered Oberon. His voice made Ángel shiver.

  “Please,” he said, tightening his grip. “Oberon. Tell me what’s happened. Are you sick?”

  “Sick,” Oberon repeated.

  Could the messages from the Otherworld have done this to him? “Tell me,” he said, pressing Oberon’s hand harder, ignoring the way the nerve endings in his hand prickled, the way it made his legs judder with tension. “I want to help you. Please. What can I do?”

  “My friend . . . my cousin . . . is dead. She was killed. An accident. I loved her.” His head was still down on the desk, concealed by the soft fall of his hair, and his voice vibrated with grief. “I knew I would never see her again, of course. I can never go home, and she could never come here. But I thought of her often. When I imagined home, I imagined her. I imagined that she was happy. But she’s been dead for years, and I didn’t know.”

  Ángel’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry.” He clasped Oberon’s hand between both of his. Oberon didn’t lift his head, but squeezed his hand back.

  “You— We— When we grieve, we cry,” Ángel said. “I’m sorry, I have to ask you. Is this how you grieve? Because you look terrible. You look like you’re dying.”

  “I . . . might be.”

  “No,” said Ángel. “Do you need medicine? What do you need?”

  Oberon lifted his head, looked at Ángel. “I cannot,” he said dully.

  “Oberon, I don’t know anything,” insisted Ángel. “You have to tell me what to do.” Oberon made no move though, and Ángel begged, “Please, baby. Please tell me.”

  Oberon leaned back in his chair, breaking contact with Ángel’s hands; he folded his arms tightly over his chest. The rotting-turnip color of his complexion was frightening; his eyes looked glassy.

  He said, “We grieve . . . When we grieve, we send our grief out for others to feel. And then those who love us come to give us comfort.” He sighed. “How can I explain? If a friend were here, he would share my grief. He would touch my skin, and we would grieve together; he would feel my grief and I would feel his love, and the feelings would combine to create a new feeling, and that would, that would be . . . comforting. But there is no one, and so the feelings just build and build. There’s no one to feel or to share the feeling, so it just builds. And I can’t . . . I can’t . . . Do you understand? What’s the name for a system that reinforces itself?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ángel, slowly. “A feedback loop, maybe?” He hesitated. “A vicious cycle.”

  “Yes.” Oberon’s voice was strained and tired. “A cycle. I don’t know if I can break out of it this time.”

  “This time? This can kill you?”

  “We aren’t well adapted to living alone.” Oberon’s eyes closed. “We poison ourselves with our emotions when we’re alone. I wasn’t expected to make it this long, really.”

  Oh my sweet Rebecca, how your sadness claims you. Ridiculously, the MelodEye lyrics sang in Ángel’s head. How your loneliness chains you.

  He knew what he had to do, of course.

  “I can’t believe they sent you here by yourself,” he said angrily, getting to his feet. “Fae are assholes.”

  He stood up and crossed around the desk to Oberon. “Put your arms down at your sides,” he said, brusque with nerves. Oberon unfolded his arms and rested them on the arms of his chair, his head back, throat open and vulnerable.

  “Keep your eyes closed.” Ángel couldn’t control the tremor in his voice. “Don’t look.”

  He unbuttoned Oberon’s black shirt and pushed it open, exposing his lean chest. “Don’t look at me,” he repeated, reaching over his own head to grab his shirt, pulling it off and dropping it to the floor. He climbed into Oberon’s lap, legs over the arm of the chair, wrapped his arms around Oberon’s shoulders, and pressed his naked torso flush against Oberon’s, chest to belly.

  Oberon shuddered violently.

  Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God. It was like hugging an electric fence. Ángel squeezed his eyes shut against all that frightening skin touching his. His throat tightened as alien sensations flooded into him through the contact. The emotions were Oberon’s—he could tell they were not his own—but he still felt them: a sharp knife-point of grief in his heart, pain that made him gasp; and a bigger, yawning emptiness, like a cold and vast sea. He bit his lip, swallowing a throat suddenly aching with sorrow. Tears of discomfort leaked out of his clenched eyelids.

  After a second’s hesitation, Oberon’s arms wrapped tightly around Ángel’s body; he pushed his face into the crook of Ángel’s neck and shoulder, hugged him so hard that he forced the breath out of Ángel’s lungs. He shivered and shivered in uncontrollable spasmodic bursts. His breath heaved. Ángel gritted his own teeth, concentrating on Oberon’s distress. The sour smell of his body filled Ángel’s nostrils; his grief continued to flood into him.

  “Shh, baby,” whispered Ángel, running a hand inside Oberon’s shirt collar and rubbing the bare skin of his shoulders, ignoring the tears that were streaming down his own face. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” His other hand stroked Oberon’s hair.

  Oh, Oberon’s hair was so soft. Straight, cool, silky threads that slipped between his fingers. He’d always wanted to touch it. He turned his face and wept silently into that corn silk hair.

  How long they sat entwined like that, Ángel didn’t know. It seemed to take a long time—hours, maybe—before Oberon’s convulsive shivering quieted, his gulping breaths calmed. The nature of the emotions filling Ángel’s chest seemed to change, became something softer and sweeter, something he didn’t have words for. Still strange, and uncomfortable, but different.

  “What was her name?” asked Ángel.

  Oberon sang the name. Seven syllables, lovely. He rocked slightly, cradling Ángel, and sang the name, again and again.

  After a while, he stopped rocking and fell quiet, relaxing against Ángel.

  “Is it helping?” Ángel managed to ask. “I know I’m not— I don’t know how to . . . whatever.” How do you make an emotion-song that would comfort a fae? How long do I have to do this?

  “It’s helping,” Oberon said softly.

  He stroked a broad palm up and down Ángel’s bare spine, and it was all Ángel could do not to physically squirm.

  “I almost think I could sleep,” said Oberon.

  “That sounds good. Sleep, and tomorrow eat something.” He started to move.

  “Will you stay?” Oberon’s arms tightened. “I am selfish, Ángel. I know it is hard for you. But I am afraid to be alone. Afraid of falling. Will you stay while I sleep?”

  “It’s like medicine, right?” Ángel said shakily. “Yes, okay.”

  Oberon stood up, lifting Ángel in his arms. Ángel was shocked by how strong the fae was; Ángel was skinny but had never, until now, felt particularly dainty. Oberon carried him effortlessly to the couch and collapsed onto it, lying on his side and tucking Ángel against his chest, belly to belly, wrapping his arms around him. A big hand went into Ángel’s hair, cupping his head. Ángel repressed a whimper.

  “All right?”

  “Yes,” Ángel whispered.

  Oberon sighed deeply and fell heavily asleep, his body pinning Ángel’s to the couch.

  Somehow, eventually, Ángel slept too.

  He woke up in the morning, after a night of wild and discordant dreams, deeply relaxed and drowning in sensual pleasure.

  He was warm. He was being cuddled. His cock was hard and was cradled against something toasty, and his body tingled everywhere in an entirely pleasant way. A smell like gingersnaps and sex filled his nostrils.

  Oberon was better.

  The envoy had rolled over onto his back, and Ángel was sprawled on
his chest, his hair spread on Oberon’s smooth pecs and his dick and balls pressed against the slim thigh that lodged firmly between his legs. Apparently still asleep, Oberon was vibrating—not shivering anymore, but purring. The rolling pulse went through Ángel’s body. It was the noise Oberon sometimes made when he was happy: sustained, barely audible.

  Ángel had done it. He’d comforted Oberon, he’d helped keep the grief from building up in his skin and killing him. What his skin was doing to Ángel now was the shivery agony of fae magic that he had felt before yesterday. It was thrilling through Ángel’s belly and chest, which were pressed against Oberon’s bare skin.

  Agony was maybe not the right word. Because it was weird and uncomfortable, but shudderingly pleasurable too.

  Gently, so as not to awaken him, Ángel lifted his head. Oberon wasn’t gray anymore—his face was restored to an even white color, like sweet cream, flushed a little darker across his lips and under his eyes. Ángel looked blearily through the tendrils of his hair, down at the sinewy chest under his cheek and saw that the strange pale skin there was now dappled with shadowy golden-pink rosettes.

  Those had definitely not been there last night. Did he have measles or something? Worried, Ángel jostled Oberon to waken him.

  “Oberon?” he said. “You’ve broken out in spots, baby. Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” said Oberon, without opening his eyes. “I’m much better. Don’t worry about the spots.”

  Okay. Ángel tried to disentangle himself from Oberon’s grasp, so that he could crawl back to the privacy of his room. It was hopeless to imagine that Oberon hadn’t noticed his erection digging into his thigh, but at least he could take it away.

  But Oberon did not let him go. He tightened his hold and rolled over onto his side. Ángel found himself sandwiched between the back of the couch and Oberon’s warm body, spooned, Oberon’s chest against his back, sending tingles through his skin. Ángel could protest. He could struggle. He could scramble over the back of the couch and escape. Instead, he remained still, frozen with equal parts excitement and fear, allowing Oberon to press a thigh between his legs, nuzzle his face in Ángel’s hair. Oberon put his palm over Ángel’s hammering heart, stroked his chest. Ángel closed his eyes, pressed his hot cheek against the cool leather of the couch, and breathed deeply. His erect dick was trapped in his jeans.