Hermes's Den

            “Oh, darling, you’re simply too sublime to be here—that color just… does something for you. Whoever could be so blind for you to end up here? If you’re just gracing us with your lovely presence, welcome, if your fine self has been a local, welcome back to The Lonely Hearts Club. I am as ever your host, Caspian. How’s your week been? Not too hectic, I hope. It doesn’t matter anymore, all that’s in the past. In the prologue, as they say. Time to kick your shoes off, really sit back and just say hello to slowing down. I’d like you all to say hello to my friend who came on during the commercial break. His name is Dylan, he’s 26, freshly dropped off by Zephyr, and we’ve been chatting about a very special friend of his named Bolton and as I understand it, Bolton’s a bit of a coffee-break-crush, isn’t he, Dylan?”

            “Yessir. I, uh, well we just started working together, and he’s been training me, so I’m, like, super nervous, but I always look forward to two when he calls for a coffee break.”

            “Why’s that?”

           “He’s kind of a coffee snob, but, like, just the right about. He only started openly mocking me after we became close. Closer.”

“Oh, a coffee snob. I know a coffee snob, he’s very close to my heart, a dear friend, truly.” In the space beneath my nails I know that wherever he is now, Nich is three hours ahead of or behind a porcelain mug sighing with coffee made the “right”way—Turkish style with just the faintest breath of black cardamom “to make it all ring a fine C”. His mustache is crisp and his breath smoky and acidic, punctuated by an over avoidance of S’s that once sang some sweet siren songs. “Does he complain about the roast? Even when he’s the only one who buys or drinks it? Oh wait, you said he makes fun of how you take your coffee, I’m sorry. What does he say? How do you blaspheme against coffee?”

           “That I might as well just save the effort and drop a scoop of ice cream in.”

           My short bark of laughter punches the air, falling near impact less and strange against the shoddy soundproofing. “Now there’s a thought. Careful, you might reconvert me to a coffee lover. I can’t go back; I’ve had too many migraines getting off.”

           “It’s mostly his fault, really. If I’m careful, I can get it the color of his hair. I barely even like it if I’m honest.”

            “Well isn’t that sweet. So what can I do for you and Bolton? Do you have a song you’ve been humming to yourself while stirring your cup or can I just go ahead and pick something a little flirty, a little sweet just like you?”

            “Ahaha, thankyousir, if you could just play something that really… shows that I’m interested in getting to know him better without coming on too strong, that’d be… more than fantastic.”

            “Okay, yeah… yeah, I get you.” The songs flick past my eyes momentarily in a flurry as I narrow in on a few in particular, discarding one for too cloying of a beat and another for lyrics that might be too bold. Prince, I am once again asking you why you are so horny. “You aren’t just ready to completely collapse into his arms but you could spend a minute.”

            He laughs and the mellow blush of warm sound envelops me. The corner of my mouth perks up. “Yeah,” he breaths. “I just have such hard time with being completely honest with myself and what I want. I can’t even tell you how many times called you and hung up.”

            “Oh, don’t even worry about it, sweetness. I think I have something I can play for you and Bolton,” I say sending my choice over to the fount with one hand and cueing it up with the other. “You promise to call and update us on how things go?”

           “Yessir, I promise.”

           “I’m counting on it; it’s a date! If you’ve got a request or just want to say hey, our phones are open or you can shoot us a quick message over at our website. You’re sitting pretty at The Lonely Hearts Club, right here on Iris 99.9, we’ll be right back.” I flick the mic off and switch on To Be Around You. As the piano lits through the air, I bob my head in time with the music and, spinning the chair in an off-kilter circle, coat my hands in a thin film of oil. Against the relative warmth of the room, fog scrolls off them in loose curls but as I step closer to the fount, the lazy loops grow heavy and deliberate.

           A shallow porcelain dish containing a few inches of electrum on a pedestal, relegated for safety and comfort to the corner of the studio, what has always impressed me about the fount is simply the sound quality. Very few dishes could produce such fine noises. Even halfway across the room, the heat of the fount sears the air more than its music does. The pinpricks of sweat erupting on my brow become rivers while I stand over, reaching my steadily warming hands down into it and grasp at it and pull. SOMETHING THAT YOU DO overtakes my head. HYPNOTI— “Ath ath,” I chide myself and put in the earbuds I forgot the first time.

           Now, as I reach again into violent heat rendered oppressive warmth by the oil and begin to pull, the music stays locked in its container. Roughhewn and threaded through with creamy threads, the rosewood-colored stone takes up the entirety of my palm with a glossy heaping nature. The plains and valleys of it resist the urge to be perfectly smooth or even and in doing so reveals a deeply set rippling of black and damask pink beneath its vitreous luster. In its weight, neither unduly heavy nor uncomfortably light, rests a kind of brilliance that feels almost magnetic in its drilled commitment to my hand. “Hello there. Would you mind waking up? We’re on a bit of a tight schedule.”

           At my request, the stone trembles and flakes off shards like ice until a hummingbird of the same color and veining buzzes happily in my palm. “Well aren’t you lovely. If I may say so, that was a wonderful reveal. For a moment, I was expecting a dragon. Between you and me, they tend to cause obsessions and I’m not quite sure that’s appropriate yet. You’ll perform beautifully.” With my other hand, I feel around on the side table until my fingers grasp the gold detailing tool. I scoot around the desk to the glass door, slide it open, and step out onto the small balcony. I nod my personal satisfaction with and professional condemnation of the weather cloaking the city.

           Like a veil, the cold mist skitters down and hazes the space between the street signs. Lights burn in auras; an emerald ramen sign’s rays reach jealously to wrest attention from violet chickens’ only to have their own territory trampled on by the kiss of red calzones. “You’ve a tough flight ahead of you, I fear. I believe in you, darling, be quick. Dylan is counting on you.” I take a minute to look over the bird a final time. I scratch off an odd chunk wrapped around its feet and sharpen the beak. As always in the moments before the final assignment, its eyelids and wings remain closed but flutter just barely.

           “Bolton A., 28, potential paramour of Dylan F., 26,” I whisper into its head. It’s eyes snap open and explode green before settling to a hazy cream. It leaps off my palm and circles my head once, the tune of the song streaming dreamily along behind like banner and darts off in the right direction. The thrumming of its wings reverberates deep in my chest as the bird flies, dissipating into a shower of light and, somewhere between 1^st and 84^th, makes Bolton try his best to place the phrase “never felt so sweet before.”

           I reenter the studio and slide into the seat a few moments before the song ends, placing the headset and mic back on in time to say “That was To Be Around You by Mariah Carey, I’m your host Caspian, and this is The Lonely Hearts Club coming at you right here on Iris 99.9. Hello, caller, welcome to The Lonely Hearts Club, what’re you drinkin’, love?”

           “Hi, ‘Pian.” Sensation cascades down the back of my right side, insulating my body and wrapping it in goosebumps. It consolidates into a pang just along my spine originating from a sunken mass lodged in my gut. My mouth draws closed and the last time I heard that name threatens to burst across my memory.

           The echoing of hastily shoved on shoes leaks through before I finally seize back my chest and respond. “Hi there. What can I do for you?” I manage to swallow.

“I’m wondering if you would play Bobby Jean for someone who’s been on my mind a lot lately.”

Before the tune fully fleshes itself out in my head, the studio dissipates and the smell of coffee lodges itself in my nostrils. “And who is Bobby Jean that his absence would make you want to tell him bye?”

           My bed was laden with clothes in partially competent piles, the hamper of dry fabric left at my feet, the speaker tucked away on its shelf in the corner. Against the door, Nich stood with one hip lowered, his cup as ever in hand. “You barely talk about your day but you’re ready to drive all the way to New Jersey for a peace out.”

My day. My day, dubbed by him Saturday University because he “too used to start the day at ten with a bowl of peanut butter breath and pre-work out for the kind of ear burning buzz which lasts through leg day while building the playlist for that night’s set.” But, like, that was before grad school, of course. You know, before he got serious about things and stuff. His critical eyes, which once looked desirously on my routine, the product of its efforts, and its end goal, were apparently blind to the bowls of green curry I left for him, cooked in the time I had while he was off “in the real world.” Eggplants and potatoes, creamy with coconut milk and sweet with basil would fill his mouth and belly and he barely realized it was by my hand.

           “Don’t be dumb.” I sauntered over and wrapped my arms around his waist. “You know you’ve got all of me.”

           He searched my eyes then kissed me. “As much as one can.”

           “Sure,” I say into the mic. “It’s a great song. Who am I sending this out to?”

“Well, it’s, uh, it’s for my one that got away. He was gone before I knew it. Hell, there was cheating but I… fuck, I just can’t stop thinking about him.”

           “Don’t even tell me about it, I’ll start sobbing,” I half lie. “I could write tomes about ones that got away. It’s always the one you weren’t looking at, isn’t it?”

           He chuckles and in doing so, entombs me with how rich and well-tuned his laughter is as well as how hollow it can ring when not entirely genuine. “Yes, it is, I… I didn’t realize it was possible to hurt this much because of someone.”

           Took you long enough catches in my throat. “Yep!” Even to my ears, my laughter feels blistered and too light. “That, dear listener, is what would be written in neon script over the bar: Love is painful. I don’t know why we all keep forgetting that it’s fair in love and war.”

           A moment later, as his words settle into me, I hear the weight of his voice. I see him swaddled beneath a blanket with Gustav, the lavender stuffed elephant, next to him and a beard thickened with discord. Tortoiseshell glasses framing his eyes tell me he hasn’t had in him to put contacts in. Take out containers litter the table in front of him and on the screen, footage of a seafloor informs him that as ocean temperatures rise, coral reefs and the ecosystems they support face collapse. He hasn’t really been paying attention. Mostly it’s just sound so he doesn’t feel so alone as he mindlessly scrolls away.

           I’m not sure if he’s yet heartbroken but certainly heartsick. I’m surprised he isn’t calling from the ER. My voice remains neutrally warm but a grin creeps across my face. “Can I get a name for this one, babe?” I bite my tongue at the last word but refuse to let it dim my glow.

           “Yeah, it’s for Grey. Grey, if you’re listening, I’m so sorry, you des…”

           Grey. Grey. Grey. Grey. Grey. Grey collects the rest of the information and Grey cues up Bobby Jean. Grey reminds everyone that “This is the Lonely Hearts Club on Iris 99.9, we’ll be right back” and Grey turns off the mic before Grey takes the headset off, and I cry “Grey?!”

           Finally, Grey with his shaved head and nose ring appears in my head, first with a frown of concentration over a needle, thread, and a pile of seed beads, then with a mask of surprise at how good the donuts from May’s were, and finally with the sigh of ecstasy that concluded our first, second, and sixth meetings. Three through five saw me finish first. His figure is one of austere beauty and I have no shame in admitting that our mutual desire was so brilliant it eclipsed all else. But why on earth is Nich calling about him?

           I coat my hands and again pull a creature from the fount. Coiling itself around my fingers and setting its two fine clawed feet on my thumb, the candy swirled, feathered face of a dragon, blinks two indigo eyes and clicks its matching beak. It spreads two leathery wings and gives a few experimental flaps. “Oh.” In the heat leaking into my palm, I feel Grey shaking my hand at the bar and see him smirking beneath the strobe lights. I feel his hips roll to a beat a sixteenth note short of sordid and the flush that rises from it swallows my face whole. I see our breath mingling on the platform, the details of our excited conversation remain lost in a cloud against the incredible cold of that night, and I see the first tentative kiss on the steps of his apartment.

           I feel his searing flesh beneath my fingers, and his mouth firm and pliant against mine, and his arms around me, and his weight next to me the following morning. Twice did fire eat me whole; once, when I realized what we had drunkenly done, and again when he kissed the worry off my face, then off my chin, then, then, then. “Mistakes happen and love is strong. If it is real, it will survive. If not, better to get it over with.” At his words, a distant part of me preened and its quiet protest tolled in my head against my shame’s din the entire way home.

           On the balcony, in the Neptunian glow of the mist, the chill of it wicks at the dragon. It looks around, down the street and again at me with a level gaze. Off, somewhere by the corner, or maybe by the fire hydrant, and then simply, back to me. “I’m sure there are things you could tell me that would drop even my jaw.” It blinks again, adjusts its wings, and looks clear at me. “Keep them. Mysteries keep my job fun, for the most part. You know where you’re going better than I do.”

           It issues forth a puff of cobalt flame before unwrapping from my hand and flapping off. I watch the trail of light sprinkle down and remember that it was after the fourth when Nich asked, coffee in hand, how many times did I really need to check the mail in a week. “Until my package comes,” I feigned, kissing the top of his head. “Love you.”

“Didn’t it alre—” was cut off by the door closing behind me. After the fifth, he simply waltzed past me and tossed over his shoulder “I like your cologne. Is it new?”before slipping into the bathroom and swiping the door shut behind him. For a moment, its sound slammed into me and I felt a prelude in its speed. Silently, I begged the door to splinter apart at his fury and that pure rage would envelop me. His face would contort and indite me for my continuous crimes, tear my skin ragged and salt the wounds. The water ran for an hour, a relentless downpouring until it finally stopped, and he emerged, steam licking off his very skin and wrapped in a beach towel. “I’m feeling Ethiopian for dinner.”

Turning my key in the lock after the sixth, I opened the door to see him sitting at the table, mid-keystroke and tongue just peaking between his lips. “I’ve been cheating on you,” tumbled out of my mouth before I could catch it or even attempt to. My next breath came out closer to a sigh as if a bubble I didn’t know had been growing finally burst and I drank all the air I want. He looked up at me blankly, my appearance still registering as my words settled like the first flakes of a blizzard. “It’s not… I didn’t… he makes me feel something.” I settled before recognizing that I was not settling but confessing. “I just… he makes me feel something. Made me feel something.”

“Don’t I make you feel anything?” A note in his voice shakes within its hollow and for once, without doubt, I detect vulnerability raw to the sun. The hours of joy and lust, of brilliance and passion roll together into a string of islands that breaks defiantly above the surface of the sea of criticism, ambiguity, and a gentle but persistent sense of rejection to some vital part of me.

           “When’d you figure out I was cheating?” Vacant air left his mouth until he just looked down and nodded. In the distance, as it rounds the corner of a building on its way, the dragon disappears and finally I turn my back on it. “Welcome back to the Lonely Hearts Club, only on Iris 99.9, I’m your host Caspian. What’s got you down?”