Doll Face(52)

I move my mouth to Lola's jaw, her ear, breathing against her hair as I work my kisses down her throat, across her collarbone. I bite at her taut nipples through the pink fabric, grazing my teeth against the tender flesh as she groans and wraps her arms around my neck.

“Depends on if you're a good boy or not,” she whispers, and I smile, reaching back to unhook her bra. “As in, you better not be. I don't like good boys, Ronnie. I want you to be naughty.” Lola shoves me back and wraps her arms over her chest to keep her suddenly loose bra in place. “Play a set for me,” she whispers and I raise an eyebrow, glancing over at the kit in the corner of the room. Even when shit gets bad, even when the world's in a drooping funk around me, I miss the music if we're separated for more than a few days. When our shit got delivered the night before last, I dragged my kit up here and sat down to play, only nothing would come out. It was a miserable feeling, like I was too bogged down in details to just let go and listen to the beat.

“Right now?” I ask and she nods, leaning back against the wall and sliding her fingers down her belly, next to her gunshot wound, and into her panties. When Lola finds what she's looking for, her eyes get hooded and her breath softens.

“Play for me, baby. I want to hear your beat.”

I smile and start towards the kit, pausing to fix my pants.

“If you're gonna do that, take your fucking shirt off. You already threatened to do it once today. Might as well go through with it.” I grin and rip the fabric over my head, tossing it onto the ugly cream colored sofa that came with the house. Can't wait to replace that ugly ass shit.

I sit down at my throne and lick my lips, holding my sticks in tight fingers and closing my eyes. I can still taste Lola's mouth on mine, still feel her lips sliding down my shaft. I open my eyes back up and watch her touching herself, staring back at me, waiting for me to make something out of nothing, to spin notes into feeling, to turn boring black and white marks on a page to reality. I bite my lower lip and tap my foot on the wood floor beneath my feet, getting a feel for the song I want to play. I run through an Indecency set list and decide on a pre-Asuka, pre-Travis tune, something that connects my soul to theirs.

I spin my sticks in my fingers and start to play.

At first the beat sounds a little lonely, like my drums are crying out for guitar, bass, for a voice to soothe their dark souls. But then I catch Lola's hooded gaze, watch those blue eyes spin with storms as she bites her lower lip and pleasures herself to the sound of my aching heart. Because that's what my music is to me, a reflection of the noise inside my soul, the frantic hammering of my heart against my ribcage. My anxiety. My hope. My fear. My dreams. I spin my sticks again and close my eyes. Don't need to see to play. Never have. Not even for this song, which is in 7/8 time signature.

Basically, the number and length of beats in each measure. If that doesn't make any sense, don't let it get to you. Who the fuck cares, right? The only thing that matters in music to me is how it makes me feel, how the pulse of the song matches the blood thrumming in my veins. And if I sound hippy-dippy to you, don't think it's because I wasn't taught right. My parents made sure I was brought up on the piano and then when I made the decision to switch to drums, they found me a teacher for that, too. I wonder if they ever look back on that decision and consider it a mistake? They shouldn't though, not really. If anything, it's the music that's kept me alive all these years.

I take a gasping breath and feel my arm muscles protesting, threatening mutiny for taking those two weeks off. It was the single largest break I've ever taken – barring Asuka's and Travis' deaths. I find myself getting lost in memories, seeing faces long gone and broken, so I force my eyes open, make myself count quarter notes to pull it all together.

One, two, three, four, five, six, sev.

There's no change in playing the hi-hat – that pair of cymbals off to the left, run by the foot pedal – but you can feel the difference on the bass drum and the snare. I keep counting, letting my lips move but refusing to speak a single word. Don't need to; my drums have voices. Each part of my kit is like a different entity, speaking to me in words and phrases, twisting its needs with my own, so we come out howling like a single demon instead of the chorus that we are.

Ghost notes on my snare drum give way to rim shots and then back again as the instrument responds to my emotions, as it feels my pain for the past and my hope for the future. Back and forth, I let it sing because there's nobody else around to do it.

Lola's hand moves quicker and she bites her lower lip so hard, I'm afraid she's going to make herself bleed. But I don't stop playing. I won't. Not until she wants me to.