Quiver

There’s a moment just before sunrise when the birds stop singing, just for a second. Peace, like before the Word. I, Quin, name this moment the blue note. It’s a B flat, played gently on a clarinet. I know it, I can feel it resonate in the cells of my being.

So, we’re talking about the winter before last. I’d been working my guts out, sixteen hours a day for two weeks, with Taunting Tongues, an a cappella group: two bass, three tenor and ten sopranos. I’m just putting down the bass when the studio phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Adrian?”

The voice rises and quivers on the last syllable, a middle C caught between the diaphragm and the chest. Alto? Mezzo-soprano? She’s treacle down the throat and I have to hear more.

“No, but keep talking.”

“Who is this?” I’m holding my breath, I’m holding myself. This is the most perfect alto I’ve ever heard. Don’t hang up, don’t hang up. I want to see your mouth, your lips, your palate, the cleft under your tongue. My cock’s quivering with each tonal nuance. Baby, please.

“You have a beautiful voice.”

“Adrian? Is that you, you louse?”

“You have the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard.”

“OK, I’m hanging up.”

“No you don’t, not before you say something else. C’mon, baby, say something.”

“What’s your name?”

“Quin.”

“Qu-in.”

“What’s yours?”

“Felicity.”

“Fe-li-city—as in felicitas, as in happiness.”

She’s like fingers, lubricated, tight, moving. Hitting the note with every vowel.

“Quin, are you still there?”

It’s too late, I’m throbbing in rhythm with her consonants.

“Yes,” I whispered, scared my breath will give me away.

“I’d like to meet you, Quin.”

MACK

Yeah, July, what a shit of a month. I mean, we actually had a winter that year. Even the Japanese tourists were whining. I remember that day vividly. I was sitting there in the conference room, rolling a few numbers with what’s-his-name from Virgin, when Quin comes rushing in. This in itself was enough to make me swivel round. Quin never rushes, he glides, like a bat, with those huge red ears pulsating.

“Mack,” he says, “I’ve met this woman.” I glance across at the record executive sitting opposite, his London pallor and Oxford accent sabotaging his snakeskin boots. I could see from his expression he thought Quin was crazy, maybe even homicidal. Then again, it was good dope.

“Quin, can’t you see we’re doing business here?”

“Yeah.”

Quin throws himself onto the fun-fur couch. He takes a deep drag of the joint and exhales into the Englishman’s face. Forty thousand dollars worth of studio time just went up in smoke, I’m thinking.

“So is she soprano, mezzo-soprano or alto?” As if I cared, but Quin looks dangerous, like really inspired. Always humor an obsessive, you learn that in this industry.