Under His Influence (Love Under Lockdown)

I still couldn’t believe I was going to work for the guy who had started a revolution in music. I knew everything about my new boss, Seth Black, because he was my ages-old crush.

I had looked up anything I hadn’t known about him before applying for the internship, but I had already known a lot because I had devoured any news of him, anything he wrote or said, just plain everything I could get my hands on.

My music obsession had taken hold when I was 12 years old and had persisted up until the current day. I knew that Seth Black was as much of a purist as I was when it came to audio purity, and the majority of my collection was actually on vinyl. I just didn’t have space for the originals in my car, let alone my turntable.

Plus, he was fucking hot.

I knew I shouldn’t think of my new boss that way, but I couldn’t help it.

And yet here I was stuck in traffic on the first day I had the opportunity to work with him. I was impatient but told myself to calm down.

The player in my car made its familiar sound, the second of silence broken by time slowing crush of the backbeat as I cranked it up. A sound that made you stop and take notice, no matter where you were or what you were doing.

I got more than a few dirty looks from my fellow prisoners of consequence. They were more expressions of confusion that outright antagonism, which was more than I could say for the folk back home. They were tolerant of everything except difference.

I was barely through the first track on the album, jutting up out of the vinyl seat and practically vibrating with excitement and nerves, when finally, mercifully, the line of vehicles actually moved.

There were five entire minutes of time to elapse before I could officially be considered late.

I was, therefore, officially early.

Glass half full and all that.

But still I worried that I hadn’t gotten to the office before my new boss had arrived, which I felt to be some kind of cardinal sin. I was determined to come earlier and stay later than he did.

“Am I late?” I asked no one in particular, as soon as I walked into the office.

“Not yet, on the upside he is, so you’ve got time,” said the receptionist.

Clad in a black, Georgian-style dress, with spidery hair and just enough grease paint to look cool without over doing it, she wore her weirdness like a badge.

“Time for what?” I asked, innocent as a little lamb.

“To get to Seth’s office and wait for him, of course. You and Seth will be working very closely together. He likes to teach by doing… says it makes the information stick better.”

I certainly couldn’t argue with that. Doing things was always the best way I learned. We hadn’t even met yet and Seth Black and I were already agreeing on things.

I’d always felt a sense of connection with him, not least because of our shared musical taste. One that I had yet to have contradicted. We would just have to see what happened when we were in the same room together.

“I’m Holly, by the way,” the receptionist said, rolling out from behind the counter.

Of course she was Holly— the name suited her perfectly. I wouldn’t have been surprised if her surname was something cool like Spektor.

“Holly Jones,” she said, as though reading my mind.

It must have been a question she got a lot, and therefore could predict.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Here we are,” Holly said, stopping in front of a nondescript door.

“Thanks,” I said to her rapidly disappearing back.

The door was unlocked. I’d always been told to knock first, but I already knew Seth wasn’t in and unless I wanted to stand out in the hallway until he got there, I figured I’d better go in and sit down. Unless it was all an elaborate prank and the door that I was standing in front of went to the janitor’s closet or something.

The ‘cool kids’ in high school, known as ‘the cruel kids’ to most of their victims, did something similar to freshmen every year. Lucky for me, when it was my turn, I’d already seen them do it to someone else and wasn’t fooled. I was late for class but wasn’t fooled.

The office was a modern, minimalist space. From what I could see, there were two main sections of activity. A desk on which was set a computer and a landline phone, as well as what looked like a listening station. It had a comfy looking chair next to one of those old-style stereos that somehow managed to pack a turntable and two tape decks into it.

There was also a slightly newer, multi-disc CD player next to it. Though none of the equipment, aside from the computer, looked like it dated after 2000, it looked weird in a way, but I could also respect someone who knew what they liked and what worked for them.