To Be in That Number

That service varied on her capriciousness, but on that particular night Harmony would settle for nothing less than oral pleasure. It was where she had the most control; Chris's head nestled in her thighs could be used like a joystick. Credit where it was due, Chris had soft lips and an agile tongue but still needed guidance on what to do, where, at what pressure, and for how long. He was still learning; her puppy was still being trained.

Dissatisfied by the image, Harmony hurried to get herself off and collapsed in bed without eating. Her loving boyfriend tucked her in, citing some homework that needed doing before he could share a mattress with his beloved.

"Goodnight, Moon," he bidded to her, straightening his jeans around his hips as he closed the door, leaving.

"Night, Coyote," Harmony replied groggily.

She smirked at their callback to the night's western themes. Then frowned because they existed only in fantasy

A fantasy that was becoming increasingly difficult to fabricate.

__________

Two weeks later. Harmony had made miracles happen.

Of the six songs that comprised the Homecoming Halftime Show, she'd memorized four and was able to play the other two with minimal interruption. She'd had to swallow her pride and play second and third parts, the boring stuff reserved for players with less skill or weaker ambition. The simplicity made them easier to play on autopilot, though.

Automation was her friend, especially when having to learn to march to the music as well. Taking matters into her own hands, she requested a map of the marching spots from the band librarian and used them in her own time to memorize the different movements. To balance her playing in with the choreography would have to happen in its own time, but she'd tackled months of work in just fourteen days and felt all the prouder for it.

Just more evidence for why she should continue pursuing music —it came too easily to her.

Then, success came to a grinding halt. Eating with a few other members of the band in the school cafeteria, Andrew Pine arrived at her table. His most defining characteristics were his pectorals which were wide and bulging in a way he probably thought was appealing. In reality, it just looked like he needed a bra.

Still, he was the nicest to the newer band students, not ashamed to associate with them. Such a trait was rare for trumpet players. He was second chair, though, which might explain his missing of a prideful, arrogant air.

"Harmony?" he addressed her after greeting the entire table. "Rachel needed to talk to you about something."

Both hands around a green smoothie in a plastic cup, Harmony couldn't hide her defensive reaction. "Did she say what it was?"

"Marching in the Homecoming Game. That's all she would tell me," he widened his stance, hands akimbo. "You're quite the talk among the section leaders. Rehearsing all morning, asking questions, and taking notes. Who knows, maybe Rachel's finally giving you the credit you deserve."

As good as his praise felt, Harmony doubted the claim. "Giving credit? That doesn't sound like Rachel. . ."

It sounded harsh, but Andrew and his D-cup pectorals were agreeable enough to get the sentiment. "Maybe. Anyway, she made it sound urgent. I know you're eating lunch, but. . ."

'. . . hurry your ass up' was the part of the sentence that Andrew's pleasantness lopped off.

A few minutes later, Harmony entered the band room. Square teal sound dampening panels lined the walls in a room with a vaulted ceiling. Black chairs arranged in a semicircle were populated by seven players. At this apex of marching season there was always a student practicing, listening to recordings, or improving their fundamentals. With the Homecoming Game only a few weeks away, Harmony was actually surprised there weren't even more students flooding the room.

Not everyone wanted it like Harmony did, though. She'd skipped class periods to spend extra time with her horn. She'd denied herself parties and relationships — made the sacrifices others wouldn't.

Looking the room over, she didn't find who she was looking for till Nolan the flute player took notice and directed her to the instrument storage room. Once there, she couldn't help but feel she was being watched the whole time. Where the band room was open and vaulted, the storage room had shelves of rusty metal holding black cases that smelled like fifty years of oil and mold. It very well could have served as a jail or some purgatorial limbo.

Eerily, it reminded Harmony of what she thought Rachel's insides might look like: jumbled, black, bulky, and stained with isolation.

Caught fumbling under a flickering fluorescent light, Harmony heard a voice say, "You made me wait."

When she turned, she saw Rachel's pale white skin. Her attention went to her wide jaw, set with a constant frown. "I-I didn't know where you were. I checked the band room first."

"You could have asked Andrew. He knew where I'd be."

"I didn't think to."

"You make a habit of not thinking much, don't you Harmony?"

Harmony felt herself snarling. Then, she realized that Rachel was right. Harmony really hadn't been thinking. She was talking to Rachel like she would anybody else; like a normal person. Rachel was abnormal. No conversation with her was easy. It required great effort — lengthy games of mental chess — to talk to Rachel.

Harmony checked herself. She wouldn't make the mistake of talking to Rachel without thinking again. She stood in silence.

"The upperclassmen have been chatting about you. I can't talk to anyone without them mentioning you. Harmony this and Harmony that. Even Director Hammond asked if you'd been passing off your music. He wants to have you in the show."

Hammond was the band director. If he was recommending Harmony to march, that was a good sign. She should have been ecstatic.

But Rachel's presence neutralized all emotion — positive, negative, justified, frivolous.

"So I thought to tell you personally," Rachel shifted weight onto her hip, cracking half a grin. "That when he asked how you were doing, I told him you were the best freshman we had."

A silence dropped between them. Harmony felt small, tucked in a corner between a set of tuba cases. The light above her buzzed as it flickered.

"Well?" Rachel stuck her neck out.

"Thanks," Harmony responded.

"That's all? I put in a good word for you to Mr. Hammond — the guy who wants to see you marching the Homecoming Game — and all I get from you is 'thanks'?"

"I mean, thank you. Really, it's an honor."

Rachel came closer. Her height advantage pushed her higher than Harmony's line of sight. "It really is. Most freshmen are invisible and talentless. To have anybody care about you at all is way more than you deserve. That's why," Rachel turned sideways, caressing a bulky black bass drum case with a gentleness she refused to share with Harmony. "You absolutely cannot march in the Homecoming game."

At that, even Harmony couldn't hide her disdain. "What?"

"Yea, you aren't marching in it."

In a vein of unfiltered animosity, Harmony wished the heavy instrument cases would tumble from their shelves and break every bone in Rachel's pretentious body.

"Why the hell not?" she heard herself say.

"You don't deserve it."

"You just said everyone is talking about me. Everybody hears me rehearsing. Last week I spent seventy hours in the bandroom — I've skipped all my other classes. What the hell do you mean I 'don't deserve it'?"

Implicit in her question was, "If I don't deserve it, nobody does."

Rachel was so removed from Harmony's groaning, so far from the concern. A small bass drum had been left out of its case and she tapped the taut fabric with the pads of her fingers. It was like self-hypnosis — no, more like deliberate negligence.

"I need to talk to Director Hammond." Harmony went to Rachel's left to pass.

Rachel threw the wing of her pelvis in the way. Harmony took the hit ungracefully, stumbling back toward the corner she'd been hiding in.

"He isn't here. Faculty meeting."

"Then I'll ask Andrew. It doesn't matter, just let me go."

Harmony looked to move again, but a shadow was cast over her as Rachel seemed to grow to fill the entire walkway. In fear, her eyes found a hole between two cases that she might be able to escape through, but her hip was hurting from Rachel's block and she doubted she could summon the deft to get out without knocking over a whole shelf of equipment.

"Andrew isn't your section leader. I am."

"Well you aren't letting me march."

"You're correct," Rachel's brow arched with attraction and venom. "Because you'd make a fool of yourself. And if you're ass on the field, it'll reflect badly on me. I don't need that kind of image."

Her white skin glowing like radioactive waste as she neared, the only image Harmony could see in Rachel was that of a wraith; a reaper come to claim her soul.

"I'm leaving."

Harmony's body itched for freedom. Intimidation kept her right where she was. In came Rachel; her presence was smothering, her height imposing. Harmony's heart would not slow down.

"I wish you would. The sooner you leave, the sooner I can focus on the show. I have better things to do," on the word 'better', Rachel clawed the air in a motion toward Harmony's neck. Just before grasping it, she changed course and smashed the wall behind her.

Harmony jumped at the sound, putting her just beneath Rachel's chest. A breath slithered out of her before she realized the coolness she felt was exposed skin. At the realization, she shrank back and leaned into the wall again.

"Could you just-" Harmony's copper hair littered her face. She looked through the rusty reds, hoping they would hide how frazzled she'd become. "Tell me what you want out me?"

"I want you to pack up your horn, and your your extra twenty pounds of fat," cold grey eyes traced a line around Harmony's shuddering breasts. "Then go to some other school —anywhere that isn't Goldsdale."

She didn't understand such hostility aimed at her. Why was she being bullied so ferociously? Her in isolation; her with focused precision.

Harmony wasn't the type to dwell on such things, though. The second she flirted with the idea of leaving was the same second in which she saw her father's scowling face. She heard him telling her in private that he would never support her as a musician. She heard the sermon he preached, on a Sunday morning, to a congregation of three hundred people. God gave everyone gifts and talents, he said, but if those talents are used for personal glory instead of God's glory, they are the work of the devil. Then, he looked straight at Harmony, eyes pleading, and held her gaze.

The crowd cheered. The people agreed with him — agreed with his message. It was a poorly masked bandwagon tactic. "See, Harmony, you're the only one in this whole church that thinks you should be a musician."

Harmony sensed herself growing, filling the tiny space in her dark corner. Her fear melted into a courageous armor, and the temptation to change universities became the roots she would use to stay precisely where she was.

Nobody would stand for Harmony's music —not her father, or her church, or Rachel. That's why it was so important that she herself stand for it.

"You want me to leave, but I'm not going anywhere," Harmony cleared her copper hair away from her face. Her evergreen eyes were smoky in the limited light. "So looks like we need to come to a compromise."

"I don't make deals with shitty first-years. . ."

"I'm not shitty — I'm the best damned sax player to audition this year. You know that," Harmony stood ramrod straight. It put her well-endowed body flush to Rachel's but neither girl backed down. "You say you don't want me ruining your image. Actually, I think I'm the best thing your reputation has had in a long time."

"Excuse me?"

"The whole band is talking about the sax section. Director Hammond wants me to march. I'm good publicity. Instead of ignoring me, why don't you actually become a mentor to me?"

Upon saying so, Harmony felt herself wanting to vomit. Submitting herself to Rachel felt like the last thing she wanted to do. But she'd tried everything else; silently obedience, ranting and raving, and appealing to Andrew and the other leaders of the band. In the end, she had to make herself look valuable. If she presented herself as an opportunity that Rachel would have to be stupid to pass up, there might still be a chance.

"I do all the hard work and you get the credit. Anything I achieve will have your name all over it; my thoughtful, attentive, talented mentor who took me under her wing and made me performance-ready in time for the Homecoming game-. . ."

Harmony stopped gushing when Rachel took a step back.

It took ten seconds for Rachel to make any decipherable movement. At last, her shoulders sank in a sigh and she turned to retreat. "Dance studio four is on the second floor of the Price Fine Arts building. Be there at six-thirty." The way she moved was unreadable. If she was disgusted to be touching Harmony or seduced by her offer was unknowable.

With that, Rachel was repelled. Just in time, too. Harmony sank to her butt. A post-traumatic stress curled her into a ball, her chest pressed tightly against her thigh. "I can't believe that worked. . ." she squeezed herself. "It actually worked."

From no hope of marching to some felt like a cross-country journey. Seconds ago there had been no hope. At least now, there was a chance.

__________

Chris had scheduled a romantic dinner to give Harmony a break from the two weeks she'd spent slaving away. He'd happened to plan it at seven. When Harmony told him about the recent development with Rachel, he completely understood and offered to move the dinner to another night. He didn't resist, didn't argue, didn't complain about how much it cost to reserve a dinner at Ramone's. Instead, he assured her that he'd have a meal for her to heat up when she got back home and encouraged her to do her best. The last thing he wanted was to sound offended by her schedule.

Harmony tucked her phone away.

Could Chris ever be possessive? How many cancelled dinner plans could he take before saying something about it? Was there anything Harmony could do to force him to draw a line? Short of cheating or disappearing, she didn't think so.

Harmony clutched her heather gray backpack strap.

Thinking of Chris wasn't helping. She was on the second floor of the Price Fine Arts building. A janitor had pointed her to a door to a corner room. Once she reached it, she breathed deep to clear herself of her relationship questions and psyched herself up as much as she could.

She'd have to take the confidence she had for a few moments in the storage room and make it stretch for however long Rachel intended on keeping her.

Just as the impossibility of such manufactured courage lasting for more than a few minutes had Harmony spinning on her heel, the music stopped and the door opened. In the frame, filling it with hips and leg and edges, Rachel stood with an empty water bottle.

She smelled of exercise — the unmistakable scent of sweat hitting brand new athletic wear. Her sheer black leggings and bumblebee bra were attention suckers. It was easier to gravitate to Rachel's more pleasant bits anyway, especially with eyes you want to avoid like shattered whiskey bottles on a two-lane road.

"Fill this up. Water fountain's down the hall."

A glass tube with orange rubber was thrust into Harmony's hands. The door slammed in her face. It was another opportunity for her to second guess — "Go home. Eat dinner with Chris. Fuck Chris till you feel better. Rachel already thinks shit of you, just leave her bottle at the door and prove her right. . ."

That wasn't happening. Strangely, this time, it was the part about her having sex with her boyfriend that grated on her sensibilities and propelled her forward.

Harmony found the fountain. Her finger brushed the lip of the bottle as it filled; cool, reassuring. Rachel was just a person —a woman who needed to stay hydrated like every other woman. Perhaps, like other women, her mind could be changed; her impression could be upended. Oddly, the slender tube overflowing, crystal filtered water bubbling over the rim, had Harmony's heart thumping slower but harder.

When she reached the door again, she didn't bother to knock. Music was playing so her knocks would have been inaudible anyway. A soundbar was on a round table in the left corner. From it, a drum machine introduced a modern hip-hop sample done with a salsa style over some clips of the latest summer anthem being sung on top 40 lists all over the country. As far as music was concerned, it was audience-service; a jumbled mash of every genre known to raise hackles and fuel the last reluctant moments on a treadmill.

The opposite wall was glass from floor to ceiling. The tops of streetlights outside were like stars. Against the table and the left wall were gym bags, athletic drinks in bright colors, girlish totes, a few instrument cases, and jackets.

The true items of interest were on the right side.

Rachel was flanked by two other girls. Erika, a thin-haired brunette, was counting as she smacked a black remote into her open palm. Her numbers lined up impeccably with the kick drum in the blaring music. Megan hopped along with Rachel, a stalkier version of the girl she mimicked.

They were girls from band; Megan a fellow sax player, Erika a flutist. The fingerings were similar, Harmony remembered, so Erika would have no problem picking up the sax on the side

"Five, six, seven, eight-and-good! Shit! Nevermind, not that good. That kick at the end was late, Meg."

Megan gestured to the ground, exasperated. "Sprained. Ankle. Dance practice isn't helping the healing process, either," Megan complained. As the music cut, she turned and found Harmony.

Erika turned and met Harmony's eyes too. "Uh, Rach. She's yours, right?"

Rachel looked herself over in the mirror wall, top to bottom. Then she met Harmony's eyes in the reflection. "She's mine," she answered flatly. "For better or worse."

With legs like hers, Rachel could cross a room and bend every neck in the process. Before Harmony could fully download the situation, she was being held by the shoulders from behind. Rachel led her to the mirror wall. On display, Harmony's reflection watched her in front of every girl in the room. Rachel was a full head taller and prowled like a predator.

In slow, even speech, Rachel explained the fullness of Harmony's new situation.

The Saxettes. They were officially a jazz dance ensemble. Combining coordinated routines with live performance the women made a name for themselves in the niche of 'flirtatious divas tease with talent'.

"Don't be fooled — it's 'sex' before 'sax'," Erika interrupted, calling from her smartphone screen as she queued up the next song selection.

Closer to the end of the vague explanation, Rachel came out with her demand. "You make it as a Saxette, you make it on the field for homecoming. Until then, I'm more than your mentor; I'm your god. You do as I say, got it? You go where I tell you —you only breathe because I allow it."

Harmony swallowed a lump in her throat as Rachel's talons dug into her shoulders. She nodded. Her opportunity to move forward was through this window.

"Good," Rachel slithered south across the body before her.

Harmony felt cool air where her shirt overlapped her shorts. When she realized her top was being lifted, her instinct snapped a hand around Rachel's wrists to stop herself from being stripped.

Rachel's grey eyes blistered like a blizzard when they met Harmony's in their shared reflection. "Let. Go."