I had put my shirt back on. It was an act of some reluctance for both of us. Manu had done so as well, just as well as I didn't want to be distracted from whatever 'mad science' he had in mind.

My heart was pounding and fluttering, all at once. Like a hummingbird-woodpecker, not that any such thing could exist, but metaphors don't have to be realistic. All that matters is that they're evocative, and that image definitely resonated with me.

A laptop emerged while I sat at the kitchen table sipping at a glass of orange juice, carried by the apartment resident who only a moment or two ago I had been snuggled topless against. I gave him a look with some curiosity.

"Mad science," he said, "requires tools."

"What's the experiment?" I asked.

"The subject—you—claims that exposure to a particular stimulus causes unusual effects. Thus, controlled exposure to that stimulus, as well as to some controls, ought to provoke an interesting response, no?"

I chuckled a little morbidly. "I was afraid that might be it. Also, I love your mad science voice." I did, in fact. I liked his voice already, but the professorial tone he adopted, not to mention the language choices, made me feel like an assistant in some secret laboratory.

He opened the computer and it made the sort of noise I expected to hear from my own when I turned it on. "Well, it should be pretty straightforward. Uh, what's the artist's name again?"

"Tempest. Tempest Kind." Her name tasted strange in my mouth. Metallic, like sucking on a dime. Not something I'd done since I was three, but I guess the memory stuck.

"Okay. This first step will take a few minutes, so I can get things set up. Uh... I hate to ask you to entertain yourself..."

I laughed. "Okay if I take my juice to the living room and sit on the couch?"

"Yeah, perfect."

"'Kay, I'll just go doomscroll for a bit." I planted myself on the couch and pulled out my phone, trying to keep my curiosity in check. Instead, I opened my writing app just to have a blank page in front of me and think.

Manu headed back to the bedroom (I assumed) and brought back some headphones that he plugged in to the computer. I pretended to be interested in something on my phone. He noticed, and made sure I couldn't see the screen while he worked.

"How did I get here?" I asked, leaning back and putting my feet up.

"Hm?"

"I don't mean philosophically. How is it that I, a poet and creative writing major, am lounging on the couch of a chemist I met just last night."

He looked up from the screen. "I fell on you."

"Well, yeah."

"I was distracted," he said, looking down and typing. "By you, if I'm being honest."

"What?"

"I was heading towards the door," he continued. "Just got the text from Jared, wasn't feeling great, saw you sitting in that chair half-turned out, by yourself, looking determined, and was actually on my way to chat you up. Someone bumped into me and I wound up making the stupidest greeting possible."

I was a little bit surprised. "You were... interested in me?"

"Pretty woman sitting alone and looking ready to get out there and talk to someone? You bet."

"Huh." I sat up a bit. "So maybe it wasn't an accident, then."

"What?"

"You know... you see someone you're interested in, fake a little stumble..." I teased.

He looked up at me and grinned. "If I was going to fake a stumble, I would have been a little more graceful about my landing."

I laughed. "Fair enough."

There was something both comforting and a little disappointing that Manu's fall hadn't been completely coincidental. As fun as the romantic notion of a totally random accident might be, there was really enough strangeness going on. It was also nice to know that I wasn't just a pity date, even initially. All that work to get myself dolled up had been worth it, even if the night before had been rather typically (for that month) bizarre.

"Are you a little disappointed that I don't look as nice as last night, then?" I asked, more out of curiosity than anything.

"Hm? No, you look great. You looked great last night, too."

He tossed that off so casually and so distractedly that it couldn't possibly be a lie. I felt myself getting warm at the thought.

Manu was clearly engrossed in whatever he was setting up, so I stopped interrupting and actually looked at my phone. I started tapping with my thumbs, trying to capture a little bit of the moment I was in the midst of, but nothing captivating was coming. I just ended up cycling back to our little make-out session. I put my phone down beside me, closed my eyes, and let my hand trail under my shirt and over my tummy, drawing a little circle over and over under my navel. I just breathed in the moment, the place, the company, existence.

I let out a soft, satisfied sigh.

"All ready, here," Manu said. I don't know if he'd heard me or not.

I opened my eyes and got to my feet. "Alright, what's the plan."

"From what you told me," he said, unplugging the headphones, "you don't really know Tempest's music all that well, right?"

"Uh, well, I heard part of one song and the start of another, so..."

"Right, so there's no way you should be able to identify her work from other similar music?"

"Ah, okay, I see." I nodded. "No, I shouldn't be able to pick Tempest out of a lineup."

"So does this speak to you?"

He hit the spacebar on the laptop, and music started filling the room from the small speakers, starting obviously from the middle of a song. It was kind of the right style—single female vocalist, rough electric guitar, folk-type melody and text—but it wasn't right. Manu watched me for a while as I listened. There was definitely something there... maybe I just enjoyed that sort of music. I'd never really listened to that genre, after all.

I looked at him and shrugged.

"Anything?" he asked me, pausing the music.

"I dunno. Maybe?"

"But not like yesterday."

"No, God, no, not like yesterday."

"Okay, then, number two?"

He didn't wait for my reply, just started another song up. Probably a different singer, and a faster song, it almost sounded like a traditional Irish tune or something, but on a driven electric guitar instead of violin or tin whistle.

Before he'd even turned the music off, I was shaking my head. That example turned me right off.

"No effect?"

I lifted my hand and wobbled my fingers. "If anything, I didn't like it."

"Right. Number three."

It took the knees out from under me, literally. I couldn't stay on my feet. My breath was forced from my lungs as I sat on the floor. I felt dizzy, uncomfortable. And then...

It was gone.

The void left behind emptied my mind like a black hole, grasping for anything, devouring what I'd just heard. I couldn't have even said what the music was like.

"Hey," Manu said, coming to my side. "You alright?"

I reached up and grabbed his hand but didn't pull myself up. I just held on. I was clutching tight, trying to pull air into my lungs.

"Was..." I stammered, "w-was that..."

"Got two more to try out if you're okay."

I swallowed, finally getting to my feet with help. I felt a little unsteady, I think understandably. "Yeah, we, um... kind of need to get through the list, right?" More unsteady than I believed myself to be, I stumbled and fell against Manu; fortunately, he seemed ready to deal with that, and he braced me, and neither of us fell over.

"You're sure? You don't want a break?"

I shook my head, which was more like me rubbing my ear against his shoulder. "I want to see this through."

"Okay. Let me know when you're ready, and until then... Observations?"

"I dunno I just... It hit me and I just... fell, I guess? I don't even know what I heard. It was like the sound happened and then it was all over and I was on my knees and you were there. My whole body was... I dunno," I ended lamely.

He nodded. I felt it. "And now?"

"Thirsty," I said, and I didn't just mean for water, but I didn't feel like explaining it. "And like my skin is... uh, not on fire, not right now, but ready to ignite? Covered in gasoline or something? Or... no, more like flammable wax. I feel like
I'm coated, head to toe,
A candle, ready to flare,
Locked in potential
To burst at the touch of a match
And sear and soar and smoke
and—"

I stopped, feeling him tense and press against me, and realized that I was reciting, not speaking. The poem that had come to me in a flash was gone just as fast.

"I'll get you some water," Manu said, an odd tremble in his voice.

"Okay, I'm just going to sit down." And I did. "If that's what five seconds can do to—"

"Forty-five," he said, running the tap.

"What?"

"They're all forty-five second segments. I... maybe should have stopped that sooner, I was maybe too curious as to what was happening."

I leaned in. "What was happ—" I stopped as my foot brushed against something that shouldn't have been there, and I looked down.

My shirt.

My hands jerked up automatically and covered my bare breasts. "What the...?" I looked up at Manu, bringing me a glass. "Did you...?"

He looked confused. "No, you did." He put the drink down on the coffee table and picked up my shirt, handing it to me and turning away.

I flushed deep. "You've... seen all that already."

"Uh huh," he said. "But... you seem more... naked now than before." His tone was meek, respectful, and somehow vulnerable.

I chuckled. "I thought you liked seeing me naked."

"Hah," he said as I pulled my shirt back over my head. "I do. Definitely. Why do you think I waited until the end of the song segment?"

"I assumed for science. You can turn back."

He did. "Well, that, too."

"So wait," I said, reaching for my drink. "It felt like a few seconds, maybe, almost instantaneous to me. I don't even really remember any of the music."

"Huh. Yeah?"

I drank deep, then put the glass back down, half full. "So... what happened in all that time I didn't experience?"

"You bit your lip, shivered like you were cold, looked like you were scratching at your arms for a moment,"—I checked my arms to see if I had; I hadn't—"and then in one swift movement, threw off your shirt, dropped to your knees, and started waving around your arms like you were writing, or—"

"Painting." I finished. "Drawing, on a canvas."

It was there. Waiting. Behind my eyes. In the void where the memory had been. Words, drawings, a whole page of feeling.

It wasn't flat down on the desk. It was standing, vivid, living. I would have needed an easel to get it out the way I had felt it.

But also, it would continue to wait. I could feel it there. It wasn't going anywhere, it wasn't putting any pressure on me. In that forty-five second space of impossible cold and heat, the vacuum where thought had once been, an unrealized riot of illegible pencil sketches would live until I had a chance to express it. And those sketches would turn into words, and those words into poetry, and that poetry into...

Into...

I didn't know. I didn't know where it would go from there. I wasn't sure I wanted to find out.

"Yeah, that makes sense," Manu replied to my interruption, unaware of the mess that was going on in my head. "Your creative process?"

I nodded. "Mhmm, just... there's a picture there, something forming in my head."

"Need a paper?"

"No, it's not... it's not urgent, I guess?" I took another drink and stood up. "Let's try some more."

Manu waited a moment to make sure I was steady. "Another chance that you might strip off? I'll take that."

I bapped him lightly on the shoulder with the back of my hand. "You don't need music to get me topless."

"No, but..." He hesitated, and I guessed that he was searching for words. "When you kissed me, when we made out, it was amazing. When you started reciting poetry, it was like... like lightning in me. And then, to see you... uh... to see that... I don't know, it was something I'd never seen before from anyone. You were... glowing, and I don't just mean white girl flushing red, though you were doing that too."

I was certainly still doing that. I could feel the warmth of bloodflow to my face.

And to other parts of me.

"Let's just... keep going, okay?" I said, trying keep what little composure I had left.

He smiled. "Sure thing." And he returned to the computer. "Selection number four."

He pressed the spacebar.

It wasn't the same, but it wasn't wrong. I didn't black out, I didn't lose time, I just... listened. Listened close. I could hear the imagery in the music, building that rich tapestry of image and word that crafted poetry beyond the words that were being sung. It was a lament, that I heard, hiding behind a simple song of regret, as though the singer were hiding the real depth of her sorrow and I could see past her polite deception.

Forty-five seconds passed, and Manu cut the song off mid-sentence, and I felt bad for it. I put a hand to my face. I was crying, or had been.

Manu was watching my reaction, I think to see if I needed help again. I looked down. "Still dressed," I joked, but I could hear the caught sob in my voice.

"You alright?"

I nodded. "Just... caught me off guard, is all." I collected myself. "There was something behind that simple tune, something very deep and very sad."

"Right. Need a moment?"

"Nope, let's just go on."

His turn to nod. He went to cue up the last number.

Number five had the opposite effect on me. Laughter bubbled up almost immediately. The song was full of light and joy and even a few seconds in I couldn't keep from giggling. I couldn't hear the words, and they didn't matter, the music itself was enough, the sentiment in it. Carried away, I spun in place, moved by the music (even if didn't keep to the beat), and kept dancing on my feet even after the clip had ended.

"Don't have to guess, this time," Manu said, and I laughed again. "Uh, you mind, can I try number two again?"

Curious, I said, "Sure," and he headed back to the computer.

This time, the second number, instead of just being something I didn't like, provoked an absolute physical revulsion. I stood about a third of it before I was tense as a spring under pressure, and just asked Manu to turn it off.

"Okay, sure," he said, as I fought the urge to retch. "So, um... thoughts?"

I sat down and picked up the water, trying to keep the disgust away. It tasted a bit off, as though the glass still had soap in it from the dishwasher. I drank it anyway. "Um. Kind of? I'm curious as to what the science says."

"The science says to ask the subject before accidentally biasing her responses," he replied, pulling over a kitchen chair to sit near, but not next to, me.

"Right," I sighed, still holding the empty glass. "I'm gonna guess that number three was Tempest, right?"

He nodded, but his face didn't betray anything. His nod was less an affirmation and more a note of interest.

"Okay, so you're not giving away anything until I'm done, then."

"Yep, that's right."

"Alright. So Tempest was the third, and it... uh, it unlocked me to feel the rest more deeply? Maybe to feel the energy of the songs I heard afterwards more strongly? Because, uh, I mean that second one, after Tempest, was painful to hear. I didn't like it the first time but the second time I couldn't stand it. And I don't think that a few seconds of a song like that would normally have made me weep, or giggle, unless it was something that I knew that triggered something in me? But I don't know any of this music."

"Right," Manu said, still a study of impassivity. "Can I play you the first again? You don't have to stand up."

I shrugged. "Sure."

"Last test, I promise," he said, getting up, taking my glass, and moving back to the kitchen table. "Here we go."

Fire.

I didn't black out, I didn't lose control of myself, but I sure wanted to. "Oh wow," I breathed. "This is... different."

The music was still playing. "Keep talking?" Manu said.

"Okay, sure, uh, the first time, I kinda liked it, it was nice, I wasn't sure, this time I just want to... explode, I dunno, it's good, it's a good explosion, I really want to just take everything off and soak it in and just, I dunno, be one with the—" the clip ended "—music." I blinked. "I..." I took a breath. "Okay, now that it's done it's... it's like the end of a panic attack, right? The adrenaline is still there, but I can let myself calm down. Not that I was panicked, or scared, or anything, it was just so completely, well, not completely, not like number three, but it was consuming, or it wanted to consume me, or, I dunno, I wanted to consume it? Or meld with it or something, it was... ugh, I'm not making sense, even to me."

"It's okay," Manu said, getting up. "More water? And any other thoughts?"

"Yes please," I said. "Okay, so... um, obviously after hearing number three I can't really give a fully unbiased opinion of the rest, because something about number three altered my perspective of the others." Hopefully temporarily, I added to myself as Manu brought me a fresh glass of water.

"Right. Maybe when the effect wears off, you could listen to numbers four and five again and see what you think."

"Sounds good."

"And you're right," Manu said, sitting down. "Number three was Tempest." He paused, and I waited, seeing that he had more to say. "So was number one."

"Huh." I bit my lip, thinking. "So it's not her, it's..." I trailed off.

"It's something else, yeah. If it makes a difference, the third was 'Fly From the Flames,' the one you told me about, and the first was from five years ago."

"Okay." I wondered what that meant, and if it meant anything. I took the glass of water and drank it down quickly.

"I guess it does make a difference," Manu continued. "Just don't know what difference it makes."

I chuckled. "More experimentation?"

"If we want to find out, I guess."

"Not today."

"No, that was... probably enough."

"Though..." I hesitated, thinking. "I wonder..."

Manu leaned closer and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

I steeled myself against what I was going to say, and leaned in myself. "What would it be like having a kiss while number three is playing?"

Manu smiled a bit predatorially. "Lots more experimentation, I think."

My lean carried me into another kiss, which Manu reciprocated. I wound up on my knees, with him on his chair, me looking up at him. His position seemed strange and awkward, but mine felt absolutely natural, so I let my hands drift up from his hips, pulling his shirt up and pushing him into a more upright position. I kissed his chest, twice, and then helped him get the shirt off entirely. I held him against the chair, kissing down his chest and back and forth under his pecs before heading down his belly. I stopped at the button of his jeans and looked up.

"May I?" I asked.

"Mhmm, please," he half-whispered, voice rough.

So I did. The button came undone, the zipper came down, and I pushed, while he lifted, and my hands slid over the base skin of his ass, and before he was even seated, my mouth was over his hard cock, sliding up and down. I hadn't given too many blow jobs, but I did know what I was doing, and I could tell from his reactions that he would agree with that statement.

I paused for breath in the midst of the operation, my hand continuing to move over his slippery member to keep him properly hard. "Science really does it for you, huh," I said with a grin.

He started to laugh, breathlessly, before I got back to work and turned his laughter into a drawn out moan.

I could feel that he was close. His hands tangled in my short hair, partly holding me in place. He was guiding, not forcing; if I wanted to get up I could.

I didn't want to.

And it was pretty clear he didn't want me to, either.

His laboured breathing became another, more desperate moan, and I felt him pulsing in my mouth, and I slowed down and let my tongue trail over the head of his penis as the first warm, salty liquid emerged.

His body seemed to tense, and deflate, as if all his potency and power came pouring out in his orgasm. One hand remained in my hair, more stuck there by gravity and inertia than anything else.

I wiped my face and let a fair bit of his semen out of my mouth using the hem of my shirt. "Good?" I asked him.

"Oh, yeah, definitely," he said. "I, uh, really wasn't expecting..." He trailed off.

"Me neither, but I was the one that asked to be here, I was the one that told you my story, I was the one that wanted to kiss you..." I shrugged. "Seemed right to me."

"To me, too, though I admit some bias." He finally released my hair. "Uh... I feel kinda stupid with my pants around my knees, could..."

"Off, or on?"

"Off."

I helped him get his jeans and briefs off, and he sat there, a bit limply (not just his dick) on the kitchen chair. He looked a touch like a broken marionette, though a sweaty, smiling one.

Oddly enough, I didn't feel like joining him. I didn't feel like stripping off, I didn't feel like achieving my own sexual satisfaction. I stood and he looked at me questioningly. I took my glass from the table and headed to the kitchen, to get yet another glass of water.

"Do you want..." he started to ask, but I waved him off.

"I got everything I wanted, I promise you."

He stood up, still naked (I'm not sure when he would have dressed). "Is there anything, anything at all I can do for you?"

"No, thank you, Manu." I took a drink. "Honestly, this is what want right now. Might be a little different later, but right now, like I said, I got everything I wanted."

"I would... feel bad just leaving you alone," he began.

I smiled. "Go take a shower. I'll be here when you're done." I walked over and gave him a hug. "I'm not going anywhere."

He held me for a moment. "Thank you."

"Thank you. Don't be too long, though..." I kissed his cheek. "I'm hungry and it's suppertime."

He let me go and snapped a crisp salute, which made his balls bounce, and I realized I was staring at his crotch. "Yes ma'am," he said, turning on his heel and heading to the hall.

"Could we... uh..."

He paused. "Yeah?"

"Let's not with the 'ma'am,' okay?"

He nodded, smiling. "Of course. Won't happen again."

"Same goes for 'miss!'" I called after him as he closed the door. I slipped my shirt off and ran the water in the sink until it went cold. This was something I knew how to handle. Cold water, dish soap, and a good rub, and the stains wouldn't set in. I got the hem of my shirt nicely soaked, soaped, and rinse, then laid it out on the clean kitchen table to dry.

Then I took my phone and my water and lay down on the couch, smiling. I heard the shower turn on, and I closed my eyes.