Page 16 of Rhythm and Rapture

The video cuts off there, but almost immediately an audio message follows. Her voice fills the room—warm honey with an edge of academic authority that shouldn't be as attractive as it is.

The Hidden Chemist: [Audio message] I admit, your ability to make existential dread sound downright poetic is very conducive to marking undergraduate attempts at understanding molecular pathology with limitless red ink. Quite a talent.

"She listens to our music," Ash breathes. "While grading. That's the hottest thing I've ever heard."

"Shut up," Felix and I say in unison, but we're all leaning toward the phone like her voice has its own gravitational pull.

Ash snatches the phone, adds his account to the thread and sends an audio message:

Ash: Okay, so you grade papers to our music. That's established. But here's the real question - which song? Because if you're failing students to 'Broken Compass,' that's just cruel. That's our saddest song. At least give them false hopewith 'Neon Dreams' before you crush their molecular pathology aspirations.

The Hidden Chemist: [Audio message] "Bold of you to assume I'm that merciful. Actually, it's usually 'Frequency.' Something about the baseline helps me maintain consistent grading standards. Though I'll admit, last week I accidentally gave someone bonus points during Roman's bridge solo. The emotion was too much. Had to go back and fix it.

Her voice carries this mix of confession and amusement that makes my chest tight. Felix grabs his own phone to respond, having taken the liberty of adding himself already.

Felix: [Audio message] You gave someone bonus points because of Roman's vocals? That's... actually the best review we've ever gotten. Music critics just say things like 'haunting' and 'visceral.' You, on the other hand, are increasing grade point averages. I'm sure that's unethical, but since it's our music, we'll keep it our little secret.

The Hidden Chemist: [Audio message] What can I say? Your music has measurable effects on cognitive function. I could probably write a paper on it. 'The Impact of Alternative Rock on Academic Evaluation Standards: A Case Study.' Though the peer review might be complicated.

Then she laughs—not the polite, controlled laugh from her streams, but something real and unguarded. It's low andgenuinely delighted, like she's surprised herself with her own joke. The sound wraps around us, and I watch both my bandmates' expressions shift from amused to something more intense.

We sit in stunned silence, that laugh echoing in the sudden quiet of our apartment.

"Okay," Ash says after a long pause. "We're definitely in trouble."

"The best kind of trouble," I agree, already working out our next response.

Chapter Seven

The Behindthe Lens warehouse always smells like expensive coffee and ambition. It's a heady combination that hits me the moment I push through the heavy glass doors—Ethiopian single origin mixing with the particular scent of creative energy and barely contained chaos that defines this place.

It's just past 5:30 PM, and the three-hour drive flew by in what became a battle of increasingly random, outlandish questions and answers."Would you rather fight one horse-sized molecular structure or a hundred molecule-sized horses?"led to"If you had to explain your dissertation using onlypercussion sounds, what would it sound like?"which somehow devolved into"Fuck, marry, kill: Newton, Einstein, Curie?"

The conversation was chaotic, ridiculous, and absolutely perfect until it circled back around to collaboration, and I think about the last message I sent:

"As for collaboration, I might have something in mind. Something that pushes boundaries. Question is: are you three ready to expand your definition of acceptable variables? Because I should warn you... I take my experiments very seriously."

The truth? I had absolutely no idea what kind of collaboration I could propose. I was completely winging it, making it up as I went along, and it felt... liberating.

Most days, I barely know who I am—existing on autopilot, my mind a constant blend of formulas, assignments, dissertation chapters, and treatment protocols. Bills stack up like homework I can't complete. The most vivid days are those I spend with Kael, etching each second into my memory, fearful of the pervasive clock ticking in my head that threatens to drown out my attempts at surviving.

The last three hours though, are etched in a different way. It felt realer somehow, on a different level. To just flirt and tease and play without the weight of everything pressing against every thought. For three hours, I got to be just Sabina—not the guardian, not the student, not the survivor. Just a woman trading increasingly flirty messages with three musicians who made her laugh.

I'm barely three steps into the lobby when Nova, the receptionist with the perfectly winged eyeliner and a voice like honey-coated steel, waves me over. She's typing one-handed while applying lip gloss with the other, multitasking with the kind of efficiency that makes me wonder if she's secretly running three businesses from behind that desk.

"Sabina! Thank god you're here. Lorna wants to see you in her office. Said to send you right in when you arrived. Something about a special project."

My stomach does that familiar clench. Special projects in adult entertainment can mean anything from "exciting creative opportunity" to "we're about to ask you to do something that will haunt your Google search results forever." But Lorna's never steered me wrong before. She's one of the few people in this industry who actually respects boundaries while pushing creative limits.

Nova leans forward conspiratorially, her voice dropping. "Fair warning—she's had four espressos already and she's doing that thing where she spins her pen like she's planning world domination."

"Did she say what kind of project?" I ask, already knowing Nova won't divulge details even if she has them.

"Nope. Just that it's 'perfect for June' and something about making history." Nova's phone rings and she answers it with practiced ease. "Behind the Lens, where your fantasies meet professional production values. How may I direct your call?"

I leave her to it and make my way through the warehouse—fifty thousand square feet of converted industrial space that Lorna has somehow transformed into something that feels almost like home. If home produced artistic adult content instead of Sunday dinners.

The space buzzes with its usual controlled chaos: laughter spills from a room down the hall where someone's recounting weekend adventures, computers hum as they render hours of footage into polished content, and somewhere a photographer calls out lighting adjustments with the precision of a surgeon.

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