A Queer Turn of Events

  by Lisa Lees

"Hi Jami!" said Sandy, plugging her bass into an amp and running through the intro to That's When I Reach For My Revolver.

Crystal glared at her.

"What? Oh, okay, so maybe I'm a little depressed. You know that kind of music cheers me up."

"You're a weirdo," said Crystal, holding her guitar to the side as she gave Sandy a quick kiss. "But I love you so much."

"That's good," said Sandy. "I'm a little short on people who think I'm not the root of all evil." She played an aggressive run, looking at the floor.

Crystal plugged her guitar into her amp and began doing finger warm-ups, hoping that Sandy's mood would change. She noticed her guitar was out of tune, stopped and looked at Sandy, who was looking at her, a small smile on her face. OMG, how could I live without her? thought Crystal.

"The tuner is in my Hello Kitty bag," said Sandy. "Your G is flat."

"Thanks, honey." Crystal set her guitar in a stand and walked over to Sandy's red and white striped bag to rummage for the tuner. Finding it, she returned to her guitar. She plugged her guitar into the tuner and went through the strings. Sandy was right, of course; the G string was flat.

"Aren't they cute?" said Emiko, placing a wireless microphone in the stand that Rachel had just set up.

Rachel nodded. "They are, but so are you."

"Me?"

"Duh! Sexy!"

Emiko snapped the mic into place and put her arms around Rachel. "You are still okay with being queer?"

"Oh, God, yes!" Rachel kissed her.

Taking deep breaths when their kiss finished, Emiko said, "I so, so happy!"

"Emiko," said Rachel, "you cannot be as happy as I am!"

"We each happier than each other?"

"You goon!" They kissed again, then broke off.

"We have serious work to do." Dropping her voice to a whisper, Emiko added, "Tonight, I do you, again and again." Still holding Rachel's hand, she smiled and turned back to the microphone, tapping it. "Hey, sound tranny! Wake up! Is this thing on?"

Tam smiled from where sie was sitting behind a keyboard, big headphones on. "Yes, Emiko-chan."

Emiko raised her eyebrows and bowed. "Thank you, sound sensei."

"Not me," laughed Tam. "Crystal is the expert. I'm just pushing buttons and sliding sliders. But this is kind of cool." Sie pressed a key, which started a drum loop.

"You got rhythm!" laughed Emiko.

"I do," agreed Tam. "I can push buttons at the right time." Sie looked sheepish. "Crystal is working with me on my guitar playing. I'd like to do that, be a second guitar. But then we'd have to have someone else to run sound."

"No problem," said Emiko, "we recruit groupies!"

"Groupies?" said Rachel, not liking the idea.

"Not to worry, girlfriend," said Emiko, "I protect you from any sexy groupies."

Carys was pleased to notice that Sandy and Rachel were taking part as usual, in spite of what was happening to them. "Are we a band or a gender performance troupe?" she said softly to Jami, walking up to her and handing her a list of routines.

"You're saying there's a difference?" said Jami, innocently.

"Hmm. I suppose there doesn't have to be."

"We have sexy sound, like Asobi Seksu," said Emiko, who always heard everything going on around her.

"Who?"

"Japanese lead singer. Noise pop. Name means playful sex," said Emiko with a wink.

"Let's make some noise of our own," said Crystal, striking a chord that wasn't a variant of E-minor.