Studio Rules

The meeting ran long. Label people, lawyers, the whole circus. I sat on the couch with a stack of contracts and Jackson sat across the room with his guitar, not really playing. Just picking at it.

Kaylee. Twenty-eight. Paralegal. Single on purpose and happy about it.

I looked up once and he was watching me. Not the way guys watch. The way people watch something they already decided about.

We packed up. Everyone left. He leaned in like he was going to kiss me and I pulled back.

"Okay," he said. "Noted."

"Noted," I said.

And that was the end of it, for the night anyway.

* * *

**Texts**

**Jackson (9:47 PM):** so. I leaned in. You went backward. I read that as a no on mouth stuff.

**Me (9:48 PM):** You read that right. For now.

**Jackson (9:48 PM):** for now. Huh.

**Me (9:49 PM):** I'm not doing this sloppy. If we do anything we do it with rules. I'm a paralegal, it's a disease.

**Jackson (9:50 PM):** draft me something then. I'll sign it.

**Me (9:51 PM):** Rule 1. No kissing on the mouth. Not yet. Maybe not ever. We'll see.

**Jackson (9:52 PM):** weird but fine. Agreed. When?

**Me (9:53 PM):** Thursday. Brushfire. You'll be there anyway.

**Jackson (9:53 PM):** I'll be there anyway.

* * *

**From:** Kaylee Marsh **To:** Jackson Reyes **Subject:** Addendum

Jackson,

Per our conversation, and because I don't do ambiguity: Addendum to Rule 1. Hands stay above the waist during the first encounter. All encounters, technically. First one especially.

You're 31, you can read a contract, this isn't complicated. Everything else is negotiable later, in writing, like adults.

Nothing about this means anything. I want to be plain about that. I'm not looking for a boyfriend and I know you're not looking for a girlfriend. We're looking at each other. That is the entire arrangement.

K.

**From:** Jackson Reyes **To:** Kaylee Marsh **Re: Addendum**

Accepted.

* * *

Thursday. The studio smelled like dust and old carpet, and the couch had a century of road wear baked into it. The band cleared out by ten. He locked the door because I asked him to lock the door.

We kept Rule 1. It was hard and it was good, the way a hard rule is good. His hands stayed high. I checked. Twice.

He left first. I stayed to pack my laptop, and when I lifted the mic stand off the coffee table there was a note under it. Folded once, torn from a guitar string packet, his handwriting like a doctor's signature.

*Addendum violation report. At some point my hand ended up below your waist. Not on purpose, but the rulebook doesn't have an "on purpose" clause. Guilty. New rule proposal: Rule 2, nobody takes off their own clothes. Everything that comes off gets taken off by the other one. Slower. Better. Think about it.*

*J*

I found a pen in my bag and wrote on the back of his note.

*Rule 2, noted. And Rule 3. Agreed. No counting how many times. You'll abuse that otherwise. Same time next week. K.*

I left it on the couch where he'd find it and walked out into the parking lot grinning like an idiot.

* * *

**Voicemail transcript**

**Received:** Friday, 2:00 AM **From:** Jackson Reyes **Length:** 1:12

"Hey. It's me. I know it's two in the morning, you can bill me for it. So. Thursday. I've been lying here running it back and I need to say this out loud before I lose it. There's a minute I keep landing on. The lights were off, just the one lamp by the board, and you were on the couch and I was kneeling between your legs with your dress shoved up past your hips and my hands on your knees. I wasn't even doing anything yet. I was just there, and I could hear you breathing, so I counted. I got to eleven and you caught me. You said, what are you doing, and I said, counting, and you laughed. That laugh. Okay. Point of the call. Rule 4. Proposal. No speaking during. No words, either direction. Just breathing and whatever else happens. If you want to stop, you squeeze twice. That's the safe word system, two squeezes, we're done. I think it'll wreck us in the best way. Call me back or don't. If you call back after two a.m. I'm allowed to be smug about it forever. Night, Kaylee."

* * *

I called back at 2:14. I said one word. Thursday.

* * *

The next week the room was the same and the rules were different. Rule 1 held, barely. Rule 2 did a lot of work, him unzipping me one tooth at a time, me working his shirt buttons like they were crucial, which, fine, they were, emotionally. Rule 3 held because neither of us counted out loud.

Rule 4 held for about nineteen minutes.

Then I broke it. I whispered his name, right against his ear, and he froze and then kept going and then I broke it twice more before the night ended. He never said a word the whole time. Just breathing and my name sitting in the air.

I went home and couldn't sleep, so I opened the notebook I keep for case notes and wrote on a clean page, then photographed it and sent it.

**Diary entry, 1:40 AM:**

*Things I did tonight that I said I wouldn't.*

*I broke Rule 4 first. Nineteen minutes in. I said his name. It came out before I decided anything, which is apparently a thing my mouth does now. He didn't say anything back, which made it worse, in a good way, the way that keeps you up at 1:40 writing in a work notebook.*

*Assessment: rules work. Rules also make you want to break them, which maybe was the point and maybe neither of us is smart enough to admit that.*

*New proposal, Rule 5. No laughing at the wrong moment. Definition of wrong moment to be determined by whoever is laughing. That's a biased court, I know. I'm a paralegal, I know what a biased court looks like. I'm still filing it. Also, I do not