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Rajan woke to a bright morning and an empty bed. He swiped his hand along the sheets and found them cool. Kala was at work, and Wolfgang was… well. Wolfgang had not yet decided how to spend his days. It worried Rajan, seeing him at such loose ends. He closed his eyes once more and tried to release his worries with a long exhale. His mind quiet, he heard, very faintly, a song.
He got up, tied on his bathrobe, and opened the bedroom door just a crack. No, he hadn’t been imagining it. Someone in the flat was singing. Wolfgang was singing. It couldn’t be anyone else. His voice was nothing special, truth be told, rough and a little off-key. But it was passionate. Whatever song this was – Rajan couldn’t understand the German – it mattered very much to Wolfgang.
Rajan wanted to get closer, to hear better, but he feared Wolfgang would stop singing if he knew Rajan was listening. This was a side to Wolfgang he had never seen or even imagined was possible. It felt delicate, like the brief moment a butterfly lands nearby before it flutters away. He waited for the song to end, then followed the sound to the kitchen, where Wolfgang was making breakfast, enough for him and Rajan both. By the time Rajan came in, he was frozen, startled, as if he were a child who had been caught breaking the rules.
“That song is beautiful,” Rajan said, smiling. “What is it about?”
Wolfgang made himself busy pouring tea, avoiding eye contact. “It’s about making peace. Something like that.”
“The perfect sentiment for a time when we are all finally at peace,” Rajan said. “Is that yogurt with muesli I see?”
“I thought I might as well make enough for two, since I got up before you,” Wolfgang said, taking a seat.
“Thank you.” Rajan took his place across from him. “Where did you learn that song?”
Wolfgang’s face closed off. It was more or less what Rajan had expected. Kala and the others of his cluster had a key to the closed doors of his heart, but Rajan found he had nothing but the patience to wait for them to open.
Then Wolfgang’s eyes focused on a place behind Rajan, in a way he was coming to understand. One of his cluster was visiting. Rajan wondered for a moment if it was Kala, but somehow he knew that Wolfgang’s expression would be different if it were. His face softened slowly as his soul conversed with another incarnation of itself. In the golden morning light through the window, his open, bright face was so, so beautiful.
Wolfgang’s eyes refocused on Rajan. “I learned it in primary school. From my music teacher. She wanted to train me as a soloist.” He shook his head and drank his tea. “It was stupid. I didn’t have the talent.”
Rajan smiled. “I’ll tell you a secret, Wolfgang. I don’t have the talent for business. I learned how to manage a biotech company because my father wanted me to learn, and he supported me every step of the way. Eventually, I learned.” He reached across the table and took Wolfgang’s hand as it fidgeted with his spoon. “Anything you want to learn, Kala and I will support you, just as my father supported me. Whether you’re talented at it or not.”
“I don’t know how to do anything but stealing and killing,” Wolfgang said. “That’s all I ever knew.”
“I’ve met your cluster. They know how to do many things. And they’re all reflections of your own soul, are they not?”
Wolfgang turned his hand to hold Rajan’s. “I’ll think about it, okay?”
Rajan squeezed and let go. “What will you do today?”
“I don’t know,” Wolfgang said.
“I have to go talk with the police about the corruption investigation today,” Rajan said. “But try to get out of the flat some time, okay?” Rajan had not known him for very long, but it seemed to him that Wolfgang had always been a man driven by great quests. His final quest, to save his cluster from the dangers that beset them, had been resolved. He would either have to find a new quest, or learn how to live without them.
Lito stood in front of the international departures hall of LAX and stared at Hernando with helpless fondness, until Hernando reached out and pulled him into a passionate goodbye kiss. Lito relaxed into the embrace. He had forgotten he was allowed to do this now. Secrecy was a hard habit to break.
“I’ll come back for your wrap party,” Hernando said into Lito’s neck, holding onto him just a little longer. “And then we’ll all go home together.”
“What are you going to do without all the excitement I’ve brought into your life?” Lito said, smiling.
“I’m going to finally start that book I’ve been meaning to write about media and the conception of the self. Now that my entire notion of the self has been upended.”
“I can’t wait to have you explain it to me.”
Now Hernando turned to Dani and lifted her up in a hug, twirling her around. She whooped and grinned. “Look after him while I’m gone, Dani. He needs somebody to keep his feet on the ground.”
Dani laughed. “Don’t worry about him. He’s never alone. Not anymore.” She kissed him on the cheek and waved as he wheeled his suitcase inside.
Lito took the passenger’s seat and let Dani drive. The incident with Sun’s hormones a year ago had reminded him how bad his road rage could get when he was emotional. He watched Dani, huge sunglasses over her eyes, swearing at drivers who cut her off on the freeway, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel to the reggaeton on the stereo, and found himself, for once in his life, utterly tongue-tied.
In the rearview mirror, he saw Kala in the backseat. For a while she just sat there silently, taking it all in. Finally, in a tone of surprise, she said, “This is… awkward.”
Lito had figured out by now that he didn’t have to speak out loud to talk to his cluster. He found his inner voice, the one he ran lines with silently before a scene, and said, “Yes, it is.”
“I…” Kala looked back and forth between Lito and Dani. “It all looked so natural between the three of you, in London and Paris. Like you had it all figured out. I’ve been so jealous, you know. I love Rajan and Wolfgang, but making it work with the three of us isn’t easy. I keep hoping that one day we’ll all be as easy with each other as you are with Hernando and Daniela.” She gestured helplessly at them. “But this is so awkward! What’s wrong?”
“Hernando went home,” Lito explained. “He has to go back to work. He’s a professor at the National Polytechnic Institute.” Lito glanced at Dani, who was telling the GPS voice to shut up. “It’s never been just me and Dani before. Just us, no secrets, no lies. I don’t know what we are together without Hernando.”
“Do you love her?” Kala said.
“Of course,” Lito said. “But not the same way I love Hernando. Or the same way Hernando loves her.” Images came unbidden to his mind. Daniela protecting him, by yelling at casting agents over the phone or facing Whispers with a gun. He and Hernando embracing each other on the Pont des Arts under a full moon and kissing each other passionately. Hernando’s hand between Daniela’s legs while Lito kissed his back.
“What was all that?” Kala said, blushing a little.
“Things that are… special to two of us. Not all three.”
“Surely you don’t keep secrets from one another!”
“That’s not what I mean. Daniela protects me. Hernando doesn’t. That doesn’t make Hernando weak. It means that he wants me to stand up for myself. And Daniela wants to stand up for me. And both of those things are okay.”
“And… you wouldn’t kiss Daniela in the moonlight on the Pont des Arts.”
“I could, but she would laugh at me.”
“Oh Ganesha,” Kala said slowly. “Is this what it’s like for Wolfgang and Rajan when I’m not there? I never thought about what that might be like for them.”
“They have something important in common,” Lito said. “They both love you, Kala.”
Kala smiled. “Then you and Daniela have something in common, too.”
“You can help them,” Lito said. “Especially Wolfgang. I visited him last night, your morning. He was being all stone-faced with Rajan at the breakfast table. I told him to stop looking like he’d bitten into a lemon when he had a beautiful man staring soulfully into his eyes.”
Kala laughed. “Thank you. You’re good for Wolfgang, you know.”
Lito smiled into the rearview mirror. “I know.” When he blinked, the backseat was empty.
“Hey, Lito?” Dani said. At long last they were on a fast-moving stretch of highway, and she had no traffic to go to battle against. “Are you okay? You’ve been really quiet.”
“I miss Hernando.”
Daniela took one hand off the steering wheel and squeezed Lito’s shoulder. “Me too.” Something they had in common, no matter what.
Group Chat: Clusterfuckers
Jela
Who came up with the name of this chat anyway?
Felix
me! hahahah
Rajan
What
Rajan
Do you? Did you?
Rajan
I’m sorry, this is none of my business.
Felix
It’s just a joke, India Plan B. Don’t worry. You only have to share Wolfie with seven other people, not eight.
Bug
I think it’s hilarious, dude.
Hernando
May I ask a serious question?
Amanita
Of course. That’s what the chat’s for. Even if Felix uses it for memes.
Felix
Hey. That picture of the eight kittens was exactly like the cluster. There was even a grouchy one for Wolfie.
Hernando
Do you ever get jealous of the cluster?
Hernando
I don’t mean if you wish you were a sensate. It’s just that I have to be apart from Lito and Daniela while I work in Mexico City and they’re on set in Hollywood. The cluster can be there with Lito at any time, and I must resort to clumsy technology. I’m terribly jealous of these people who can know what he’s feeling and doing right now, who can speak to him directly whenever they like.
Mun
I understand. I love Sun but she can be very hard to read. I sometimes get jealous of all these people who get to share her heart and know what she feels, all the time.
Amanita
I felt that way at first, sometimes. But especially after seeing the whole cluster together… I mean, I saw that on some level, they’re like all these different sides of one person. So being jealous of the cluster is kind of the same as saying I’m jealous of Nomi. If I were Nomi, I would know what she was feeling. Obviously. But then we’d be the same person, and part of what I love about Nomi is that she has such a different spirit and energy from mine. So I’d be giving something up, too. And I wouldn’t want that.
Amanita
Not that I’m saying it’s wrong for the cluster to fall in love with each other. Seeing a part of yourself in someone else and loving that is a beautiful thing too. It’s just not what Nomi and I have.
Hernando
Beautifully put, Amanita.
Hernando
You have no idea how much material for my book I am getting from all of this.
Wolfgang watched the movie – something about a very important game in a sport he didn't recognize – tucked up between Kala and Rajan on the couch, paying more attention to them than the screen.
He let his awareness expand, in the way that he could when Kala was around. He felt the room as a little warm and a little cool, the movie as an epic struggle against British rule in India and as a beautiful incomprehensible whirlwind of color and song. He ran his fingers through Kala’s hair and felt the sweet little pull on his scalp. She needed more room to stretch her legs, so he folded in, made room.
On his other side was Rajan, the mystery, the murky sea to Kala’s clear pool. Was his mind on the film? Did he want Wolfgang to come closer? He had nothing to go on – except everything he’d ever used to read his lovers before Kala. He insinuated his hand into Rajan’s hair, and waited to see what would happen.
Rajan turned his head so half his face was cupped in Wolfgang’s hand. He felt the tickle of eyelashes, the heat of breath, and the curve of a smile against his palm. Wolfgang caught himself humming with the song in the movie, and stopped.
A laugh puffed against Wolfgang’s palm. “It’s so strange when you do that.”
“What?”
“You’re stroking my hair, and Kala is tracing circles on my thigh, in the exact same rhythm. Like one heartbeat.” Wolfgang felt his smile twist. “Just when I forget the connection between you runs so much deeper than yours to me, you go and do something like that.”
“Rajan,” Kala said. “You’re not less than us because you’re a sapien. Never think that. This relationship cannot work if you believe our connections to you are not important.”
Wolfgang felt like he should also say something, but he didn’t know what. Before Kala, his relationships had never involved so much talking. Finally, he said, “It’s just different.” He laughed a little and leaned into Kala, still holding onto Rajan’s face. “There’s never been anything like this.”
“I thought I would hate you,” Rajan said, half-muffled by Wolfgang’s hand. “How could I not? My wife’s secret lover, who could get into her head when I could not. But then when we met, I saw a part of Kala in you. The way you looked at me, like I was someone you could depend on. Your rock. Even though you’d never met me. And now I can see parts of you in Kala and – and it makes me love her more. Somehow.”
Kala leaned in front of Wolfgang to kiss Rajan on the cheek. He could feel Rajan’s tension drain away. He squeezed Rajan’s shoulder, and they fell back into watching the movie for a while.
Lito appeared, cross-legged on the floor at their feet. Wolfgang grinned, reached down, and ruffled his hair. “What are you doing here?” Kala said. “Isn’t it the middle of the night in California?”
Lito shrugged a shoulder. “Less than an hour until I have to get ready for filming. I couldn’t sleep. The bed’s too empty with just Dani. Besides, you have a very good movie playing, and a beautiful husband on your couch.” He winked. Kala laughed.
Rajan raised his eyebrows. “Lito?”
Wolfgang leaned in and said slyly into Rajan’s ear, “He’s complimenting our taste in men.”
Rajan’s face flushed. He ducked his head. Kala looked down at Lito and said, “Your… partners… are both sapiens.”
Lito nodded. Wolfgang shared a look with Kala and said, “Can you tell him,” jerking a thumb at Rajan, “to stop being stupid?”
Lito leaned back into Wolfgang’s and Kala’s legs and studied Rajan. “Tell him the cluster can only surprise me as much as I can surprise myself. Dani and Hernando show me something new every day.”
“That’s how I feel!” Kala said.
“Go wake Daniela,” Wolfgang told Lito. “You shouldn’t be moping alone at four in the morning.”
Lito disappeared, and Rajan said, “What did he say?”
Wolfgang leaned over and murmured in Rajan’s ear, “He said that with his sapien lovers, there’s always something new to discover. He has to learn about them without all the shortcuts.” Wolfgang gestured between himself and Kala. “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you. We want to learn all about you. Discover you.” Wolfgang slipped an arm around his waist. “The hard way.”
“I know more than you,” Kala told Wolfgang, smiling. “I’ll have to catch you up.” She kissed Wolfgang with a smile on her lips. “Are you ready? What do you want to do?”
Kala and Rajan had been asking Wolfgang that a lot lately. The truth was that he didn’t know. He hadn’t ever known anything beyond the criminal underbelly of Berlin. There was so much more for him now. But first he had to learn how to be different from who he’d been. “Teach me,” Wolfgang said, and they did.
Group Chat: Clusterfuckers
Hernando
Can someone ask the cluster how Lito is doing? I feel he is not telling me everything.
Zakia
We cannot use the cluster to spy on our friends and lovers. Their gifts aren’t there for our convenience.
Hernando
Of course you are right. Forgive me. I’m just worried.
Zakia
But I can tell Capheus to go visit Lito and talk some sense into him.
Hernando
That would be wonderful, Zakia, thank you. How is his campaign doing?
Zakia
The election is tomorrow. We have observers for the polls tomorrow making sure the election is run fairly. I only wish I could report on it, but of course I have had to recuse myself because of our relationship.
Hernando
I will be praying for him tomorrow! Good luck!
The crew was on lunch break, which Lito took privately with Daniela, as he sometimes did when he wanted space to be all parts of himself, not just the actor. They sat in the shade of a jacaranda tree, out of earshot of the crew eating at folding chairs by the lunch buffet.
“They keep calling me your fag hag,” Daniela said, stabbing viciously at her salad. “I tell them, ‘Haven’t you ever heard of a friend? Look it up sometime.’ But that’s not really it, is it?”
“No, not exactly,” Lito said. “But you’re not my girlfriend either.”
Daniela laughed. “No! Can you imagine?”
“I used to have a word for everything in my life. Secret lover. Beard. Now I feel like there aren’t words for anything anymore. Like, what is the cluster to me? What is this thing with you, me, and Hernando?”
Dani raised her eyebrows. “Are you saying you miss having a secret lover and a beard?”
“No, no, no! It was terrible! I wouldn’t trade this for anything. But. I wish I could explain all of this, even to myself.”
“You act as if you are helpless to solve your problems,” Capheus said, leaning back against the jacaranda tree as if he’d been there all along. His eyes danced. “You do know you have a device in your pocket that allows you to speak with your boyfriend at any time.” He took a cell phone out of his pocket and waved it. “It can even have video!”
Lito complained though a mouthful of his lunch, “I never thought being psychic would mean constant unsolicited relationship advice.”
“Who is it?” Dani said, doing a double take as if she might catch a glimpse of Capheus somehow.
“Capheus,” Lito said.
“Well, I want to hear his relationship advice. His girlfriend’s really cute.”
“Why don’t you call him?” Capheus said. “What are you afraid of?”
Lito sighed. “I’m afraid he will be disappointed in me. For being so lost without him.”
“If he makes you feel bad over this I’ll get on a plane to Mexico City and slap him!” Dani said. “This whole gay-bi-straight love triangle thing is complicated. We’re allowed to be confused and screwed up sometimes!”
“With me, more like all the time,” Lito said.
“I know that is not true,” Capheus said. When Lito tried to protest, he found himself drawn over to Capheus, to his campaign headquarters where they were chattering nervously among themselves while they waited for the votes to come in.
“Oh,” Lito said. “It’s your election day! I can’t believe I forgot! Good luck, Capheus!” He swept Capheus up in a big hug, and felt him laugh and grin against his shoulder. “Go! Talk to your people! Win your votes!”
Lito fell back into himself and felt ridiculous. If Capheus could run for office and lead his people, despite assassination attempts and gang warfare, Lito could be honest with the man he loved. He took out his phone, placed a video call to Hernando, and prayed he would answer. Dani put aside the remains of her salad and leaned in to see the screen.
Hernando picked up. He was in his office, with a framed print of a Frida Kahlo self-portrait behind him. He broke out in a rumpled smile. “Lito! Dani! So good to see you! You haven’t called since I left.”
Lito laughed nervously and rubbed at his forehead. “I’m sorry, Hernando. I guess… I guess I felt like I should be fine with just Dani, you know? It’s all three of us together, so why can’t I just – why do I feel like I can’t do this without you, Hernando?”
Dani punched him in the shoulder. “Hey! I miss him too.”
Hernando pushed up his glasses to rub at his eyes. “Lito, darling, we have been together three times longer than we’ve been with Dani. Of course it will be different with her. Just because we’re in a relationship does not mean that every part of that relationship should be the same. So the Lito and Dani part is new and you miss me? Of course you do. I never expected it to be easy.”
Lito laughed and ducked his head. Dani said seriously, “So what should we do? This one keeps waking up all night because the bed doesn’t feel right with just me.”
“Call me,” Hernando said. “I don’t care if you wake me up. It’s worth it to me if it makes you feel better. I’m not your cluster, but technology is an amazing thing. We sapiens are becoming more and more like sensates every day, with all of these new ways of connecting to each other. Use them.”
“I will,” Lito said. “I will, Hernando. I love you.”
“The movie is going to blow you away,” Dani said.
“Of course it will,” Hernando said. “Every movie of his I watch makes me fall in love with him all over again.”
Dani clutched at her heart and grinned. Lito made a kissy face at the phone.
“Wrap up the call with your boyfriend and the fag hag!” Kip called. “We’re shooting again in ten!”
“She’s not a fag hag!” Lito called back in his best booming actor’s voice, loud enough for everyone on set to hear. “I don’t want to hear anyone calling her that. Haven’t any of you ever heard of a best friend?”
Group Chat: Clusterfuckers
Zakia
What is this song Capheus is singing in German?
Diego
I can’t believe Capheus is still awake after his big win! You guys must have been up all night celebrating.
Zakia
He is not awake. He’s singing in his sleep. It’s very cute.
Daniela
Lito’s singing it too! I think it might be pretty, though you wouldn’t know from Lito’s singing.
Rajan
That’s Wolfgang. He started singing in the shower and I think it may have turned into one of those contagious songs the cluster gets into sometimes. It’s a liede from the turn of the last century. The title in English is something like, “Now let us make peace.”
Felix
Holy shit! Wolfgang is singing that fancy shit he learned in elementary school! I never thought I’d see the day!
Felix
I think you guys must have been a good influence on him. As long as he doesn’t get too fancy to go to karaoke bars with me.
Daniela
I asked Lito about it. He says Wolfgang is learning to reveal the true song of his heart.
Amanita
Which movie is that from?
Bug
Every Rose Has Its Thorn. I love that one!
Rajan
Don’t tease Wolfgang about his singing. He is very self-conscious.
Rajan
Between us, he is not very good yet. But Kala and I are making our home a place where he can try something new. It is a spark. Let’s let it grow.