Sex in C Major

"I when you play the bass, I feel it. The pitch is erotic."

"Never heard that one before."

Stefan shrugged, folding his arms across his chest.

"If the cello did that to me, I'd be screwed," he mumbled.

"The cello?"

"Yeah. I play the cello."

The sombre expression on Yannis' face lifted. He grinned, a wide and almost manic expression that suddenly looked a lot like Daz.

"Where is it?"

"At my flat."

"Then let's get it."

"Wait, what?"

"Let's get it. I've a whole trunk of sheet music we can work with. Come on. Let's go. Now!" 22

Stefan was shaking by the time the taxi pulled up outside the flats.

He didn't want Yannis to see the tower block. He didn't want him to see the junkie on the second floor, or the racist graffiti in the stairwell. There was a guy on Stefan's floor with a swastika painted on his door, and EDL posters all over the communal doors.

There was something wrong about Yannis being here, in his well-fitted jeans and his thick-framed glasses.

All the way up to the flat, though, Yannis didn't say a word. The block was quiet, for once, and Stefan fumbled with the keys to get Yannis into the flat and out of the way before any of his neighbours could come out and see him.

"Council?" Yannis guessed as the door finally popped open and Stefan pushed him inside.

"Um, yeah..."

Yannis cast an eye over the meagre contents of the flat, and Stefan felt himself going red. Daz had called it Spartan, but he had been more interested in Stefan than the flat. Yannis...wasn't. And somehow that made his judgement, his mere presence in what Stefan knew to be a shitty flat in a shitty place, more frightening than Daz's.

Yannis didn't say anything, though his eyes lingered on the bare mattress a little longer than Stefan liked. Stefan swallowed, mumbled about fetching the cello, and fled into the bathroom. He had to close the door to open the linen cupboard, and heard Yannis cross the bare boards to the kitchenette in long, slow strides.

Stefan's face was burning. Why had he agreed to this?

The cello's cool smoothness in his hands soothed the embarrassment, and Stefan edged it out of the cupboard carefully. A string hummed gently. It glowed dark against the white tiles as he propped it up against the wall to close the cupboard again, and its heavy weight and unmanageable body were comforting and familiar as he wrestled it into its case. The strain on his shoulder as he lifted it was pleasant. Taking a deep breath, Stefan opened the bathroom door again, and carried the cello into the main room.

Yannis, leaning against one of the counters, stared.

"Um," Stefan said, setting his cello down. "The case has seen better years."

"Not the case that matters," Yannis said. "You have a cello, but you live here?"

"Council won't move me somewhere better."

"You don't work?"

"No."

"Why?"

Stefan felt his face warming. "Because I can't get a job."

"Can't or won't."

"Can't!"

Yannis shrugged, peeling himself off the worktop and heading for the door. "You spend a lot of time at our house for a job hunter."

Stefan scowled angrily at his back. What did Yannis know? Stefan had looked! What was he supposed to do, spend every hour of the day looking? He didn't have any qualifications or anything. He hadn't had a job since he was seventeen, and he couldn't go into some office with everyone calling him by his actual name, and Miss, and urgh.

"You coming or you going to stand there?" Yannis called from the front door. It was already opened. Beyond him, Stefan could see the black edges of the swastika on his neighbour's door.

He pushed down his anger, and followed.

Yannis, however, had other ideas.

As Stefan locked up, Yannis slid his own keys out of his pocket and began to sift through them. It was a thick bunch, mostly standard silver Yale keys, but with a couple of small padlock keys and a heavy, rusty old key with teeth half an inch long. This one, Yannis plucked apart from the others, and fisted his fingers around it like a knife.

"What are you d—oh my God!"

Yannis pressed the key into the wood below the swastika, and began to dig.

"Yannis!"

Yannis ignored him. He dug and etched in tiny but persistent movements. A pattern began to emerge, carved into the door patiently, flakes of paint and wood drifting to the floor.

"Yannis, seriously, if he's in-"

"He'd have come out by now," Yannis mumbled.

"He could come back!"

Yannis wouldn't be dissuaded, however, and Stefan could do nothing but clutch the cello case and stare in hopeless horror as Yannis defaced the door. And when he was done, Yannis blew gently over the carving like it was a masterpiece.