"When I'm in a bad mood
It's good to know I have you
You got niggas from your past that still ain't pass you
But you're on my time
But you're on my time now, and our past through
Now that we finally got them out the way
All the decisions that I wanna make
I want your body in a million ways
Nobody ever makes me feel the same…"
DVSN—"A Muse"
Erik practiced playing poker online. When work was finished with Tony for the day, he would take himself to his apartment and cook a simple meal of plain brown rice with sautéed vegetables and boneless skinless chicken breasts.
Food consumed, he'd check personal emails, call his grandfather, and then hunker down on his laptop and play three hours a night. He was going to use the money Tony paid him that he had saved to get him in at the bottom: half a million dollars. Minus the other half a million he gave away to his family, he was willing to bankroll his spot at the high stakes poker table with no help from Tony.
Work had gotten serious. After Tony's cover story appeared in Forbes, the focus of his company turned toward escalating weapons manufacturing, and Erik finally saw the bread and butter of Stark Industries. His days were spent working with Tony at his subsidiary company AccuTech designing a new missiles system that he called Jericho X. The man spent hours of brainpower trying to create an experimental model that he wanted to manufacture and have on the market within five years. Inking a new contract with the United States Armed Forces, Tony was under pressure to deliver the hot-launched missiles sooner than the five-year deadline he gave AccuTech. The man was hands-on and Erik's education at the Naval Academy was useful to him. Erik had the mind of a soldier, and his training was meant to prepare him for his forthcoming Naval career. Those military eyes helped him on the job.
Erik had to concede once more that Tony was a smart motherfucker and his focus on work was just as laser-sharp and obsessive as Erik. Working around him on the Jericho X project was eye-opening and the long hours pushed Erik's mind to its limits. He was allowed to work at AccuTech and give up a lot of his assistant tasks which he was all for. He acted with restrained professionalism, and that allowed him to hang around after hours to do his own experimentation with the vibranium.
It did take the heads of AccuTech a couple of weeks to be accustomed to a Black teen having so much access to a secret project. If he had been some lanky white teen with an overly ingratiating personality, no one would question his presence. He would just be viewed as a white boy genius and "Atta boy!" accolades would've been thrown at him along with pats on the back. Instead, he was a Black boy genius faced with bias and suspicion. He endured the usual bullshit just so he could get his hands on equipment, testing space, and cutting-edge STEM knowledge.
Sitting on his bed and winding down from playing online poker, he checked out the housing available to him at M.I.T. In six months, he was leaving for grad school and he was already designing his life there. He checked out restaurants and clubs, searched for areas that had Black people and Black cultural things he could access. He searched for any capoeira spaces and the ones he found were white-dominated and he wanted Black people to practice with. He needed Black touchstones to keep him sane after his experience at the Naval Academy and Stark's internship.
Checking the M.I.T. website he found an alumni link that helped new students transition to the Institute. A few hyperlinks found him peeping the on-campus radio station, WMBR, that served the Cambridge-Boston area. Listening to a few archived music shows, he stumbled across one that was deejayed by someone called ButtaFly. The show was called Cosmic Café and when he listened to the first ten minutes, he immediately bookmarked it and added it to his listening rotation. The music was Blackity Black and spanned generations, and the DJ did live mixes that had Erik head bobbing.
For two months he laid on his bed from twelve midnight until two in the morning just being carried away by the sounds and also the voice of ButtaFly, a woman who made Erik's entire body relax. She opened her show with a positive quote or a bit of poetry and then she had themes that she created stringing songs from the field hollers of Black chain gangs to the Black Neo Soul of 90s British R&B, or any type of current African diaspora music she could blend with Hip Hop, Deep House, or Electronica.
He tried looking up personal details or even pictures of ButtaFly, but she was a hidden ghost, just words and rhythms and vocal soothing that helped him sleep before heading off for the grueling hours of AccuTech.
She became his brain muse, expanding his mind so he could juggle the science he worked with every day.
Stretching on his bed, Erik closed his eyes and put in his earbuds.
"As-salaam 'alaykum, Beloved. Welcome to the Cosmic Café. I am your host, DJ ButtaFly bringing you that good nourishment, that savory food for your mind, body, and spirit. Tonight's theme is going to run us into the realm of quantum physics. A little Afrofuturism to get us through Black History Month…"
Erik felt his shoulders loosen up and he closed his eyes. He tried to imagine what type of face went with the sultry voice blessing his ears. The modulations and changes in tone she used as she spoke hypnotized his ears. Muscles throughout his body relaxed and he wondered what kind of musical journey she would take her listeners on that night.
"I want to open the show with a piece from a sister whose work I adore, Alexis Pauline Gumb. I feel like someone out there needs to hear it. I know I do. This is taken from her book of experimental poetry called 'Dub: Finding Ceremony'. This particular joint is called 'Commitment'. Are you ready, Fam?"
Erik nodded his head as he grew more comfortable, slipping deeper into a state of mental ease. He rolled his right hand down his chest and rested it on his stomach. Lying nude in the dark he could almost hear his heartbeat.
"We promise to wake you if we think you won't get the point of the dream. We promise to show up if you show up. Everyday. We promise to make you feel sick if you lie to yourself. We promise to let love through if it's love you came to do…"
Soft. Soothing. Safe.
Her voice cradled and held him in a warm place. She wrapped his thoughts around her words.
"We promise to make time flexible if you give us your time. We promise to think of you more often than you think of us. We promise to remember you when you forget. We promise to be wherever and in everything you haven't noticed yet. We promise to be we, even one by one…"
Erik's body floated. He was still firmly pressed on his bed, but the eternal part of himself seemed to rise above his tired flesh and hover at the beckoning of ButtaFly's mouth thousands of miles away.
"We promise to outsmart your mind. We promise to overlove your heart. We promise to echo over your voice. We promise you everything. Everything. All we ask."
An image formed in his mind.
Full lips. Feline eyes. Skin rich and dark and made for touching and deep kissing.
His hand slid to his manhood.
ButtaFly spun dreams, drums, and breakbeats, sounds and rhythms that kept him floating above himself even as he stroked a growing erection in his hand. He tried to create a more detailed rendering of what he imagined the DJ to look like, but as pre-cum beaded at the tip of his swollen glans, his brain substituted Devika's face and body as a placeholder and he ran with it.
He tugged hard on his dick, keeping a tight grip right under the ridge of his tip. He imagined Devika's ass wiggling as he slapped his dick on her ass cheeks. ButtaFly's music urged him on and when she spoke to her audience about the songs she was about to mix in next, he latched onto her voice and grunted hard.
"Fuck!"
His hand was slick and more pre-cum spilled onto his fingers.
"Fuck this dick!"
"You ready for more?"
The haunting track ButtaFly flooded his ears with dragged him to the edge. He jumped up and turned over on his bed. Grabbing his pillow, he jammed it under his waist and ground his dick on it, pumping his hips as his glutes flexed hard. Eyes squeezed shut he conjured up images of a shapely ass clapping loud because of his thrusts.
A disembodied voice had him humping his pillow, the casing growing damp from the amount of pre-cum he was shooting out from his sensitive tip. He jammed his right hand on top of his erection to create a tunnel, allowing him to pretend he was in ButtaFly's pussy. His hand was slippery and he pushed down on the pillow to get more friction. The music in his ears was made for fucking and he thrust harder imagining some tight pussy yanking on his dick as his balls pounded into a nice soft ass. She sounded like the type who could throw it back on him and make him cry because it was so good. He lost it then.
He yelled like he was knee-deep in gushy pussy.
His thighs grew taught and his orgasm rushed across his ass and up over his back and neck before any semen flooded all over his pillow and sheets. A long groan blew out from his throat as he rubbed out another smaller nut. His fingers touched the pillow. The whole thing was soaked and sticky.
Leaning on his thighs he threw his head back to stretch his neck.
The moment he got to M.I.T. he was going to look for that DJ. There was no way in hell she could make him cum like that and he not find out what she looked like. His dick was still hard, and she kept the music going. He reached for his cell and searched through some old files. He pulled one up.
Athena.
She allowed him to film her as he hit from the back while she held onto her bedroom dresser. He watched Athena's big titties hang down and bounce in the mirror as he pounded her pussy. Jacking off again he allowed the music in his ears to narrate the fucking he watched himself do on his phone. Cradling one overly full breast in his hand on film, he watched his video self cum inside of her, calling out her name as she released on his dick screaming his. His eager hand worked his dick on the bed, the hard strokes slowed down until his cum splashed all over his stomach. He fell back on the bed feeling wiped out.
During his lunch break the next day, he downloaded the book of poetry, ButtaFly shared from the previous night, and read the piece at least five times. The words resonated with him. And they did something else: reminded him of his purpose.
Inside the work labs at AccuTech, Erik studied the mock-ups of new guns and smart weapons. He toyed with experimenting with vibranium and creating sonic weapons.
"We promise to outsmart your mind."
The line of the poem came back to him.
Staring at the new gun design that Tony had posed with on the Forbes magazine cover, Erik thought of converting it and somehow using the properties of the vibranium on it. As he listened to the best weapons designers grapple with the Jericho X missile prototypes, Erik memorized what he saw so that he could sketch it out later in his apartment. He wanted to compare it to the designs he saw in his father's old journals. He asked to work on the Stark sonic canon, a non-lethal long-range acoustic device. Granted permission to do so, he studied how the LRADs could be modified with the ideas he had swimming in his head. He looked for cheap and easy ways to mass manufacture devices that could be shipped around the world undetected. But he had to figure out how much vibranium it would take to modify Stark's LRADs. He only had six months left to absorb all he could.
He stayed diligent with his work and Tony visited AccuTech often giving his thoughts on their progress. Stark was preoccupied with some politicians giving him grief, and also preparing for the new batch of summer interns. He stripped down the number of interns he would have from 100 to fifty. That meant it would be even more competitive. Summoned to Tony's Los Angeles office from Palos Verdes where he had been working, Erik stepped into the outer sanctum and found Devika speaking to some assistants from other higher-ups. She took one look at him and paused for a long time. He realized then that they hadn't seen one another for a couple of months, his time spent in Palos Verdes cutting off contact between them in person.
He was about to step into Tony's office, but she held up a hand signaling for him to wait. When the assistants left, she walked over to him.
"Hey," she said.
"Hi."
Her eyes stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time.
"What?" he said feeling self-conscious.
"Something about you is different."
"How so?"
He sat on her desk.
"There's a swagger about you that is different…hmmm, more confident maybe?"
"When have I ever been less confident?"
"You look…good. Sophisticated."
Her eyes flitted away from his face. She was acting bashful all of a sudden.
"How's Wyatt?" he asked.
Her eyes regarded him carefully.
Wyatt was her new boyfriend, an older dude from Seattle she met at a mixer in Los Feliz.
"He's doing well. Thanks for asking."
He let his eyes linger on hers. She was still checking him out.
"He better be treating you like a Queen. Let me know if he doesn't," he said moving off of her desk and heading into Tony's office.
"Stevens. Good, we can get this intern stuff sorted. Come with me."
Tony swept past him and Erik followed. They only went around the corner from his office and into a mid-sized conference room. Pepper was inside the space along with two other executives Erik was not familiar with.
"Awesome, we can finish up now," Pepper said.
Tony and Erik took a seat at the end of the oval conference table facing a blank wall. Pepper handed them touchpads and turned on a floating screen.
"We've narrowed down applicants to just under three hundred. You need to choose who you want to be interviewed."
Erik and Tony scrolled CVs on the touchpads. So many names.
They painstakingly went through every CV, staring at applicant photos floating in front of them. Tony was open to Erik's suggestions, and this fact alone opened up the pool of applicants from ones Tony would've overlooked from his own biases. He tended to court favor with those from Ivy League schools and who had the same boring backgrounds. Mainly white and East Asian applicants who all did the shit that they thought would make them stand out. How many classically trained pianists/violinists who played La Crosse, Tennis, Chess, and water polo did one need? Sometimes too many extracurricular activities signaled a follower. A simp that did things not because they enjoyed it but because it padded their resume. He forced Tony to consider graduates from non-Ivy Leagues, those who did community-based work where they lived. More women applicants of color, especially Black and Latinx ones. He even suggested Tribal Colleges and lower-tiered public universities and colleges. He also mentioned looking at people who didn't have perfect Dean's Lists grades.
"I tell you what. I'll give you three weeks to open up the pool and bring in those types of potential interns you suggested. Pepper, give him access to the advertising bulletins," Tony said.
"That's cutting it close, Tony, we need to have interviews lined up and applicants chosen by the beginning of May."
Pepper and the other two Execs looked annoyed.
"Stevens can get it done. Give him the bulletins," Tony said, standing up.
Erik followed Tony out of the conference room.
"Let's go have lunch," Tony said.
Tony drove them to a restaurant in Pasadena. A small French café with excellent crepes filled with savory meats and sauces.
"Are you enjoying AccuTech?" Tony asked.
Erik nodded as he chewed a forkful of chicken masala crepes.
"I'm getting good reports about you. You've adjusted to the pace."
"It's cool. The LRAD work is right up my alley. That's what I'll study at school. Hands-on work will have me ahead of the curve."
"Grimaldo keeps hitting me up. He is ready for this re-match."
"I am too,"
"You sure you don't want me to bankroll you?"
"Nah."
"He tends to be at his best on his home turf."
"I'm good."
"Some things to know…"
A waiter brought over a glass of wine for Tony and sparkling water for Erik.
"We will be among a lot of royalty. I know you have excellent sartorial choices, but I need you to step up even more and have some formal clothing for at least a week—"
"A week? We'll be gone that long?"
"I'm making some business deals while I'm there, so work will be happening. You can use that time to work on the intern stuff. Pepper isn't coming with us, so I will slip you back into your old personal assistant role. She'll guide you from here. You'll need to be extra discreet while we are over there, and also be prepared for last-minute changes."
Erik ate his meal and listened.
"You sound kind of nervous," Erik said.
"Not nervous. This Jericho deal is very important and we'll be among some other industrialists and even some nefarious characters that want to see me fail. Things have to be tight and not attracting negative attention."
Erik nodded.
"I like the things you brought up at the intern meeting."
"Pepper and the others didn't sound so delighted."
"They'll get over it. It's why I put it in your hands for new outreach. Hey, are you sure about leaving for school after August?"
"Yeah. Gotta get that graduate degree."
"You should stay on at AccuTech."
Erik shook his head.
"M.I.T., Navy. That order."
Tony finished up his wine and glanced at his watch.
"Back to work," he said.
Erik stopped at Tony's office before picking up his car in the Stark garage. Devika was alone there, and her eyes seemed to light up when she saw him again.
"How was lunch?"
"Good. What do you want me to bring back from Monaco for you?"
"You don't have to bring me anything—"
"I want to."
"A t-shirt is cool-"
"T-shirt? That's so gauche. I'll bring you something classy."
"Don't spend a lot, Erik."
"I'll bring you back something that won't make your man jealous. How 'bout that?"
"Okay."
He smiled at her. The aroma of her perfume hit his nose suddenly and the scent took him back to her bedroom and the smell of her on his skin.
"I'm out," he said walking away quickly.
When his work was over for the day, he spread out on his bed nude and slipped on his earbuds.
"As-salaam 'alaykum, Beloved. Welcome to the Cosmic Café…"
Erik's muse took him away once more. Soothed his spirit. Steadied his mind.
He was ready for Monaco.
###