I watch his fingers flounce across the strings of that standing bass. It leaned back into him, pressing against his pelvis, intimately. Its scroll hovered inches from his face, taunting me. Each pluck of its strings, a violation sending shivers down my spine. My traitorous heart mimicked its hypnotic pulses, sharing its beat with that standing bass. I watch still and silent while they dance and make music. He picked a string, hard. The standing base held the note while he spun it in place. The note began to fade, the spinning stopped and he pulled it back into himself, closer than before. His eyes were closed now, head crooked toward his standing bass, he was lost in passion. His hands wrapped around his love, right hand low, his left hand high. The beat fastened, his fingers moved swiftly, beads of sweat forming as the pair bared their soul beneath the spotlight. The last beat travelled through the crowd and it ended. I applauded alongside everyone else, for him, not for the standing bass.

The night wanes and we leave together, I drive. My partner sits beside me in the passenger seat but his love lies alone in the trunk.