STREET LIGHTS

AMULYA

Well, I finally entered the main grounds of his beach front property after one of his  staff buzzed me through. I'm not gonna lie I was a little intimidated walking through the exotic looking garden with all of its palm trees organised like some sort of a miniature topiary maze. Now I think about it, it may have been in the shape of a music symbol or something. I really don't know much about music except what I like to listen to in the car, especially Tetsuo's tracks which seem made for driving around to.

"At least you had the decency to buzz. The last caller wasn't so polite."

I had no idea what he was referring to and was just surprised Tetsuo seemed so happy to see me when I hadn't even told him I was coming like this unannounced. Honestly, he seemed like a totally different person to the man I've seen in the clubs. He beamed with a boyish smile as if he really had been expecting me all this time. It was strange, kind of like seeing Batman smile.

"I had a feeling you would turn up like this."

"Oh you did?"

"Yeah. I summoned you with my mind."

"Yeah, sure!"

"I really did. David Blaine ain't got nothing on this computer," he said, pointing to his head.

I was getting strong Dracula vibes from Tetsuo the way he was talking. I had this feeling like any minute he might plunge his teeth into my neck and draw blood.

Maybe that's just me though. I've always loved vampires.

"Come on. Let's get out of here."

"What? I've only just arrived though."

"I know, but I want to drive."

I didn't complain. I liked the idea of going on a mystery tour with this enigmatic figure I'd read so much about in tabloid websites and heard rumours of on the celebrity grapevine. Besides, things might have escalated real quick if I'd gone inside his place. And after we'd done so well to play it cool all this time, maybe neither of us wanted to blow it so soon.

Plus I suspected he needed a muse more than he needed a girlfriend right now and I was happy to be one if it wasn't all on his terms. You see I also got my own needs when it comes to being inspired myself. My muse game levelled up ever since I got treated like shit by some fashion photographer who thought he was some kind of genius.

Spoiler alert. He wasn't.

But Tetsuo is.

LAIKIN (TETSUO)

Driving through the neon city, the first rain in months finally arrived and brought with it that fresh scented air I'd been so badly craving.

I almost didn't want to turn the wipers on to clear those rain drops off my windscreen, so happy was I to see them again but things started getting blurry and I was carrying precious cargo.

When you're rich you can choose your climate easy and fly to wherever you need to be for your mood, but I had my own reasons to stick around the entire end of summer here in L.A. It was a vibe I was cultivating and the heatwave became part of it. There's a languid type of stasis that I wanted to express musically. It's not dissimilar to that Phil Collins track "In The Air Tonight", where he almost seemed to deliberately throttle the atmosphere out of the track to create that wind tunnel acoustic that sound like you're all alone in your emotions. That airless claustrophobic feeling when your life seems on pause is what I've been trying for in the studio. It's also what I've been living.

This sweet rain tonight is exactly how I want to end the new album, with that emotional sense of release, like those tears my mom would cry when the happy ending comes along at the end of a Hollywood movie.

Amulya looks amazing tonight. She's always fire. Of course, I'm known for having that Hitchcock type of impulse to dress the women I date but not with her. Somehow she just insinctively knows how to sync with my vibe at all times. It's like she's psychic.

I've got a feeling we're both pyschic which is why I know we can say nothing and understand everything about each other simultaneously.

I know she feels my deep sadness right now even though I've said nothing about anything to her directly yet.

She probably thinks I want her to be my latest muse like all the rest.

The truth is. It's much deeper than that with Amulya.

I want her to save me from myself.

Lately I've been getting this feeling late at night that I'm fading away like in 'Infinity War' where the more I get removed from reality, the more I lose sight of what I was trying to achieve in the first place. It started with the death of my mom and I've been spiralling ever since. The truth is I need someone who both understands the celebrity culture I been existing in and yet keeps me grounded at the same time. Someone who can bring me down to earth before I go full interstellar.

Amulya gets it. Yeah. She gets it. Some women just got that deep vibe. It hits you like pure energy when you both in the same room together.

Only thing I worry about with her is whether she will she stick with me through both the fire and the rain but I'm sure we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

We reach a red and I pause my mind which is flying on all cylinders right now, then look across at her as she looks back at me.

"So. Do I still got time to grow?"

Smiling with the confidence of a deity, she waits a moment leaving me in suspense like a little child

"All the time baby. You got all the time in the universe."