Opus One

Chapter 5: Sonata

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Movement I.

Practice was difficult for Richard the next morning.  Besides having somewhat of a headache, he had trouble finding a practice room.  The piano in the one he finally secured was mediocre.  It sounded somewhat muffled no matter how he tried to coax any tone out of it.

Usually he could have dealt with the limitations of the instrument, and made progress on some technical passages or finger work.  But unfortunately his mind was continuously drifting off.  The events of the previous night were replaying in his mind like a looped videotape. 

He stood to stretch, and tried to clear his head.  Obviously that was no friendly goodnight kiss Emily had given him last night. 

But what was the meaning of her shushing gesture? Did she not want to disturb Sandra, or does she not want Sandra to know at all?  But then she massaged Sandra’s head too.  And what of Sandra, pulling aside her straps?  Clearly she was very much enjoying my massage!  It almost felt like an invitation to touch her more.  She hung in my arms forever when we hugged goodnight.  And then her peck on my lips was overly friendly, too.

Richard wondered what the girls knew about each other.  They already seemed fast friends after only a few days.  Girls do that, he reminded himself.

Richard ran his hands through his damp hair.  This heat isn’t helping, he thought. 

He felt like he was misleading someone.  Sandra, by not telling her of the kiss?  Or Emily, by not telling her he was deeply attracted to Sandra as well?

Or was it himself he was misleading? 

Richard had never been in a situation quite like this.  Or even remotely like it.  He’d been with more than one woman, but certainly never at the same time. 

First was Maureen Kowalski.  That was a classic case of a relationship that should have stayed at the friends stage.  Maureen was a bit weird, on the fringe of the socially acceptable pool in high school.  She and Richard traded stupid poems in Spanish class, junior year.  Somehow that led to trying to have sex.  Maureen wasn’t a virgin, although she never said where she’d lost that part of herself.

After one rather uninspired coupling, everything got weird.  Maureen had regrets almost before they had even finished the act.  She thought that Richard was going to find her promiscuous since they had only ‘known’ each other for a month.  Then she thought he’d think her prudish, since she didn’t let him come inside her, even though he had a condom on.

Maureen thought too much.  The stupid poems ended after that. 

Richard was somewhat fringe himself.  You don’t win many friends practicing piano for hours every day.  He used to hate how his father made him sit at the piano, when the other kids were outside playing soccer or kickball in the dirt lot down the street.

When he was younger, he had a kitchen timer which he’d set on his piano.  He would set the required practice time on the timer, start it, and then play.  When the timer rang, he would jump up in mid-phrase and run out the door.  Usually the games were winding down by then.

As he went through high school, music turned around and took hold of him.  Somewhere along the way the piano went from being a sworn enemy to being a close friend.

By then, his human friends were few but firm. 

His second time with a girl was only marginally better than the first.  His piano teacher, Mr. Schatten, put on yearly recitals at a local theatre.  At the one that coincided with the end of his junior year of high school, Richard met Mr. Schatten’s newest student, Arlene. 

Arlene Palmer.  She introduced herself twice, which didn’t make Richard feel all that memorable.  Maybe she was just nervous.

The order of performance for the evening generally went from beginners early on, to the most advanced students at the end.  Starting when he was a freshman, Richard always closed the show, and this year was no different.  When he looked in the program, he was surprised to see that Arlene was performing second to last in the recital. 

He knew why when he heard her play.  The girl had beautiful phrasing.  Richard was so taken with her playing that someone had to snap him out of his state and push him out onto the stage after she had walked off.

Richard didn’t play his best that night, but Arlene had nice things to say about his playing anyway. He was just happy she had stayed to listen.

Early in his senior year of high school, he’d encounter Arlene at his piano teacher’s apartment in New York City, when Mr. Schatten had the older students over for dinner.  Five or six advanced students from his studio would get together, eat pasta, play some fun four-hand (or more-hand) piano works, and maybe watch a laserdisc of Suor Angelica.  Mr. Schatten loved Puccini.

After the second of these dinners, Arlene and Richard exchanged phone numbers, and met for dinner in the city every few weeks on their own.  Arlene lived in Jersey, so Manhattan was a good middle ground.  Arlene had a car, but Richard didn’t, so he took the subway in.  It was cheaper than parking, too.

Richard wasn’t sure if he ever fell in love with Arlene, but he had been at least close.  Things progressed moderately due to the distance and lack of privacy.  They talked of music easily.  They were such different players, so every dinner was an exploration of how the other was approaching their latest piece.  There was little overlap in repertoire between them, since Richard’s bold and technical style was a world apart from Arlene’s more sensitive and loose playing.  But that was the attraction.  Arlene’s fingers might never move as fast as Richard’s, but his might never sing as lovely as hers did.

The Friday Richard returned from his Wexford audition, his parents dropped him off at Arlene’s house.  She would drive him home on Sunday.

Richard was exceptionally high that weekend.  His audition could not have gone better.  He had just played some difficult selections almost perfectly in front of a panel of some of the leading pianists in the country.  He couldn’t wait to tell Arlene.

Arlene was not as high, though.  Her audition at Juilliard a few days earlier had gone poorly.  She had stumbled on several passages, and had to restart the Bach since she couldn’t pick it up in midstream.  This was her dream school, and she was sure her best chance at getting in had slipped away.

Richard tried to bring her spirits up, but Arlene pushed him away with comments like “You weren’t even there, so how can you know it wasn’t that bad?”

Over the course of the next day Arlene seemed to come around some.  Richard was too happy to let her bring him down, and was unstoppably optimistic about her playing as a result.  She eventually conceded that she had played some things well at the audition.

Late Saturday night on the pullout couch, Arlene woke him with a kiss.  She quietly pulled Richard to her room.  Richard had nothing with him, and apprehension about getting her pregnant got in the way of making the night a success.  And maybe Arlene hadn’t gotten over her audition.  After a few painful attempts at entering her, Arlene tightened up and asked if they could stop.

A few minutes later she wanted to try again.  By now Richard was on edge, worried about causing her pain, worried about the lack of latex, and worried that the beautiful phrasing of their relationship was totally lost.

Eventually he gently thrust into her a few times, and then pulled out and finished himself as quickly as he could into his hand.

Sunday morning was awkward, to say the least.  Any ground Arlene had gained out of her depression over the Juilliard audition was lost to the rather unsatisfying episode the night before.  The weekend finished quietly.

She decided she wanted to wait to have sex until she was on her own, in college.  Richard was almost relieved to hear that.

They never really broke up.  Richard got the feeling that Arlene’s declaration of independence from sex was her way of splitting up with him.  The next time they met for dinner, there was some kissing, but the heat wasn’t the same.  They didn’t make another dinner appointment like they usually did, and Arlene never brought it up during their phone conversations.  When Richard went to one of Mr. Schatten’s parties and Arlene wasn’t there (even though she vaguely said that she was going to be there), he got the message.

Richard had been right, Arlene did get into Juilliard after all. 

Richard learned everything he knew about good sex from Tonia.  Richard was afraid of sex when he met her.  In two attempts, he still had not climaxed in the act, and needless to say his partners surely hadn’t.  He was on the verge of blaming himself.  It turned out that Richard and girls whose names rhymed with ‘een’ weren’t a good match.  Tonia and Richard were a good match.

Too bad she lived in Italy.

After Richard graduated high school, he and his parents spent four weeks in central Italy.  His family had a house in the small town they were from, and his dad’s sister, Maria, kept the place up, living on the lower floor.  Richard’s family went every two years for part of the summer. 

Tonia was nineteen.  She was a firecracker, not afraid of being herself in a small town.  She was the kind of girl who would make the old ladies in black sitting on the benches in the piazza shake their heads at her.

The first time Richard saw her, he was drinking pear flavored vodkas with some friends at the bar in the piazza.  She drove by on a Vespa moped, wearing a provocative top and a jean skirt.  Richard asked who she was, and his friends just laughed.

He met Tonia a few days later at a dance.  A DJ had set up on the patio of a pizza place and everyone of interest was there.  He was having a beer with his friends when one of them said that Tonia was coming over. 

“She’s checking you out,” his friend had said excitedly.

Richard laughed, sure he was being teased.  But a few moments later Tonia came right up to Richard and introduced herself.  A few minutes later they were on the patio dancing.

A few days later they were in the back of her car fucking.  Richard wasn’t a small guy, and Tonia was tall and leggy.  Space was tight as they pulled clothes off and pushed the front seats forward. 

Tonia knew what she was doing; even Richard could tell he was not the first or second man she had been with.  She was on birth control, and she was on fire for this American boy who was also Italian.  She asked if they screwed in cars a lot in America.  Richard said he thought so.

He was nervous given his past experience, but she just took control and made everything work.  Richard was too excited to restrain himself for long, but he stayed hard after coming inside of her.  He didn’t even miss a stroke.  She urged him on, knees bouncing by her head.  If she could feel that he had wet her insides, she didn’t let on.

Eventually she slowed, and she asked if he had come yet.  He said he had.  She looked at him a little funny, and then giggled.  She said she had kept going for his sake; she was finished.

Richard just shrugged.

The next two weeks were a sexual awakening for Richard.  Tonia was not afraid of sex.  By the end of his trip, neither was Richard.

Too bad she lived in Italy.

The whole situation at Wexford was a surprise to Richard.  Suddenly he was in a group of people where it was cool to play classical music.  What was fringe in high school was now common ground.  Music was no longer an obstacle to making friends, but rather a catalyst.

He felt so comfortable with Emily and Sandra.  It was like he had been a saltwater fish in a freshwater pond all his life, and now he was in the ocean. 

But how does something like this even work?  Two girlfriends?  Or is this a competition between them?

Everything seemed to somehow hinge on Emily.  She was their leader, and somehow the sensuality of their three way relationship stemmed from her words and actions.  She had kissed Richard, and had massaged Sandra.  The more he considered it, the more that he thought Emily’s touch of Sandra was an inclusive gesture.  He hoped so.  He didn’t know if he could choose between them.

Movement II.

Emily sat on the floor of her practice room, tapping out the rhythms of her orchestra part with the end of her pencil.  Her hand felt a little shaky, and she was distracted by the surrounding noise from adjacent rooms.  She wished she could practice in her own room, but Sandra was singing there.

Her thoughts wandered to Richard.  What does he think of me?  He made no indication of what he thought of the kiss last night.  But he did take my hand when I was massaging Sandra.

Sandra.  This morning she had been quiet.  Maybe I freaked her out by touching her hair last night.  Or maybe she was just tired.  It was early, after all.  What happened after I fell asleep?  Did Richard kiss her too?

Emily was surprised to feel a slight twinge of arousal at that thought, where she had expected jealousy.  Last night she had felt like the three of them were so closely connected.  But it made no sense.  Sharing a man with Sandra?  It was taboo. 

But as Emily thought more about it, the idea still never crossed the line over into discomfort like she expected.  Instead it felt natural, somehow.  Like the three of them would fit just right, if they only tried.

What’s wrong with me? she wondered. 

Emily spent her teen years without parents.  Her mother, Elizabeth, died when Emily was eleven, of cancer and of heartbreak.  Her dad had moved on to yet another woman by then. 

Her dad always had someone on the side.  Just as he conducted at many different orchestras throughout the world, he made music with many different women.  Some became wives, others stayed mistresses.

Emily hated them all.  Elizabeth had stood by Clark when he was rising through the ranks of orchestra appointments.  She gave up her promising violin career to raise Emily and follow Clark on his dream.  When he finally landed the Baltimore job, he didn’t have time for her anymore.  What really irked Emily was that he had time for Mona, and Yvette, and Francine, and god knew who else.  Those were just the ones he ended up marrying for a year or two.  She was glad her house was large enough that she didn’t have to see them very much. 

Emily lived in her father’s house after Elizabeth passed.  She had her issues with her father, but he was rather hands-off in raising her before her mother died, and that didn’t change much afterwards.  Their relationship was distant at best. 

The oft empty house and access to money that her father plied her with to keep her happy meant parties and fun.  She and some friends secured fake IDs in Washington.  Girls’ sleepovers became small coed parties which became ‘Damn! Half the high school is here’ bacchanals. 

Summers were spent at Eastern Music Festival playing in the youth orchestra.  Emily ran with the party crowd there.  Promiscuity was the norm, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.  Emily lost her virginity at sixteen in the dorm room of one Brian McBain.  She had no idea who the fuck Brian McBain was.  She still didn’t know: that was the name on an envelope lying on the desk.  She and Joel Brent had ended up in his room because it was unlocked and they were too drunk and horny to walk back to their own building.  Joel and Emily had been fooling around that summer, and that night they went all the way on Brian’s lower bunk bed.

Emily had a string of boyfriends.  She could keep them no better than her mother had kept Clark.  But then again, most weren’t worth keeping.  At EMF, none of her crowd took sex to be very committal.  And in high school, guys weren’t as cool when they weren’t drinking.

Senior year Emily got mono, and was really tired and sick for months.  Her body had put the brakes on, before the partying did.  Sobriety led to the realization that she hated guys, hated the way they treated her, and hated the way they were always talking shit.  They were completely insensitive.  And that was just when they were sober.

In this period she rediscovered her horn.  Not that she had stopped playing, but she had stopped making music with it.  The horn helped her through months of difficult reclusion.

Emily turned eighteen the day of her Wexford audition.  The audition was cursory; Clark knew many of the musicians who taught at Wexford, and Emily had already played for the French horn teacher, Ralph Tyler, at EMF.  Ralph and Clark went way back, having both studied horn together at the same conservatory.  She was all but accepted to the school. 

The use of her Dad’s connections bothered Emily somewhat, but Wexford was where she really wanted to go.  Mr. Tyler was a legend, now.  Could she have gotten in strictly on her own merit?  Emily thought so.  The musical talent that ran in her family was inside of her blood, too. 

Turning eighteen also meant that she had full access to the trust fund that her mother had left her.  Watching her father lose chunks of his assets to ex-wives didn’t bother her too much, since her mother had made sure Emily wouldn’t fall victim to Clark’s ephemeral obsessions.

Her senior year ended quietly, and she skipped EMF for the summer, instead working on repertoire and polishing her technique.  She restrained her social life to girlfriends and some wine.  She was through with big parties.  She was through with guys.

And then she met Richard.  She hardly knew him, but she felt like she could trust him to do the right thing. 

Richard was clearly attracted to Sandra, and vice-versa.  There was no mistaking that.  And for some odd reason I find that really sexy, Emily thought. 

Richard had to know how Emily felt about him now, after that kiss.  And he seemed to be reciprocating.  The other night when she had lost the courage to kiss him, he had seemed ready, almost eager.  And last night he didn’t pull away, she admitted. 

But how does Sandra feel about Richard and me?

Somehow Sandra was the key link in the triangle, Emily thought. 

Movement III.

Sandra entered her room, locking the door behind her and leaning back against it.  Richard was not in his room.  Jer had answered the door, and he didn’t know where Richard was.  Jer’s a little icky, Sandra thought.  I’m not sure I like the way he leers at me.

She pushed Jer out of her thoughts.  Richard rushed in to take his place.  God, I can’t stop thinking of him! 

Last night she had been so tempted to kiss him hard, with Emily asleep right there.  His quiet but powerful presence was too overwhelming, and instead she just hugged him, and then gave him a simple lip-to-lip kiss. 

And he ran his hands over my back as I kissed him.  I wonder if he even realized he did that.

Sandra didn’t remember ever being smitten with someone.

To be honest, Sandra never had had much of a chance to be smitten back at home.  She had known every boy in the area forever.  Such was farm life for a tomboy that was pretty.

She grew up pretty.  She was beautiful from the start.  She never needed to grow into her body, or play to her strengths.  As soon as boys were old enough to know what the difference was, Sandra never lacked for suitors.

So when Tim asked her out in ninth grade, it may as well have been her brother, so well she knew him already.  Then with Billy in tenth grade, it was the same thing.  Everything was so predictable, in a way.  There was no being smitten; rather it seemed like dating was almost precursory to arranged marrying. 

She and Billy lasted two and a half years.  She loved Billy.  They broke up because it was time to go away to college.  If things still felt the same when they came back for break, then maybe they’d try and work things out. 

Or so they had said, but Billy was a realist.  He wanted to get his education in agriculture and then come back and take over his dad’s farm.  He had already decided what he was going to be doing for the rest of his life.

Sandra knew that things wouldn’t be the same over break.  His education would be his mistress by then, if not some other real girl.  He needed a wife that would work with him, help him steer the inevitable ship he had conscripted to captain. 

Touring the world singing in operas was not Billy’s idea of a perfect partner’s job description. 

And managing a farm was not Sandra’s dream, either.  She was glad she had realized it soon enough to let go of Billy before he dragged her too far along that road.

When she arrived at Wexford, she had promised herself that she would take it slow, with respect to relationships.  Not for Billy’s sake; she hoped he wasn’t really waiting for her.  Rather, she made the promise for her own sake.  Getting into Wexford had been a long shot, but she had made it. 

When she first visited the campus back in February for her audition, she was overwhelmed.  She felt insignificant as the tour guide mentioned laurel after laurel that the conservatory had gained over the years.  Musicians that she had listened to on CDs and cassettes were teachers at the school.  The faculty was populated with players from the city’s well respected symphony orchestra, and members of the student body had been winners of most every major music competition in the country, if not the world.

She was just a farm girl with a pretty voice and a dream.

When she got her acceptance letter, she felt equally ecstatic and anxious.  Neither of those feelings had diminished much since then.  After all, she had nothing to compare herself against back home.  In a world where most of the singing was done by roosters and church-goers, she had no way to know if she would even remotely fit in at the conservatory.  She’d only ever been to one opera in her life, when her father took her to New York for a weekend to see Rigoletto. 

Sandra had pleaded with him to take her for months.  She felt silly applying to a vocal department at a major music conservatory having never even seen her dream in person.  It would be like entering an astronomy program without ever having looked through a telescope.

“Would you buy a tractor without test driving it?” she had asked him.

She knew he understood, but it was just a matter of time and money.  Her dad found a little of both and they ended up in fourth row seats at the Metropolitan. 

The test drive was a smashing success; she came back deeply moved, and inspired for her approaching audition.  It may have been what put her over the edge with the voice teachers.

Her mother supported Sandra unconditionally, her father with some reservations.  It was expensive to attend Wexford, over twenty thousand a year when everything was factored in.  He wanted her to follow her dream, but the financial aid was mostly in the form of loans that would be hanging around for years.

Sandra had never let her parents down, and she wasn’t going to start at Wexford.  Years of driving two hours to her biweekly voice and piano lessons in Columbus, years of getting up earlier than usual so that Sandra didn’t have so many chores, and years of buying tapes and videocassettes of operas were not unappreciated by Sandra.

As she stepped out of her dad’s pickup truck in front of the school a week ago, she had made herself those promises.  Concentrate on school.  Take it slow with any boys. 

Part of her hoped that everyone at Wexford would be focused on their music to the point of being reclusive and geeky about it.  Then her promises would be easy to keep.

But I didn’t plan on meeting people like Emily and Richard.

Sandra sat on her bed, sighing.  Richard had wound her up tightly, for sure. 

She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to recall his touch.  It wasn’t the same.  He had magic fingers.

So did Emily.  When she added her touch last night, Sandra had shivered.  For a moment she had imagined four hands caressing her body everywhere.  Four hands, even  two mouths… 

Stop!

Sandra took a deep breath.  Is this what city people did?  She could no more imagine having had her friend Annabelle join her and Billy for… for fun, than she could imagine her father singing opera at the Met in his overalls.

And yet… the thought kept replaying in her head.  She imagined herself lying naked on the bed, as four hands stroked her legs, her tummy, her chest, her hair.  Or maybe they floated in an abstract cushion, neither upright or horizontal.  She could see it like it was a painting: her blond hair splayed out around her, her smooth skin glowing sensuously, Richard’s and Emily’s more olive toned arms contrasting against her flesh, moving across her… 

Sandra ran quickly to the door, her heart beating hard.  She threw the chain into place.  As she unbuttoned her shorts, she looked out of the peephole.  Without waiting any longer, she threw herself on her bed.

Her fingers gave way into theirs, leaving trails of goose bumps in a sinuous pattern on her body.  Her face would be lost in reverie, her arms covering her breasts and womanhood demurely.   The four hands on her body moved everywhere, urgently and delicately caressing her, exploring her, exciting her.

The image changed as the trio of now nebulous forms kissed.  Their three heads formed a red, blonde and black trefoil seen from overhead.  Then the image whirled away like a kaleidoscope as Sandra started to go over the edge.

Everything was hyper-realistic as she jumped up off her bed.  Am I imagining things, or did someone knock?  She ran over to the door and looked out through the peephole, quickly putting her clothes back into place.  Her heart leapt when she saw that Richard was outside.  Just as she undid the chain, she heard him greet someone.  A jingle of keys gave way to Emily appearing in view. 

Sandra watched, her hand on the knob, as Richard leaned over to Emily and gave her a quick but hot kiss on the lips. 

Oh my god!  Where did that come from? 

Emily seemed slightly surprised, looking up and down the hall.  Then the keys jingled again.

Sandra pulled the door open just as Emily touched the key to the lock. 

Sandra knew she was flushed and still breathing hard.  She could blame it on the heat, but didn’t want to.

Richard and Emily stared at her for a second.

“Are you all right?” Richard asked.  He seemed a little flushed too.  So did Emily, for that matter.

Sandra looked at Emily.  A slight smile crossed Emily’s face.  Does she know? Sandra wondered.  She was still tingling inside from her aborted climax. 

Sandra smiled sincerely at Emily, and then stepped up to Richard.  She kissed him hard, like she had meant to do the night before.  Her tongue slipped into his mouth for a moment, and then she withdrew herself slowly.  Sandra’s knees almost gave way as she backed into the room unsteadily, eyes locked on Richard’s.

Everything depends on Richard now, she thought.

Forward to Chapter 6

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