Rhapsody

by Gould, Judith

  Misha leaned down and gave Vera a peck on the cheek. "I'll see you in the morning, darling."

  "You rest," Vera said in an even tone that she hoped didn't belie her concern and curiosity.

  Misha turned and swiftly made his way through the crowd, not stopping until he was outside in Schonbrunn Palace's five-hundred-acre park, where the Mercedes limousine's chauffeur awaited him. In moments he was speeding off in the darkness toward his suite at the Palais Schwarzenberg, and the telephone.

  Serena flung the door shut behind her, then slumped against it. "Oh, God!" she gasped, her chest heaving mightily. After a moment she half staggered into her hotel suite, still breathless from her nightly jog. Despite the chill Viennese winds outside, her body was sheathed in a sheen of perspiration.

  She pulled off her red fleece gloves, briskly rubbing her hands together for warmth, then shrugged herself out of her silver nylon warm-up jacket, the one with the orange reflective stripes, and pulled the fleecy hot pink watch cap off her head, dropping everything onto the opulent suite's carpeting in a heap of mismatched color.

  Without bothering to untie them, she nudged her long, slender feet out of her gray Nikes, one at a time, kicking the running shoes off and across the sitting room, where they thunked to a stop against an antique table. Then she leaned over and peeled off her sweat socks and tossed them in the direction of the heap on the floor.

  "Basket!" she cried to the empty suite. Some of her hostility vented, she padded into the bathroom on bare feet, still more than a little angry with herself because of tonight's jog.

  Running lukewarm water, she rinsed her hands off and splashed her face several times, then dried off vigorously, a little winded yet from her run. She ran the towel around the back of her neck, patting the sweat there.

  No more Wildschwein for this girl! she thought. No more yummy pastries, either! All those beautiful little confections for which Vienna was so justly famous had undeniably affected her jogging tonight, weighing her down, tiring her faster.

  She hadn't cut her run short, though. Oh, no. That was not Serena. She had run all the faster, covering more distance, telling herself that she could work off all that enormously caloric, body-abusive, and richly satisfying food she had so voraciously partaken of today.

  Coral was right, she thought, with a grimace. But then, she always is. I shouldn't be doing this to my body.

  She eyed the big bathtub and thought that she would run a tubful of water, hot as she could stand it. I'll have a long, languid soak in aromatic, foamy bath salts. Let all the tension and strain of the day and her nightly jog slowly ease their way out of her muscles.

  First things first, she thought. She retraced her steps to the suite's sitting room, where she poured herself a glass of mineral water at the wet bar. She took long, thirsty swallows, finishing off the tall glass, and poured herself another. She sashayed into the bedroom, her long raven hair swinging behind her, and gradually peeled off the rest of her clothes, tossing them onto a chair. Then she grabbed a thick white terry cloth bathrobe, slipped it on, and tied it around her waist. Finally, she plopped down on the immaculate bed.

  Her gaze shifted around the room, eventually coming to rest on the telephone, sitting on the nightstand next to the bed. Maybe, she thought, maybe I should wait to bathe. She shut her eyes, blotting out her view of the telephone. Yes. Maybe I should wait. What if Misha calls while I'm in the bathtub? Or … maybe ...maybe I should take a quick shower instead? That way I won't be too long. She had already checked downstairs at the desk, and there'd been no messages, so she knew he hadn't tried her yet.

  The she reminded herself that he was performing tonight. He'll probably be at Schonbrunn Palace until midnight or later, she thought. Hobnobbing with all those charity-circuit bigwigs. She quickly glanced at the little travel clock at her bedside: ten-thirty.

  Should I wait? she wondered. Or shouldn't I? What the hell should I do? Then she abruptly sat up, slamming a fist into the bed.

  "Shit!" she exclaimed aloud. "Shit, shit, shit!"

  She leapt out of bed and marched purposefully to the bathroom. I will not let this happen, she told herself. I will not fall into that deadly trap again. Not like I did the last time. Waiting for Misha Levin to call. Ha! What a joke! I'm a changed person now. Oh, yes, I am. Yes, indeed! I don't need this. I don't need him! I am invulnerable to him and his charm.

  She twirled on the taps with a vengeful forcefulness, poured scented bath salts in—a potent and erotic combination of musk, vetiver, and citrus—then tromped back into the bedroom. She snatched up the latest copy of L'Uomo Vogue to look once again at the fashion shoot she had done for it some months ago.

  Back in the steamy bathroom, she turned off the taps and eased herself down into the tub, now filled with foamy, exotically perfumed water. Ah, yes! she thought, delighting in the heat of the steamy water on her weary flesh. This is more like it.

  She began leafing through the magazine, studying its layouts, nodding to herself with satisfaction at the photos from her shoot and the way they had been used. The art director had done an excellent job, she decided, piecing together the story line in the photos in an artistic way. She never had to worry that her work would look cheap or be poorly displayed in the Italian fashion magazines.

  Leafing back and forth, back and forth, she abruptly sighed and tossed the magazine over the side of the tub. It landed on the floor with a bang. She lay back, staring at the wall. All those male bodies in the latest fashions only served as a reminder of her own unattached and chaste state. At least for now.

  But what will tomorrow bring? she wondered. And then it started again.

  Thinking of him. Of Misha. And how extraordinary it was that she had run into him today—in Vienna of all places.

  God, he looked so wonderful, she thought. Better even than he did five years ago, if that were possible. She could envision the wind in his longish blue-black hair, that prominent nose and those sensuous lips. His strong cleft chin and high cheekbones. And those piercing, liquid, dark, dark eyes. All of it embellishing a tall, strong Adonis of a body that she remembered only too well.

  She felt that old sweet, maddening, almost uncontrollable physical urge—an urge that she had never felt with anyone else—suffuse her body with longing. She'd had a lot of men in her thirty years. Too many men, she thought. Some of them had been rich, some famous, some of them no more than feral brutes. Many of them had a foggy indistinctness in her memory. But in that pantheon of lust, none of them had compared with Misha Levin.

  No, she thought, none of them had held a candle to Misha Levin.

  Her hands traveled over her voluptuously charged body—neck, shoulders, breasts, torso, thighs, mound— remembering his hands on all those places, relishing the imprint they had left there, never to be forgotten.

  Oh, my God, she wondered. Why did he have to come back?

  Then: Thank God he has.

  At the three-hundred-year-old Palais Schwarzenberg, Misha hurried through the striated-marble lobby, for once ignoring the breathtaking beauty of its noble antiques and Baroque gilt and crystal. He went straight up to his suite. Once inside the antique-filled duplex, he closed the door and poured himself a scotch neat, and drank it down in one swallow. Loosening his tie, he poured another one to nurse, this time adding ice cubes and a splash of water. Then, taking his drink and the bottle of scotch, he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. There, he slowly began to undress, neatly hanging his clothes in the closet, although they would be taken to the cleaners when he was back in New York.

  Once naked, he spread out on the luxurious bed and sipped his scotch, mentally preparing himself to telephone Serena. You want to do this, he told himself. Yes, you may regret it for the rest of your life if you don't. Then, before he could lose his nerve or change his mind, he set down his drink and dialed Serena's number at the Konig von Ungarn.

  "Hello?" She picked up on the first ring, her voice breathy.

  "It's Misha," he said.
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  "I know," she said, a hint of amusement in her voice.

  "What have you been up to?" he asked. "You sound like you're out of breath."

  "Nothing really," Serena replied. "I was just finishing up in the bathroom. I had a nice, long soak after my jog tonight."

  "So you're still running," he said. He could see that long, lithe body of hers, speeding through the streets.

  "Yes," Serena answered. "And I bet you're still torturing yourself with racquetball and swimming and the weight-lifting thing." His body, in all its masculine definition and hardness, flashed before her mind's eye.

  "You know me too well," Misha said with a little laugh. He paused a moment, then said: "I ... I still can't quite believe we ran into each other today."

  "It is a coincidence, isn't it?" Serena said. "All those years with both of us living in New York, and we've never once crossed paths."

  "Maybe it's fate," Misha said uncertainly.

  "I don't know that I believe in fate," Serena said warily.

  "Whatever it is," he said, "I'm glad, Serena."

  "I am, too, Misha," she replied.

  She sounds as if she really means it, he thought. Maybe ...just maybe ...something will...He quickly tried to put his hopes and desires on hold.

  "Do you think we can get together tomorrow?" He was making an effort not to sound too pushy or too anxious. I mustn't scare her off, he thought.

  "Yes ... I think so," Serena said. "But I ... I don't want to mislead you, Misha. I mean, I don't want you to think that we can just pick up where we left off."

  "No, no, no, Serena," Misha rushed to assure her. "I don't have any expectations. I just ... I just want to see you."

  "I'd like that," she said. "Very much." Do I sound too excited? she wondered. Will he think I'm desperate to see him?

  "Is sometime around four okay?" he asked.

  "Make it four-thirty," Serena said. "Is that okay?"

  "That's perfect," he replied. "Shall we meet at your hotel ... in the bar downstairs?"

  "Come on up to the room," she said. "I have several appointments, so it would be easier for me."

  "Great," Misha said. "I'll see you then."

  "Bye," Serena said. She hung up the telephone and took a deep breath. If he only knew! she thought. How I can hardly wait to see him!

  "Good night, Serena," he said, then realized that she'd already hung up the telephone.

  Misha took a sip of his scotch and closed his eyes. He could see her, that lush raven black hair, her long swan's neck, those huge hazel eyes and sensual, even lascivious, lips. Then: her perfect, small, but ample breasts with their strawberry nipples, her long trim torso and narrow waist, and the beautiful mound of black lusciousness between her creamy thighs.

  He felt a stirring in his loins that he hadn't felt in— How long has it been? he wondered. He couldn't remember, but he knew that it had been too long. Far too long. And now, the sensation was both intoxicating and irresistible.

  Later, after a long, hot shower, he lay in bed thinking about the past, all those years ago when he and Serena had spent time together. It had been a torrid affair of operatically dramatic highs and equally dramatic lows. They'd always seemed to be devouring each other with an all-consuming, lusty sexual passion—a passion he hadn't known could exist.

  Serena, Misha knew, had been all wrong for him. In fact, he thought, had he tried to conjure up the worst of all possible choices in a lover, she would have surely been that woman.

  He was of Russian descent and Jewish, though non- practicing. Serena was American, southern—a Florida cracker, really—and a Protestant, though she had long since abandoned faith in anything or anybody but herself. He was obsessed with his career and needed a woman who would devote herself to him and his music. Serena was equally as obsessed with her own career and wasn't about to sacrifice herself to him and his ambitions.

  Misha picked up his scotch and took another sip, savoring its smooth, heated descent down his throat to his stomach, where its fiery warmth spread out like a blanket.

  Yes, two such different people, he thought.

  Yet...Yet, I still don't think I've ever loved anybody like I loved her. I've certainly never had that same profound physical craving for anyone else.

  He sipped the last of his scotch, then set down the empty glass again. He leaned over and clicked off the lamp on the night table, then closed his eyes to sleep. But sleep eluded him, and he tossed and turned, obsessed with his thoughts of Serena, of their past together, and, finally, of their date tomorrow.

  What will tomorrow bring? he wondered. He didn't know, but in his heightened state of physical longing, of arousal, he prayed for release.

  Chapter Five

  The day dawned bleak and gray, a chill wind sweeping in from the east, a harbinger of the winter to come. Misha opened his eyes. In the diffuse light coming through the elaborate draperies at the windows, the first thing in his line of vision was Vera's pale blond hair fanned out over the pillow. Never had her porcelain profile looked more beautiful, her neck and shoulders more beckoning. Her breathing was deep and regular. She was still sound asleep.

  Perhaps, he thought, perhaps ... I should slide my arms around her, and wake her as I…

  He furrowed his brow.

  No, let her sleep. For suddenly, Serena's Madonnalike face, framed by its raven black hair, and her resplendent body, in all its tantalizing eroticism, flashed before his mind's eye. A wave of sensuous pleasure engulfed him. He was aroused—doubly so by the mere thought that he would be seeing her today.

  He felt deep down inside that their running into each other had been fate, that somehow or other it was meant to be. That his urges—their urges, surely—were meant to be assuaged. There was an inevitability about it, Misha decided, a powerlessness to control it that was not characteristic of him at all.

  Slowly he sat up and looked around the grand second- floor bedroom of the suite. The exquisite ball gown that Vera had worn last evening was carefully laid over a chair, its gemstones twinkling in the dim light. What a magnificent piece of work it is, Misha thought. And Vera looked beautiful in it, more beautiful than ever. She really had made a supreme effort. He smiled ruefully. But then, Vera always did, didn't she?

  Guilt, as it had last night, began to worm its way into his consciousness. This woman had done everything in her power to be the perfect wife and mother, to try to satisfy him. Running a hand through his long, black hair, he slammed a mental door shut on this line of thought.

  He quietly pulled off the covers, swung his legs out of bed, and stood up, stretching his long limbs. He padded into the bathroom, where he lathered up and stood under a hot steamy shower for long minutes, all the while thinking about last night's performance.

  After weeks of practice and rehearsal, and finally the performance itself, he was usually left physically and emotionally drained, and last evening had taken its toll. Oddly enough, however, he felt energized today, still a little high, more so than usual after performing.

  Generally, adrenaline relentlessly drove him during the final weeks of preparing for a performance, then enveloped him in a fever-pitch high during and after the performance itself, the rush heightened all the more in intensity if the concert was a success, such as last night's. The glow of success and the accompanying festivities dissipated quickly, however, and his spirits inevitably sank, sometimes plunging into a near-crippling depression.

  Gradually, however, he had learned to cope with this aftermath. He came to realize that he was simply tired and sad. Sad that it was over. Slowly life would interest him again. Music, its siren call beckoning, would entice him anew, and he would answer that call, mercilessly throwing himself into practice for the next performance, for the next recording session.

  Misha turned off the shower and began to dry himself with a towel. Today he still felt the remnants of the high he'd experienced for the previous weeks. Curious that it hasn't dissipated yet, he thought, but perhaps it was because he h
adn't really celebrated. He'd been too preoccupied at the party afterward to enjoy himself. Yes, he decided, carefully shaving now, that was it. He hadn't celebrated.

  So today would be just that. A little celebration. He deserved it, and Vera, too. She had worked almost as hard as he had to see that last night was a success. When he'd left her there with Manny, she'd been charming the powers that be. So typical of Vera, he thought. She left little to chance where his career was concerned, and often explored avenues that even Manny overlooked or was too busy to pursue.

  Today, Misha decided, he would arrange something special for Vera and himself, perhaps a tour of the Hofburg, a celebratory lunch afterward, and then ...well, then he would make his excuses.

  Trying not to disturb his still slumbering wife, he quickly dressed. Black cashmere turtleneck sweater, black wool trousers and sports jacket, black Gucci loafers. Ready for a hearty breakfast downstairs, where he could read the papers and enjoy a little time alone.

  The moment he stepped into the elegant dining room, Manny waved to him. Well, Misha thought, forget a quiet perusal of the papers. But what the hell. He was feeling particularly expansive this morning, generous with his time and himself.

  He strode over to the table, the maitre d' scurrying along behind him, and took a seat, then the proffered menu.

  "How're you feeling this morning, old chap?" Manny asked, looking up from his newspaper. He was dressed to the nines as usual, today in his pinstripe international banker-diplomat mode. "Better, I trust."

  "Much," Misha said. "All I needed was a good night's sleep. I guess this trip and the concert took more out of me than I thought."

  Manny pointed at the newspaper. "Well, it was worth it, my boy," he said, "well worth it. There'll be more reviews in Der Standard and Die Presse, but this one is superb. Superb!"

  The waiter materialized, and Misha ordered breakfast. Ham, sausages, three fried eggs, fried potatoes, and toast. Orange juice and coffee. He was ravenous, as he always was the day after a concert.