Duet

by gay walley

  The next evening, she gave her name to the doorman and they sent her up and up in the mirrored elevator. The penthouse. He had an incredible view of the city, with windows all round his living room and dining room. He took her out on his balcony and said you could see all the airports, bridges, all the neighborhoods of New York, shining and shimmering as if at a giant party. He said that on a clear day you could even see St. Louis. Duet and Oskar stood among the dormant lilac and wisteria which he said he cared for himself. All of which was endearing. He tends. He even had a piano.

  “Want to play a duet?” he asked, as they returned to the living room.

  “No thanks,” she grimaced. As if she hadn’t heard that before.

  She sat down next to the lit fireplace. The apartment was a mixture of various periods, modern paintings, old rugs, a place full of artifacts from his trips, perhaps love affairs. There were photographs all over of him when he had been a polo player. Some photos of his son and some of other women and his son.

  “Funny,” she said, picking up frames, looking intently, and then putting them down. “The photos of your parents look European.”

  “My mother’s side was German. ”

  Duet didn’t say out loud that she had a distaste for Germans. She knew it was out of date and unfair and xenophobic but they were the ones who started it.

  “What’s your father’s side?” she asked. She was moving about the room, enjoying how the room did not seem to shout out a broken person.

  “Austrian,” he answered from the piano bench. He was watching her, with a slight smile on his face, as she circled the room.

  “How odd, “ she said, turning to him. “Like my mother. Have you been to Vienna?”

  “No,” he said.

  “I like it. Imperial city.”

  “Are you a Hapsburg, Duet?” He was holding his scotch. She sat down on one of his couches that had a faintly Middle Eastern pattern to it and she began swinging her leg, out of nervousness. He got up from the piano bench, walked sternly across the room, and put his hand on her leg to stop it from moving.

  “My mother used to do that,” he said, tersely, and then went back to the piano bench. She wrapped her leg around her other leg, to stop it from kicking. She remembered a shrink telling her that her kicking was repressed sexual energy. “No I am not a Hapsburg,” she said. “I am what the Germans did not like.”

  He laughed. “You do look a bit like a gypsy.”

  She smiled a bit painfully.

  He then added, “I abhor what the Germans did in the war so let’s leave that subject aside.”

  She nodded, wondering if she ever could, if anyone ever could leave that “subject” aside, and then distracted herself by focusing on the orange and green of the walls which were striking, garish almost, until you settled down into them. Then Oskar turned around on the bench and began to play the piano (“See you are European!” she said) while he sipped his dewars (“But I can’t read music, “ he answered. Proof he is not a German Jew, she thought. He would have been given lessons.) and then he abruptly stopped and sat across from her on a blue chaise longue once she had applauded how marvelously he played.

  His phone rang continuously.

  It wasn’t long before he brought up sex, which in its way, was insulting. No time wasted here getting to know each other, he clearly wasn’t looking for a re-la-tion-ship, but somehow it didn’t annoy her. His boldness and lack of romance didn’t strike her as a desperation to be loved, it was just he loved life. He said, “What about taking your clothes off?”

  She pretended she didn’t hear.

  Somehow they ended up sitting next to each other on the chaise longue and soon she began kissing him, his cheeks, his neck, his ears, because she was drawn by his masculinity. He was strong.. She quietly took in his dark intelligent eyes, his exquisite body, the wide shoulders, the strong legs, the flat stomach. She kept rubbing his skin that was soft and yet peppered with enough hair to be masculine. He wasn’t holding her face or showering her with compliments. He wasn’ t even using his own hands to stroke her. He was just receiving her. What did that mean?

  She decided she would get out of having sex with him by giving him a blow job. She wanted to make him happy; there was a quality in him that made her want to please him. She turned into a woman with him. A woman yearning towards a man.So she kissed his chest which had wonderful hair on it and undid his buckle and he lay back on his chaise longue (is this common for him? She wondered). His phone kept ringing and he seemed distracted by it but once she began putting her mouth to him, he put the phone down and she, surprisingly to both of them, enthusiastically moved her mouth up and down. He was silky and responsive and she sort of turned it into a game for herself. As if she was speaking another language, just trusting her intuition about how to move and then. Cream shot. He lay back and stroked her hair a bit. Then he began to sit up and dress himself.

  Her hair was askew but she felt silently happy. After all, she had the quiet knowing that she had not revealed her secret. She would only reveal herself when it was the right time. When someone loved her. Or when she didn’t care whether they did or didn’t.

  When Oskar had finally dressed and was standing up, he said, “Well that was fantastic, Duet. Shall I get you a drink?”

  “No, I should get back.”

  He turned around to go get himself another drink and she noticed he didn’t seem particularly upset about her wanting to leave. Maybe she would never see him again. Maybe this was how he liked to operate. Bring a woman up to his beautiful apartment, seduce her or she seduce him, and then onto the next woman sitting alone at a table.

  His phone kept ringing.

  Well, she had felt like a woman, attracted to a man and, in the cab driving home, she thought, Maybe that is the beginning of her taking an axe, as Kafka said, to the frozen sea.

  Six:

  Paula chose her clingiest green dress, the one that accented her green eyes and red hair, as well as the slimness of her body, for her date at the Time Warner Building. She was early, so she amused herself looking at Hugo Boss dresses in case she saw something more flattering than what she was wearing, which she didn’t, and then she went to the makeup counter at Space NK. Nothing there either. She took the escalator to the fifth floor where the coffee shop had wide window views of Central Park. She felt like she was in Europe, because of the gentleness of the park trees, some covered in snow, some still green even, but all of them shimmering in the floor to ceiling windows. Out of nervousness, she decided to go into the MAC store next to the coffee shop and buy a new blush. The beautiful Black woman, lush and feminine, seemed to be a message from the universe to remember to be relaxed, soft, fulsome.

  She went back out to the coffee shop and sat down. Women her own age were there in business suits, seemingly talking about their jobs or maybe they were there, too, to meet men on match.

  In walked Lars in a dark suit, tall, blond, slender, with his blond moustache which made him look slightly out of the 20s. He gave her a quick smile. He had intelligent, sensitive, piercing dark eyes even behind wire rim glasses. He walked over to her table and, politely, extended his hand. “Hello Paula.” She immediately heard his slight accent.

  “Do you want something to drink?” she asked, as he sat down.

  “A coffee,” he said. “I just was up all night for a meeting. We are expanding our video games into this market and Americans like to go on and on. Young people are in the technology business so they can keep coming up with ideas till four in the morning.”

  She nodded, understandingly.

  “Well you’re even more beautiful than your picture,” he said. “As you know it can be quite the opposite with this type of dating.”

  She smiled.

  “I love that green dress,” he said, “with your eyes.”

  And from there they began. He didn’t drink and so they stayed put at the coffee bar, and watched the sun set together and the cars streak by in the dark with their he
adlights accenting the dazzle of all the other lights of New York and eventually Paula and Lars ordered sandwiches.

  “Where do you sell the most video games?” she asked.

  “You’d be amazed. Israel buys a lot. Of course the rest of the Mideast is in the stone age regarding technology but I don’t really care. I can’t stand the rest of the Mideast.”

  She was shocked. “That’s not true. The revolution in Egypt was helped by Facebook.”

  Lars laughed, dismissively. “Facebook!”

  Paula began to muse, “I love the Muslims, the old Persian poets, Rumi, Hafiz, the texture of such an old culture. And look at how they are fighting for democracy.”

  “Mideast poets are another time, Paula. Denmark has now 300,000 Arabs. I doubt there are even 2 poets among that number but there are definitely 280,000 cab drivers. It’s not going to come to much good, this rise of Islam. I support Netanyahu and his aggression with the Arabs. Nobody reports what they do to the Israelis. None of these countries can really achieve democracy.”

  Paula was appalled. “But they have just achieved democracy in Egypt. Other countries.”

  “We shall see how true that democracy is,”he said.

  My god, she thought. She believed in compassion, understanding, hope, progress. Not dismissing a people.

  Lars watched her,” You Americans think you can talk. There is no talking with the Arabs.”

  Paula said, “But killing people doesn’t lead to talking. Killing innocent people.”

  “Why do Americans only notice the Arabs who are killed? Not the Israelis who are killed?”

  She said, “We do, we do” and she realized she might not be able to stand this man’s politics. She believed in one world, all peoples embracing each other. She had not expected this.

  “ Are you an American feminist?” he asked.

  “I guess so,” she said.

  “But you are pro- Arab when it is common knowledge they stone women, even cut off their noses? I don’t understand this.”

  “That is just the Fundamentalists.”

  “The Fundamentalists are taking more and more control and are starting to run more and more countries –“ he looked askance at her, as if deciding not to pursue this conversation. He had already noticed that most American women were democrats who preferred not to know hard facts.

  “Okay,” he said, “let’s not talk about this. Tell me about your family.”

  Oh god, she thought. Another travesty. She took a sip of her water. “Well my family,” she said, “were bankers in Kansas, all successful. They’ve been there for four generations. I started playing golf at three with my brothers. “

  “You are close?” He opened his jacket and undid his green and brown tie so it ran like two streams down his shirt. She liked that he had done that, the action seemed strangely intimate, as if they were married.

  “I went into fashion for awhile, once I left, and I made extra money doing calligraphy. Now I am in PR for fashion but I am also writing a book.”

  “Oh?” he asked. Why were American women always writing books? Did no one listen to them in real life?

  She smiled. “It’s about my life.”

  He said, gallantly, “I am sure it will be marvelous.”

  The sandwiches arrived right then. She said, “Will you excuse me for a second? I just need to go to the ladies room…”

  “Of course,” he said graciously and stood up as she left the table.

  Just then a burly man at the next table, who was sitting with a frail older woman, most likely his grandmother, began choking and changing color, and seemed to not be able to get his breath. Clearly he was in extreme danger, and then he terrifyingly toppled over with an enormous thud. The grandmother yelled out, “Help us! Emergency! Doctor! Anybody!”

  Lars did know CPR, had in fact worked as a lifeguard in Denmark as a teenager, but he also noticed that this fat, sweaty man bursting out of his suit was wearing an Obama button as well as that stupid Vietnam-era Peace button. Lars just couldn’t make himself get up even with all that strained breathing and panic around them, till thankfully a second later a young good looking waiter got down on his hands and knees and began working on the man’s chest and stomach. The big man calmed down and everyone in the restaurant was soon relieved.

  Paula returned from the ladies room. “What happened?” she asked, sensing an air of commotion.

  Lars stood up again for her and said, “This man choked but thankfully is fine now.”

  “Oh how awful, “ Paula said, and flashed the shaken man a smile that would have brought Lazarus back. The burly man nodded weakly back to her. The grandmother was holding his hand. “ He seems fine now, “ Paula added. “So what do you think Lars,” she asked cheerfully,” about past lives?”

  “Past lives?” he asked, unbelieving. He took a sip of his fourth coffee.

  “Yes. Do you believe in them?”

  “I think one’s past is pervasive enough in this life … never mind whatever happened before one was born. No, I don’t believe in them. “ He decided to order a beer, wondering if next she’d be quizzing him about the Akashic records.

  She began to open her mouth –

  “Let’s,” he said, “just talk about how beautiful you are. We’re on safer ground there.”

  What a jerk, Paula thought, but why the hell am I so attracted to him?

  Duet had surmised incorrectly. Oskar did call her. She arrived home from work to find a message from him on her machine, “I want to discuss our future. Call me back.”

  It made her laugh. It turned out he meant their having dinner together.

  “That’s a little seductive,” Paula said, when Duet told her excitedly the next morning. They had just finished deconstructing Lars. Paula alluded to his ultra right wing political beliefs. Duet said, “So what if he’s strong minded?”

  Paula said, ”Right.” But she was a little confused by Lars. He had already called her four times since their date, twice before she went to sleep, and twice this morning on her way to work, and she hated to admit it, but she loved it. She found herself loving the sort of milk chocolate sound of his voice with its faint accent, she loved seeing his number on her phone, loved the rush of a slew of calls where she was engaged with him. He asked her where her office was. What she was thinking about. He asked her what she was working on. He listened. She felt important. She felt someone was there.

  “Your Oskar sounds like he’s a player, “Paula added. “He knows you’re vulnerable, that you want a future with some man, so he uses those words.”

  “He’s a player, alright, but I don’t mind being played by him.”

  “When are you being served up for dinner then?” Paula asked.

  “Tomorrow night. No doubt you’ll be talking to Lars in about seven minutes. You don’t think all these calls are strange?”

  “I like it. He’s meeting me right after work. Downstairs. He’s spontaneous. Available to get close.”

  “Maybe. I guess it’s good. Who knows?” Duet turned and pulled out a file on Stacy Kent. She had to write a release on her upcoming performance at Birdland. “Remember the days when you and I actually did some work around here?”

  They laughed and then tried to get down to it. It was like slogging through mud .

  The next night she and Oskar met at Markt, a bistro on 6th Avenue. Oscar looked, as always, sure of himself, as if the world was putting on a show for his personal enjoyment. He watched the waiters, the people next to them, he watched her, carefully, while pretending he wasn’t. Once again, she found herself receptive with him and she remembered her father once telling her that being receptive is what it is to be female. When she was young, she had not understood what he meant. Looking at Oskar, and the way she automatically responded to his smile, or to the intensity of his eyes, or to his voice, made her understand.

  “You know,” he said, “there is nothing better than having a meal with someone you are close to.”

  She kne
w that to be true. They were not yet that comfortable together to be relaxed and ad lib at dinner. Was he speaking of a past relationship or a hope? Probably both.

  “That was a very nice opening to our duet, wouldn’t you say?” He was referring to the one sided sex of the past evening.

  She smiled, reflexively yet flirtatiously, her eyes fixed on him.

  “But we must get a little more creative,” he said, “ than that. Have another drink. It’ll be good for you.” He gave her a steady gaze.

  She looked round the room. Dare she try with him? But somehow she knew she would. One, he had a bit of a spell on her. And even though Oskar seemed like a player, there was something serious about him and she didn’t feel he was a boy. He was used to complications, unexpected developments. He was a successful businessman. He was not a child.

  Should she forewarn him or let him find out in bed?

  She opted for him finding out. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. He didn’t seem a particularly demonstrative person. He wouldn’t spend inordinate time trying to figure out how to please her. He was more likely to focus on his own needs. Maybe she’d be like M Butterfly, and he would never realize.

  She reached her hand across the table for him. He took it, with the slight smile of knowing he had just closed another deal.

  She hadn’t seen the downstairs part of his apartment. She followed him down the stairs and of course his bedroom also had a view of the city. He had blinds to shut out the light and the noise. He had a humidifier, a practical man. Not too much furniture, it was a country French room. His sheets and comforter were soft and had a beautiful pattern, deep blue with flowers. The entire effect was warm and calming.

  She lay down next to him naked. She had undressed alone while he was in the other bathroom taking a shower. She watched AMERICAN GREED while he was out of the room (he had left it on). Then he came in, got into bed, and she snuggled up to him.

  She didn’ t know what to say. She didn’t know him well enough to know what interested him really, besides stocks and money. She hated those conversations, Where did you go to school, Who was your last girlfriend. He had told her he went through a recent breakup and that it had been rough. But that wasn’t exactly foreplay conversation.