When he had softened and crawled out of her he placed his hand flat on her tummy, feeling her breathe. He imagined he could feel himself swimming inside her. As he turned slightly, he noticed a small tear had collected at the corner of one eye. He lifted it to his fingertips, drew the covers over her, and turned out the light.
Sleep was molasses. But in the night he woke to the realization he was in bed with a beautiful woman and hugged her backside to him, his arms circled over her breasts and belly. She was deeply asleep. And as he thought back over her reluctance and her courage he realized, once again, a deep sense of attachment.
He squeezed her closer, moving one hand to her sex, still watery with lust and juices and wiggled a finger just inside. She cooed unconsciously, as if encouraging him from a deeper level of spirit to continue, which he did, pressing his tumid penis long-ways against her valley from behind, pulling her toward him until hardness raised his point once again into the mouth of her sex which he entered from behind, finding excitement there, penetrating her in the manner that felt somehow tighter, her tubular sex turned away in an attitude that pinched against him.
In his excitement he rode over on top of her, rocking over the rounded hills of her hips, curling himself in broader and broader arcs, to reach into her.
She was flaccid and unwaking, as if by default, granting her body to his, accepting his thrust and jut, grunt and tug, sustenance after a long fast, letting her body speak for her, for her will: My body to encompass you, to hold your struggle, a crucible unto your offering.
With his hands cupped into the little bending places where the thighs meet the body, he pulled her into his thrusts and raised his come to the bursting point. Holding against the rupture as long as he could, grasping the bed sheets that spread like the plateau before the waterfall edge, he, with all his substance, froze a moment, held beyond the holding point that which would not be held, then exploded into the rage and demand of release.
He rolled away and slumped immediately into a deep sleep that didn’t break until he she stood over him in morning light, nudging his shoulder and saying, “wake up, prince charming, your breakfast is cold. And put on some blue jeans, won’t you. We’ll be going to the stables after breakfast.”
On the terrace were rolls and croissants, jellies, potato pancakes and towers of fresh fruits. The sun was warm and playful through the sycamores.
Stella was talkative. Chattering away about horses, trade shows, musical contacts she had made in London, agents who promised bookings with the best European orchestras.
The conversation fell to Jeremy Crenshaw.
“What a prude,” said Stella.
“Maybe, but he could play a hell of a fiddle.”
“Prude, prude, prude.”
Roger laughed. “Aw, he just spent a little too much time in the practice rooms at Curtis Institute. Other than that he was ok.”
“Bor-ing.”
“Well, one thing for sure, he sure did have a crush on you.”
Stella fidgeted. “Can you see me with him? We’d be miserable. I’d be telling him when to go to the bathroom for god’s sake.”
“I suppose, but it could be worse.”
“And has been,” said Stella. “Oh, Roger, it’s not that I can’t recognize the good ones I just can’t bring myself to be with them.”
“Why not?”
“I guess I’m more comfortable with my own kind.”
“And what is that?”
“I don’t think you’d understand.”
“Try me.”
“Well, what it really is, is... abusers.”
“You don’t mean it. You haven’t an abusing bone in your body.”
“Maybe not, but my father did. Brilliant in physics and Tanquerey, we used to say. To the detriment, if I may say so. I’m probably not the abusive kind but I’m more familiar with those who are. Familiarity breeds comfort, you know. You may not believe this but good people make me nervous.”
Roger laughed.
“You’re different,” she said, reading his mind. “Family of the best kind. No threat.” And after a little pause she added, “and very loving.”
Her eyes filled and she trembled a little.
“Life will get better,” said Roger.
“You always were a blithering optimist.”
“Optimist, certainly, blithering, I hope not. Blithering, blith-er-ing. Sounds like Fig-a-ro, Fig-a-ro.”
Stella laughed.
“Really, Stella, you’re a treasure anybody’d die for. You’ll find Mr. Wonderful someday.”
“Blithering, blith-er-ing,” she said. “And meanwhile I’m 35 years old. And my goddamned eggs are getting fried. And by the way, what’s all this fucking psychobabble, and at breakfast, for Chris-sake. You’d think the scones were laced with LSD.”
Roger felt the subject. It was escaping in a way he could not stop, anyway.
“Time for my stables,” she said. “I’d rather behave like a teenager running around in barns than have to go through psycho-analysis at breakfast.”
And with that she sprang up, just like a teenager, Roger thought, and skipped down the stone walk to the stables. Roger had to hurry to keep up.
“These are my champion Clydesdales. I breed them each season. You’d be surprised what they bring in stud fees.”
“That’s Ruthy,” she said before he had time to draw any analogies, “my favorite. My mare. Often suited, never bread. I think we understand each other.”
They paused at the stall where a new foal had just been born and lingered there, petting and stroking his ears and head. “I guess it doesn’t take a genius to have babies,” she said.
She brought him to an open, barn-like structure with shafts of light streaming in through a high window. She pointed upwards and said, “there’s the hayloft up there.” Roger thought he saw a wink as she said this but her eyes hadn’t moved. “Come on,” she cajoled, “I’ve always wanted a toss in the hay.”
The ladder to the loft was straight up and directly over them. She started up, unabashed, her small bottom swaying this way and that as she ascended the ladder.
Roger looked up at her. Ordinarily his modesty would have demanded he only glance, then look away out of respect. But he meticulously examined her as she climbed, visualizing her folds where they pressed against the tight cinch of her jeans. The cloven hoof of her sex. I’ve been there, he said to himself.
At least he thought it was to himself, for Stella had reached the top of the ladder now and looked back as if she heard what he said. She laughed and tossed her head playfully. Roger thought, how wonderful it is to have the freedom to act as you wish and suffer no consequences, no, beyond that, to even be encouraged by a return of affection. He started his climb, two rungs at a time, almost falling in his haste.
Bales of hay were stacked around the walls, some places arranged in towers, some in stair step fashion so if you wanted to you could climb them all the way to the ceiling. In the center, a wood floor, briefly visible here and there in the bare spots where loose hay opened into cloudless patches. Stella was arranging a few saddle blankets on the floor, using nearby bails as chair backs.
“Did you ever do this as a kid?” she asked.
Roger wasn’t sure just what activity she was referring to so he said, “no.” To which she said. “Neither did I, but I always wanted to.”
She came up to him and pushed her body against his. She placed a finger hard against his solar plexus. “I suppose by the fact that I could barely walk this morning you attacked me pretty good last night.”
Roger smiled.
“Fine-O,” she said. “Now it’s my turn.”
Roger felt a surge rise through him like a hot wind off a prairie. He hadn’t ever been “attacked” by a woman, at least as far as he kn
ew. And, as a matter of fact, wasn’t sure what that meant. One thing was clear, she meant to have sex here and now. He was glad not to have to take the initiative, because to be perfectly honest, he wasn’t sure how much rising power he’d have after spending himself so thoroughly the night before. Then there was that pesky business of her being fully conscious.
Stella was on him like a wet cloth. She had him sitting down and was kissing him all over his face. “Hayloft,” she said between kisses. “Sex play. Teenagers doing it for the first time. Doesn’t the idea just blow your mind?”
She pushed him back on the blankets and straddled his mid-section. “Want to see my breasts?” she giggled.
“Absolutely.”
“There’s a price to pay.”
“Name it.”
“You’ll have to lick them all over and then you’ll have to let me watch you get hard.”
“No problem,” he said still not sure there wouldn’t be one.
Roger remembered her timidness from the night before, how she had to get sloshed to be a participant, but now... what made the difference? Was it that they had already done it, even though she was hardly there? Had that action taken away all resistance? Was it that she had flipped over into another personality, like the ones we all have hidden inside but are kept in check by a strict code of morals governing family and society, a liberated personality hidden under the surface of decorum until the scruples that held it in check were blasted away... he didn’t know, but, you know what, it didn’t matter. He was to be a happy player in this theatre of wild permissions.
She unsnapped the multiple snaps on her cowgirl shirt in one spreading motion, this time revealing a black lacy bra that provided stark feminine contrast to the boyish clothes she was wearing. She tossed her hair and laughed, drawing Roger’s hands to her, pressing into them her playful breasts.
She reached around and unsnapped her bra, bringing the loose ends over her shoulders until the part remaining was that which covered her, pressed there by Roger’s hands.
“Like?” She said.
“Plenty.”
“Now I get to make you hard,” she said, “and watch every delicious stage.” She rubbed her bottom against his abdomen a few times. “But first, your payment.”
Roger let drop, like a fig leaf, the last fragment of her bra. She swung her breasts playfully over him, avoiding his nipping, giggling at his feeble tries until he held her against him and pulled her into his mouth. She gasped and with a thrust of her shoulder, shoved herself into him, opening him as wide as she could. Then rose...
And then sliding down his legs to his knees, she unbuttoned his fly. She fished him out even before she had loosened the last button and, still soft, sucked him to his root.
“I love it,” she said, taking him out for a minute and looking up at his face, “when a man is soft enough to swallow.” She then went immediately down on him again, pulling apart his jeans to get him deeper.
He was medium hard. So much for his concerns. He could feel it growing hard in her mouth, she, mewling at each little jump in firmness, adjusting the angle of her neck and her body to accommodate him.
She took him out, breathless, and still holding on to him, rose above him until her face was over his.
“Now the denouement,” she said.
Holding on to him with one hand, she unbuttoned her own jeans with the other and worked them off on to the floor. She brought her sex directly over his.
“My turn to work,” she said, and brought her self down to his tip, rocking her cleft forward and back until both tip and cleft were glistening. With a few quick pulses she impaled herself onto him, emitting his tip down to the spreading helmet of his glans.
She looked at him. A smile curled at the margin of her lips. Her curls were falling over her face, beautiful she was, in her ruffled muss of hay and hair and desire.
She said nothing more. But watched his face as she pushed further onto him, her eyes closing occasionally as they deepened. Now pressed fully in, she flattened her body onto his, wriggling back and forth a little, biting at his chin and rocking him. His pants, still half-mast around his knees, made him feel indeed like a teenager, like this was a stolen moment at the barn while the parents weren’t looking.
She was grinding herself against him, getting aroused, quivering slightly between thrusts and melting softly. He grasped her bottom and tugged her harder onto him, friction in the heated wedge between them. Her murmuring raised its pitch. She grasped his neck, planting her lips on his. Almost immediately, she shuttered and lurched and cried, throwing her head back for air. Her breathing pulsed erratically, thrusting parcels of air out into the moist space between them.
The sight of her in orgasm so excited Roger, he came, almost without knowing, almost without feeling it - as if it were not his but Stella’s, circling back through him - her orgasm, her demand, her taking him this time.
She rolled off and looked at him, now without a trace of girlish play.
“On my back,” she said, suddenly mature again, “have to give those little bumpers a chance to find their way.”
They laughed. He’d almost forgotten the theme of this visit. It brought him back to reality, thoughts of home, Katrina, the children. He sighed and stood up, putting his clothes on feeling the edge of modesty creeping back in. He sat on a bale of hay.
Stella remained on her back, still naked, holding onto her sex to hold the gism and its cargo in place. How quickly a love history can be generated. They talked as if they’d been lovers a long ago, an affair now passed from their lives, one that still brought them tenderness and respect, Stella’s nakedness not uncomfortable in the least to them, an old friend, with them, once more.
And they talked for a long time in that timeless, no-particular-subject manner of speaking in which something internal in both of them entered the other a little distance, no longer feeling the need for protection, mingling like motes of hay scent, clover, alfalfa, sweet in the morning air.
Lunch was delicious but unmemorable, not that it was middling but their minds were occupied. He was to catch a plane at four which meant leaving shortly after. They were filled with that savage nostalgia that comes in advance of parting and mingles with feelings of anticipation for the life they, now changed, must reenter.
Roger had dressed his comfy tweed traveling coat and khaki’s that had become his trademark. Stella wore a sari. As the plates were cleared she turned to him. “Just one final music,” she said.
Roger wondered what it would be.
She led him to the sunroom, filled with plants and tiles. Water falling pool to pool in the fountain. Birds audible through the transparency to the outside world. It was as if she had enclosed a box of outdoors and made it habitable.
A brilliant Boesendorfer stood at the center. “Best for Dvorak,” she said as she picked up her cello from its case against the greenhouse wall.
The score was unfamiliar, still in manuscript form, new, as if recently made.
“Concerto in B minor,” she said reading his thoughts once again.
“So that’s it,” he said. “But where did you get it? I didn’t know a piano reduction existed.”
“Friend of mine at Julliard,” she said. “He created it from the orchestral score. We’re going to premier it at the Open Air Music Festival in Bohemia this July. Want to try it out?”
“Are you kidding?” Roger said, and sat eagerly at the piano, turning pages in the presence of rare treasure.
Roger began the long orchestral prelude that presents the two main themes. Stella enters, her sweet voice discusses the two themes, but then embarks on a formidable virtuoso passage in which the themes are embellished and respoken in different voicings.
In the beautiful slow movement which passes between tender and somber feelings, Stella was magnificent in her reac
hing arpeggios and fierce vibratos, as if filling a song of longing and anguish. Roger eyes misted as he played, so sweet were her sounds.
Then, a march-like cadence, the strict rhythms of the final movement, the melody now passing in conversation back and forth between Roger and Stella. Then Stella with her intriguing decorations over Roger’s passages. Roger’s eyes on Stella between photographic accretions of the score, anticipating her entrances, responding to her gestures with entrances of his own, anticipating her, clicking into her emotions, her fierce attentiveness - now languid, now bombastic, a range of emotion full and rich, rising through the notes to fill the lighted chamber with desire. Summer. Midday. Light with a memory of shadow.
And the movement ends... like a breath with reminiscences...
And for the first time he could see her pain - her body open, all the way down to the deep amber breath of sorrow.
It was that quality of sorrow that is without shame, he thought, as if the time for shame were long past, as though through this intimacy of the senses all need for apology was gone. His seeing, was her willingness to be seen, which now she gave without reservation, that which the mind sometimes, in its own protection, in its own need to hide, fails to untangle. Suddenly, he knew how long the winter had lasted, the sun outside browning the grasses, feathering the maples into brilliance. The breezes no longer tied to the earth, lifted in forms of their own making, as lovers, flowing into each other’s grasp, he at her knees, the place where her cello rests in the moment of singing, the chamber of her music, he was on her and in her, and she in him, lost, as if being lost were a manner of being found, and finding, a fragile hesitation rarely apprehended, the leaves outside suspended in air, swirling in the long spiral ascension of desire.
His hand flat on her stomach like a prayer, the song within, unseen, unheard, the score not on the page, the coachman waiting, the airplane waiting, the family, Katrina, waiting...
He touched her like he would never touch her again.
Secret in the Open Page 3