Concerto in Chroma Major

by Naomi Tajedler

  Alexandra’s smaller, curvier body is frozen, lifted from the bed as she arches her back. Halina doesn’t want the moment to end. She doesn’t want Alexandra to ever leave her bed; she wants to find all the ways to make her look so carnal, so beautiful, such an epitome of lust.

  But it ends, because all good things come to an end, and Alexandra’s shouts turn into ecstatic, breathless giggles. “I believe—” she pants, running her fingers through Halina’s hair, “I believe we’ve reached a more equal ground, if that concerned you.”

  “Good.” Halina licks her fingers before she rolls on her back and clumsily reaches for the blanket.

  Alexandra lies close to her, close enough to call it cuddling, but the pleasant warmth of her body lulls Halina to sleep before she can find the strength to tell her to leave, or the will to question why she doesn’t want to.

  Ch 6

  G Major

  Shamrock Green and Ebony

  During the two weeks since they started sleeping together, Alexandra has slowly but surely fallen head over heels and under Halina’s spell. Halina keeps finding new ways to make sure Alexandra will want more: more of her, of her body, and of her presence.

  When she came to Halina’s hotel today, Alexandra had a very serious subject in mind, a question about the two of them that she’s been holding back since the morning after their first night together. Damn Halina for being so damn irresistible.

  Now Alexandra rolls onto her back, cheeks flushed and curls stuck to her forehead after yet another extremely pleasurable and, yes, a bit athletic, horizontal session with Halina. Halina’s long fingers cup the curves of Alexandra’s breasts, and that distracts her.

  Alexandra does the only sensible thing and subtly moves away from Halina’s grasp and sits back against the plush headboard. Halina pouts, but Alexandra won’t be so easily seduced.

  “Come on.” She pats the pillow next to her until Halina huffs and comes to sit by her side. “There is something I’d like to talk about with you.” Halina frowns; her look of confusion is adorable, but she gestures for Alexandra to go on. “I wanted to know why we… only fuck,” Alexandra says bluntly, wincing internally at her language.

  To Alexandra’s surprise, Halina laughs. It’s a full-on belly laugh that makes Alexandra see carmine red sprayed all over Halina’s usual soft coloring. And it’s better suited to a Marx Brothers movie than to Alexandra’s question.

  “Oh, you’re serious,” Halina says, voice still shaking with laughter, once she notices that Alexandra is waiting for her to stop. “What more would you have us do?”

  Alexandra blinks at her as anger and embarrassment battle to dominate her emotions. “Go out? Movies, restaurants, walks around the city?” she lists, her voice louder with each suggestion while Helena gives her a blank look. “Talks? Dates, outside of this bedroom, as nice as it is.”

  Halina’s hilarity ends abruptly. “Dates?” she repeats, her nose scrunched up as if the word tastes sour in her mouth. Her voice’s color reflects it too, neon yellow on the backdrop of her natural peach. “Where did you get such an idea?”

  Alexandra’s lungs empty as if she had just been punched in the stomach. She gets out of the bed, nudity be damned, to look more properly at Halina. “I thought this,” she replies, her hand waves between them, “was… something. A relationship.”

  Halina rolls her eyes, and red progressively seeps into the edges of Alexandra’s vision. “It’s something—a good fuck,” Halina says slowly while she gets out of bed and puts her blouse on. “And nothing more. Trust me, if it wasn’t good, it would have been the one-time performance and cześć.”

  The foreign word is strange, brutal in her ears and, on the backdrop of her eyelids, a swift splotch of khaki and brown. Alexandra frowns to shake it out of her mind.

  She searches for her clothes, which are strewn around the room, a proof of their eagerness to get to bed, and gets dressed. She nearly tears off her sleeve in her haste. “I suppose I should be flattered?” she says in disbelief, and Halina, who looks the epitome of poise and afterglow calm, shrugs while she fiddles with a tumbler of gin.

  “Yeah, you should,” she replies before taking a sip with her eyes firmly on Alexandra.

  Alexandra stands there, hands shaking, silenced by everything she wants to say, everything she won’t say, lest she completely lose it.

  “Is this your first casual thing?” Halina’s beautiful face is marred by her scornful expression.

  “Well, you’re certainly the first woman to make me regret attaching stupid emotions to a physical thing!”

  “The first woman?”

  “Not the first one I fucked,” Alexandra clarifies, the words out of her mouth as fast as bullets while she dresses. “I trusted you not to be defensive about feelings the way men are.”

  “You actually thought we were… dating?”

  Disgust is no longer the predominant emotion in Halina’s demeanor. Her eyes are wide and blinking as she turns sideways; her clenched jaw predominates in Alexandra’s line of sight. “I was obviously mistaken,” Alexandra says around the knot lodged in her throat. “Thank you for… clearing things up, but I should—I should go.”

  “You don’t have to leave.”

  “Yeah, no. I definitely do.”

  Halina stands with a sigh and comes closer. She doesn’t try to touch her, thank God, but she’s close enough to invade Alexandra’s every sense. “Come on, Alexandra.” Alexandra’s name is a purr, darkening Halina’s usual peach into vermillion. “Why stop something so fun?”

  Alexandra pauses while she puts her coat on. She focuses on buttoning it properly so she’ll at least look decent on her way home. For a fleeting moment, she almost lets Halina’s words convince her. She could carpe the fuck out of this diem. She could change her pattern and just take what Halina can offer.

  No, she says firmly to the voice in her brain pleading for surrender. Who would I be if I betray my own heart?

  “Because it’s not enough,” she replies as tears and embarrassment threaten to choke her. She blindly gets hold of the door handle. “Goodbye, Halina.”

  “Alex—” Halina starts, but Alexandra closes the door before Halina can make her lose her resolve.

  The cold air slaps her in the face. Alexandra buries her nose in her scarf. The best idea for her right now is to walk home, take advantage of the fresh air and let it distract from the negative whirlwind of thoughts developing in her mind.

  There is a sale on the Boulevard Beaumarchais: antique dealers next to individuals selling toys children outgrew and presents they never appreciated. One man’s trash is another’s treasure, or so it seems. Usually, Alexandra would browse and enjoy. Today, as derogatory thoughts and self-blame swirl in her head, she doesn’t bother to look. If anything, she quickens her pace when she passes stalls with instruments.

  She bites her lower lip. How stupid can you get, Alexandra berates herself. Tears of anger roll onto her cheek before she wipes them brusquely away. How could she delude herself into believing Halina wanted more than to fuck her? She is all too aware of how different they are, how easy it would be—correction, will be—for Halina, with her classical beauty and model’s body, to find another partner for her “good fuck.”

  It’s not what she wants, though. Hell, if she did want it, Halina appears to be interested in keeping their arrangement… But how many times can she delude herself into reading a situation in ways that suit her, and not as it actually is?

  At a red light, Alexandra taps her foot against the pavement and raises her eyes to the skies. It was obvious, if she takes the time to consider it, that they had widely different points of view on their affair. Alexandra was more invested in it—no, not just more invested. It’s clear now that they didn’t seek the same thing at all. She can’t even blame Halina. The pianist never lied about what she sought in her acquaintance with Alexa
ndra, did she? It’s Alexandra who projected her own infatuation, who colored every interaction with Halina with her own feelings, who cast a veil over what didn’t fit her “script.”

  “What an idiot, putain,” she mutters under her breath, but not low enough to prevent the old man next to her at the light from catching her curse, if the shocked look on his face is any indication. “Pardon,” she whispers, then increases her speed to cross the street. She doesn’t need to scare passersby. She feels pathetic enough as it is.

  Her phone vibrates in her pocket, but Alexandra ignores it. If it’s Halina, she doesn’t want to hear anything from her; if it’s Leo, she is not in the proper mindset to deal with him. The rest of the world can wait too. She needs to get home, back to the nest she built with her clutter and knickknacks, back to Punshki and the comfort of his fur and his soft, compassionate grumbles. She also needs to bury, with something greasy and sweet, the misery gathered in her heart and threatening to choke her. She needs to be home, where she is safe from the world.

  The moment she closes the door with a bag of cream puffs clutched to her chest, Alexandra rests her head against the door, lets herself slide to the floor, spreads her legs to let her dog snuggle up to her, and buries her nose in the thick fur of his neck to let the tears out.

  My foolish, stupid heart, she tells herself before letting her bruised emotions roll down her cheeks.

  Halina stares at the door, her hands clenched into fists. Then she throws her glass against a wall, where it bounces before landing, unscathed, on the floor.

  “Kurde! How dare she!”

  She’s certain she did nothing to lead Alexandra to believe their arrangement was more than a roll in the hay, a quest for pleasure. And now, Miss All High and Mighty While Being Naughty wants to claim they are, what? A couple? In a relationship? Good Lord.

  No, Halina doesn’t do relationships; sex is all she needs from other women who are not her equals on a stage, and even then…

  Intimacy? Is she expected to just let someone in and take a chance on them? To allow them to see who she is behind her carefully crafted walls, to contemplate all her flaws and neuroses and defects? To give them a chance to hurt her when they reject her for the very qualities they claimed to love?

  No, thank you.

  Relationship? Letting the daily occurrences corrode what was admittedly a delightful lay?

  No, thank you.

  Alexandra was a fun fuck-buddy, a very talented one, sure, but nothing irreplaceable. As a matter of fact, Halina will replace her, and no later than today. Halina takes her phone and angrily types a message to Ari to inform them she plans to go to the club they went to on the day they arrived. Maybe the prospect of another shot at their dreamy barman will entice them to join her. In any case, if there is one place where she is bound to find someone else to fuck, at her pace and at her will, it’s there.

  Once at the club, Halina tries to get rid of the inexplicable disappointment over the whole debacle and enjoy herself. She dances, she flirts, she drinks the anger away.

  To prove herself that Alexandra was not that good, Halina goes back to Camille the bartender. They end up in the stockroom for a quick encounter, but this only crushes her hope of leaving Alexandra in the past. As fun and gorgeous as Camille is, as close to her usual type as she may be, Halina can’t quite focus. Something is amiss. Camille doesn’t have what it takes to make Halina feel transformed, like the strings of an entire piano in the hands of a master. The way Alexandra made her feel.

  Dammit.

  * * *

  The next day, the orchestra has no rehearsals, and Halina and Ari visit the Louvre and spend some time on “touristy” stuff at the museum. But most of the time they spend in the aisles of the former royal palace finds Halina confiding in Ari about her misadventures.

  “Forget about her,” Ari says as they take a selfie with Albrecht Dürer’s self-portrait and mimic his expression. “It’s not as if she made such an impression, is it?” Halina remains silent, maybe a bit too long if Ari’s widening eyes are any indication. “She did?”

  Halina nods sadly. The museum’s map is crumpled into oblivion between her nervous hands.

  “Wow,” Ari whispers with a pout. “Didn’t see it coming.”

  “Is it such a surprise?” Halina frowns.

  “Well, you can be quite difficult to please, and I didn’t expect someone of her type to be… hardworking, so to speak.”

  “Her type?” Halina repeats, her voice betraying an anger on behalf of Alexandra she didn’t expect.

  “Oh, come on, Lina,” Ari says with a small, uncertain laugh. “People like her, yeah. Didn’t you say she is bi? And she’s a fatty too. Neither have the best rep.”

  “No, I can’t let you say that,” Halina cuts them. “Sure, she is nothing like the size zeroes I banged around the world, but I wouldn’t want her to be thinner. You said yourself that she’s cute, but she’s more than that. She’s gorgeous, and I was an idiot for not giving bigger women a chance sooner. And she’s the best sex I ever had,” Halina adds with a wistful sigh.

  Ari holds up their hands in surrender. “My apologies, Lina. I guess I have prejudices of my own, but you have to admit that your previous partners were pretty much cut from the same skinny cloth,” they add with a pointed look.

  Halina humphs. The whole museum visit has been slowly tainted by her sour mood.

  “The best sex you ever had, uh?”

  “No competition.” She sighs as she slouches onto a bench.

  Ari sits next to her with crossed legs, prim and proper as always, as they pretend to observe the painting in front of them. “Well,” they say slowly, obviously attempting to protect her frayed nerves, “if she was so good, maybe you should—”

  “What, join the monogamous club, get married, and decide who will carry the babies?” Halina snarls, and Ari visibly recoils.

  “I was just going to suggest giving her a shot, but okay, if that’s where you stand already, more power to you.”

  Halina remains silent, her eyes drawn to the painting for real this time. She takes in the curves of the woman inhabiting the canvas and she sighs. It’s such a commonplace subject for a work of art, a nude portrait of a nameless woman, but Halina is lost in the body, the rich colors, the intimacy infused in the painter’s strokes, and the painted woman’s hidden gaze. Her mind drifts to the very woman she has tried to erase from it. She lets out another, sadder breath, and Ari frowns at her.

  “I can’t stop thinking about her,” Halina admits softly as she shifts her eyes from the painting to her hands in her lap. She finally voices what has disturbed her. “About how good and simple it was to just be with her.”

  Ari utters a simple sound meant to make her say more.

  “I didn’t think I would ever say those words,” Halina continues, keeping her eyes away from Ari, “but she is in my every thought. That infuriating woman stars in all my dreams—”

  “TMI.”

  “As if. And every vaguely romantic piece of music speaks of her. I can’t go on like this!”

  “I hear this is what relationships are made of.” Ari’s voice is strangely neutral.

  “I can’t picture myself in a relationship,” she replies, “and you and I share the same vision of romance in general.”

  They both shudder dramatically. Ari tilts their head to the side and leans back on their hands. “And yet?”

  “And yet.”

  “What do you have to lose, when it comes to it?”

  “I could get hurt. I could hurt her. I could lose my focus and my drive. I could lose the music. I could—”

  “Nah, it’s bolted to your body and your heart with unbreakable bolts.”

  Halina doesn’t bother hiding her surprise. “You mean it?”

  Ari scoffs. “Of course I do,” they say. “Your passion and talent are w
hy I slave away to make sure you’re happy.” It’s a simple joke, but it stings a little. That must show on her face, because Ari wraps one arm over her shoulders. “The reason I used to slave away; now I just want to make you happy, my friend.” They squeeze her arm and pull her closer. “And as for hurt, I won’t say it’s bound to happen with someone who hasn’t figured themselves out yet, but que sera, sera, right?”

  Halina smiles at them as she yields to the embrace and rests her head on their shoulder. “See, relationships really don’t make any sense,” she says. “Drama, drama, drama.”

  “Since you already have the drama, you might as well try out the relationship and its advantages.”

  “Advantages?”

  “Cuddles, someone to confide in…”

  Halina looks up, trying for her best puppy look. “Don’t I have you for that?”

  “Okay, cuddles with the potential to become dirtier.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, you don’t have me for that, doll.”

  Halina snorts, and some tourists give her a nasty look. “I have soaked in enough culture for now,” she says, straightening her posture before she stands. “Let’s go eat.”

  Ari pulls their phone from their pocket to check recommendations on different websites. “According to my BFF the World Wide Web, we should find a sushi bar nearby. And with a conveyor belt? Neat,” they add with a new sparkle in their eyes.

  “It could be fun,” Halina replies. They link arms to walk away from the gallery. “Maybe I’ll take Alexandra there for a—” she winces at the very idea.

  “A date,” Ari says, their expression slightly enigmatic.

  “What,” Halina says, with a squeeze of their elbow as an incentive to talk.

  “Dare I say you are putting the cart before the horse here?”