Of Lust and Love
Tales from the Eroticon of Beau Kotchio
Volume VIII
Extremity of Love: Dark Passion
Tales 96 to 100
For Adults Only
Beau Kotchio
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The ebook may not be resold or given away to other people, including minors. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords .com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Copyright @ 2010 J. Beauxrêves Kotchio
Cover Photo: The Kiss by Auguste Rodin, National Museum of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires, Argentina, used with permission of Creative Commons’ Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
See last page for information about the author and other volumes in the series.
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Preface to The Eroticon
Albert Einstein famously said, “God is subtle, but he is not malicious.” Perhaps this is true in physics, but in matters of the heart I am not so sure.
To see to it that we mate to ensure the survival of the species, the Creator, through Evolution, has foisted on us Desire. And so powerful and relentless is this drive that we make fools of ourselves as we succumb to its peremptory dictates.
Love and Lust are serious business, often sweet, sometimes sad, sometimes frightening. Also sometimes really funny¾so long as somebody else is involved. Only the recognition that we are all touched from time to time by the madness allows us to empathize with the victims. Smarmy censoriousness is certainly unfair. Likewise Victorian prudery. No pretending here, as we explore the reality of what you know people really do and say.
So come empathize, have a chuckle, nod in recognition, be shocked, or shed a tear, as you explore this varied selection of my favorite stories from The Eroticon, One Hundred Tales of Lust and Love.
―Beau Kotchio
Of Lust and Love: Volume VIII
Extremity of Love: Dark Passion
The Tales:
96. Jane in Heat
97. The Master Piece
98. Helen and Troy
99. The Devil in Mistress Jones
100. Her Business Plan
Like a box of chocolates, each of my books of short stories is not to be gobbled all at one sitting. Enjoy them, but take your time...that way you 'all find them more delicious. —Beau Kotchio
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The Ninety-Sixth Tale
Jane in Heat
1
One hot morning, while shopping downtown, Jane passed a pet shop. The window display of leather collars and leashes caught her eye. She went into the shop.
From the back of the store where the fish tanks and bird cages lined the aisles, the elderly Jewish proprietor came to the front counter to see what she wanted.
She looked at the dog collars. They were made of various colors of leather…brown, black, white, red…and they had metal plates riveted to them. Names such as Rover or Spot were already engraved on some of them. There was a machine on the counter, right next to the cash register, for engraving the blank tags. The collars came in three sizes, marked with signs, Small, Medium, Large. She pointed to one of the large black collars with a blank tag.
“How much is that one, please?”
“Twenty-six dollars.”
“Expensive. You must sell a lot of these.”
“Yes. It’s amazing.”
She’s shrewd, he thought. She knows you put the fast-moving articles up front and mark them up as high as the traffic will bear. A lot of people bought a collar for their dog. Then there were the men who bought one big one and four little ones, usually red or white, not understanding that ankles are larger than wrists. Sometimes, when they found out, they came back and shamefacedly exchanged them. Other men, unsure about sizes, bought two of each size, pretending they had three dogs. Other men, the ones who knew how to pay attention to detail, knew you needed one big one, two little ones, and two middle-sized ones. Those were the ones who didn’t forget to buy a leash. Not many women, however, bought more than one collar, usually for a small dog, such as a toy poodle.
“I’ll take it,” she said.
“Do you want a name on it.”
“Yes. The name is Jane.”
“Funny name for a dog.”
“It’s my name.”
“Oh.” He sounded embarrassed.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It suits my mood.”
As he finished marking the tag with her name, she pulled the bills from her wallet. She would have only enough left to pay her parking fee.
He handed her the collar without offering to put it in a bag. He didn’t have money for bags.
It didn’t make any difference to Jane. She took the collar and fitted it around her neck. The leather was stiff, and after buckling it, she had trouble getting the free end through the hasp. She leaned toward him. He fastened it for her.
“Thank you,” she said, and left the store.
He watched her go. He shook his head and went back to the fish and birds.
2
She paid the parking fee. The attendant glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She smiled at him.
While she waited for the gate to rise, she looked at herself in the car mirror. The black collar suited her coloring. She was a brunette, with pale white skin, blue eyes, and red lip gloss.
The gate rose and she drove off.
At home, she left her car on the gravel of the driveway, even though she hated to walk over the gravel in heels. She trotted up the front stairs.
On the front hall table, she found a note from Charles. He was terribly sorry, but he had forgotten to tell her he would not be home tonight because he had to fly to Denver and would not return until day after tomorrow. On her way into the kitchen, she crushed the note into a ball and threw it at the trash compactor.
For lunch she ate some cottage cheese and a red tomato.
In the hallway, feeling warm, she lowered the thermostat on the air conditioner. She went upstairs to her bedroom. She undressed, kicking her pumps into the closet and hanging her dress and slip on a hook. In the bathroom she stripped off her panty hose and brassiere and tossed them in the laundry hamper. She started the shower and when the water was tepid stepped into it. As she closed the shower door she noticed in the mirrored wall that the dog collar was still around her neck. Funny, she thought, I’ve already gotten used to it. She took it off and tossed it on the counter.
She held up her hair so it would not get wet and let the shower play on her torso, front and back. Cooled, she stepped out of the shower and dried herself.
She picked up the dog collar and padded across the thick carpet of her bedroom to the king-size bed. She laid the collar on the night table beside the clock-radio and pulled the bed covers all the way to the foot of the bed, exposing the white sheet.
She stood at the double windows and pulled up the blinds, giving herself a view of the trees lining her back garden. Then she went to her dressing table and pulled a single pink tissue from the box. She returned to her bed and laid the tissue on the night table beside the dog collar. She switched on the radio and tuned it to a romantic music station.
She sat on the edge of the bed, picked up the dog collar, and looked at the plate riveted to it. “Jane,” she read aloud. She fastened the collar around her neck. Then she lay down and pulled one of the large pillows under her head. She wasn’t sleepy, and she didn’t pull up the covers. Instead, she closed her eyes and put the fingers of both hands between her legs.
“Fuck me,” she murmured to herself, “Tarzan fuck Jane.”
3
In the late afternoon, she dealt with the heat by going outside to her swimming pool. She owned a string bikini, a thong, made in Israel of silver lamé and imported to an expensive shop in New York, where her husband bought it for her on one of his trips and brought it home. He had never asked her to wear it…he had never asked, much less demanded, that she do anything…and she had never worn it for him nor had she asked him if he would like to see her in it. She supposed he had forgotten about it, but how was she to know? He didn’t talk to her about anything that might touch on intimacy, and now, at age twenty-eight, she felt a little numb.
She retrieved the silver lamé thong and matching brassiere from the bottom drawer of her dresser. She put them on, looked in the mirror, and adjusted the skimpy pieces of material. The tight elastic of the bra straps and thong pressed into the flesh of her back muscles and hips.
She went to the closet for her terry cloth robe. She stopped to inspect herself in the long mirror on the back of the closet door. She had always thought she was a little too tall, but long ago she resolved not to sacrifice her posture to make up for it. She knew how to stand with a straight back, a string pulling up her spine through the top of her head as her mother had taught her, so that without thinking she kept her chin down, shoulders back, stomach in, and pelvis forward in the pose that photographers of brides tried to achieve, the pose that said I am so innocent in all my white satin and lace but you are going to have a hot time tonight my beloved.
In her string bathing suit, she could appreciate the line of her long neck, the round muscles of her shoulders, the thrust of her mature breasts, the curve of her rib cage, the narrowness of her waist, and the wide pelvic bones that pulled her generous thighs so far apart that the gap exposed her sex, covered only by the silver lamé patch. Her skin was smooth, and she had a gorgeous mane of hair.
A few hairs peeked out of the sides of the elastic that covered her crotch. She tucked them in rather than clip them. Right now she wanted to go to the pool, not groom herself.
She pulled on the terry cloth robe, found a pair of sandals in the closet, and pushed her toes into them. She went downstairs to the terrace and pool.
On her way she stopped in the kitchen, picked up her sunglasses, and mixed a glass of iced tea. At poolside she placed the glass on a small glass-topped table. She stood beside the chaise as she put on her sunglasses and scanned her garden and the tall leafy trees that lined its borders and high brick wall. She told herself she didn’t want to be seen but then decided she didn’t care.
She opened her robe and let it drop from her shoulders to the tiled pavement. As she sat down on the chaise, she turned and lifted her legs, letting one lie flat and cocking up the other. Her toes showed beyond the straps of the sandals and she pointed them as she lay back on the chaise, arching her back slightly.
She reached for the glass of tea and sipped it as she let her eyes wander over the tree tops. A sort of haze made the air shimmer, and she thought of the travel movies she had seen of the African veldt, with its hazy dusty horizon and herds of grazing animals among the acacia trees. She put the glass down, raised her arm, and rested the back of her wrist on her forehead. She closed her eyes.
The distant sound of car horns in the city made her think of elephants. She saw them moving ponderously into a shady water hole, the little ones pressed against their mother’s legs, and all of them dropping their trunks into the water and spraying their backs, and then trumpeting at the troop of chimpanzees above them in the leafy green canopy draped with long vines.
She imagined a strong naked man watching from among the leaves in the treetops, looking at her as she lay stretched on a log beside the cool water.
She raised her back a bit from the chaise, and while she held the bra in place across her breasts with one hand, she put the other hand behind herself and unhooked it. She was careful to keep her back arched, and she turned her head to one side, pressing her chin against her shoulder. After a moment she lifted the cloth strip from her breasts and dropped it beside the chaise.
She turned her head to her other shoulder, then cupped her upraised breasts with both hands. With the fingernails of her thumbs she stroked the pink tips absently for several moments. Then she dropped her hands to the sides of the chaise and lay still, almost sleeping.
The man in the treetops of the jungle gazed down at her with rapt attention. He took a deep breath, expanding his massive chest muscles, and grunted.
She raised her fingers to her hips where the straps of the thong pressed into her soft flesh. She was going to pull the straps down, but she thought instead that she might leave the straps in place and turn over on her jungle log. She did so carefully, drawing her arms under her chest and resting her bare breasts in the palms of her hands. She rested her cheek on the canvas pillow of the chaise, as if it were a nest of leaves.
She made no special effort to raise her rump, bared and split by the thick silver thong, for she knew her buttocks protruded nicely anyway. But in any case she wasn’t displaying herself for the man in the tree, only taking a quiet nap by the water hole, so it didn’t matter whether or not she raised her bottom.
But she did raise her rump when she moved her hand down between her thighs and slipped her fingers under the silver elastic covering. She also crossed her ankles. On a warm afternoon lying next to the water hole, hidden away in the moist jungle beside the hazy plains of the Serengeti, a girl might pleasure herself, whether or not the man holding the vine in the tree watched her, for it was a steamy hot day in the jungle.
From across the street where the telephone company man was clipping branches out of the way of the high wires, the view of Jane’s water hole was unobstructed. Stripped to the waist, he watched her for a while, then smiled and resumed his sweaty work.
4
For supper, Jane carried a plate of cut raw carrots and celery into the living room and curled up in the huge soft shapeless chair beside Charles’ television and sound system. Returning from her jungle, she had put the skimpy bathing suit back into the bottom drawer of her dresser. Now she wore bikini panties, a blue button-down shirt, tan Bermuda shorts, and cordovan loafers. Even in her air conditioned house she didn’t want to wear a brassiere. She was too hot, and she preferred anyway to feel the grazing of the broadcloth shirt against her nipples.
As she ate the crunchy vegetables, she tried to watch a quiz show on the television. But it didn’t suit her mood, and she switched it off impatiently. She sat up on the edge of the chair, stretched her arms and yawned, then ran her hands through her hair and tossed her head.
She climbed out of the soft chair and went to the sliding glass doors that opened onto the terrace. She pulled back the drapes and looked at the evening sky. It was dusk, but still early. The sky was still light blue, and billowy white thunderheads had formed out of the haze. The edges of the clouds were tinged with bright gold. But as the sun had dropped behind the trees, her garden and pool now lay in deep shade.
She had spent the entire hot afternoon beside the pool without once going into the water. Somehow, in her drowsy reverie as she lay on the log beside the water hole, her mind held the image of hippos and alligators, and the water meant danger.
Now, refreshed by the air conditioning in her living room, she looked at the darkened pool in a different mood. She touched the pool light switch beside the glass door. The underwater lights of the pool turned the water to blue crystal. She opened the sliding door and went out onto the dark terrace.
She stood in the shadow of a pillar and took off her clothes.
At the other end of the garden, down among the black mounds of the bushes, she saw the yellow eyes of a panther…or was it a yellow-eyed man?…watching her. She ignored the animal and walked naked and barefoot out onto the terrace to the edge of the water. She knelt beside the water, then leaned down and put her fingers into it, stirring up little ripples in its smooth surface.
She knelt with her back to the shadowy black bushes. Her heart beat wildly, but she savored the danger of her exposed position and the fact that her leaning posture invitingly presented her back and bottom to the danger.
She rose, and a crow clattered up from her neighbor’s treetop into the blue sky. She looked up at the black bird and shaded her eyes with one hand. Then she studied her shadowed lawn and garden and saw nothing until her eyes adjusted again to the deep shade.
She went for a walk around her pool, wandering slowly beside the quiet crystal water, looking into it and not looking for the yellow eyes at the end of the garden toward which she was strolling. She held her head up and her shoulders back, not stiffly but gracefully, as if she were a lovely wild doe, alert to the sleek black hairy hunter with his hot breath but not ready to bolt from him.
At the far end of the pool she climbed out onto the limb of the diving board. If he came for her here on this perch she would have nowhere to go except into the bottomless waters.
She lay down on her back with her head toward the end of the board. She stretched her arms back behind her head, as a sleeping woman rests her arms on her pillow. She raised her knees, one a bit higher than the other, and moved her feet to the edges of the board so the yellow-eyed panther man could look directly into the gash between her thighs.
I am delicious, she thought, and very good to eat.
Her neighbor, watching Jane not from the dark bushes at the end of her own yard, but from his bedroom window beyond the side wall where there were still gold clouds and blue sky, went to get his binoculars so he could better see the naked woman moving in the darkness around the sparkling water.
But when he returned, Jane had vanished.
5
Jane returned to her bedroom, clutching her clothes to her chest. She was wet from plunging off the diving board at the far end of the pool and swimming to the terrace.
She stood before the sink counter and wall-to-wall mirror in her bathroom, drying her hair with a hot air blower. She aimed the blower at the beads of perspiration along the hairline of her forehead. While she used the blower she turned one way and the other, inspecting her torso and looking over her shoulder at the deep furrow of her spine and the dimples above her round bottom.
When her hair was dry enough, she went to her dressing table and picked up the black dog collar, her one purchase of the morning. She put it on, shaking her hair away from it. Then she freshened her makeup.
She returned to the bedroom and picked up a floor lamp that stood beside her bedroom chair. She carried the lamp to the bathroom and plugged it into a wall receptacle. She turned its bulb and shade so the light shone into the mirror, making the small white room as bright as a photographer’s studio.
She climbed onto the sink counter and knelt before the mirror with her palms resting on her thighs. She arched her back and let her mouth fall slack as she looked askance at herself through her eyelashes. She tossed her hair aside so the photographer could see the black collar.
She changed her position by sitting on her bottom, pulling her knees up to her chest, and wrapping her arms around her shins. She turned at an angle so she could see, reflected in the mirror, beneath her arms and knees, the broadness of the undersides of her thighs and her plump sex, wedged like a plum between them. She rested her cheek on her knees and smiled like a college girl or high school cheerleader.
Responding to the pornographer’s request for variety, she moved next to all fours, with her bottom to the mirror and her breasts hanging between her arms. She looked over her shoulder at her bottom. She arched her back, which raised her rump and opened her cleft…which was not pink and hairless and smooth, like the asses of the girls in the magazines her husband kept in his dresser under his shirts, but was lined with little black curly hairs.
I can’t use that, said the photographer, you’ll have to shave yourself.
But my lover likes me this way…hairy, and juicy.
The pornographer laughed. Your lover, Jane? Your lover?
6
Even with the air conditioning in her bedroom, she felt warm. She kept the collar on but put herself to bed without pajamas and only pulled a single sheet up to her waist.
Her pillow clutched the back of her hair, or her cheek when she lay on her side, and it held the heat against her head. The collar was comfortable but she could feel it when she moved. She lay on her back, and she couldn’t sleep.
She threw off the sheet and pulled up her knees and spread her thighs wide, wanting someone to come to her and lie on her and take her as if she were a slave. She was forbidden to touch herself, and her wrists were crossed tightly over her head so she could not do what was forbidden.
She turned her head from side to side, tossing, as her master spread her thighs even more obscenely apart, pierced her and rent her, holding her down, but kissing her shoulder and neck just under the collar, by which he kept her chained to the bed. She clenched her buttocks tightly together to prevent his entry there, for it was not pleasant to be an English concubine in a Turkish harem.
She held her eyes tightly closed and panted, finally settling into a rhythm that matched the rocking of her pelvis against the mattress.
Keeping her thighs spread she raised her knees and hips, lifting her legs so her feet rested flat on the mattress. He was heavy, and his pummeling was relentless and good, but she twisted and turned under him as he held her wrists together over her head and she pushed up her pelvis to grind against his like Charles once used to know how to do when he was just a dumb fucking Marine lieutenant and before he became a corporate man riding the crest of success like the crest she thought she might be able to get up on and ride for a little while if she could just imagine what it was like to do it with a Turk and not do it with your own fingers.
But of course it wasn’t the same at all.
Jane stopped writhing.
She sat up on the edge of the bed and put her face in her hands.
Then she looked up at the window. She saw the condensation that the air conditioning had made on the hot pane. Beyond it, above the blackness of the trees, she saw the full moon, beckoning.
7
Jane rolled the car to a quiet stop in the far corner of the empty commuter parking lot at the railway station. She shut off the motor and turned off the headlights. She glanced in the mirror at her makeup, her hair, and the collar.
In the air conditioning of the car, her light raincoat over her slacks and blouse had not been too warm. Now, with the motor off, she began to perspire.
She looked out the car windows in all directions. The rays of the full moon made a white streak on the smooth macadam of the parking lot, but her corner of the lot was deeply shadowed by magnolia trees.
She pulled her arms out of the raincoat and let if fall around her hips. Peering out the windows, she unbuttoned her blouse and shrugged it off, then unzipped her slacks, raised her bottom, and wriggled the slacks down over her hips and knees. She pulled them off over her feet as she thought about whether to go barefoot but decided to keep her loafers on. Otherwise, since she had not bothered to put on underwear, she was unclothed.
She pulled the raincoat on again. She buttoned it up to her neck and raised the lapels to cover the dog collar, then cinched the belt like a sash. She put her car keys in the pocket of the coat but left her purse under the seat as she got out of the car and pushed the door lock button.
In the oven of humid air, she leaned back against the side of the car to steady her breathing. Then she set off across the parking lot and the railroad tracks to the highway. She strolled along its curve until she came to a straight stretch where the pavement and broad gravel shoulder lay in open moonlight. She stood beside the road, facing the direction from which vehicles would come and would flash their lights on her. She put her hands in her coat pockets.
In the tall grass beside the road insects scritched. The moon moved in and out among the
thunderheads left over from the end of the day.
A car approached, its lights making two bright eyes in the night. It shot past her.
Another ten minutes went by as she waited beside the highway.
The lights of a truck appeared from around the curve. The truck thundered toward her, slowed, and stopped.
The driver leaned over in the cab and opened the door on her side. He was middle aged and wore suspenders.
“Are you all right? Do you need a ride?”
“Are you married?” she asked.
“What?”
“Do you have a wife?”
“Yes, of course. Don’t you need help?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
He shook his head, pulled the door closed, and drove on.
She would not be able to imagine a possibly exciting future if she spent the night with a man who already had a wife.
Jane waited by the side of the road under the full moon.
8
A half hour later she climbed up into the cab of a big ten-wheeler driven by a single man.
He reached across her body and helped her pull the door closed. He turned off the radio and put the truck in gear.
“You’re sure you’re not married,” she said.
“Last I heard,” he smiled, looking out the left-hand mirror as he pulled back onto the highway.
She drew her legs up under herself and sat with her back against the door so she could watch him drive. She pushed the lapels of the coat up and crossed her arms under her breasts.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Most people usually ask first where I’m going.”
“Well, where are you headed?”
“Mobile. How about you?”
“That’s too far. I’m only out for the night.”
“You’ll hitchhike back?”
“Yes.”
His eyes on the road, he held out his hand to her.
“My name’s Joe.”
She put her hand in his.
“I’m Jane.”
He took his hand back. “It’s a hot night to be on the road,” he observed.
“It’s cool here with you.”
“Would you like to listen to the radio?”
“Not really.”
“Radio’s good company when you’re alone.”
“I know.” She turned her head away and looked out the window.
They rode together in silence for several minutes.
She turned her head back and looked at him. “Do you have one of those sleeping compartments?”
“Yes. It comes in handy.”
“But you’re driving at night. Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I can make better time at night. I sleep during the day, usually.”
“Oh.”
She looked forward out the window again.
He glanced at her. “Is that it? Are you just looking for a place to sleep?”
“Anywhere would do,” she replied.
“Not my bunk. Too small. Besides, I wouldn’t want you to see the pictures I’ve got pasted all over the ceiling.”
“You shouldn’t be ashamed, if it’s all you’ve got.”
“They’re not pictures of a girlfriend,” he smiled, “if that’s what you mean.”
“No girlfriend?” She looked at him, and he looked back.
“Not since 'Nam.”
“You had a Vietnamese girlfriend?”
He stared forward pensively.
“Prettiest little thing. So tiny, like a child, or doll. But all grown up.”
“She slept with you?”
“Yeah, sure…but I didn’t bring her home.”
“Oh.”
They both looked forward out the window, thinking their own thoughts for several minutes.
“Would you like some coffee?” he asked.
“Yes, I would.”
“There’s a thermos under the seat.”
She reached down and found the thermos, unscrewed the cup and cork, and poured a half cup. The hot liquid gave off a little plume of steam.
He glanced at her eyes as she raised the cup to her lips with both hands and sipped. Then she held it out to him. Her fingertips brushed his hand as he accepted the cup.
“If you’re hungry there’s a sandwich there, too.”
“I’m not hungry, thank you.”
He drank the coffee quietly, taking several swigs, then handed the cup back to her. She screwed it back on the thermos and leaned down to put it under the seat. He watched her. Her fingers brushed the leather sheath that held his hunting knife. She pulled the leather object from under the seat, saw what it was, and pushed it back beside the thermos.
“I like to hunt deer,” he explained. She didn’t reply.
As she sat upright again, the metal plate on her collar glinted. He stretched out his hand and moved the lapels of her coat aside. He glanced at the collar around her neck, then looked forward through the windshield.
“It has my name on it,” she said without smiling.
“Jane?”
“Yes.”
“What does it do for you?”
“It reminds me who I am.”
“Are you married?” he asked.
“Yes. Does it make a difference to you?”
He shook his head. “Do you hurt a lot?” he asked.
“Not at all. I’m...numb.”
“I know the feeling.”
“I used to cry a lot,” she said.
“I cried, too.”
“Do you wish you’d brought her back with you?”
“Oh, yeah. She couldn’t come, though.” He smiled crookedly. “In fact, it was my fault she died.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Yeah,” he continued, “she died in my arms. But I’m all right now.”
They rode along in silence. After five minutes, he looked at her. “Aren’t you hot in that coat?”
“No, it’s all I have on.”
He nodded but didn't ask why.
She sat back against the door and looked at him as he concentrated on the road ahead. She wondered if he thought she were insane, escaped from an institution. Or perhaps, she thought, he understands my need. “You’re kind to me,” she said, “You offer me coffee, a sandwich, the radio, a ride. Why are you so kind?”
“What else is there?”
She turned her head and looked out the window.
Finally he looked at her again. “Are you just looking for sex,” he asked, “or love?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Lots of people make love without being in love.”
“I can’t come unless I’m in love.”
“Don’t you love your husband?”
“Yes, but he doesn’t really love me. He just uses me, so I don’t come anymore.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“They can’t write a prescription for love.”
He nodded. “I guess that’s true. I’ve read some books, you know, about psychology, and it all comes back to love in the end.”
“Kindness helps.”
“You have to pay attention to someone if you’re going to love them.”
“Do you think I’m lovable?” Jane looked at her knees.
He glanced at her. “Well…why don’t we try and find out. For starters, you sure are pretty.”
He put out his hand and smiled at her, and she put her hand in his. He pulled her over beside himself gently. He put his arm around her shoulder, and she rested her head against his chest and her forearm on his thigh.
The truck rumbled along in the dark under the full moon and the thunderheads, which made heat lightning on the horizon.
9
In the early hours of the morning, when it was still dark and Jane slept in the cradle of the trucker’s arm, he pulled off the highway and stopped the truck at the far edge of a motel parking lot. Leaving her in the cab, he went to the lobby and rented a room. He pulled his shaving kit and a change of underwear out of his travel bag. He woke her and helped her down from the cab.
The sudden envelope of hot moist air wakened her, and as he led her by the hand across the parking lot to the motel room she heard the scritching of insects in the grasses beside the curb, as if it were a warning.
He switched on a single lamp and pushed a button on the air conditioning unit. The machine hummed to life and wafted a cool breath into the room. He pulled back the cover and blanket of one of the double beds. He sat her on the edge of the bed, pulled off her loafers, and lifted her legs onto the sheet. She lay on her side in her raincoat with her hands and head on the pillow, and fell asleep.
He went into the bathroom, stripped off his clothes and hung them on the back of the door. He shaved and took a shower, and put on his clean undershorts and t-shirt.
In the bedroom, he found Jane was asleep on her side in the raincoat with her knees drawn up, facing away from him. He leaned down and unbuckled the dog collar and placed it on the night table. He turned off the lamp. Then he crawled in behind her, curved his body to hers, and put his arm over her.
He turned down the collar of her raincoat and kissed the back of her neck.
He listened for a while to the rumbling of the thunder clouds. Then he fell asleep.
10
She woke first. She sat up and looked down at his face, with his cheek on the pillow and his mouth slack. She touched his sandy hair with the tips of her fingers.
She crawled off the far side of the bed and went, barefoot, to the bathroom. She hiked up the raincoat and sat on the toilet. She rummaged in his toilet kit for his comb, which she used to straighten her hair. She had nothing with which to repair her makeup, and she only patted a damp cloth on her forehead and cheeks and neck to cool herself. She left the raincoat on the back of the door with his clothes. Naked, she returned to the bed. She picked up the dog collar and affixed it around her neck. Then she crawled in beside him and huddled in the crook of his arm.
When he woke up, he was lying on his back and she was leaning over him, her dark hair hanging down beside her cheeks and touching his own, just like his little Vietnamese girl’s hair used to do. When she saw him open his eyes, she closed hers and bent and kissed him on the mouth.
He put his arms around her and felt that she was naked. He held her to his chest and pressed his mouth to hers as he turned her so she was on her back and he was over her. He pulled away then and stripped off his t-shirt and shorts. She opened her arms and legs and he lay on her.
He didn’t attempt to penetrate her immediately but curled an arm under her neck and kissed her mouth and neck and hair. With his free hand he squeezed her breasts and twisted the tips until they became like hard rubber. With both of her arms wrapped around his neck, she arched her back and squirmed. He put his hand between her thighs, felt her wetness, and guided himself into her. Her chin shot up, she took a deep breath, and moaned softly as her orgasm surprised her.
Outside, in the early morning, the thunder clouds rumbled, discharged heat lightning, and finally released a furious deluge of warm rain.
11
They lay together in the bed until midday. The rain had stopped, and he pulled on his shirt and trousers and went for food.
When he returned he took off his pants and sat on the edge of the bed. She knelt between his knees and took him in her mouth. While he drank from a bottle of cold beer, he held her collar and moved her head slowly back and forth.
In the afternoon she offered him her bottom. He had her kneel on the carpet beside the bed and lean forward with her cheek and arms resting on the sheet. He crouched behind her, smeared her with shaving cream, and held her hips while he pushed himself into her. She gasped and closed her eyes tightly. He lay forward onto her back and held her wrists against the sheet while he moved himself in and out of her. He kissed the beads of perspiration that formed on her forehead, and he kissed her eyebrows, which drew together at the same time the corners of her mouth turned up. He kissed the tag of her collar as he thrust his pelvis against her bottom more vigorously, making her cry out.
“You are so good to me,” she said afterwards as they lay on the bed and she turned in his arms so he could hold her buttocks.
In the evening, they bathed and dressed, he in his underwear, shirt, and trousers, she in her raincoat. Jane put the dog collar in the pocket of her coat.
It was cooler when they left the motel and walked to the diner next door to eat.
He frowned. “Don’t you feel funny without underwear?”
“No.” She sat across from him in the booth, watching him as he ate. She sipped a cola.
She smiled at him. “You’re an animal,” she said, touching his free hand that lay on the table top.
“I know,” he answered, smiling. “I hate responsibility.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I know.” But at the end they always wanted something from him, and he couldn’t stand the idea.
12
A cooling breeze blew across the parking lot. He helped her climb into the cab, then walked around and climbed up into his driver’s seat. The motor started up with a roar, and he moved the big truck out onto the highway.
It was dusk. They rode along for an hour without speaking. He drove with his left hand and held her right hand in his, as if she might get away from him. She looked out the window on her side of the truck and watched the sunset, a vermilion globe suspended under purple clouds that lay in a band just above the horizon.
When it was quite dark, he pulled the truck off to the side of the road. He dropped out of the cab, went around, and helped her down.
“Why are we stopping?”
“Just come with me. I want you.”
“All right.”
He took Jane’s hand and helped her step across the ditch beside the road. There was an embankment, and he put his hand under her bottom to push her up. He made her walk ahead of himself in among the dark shadows of the trees beside the highway.
She stumbled in the underbrush. “This frightens me,” she said.
“Good. It’s more exciting that way.”
They came to a small open place where the light of the moon penetrated the branches of the trees.
“This is good enough,” he said.
She turned and faced him.
“Open your coat,” he said.
“Shall I take it off? We can lie on it if you like.”
“No, just open it so I can see you.”
She unbuttoned the raincoat and parted it. The moonlight made her breasts and torso opalescent. It also glinted on the hunting knife, which he held against his thigh, but she didn’t see that.
“Come here,” he said tightly, his erection painful against the fabric of his jeans, “and let me kiss you.”
As she stepped forward she lifted her arms around his neck and raised her face to his. He placed his hand firmly on the back of her neck and held her as he kissed her. She rotated her hips to press herself against him, but he raised the hunting knife between them and it slid effortlessly into her soft belly so that he only needed to turn the tip up into her heart to make her go slack. He held his mouth tightly against her lips, smothering her last moaning sigh. He held her for several minutes, then lowered her body to the ground and wiped the knife on her raincoat.
He took the dog collar from the pocket of Jane’s coat and ran his finger across the metal plate, feeling the letters of her name. He thrust the collar in his pocket. He left her body among the trees and returned to the highway.
He opened the door to his sleeping compartment and put the dog collar in a cigar box where he kept his other trophies. He pulled off his bloodied jacket and tossed it onto his mattress. Then he climbed into the cab and drove off.
The heat lightning flickered until the truck was well across the line into the next state.
Finis
The Ninety-Seventh Tale
The Master Piece
1
The final vibrations of the massive chord swept up into the balcony. The audience’s roar of approbation flooded back down to the stage, engulfing the orchestra and its conductor.
The maestro smiled triumphantly at the musicians, slapped his baton down on the music stand, and turned to face the audience. He bowed, then threw up both arms. He turned and with a sweep of his hand invited the musicians to stand, but they remained seated and joined in the applause. He placed his hand over his heart.
Finally he stepped off the podium, shook hands with the concert mistress, and beseeched her with a gesture to permit the orchestra to stand with him. She finally stood up and the other musicians promptly did so as well. The conductor then shook hands with the principals of the second violins, violas, and celli. As the clamor continued, he returned to the podium and waved for the brass to rise, then the winds, and then the timpani. Each group as it stood provided an impulse for a vigorous renewal of the applause. The conductor again stepped down from the podium and shook hands with the concert mistress.
“Now that was Mahler, Rhoda.”
“Thank you, Maestro.”
She dropped her eyes and bowed her head as he exited at a brisk pace through the space between the first and second violin sections.
Next morning’s review of the concert was generous, considering that the critic had never approved of the symphony search committee’s choice of this conductor in the first place. The critic felt obliged thereafter to support his position by pointing out performance weak spots and never reporting the audience’s reaction, which was invariably enthusiastic.
The reviewer’s sour view was based on his interview with the maestro at the time the symphony engaged him two years previously. More a journalist than a musician or musicologist, the critic did not bother to probe the conductor’s musical skills. Instead he broached the topic of leadership. Schooled in the liberal anarchy of a modern daily newspaper, the reviewer expected to hear the conductor speak of “teamwork” and “working together” with the musicians. He was appalled when the conductor explained to him his actual view of the matter.
“It’s very simple,” said the maestro, “the podium is the last true dictatorship in the world.”
“Dictatorship?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, noting the critic’s surprise. “Look, I hear a certain sound in my head. If you are a professional instrumentalist, I can show you with my hands and face what I want from you. And I must have it. If you don’t give it to me, out you go. There’s nothing democratic about it at all. Give me Beethoven, or get out.” He snapped his fingers.
The reporter wrote it down. Later, when he read his notes, he felt a wave of nausea, and he decided he was grateful not to be a musician.
Then he wondered whether, if you were a professional instrumentalist, the conductor's dictatorial leadership was what you expected and respected. He made a mental note to survey the musicians some day on the issue.
2
The concertmistress was already twenty minutes into the section rehearsal with her thirteen other colleagues and she was not getting from them the sound she wanted. She looked at the new girl, Debra, seated at the last stand with Dmitri. She frowned.
Debra had graduated from one of the best conservatories the previous spring and had been selected for the first violin section of the Philharmonic at auditions in August. It meant she was talented. But Rhoda saw that the girl was also still incredibly undisciplined. To her, this was a distressingly unprofessional characteristic of most of the younger players.
Debra slumped with her spine curved and her legs wrapped around the legs of her chair. She wore a sweater, Bermuda shorts, and tennis shoes. Her blond hair was done up in a single loose braid at the back of her head. She peered at the music and pushed her glasses up higher on her nose.
“Debra,” the concert mistress called to her, “sit up straight, dear. You look like you just got out of bed.”
“She probably did,” a man’s voice whispered.
“Really?” said the girl next to him seriously, “Whose?”
“Quiet!” cried Rhoda, and raised her bow. “All right, everyone, let’s take it again, please, from the top.”
“Excuse me, Rhoda,” interrupted Jonathan, raising his hand just as the concert mistress put her bow on the string. “I have an up bow at bar six. Is that really right?”
“Yes, it is. Just play it the way I marked it, Jonathan. You’ll see, it flows nicely.”
“It doesn’t feel good to me.”
“I really have to insist on it, Jonathan, if you don’t mind. It’s a question of conserving the flow of the line.”
They went on. The concertmistress criticized and cajoled, explained and demonstrated. They loved playing Richard Strauss, but it was demanding stuff.
At one point, still dissatisfied after several repetitions of a particular passage, the concert mistress watched all the players until she spotted the difficulty. She stopped playing and the others put down their violins also. She looked again at the new girl.
“Debra, dear, did you practice this music before coming to rehearsal?”
“I only received the parts yesterday!” the girl whined.
“Well, you can speak to the Librarian about it. Even so, you should have at least familiarized yourself with the notes. If you don’t practice before coming to sectional, you’re just wasting our time.”
“I’m doing my best, Miss Krontag,” Debra replied testily.
The other players became immobile and silent, waiting to see how Rhoda would deal with this outburst.
“I see,” she said icily. “Well, in that case, why don’t you play it so all the rest of us can hear how well you do it.”
The girl flushed. She put her instrument under her chin and played the offended phrase while Rhoda stood with her arms crossed and the other players sat with their heads bowed. To be singled out in rehearsal was a singular humiliation.
When Debra had finished her solo, Rhoda nodded, signaling all the others to pick up their instruments.
“Thank you, Debra,” she said severely. “Now, remember you’re a tutti player, and tutti doesn’t just mean ‘all,’ but also ‘all together.’ Please try to keep up.”
They moved on from the Strauss to the Stravinsky.
Promptly at the end of the hour, the union steward called “time,” and Rhoda immediately ended the session.
As Dmitri packed his violin away he spoke to Jonathan in a whisper. “You’d think Madam Rhoda was the conductor herself!”
Jonathan nodded vigorously. “She certainly imitates the Maestro! She is so infuriating.”
Rhoda overheard this last comment as she passed by, but she only smiled and walked on down the corridor to the dressing room. She went to the lockers where the women kept their purses and coats. Debra was closing her locker, and she hoisted her violin case under her arm and turned away.
“Debra,” Rhoda called after her, “wait.”
The girl turned, her head down. “Yes, Miss Krontag?”
“Are you in a hurry? Or can I buy you a cup of coffee?” She smiled at Debra. “I’d like to talk to you if you have a few minutes.”
The girl shrugged. “All right, Miss Krontag.”
“Please call me Rhoda,” she smiled, taking Debra’s arm and leading her down the hall. “After all, I may be the concertmistress, but I’m just another one of the slaves, too.”
Debra laughed ruefully. “That’s how I’m beginning to feel. I thought playing music professionally would be fun!”
“It’s a job, but there are high spots, too. You’ll see. When the hall is full, and the Maestro’s in good form and brings us all together, well, sometimes it’s just like magic. Then our service feels like freedom.”
They left the concert rehearsal hall, crossed the street, and entered a small coffee shop. Rhoda steered Debra to a booth by the window.
“Here, this is a good spot. Would you like a doughnut?”
“No, thanks. Too fattening.”
“Tell me about it!” Rhoda laughed. “But if you keep trying to make a living as a tutti player you won’t have to worry about overeating. That’s the only good thing about being a starving musician…a slim waistline!”
And it was true that Rhoda, although at least fifteen years older than Debra, still had the same youthful figure that the younger girl did. However, her style and coloring were strikingly different. Debra, with her baggy sweater and tennis shoes, and flowing blond hair, still looked like a college girl. Rhoda, in contrast, wore her dark brunette hair in a short wavy brush cut, and she dressed in a black velvet top and black slacks. She was also a little taller than Debra.
They ordered coffee.
Rhoda smiled. “I just thought it might be a good idea if we had a chat.”
“You don’t like me, I know,” said Debra, hanging her head.
“Why, don’t be silly. I think you have an immense talent. You wouldn’t have been hired otherwise.”
She paused, considering her words carefully. She had done this before, but it was always difficult to begin.
“I remember when I first began playing professionally, years ago—”
“It couldn’t be so many.”
“Thank you, dear, but I’m older than you think.” She smiled. “Anyway, it’s always a big adjustment…working to the clock, rehearsing with the same intensity as if you were performing, putting on the uniform.”
“It’s so stifling!”
“I know how you feel. But, you see, unless you’re a soloist like Menuhin or Perlman, you have to conform to the pack, give up your individuality. That’s what it means to be a tutti player. Eventually, it seems normal.”
“It certainly feels awful right now!”
Rhoda reached out and put her hand on Debra’s.
“I know. Anyway, when I was going through the same phase, someone was very kind to me then, and she helped me along. I thought perhaps you might like to have me do the same for you.”
“Thank you, Miss Krontag. That’s really nice of you.” She looked up warily. “I’m sorry I was rude to you this morning.”
“I understand. Forget it.” She signaled to the waitress. “Look, let’s have that doughnut.”
“All right, Miss Krontag.”
“For heaven’s sake, Debbie, call me Rhoda.”
The waitress brought the doughnuts and refilled their coffee cups.
“The first thing I’d like to suggest, Debbie, is that you let me give you a few free violin lessons.” She held up her hand like a policeman directing traffic. “No, I know you’ve received the finest conservatory training. But I want to give you some tips from the big league.”
“I’d like that, Rhoda.” The girl pushed her glasses up.
“Excellent!” said Rhoda. And after that, she thought to herself as she looked at Debbie’s hair and clothing, we’ll go to work on the all the rest of it.
3
Debra began taking violin lessons from Rhoda. On her first visit, Rhoda merely listened to her play some scales and several pieces she had brought along. On her second visit, as Debra removed her violin from the case and fitted the shoulder rest to it, Rhoda placed her own copy of the Bach double violin concerto on the music stand.
“You know this, I’m sure, Debbie. You can use it to warm up.”
“I prefer the second violin part.”
“As you wish.”
Debra played the music with solid intonation, but at a tempo slower than Rhoda herself preferred. She didn’t comment, however, but merely let Debra proceed at her own pace through the jaunty first movement. Before attacking a new pupil’s faults she liked to let them feel they were entertaining her.
“Good,” she cried when Debra reached the end of the first movement, “You do that very cleanly. You have a nice technique.”
Another practice Rhoda followed with a new student was to invite them to bring to the lesson the music they themselves were interested in playing.
“So,” she asked, “what have you worked up for me today?”
“The Wieniawski concerto.”
“First or Second?”
“Oh, Second. I’m still plugging away at the First.”
“I know how you feel,” Rhoda laughed, thinking of the beastly opening passage, “Who wants to start with tenths!”
She watched as Debra took the sheet music out of her case and put it on the music stand. “Have you prepared all three movements?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Good. Let’s start with the second movement, the ‘Romance.’ You know that this movement is often played separately. It’s sentimental.”
Debra nodded. “I like it a lot.”
“Well, good. Let’s hear it.”
Debra began to play the melody slowly. Rhoda interrupted her almost immediately. “A little less vibrato right at the beginning. Start again.”
Debra began the slow movement again and Rhoda let her play it all the way through, finally shaking her head.
“Don't you like this music, Debbie?”
“Oh, yes. It’s so pretty.”
“Well, of course, it’s pretty, particularly at the beginning. But it is also a dramatic little story. That’s why it’s called ‘Romance.’ Do you see how he repeats the opening phrase several times throughout the piece? And he ends with it, too, which gives it esthetic unity. But each time you play that phrase you must say it differently. Imagine that with this phrase the lover is saying ‘I love you.’ The first time, it must be a little shy, and then it must grow in intensity, becoming more passionate. Here, you can see it happening in the accompaniment.”
Rhoda flipped to the piano part and pointed to the passage she had in mind.
“I see,” said Debbie, “all those triplets.”
“Yes, agitato. So the sense of it is that she is being courted, she answers with more excitement, and then they make love…yes, don’t blush…see, here is his thrust, the increasing passion, and the orgasm.”
Rhoda pointed to the upward swooping triplets spilling finally into climactic double stops, fortissimo.
“Then they relax,” she continued, “and at the end they say ‘I love you’ to each other again and then quietly fall asleep.”
Debra pushed the glasses up her nose and peered at the printed notes. “I never looked at it that way before.”
Rhoda smirked. “It helps if you’ve had the experience, of course. In any case, musically, if you don’t build the excitement it doesn’t go anywhere, and it’s just insipid.”
Debra nodded.
“Play it again, dear,” said Rhoda softly.
The girl tucked the violin under her chin and raised the bow. Quietly she played the opening phrase.
“That’s it,” murmured Rhoda, “very placid, almost no vibrato.”
Rhoda stepped behind Debra as she played. Gently she touched the inside of the girl’s left wrist, pushing it back slightly to arch the fingers a bit more over the strings. At the same time she touched Debra’s right elbow, lowering it slightly so it would look less like a protruding wing.
“Very nice, Debra.” She remained standing behind her. “Now, more intensity. That’s it.” She rested her hand lightly on the girl’s left shoulder. “He pleads...She resists...then gives in...He’s in her now, oooh!...now he’s gentle with her...But now he’s more brutal.”
Rhoda’s own voice became more impassioned as Debra moved her torso and arms rhythmically, emphasizing the expanding sound she was making with her instrument.
“Faster!...with a steady crescendo...Now, Debra—they’re coming!” She squeezed her pupil’s shoulder. Debra arched the first and fourth fingers of her left hand into an octave double-stop and swooped up from the first to the eighth position, pressing up hard with the bow into a heavily accented downbeat.
“Yes—orgasm! Broadly now! And then they wind down...they’re kissing...” She dropped her hand to the girl’s hip. “...and falling asleep.”
The violin climbed slowly and quietly to a long high note. Then the sound stopped.
Rhoda’s hand remained on Debra’s hip as she leaned forward and pressed her cheek against Debra’s hair. “Now,” she whispered, “doesn’t that sound better to you, Debbie?”
Debra swallowed and looked at the music.