Johannes leaned back from the Bechstein. He let out a breath, brushing against the fragile strands of tension that still hung suspended in the silence of the parlour, and looked around as if he had just awoken from a dream. He raised his foot off the pedal; the tension inside the piano eased, and then released. Through the keys, he felt the strings quiver, the dampers relax into place.
It was half-past five. Light slouched through the curtains, suffusing the armchair, the bookshelves, and the piano in pale gold. The cool of evening was creeping in, and he shivered, straining for a sign of his house robe in the impenetrable darkness beyond the coffee table. Hardly a sound remained in the wake of his afternoon concert. Earlier, the far-off horn of a train had joined Liszt as it barrelled lonely through the countryside, but that was past, and the hermetically sealed chamber of the parlour had once more fallen silent. Even the wall clock, ticking on voicelessly, knew the mandate.
All at once he heard a sigh, floating up from somewhere underneath the grand piano. He waited for feedback, some indication that his visitor had caught any of the nocturne he’d just finished, but no words came—only the deep, steady rhythm of someone who hadn’t yet left the realm of Hypnos.
He extended his legs, partly to stretch them, and partly to locate where, exactly, the girl had chosen to nap. He bumped something soft with the end of his left slipper. An arm, perhaps, or a leg. The softness stirred. Like the shifting of a coastline before the island reveals itself to be animal, he thought. Then it slurred:
“Iwashn’tshleefing.”
“Your parents will be wondering where you are,” Johannes replied.
The arm, or leg, or whatever he had touched contracted, and he withdrew his foot in kind.
“Ah… what time is it?”
“17:37.”
“17:30? That’s not so bad.” The carpet rumbled as the animal reoriented itself. He imagined it breaching the waves, rolling belly-up to the sky. “Was that Fauré you were playing?”
“Fauré was a few pieces ago. That was Chopin.”
“Oh, Frédéric. Of course! It was lovely, Johannes. Thank you for letting me listen.”
“Lovely—and boring.” He lowered the piano lid over the keys. “Really, Greta, you fell asleep. There’s no need to pretend otherwise.”
He pushed the stool back from the Bechstein and Greta let go of his knees, emerging from the shadows beneath the piano with an exaggerated yawn. Johannes held his breath as she pressed her cheek to the edge of his thigh, her eyelids still heavy from sleep. Her skin and hair radiated warmth, infused with the glow of afternoon gold; she must have caught the edge of a sunbeam, even under his instrument, while she slept.
Their eyes met. Greta held it, their luminous grey peering up at him from under thick lashes, while she pressed her lips, pink and gently curved, to the side of his knee. “It was just so calming,” she said after a moment, “and you’d started before I came—and I got up so early this morning, to water the garden ‘cause I forgot to last night. That's why I fell asleep, sir. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me.”
Johannes petted her hair. His hand sank into the voluminous curls, trying to smooth the tangles on the side she'd lain, but to no avail. “Yes, yes. Take your regrets to confessional, young lady. I can't tell if you're being serious.”
“I’m very serious. I really am sorry about falling asleep.”
“Well, if it's as you say, it couldn't be helped.”
The pink mouth quirked. Pressing fully to his leg, it disappeared for an instant, then reappeared, holding back a laugh.
“But, also, I was wondering…”
“Wondering? Hm, so you were scheming, after all?”
"Scheming! No, sir! I just wanted to know if you'd play one more thing. Since,” she said, dropping offence for submission, “I missed the last few.”
Johannes shook his head. “Your parents will be wondering where you are,” he repeated. “I don't think they’ll believe the excuse of running late twice.”
“That’s okay. Mama will handle it for me. She will!” Johannes attempted to smooth his overly expressive left eyebrow. “She’ll tell Papa he’s too much of a worrywart, and he’ll have to acknowledge she’s right. Besides, how long can one piece be?”
“As much as half an hour…”
“Don’t pick one that goes half an hour! One more song, Johannes, can we? Please?”
Thus entrapped, Johannes faltered. He knew the look Greta was giving him well—it was the look of a woman who wanted to be spoilt, who wanted a man to acknowledge her desire for him. Twenty years ago, he might have responded in kind—leaned over to kiss her waiting mouth, insinuated that she might negotiate his compliance somehow, or trailed the tip of his foot against the inside of her thigh past the wrinkled hem of her skirt until—well, there was no need to go there. But if his libido hadn’t disappeared entirely, he no longer had the impulsivity of a young man, and if Greta expected as much, she should prepare to be disappointed.
"What would you like?” he asked, dropping his oval glasses back onto his nose. “If it’s not Fauré’s or Chopin’s Nocturnes, Czerny’s Piano Sonata No. 2, or Un Sospiro, I’ll have to get up to look for it.”
Greta bit her lip. He couldn't tell if she was thinking or frustrated. Perhaps both. “You’re in a Romantic mood today,” she said, and he couldn't help but smirk at the double entendre. “How about—what if you improvise?”
Improvise? Johannes hummed. He took the edge of the piano lid, raised it, and tried a few chords with his right hand, searching for a sound that resonated in the parlour, a key to unlock what was in him and yearned to be free. “Are you looking for something specific?” he said. “A key, a form?”
Greta straightened, snaking her arms around his leg, and shook her head. “Do what feels natural for you, sir.”
He tested the piano again. The major scales were too sharp a contrast to that feeling—he discarded them. Tentative, he tried the root chord of A-flat minor; there, in the thoughtful melancholy, a candle. He tried it again, and this time the spark caught. A melodic line emerged, blazing into existence from silence, whose possibilities held boundless promise.
Johannes raised his left hand and lurched into the piece. The entrance, a smattering of arpeggios in the lower register, could hardly be called graceful, but he didn't care. Greta’s ribs halted, trapping her breath in her lungs. Her fingers brushed his calf and gripped the back of his knee. As he unfolded the melody, playing it faster, then a little slower, then as a waltz, then again in common time, Johannes became aware of the sensation of being squeezed and released, squeezed and released, squeezed and released. He sucked in air from the parlour like a man about to drown, trying to alleviate the heaviness that had settled in his chest, the staccato of a heart beating much, much too fast.
No, this was no good. He could feel his focus slipping away from him, the edges of his vision constricting to a singular point until nothing remained of him but pressure and pleasure. With a grunt, he pried his attention back from Greta’s arms and pushed it in the direction of his impromptu fugue, which, in his distraction, had begun to reference phrases from Scarlatti, the Italian who played like ten hundred devils. Scarlatti, the overlooked contemporary of Bach and Handel. At forty-three, he’d married a girl of sixteen, his second wife. And on wedding night, what did Scarlatti do with his youthful bride? …The history books had left that out.
“Johannes.” Greta’s voice rose from between his knees, unformed question, delicate quaver.
“Yes, Greta?”
“Do you…” He struck the wrong note in a diminished chord and grimaced. Sloppy. “…Can I help you with that?”
Johannes’s hands stiffened. He squeezed his thighs together—or tried to—but the girl sandwiched between them posed some unprecedented difficulty, and they closed impotently on her shoulders instead. Greta squeaked. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed her creeping closer; the scent of her hair wafted up to him, lightly floral with a hint of vanilla. More troubling, she wasn’t meeting his eyes. Instead, they were fixed between his legs to the seam of his pants, a seam not yet bulging from the effort of constraining what it was designed to conceal in polite company, but betraying its wearer’s immodesty with an unselfconsciousness that Johannes decidedly lacked. Heat flushed his cheeks and chest and flowed molten into his lower groin. There it was, clear, incontrovertible evidence of his interest.
Greta lifted her eyes to him again. “Sir?”
Johannes swallowed. He tried to think of something to discourage her, or to move her along from her seat on the carpet, but the words wouldn’t form in his thoughts, let alone rise to his recalcitrant tongue. Something about going home. Something about dinner. He wet his lips. When did his mouth start feeling so parched? Absent a cool glass of water, he drank in his visitor’s slightly parted mouth, the healthy flush of her cheeks, the soft shadows in the divot of her collarbone in gradations of honey and cinnamon. The same dusky tones repeated in her thighs—what he could see of them. In the waning light of day, the atmosphere was no longer gold, but amber, and a queer haze settled over the parlour. Liminal film clung to the piano, the carpet, and Greta that made him feel unreal, almost apart from the things that made him himself.
“How?” he breathed, and the breath was almost a whisper in that quiet room. “How will you help me?”
Greta bent forward—pushed her hair back from her forehead—and pressed her plush lips to the outline of his shaft through his trousers. Johannes stifled a gasp. She did it a second time, a little closer to the base, and lingered. Watching him. Waiting for the answer.
Dazed, he spread his legs. She wasted no time, making quick work of his belt, button, and fly—doing better than he would in his current state, he observed absentmindedly. His thighs tensed as she slipped her fingers under the opening of his briefs, cooler than the temperature of his sex. The fingers closed around him, gentle. Then, without further ado, she exposed him, wresting him from his prison with a look of pride, prey secure in her nimble talons.
“It’s still a bit soft,” she said.
Johannes coughed. “Greta, be more mindful about the things you say.”
“Huh? Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—”
“Things work differently when you're older, especially intimacy. You'll find this out for yourself one day. At my age, women—never mind. Do you remember what to do?”
Greta nodded, pink. She adjusted her grip on his shaft—firm, unlike the first time she had handled him four months ago. Johannes gripped the edge of the Bechstein as pleasure throbbed up his pelvis. Heat crept upwards into his chest, his throat, the outer helices of his ears. His toes curled involuntarily in their suede slippers.
“—Like this, sir?" Greta was saying.
“Mm.” He cast a brief glance down the rest of her body, dismayed at finding it hidden in the cream linen of her button-up, no coyly exposed pink or even cleavage in sight. He wished he had asked her to remove it first, or at least undo the buttons down the front, but if he were honest, the only thing stopping him from doing so was himself. Even considering his current position, the request struck him as a little too perverse to verbalise. “Yes. Continue, please.”
Obediently, she tightened the ring of her thumb and forefinger as her hand travelled him in one long stroke. This time he did gasp, raising his hips to meet her hand as she crested the tip of his penis, circled it with her thumb, and tugged him back down to the base. Catching his eyes, she flushed a shade deeper. Her cheeks bloomed crimson, the tips of her ears painted in flame.
Her technique had definitely improved. She hadn't so much as kissed a boy when they’d met, let alone taken one into her hand, but now—Johannes let out a grunt. He hadn’t taught her that move, jerking only the head of his cock, and her eyes sparkled. Laughing, the little minx. He murmured to her, but neither of them seemed to know whether he was signalling approval or its opposite. Shortly her hand resumed its all-important work; he surrendered himself to her rhythm, a comfortable clip, neither teasing him nor speeding him to completion. Luxuriating in the smooth, silken skin of her palm, he watched the head of his cock bob in and out of view between her fingers and savoured the retreat of her gaze when he held it for a little too long. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one holding back questions.
Unlike Greta, however, he didn’t need to hear them. Where the eyes kept returning, where one’s body warped into an arc of longing, what parts of them flexed and relaxed, closed and opened, in search of something to fill the lacuna—these made up the language of desire, independent of spoken word. Greta pursed her lips. Her throat clenched, swallowing nothing. They exchanged looks again, and it was this last look that assured Johannes he had read her correctly; more, that they had begun this little intermission with the same ultimate goal, whether they had been conscious of it or not.
He pressed his thumb against her bottom lip, and without protest it yielded. Burning, he guided the tip of his dick onto her tongue. The hot, wet vacuum of Greta's mouth met him, kissed him, enveloped him as the embrace of a lover. He moaned, forgetting to be embarrassed as he sheathed himself in her nearly to the hilt; her throat vibrated around him, she squirmed, soft palate contracting, but to her credit, she didn't pull away, and he soaked in her divine heat for as long as he dared. What a girl! His lungs expanded as he drew in much-needed breath. Rocking his hips gently into her mouth, he relished the hot curl of her tongue on the underside of his shaft, the spontaneous shifts in technique and pressure as she experimented with what drew out the desired reactions. A pleasant tingle began in Johannes’s balls and radiated up his prick. He reached between his legs, cupped himself, and squeezed; she understood, and a moment later Greta had fished those parts out of his pants to fondle, as well. He only wished she would go a little faster, take all of him in and make him feel complete—but the next time he thrust, rather than be buried in her again, he met the barrier of her lips. He whined, frustrated, incredulous, before he found the necessary cognitive function to speak.
“Now what is it? You're doing very well.”
She kissed him. He rutted against her puckered mouth, a little uselessly. “Can you play?”
“Play?”
“The piano, I mean. Ah, don't be naughty, sir, I'll be just a second. Have you tried that before?”
“I don’t recall. Can you fuck while playing violin?”
Greta’s mouth quirked again; she allowed him in a little deeper, and when she did her tongue flicked so expertly against his frenulum that the sensation rippled whole across his body. He shuddered, almost spasmed; he was sure Greta felt it, too, if the way her eyebrows raised was any indication.
“Try? Please?”
Johannes grumbled. This is silly, he wanted to say, not to mention extortion, but she returned his stern look with such a radiant smile that he had no choice but to relent. He positioned his fingers over the keys, thought, and tried out the opening bars of a tango he'd learnt recently for a wedding. He couldn't remember what the piece was called, nor who had written it, but it was slow, hypnotic, and—most important—effortless, still fresh in his memory. Greta listened as the chorus transitioned to the first verse, gaining in speed and complexity; she drummed the staccato rhythm against the stool, dull taps against the leather. Then, in sync with the music, she slid her lips over his instrument, and he drove into that hollow of heat and moisture as far as she would take him with rash, unbridled lust.
This time there would be no interruptions; Johannes wouldn’t brook them. He shut his eyes, darkness giving way to his sense of hearing as he picked up the awkward wrong note—his groans—the rustling linen of her collar as Greta blew him. But all these paled in comparison to the sound of her mouth, the steady wet smack of skin on exposed skin. What a mess they were making in his parlour—what a mess he was making of her as he fucked her, extracted his pleasure from her, again and again, again and again and again. The tingling in his groin grew stronger, superheated water in a geyser before the eruption. Here was the build-up of tension before release. The world, the parlour, nay, his consciousness narrowed to the singular point of contact between Greta's mouth and his penis, the pressure and pleasure he had denied himself earlier in an attempt to maintain some semblance of propriety.
Johannes’s glasses slipped down his nose, hit the keys, and landed in an area outside of his immediate concern; he was cooking in his clothes, sweat pricking his skin where it met the cool silk of his shirt, and he felt ready to burst. The form of his vest, so constant in any other situation, had become an irritating confinement. With the last shreds of coherence granted to him, he considered pausing to unfasten the buttons and allow himself to cool down.
Several moments later, he still hadn't.
And moments after that, he was well past the point of caring.
His balls tightened as the earlier tingling in his groin hit a threshold of no return; his eyes flew open, yet of the parlour steeped in shadow he saw nothing. Something like light, or peace, or ultimate bliss lay on the other side of his physical body, just out of reach. He clamped Greta’s shoulders between his thighs by way of a warning: The geyser was primed to erupt at any moment.
“Greta—ah—don’t stop—I’m going to—”
He felt her brace herself, shift, grasp him tightly around the hips.
“Can I—”
She pushed her head down until all of him, all of him, had disappeared into her opening, her tongue swirling around his cock head as she dealt the finishing blow. Johannes’s thoughts fragmented into nothingness; the pressure inside of him exploded, and he gripped both the underside of her throat and the back of her head to hold her in place as he emptied his balls into her. She swallowed, and the exquisite pressure of her tongue and soft palate milked him for all he was worth, then milked him beyond even that. For a moment, he imagined that it was possible for them to stay this way forever in the white-hot heat, that there was no separation between himself and the girl between his legs, but a oneness that would never be severed; and then, having spent himself into her, he cursed, slumped over onto the Bechstein, and ignored the complaints issuing forth from its bowels as he sat reeling from the aftershocks.
For her part, Greta didn't remove herself from Johannes immediately. He shuddered as he felt her make one last pass over his overstimulated cock—good girl, he wanted to tell her, but all that came out of his mouth was a broken mewl. She tucked him back into his briefs and zipped up his fly. It took him a moment to realise afterwards that she was headbutting his elbow for berth. He leaned back, dizzy, and she flowed up his body to kiss him.
“So,” she said, “was I good?”
He furrowed his eyebrows and cleared his throat, not yet returned to terra firma. “Dear girl, I think you know whether you were good.”
“You were good too! That tango was so consistent, I was impressed. Except at the end there. At the end I think you were starting to play jazz.”
He chuffed, a breathless chuckle.
He held her on his lap a little longer than usual, tucking a stray lock of her chestnut hair behind her ear; she unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt as they kissed, and when they broke apart they murmured to each other as any pair of lovers at dusk, all warmth and drowsy sweetness. The shadows in the parlour had taken on the inky hue of indigo; everything looked softer in evening chiaroscuro, including Greta. Johannes pressed his lips to her temple and savoured her pulse. Only after the topic turned to dinner did he remember to cast a glance at the grandfather clock by the window—the wizened face declared a time of 18:24. 18:24, and he was already thinking of retiring—of doing nothing else for the day! He really was becoming an old man.
“A bit more than a half-hour,” he said, massaging the meat of her hip with his thumb. “You’ll be in for it when you get home, hm.”
Greta laughed. She brushed her fingers over his lightly furred chest and stomach. He twitched, trying to conceal the fact that his ribs were somewhat ticklish, but he wasn’t sure he’d succeeded. “It’s okay, sir. I’ll bring Papa chocolates—he’ll forgive anything if there are sweets.”
“Will he? Well, then, it's fortunate he has you. Imagine the lengths you'd have to go to if you'd been born a son.”
“A son?” Greta leaned her head against his shoulder. “Would I be getting in situations like this if I were a boy?”
“One would hope so.”
“Does one hope?”
“I certainly do.”
Greta chuckled, and then, heaving a sigh, sat a little straighter on Johannes’s lap. “Well, I'd better get going,” she said, “if I want to make it in time to buy Papa’s bribes—erm, chocolates—from the shop. I'll see you tomorrow?”
“Please do,” Johannes replied. “At the café?"
“After class.”
“After class.”
She patted her knees—where she had acquired such a boyish habit, he could only guess—and got up. Johannes watched her tuck her shirt back into her skirt, smoothing out the wrinkles, but just as she was about to walk back to the dining table, where she had left her schoolwork that afternoon, he grabbed her wrist and tugged. Greta gasped, toppled, and collided with the seat by the Bechstein. Her rump hit the leather with a graceless and muffled smack.
“Ah! Sir—?”
Johannes shushed her, stood, and placed a palm flat on her stomach. She obeyed, reclining on the stool, but it seemed to dawn on her that he wasn't ready to dismiss her, and try as she might to disguise it, her face fogged over, her eyes darkening until all that remained of the iris was a thin ring of silver. Was this what he had looked like, too? He wondered. They widened as he positioned himself between her legs—not kneeling, as she had done, but looming over her supine form.
With a knowing smile, he flicked up the pleats of her skirt to reveal her. Greta yelped. There, in the valley of her pale thighs, was exactly what he'd expected to find. He wet his thumb and rubbed a circle above the wet spot in her panties, the nub of flesh still sheathed in its hood. Her ankles squeezed his hips, unsure whether to remain up or lower to the floor. “It was rude of you to ask me to play for you and make your father wait,” he purred. “Now, since you've already delayed my dinner, I think I'll have dessert first.”