Chapter 1: The Game

I saw her again today, just this evening. It's a small world, I know, especially our little world, but that's twice now, in a week. If I didn't know better, I'd think she was setting them up, going to places she thinks I'll be, but I do know better. She can't stand me.

I tried not to look at her, or even to notice her too much. I can at least make an effort not to intrude, and get away once it's possible. I tried not to pay her any attention, but I couldn't help myself, and then there was how it ended.

She's even lovelier. She seems to have bloomed away from me. She's wearing her hair differently, and I think using some makeup, and her clothes show off her body more. That body. The things I did to it. To her. I've got to stop thinking about that. I've got to get out of her life. I have to remove myself.

She was working both times. That's why I know she couldn't have set anything up. She simply had gigs at places I was working.

The first time was far out toward the end of the line, in a residential neighborhood. I spotted her at the T stop because she was carrying her cello, and I got onto a different car—as far from her as I could, so she wouldn't see me. But then there was that terrible coincidence of our going to the same place, so we ended up walking almost together. That's how it goes. I tried to lag, but she stopped on a hill to rest and check her directions. In the end, it was impossible not to catch all the way up to her.

"Hi, Elizabeth."

Try to keep your voice even. Be cordial. Don't be pushy. Just say hello and keep on moving.

She looked at me and didn't say a word. She'd heard my footsteps and glanced back down the walk at me, and she may have startled a little, but by the time I got to her, her face was flat, hazy, uninterested. Finally,

"What are you doing here?"

Jesus! Maybe she thinks I'm stalking.

"I was invited to a party."

Neither of us said anything else. She has a right.

"Well," I fidgeted, "I guess I should be on my way." Hurry on, Ed.

Later I saw her at the place. Part of a string quartet playing Vaughn Williams. I recognized everyone in it. He was in it. The first violin. I bet he has fingers that can work magic on her—but then even mine could. I stayed away from the quartet as much as I could but, while I talked and joked with donors and tried to pretend I was having a good time, we'd drift through. I saw her put her hand on his arm when the group took a break, and laugh at something he said.

I'd like to be glad she's over me. Oh, I am. I am. I'm so goddamned, fucking glad.

The cello was a big part of whatever it was we had. She was playing it the first time I saw her, in one of those anonymous string quartets at a Friday evening reception in Brookline.

She wasn't special. Another musician. Of course she was dressed all in black except the white blouse: black skirt, black tie, black stockings, black shoes. She wore a tiny, ruby pendant on a fine gold chain—they were the only things of color about her. She herself is pale. She had no makeup. Oh there were nice touches. The clothing set her skin off well. So did her dark brown hair—it was parted in the middle, and braided down her back almost to her waist. A slight imperfection in her nose made her face almost perfect. So she was lovely, sure, but I wasn't interested in another Emily.

An Emily. Anyone could spot them. Anyone from New England. A woman who channels Emily Dickinson. They're everywhere. It could be worse, I suppose. They could all be California Valley Girls, but these girls all want to look serious and thoughtful and creative and shy. Elizabeth really is shy, though I didn't know it then. I wondered: Mount Holyoke? Sarah Lawrence?

And then I was interested. There was a passage where the cello took the lead. I wish I could remember what they were playing. It doesn't matter. Suddenly she took over. Oh Lord... I hadn't heard anyone play cello like that in a while, certainly not in a gig at a gallery. I could almost feel the throb coming off the body, and then I watched her and saw how she worked it, how her left hand was almost a blur as it went up and down the neck, how she held it between her knees like she was pleasuring it, how her back and neck adjusted to the notes and rhythms, and how she moved her ass on her stool.

That's what did it. Her ass. She was perched on a little musician's stool. It was too small for her really—the sort of thing a gallery might think was adequate—and her ass was constantly in motion on it, so of course I fell into a fantasy. What if? What if it weren't a stool? What if I were on the stool, and she was sitting on me and playing? What if she was naked, impaled on my dick, her ass open to me so I was penetrating her, all the way up to the end of her rectum as she played wonderfully while being sodomized, knowing the more she played the closer I came to spurting deep inside her? What if?

I'm such a shit. Even now I like the thought.

When I complimented her vibrato, she didn't take it well. "Oh," she said. You've known people like that, haven't you? She looked down and her smile, what there was, showed no pleasure at all. Yes. Just like that. She took refuge in the wine. Did she make a tiny, sour face? It was industrial strength Chardonnay, after all. And did she try to hide the grimace? She was hiding everything about herself. All I learned was her name: Elizabeth Peabody. A perfect Emily name, no?

"Oh, one of those! So why are you slumming in a quartet?"

She laughed with her hand half-covering her mouth. "No, not one of those. The other ones." She's shy, not backwards.

It was an opening, not as wonderful as her openings below, but I got to talk with her, and compliment her, and make her uncomfortable. We told a few things about ourselves. I lied only through omission. I made myself fascinating. I learned she was new.

Would you like some more wine? Some veggies and dip? Play her like the cello. Here's the wine. Have a sip.

Stop it! Get on with it.

"The cello is richer than the violin," I said. "Not that I've got anything against violins!" God, I'm a whore.

Bill Hamilton came by and I introduced them. She definitely wasn't his type. Even Bill could tell how she held onto that little smile and stood half a stride out of the conversation. There was more. She was too ectomorphic for him. Not for me. I've always liked them on the lean side, the Kate Hepburns of the world. I once told Bill any woman who wasn't absolutely ectoplasmic was fine by me, but he didn't get the joke. Tonight, he left pretty quickly to pursue a big-breasted woman of means across the room.

I decided then and there to have her.

This would be fun: plotting the conquest of the attractive woman with the old-fashioned name and the talented hands. She wasn't fast. Not a player. Hell, she was all but virginal. She could be had, but I'd have to be patient. How long would it take? I thought five, maybe six dates if all went well. Unless... really a virgin? No, not likely. But not very experienced. Any ass play? Doubtful. I could be the first. Be the first in the ass of the woman who can make that kind of music. Blessed be.

We got more wine and talked more about music, and we agreed on composers we both loved, though of course I agreed with whomever she mentioned. It forms a bond, and it wasn't hard to do. They were all good. I popped the phone number question when she to get back to playing. Then I went back to my business. There was money to be made.

How did it come to this?

You have to remember that Elizabeth was just a project—something to occupy my mind. She wasn't my first priority. I tied up and fucked Brooke Something that very night.

"God, you push it, don't you Ed?"

Brooke Something was better than Brooke Trout, which I'd considered. Yes I know her last name. Now.

"I push because it's hot. I want to tie you to the bed and blindfold you. I want to see how far I can take you. I want to see how high you can get."

"I don't know."

Oh, she'd do it, all right. She was a player. Bill would have liked her, but I hit the jackpot.

"I'll play with your body, as long as it takes. I'll make you want it. You won't be able to see anything, so your attention will be on what I'm doing to you." She liked me to talk like that. Her eyes grew squinty and excited

"I don't know. It makes me nervous."

"Good." I held up some neckties and black pantyhose. "Now why don't you lie down and spread yourself out?"

"What will you do?"

"I'll only hurt you a little."

I tied her and used a blindfold while I tickled, slapped, kissed, and caressed her, but the entire time I was thinking I wanted a new playmate. Oh, Brooke was fine in bed. I was enjoying myself. I spanked her vagina and she let out some hybrid of a whine and a grunt. That wasn't the problem. I leaned down to lick a wide swath around her clitoris, and she writhed. There wasn't, in fact, a problem at all. This was nice. I sat up and pinched a nipple. She grunted again. Now the other nipple. I simply wanted a new one, someone different, someone more femme, someone who wouldn't bore me after sex, who I wouldn't have to share with all the GQ types. Brooke was more Bill's variety. She whimpered, "Ed!" Oh, it was good! I was kneeling over her, playing with her, my penis tumescent as all hell and swinging with my movements, and I thought I just didn't like her very much. I ran my fingers between her oily, fat labia and my mind wandered. I saw the dark-haired cellist in heat, sizzling. What would she be like?

I wasn't thinking of her at all the next Monday, when I had a business lunch with Bill and a co-worker of his, Aaron Something. No relation to Brooke. Bill can get me access to people who think their names as arts donors are among the keys to mobility, today's replacement for nobility. Today, Bill wanted to talk about women and sex, and why he had struck out with the big-breasted woman of means. I never talk about women and sex.

"How do you do it, Ed? You're always getting into their pants."

"Who told? I try so hard to do it where people can't see us." Aaron laughed and took a sip of beer.

"You know what I mean. I saw you making moves on that little fiddle player Friday night. I bet you've got more notches on your belt than you can count."

"It wasn't a fiddle and they're not on my belt." They both laughed and I thought: You useless son of a bitch.

"Well, I've got more money than you, a Hummer, a damned nicer place, better clothes, and I'm better looking than you are. Where do I go wrong?" Now I laughed. "I bet it's because I aim higher. Your fiddler girl didn't seem to have much in the way of tits."

He's worse than a useless son of a bitch. He's a complete putz.

"Oh? I thought she had a pair of them. Are you looking for a trifecta?" He laughed again. "Anyway, I don't give away trade secrets. You'll have to hire me as a consultant."

Aaron said, "I think you should pay him, Bill. I've seen some of the local talent you settle for. More tits than brains." Sharp boy, that Aaron.

"And who fucks their brains?" So of course we all laughed, though frankly it was pretty lame, and I tried to figure how to get out of there quickly, before I got sucked into his type of conversation. I'd almost asked, "Who fucks their tits?" but then I've done that a couple of times.

"Well, does the master here have any advice for me?"

What should I tell him? That women are serious business, and I'm good at my business? That if you pay attention it's pretty clear what works? That my reputation exceeds me?

"Sure. You talk too much. About yourself."

"Yeah. Right. You talk all the time."

"Only with the quiet ones, Bill. Otherwise I go with the conversation. And I don't focus on myself. Pay attention to the master, grasshopper." Aaron laughed again. "Anyway, I don't think you do all that badly. That'll be the cost of lunch, please." I couldn't afford to annoy him, but he wasn't getting any more.

"Why don't you write a how-to book? You could make a mint."

"I just have my rules of engagement. Now, about that bill..." I grinned.