Chapter 4: Tandem Play

I didn’t get an opportunity to practice with Mom again until Saturday night. I don’t know if she was avoiding me or what but she was busy every evening and would have been on Saturday too except Dad was sick and opted out of their regular dinner date. Mom made Dad something bland for dinner and spread a comforter over him after he settled back in his Lazy Boy, his favorite spot. She handed Dad the book he was currently reading but he closed his eyes and turned his head to the side.

Mom and I both sat on the couch, at opposite ends, reading. I glanced at Mom often but she concentrated on her book. She was wearing a plain summer dress, a dull, checkered gray with thin white lines, not near as bright and cheery as the one she’d worn the last time we played. The top was cut square with heavy straps that arched over her shoulders to fasten to the front with big buttons. The only redeeming feature of the dress, well two, were the openness of the bodice which, designed for the summer heat, left ample room for body-heated air to escape, leaving Mom’s upper assets on display. The second redeeming feature was the lightness of the material; it clung to Mom’s hips and legs when she moved and did little to conceal the shape of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist, and the flare of her hips.

Mom’s elbow was leaning on the arm of the couch, distributing her weight on her right thigh so she could tuck her feet up beside her. Strangely, I noticed that Mom’s feet were clean on the bottom even though her feet were bare. I was content to simply look at her.

Dad’s sudden snore jarred me from my thoughts. I got up and held my hand out to Mom.

“Come on, it’s time to practice,” I said in response to her questioning eyes.

Mom shook her head, returning to her book.

I tugged Mom’s hand. “Come on Mom. Don’t you want the recital to go well?”

That got her attention. She looked up sharply, concern showing on her face. “Yes.”

“Then you have to work for it,” I said, pulling her arm hard enough that she had to follow.

Something about her inertia felt magically feminine. I don’t know why and I have no idea how I could sense that, but I did. Mom resisted until I had her pulled forward.

“Wait,” she said, struggling to get her feet onto the floor.

As soon as she did, I renewed my effort to pull her up, finally succeeding, but she resisted all the way even though both she and I knew she was going to come. She even resisted as I pulled her toward the piano, feet dragging, almost stumbling. It made me more excited to know she didn’t really want to but was coming anyway. I don’t have an explanation for that, either.

As we passed in front of Dad, Mom whispered, “We’ll wake Dad.”

“No we won’t. Anyway, he loves to hear us play.”

Mom couldn’t argue with that but appeared ready to. Just then, Dad spoke.

“Play something long and slow for me.” He didn’t even open his eyes or give any other indication that he was awake.

Startled, both Mom and I said, “Sure,” at the same time.

Mom stopped by the piano to slip her feet into her slippers that were tucked beneath the bench and I realized then that she had been practicing on her own when I wasn’t home. She twisted around and sat on the end of the bench, slumped forward in the demeanor of a child who didn’t want to play, like me years ago when I wanted to play outside but had to do my lessons with my Mom.

“It won’t hurt. It’ll be over before you know it and one day you’ll thank me for making you do this,” I parroted the exact words Mom had repeated to me many, many times.

Mom laughed but remained slumped in mock resistance. I knelt before her, lifted her foot and, slipping one hand behind her ankle, pulled her slipper off her foot. I repeated this with the other foot and then swung her legs around the bench to face the piano.

“Why don’t I pick something first,” I suggested sitting on the bench beside Mom.

I settled on a piece and had to pick up Mom’s listless hands to place them on the keyboard. She was being a real bugger about this. I began playing. Mom didn’t. I kept playing and slowly, she joined in. Halfway through, she was playing with as much joy as I.

I stuck to playing and didn’t make any attempts to touch Mom inappropriately. We played several pieces before I suggested, loud enough for Dad to hear, that it was time to play the long piece we had promised Dad. I turned to an especially long and gentle piece.

“You start,” I said.

Halfway down the page, I still hadn’t joined in but Mom was into it now, swaying with the music. As Mom switched to the top of the next page, I dropped my hand and ‘straightened’ her skirt, managing to pull the dull, gray dress halfway up her thighs. Mom paid no attention.

At the bottom of the page, I leaned close to Mom and turned the page for her, slipping my arm around her waist. Mom still paid no attention, even when my hand tugged her closer to me and massaged the warm flesh underneath the thin dress. I straightened in my khaki shorts, beginning to fill them as a man should.

As the song wore on, I played a few keys with my left hand, but only enough to give the impression that I was involved. I was far more interested in the play being executed by my other hand which was sliding up and down Mom’s narrow waist from the swell of her hip to the bulging bottom of her right breast.

My thumb and index finger were squeezing between the heaviness of Mom’s breast and her ribs. After I turned the page again, I let my hand move outward once it had squeezed in, pushing and lifting her breast away from her chest before letting it drop as I continued brushing her waist down to her hip. I had done this maybe a dozen times before Mom acknowledged, indirectly, what I was doing.

“Come on, Jon. Put more effort into it, for your father,” Mom whispered.

At that point, my hand just happened to be squeezed under Mom’s breast ready to push it out. I nodded and started to slide my hand out but then twisted it up and cupped the bottom of her breast. At the same time, I began to play with my left hand, leaving my right to cup Mom’s breast.

Mom was pleased to see me start playing but her pleasure was countered by the presence of my impertinent hand. Or was it? Though clearly aware, Mom didn’t tell me to stop, or twist her torso away as a signal to remove my hand. I realized then that Mom was allowing me a certain latitude in return for doing what she wanted.

When I thought about it, she had always been lenient with me when there was something she wanted me to do, and she applied the same behavior toward my father. I could remember one occasion when Mom wanted something my father didn’t want to do but later did. I had woken that night to the sound of intense sex and, lying on my stomach, I orgasmed into my cupped hands. I never fell asleep after that on nights my parents argued, at least those when it was my father resisting doing something for my mother. I waited until the inevitable sounds of great sex. Long sex. Sex that sounded like it was just the kind my father really wanted but seldom got.