We were over at Karen’s house practicing the string trio for the Hobart High spring concert, me on cello, Kevin and Karen on violin. Beethoven’s Prelude and Fugue for two violins and cello in E minor. Not a very exciting piece, but fairly simple, which was important, given that we weren’t especially brilliant musicians, me especially, but I was the only cello available. And we didn’t really have a choice, Maestro Babcock picked it.

“This prelude is so dull,” Karen complained after we’d been at it for most of an hour. “The audience will be snoozing before we even get to the fugue. And the fugue isn’t so thrilling either. Kind of like two kittens toying with a mouse.”

“Which one of us is the mouse?” Kevin asked.

“You are!” Karen exclaimed. She looked at him with mischievous eyes. He ducked his head. Poor Kevin, so easily embarrassed.

“Maybe we should just play the fugue,” I suggested. “Forget about the prelude.”

“Good idea, Bev,” Karen said. “Or play it nude. Nude rhymes with prelude, after all.”

Kevin blushed.

“Seriously, maybe we should give it a try,” Karen continued, her eyes moving meaningfully to Kevin’s groin. “What do you think?”

Kevin said, “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Yeah, sure,” Karen said. “The little powder room’s right around the corner.”

While Kevin was gone, Karen smiled at me and shook her head. “He’s so easy to tease,” she said. “What a dufus.”

“But he’s kind of cute,” I said.

“You think so?”

“As boys go,” I said.

“What’s he doing in there, anyway?” Karen said. “I hope he’s not—”

Just then Kevin returned.

“About time,” Karen said. “We’d thought maybe you’d fallen in. We were about to send out for a team of divers. What’d you do in there, anyway? Number two?”

“I uh,” Kevin stammered.

“You can tell us,” Karen insisted. “Did you poo?”

“No, I...”

“You didn’t? Then what? Did you jerk off?”

“Ah, no. No, I ... I poo’d.”

Karen nodded. “So if we went in there we’d smell the residual scent of your shit? Or would we smell your jizz?”

Kevin didn’t say anything.

Karen said, “C’mon, Bev, let’s check this out.”

“No,” Kevin blurted. “I didn’t shit. I mean poo. I ... I ... I...”

“You did jerk off!” Karen exclaimed. “I knew it. Don’t be ashamed. It’s a natural thing. So when you were doing it, were you thinking about us?”

“No, I ... um ... yeah, maybe a little.”

“And what were you thinking?”

“That I was ... That we were ... That we...”

“Were fucking?”

Kevin nodded.

“And which of us were you fucking? Me? Or Bev?”

Kevin’s eyes met mine. The look. I wasn’t sure if it meant he was thinking of me or he was thinking of Karen.

“C’mon, fess up,” Karen said.

“Both of you,” Kevin blurted.

“Okay, but whose pussy did you come in?”

“I ... I ... I came in the toilet.”

“Aha!” Karen exclaimed. “Fine. But if my toilet has babies, you’re going to have to change the diapers.”

We all laughed.

“Now back to this fucking fugue,” Karen said, and we picked up our instruments.

To my ears we did it much better. The prelude like some kind of seduction. The fugue like nothing so much as sweet, loving sex.