Out of the Burlap Ch. 04 & Conclusion

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A new woman brings resolution to his tension.
15.1k words
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20.9k
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Part 4 of the 4 part series

Updated 09/30/2022
Created 05/01/2013
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maxicue
maxicue
141 Followers

NOTE: Things get intense in this part. I felt that the trauma that caused Joe's burlap condition had to be incredibly painful to produce such painful and long lasting repercussions. It's a cruel and horrific moment, but I thought it necessary to the story. Just wanted to warn you. --max

Part IV

As it turned out, his ladies should have worried. When Joe saw Consuela Mufti in spotlight with a cello between her knees playing the string quartet she had composed beginning her incredible recital, the naturally deep tanned skin of her soft oval face framed by raven black hair that ended as if pointing at her full breasts filling a silky deep maroon shirt that barely contained them, the face shining with a compellingly sweet beauty despite the slight contortion taut with concentration, she seemed to exude a glow beyond the hot spotlight that reflected off her, an internal glow, an aura the orange red color of persimmons. He was spellbound and remained so throughout the solo that followed the string quartet and the chamber orchestra piece she conducted concluding the recital; all her compositions.

Adding the awesomeness of her music to her awesome beauty completely floored him.

At first he thought the music oceanic in its sort of undulating bed with great swells, but realized it more resembled a landscape of fiery coals that licked up unexpected flames or popped explosively. She used sliding notes similar to the great contemporary Greek composer Xenakis, but with more control; less random. In the group pieces what seemed unharmonious, like the melody and rhythm centered music of her father's India that never embraced Western harmony, would suddenly find surprising mixes of thirds or fifths or more jarring harmonies as the sliding notes would somehow join together, often in the shorter slides that created that sort of bed that Joe had misinterpreted as ocean. The solo piece also full of sliding notes but with plucking on occasion, had a structure of lovely sparseness framing a long passage of frenetic, incredible playing, true tour de force stuff, that, after the last echo of a final pluck resonating surprisingly, made him realize, despite the contrasts of speed and slowness, that the piece had held a thematic melody resonating with him far longer than the final note and the silence that ended with an explosion of applause.

He didn't know what to say to her afterwards. It's like what he would imagine would happen if he were to meet one of his heroes: Daevid Allen or Mark Rothko or Thomas Pynchon or Gandhi (to be Indian about it, her father being from India). Surprisingly though, he didn't feel tense. Perhaps it was his ladies beside him or her warm deep brown eyes and sweet, kind face.

"That was incredible," he told her amongst the small throng of fans greeting her backstage. He offered her more to weigh her down--her arms had been filled by roses and other lovely flowers--though his was a different sort of offering: rosemary and mint. The smell had pleasured his nose throughout the performance though for some reason he smelled persimmon as well. She still emanated that color, but only faintly.

"You must be Joe," she murmured, smiling broadly, her eyes lit by post performance excitement and shining with surprising moisture. Surrounded by Maya and members of the band must have clued her in to his identity. Despite the throng, she seemed to have eyes only for him. "I've heard you have a great knowledge of music and are not one to give out praise when undeserved." She actually bowed her head before claiming his eyes with hers again. "Thank you."

Finally her eyes lit on the others, catching Barb's and that infectious smile that increased her own.

"That was great, babe," said Barb.

"Thanks," she giggled most enchantingly. "Give me half an hour or so to change. I'll meet you guys outside the stage door." With a last glance that held a moment, she actually winked at Joe before receiving more well deserved praise from the small throng. And more flowers.

Dinner proved even easier for Joe being in the company of the lovely half Indian and half, well, Indian (of the Mexican, perhaps ancient Mayan extraction) musician, Consuela. It reminded him of the inauguration of his threesome relationship with Carol and Maya at the Moosehead after the premiere dance performance the year before. At first it seemed an intimate bubble had formed as it had then around the two of them. But the bubble expanded to include his two lovers. Connie seemed to encourage that. At the same time, much to Barb's consternation, Connie hardly noticed her sitting in the seat beside her despite Barb's attempt at conversation, gaining rarely more than one or two word responses. Eventually Barb shrugged and shifted her attention to her two lovers.

"Do you mind me calling you Consuela? It's such a lovely name and therefore appropriate," Joe asked her.

"Such a silver tongued devil, isn't he ladies?" Consuela chuckled.

"I guess he has his occasional moments," Maya smirked.

"They're memorable in their rarity," Carol added.

"Thanks," Joe murmured though chuckled along with the three ladies' giggles.

"It's my name, Joe," she responded, avoiding smugness when she added, "It wouldn't bother me in the slightest."

"Good. So why play in a lowly rock band? You obviously have great skills playing classical and contemporary compositions. And I found your compositions...well... brilliant."

"Thanks," Consuela blushed charmingly at the complements. "But choices in the profession, especially the composing part, are few and far between. It's even worse than writers. How many poets live on their publishing?"

"Few."

"Maybe five or six that I can think of still alive," said Carol.

Consuela nodded. "In that highly artistic realm of writing, many survive on teaching the next batch in improving their own unmarketable skills. The same looms for me and my young colleagues."

"Speaking of teaching," Maya interrupted, "Joe needs lessons to play electric bass. We'll pay whatever your fee is teaching kids if you have the time."

"Sure," Consuela smiled. "I have lots of time since school's done. I could always use another student." Her grin broadened. "And I think I'll enjoy it."

"Me too," Joe grinned back. "But what about your playing? There must be orchestras out there that could use your skills."

Consuela sighed. "Sure, it's a highly skilled profession taking years of obsessive training to hone talent into a competitive gleam unlike say a naturally talented poet..."

"Or a rock bassist," Joe added.

"Right, but even though there's a hell of a lot less of us competing, there's not a lot of positions being filled and there's enough of us at my level to make finding such a position in the realm of the unlikely."

"So, just like a rock band," Maya suggested, "you create your own position."

"Actually I'm hoping that may be happening," Consuela replied thoughtfully.

"The string quartet?" Joe guessed. And when Consuela nodded, he added, "I thought you four meshed beautifully, almost intuitively."

"Thanks. Stop with the complements already. You'll give me a big head."

Joe shrugged, "Only what you deserve. I can tell you know your talent, but I don't see it going to your head. You're too grounded. Being confidant is certainly no flaw. In fact in terms of creativity, it's necessary. So you guys are sticking together?"

"I think so. We're going to try to meet at least once a week. You see, we've rehearsed and played together all through the year. All four of us compose music and play each other's music in various permutations, sometimes with others playing their instruments in the composers' workshop we've been attending together for the past school year."

"So you're all composers!" Joe spouted enthusiastically, an idea popping in his head.

"Uhm, yeah," Consuela chuckled. "It's why we chose to call ourselves the 'Eclectic Quartet'. All four of us compose differently. Actually we're debating the name, with the alternative being 'EQ' because we could assign the 'E' different words such as 'Ecstatic' or 'Electric' or 'Exotic' or 'Effervescent' or whatever depending on the performance.

"Cool," said Carol

"Yeah," both Joe and Maya agreed.

Consuela shrugged. "Again who knows if there'll be any shows for us beyond this recital which happened to be our debut for an audience."

"Do you have recordings of your work?" Joe asked her, still a bit excited. "I mean all four of your quartet's compositional work?"

"Of course," Consuela grinned.

"I know someone who might give you a chance to perform for an audience."

"Who?" asked Maya.

"Randy," Joe replied looking at Carol whose face tightened with a cute wrinkle between her eyes before she relaxed and smiled slightly and nodded.

"He's always looking for new music," she said. "And dancing to those sliding notes..."

"Sensual, just the way you like it," Joe chuckled.

"I'll bring the tapes to our first class," Consuela smiled. "Sunday afternoon?"

"It'd have to be after 4:30. I work that day."

"Five it is."

"Cool," said Carol. "I'll cook dinner."

"And we can rehearse after dinner," Maya decided. "If that works for you Barb?"

"Hmm?" Barb responded. Despite Consuela's surprising and disappointing snub she had kept half an ear to her conversation. "Oh yeah. I should be done by eight at the Modern."

"I'll be there," said Consuela. "Oh, and Joe, as far as slumming playing rock, I love to do it. It's fun."

Joe saw the sparkle in her eyes revealing the truth in her words. They shared a laugh.

When the dinner ended, everyone going Dutch paying for it, Joe sensed a longing to continue the shared conversations between him and his ladies with Consuela, but exhaustion overwhelmed her. She looked paler despite her dark skin and her eyelids drooped. After a beguiling body stretch that accentuated her full bust accompanied by a lengthy yawn, she hugged the ladies and Joe, leaving him for last and longest. "I'd love to continue our conversation," she whispered into his ear, "but..."

"I understand," he whispered back, his cock swelling at the thought of her interest in him which she could feel at her belly and she pressed into it and subtly rubbed it. Their eyes connected briefly when their bodies separated. The connection seemed to linger afterwards like a bright flash of light in a dark room.

*****************

"Thump thump. Thump thump." Joe plucked his bass in the easiest of configurations, or at least so he thought. Just four simple notes from John Coltrane's exquisite composition, 'A Love Supreme'. And yet being so close together made the notes somehow harder to hit in proper rhythm or with any resonance.

Consuela's choice had surprised him.

When she arrived and they went into the basement, Joe enjoying the sight of her voluptuous butt moving down the stairs in front of him, her jeans tight enough to reveal the mesmerizing shifting, she sat and watched Joe attach his bass cord to his amplifier and tune it. She looked pleased watching him almost as much as it pleased him seeing her and her soft, sweet face and shapely body.

"Show me what you got, Joe," she requested.

He had never played any of Chris Squires' riffs without the recording accompanying him, but he had played them enough, copied the Yes bassist enough, that he thought he could play solo. He did remember the notes, his mind imagining playback in the room that only actually had the sounds of his bass. With only that sound, he realized he kind of sucked at it. It just didn't flow. But it was busy.

Unlike the Coltrane.

"Okay," she smiled after he bashed through the solo. Pulling out her cello, she bowed those four notes. Thoughts of envying the cello so intimate between her legs quickly evaporated from Joe's head when he heard them.

"A Love Supreme?" Joe muttered.

"If I'm satisfied with your playing," she told him with a smirk, "you can accompany me when I play Coltrane's solo intro and the fist few lines."

"You know his solo?" Joe asked her in wonder.

She grinned and nodded. "Try," she said and gave him the key.

She let him struggle with it for a good (or bad) fifteen minutes.

"Wow. Why so hard?" he finally asked.

"It's the attack and release. How you strum the string and when it's strummed just enough to produce the note and no more. Watch my fingers on the fret board."

He got a little better after he watched, but still struggled.

"Good," she said. "But you need to relax."

At that word he laughed tightly and tightened his body even more. The burlap effect for the first time playing the bass had taken over completely. He strained to say, "But I have to press hard enough to hold the string down. That takes muscular tension."

"True, but the moment you release that note, you need to let it free so to speak. It's like that for pretty much every instrument needing to be struck." She stood and carefully rested her cello against the seat of the chair. "Let me show you at the most basic."

He followed her to the drum set where she grabbed one of Barb's drumsticks and demonstrated the difference between leaving the stick on the skin after the strike and lifting it swiftly away. "Try it," she asked him, letting him sit where she had sat. When he settled in, she began notice the way he moved as stiff as an old man whose back curved from the weight of years.

"What's wrong Joe? Where's your graceful movement?"

"I...get tense," he replied, holding the stick much too hard.

"Everyone gets tense."

He chuckled tightly. "I get extra tense. I didn't expect this. I feel so comfortable around you. And I feel at ease when playing bass. I guess...I wanted to impress you with my ability even as a beginner and..."

"Look at me Joe. Wow you really are tense. And you get like this a lot?"

"Unh-hunh," he replied, a corner of his mouth lifting tightly in a pathetic half smile. "Not as often lately and not...this bad for awhile. I'm sorry."

"How long has this been happening?" she asked him.

"Since I was a kid. Since I can remember."

"Something happened to you, Joe. Something happened before memory, like before you were four or five. Something incredibly traumatic."

"Maya suggested the same thing," Joe nodded tightly. "She said she looked inside herself when she loses her temper and sees scenes involving her father, a sort of Elektra complex sort of thing of seduction to get her way when she just started getting sexual."

"The same thing happened to me," Consuela admitted with difficulty. "I mean the tightening up." She seemed to want to hold the next words back as if the words were a roped calf restrained at its kicking feet. "I was...raped."

The word struck him at his diaphragm taking his breath away. Someone robbed this sweet and peaceful young lady of her innocence. Who could be so cruel?

"A man I trusted," she seemed to answer his thoughts, "even had a crush on him in my stupid youth. I couldn't even speak his name afterwards let alone accuse him. I got tight like you and nervous and got stomach aches to the point of hospitalization, but of course no one could figure out what was wrong until a psychologist interviewed me. She referred me to another psychologist and she referred me to a woman who specialized in hypnosis."

"All women?" Joe noticed.

Consuela nodded. "They had to be. Men freaked me out." She actually chuckled. "It worked. I relived it and understood my victimhood and the particularity of the man." She shuddered. "He was no longer every man." Consuela looked up at Joe. "I still feel more comfortable in the arms of women. You know Annie was once my lover?" Joe nodded. "Sometimes I get tight again and I self-medicate in a way hypnotizing myself. It's a meditative process."

"Could you hypnotize me?" Joe asked.

"I'm no doctor," Consuela objected. "I could do more harm than good."

"Let Maya and Carol know. They can help restrain me if I get wild and crazy, bring out the net and send me to the loony bin."

"I don't think you'll get violent, but you could actually go nuts." She paused and smiled. "You know I'm attracted to you."

"I am too, which is weird since I'm fully satisfied by two incredible women."

"I think that's why I allowed the attraction. I knew you didn't need to...have me."

"I'm safe."

"In a way. You're awfully tall and I can tell you're strong. I mean you could easily overwhelm me physically."

"I would never..."

"Maybe I want you to, but in a loving way? I don't know. It doesn't hurt that I find Carol and Maya sexy. But I'm not as lesbian as I seem to be. I am attracted to men more. Only they scare me too. Maybe that's why I flirted with Barb and Steve. I had learned he was sort of safe, weak sexually and all that, and I found his admittance to his impotence eased my fear considerably. It's very brave of him, so anti-masculine or something. But I find you much more attractive. Of course you're taken. Of course I knew that." She chuckled. "I wanted to borrow you from your lovers, Joe, to get permission to...experiment. Except...I never felt jealousy from them. They actually like me."

"What's not to like?" Joe smiled; his tension easing. He noticed. "Well done."

"Hmm?"

"You changed subjects. You avoided hypnotizing me."

"Did I?" she smiled coyly. Immediately afterwards she became serious. "I can give you the hypnotist's number."

"I prefer you. I trust you."

"Joe."

"Go get Maya and Carol. Do you have the equipment you need?"

"I can make do. You sure?" she asked. He could sense her excitement overcoming her trepidation.

"Definitely."

**************

She used a small metronome to focus his mind. He got lost in it. He heard her gentle voice.

"I know you're relaxed, but I need you to feel the tension again. You feel frustrated. You can't hit that note on your bass. You can't impress me. Let your mind explore. Follow the tension to its source. Keep following it. Find the source. Have you found it?"

Joe dully answered, "Yes."

"That's great. Listen to it. Do you hear anything?" When Joe nodded she asked, "What do you hear."

"A...scream."

Consuela paused, swallowing her fear. "What kind of scream?"

"Very high pitched. Like a young girl. No a boy. Young. Barely walking. And there's grunting. Excited grunting."

"Go back in your vision. Trace it back a few moments."

"We're so happy playing in the muck. It's cold but we don't care. We barely notice it."

"Who is with you?"

"He says his name like it is the most wonderful fun. 'Jeff!' He bounces everytime he says it. And my name, 'Joey!' with excitement, with a kind of affection. I'm there to play with him unlike Mommy and Daddy who soothe him or he needs them or something. Where's Mommy? She left us telling me to watch out for my brother. 'Okay Mommy.' We're bundled up like two round balls from head to foot. It's cold. The muck attracts us like bees to flowers. He squeaks his delight. It leaks out from the pigpen. 'Look Joey! Let's play.' I don't like pigs. They're scary and noisy and ugly. I figure Jeff feels the same. He doesn't. He follows the muck under the fence. 'Good piggy.' He reaches up to pet the snout. The pig's teeth grabs on to his tiny hand, squealing and snorting, overexcited. Jeff screams which just seems to excite the giant monstrous pig even more. Another hog joins in. It's mouth squeezes at the source of Joey's scream. I am petrified. 'Mommy!' I want to scream, but I can't. I want to reach out and pull my little brother away, but I can't. I can't! Then my mother screams an adult scream. 'Jeffrey!'"

Joe hears a soft unsteady voice. It lures him away from the horror. "You're in your mother's warm and strong and comforting arms. She murmurs to you, 'It's not your fault. Things happen. Terrible things happen.'

"But I showed him the muck. I lured him to it and to his death."

maxicue
maxicue
141 Followers