Violin Lessons

"There's some metal in it now," he said, "I'm assured I'll get 90% of its mobility back."

"That music by the street is yours?" she asked.

"Yes. No one is ever going to play it and I've gotten tired of the pretense."

When she didn't say anything he asked, "Why are you here?" then continued, "You know I saw you the night of the accident? I was driving to Willow and Steve's. I looked over and there you were, going into a bar with that guy? Next thing I knew my car was bouncing over the curb, bouncing off parked cars and impaling itself in a tanning parlor."

Then he said, "There really is nobody home," and closed the door.

She stood staring at the door. Then she walked back down to her car. She bent, picked up the recycling bin and put it on her back seat.

She drove home. As she got out of her car, she looked up at her apartment's living room window. She saw Jill looking down.

She walked into the apartment. Derek and Jill and Joel, Jill's fiance, were there. Adrienne noted Jill and Joel's excited expressions. Derek looked serious. He was tapping on his i-phone to which he had attached a little speaker.

The phone spoke, "If you are the moderator, type '*7' followed by your pin."

Adrienne realized that she had misjudged Derek's plans. He wouldn't want to discriminate against her parents by having his folks present in the flesh when hers were only conferenced in.

Derek stepped to her, took her hand in his free hand, the other held the phone. He fell on one knee, "Adrienne..."

"I'm sorry Derek," she almost shouted, "But this's just not working for me. We are breaking up."

"What!" Jill exploded.

Derek looked aghast.

Adrienne hurried to her room and picked up her violin.

As she passed back through the living room, Derek held out his phone, "Adrienne, please, talk to your mother! Listen to reason!"

Adrienne said in what she thought was a calm tone, "I am going for my violin lesson and I'm late. I'm sorry Derek".

Jill shouted, "You are a real bitch. I want you out of here. I don't want to ever see you again."

Back at Rafael's she rang the doorbell once again.

"Still not here," he said with tired exasperation.

She ducked under his arm and walked up the stairs. In the small bedroom, she stripped and got on all fours and squirmed into the cage.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm here for my lesson," she replied.

"I want you gone," he said.

"It's going to be hard to get me out of here," she said. She got a good firm hold on the bars.

If he'd opened the window and screen and let in the bugs, she'd've been out of there. He did not. He said, "Fuck," and left the room.

She wondered how she would endure. Then the space was filled with sound, she recognized it as the first of Corelli's Concerti Grossi. The late afternoon and evening was swallowed by sound. Each piece filled her with joy and sadness. Joy because they were so pretty, sadness because she could never have played that well, and now Rafael would not again either. The last was Beethoven's Spring sonata.

She listened to Rafael getting ready for bed. The bathroom sounds reminded of her growing need.

She thought of that throughout the painful cramped night. She knew Rafael didn't sleep either. Every few minutes she would hear his bed move and the light in the dark room would change just slightly as his form stood in the doorway.

In the morning, after she saw him pass the door and go down the stairs, she hollered, "If you don't give me my lesson soon, I'm going to pee on the floor."

When he did nothing, she yelled, "I just peeed on the floor."

That brought him up. "Crying wolf I see," he said.

She said, "When no one would pay attention to the music you'd written rather than keep trying you gave up and started drinking?"

He blew up then. "What do you know of it? You've ruined my life."

"Like your drinking had nothing to do with it? When I saw you on the stage I thought you were the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. You quite blew me away. You opened your door and what I discovered there was a sulky drunk. Are you going to give me my lesson?"

"I'll give you the lesson of your life," he roared and after kicking the bars, yanked open the latch and grabbed her ankles. She let herself be pulled out.

He dragged her into the bathroom and this time did stay, gripping her hair.

"Asshole," she said as she urinated. Then, "Hey I need to wash my hands," as he pulled her toward the door.

Downstairs she got out her violin. He brought the strap down hard on her rear. "Faster," he said.

Then again, "Tune."

She played a measure and he stung her twice. "Too mechanical."

Then hit her again, "You play it like you heard it on a CD."

He hit her again, "Put yourself into it."

He let the strap curl between her legs and she shrieked. He got a red ball gag and forced it into her mouth. "Your bowing is too timid."

She gave up the pretense and set her instrument down and bent and leaned on the piano bench. He slapped her, "Don't give up."

He kept striking her, she stopped counting at ten. Then he stopped and sagged. He touched her shoulder and undid the gag and freed her mouth. She was crying.

"Jesus I'm sorry," he said, "That was unforgivable, you'd better go."

She took a deep breath. "For God's sake, fuck me," she said.

When he didn't move she straightened with a groan and jumped and scissored him with her legs and with one free hand went for his jeans.

She complained, "Shit it hurts. Please fuck me, just don't set me down or lean me against anything."

She cried out when he entered her and complained when he gripped her ass and bounced her up and down. She came with a choking groan and the pleasure kept coming while he rammed in and out.

He came and then stumbled. He tipped onto the couch sending the litter of music books and CDs cascading onto the floor. "Shit get off of me", she groaned and squirmed onto her side.

He pulled up his pants and went into the kitchen. He came back with a glass of ice water.

"That is water?" she asked.

"There's nothing else here. I have to go to AA meetings. They refuse to believe that I don't need help stopping. I drank to stop thinking not because I needed the alcohol. Stopping drinking isn't the problem."

"Your lesson is over," he said then, "You should go. I'm very sorry."

"Can you believe it's hot and sunny out there?" she asked, looking out the window. "Pretty amazing. I can't go for two reasons, one, you haven't given me my lesson. Two. My roommate has thrown me out. It's a good thing I know someone with a nice comfortable cage what rent to you charge?

"Listen," she went on, "I could never have played as well as you if I'd practiced every minute of the day from the day I was born. I don't have it in me. And you will never play like you did ever again. But there is music in this world and I don't want to live without it or you."

After a bit of silence, the door bell chimed. Rafael said, "Oh shit, my first student!"

He shouted, "I'll be there in a minute. I overslept! Sorry!"

There was a flurry of activity as they rushed about.

As he was coming out of the bathroom having taken a two minute shower. He saw her on her knees, her red and rapidly bruising bottom in the air as she opened the latch.

"Just for today, you can stretch out on my bed. My room's just to the left. Leave the door open and listen. Maybe you'll learn something."

She did as she was bid. She slid under the covers and lay on her stomach.

She listened to the lesson sounds, to the uninspired playing. She imagined hearing him play the passages.

She heard his voice from a vast distance say, "When you play this bit here, you should look ahead and see where the music is going. Back way off so you'll have something to build on. Now try it again."

She felt happy.

She fell asleep and didn't wake until hours later when she felt him gingerly spooning her. She made complaining sounds as her bottom hurt, then she told him not to be an idiot when he started to pull out.

------------------------------------

"Pah," said the most melancholy when it was clear the richest member had no more to say, "Nothing like my situation. Call that supportive? She ruined the lives of both those guys."

"I was thinking more of how the story illustrated the role of music in a relationship," said the richest member equably.

"And you really like that classical crap?" asked the most melancholy.

"I find I like most kinds of music," said the richest member a little sadly, "And classical music has the added advantage that I can sometimes get my wife to accompany me to hear it live. Though not for the same reasons I go, she likes the elegance of it."

"What was your band called?" asked the oldest member.

The richest smiled nostalgically. "'The Radial Retreads'. A bit of a mistake really. We were soon known on the college dance circuit as 'The Remedial Retards'. We had a lot of fun though."

"I think the story is appropriate to the case at hand," the lovely Janetta spoke up with some bravery, "It is about a girl who sees what she wants and goes for it. Like any adult, she must make some compromises along the way. And everything did wind up working out well.

"In Derek's case, Julie had been very favorably impressed with what she'd heard through her bedroom walls. She soon threw over Joel and Derek found himself with a much more appreciative partner.

"And as for Rafael. Adrienne had the idea of scanning his music and putting it up on the web for anyone to download. She and Rafael, Rafael somewhat listlessly, then made some instructional videos showing how it should be played and teaching technique at the same time. These they sold through youtube. The videos sold about as well as you might expect. She wasn't going to be able quit her day job.

"But then Willow called her up and pointed her to the trailer for an upcoming Hindi movie. Halfway through was one of Rafael's tunes, from a study for solo violin, totally uncredited and totally ripped off. She checked and the tune, arranged as a song and dance number was doing sensationally on youtube and the Indian charts.

"She and Rafael were on a flight to Mumbai a week later.

"The Indian song writer was none too pleased to find them on his doorstep. India has just recently begun paying more than lip-service to international copyright law as it tries to curry favor with the developed world.

"The song writer explained that what had happened was he'd found himself obligated to write the songs and dances of five films simultaneously, all expected to be megahits. They're very hard working over there. Not like our film guys.

"The song writer's brain turned to mush and he was at his wits end when he heard his daughter practicing and was struck with how pretty the piece she was playing was.

"The song writer was so pleased to learn that they had no interest in suing that he helped Rafael get work. First ghostwriting some of his own over commitments and then in his, Rafael's, own name.

"Rafael has acclimated to such an extent that he is now compared with the great R.D. Burman at the height of his powers.

"Adrienne is happy to have the diameter of the earth between herself and her mother. She got work playing violin for film soundtracks and she took the occasional bit part when they needed a European face on a beach or something. Then she got a real role as the ditsy American roommate of an Indian college student in Boston and her career has taken off.

"Her father," here the divine Janetta paused and glanced up at the richest member, "Is grateful to have a welcoming place to stay when his work takes him to Mumbai.

"For myself, I must say that I find that cage a tight fit for one and entirely intolerable for two."

"Pah," repeated the most melancholy. "I'm in the mood to see this wretched Lilly thrashed."

The club management was more than happy to roll up one of their upright stock devices and strap the struggling Lilly's wrists and neck to it. A show always pleased the membership.

Before the strapping young barman laid into Lilly with his strap, the most melancholy took his IPhone, hung it from her breasts with the aid of a chain clipped to her nipples and forced a pair of buds into her ears.

As the first stroke connected, the oldest member asked, "What's she listening too? 'When the whip comes down' perhaps?"

"Nah," said the most melancholy, "It's to be 30 minutes of 'Its only rock and roll, but I like it.' for her."