Ingrid's Dark Secret Passion Ch. 16

The photograph in the Vienna newspapers of her dancing with the US Secretary of State made quite a stir in the minds of Austrians generally, and MDW students particularly. Even Krone the popular tabloid in Vienna eschewed publishing their ubiquitous daily pictures of a topless or a semi naked woman in favor of exhibiting the dancing photograph prominently on their pages. Consequently, Ingrid's stock in opinion of her arose in the minds of every student and every faculty member of MDW. Not only was she now instantly recognizable on the campus, but no one harbored a negative attitude towards her.

As a result, not only was she treated as a goddess, like she was at her initial year at OSU, but her reputation as a reincarnation of Clara Schumann was now affixed as a standard belief in the minds of everyone at MDW. As a result, any student, and for that matter, any other faculty member at MDW not directly teaching her, were in awe or her, and obsequious while in her presence.

This kind of reaction was difficult for Ingrid to absorb. It was not that she was overly modest or humble, as she was fully cognizant of her musical talents and skills. Still, inundated by such over the top enthusiastic praise, made Ingrid wary. She realized that uttering such verbal accolades were really unnatural, especially considering the reality of the paucity of her actual musical achievements so far. True, she had won the Tchaikovsky competition in Russia, and the Beethoven competition here in Vienna, but still such triumphs paled against the musical accomplishments of Clara Schumann, never mind Liszt and Chopin, two other pianists and composers, she had now been favorably compared to.

Ingrid was mature enough to realize that any person in her orbit, who would superficially overtly praise her musical abilities, beyond what would be considered realistic, would have to have had a personal agenda for doing so. Ingrid suspected that those who would fawn over her unduly, had the notion that such flattery would pay dividends in the future should she indeed become an international celebrity. Being friendly towards her now could be a benefit to their own career. On the other hand, if in fact she did not acquire such a lofty status it was a case of no harm no foul in the minds of such sycophants. There were plenty of fish in the sea after all, so it would be no big deal to switch and fawn over another promising rising star.

That kind of belief in contrast with the precise contemplation of her feelings towards Sieglinde Wagner, went a long way to explain why her love for the Austrian Dominatrix was so deep and uncompromising. To be sure Sieglinde praised Ingrid's musical abilities as lavishly as anyone if not even more so. However, in contrast to her school flatterers, Ingrid realized Sieglinde had no plan to parlay their affair into a material advantage. Her praises then, were a natural regard that anyone deeply in love would cherish about their lover.

In fact, they avoided talking about Ingrid's planned departure from Vienna, as it hurt too much for either of them to contemplate it. They were both pragmatic and sensible. It was an unstated understanding, that their affair and relationship would come to a natural end once Ingrid would return to the United States. As a result of such mutual mind set, it prevented either one of them to develop a jaded attitude towards their sexual activity nor take it for granted. Each time they engaged in sex was a joyful event.

Cementing their relationship was Ingrid's acquaintanceship with Sieglinde's family. Ingrid had gone home during the Christmas holiday period in her first year at MDW. However, since she was destined to return the following July anyway, it was mutually agreed that she would stay in Vienna totally for her second year. That paved the way for Ingrid to have Christmas dinner with Sieglinde's parents as well as with her brother and his family.

The senior Wagners were fairly liberal in their attitudes towards sexual mores of the day. So they had no hang up with their daughter being a lesbian. Given the fact that, Sieglinde could not conceive, and therefore no grandchildren would be forthcoming from that quarter, even their initial preference that she would be heterosexual was rendered moot as far as they were concerned. If she preferred woman as a sexual partner so be it.

They were a little more concerned that Sieglinde was a professional Dominatrix. Still, they were aware that she earned a substantial income from her vocation, which activity was legal in Austria after all. They were further mollified, by the fact that Sieglinde was friends with Talmann, the foreign minister of Austria. That friendship, they realized was instrumental in that their daughter and Ingrid were independently included in the Schönbrunn Palace state dinner where the guest of honor was in essence the United States foreign minister. All this took away any perceived taint of shame they might have harbored otherwise.

The senior Wagners were awed by Ingrid's accomplishments, and they noticed the mutual regard Sieglinde and Ingrid obviously had for each other. In their minds, if it weren't for the huge age disparity and the difference in their nationalities, they felt their daughter could not have acquired a more perfect love interest, man or woman. The fact that Ingrid had taken the trouble to learn German and spoke it fluently albeit with a severe American accent, made the senior Wagners regret deeply at the presumed impossibility of this relationship lasting.

The dinner was a huge success as every member of the Wagner family were delighted in having met Ingrid. Sieglinde's brother, Siegmund in a private moment opined to Ingrid that he had never seen his sister as happy as she was at this dinner. He wished her well in their relationship. And naturally he asked how much she liked the BMW that Sieglinde had acquired for her. Ingrid was able to pronounce that it was great, but as it turned out she had hardly driven it very much. The main use she made of the vehicle was to drive it back and forth from school. Siegmund smiled as he knew he was going to finally make a hefty profit on the car once it was turned in when Ingrid would return to the United States.

In February, Sieglinde had arranged for them to attend one of the most premier formal balls on the social calendar in Vienna. It was the Kaffeesiederball (Vienna Coffeehouse Owners' Ball). This is an annual grand society event squarely devoted to Vienna's signature coffee culture. It is a staunchly traditional affair in the palatial Hofburg Palace, where primped debutantes do choreographed numbers and guests in tuxedos and floor-length gowns waltzed the night away -- all in celebration of the caffeinated, brewed drink. This event attracts usually more than 6,000 guests. Some of those guests included well known celebrities, and in this particular year attending were Gwyneth Paltrow and Leonardo DiCaprio.

For the event, Sieglinde had lined up two gay members of der Höllenfeuer Verein to be their escorts, namely Arnold Fläming and Samuel Winckler. Sieglinde was able to assure Ingrid, that the gentlemen had agreed that there would be a foursome sexual tableau after the ball, although most certainly not quite in the manner how two straight couples might carry on such an activity. Ingrid decided it was not best to ask any questions and just enjoy what comes or cums.

The gentleman would rent their tuxedos, but Sieglinde commissioned a dress designer to make two floor length formal gowns for them. Sieglinde pointed out, that it was not an outrageous extravagance as Ingrid would have lots of occasions to wear her gown when performing in concerts. As for herself she attended many formal events throughout the year, and she had grown tired of her current gowns. Needless to say, the gowns they received were stunning and each looked fabulous in them.

To start the date, the four of them enjoyed a fabulous pre-ball dinner at The Bank Brasserie & Bar, the restaurant located in the Park Hyatt Vienna. After dinner, Sieglinde had ordered a horse-drawn carriage to transport them to the massive Hofburg Palace, the venue for the ball. Once there, the four of them entered the main ballroom to claim their ceremony viewing spot.

The elaborate, orchestra-backed ceremony soon began. The esteemed ball committee marched slowly from the ballroom entrance to their VIP seating. A 'coffee goddess' clad in a bronze gown and headdress took command of the room to introduce the program. A dance troupe performed a spirited ballet number. An opera duo provided vocals to convey the love of coffee. Then more than a hundred strong legion of young adult debutantes and their partners performed their waltz numbers for the finale.

Once the ceremony concluded, the four of them joined in on the waltz in the ballroom. Again, the dance lessons Sieglinde had forced Ingrid to take, paid dividends as she thoroughly enjoyed the dancing. Their male escorts proved to be excellent dancers a pleasant surprise considering they were gay and presumably not in the habit of dancing formally with a woman. Ingrid surmised it was an example of a typical erroneous assumption of what a gay man interests would be or would not be.

After midnight, the formal stuffy dances gave way for the quadrille dance. This highly involved group dance, which was a standard activity at nineteenth-century balls especially in Europe, included routines of couples taking turns galloping with their partner down the ballroom in between rows of the other dancers forming a human tunnels chain. The quadrille song tempo by design increased so fast that collisions and chaos were prevalent. Nevertheless, there were plenty of laughs as everyone enjoyed themselves immensely.

After they left the ball they stopped at a sausage stand, to pick up a snack as their dancing activity had worked up quite an appetite. When they arrived at the women's residence, the four of them undressed as their escorts were prepared to honor their promise of having sex with them. Mistress Denna had disciplined Arnold and Sam during meetings at der Höllenfeuer Verein and got to know them fairly well. They were actually unattached but as there were not too many gay members, they invariably had sex with each other during the parties. Each of them had sex with women before but seldom at der Höllenfeuer Verein parties settling for being spanked and tied up mostly. In setting up the date each man indicated they were prepared to effect vaginal penetration but with a gay twist.

To start off, the four of them joined together with arms draped over their shoulders forming a circle standing up. The women were between the men, so they took turns kissing each other: first to the person on the right; then the person to the left; and finally the person across. The last pair being with the same sex partner. After this round of kissing, the women dropped their hands to manually stimulate each penis. As a result, each man had two hands, one from each lady, simultaneously stroking their cock and balls. The men reciprocated by bending down, and with finger of one man penetrating the vagina and the finger of the other man rubbing the clit and labia.

Beforehand, Sieglinde had prepared a playlist for her entertainment console. It comprised of snippets of five minutes playing time edited from Ingrid's DGG recording of the previous year's concert. Everyone then got on bed to lie on their sides to begin their sexual activity in accordance with the music. For the first tableau, Arnold was sodomizing Samuel, who in turn was penetrating Ingrid's vagina, who in turn was being fisted anally by Sieglinde. After the first five minutes of music ended, by prearranged agreement the participants formed a new tableau. This time Sieglinde was sandwiched between the two men, while Ingrid fisted Samuel in the ass as he was the sodomizing performer in Sieglinde's sandwich. For the third tableau Ingrid was sandwiched between the two men with Samuel having a go at her ass, and Sieglinde was fisting Arnold in the ass. In the fourth tableau, Samuel was into Sieglinde's vagina who had Ingrid's fist in her rectum, as Arnold was sodomizing her.

At the end of this round both ladies had the pleasure of accommodating each man's penis in their vagina. So as neither man had yet climaxed, again by pre-arranged agreement, they resorted to finish the evening off with oral sex till climax. The men aligned themselves on their backs along the length of the bed parallel to each other but in opposite directions. Then Ingrid across the width and near the end of the bed, had rested her vulva near Arnold's mouth who in that way proceeded to feast on her beaver. Ingrid bent down to pop Samuel's his cock in her mouth.

At the other end of the bed Sieglinde in the opposite direction to Ingrid, took Arnold's cock into her mouth while presenting her pussy for oral servicing by Samuel. At this point, the playlist of the music in the CB player was programmed to provide a repetitive playing of the Moonlight Sonata scored for piano and cello. In due time the men each ejaculated into the mouths of our ladies. Ingrid and Sieglinde concluded the proceedings with cum swapping kissing until all the combined amount of sperm had been equally ingested. All four of them then fell asleep clinging to their same sex partner. All four of them woke up at the same time so that the ladies and gentlemen indulged simultaneously same sex sixty-nine positions to conclude a delightful date. Ingrid forever thereafter had nothing but fond memories of the Kaffeesiederball.

A few weeks later Ingrid experienced an unexpected, delightful surprise. That year the Grammies, the record awards show presented by the Recording Academy and televised on a prominent US television network, was held on the second Sunday in March at its venue in Los Angeles, CA.

When Ingrid's four CD set was released for sale in mid August, they received absolutely stunningly rave reviews from virtually every major classical music critic in the world. What truly astonished the critics was the realization that the performances were turned in by essentially amateur musicians. The orchestra was not any one of the various world renowned orchestras, but a mere pick-up ensemble composed of student musicians of MDW, albeit the best student musicians in that prestigious school of music. True, the featured soloist, i.e. Ingrid, had gained international renown by her triumph at the Tchaikovsky International Competition, augmented by winning the Beethoven International Piano Competition. Still, she had not yet established her credentials as an acclaimed recognized virtuoso in classical music. Although of course, the critics were unanimous in expecting Ingrid to eventually attain such status, and this recording was surely a portent of such greater musical achievements to come for Ingrid.

Actually, the only world renown classical music artist in this recording was Otto Hellmesberger, conducting the student orchestra. But Otto had not been a force in classical music for the past two decades since he was forced to retire from his stellar concert career due to his arthritic affliction in his hands and fingers. And yet despite the amateur experience, the performances of this recording were flawless. That is not necessarily unique in classical music recordings, as recording engineers have the skill to remaster technical glitches to produce an error free finished product of music. Still, any critic worth his or her salt, can discern when such error has been corrected. It was an absolute certainty that Ingrid had performed flawlessly for this recording with no technical corrections discernible.

More importantly in the view of the critics, the error free performance by Ingrid, paled in comparison to the passion and enthusiasm Ingrid exhibited in the recording. To the ears of the critics, they could sense that Ingrid poured out her soul in producing the ultimate statement of the purpose of the compositions. Even more remarkable was that her passion was evident despite not resorting to histrionics that other classical musicians invariably exhibited in their performances. One enthusiastic critic, in particularly analyzing the playing of the Rachmaninoff's pieces, could not contain his glowing praise. He went so far as to opine, that the composer himself would have been startled at perceiving the higher transcendent plateau Ingrid had achieved in this performance. A plateau surely Rachmaninoff could not have imagined attainable when he was first composing this music.

As a result of such overwhelming critical praise, coupled with word of mouth advertising, the sales of the CD set soared. It ended up in the all-time top ten list for classical music recordings, topped only by the three tenors World Cup performances and Natasha Starikovich's breakout CD featuring Enescu's violin sonata.

As a result, the recording drew the attention of the officials for the Grammy awards for consideration for the classical music awards. Since Ingrid's CD set contained both orchestral performances of the Russian piano concertos, and solo piano pieces of Chopin's Nocturnes, the Grammy people opted to allow the unusual situation that the CD would be nominated for two separate and distinct classical music awards. Accordingly, the CD was nominated for the Best Orchestral Performance as well as for the Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

That was not at all the surprises emanating from the Grammy people. It so happened that in this particular year, there were a dearth of new artists emerging from the usual featured genres of music. The already established stars in Pop, Rock, Rap, and Country had outstanding years, and the successes of their recordings left little room for new artists in those fields to be noticed. Even the less popular genres of music such as New Age, Gospel, Latin and Reggae did not produce a breakthrough new star either.

Thus, it was problematic to conjure up even five suitable nominees for the award of Best New Artist. Since this award was not restricted to any particular genre of music, the Grammy people decided they might as well nominate Ingrid for the award if only to fill out the usual number of five candidates deemed necessary for this award, and for the television show requirements. The Grammy people reasoned that by all accounts, Ingrid with her four CD 's, had a successful breakout year in classical music which far outstripped the success in proportion that any new artist achieved in their particular genre of music. Consequently, Ingrid became the first and so far, only classical music artist to be so nominated for this major award.

Upon receiving the news of this accomplishment, Ingrid was cavalier in her reaction. Classical music was treated as an incidental genre of music for the Grammy awards. Winners are only perfunctorily mentioned during the evening television show, with the actual presentation of the award granted during an essentially nonpublic dinner ceremony in the afternoon. As a result, there was no prestige felt amongst classical music artists for winning a classical music Grammy. In Ingrid's case her winning the Tchaikovsky International competition was by the far the more prominent accomplishment. As her mother had declared, Ingrid's place in classical music history was secured just by that triumph alone.

Consequently, Ingrid was not predisposed to travel to Los Angeles for the ceremony. It would coincide with the March meeting of der Höllenfeuer Verein, and thereby would necessitate her absence there, which she would be most reluctant to forego. Besides, she would be separated from her lover as well. Mind you Sieglinde would probably be willing to accompany her, but even that possibility would not render the journey to Los Angeles worthwhile in Ingrid's eyes.