Tanglewood Entanglements

July, 2013

I thought of it even then as my last fuck—our ultimate fuck, the farewell fuck—with Edward Teng. I still think of it that way even though, technically, it wasn't the last time he fucked me, even in a physical sense. He'd rehearsed me early that morning at his cottage, Munch Cottage, on the grounds of the Tanglewood Music Center in western Massachusetts. I was in the Steinberg Cottage, which was larger, with more bedrooms, than the Munch, but without the privacy of Munch. Steinburg was for transients. I was there just to sing the "Pearl Fisher's Duet." Edward had been in the States for three years and was one of the guest conductors for the summer of 2013 at Tanglewood, the summer concert venue for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

After he had played for me to warm up for the full dress rehearsal later in the morning, he had suggested a swim in the cottage's pool. The cottage was a small one, assigned to Edward, and his wife, Mei Fan, who was a movie actress, living mostly in Los Angeles. Edward lived in Taiwan and was the resident director of the Taipei Symphony, but he'd been in the States for a prolonged period because of some political issues involving Mainland China. He had some sort of hush hush business with U.S. intelligence that he never talked about, but it brought him to the States from time to time.

I'd tried to beg off, but he'd said, "Nonsense," and had risen from the piano and strode out onto the terrace.

"I haven't brought a suit," I had said, although I was walking toward the French doors out onto the pool terrace myself. Edward had a "to be obeyed" voice and demeanor. There was something exotic about a Chinese man—and lying under him—that made me submissive to his every command. Edward was a man who was comfortable taking command.

"Neither do I," he'd said, as he stripped off his dark blue silk robe, to reveal he was naked underneath, and dove into the pool. I could also see that he was in magnificent erection, which told me where this swim would lead.

I was only in sleeping trousers myself at that point. I hadn't come over for the early rehearsal from my cottage. I had only come as far as from Edward's bedroom. I wasn't expecting my wife, Rachel, a mezzosoprano based out of Richmond, as I was, to arrive in Tanglewood until later this afternoon. The performance wasn't until tomorrow. Edward's wife, Mei Fan, wasn't expected until after the concert the next day in the Seiji Ozawa concert hall, and the baritone for the duet, Jacob Schwartzman, was arriving from New York just in time for the dress rehearsal.

So, it was just the two of us, Edward and me, as yet, and I had spent the night in Edward's bed.

Jacob was a substitute for this concert. I would be leaving after the performance and he was arriving then for the rest of the summer's program. He was studying conducting under Edward Teng, but had sung the baritone part in the "Pearl Fisher's Duet" against my tenor before. The man who was supposed to sing that part, Gordon Chen, was ill. If I'd known Jacob would be substituted for him, I would not have come to Tanglewood, although being part of its summer program was a great honor. I'd actually been looking forward to meeting up with the actor and singer, Gordon Chen. Again, for some reason, I had developed a fetish for Asian men.

I slipped off my sleeping trousers and dove in behind him. We swam a few laps. Edward, tall and slim, although he was starting to show a bit of a pouch, was a good swimmer for an older man. No one seemed to know how old he really was, something not far short of sixty was the general guess, although concert programs said fifty and had done so since before he came to the States on his sabbatical, or exile or escape. No one could pin that down either. He was a Han Chinese, handsome, his head hair still a jet black, although farther down his body the gray was discernible. Audience didn't get to see the hair "farther down his body." I did. He was a handsome man, if inscrutable—if it isn't too much of a cliché to use that characteristic for a Chinese man. With him, it fit.

He was never either scowling or smiling. His mood was undiscernible, but he always gave the impression he was three steps ahead you in thought. As a professional symphony conductor, he was commanding in presence. For those of us who had seen him as he was now—naked, doing the breast stroke in laps—he was no less commanding, but he also was mysterious. He was known to have escaped out of Mainland China to Taiwan, from the ranks of the ruling class and fully trained on the cello and piano and the conductor's baton, and there were marks of either combat or torture on his body. No one knew of his past—or were telling if they did know.

I swam laps too, although, even though, at twenty-two that summer, I was nearly a third of his age, and I was in firmer muscular shape than Edward was, I couldn't keep up with him. Perhaps it was that he had the streamlined body that was ideal for racing.

At the end of his last lap, he was waiting for me at the shallow end. He reached out for me and pulled me into his body as I swam into the wall. He took me into a kiss and his hand went to my cock. His erection pressed into my hip.

"Maestro," I said—he could never be Edward for me, even though he had known me biblically and had been inside me whenever he wished for nearly a year before the last six months in which we hadn't been together. "Maestro," I said. "We'll have to go to the rehearsal soon."

"Not for another two hours, Craig. We have plenty of time." His hands were all over me. I'd never been able to deny him, even though he had moved from me, without fanfare or explanation, really, six months previously. He was with Jacob Schwarzman now.

"Last night—" I started to say.

"Reminded me of what I'd missed with you," he said, as he pulled me into a kiss again. After the kiss, he lifted me from the water and lowered me on my back on the terracing by the pool. He stood, hovering over me, in the pool. He moved my legs to where they were draped over his shoulders, and I lay there, resigned, not denying the maestro anything he wanted from me. It hadn't been I who had broken it off with him. I had only rarely been with a man before him, but when he had beckoned, I had come. And I had let him do whatever he wanted with me.

I looked up through the branches of the trees to the nearly cloudless blue skies in a July morning in rural western Massachusetts in 2013, as the tall, slim Chinese musical conductor touched me here, there, there, with his slender, sensitive fingers and leaned over and kissed me on the belly and hips and in the folds where my thighs met my groin. He was playing me as a master musician would do his instrument. I had no idea that he was kissing me in a pattern until he spoke of it.

"I love how you have deeply tanned but have worn a small suit when you did. The line between your tanned body and your groin, covered while you tanned, is tantalizing. It highlights your slim hips, the golden red of your trimmed pubic bush, much redder than the auburn, with golden highlights, of your head hair, and the beauty of your manhood. I worship your manhood."

And then he did, starting with the balls. I moaned and gently rocked my pelvis against his face, as, pressing down on my lower belly with his left hand, he encased my cock with his right hand, and pulled my balls into his mouth to suck them and roll the testes around in the sacs with his tongue.

I was lost to him, purring and moaning, when he took my throbbing, erect cock in his mouth, deep throated it, and sucked me to an ejaculation.

He fucked me on a lounge bed by the pool. He was a strong man. He pulled me out of the water and carried me over his shoulder like a sack of grain to the bed. All preliminaries were over. He lowered me to my back, grasped my ankles and raised and spread my legs, and moved in between my spread thighs. The fuck now was businesslike, efficient and relentless. He had a need and I was there now just to receive him. Penetration was swift and deep, one long thrust that made me cry out in pain-pleasure and writhe until he settled down into the rhythm of the fuck.

We went back into the pool to cool off and do a couple of laps. Coming out that time, we had dried off and he slipped his blue silk robe back on but did not close it before he laid on his back on the lounge bed.

"I want you to ride me," he said.

I, of course, would do anything he asked of me, even though he had left me off without a word of explanation six months previously. He had given no explanation now either, although he had let me know that he'd asked that the "Pearl Fisher Duet" from Bizet's Opera be included in the Tanglewood program that summer and that I be brought from Richmond to sing the tenor part. Of course, he'd asked that his current male lover, Jacob Schwartzman, be engaged to sing the baritone part when Chen couldn't make it.

That was all part of being the maestro, though. He was at the center of the world. It was his pleasure that counted and everyone else would, of course, adjust their lives to accommodate his needs and wants.

I straddled his pelvis, facing his feet, my arms stretched back, my hands palming his pectorals, my calves streaming back on either side of his torso, and he ran his hands over my back and cupped and spread my buttocks, and I rose and fell on his cock. I was still gently swaying on him and he had just ejaculated inside me when we heard sounds from inside the cottage and a rich, velvety, cheerful voice callout.

"Tansir"—the maestro's Chinese given name—"I took an earlier plane. I decided I wanted to hear Jacob and Craig sing that duet together and watch them relate to each other. I understand the first time they did, the result was explosive." She laughed a thick, deep-throated laugh, her distinct sound well known to audiences from the movie screen.

And then she was there, on the pool terrace, standing in the open French door into the living room, seeing Teng and me on the lounge bed. I was still sitting on the maestro's cock, facing his feet, my hands now on his knees. Teng's hands were encasing my thin waist. Although he'd come, he was still gently raising and lowering my channel on his cock as it went flaccid.

May took a look at us, laughed, said, "Hello, Craig. Well, this should be interesting when Jacob arrives from New York with Rachel." She turned and disappeared into the living room. I heard glass being rattled at the bar beyond the piano.

Rachel was my wife. She went professionally by the name Rachel Schwartzman rather than taking my surname, Atler. She was Jacob Schwartzman's sister.

* * * *

The jab about the explosive response Jacob and I had had when we first sang the "Pearl Fishers Duet" together two years earlier in Atlanta struck home with me. We'd sung it at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, Georgia, and had both been given rooms at the nearby Crowne Plaza Midtown Hotel. The duet is an inspiring, intense, sensual merging of the singer's voices. Jacob, a sexy, dark, sensual young man of my age, who trained and worked mainly with the Israeli Symphony, was as taken with the music—and with me—as I was with him. We didn't use both of our rooms at the Crowne Plaza. We merged our bodies, weaving our desires and lust back and forth in the hotel—and on the bed, alternating between his room and mine, each time—after an exhilarating performance. We were equals, trading topping and being submissive, eking every ounce of pleasure out of each other, both exhausting and satiating each other.

I hadn't had sex with many men at that time—not any more men than I'd had sex with women. Sex to me was a release, an attraction, not gender controlled. To me sex was sex was sex, appropriate with whoever was celebrating with me at the time and who aroused me. The Georgia Tech performance of the "Pearl Fishers Duet" had been a triumph, no less because it revealed an attraction between the two singers. It was worthy of celebration.

The celebration entailed Jacob fucking me up against the wall just inside the door to his Crowne Plaza room, my knees hooked on his hips and our mouths plastered together—and then on carpet by the bed, both of us naked now, each of us with young, fit, perfectly proportioned body, Jacob mounted on my hips in a doggie-style fuck. Jacob virile, vigorous, thick, long, hard, commanding and me submissive and yielding. And then I on my back with Jacob riding me and me taking more control, weaving my legs through his and my arms under his, entrapping him above me, his legs spread and me thrusting up into him, fucking him, fucking him, and fucking him.

We spent the night on the bed, exploring each other's bodies and testing out every sexual position we could think of.

The next morning he introduced me to his sister, Rachel, who was studying music at Georgia Tech. She was a mezzosoprano. She was lovely—quite evidently Jacob's sister—and I was to find her voice was sublime. I accepted another invitation to sing in a concert at Georgia Tech. She was the soprano soloist and I was the tenor. The next time I came down to Atlanta from Richmond, we sang a duet together. It had the same effect as the one I'd sung with her brother had had.

I fucked her on her bed in her dormitory room, which, thankfully, she was the sole tenant of. I was virile, vigorous, thick, long, hard, and Rachel was submissive and yielding. We tried a variety of positions on the bed, including the position of entrapping her above me that I had enjoyed with her brother. I stayed the night—and then came back the next night.

Jacob was the best man at our wedding. He took charge of the groomsmen's party the night before the wedding, which was held at the Ogletree Estate, as Rachel wasn't a practicing Jew and I had no intention of converting. He had the groomsmen booked at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. He conveniently forgot to book a room for himself, so he slept with—and on and under—me the night before my wedding.

The next time Jacob and I sang the "Pearl Fishers Duet" together was six months before this Tanglewood festival, in Philadelphia, with the Philadelphia Symphony. Edward Teng, my lover and mentor at the time, was the guest conductor. I slept alone that night. Edward slept with Jacob. At that point I didn't really want to know, but Jacob made quite clear to me that he had been on top—and continued to be. That Edward was quite versatile. Jacob not only moved into Edward's bed, but he also began taking conducting lessons from the maestro at that point.

* * * *

When I got back to Steinberg Cottage for a late breakfast before having to leave for the dress rehearsal at Seiji Ozawa Hall, I found that Rachel—and her brother, Jacob—had arrived. Although Rachel did ask where I had been when she arrived, both she and Jacob seemed satisfied with the explanation that Maestro Teng had been warming me up for my part in the duet.

Technically, that was quite correct.

The dress rehearsal went gloriously. The orchestra members stood and beat—not too hard, of course—on their instruments in approval. This was despite Jacob and I not having practiced it together before then that day. We had sung the duet several times up and down the East Coast in the last year and we could do it in our sleep now—we probably could do it while we were having sex with each other and it would have reached new heights of glory. We desperately wanted to have sex after we'd done. Everything between us—in this case, the man, Edward Teng—that had pulled us apart and made us skittish of being with each other whenever we weren't singing the "Pearl Fishers Duet" evaporated.

If we could have gone off from the dress rehearsal with each other, we would have gone somewhere and gloriously fucked. But we weren't able to do that. Edward Teng took Jacob off. I assumed at the time that the maestro had seen the heat that had rekindled between Jacob and me and was doing damage control by corralling his current male lover himself. For my part, struggling against linking up with Jacob again, I focused on his sister, my wife, Rachel.

Rachel was glowing, being a professional singer herself and recognizing a magnificent performance when she heard it. The effect on her was the same that it was on Jacob and me. I left the dress rehearsal wanting to fuck someone. Rachel left the dress rehearsal wanting to be fucked by someone.

So, I took her back to our room at the Steinberg Cottage, and I fucked the stuffing out of her. We hadn't been completely comfortable with each other sexually since we'd married. Sex between us was better before we married—when we both knew we were fucking other people and there was no guilt in doing so because there was no formal commitment. I had fucked her brother. I don't think she fully realized that, but I think she had some inkling of it. In turn, I suspected she fucked others—including another soprano studying at Georgia Tech. We formally lived in Richmond, Virginia, where my work was based, but Rachel was still enrolled at Georgia Tech. She was often gone to Atlanta and I was often gone for singing engagements up and down the East Coast.

We fucked, but not often. That day, after the dress rehearsal, though, we fucked. But it got out of hand—and Rachel went with it.

I had her on the bed, on her back, and I was hovering over her. Her legs were spread and bent and she was rocking against me, using the balls of her feet for leverage. She was naked. I was naked. I was gripping her wrists, holding her arms over her head. I was inside her, going shallow, the moving deep. Picking up speed and intensity. She was vocal and panting and moaning. It was afternoon. We weren't fucking in the dark. We were focused on a primeval fuck in the middle of the day.

Everything was going so well that I didn't hear the door to the room open and the maestro, Edward Teng, slide in, get naked, saddle up behind me, position his cock, and press in to make me groan and arch my back before bending over Rachel again. He was the maestro. I let him have anything he wanted. He penetrated me, sliding in to the hilt with the initial penetration, as he liked to do, grabbed my hips in his hand, and he was fucking me while I was fucking Rachel.

Going further, the maestro reached around me as he fucked me. One of his hands went to where I was sunk inside Rachel's cunt. His fingers went to her clit and he was working her there. Rachel's moans deepened and her panting got heavier. She propped herself up on his elbows, which gave Teng the opportunity to reach her mouth with his other hand. He parted her lips with his thumb, and Rachel sucked it. It wasn't Teng fucking me while I was fucking Rachel now. It was Teng fucking us both. And Rachel was responding to it.

And I was permitting it. It was clear that Teng was no stranger to Rachel sexually.

When we'd all achieved our orgasms, Teng left us and Rachel rolled away from me, curled up in a ball on the bed, facing the wall.

"This wasn't the first time the maestro has fucked you, is it" I asked.

"No. It isn't the first time he's fucked you either, is it?" Rachel countered.

There wasn't much I could say about that.

I left the room and roamed around the grounds of the Tanglewood music center. There were over five hundred acres of grounds here, with practice halls and performance halls, two music schools, and cottages like the featured performers were housed in, and hotel-like buildings for the musicians and the resident staff.

I reached the nearly six-thousand-seat Koussevitzky Music Shed, the main symphonic performance venue. Workmen were preparing the stage for an orchestra concert. I sat near the stage and watched them work, trying to clear my mind of all thoughts—of my slavery to Edward Teng even though he had deserted me and even though he fucked everyone in sight, everyone he wanted, including my wife.