The Pianist and His Lover

Copyright 2021, PostScriptor

Thanks you Randi for inviting me for this story concept. It was an interesting thought to consider — what happens after the end of an affair. More on this at the end of the story.

First my apologies! I caught Covid (not a bad case) in mid-December and it left me fatigued for about three weeks, and then probably another three weeks to recover to my normal strength. So I ended up with a smaller window to write the story, have it read by others and sent off to an editor to clean it up. I'm finishing it the day before it is supposed to be turned in. Only one reader (other than myself and Word) and no editors. Forgive me the errors that you will no doubt find. I would have normally read this through ten or fifteen times searching for errors.

And thank you Marty for doing a read through with your changes given the time constraints.

Two things about the story: please don't complain that there is cheating in the form of a fairly long extramarital affair. That is what the story is SUPPOSED to be about! With no affair, there is no 'end of the affair.'

Second, Please tolerate all of the classical music references. I know that when I read a story that includes notes about a rock or jazz or country musician, I will search for them on YouTube to listen to the music. Most of the time, they are not even to my eclectic tastes, but I try to give them a good hearing. I listen to a lot of classic Rock, Jazz, Pop, Latin and other music in addition to classical myself. If you don't know these pieces, give them a shot! LOL

* BTW Yuja Wang and Lang Lang are both famous, living pianists. Listening to ANY of their music is worthwhile.

I hope that you enjoy!

~~~*~~~

I turned to the woman in my bed. We had just finished a marathon session of making love.

"Love, we have to talk..." I reached over and took her naked body in my arms.

"Oh god," she replied, her voice almost cracking, "You are telling me its over, aren't you."

"We need to. It isn't fair to Helen or Tom. They deserve to have all of our hearts. This is the most difficult thing I've ever had to do." We both had tears in our eyes.

"I know that. For me too. You know that I love you and I always will."

"As I love you."

~~*~~

JEREMY

I am Jeremy Keyes, a propitious name for a pianist, everyone agrees, although being told so often, it only gets a small smile from me these days. I am a top-tier classical pianist, which sounds impressive until one realizes that there are tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of similarly skilled pianists in the world today. Okay, probably not millions — but lots of them.

And like MLB, or the NBA or the NFL, there are thousands who aspire to what turns out to be fewer than one hundred spots, maybe fewer than 50. These days that also means competing with extraordinary women pianists who show up on stage in such sexy clothes, that male members of the audience buy tickets just to see and watch them play. Think Yuga Wang.

I attended, from the age of 16, one of the most prestigious music schools in the U.S. — in a sense not really a 'school' comparable to most schools and Universities, because the curriculum consisted of was limited to music theory and music history and was otherwise practicing my art and spending one-on-one time with my instructors. No 'general ed' requirements, no majors and minors, and no formal diploma. But in the music world you don't need a diploma, because if one of the instructors introduces you to another established musician, that is all that is needed.

My mentors, if you will, were all people who had been well-known, indeed, famous, concert pianists at an earlier time in their lives, who had for one reason of another, retired and now devoted their efforts towards developing the next generation of concert level musicians. Anyone admitted into the school is expected to be a concert musician; if you are not of that caliber, go somewhere else. You want to be a music teacher, go to a state school.

But even with the kind of entrée into the world of professional musicians, getting started can be an extended, arduous task that requires more than a little luck.

One way of getting ones feet onto the musical 'cursus honorum' is by winning a world-renowned piano competition. But prep for such a competition requires that for six months or more you focus on the compulsory pieces as well as the optional music where you are expected to dazzle the audience and judges. Then there is the piano concerto that you will be required to play with orchestra.

While you are doing that (and you still may not win; ever wonder who Van Cliburn's runner-up was?) you are NOT expanding your repertoire except for the limited pieces for the contest.

Most great piano teachers, and for that matter, most great concert pianists think that contests are a waste of time unless you have run out of other possibilities.

So we come to the other alternatives.

Several of the pianists who were my contemporaries at the school had teachers who immediately lined them up with famous orchestral debuts. They got a real kick-start for their careers. But for me, yes, there were similar slots for concerts, but they were one or two years away! Believe me, I accepted the offers, but how could I live in the meantime?

My primary mentor presented the answer. He was a long retired (he was already 90 years old!), but still famous pianist and teacher, Saul Orenstein.

He called me into his office one afternoon.

"Jeremy, my boy, we have spoken before of how we can together work to accelerate your career. We have arranged for a number of concerts with the major orchestras and conductors, but several of my colleagues were able to schedule their favored pupils for the earliest openings. I'm sorry that I let them get the jump on me!" he said with a twinkle in his eye.

"And, as you know, I don't want you wasting your time on piano competitions if we don't need to. So, I have decided to use another alternative that dates back hundreds of years: we are going to assemble a small group of wealthy patrons to sponsor you for the next several years. They will provide funding for your living and travel, and perhaps even more important, they are all highly connected individuals and will find and set up opportunities for you to give recitals and concerts with some of the excellent, if less well known orchestras, in cities across the U.S. and Europe.

"I have arranged for six such people to come here to the school next week. You will play a short recital for them and then we will have lunch with them and set up our plan of attack. Is that satisfactory to you?"

What could I do but agree with his plan?

It was less than a week later that this little conclave happened in one of the small (some would say 'intimate') recital rooms at the school. The assembled group was interesting; most of them were older, and they were equally divided men and woman. The one exception was a young blond woman (I estimated in her early thirties) who was extraordinarily attractive and seemed enthusiastic about being there. I later discovered that her family had been close friends of Saul's for over sixty years, beginning with her Grandfather. All of the people in the room knew Saul (of course) and they also seemed to know one another as well. Perhaps that should have been expected. I guess that the 'big money' people in the classical music arena constitute a small world.

In any case, we first had a short meeting where I was introduced to each of them and a few words were exchanged, but the real test would be the music.

There was limited time for me to play, but Saul and I had selected pieces that I had played for so long that my fingers could almost play them without my thinking about them. That was how you avoided stage fright — being so prepared that you knew you wouldn't flub things up.

The usual way in recitals is that you play a selection or two from a variety of musical periods, starting with the earlier music, and then moving up to more recent music. So you might start with a Baroque piece (by Handel or Bach), then something from the Classical period (e.g. Mozart), then to the Romantic period, and finally something more modern.

I skipped Bach and Mozart, and went directly to a Schubert Impromptu Opus 90 #1, followed by the first movement of the 'Das Lebewohl' Sonata number 26 by Beethoven. I played Chopin's Etude 'Revolutionary' (a favorite since I was 14 years old) and the second Brahms Intermezzo from his Opus 117 (another long-time favorite.) I took a little break and then finished my recital by playing Scriabin's dramatic Etude #8 and the 2eme (2nd) Arabesque by Debussy.

Then the young blond woman (Ericka Blumenthal was her name) asked if I could play a piece by Franz Liszt. Of course I could, so I sat back down at the keyboard and played 'Un Sospiro', and just for kicks I played another short encore piece 'Etincelles' (Sparks) by Moszkowski.

All of my potential sponsors seemed pleased with my playing and the cabal was organized at lunch.

Each of the sponsors pledged to provide a certain amount of money (an amount that I thought was staggeringly large, but to the wealthy people gathered at the table was trivial), with the understanding that if it turned out that more was required, they would be hit up again.

Saul then looked around from person to person and proposed that Ericka would be the central player in the hub, tracking the money coming in and going out, and coordinating the travel and concerts that the group would arrange.

All of them seemed content with the arrangement, and there I was at 21 years old preparing for the life of a concert pianist!

"Jeremy," said Saul, as the group was leaving, "you and Ericka should find somewhere to discuss the logistics of how this will work. I must go and give my goodbyes to my friends and thank them for supporting me by supporting you. It is a sign of the great trust that they have in my judgment with regard to pianistic talent."

Then he left us.

Ericka looked at me and said, "Well, now that we have our marching orders," she laughed, "We had better get to work!

"Let's go to my hotel. They have a bar there where we can find a quiet table and get to know one another and plan."

And off we marched.

I didn't know that in addition to beginning my career, that the next several hours would also be the beginning of a long-term affair of the heart.

We got to Ericka's five-star hotel (I had already been instructed to caller her 'Ericka', not Mrs. Blumenthal) and went to the bar. We found a table in the back and each ordered a drink. I don't remember what we ordered because I was already too much in lust with Ericka.

We began to discuss some of the basic mechanics of how the arrangement would work when a large group of men who were attending a conference at the hotel descended on the bar. We were suddenly in a noisy, crowded room, with the men, almost to a man, leering at Ericka.

I could see that it was making her uncomfortable, but before I could suggest finding another room (I was sure the that hotel are small meeting rooms available), Ericka proposed that we go up to her suite to continue our conversation.

If I hadn't already known that Ericka was wealthy, her suite at the hotel would have impressed me with the fact. It had a larger 'sitting area' than my parent's living room in their house, and included off to the side was a small grand piano. I would later find out, that it also a huge bedroom with a king sized bed and a bathroom to match the rest of the suite, with a double vanity, a huge shower (big enough for two) and two enclosed water closets.

But initially we sat in the large living area. Ericka asked me if I would care for another drink. I told her I would, and she made drinks for both of us.

"Jeremy, I'll set up a joint bank account with you and we will put money in it every month. If you have any special purchase that is going to run the bank account dry, let me know in advance and we can cover it.

"You will also have a credit card with essentially no limit. I will tell you one thing: use the money wisely, because if your patrons believe that you are abusing their trust, they may cut off the funding. On the other hand, most of them have had children in college and understand that young people do need to get out and have fun and go places with friends, and all of that.

"The bills that you have on a regular basis, your rent, for example, we will set up to be automatically paid, as will the credit card. Will this work for you?" she asked.

"Of course. I don't think that my overspending will be much of a problem either. I'm a fairly quiet and introspective guy and I've never been a party animal. You can assume my patrons that if I spend money, other than for the necessities of life, it won't be wasted on frivolous things, other than the periodic large pizza!" I assured her with a smile.

She smiled back.

"Two other additional things you should know about. First, the apartment where you are living is too small. You should have a large enough place to meet with fellow musician to practice, or even have small gatherings for special recitals — similar to what you did today. The place we are moving you to is in Georgetown, just outside Washington D.C., and is owned by one of my husband's companies. You will pay exactly what you pay for your current apartment.

"The second thing is: we are acquiring a rebuilt 7-foot grand to put in the apartment. Your current piano is adequate to practice on, but we have other plans for you that will work better with the larger grand."

To say that I was flabbergasted would be to state it mildly! I was clearly going to be living a better lifestyle that I had even in my previous 21 years! But it placed an obligation on me to earn what I was getting.

Before I go on with my tale, I should perhaps take a second to describe Ericka and myself.

Ericka was a beautiful, 33 year old red head (yes! Twelve years older than me), about five-feet four-inches tall, and weighing about 125 lbs. Big tits in relation to her body, and a shapely ass that attracts everyone's eyes (men AND women) wherever we go.

Her hair was shoulder length and her deep brown eyes were set into an oval shaped face with full lips and a narrow, slightly up tilted nose. Her complexion was clear and slightly darker than most red heads, something that she attributes to her Sephardic Jewish heritage.

I'm just an all American boy! My hair is what is sometimes called a 'dirty blond', cut a little long; my eyes are hazel, and, well, my face doesn't frighten women and small children. Some women have even called me handsome. No accounting for taste.

I stand about 6 feet, even, and weigh in at 185 pounds. I never played any sports (and risk injuring my hands? Heavens no!) but I'm fairly muscular; I swim every day if I can, so my body tends towards long muscles. Not bulked up, but women seem to find me an attractive body type. Enough of that.

For my chosen career goals, my hands are more important.

I do not have Rachmaninoff big hands! My hands aren't small, but they aren't huge either. But total size doesn't tell the whole story. My fingers are long compared with my palms and they are slim. Perhaps more important is that my fingers are all close to the same length. That is, my little finger and my thumb are almost as long as my middle finger. Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that it lets me hit the keys with more even pressure and to reach spans between notes that those with more 'normal' hands find difficult. As I recall, the famous pianist Arthur Rubenstein also had similar hands — a short guy, but with hands that God made for piano.

Sorry — I have digressed from my story.

After we had settled some of the details of how my patrons were going to support me, Ericka and I spent some time just getting to know each other and our backgrounds.

Ericka was from a wealthy family; her father was an investment banker and later in his life a successful venture capitalist. Her mother stayed at home during most of her childhood and when Ericka became a teenager, her mother spent a lot of time volunteering for various medical related charities — heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's and other long-term terminal conditions.

She was an only child and closer to her father than her mother growing up, although she said that had changed when she left for University. At that point she began to rely on her mother more, simply because her father wasn't always as available.

Ericka had taken piano as a child, but it was clear that she was never going to be anything except a hobbyist (and there is nothing wrong with that.) She was quite into art as well, so she double majored in Art and Music History.

She even had an internship at one of the nationally recognized Art Museums, but the experience soured her on the art world. She was completely shocked at the vicious, petty politics of its denizens.

After that, she used her knowledge of what was going on in the Art community to acquire pieces for her own family, but never again tried to become involved with the wider art world.

When she turned 25, Ericka married a man who was one of her father's partners in the venture capital fund. He was 12 years older than she, an age difference exactly half way between her and her father. She laughed when she told me that; she explained it that she must have had undiagnosed 'daddy' issues. But she assured me that she loved her husband deeply.

My life was a much simpler story.

I was the oldest of three children and have two younger sisters.

My father was a high school music teacher and my mother was a nurse. Dad was himself a good pianist, well recognized in our little town. In addition to teaching at the high school, Dad also taught private piano lessons to kids from the town.

One fortunate result for me was that I grew up hearing piano music all the time. I think that I was a little over four years old when I started crawling up on the bench at the piano. Instead of simply banging on the keys, I was selecting notes and trying to imitate the songs that I was learning at school — 'Twinkle, Twinkle', 'Old MacDonald', 'Row, Row' and the like.

My parents were shocked, to say the least!

Dad immediately took me in hand and began to teach me — but not under any pressure. He made it fun and it was years before I understood how good I was for my age. I learned to read music at the same time I was learning my ABC's.

But father was no Leopold Mozart. He was not pushing me to become a performer at eight or ten years old. If I played, it was because I wanted to. And when the response of people was so positive, it encouraged me to play more often.

Another advantage I had was that Dad's piano was a Baldwin grand with a Renner action. I know that this is a bit of inside baseball, but the German made Renner actions are as good as any action made for pianos. Fast, clear and consistent. Dad always made sure that the Baldwin was in tune, as well.

The only problem with this piano was that it spoiled me for other pianos with its quality!

My education up through High School was pretty normal with the exception of the fact that I went home and practiced for several hours every night. I later was told that I often had a small audience of local girls who would sit on the fence outside our house listening to me practicing!

And then, when I was 17, I auditioned for the music academy, and left my hometown for the big city.

For those who might care: my sister, Amy, the middle child, became a High School teacher, just like good ol' Dad; the youngest, Alice, followed in Mom's footsteps and became a nurse. They are both married and popping nephews and nieces who I rarely get home to see. I miss that, I truly do.