The Pianist and His Lover

I nodded in the affirmative.

"They want you to come back and play either the Grieg or the Schumann piano concerto with the orchestra. Then they will add a couple of their orchestral pieces and put out an album with the two piano concertos titled 'Jeremy Keyes plays Beethoven' and either Grieg or Schumann with the Cincinnati orchestra. They haven't had a new album for a while, so they will promote it heavily. Will that work for you?"

"It sounds great," I replied, thinking of the facts that as far as I knew, none of my contemporaries at the institute had made an album yet. I would be happy to be the first.

Not long afterwards, Ericka and Tom left to return to their hotel room (at another hotel from where I was staying). Tom was leaving early in the morning to go back to New York for work.

They bid me good night and Tom wished me continued luck and told me that he looked forward to the next time I could come and visit with them. Ericka told me that she would call me in the morning and let me know what the logistics would be.

I should have known that Diane wasn't going to be so easily discouraged. When I arrived back at my room, it was dark, but when I turned on the lights and entered the bedroom to take off my clothes, there was Diane in the bed posed like 'The Nude Maja', waiting for me.

"It took you long enough," she said.

I looked at her curiously, "How did you get into my room? I don't mind, but I was wondering."

She laughed.

"It would usually only cost $100 to one of the maids to open the door, but I didn't even have to do that. You see, didn't I tell you: I own this hotel!"

Her laughs echoed through the rooms.

I was completely exhausted by the time she left.

~~*~~

The drive the next morning from Cincinnati to Lexington was only a little over an hour and a half, so Ericka had rented a car and we would make the drive together.

I was so much more comfortable with Ericka than Diane. Ericka WAS flirty, but she somehow didn't come off as aggressive as Diane. And she was such a pleasure to talk to.

She knew the music based on her own piano playing. She might not be able to play all the pieces, but she could follow in the music and what parts of piece were more difficult than others. It made it possible for me to talk to her about my interpretation of the music and in some cases, how my interpretation differed from other pianists.

But we didn't just talk music or business on the way. We also talked about our lives growing up, our families and friends, our likes and dislikes.

Sometimes as we chatted about things, the age difference showed up. There were subjects that she talked about that were enough before my time that she had to explain them to me.

We compared the literature that we enjoyed, and I was surprised at how much recent fiction that we had both read. That gave us common ground to cover.

I was fairly well informed about music history, I had to be, but Ericka was much more knowledgeable about the composers and their music than I was due to her double major in school.

But when she began talking about art and art history, I was completely adrift. Over the next two years she would be my guide and teacher when it came to art. Eventually, when I could afford to be a buyer, she helped guide me to artists whose work I would appreciate and helped me acquire pieces at honest prices.

This, even more than the sexual liaisons we had, brought me close to her. I was entranced and content when I was with her in a way that I wasn't when she was not with me. Ours was an emotional affair at its heart.

We arrived in Lexington and the process was very similar to that in Cincinnati. I would have an opportunity to practice on the concert grand to get a feel for the instrument. I would practice together with the orchestra, and then we would have the performance.

At night, after all of the music had finished playing, Ericka and I would make love together — sometimes gentle, sometime hard, and I began to be able to read from her body's response how she wanted it.

We were always intensely discreet. Neither one of us wanted to hurt Tom, but somehow it seemed as if when we were together Tom and Ericka's marriage didn't exist. We were passionate about each other.

In real life, though, the amount of time we spend in bed is finite. Most of our hours are spent in the mundane tasks of life. But a couple having an affair are unlikely to be able to share those many hours.

We had a great advantage over most other people having an affair: it was absolutely expected that we would be seen together in public. Ericka was indeed acting as my manager and my publicity agent as well as my business agent. We ate together in public; we attended post-concert parties together, we did everything together and no one thought anything of it. Or if the did, they didn't say so and pretended to not to notice.

The concert in Lexington was quite successful, I gathered, filling the concert hall with the orchestra's usual following; afterwards I was told that there were quite a number of people who had been at the concert in Cincinnati who had traveled down to hear this concert as well. I guess I was developing a small following.

Then it was back to Cincinnati where we recorded the Schumann piano concerto in A-minor. The acoustics in Music Hall are so good that we recorded it there rather than in a studio. There was even an audience of music students from the U. of Cincinnati and season ticket holders who were allowed into the hall to provide the 'live recording' ambiance.

I think that I shocked the members of the orchestra. The conductor asked me which of the concertos I wanted to perform; the orchestra knew them both.

Rather than make the decision on my own, I asked the members of the orchestra which concerto THEY favored. They voted and about 2/3s of the orchestra voted for the Schumann. So they pulled up their music and we ran through it once and then recorded it.

Afterwards I spent about an hour, along with the conductor, speaking with the students about the music; how I approached it, how long did it take to learn it, those sorts of things. The conductor told me that he was going to be spending the summer in London and wondered if I could come over to perform with him there. Of course I said yes! My first real gig that wasn't coming from one of my patrons.

Then it was time for Ericka and I to leave for the airport for our flight back. The flight wasn't that long, but Ericka and I (sitting in the first class cabin — another first for me) chatted and she laid out her plans for me.

She told me that some of the other Patrons were arranging various recitals and concerts around the country and in Europe. But even when I was to be living at home she had ideas for local soirees that could take place. Videos for the 'net, where it seems I was becoming a bit of a celebrity. Hey! Okay, it wasn't rock star numbers but over 75,000 following me in such a short time was pretty impressive. At least to me.

Ericka gave me a brief kiss on the lips while we were still in the plane; nothing to stir up the attendants, and we were off, Ericka ready to pick up her luggage for the ride home to Tom, and me to grab my short connecting flight.

It was good to finally make it home. I was missing my time at home, my peace and solitude. This just after a couple of weeks. What will it be like if I start touring like some artists do, for several hundred days a year?

At least I have Ericka, my friend, my support, my love, my lover, my joy, to sustain me.

ERICKA

What am I to do? I've found myself in an impossible situation. It wasn't supposed to be this way.

When Saul invited me down to hear his new prodigy, he didn't even tell us if it was a man or a woman until the morning we arrived, just hours before the recital.

I wasn't expecting someone as attractive as Jeremy. It is a good thing for an artist to be good looking; people respond to them in a positive way even before they play. But Jeremy's good looks immediately stunned me. There was an immediate spark, at least on my end.

My function was supposed to be something akin to a personal assistant to get Jeremy's career off the ground. I was supposed to manage his finances, to make sure that he didn't have to fret about money; I was supposed to handle his professional engagements early on, until he acquired enough recognition to have an agent. I was supposed to be interfacing with his other patrons making sure that they were using their connections to promote his career.

What I was not supposed to do was to become obsessed with my charge and start a torrid love affair. But I couldn't help myself.

I had grown up knowing famous musicians. I had met many well-known pianists, men and women. But most were like Saul, Jeremy's teacher, who had already retired from active performance by the time I was five years old. They were older people, who impressed me with their music, but none of whom caused me, as a young woman, to feel any sexual desire.

Jeremy oozed sexuality to me from the minute that his fingers touched the keyboard and I heard him pour out his heart into his music. I felt desire, but also an urge to protect him, to pull him into my bosom and keep the world at a distance. At the same time I understood that he couldn't be sheltered from the world; he had to venture out and conquer it.

Like Eve in the Garden, I gave in to temptation and threw myself at him that first evening — an act that caused me both great guilt as well as great pleasure. In New York, we had a hurried liaison and his open desire for me was so sweet.

The time that sealed my fate was his first small concert tour in Cincinnati and Lexington.

My husband, Tom, had noticed my enthusiasm for the young artist and had supported my work on Jeremy's behalf. Tom discounted Jeremy as a romantic rival, I think for several reasons. First, because he was so much younger than me, and I had always had a preference for older men and never for younger; and second was that Jeremy seemed to embrace Tom as a respected friend, someone who Tom felt comfortable with. Tom even came out with me to hear Jeremy's performance in Cincinnati when his European trip was suddenly cancelled and rescheduled for several days later.

I was jealous and unhappy that he had slept with Diane, even though I had urged him to. My heart leapt for joy when he told me how shallow his time with her felt and how unsatisfactory sex was when there was no connection of souls.

For the next week, he and I were on the road together first going to Lexington before coming back to Cincinnati to complete the recording.

Every night we spent in each other's arms, making love and finding those secrets of pleasure that we could afford each other. In the early morning, we would return to our individual rooms to clean up and dress (although sometimes we would tempt fate and shower together.) One of us would go down for breakfast first and then perhaps 10 or 15 minutes later, the other would arrive. It didn't seem too strange, because we often had other guests eating with us as well. We were doing business early in the day before we began the serious musical work.

We were together most of the day, and we talked, we went to local museums, we saw the sights of the city — like a pair of lovers on vacation. Of course, Jeremy also practiced for several hours a day, so it wasn't entirely play.

But we got to know each other and became close. Best friends, even. Something that I should have only been with my husband.

At dinner, again, it was normal for several guests to join us — wealthy patrons of the local music scene. The local performing groups got their monies worth from us. Jeremy played with the orchestra, but he also in effect helped them to publicize and raise money by his contacts with large donors.

Then we would (usually again, one first and then the other sometime later) retire to our rooms and sleep in each other's arms.

By the time we left on our flight to our respective homes, we were linked together in a love as deep as it was hopeless. I alternated walking in the clouds with despair for a love that could never be.

JEREMY

Ericka told me on the flight back that she had some ideas for the next month or so, as I didn't have anything solid booked for that period. But she told me to get home and relax and that she would call me in the middle of the week.

I told her about the possibility of going over to England for a festival that the conductor of the Cincinnati Orchestra had proposed to me; but that was some time away.

In the meantime, I was going to work on Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," something the conductor had recommended to me to be ready to play in England.

It was exciting looking towards a future as a recognized performing musician.

Ericka did come through (didn't she always) and on the following Wednesday she called and by then she had a full schedule of local musical activities for the next 6 weeks there in the Washington D.C. area. Private recitals for charities at the homes of the movers and shakers; she had me teaching master classes at several of the local universities; she even convinced the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) to let me play a couple of solo piano pieces during one of the programs.

In the meantime, my patrons from around the country began filling my schedule with performances in the smaller cities, but with reputable orchestras.

So while my professional life was blooming, albeit slowly, I was personally in a state of emotional limbo.

Ericka found excuses for why she had to be in D.C. with me. Sometimes Tom was with her, other times not. I would periodically visit her and Tom in their homes, both in Long Island and in the city. They were becoming my closest friends, and when the opportunity presented itself, she and I were lovers. All too infrequent for my tastes. When we were seen around town, I was viewed as her protégé, and if anyone suspected us of being involved beyond that, they never said so. But who really knows? Washington is a place full of people having and keeping secrets.

When Ericka wasn't around, I did date other women and some I would even sleep with. But none had that connection. They were pleasant, eager to please, but not long-term relationship prospects. More or less, as I said before, classical music groupies! Most of them shared my casual attitude about seeing each other when it was convenient, without expectations of exclusivity. There were a few that wanted it to go beyond that level, but there was no spark there and so after a few times together, we would go our own ways.

The one true love, the one woman who I couldn't see myself without was Ericka. The worst thing, in a way, was that my love wasn't 'unrequited', it was just doomed.

As my national engagements were picking up, Ericka accompanied me about one-third of the time. Sometimes one of the other patrons would meet me for an engagement that they had arranged and in those cases Ericka wouldn't come along.

If I was in the mid-west where Diane could join me (without taking too much of her important time!), she would be at me side. My relationship with Diane was kind of strange. I still slept with her periodically and she was still of the belief that when I wasn't with her I was pining away for her. After awhile, I just took it for what is was and appreciated her for the boost to my career she was giving me. If it enhanced her self-image thinking that a young man was captivated by her sexuality, then fine. It was actually a bit humorous to me.

She actually became something of a beard for Ericka and I. Since she was so convinced that we were a couple of star-crossed lovers, the word got around (I'm sure that she was herself the source of the rumors) of our 'romantic encounters'; consequently, no one suspected that Ericka and I were really the hopeless lovers.

We had become so close. When I was playing in a city close to where my parents lived, Ericka and I had dinner with them! My father certainly admired Ericka himself, but I think that the age thing made him dismiss the notion of us as a couple. I think my mother was not so sure. She could always read people like a book and I think that she had her suspicions. But so long as Ericka was helping me achieve my lifelong dream, she would live with my loose morals.

In most places we were strangers to our surroundings. We could walk hand-in-hand down the streets or in the parks and museums. We could go to dinner together without a thought. It was as if we were a married couple, except after two or thee or five days, Ericka would pack up and return to Tom.

There was only one time when we were almost caught in the act, so to speak. It was during the summer when we went to England for the music festival organized by the Cincinnati Orchestra's conductor. Of course, I knew him and the Concert Master, as well as being acquainted with a number of the principal chairs, so by then it was almost like old home week.

Ericka, of course, couldn't be left behind when I was performing in the U.K., so were taking advantage of the time to be tourists (although she had been to London many times before.)

The festival organizers had made my travel arrangements, so I was not put up in a 5-Star hotel, of the sort where Ericka stayed. But it was only a short walk from my hotel to hers and we alternated rooms, one night hers, the next night mine. We weren't being especially cagey; maybe by then we had become complacent in our affair.

It was the morning after one of the performances and a day before the last show and were we eating breakfast in the restaurant of Ericka's hotel, when Tom walked in the room. Fortunately, the conductor was with us as well as the chairman of the festival committee, so it hardly seemed like a clandestine meeting.

Tom had, on the spur of the moment, decided to fly over and join us in London for the last show, and then afterwards he was going to take Ericka to Paris for a week of vacation.

Everyone welcomed him and congratulated him on his big surprise visit. I was just thankful that we had stayed in MY room the night before so there were no telltale signs of any hanky-panky in her room.

We didn't stop meeting after that, but it shook us up and we became more careful. Tom loved Ericka, but there was no point in being so flagrant as to be insulting.

ERICKA

There is an odd symmetry between the men in my life. Tom's age is halfway between my father's and my age, while my lover Jeremy is an equal amount younger. So, am I too young for my husband, or too old for my lover? But that is just silly, because I'm already committed to my husband, and I know that I can never be together on a permanent basis with my lover.

The past year, living with Tom, but going off and having an affair with my young lover has been personally satisfying, but it has revealed odd aspects of my personality.

When I'm with Tom, I'm with Tom. Completely. I don't fantasize that I am having sex with Jeremy when Tom and I are making love; and when I'm with Jeremy, Tom doesn't exist. I've, what do they call it, 'compartmentalized' my relationships with my two men. I still feel guilty when I am alone and start thinking about what I'm doing, but it doesn't stop me from wanting them both.

Jeremy is my secret obsession. I don't know how to relate to him. Is he like a son to me? Is he like a brother? I feel as if he is family and I've known him forever, but at the same time, he is a virile man to me. Just a lot younger than I am!

Since I joined the group of Jeremy's patrons I have been with him for around one-third of his performances. Tom asked me about that once, not suspicious, just curious.

"Does he really need you to hold his hand so much of the time?" he asked.