The Pianist and His Lover

"Ericka? Are you all right? Is there something wrong?"

"Oh Jeremy! I just needed to hear your voice. To know that you still hold this old lady dear in your heart."

I thought that it sounded as if Ericka had been crying, and maybe drinking a little. I knew that Tom wasn't scheduled to be home yet.

"Ericka, you know how dear you are to me. How can you doubt me?"

"Jeremy, I'm worried that our time together is coming to an end, and I'm frightened. I miss you already. I don't think that you understand how much I adore you. But I wanted to give you time to be alone with Helen."

"Ericka, I miss you too. And remember, you go home to Tom. You sleep with him; you spend your days with him. You are with him most weekends. You go to parties and dinners with Tom and your friends.

"I miss you, and I only get the crumbs from Tom's table. A day or a night every once in a while. Even then, we have to be careful and discreet. But I'm willing to take what I can get and be satisfied with it.

"So don't be worried or jealous; there is no one out there who has my heart like you do. And even if someday I meet someone, I will still love you. Do you understand my sweet love?"

There was a moment of silence on the phone, before Ericka spoke again,

"Thank you, Jeremy, for being so kind to me. You are right, I take advantage of you. Our affair is weighted in my favor. I know that in my rational brain. But my emotional side loves you so much."

We said our good nights and I got into bed. I didn't go to sleep quickly that night, because everything that I had said to Ericka was true. But Helen was in my mind more and more. Ericka was always insightful, and perhaps she could see what I could not; that our remaining time together was limited.

Every day, until Tom returned home, Ericka and I would Skype each other. The exception was when Helen was over, and that was still limited to Helen and me working together on our music. Sometimes we would turn on the Skype and Ericka would simply listen to me practice. To be honest, I couldn't have done that myself; listening to someone go over the same 4 or 8 measures of music 20, 30, or 40 times until I was satisfied with all of the details. It must have been boring as hell. But Ericka didn't complain. She said she enjoyed being there, even if it was a virtual presence.

Ericka had set up the technicians, the cameraman, sound people, and editors, so that Helen and I could continue to produce music videos together in Ericka's absence. She was moving back and allowing me to stand on my own feet.

Helen and I recorded several more videos in the next two weeks. The first was a cello/piano version of Rachmaninoff's "Vocalise" set in a neighbor's lush garden.

Of course we recorded the music in a small studio and while we did play on location, we couldn't have used the recording with traffic noise and students walking and talking on the sidewalks and all of the normal detritus of city life.

In fact, the most difficult part of that video was getting a grand piano moved out into the garden and placed on pavers to keep it from sinking into the soft ground. Eventually, my neighbor allowed us to bring in enough pavers to make a small area in the middle of his back yard solid. We put the piano, my bench and Helen with her cello on the hard surface and played. It came out looking very nice, with Helen and I exchanging amorous glances at each other from several camera angles as well as one time with a camera on a steady-cam while the cameraman walked in circles around us. In total, I think that we played the piece about a dozen times total to get all of the shots for the video.

It was a lot of work for a video lasting about 5 minutes!

After we had finished that for the day, Helen and I went to dinner again, but this time we came back to my place where we had a few more drinks and began kissing and fondling each other. We were both getting rather excited; I wasn't sure but I thought that we would end up having sex that night.

Then it seemed like Helen was pulling back. She looked at me with a worried, almost panicked look.

"Jeremy, I want to make love with you. But I want you to know, you can't expect too much from me. I'm not a virgin, but I don't have very much experience with sex. I was spending all of my time pursuing my career, not men. I want to be good for you, but can you be patient with me?

"The good news," she said with a shy grin, "is that I'm a fast learner!"

She looked at me hopefully and I just smiled back.

" Honestly," I replied, "I haven't experienced that many women either. But if you are willing, we can learn to share and teach each other. Because I've wanted to make love with you since the time that you came to me, asking me make music with you."

That night was satisfying, slow and gentle loving. It was both a beginning and an end.

In the bedroom we undressed and looked at each other for the first time naked.

She was beautiful standing there shy and demure. Her skin was fair and creamy. Her breasts were not small, but not large either; they were a medium size with an aureole a little larger than a quarter and nipples standing proud. Her breasts stood out without any sag. I approached and gently touched them and put my mouth down on them and licked and sucked them, but only for a brief time.

I stood up straight again and my cock (also standing up straight!) touched her.

My arms encircled her as I began kissing her again on her mouth. Can anyone understand when a kiss just fits and feels right? Helen's kiss felt so right for me, the perfect complement for my lips and tongue.

My mouth lowered to kiss her neck, feeling her slight shiver as I did. My lips played a little with her earlobes.

As I held her there, I felt her hand reaching out and feeling my hardness; not really stroking, a more tentative movement, feeling the softness of my glans and then encircling the whole of my shaft.

I slowly and easily pushed her back onto the bed. I followed her and kissed her mouth again before I returned to her breasts. She lay there with her eyes closed gently moaning while one arm was holding me and the other was stroking my hair.

She suddenly stiffened and after a short time, relaxed. She had a small orgasm just from the attentions to her breasts.

Her flat and perfect stomach was my next destination; giving her light kisses while her body told me that it was very sensitive. I moved further down and licked the crease between her legs and her torso. That resulted in her legs jerking up.

"It's too ticklish!" she whispered.

Her pubic hair was trimmed short and neat, but not shaped.

As I began to spread her legs and move in between them, she began to object,

"No, don't go there, it's dirty and sweaty!"

"Just lay back," I insisted, "Lay back and enjoy. Let me teach you about pleasure."

I worked my way around her center, her secret places, with my lips and my tongue. It was almost becoming torture for her.

Then I began to lick her from the top of her slit down to her anus, finally teasing her hidden bud. She was wet and so hot that I could feel the heat on my face. I thought that I had excited her with my preludes long enough that it was time to go to the first movement of the concerto of love.

The first time I directly stroked her clitoris with my tongue, she loosed a loud moan, "Aaaaah," and her legs moved further apart of their own volition.

Then I licked my finger and began to put into her vagina, searching for that spot inside that almost seems like the root of the clitoris, her 'G' spot. I began to move my finger in and out, rubbing the top of her channel. Even as wet as she was, she was tight and her vagina gripped my finger.

With my other hand, I reach up and began to roll her hard nipple between my fingers. Her moaning became more intense, and I could feel the muscles in her legs vibrating uncontrollably.

Her orgasm was intense; her legs lifted her torso off of the bed, while her vocal accompaniment reached an apex. I think she was hitting a high 'C'. I kept my tongue, not moving, but pressed into her clitoris, until her spasms began to calm down, when I gently removed my then wet face.

She collapsed on the bed, her eyes closed, her arms and legs spread eagle.

"I've never felt anything like that before in my entire life. I've never had a real orgasm before. Now I can understand why women want men to give them their love and their sex."

I went into the bathroom and wiped my face off before returning and getting on the bed. I didn't try to resume the oral sex, because although some women may get off multiple times in a row that way, most women that I had known found themselves too sensitive to keep going. But they can still orgasm from a hard cock in their vaginas.

I think that Helen wanted to try returning the favor and using her mouth on me, but she admitted that she didn't really know how. So instead I pulled her to the side of the bed, where I could stand and take her on her back.

She was wet, but still tight, so I had to work my way in slowly. But the vagina is elastic, so after her natural fluids had coated my cock and I had bottomed out in her, I could start giving her an energetic shagging.

Since she was still sensitive from the oral sex, her body started responding quickly. She lifted her legs up and I went deeper into her body. We were two merging into one.

She began to climax, smaller than the first orgasm, but they kept coming one after the next, until I released my seed into her garden. She could feel my release in her womb and she had a final, bigger climax.

I leaned over and kissed her, and when I pulled out, I retrieved a warm cloth from the bathroom and cleaned us both up. Then I crawled back into bed and we slept.

We woke again after a couple of hours and this time Helen was able to start learning to give as well as get oral sex. We slept again, and in the morning we had another coupling.

Eventually we had to get up and get breakfast. We were both starving.

And Helen didn't go home that night.

And within two weeks, she was living with me in my house.

~~*~~

The truth was that although I had been entirely infatuated with Ericka, my relationship with Helen was of a deeper level altogether.

I thought about it, and I'm fairly certain that it wasn't that Ericka and I couldn't have had a similar relationship as I did with Helen, but the circumstances wouldn't let us.

We did love each other, I'm sure, but I think that because we both knew that we would never be exclusive to the other, we held back some part of ourselves.

Helen, on the other hand, threw herself entirely into creating 'us'. The word was 'we' not 'her' and 'I'.

I wasn't entirely sure of how I was going to do it, but I had to give up my one love in order to completely have my other love. I would never have Ericka, but I would have Helen.

I don't want to give the impression that I was not working and advancing my career while Helen and I were becoming a couple. I had a number of bookings around the country and in our down time, Helen and I were still doing music videos.

A LOT of people like cello and piano duets, and "Helen and Jeremy' had quickly garnered several hundred thousand followers. Of course, part of that was due to the fact that I already had over one hundred thousand followers and they were encouraged to follow us as well.

When there was a break in our schedules, we did a video that I was rather proud of, because it was a departure point from our, basically all classical, music videos.

We got permission from the Park Department to film in one of the large rose garden areas on the national mall area. Thousands and thousands of varieties of roses. Again we recorded the music in a studio first, but then we moved a grand piano out into the garden and Helen and I also performed our music there on a bright and temperate day. It was fun because as we played there on the mall, we gathered an audience of ordinary people visiting their nation's capital. Children, teenagers, to octogenarians.

In addition to the takes of Helen and I playing our instruments, we had taken footage of us chasing each other around through the garden, playing a 'hide and seek' game, playing 'tag', and finally with us coming together, looking into each other's eyes, and me handing Helen a single red rose. And no, we bought it from a florists shop; we did not pick it from the garden!

The music was special. We started with Edward McDowell's 'To a Wild Rose', but when we finished the 'A' section of the piece, we transitioned into Seal's 'Kissed From a Rose', only to finish with the recapitulation from the McDowell.

The impromptu audience really enjoyed the combined music, and they were very generous with their applause. Plus a lot of cheers and

It made for a very romantic and popular video when it was posted.

It got us a call from Ericka as well, telling us how beautiful the music was and how romantic it was, and her voice softened, how when we looked at each other we looked like lovers. Shortly after that she rang off.

~~*~~

Shortly after that, both Helen and I became busy again with our careers. Helen resumed practices with the NSO, a good thing because the musicians were only paid when they were working. Time off is great, but when the money isn't coming in, they have to scramble.

In contrast, I had several concerts in the Midwest that would take me off for a couple of weeks. But I wanted to also do something special for my patrons.

In this case, I turned not to Ericka, who I was going to especially recognize, but to Diane Steele. And Diane Steele was only too happy to help. I think that she had always wanted to be the person running my early career, but Saul didn't really give her the choice. At last, she would be the one in charge, if only for this one event.

We decided to have the small reception for my patrons with the special recital for them, at Diane's mansion. She, of course, wanted me to stay with her at her place, but I insisted that it would be too blatant and I would stay at one of the hotels in town. The other issue with the timing was that I needed to leave after the time with my patrons to get back home to do another video with Helen.

I think that Diane, in her delusions of my feelings towards her, was a little upset at my close ties with Helen, but it kept her from thinking about Ericka and me. And it was Ericka who I was thinking of.

My time where I had one of my patrons with me for my concerts had passed. I had an agent and he arranged for a personal assistant to meet me when I arrived in the area, who would get me to the venue, to my hotel, restaurants and anywhere else I needed to be.

This wasn't any sort of put down of my patrons. If any of them were close enough, we would get together for dinner and spend some time chatting about how my career was going, but it was more of a social thing at this point. They would obviously get VIP tickets to the concert and to any meet-n-greets afterwards. I really did appreciate their early support, and we would remain friends for the rest of our lives.

Finally, the night arrived for the appreciation recital at Diane's place. Her home was a mansion, but it was not old. It was a fairly new building, done in a modern style, concrete structure, large glass windows and a roof flat that angled down away from the front of the house. It had a lot of rooms and several that were large and open. Perfect for our little soirée.

All of my patrons, as well as Saul (now having turned 92 years old!) were there and I had a chance to thank each one of them separately before I played. I also promised to pass on the kindness that they had shown me when I encountered other talented pianists just starting their careers.

This was a very different recital from the first time that I played for them. It was very informal. In between each piece we would discuss the music and why I played it the way I did. Saul and I would point out where the technical difficulties were and where there were possible differences in interpretation.

At dinner I was seated in the front with Saul, my honored mentor, on one side, and because it was her house, Diane on the other side. Ericka was seated just past Saul.

I thanked Saul, first of all, for his tutelage for many years. I turned and gave him a brief hug and was surprised to find that he had tears in his eyes. He laughed a little at himself and proclaimed, "In my old age, I'm becoming a sentimental fool!"

I thanked Diane for all of her support and for hosting the event. She turned and we hugged and she laid a big kiss on my cheek (whispering to me that she wished that she could be 'kissing me' somewhere else, followed with a giggle.)

Then I got up and walked behind Ericka's chair and had her stand up next to me.

The next ten minutes I spent telling the group of patrons how much and the many ways that Ericka had helped me. I told them several funny stories of close mishaps that Ericka prevented; of her always unflappable way of dealing with difficult stage managers, business managers and conductors. How she took people who were initially antagonistic and turned them into supporters. I explained to the group how she had made sure that every opportunity to enhance my career was seized, and her imagination for using social media and the web as tools for creating a fan base.

When I was done, I gave her a big, full-body hug. She kissed my cheek as well, and then spoke to the patrons, telling them that it was such a pleasure for her to help me on my way and that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for her, that she would not have missed for anything.

After that, the group broke up and we all went our own ways.

Instead of going to the airport and home, as I had led people to believe, an hour after I had left the gathering, found me knocking on the door to Ericka's suite at her hotel, with a bottle of champagne in one hand and a bouquet of red roses in the other.

Ericka opened the door and I came in closing the door with my foot behind me. She took the roses from my hand and put them down on a handy table. I, in turn, started to open the champagne and look for glasses. I filled a couple of flutes and handed her one.

"Jeremy, thank you for this evening. I can't tell you how touched I am that you shared what we've done and accomplished together. You gave me too much credit, because nothing that I have done would have meant anything if it weren't for your talent and skills."

We then tipped our glasses together in a toast to each other and kissed, a passionate lovers kiss.

"Without you," I replied, looking into her loving eyes, "my skills would count for nothing. And I hope that everyone in the room understood that we were not just two people working together, but that we have become the closest of friends."

I laughed, "Although I suspect that at least Diane suspects that we may be lovers as well!"

With that we adjourned to the bedroom where we made gentle, sweet love. It was, though, like the words from the song:

Bésame,

bésame mucho —

como si fuera esta noche

la ultima vez.

Kiss me, kiss me again, as if this night may be the last time...

I loved Ericka, probably more than she loved me. I think that for her I was an embodiment of my music, and that, not the real me, was what she loved.

We got very little sleep that night. Making love, napping, drinking our champagne and making love again.

But eventually, the morning came.

"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.