Piano Lessons

by Betty Paper

  “What are you staring at?” he sneered.

  “You.” I tentatively reached out to smooth the lock of blond hair off his patch.

  He jerked back and nearly tumbled down the steps before regaining his balance. “What are you doing?”

  “Seeing if your hair feels as soft as it looks.”

  “I don’t want your sympathy. I came here for a fuck.” He pushed past me into the house, knocking me into the doorjamb.

  I shouldn’t have been shocked at his language. He was only telling the truth. But the base crudeness of his words struck a chord deep within me, bringing the sharp pang of shame. I knew I was prostituting myself to him, but he didn’t need to make me feel like a whore.

  I followed him down the hall to the bedroom, my cheeks hot and tears stinging the backs of my eyes. I found him in the process of stripping off his shirt.

  “Put your shirt back on and get out of my house.”

  He blinked at me in surprise. “I’m here for a piano lesson,” he annunciated as though I was dim, then shoved his hand in his front pocket and pulled out a stack of bills and waved them at me. “I have money.”

  “I know what you’re here for. If your way of doing this is to insult me in the cruelest manner possible, then get out. I don’t want or need money from someone who hurts others to make himself feel better.”

  His laugh was bitter and filled with irony. “Honey, if it’s flowers and sweet talk you want, I’m not your man.”

  “Politeness and decorum go a lot further than flowers.”

  “I’m sorry.” His gaze dropped to the floor and he sounded genuinely remorseful. “I don’t like being touched.”

  “That’s going to make what we propose to do rather difficult then, don’t you think?”

  A corner of his mouth twisted up into a wry grin. “I suppose so.”

  “Shall we start over?”

  He nodded, looking rather chagrined, and stuffed his money back into his pocket.

  I held out my hand. “Hello. I’m Ruby Rose.”

  “Hello, Ruby Rose.” He took my hand. “I’m Jack.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Jack. Please, call me Ruby.”

  “Can I ask why a pretty lady like you would have to resort to something like…” He gestured toward the bed. “This?”

  “No. You may not. That’s a very rude and impertinent question.”

  “I’d’ve thought it was a perfectly appropriate question in light of what we intend to do.”

  I sighed. He was rough around the edges, but he was cute and there was something well-meaning in his question.

  “Why would any woman do what we’re proposing to do?”

  “Hey, I get it. I’m not in much of a position to judge considering I’m paying for your time. I guess my real question is why—even for the money—would you want to be with me? I’m not exactly throwing off female advances.”

  I took a measured step closer, wondering if he realized our hands were still clasped. “I think you’re very dashing actually.” Raising my hand slowly, I swept aside his lock of hair. “Like Errol Flynn.” I lowered my hand to his shoulder and moved closer. “I was right.”

  He watched me with a wary look on his face. “About what?”

  “Your hair is as soft as it looks.”

  His laugh held no mirth. “You’re good. Very good. I almost believed…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

  I leaned closer, focusing my attention on his mouth and those lips that reminded me so much of my Johnny’s. “Believe, Jack.”

  He didn’t back away when our lips met. His mouth gave under mine and he tilted his head, taking the kiss deeper and tangling his tongue with mine. He wasn’t as skilled as my Johnny had been, or as rough yet tender as Aaron. There was sorrow in his kiss, but there was hope too. It tasted like honey, melting on my tongue.

  I sifted my fingers through the baby-soft hair at his nape. He groaned into my mouth and became more urgent, more demanding.

  His arm banded around me. I don’t know if it was for support or so that I could feel his member hard and insistent between us. Maybe it was both. I worked open the buttons of his shirt. It was of a finer material than Aaron’s, but then Jack wasn’t a workingman like Aaron. Not because of his injuries, no. This man came from nice things and gentile manners. The war had worn the shine off of him and left him pitted and chipped. He didn’t fit in my new world and I got the feeling he no longer fit in the world he came from before the war.

  Had I not married my Johnny and run off with him, my father might’ve introduced me to a man just like Jack with matrimony in mind.

  Jack grew frustrated in my embrace and pulled away with a curse. He overbalanced and fell onto the bed sideways. His crutch clattered to the floor.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he growled. “It was a stupid idea.”

  He started to reach for his crutch, but I shoved him onto his back. “This works better on the bed.” I hiked up my skirt and straddled him, then started to undo the buttons that ran down the front of my dress.

  He watched, his eye wide and focused on the progress my hands made. Beneath me, his member grew harder. I tilted my pelvis, rubbing against him. He let out a low, hungry sound, his fingers digging into my thigh. I let the garment gap open as it would. I didn’t have the money for fancy underclothing so I’d taken some notions I had found at the five and dime and sewed them to my brazier and underpants. Aaron had approved, but now I worried that my efforts would seem cheap to Jack. He came from a world of silk and lace—French lingerie, not basic white cotton with stitched-on, inexpensive lace.

  I pushed my dress off my shoulders and let it fall. Jack licked his lips, his gaze darting between my breasts and where I straddled him. I unhooked my brazier and tossed it aside. I wasn’t well endowed. My breasts were a little on the small side and out of proportion for how wide my hips were. My Johnny had always said that more than a handful was a waste anyway, and Aaron hadn’t said anything at all about them, just looked hungrily at them right before he worshiped them with his mouth.

  I cupped my meager breasts and pinched my nipples, moaning as though I was enjoying it. I’d done this once before for Aaron, trying to play the coquette. It had worked, and it looked as though it was working for Jack too. He flexed his hips up into me, hitting that sensitive spot. I really did enjoy myself then. Rocking against his stiffened member, I rolled my nipples harder between my fingers and thumbs. The sensations built and I was close to my pleasure when Jack let out a strangled cry and bucked under me.

  His face flushed red from his collar to his hairline. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.” He looked down to the placket of his trousers, where a telltale wet spot bloomed.

  I gave him a delighted grin and went to work undoing his trousers. He tried to wave me off, but I captured his hand and put it on my breast.

  “Let me taste you,” I told him.

  He didn’t try to stop me after that, but he wouldn’t look at me either. Especially after I got him naked from the waist down. His one socked leg hung limply over the side of the bed. My movements had dislodged his hand and he now looked away from me, his gaze fixed somewhere on the other side of the room. He didn’t have a prosthetic leg like Aaron. His exposed mid-thigh stump had bright red scars that would eventually fade to pink.

  I placed the flat of my palms on his thighs, avoiding his injury, and slid them up to clasp his fading member in both hands.

  He lurched upward at my first lick. I was too busy sucking him clean to see, but I knew he watched me. I could feel his gaze on the top of my head. It tingled, tiny pinpricks of knowing sensation. Being young, he quickly rebounded, growing hard once again. He touched the top of my head, drawing my attention.

  “I want…” He cleared his throat. “I want to be inside you next time.” His timid voice sounded nothing like the Jack who had crudely insisted he was only here for a fuck. Nor did the vulnerable look on his face. This was the real Jack, and he looked nothing like the man who’d
waved cash at me, all but calling me a whore.

  I climbed off of him and hooked my thumbs into the waistband of my underpants. Giving him a flirty over-the-shoulder look, I took my time drawing them down my hips, bending to keep them from falling to the floor.

  Coming up on his elbow, he whistled. “You’re a real-life pinup, you know that?”

  I wasn’t, but I wiggled my bottom suggestively at him, then turned to present myself to him fully nude. His gaze roamed my body. He looked younger than when he’d stormed past me into the house, more handsome.

  “You’re really beautiful.” His tone was soft, like the look in his eye.

  I climbed on top of him and helped him out of his shirt. Lying down on him, I covered his body with mine. I knew he needed this skin-on-skin connection the same way Aaron had needed it.

  Aaron spoke often of having only been touched by doctors and nurses in only the most practical and professional ways since his accident. Until he and I were together that first time, he said he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed that basic human connection and had been overwhelmed with the realization that he’d stopped thinking of himself as a human being. All he’d been was a patient, not a man.

  So I gave the same to Jack, stroking and kissing as much of his bare skin as I could reach. I spent a long time just touching him and connecting with him. Tears leaked out of his eye in a never-ending river. His mouth never stopped moving, murmuring praise and at other times incoherent nonsense. He gave me unfettered access to his body. I kissed his scars and stroked his skin. Besides the patch over his eye and his missing leg, his arm had been amputated just above the elbow and he had a long, thin gash that ran from his rib cage to the opposite hip.

  Where Aaron was dark and swarthy, Jack was blond and bright, as though he’d been sprinkled with glitter dust. The room wasn’t overly warm, but a fine sheen of sweat made his body glisten, giving off an earthy masculine scent that pooled moisture between my legs. He was an active participant in our lovemaking. It amazed me what he could do to me with only one hand and the little experience I’d rightly guessed he possessed.

  I grew needy and desperate from wanting him. When I finally rose over him and sank down onto his member, he let out a deep, strangled sigh that said finally.

  Yes, finally.

  He filled me completely. I rode him, rocking my hips to grind against him. My breasts bounced as I drove up and down on him. The scent of our sex filled the room. He thrust his hips up to meet mine. His breathing grew ragged and I knew he was close so I stroked myself between my legs. Throwing his head back, he drove deep into me and cried out, his fingers digging into my hip.

  My climax hit with the force of a bomb. A long low moan ripped through me. I collapsed beside him. Our breath mingled as we gazed at each other. There was so much emotion in his expression that I had to swallow to hold back the feelings he might mistake for pity. I didn’t feel at all sorry for this man, this brave, strong warrior. Only joy and a new tender connection that I hoped we could build on. He was good inside, despite all the bad that had happened to him.

  I smoothed his sweet lock of hair back and smiled at him. For the first time I got to see a glimpse of what he might have been like before the war.

  “I think I love you,” he whispered, tears making his eye shine.

  “I think I might love you too.”

  “Marry me?”

  I giggled and gave him a hard kiss. “If only I’d met you before my Johnny. I might’ve taken you up on your offer.”

  His brows drew together. “You’re married?”

  “No, no, not anymore.” I told him all about my Johnny and how I loved him so much I would never marry again.

  Sadness crept over Jack’s face for a moment and then he gave a brief shake of his head, dislodging it. In its place was a wicked smile.

  “I can have you whenever I want then? This doesn’t ever have to end?”

  “It’s up to you when our arrangement ends. You can come to me as often as you’d like.”

  “As often as I can afford, you mean.” I couldn’t read his expression.

  “It’s all I have to give,” I said sadly.

  “Then it will have to be enough.”

  He pushed off the bed with his remaining arm and leg, rolling us so that he was on top. His member still inside me, he thrust deep. It took him some time to get the movements down and coordinate his two remaining limbs to do what he used to do with four. Soon he was dripping with sweat and close to climax. I clung to him, my own desire a living, breathing, demanding beast. Rolling his hips, he hit my pleasure spot with every lunge. He focused on my face, his gaze cataloging my expressions as though they were math problems he had to memorize and recite back.

  He was still weak in his recovery, but he championed on, giving me a glimpse of the old him before his injuries. He struggled to keep up the pace and I knew he was waiting for me to take my pleasure before he’d take his own. That knowledge sent me tumbling over the edge. His seed poured into me soon after and he collapsed midway, unable to keep himself over me a second longer.

  I smoothed his hair back, my heart twisting at the sight of his lips turned up in a small smile. His eye was closed, his face relaxed, which gave me even more pleasure than the physical act we’d shared.

  He drifted off to sleep almost immediately. I slipped out from under him and covered him with the bed sheet. In the mid-morning sun he looked so sweet and peaceful I didn’t dare disturb him. He slept until it was nearly nightfall. I fed him and then took him to bed again.

  When I woke in the morning, he was gone. On my nightstand was more money than we’d agreed to and a note that said he’d come ’round the same time next week.

  Jack would prove to be a most faithful and ardent student.

  Lesson Three

  I was able to put away a good portion of the money Aaron and Jack gave me toward the property taxes, but at the rate we were going, I would still be short when the bill came due. To make matters worse, I lost my part-time job at Feldon’s department store to a soldier who had been sent stateside because of a bad heart. He had a family to support. I didn’t.

  My supervisor offered to give me a recommendation, which wouldn’t do me much good. Jobs were scarce for someone like me with no discernable skills. I’d been raised to be a wife, not a secretary. The best I could do was a factory job, but that would mean giving up teaching piano to the children who regularly came to me. One of whom was very talented and dedicated. I couldn’t let them down. My other lessons with Aaron and Jack could be adjusted, but the children’s could not.

  I tried to hide as many of my troubles from Aaron as I could. He was too clever by half though and sussed out my worry on one of our afternoons.

  He lifted his head from my breast and speared me with his dark eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m just a little tired I suppose.”

  “You’re a bad liar.”

  “I lost my job at the store.”

  “Son of a bitch. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I am telling you.”

  “I mean before…” He motioned to where he was seated deep inside me, large and throbbing.

  “Sorry.”

  “How much do you need?”

  I shook my head. This wasn’t the time to be having this conversation.

  He yanked my hands above my head and held them, then pulled his hips back and slammed back in hard, eliciting an unbidden moan from me. “How.” He did it again. “Much?” And again.

  He knew I loved it when he got rough with me. “Over nine hundred dollars,” I panted.

  “How did it get to be that much?”

  “The taxes haven’t been paid in over five years. I just got a letter.”

  “Let the house go. Come live with me.”

  “I can’t.” This house was all I had left of my Johnny. Aaron knew that.

  “He’s not in this house, Ruby.” He placed a big hand on my chest over my heart. “He’s h
ere.”

  “I know that.” I bit my lip and looked away. “But this is where I feel closest to him.”

  “I’m here. I’m inside you.” To prove his point, he thrust hard into me. “And I’m jealous of a goddamned ghost.”

  A tear leaked out. “I can’t be what you want. I love him and I don’t know how to stop.”

  “Shut up and stop that crying.” He crushed his mouth to mine and drove into me over and over at a relentless, brutal pace.

  I thrashed beneath his big body. His mouth moved down my neck to my breast and I came apart under him, screaming my Johnny’s name.

  He didn’t stop. He kept pounding into me as though he could force my Johnny out and himself in. I got no rest. He came at me with the force of a tidal wave, bashing against the rocks. I cried out again. Only with my Johnny had I climaxed more than once. Only he could make me wild and uninhibited.

  Aaron kept on, pushing me further and further until I was sobbing and climaxing all at the same time.

  He let go with a deep guttural growl. He’d always been tender with me, even when he was rough, but not this time. This time was all about him putting his stamp on me. Except it didn’t stick. My Johnny was like a physical presence in the bed with us. I could almost see him, smiling and cheering me on and telling me to wring as much as I could out of life because it was short. Too short. For him and for us.

  “Honey, listen to me,” Aaron gasped, turning my face to his. “I’ll get you the money. I’ll get you whatever you want. I’ll talk to Jack. We’ll put our heads together. No more crying, eh?”

  I nodded.

  He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “We’ll get you whatever you want. Whatever you need.”

  They got me more than that. They got me Henry.

  Lesson Four

  I was summoned by telegram to appear at an office building in downtown Los Angeles three days later. I had little time to prepare. The telegram gave away nothing, only the barest details—the time, day, address, and the directive that I was to be freshly bathed and wear no undergarments. I was to tell no one where I was going. For this, I would be paid one hundred dollars for half an hour of my time.