Caressa’s Knees

by Caressa's Knees (html)

  “I’M SORRY,” SHE WHISPERED AGAINST HIS NECK. “I DON’T KNOW WHY I ACT THAT WAY SOMETIMES.”

  HE WAS STILL, NOT OFFERING ANY PERSPECTIVE BEYOND A LIGHT, SOOTHING CARESS UP AND DOWN HER ARM. FINALLY HE SAID, “YOU’RE LIKE SOMETHING RUNNING THROUGH MY FINGERS, THAT I KEEP GRABBING AT.” HE SOUGHT HER WRIST AND HIS FINGERS TIGHTENED AROUND IT ALMOST PAINFULLY. “I WANT TO CATCH YOU. BUT I’M NOT SURE THAT DESIRE IS COMING FROM A HEALTHY PLACE.”

  THEY LAY IN SILENCE FOR A MOMENT. CARESSA TRIED TO GAUGE HIS MOOD. SHE REMEMBERED HIS RIGID STANCE AT THE PARTY, HIS CLIPPED CONVERSATION.

  “WHY DON’T YOU DRINK, KYLE?”

  “DO YOU WANT ME TO DRINK?”

  “I’m just curious.”

  He laid back, away from her, stretching one strong, sculptured arm to rest behind his head. His lips drew down in a frown and his gaze was distant. She thought he would close his eyes and sleep, leaving her question unanswered, but eventually he spoke in a soft, ironic voice.

  “I used to be as obsessive as you are. Over something. Someone,” he corrected, looking over at her.

  Caressa felt a pang of jealousy. She pretended nonchalance. “A girl?”

  “A WOMAN, YEAH.”

  “SHE WAS YOUR GIRLFRIEND?”

  “I’D RATHER NOT TALK ABOUT IT.”

  “YOUR SUBMISSIVE?”

  “CARESSA.”

  “WAS SHE BEAUTIFUL?”

  HIS HAND SLID OVER HER HIP AND DOWN BETWEEN HER LEGS. SHE TENSED, WANTING HIS SKILLFUL TOUCH BUT ASSAILED BY A THOUSAND DIFFERENT EMOTIONS. HE PRESSED HIS FACE AGAINST HER CHEEK. “SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL, YES. SHE WAS VERY SUBMISSIVE. SHE WAS NOTHING LIKE YOU.”

  Caressa felt an inexplicable rage, pounding chords in her head. He could so easily leave her. Any woman could make him happy. He was only with her out of circumstances. There were probably thousands more sexy and personable than her, women who were submissive just the way he liked, women happy for his control. He could have his pick of any of them.

  “Why didn’t she want you?” she asked, specifically to hurt him.

  His hand stilled between her legs and he pulled away. “It wasn’t meant to be. I used alcohol to numb myself, to try to get over her. It didn’t work and I just ended up more miserable, so I don’t drink anymore.”

  “Ever?”

  “Ever. It’s best if I don’t, and probably best if you don’t too. Promise me you’ll never use alcohol that way, just to deal with life.”

  “I won’t. I don’t like the taste of it.”

  “Promise me. Not just alcohol. Drugs. Whatever.”

  “Did you use drugs too?”

  She regarded him, seeing him in a whole new light. Stern, upstanding Kyle, who always lectured her. Perfect, capable Kyle. A user and a drunk.

  “Promise me,” he said again, dead serious.

  A former user and drunk. “Okay, I promise,” she sniffed, turning on her side. “I only have room for one obsession in my life anyway.”

  He flipped her over and pinned her down, his mood suddenly turning from remote to angry. “Why so many questions?” he asked. “If you only have room for one obsession in your life, why are you over here plaguing me?”

  “DO YOU THINK YOU QUALIFY AS AN OBSESSION? DON’T FLATTER YOURSELF.”

  “YOU CALLED ME AT TWO IN THE MORNING, CARESSA. SEEMS PRETTY OBSESSIVE TO ME. BUT THEN YOU’RE NOT KNOWN FOR YOUR REASONABLE BEHAVIOR.”

  SHE LAY STILL BENEATH HIM, TREMBLING TO CONTROL HER REACTION TO HIS NEARNESS AND THE IRRITATION IN HIS EYES. HE WAS ROCK HARD. SHE COULD FEEL THE RIGID OUTLINE OF HIS COCK PRESSED AGAINST HER BELLY. AGAINST HER WILL, HER HIPS MOVED, SEEKING MORE CONTACT. SHE CHANCED A LOOK AT HIM, PAINED TO FIND A MOCKING EXPRESSION DIRECTED AT HER.

  “NOW YOU GO SOFT AND SUBMISSIVE, WHEN YOU WANT THE COCK. RIGHT? NO SCREAMING AT ME NOW. NO GIVING ORDERS. I SEE HOW IT IS.” SHE SEARCHED HIS EYES FOR A TEASING SPARK, BUT FOUND ONLY COOL ANGER.

  SHE PUSHED AT HIM. “GET OFF ME!”

  “OH, THERE ARE THE ORDERS. I SUPPOSE THE SCREAMING COMES NEXT.” HE KISSED HER WITH PUNISHING FORCE, ONE HAND SQUEEZING HER BREAST ROUGHLY. SHE REALIZED THE FLIRTING, THE FUCKING WAS ALL AN ACT. A PLOY. HE HATED HER, JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. THE THOUGHT DEVASTATED HER. SHE PUSHED HIM AGAIN, WITH ALL THE FORCE SHE COULD MUSTER, AND HE LET HER UP, LET HER BARREL AWAY FROM THE BED TO GRAB HER CLOTHES. NOT YOU TOO, KYLE.

  When he’d held her and pressed against her she’d wanted his warmth and forgiveness, not anger and hate. His hate destroyed her. She dressed on her way out to his door, not stopping when he called her from the bedroom. Fuck him.

  She ran down the streets of Hudson Square until she hit Sixth Avenue and then kept going, not having the energy to flag down a cab. She needed air anyway. The few people on the streets walked around her, avoiding her, probably because of the look on her face.

  She awakened late the next morning, still feeling wrung out and miserable. Battered. There was a reason her brain pinged out a warning every time he was near her, despite the reactions of her body and her heart.

  If only he wasn’t so…irresistible. She went downstairs to find her cello, needing the refuge of music. She sat and played some older songs, simple, elementary tunes she hadn’t played since she was a student. It was so easy to play them well, to play them perfectly. Why must everything progress from simplicity to horrible, unmanageable complexity? She wondered what would happen if she changed her current concert repertoire to a recital of these childish melodies? She plucked at the strings, smiling to herself, and then she turned, hearing a deep, familiar voice chatting with Aunt Denise out in main room.

  So he’d come. After his angry scorn last night, she’d expected him to quit or at least make himself scarce for a while. She strained to listen to their conversation through the cracked door at the same time she told herself she didn’t care. But they weren’t talking about him quitting. Denise was talking about Caressa’s interview with some New York arts magazine, and Kyle was talking about seating preferences on the upcoming flight to Montreal.

  She started to play again, feeling detached and wooden. Of course he wouldn’t quit. He’d stick around so she could feel the maximum trauma necessary. She heard a sharp knock. She didn’t look up, but she knew it was him. She could feel his presence like a weight on her. He came and sat on her bed, watching her, but still she ignored him. She chose something louder, with long sustained notes she played with aggression.

  “Do you want to talk?” he asked over the reverberating noise.

  “No.”

  “You seem upset.”

  “Because I hate you. I thought you were going to quit. I wish you would.”

  He got up and left and still she kept playing, mechanically, even though her heart was aching and racing in a panicked rhythm. Her tempo faltered and her bow slipped. She grimaced and played the passage again, then forged into a difficult part of Saint-Saëns’ concerto, her showpiece. She wrestled with it, forcing her concentration, calling on all her skill.

  But then he was back again, kneeling in front of her cello. She paused as soon as the marker touched her. She wanted to jerk away but he held her by the calf, drawing two eyes, a nose, a big cartoonish smiley face on one knee so it looked up at her. More mockery. He moved to the other side, drew an identical happy face. She would have laughed at the loopy artwork but the situation didn’t seem remotely funny. He wasn’t smiling at all. When he finished he drew away, capping the pen. He looked as if he might say something, but then he turned for the door. “I’ll let you practice. Stage call is at six-thirty.”

  She knew it was. She put her bow to the strings, staring down at her knees. At the door he turned back and threw the pen next to her on the floor.

  “You never smile, Caressa. Never. Anyway, I’ll be here at six. Whatever you want to wear, have it ready to go to the theater.”

  She practiced for two more hours, but even music couldn’t exorcise the demons tormenting her like the smiling faces on her knees. She stopped halfway through and
went to the bathroom, scrubbing at the carelessly drawn pen marks, trying to obliterate them completely. Still, a shadowy outline of them remained.

  * * * * *

  They got through New York, Montreal, Los Angeles, Toronto, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Atlanta. The Fourth of July came and went. He and Caressa interacted with professional distance, maintained more by her withdrawn focus than any self control on his part. He let her be, and found his sanity slightly improved for it, although his desire for her chafed. It was Nell all over again, and he wondered, as Jeremy had asked, what he ever did to deserve it.

  But she was stable, at least. She didn’t scream at him or throw tantrums. She paced before shows but she got the job done onstage. Reviews were good, which seemed to sustain her in some equilibrium. He sent her dress ahead from venue to venue, hoping she might wear it one night, hoping she might ask to go shopping for more. But she was all black austerity again, with her hair tamed in a low, tight ponytail. She was stable…up until the Miami flight.

  A series of inconveniences had them running late, and Atlanta traffic was gridlocked. Kyle looked at his watch, then at Denise.

  “We’re not going to make it. We better look at other flights.”

  Denise sent him a look he couldn’t interpret. “We’ll see.”

  Kyle chuckled. “Uh, we’re still thirty minutes away, and the flight’s in an hour.”

  “We can still make it. I don’t want to take a later flight,” said Caressa.

  “There will be plenty of flights to Miami,” Kyle reassured her. “It’s just going to mean a longer wait.”

  “I don’t want to take a later flight,” she repeated, a little more intensely. Denise soothed her, telling her they would wait and see. Kyle watched with jaded half-attention. A meltdown was coming. Interesting. Over something so insignificant. They would probably only be delayed an hour and there was no concert tonight anyway.

  But the meltdown started in earnest at the security checkpoint, in the form of violent, hysterical tears. She railed at the security workers to hurry up, and then screamed when they mishandled her cello in their haste. It was a miracle he got her through without an arrest, but her single-minded hysteria only mounted as she tore toward the gate.

  He walked, wheeling her cello, since he couldn’t very well run with it. They wouldn’t make it anyway. The flight had been scheduled to depart ten minutes ago. Denise ran after Caressa, but Kyle headed for the ticket counter. He rescheduled their flight, and dawdled on the way back to the gate, hoping Denise had successfully soothed her niece.

  But she wasn’t soothed. He wasn’t prepared for the shaking, disintegrating woman he was confronted with. He sat on the other side of her. “Don’t worry. I got our tickets changed, hon.” He ran his hand over her trembling back, the first time he’d touched her in a couple weeks. “It’s okay. We can leave in half an hour.”

  “No!” He leaned back at the virulence of her denial, sitting up and looking around. Curious eyes were staring, wondering about the small woman beside the cello case screaming refusals and denials. Security headed their way. Denise looked at Kyle over Caressa’s head as Caressa sobbed into her hands.

  “Even you couldn’t get her on that flight, Kyle.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Twelve hours. Twelve hours to get to Miami by car. Later, when they were an hour or so south of Atlanta in their rental, and Caressa had long since cried herself to sleep in the back seat beside her cello, Kyle looked over at Denise.

  “Okay. Explain it to me.”

  She sighed. “Just drive, Kyle. Let’s just get there, please.”

  “I’m not driving twelve fucking hours without some fucking explanation. Our flight would have already been there.”

  Denise looked down at her hands, rubbing some imaginary spot on her palm. “It’s a long story.”

  “I have—let’s see—about eleven hours.”

  Denise looked at Caressa in the backseat, and Kyle glanced at her too in the rearview mirror. She’d fallen into a deep sleep, perhaps lulled by the highway road noise, or perhaps just exhausted from losing her shit so completely. Denise still turned up the radio a notch before she started to speak.

  “When Caressa was very young, just six or seven, she started traveling to appearances. Not tours, per se, but word of her got around. They lived in New York, and her mother and father were at the heart of the arts community. Her father—my brother—was a pianist, and her mother was an artist and designer. Caressa often performed for their friends at events around the city. Not because she was an accomplished artist at six or seven years old, only because she was a novelty. No, novelty is not the word for it.”

  She stopped and looked over at Kyle with a sheen of moisture in her eyes. “To have seen her play back then…I can’t really describe it. It was like the angels talking through her cello. She was just a tiny little thing, playing these grand concertos. So little, so innocent, and the music she could draw from those strings…” She paused, collecting herself. “It really was kind of like watching a miracle. It was just that affecting.”

  “I believe it,” Kyle said.

  “Anyway, by the time she was eight, they were making trips to Washington, The Hamptons, even out to the West Coast. People talked about movie appearances, books, concert tours with the masters, big time stuff even back then. The thing was, she was still a child. An only child, and terribly spoiled. Doted on. She was the center of the universe for my brother and his wife. They let her get away with everything.”

  Kyle chuckled, imagining it clearly. It fit her to a tee. But Denise wasn’t laughing.

  “One weekend, they were scheduled to travel to a friend’s home upstate, up in Saranac Lakes. Some artists’ conference, and she was going to play there as a special guest. They were going to fly there. As you can imagine, she was a nightmare to drive with, even short distances, and she really loved airplanes. But she made them late, this day. Something about not wanting to wear the outfit her mother had chosen, or not wanting her hair brushed. Her hair has always been such a tangled mess…” Denise stopped, laughing almost wistfully. “As a child it was…”

  “Forget about her hair. What happened?”

  “Well, they missed the flight by minutes. She threw another tantrum about having to wait until the next morning to fly out, and her father just threw up his hands and hired a charter plane. A little four-seater deal. They had nearly arrived when the plane started to lose altitude. It crashed in the Adirondacks, in the middle of nowhere.”

  Kyle felt something turn and slide in his stomach. Horror. Dread. “They died.”

  “The pilot and her parents died. Caressa survived somehow with only superficial wounds. Perhaps the cello case in front of her kept her secured in her seat. Actually, her mother survived too. The crash anyway, although her wounds were mortal. She told… She said…” Kyle glanced over to see Denise choked up now in earnest. “She asked Caressa to play for her until help arrived. And she did…all through the night. It was a chilly autumn night, and she must have played for hours. At some point her mother died, but she kept playing on that banged-up cello. When they arrived, her fingers were mutilated from the metal strings in the cold. But it helped them find her…the sound of the music led them to her…” Denise stopped again, then continued on more softly. “If you look, you can still see the scars on her fingertips. So you see, whenever we miss a flight now…”

  Kyle was silent, picturing Caressa’s world at that moment. Eight years old, a little girl who’d thrown a tantrum that led to a charter flight and the end of her parents’ life. Trapped alone on a mountain with her dying mother, who exhorted her to play…

  Denise looked over at Kyle. “If you want to know why she’s still playing, why she keeps playing even though it hurts her…”

  “I’VE HEARD ENOUGH TO CONNECT THE DOTS, I THINK. YOU MIGHT HAVE TOLD ME ABOUT THIS BEFORE NOW.”

  “I THOUGHT SHE MIGHT TELL YOU.”

  “SHE DIDN’T.”
/>   DENISE SIGHED AND LOOKED AT HER HANDS. “IT’S NOT A STORY SHE LIKES TO TELL.”

  KYLE FELT FROZEN. HE’D DRAWN SILLY FACES ON HER KNEES, THINKING THAT MIGHT CHEER HER UP. “DOES SHE BLAME HERSELF STILL? DID SHE BELIEVE IT WAS HER FAULT?”

  “OH, SHE HAD MONTHS OF COUNSELING AND THERAPY CONCERNING THAT ISSUE, BUT HOW CAN YOU KNOW THE MIND OF AN EIGHT YEAR OLD? SHE WAS SO OBEDIENT AFTERWARD, SHE WOULD TELL YOU WHATEVER YOU WANTED TO HEAR. WHATEVER THE RIGHT ANSWER WAS. SHE WAS SPECTACULAR AT BEING GOOD, AT LEAST FOR A WHILE. AND SHE PLAYED AS IF THAT WOULD EXONERATE HER. SHE MADE SUCH STRIDES THAT HER TEACHER HAD TO PASS HER OVER TO ANOTHER, AND THEN ANOTHER. BY THE TIME SHE WAS TEN, SHE WAS PLAYING IN FRONT OF BIG ORCHESTRAS ON REGULAR TOURS.”

  KYLE GRIMACED, FINALLY UNDERSTANDING THE DRIVE, THE FURY. THE BELLIGERENCE OF HER FOCUSED WALK ONTO THE STAGE EACH NIGHT. “SHE DOESN’T PLAY BECAUSE SHE LOVES IT. SHE PLAYS AS A PENANCE.”

  DENISE SIGHED. “I DON’T KNOW WHY SHE PLAYS, KYLE. WHO REALLY KNOWS?”

  HE LOOKED OVER AT HER, ANGRY, ACCUSING. “YOU ENABLE HER.”

  SHE SHUSHED HIM, LOOKING BACK AT CARESSA. “DON’T WAKE HER. SHE’S TIRED.”

  “YES, SHE IS TIRED. TIRED OF TOURING, TIRED OF PLAYING AND PUTTING HERSELF OUT THERE TO BE JUDGED. WHAT A SICK THING TO DO TO A WOMAN WHO ALREADY PROBABLY CAN’T FORGIVE HERSELF.”

  “IT’S EASY FOR YOU TO PLAY JUDGE AND JURY,” SHE SPIT BACK. “I’M THE ONE WHO HAD TO PICK UP THE PIECES. I’M THE ONE IN THE FAMILY WHO STEPPED UP, WHO TOOK HER ON OUT OF LOVE FOR MY BROTHER. AND IF YOU THINK IT WAS ME FORCING HER TO SIT AND PRACTICE IN THE WEEKS AND MONTHS AFTER THEIR DEATH—” SHE FELL ABRUPTLY SILENT. “YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT IT WAS LIKE. SHE WAS SO HAUNTED. I COULDN’T HAVE STOPPED HER.”

  DENISE WAS CRYING NOW. KYLE KNEW HE SHOULD LET HER OFF THE HOOK. APOLOGIZE AND SMOOTH THINGS OVER. OF COURSE, YOU DID WHAT YOU HAD TO DO. BUT HE KNEW A THING OR TWO ABOUT ENABLING, ABOUT KEEPING QUIET TO ACHIEVE YOUR OWN NEEDS AND REWARDS. “YOU NEED TO TELL HER, SOMEHOW, THAT IT’S OKAY TO STOP IF SHE WANTS TO. YOU HAVE TO, DENISE.”