by Kristen Mae
His exhales grew thicker against my cheeks. He was getting close. I moved my hips against him, wrapped my legs around him the way I would if I were really into it. Pulled him to me. Pushed my fingers through his hair and moaned a little noise that sounded like ecstasy. Our game was almost over.
He sighed softly and I felt the pulse of him letting go inside me. I kept moving my hips until his body went limp on top of me. He buried his face in my hair, gasping against my neck.
“Was it okay?” I whispered.
He made a sound that was part sigh, part laugh. “My god, Hazel. Yes.”
I released the same breath of relief as always and wrapped my arms around him.
“What about you?” He pulled out, rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. His cheeks were still rosy. “You never, I mean, you didn’t—”
“Dammit, Oren. Do you really have to bring that up now?” My voice had turned angry, defensive.
He winced, and I could see the sting in his eyes, how I’d hurt him. “I thought…I mean, it’s a happy day. I’m proud of you. I just wanted to please you.”
The muscles in my groin tightened against the idea. “I don’t need…that…to be pleased.”
“But I could—”
“It’s really fine, Oren.”
“You won’t even let me try?”
“Oren, for Christ’s sake, you know I’m broken.” Shit. Why had I said that? Why now, after all these years? What a fucking mood-killer. I chewed my lip, frustrated at my loss of control.
Oren laid his hand flat between my breasts, either in a gesture of protection, or as if he were a healer and could transmit magical energy through my sternum and down into my body.
Or could suck the ugliness out of me.
“I like you exactly how you are,” he said, “and I don’t think you give yourself nearly enough credit, considering—”
“Oren—”
“I know. I won’t go there.” He sat up. “I just wonder if you might feel…better? Happier? If you didn’t feel…broken, as you say.”
I cringed inwardly at that word again—broken—and rolled onto my side so I could face him. “I am happy, Oren. I love you. I love our life.”
“I love you too.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead he moved his hand to my waist, his eyes roaming over me like my body was a landscape he was seeing for the first time.
“Are you happy?” I asked. It came out as a tiny whisper, barely audible.
His forehead wrinkled. “I’m very happy with you. It’s just…I feel like you’ve always been…hurting? No, no, like you’re missing something, and I wish I could…I mean, I would do anything, to…”
He let his words trail off, and I was grateful for it. He was dancing around that word “broken” again, as if not saying the word would make it so it wasn’t true. I snuggled into him, unable to speak.
His lips were right against my ear, his voice sweet and soft. “Can I give you a massage?”
I nodded. I understood this about Oren, this need he had to feel like he could give me at least some small pleasure. I turned fully onto my back and let him massage my arms in long, sweeping strokes all the way down to my hands, where he attended to each finger separately. When he got to my ring finger, he slid my wedding band off and rubbed the pale spot where it had been, then slid it back on.
He massaged my torso, where I was ticklish, but he was careful not to press into my ribs or stomach. His palms stayed wide and flat as he swept up and around my breasts without fondling them. Then he scooted down the bed and worked my upper thighs, kneading out the persistent, dull ache that lingered from my morning jogs, pushing his hands so far up my inner thighs that I almost thought he was going to touch me, maybe slide a finger into me, but he only ever grazed me between the legs.
My heart rate picked up at the thought of it though, of what it would feel like for him to take control and violate me. I considered saying something to encourage him, but my vocal cords seized up at the idea. I could never, ever make myself ask for it. It wouldn’t work anyway—it was too late to be anything more than what I was. I held my breath as he moved his palms back down my legs with gentle strokes until he was pressing the knuckles of his fist into the sore arches of my feet.
“Do you want me to do your back, too?”
The thought of his proper, obedient hands sliding up the backs of my thighs and going no further, me quivering beneath him but unable to tell him I wanted more—it was too much. I pulled myself up and smiled at him. “No, if you keep massaging me like this, I might fall asleep.”
Such were my lies.
THREE
James let the group know he would be needing an extended leave, so after the bookstore concert, I officially took over his spot in the quartet as second violinist. I still couldn’t believe the group had taken me on without a formal audition. Now that we were back together after a two-week break, I was terrified they would realize they’d been too hasty in their decision—that I wasn’t good enough after all. I’d spent the two weeks off dividing my time between moving furniture and boxes to our new house and practicing my fingertips raw learning the parts to four new string quartets.
By the time we sat down to rehearse, a tight knot of worry had formed in my chest. I could barely rosin my bow for how shaky my fingers were. But as soon as we began to play, muscle memory took over and I was able to focus on blending with the group. They ignored me, a great reassurance since, in the interest of efficiency, quartet rehearsals tend to center on the parts that need work; being ignored is a compliment. By the time we finished rehearsing, the knot in my chest had mostly disappeared.
Afterward, we all piled into Raymond’s SUV and he drove us to a tiny eatery that was part coffee house, part deli, part organic salad utopia. It was the kind of place where none of the tables or chairs matched but the food was impeccably fresh—a place that had its priorities straight. We got our food and crammed ourselves and our instruments—which couldn’t be left baking in the car—around a small round table in the back.
“This is our favorite place to go between rehearsals,” Katrina told me.
“Speak for yourself, vegan,” said Raymond, his rumbly voice making the word sound like an insult. “I’d rather have some meat.”
“Okay, my favorite place.” Katrina said, rolling her eyes. “God. Men and their meat.”
Claire snorted. “Yeah, men do tend to be pretty fixated on their meat. Heheh.” She gestured lewdly, caressing someone’s invisible manhood.
“Get it?” she said, nudging me in the arm. “Meat?”
“Uh…” My ears suddenly felt hot. “This wrap is delicious.”
Raymond tried to stifle a laugh, and Katrina shook her head at me in sympathy.
“Don’t worry, Hazel,” said Raymond. “You’ll eventually get used to Claire’s sick sense of humor—we all had to.”
She’d done this at our other rehearsals too, the thing with the inappropriate jokes. And every time, my face lit on fire and I envisioned my brain sprouting a little pair of legs and scampering away screaming. I couldn’t believe I’d ever get used to it.
Claire chewed a giant bite of salad, her eyes twinkling as though she enjoyed watching me squirm. I adjusted my position in my chair and pretended I wasn’t embarrassed.
“Okay, before you guys completely scandalize poor Hazel,” said Katrina, “I have some interesting news.”
Claire and Raymond raised their eyebrows in question. I commanded my ears to stop flaming.
Katrina continued: “So the other day, I was talking with Paolo Rimini, music director of the Chamber Music Festival of Lucca.”
“Where’s that?” said Raymond.
“Italy,” I blurted. One of my cookbooks had a paragraph about Lucca.
Katrina’s face lit up. “Yes, exactly—Italy. Paolo wanted to know if we could come and coach the students there. The usual quartet in residence got offered a more lucrative tour in Japan and bailed, so
I told Paolo I’d check with you guys. I’m supposed to get back to him by Friday.”
“Holy shit,” said Claire. “This is going to be amazing.”
Raymond put his wrap down and narrowed his eyes. “What’s the pay?”
“Who cares?” Claire grunted around a mouthful of lettuce. “It’s fucking Italy.”
Katrina turned to me. “It’s horribly short notice, I know, but do you think there’s any chance you could do it? The festival is three weeks long, starting in mid-July.”
“Oh, she’ll come.” Claire took a sip of soda and grinned, her blue eyes shining. “Besides, it’s still six weeks away.”
Claire was presumptuous, but she was right. A flutter of excitement stirred in my belly. I’d participated in several national music festivals, but I’d never had the opportunity to travel internationally. I imagined walking the streets of Italy hand in hand with Oren, exploring old churches and museums and wineries. Even if the festival only covered airfare, room, and board, I would still try to go.
“Anyway,” Katrina was saying, “they cover all travel expenses and lodging plus a stipend of a hundred Euros a day. We would only be committed to teaching four hours every day. We’d have our own rehearsals too, though, because we’d give a concert the last week.”
“God, it sounds like a paid vacation,” said Raymond.
Claire dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “The second you said ‘Italy’ I was in,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to learn Italian anyway.”
I huffed. “You can’t learn a language in six weeks.” But since no one piped up to agree with me, I added timidly, “Can you?”
“If anyone can, it’s Claire,” said Katrina, shrugging and taking a bite.
“Yeah.” Raymond picked up his wrap again. “She has this insane memory. Like, tell her your license plate number. Ask her in three months to repeat it back to you and she’ll totally do it.”
“Really?” I said, embarrassed that I’d been wrong. “That’s impressive.”
“Stop it, you guys. I forget plenty of stuff. Like sometimes I lock my keys in my car and need to be rescued.” She winked at me.
“It was just a coat hanger,” I mumbled, flushing and taking a bite of salad.
“That’s not forgetting,” said Raymond. “It’s being ditzy.”
Claire threw her crumpled-up napkin at him. “Oh gee, thanks, Raymond.”
Katrina took a sip of her drink. “Claire, I swear sometimes you do stuff like that on purpose just so people aren’t intimidated by that big brain of yours.”
I looked at Claire and was surprised to see that her pale chest and neck were covered in splotchy red marks. I didn’t think she was capable of blushing. She stabbed at a piece of lettuce. “So, Italy. Whether Mike can come or not, I’m in.”
“Yeah, fancypants doctor Mike can’t just leave!” Raymond lowered his voice dramatically, slouching in his chair as he threw a hand over his forehead like a Victorian woman on a fainting couch. “His patients might die!”
Katrina squinted at him. “You do realize that is literally true, right?”
“And anyway, he’s being hypocritical,” Claire said, looking at me and jerking her thumb at Raymond. “His wife is an attorney. Raymond is a kept man.”
“Damn right I am!” He grinned and took a sip of his drink.
Claire nodded at my simple gold wedding band. “What does your husband do, Hazel?”
“He’s a molecular biologist. He works at the university.”
Claire lit up. “Are you serious? That’s badass.” The other two agreed my husband was badass.
“Nothing special about Katrina’s husband,” said Raymond. “He plays trombone in the orchestra. Womp-wommmmmp.” He mimed playing a sad trombone, and Katrina rolled her eyes at him and turned back to me.
“So,” she said. “What about Italy? Doable?”
My ears heated up again under the scrutiny of the other three. “Of course I’ll have to discuss it with my husband,” I said, “but I can’t imagine a trip to Italy would be a problem.”
At orchestra rehearsal that night, I shared a music stand with Katrina, which gave me the opportunity to become more familiar with her playing—how she moved her body, how she articulated different note lengths with her bow, how quick her vibrato was—all things that would make our quartet more cohesive. Our quartet. I imagined us playing on the stage of an Italian amphitheater, and my stomach flipped with excitement.
After the mid-rehearsal break, when we had all returned to our seats, Claire and a harpist set up in front of the violin section a few feet from where Katrina and I were sitting. I’d been through the rehearsal schedule and it had only shown a few waltzes and overtures, nothing else. Had I forgotten to practice something?
Katrina must have noticed my puzzled expression. “They’re doing Saint-Saens’ The Swan,” she said in a low voice. “And just wait till you hear it. They played it through for me the other day and made me cry.”
I returned my attention to the front of the orchestra as the harpist began the familiar tinkling arpeggios. After a few measures, Claire joined in with the melody—strong and clear and melancholy. She wore a strappy tank top, so I could see the muscles in her back and triceps flexing as her hand crawled up and down the neck of her cello. Up to that moment, I’d thought of her as wispy, almost breakable, but she was much more muscular than I’d thought, more like a dancer. A spray of curls blocked my view of her face, but I imagined her forehead was as placid as when she played in quartet.
Katrina was right; her playing was beautiful—different than in quartet, because in a group, a musician is required to blend her sound. But now, with this solo, I could see—Claire and her cello were one, singing together. I didn’t exactly feel like I wanted to cry, as Katrina had said, but I felt something. A squeeze in my gut. A tightening of the throat. A strained, impatient, almost painful kind of listening that could only be accomplished with the entire body. In all my years of playing, I’d never heard anyone pull music from an instrument like Claire. When her final note died, the hall fell into pin-drop silence, and I released the breath I’d been holding, the sound of it echoing across the orchestra like a prayer.
FOUR
It was the night after the orchestra concert that I first started to think of Claire as a friend. Mike and Oren had met during the concert and decided we should all get together afterward for a game night.
Mike was a little older than we were, mid-thirties, I guessed, and he reminded me of a ’40s-era movie star with his chocolate-colored hair and green eyes. He came off so smooth I thought he should be wearing a fedora and talking around a cigar between his teeth. He was nice enough, exceedingly nice even, but I couldn’t tell if his cheerful demeanor represented a bleed-over of a highly developed bedside manner or if that was really his personality.
We played Trivial Pursuit and charades, the first of which Claire won; the second one, she only convinced me to play after I’d consumed three glasses of wine. We sat squished together at one end of the couch waiting for the guys to give us a clue to act out, and she said, “Watch—they’re gonna give us some stupid shit about farting.”
I was half drunk and laughed so hard I almost spit out my wine.
Claire grinned and cocked an eyebrow at me. “So all I have to do to make you laugh is get you tipsy and talk about farting? You’re too easy.”
“Most people would say I’m a prude.” I set down my wine glass, suddenly feeling hot around the neck. “Never mind. I don’t know why I said that. I never do this.”
She looked at me curiously. “Do what?”
“Get drunk. Or…hang out with people.” What a strange thing to tell someone. The heat spread out from my neck and settled in weird places—the crooks of my elbows, the backs of my knees, the top of my scalp.
Claire shrugged. “Well, neither do we, really. We do these game nights sometimes with Mike’s sister—she lives here in town. But I have no friends. Oh god, that sounds terrible. I mea
n, I have friends, but not close ones. Acquaintances, you know? You know what I mean.” She waved a hand dismissively and sipped from her wine glass. “The people in the orchestra are quite a bit older than we are and have kids and stuff so they can’t really get away. And also, people think I’m weird.” She said this last bit with about as much passion as one uses when ordering a hamburger.
“Huh.” I could see how others might feel overwhelmed, even weirded out by Claire. I had been too. Maybe I still was. She might be a crazy-intelligent cello prodigy, but the way she bumbled around and blurted out every thought in her head was a little off-putting. Everything about her screamed wild, intense, unpredictable.
A thick silence bloomed between us. I shifted in my seat and looked around the room, trying to think of something to say, when my gaze landed on Claire’s sneakers by the door. “Hey, we should go running sometime!”
She snorted. “Fuck no. I do yoga. I do not run.”
“No,” Mike said, crossing the room. “I’ve never seen my wife run, not even that time we went hiking and she thought she saw a bear. She is quite comfortable being a skinny fat person.”
“Pfft,” said Claire. “My body is in excellent condition.”
“You look hot, babe, but you should do cardio for your health.”
“Ugh. For the gazillionth time, Mike, I’m not running with you. I can’t run a fucking eight minute mile.”
Oren perched on the arm of the other side of the couch, one corner of his mouth drawn up in a playful almost-smile as he listened.
