She lay back on the bed, and Maestro covered her body with his again. She started to speak, but Maestro covered her mouth with his, and she realized she'd had no idea what she'd been about to say. The symphony of their love began anew. No longer choreographed by music from the radio, they embarked on a journey to discover their own rhythm. Their desire spiraled up with the majesty of their inner music until she thought she might lose her mind. He groaned and pushed into her harder, deeper, and she ground herself up against him, needing to get closer, and closer still. She cried out again and again, filling up with him. As they reached the climax of their physical symphony, all thought, all worry, and all fear had dissolved from Annasophia's mind. Only love and rapture remained.
Annasophia had fallen desperately in love with Maestro, for better or for worse. From anything she could tell about what would have to happen for Matt to be born, things boded, at some point, for worse. But she needn't think about that right now, she reminded herself. They had just made love for the first time. Would it be the only time?
Maestro rolled off her and pulled her into his arms, murmuring to her. Schätzchen, she heard. Treasure. He was her treasure, too, in more ways than he could possibly know. She couldn't bear to go back to her timeline too soon. She could stay with him a little while, at least until his next tour date. If they avoided the concerto, she could go back to her time when she felt it was right, and that decision could no longer be forced. She wouldn't over-analyze, she wouldn't think too hard about it. She would leave when her gut – her intuition – told her it was time, and not before.
Had Elena been standing outside the door again, listening while she and Maestro had made love? Annasophia wouldn't think about that. At least she and Maestro were quiet now. They sure hadn't been quiet for a while there. They must have given Elena quite a sonic show, if not several sonic booms.
* * * ~~~ * * *
Chapter Seven
“You know, Schätzchen, we really need to buy you some clothes,” Maestro said as Annasophia helped him pack his things into his suitcase. In only a few hours, they would board the Amtrack, on their way to Washington DC for Maestro's next performance at Kennedy Center.
“Maybe we can do that before we have to catch the train,” she said. “Why a train, anyway? Why don't you travel by plane? It's faster.”
Maestro pulled several suits out of the hotel suite closet and placed them on the bed. “I like trains. I like the feel of them, and I like their leisurely feel. They're relaxing.”
“There's something else, though.”
“Yes.”
“Well?” Annasophia sat down on the bed next to his suitcase and gazed up at him.
“It's Elena,” he said. “She can't stand trains. And you know she's following me around on this tour. If I take trains whenever I can, at least I don't have to travel with her.”
Annasophia nodded. “She's really determined to get you back, isn't she?”
“Yes, but she won't succeed.”
Little do you know, Annasophia thought. She saw Matt's face in her mind and wanted to cry. For Matt's sake, and for Maestro's. It just didn't make any sense, why Maestro would reconcile with Elena. He didn't even like her. But unless he did, Matt wouldn't be born, and that meant at some point soon, Annasophia would have to step aside and leave Maestro to a woman who only wanted him for his money and career prestige. It sucked, no matter how you looked at it. It sucked for Matt, too, in a way, because he had grown up with a mother who hadn't been much of a mother. They had cut off contact with each other as Matt had grown up. Just awful, all the way around.
“What's the matter, Schätzchen?” Maestro sat on the bed next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. “You look so sad all of a sudden.”
“It's nothing.” She hated to lie but had no choice. She couldn't tell him about Matt. She would have to be careful to listen to her intuition about when to go back. The way she figured it, she would have to go back after the picture was taken, the one the anonymous someone, “Lost In Time,” had sent her, getting her started on this journey in the first place. Once the picture existed, then she could return to her timeline and let things take their course with Maestro and Elena. It was the only logical conclusion, perhaps because she didn't have anything else but the picture on which to hang a decision or a course of action.
That reminded her of the folded-up piece of paper on the nightstand. She didn't want to draw attention to it while Maestro was watching her, but she would have to get it before they left the suite. The paper was blank now, but what would happen to it once the picture was taken? She would have to see. If the picture reappeared, then that would be her cue to go back to her own time. Surely, at that point, things in the future would be as she'd left them, Matt intact.
And Maestro still dying.
A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Are you worried about money?” Maestro asked, gently rubbing her back. At his touch, she warmed, remembering how they had made love again and again, almost until it had been time to get up. Neither of them had gotten much sleep, but neither of them cared. “Please don't. I'll buy the clothes for you.”
“Huh?” Oh, yeah. Clothes. “I wasn't thinking about that, but thank you.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Just how much I'd like to stay with you, in this time.”
A speck of anxiety came to life in his eyes and burned hot. “You can if you want to. Whatever future you're so determined to protect, why can't we make another that's just as good?”
“It's not a matter of good or not as good. It's something else entirely.” Someone else entirely, she thought.
“I wish you'd explain it to me,” Maestro said. “I don't want you to go back. Unless, of course, that's what you truly want, and I get the feeling it isn't. It seems to me you would be going back out of some sense of duty or obligation, which doesn't make any sense to me at all. From this end, the future is completely unwritten, completely open. We can make it anything we want. Together.”
Almost, Annasophia thought. Whatever they made it, though, it would be a future without Matt. Maestro needed Elena to make Matt.
Maestro looked at her, his longing standing starkly in his eyes. He gripped her shoulders, then caressed her cheek. Abruptly, he stood up and picked up a small suitcase. “I need to get the rest of my things from the bathroom. Then we'll check out and do a little shopping before we catch the train.”
Now was her chance, while he was in the bathroom, to grab the piece of paper. She went to the nightstand and picked it up. Without thinking, she unfolded it. To her surprise, she found handwriting on the paper, next to where the picture should be. The picture still wasn't there, but the handwriting had reappeared. Just as before, it looked strange and spiky, and it read, You and Wilhelm... It's Gotta Be.
Why the handwriting without the picture? She rubbed her eyes. Maybe she was seeing things. But when she stared at the paper, the handwriting was still there: the caption for You and Wilhelm, with no actual picture of her and Wilhelm. Maybe it meant she should try to go back now, not accompany Maestro to DC. No, she mustn't start second-guessing herself again. The picture had to be taken; otherwise, the catalyst for her coming back here would never have existed. And the catalyst had to exist; otherwise, she wouldn't – shouldn't – be here. She sighed, then jumped when she felt Maestro's hand on her shoulder. She hadn't heard him come back. She glanced up and found him peering at the paper, at the handwriting. Damn.
“Schätzchen, what's that?”
To lie or not to lie, that was the question. The answer resolved itself before she had time to think about it. Yes, she had to withhold certain information from Maestro to make sure Matt could be born next year. But she didn't want to lie to him. “It's that same piece of paper.”
“The paper which frightened you so much?” He sat on the bed and took the paper from her. “But it was blank. What did you write here?”
She tried to grab it back from him, but he quick
ly stood up, reading it as he walked away from her. “You and Wilhelm. It's got to be,” he read out loud. He looked at her, his brow furrowing. “What's this about, Miss Anna?”
“I wish I knew,” she said.
“Why would you write something like that?”
“I didn't write it,”
He sighed. “Nobody's been in here but us, Schätzchen.”
“I know. But I didn't write it. And I know you didn't, either. It's nobody here. It's somebody in my time.”
His eyes filled with question marks and he opened his mouth to speak, but somebody knocked on the door to the suite. “Scheiss,” he said. He handed the paper back to her and stalked to the living room.
Elena. It had to be. Annasophia laid the paper on the nightstand. She stayed in the bedroom – she had no wish to interact with Elena – but strained to hear what she and Maestro were saying.
“...leaving soon,” came Elena's voice.
“Yes.” Maestro's voice sounded curt, as curt as Annasophia had ever heard it. He truly sounded fed up to his ears with Elena's keeping tabs on him and following him around. Maestro didn't like Elena. There was no denying it. And Annasophia knew he wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole. Maybe she'd already messed things up for Matt, but had Maestro liked Elena any better before she, Annasophia, had shown up? She thought the answer had to be no. So why had he reconciled with Elena? What reason in the world would have have to do so?
Elena was still bickering with Maestro.
“How are you getting there?” came her voice.
Maestro said something Annasophia couldn't make out.
“...taking her with you? You don't even know anything about...” Elena said.
“...none of your concern,” Maestro's voice had a hard edge now. “You need to go back... your own life.”
Maestro couldn't get much clearer than that, even the little Annasophia had heard. The idea of him making love with Elena soon was seeming more and more ludicrous. Elena was lucky he didn't call hotel security, as annoyed as Maestro sounded.
Matt's face appeared again in Annasophia's mind. Matt, with dark hair so like his father's. He didn't look a thing like Elena. Try as she might, Annasophia could recall none of Matt's features that resembled his mother's in any way. Sometimes, though, people had assumed that she, Annasophia, and Matt were related, since there was a similarity in the lines of their faces and the shapes of their noses and eyes. She and Matt had always joked that they were siblings who had somehow gotten separated.
She smelled the delicious scent of her and Maestro's night of lovemaking. Breathed it in deep. Annasophia hadn't brought condoms with her, which she always used with her groupies. And she wasn't taking the pill. She and Maestro had made love all night without using any birth control at all. Strange how it hadn't occurred to her to use protection when she was usually so mindful, not only about not getting knocked up but also about not getting a nasty disease.
This was May 24, 1973.
Matt's birthday was February 27, 1974.
Oh, my God.
Annasophia moaned in surprise, and dizziness made her mind swirl. She staggered to the bed and sat down. It couldn't be. It just couldn't be.
It had to be, though. It explained why Matt and Elena had never been close, why she had rejected him as a young boy and why their relationship had been cut off altogether following his adolescence. It explained why Matt and Annasophia had never had any romantic interest in each other, even though their friends had always assumed a romance between them should be the most natural thing in the world. On a deep level, they'd always known a romance between them just wouldn't be right. They had known, perhaps, on all levels, minds, hearts, and bodies. Maybe down on the cellular level, they had always known.
Matt was Annasophia's son.
And while it answered many questions and explained many enigmas, it opened an entire Pandora's box of new questions. If Annasophia, not Elena, was Matt's mother, then where and when had she given birth to him? Why was Elena, and not Annasophia, listed on Matt's birth certificate? And why hadn't Annasophia been with Matt from the time he was a baby? The only mother he'd ever known had been Elena. And what on earth had caused Maestro and Elena to remarry in 1974 if Matt wasn't Elena's son, but Annasophia's?
She had thought she needed to preserve the future as it had existed. The more she thought about things, though, the more she thought she'd been wrong. If she was, at this moment, a newly pregnant woman, pregnant with Matt, the son of her beloved Maestro, then her obligation was to protect Matt from Elena's animosity and to stay in this time and love and care for both Maestro and Matt. She mustn't go back to her time.
Ever again.
She rubbed her slim belly. If she was right, it wouldn't be small for long. In the months to come, it would grow large and swollen with Maestro's child, from the love they had shared last night. She took a long breath and felt a smile forming on her face. Her heart seemed to radiate warmth in her chest that spread throughout her body. Matt. Her and Maestro's son. She and Maestro could make a life here together after all, and maybe Matt would even have brothers and sisters.
If only she and Maestro weren't running short of time today! She'd strip naked and invite him back to bed. They would spend all day there. They couldn't do that. But perhaps they could share a quickie. Annasophia was on fire. She couldn't stand waiting until they arrived in DC before they made love again.
Maestro came back into the bedroom and stopped short. He had looked aggravated when he came in, but as he gazed at her, his annoyed expression melted into one filled with love and tenderness. “Schätzchen,” he said. “Darling. You look absolutely beautiful. Ravishing.”
She leaped up, stood on tiptoe, and pulled his face down to hers. “Please,” she breathed against his face, then kissed him deeply, deeply. She pulled off her shirt, jeans, and underwear and lay down on the bed. “Make love to me. Now. I need you, Maestro. More than ever, I need you.” She took a deep breath. “And I've made a decision.”
Maestro pulled off his slacks and shirt, then joined her on the bed. Hope fired like a flare in his handsome face. As he pulled her into his arms, he asked, “What?”
“I'm staying in your timeline.”
For a moment, he couldn't speak. He looked at her, confusion and love sharing equal time on his face. “But I thought...”
She shook her head firmly. “I want to stay in your timeline. We'll make our future together.”
His hands roamed all over her body, caressing her breasts, feathering down her belly where their child was growing, then vigorously rubbing between her thighs. He kissed her lips again, deeply, and he stiffened against her leg. Oh, yes.
“What changed your mind?” he asked, rubbing between her legs again, then getting on top of her. Soon, they would be far beyond talk. She wanted him to know what they'd created together. There was no way to confirm what she felt. Even pregnancy tests in 2010 couldn't detect a pregnancy one day after conception. With all her might, though, she knew it to be true. “Last night,” she said against his lips, “I became pregnant with your child.”
“My God,” he said, gathering her closer up in his arms. “Are you sure, Schätzchen? How can you possibly know that?”
“I'm sure. It's the child I was trying to save by going back to my time.” She paused. “I guess I can go ahead and tell you this. You have a child in my timeline. This child, in my life there, is a good friend of mine. I didn't want him not to exist. That's why I felt I had to go back. I assumed somebody else...” she didn't want to say Elena, “...was his mother. But I did the math. And it's me who is his mother. We're his parents. You and me.”
“His parents?” Maestro moved down between her legs to kiss her deeply between her thighs. Annasophia, groaning with pleasure, forgot everything but sensation. As Maestro made her mind melt, she heard his voice. “So I am to have a son?”
Gasping, she glanced down at him and saw his face, grinning, between her legs. Love shone out of his eyes
like twin suns. His combination of gentleness and driving passion nearly made her scream. She jerked at the covers and cried out.
Maestro got on top of her and covered her mouth with his. The knowledge that soon they would be parents and had decades to share together fired her heart and mind with passion so intense she couldn't contain herself, even if she had wanted to. She had ensured Matt's existence by following her heart, and she had ensured that she and Maestro would be able to spend a lifetime together. And she had protected both Maestro and Matt against Elena's cruelty. Elena would have no part of the future that Maestro, Annasophia, and Matt would build. Elena would have to find someone else to stalk.
Could she be listening at the door again?
Who cared.
Annasophia's mind became pure heat. She locked her legs around Maestro and pushed herself up to meet him with everything she had. Their lovemaking was quick and hard this time; they soon reached their peak, and afterward, they held each other, gasping. Maestro wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled his face into her hair; she rubbed her cheek against his chest and burrowed against it like a cat. Even though sex had ended, they still couldn't hold each other close enough. Annasophia thought she would never be able to get close enough.
How quickly life could change, with a sudden realization. Matt was hers, not Elena's. And that meant she had to stay here, no matter what, even if she had to avoid hearing Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2 for the rest of her life. She didn't like the thought of not returning to Maestro in 2010, not staying by his side as he passed away, but then, in a way, she would be returning to him, only the long way, by living side-by-side with him, sharing life with him for the next thirty-seven years.
Perhaps in the future they would create together, things would be different. Maestro would have to die at some point, sure. So would she. But certainly by creating this new timeline, this different life in which she and Maestro would be not just teacher and student but husband and wife, co-parents and lovers, they would affect changes on all levels of their lives, his, hers, and Matt's. Perhaps, in the 2010 to come, she and Matt wouldn't be sitting by Maestro's bedside, watching him die of cancer. Maybe she would die first. Or maybe they'd both live to see ninety years and beyond.
Maestro Page 11
