by Julia Dumont
Soon she was humming along Sunset Boulevard. She would talk to Cynthia, who would talk to Tanya, and all would again be right in her world.
Day 2, Chapter 11
Cynthia was well aware that her phone was filling up with every kind of attempted communiqué. But this was Pete Blatt. Time travel is a superpower not yet readily available every day of the week.
While Pete made coffee, Cynthia wandered through his living room. It was like a museum of musical instruments. Mostly strings. It was amazing to her that his childhood interest had taken hold so completely it truly seemed he was put on Earth for this one thing. The place was also lined with bookshelves filled with the most incredible collection of books she’d ever seen. The wall was covered with art. Unique stuff. Personal. Meaningful. Not dispensable. Even though he’d just moved in, it felt warm, lived in, and wall-to-wall fascinating. A racing bike hung on the far wall. Of course. The freckly kid with the perpetual hard-on had a perpetual hard-on for life.
He seemed to have every possible variation of guitar, ukulele, banjo, mandolin, lute, zither. Incredible. There were some that defied definition, at least to Cynthia.
“What’s this crazy thing that looks like a harp connected to a guitar?” she asked.
Pete came around the corner with two cups and a smile. “Strangely enough, it’s called a harp guitar,” he said, rolling his eyes. “They’ve been around for a couple of hundred years. They were popular in the U.S. early in the twentieth century, but they’re pretty much out of vogue now, except for crazy music history nuts and musicians. Or both, like me. I’ve always loved the way the harp part is like an arm and that the instrument almost looks like it’s playing itself. It doesn’t in case you’re wondering.”
“That’s a relief,” said Cynthia, sipping what may have been the most perfect cup of coffee she’d ever tasted. “Do you play it?”
“Not that often, but sure, once in a while.”
“How about now?” she asked.
“Now? Okay, but you’d better watch out. I never need to be coaxed to play. You might learn to regret it.”
“Try me,” she said, easing onto the couch and placing her coffee on the table it’s named after.
Pete eased the antique instrument from the wall and sat next to her. She wondered if he remembered how closely this mimicked that day, way back when, that they sat together in her living room. On the couch. When he’d played her guitar.
“Is it just me,” she asked, toasting him with her coffee, alluding to the Pisco they’d shared, “or do you also sense a bit of déjà vu rolling in here?”
“Like a freight train,” he said, toasting back. “I’ve thought of that afternoon often. You know, it’s weird. I mean, I hesitate to mention this, but I’m not sure if you knew. I absolutely worshipped you and everything about you. That was a very big day for me. A big day that unfortunately ended very badly.”
“Well, yes,” she said. “But, you know, the worship was appreciated. I liked you too and I like you now. Even that bad ending has improved with age. Like wine. Or Pisco. Whatever. I think it’s the screw-ups you remember most fondly. Maybe it’s because from a distance it’s funny and but also sweet. You remember the dumb things that kid did——things you learned from——and it makes you really love that kid. We share a memory of two dumb kids and we both love both of them. Something like that, although it came out kind of stupid.”
“No it didn’t,” said Pete. “It came out just right.”
“Yeah, well, anyway,” she said, sliding deeper into the cushion, “let’s hear it. What does one play on a harp guitar?”
“Well,” he said, tuning the strings quickly and precisely——and there were a lot of them, “way back it was mostly a classical instrument in Europe, but in the U.S. people starting using them more for song-based music, in small bands. It added a nice blend: the picking and strumming of the guitar, together with the harp’s heavenly aura. I have used it occasionally in a more unorthodox way. I brought it along to a session and ended up using it in a recording of that old W.C. Handy song Hesitation Blues. Lots of people have sung it, Louis Armstrong, Janis Joplin, Taj Mahal. It’s been recorded dozens of times. I could try that.”
“I’m waiting,” she said, drumming her fingers lightly on the side of his guitar with mock impatience.
He paused momentarily just to look at her. He liked her playfulness. He was recalling and confirming what he loved about her face, like returning to a beautiful painting after many years. The memory had become abstracted and was now being reinvigorated by her presence.
She gazed back at him, realizing that she’d had no idea when they were young, that he really had amazing eyes, the kind that completely close during a smile and then reopen, revealing the depth of his pleasure, the sincerity in his heart. She could feel her admiration and affection for him welling up inside, rising like a tide.
He started plucking out the melody gently on the harp. It was heavenly and ethereal, despite the familiar blues form. Then he switched down to the guitar and beat out the bluesy bass line, quietly, but with ringing clarity, each string delineated with crisp expressiveness. It was obvious he was a master player. She adored the music and the encounter. Both were simultaneously nostalgic and new. Pete was unlike anyone she’d known in her adult life. On paper he would probably sound a bit geeky . . . an old-music freak, a collector. That could sometimes evoke the stale, dustiness of antique shops and auction houses. But he was remarkably vibrant, handsome, capable, soulful, and strong. And those eyes.
She thought about the unlikely events of the last two days. Jack Stone coming on to her and she turning him down. She’d had pangs of regret. It was potentially a classic blunder. A real award winner. But she knew it was the right thing to do and was actually proud of herself for keeping her professional life intact. In the past, there were so many times she had allowed her screwed-up love life to sidetrack her work and wreak havoc. Plus this thing with Pete seemed so right. Her heart felt absolutely full. There was something about Pete she truly adored.
Then he got to the singing part and his voice was devastating too. Not particularly perfect or trained, but warm and deep and easy——part Elvis, part Sinatra, part universal lover——speaking to something deep within, something she herself was not fully aware of.
Rocks in the ocean, baby,
Fish in the sea,
They all know you mean the world to me.
Tell me how long do I have to wait?
Can I get you now or must I hesitate?
Hesitating was totally out of the question. She knew that he knew that she didn’t want to wait. It might have been the longing in her eyes or the trembling of her lips, but it was probably the same thing that always, always, always gave her away. Her cheeks were glowing like a red neon invitation.
He gently slid the large stringed instrument onto the rug and moved in for a soft, sweet kiss.
“I feel like I should tell you,” he said, “that I’m leaving on tour. I’m . . .”
She interrupted him with a sweet kiss of her own, whispering, “All the more reason, sweet Pete.”
Sweet Pete. That spilled from her lips so easily, even though she’d totally forgotten she’d called him that. The years fell away, like they were back in her old house on her old street, when the world was new. He cupped the small of her waist and moved his hand upward, taking it slowly——seeming to feel some of the shyness he’d had when they were young. It was as if being with her brought back the tentativeness he had left behind long ago. But she loved it. She loved his sweetness. It was a side most men are afraid to show, but Pete seemed as nervous and excited as a teenager to find himself in this situation. It felt illicit and rebellious in a way that grown-up relationships never feel.
They were both wearing loose, casual clothing that, as they disrobed, seemed to instantly vanish, as if simply melting away. They sat facing each other, their bodies familiar, yet totally different: he, more defined and muscular . . . she, more v
oluptuous. She smiled at his erection, bending over and kissing its head, as if greeting a long, lost friend. She remembered his perpetual boner, when her mother had come home unexpectedly——him smiling cordially, trying to act naturally, his rod, 100% due-north vertical, resonating rigidly with his every move, like a flesh-and-blood Geiger counter under his gym shorts——the skimpiest of cotton, no underwear. He headed down the front steps to his bike and still, still, still was hard as he rode away, like the circus had come to town and pitched a big top in his pants. It was a funny, embarrassing thing, but so sexy and such a sweet memory. She remembered wondering if it had lasted the whole trip home like that. Now it almost felt like it had never gone away, like this was its natural state. She smiled slightly, thinking of it throbbing and twitching away the years, like it was gunning for her through the decades, and had finally hunted her down.
And as if Pete could read her mind, he also smiled, breathing deeply, softly whispering, “You’re more beautiful than ever.”
But then, without saying a word, together they chose to hold back, to not dive in hastily. They just looked at each other. This revision of the past would be slow and deliberate. They wanted to savor everything. In a swirl of drunken delirium the first time around, this weekday morning they were simply buzzed on French roast . . . just about as sober as sober gets. Slowly, silently, they touched and tasted each and every body part with the utmost sensuality, taking a highly erotic inventory. He placed his hands on her knees and then ever-so-slowly moved them toward her, along her tingling thighs, his thumbs hooking gently around and under, causing her to let out a soft sigh, her mouth opening slightly, her eyes gently closing. She mirrored his movements, her hands traveling the same journey down his thighs, her thumbs softly brushing past his balls, her fingers reaching his erection and gently, sweetly twanging it like she had so many years ago, except this time almost in slow motion, not flippantly playful, but erotically, achingly so. She smiled and opened her eyes and he was smiling too . . . remembering.
He moved toward her, leaning onto one knee and tenderly lowering her down, one hand cradling her head, the other at the small of her back, expertly coaxing her center of gravity toward him. He descended too, first kissing her knees, then her thighs.
“No tan line,” he whispered.
“You remembered,” she replied, gently biting her lower lip as his tongue crept deeper, approaching, then exploring her other lips. She inhaled sharply and eased out a shuddering exhale. His open palm glided slowly up her belly, to her right breast, first lingering, caressing the often-neglected underside, then incrementally over the top, her nipple anticipating his fingertips. He drew close and entered her slightly, stopping to tease that lovely moment, that delicious spot, hips barely moving, applying just enough pressure to torture them both a bit, hovering on the edge, massaging the soft, hard, warm wetness. Her hands gripped his flexed haunches, as she tried in vain to squeeze him closer. But he resisted, holding steady. Holy Jesus, fuck me, she said to herself, digging her nails in, demanding more, but he refused, refused, refused, teasing and toying with her sweetest of sweet spots until she gasped loudly at a pitch that seemed to be an octave up from anything she could ever recall hitting, “Please, Pete! For Christ’s sake, Pete! Fuck me, Pete! Fuck me!”
He paused, feeling lightheaded, but redeemed and unbelievably lucky to finally have the opportunity to override the old embarrassment. Realizing that although the couch had served them well so far, it was not the appropriate theater of operations for what would happen next, he pulled her close and whispered, “Hang on,” his lips brushing gently the inside of her ear, and hoisted her——smoothly, effortlessly, remaining deeply implanted, united, conjoined, skewered, plugged-in, and hard-wired for maximum combustion——transporting her to his bedroom. He stopped for a moment in the doorway——too disoriented by desire to take another step——and softly placed and firmly pinned her against a wall covered with a large, lush tapestry that looked like something from the Renaissance or the Middle Ages or from way, way back before that. It was very possibly the most beautiful work of art she had ever seen, much less splayed and screwed upon. He inched even higher inside her, up on his tiptoes, then letting her down slightly, then up again, pausing for a moment of euphoric delirium.
Arms wrapped tightly around his head, face buried deeply in his neck, she raised her head slightly and happened to see a wild parrot sitting among the fronds of a palm tree right outside the arched window, looking right at her. It was like a dream or a detail from a Latin American magic realist novel. She wondered what it meant, even though she didn’t put much stock in the meaning of such things. Then the bird noticed her, squawked, and flew straight up in a burst of bright green feathers.
Green for go, she thought, just as Pete pivoted toward the bed. “Now this is a reunion . . . worth coming to . . . or at,” she started in a murmur and, due to circumstances far beyond her control, finished in a squeal. They both laughed, tumbling onto the bed, Pete unleashing the full weight of his passion . . . his lifelong, true-blue crush on Cynthia, letting gravity help him have his way with her, plunging, penetrating deeper than deep . . . both crying out in one voice of longing and lust.
They ravaged each other with wild abandon . . . hot, heavy, then tender, then hot and heavy again. He was a virtuoso of his instrument. He played her with every inch of his cock, from head to shaft to root, teasing every nerve ending from the sweet high notes of her clitoris, to her G to Do-Re-Mi spots, to the pounding, shuddering, orchestral tones that can only emanate from within the dark recesses, beyond the proscenium and curtains, deep inside the warm chamber of flesh, where hot-wet-hard-soft pleasures collide, resounding upward and outward through bliss and bone and psyche and sighs, like lush under and overtones throbbing in unison with natural rhythms and amplifying them beyond belief. Both perched on the verge of climax, shaking on orgasm’s edge, Cynthia’s trembling fingers crawled out of the holes they’d dug into Pete’s rock-hard ass, and reached out and around to track down, then tease and follow his tight, slapping, bouncing balls. They were a moving target and she strained and stretched and finally made brief contact with an index finger, then another, teasing his plums with a firm flutter that caused Pete to cry out and plunge in even deeper . . . impossibly deep, impossibly hard. This symphony of ecstasy escalated into an exquisite crescendo, the entire composition finally breaking down into delicious, calamitous cacophony, uncontained by mere floors and walls, let alone open windows, echoing off the nearby Hollywood sign, across canyon and flats . . . hanging in the warm California air like a clarion call of deep requited desire.
Day 2, Chapter 12
Lolita was riding up Beachwood Drive when she heard someone, somewhere in the throes of passion.
Yet another somebody is having more fun than me.
She snaked through the canyon streets, winding her way up to Cynthia’s house. She had jettisoned some of her anger along the way. She wasn’t going to tell Cynthia off. She was looking forward to just chatting, hearing about her friend, Jack--she would have to accept that. Or at least she’d pretend she did.
She was surprised to find Tanya walking away from Cynthia’s front door, sipping a cappuccino.
Tanya was just as surprised to see her.
“Well,” said Lolita, dismounting the bike and moving toward her, “fancy meeting you here.”
“Likewise,” said Tanya.
“Really, though,” said Lolita, talking now like a corny cowboy, sounding sort of funny . . . sort of intimidating, “what brings you ‘round these here parts?”
“Umm, well,” said Tanya tentatively. She had planned on eventually telling her Cynthia was thinking about hiring her, but feeling increasingly uncomfortable about doing it here, now. “I dropped something off for Cynthia.”
“What did you drop off?” she asked, focusing in like a police interrogator on her former employee.
“Well, umm . . .” she stammered nervously, “We talked yesterday about, well, ab
out me . . . umm . . .”
“Me umm what?”
“Well, me sort of, kind of, you know, possibly working for her.”
Lolita screamed so loudly that Tanya dropped her cappuccino. Then Lolita dropped her motorcycle helmet, which bounced down the hill, possibly all the way to Franklin Avenue, a small brown cappuccino river trickling behind it.
A little higher up in the canyon, just a few blocks away, two lovers stopped what they were doing, freezing in a pose that would make the illustrator of the Kama Sutra blush.
Cynthia removed her mouth and hands from the three Pete body parts she had glommed onto. A trickle of perspiration made its way down her forehead, welling in her eyebrow. “Did you hear that?” she asked, wiping the sweat away.
“Yup,” said Pete, coming up for air and turning his head to listen——then pausing to crack the crick in his neck——“the unmistakable wail of the Hollywood Hills coyote.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, sitting up straight in bed, “what time is it?”
“Who cares?” asked Pete, leisurely tickling her ass with his toe.
“I do!” she said, jumping up and running to the living room. She found her phone. It was percolating with messages. 12:43. She really had to get going. “Goddamn it! I can’t believe it!”
“Hey,” said Pete, walking through the room and to the kitchen. “I realize I really need to get going too. You want a quick breakfast?”
Cynthia’s phone rang. Tanya.
“No, no, Pete,” she said, pulling on her underwear, “hold on . . .”
“Tanya?” she asked, looking under the couch for her bra . . .” What’s up? “She put the phone on speaker so she could get down and reach for the stray undergarment.
Tanya’s voice was loud and panicky. “Cynthia, I am so sorry. I really screwed up. Are you in the neighborhood? I can be there in five minutes.”
