Ingrams & Assoc 4: Beneath the Surface Ch. 03

We men are just so easily manipulated, I reflected. No wonder women rule the world.

I heard a horn outside, got the keys from Megan, grabbed my violin, and climbed in the Uber, heading for the hotel, where I spent the afternoon standing on a balcony, playing anything and everything on the violin, trying to make the music say what I was feeling. I even composed something on the spot, I was in such a good mood.

Two days later, we were in Portland. The evening she'd returned from Kyle Partridge's trailer, she was drained, but still insisted that we make slow love that evening. And it was loving. Slow, languorous, gentle, but intense. She looked at me the whole time, insisting on positions where we could look at each other. If I wasn't already completely smitten, I would have been after that. I know I keep saying that, but each time I do, it's equally true.

I went to sleep, wondering how long my slice of heaven could last.

We spent the next couple of days driving very slowly up to Portland, stopping several times on the way. It's an easy drive to make in just a few hours, but we didn't need to be in Portland and Megan wanted to explore the Willamette Valley, where they grow a lot of Oregon Pinot Noir. This woman really did like her wine. Megan was on the phone back to HQ a lot. She mentioned that some things were changing back in Boston and it might all be coming to a head, which sounded good.

We ended up staying in a hotel in the Kings Hill historic area. It's not as trendy as the Pearl District, but is frankly very charming.

That evening, Megan announced we were going out, to meet the mysterious, 'family friends'. I was told to bring my violin, although she wouldn't tell me why.

We ended up at a tavern called "Portleys". I couldn't work out if it was named that for the city, or for the rotund owner, who embraced Megan like she was his long lost child.

We were shown to a table where a couple awaited us. The man, a tall bald guy, stood as we approached and similarly grabbed Megan in a bear hug, followed by the smaller, slim brunette woman, with the pixey hair cut. She honestly looked like Audrey Hepburn, reincarnated.

The man turned to me. "I'm Jace. You must be Thomas? Dermot has told me all about you and this shitty situation. Glad to have you here. Must be a lousy time right now, on the run and all that." He was definitely earnest.

I was surprised for a second, then less so. If they were tied in with Megan's group, I had no doubt he knew what I'd had for breakfast.

"This is my wife, Chloe," he said, holding her close. She clung to him, with both arms around his torso. She nodded at me, smiling slightly.

"You have me at a disadvantage I'm afraid" I said, wondering who they were.

Megan glanced at me, and made a gesture for us to sit down.

"Thomas, Jace is an old friend. One of our company's first clients, when Jessica - who runs the company - was still out in the field, doing...um... hands on work."

I looked back at Jace, who smiled back. Then glanced at Chloe, and despite bursting with obvious questions, I figured the best thing to do was just accept it at face value. It was obviously a private thing. I was extremely uncomfortable, since everyone else seemed to be a part of something, and I was just...there. On the outside.

And then he said, "Yeah, Chloe and I had an issue, Jessica was hired to try and put me right, and she mostly did. Mostly. I did catch her at it though."

Megan said, "One of only two times in our history. Thomas, you are in august company!"

It was said with pride. I really didn't quite understand what she was saying, but nodded anyway. It seemed the thing to do.

"I heard how you saved April and Megan, Thomas. That took real guts," he said, nodding over at a waiter to come over.

Chloe still hadn't said a word, but caught my eye and smiled at me, finally opening up with, "Don't take all this macho shit too much to heart. Whenever Jace has dealings with Ingrams people, he gets all masculine and struts around."

She had a very soft voice, very contralto.

Jace looked at her, mock hurt and Megan hid a smile behind a menu.

"You be quiet and make babies, woman," said Jace, emphatically, beating his chest as he did it. "Man be talking!"

So he did have a sense of humor. He sure didn't look like he did. He looked like he was the villain from a new James Bond movie.

"So, sorry we couldn't host you at our place," Jace said, directing his speech at me. "Honestly though, we have kids at home, and while I am sympathetic to your situation, I have them to consider. You are being hunted and I really don't need to be bringing that to our house. You understand, right?"

He glanced at Megan, who nodded energetically. "Of course. Totally understood. I'm just glad I'm able to see you guys again. It's been what, three years? How are the kids?"

Jace took a drink and mumbled something and Chloe elbowed him in the ribs.

"Sorry?" said Megan, mischievous smile on her face. She was prodding trouble and she knew it.

"He said, 'Noisy'," said Chloe, glowering at her husband. "And he can talk. Playing that stupid music all the time"

"It's not stupid. It's Maori Haka. It's a good message to give the kids," protested Jace.

"It's in fucking Maori, Jace. The only message they are getting is that it's great to get worked up and slap themselves."

"Yeah... well...It's cool!" Jace just mumbled into his drink.

"Thomas, you must forgive him. He's still a big kid himself and he doesn't like having to be an adult a lot, for the real children," said Chloe. I just smiled weakly at them. I really didn't want to get in the middle of marital strife of people I didn't know.

"Lets order! I'm famished!" said Megan, looking through the menu.

We ordered, and drinks and dinner were delivered. I went with the Shepard's pie. We spend the whole meal just talking about world events, thoughts on the Superbowl, - to which I didn't have much to add, - relationships, movies, etc. The conversation was fast paced and bounced around a lot. Not much at all was said about Ingrams. I wanted to know more, but couldn't figure out how to introduce the subject without being obvious..

When the dishes were cleared, Jace belched, was elbowed yet again by Chloe - his ribs must be a mass of bruises - and she then looked expectantly at me.

"Thomas, did you bring your instrument?" asked Chloe, after glancing at Jace being a clown and frowning attractively.

"He certainly did," interrupted Megan, before I could say anything. "He has no idea why though."

"It's in the car," I said, finally getting a word in.

"Megan told us you play. We selected this tavern particularly, because they're doing live music tonight. It's a small band, and they love people sitting in with them. They play mostly Scottish and Irish dancing music. Ceilidh music they call it. Some band from the UK, called the Oyster Ceilidh Band. It's good stuff. Megan had been raving about your playing, so we thought we might persuade you to play a bit? We've primed them that you might."

I was caught. What was I going to say, "No"? Of course I had to agree, even though I really didn't want to. I wasn't comfortable performing in public. Not the way I looked. Tall, scary face... I was the whole deal. I just wanted to sit in the corner, quietly. Being out in public with Megan was a whole new thing for me, and I still wasn't completely comfortable with it. Sitting in a sushi place and making out with Ryan Reynolds sitting across from us was one thing - that was so far out of reality, it was easy to imagine it wasn't real. But this... this was too close to the real world.

I sighed internally, and tried to put a good face on it. I turned to Megan, who was both beaming and yet also searching my face for signs of how I really felt about it, and smiled at her and said, "I'll go get the violin then?"

I got up, thinking about how surreal it was. Here I was, a water engineer, sitting with a white-hot babe, who worked as a kind of secret agent, practiced some therapy and was on the run from the mob. Not really your everyday situation if you think about it. And yet, the people I was with wanted me to play with a band I'd never met before. OK then. Why not?

I fetched my violin and came back to find the band setting up at the other end of the bar, and nodded to them, holding up the violin case and saying, "Any chance I might sit in on a few tunes?"

They looked at each other, dubiously, and eventually, one grizzled guy with short grey hair said, in a distinctly British accent, "You any good?"

"I can hold my own," I replied.

"I didn't ask if you could play with yourself," he replied, smirking, "I asked if you were any good?"

I caught on then that this was in jest - the Brits have that funny understated way of expressing themselves.

"Well, I can stroke like the best of them," I retorted. Tit for tat, I thought.

The guitarist snorted behind him, and the grizzled guy turned round and gave him a four-letter stare.

"Ok, well, sure, if you can keep up. We are big on gigging, the stuff is simple, and if you go with the flow, whatever you do will fit in. That's the nice thing about Celtic music, it's made for people who don't know it to pick it up quickly," he said, turning back to me.

I nodded, and stepped up onto the little stage, nodding at the other violinist.

"I'm Dan," he said, holding out his hand., "and the crotchety bastard over there is John Jones."

I shook his hand, and opened the violin case, and pulled out the instrument, and Dan whistled, "Is that a Karl Willhelm?"

"Yep," I answered, looking it over to ensure there was nothing damaged. "It's a model 64."

"Nice!" he said, pulling his older instrument out.

John Jones looked back at me and said, "Lets give the new guy a whirl. See if he's any good. Dan, play some Dancing Squirrels, and lets see if he can follow."

So Dan did, he played eight bars of something, and I did my best to replicate it, and we did that for about ten minutes, with me responding to what he played, and then sometimes extrapolating it. He beamed at me the first time I did that, and we were soon going back and forth, playing the same material, but changing it. It was like dueling pianos, but with violins. Suddenly the guitar player joined in, and the next thing we had John Jones, with a squeezebox, and before I knew it, we were actually playing something.

I have to admit it. This was actually a hell of a lot of fun. I'd never done this before, playing with other musicians like this. And John Jones was right - most of the Celtic music was fairly simple stuff, but with lots of variations on a theme. Once you got the beat and the theme, it was easy to just riff on it. I could really get into it.

We did about four songs like that, and then John Jones started calling. It transpired that Celidh music is meant to be danced to, like line dancing but with partners. And John Jones, even though he was playing, would be calling out what he wanted the dancers to do. "Do-si-do your partner!" whatever that was.

The tavern owners had moved all the tables back, so there was space for everyone to get out there, and I saw Jace and Chloe out there, dancing around and laughing.

And then I saw Megan out there, asked to dance by some local, and she accepted, and then this guy almost literally swept her off her feet and I died inside.

This went on, song after song. Megan dancing with guy after guy and having the time of her life and I just played and played, and burned and burned.

During the last song, I was so agitated that on a down stroke, I pressed too hard and snapped my bowstring. Replacing bowstrings is a tedious process, so Dan, noticing, just threw me a spare bow. His spare turned out to be nicer than mine, properly waxed with rosin.

I just stewed, song to song, watching Megan out there. And I knew I had no real right to be upset. She wasn't 'my' girl. She was single and having fun and there was nothing wrong with that, and yet I burned angrily anyway. The heart wants what the heart wants, and I had to finally admit, mine wasn't even mine any more.

Eventually, everyone ran out of breath, and John Jones called a break. Before everyone stepped away for a welcome pint of cold beer, he glanced at me and said, "Do you have any of your own stuff?"

I was still staring off at Megan, sitting with Chloe and Jace, and some random guy sitting with them, laughing at something he said, and I just nodded absently, not even really thinking about what he'd asked.

"Hey Folks. So, tonight, we have an extra player, my good friend Thomas," announced John Jones, over the mike. "He has something he'd like to play for you. So lend him an ear while you recover, folks."

Wait, what? I was going to do what now? Somehow the lights had come down, and there was one spotlight, shining down on a stool in the front of the stage.

Well shit. SHIT!

So off I went. I sat down, trying not to look out at the expectant faces waiting for me to entertain them. I had my cap on, and I pulled it tighter and lower on my face - sitting in a spotlight like that, with my face, and given the situation we'd already had with the video from LA, I just wanted to be as anonymous as I could be.

"Um..." I said, into the microphone in front of me, mumbling a bit, "this is called 'Megan's Heart'."

I just hoped to god I could remember what I had had put together the other night.

I started to play, as best I could, and somehow, the music took over. After the eighth bar, I just closed my eyes and let it flow. And it did.

I had so many thoughts - you are supposed to internalize the music when you play, how it makes you feel. At least, that's what I always thought. But this time it was totally true... there wasn't even any audience in my mind. I kept thinking about my parents, their loss, Kyle Partridge, his life, my life, the lives I had taken, this road trip, Megan - especially Megan -, and it all just blurred together. The music changed as I thought about different things - same riff, but a different speed or take on it. When I thought about my parents, the music became mournful. When I thought of the lives I had been instrumental in taking, it became slightly frantic. And when I thought about Megan... well, it soared.

I must have played for six or seven minutes. It felt like all night. I poured everything I had into it, not understanding why I needed to do it, but just doing it anyway. When the last note came out, I opened my eyes and looked out at the people in the audience. They just sat there. No one moved or said anything. And I just sat there, thinking, "Shit, I must have been beyond bad."

And then someone started clapping. I looked, and it was Megan. She was on her feet, eyes shining, clapping manically. Then everyone else did too, some standing up, as well.

I just sat there, breathing heavily. Heavy violin work can do that to you.

I don't know. Something changed inside me. Like the days before, with Kyle Partridge, and my active decision to forgive him, something just... clicked. I don't know what it was. I don't even really know how it made me feel. Just, something changed. For the good.

John Jones came almost running to where I was standing.

"Damn, Thomas. That was... wow. Just wow. Really impressed. Do you have other stuff?"

I just looked at him, wearily, and said, "Not tonight. I just need to... go. Please..."

And then Megan and Jace and Chloe were around me, talking intensely, and I was crying and I didn't know why.

Megan could see I was in distress, and she immediately took me by the hand, not saying anything, and led me out of the tavern, nodding at Jace and Chloe, who stood, arms around each others waists, nodding back at her with understanding faces.

I still had the violin in my hand, but had left the case in the Tavern. Jace came running out with it two minutes later, as we made our way to the car.

He pressed it into my hands, and murmured, "That was astounding Thomas. I hope it did for you what it did for everyone else. Look after him Megan. He's special."

And then he went inside and we were in the car and on our way back to the hotel.

When we got there, we went to the room, still without having said anything. Megan led me by the hand, not speaking or making eye contact with anyone.

Megan undressed herself, while I sat on the bed, just starting into space, trying to understand the dam that had broken inside myself. Feeling scared and happy and sad and basically overwhelmed.

She came to me, naked, and undressed me too; I was like a zombie. I looked up at her concerned face, tears dripping down mine.

She just guided me into the bed and the climbed in next to me, gathered me up in her arms and stroked my head, slowly and methodically, while I sobbed my way to oblivion. I still didn't even know why

The next morning, I woke early and found Megan already awake, sitting with plumped up pillows, looking down at me, and smiling at me.

"Morning sleepy head. Boy, do you make an impression?"

I smiled weakly back at her.

"You wrote that song for me? You really know how to turn a girl's head, Thomas."

She leant down and kissed me on the lips, not lustfully, or chastely, just...as I'd always imagined real lovers did. She did it with feeling, that's what it was.

"Come on, let's go get breakfast. You've been through a lot, and you need to refuel."

And that's what we did. Then we went back to the room, and damn if she didn't rock my world.

We made love. We didn't fuck, or get lustful, we just... well, I thought we made love. She insisted on positions where she could look at me while I slid my iron bar erection into her well-lubricated pussy.

It was slow and languorous, and she closed her eyes on occasion, when the feelings overcame her, opening them and establishing eye contact again, once the orgasm had washed over her. Her hands were all over my body, touching my face or my chest. She took my hands, and made them move over her body, showing me what she liked and making me bring her to orgasm again and again.

And finally, while I was solid as a rock, I just couldn't seem to get there myself. I was horny, but so interested in her pleasure that I just wasn't taking that much myself. I felt like she was giving herself to me, and I wanted her to understand how important that was, and how I wanted to make her feel everything she should from me.

Eventually she just said, "Cum for me Thomas. Make me feel it. I need it, you need it, do it. Cum hard in me...", while sitting on me. I was flat on my back and she was sitting on me, riding me for all she was worth, like she had done the first time.

And the way she said it, looking down at me, the look of rapture on her face... well, I did what any red blooded male would do, and erupted. I could feel the cum spurting out of me, splashing into her - every ejaculation I felt with a grunt, that la petite mort, as the French describe an orgasm, hitting with ever spurt.

When I was done, we just stared at each other for a second, and then she collapsed on me, her mouth finding mine and kissing me like they'd just passed a law banning it. And I kissed her right back.

We spent the rest of the day in bed, either her making me cum or me making her cum. We did everything either of us could think of. Hell, I even got her off with a toothbrush at one point. Don't ask - it works.

And then there was a phone call, and while she didn't want to take it, she did, getting up and smiling at me, and then taking the phone into the bathroom.

I don't know what was said, but when she came back to bed, half an hour later, she just clung to me, not saying a word.