The Pianist

I always slept with my bedroom window open so I could hear him play. Each night, as I reached gently for the peace of sleep, I listened to him surrender to his piano. From the apartment above me, the dove-like harmonies drifted down the side of the building, across my windowsill, and curled up next to me in bed. I would roll onto my side and they would hold me close until I flickered off to sleep. I fell in love with him just like that.

The first time I met him; I was flipping through my mail, head down into credit card offers and utility bills, when I clipped the heel of his shoe. I apologized for my carelessness before I looked up. When he excused me, his voice carried the same melody as his music, and I knew it was he. I was too embarrassed to introduce myself, so I slunk up the stairs while he waited at the elevator.

That night, he played for me. I could tell by the way he crept over me, as if he had been waiting for me to undress, as if he had been waiting for me to slide under the sheets. My hands itched to dance with him and I pulled one from under my pillow, down across my breasts and between my legs. My fingers moved tirelessly across my smooth flesh. His music penetrated me and, with the help of my own touch, it swam deep inside me, kissing each crevice.

My other hand moved upwards toward my breast, and with my palm cupping underneath, I pinched my nipple and pulled up. My fingers moved faster then. My heart racing, I pushed the soles of my feet down and lifted my hips up, trying to reach him in the apartment above me. I bit my lower lip and held my breath, breathing sporadically and holding tight to each intake of air, reaching for the threshold of bliss. Each time his hands crawled up the keys, I came closer to him and, when I at last gave in, his song ended, and my spirit faded into the night with the last note that he played.

We met like this for months, his music finding me in the calm of night. I wondered if he could smell me while he played, if he could hear me writhe under the sheets. I began to breathe his name, his music, the way he loved me. I was consumed by thought of him and, as each day passed, I ached to have him closer.

I don't know what it was about that evening. Perhaps it was spring crawling under my skin. I took one last look at myself in the mirror, pulled the stray hairs from the corner of my forehead back behind my ear, and I left my apartment to find him. It took just a few small taps on his door before he answered and the door opened, revealing his boyish smile. I asked him if I could watch him play and with just a slight hesitation he welcomed me into his home.

All of these months had passed with only a vision of what his piano had looked like. I pictured it a number of ways. I had pretended that he would fuck me against the side of an upright, or I would straddle him and kiss him while he continued to play. I fantasized about laying atop a baby grand while he ate me out, and him lifting me up and laying me down on top of the piano where he would join me and we would make love until the morning.

Never, in all of my nights imagining this, did I ever picture a more beautiful piano. He told me that it was from the Steinway Crown Jewel collection, in a Macassar Ebony finish. I listened but was focused only on the way it called to me, standing out in his otherwise nondescript living room. The piano was magnificent and he broke down the specifications as if I would understand what he was talking about.

I wanted to relax and sink into his sofa but I wasn't sure I belonged there, so I balanced myself on the very edge of the cushion and watched him approach the piano bench. He shifted several times before he settled into his seat. I wondered if this was always the way he started. His fingers touched down and gave life to Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14. He told me he was playing in C-sharp minor but I didn't know enough to care. I only knew that it was perfect.

It was the song that I dreamt about while I filed papers and lost myself in during conference calls. It was the song that pulled me at night from my own body. The song that carried me from ordinary, the song that pulled up on my hips while I lay in bed at night and forced me to rise, from the small of my back, inch by inch until it was my shoulders that rose up out of the mattress. I had lost myself right there in his living room and it wasn't until he moved his hand down the length of my hair that I realized he was no longer playing.

I opened my eyes and found myself entirely exposed. He kissed me without even asking if it was okay. Perhaps he saw right through me. Perhaps he knew that I had been dating him already from my lonely bedroom for months. He pulled me up from the couch and into his chest. His fingers curled around my chin and pulled my lips to his. They were inviting, so soft that I was taken off-guard by his commanding kiss. From that second, he owned me.

He patiently undressed me, appreciating each part of me that he uncovered before he moved on to the next, but it was the piece of me already exposed that he loved the most. His lips moved across the hollow of my neck and he exhaled just above it. His warm breath splitting and moving across each side of my neck. Our eyes met before he moved behind me. I did as he asked and stood still while I listened to his zipper move down and the subtle crumpling of his jeans onto the floor. His arm grazed my shoulder as he pulled his t-shirt up over his head.

I could feel my skin warm, and wondered if I had made a mistake by coming. He sensed my apprehension and planted his hand in the middle of my back pushing my chest onto the top of his piano. My breasts landed firmly against the chilled wood and I laid in harmony with the exquisite grains. His left hand still holding me down, he moved his right hand up under me.

He was pleased to find me already dripping and his finger slid between my lips and right to the bottom ball of the barbell that adorned the hood of my clitoris. I had always been silent when I was touched but, at this second, I couldn't help the hushed whimper that escaped my lips. He sank his finger into me and, my hands bracing the edge of his piano, I pushed against it, fighting my own loss of control.

He teased me with the head of his cock, watching me quiver every time he came closer to burying it inside of me. I hoped he needed me the way I needed him and, when the tip of him pierced me gently, I fell back into him. Each time he pushed against me I found myself helplessly pushing back. His left hand had settled between my shoulders and, with his middle finger atop my spine, he pulled his hand with purpose back toward himself, alternating pressure between his fingers as though I were his piano.

He pulled me like the ocean's undertow. Each thrust of his body lifted me up. I felt like his new song. The last bit of resistance I held on to was gone and my hand moved down again between my legs where my fore and middle fingers braced each side of my barbell and in time with each move by him, they moved. He grabbed my hand, helping me pull the barbell away from me. His fingers stayed intertwined with mine while they slid between us. He told me that he loved the way it made me shudder and I could feel myself ascend.

I could feel it coming in my lips. When I closed my mouth the numbness moved from the bottom of my lower lip up until the tingling reverberated from side to side and, when I came, each muscle contracted on him. He pushed down against my back harder until there was nowhere left for me to go and he exhaled as his chest collapsed down onto me. He kissed the back of my neck and breathed out while he thanked me.

I wanted to fall asleep just like that, with his chest against my back and his lips resting just above my spine but I knew that I should leave. He sat on the couch, sweat beads taking rest across his collarbone, and he watched me dress. I kissed his forehead before I left and made my way back downstairs to my own home.

Exhausted, I carefully folded my jeans and set them on my dresser before I moved my sheets back and took comfort in their familiarity. I laid my head down on my pillow, and I felt him shifting on his piano bench in the room above me. Then, through my bedroom window, it began. His music found me hiding underneath my blankets; missing him already. The music had come to ease this pain and it held me close until my eyes stayed closed and my spirit floated off to the place it goes each night when I dream.