by Marguerite Colson
(08/27/03)
I sit at the piano I've owned since my parents forced me to take lessons at eight years of age, and I'm desperately trying to play Nina Simone. Earlier in the evening we'd finished a bottle of chardonnay while the nightclub singer belted out passable renditions of the blues greats. Her repertoire consisted of the usual Billie Holiday/Etta James/Bessie Smith standards. In New York or New Orleans the songs would have echoed a certain truth. Here on a balmy Brisbane night, however, the white girl with the booming voice and silver dress provided more window dressing than serious entertainment. The crowd chattered, oblivious to her presence.
During her last set, without ceremony, this nondescript singer with the dazzling attire launched into "Everyone's Gone To The Moon." It was as soulful a version as I have ever heard. She closed her eyes and swayed. There was a hush. And my blind date, the beautiful, quiet stranger who had
listened intently to me all evening, asked me to dance. He danced as though I were part of him, pulling me into his lean curves until my heart pumped blood against his. His warm breath flickered down my neck as he crooned the words into my ear. "Sun disappears in the middle of June. Everyone's gone to the moon." My whole being was taut with the presence of him, the resonance of the song, the universality of Nina.
I grew up with Nina Simone. I grew up with her words, her pain, her struggles. While my friends listened to Sting and U2, I was caught in a sixties time warp with my parents. Nina's adult trials became my teenage angst. Her triumphs became my cue to try harder. My parents never quite
recovered from the fact that I was only ever a mediocre piano player.
I sit here at the piano now, and I so want to impress this man whose passion for Nina equals mine. I am playing "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" and in my mind, I can hear every chord, every silence, every nuance that I wish to create. I curse the fact that I did not practise more in my youth. My fingers tumble senselessly over the keys, partly from being rusty, partly from nervousness. I close my eyes momentarily and try to feel my way into the melody. "To get a brown eyed handsome man, her destination was a brown eyed handsome man." I open my eyes, try to focus on the sheet music and the secrets behind each note.
I sense him standing close behind me. Listening. Watching. I breathe deeply, focus on the timing of the music. His hands come to rest on my shoulders, his thumbs softly circling the curve of my neck. An involuntary gasp emerges from my throat, but I continue to play. Calloused fingers pull the spaghetti straps from my shoulders so they are laid bare. Those same, rough fingers
explore across my shoulders, the front of my neck, my decolletage. I give a goosebump shudder as my own fingers wobble painfully on the keys. He massages in time with my movements, following the lilt of my shoulders as I lift my hands to play the notes. My body tenses at his touch, yet strangely, my hands begin to relax and the music soars in perfect cadence.
My own brown-eyed handsome man unzips my dress at the back, slowly, teasing my skin as each inch of flesh is exposed till I am naked from the waist upwards.
"Keep playing."
His voice is husky in my ear as I come to the end of the song. I reach to the top of the piano and search frantically for another sheet of music.
I find "Everyone's Gone To The Moon," and begin to interpret its soulful splendour, remembering the unity of our heartbeats at the nightclub. Hands press into my breasts, twisting my nipples in rhythm with the music. My body arches, and I lean forward on the piano stool as though to escape his exquisite torture. My fingers hit the keys like magic, adagio...adagio...espressivo...forte. I instinctively follow the music and its moods. My tiny apartment reverberates with sound. I instinctively lean into his hands, which now graze the flesh across my stomach.
"Keep playing," he instructs again.
My brown eyed handsome man pulls up the hem of my dress and I oscillate between concentrating on the music and the unsteady crescendo being plucked from my body. Adagio...adagio...espressivo...forte. He strums one finger on my clit, forcing me to lift slightly from the stool. I fight to keep playing the notes correctly. I hear breathing. Deep. Distinct. Desperate. I do not know if it is his or mine. I am merely pounding at random notes now, the beauty and tempo of the song usurped by the throbbing within. I press myself into his touch, moan for release.
"Keep playing. Keep playing Nina."
"Fuck Nina!" I shout, and I stand with such force that the piano stool tips over. I swing to face him and my dress falls to the floor.
He grabs me in his arms and seats me roughly on top of the piano keys. A jarring sound emerges, worse than anything I produced even when I first started learning to play. He kicks my legs wide with his hips before unzipping his jeans.
I sit on the piano I've owned since my parents forced me to take lessons at eight years of age, and I desperately try not to move. It is futile. He edges towards me and with a single thrust he clicks into my wetness. I lift my ass in response to the intrusion, crashing down mercilessly against the keys. His hands grasp my thighs, his lips lock onto mine, and I am trapped in the dissonant symphony of my lust. I squirm on the keys, coveting his tongue, his cock, willing them to be part of me. The denim rasps and burns against my thighs. The cacophony of sound is frightening: the atonal crashing of chords, my high pitched pleas, his primal grunts.
At length, he places his hands under my ass and pulls himself entirely away from my body. Then, with a final, unruly assault, he bruises back into me. A continuous long, low moan emerges from the piano as I move around helplessly. I notice that I am partially sitting on "Everyone's Gone To The Moon." It drips with the soggy remains of lust.
In the morning we awake to the gentle sounds of my radio. Billy Joel. Cliff Richard. It's easy to lie there and avoid the inevitable morning-after awkwardness. No conversation required. My back aches -- I consider the possibility of aspirin, but my brown-eyed handsome man would follow me. That would mean breakfast. Toast. Coffee. Interaction. I decide to remain in bed.
Seven o'clock news. Politicians and war. War and politicians. Disease and cover-ups. Then: Nina Simone is dead.
We sit up simultaneously and listen to the tribute in silence.
"I killed Nina," I say when the segment finishes. "I said, 'Fuck Nina' last night, and now she’s dead."
My brown-eyed handsome man nods solemnly.
He rises from the bed and disappears into my living area. When he returns, the strains of "I Think It's Going To Rain Today" emerge from my CD player.
He climbs back into bed. Naked. Slightly wrinkled from sleep. I crawl on top of his firm body. I place my heart over his, try to capture the synchronicity from the previous night. Perhaps I am sad. Perhaps we both are. I cannot feel his heartbeat.
I slide down his torso, until I reach the spot below his belly button where a serious dark trail of hair begins. I pull some of the hairs between my teeth, and he yelps in mock pain. I lick up and down the trail of hair, savouring the salt-lime taste of his skin. He closes his eyes and groans softly, wincing slightly each time I fail to explore his lower extremities.
My tongue lashes out to lick his shaft, encrusted with evidence of the night before. I taste the sweet staleness, then clamp my lips over his length. His cock is thick and purple and meaty, a perfect accompaniment to Nina's deep, throaty voice. I play her song on his cock, sliding up and down in harmony with the words. Then he forms his own song in his head, and I can no longer contain his frenzy. He grasps my hair tightly at the roots and pulls it up and down wildly so that his cock pulverises my mouth. My teeth cut into my lips and my head begins to ache. I welcome the pain. It is as though we both feel that this frantic discharge of passion will dull the sorrow. He has placed the CD player on repeat. Nina begins her mournful song again.
Suddenly the punishment ceases and my hair is released. I resume my steady movements to the beat of the music, and he comes in a series of tiny jerks, filling my throat with his wasted seed. I crawl back up his torso and kiss him with the remnants of his own come. I smile. He smiles, and sings along with the chorus. "Human kindness is overflowing. And I think it's going to rain today."
Last night, he could have been Mr. Right. But we both think now it might not be so -- the burden of "killing" Nina could be too much for any relationship. I desperately want it to rain, but the gap in my curtains reveals the cloudless, blue sky of a perfect Brisbane day.
