Making Love in Iambic Pentameter
GN!V and GN!EV
Part 2
Rated NC-17 for sexual situations
Eve awoke. Ribbons of notes, piano sounds, rippled faintly through her closed door. Warm-up scales. She slid out of bed, threw her silk robe over her naked body and moved to the door. She put her ear to the jam. He's playing. She waited for him to change from scales to the louder, aggressive arpeggios he liked to play before she put her finger to the latch. One click from my door and he will stop. He will fold up the cover and leave the room. Even when she had first learned this painful lesson, and had snuck in silently to listen from the next room, he had somehow known she was there, and stopped. He did not admonish her, but covered the keys and walked out.
When she heard the notes become fierce she pushed the door open a few inches. The volume increased dramatically, almost like an assault on her ears. What's wrong?
She stood there, her cheek against the cool wood, her ear in the crack, and listened without moving for several minutes. He pounded the keys, every scale, from the bass notes to the treble with greater force than she had ever heard him play before. Something is wrong. Is it about last week? Eve had closed the door to the Theatre Room; a subtle gesture she meant for him to notice. And he notices everything. I gave him some space. I closed the door. I haven't gone back in there.
Is that what is bothering him? Maybe. Hard to tell with V. It could be something he saw in the surveillance room. It could be something he did topside. Where was he? That night after closing the trunk he had disappeared and not come back for two days. Eve had gone to bed, knowing he was gone. She had lain awake, listening for him, but had eventually fallen asleep, alone.
She listened to him now…then suddenly there was silence. Eve held her breath. Is he finished? Is that all? Just scales? No. He had been warming up. Very warm. The silence, not shattered, but broken gently with tender notes. Softly, so softly, as great as the volume had been before, now he lightly touched the keys.She drew in her breath long and slow. She recognized the piece. Soft and slow, each note drifted toward her like a caress. Purcell. So sad. Sad notes. Dido's Lament. Eve pushed the door open a little more. She padded silently, barefoot, through the Gallery until she reached the very edge of the music room. There. I can see his back. He is bent into the music, so absorbed. He will not notice if I am silent. Will he sing? No. He merely plays, but we both know the words.
She crept closer, holding her breath, planning each step like a dancer. When she was six feet behind him she stopped. Any closer and he can hear me breathe. She listened as he touched the keys with his soft suede gloves, making the piano moan and sing. She longed to touch him. His shoulders moved, his hair swayed to and fro as he reached for the notes at both ends of the keyboard. Then it was over. The last notes faded away. The closing minor chord hung in the air between them, his boot on the pedal forcing the notes to tremble, stretching the sound to the faintest hum. Evey could hold her breath no longer, and let it out with a sigh.
His head cocked to the side immediately, his ear turned toward her. There was a flurry of movement; the cover appeared to whip itself out of the piano and over the keys with a discordant thump. He was on his feet and stalking away without even a glance behind him. Evey knew there was only one thing she could do.
Before he could reach the doorway she slid onto the bench and lifted the cover. Piano, do not fail me. She splayed her fingers and brought them down loudly on a chord, C #…too loudly for this piece, but she wanted to get his attention. She crushed the pedal with her foot and allowed the three notes to surge toward him. He stopped, but did not turn. Evey kept her eyes on his broad back as she moved her right hand to play the rocking chair notes of Beethoven's Sonata number 14, Moonlight. She decreased the volume when she knew he had his attention and removed her foot from the pedal. She had to glance down now. While she knew the first movement by heart, she could not play without looking at her hands. She changed the left hand chord and pressed the pedal again, glancing up at him. His head was turned. He was listening. She moved into the more challenging part, the sensitive high notes that touch the tip of the melody with the right hand. Again, the sustain pedal gave her trouble. Too much…too much…the notes were blending and clashing. Evey frowned and looked up. He was gone.
"Too much pedal…" she heard him low and deep in her right ear. The keys crashed together as she jumped, startled, and the music stopped. Her foot on the pedal kept the discordant notes heavy in the air between them. He reached down and touched her knee. "Release the pedal," he said softly. She did. "And curve your fingers…like this." He bent over her, warm from his exertion, emanating the hot scent of leather and silk through his hair and his mask. He sat down beside her, close, and his gloved fingers took hers and positioned them over the keys, bending them, holding her wrists level over the keyboard. "The first movement is Adagio, Eve. Play it slowly, and lift your foot from the pedal after every phrase. Depress it half way through the next. Like this." He put his boot over her bare foot and she relinquished the pedal to him. His arms crowded her as he started the piece over; the C# chord now sounded rich and splendid emerging from the soundboard, his touch made it sing. Evey shrank down small beside him, to give him room and listened as he played the first movement all the way through. She felt his leg tighten and relax beside her as he pressed and released the sustain pedal in all the right places. When he was finished, he sat there beside her, his hands on his thighs as the last notes faded into the air. "I haven't heard you practicing," he murmured.
"I always wait until you are out," she answered just as softly. "I've been working on this for weeks."
"Hmmmm…" she heard him beneath the mask. "Do you want to try again?"
"Not the piano." His proximity removed any desire she had to play. She stood up and straddled him on his lap, her hands on his shoulders. She was mask to face now, more difficult for him to get away, and he didn't try. "You've been avoiding me ever since that afternoon in the Theatre Room," she said to him.
He cocked his head. "Perhaps."
"Why?"
"It is important, Eve, that you understand the difference between fantasy and reality."
Evey narrowed her eyes as she squeezed his shoulders. "That is a very strange idea coming from you."
"I see you have already forgotten." He made a move to stand up. He put his gloves around her waist to lift her, but she pressed herself to his chest, set her chin on his shoulder and her cheek in his hair and wrapped her legs around his waist. Eve held him tightly.
"No you don't," she warned. "We are staying here for a moment. I'm not finished." She knew he still could peel her off if he wanted to. He didn't. He sighed into her neck.
"The way I see it," she said carefully, stroking his hair, "the way I see it, fantasy exists before reality. Creates it, in fact. Ideas always come before actions. The artist thinks, then he creates…"
"Eve..."
"…and I have been thinking all week." She pressed her mouth to his ear, the only part of his body she could access. "Thinking, V." She drew her hand down from his head across his shoulders and over his hips. She whispered into his ear, "'Romance. Always, always romance." She shifted a little on his lap to let him know she could feel him beneath her. He buried the mask in her neck. Evey continued, using his own words. "'We may easily forget just what it is for which we strive'." She felt him harden further beneath her thighs. "Is it not dancing? Scented shoulders? Pupils widened by desire or wine?' He bent his head against her shoulder and inhaled her scent. Evey smiled, "I know the difference between fantasy and reality, V, and I intend to merge the two."
When he did not immediately object, Eve unfolded her legs from him and repositioned herself on the bench so she could unfasten his trousers. She heard a rumbling sound from beneath the mask, but it was not a warning. She freed him from his restraints and climbed over him, her knees on the bench. She slowly slid down, taking him inside her until she heard a little sigh puff out from the mouth hole of the mask. "Do you want this to be fantasy or reality?" she asked him. "Can you tell the difference?"
"Not at the moment," he said.
Eve stroked the cheek of the mask. "I can make love to you with words; I can make love to you with my body. You lost your first love, V. You lost her to reality, to Fate. I am your second love. Her betrayal drove you deep into my arms, yet you refuse to take me into yours." Eve lifted his chin so she could peer into the dark eye holes. "I am honest. I make no promises and I break none." She moved on his lap, and made him inhale sharply. "And now you shall feel the form of my intent." No more words were necessary. She took him in her arms, laid her cheek upon the top of his head and rocked him gently and smoothly until she felt him come silently inside her, the only indication of his release was a slight shudder of his shoulders and a tightening of his grip on her hips.
Eve sat quietly astride him, waiting. Then she heard him exhale as he opened his arms and gathered her to him. He laid his head timorously against her breasts; his gloves caressed her as he spoke. "O, Beauty, 'till now I never knew thee…"
Henry Purcell
Dido's Lament
Darkness shades me: When I am laid in earth, may my wrongs create
On thy bosom let me rest:
More I would, but death invades me:
Death is now a welcome guest.
No trouble in thy breast;
Remember me, but ah! Forget my fate.