V. Performance
As Christiansen took a seat at the Irmler, Irons recognized the need for such a full skirt on her gown. He observed a pair of slender high heels cast off near the room's entry. He felt more than saw Ian take notice of them as well. Apparently she preferred nothing come between herself and the brass pedals. The skirt could be made to hide this from discerning company such as sold-out concert halls and opera houses, and she could play, unfettered by narrow-mindedness. In such an informal venue, though, she had not wasted any time in settling the skirt to conceal her tiny, bare feet from sight. They peeked flirtatiously out from the hem of her dress, the swell of her toes and arching suppleness of her instep unconsciously massaging the brass of the foot pedals as though she had been required to polish them thus.
In response to this display of sensuality (however unintentional), Irons turned abruptly and calculatingly to bring the full force of his gaze to rest on Ian. The boy immediately dropped his line of sight even lower than his place setting, settling it now on his clasped, gloved hands buried submissively in the darkness of his own lap.
...
Kenneth Irons had heard Ulaauq Christiansen play live on three occasions. Doing so had been a necessity in the final decision-making process as to whether he would indeed take her on as Ian's next instructor. Each time he had attended her in concert some twenty-four months ago, it had seemed, impossibly, that her skill, rather than diminishing over time (as it so often did for others), only increased prodigiously.
He knew Ian had requested the Chopin on his behalf. Ian, a truculent child who had stepped out of line, knew it, and so offered a small boon in the hopes of making peace.
Christiansen's fantastical rendering of Etude in C Minor went well beyond most I'm sorry's Kenneth Irons had ever been offered in his lifetime, but it would not be enough to spare young Nottingham the eventual punishment he deserved for his unacceptably brash behavior this evening. Looking over to Ian, who now wore his familiar mask of intense concentration, Irons hoped the boy knew it. Anticipation was, after all, the better part of correction.
...to be continued...
2002 (c) Neftzer
See Chapter One for disclaimers.