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Duet
#1
Something sweet and innocent that was actually quite sinister and haunting. Passion mixed with despair. Sorrow and fury. Playful plucking that rises into complicated elegance and speeds past what the mind can track and so instead leaves it numb to everything.

Numb to everything but the music.

His wrists were light and loose. Shoulders fluid and elbows open. One does not play the majestic instrument that was a piano with only their fingers. They play with their entire body. They make love to the music; he commands and manipulates it. His torso sways to the rhythm. The rise and fall of a pedal forced all the notes to echo and overlap long after a key was struck; much as a crying throat beneath one's shoe. He stretches his arms wide, owning every harmonic, and sometimes, purposefully clashing them together in stretches of sound to rival the purity of demons' song. He manipulates every aspect of the performance, designing a melody that left his audience in oblivion.

Dane quickly glanced at the woman cozy on the bench next to him. Behind the frame, the black lacquer of a grand piano stretched before them both. The chair he'd occupied for forty-five delightful minutes remained empty nearby. Cigar long cold of its smoldering and half a glass of port likewise remained abandoned alongside. The piano lid was held at a sharp angle, casting the music toward the bowl of the room where warm wooden walls were stained with its timbre like an old sponge. But every stroke of the key resonated deeper than walls and chairs. It touched a chord in the soul, if such a thing existed, and wrapped his new pianist friend with a warm blanket of melodic trust in her partner.

She smiled invitingly in response to his and without missing a beat of their duet. The sheen of her black hair fell slick as a mop of wet blood down the pale flesh of her shoulders where her dress pooled at the small of her back. Every time she touched the pedal, a cord of muscle burst from the side of her calf in the sensual line of her stake of a stiletto.

When he first entered the gentlemen's bar at the Ritz Carlton, the room was yet unfilled for the evening but for a few solitary figures drowning their sorrows in expensive alcohol. It had been the backdrop of elegant instrumentation that drew him on in, and the slender shape of the exotic princess lost to the world in which she created that sealed the imagery in his mind.

A knowing smile eased him into the deep comforts of a chair, and soon, Dane had crossed one leg over the other and watched her with glowing captivation. Never once did he look elsewhere. Not when a round of crude patrons slammed their conversation at the edge of his periphery. Not when the bar back shattered a glass. Only her. This lovely orchid, unique and special. Soon, she began to play for him, sneaking quick glances above the resonating strings, and silently, she flirted, tilting her cheek one way or another, petting the keys with the pads of her fingers, or tucking one ankle behind another when she realized his eyes had fallen.

She didn't skirt away when he leaned in from behind her. The scent of her shampoo curled pleasantly in his nostrils, and wisps of hair tickled his cheek. For some minutes, he did not sit, but instead reached around the width of her back, and eased into higher treble octaves; easing into her trust that he would not ruin the song, but rather, enhance what she could not do alone. She played along, enjoying the enchantment of their silent game. When he finally slid on the bench, she made room, though the sides of their thighs barely pressed together, he knew she was unafraid of his proximity.

Perfect. That was the point. Whether playing a symphony or playing a game. A master manipulated the art of the unexpected. Sweet and sinister; elegant and savage. And his lovely new friend would not expect what was to come from so graceful an artist. Indeed, Dane was an artist. And she would be his art.

When he peeled her wrist from the keys, the music stopped and was replaced with the dull ache of petty conversations all around. He watched her eyes while he kissed the back of her hand. Her pupils dilated, and her breath came shallow. "Thank you for the duet,"
he said softly. A lovely, lovely thing she was.

He laid her hand in her lap and excused himself, leaving her with the ghostly promise of what had yet to come. She resumed playing as he walked away, not to look back. Not for many hours would he look back.

He abandoned her as he had the port and cigar, but dismissed the idea of collecting either on his way to the bar. A wave of the hand summoned the bartender. He leaned casually on the rail. "A fresh Cuban,"
and he glanced at one of the men in his immediate presence. "And one for my friend, as well."


He returned his cuffs to his wrists and slid into a chair alongside Nicholas. "A pleasure, Mister Trano,"
he greeted, British accent crisp and elegant as the man's salt and pepper hair, but mixed with sounds that also hinted at somewhere else.

Once his sleeves were fixed, he extended a hand in offer of a gentlemen's greeting. He wrapped his palm around Nicholas' and introduced himself with a wide smile. "Dane Gregory."




Edited by Dane Gregory, Dec 9 2013, 09:31 PM.
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Messages In This Thread
[No subject] - by Dane Gregory - 12-09-2013, 02:01 PM
[No subject] - by Nolan Trace - 12-09-2013, 09:52 PM
[No subject] - by Dane Gregory - 12-10-2013, 10:02 AM
[No subject] - by Nolan Trace - 12-17-2013, 01:32 AM
[No subject] - by Dane Gregory - 12-17-2013, 07:41 AM
[No subject] - by Nolan Trace - 12-27-2013, 11:54 PM
[No subject] - by Dane Gregory - 12-31-2013, 07:09 PM
[No subject] - by Nolan Trace - 01-04-2014, 06:57 PM
[No subject] - by Dane Gregory - 01-05-2014, 05:20 PM
[No subject] - by Seth Marx - 01-17-2014, 04:57 PM
[No subject] - by Nolan Trace - 01-17-2014, 04:57 PM

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