17. The Pianist
The Pianist
I lose myself easily amidst melodies. After another day of tutoring, and babysitting, the release of music is all I need. This time alone, to turn off all my thoughts and let the sound carry me away.
Despite myself, I’ve wondered about him all day. Bastien.
True to his word, his presence has been fleeting.
Is it arrogant to assume he’s been watching me anyway?
Somehow able to hide his nearness, to the point it feels like he’s not there at all?
At least before, I knew he was there. But today I’ve been even more distracted, searching for him, waiting for that uncanny feeling to seize me.
I’ve grown to expect it. I’ve grown to anticipate it.
When I finally sit at the piano, the dozens of thoughts whirling around my head, all fighting to be the loudest, go quiet. This is my favorite, when I do not even have to think, becoming a conduit for the music.
My fingers dance before I even know what I’m playing, my mind slow to catch up as the possession begins. No warm up, no preamble, just the waltz, automatic, like I am a wound up music box. The melody falters a few moments later, my fingers stumbling.
My awareness is suddenly heightened as I come back to my body.
I know he’s behind me.
“Beautiful,” he says into the stark quiet, once the last note rings out. “Again.”
My heart thumps to the tempo, Andante, then speeding up quicker. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“I don’t have—”
There’s a shifting of air right next to my face, and when my eyes snap open, the sheet music is on the stand. With an added twenty or so measures.
“You’re nervous.”
I refuse to turn around. Torn between two desires, to see him and please him, and to beg him to leave me alone. But I made a deal, and I’m not sure he’ll leave me, no matter how nicely I ask.
At night, I’m yours.
“Breathe, Mallary. Nothing matters now but the music. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”
I’m going to make the same mistakes. I’m too trusting, too naive. Jason promised me so many things too, if only I gave him everything. And I—
I want this. All that Bastien is promising, I want it so badly my chest constricts with misery. I want it so badly that I’ll do anything.
My teeth bite down on my lip hard enough to draw blood. I square my shoulders, straighten my spine, take a settling breath. Put my hands in position and then begin for the second time. Eyes scanning the measures ahead, sight reading the new lines.
Each time I play through the piece, I learn something new about the song. Like a blossoming friendship, the song becomes more familiar with each repeated measure.
I let the possession take me over again, floating back into myself.
Here, inside of the music, I am safe, surrounded by nothing but harmonies.
Here, the outside world ceases to exist. Jason doesn’t exist. My time at university, and everything that came after, is just a blip.
Henri and our lessons are only fond memories.
Here, for as long as I am inside the music, I am who I want to be. I am known.
And then the last note reverberates, ending the connection, my foot on the pedal, until it disappears into nothing. The melody is cut off, the music stopping at a point in the song without any sort of resolution. It hasn’t been written yet.
I don’t remember the last few minutes, I don’t remember the new measures of the song, but I know I played them.
“It’s too fast.”
I open my eyes. Tears brim my lashes. “You wrote Andante.”
“And I was mistaken. Slow it down.”
My brain rebels against this, eyes scouring the page.
“What are you trying to perform?” he muses, after a few moments of silence. He still stands behind me. “A feeling? A memory?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Then that’s what you must decide.”
A sudden hysterical laughter wants to burst from my throat at how normal this feels. My teacher, this composer, a ghost.
Only last night he was in my room. He’s watched me when my fingers were between my legs. He’s stalked me through this house.
And here we are, discussing tempos and intention. “What feeling would you have me play?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re the performer. The piece is yours.”
“But I don’t have the whole thing,” I say. “How can I possibly know what to convey if I don’t know how it ends?”
“Make it yours,” he says, and I can hear the amusement in his voice, like he’s smiling behind that mask. The thought of it has goosebumps pebbling on my skin. I imagine he’s all jagged teeth, the mask the only thing standing between his appetite and me.
My heart hasn’t calmed, not with him so close.
“It’s getting late,” I hear myself say. I clear my throat before standing from the bench, gathering the sheet music. “I have to go.”
But as I begin to turn I realize he’s standing right behind me, only the bench between us—leaning onto the instrument with an arm on either side of me—caging me in.
He’s so close I can smell something sweet, almost floral, on him. His mask is still stark white, eerily plain and perfect, smooth like porcelain, but the eyes behind it—
He steals all my air. I jam my eyes shut again. He’s so close all I would have to do is lean back an inch and we’d touch.
Sharp wolf’s teeth, inches away, eager to bite down.
“You’ve done well today,” he says.
How could I have ever thought he was truly a ghost? Not with that rich timbre, or the heat emanating from his body, or the whisper of his breath against my neck.
Had he been affected when he saw me in the bath? Had it been a trick of my mind, seeing those dark eyes behind his mask wandering across my figure? I haven’t thought of anything else these past few nights.
The two of us, alone.
Somehow, he’d made his way into the bathroom. If it’s true I’m staying in his old wing, there’s no doubt he knew exactly what room he was entering.
And if that’s true, he must have been waiting to see me.
Naked. Touching myself.
Deep inside, something constricts near my spine.
“Thank you.” I wince through a shuddering breath.
There’s a pause, and I wonder what it is that he wants to say. Stupidly, I wonder if he can read my mind.
“I have more for you,” he says, and goosebumps rise on my neck, my arms, at the warmth of his breath. “I… have more to give.”
Turn around.
He’s so close, I can’t breathe, can’t think. I’m choking, lungs begging for air. Maybe his fingertips dance along my arm, maybe it’s all in my head. Heat, simmering under my skin, tightening in my belly. Reading into his words like an idiot, and falling for it all the same.
“More music,” he continues, his whisper so soft, only for me. “More…”
I think that if he doesn’t touch me, I’ll burn into flames. I think that if he does, I’ll lose my mind.
Rational thought catches up to me, and I’m jerking away, stumbling around the piano and putting as much distance between us as I can. Air rushes into my lungs, but my heart is still pounding away at my ribcage, the thrill of his presence still dampening the space between my thighs.
Not again.
The piano a barrier, I watch as he slowly straightens to full height. And the fact that he’s wearing a black knit sweater is so fucking humanizing I almost laugh again. It hides his neck, his hands the only exposed skin.
I glance away.
“Come back to the piano, Mallary.”
I shake my head. “It’s nine o’clock.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do. I was told nine PM. I’m not going to jeopardize my position just so—”
“I have your nights, don’t I?” He slowly steps around the bench, around the piano, moving silently. He’s tall, at least a whole head taller than me, and his shoulders are broad, even though he’s lean.
“Yes, but—”
“The night isn’t over. Come,” he says, reaching out one hand. Thin, strong fingers, his hand larger than mine, his skin so pale in the low light. Almost as white as his expressionless mask.
When I don’t take it, he walks past me, his stare never wandering from me, even as he reaches the door of the practice room, fingers twisting at the knob—the lock clicking into place.
A stark reminder that he and I are completely alone. And I can’t leave.
“No one can disturb us now,” he says, moving closer. He offers his hand again, and this time I can’t say no.
I know, as I slip my fingers into his, that I’m crossing a threshold and there’s no stepping back.
No one knows that the ghost who haunts this house has been visiting me. No one knows of our nighttime bargain.
No one knows about this.
The moment we touch, I know I am doomed.
His fingers are warm with a solid kind of strength, but he holds my hand gently, steering me toward the bench. Still staring, watching for my every reaction, those dark eyes flickering beyond the mask.
Does he expect me to scream? Or does he know that I will obey?
He leads me to the bench, and I sit, and I feel the warmth of him at my back again. He sets the sheet music back on the stand. At the top of the page, still, For you.
I have more to give.
“Again,” he commands.
Maybe a normal person would be ashamed. As I place my hands on the keyboard, this time I do lean back—I tell myself at first it’s an accident, but his hands cage me in again, and I know his face is right next to mine as he leans over my shoulder, and I just can’t help it.
His warm body brushes against my spine. A mistake, then, the press of his chest to my body.
His heart is beating somewhere in his ribcage and I wonder if he can feel how mine kicks into overdrive.
I take a breath before I begin. He inhales at the same time.
We breathe together as my fingers draw music from the instrument, filling the air with that melancholic tune.
If Maxim tries to open the door, or if anyone knocks, it goes unnoticed. He’s right, no one disturbs us. And I can’t say I’m surprised, because he moves around like this is his house. Each room is his. Each person within—
At night, you are mine.