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From: "Bradley Stoke" <bradley_stoke@hushmail.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} How High the Moon (Bradley Stoke)
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{ASSM} How High the Moon (Bradley Stoke)

Title: How High the Moon
Author: Bradley Stoke
Keywords: FF
Short Summary: Lynn is a New York Jazz Musician.


[This story has been previously published on Ruthie's Club
(www.ruthiesclub.com) where it was edited by Nat (Father
Ignatius) and illustrated by Juan Puyal.]



Story: How High the Moon (3,857 words)

Lynn wonders about the woman in the audience, as she sings
"How High the Moon". She knows she appreciates the music
she plays and the songs she sings, but will she also enjoy
the pleasure of her body?


For More : /~Bradley_Stoke



	How High the Moon
        =================

"How high..." sings Lynn. "How hi-igh... How high the moo-
oo-oon!"

With echoes of Sarah Vaughan, she stretches the final word
beyond its normal constraints, modulating the tone, while her
fingers follow a little behind on the piano, finally resolving
themselves in improvisation when she senses there is little
more to be squeezed from one word.

The audience politely applauds as they recognise the change.

She smiles, although she is aware that she no longer
resembles the slender Sarah Vaughan who first sang those
words in the 1950s, but the older, fuller one of the 1970s
who, unlike Lynn, had achieved enough fame that she could
afford to 'sell out'.

Selling out isn't an option for Lynn. Neither her muse nor her
record company, small though it is, would allow that. And
her loyal following, scaled as modestly as Advanced Jazz
Records, wouldn't contemplate it either.

Tomasz, her drummer, nods with a smile as he takes Lynn's
cue to add his own improvised colour to the steady
syncopated rhythm of the black notes on the keyboard. Paul
strums the double bass with fingers as black as Lynn's, his
eyes closed and the grin on his face revealing the quiet
ecstasy that always accompanies his playing. What an
international trio they are: reflecting the cosmopolitan nature
of Lynn's adopted home of Manhattan. Tomasz from Poland,
Paul from Alabama and Lynn from Peckham, a London
suburb that seems bizarrely exotic set against the yellow taxis
and steaming subways of the insomniac city.

The passage leads naturally to one of Lynn's own
compositions, but not one to which she is courageous
enough to add lyrics. She knows she is no wordsmith, but
she relishes the opportunity to scat over her own scales. The
audience nods appreciatively, but not so much as when, a
bass and drum solo later, Lynn lets the touch of the orient in
her own Cairo Taxi Cab flow into the thundering allure of
Duke Ellington's Caravan. The more tutored ears in the
Village Vanguard applaud wildly, joined by the rest when she
at last sings: "Ni-ight and stars above that shine so bri-ight:
the mystery of their fading li-ight that shines upon our
caravan..."

The model for her rendition is not the sassy one, but Ella
Fitzgerald who surely once sang, as did Sarah Vaughan, in
this very historic venue. Much as Lynn loves the American
songbook and its great stars, she is a modern artist. Her
performances have a character and flavour that is her own,
and good enough that she can earn a booking here in
Greenwich Village, to which she, in true Ellington style, has
taken the A train. But respected as she is, it is a modest
audience that shelter in the basement club away from the chill
of a New York autumn (or 'fall' as she is learning to call it).

At last, Lynn senses that the variations she can squeeze from
Duke Ellington's masterpiece have reached their term and she
lets the number end with an ironic piano roll. The audience
applauds and, twenty minutes into the set, it is time for Lynn
to address the shadowy figures gazing up at her, clutching
glasses of wine and beer in their hands. Although Lynn is a
smoker, she is grateful for the city policy that means she now
plays in a venue that smells more sweetly than her uptown
apartment.

She thanks the audience for their appreciation, reminds them
that they are listening to the Lynn Wood Trio, and tells them
what songs she's just played. Although too much chat is
frowned on at a jazz gig, she feels obliged to give a little
background to her next number.

"My daughter lives in L.A. now," she says hesitantly. "She's
an optometrist, I think. Some kind of eye specialist. But
when I wrote this song, she was just a little girl. And I still
think of her as one whenever we perform it. Here it is:
Kirsten!"

Indeed, it is memories of her dearest and only fruit of her
womb that fill her thoughts as she plays her own pianistic
tribute to the restraint and beauty of Bill Evans who was
such a great influence to Lynn in those early days in Peckham
and, later, North London.

Those were hard days and Lynn knows only too well that a
single tune, however sincerely meant, can scarcely begin to
recompense for the neglect she'd actually shown her
daughter. Those were days when a regular supply of smack
and a series of relationships, unsatisfactory and ecstatic in
equal measure, were far more important to her than a wailing
child whose father had left her when Lynn was still a fifth-
form pupil. Even those formative days of premature
motherhood were just a momentary stumble in a series of
boyfriends, drugs and a passion for music that owed nothing
at all to the subtleties and rhythm of Bill Evans or Duke
Ellington. However, as the fashion for the disco of Sister
Sledge and Chic was supplanted by jazz funk and Lynn's
growing interest in the origins of those more intriguing
rhythms, music was mostly just the backdrop to her carnal
and narcotic indulgences.

When she wrote her song, the nearest any of her
compositions has ever approached to commercial success, it
was more a guilty tribute to the feelings she felt she ought to
have towards her daughter than a reflection of the love she
actually expressed. 'The Brat', as she'd privately christened
the optometrist-to-be, was an awkward child who resented
the series of wholly unsuitable boyfriends shooting up in the
squalid bedroom she shared with her mother. Long before
she was able to enjoy sex herself, she'd seen enough of it on
her mother's bed. And frequently with more than one partner.

 Perhaps that was why Lynn sees so little of the daughter
celebrated in the wistful melodies of her most celebrated
opus. And why Kirsten dedicates herself to a life as unlike
that of her reprobate mother as it is possible to be. When she
and her boring accountant husband have children of their
own it is unlikely they'll know anything other than the
comforts of West Coast Suburbia.

It is Paul's turn for a prolonged solo and he smiles broadly as
he acknowledges Lynn's nod. Dave Holland, look out! Lynn
leans back on her stool and lets her eyes wander about the
audience she hasn't really had the opportunity to study
before. It is the usual Wednesday night crowd at the Village
Vanguard: mostly men, mostly middle-aged, a couple of
disorientated Japanese tourists and a lot of tapping toes.

She knows her daughter isn't seated there in the second row,
by a table all to herself. Although Kirsten has supported her
mother's career with more selflessness and love than Lynn
ever managed towards her daughter, there are too many
miles and too many optically challenged patients between
them for her to celebrate her mother's good fortune at
earning a short residency at the world's most celebrated jazz
venue. It is a woman, though, a white one as well and the
same one who sat in the same seat the night before. The
same woman who approached Lynn as she made her way to
the back room that doubles as both changing room and
kitchen.

"I really want to say just how much I enjoyed your set," she
told Lynn shyly in her educated Brooklyn accent.

"Why thank you!" said a truly flattered Lynn, who is
accustomed to praise from men but rarely receives it from
women.

"I love all your songs," continued the woman gushingly, "but
especially Kirsten. I can't begin to describe how much it
helped me when I was going through a bad patch. I've often
meant to see you perform, but you don't play downtown
often enough..."

"The tours take me everywhere, but it's my home town I
enjoy playing the most," Lynn replied. "The world's a big
place, you know."

"Yes, yes," said the woman, clinging desperately to her
moments of conversation with the English emigre. "I've seen
the itinerary on your website. You play everywhere. San
Francisco, Tokyo, Sao Paolo, Trond...Trond..."

"Trondheim. Norway," Lynn corrected. "Great country. I
love it..."

"And I love you," said the woman. Then blushing: "I mean I
love your music. It means so much to me."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Lynn, who smiled, and eased pass
the woman to Paul and Tomasz waiting for her at the back
with her long-neglected packet of Marlboros.

It is Tomasz who takes over from Paul with shuffling soft
percussion, while Lynn's hands hover over the keyboard. At
last, it seems right and she breaks the tempo with a few tinkly
notes mostly drowned out by the applause for her sidemen.
Then, appropriately for the time of year, it is the yearning
sadness of Autumn Leaves that she plays to the delight of the
Japanese tourists.

Tomasz and Paul are attractive men, both younger than
Lynn, and together they make a coherent trio,
communicating with the empathy of all successful
improvisers. Each knows intuitively what the others are
doing and is happy to give each other the support that has
kept the trio going for more than two years now.

However, much as Lynn privately lusts for Paul's lean,
muscular body, his arms bare to the shoulder, or the slightly
vulnerable, even feminine, Tomasz, she has learnt from
earlier mistakes not to mix a professional relationship with
sex. In earlier days, in Peckham, later in North London and,
then, on the back of one of her more passionate relationships,
Stateside, she let the easy rapport she achieved on stage
overlap on her bedchamber.

It is undoubtedly true that the skill for improvisation that
make her a professional jazz musician are just as well
expressed in physical passion, and she has enjoyed sex with
the members of her earlier trios, even the quartets and
quintets, sometimes together but more often separately. But
the more passion, and the more recklessly it is expressed, the
briefer the length of time she has managed to hold her
ensembles together before jealousy and intrigue threw the
whole affair apart, invariably messily and rarely without
rancour.

What would it be like to take Paul's cock in her mouth? Or
even Tomasz's? Lynn has long ago overcome her fear of
unfamiliar white cock, although the first few times were
definite disappointments compared to the standards of sexual
prowess she had become accustomed to. But even now, she
feels more content brushing against black skin. Perhaps not
as often as she once did and certainly no longer as often as
she'd like, but advancing age hasn't diminished her desire,
however much it has affected her ability to prolong her carnal
encounters beyond the first hour or so.

It is, in fact, weeks, maybe over a month, since she last
enjoyed sex and, like so many of her more recent encounters,
it was an unsatisfactory affair that failed to go beyond even
the first night. Her last real relationship was well over a year
ago, and she was more shocked by its disintegration than she
ever thought possible. It is harder to find and even harder to
hold onto a good thing. Once she thought her comparative
fame and fortune would bring her an unbroken series of
affairs, but the history of her amours has followed a different
trajectory to that of her critical and exceedingly modest
commercial success.

People might think that the rewards of a career like hers
would be a life of constant debauchery, but, just as she
reluctantly, but heroically, abandoned a life of drug abuse
that threatened to get out of control, so too, and for totally
different reasons, has a life of easy sexual abandon deserted
her.

After the applause that greets the final notes of Autumn
Leaves, Lynn thinks the audience is ready for sterner stuff. In
the hush between numbers, she plinks a few notes and looks
searchingly towards Paul and Tomasz. The Polish drummer
is a talented composer himself, and he deserves credit for the
next number which he knows is next in the repertoire. Better
to give that credit afterwards when the audience has heard it,
than before when they might think Lynn is featuring his
Karol's Wake for reasons of kindness rather than admiration.

She lets him begin on the little brush that strokes the
cymbals, while Paul closes his eyes and readies his fingers on
the strings of his double bass and Lynn squeezes her hands
together on her lap.

Perhaps it is the sorrow of Polish history that guides
Tomasz's compositional muse, but it is a sense of regret and
lost beauty that inspires Lynn's interpretation of his sweet
melody. Her own compositions have also become much less
upbeat and more wistful, and fit easily with the mood that
develops. Tomasz's notes slide easily into those of Lynn's
Approaching Ennui and an ambience of sadness and
reflection replaces the more straight-ahead rhythms of the
first few numbers.

Sometimes Lynn believes she only truly knows herself
through her improvisations. She expresses more of herself on
the ivory keys than she has ever been able to do in word and
deed. Perhaps this is why her daughter loves her, not because
of the maternal love she so much failed to provide, but from
the truer feelings that guides her through the performances
which drain and enervate her, but also bring her to a level of
ecstasy that not even heroin ever managed to do.

Tomasz's lightly brushed tympani bring the medley to a close
and the applause that greets the pause gives Lynn the space
to study her audience again. The woman in the second row is
strangely illuminated, perhaps, Lynn fancies, by the light
shining from Paul's beatific grin. Although she is applauding
as vigorously as anyone else, Lynn is sure she can see tears
smeared over her face.

Lynn does not think of herself as a woman especially inclined
to Sapphic pleasures, although there have been occasions
when she has succumbed to them when they are available.
She senses that this woman is besotted by her, and there is
little doubt in her mind that there would be much effort
required in persuading her to extend her adoration of Lynn's
music to her body. But what does Lynn think of her female
admirer?

Clearly, she is not a woman in her earliest bloom, but she is
still younger than Lynn. She remembers from their brief
encounter that she is a woman who carries her years lightly
and she is sure that there is beauty beneath her sweater and
jeans that is well worth the adventure. Although she has
often had sex with her admirers, not once has that been with
a woman. And would this even be wise?

Lynn doesn't know, but the thought of an amorous liaison
excites her in a way she didn't expect.

"The first song in the medley was written by Tomasz," Lynn
announced, generously gratified, as was the Pole, by the
audience's thunderous appreciation. "Karol's Wake. It's about
the late Pope, I think. The second two are new songs of
mine, as yet untitled."

Then, as is traditional at this stage in the gig, Lynn
introduces her sidemen by name. As always it is Paul who
gets the loudest yelps of appreciation. Lynn knows that it
isn't just his playing that earns the audience's adoration but
that natural love for his trade that shines from his eyes and
his remarkably healthy teeth. If her daughter had been a
dentist rather than an eye specialist, who knows how much
admiration she would express for her sideman, whose only
hours away from constant practise on the tool of his trade
are spent in the uptown gym where he exercises his
generously toned biceps.

Lynn has learnt from her years of performing to pace her sets
without the benefit of a watch, and now is the time to up the
tempo and bring the set towards its climax. There is no need
to announce the Brian Wilson song she has made her own,
although she is wise enough not to emulate the vocals. But
even as her piano sings over Tomasz's joyful percussion, she
mouths to herself: "Wouldn't it be nice..."

How nice would it be, Lynn wonders, to get married, to have
children and live a Suburban life? One just like her
daughter's? A life of domestic settled bliss she fears it is
already too late to know herself.

On the other hand, would she have willingly exchanged all
the sex and associated excitement for well-tended lawns and
the local church? How many housewives have enjoyed as
much cock as she has? She has heard about suburban orgies,
but she can't imagine that the huge drives and sidewalks are
really home to more depravity than what she has already
enjoyed.

As she guides the trio towards her next number, Nardis, a
Miles Davis opus naturally, that allows her to show off the
skills earned from hours of practise, the erotic images that fill
her mind feature rather less cock and lithe male muscle than a
softly feminine intimacy. When was the last time she tasted
the thick lips of another woman's vagina? Not for a long
time, but her memories are vivid and so too is her as yet
unrealised resolution to taste more. That Brooklyn woman
promises so much and not only was there desire hidden in her
eyes, but a strange enthusiasm that Lynn is sure would make
a night with her a night to remember.

And maybe not just the one night.

And wouldn't a little reliable intimacy be welcome at this
time in her life?

Music melds mind and body together in a most strange way.
And tonight the erotic frisson of Lynn's speculation is taking
her improvisations in a new direction. Her fingers caress the
keyboard as she would make love to a naked body. The
rhythm she maintains in her left hand expresses the carnality
of desire, whilst her right hand guides a melody that hints at
those deeper emotions that are most keenly felt in the throes
of sexual ecstasy.

And then Tomasz takes over the rhythm, pushed forward by
the strum of Paul's double bass. The three of them bring their
improvisations together in one of those moments of mutual
communication that are as ecstatic as any other kind. Paul's
grin threatens to split his face in two and Tomasz is as
rhapsodic as he can ever be. And Lynn knows, although she
has only ever seen it in photographs, that her own face is a
broad, almost child-like, expression of rapture.

One more number and the set will be over. Or not quite. The
audience, and in particular the Brooklyn woman of Lynn's
fantasies, won't let the trio off the stage. This is the last set of
the night and there is no excuse that the audience will accept.

"Well, thank you! Thank you!" says Lynn, who is genuinely
flattered by the applause. She smiles at the woman in the
second row whom she senses must know that the added
impetus that made tonight's set gel so well came from her.
"And this must be the last one on our set. It's a number that I,
for one, will always associate with the Village Vanguard. The
Bill Evans classic: Gloria's Step!"

This unscheduled third encore is for Paul's benefit. It's a
number perfectly attuned to his virtuosity and he takes up the
challenge with relish and much to the delight of his adoring
fans. Tomasz's face beams with a smile almost as broad as
Paul's and Lynn can feel the ache in her own cheeks as the
musicians coalesce in one last improvisation.

The audience know that three encores are enough and aided
by the lights being raised by the management, they get up to
leave at the same time as the Lynn Wood Trio gathers their
water bottles together to leave the stage. The woman in the
second row still sits there as the rest of the audience head off
to the door and the steps leading up to the Manhattan streets.

She stands up and pulls a long leather overcoat over her
shoulders. She glances up half-expectantly towards Lynn and
is clearly surprised to see the pianist approach her.

"So what did you think of the gig?"

The woman chokes slightly to be addressed so directly, but
she recovers her composure even though her white freckled
skin is unable to hide the colouring that fills her cheeks.

"It was probably the best concert I've ever heard!" she says.
Sensing more is needed, she adds: "I particularly enjoyed
those melodic tunes you played in the middle. How can
music be so beautiful?"

"Indeed!" says a gratified Lynn. "I'm glad you enjoyed our
set. So, what's your name?"

"Tina," she says. "Tina," she repeats. "I'm called Tina."

"Tina," muses Lynn. A nice short name, but this Tina is very
unlike the soul chanteuse who is her namesake. "You're a
Brooklyn girl aren't you? Are you going back home by
subway?"

Tina nods and Lynn studies her face. She is sure her instincts
are right. This is a woman whose passion for Lynn could
easily become physical. She just needs the opportunity. As
the pause between them lengthens, Lynn sees excitement and
nervousness battle to set her face in repose.

"I really truly enjoy your music," Tina gushes at last. "For a
long time, Kirsten was the only tune of yours I really
appreciated, but now I'm addicted to every song you play or
write. And this show was much, much more enjoyable than
I'd ever thought possible."

It would be too soft to admit to Tina how much Lynn's
fantasies of conjugal passion added to the success of the set,
but there is no way that the pianist can allow the woman to
disappear into the streets alone.

"Stay a moment, Tina, and I'll accompany you to the subway.
I've just got to say goodbye to the boys."

"Accompany me to the subway?" Tina gasps. Had she ever
imagined that the famous Lynn Wood might ever make that
suggestion?

"There's so much we can talk about, I'm sure."

"There is?"

Lynn takes Tina by the shoulders, feeling her slender frame
through the patent leather. She recognises too well the desire
that burns in the Brooklyn woman's eyes.

She kisses Tina briefly and tenderly on the lips, thick lips
against thin: Tina's opening ever so little but managing to
restrain her eager tongue.

As their lips separate and Lynn studies her admirer from
arms' length, she feels a fire burning between her thighs she
knows she must satisfy. And she knows that Tina is the one
to do it. Those slender hands with the tapering fingers she
grasps in hers. The dimples in cheeks on an otherwise gaunt
face. The long neck that curves towards the open lapels of
her leather overcoat.

"And I'm sure," says Lynn, "that talking needn't be all we do
together this night!"



For More : /~Bradley_Stoke

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