This story contains sexually explicit material.
Please e-mail comments to twalden4 at juno dot com with ASSTR in the subject line.
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.

Technical note: A gasp is a rapid intake of breath. In this story, it also means a rapid expelling of breath, since it is close to the sound I mean. Sigh, grunt, groan, pant, and scream don't work.

Eliska in the City

I am Czech. Kafka lived and grew up in Prague, my city. He was considered more Jewish than Czech and wrote in German, but still he caught the surrealism of the Czech experience. The Metamorphosis, perhaps inspired by Ovid's tales from Greek myths, is about a young man who is the sole support of his younger sister and parents and how their lives and attitudes change when he becomes a giant scuttling insect confined to his room. Josephine the Singer is about a mouse who thinks her piping is an art form and the field mice who risk their lives by attending her impromptu concerts. The Burrow is about a creature who has what seems to be an erotic relationship with the elaborate burrow he has dug for himself.

Prague was made an independent bishopric in 973 and became rich selling furs, tin and slaves to the Moslems. Charles the fourth built Prague's New Town in 1348 out of stone and mortar, with wide streets and large squares, and later built a long stone bridge across the Vltava, a Benedictine abbey that revived the Czech liturgy (translated by the first missionary in 863 and banned twenty two years later), and what is now the oldest university in central Europe. In 1402, one hundred fifteen years before Luther, Jan Hus accepted the Protestant ideas of Wycliffe and started preaching in Prague against the corruption of the Roman church. Several different Hussite factions fought against each other, but Bohemia won and maintained its freedom from pope and emperor until the defeat at White Mountain outside Prague in 1620, near the start of the Thirty Years War.

Prague and Bohemia became part of Austria for three hundred years, and German the language of the rich and powerful. Czech was the language of the peasants. In 1780 Joseph the second permitted some freedoms, which were lost after his death. After the revolution of 1848 the required labor services to lords were abolished and some concessions won. These mostly disappeared soon after, but it was too late. Things opened up again after 1861. The centralized government and industrial expansion required workers, and as people streamed into the city from the countryside, they brought their language with them, Czech. Schools started teaching in Czech, newspapers and magazines started publishing in Czech, and Czech literature and language were rediscovered and reinvented to fit the times. Czech speakers slowly took over from the German speakers and created the idea of a Czech culture and nation. After the first world war the Allies created a Czechoslovakia independent of either Austria or Germany, and after the fall of Russia the Czechs and Slovaks agreed to separate.

I wasn't skinny as a child, but I wasn't very big either. I imagined I would grow up to look like the picture by Mucha of a peasant girl or nymph with her foot in a stream and poppies in her black hair, except there must have been some German in my ancestry because my long hair was dark blond. We lived in a small apartment in Old Town not too far from the main square. I used to share a room and a bed with my brother who was a year younger. When it was cold we started curling up together under the blanket. Our mother thought it was cute. I wore a nightgown and he wore pajamas that buttoned in front. Instead of just exploring my own body as I was growing up, we liked to explore each others at night, our arms, toes, backs, ears and navels, but especially the parts that were different and which we couldn't learn about on our own.

He was a wiry little kid. His shoulder blades stuck out, and I could feel each to the bones of his back, from the top of his neck down to the start of his bottom. His toes were like little fingers and his ears would flop back and forth. He didn't like that, so I didn't do it. The muscles in his arms went down to strings at the end and there were knobs on the ends of his bones. His ribs ended part way down his chest. His nipples and navel were sensitive like mine. His two balls hung in a sack and were like slippery marbles, except they weren't very big and were not as hard or round. They curved and slid around in the sack like Greek giant beans cooked in olive oil, except they were not as flat and not as mushy. Nothing else feels like a testicle, except the other one. His penis got big whenever I played with it. It felt like there was something solid inside, even though it started out limp and small. The skin would slide up and down on it a little. He let me do that and started liking it, but wouldn't let me touch the head because it hurt.

My nightgown was loose, and he could feel all the different parts of me by putting his hands up inside it. I could feel under his pajama top or he would unbutton the front, but I had to feel the upper part of his legs through the material of the pants. I left the button at the waist fastened so they wouldn't fall off, but undid the other in the middle of the fly so I could reach inside easier. His skin was smooth and soft like a baby's. His hand felt soft and nice when he slid it along the smoothness between my legs, but his finger felt hard and scratchy when he put it into my slit, so I wouldn't let him. Eventually he found a wide mouth jar and put some cooking oil in it. He tried putting some oil on his finger to make it slippery before carefully opening my slit and sliding it along inside. That felt okay and I let him do it if his fingernails were short. He put his finger into the beginning of my opening and rubbed around inside. He moved his finger to the top of my slit and felt the little knob. This was more fun than other places because it was secret. In return I made him let me lightly touch the head of his penis. It felt soft and spongy even when the rest was hard, and it had a little ridge partway around the bottom that seemed to hurt the most. It wasn't so bad when I put some oil on my finger.

Using our fingers and hands like this wasn't sex, it was just playing, like holding hands or tickling. It never occurred to either of us to use anything else. When mother found his smudged jar of oil, she thought he was using it on himself. She told him masturbating was good, it kept him away from me, his sister. When I was ten we moved to a different apartment and I got my own room. My brother got a haircut and we lost interest in each other. When I was a little older and started going out with boys, I found I could make my own lubrication.

My father had taught me violin and I had continued with another teacher, but I switched to cello when I started high school so I could feel the curve of the dark wood pressing against my thigh. It was hard and smooth, and the vibration of its low tone sang inside my body as I played. The first high school for girls in the Austrian Empire was Minerva Gymnasium in Prague, started in 1890 by Eliska Krasnohorska (after whom I was named) to prepare them for university. She also wrote poetry and criticism (and libretti for Smetana), edited the first Czech magazine for women, and translated poetry from English and Russian.

I learned German because Germany was north of us and Austria to the south and a lot more books were in German than in Czech (and because it was part of our history though most people didn't want to admit it), Russian because there were still a lot of people who knew it and because it was (like Czech) a Slavic language, English because it was everywhere, and Italian because it was used in opera. The Premyslid kings in the early 1200s had started welcoming German craftsmen and merchants into our country. Jews and Germans built our cities and industry and had made up the richest third of our population. Most Jews were killed during the second world war, and the other German speakers were driven out after it (although most had only wanted to be part of Germany because of false Nazi radio reports of atrocities against them) by the same people who welcomed the Soviets three years later. Redistribution of wealth often does not work out like people think it will.

I could play the cello well but would never be outstanding. I chose to go to conservatory in America because I thought with the lower standards I could do better there and because I wanted something different. I hadn't realized how little most people cared about music. When I graduated I found a position with a major orchestra in the sizable city where I had gone to school, perhaps partly because I would make them feel a little more cosmopolitan. A little romance still attached itself to me because of what my country had been through. When I first came here, a boy asked if I had learned my American accent from someone who was English. I said yes, how could he tell? He said it sounded slightly exaggerated. Some of the words were slurred together a little too carefully, and some of the consonants were pronounced a little too softly. The T's in little were barely audible, so it sounded almost like li'il. I worked on letting my Czech accent come back. There were a number of Russians in the organization, mostly young and all of them Jewish, and of course several Asians, but few other Europeans. The first chair players performed chamber music and attended festivals during the off season in the summer. The rest of us were stuck performing popular music, which wasn't my favorite, but at least wasn't mostly waltzes and marches. When I saw an ad looking for a cellist to play quartets, trios and arrangements of Bach, Telemann, Martinu and others with piano, violin and flute, I thought it would be a bunch of amateurs but answered it anyway because it was music I loved.

I drove through cold and windy city streets and found the address on the evening we had arranged. When the door to the apartment opened I nearly choked. There stood a tall muscular black man in a pink dress shirt with intense and serious eyes and a slightly amused smile. He said I must be Eliska and asked me in. His voice was like deep amber honey and made me think of Paul Robeson. I remembered to smile and carried my cello inside. He said he was Paul and introduced me to Judy, who played violin, and Mark, the flautist. There were also Linda and Jose. Judy was an Asian of about my height. Linda was shorter with short bright red hair and freckles, something I still wasn't used to. She had large free floating breasts and what Americans might have considered a few extra pounds. Judy was also braless, but on her it didn't matter. Three chairs and music stands were arranged on the wooden floor next to an old upright grand, with a violin and flute next to two of them. The only other large piece of furniture was a love seat. After a few minutes of small talk we sat down and tuned up. I knew the second concerto of Telemann's first set of Paris quartets and had prepared. Mark started, and I stepped out into the music.

Music is not abstract shapes or ten silver fish or five white butterflies or a humpback whale swimming through the air or a human body moving through space as dance. Music is sound. Sound is pure sensation, just as touch and sight are different pure sensations. It can not be described to someone who does not have his own direct experience of the sensation. Sensation is how we know we are alive and aware, how we know there is something rather than nothing. The eye can see three different colors, except each type of receptor detects a range of different wavelengths, with one particular wavelength being central and most intense. The information from these three different receptors is combined by the eye and the brain and is interpreted as one individual color. The bands of color in the rainbow are an illusion, an artifact of the way we see. The colors shade into one another, and different people and cultures count different numbers of bands. The ear works much differently. It can't tell what direction something is nearly as well, but instead of just three wavelengths, it can detect thousands or millions of different wavelengths. If there are too many at the same time they tend to become noise or static, but can sometimes still be recognized as the wind blowing through trees or water rushing over rocks. A smaller number of wavelengths is a distinct enough signature that the ear can usually recognize what made the sound if it has heard it before. The lowest prominent wavelength is interpreted as the fundamental pitch or tone.

Music starts with a single tone. For a sound to be considered musical it must have an easily recognized tone (although some non musical percussive sounds form a part of music). A single plucked guitar string is a symphony all by itself. It starts with an explosion of sound and keeps changing its character as it gradually dies away. Sound can only exist within time. It is made of vibrations and can not just sit there, like a painting or sculpture. It must be made continuously, whether by a vibrating string, a column of air in a tube, or one object striking another. A succession of individual tones gives the illusion of movement. This may come from our ability to recognize a series of vocal sounds as speech or signal. A combination of tones at the same time can be soothing or grating. The ear can keep separate two or more series of tones played at the same time, even when they are all just notes on the piano. The interval between successive tones in one series or melody is usually less than the interval between simultaneous tones in different series or parts.

What can I say about our music? It is my bow sinking into the string, it is the dance of the notes produced, it is the weaving together of the different lines coming from and formed by Mark's lips, Judy's hands, Paul's fingers and myself. The moderately fast first movement of the Telemann starts with the flute going

Deet, Didilee, DEE!
di Deet, Didilee, DOO
Didilee DOO, Didilee DOO
Didilee DOOT doot DOOT doot DEE
Didilee DOOT doot DOOT doot DEE?
Didilee DOOT doot DOOT doot DEEEE! doo
Didilee DOOT doot DOOT doot DEEEE! doo,

Something strange was happening. Always before I had had the music between me and the people with whom I was playing. This time it felt like the others were with me inside the music. I didn't understand what was going on, but nobody said anything. They had obviously been practicing together even without a cellist. The slow movement started with a solo for cello, with piano and a couple accents by flute, then had a back and forth between flute, violin and cello with the piano in the background. In the lively last movement the instruments played together and traded brief solos. My three companions did slow it down a bit, but it still sounded good and I told them so. We were playing for our own amusement and edification, not preparing for a performance. They seemed satisfied with what I did.

Paul looked up and hesitated. The others gave him their attention. He said there seemed to be something different about the way the music felt. He said he sometimes got lost in the music, or seemed to communicate in a different way when he played with others, but there was an intensity in this piece that he didn't remember experiencing before. It was something about being together with the other players and knowing what they were trying to do. He asked if anyone else had felt it? Mark nodded, and Judy said she thought she had noticed something. She asked me if it was something that happened to people who spent more time working with music. I hesitated before answering, and said I didn't know. It was something that happened to me sometimes, but I had never talked to anyone about it before. No one else had ever seemed to notice. I said it had been different this time. The three of them had been with me inside the music somehow, instead of my being alone. I didn't understand it. They looked at each other, and Paul said it might be their fault. They had experienced something like it under other circumstances, which may have made them more open, but which they were not able to talk about right now. He was sorry if it sounded mysterious. I said that was okay, I was just happy he had mentioned it and I didn't have to think it was some further deterioration of my mind. We went back to the music and worked on some places where we had had different ideas.

On my way home I wondered about the relationships between them. They hadn't explained anything, which was a little unusual. Paul and Linda seemed to be a couple, and so did Mark and Judy, although they were all friendly with each other. I hadn't seen any of the competition or teasing that usually marked out territory. How did Jose fit in? Did he share the apartment with Paul and Linda? Was he part of a threesome with Linda, or with Judy? Was there some swapping going on? They had all seemed at home there. It was, of course, none of my business, and it didn't really matter to me. They could do whatever they liked, and the feeling of being at ease that I had felt there was a relief from the usual sexual tension in social situations.

There were two more people when I arrived the next week. Paul introduced Owl and Thom, and said he hoped I didn't mind them listening to us practice. I might have had doubts about it, but Jose and Linda had been no problem last time. I said no, it was fine. It was an audience of five, since we were going to try Martinu's trio for flute, cello and piano. In the Telemann Judy had shared the spotlight with Mark, now Paul and I got to do more. I had first studied Martinu because he was Czech and then started to like him. His music tended to be bombastic, particularly his earlier pieces. It was more noticeable in his chamber works (the orchestral works of everyone since Beethoven were bombastic), but was balanced there by his lyricism and invention.

The piano starts with a few rising and descending notes, and the flute enters with a trill, rises a bit, descends a couple steps using trills, then plays a series of eight slow descending notes, and repeats them. The cello, which has been bouncing around a bit, plays some rising steps, some descending trills, some descending steps, gets stuck in a riff on the same step, then starts the series of eight slow descending notes, repeats them, and varies them, with the flute descending the steps at the same time but in a different sequence, and the piano bouncing around. The flute plays a trill figure, the piano echoes it, the other hand of the piano plays it lower, the flute plays it lower, the cello plays it, and the flute closes with a long single note. At about sixty seconds in, the piano starts playing triplets in descending steps more slowly and softly. The flute plays four descending notes, the cello picks them up but pauses on the third, the flute repeats them, overlapping the cello, we play them together, and the flute starts a more lyrical passage with the piano playing staccato and the cello pizzicato. The flute plays ascending steps and starts a riff. The piano closes and starts playing rapid descending triplets, then sets of chords each followed by a nervous figure from the flute and cello. The cello breaks out into a soaring lyrical passage based on the figure, with the flute weaving in and out, and ends with a riff. Then we all play a passage that sounds like we're quoting a theme from Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. The cello continues the theme while the flute drifts around it. We all play a descending passage, then repeat the beginning of the movement and go into a closing section.

The second movement starts with the unaccompanied piano repeating and developing a slow rocking motif of four notes. At about seventy five seconds in, the flute picks up a variation of the motif, with the cello playing pizzicato chords. The flute and cello start playing together. The cello continues with a slow questioning passage and the flute starts playing a more ominous version of the motif. The flute continues the motif with the cello playing pizzicato and the piano staccato. The tempo accelerates a bit. The cello joins the flute and plays a dark flowing passage. The cello turns the motif into a rising figure with rising chords on the piano, and the mood darkens further. Parts of the piano solo and flute variation from the beginning reappear, and the flute and cello turn the rising figure into a more hopeful ending.

The last movement starts with a slow passage for unaccompanied flute. At about forty seconds in, the piano and cello join it for a lively passage. Then the flute becomes more agitated. The piano has an unaccompanied passage that also becomes agitated. The flute plays a slower rhythmic series of rising notes and repeats them. The piano plays an agitated passage while the cello plays a slower lyrical passage. The flute closes with a rising and falling passage. The piano plays a short slow passage, the cello a longer one, and we all play an extended slow passage that rises and falls. We close, and start a more lively section, which after a while becomes more agitated and then closes. Some of the material from the beginning reappears, followed by a closing section that stops and then goes on for a long time.

This time it was even more strange. Paul and Mark were inside the music with me again, but all the others were also there. Judy I could understand, she had been part of the nexus last week, but Jose and Linda hadn't. From the way Jose heard the music I could tell he played guitar, and Linda focused on the rhythm and the interplay of voices. Owl was watching everything at the same time, but Thom was everywhere. He seemed to be the space in which we existed. And there was someone else there too. Although I couldn't perceive him directly, I heard his music. He seemed to be an echo or twin of Paul. I was able to ignore all of them while we were playing, but now a reaction was setting in. I was too many people all squished together in one head and it scared me. I thought about bolting but didn't. Have you ever tried to run carrying a cello? Don't. Particularly an expensive one on which your livelihood depends. And with which you've developed a relationship that borders on the incestuous. Thom said don't panic, you're not crazy. I had to believe him. Some people like to believe things that aren't true, but I wasn't one of them. I knew what he told me was true, even if I didn't know how I knew. He said he could explain what happened if I wanted him to, but warned that I might find it more disturbing than not knowing. I tried to dismiss the last part of that statement, but I couldn't, so I started to panic again. He told me to breathe, and Linda handed me a glass of water. I asked if she had anything stronger. She offered me tea. I said I would take what I could get, and she put some water on. That did it. Her simple act of putting water on for tea was enough to bring me back to whatever now passed for reality. When Linda handed me my mug, I took a sip and told Thom in a voice that was not too unsteady that I would like to hear what he had to say.

He took a deep breath. He said most of what had happened was his fault. He said I had an ability to perceive music that went beyond what most people could do. It was a form of empathy or participation. I could also join with other minds to the extent that they were joined to the music. Maybe I hadn't noticed others before because I was too involved with the music, or they weren't open enough. I said it could be because many musicians focused more on technique than on perception. I thought of a passage from Rilke, who was Czech though he wrote in German.

A god can do it. But will you tell me how
a man can follow him through the lyre's strings? (Sonnets to Orpheus 1:3)

I thought about what Thom had said. I asked him what number I was thinking of. He just looked at me. I knew he knew I wasn't thinking of a number even without him saying anything. I asked him why Paul had been inside the music twice? Was it because his two hands played independently of each other? He looked embarrassed. He said that wasn't exactly true. Paul wasn't there twice, there was another person here that I didn't know about. I wouldn't be able to see him unless I was willing to join the mind link he was maintaining with everyone else. Thom had been pacing a bit as he talked. I was still sitting down, but we had turned our chairs to face into the room. Owl was sitting on the love seat next to Jose with her legs crossed under her, and Linda on the rug in front of it. I set down my empty mug and said show me. Before I finished the words there was another black man standing next to Thom. He had on a white tee shirt and gray pants and said hello. He was a younger and a little shorter and heavier than Paul. I stood up and shook his hand and said it was nice to meet him. He smiled and responded. I apologized for mistaking him for Paul. He said it was understandable given the circumstances, and that his name was Max. He apologized for being there only in the dream state, but he was an inmate serving time in prison and not able to get out much. I said that was okay and asked what instrument he played. He said kalimba. I said that explained why what I had assumed was a piano had sounded so strange.

Max went back and sat on the floor next to Owl's knee, where I could now tell he had been most of the evening by the space that was left for him. I should probably still have been freaked out by the whole situation, but I had apparently been doing this sort of thing for a long time even if I hadn't realized it. And besides, I was Czech and remembered living under the communists, I was used to dealing with the absurd. I said that since people were being more forthcoming, and if I wasn't being too nosy, could someone please explain what the relationships were between the different people here? I could see through the link that my guesses hadn't been wrong, but they hadn't been right either and I was confused. Judy said it was a little unusual but not that complicated. Linda, Paul, Mark, Jose and she had what was basically a group marriage and all shared the apartment. Thom had recently joined with Owl and Max to form another group, and they were looking to expand. Both groups were open, although the only overlap currently between them was Linda and Owl. I said oh. That explained why they were less uptight than most Americans. Now that I had the framework, I could see the relationships through the link. They were mostly, though obviously not exclusively, heterosexual. We went back to the music and worked on the Martinu some more, then played the Telemann from last week again and worked on it until it was time for me to leave.

Thom called me the next day and invited me over for dinner. I drove out to a different section of the city a couple days later. Thom kissed me when I walked in, which seemed to be the way these people greeted each other. It also told me this was a getting to know you and see how it goes situation. He was short, about my height, though he looked taller next to Owl. In Europe people don't avoid touching as much as they do here, so kissing didn't bother me. He said Max would be there when he could go to sleep after evening count. Owl was making bean and sweet potato burritos. Thom was still learning to cook since until recently he had lived with his parents. He had made date and nut cookies. Owl was a vegan for ecological reasons, but said it bothered her more than eating meat. She could talk to plants. I thought she was joking, but when Thom nodded I knew it had to be true. She said eating seeds such as beans wasn't as bad since they weren't intended to stay attached to the plant, and it wasn't exactly like eating babies since most seeds never grow. She did try to avoid sprouts.

After dinner we moved a few feet over to the small living area, and Owl asked me if I would like to go with her to fetch Max. I had no idea what she meant but said yes. She said to sit back and close my eyes. Thom's voice appeared in my mind and asked if I was ready. He already knew, but I thought yes anyway. I was standing looking at Thom and myself asleep on the love seat. I had long dark blond hair, was fairly tall, fit but not thin, and had medium sized breasts. The entire room was larger. I looked down and saw no breasts, or nearly. Owl gave me a moment to adjust to being in her body, then took a couple dance steps. I felt as light and energetic as a child, and much better balanced than I normally did. It didn't last long. She sat down, closed her eyes, straightened her back, put her hands in her lap, and I was a leafless linden tree on the street outside her window. I understood now why it was so important for her to live where there were trees. Our being flowed from tree to tree down the street, extending to several at once, until we reached a park, then along a belt of greenery on either side of a small river. We were grass and oak and pine and rushes. We jumped streets with their rivers of cars. Time existed on an altogether different scale. The bright spots of life that were insects formed a universe denser than any night sky I had ever seen. You can only see them when they swarm or bite, but they are always there, in the trees, air, grass, water, rocks, and underground. We passed through suburbs, forest, hills, rivers, marsh, and a row of pine trees in a brightly lit courtyard to find Max both standing in his cell waiting for us and asleep in his bunk. And the world exploded.

People imagine mountains of sparkling jewels and gold as the greatest possible luxury, something out of a fairy tale. They are wrong. They see as through a glass darkly. This. This is the original. Embedded within the concrete floor and walls were grains of sand, silicon dioxide, glass. Each glittered and shown with the play of its own internal energies. Each was a diamond as big as my fist. Until I looked closer and it got bigger. I could sense the shifting patterns and stress of its structure, the way the individual atoms held each other in place, the way the imperfections and breaks in the pattern moved through structure, driven by the energy of their own heat and pressure shifts from outside. The wires in the walls and the pipes in the floor were atoms of metal bound together in different patterns to form grains, which in turn were bound to other grains in other patterns that gave the metals their characters and properties. The carbon and hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the bodies of the sleeping men formed complex chains and structures that had maintained themselves for billions of years. They were the physical aspect of life. I could taste the individual atoms down to the point where shape and reality are no longer useful concepts, and one must use probability and uncertainty to describe what is happening. This was the world Max lived in, but his perception of it only extended for a few feet outside his physical location. He needed Owl's help to move beyond the walls and fences. It didn't make too much difference. To him all places looked pretty much the same. Space and time were an illusion, and at some point his sentence would be completed and he could go someplace else. Max's dream form disappeared as he joined us in Owl's, and we returned the way we had come.

Thom moved to the carpet next to Owl, and Max sat next to me on the love seat. Thom had just moved in. Max didn't take up much space, so Owl hadn't needed much room previously. Now it was getting crowded. She said she would look for another place but thought it wasn't yet time. A kalimba sat on the end table next to me. I asked Max if he would mind playing something. He said no, and when he reached out I picked it up and handed it to him. It settled in his hands, and his thumbs moved over the tines forming patterns of sound based on popular songs, snatches of classical works, and shapes that most other people had never imagined. He said his musical experience had widened since he met Owl and her friends. He took ideas from wherever he could find them. I was impressed. After a while he leaned over and kissed me. Then he looked at me, and since he saw no reaction, he tried it again. This time I decided I liked it. I kissed him back and put my hand on his shoulder. He set down his instrument and gathered me up. I had met very few black people. I found his dark skin and eyes mysterious and terribly exciting. It felt like any other skin. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe the leathery feel of sunbaked white skin. It was soft, as was his tightly curled hair. His full lips sucked on mine. We seemed to be putting on a show for Thom and Owl, but if they didn't care then neither did I.

When Max and I disentangled ourselves a few minutes later, they had disappeared. We found them in the bedroom already going at it. While Max undressed I took off my shirt and bra. When I had his attention again, I undid my jeans and slid them off. Then I took off my panties and showed him my own dark curly hair. It stood out against my pale creamy skin, unlike his. His eyes were drawn to it and his breathing quickened. Owl's fullsize bed wasn't really big enough for the four of us, but we lay down and resumed kissing. His hand moved to my shoulder, breast, and crotch. I kissed him harder and opened my legs. His fingers dipped inside and I gasped. Soon I was gasping again as I clutched him to me and orgasmed. He climbed on top and sent in Little Bill without a condom. I was having sex with someone who wasn't there, so I supposed it didn't matter. After a couple minutes I stopped worrying about it. I felt Max's body and mine moving together. I turned my head to watch as Owl and Thom orgasmed next to us. Our own rhythm slowed for while, then sped up as I approached orgasm and went over. We maintained the pace until I felt him coming inside me. I said there goes Bill.

Everything was quiet as we held each other. Then Max said excuse me and walked around to the other side of the bed. We all slid over so he could get in next to Owl. This left me naked and next to Thom, which wasn't quite as awkward as it sounds since we had been sharing thoughts and emotions and sensations much of the evening. I had spent the first half of my life under communism, which was puritanical. Nudism no longer felt strange, but I still found it exciting. I had mentioned earlier that Bohemia and Moravia were both part of the Czech Republic. Thom now said William Blake's parents may have belonged to a Moravian church in London, and there had been rumors of secret sex rituals. I accused him of repeating racial slurs, like saying that Jews eat babies. Then I turned him into a newt, one of the large, articulate, bipedal ones from Capek's War with the Newts. I knew he was just misinformed and hadn't thought it through, but I did it anyway. At least he wasn't a roasted newt. We were still partly in the dream state in order to perceive Max, and while their powers had to do with perception, mine also dealt with creation.

He was black and slimy and smaller than Owl unless you counted the whole length of his tapering tail. He held his body at an angle to mine and started nuzzling my neck, which made me feel strangely passive, until he began to writhe violently. The long thin toes of his forelegs moved over my upper body and started pawing my breasts, squeezing them rhythmically and pinching the nipples. I felt my excitement increasing and my hips start writhing. The long toes of his hindlegs reached between my thighs for my crotch, stroking it gently and running through my triangular tangle of somewhat damp pubic hair. He sat up, and with a strange twisting and undulating motion, like some sort of salamander dance, reached across me for a condom. He put it on, which was bizarre since amphibians don't have penises. But when he slid on top of me, I opened my legs and felt something fairly large and definite squish into me. Maybe he had a carrot tied to his crotch. I was pretty slimy myself. At the same time, I felt him enter my mind as he created a sexual milieu that included Owl and Max, whose large dark brown body covered her smaller somewhat green one. We felt their excitement as they held on to each other and thrust their hips together. We felt his penis slide in and out of her as she grunted softly. Thom and I had started our own movements, and I had trouble telling what belonged to whom. In spite of his aggressiveness he had seemed somewhat nervous with me at first, but now he had gotten better and seemed to be mostly back in his own body. Except in the dream state he didn't have a condom. We were all still caught in the sexual feedback loop, and when we came, it was as one giant orgasm. I learned that for men the pleasure in sex is largely a relief from tension, whereas for women the feeling is pure pleasure and much more intense. Which I guess I had known but hadn't thought about.

Earlier Thom had seemed to be there twice as he shifted from newt back to human. Now Owl seemed to have an echo or twin. When I asked her about it, she became concerned and asked Thom to shift us all into the dreaming, and Max to examine her. We all saw that she was pregnant. The embryo looked about four weeks old and healthy. I didn't understand. Owl said she wasn't pregnant in real life, only in the dreaming. Max had been the father, but after she had had dream sex with Thom, the child had acquired some his chromosomes also and then stopped growing, as it had once before. They didn't understand it, but saw that it was now growing again. She and Max made a microscopic examination. They found it now had twelve chromosomes from each of them and ten new ones that may have came from me. She asked my permission to check and confirmed it. She said she didn't know whether to consider me a mother or a father, but I was definitely another parent. I didn't know what to think. They said congratulations, but warned that if the pattern repeated, the embryo would stop growing again after one week. I said that since this was a dream, didn't they have control over what happened? Owl said not in this case. Shifting her appearance didn't affect the embryo, and when she shifted her form or become abstract thought, the embryo was there when she shifted back.

I wasn't sure how I felt about all this. Max said I seemed to be a part of the group now, but it was up to me whether I stayed. They all said they hoped I would. Thom said he was sorry, but there was something else I needed to know. When he had more than a brief sexual relationship with a woman, his mind formed what was so far a permanent bond with hers. They always knew where each other was and could see each others thoughts whenever they chose, no matter how far apart they were. So far there were two others in addition to Owl. I could meet them any time I liked. It was too much to take in all at once. I didn't know what I had gotten into. I said I would have to think about what had happened and what I wanted to do. I would let them know. We all slept for a while in the crowded bed. It was nearly dawn by the time I got home.

I called Owl the next day and said yes, I would like to be a part of their group. She was surprised I had decided so quickly. She said she was glad and would tell the others. I said I wanted to invite just Max over for dinner next week. Did she think that was possible? She didn't know but was willing to try it. I said there was something I needed to ask him first and told her what it was. She said she would relay the message and let me know his answer.

The drive to Paul and Judy's apartment for our next music practice made me dream of long summer days. I had decided to go with the flow, so to speak. As soon as I took off my heavy coat, Judy noticed I wasn't wearing a bra. She played a piece of music by Scottish fiddler John McCusker called The Bouncing Czech. Everyone was amused. She said the name referred to his group's agent in Germany, who moved around a lot. It was just the five of them this time. They said they were happy I had decided to join Owl and Max and Thom's group. I said I knew a good thing when I saw it.

The previous week Paul had suggested seeing what we could do with Bach's fifth Brandenburg Concerto. I thought it was an interesting idea. It's a concerto for flute, violin, harpsichord and strings. There were only four of us, but we were the right combination of instruments. We could play the solo passages okay, and the violin and cello could play the string parts during the orchestral passages, while the piano was playing either a solo or a continuo part. Bach wrote his Italian Concerto for just a two manual harpsichord. The softer manual plays the solo part and the louder manual plays the orchestral part, so that it imitates the sound of a normal concerto. We had all been practicing our parts and might be able to do as well. The piece would sound much different with our reduced forces, but it wasn't as difficult to arrange for a quartet as it could have been. There was no second violin part, and during the orchestral sections the cello and continuo parts were often the same. There was no continuo part during the harpsichord solos since it was normally played by the harpsichord and cello.

The concerto starts with the solo and first violins in unison going up in a series of four steps, down in a run, and up and down in more steps. The cello part starts out the same as the piano, so I play the viola part instead. The flute enters, trading phrases with the solo violin while the piano starts a solo passage. When the strings have brief or longer accompanying passages, I play the first violin part since it is the most prominent. When the flute and solo violin parts pause, Judy takes the first violin part, which frees me up to play the cello part. Then there is a passage for the solo instruments where none of the accompanying string parts are prominent, so I play the cello part. The up and down steps from the opening repeat. The cello part becomes the same as the left hand of the piano, which frees me to do something else, and since the viola and first violin parts alternate, I play both of them. When first violins and violas start playing the steps together, I return to the first violin part. There is a short passage for just the soloists, then the flute pauses and the strings enter loudly, Judy playing the first violin part and me playing the cello part. The solo passage from the opening repeats, then the piano part becomes more prominent. I play the viola part until the cello part starts. It goes on like this. Then the other instruments gradually fade away and the piano is left unaccompanied for the last third of the movement, until the strings reenter for a short closing passage.

The second movement is a slow trio that only has parts for flute, violin and keyboard. We didn't spend time on it because it doesn't have part for me. The last movement opens like a fugue. The solo violin starts with a figure that consists of a few bouncing notes followed two triplets. The flute repeats the figure a fourth higher. They trade triplets until the piano enters with the figure in the left hand. The right hand repeats the figure an octave and a fourth higher. They abandon the idea of a fugue. The strings enter with a few notes, but all you can hear under the flute and solo violin is the bass, so I play the cello part. The flute and solo violin start playing the bouncing notes and triplets in unison, so Judy jumps down to the first violin part. The cello and piano start playing in unison, so I jump to the viola part. The piano part becomes more prominent, but the left hand stays the same as the cello. The flute and solo violin divide so Judy goes back to the solo violin part. The piano and cello divide, but I move up to the first violin part, down to the cello part, and back up to the viola part. Later, I jump to the viola part to share a cantabile passage with Judy, who is playing the first violin part. The piano part remains prominent, Judy and I keep jumping around, and the bouncing and triplet figures keep reappearing until the end of the movement.

The tempo was a bit slow, and Paul stumbled in a few places, but most of it was beautiful. He and Mark just had to play the keyboard and flute parts. Paul had written out the figured bass part on his copy of the music so he would know what to play. Otherwise he would have had to translate the figures or numbers that were written below the bass line into the chords they represented as he went along. Judy mostly played the solo violin part when there was one and the first violin part when there wasn't. When they were the same she was of course playing both. (Calling it a first violin part when there was no second violin part didn't really make sense, but it was easier and less confusing than anything else.) I moved between the various string parts, which stayed below the solo flute and violin and so were not out of my range. The three of them didn't have any other way to play this work. It had come out better than we had any right to expect. The loudness of the piano compared to a harpsichord made up for the missing strings during the orchestral passages. It was a piece of music many people were familiar with and might like better than something else that was actually written for a chamber ensemble, if we ever did perform it in public. I was responsible for orchestral pieces and didn't have much free time to work on chamber music. The others were good but less skilled, so it balanced out somewhat. Paul had obviously spent a lot longer than a week practicing his part.

We went over the concerto. Judy and I talked about why we had chosen to play the first violin or viola parts when we did, and Paul and Mark offered their opinions. I seemed to have been elected leader of our little group, in spite of the fact that two hours a week and inadequate practice time was all I could afford. We tried playing other parts to see what worked best in some places where there was no clear first choice. It didn't seem to make that much difference. We played some passages we had had trouble with. We worked on the Martinu flute trio again, and ran out of time before we got to the Telemann. Before I left, I told Paul I was interested in exploring the possibility of a sexual relationship with him. Would he like to come to dinner with Max and me? He nearly choked. He apologized and said he was not used to being the one who was off balance. I said I knew he didn't have a lot of available time. He said that was true, but yes, he would like to have dinner and see what we could work out.

Paul showed up at my apartment on the appointed day. We had to wait until Max could get there, so dinner would be late. Paul accepted a glass of Riesling, which he liked but didn't drink at home out of respect for the others. Linda had called and told me. We limited ourselves to one glass because Max didn't drink. We talked about music and what we might like to play. We had similar tastes, but he listened to more vocal music than I did. Then Owl blinked into the room with Max and Thom. Our hope was that once Thom had set up our link with Max, Paul and I could maintain it on our own. When we thought we were ready, Thom left. It seemed to work. We could still see Max and Owl in the dreaming, but after a minute we lost them. Owl fetched Thom back through the permanent link they shared, and we tried again. Since my ability was tied to music, we started the same tune going in all three of our heads. After a couple more tries our link became more stable, and we found that even if we lost Max, I could get him back by listening for the music he was thinking of. We thanked Owl and Thom, and they blinked out. Max would be able to get back to the prison on his own by rousing himself in his sleep.

I had made knedliky, or bread dumpling. Instead of a lot of little dumplings, it was one big dumpling. It was sliced as soon as it was done so the steam could escape, otherwise it would get soggy, and it was often served with pork and cabbage. Paul was a vegetarian, so I had made roasted carrots, turnips and onions, along with the cabbage. I had only made enough for two, since after Max took his there was still the same amount left. I asked him if he could really taste the food? He said it worked the same as sight, hearing, and touch. Even though he didn't interfere with actual light rays, sound waves, or physical bodies, he could see, hear, and feel the real world while he was in the dreaming. The two overlapped. If there was real food he could taste it, even though he wasn't really eating it or affecting it. I asked what happened if he did something that created too much of a contradiction? He said he couldn't. If he tried, he simply woke up. I asked if there was anything besides food where a separate dream version seemed to be created? He said not so far. He was usually careful to put things back where he found them. If he didn't, they eventually ended up back there anyway, and it could be confusing. He and Owl and Thom thought we had been given our abilities for a purpose. If we abused them or just used them to play games, we might lose them. I said I didn't know if that made sense, but it felt true. They weren't something we had worked for, they were a gift to be used as best we could. Which didn't mean we couldn't enjoy them.

After dinner, we moved to the living room. I sat between Paul and Max on the sofa. I told Paul I knew how seriously he took relationships. I could see it in how he interacted with his partners and how he treated me. I didn't know how or if things would work out with him and me, but I would do the best I could. He said that was all he could ask for, so I kissed him. He kissed me back, pretty thoroughly. I put one arm around him and reached for Max with the other. I stood up and dragged them both to the bedroom. This time I got naked first and waited in the middle of my adequately sized bed for them to join me. It didn't take long. My two dark skinned warriors. I should probably say something here about throbbing manhoods, but I'd rather not. I could see both their penises bouncing with their somewhat accelerated heartbeats. I liked the syncopated rhythm, but I wouldn't have called it allegro, at least not yet. I kissed Paul again. Max nuzzled my ear and worked his way down to my breast. Paul's hand hopscotched its way down to my vagina and worked its way inside. Max's hand followed, collected some fluid, and started on my clitoris. I gasped, and Paul's mouth moved down opposite Max. I felt their bodies on either side of me. One man sucking each breast. One with his fingers pressing out from inside, the other pressing in from outside. That felt about right. I held them with a hand on each of their backs, concentrating on the four separate sensations, feeling the sensations build and build until I gasped and came.

I said I wanted both of them inside me. Paul said um. I told him to put on a condom and think of a different piece of music so he would lose his perception of Max. When I felt them shift out of phase, I pulled Paul on top of me. I felt him go down the rabbit hole and start sliding in and out. I moved with him. Max had backed away from us. I put my arm behind his shoulders and pushed him toward my side. When he came into contact with Paul, he didn't. I could see both of them clearly. They were in the same space but not in contact. It was like something reflected in a window that seems to occupy the same space as what is on the other side of the glass. Each image is separate. They overlapped without touching each other. I was still touching both of them. I asked Max what he had seen. Max said that when he would have touched Paul, Paul had disappeared instead. He said that had never happened before, but he had never tried to touch someone who couldn't see him. Max could see where Paul's weight was pressing down on me, but he couldn't see Paul.

I pushed Max on top me from the other side and felt him climb between my legs, where Paul already was. I felt two separate weights on top of me, but not twice as much weight. Each was independent. I don't know how to describe it. I could see each of them through the other. I felt Max follow Paul into me. He could feel me moving slowly under Paul's thrusts but couldn't feel Paul. Max starting moving to the same rhythm I was and so matched him. I could feel both of them in the same place at the same time, which was inside of me. Their movements didn't correspond exactly. I closed my eyes so I could feel their two bodies on top of me pressing down with one weight and the polyrhythm they set up. I responded to each of them. Our musics wove together in my body. The harmonies and dissonances tore at me. Gradually the tempo increased, first adagio, then andante, then allegro, and finally presto as they both crashed into me, thump thump, thump thump, thump thump, until they both came, one after the other, as a grand series of cadences exploded inside me and echoed into silence.

top