This story contains sexually explicit material.
Please e-mail comments to twalden4 at juno dot com with ASSTR in the subject line.
Copyright 2012. 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.

A Peculiar Grace

Moe

There wasn't really anywhere a boy and girl could go in Kyoto to be alone, so I took her to an action movie. I thought maybe she would get excited. Soon after it started she put her hand between her legs. A girl can do that, a guy can't. It wasn't cupping her crotch, just held between her thighs like she was keeping it warm. I watched her discreetly and could see pretty well when there was enough light from the screen. If she doesn't put on a show, most boys don't pay much attention to what a girl is feeling and don't notice how often they do this sort of thing. From the tension of her arm I could tell the side of her hand was pressed tightly against her genitals. From a small regular movement near the base of her thumb I could tell it was massaging her clitoris. I waited. When she started shifting around slightly in her seat I knew she was getting excited, and I put my arm around her shoulders. She ignored me completely. If she hadn't been masturbating she would have glanced over and either smiled or frowned, but she was too absorbed in what she was doing. I gave no real indication that I wasn't still oblivious. If she had felt shamed or embarrassed, or if I'd broken her concentration, she could have stopped. Maybe she slowed down a little. She did stop twitching quite as much. I felt the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders with her breathing. During a tense moment in the movie I could feel her start to tremble. Her breathing got faster and she leaned over against me. I squeezed her slightly. She gave a grimace and suddenly went rigid, then a spasm shook her whole body and she relaxed. In class, girls shift in their seat and move their hand away after they have an orgasm. She sat up straight and kept going, still pretending she didn't know I was aware of what she was doing.

The next week I took her to an R15+ rated movie that a few years ago would have been considered racy. It was a small theater on a weeknight. There weren't many other people there, and I picked seats to one side and as far from them as I reasonably could. She put her hand between her legs again. This time, at an appropriate moment, I put my hand on her knee. Again she ignored me. Later I moved it up a little. When the hero took off her shirt, she took my hand and moved it up to her crotch, holding it there and shielding it from anyone who might walk by with her other arm. I held my thumb under my palm and wriggled it against her. She adjusted it, and curled my fingers so they were pressing into her too. Her hips and thighs didn't move, but I felt the muscles in them slowly tighten and relax in a regular rhythm. She was warm and damp and musky. Maybe I wasn't doing it right, or maybe she felt she could because I was acknowledged to be in on her secret, but in any case she moved her hands up and opened her zipper. Not stopping to think, I moved my hand carefully inside and caressed her smoothness through her thin panties. I knew girls didn't have anything between their legs, but actually feeling her featurelessness was bizarre. She seemed to decide this wouldn't work and undid the top of her jeans. I moved my hand inside her underwear and back between her legs. I knew there was supposed to be an opening somewhere. I got part way in and found she was a lot wetter than I had imagined a girl would be. Still no opening. I had thought it was sort of in front but found it farther down. After letting me explore inside a bit, she pulled my hand back up and put my fingers where she wanted them, showing me the pressure and the rhythm that she liked. I paid attention to her responses. I could tell what worked better and what didn't, but it was a lot more complicated than it seemed like it should be. Finally she took my hand again and pretty much had to do it herself, but she still seemed to like it. She opened her mouth and panted silently, then bucked against my hand. This time she smiled, and even turned her head and kissed me briefly.

When she was done, she tucked her shirt in and pulled her zipper part way up. I dried my fingers with a tissue. She slouched down and put her hand between my legs. She got a handful of balls and traced their outline, then followed my penis up to the top. It was probably just as bizarre for her as it had been for me. She felt around and squeezed, but I was afraid to expose myself. I reached around and cradled her breast, which was a lot softer than I had imagined. We watched the movie for a while. There had been another couple sitting a few rows in front of us, then there was just a boy. Now I saw a delicate hand come up from below and caress his cheek. She must have seen it as well, because she slouched down farther and started trying to unfastened my jeans one handed. I moved a hand over and helped her. She pulled my erection out of my briefs and looked at it for a while. I couldn't tell what she thought. She reached down and slid my testicles around. She touched the wetness coming out of the top. She leaned over and tasted it. I had tried it and it wasn't much. She took a firm grip, opened her mouth, and swallowed the tip. I couldn't tell if I felt pleasure or pain, although she was gentle enough. Maybe it was some of both. Her tongue swirled around, sucking up what it could find. She squeezed the base of my penis and slid the loose skin up and down. More came out, and I saw her throat move as she swallowed. The sensations were new and powerful. I gripped the arms of the seat. I broke out into a sweat and pumped automatically into her mouth. I didn't know if I would be able to come like this. Then I did. I was shooting hot spurts into her mouth, and she was swallowing as fast as she could. Nobody turned around and looked at us. I tapered off rapidly and stayed hard, but I was done for now. She soon realized this. She looked a little strained, but she sat up, smiled again and kissed me. If I tasted myself on her lips or tongue, I couldn't tell. After I had adjusted my clothing, she took my hand and put it back inside her pants. I had a little more idea what I was doing this time. We kept going out to movies but needed to see each one twice. Not wanting to push our luck, we would wait a month before seeing another. I developed a crush on one of the actresses, whose mostly naked body I was often staring at as I came.

Kyoto was founded by the fiftieth Emperor in the middle of Japan as his capital in 794 AD. The Buddhist temples had become too large and powerful, and the easiest thing to do was to just move out from under them. Before that the capital had been Nara, founded by the forty third Emperor (actually Empress, fourth of eight) farther to the south. Before that each new Emperor would found his own capital. Kyoto was surrounded by mountains and at the southern end of Lake Biwa. Its streets were laid out in a grid pattern, like a Chinese city, with five north south avenues and six east west avenues and smaller streets between. It remained the capital for 1074 years. The Emperor assigned the Tendai Buddhist sect to keep watch from a mountain northeast of the city. Shinto was the state religion, but the Tendai sect absorbed their gods and took over. They built a monastery on their mountain top, accepted outcasts and fleeing criminals, and turned them into the country's most powerful army. They raided into the city, burning rival temples and killing thousands of monks. Emperors rose and fell, depending on their support. Religion was only for the rich and influential who could support one faction or another. The monastery had many temples to different Buddhist gods and saints, each with their own complicated ritual. In the countryside outside the city, priests trained at the monastery could only afford to build a temple to one god. This simplifying and popularizing of religion led to the Jodo sect, where all a poor person or a rich person needed to do was have faith and repeat Namu Amida Butsu. Save me, Amida Buddha. Abstract ideas were replaced with a Western Paradise, depicted by colored clouds, lotus blossoms, and floating gods painted on the walls, columns and ceilings of the temples. The new sect was uncentralized and difficult to attack. I didn't understand the Zen sect, but I did like their gardens. When I had time, I would go out to Nanzen-ji or Kodai-ji or Tofuku-ji or one of the other temples and look at the shrubs and rocks and moss and trees.

When I was young my mother sent me to clarinet lessons. I spent a lot of time practicing. Later I switched to oboe. When I heard an oboe d'amore I loved its smoother, wider and darker tone, and I studied that too. I heard a little of the sound of a shakuhachi in it, the Japanese bamboo flute. After high school, I went to a conservatory in America and changed the English spelling of my name to Moe, so people would know how to pronounce it. I met Kurt, who played the bassoon. We got along and roomed together the second year. When I got the idea to form a wind trio, he and Jess, a flautist, agreed to join. I wanted a chance to play the oboe d'amore. There wasn't a lot of music written for it, but Bach included it in some of his cantatas. I chose number seventy eight and worked on an arrangement, while Jess tried to see what she could do with the Ives violin sonatas.

When I was ready we gathered in a rehearsal room for our first attempt. The first movement of the cantata is for flute, two oboes, first and second violins, violas, four part chorus, and continuo. The oboe d'amore took the second oboe part, and the bassoon took the continue part. It starts out with some briefly held notes in a stately bouncy rhythm. The first oboe and first violins follow the flute part, so we omit them. The second violins follow the second oboe, and the violas nearly do, so we omit them too. When the continuo part pauses, the bassoon moves to a rapid ascending and descending unison passage in the strings. It's in their lower register so he can handle it. When flute part pauses, the flute moves to the first oboe part. The voices come in but we omit them. The bassoon moves back to the continuo part, which is a faster version of the rising and falling passage. The flute plays a couple notes from the first violin part and goes back to the first oboe part. The flute part resumes, but the flute stays on the first oboe part since it is more important. The vocal parts pause, but we're not playing them. The flute moves to the alto part when it resumes, and the oboe d'amore moves to the tenor part, which is at the bottom of its range. The flute and oboe d'amore go up to the two oboe parts and back down when the voices pause briefly and resume. The vocal parts have a longer pause, and this time we omit them when they resume. We continue moving around until the end of the movement.

The second movement is a fast duet for soprano and alto, and the flute and oboe d'amore took the vocal parts. The bassoon took the strange bouncy cello part, and we omit the pizzicato double bass part. There aren't any other parts. It didn't sound as weird as when a man sings the alto part. The tenor solo is for flute, tenor and continuo, so we had it covered. I changed a few notes in the tenor part that were below my range. The bass solo is for oboe, first and second violins, viola, bass voice and continuo. The oboe d'amore took the oboe part, the flute took all the string parts, and the bassoon took the bass and continuo parts. The strings either followed the oboe part or weren't important, so the flute didn't do much. We skipped the recitatives and the closing chorale. I had hoped it would work better. Next time I would try a cantata that had an actual oboe d'amore in it. Maybe I could combine parts of numbers ninety nine and one twenty five. Jess's version of the last movement of Ives' third violin sonata turned out well.

I knew Kurt liked Jess, but when he didn't do anything about it I eventually asked her out. A few evenings later we went to a student place for pizza. We had pepperoni with extra cheese. You couldn't get pizza like this in Kyoto. She asked me if I was a Buddhist. I said my family was, but I wasn't really. It might be different here, but in Japan Buddhism was about having faith and reciting prayers, or about learning to sit up straight, hold your water, and solve riddles that didn't have answers. Meanwhile you waited for enlightenment. She was surprised. She said that was the same as the church her parents went to, which was why she had left and started looking into Buddhism. Except you weren't supposed to solve the mysteries, and you waited to be saved. There were rules you were supposed to follow, but nobody did. I said Buddhism had the same sort of rules, except the one about taking off your clothes worked differently. The Japanese had picked up a lot of strange ideas from the Americans during the fifties, but the rule that if a man sees a woman's breasts she has to have sex with him wasn't one of them. She said that rule wasn't as strict since the sixties, although in practice it often turned out that way. We agreed that both religions had some good ideas and good people. Outside, I told her I would invite her up to my room, but Kurt was trying to study. She said we could go up to hers. She and her roommate had an arrangement.

She put on some Turtle Island String Quartet, and we sat on her bed. I kissed her. It was the thing to do. She kissed me back and told me to take off my shoes. We lay down and nibbled on each others lips. I greeted her tongue. When I moved my hand to her hip she undid her cargo pants. I reached inside and caressed her through her thin satin underwear. I still found the smoothness between a girl's legs fascinating. In Japan, boys wear a normal gym suit, but the bottom part of a girl's is molded to her crotch like a bathing suit. It's larger than a bikini bottom, but the top is hidden by the loose tee shirt that covers her breasts. I moved my hand underneath her panties, opened her folds, sought her wetness, and massaged her small projecting clitoris. She opened her legs farther and moved her hips. I moved down and nuzzled the green fabric over her breast. When I tried to move my hand up, she put it back and pulled up her sleeveless blouse and filmy mango colored bra. It matched her panties. I paused and gazed at her. She had a smooth belly, fair sized breasts with small pink nipples, and light medium length hair. Her eyes were a brown that was almost red and gazed back at me. They half closed when she gasped under my ministrations, but stayed on me as I bent back down and sucked her nipple into my mouth. I rubbed it with my tongue and squeezed it gently with my teeth. Her breathing got faster. I pressed my fingers more firmly into her but slowed down a little. She sighed in frustration and squirmed against them. I moved back up and kissed her. Her tongue attacked mine. Her throat made sounds of satisfaction, and I felt the vibrations in her lips. She broke off the kiss to get deeper breaths. I held her there, gradually letting her get closer and closer, until I finally pushed her over the edge. She gasped and clutched at me and pumped her hips against my hand. I felt her passion flowing through her and nuzzled the side of her neck near the corner of her jaw. She decrescendoed and turned to look at me. Then she smiled and kissed me again. After a while I took off my clothes and put on a condom. She finished taking off hers and accepted me into her body.

Kurt

My grandparents came to this country to escape the devastation after the war and tried to be Americans. My father worked at the diesel electric locomotive works in a small Midwestern city with a large German population. When my parents married they reasserted their German heritage. My mother learned to cook cabbage and sausage and potato dumplings, they named me Kurt, and I started music lessons at the age of four. Nudism was a health movement in Germany in the twenties and thirties, so my parents joined a nudist club. We would take a picnic and go out on nice weekends during the summer. My parents sat by the lake, and I played with the other kids. I grew up seeing naked people and not thinking anything of it. Staring was not allowed, and only old people wore sunglasses. Hats or scarves were necessary for some people. Nudity was required, but an exception was made for young people here with their families. All the kids played together. That was part of the point of being here. For young children, not having girls suits and boys suits meant there was less difference between them. Most older boys didn't wear suits. Men here rarely got erections. It was the locker room phenomenon. Boys did, although not as much as you might think, and it was considered part of growing up. I had my share. No one was supposed to notice. I started noticing the girls more when I was in middle school. Self conscious girls were stuck between being embarrassed about their changing bodies and not wanting to stand out by wearing a suit. Some stopped coming to the club until after puberty. But it was a great place, and most decided one way or the other. No one else cared much which it was. I saw girls I hadn't thought of as flat start to change, boys I hadn't thought of as small start to grow. We all started getting hair. There were different ages at the club and always someone further along or less further along. I learned how to see something without looking at it. I didn't care about naked adults but found new breasts on a girl I had known exciting and frustrating. There was one dark haired girl whose development I followed all one summer. All I could do was pretend not to notice.

All wind players start on clarinet. There are fewer bassoon players trying to join orchestras, so I switched when I had the opportunity. I liked the deeper tone. It was cool and reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock. I did well enough that my parents found a German family for me to stay with and sent me to an arts high school in Chicago. It was mostly singers and actors, but they had a good music program. After I graduated I went to a conservatory in a different city. I shared a room with Moe and joined his trio. I was used to hiding my attraction to girls and didn't know what to say to Jess. She probably thought I was a pervert with the way I looked at her. I was hurt when she and Moe started going out, but I didn't say anything. Girls liked Moe. He knew all of them and had several girlfriends the first year. It was like they were lined up waiting their turn. He had a sort of lost child look and appeared harmless. Like the sexy poster of a Japanese film star with her crotch hair and nipples partly exposed that he had hanging on his wall. It could be treated as a joke but had a nervous edge. It could have been him if he were born a girl.

One day that spring Jess asked if I wanted to go out for a sandwich. The next evening we went down the street to a good place and split a turkey, dressing and cranberry sub. It was big enough we could do that, not like you get at a chain, but we also got some potato salad. She asked me if I liked her? I said yes, I did, but I didn't know what to say. She said I could say anything. I said I couldn't. Other people could say anything or talk about nothing, but I could only talk when I had something to say, which wasn't very often. I had been afraid to ask her out and then sit there with nothing to say or just babble like an idiot. Like I was now. She said oh. After a pause I asked why she had decided to study flute? She said she liked shiny things. I said oh. She said she knew it was stupid. In middle school she had signed up for band and liked it and been good at it. She asked why I picked bassoon? I said I thought it would be easier to find a job.

After another pause I said animals talked. She looked at me. I said birds sang and animals made noises. I said I thought people did the same thing. They didn't talk to say anything. It was just reassuring noise that staked out territory, established dominance, announced danger, or let people know you were there. People told the same stories over and over. They quoted opinions they heard from other people or read somewhere and had few original ideas. The rest was shared experiences, which were pretty much the same from one person to another in our culture, or technical information, which people got mostly from books. The professors gave the same lectures every year. Most of it was in the textbook, and the rest came from another text or somebody else. They just picked what they liked. She said she hadn't thought of it exactly that way before. Still, there was something to be said for reassuring noise. It did serve a social purpose. I said that was true. It was just different from what we had been taught about being clear and concise and relevant. If you weren't careful, you could end up with nothing but useless junk in your head while thinking you were well informed. Sports, weather and politics. She added religion. I said yes. There was a basic kernel to politics and religion. You tried to do the most good or least harm. But even there people rationalized that what was best for them was really best for everyone. Rich people thought rich people should have more money. Poor people thought poor people should have more money. Classical musicians thought everyone should like classical music. She said I could have the rest of the potato salad if I wanted. Her nipples were erect. Outside, she asked if I wanted to come up to her room?

She put on some Turtle Island String Quartet, and we sat on her bed. I asked what about Moe? She said Moe would find somebody else and either dump her or not tell her, even though everyone else would know. She accepted the fact, but that didn't mean she liked it. It didn't make cheating on him right, but he wouldn't go down on her, and she thought I would. I said ah. I couldn't tell her she was right about Moe, and she wasn't asking me to. So I kissed her. I didn't know what else to do. She kissed me back and told me to take off my shoes. We lay down and explored each others tongues. When I moved my hand to her hip she undid her cargo pants. I slid them off and stared at her shiny blue panties for a moment before taking them off as well. I was less used to seeing underwear than nudity. I ran my hand over her groin before standing up and getting undressed. She pulled her tee shirt off over her head and unhooked her thin white bra and slid it off her shoulders. Her breasts hung there. Then she lay back down and pulled the covers down under her. I sat on the foot of the bed looking up at her vagina, pubic hair, belly, breasts, chin and nose. She adjusted her pillows, scooted up some, and opened her legs. Accepting her invitation I leaned down, kissed her thigh, tasted her juices, and sucked her clitoris into my mouth. She purred and moved her hips. She was sour and salty and wet and delicious. Also viscous. I sucked and tongued her firmly. I did have some experience. I moved a hand up under my chin and slid a finger into her, massaging her and pushing her clitoris forward. She was panting now, and her breasts wobbled slightly like mounds of orange jello. My hand under her buttock felt the muscles inside tighten with each slow thrust. I held her there, gradually letting her get closer and closer, until finally letting her come. She gasped and pumped herself against my lips and tongue. I swallowed her sweetness. I looked up at her as she slowed, and she handed me a condom. I put it on, she slid down some, and I moved into her, wanting to see if I could make her come again. She was still close, and before too long I did. I felt her hips move under mine and the back I held in my hands and elbows arch before each push forward. My own juices started to flow, and I gasped as I pumped myself into her body.

Jess

When I first saw his name on a list of students, I thought, since his family name was Japanese, that Moe was pronounced with two syllables, like Kobo Ab�, author of The Woman in the Dunes. When I met him, he reminded me of the insect collector from the book, a man who found himself in a situation he didn't understand. I was pleased when he asked me to join his trio the second year, and not too surprised when, that winter, he asked me out. I was surprised when he dumped his former and installed me as his more or less official girlfriend. In the spring I took Kurt to bed. I saw the way he looked at Moe, although neither of them seemed aware of it. One evening early in our third year I was having sex with Kurt up in his room when Moe came back early and walked in on us. My roommate had wanted our room until later, but I'd thought we'd have time here. Kurt covered up. I didn't see any point. There was an argument. Kurt said some stuff about not having to ask permission. Moe said some stuff about respecting others rights. I said they were both being stupid and asked how much of what they were saying they actually believed? Did they realize how insulting it was to me? That stopped them. You might not think so, but being naked gave me an advantage. I had their attention, it kept them off balance, and neither of them dared attack me. I started playing with Kurt's latex covered and still erect penis under the blanket and said I knew Moe had other women, although I didn't know whose room he had just come back from, and he had no right to criticize. He had enough sense not to deny it. Kurt apologized first. He said he was jealous of Moe's girlfriends, but that was no excuse for his actions. I said I was sorry for my behavior. Moe looked embarrassed. He stood up and bowed deeply. He said gomen nasai, please forgive him, he had behaved badly. He didn't understand his current popularity. Maybe it was because he was different. Kurt said he was friendly and confident. Who wouldn't like him? I said it was his fingers.

They both looked at me. I said he was really good at diddling and knew how to make a girl come. Girls talk about boys just like boys talk about girls, and that was the consensus. Kurt suppressed a giggle. Moe tried not to look insulted. He said his personality or his music or intelligence or looks or lovemaking didn't have anything to do with it? It was because he could diddle a girl? I said yes, pretty much. He was also assertive and attentive, but they would be surprised how rare that skill was, or how appreciated. Kurt said a girl could diddle herself. I said yes, and oftentimes better, but it wasn't the same. Another girl could do it, but it was matter of personal preference. Moe considered this. I told Kurt to stay where he was and went over and sat next to Moe on his bed. I put my arm around him, kissed him, and felt the front of his pants. He was already hard and too polite to stop me. His tongue soon got interested. When I had him sufficiently distracted I undid his pants, pulled out his erection, and started sucking on it. He always liked that. Although he had cleaned himself off, I could tell he had just come, and tasted the other woman on him. He had been with this one for several weeks and used a different brand of condom. I didn't know who it was but could eliminate some possibilities. I massaged the tip of his penis with my tongue and pumped the loose skin at the base up and down with my fingers and thumb. Two other fingers nudged his testicles. After a while I stopped, took off his clothes, and moved him over next to Kurt. Kneeling on a towel, I resumed sucking on Moe and playing with Kurt. I tried syncopation and different rhythms, as needed.

Then I wrapped Kurt's fingers around Moe's penis under mine, matching what I did to Kurt to what Kurt did to Moe. I had them both excited, and neither one paid much attention to the changes I made. Eventually I managed to change it around, so that Kurt did to Moe what I did to him. Then I pulled Kurt down and kissed him, before transferring him over to Moe's penis. Kurt didn't object much, and I don't think Moe noticed the difference at first. I put my fingers back around Kurt's penis. I still had my other hand over Kurt's fingers on Moe's penis, but as Kurt kept echoing what I was doing to him, I loosened my grip and then let go. I was no longer touching Moe, but I wanted to make him come without setting off Kurt. I had given Kurt enough oral sex that he knew what to do. I don't think he was completely aware that it was him with the penis in his mouth instead of me, since I still had a handful of his. Oral sex is not gender specific and combines two primary drives into a powerful combination. If wind players don't start out with an oral fixation, they develop one. All of them are latent bisexuals. At least the men were, I wasn't sure about the women. I watched Moe. He responded to oral sex better than Kurt did. When Moe started getting close, I increased my speed and pressure on Kurt and heard Moe's breathing get faster. Kurt was getting excited now, but it wasn't his own orgasm he was working toward. It was Moe's. Just like when he was inside me trying to make me come. A few more firm strokes, and I heard Moe gasping and saw Kurt swallowing with a look of satisfaction and ecstasy. I couldn't let him keep going. As soon as Moe slowed down I pulled Kurt up, climbed onto his lap, stuffed him inside, and proceeded to finish what we had started earlier.

Moe

Jess didn't want me to change my behavior. She just wanted me to be honest with her, to tell her whom I was seeing and when. She didn't care about the details. So I did, but I still let all the other women believe I was cheating on Jess. I thought about it and didn't see any reason to change an arrangement they all seemed happy with. Jess agreed that that was probably best for now. Everyone had enough problems without our trying to start a revolution. I had learned a lot about a girl's anatomy and responses by going to the movies in Japan. I didn't tell anyone that, in spite of my current popularity and all my supposed skill, I had never actually had sex until I came to this country. Kurt and I both kept going out with Jess, one or the other of us often spending the evening in her room. The first night I had sex with her while Kurt was trying to sleep in the next bed, she noticed what he was doing and called over that he should save some of that for her. Apparently he did, because after she and I were finished she went over and gave him a very satisfying blow job before coming back and sleeping with me. That set the pattern. She would do the same for me if I was still awake when she slept with him. I didn't ask her, but she seemed to not want to have sex with two men at the same time, or sequentially, but thought giving oral sex was okay. I didn't understand the distinction but was happy enough with the arrangement.

I kept thinking about what had happened that first time with Kurt. No one had said anything about it since. I had liked it, but I wasn't sure how I felt about it. One night, when Jess had been busy for a few days, I called across in the darkness and asked Kurt if I could come over to his bed. I had found other companionship, but I didn't know if Kurt had. I didn't get any answer and thought he was asleep or hadn't heard me. Or that he didn't want to answer. Then I heard him softly say yes. I sat on the edge of his bed. He looked up at me, then closed his eyes again. I moved the covers out from under me and partly off of him. He was on his side facing me and as naked as I was. He was fairly tall and reasonably fit. Most of us were, music is harder work than it looks. How many overweight people do you notice in orchestras? There are a lot of people on stage and those chairs aren't that wide. I touched his hip. He jumped slightly. I left my hand there a moment, then started massaging the side of his buttock. I felt him relax some. I worked my way down the outside of his leg to his knee. I saw his penis move as he started to get an erection. It rolled and moved downward as it lengthened, then started to move outward from his body in little jerks, until it was hanging there pulsing lightly. I pulled gently on his hip. He rolled onto his stomach and shifted over. I worked from the large muscles in his buttocks, up one side of his back, and down the other. Then I straddled him, worked up both sides of his spine with my fingers, went back to each shoulder blade, and did both his shoulders. He had a very nice back. I leaned forward and kissed the back of his neck before I got off and rolled him over.

His penis was sticking pretty much straight up. From a standing position, I worked from one knee up to his groin and down the other side. Then I straddled his knees and worked gently on different areas of his abdomen, my wrists bumping his penis a little. Finally I took hold of his penis and started stroking it. He was leaking, as was I. I kneeled between Kurt's legs and tasted him with my tongue. Then I took his penis in my mouth. It was the first time I had given oral sex. It wasn't practical to go down on a girl in a movie theater, even if she wore a skirt, which she hadn't. Girls here had asked me if I wanted to, but I didn't, and they hadn't insisted. I'm not sure what I would have done if one had. Even though it's probably about the same, a penis seemed somehow cleaner. From the outside, he felt about the same as I did. His responses seemed about the same, so I did as I liked. It wasn't complicated. I moved my tongue around and went down as far as I easily could. I stroked firmly and evenly with one hand while I squeezed his testicles gently with my other. He moved his hips and groaned softly. I kept going and felt his excitement slowly increase. I slowed down a little and watched him. I tasted him oozing out and swallowed what there was. I sped up a little. He started thrusting harder, and I followed somewhat behind his lead. Soon he was gasping, and I felt my mouth filled with cum and swallowed until he was spent. I licked up as much as I could, then lay down alongside him with a contented sigh and put my arm on his chest. After he had recovered somewhat, he moved down and did me. Kurt continued to let me do most of the initiating, which was okay with me, and we didn't tell Jess. From some of the things she said I got the idea that she had relationships with other women. I didn't ask about it, and she didn't tell me whom she was seeing or when, unless it was a man. For all I knew, she might have been going around and seducing my other girlfriends. Sometimes I wasn't sure what a person wanted to know and what they didn't.

We had continued working as a wind trio. I arranged Debussy's string quartet. I considered using a clarinet for the range and because of his interest in jazz, but didn't. The sparseness of the harmony was partly made up for by the richness of the timbre, but I did shorten it by a third. I liked the result. Jess arranged a late Vivaldi violin concerto and some of Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas. Kurt considered arranging a Beethoven cello sonata but decided it wouldn't work with just one bass instrument. He did Mozart's Serenade in C minor instead. The melody is carried by the oboe supported by the horns and bassoon. He moved most of the horn part up and gave it to the flute, along with some passages from the second oboe. He split the clarinet part between the flute and bassoon. It didn't work well but better than you might think. Eliska, a cellist with whom I'd gone out my first year, liked our arrangements and suggested Martinu's trio for flute, violin and bassoon, but I couldn't find a copy of it. So I used his trio for flute, violin and piano instead. She got us to play in the River Sonata her friend had written, and in the arrangement of Martinu's first cello concerto she played at her senior recital. It was for only thirteen musicians, but that was still more than most people managed to collect for their recitals. Eliska held them all together and worked her usual magic. Her technique was good but not exceptional. After we graduated, Kurt and I got jobs with the orchestra and rented an apartment together. Jess found a position in a different city and moved away. A few years later, Eliska, who was also in the orchestra, invited me over for dinner. I went not knowing what to expect. I wasn't nearly as popular as I had been in school.

She served me roasted chicken and potatoes in her dining area with Bernard Dark, and had lemon kolaches from a Czech bakery for dessert. It was all excellent. Afterward we sat on her sofa and she asked if I was still interested in chamber music. I said yes, but that was all. With practice, rehearsals and concerts, I had no chance to play it. She said she knew some people. She might have an opportunity for the right person. I said I was listening. They needed an oboe player for Bach's second Brandenburg, but there was a catch. It was to be performed as a chamber piece with no brass. I would have to double on some of the trumpet part. And I couldn't tell anyone. Did I think I was up to it? I considered. Our contracts didn't allow us to perform in other groups. She was taking a risk just telling me about it. I appreciated her faith in me, but there was one thing I had to know first. I looked her in the eye and asked, were they amateurs? I saw a flash of fear, but she recovered quickly. She leaned back and said maybe. I said I had worked with amateurs before. They were unreliable, it was too big a risk. She should get out while she could. She said it was too late. She was in too deep. I had been her best hope, but she should have known I had too much sense. This put things in a different light. We had been close once. It was a long time ago, but I didn't like to abandon my friends. And at this stage, I wasn't sure that I could. I asked her to tell me more about it. I saw hope flicker in her eyes and knew I was lost. Dames.

It had started with an ad in the personals, a phone call, a journey to a strange address on a cold night in the middle of winter. She had knocked and been ushered into a bare room full of strangers with just an upright grand, a few straight back chairs, and a loveseat. They had seemed friendly. The Brazilian and the red haired woman sat down on the loveseat. While she got out her cello, the tall quiet black man who had admitted her sat down at the piano, the Asian woman picked up her violin, and the pale dark haired man picked up his already assembled flute. Before she knew it, she was up to her elbows in one of Telemann's Paris Quartets playing for all she was worth. She stopped, but I knew there was more to it. She was hiding something. I confronted her, and she told me about strange gods, a hospital, a mysterious man on the inside, and thoughts in her head that weren't her own. I couldn't tell how much of it she believed. I told her I would have to think about it before getting involved. She said there wasn't any time, the job was tomorrow. I had been set up, and I walked right into it like the idiot that I am. Then she leaned over and kissed me. I would have to wait and see for myself just what I had gotten mixed up in. But I wouldn't have to wait very long.

She led me into the bedroom and put on a little show as we undressed. She slid off her pants, unbuttoned her shirt, and took off her bra. She was the only woman I knew who could get away with wearing red underwear. She pulled her bikini briefs down off her well rounded rear, then sat on the bed as they drifted slowly over her thighs, knees and shins. She lifted out each foot and tossed them onto the rest of her clothes. She wasn't overweight, but she was well built and had some heft to her. Her breasts weren't enormous but had to be in the top ten per cent. They had fair sized pink nipples below the midpoint of their swell and slightly outside. The skin of her breasts and hips was the same color as the rest of her, slightly tanned and a couple shades lighter than mine. Her dark blond pubic hair stood out below her belly like a flag when she stretched out on the bed and looked up at me. I was captivated by it. I lay down beside her and kissed her, running my hand along her body from her hip to her shoulder and drawing myself to her. All of her responded. I worked my way through her magnificent tangle and pushed my fingers into her heaving hot wetness. I felt her breasts pressed between us. I moved down to suck on them. When I shifted to the far one, I rolled onto her and straddled a thigh. I moved back up and between them, then put on a condom and guided myself into her. She felt substantial in my arms, and as long as I didn't get overly enthusiastic, I could pound into her without fear of her going anywhere. When I was on top of her I actually felt like I was on top of something, much of it muscle. She moved like the well oiled machine that she was. She gripped me as if trying to remove my protection, but the signs of her excitement belied that intention. Her moans filled the room like ice cubes in a tea cup. She gasped as her first orgasm hit and seemed to whimper through the rest, but I felt her smile just before I lost it and gushed hot fluid into her.

The next evening I picked her up and drove her to our appointment. Maneuvering your livelihood through public transport is always risky, more so for her than for me. I dropped her off and went in search of parking. I hiked back through dark frosty streets and was buzzed in. She had the door open when I got there and stepped aside to let me in. I recognized the people Eliska had described and was not that surprised to see two more members of the orchestra, Grace and Jeremiah on violin and viola. I was introduced. Mark was our flautist, and Judy was on second violin. The second Brandenburg is for trumpet, flute, oboe, solo violin, first and second violins, viola, cello, and continuo. The continuo is a sort of rhythm section with cello and keyboard. We had six players for nine parts, three soloists and three as our string section. We took our places and briefly discussed who would play which passages, then everyone looked at Grace and we began.

The piece opens with the flute, oboe, violin and first violin playing the rhythmic main theme in unison, and the second violin following a third below. The cello and continuo parts are also the same, as they are throughout much of the piece. The viola stays with its own part. The flute takes the trumpet part. Then the trumpet pauses, and the other soloists play a fast theme that rises and falls, a rhythmic section, and another fast section with the trumpet doing some punctuation. Everyone except the continuo pauses while the violin plays the solo theme, then everyone returns for the main theme. They pause again while the oboe takes the solo theme and the violin plays the counter theme, then return for the main theme. Another pause for flute and oboe on solo theme and counter theme, and a return. A pause for trumpet and oboe with the violin taking the trumpet part this time, and then everyone returns with the fast theme, rhythmic section, and fast section. Now the oboe takes the trumpet part and the violin accompanies it. When the trumpet has a long trill the second violin moves up to take it since everyone else returns with their own part. There is a call and response between trumpet and oboe. We omit the first and second violin parts since there's no one to play them. The cello and continuo parts diverge and we omit the latter. A whole bunch of stuff happens. At the end of the movement the main theme comes back in unison and the oboe finishes the trumpet part.

The second movement only has four parts. The violin enters with a slow theme and the continuo accompanies it. The oboe enters with the same theme. The flute enters with the theme an octave higher. The theme breaks up and moves around, then slows to a stop. In the last movement the second violin doesn't do much so it takes the trumpet part. The trumpet, accompanied by the continuo, starts with a long passage that sounds something like the main theme and fast theme of the first movement. The oboe enters and they play a duet for a while before the violin enters, soon followed by the flute as the trumpet pauses. The trumpet reenters. The strings, represented here by the viola, finally enter but don't do much before pausing, along with the trumpet and oboe, while the flute and violin have a solo passage. Everything moves around, and the movement ends with a brief quote of the opening passage by the trumpet. I thought it went well, and everyone seemed pleased.

We took a break, and Jose and Linda served date walnut cookies with ginger ale and tea. I told Mark I thought he had played well and asked about his training. He said he'd had some flute lessons but had mostly practiced on his own and listened to recordings. He had learned a great deal by playing with the others in the group and hoped I would be willing to point out some of the faults that I noticed. I said I would do that. I asked Grace how long she had been playing with the group? She said eight months. She thought she was learning enough from Eliska and the others to justify the time she spend on chamber music, which wasn't really very much. She asked what I thought? I said I had missed it and was glad for the chance to play again. I didn't see any problem with it in spite of Eliska's game. We weren't performing in public. She asked me how different Japan was from this country. Did the Japanese television programs she had watched in Hawaii give an accurate idea of the culture? I said the traditional culture and values were less a part of people's lives than it might seem from the shows though still important. They exaggerated some things, although not as much as American television did. I asked how much Japanese culture was preserved on Maui? She said not much. People there talked about it on holidays the way people here talked about the Pilgrims on Thanksgiving, without much understanding of the influences. This country had basically been created by the Puritans during the Great Migration of the 1630s. Their religious influence had been diluted by the less pious of their children who couldn't move elsewhere, and by the Irish, Scots and Germans who came later. And many of them had been disillusioned by the failure of the Puritan Revolution in England. The different groups here had learned some degree of mutual tolerance in order to survive. The same was true in Hawaii. The Whites there were a plurality now but not a majority, so less prejudice was possible. The different groups had all lost something and gained something by living together. Each had contributed to the shared culture and preserved aspects of their own that might not be obvious. Some of the courtesy and willingness to help in Hawaii came from the Japanese, as some of the informality and concern for others came from the Hawaiians.

The next piece was Elliott Carter's first string quartet, from 1951. It has four movements in three sections. The cello solo starts with a two note chord that immediately changes into a held base note, then goes down a ninth, back up a fifth, and wobbles up higher. There is another two note chord, but this time the top note is held while the bottom notes steps up, and then they step together into a long minor third. After a rest there is a four note chord. Since the cello can't play four notes at once, it starts with the base note then drops it to play the high note. It repeats the chord, then plays one spread out even farther and holds just one of the middle notes. It goes down, wobbles back up, plays some held notes as the second violin starts playing pizzicato, and then skitters all over in quintuplets, but in a generally upward direction. The time signature keeps changing, and the rhythm follows its own logic. The first violin comes in with some long high notes. The viola starts marching around in triplets. They trade around these four main ideas and others. The first movement dissolves into the skittering of the second movement without stopping. There is a long slow passage and more skittering. The second movement fades into a pause three quarters of the way through to end the first section, and they stopped there. I thought they did well for such a long and complicated work. It was reality taken apart and put back together again, like Picasso or Wallace Stevens.

And they said then, "But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."

There were more people there the next week, and we went over the same pieces. I met Karen, who played second flute with the group. During the break she asked me about the possibility of some sort of lessons. I had been thinking about what Mark asked the previous week. A little coaching would be good for the group and everyone would benefit. I asked Karen if she could play something, so she got out her flute and did. As she had said, she wasn't as good as Mark. I said advanced lessons don't really take an hour. You just listened to the student's progress and pointed out things to work on. I asked if she had started out on clarinet? She said she had. I said having two flutes increased what the group could do. Having two clarinets and two oboes would increase the possibilities further. If she and Mark were willing, I could come half an hour early and work with them on flute, and also teach her clarinet and him oboe. They already knew some of the fingering. Since I played clarinet, that would give us double winds with just three people, although not all at once. They could rent student instruments, and we could try it for a while and see how it went. Both of them liked the idea and offered to pay, but I said I wasn't allowed to accept money. I had also been thinking about Grace, and the other thing I did was ask her if she wanted to go out for pizza and beer. She said yes.

A couple days later we went to a place near where she lived and ordered a sausage, pepper and onion pizza. She had a Yuengling and poured my beer, I had a Bass Ale and poured hers. It amused her that some people thought it was a Chinese import even though it is an American brewery and the name is actually German. I asked if she'd been to Japan? She said no, she had just read up a little on Japanese beer etiquette. I knew it would only have taken her on a couple minutes on the internet, but I was still touched. She told me about growing up on Maui. She had developed an interest in William Blake and John Donne and English history and the people who moved to America looking for a better life, as her family had, and as I seemed to have. I told her about studying the history of Kyoto and Buddhism. During the medieval period in Japan the Zen samurai had supported the Shogunate, a military dictatorship that ruled from Edo, which was renamed Tokyo when feudalism collapsed and the restored one hundred twenty second Emperor moved the capital there, from Kyoto, in 1868. During the second world war the Zen monasteries had supported racism and the military dictatorship that attacked China and Hawaii. Two thousand people were killed at Pearl Harbor, but two hundred thousand had been killed during the rape of Nanjing four years earlier. She said there had been five internment camps in Hawaii during the war. The one on Maui had been in Haiku in what was now a residential area. Relatively few Japanese in Hawaii, about one per cent, had been imprisoned or relocated. The Japanese made up thirty five per cent of the population of the islands and were an essential part of the labor force. The commanding general in Hawaii argued that internment there was not necessary because the islands were under martial law, and was successful in blocking it.

After we finished she invited me up to her apartment and served tea. We talked for a while, and then I kissed her. She kissed me back and said she knew I was bisexual but didn't want to have anal sex. I said I didn't either. Kurt and I didn't do that. She said oh and kissed me some more. When my hands started wandering, she undid her pants but stayed where she was. I reached inside. It was a little awkward while sitting next to her on the sofa and kissing her. I couldn't get the proper angle. So I moved behind her and kissed her neck. The Japanese are big on necks. My other hand reached up under her shirt and held her breast through her thin bra. In Japan women are afraid of showing their nipples, one of the strange ideas we got from the Americans during the fifties. I could feel through her underwear that she was unshaved. I liked that. There was a certain graininess to the hairs sliding over each other that I could hear with my fingers when I rubbed her. I moved them under the waistband and between her legs. There really isn't that much difference between a man and a woman until you get down here and feel a smooth wetness instead of a hard object. I pushed inside and slid up to her clitoris. I rubbed its slickness with what both of us seemed to feel was the right amount of pressure, squeezed her nipple gently, tasted the side of her neck, and pressed my erection against her rear. She wriggled and squirmed in my embrace, and I held on to her. Soon she calmed down some and leaned back into me. Her hips started rocking slowly forward and back, and I felt the muscles in her abdomen and buttocks tighten with each sigh. We drifted through time together. She started having orgasms, and we drifted deeper. After a while I tapered off and let her slowly settle to the bottom.

After several moments she woke up and thanked me. She said she had known of my reputation at school and had always wanted to do this with me. I said I wished I had known at the time. She said it might not have mattered. Wanting to and saying yes are two different things. I let go, we separated, and she got out my penis and sucked on it briefly before leading me to the bedroom. I held up my pants, but she didn't need to. I watched her undress and followed her into bed. She looked Japanese, a shade darker than me, but whether she was depended on what you meant. I had never had sex with a Japanese woman before. I guess I wasn't exotic enough. I unrolled a condom and guided myself into her. I could feel her around me as I pressed against the bottom of her torso. We rocked each other gently until she came again, and then I felt the fluids moving inside me and gasped as I sprayed the top of her vagina.

Grace

One time a teacher asked her class what was the greatest invention in history? The students answered fire, the wheel, writing, cars, the airplane, television, computers, cell phones. One little boy stood up and said the greatest invention in history was the thermos, because it keeps hot things hot and cold things cold. She asked why that made it the greatest. He said how do it know? She told him to sit down.

I am yonsei, a fourth generation Japanese American. My great grandparents came to Maui to work in the cane fields, along with the Chinese, Okinawans, Koreans and Filipinos. When the U.S. occupied Hawaii in 1900 the labor contracts were voided because they violated anti slavery laws, but it wasn't until worker's rights laws were passed in 1945 that strikes became effective and conditions improved. By that time mechanization had reduced dependence on human labor. My father worked in an office, and my mother signed me up for violin lessons almost as soon as I could walk. I started on Manga, Japanese comic books, before I could read. She bought me one about Belldandy. I liked the magic girls and motorbike races. I was disappointed there were no animals in Gunsmith Cats. I liked one about a boy that changed back and forth into a girl at inconvenient moments when he got wet. Another boy changed into a pet pig that belonged to the first boy's girlfriend, who didn't know. There was nudity but nothing resembling sex, just a lot of talk and romantic misunderstandings and martial arts contests. They were updated and eroticized versions of old Disney animation from the forties mixed with television sitcoms from the sixties, although probably not as surreal. I started reading Blake when I was a sophomore in high school. That led me to John Donne. I liked The Sun Rising.

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys, and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me
Whether both the Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear: "All here in one bed lay."

She is all states, and all princes I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compar'd to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy'as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.

I thought it was disrespectful but exciting. The speaker calls the sun a wretch and peasants country ants, from the false etymology pays ants. He says his girlfriend's eyes are brighter than the sun's, and compares her to valuable spices and mines of the East Indies, so that his possession of her makes him king. He says she is all countries and the whole world, and all the sun has to do to warm and light the earth is shine on the bed where they are having sex. First he tells the sun to go away, then that he doesn't matter, then to shine on them. Donne wasn't trying to make sense. He was talking about sex and obsession and love with metaphor and hyperbole, appealing to our prurient interest. What was it like to feel a boy's body pressed up against me? To feel him moving deep inside me and gasp as he comes? All fifteen year olds wondered about this, or some equivalent, even if they were afraid to admit it to themselves.

My junior year in high school I signed up for a shiatsu class, Japanese massage based on energy meridians and pressure points. I arrived the first evening as it was getting dark. The classroom was a storefront in a row of buildings in a small shopping center near the main street. You could see in through to display window, but I imagined we would be less interesting to watch than the hula class. The directions said to wear loose or non restrictive clothing and bring something to lie on. Some women wore sweat pants or shorts. Some stripped down to tights or leotards. The men all wore shorts. I wore shorts and went braless, and decided I might as well go pantyless too. The instructor said if people didn't have partners to work with she would match them up each class. Kai, a boy that had been in some of my classes at school, asked me to be his partner and I agreed. He seemed nice enough, and it was better than being paired with random strangers. First we sat in a circle and learned that the different parts of the body are organized and connected. The internal condition of the body affects the outside, and work on the outside treats internal conditions. There are twelve main meridians on the surface of the body, each associated with a specific organ. We would learn about one each week with review and more practice after each four over the fifteen week course. Our text was The Book of Shiatsu by Paul Lundberg, based on the ideas of Zen Shiatsu. Since shiatsu is a physical activity we started with warm ups.

We lined up on our knees and bowed onto our foreheads. We got on our hands and knees and stretched up and down. We lifted up into a vee on our hands and feet. We lay down raised up our heads and chests into a snake posture. We got back on all fours and practiced shifting our weight around in a circle. Since shiatsu applies pressure while on the floor, shifting weight is important. After a break we started on actual massage. We laid out his beach towel on my blanket, and Kai offered to let me work on him first. Massage is sensual without being erotic, at least in theory. For me it was a way to touch people without having to worry about what it meant. Kai lay on his back. I rotated his arm to loosen the joints, positioned it thumb up part way out from his body, and leaned a little of my weight on the muscle using the flat of my thumb and heel of my palm every couple inches from his shoulder to his thumb. This is how you palm the Lung Meridian. Then I went back and found the hollow at the front of his shoulder through his shirt. This is the beginning of the Lung Meridian, point Lu 1. The instructor came around and checked everybody's technique and positioning as she explained what to do. I traced up slightly, down his shoulder, and along the edge of his biceps to the tendon at the hollow of his elbow. This is point Lu 5. The handout said it was called Foot Marsh, and that it cools and calms. I asked Kai. He said he felt relaxed but not particularly cool and calm. I continued down his forearm to his wrist at the base of the thumb. This is point Lu 9, Greater Abyss, and it strengthens the lungs. The middle of the thumb muscle is point Lu 10, and the Lung Meridian ends at the corner of the thumbnail. I did his other arm, then we traded places and did the whole thing again. We were told learning to receive shiatsu took almost as long as learning to give it. Class was an hour and half. At the end of it Kai suggested we meet at the beach to go over our notes. I said I would try to write down what I remembered.

Two days later I went to Beach Three after school with two of my friends and met Kai. With four of us it didn't count as a date so I didn't have to tell my parents. We talked and swam for a while, then Kai and I walked over to the bakery to study. He offered to buy me an ice cream. They had vanilla bean, chocolate brownie, butter pecan, mint chocolate chip, banana split, cherry tart, and mango chili. Seven delicious flavors. I chose mango chili, and he had the chocolate. We sat at a table outside and showed each other our notes. Mine weren't much, but they were more than his. So we looked at the handout and chatted. Actually I was a little nervous and did most of the talking, which meant my ice cream melted, or it would have, except it didn't. When I stopped to catch my breath and noticed, Kai looked pleased with himself. I asked him about it. He said what? Maybe he really didn't want to tell me. Maybe it was a game. But after a little coaxing he told me it was just a trick he could do. I said what? He said he could keep cold things cold. I automatically said and hot things hot. He said yes. I didn't know if he was serious and looked at him. But something was going on. He said it wasn't the greatest ability in the world. That reminded me of something. I said that time in grade school. He was the one who had stood up and talked about the thermos. He said yes, and the teacher wasn't impressed. I said adults have their own ideas. They don't understand, and kids learn not to. He said we shouldn't talk about it here, so I took advantage of the situation and finished my ice cream. I said thank you. When we got back to the beach it was time to leave. We picked up our stuff and Kai gave me a brief kiss. My friend, who should have known better but often didn't, said we should meet at the state beach next week. No one said anything for a moment, then Kai said it was okay with him if we wanted to. I said alright before anyone could object and waited for someone to back out. No one did.

The next week in the circle at the start of shiatsu class we learned about grounding and centering. Gravity influences everything we do and affects the condition of our bodies. We work against it to stand and walk, but it also holds us in place and allows us to move by pushing against the earth. We need to acknowledge our connection to the ground and to release the tension and stiffness developed by standing and our habitual way of walking so that we can move more easily. Tense muscles and locked knees and joints inhibit feeling and sensation and movement. We need to stop holding our stomachs in. The belly is the center of balance, motion and breath. It needs to be between our points of support, some combination of feet, knees and hands. It is our source of strength where all body movement begins and ends. If we don't breathe from it we are choking ourselves and not using most of our lungs. Moving it strengthens more muscles than holding it. The gut is our deepest seat of fear and emotion and intelligence. The belly is everything we are. The ground is everything else. Other people are both part of our center and part of our world. We went over positions during warm up. The basic kneeling posture is sitting on your spread heels with your legs folded under and toes pointed back. In shiatsu you more often rise up on your spread knees or half kneel with one foot flat, which provides more stability and reach. To stretch and open up we did a low centered stretch with our feet spread wide. We turned to one side and moved our knee in a figure eight, then arched back and looked up while still holding the knee. We turned back to the front and sank to one side, stretching out the opposite leg. I got down to the floor but Kai didn't. The instructor said to be careful and not hurt ourselves.

After the break we went over the Lung Meridian from last week and started on the Large Intestine Meridian. I turned Kai's arm slightly inward and palmed more gently down along the top of the bone with the flat of my thumb and heel of my palm to his elbow. I gripped his forearm and leaned a little onto the knuckle of my index finger as I worked down to his wrist. In shiatsu you use body weight to apply pressure straight down, because that's how gravity works. You need a wide stance so you can shift your weight onto and off of your hands and remain stable. You need to breathe well so you can stay relaxed and sensitive to the conditions and changes in your partner's body. The Large Intestine Meridian starts near the end of the Lung Meridian at the edge of the index finger nail, point LI 1, and goes in the other direction. I asked the instructor why we started at the shoulder and didn't understand her answer. I traced up the finger to the center of the muscle between it and the thumb. This is point LI 4, Meeting of the Valleys, which relieves pain in the head, jaw and teeth. Point LI 5 is on the side of the wrist between the two thumb tendons. I continued up his forearm along the bone to the outside of the elbow crease. This is point LI 11, Crooked Pond, and it cools fevers. I thought this might be useful and tried to remember it. The meridian goes outward slightly and curves back in to run along the bone to the muscle below the point of the shoulder, point LI 15. It crosses the collarbone, goes up the muscle on the side of the neck, over the jaw, near the corner of the mouth, above the upper lip, and ends next to the opposite nostril. This is point LI 20, Welcome Fragrance, used to clear the sinuses. I went over to Kai's other arm and did the whole thing again, then he did me. He seemed to be able to find the various points better than I could.

We met Kai near the beach end of the path from the parking lot and headed over the lava outcrop together. It was a steep enough climb that people didn't wander this way by mistake. From the top you might not notice at first that people weren't wearing suits if you didn't already know. It just looked more crowded than the larger part of the beach. We found a spot partway along, away from the entrance path and not next to the gay section. As we stood there after putting down our stuff and carefully arranging our beach towels, my friend who had suggested this took off her top, and my other friend followed. They didn't have too much tan but still had white triangles over part of their breasts with red or pink spots for nipples. Maybe they thought I wouldn't take mine off because my new almost boyfriend was there, but they were wrong. My skin was somewhat darker but still had an obvious difference in tone, which I hoped to partly rectify. My nipples were brown like Kai's. After a couple moments he managed to look me in the eye, and then at least mostly in the neck or shoulder. There was no halfway for him, so he just stripped off his trunks. The three of us stared at him for a couple moments. He was Hawaiian with darker skin and the contrast was not as noticeable. I thought he looked nice. He didn't seem to mind our stares and asked if I wanted to swim. I said yes and stripped off mine. I told myself if I didn't get them wet I wouldn't have to wait for them to dry. And yes, I am something of an exhibitionist. People like to show off if given the right opportunity. That's what all those women's costume stores in the malls are about. This was just less expensive.

We went out far enough to ride the waves up and down, and body surfed a little. We held hands some. He kissed me again, a little longer this time. Then I kissed him. He tried to pull away when his erection poked me, but I held on to him. He gave in, but we let go of each other after a few moments. I had seen another couple or three making out a little in the waves, so it seemed to be acceptable if you weren't too obvious. We floated some more and worked our way toward the edge of the crowd, but not too near the rocks. Then we kissed again. I put my hand on his penis and started slowly stroking it. Kai was surprised but didn't seem to mind very much. There is a difference between being naked in public and having sex in public, but no one could see what we were doing underwater. Maybe one or two people who came close enough, a little, but they didn't have to look if they didn't want to. I had never touched a boy before, but it was right there and no one could tell. Except maybe my friends. Besides, he had violated our mutual doctor patient relationship first. We broke our kiss and turned to look at the waves coming in. I shifted my hold and kept going. He was too far gone to object. It seemed to be taking an awfully long time, which I guess was a good thing. I thought boys were supposed to be faster. His hips pumped against my grip. I held more firmly and followed his rhythm. He opened his mouth and made some strange expressions. It was a good thing we were facing away from the shore. Then he came.

I looked down and saw stringy globs of white cum dispersing through the water. One was still attached, so I moved my hand up and set it free. I felt a strange pride in what I had done. I smiled and look at him. He looked back and I kissed him some more. I felt his hands moving over my body as we embraced. They reached my lower back and hips and buttocks. One stopped there, but the other went lower and between them. He stroked into my slit and to the edge of my vagina, then slipped inside. I felt his finger probing within and his penis start to harden again. I muttered directions through our kiss, and his finger came out and moved up to my clitoris. When I had him where I wanted him, I gave myself up to the sensation. The waves pushed us in toward shore, so he moved farther out. My feet came off the bottom. I held onto his neck and he supported me, but mostly it was the water. I wrapped an ankle around his shin. My hips started moving more. I needed more breath and smiled over his shoulder at the beach. My friends were watching us and trying not to stare. No one else seemed to notice, except maybe one man who smiled back at me. I was too far away to be sure. I started to get close and pumped harder but tried not to make any noise. Kai held onto me and pushed. Then I came.

We had probably kissed longer than was appropriate, but it made it look less like we were fucking. I hadn't taken too long. It was supposedly a family beach, but any kid able to figure out what we were doing was old enough to enjoy the show. We didn't let go of each other immediately, but after another kiss swam out and rode the waves some more. I looked around at the heads, shoulders and chests sticking up out of the water. Being naked in the ocean with lots of other people felt wonderful. We were all free, and my breasts just floated. We went back in and rejoined my friends on the sand, one of whom was now bottomless with a pale horizontal stripe. Kai got a good eyeful of her neat trim before we lay down on our towels. He was a kid in a candy shop, but then so was I and everyone else here. I put on sunblock even though it was getting late. Kai said he didn't burn. I knew there was more to it, but we couldn't talk with other people around. I looked at them and could pick out the locals and mainlanders gone native and tourists and honeymooning couples. Some wore suits or bottoms. Many of the people were young, but some were middle aged and older. There were a few children with their parents and a couple beach umbrellas. There were no other kids our age. Someone had a guitar. I asked Kai if he still played uke? When he said yes I asked if he could teach me a little. He said he would bring it next time.

This week our shiatsu instructor talked about yin and yang. Shiatsu is part of Japanese medicine, which is based on traditional Chinese medicine, which is organized around the concepts of yin and yang. Yang is the active principle, represented by light, warmth, and the passage of time. Yin is the receptive principle, represented by rest, nourishment, the extent of space. Everything has both, and they contain each other. In shiatsu the yin hand supports and the yang hand is active. In the first two classes the yin hand held the shoulder and the yang hand moved along the arm. In shiatsu there is a giver and a receiver, but it is the receiver who physically supports the giver when he leans forward to deliver weight. Trusting your partner's strength to provide that support allows the free interchange of energy. She had us sit back to back, lean forward a little, scoot closer together, lean back against each other, adjust our fit so neither felt burdened, and sit and experience each others breathing and mutual support for a while. Warm ups included placing our palms and fingers together and pushing downward to stretch our wrists, flexing our wrists from side to side and up and down, pulling back each finger to loosen it, placing our fist between each pair of fingers to increase our reach, pressing our forefingers and thumbs sideways against each other, and kneeling forward onto our fingers and thumbs to strengthen them.

During the break I asked Kai if he would go first since he was better at finding the points and meridians. Then maybe I would have some idea what I was doing. They went over the Lung Meridian and Large Intestine Meridian and started on the Stomach Meridian. Kai knelt beside me and leaned with the heels of his palms on the front of my shoulders at Lu 1. Then he moved around and sat with a knee on either side of my head. He laid his hands on my temples for a few moments. He held the base of my skull with his fingers and slowly rocked my head from side to side to loosen my neck. He leaned back from his belly to stretch my neck. He slid his palms under my head and held it for a few moments. He rolled my head into one palm and held it turned slightly. He began at the corner of my forehead and applied pressure with his thumb down along the side of my face to my jaw, and then down from just below my eye. It felt weird and exciting and scary to have someone hover over me and touch me so intimately even though it was nonsexual. I saw how it required trust. Kai was watching what he was doing and being very careful. The instructor told them to observe how their partner felt by listening to their breathing, and to feel the connection between their yin hand supporting and their yang hand working. You don't want or need to work straight down on the face. Kai conveyed the weight of his body on the ground through his arm and used the weight of his forearm. The idea was to work without tension, to keep your shoulders down and your elbows relaxed. He applied pressure with his extended index finger beside my nostril at LI 20 while his knuckles and thumb steadied it. He worked down the muscle on the side of my neck with the ball of his thumb while supporting the back of my neck with his fingers. Then he rolled my head onto his other palm and did the other side. He ended by pulling back and up on the sides of my jaw, arching my neck and pulling on my spine.

Kai moved around and took a wide kneeling stance by my thigh. He placed his yin hand on my center, just below my navel. He placed his yang hand just below my hip with the fingers pointed out. Just as he started palming down my thigh he hesitated. I felt his hand wriggle around a little bit. I knew he'd figured out I wasn't wearing underwear. He'd started on my thigh not far above where the bottom edge ought be and might have missed something skimpy, but he saw me get dressed at the beach and knew what kind of underwear I wore. I gave him an innocent look when he glanced up at me. He continued down my thigh to the knee, turning his fingers around when he got past my genitals. He rolled my leg inward to expose the outer part of my shin and shifted his stance to hold my foot down with the sole of his and his heel on the ground. He started from my upper thigh again and this time palmed all the way down to my ankle. Then he went back and thumbed his way down my leg, leaning some of his weight onto my outer thigh and shin every inch and a half or so. In shiatsu the thumb is kept straight along the line of the forearm, never bent. The thumb is always used with the other fingers steadying it, never alone. When he reached my ankle he shifted his yin hand to below the knee and continued with his yang hand over the top of my foot to between my second and third toes. After everyone had finished they all moved back to the head to trace the Stomach Meridian.

Kai started just below my eye at point St 1. He traced down to St 3 beside the nose and next to LI 20, and out to St 6 in the chewing muscle near the angle of the jaw. A branch or loop that comes down from St 8 at the top corner of the forehead joins it there, passing through St 7 under the cheek bone. We should make sure to thumb all these points when working on the face. Kai traced down the front of the big muscle in the neck and out to the collarbone. The givers stopped there, and the instructor said the receivers could continue and trace all or parts of the meridian on themselves from there to the thigh if we wanted to. I traced it down over my breast and nipple, angled in across my ribs, passed down beside my navel to the corner of my pubic region, and angled back out across my groin to the top of my thigh. We didn't learn any points along this part. Kai traced it down the outside of my thigh next to the bone to above the kneecap, point St 34. He went next to the knee, down a groove, and over a couple lumps to point St 36, Leg Three Miles, a hand's width below the knee. This is an important point that strengthens the whole body. Chinese soldiers used to stop every three miles and massage it for renewed energy. Kai continued down beside my shin bone and along the top of my foot to point St 44, Inner Courtyard, between by second the third toes. This point treats stomach ache and acidity. The Stomach Meridian ends outside the second toe. After he did the other side we had another break and I did him, trying to remember what I had felt and learned.

That week at the beach we all took off our suits. I guess my other friend was tired of being the odd man out, except she was more out now and couldn't be much more clearly not a man. I went out beyond the surf with Kai and attacked him and let him diddle me again. He said very quietly that he wanted to have sex out here with me. I said softly that I did too if we could figure out how. He knew what I meant. We didn't want to go back in the foliage because it was mostly gay men and was too exposed. We couldn't use a condom in the water. He said he hadn't had unprotected sex. I said I believed him, but only an idiot would trust their own judgment in something like this. We rejoined my friends. It was a hot day, and they had been in the water too. Kai got out his ukulele and showed me some chords and rhythms. It's got four strings like a violin but is tuned differently, more like a guitar. I asked him to show me some scales. I played around with it a little and after a few minutes could pick out a tune. Kai was surprised. I told him I played violin. He took my hand from the fretboard and looked at it and felt for the calluses at the fingertips. I asked if he didn't believe me? He said he did, he just wanted to see what the difference between us was. That sounded a little strange, especially here, and it got a snort from one of my naked friends. We ignored her. My hands were large for a girl, not much smaller than his, which was useful for violin and shiatsu. Our fingerboard hands were about the same, but our playing hands were different. He kept his nails long enough to pick the strings. Mine were short and I needed to use the sides of my fingers. He said some people used picks, but I thought this worked well enough for now. I was used to long practice sessions, but before too long we lay down to get some sun. My friends complained about the heat. I agreed and thought about going back in the water. Kai said he didn't mind when it was hot. His phrasing sounded unusual, and when I looked at him he had a questioning look in his eyes. I nodded slightly and suddenly felt cooler. I still hadn't found a chance to talk to him about his ability and resolved to do so.

The age of consent in Hawaii is sixteen, or fourteen if we have less than five years age difference. Kai and I found a few minutes to go to the free clinic together and got tested for HIV and STDs. We had to wait, but it didn't take as long as we had feared it might. It was awkward, but I asked my mother for birth control. She didn't want me having sex but was even more afraid of my getting pregnant, so she agreed to take me to the doctor. She said not to tell my father. I wanted pills since a diaphragm didn't work underwater. It turned out we didn't have to see the doctor. He'd seen me before and said he would call the pharmacy and give them the prescription over the phone. We could pick it up whenever we liked. I did well in school and spent a lot of time practicing without asking for much, so when I did ask for something, like shiatsu classes or trips to the beach with my friends, I often got it. I hadn't told her about Kai. He didn't fit into her career plans for me.

In shiatsu class we learned about ki. It is some sort of vital force, energy, transforming power, or primary substance. It's called chi in Chinese. Ki flows through the meridians we had been studying. Viewed with the arms raised, ki flows downward through the yang meridians, such as the Large Intestine and Stomach Meridians, as yang flows down from the sun and sky. The yang meridians are on the back of the arms and body and the outside of the legs. The Stomach Meridian is on the chest, but it's the outer part of the chest. Ki flows upward through the yin meridians, such as the Lung and Spleen Meridians, as yin flows up from the earth. The yin meridians are on the front of the arms and body and the inside of the legs. The meridians meet and cross each other, but ki flows from one to another at their ends in the order that we were studying them. It flows up the yin Lung Meridian from the shoulder to the fingers, down the yang Large Intestine Meridian from the fingers to the face, down the yang Stomach Meridian from the face to the toes, up the yin Spleen Meridian from the toes to the shoulder, from there into the second set of four meridians in the arms and legs, and from the third set back into the first. Shiatsu treats disturbances and blockages of ki to restore and promote health. It sounded like Star Wars to me, except without the levitation, but I could see it as a useful theoretical construct. Lots of things do flow through the body. Stiff and tight muscles block their own blood supply, restrict breathing and air, fail to pump components of the immune system through the lymphatic system, do not help with movement through the digestive system, do not exercise ligaments and tendons, close off communication between people, and do not permit kinetic energy to flow freely through the feet, legs, hips, belly, chest, arms and hands. Shiatsu loosens the muscles and joints and encourages a full range of movement. It helps open people up but doesn't stop them from shutting down again.

This time warm ups included breathing exercises. Breath is heaven's ki. We stood bent forward with our head and arms hanging and our knees slightly bent. We stood with our hands on the back of our waist and bent backward. We stood with our feet apart, raised our arms over our head in a circle, and bent forward to a horizontal position. We leaned down and formed the circle, turned to the side, and lifted it over our head and back down. The movements seemed more designed to open the chest than the belly, but I didn't say anything. After a short break we went over the first three meridians and started on the Spleen Meridian. Kai positioned himself at my side and placed his yin hand on my center again. He lifted my leg with his other hand under my knee and held it against his side. He pushed the bent knee up and rotated my hip a few times. Then he put my toes against my opposite ankle and held my knee on his thigh. He palmed down from high on my inner thigh to my ankle with his fingers turned out for the first few inches. He went back and thumbed down my inner leg and long the side of my foot. The instructor said to be sensitive and use gradual pressure. This touch made some people nervous, but she was able to reassure them and help everyone through it.

The Spleen Meridian starts on the inside of the big toe. There was some confusion about which side this was, and the instructor said it was the side away from the other toes. Kai traced back over the projecting joint to point Sp 3, Greater Whiteness, behind the joint and just under the bone. This point helps poor memory and muddled thinking. He continued up the arch, in front of the projecting ankle bone, and up a hand's width to Sp 6, Three Yin Meeting, in the hollow of the muscle behind the bone. The Spleen, Liver and Kidney Meridians meet here. It strengthens the blood and treats sexual problems. He went up my leg behind the bone to Sp 9, Yin Mountain Pond, between the head of the bone and the calf muscle. This point treats knee pain and stiffness. On the muscle three fingers above the kneecap is point Sp 10, Sea of Blood, which relieves rashes and itching. Kai traced part way up my thigh and let me continue to the corner of my pubic area. The surface part of the meridian is not continuous. I skipped a little, traced part of my abdomen to just above the level of the navel, skipped again, traced over my ribs, outside my breast, and up to the hollow at the front of my shoulder, point Sp 20, where the surface part of the meridian ends. This is also point Lu 1. A branch from below the armpit comes up and connects here. It seemed to me that, since the Spleen Meridian ended where the Lung Meridian began, the four front channels we had studied made a complete circuit by themselves, but we were told that this was not the case. Kai did my other leg and we traded places.

Kai and I headed out into the waves as soon as we got to the beach. I kissed him and felt his erection pressed against my belly. I wanted to wrap my legs around him and feel him inside but our test results weren't back yet, and I wanted to wait for the first monday after the start of my period to start my pills. That way I would have protection right away, and somehow it felt better to follow my natural cycle even if I didn't need to. I had him make me come twice as practice for, hopefully, next week before I took his penis and he made love to the sea. Afterward we floated and swam and kissed a little more, then headed in. My friends had wandered off down the beach, apparently in search of cute guys, so I suggested we wait on the uke lesson and head in the other direction. We put on our shorts and slippers and walked out onto the lava rock beyond the far end of the beach. We held hands and looked at crashing waves and into tidepools. There were hermit crabs and sea urchins with spines and different kinds of small gray fish. They all darted under rocks when they saw us but slowly came back as we waited quiet and motionless. Small black crabs moved over the rock below us and clung to it when the waves broke over them. We looked for sea turtles and monk seals out in the water but didn't see any. I asked him about his ability.

He told me that like other kids he'd been taught to be careful around hot things, but because he didn't get burned he didn't learn to be as careful as he should. When he was a little older people were amazed at how lucky he was not to get burned when it looked like he should have been, and he realized something strange was happening. He started being more careful and not letting people see. He could pick up hot things without getting burned. Heat or cold didn't bother him. At first he didn't see the point of ice cream. He discovered that other people couldn't feel the heat or cold of things around them the way he could. He learned to light a match without striking it. Setting paper on fire didn't require much heat, it just had to be concentrated in one small spot to produce a high enough temperature. He could put out small fires. He could sense nearby birds and mammals, and sometimes larger insects in flight. He could make a bee fall out of the air by stealing its heat. Flies moved too fast, and dragonflies had enough wing area to stay aloft. He could sense fires, machines, electricity, ice, and hot and cold air or water currents. He needed a difference in temperature. I asked if he could find people trapped in collapsed buildings? He said probably if they were close enough, but his ability stopped working if he told anyone about it. He had expected it to stop for a while when he told me, but it didn't. I let that pass and thought about the bee. I asked if it was safe to cool himself or others? He said not entirely. Messing with the temperature of the internal organs was risky, and affecting the brain was too dangerous. He had given himself cramps by cooling down too fast. He had killed a goat once by accident. It was safe if he regulated skin temperature. The body was used to dealing with that. I asked if he could kill someone? He said anyone could kill another person, he'd just be harder to catch. And he'd lost his ability for two months after the goat incident. I asked where the energy came from or went when he heated or cooled something? He said he just moved heat around. When he heated something he created a cold spot somewhere else. As far as he could tell, he didn't use any energy when he did it, which was supposed to be impossible. But heat was a dense form of energy, and he couldn't move much of it. It was easier stop it from moving, as he had done with the ice cream. The body regulated its own temperature. He didn't have to help it much to feel comfortable.

The next day Kai and I exchanged our test results. The next week I started my birth control pills. In shiatsu class we reviewed the first four meridians. When we walked from the beach to the water Kai had a partial erection, but neither of us cared. We swam out some and floated free in the waves for a while. My friends had figured out what was going on, and one of them had brought binoculars. If they wanted to watch, that was their problem. We came back to where we could feel the sand under our feet, and I turned and looked at him. We didn't say anything. I put my arms around his neck and my legs around his hips and kissed him. I felt him line his penis up, push, and slide in. I had read up on the subject and used a couple drops of silicone lubricant before I left home to prevent problems underwater. It seemed to work. I stared out across the water at Molokini and Kahoolawe and felt him moving inside me. His arms held me. I felt him push off from the bottom when a big wave came in and settle back after. After a few minutes I whispered we should stop and do sex in installments. I didn't want to put on too much of a show. We let go. I dove and swam away underwater. I was excited when we resumed and held on long enough to orgasm. The next time I came sooner and held on until he broke off. I thought one more time would do it. After we waited a little he moved behind me and held my waist and breasts. I felt his penis pointing down along my rear. I liked him back there but thought if he tried to take me this way I'd drown. Still, I spread my legs to see what would happen. He lifted me a little higher and shifted his arms. I felt him probing and arched my back to give him a better angle. I reached down to help and felt him slide in. He was ready. He held me around my belly and chest and pumped slowly at first, then faster, and after a couple minutes I felt his chest heave and his warmth spreading inside me. He nuzzled my neck and held me another minute. I turned and kissed him before sticking my feet up and diving away.

In shiatsu class we started going over only the three most recent meridians before starting a new one. We learned about the back meridians and side meridians, and how to use the flat of our elbow and our knee. The classification of front and back meridians turned out to be inconsistent. It depended on whether you were sorting them into yin and yang or positioning the body for massage. It worked because we didn't massage the front of the torso and could turn the arms and legs different ways. We kept going to the beach most weeks and doing sex in installments. It seemed to work and we both liked it well enough. We needed to be careful about sand in the water, and Kai didn't need to come every time. He didn't mind just fucking and then taking care of himself if that's how it worked out. I might have, but the issue didn't arise. All our tans had evened out by early winter. The days got a little shorter and some of the trees lost their leaves, but the beach in winter looked pretty much like the beach in summer. There were just as many tourists, and the humpback whales showed up on schedule. I got better at ukulele, and Kai taught me to play slack key by tuning the A string down to G. He and I took the intermediate shiatsu course. We studied the two center meridians, learned more theory, practiced, and started on diagnosis. We all got busy during the summer and stopped going to the beach as much. When school started Kai dumped me for a nice Hawaiian girl. We had both known that I would be going away to college the next year and that it couldn't last, but it still hurt. He was nice about it, and I wished we could have kept going to the beach together, but that wouldn't have been fair to her. I signed up for both sessions of the advanced shiatsu course.

I started conservatory on the mainland next year. I didn't have as much training as most of the students, but there were some good teachers on the island. I did okay and got a position with the orchestra when I graduated. A couple years later I got a cryptic note from Eliska saying that if I was interested in chamber music, she knew where I could get some good stuff. I should meet her at a certain address and make sure I wasn't followed. Everybody liked playing with Eliska. I had played in her senior recital even though she was two years ahead of me, but she had always seemed a little strange. If she was involved in something, I wanted to at least find out about it. Which is how I met Judy, Mark, Linda, Paul, Jose and Kamau, and got to play Bartok's second string quartet and Martinu's Concerto da Camera. Sometimes something special happens when people play music together, but it always seemed to when Eliska was playing. In a large group you could feel it if you were looking for it and there weren't too many interruptions. It was more obvious in a chamber group. As first violin I was the de facto leader when we played. I started going out with Jeremiah and had sex with him in the strange apartment he shared with Kamau. You could see into the bedroom window from the kitchen if you wanted to, but I liked Kamau. I was used to having sex when people could see and found it exciting. Sex is, by its nature, a social activity. I had to learn to improvise in order to play Celtic music at the Tao Book Muffin with Linda, Judy, Mark, Jose and Eliska, at least the way they did it, but it's like interpretation. You consider what the composer meant and also put some of yourself into the music. I had already done a little of it on uke. When Moe started playing with our chamber group I finally got to have sex with him. Then we needed a bassoon player, so Eliska seduced Kurt as well. Or maybe it was our dangling Danzi's second bassoon concerto in F major in front of him. It's scored for flute, two oboes, two horns, trombone and strings, but we made do with what we had. The bassoon is a bass instrument and needed the support of the cello under it. The group had already played five of Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos, including the string quartet version of the third. With a bassoon we could try the first, but since we were still working on the second we put it off.

Linda wanted to do Mahler's fourth symphony, for soprano and orchestra, so we agreed to try it. She was a mezzo soprano but it was in her range. On the scheduled evening, in addition to our regulars, we had Paul on piano, Jose and Stephen on guitar, and Kamau on African drum. It wasn't his Symphony of a Thousand or Beethoven's Ninth, but it was big enough. To cover the parts in the score we had two flutes for four flutes, one oboe for three oboes, two guitars for three clarinets and glockenspiel, one bassoon for three bassoons, a piano for four horns and three trumpets and harp, a djembe for timpani and bass drum, a string quartet for solo violin and strings, and a vocalist with a triangle, crash cymbal and some Christmas ornaments for sleighbells, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam and soprano. It was amazing what you could do with a digital score and the right software. Guitars don't sound much like clarinets, but they were what we had. They added back some of the richness we were taking out. Karen played first flute so Mark could double on piccolo. Third oboe is supposed to double on English horn, which is an oversized oboe, and Moe did, but Kurt didn't double on contrabassoon. Only the fourth movement has a vocal part. We were doing the first and fourth, less than half the symphony.

The first movement starts with two flutes playing repeated notes accompanied by sleighbells. Another flute starts playing a melody (in our case the second flute), then a clarinet. The strings come in with a big sound and the winds pause. The flutes resume, this time with bassoon and horn, then an oboe. The English horn part begins, but the oboe keeps going so we omit it. Later it has a few notes to itself accompanied by the harp. The trumpet has a few notes. The cellos and double basses start a solo section, but we only have a cello so the piano helps out. Flutes and clarinet join in, then first violins and violas, then bassoon. At the end of the movement everyone comes back except the sleighbells and harp, and the timpani, triangle and cymbals join in for the big finish. The last movement starts with clarinet, harp and pizzicato strings. The oboes and flutes come in, then the vocalist. There is some back and forth between a flute and oboe, but mostly it's just Linda. Everyone comes back when she pauses, again briefly between verses, and again for a longer pause in the vocal line. Linda comes back accompanied by strings and English horn, then clarinet, and a few descending notes on the horns. A passage descends softly through flutes, oboes and clarinets, then more simply through flute, English horn and clarinet. The piece ends quietly with harp and cello, clarinet, English horn playing repeated notes over a horn chord, and low notes on harp and double bass. It's very beautiful. Everyone was pleased and congratulated Linda.

Kurt asked me out, which I sort of expected with the way things were going. We had Chinese and ended up at the apartment he shared with Moe. We sat on the sofa. He told me about growing up at a nudist club his parents took him to, and I told him about sneaking out and coming of age at a nudist beach. We each thought the other got the better deal. So we took off all our clothes and just sat on the sofa talking about stuff. After an hour I admitted that maybe I had gotten the better deal and would he please let himself get an erection? I was starting to feel unattractive. We both watched it grow, and then keep growing, and I felt better. He said he thought I was beautiful, and I believed him. He turned more, put his far hand on my knee, ran it slowly up my thigh, hip, side and ribs, brushed the edge of my breast, moved it around to the back of my shoulder, pulled us together, and kissed me. I opened my mouth and attacked him. We levitated onto his bed and continued attacking each other. His lips and tongue traced over to the corner of my jaw, back to the angle, down the big muscle in my neck, across my collarbone, and straight down onto my breast and nipple, following by instinct my Stomach Meridian. I gasp at his skill and audacity. Not wanting to waste any time, his hand follows a similar path on my other side and massages my nipple between its thumb and forefinger.

After a while they continue down my breast, in across my ribs, and down next to my center line. I hope they will take a wrong turn. Yes. No. They cross the line of my groin and continue straight on both sides, shifting over to my Spleen Meridian and tracing down my inner thigh. I don't complain. Wait. They've stopped before getting to Sp 10. They're coming back. I open my legs, hoping they'll take the bait. Yes. They move in. I feel his tongue probing the entrance to my vagina. It slurps up some of my wetness. His finger moves in, his tongue moves on. It finds my clitoris, plays with it, as his lips suck it inside. I gasp at his courage and fortitude. My excitement grows, and I struggle until I'm spasming and panting and flickering like a candle in the wind under his ministrations. He stops, puts on a condom, enters, and slowly resumes. I respond and move against him. Time recedes. Then he is there and unloads inside me but manages to hold on for a moment until I join him. You might not care about all the details, but if I'm going to talk about sex I'm going to say more than which side up I was, which holes we used, and the size of our parts.

Moe and Kurt didn't seem to be interested in group sex, which was okay with me. After a couple months I moved in with them. Kurt had had the bigger room because he was there more often, but they traded. I alternated sleeping with them but put most of my stuff in Moe's room since every third night he slept with Kurt, if he wasn't spending the night elsewhere and messing up the schedule. I kept seeing Jeremiah and sometimes Kamau, so I shouldn't complain, and Kurt sometimes stayed with Eliska. I did like Moe's poster of the mostly naked Japanese actress. I thought it looked a little like me.

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