Musical Beds Read online

  A fresh breeze whipped up, chasing the fallen blossom along the pathways and over the grass. Darkening cloud cover promised showers. The park strollers upped their pace, producing umbrellas from Harrods shopping bags.

  The weather made Lydia’s decision for her.

  She would go home and deal with it all tomorrow.

  Chapter Two

  The tiny Shepherd’s Bush basement flat she had taken on in January had turned fairly swiftly into a seldom-used bolthole. Once she had fallen under Milan’s spell, most of her London nights had been spent in his Barbican apartment. Then there had been the tour…

  So the place lacked the homely feel she had originally planned for it. The weekends she had assumed she might spend in markets, looking for treasures and trinkets to brighten up the living room, had been spent instead in Milan’s bed. Consequently, the flat had a transient, student atmosphere to it, with just a sofa, television, computer and ‘rehearsal corner’—a piano squeezed into the tightest space with a metronome on top, plus a music stand.

  She made herself a hot chocolate with lots of cream, dragged the quilt off her bed and lay on her sofa beneath it, watching stupid programmes about buying property abroad until the rain eased and dusk began to fall.

  “It’s a sick day, that’s all,” she said to herself. “I’m not feeling too good. Nobody can prove I’m lying.”

  Then she started to cry in earnest, until her exhaustion granted her the small mercy of sleep.

  She was awoken by her doorbell, the jangle cutting through an actor on TV urging her to claim compensation for her accident. She reached for the remote control and turned off the volume, listening for a repeat of the bell, in case she had dreamt it.

  Again, it shrilled through the flat. Lydia hated her bell—so demanding and alarming. She needed to get one of those mellow, dual-toned ones.

  Maybe it was Vanessa. Vanessa, bringing her violin back. Yeah. It would be her. They could get that bottle of wine out of the fridge and talk about the shock of the day.

  Or maybe it was just a charity collector, or a person seeking election, or a drunk staggering off the high street and falling down the area steps. That had happened before.

  Or maybe it’s Milan.

  Stupid thought, stupid hope. Immediately she cursed herself for allowing it into her brain. Now she was bound to be disappointed and her welcome, if it was Vanessa, would be lukewarm.

  Whoever was at the door knocked, knuckles rapping impatiently. Vanessa wouldn’t do that.

  She put the chain on and opened it the two inches it would allow.

  She had to look up at the visitor.

  “Oh!”

  She unchained the door and opened it wide.

  “It’s you.”

  Milan held out her instrument case.

  “You forgot your violin.”

  Now he was here, she had no idea how to act. Should she be furious, welcoming, excited, sad, happy? What? She was a little of all of them.

  “So I can come in?”

  “Oh. Yes. Come in.”

  She stepped back, allowing him over the threshold. He stamped his feet on the doormat and peered around the living room, into which the doorway led directly.

  “My God, you live here?”

  He put down the violin case and a plastic bag containing, it seemed, a great many bottles, and began to take off his jacket.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” she said tightly.

  For the first time, he looked at her directly.

  “You are no beggar,” he said, lowering his voice.

  What was that supposed to mean?

  “I feel like one. And the first thing I’m begging for is something—anything—in the way of an explanation.”

  “Ah, you are angry with me.” He handed her his jacket.

  She stared down at it, feeling like a servant. This wasn’t the way she wanted to feel. She needed righteous indignation, and lots of it. Otherwise it would be too easy to forgive him.

  “How do you expect me to feel?” She slung the jacket over the top of her coat, hoping it wouldn’t cause everything to fall off the single peg. “Did you even consider me? Or don’t I matter anymore?”

  She flinched at his hand at her elbow, but he held on to it, standing behind her like a barrier between her and her sanity. If he was going to touch her, she couldn’t do this. She needed her resolve. Where was it?

  “Lydia, there was no time. And I did call your father’s house. You had gone.”

  “Oh! Did you?”

  She twisted her neck to face him.

  He drew her over to the sofa and sat her down, reaching inside the plastic bag for one of the bottles.

  “You have glasses?”

  “In the kitchen. Hang on.”

  She filled cheap supermarket glasses with a rather expensive brand of red wine, then they sat down beside each other.

  “Only two days ago, we made the deal,” said Milan. His body angled towards hers, one elbow resting on the back of the sofa.

  She felt nervous, like it was a first date or a job interview. There seemed to be the potential for some kind of failure.

  “Then I called your father’s house, but he tells me you have gone to London, just that day.”

  “I do have a mobile phone, you know.”

  “I couldn’t reach it.”

  “Oh!” She put her hand to her mouth, remembering that it had been out of charge for the best part of two days. Thinking she would never hear from him again, she had grown neglectful, where once she had been obsessed with keeping the battery topped up. “Shit! I’m sorry.”

  There, it had happened. Already, she was apologising to him and feeling like a fool. How did he do this to her, every time?

  “I thought you are not speaking to me.”

  He looked dejected, his hair flopping into his eyes.

  She put a finger up to brush it aside. Her fingertips touched his skin and her whole body shivered. The wine sloshed in its glass.

  He took it from her and put it on the table, keeping a hold on her hand.

  “You are speaking to me?”

  “Of course. I’ve missed you so much―”

  “Shh. Show me.”

  His forehead connected with hers, then so did his lips, fever-hot and fervent. Kissing him was like sinking back into an exquisite dream of happiness, one that she had never expected to relive. Whatever had happened, whoever was at fault, there would never be anybody who could make her feel this way.

  Holding on to him for dear life, she allowed the hope to grow inside her, the hope that everything could be as it had been on the Charles Bridge, when they’d faced their future together over the River Vltava. The greatest moment of her life, which had plunged so rapidly to the worst—could it be back within reach?

  She lifted her top to allow him access, then let him lay her down on the threadbare sofa cushions, the pair of them still joined at the lips while he knelt above her, reacquainting himself with her body. She breathed in his familiar scent, although there was an extra element behind it, something a little bitter that she didn’t recognise. But it didn’t matter. His mouth was on hers, his tongue inside, his hands fluttering busily up and down her body, his knees wedging her in position, and she was hanging off his neck, wanting to crush him against her and keep him there. No more escapes, no more parting.

  He lifted his lips from hers for a moment.

  “You missed me? I missed you.”

  “Of course I did, you idiot. I love you. You know that.”

  He ran his thumb across her brow, his eyes no longer flat and lifeless but brimming with intensity.

  “It can be good again, yes?”

  “If you let it be.”

  He nodded. “Then I think you must show me your bedroom.”

  She showed him the bedroom, and she showed him much more. She bared her body to him, feeling like a virgin on her wedding night, that curious mix of coyness and excitement and a kind of pain at the pit of her stomac
h from feeling too much.

  He had an extensive repertoire, but tonight he played the gentle lover, the man reconnecting with something lost. He explored her body as if it were new territory, marking each spot with reverent tenderness. He slid his fingers over her breasts and closed his lips around her nipples while she clasped him to her. But she wanted to be more than passive tonight. She wanted to let this damaged, beautiful man know how loved he was.

  While he lay on his back, she feasted on him, sucking his nipples, nipping the hollow of his neck and shoulder, feeling where his flesh was most resistant and most pliant and using that knowledge to give him pleasure.

  She cupped his sac, finding it heavy where it hung beneath his firm erection, and breathed on it gently, enjoying his little shivers of delight.

  When the tip of her tongue alighted on the base of his shaft, he wove his fingers into her hair and gripped tight. Lydia felt his muscles tense, his lungs hold in his breath, while she licked little patterns along her lover’s upright cock.

  Once she had enfolded him in her warm, wet mouth, he groaned with pleasure, massaging her scalp as she moved gently lower, trying to take as much of him as she possibly could.

  If she could make him understand how much he was loved with her mouth, she would. Nobody, man or woman, would ever have given him a better blow job, she vowed. This was going to be a mind-blow job.

  She tried to paint the words of love on him with her tongue—then she tried to communicate those same words with the force of her sucking, the tenderness of her touch. From the sighs and shivers that poured from him, she thought the message might be getting through.

  “Ah, Lydia.” He sounded panic-stricken, then her mouth was filled with the reward she craved, the warm seed with its bitter aftertaste. More bitter than usual.

  Did sadness affect a man’s semen? she wondered half deliriously, keeping his cock in her mouth until it was soft, reluctant to lose the physical connection with Milan.

  He nudged her off in the end, pulling her up the bed to cradle her in his arms.

  “You taste different,” she said.

  “Do I? Is that bad?”

  “Just different.”

  He yawned. “Miláçku,” he said, holding her closer. They drowsed for a while, then he said, “I wonder if that is true for you.”

  “What?”

  “Do you taste different? I will see.”

  He raised his head from the pillow, smiling wickedly, and pressed his lips to Lydia’s before kissing a trail downwards along her throat, along her collarbone, through the valley of her breasts, over her belly, arriving finally at her pubic triangle. He buried his nose in the smudgy scattering of hairs, inhaling her, then crouched between her knees and lowered his lips to her labia. Hot breath worked magically on them, puffing them up, expanding her clit until it felt heavy and wanton. There was no disguise for her desire—he would see it all.

  She saw the focus in his eyes and her stomach flipped. She relaxed her neck, letting her head sink back into the pillows. Nothing mattered except the sensation. His thumbs parted her pussy lips, rubbing the flesh in little circles, freeing her clit so it was exposed, on full display. Then she felt his lips descend, capturing the bud of flesh in a lavish kiss while his tongue swirled around and across it.

  Her buttocks quivered and she tried to push them into the mattress, but Milan had a firm hold of her thighs and his tongue was in control. She could not prevent its roving wherever Milan wanted it to, and why would she, when Milan knew his territory so well? He started delicately, his tongue almost whispering over her most intimate areas, darting into the folds, zigzagging over her fattened clit. Once she was squirming and gasping for more, he drew back for a torturous moment, laughed at her discomfort, then dived back in with lusty greed. This time he feasted on Lydia’s sex, his tongue hard and his mouth wet. He growled against her flesh, making it buzz so she convulsed with pleasure. Two of his fingers then a third circled and filled her cunt while her clit was stimulated without mercy. She began to lose her moorings, drifting away from the bed and into a whirl of sensation centred on her pussy. She knew he would not be content until he had made her lose her mind.

  He laughed and sucked her clit when she came—hard, the first time—then he carried on as if he hadn’t heard her orgasmic cries, working her poor, suffering sex until she came again, even stronger. The sheets tangled beneath her, damp with her sweat, but Milan wouldn’t let up.

  “Please,” she whimpered.

  He took pity on her, kneeling up and looking down in triumph.

  “Please? You have a problem?”

  “I can’t take any more. Oh, God.”

  “You don’t want my tongue anymore?”

  “It’s killing me.”

  He turned his gaze from her face to his cock, which had grown hard again during the epic bout of oral sex.

  “What about my cock? That will kill you also?”

  “Maybe. But it’s as good a way to go as any.”

  “That is a complicated sentence. Does it mean we can fuck?”

  “Yeah. It means we can fuck.”

  “Good. And, by the way, you taste no different. Sweet and juicy, like always.”

  He arched his spine, resting on his elbows above Lydia’s sapped body.

  “I take it easy,” he said. He kissed her forehead, then smiled crookedly. “You are looking a little tired.”

  “I’m not used to it anymore,” she said, running her knuckles along his lips. He kissed them, too.

  “Let’s take it slow and hold on to each other. I just want to be inside you again.”

  “I’ve dreamt of this.”

  “Me too. Hush now.”

  Milan fastened his lips to hers, precluding any more speech, then slid his cock easily into the passage that had been well prepared by his fingers.

  Lydia wrapped her arms around his chest, clasping her fingers behind his back. Oh, it felt so good to have him inside her again. He was just wide enough to make her feel the stretch, just long enough to fill her completely.

  She belonged to him and that was all there was to it.

  They stayed like that for a while, just reacquainting with the sense of connection, letting flesh adjust to flesh, skin cover skin, kissing their way through the wonder.

  “Miluji tĕ,” whispered Milan, breaking the kiss.

  “I love you,” she whispered back.

  His hair on her brow again, his weight on her—these things were both her current experience and tied in with intense memories and a sense of loss. For a moment, it was almost too bittersweet to bear and she thought she might cry.

  Then he began to move inside her and her mind switched from emotion to sensation, wanting to conserve the memory of each second, just in case it was the last time. If only she could be sure of him…

  But, for now, she had to process and file away each thrust, each teasing nudge of her G-spot, each whispered endearment, the exact pressure of his fingers on her flesh. She would want to relive them over and over again.

  He brought her to the crest of pleasure, holding her there for such a long time then letting her fall from that height into her orgasm, joining her only when her cries subsided.

  Lying together afterwards, warm and hidden from life in the dark, they were silent for a long time.

  “Will it be all right, Milan?” she asked, her words breaking the spell.

  He held her closer.

  “I don’t know.”

  Her stomach clenched. He sat up, releasing her, and reached for the lamp switch on the bedside table.

  The lamp cast an unforgiving yellowish light on the room.

  “I need a drink,” he muttered, then he got up and walked, naked, through the bedroom door.

  Lydia felt his absence as keenly as if he’d ripped out her heart and taken it with him. Surely this was an overreaction, she told herself sternly. Just because he’d left her in bed to get a drink, it didn’t mean…anything. Did it?

  But her anc
hor was adrift and she had lost any sense of stability in the relationship. Words of love were just that—words. Where was the security?

  She groped for her bathrobe and followed Milan into the living room, where he sat drinking brandy on the sofa and staring into space.

  “Are you okay?” She sat beside him, fearful of his response, but brave enough to put her hand on his thigh. He was half dressed now, in trousers and unbuttoned shirt.

  “No, Lydia,” he said with a sigh. “I am not okay.”

  “You need time,” she said. “It’s still all so painful.”

  “Time? No. Time won’t bring people back.” He held out the bottle to her, but she shook her head.

  “Nothing can do that,” she said. “There’s nothing to be done. Just life to be lived.”

  He turned to her and she saw that his eyes were bloodshot.

  “I can’t live. How can I live, when they are dead? How is that just? How is that right?”

  “Milan!” She tried to take the drink from his hand but he shook her off, more roughly than he’d probably intended.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Go back to bed.”

  “I want to help you.”

  “Go. I’m fine. I’ll come to bed when I drink this, okay?” He screwed up his face, put out a hand to find her, ruffled her hair. “I’m sorry. I’m not the man… I’m not the man you wanted. I’m not him.”

  “You are. You always will be.”

  “Go to bed, hey?”

  “I love you.”

  “I know it.”

  He didn’t come back to bed after the first drink.

  * * * *

  Lydia woke up alone the next morning, only remembering when she noticed the state of the sheets that Milan was here. Or was he?

  She threw her bathrobe back on and peered into the living room.

  He was deeply asleep on the sofa, his feet hanging off the end, his arm thrust out, still holding a glass that had tipped to a disastrous angle, staining the carpet with expensive Czech brandy.

  His skin was drained of colour. She could almost have imagined he was dead, if it wasn’t for the snuffling breaths he took. She went back into her bedroom, took the duvet off her bed and covered him with it, then went to take a shower.