A Drive Down the Mountain
Ā© 2019 Victor Cabana
Hereās to you, Mrs. Robinson.
Last June my parents had a dinner party at their cabin on the mountain. Four couples, all members of both their book club and the Symphony Sponsors were invited, and as I was back home after my sophomore year at Julliard I was expected to tag along. To learn how grown-ups - I would be twenty next month - act. To get some culture. I was bored, didnāt have a girlfriend in my hometown anymore, and had no better prospects. Also, I knew mom and dad wanted to show me off -- I was going to be the entertainment, at least for part of the gathering.
Did I mention my father was an expert bartender? He also wanted to show off and as soon as we arrived, right after he started the charcoal for the steaks, he began making cocktails. I had a penchant for beer, but as itās evidently low-class, a laborerās or kidās drink, it wasnāt provided. Instead dad made a pitcher of his signature Manhattans. Bulleit Rye, Angostura bitters, and a few āsecretā ingredients including Carpano vermouth and Bada Bing cherries with just a touch of the juice, all in huge tumblers filled with ice. Tumblers? Ice? Yes, I know. Not traditional. But thatās dadās recipe and everybody always loves them. Mom put out the hors dāoeuvres in an attempt to keep people at least a little sober while she made the salad.
I tried a Manhattan. I liked it. Everyone did.
The cabin -- really a modern, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired, ritzy bungalow with one whole wall of plate glass exposing the gorgeous view of the next mountain over -- was at high altitude. Do you know the effect of alcohol at high altitude? I recognized that I was getting light-headed early and backed off, drinking water instead of finishing my monster Manhattan. I was going to play later and didnāt want to make a fool of myself.
The conversation was light and varied, I thought boring, but became livelier soon after the second pitcher of cocktails made the rounds. The topic turned to the last book the club had digested, the screenplay to one of Ingmar Bergmanās classics, which I happened to have read as part of a film class that spring. Personna is about an actress who inexplicably stops speaking in the middle of a performance. For some deep, dark psychological reason she just wonāt say a word from then on. Hey, itās Bergman. At least Death didnāt stroll by with a chessboard. At her shrinkās suggestion the actress spends the summer recuperating in an isolated house by the shore. The nurse assigned to her fills up the emptiness by talking. In one scene she recounts a very erotic episode, a near-orgy with another woman and two teenage boys on the beach.
In the cabin the Manhattan-fueled discussion heats up, with disputes about what that scene truly means at a deeper level and how the words should be delivered. Did Bergman include it just to titillate or was the nurseās tacit acceptance of the sex a metaphor for the actressās inability to speak? One of the partiers, three tumblers to the wind like everyone else, avers that she knows exactly what it means and how it should be delivered. She stands and begins to read the scene. Expressively. Gina is the much younger second wife of Dave Somebody-or-other, maybe Robinson, a lawyer, and one of my fatherās business associates. Sheās very attractive. Hot. Maybe mid-thirties, blond hair in a pixie, petite, perfectly proportioned, and stylishly, if a bit provocatively dressed in a tight white silk blouse with the top two buttons undone. Hints of her lacy brassiere show through. Form-fitting dark navy tights end just above her ankles. Iām certain I wasnāt the only one who wished her untucked blouse didnāt extend so low. In the front and back.
The scene is very erotic, describing how the two women are sunbathing, nude, two teenage boys happen by, and they fuck. The men in the room pay rapt attention. And I presume like me, stand to attention. We shift a bit in our chairs. The other women are scarcely amused. They are all older and suffer the comparison. Almost anyone would. Sensing the tension, the electricity in the air, my mother breaks the fraught silence at the end of the reading to suggest that I perform. All eyes turn to me. Swell.
Well, swollen.
Thereās no choice though, so I stand, turning quickly and using my hands as cover to keep my crotch condition covert, and go to retrieve my viola from the bedroom while dad pours yet another round and throws the steaks on the grill. Iām a performance major and Iām good, so I donāt mind playing. All performing experience is useful and it will give me a chance to experiment with my ānewā way of playing. Plus, the assemblage is sympathetic and also sophisticated, all donors to the local orchestra. Some, including Gina, play in it. Sheās principal flute. I tune up in the next room and take time to let the bulge in my jeans subside before I enter and stand before the small gathering.
Just as Iām about to begin Dave cracks the inevitable viola joke, āWhatās the definition of perfect pitch?ā He doesnāt wait for an answer. āThatās when you toss the viola into the toilet and it doesnāt touch the rim.ā Some in the group chuckle nervously, but not Gina, who rolls here pale blue eyes. I volunteer that Iāve got another one, āWhy are viola jokes so short?ā āSo lawyers can remember them.ā TouchĆ©. Gina smiles. Dave doesnāt. I start to play.
The Prelude to Bachās Second Suite for Unaccompanied Cello is a wonderful, soulful piece and Iāve memorized it. So little music is actually written for the viola that we unabashedly borrow, actually blatantly steal, from other instruments, cello especially. My teacher assigned the Prelude to me with a distinct purpose in mind -- to play it in a shamelessly Romantic, ahistorical manner -- as a means of loosening me up. He wants me to play more expressively, like a licentious bon vivant Dionysian, instead of an overly intellectual Apollonian, which is my natural mode. In the course of exploring it he had me imagine that I was playing for a gorgeous woman I was trying to seduce. The manās a genius.
I dive right in and follow the plan. Iāve imagined short vignettes of sexual incidents and have associated one with each phrase of the music. Emotion is an all-body experience, meaning that it pervades our bodies and modifies every motion we make. Like body language. Seeing someone walking down the street you can tell if he is thinking about puppies in springtime or if his dog just died. It shows because the emotion modifies, shapes -- like nature shaped the weeping willow -- all his movements.
As I play I let the excitement and urges created by my erotic images well up within me, take over and shape every nuance. Mendelssohn said that music was a language too exact for words and Iām doing my level best to convey sexual desire, maybe lust, with each stroke of my bow. I feel part of me rising and swelling with the music, but donāt notice anyone staring at my crotch. As I know the piece by heart my eyes are free to roam. Where? Iām careful not to ogle, but frequently have to tear them away from Gina to other people and objects. Only to have them return. I let her curves inspire my images and I sense communication. Are her eyes smiling awareness of whatās going on, is her lip licking intentional? I close my eyes at the end, as I arpeggiate the final chords and hold the last high D almost too long.
For two seconds the only sound when Iām done is the sizzle of the steaks. Then applause begins, grows, and wanes. My eyes are drawn to Gina. Her smile is intriguing, her perfect top teeth lightly biting her lower lip, and sheās a bit flushed. I wonder. I drag my eyes away to the others, my parentsā friends. While the men avoid all interaction the women look into my eyes. Deep into my eyes.
Dinner is served. I stow the viola, finish my Manhattan and nurse a glass of cabernet. Dadās also good with the grill and the two-inch Ribeyes are perfectly medium rare. Momās scalloped potatoes are a hit as usual and the gathering turns spirited. Gina sits across the big round table from me and I canāt hear a word of her conversations, though our eyes meet a couple times. Her wispy smile -- knowing? -- and her tongue licking her lips keep me wondering, on edge.
Dave keeps pounding Manhattans even through the strawberry shortcake. When people begin to leave heās blitzed and mom suggests that he maybe shouldnāt drive. He begins to object, but when he staggers getting out of his chair and dad has to steady him itās decided. Gina, who too is tipsy, seems anxious about driving down herself -- itās a very narrow, winding and unlit road with cliffs that drop precipitously -- and dad suggests I drive their car. Mom and he will stay to clean up, probably spend the night. Iāve been moderate and have driven the road hundreds of times. Itās settled.
Dave opts for the back seat, perhaps to lie down, so Gina is my copilot. The small Mercedes SUV is sporty and handles like a dream. Once weāre off the bumpy dirt road the snores from behind us provide a backdrop to our banal conversation. My description of the layout of my dorm room is cut short, my mouth falling agape when her hand alights on my thigh. She giggles softly when Iām unable to stifle my small gasp as her hand starts squeezing. And moving. Up.
Itās a good thing I know the road so well, as my attention is acutely bifurcated between not plunging us into the abyss and the feel of her fingers contracting lightly on my thigh, moving upwards almost imperceptibly with each relaxation. I wince when her finger lightly grazes my erection, and more obviously as she begins lightly stroking it, replete with soft squeezes between her fingers and thumb. She leans close and wickedly whispers that she saw it when I rose to get my viola. And again when I played. I almost lose it when she adds that she wanted to reach out and touch it.