Nikolai Zhdanov does not accept excuses.
The third piece of the Danzas Argentinas is a short bit of music, slightly over three minutes long. It’s a favourite of mine; one I can play from memory. The piece starts off as dissonant noise, and the pace is fast and furious. It takes skill to pull melody from the composition.
I play it for him. When I’m done, the silence grows. I break it first, nervously. “How bad is it?” I think I’ve been okay. Not great, but a solid B+.
“Move,” he orders, and I get up from the piano stool. His fingers caress the keys, and then he plays the same piece. Also from memory.
A competent pianist can play Ginastera and can draw out the melody from underneath the dissonance. But playing in front of me isn’t a competent pianist. Nikolai Zhdanov is a genius, and I hear the piece played as I’ve never heard it before.
“You can still play?” I ask finally, when he’s done. It’s takes effort to speak, to swallow past the lump in my throat.
“In a fashion,” he replies. “My fingers don’t have the strength to play professionally. I cannot be a concert pianist anymore. But music doesn’t live in your fingers, Allie. Music lives in your heart.”
I have nothing to say to that. My heart stopped the day the police knocked on my door and told me there had been an accident and that my mother was dead.
“If you are willing to endure,” he says finally, his voice dark as sin, “then yes. You will pass the audition.”
I push the words out past the trepidation. “Anything.”
Chapter 2
Though I don’t dare hope for one, I get a brief respite. “You caught the Chinatown shuttle?” he asks.
I nod. Most everyone my age that commutes between New York and Boston use the cheap shuttles that connect the two cities’ Chinatowns.
“The shuttles don’t stop for food, do they? Have you eaten?”
I shake my head and he surveys me. “No food,” he notes. “No luggage, no clothes. What were you thinking?”
“That you’d throw me out and I’d head back to New York tonight,” I retort.
He laughs, a dark sound that dances along my body. “By the end of the week, you might regret not picking that option.” He glances at his watch. “Let’s go out,” he suggests. “Come.”
We walk to a bar around the corner from his home. It’s dark outside and freezing, and I shiver in my coat. “No hat, no scarf,” he remarks disapprovingly. “Since when did you get this self-destructive, Allie?”
He doesn’t wait for me to answer and I don’t bother responding. We both know what my reply would be. Since the day my mother died, I’d drifted, anchorless and uncaring. Until the start of this year, when I’d played Ginastera just after midnight, and I swore to myself that day that no matter what the temptation, this year would be the year I pull myself out.
At the bar, he orders for the both of us, and I raise my eyebrow. “Setting the pattern for the week?” I ask, taking a sip of the beer that’s been placed in front of me.
“Get used to it,” is all that he says.
***
“How will this work?” I ask once we are done with our burgers. “This week?” I can’t hide that I’m nervous.
“You do everything I tell you,” he replies. His eyes are hard and uncompromising. “If you don’t obey, you can leave.”
“No safe words then?” I ask, biting my lip. I have no doubt there’s going to be a sexual component to this.
“Safe words?” He looks amused. “Do you think this is some, sweet, soft, kinky session, Allie? This week, you are mine to use any way I see fit.”
“And I’ll get into Juilliard.”
He nods. He takes a sip. “You can tell me if you are afraid,” he says. “I’m not going to rape you. Think of this as a barter. You give me something, you get something. ”
“Can I take anything off the table?” Though this isn’t a negotiation, I’m still trying to negotiate. But I haven’t seen Nikolai in six years. In those six years, I’ve fallen, hard and low. Drugs and alcohol, strange men in strange bars, risky unprotected sex. I’ve chased self-destruction, and I’m lucky I’m relatively intact. I have no idea what his journey has been or how dark he’s become.
“What do you want to take off the table?”
I gulp. If he’s even considering negotiating, then I want to choose my next words carefully. If I set too many limits, he’ll walk and I can kiss my audition goodbye.
“Nothing permanent,” I say finally. “Tattoos, brands, piercings.”