Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

Guitar Me

Jalil wasn't the one who taught me the sensual effect that classical guitar music—and guitarists—had on me. That had already happened and, in many ways, was what had brought me to Turkish Cyprus to begin with—to hide from myself and my weakness.

I studied journalism at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C. While there I met a young woman my age who was going to American University and studying Latin American studies. Inez was her name. She had dreams of being in the Foreign Service and serving in South America. Although my dreams weren't limited to South America, I too wanted to travel the world. She was shy, as was I, but that drew us together, not apart. She was serious in everything she did and wanted to study all aspects of every problem closely. I was just a dumb kid who narcissistically groomed myself to look hot without having any inkling of what the goal of that was. We were contemplating a lasting relationship, and she initiated sex—to ensure, I guess, that I was what she really wanted.

She didn't say I wasn't good at it after we'd rather clumsily, I thought, fucked a couple of times. She seemed to remain on track to her goals, one of which was me. I was just going with the flow, assuming that marriage was something you did upon graduating from college—although both of us intended to go on to graduate school and we both had the means and grades to do it.

Another of Inez's goals was to become a proficient classical guitarist. To that end she was taking lessons from Cat Ralston, who was a quite well-known and well regarded classical guitarist, credited with bringing Brazilian guitar music to the American ear and who owned and played at the Cat's Meow, a nightclub in the Maryland suburbs of the capital.

The first time I saw and heard Cat Ralston was at a New Year's Eve party Inez dragged me to at the Cat's Meow. His music moved me that evening, although he himself didn't. In keeping with the atmosphere of ringing in the new year, it was crowded in the club and they were a rowdy bunch. They mostly quieted down during the sets that Ralston played, backed up by his brother on the bass. But, although I was fascinated—and felt a little warm—from the music, Inez kept saying that Ralston wasn't playing his best—that he was irritated by the noise. And, indeed, he scowled through his playing and, Inez said, cut his sets short.

He wasn't a young man. He was probably pushing fifty and was mostly bald on top, although his arms were muscular. He had a sensitive face, though, which I kept wishing wasn't set in a scowl. And when he closed his eyes while he was playing, he seemed to soar onto an upper, sensual plain. His fingers were, of course, limber and expressive, and I tried looking at them rather than the irritated frown on his face. I found myself soaring with him, although at the time I connected the buzz I was getting and the urge—which I followed—to feel Inez up while he played to the cheap champagne we were drinking.

Inez, who was clearly disturbed that Ralston was on edge, suggested that we leave early. I was ready to go, because Ralston's irritation somewhat irritated me too. It was his club. If he didn't want a boisterous crowd in on New Year's Eve, he should tailor the deal, I thought. I stopped in an art museum parking lot on the way home—it was already after midnight—and we fucked in the backseat of my Sebring convertible. It was my second most successful performance with Inez ever. I didn't then connect it with the guitar music, although it was what kept going through my mind while we fucked—mostly Ralston's rendition of "Corcovado."

Inez was clearly disturbed that I hadn't heard or seen Ralston at his best, and as he was like a god to her, she insisted we go back the next weekend, when the crowd would be smaller and would be there solely for him.

She was right. His performance was magnificent that second night, and he clearly was in a much better mood—although he still soared to the heavens by himself while he was playing. I found myself soaring there too, trying to be with him, but content to be somewhere near the same cloud with him. Once when I opened my eyes well after he'd struck the last cord, I saw his eyes on me.

He stopped at our table after that set, which I could understand. Inez had a lesson with him once a week. He sat at our table briefly, asking Inez to introduce me to him.

"You seemed to really feel the music, Paul," he said.

"Yes. I don't know what it is about the music, but it makes me feel so . . . so . . ."

"Sensual?" he asked in a low voice.

"Hmm, maybe, I'll have to think about that." I was embarrassed. He'd defined the feeling exactly, but I had no idea people were actually permitted to talk like that in polite company.

He and Inez chatted for a few minutes and then, as it was apparent Ralston was about to go on for another set, he turned to me and said, "Do you play an instrument?"

"Piano," I said.

"Any good at it?"

"I studied it a long time. I guess you'd say I could hold my own doing background at a party."

"Any interest in taking up guitar?"

"I've never thought about it," I said.

"You could try taking lessons from me. I have a spot open on Thursdays. At 6:00 p.m. Last lesson of the day."

Inez piped up, "I think there's now an opening on Tuesday's right after my lesson. We could come together."

"I think that slot has filled," Ralston said. He was looking at me. His eyes were intense, and I thought he was trying to convey something. But I had no idea what it could be.

Of course I accepted. If I was at all good at the guitar—and being able to say I took lessons from Cat Ralston—well, it would be quite a coup.

It was rather curious at the time, but when he played the next set, he didn't close his eyes and appear to be riding the clouds. He kept his eyes locked on mine. And he played as if he was playing just for me—almost like he was playing me. When my heart began to race on a passage, he pushed it. When I began to tremble and move with the beat, he sped up the rhythm. I was sweating and hard when he finished.

I fucked Inez in the backseat of my Sebring in the nightclub parking lot, not being able to wait. And it was the best of my performances, bringing moans out of Inez I'd never heard before and letting me know exactly when she'd had an orgasm. I couldn't have positively said she'd even had one before then.

I felt a little tense going into my first guitar lesson with Cat Ralston. We were in an all-black room—black carpeting, black padded walls, black ceiling in a small room off the main nightclub floor. When I later remarked on the blackness to Ralston, he said he played best with no distractions. Remembering his irritation on New Year's Eve, I could well understand what he was saying. There was a bench and a couple of straight chairs, an ottoman, and a fancy bank of electronic equipment. There were three guitar stands, all with a guitar on them that looked like it probably was priceless.

Ralston came into the room wearing bagging shorts, an Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned to reveal a hairy, beefy chest—not quite fat, more barrel-chested muscle than meat—and open-toed sandals without socks. He was drinking a beer. I would have been surprised except that Inez had warned me that he was eccentric and was prone to dress really casually. On stage it was always a formal white shirt, with the top three buttons unbuttoned to reveal a gold medallion nestled in curly chest hair, black trousers, and black dress shoes.

"Today, you get a feel for the guitar," he said. "Here, you sit straddling the bench, forward please. I'll be sitting behind you. You will be playing with your fingers, but I'll be doing all of the playing. My method is to show how to place your fingers for the wanted sound by the feel of it."

"OK," I thought, although I was on edge, nervous. I assumed that was natural the first time, though. Still, I gave a little shudder when, with guitar in hand, he straddled the bench too and sat close behind me. His arms came around my shoulders and the guitar was in front of me.

"Here, put this hand here—with this finger there and those on these strings. And the fingers of the other hands here. Yes, that's right. You're trembling. Don't feel embarrassed. I do this with all of the new students."

He was holding me close; how couldn't I feel embarrassed. I could feel the hardness of his cock at the small of my back, for god sake. Or was it hard? I couldn't tell, and why would it be hard?

He placed his fingers on mine and he guided them through a few scales and then a few simple nursery rhyme tunes. I felt like I was fumbling under his guidance, but he told me I was doing fine.

"Now something at the other end of the scale," he whispered. "Just so you can feel what a moving tune feels like."

The tune was sensual, starting off slow and picking up speed. "And this interval part. Notice it uses only one hand."

While using only one hand for this demonstration, though, he was unbuttoning my shirt with the other and running his hand from my chest down to my belly. I was breathing hard and had my eyes tightly shut, dancing slowly on that cloud. I guess I knew what he was doing, but I was too much into the music—and the effect the music was having one me—to object. And when I didn't object, Ralston moved his hand on down to my basket.

"You're hard. You truly know what this music is for, don't you? This is the music of the fuck. So, we will fuck now."

I whimpered, unable to form words. He was right. I was under the spell of the music. The thought raced across my mind that the two times I thought I'd fucked Inez well, it really was because of the music.

He put the guitar aside, but there was still music. It was still Ralston playing the guitar—this sensual song. But it was coming out of loudspeakers now. It had started back at the slower part at the beginning.

With his arms still around me, he unbuckled my belt and unzipped my trousers. His chin was on my shoulder. His hand was on my cock. He stroked me to the increasing beat of the music. I watched the movement of his toes in his sandals. The man had perfect rhythm. Even his toes scrunched and expanded right on the beat of the music and his stroking of my cock. When I ejaculated, he kissed me on the neck and murmured. "Very good. Very musical. Right to the beat."

I was confused. It was him keeping the beat. I did nothing but not fight him. In contemplating my confusion, I had to ask him to repeat his next direction.

"Slip off your trousers and briefs, please. I will fuck you now."

I moaned but did as he commanded. He grabbed hold of my hips and pulled me back on the bench. Then with the palm of his hand in the center of my back, he pushed my chest down onto the bench, and I felt the bulb of his cock at my hole.

"Concentrate on the music," he murmured. And I did so, but I sobbed and whimpered and grabbed the legs of the bench in a white-knuckled grasp as he worked his cock inside me. When he was all inside, he paused and his heavy breathing was matching the rhythm of my panting.

"Superb," he muttered. And then I heard the music start all of the way over again.

"Belly on top of the ottoman over there," he whispered.

He pulled out of me and, like an automaton, I struggled over to the ottoman and laid down on it on my belly, with my arms and legs spread wide and my head hanging over the top.

I gasped as he entered me again, able to get in deeper in this position.

"Concentrate on the music," he murmured. And, again, I did. He fucked me in rhythm to the music. As it accelerated in speed and intensity, so did he. He kept commanding, "Yes, yes, good. The music. Perfection. Concentrate on the music."

I grabbed at the carpeting with my fists, dug my toes in, took a fold of material from the side of the ottoman in my mouth, and chomped down to avoid screaming. But most of my attention went to where it was directed—reveling in how Ralston's cock was able to keep perfect time with the increasing beat of the recording.

He ejaculated at the height of the music.

"Supremo," he exclaimed. "You can feel the rhythm and you can now play with passion. The lesson is over; I'll see you again next Thursday afternoon."

I had only three lessons before I pulled myself away from Ralston's clutches, during which I learned little of how to play the guitar but much of what a man could do with another man. I also cut it off with Inez soon thereafter. I had enjoyed being fucked by Ralston far more than I had enjoyed fucking Inez.

As soon as I graduated, I was on a plane to Europe to start my grand journalist experience. Luckily I had the means to do so.

What I was to find out, however, was that I didn't have the means to resist classical guitar music and guitarists.