Kelly strode into Jake's apartment and straight through to the living room, carrying her violin case.
The half-dozen guys there took note of her attire. It was an ankle-length gown, made of shiny peacock satin below the midriff, with a deeply plunging bodice of black velvet that showed off to advantage an ample bosom. The dress's thin straps, holding up the pliant fabric, were the only protection those heavy jugs had against exposure, as the jiggling made it obvious that she was wearing no foundation beneath the daring garment. Fortunately, the mighty mammaries still retained reasonably attractive shape despite her 54 years. There was a dark leather belt that drew in her waist slightly, although it was hardly possible to make her look slender; she had gained fifty pounds during her child-bearing years, an excess she had been unable to lose entirely although her weight had leveled off at 210 for more than a decade and people told her she carried it well. Her curly hair, a flaming red that verged on orange and looked artificially tinted, was pulled back in a loose bun, making for a dramatic, bohemian, artistic look. Her height, about five feet ten, added to the impression that she was potentially a force of nature.
"Guys," Jake introduced, "since Ambrosia is out of town, we have a guest here tonight who will entertain you with music instead of snacks. This is the famous, not to mention delicious, Bacon. Soloist for audiences in Europe and America. Tell everyone why you're called Bacon."
She seemed tense. She moved closer to her young lover - he was in fact a full three decades younger and she fully understood her status relative to his real girlfriend - and said quietly to him, "I didn't know there would be so many."
"You said you wanted an audience."
"Yes. Please, Sir, let me do my performance first. After that, you can do whatever you want."
He held his palms up and shrugged. "Fine. That works too. Hey, if I'd known this was a formal concert, we woulda dressed up." Chuckling, he turned again to his friends and grandly announced, "gentlemen, and I use the term loosely, without further ado, the Amazing... Bacon." He moved to the far side of the twelve-by-twenty living room to await her show, as curious about her ultimate intent as his guests were, while she stood in the middle facing them with her back to the adjoining kitchen.
The casually dressed guests had been watching a ballgame on the widescreen TV but now moved toward the back wall of the apartment; two were already seated on the long couch located at the picture window, and they made room for a third who now sat down between them, while the other two stood at either end of the couch. In their twenties, they were variously bicycling buddies or basketball teammates or in one case an old classmate from school; they were, in all, six bros who got together occasionally for athletics, and poker, and sports entertainment, and other wholesome bro activities.
"Bacon?" the bro next to Jake asked in a low tone. "Zat 'er last name?"
"No," Jack whispered back. "You'll find out."
";Cause you're eating her?" his friend persisted.
"Shut up."
Blushing as though fevered, Kelly put the violin case on the floor and opened it. Bending over, so that her precarious bosom seemed ready to spill out of the revealing dress, she took out the instrument and the bow, placed the former under her chin and plucked each of the strings a couple of times to confirm it was in tune.
She asked that the drapes on the window be drawn closed and, after that was done, she stood motionless with the violin in position and the bow ready, eyes shut, subtly tapping a toe to an unheard meter.
After a half minute of awkward silence, another friend asked, aloud this time, "what the fucking *fuck* is this?" The other guests chuckled at his playfully over-the-top reaction to the scene of a heavyset older woman standing with a violin but not playing.
"Mendelssohn," Jake said learnedly. He had been given this bit of information only a day earlier, but he wanted to lord it over his friends. "He wrote it when he was only thirteen."
"No, but I mean....
"It's a concerto, dumbass. We don't have room for the full orchestra. She's just waiting for when the soloist comes in. Be quiet. Give it a second."
"This is some kind of joke, right?" Jake didn't answer.
After another thirty seconds of her silence, punctuated by sotto voce wisecracks from others of the audience, she began playing. It was a melodic and moderately fast beginning to the solo, composed in a late Classical style, which she performed in a showy manner as though on a grand stage instead of an upscale living room just outside of Boston. If her demeanor had been restrained when she walked into the room, she was now free and uninhibited in her motions.
After two minutes of playing, she reached a short section that went faster, and then she stopped, eyes still closed. Two of the guys began to clap, but Jake waved at them to stop. "It's just another break when the orchestra comes in."
This break was for less than a minute, though twice she moved as though to resume playing only to hold off, resulting in snickers the first time and stifled outright guffaws the second. At last, she put bow to string again and brought out a sweet high tone that began a continuation of the gentle melody.
One guy on the sofa nearest to Jake could not contain himself. "Are you really tapping dat ass? Dude. I hope at least she gives good head. At *least*. Because otherwise... duuuude."
Jake motioned him and the others to all to keep their voices down. "Just go with it, fuckhead," he whispered to the one, stepping closer to him. "If you don't annoy her, she'll probably let you fuck her in the ass after the music is done. You, and everyone else. She's fucked up in the head, but in a good way. So don't fuck it all up, for everyone else, fucker."
The tempo of her playing increased and her performance increased in intensity to match. But soon another rest arrived. She opened her eyes and, for the first time since the piece began, spoke directly to her audience: "My performance for you tonight is a re-enactment of the most humiliating performance of my life. It is only the solo part, and not the 10-piece string ensemble - as opposed to an orchestra which my young master speaks of - but I am certain that you will find the rest of it... unconventionally entertaining."
The guys had been paying more attention to their drinks than to the unfolding entertainment, which they found tepid once the novelty of her attire had worn off. But her use of the term "master" got their attention, and the guys across the room from Jake immediately let him know it. Kelly held up her bow hand for silence and the bros were at least courteous enough to hear what more she had to say.
"It was many years ago when I was serving a coveted internship in what's now the Czech Republic. One night in Pilsen, I was soloist for this Concerto in D Minor. It was a second-rate ensemble, but it was first-rate music, and I was in perfect form to do Mendelssohn justice. Unfortunately, the dress I wore that night was similar to this, and it had a flaw. A critical flaw." While her story might have been more effective if told in an eastern European accent, she had the flat tone typical of her native Ohio.
She brought her hand up to her shoulder for a brief moment and did something imperceptible to the right strap of her dress, then put bow to string and resumed playing, again at a fast tempo.
"When it was time for the next solo in the first movement," she continued while playing and swaying to the beat of the music, "my dress suddenly came loose, and I became exposed." She swiveled violently in tempo, and the right half of the black velvet top shifted. The large pale areola of that breast came into view.
The music continued, smoothly and passionately, as though nothing unusual had happened. "Nice tit, 'Mom'," the man farthest from Jake interjected.
"Mom? Granny, more like," the one next to him seated on the couch amended, emboldened by the first.
"She's a whale," said the one next to Jake.