A Drive Down the Mountain

Here’s 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, didn’t 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 it’s evidently low-class, a laborer’s or kid’s drink, it wasn’t provided. Instead dad made a pitcher of his signature Manhattans. Bulleit Rye, Angostura bitters, and a few “secret” 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 that’s dad’s recipe and everybody always loves them. Mom put out the hors d’oeuvres 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 didn’t 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 Bergman’s 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 won’t say a word from then on. Hey, it’s Bergman. At least Death didn’t stroll by with a chessboard. At her shrink’s 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 nurse’s tacit acceptance of the sex a metaphor for the actress’s 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 father’s business associates. She’s 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. I’m certain I wasn’t the only one who wished her untucked blouse didn’t 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.

There’s 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. I’m a performance major and I’m good, so I don’t mind playing. All performing experience is useful and it will give me a chance to experiment with my “new” way of playing. Plus, the assemblage is sympathetic and also sophisticated, all donors to the local orchestra. Some, including Gina, play in it. She’s 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 I’m about to begin Dave cracks the inevitable viola joke, “What’s the definition of perfect pitch?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “That’s when you toss the viola into the toilet and it doesn’t touch the rim.” Some in the group chuckle nervously, but not Gina, who rolls here pale blue eyes. I volunteer that I’ve got another one, “Why are viola jokes so short?” “So lawyers can remember them.” Touché. Gina smiles. Dave doesn’t. I start to play.

The Prelude to Bach’s Second Suite for Unaccompanied Cello is a wonderful, soulful piece and I’ve 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 man’s a genius.

I dive right in and follow the plan. I’ve 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 I’m 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 don’t notice anyone staring at my crotch. As I know the piece by heart my eyes are free to roam. Where? I’m 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 what’s 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 I’m 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 she’s a bit flushed. I wonder. I drag my eyes away to the others, my parents’ 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. Dad’s also good with the grill and the two-inch Ribeyes are perfectly medium rare. Mom’s scalloped potatoes are a hit as usual and the gathering turns spirited. Gina sits across the big round table from me and I can’t 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 he’s blitzed and mom suggests that he maybe shouldn’t drive. He begins to object, but when he staggers getting out of his chair and dad has to steady him it’s decided. Gina, who too is tipsy, seems anxious about driving down herself -- it’s 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. I’ve been moderate and have driven the road hundreds of times. It’s 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 we’re 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 I’m unable to stifle my small gasp as her hand starts squeezing. And moving. Up.

It’s 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.

I’ve got the Merc in 1st gear so the engine is doing the braking as we traverse the switchbacks down the side of the mountain. It’s safer than using the brakes on such a steep grade and also requires less attention. And going slowly will make the ride last longer. All good things. I glance sideways and that intriguing smile is back on her lips, the lower caught between her teeth. She’s just watching me react as she rubs me, teases me, arouses me. She’s enjoying herself, smiling and giggling softly when soon I can’t suppress the twitches and starts, the catches of breath. Still she just keeps stroking, watching. I can feel the fluid pooling. I’m very aroused, distending and throbbing obediently to her every caress.

I decide. It would be both unsafe and messy to let her make me ejaculate in my pants. And I’m close. My right hand finds her left and lifts it away. I have another plan. Her hand throws mine off and returns to its task. I pull it off more firmly and win the brief tug-of-war. My little kisses on her hand and licks on her fingers are meant to mollify her and she emits a faint sigh. I place her hand by her side and land mine on her leg. She leans back and sighs again when my fingers find her inner thigh. They trace circles up the inside seam of her tights, in rhythm with the snores from behind. The fabric is silky, very thin, stretched taut. The impedance my fingers soon encounter disappears when her thighs part, just enough. I glance over. Her lower lip is still captive, her eyes closed.

There’s heat and damp at the juncture of the seams of the legs of the tights. She’s not wearing panties. My sigh matches hers as part of me throbs. My hand moves up to the top of her mons Veneris and my fingers frolic for a bit. Then I establish a pattern of sliding my hand down in a V, thumb on the near side and two fingers on the other, massaging her labia majora down to their juncture below her frenulum. I know I’m stimulating her vestibule bulbs, which, thanks to my med school cousin’s guidance, I know are connected to her clitoris. Again following my cousin’s advice, on the upstroke I feather just one finger along the slight indentation between her outer lips. After several minutes of this I can feel that her lips have enlarged, her bulbs engorged. I add back and forth motions at the top of my circuits, rolling the shaft of her clitoris back and forth beneath its hood, under her mons.

Gina’s lower lip is suffering between her teeth as her quickened breathing hisses around them. She’s stifling moans deep in her throat. “Recline your seat,” I whisper. She checks, hears the snores, and does it. After I continue my pattern for another minute my hand slides up under her blouse to the juncture of skin and tights. As my finger slips under the hem her hand lands on mine and holds it fast to her belly. Foiled.

I fall back to my previous rampart and resume the rhythmic stroking, spending more time rolling her clit’s shaft back and forth over her pubic bone. Thanks, cousin. I add up and down motion, which slides her clit’s hood along the shaft and over its head. Which should arouse her more, make her want what I want. In a few minutes Gina is breathing fast and hard, and squirming under my fingers, hips raising, pushing back against them.

I again move up to the hem of her tights and slip a finger inside. Her hand elevates and trembles towards mine, but falters and falls. I’m in. My fingers slide under the tight fabric, massaging her mons, twirling her tight pubic hair. Petting her pussy. Moving down. Very slowly. Inexorably. There’s fifteen minutes of driving left, the snores are louder than ever, and I want to make her wait, to want it more, to make her resolution great.

She’s so wet, so hot. I stroke each labia majora, massaging her bulbs, loving her stifled moans. I find her vagina and press inside. Repeatedly. Knowing most of the nerves are in the first inch I don’t go deep, but move all around, stimulating them all. A second finger joins the first.

Adrenaline and terror prompted by the sudden, different sound from the backseat freeze my hand. Images of disaster flood my addled brain, but her hand clasps down on mine and holds it firmly in place, resisting my attempt to withdraw. She knows. She’s heard him sleep for years and recognized his guttural grunt as just par for the course, what he does. The snores resume.

My hand relaxes with the rest of me and I curve my finger and begin sliding it in and out, letting the shaft lightly rub her clit. Gina is breathing hard, unsuccessfully trying to stifle small thrashes, but my finger, guided by her vagina, stays in her groove. I slow down, making her wait, making her want it more, building the tension. Thanks again, cousin.

“God, don’t stop. Keep going,” she whispers vehemently.

I keep up my sedate pace, and whisper back, “Go with it. It will be all the better when it happens.”

“For God’s sake, don’t be a jerk. Faster, harder. Please.” Punctuated by an anguished moan.

I stay slow. “But it will be...”

“God damn it! Do it! Now!” Angry, anguished, desperate.

I realize I’ve gone too far, and, checking that the snores still surround us, increase the speed and intensity of my ministrations. When I feel her tense, gasp, and tremble, I slow and lighten my strokes. Her vagina contracts rhythmically on my fingertip as it slides in and out of her and I love her strangled gasps.

Her hand descends onto mine and holds it firmly as she recovers. Too intense. I stop my finger and curl it off her clitoris, but keep the tip inside her. Her hand stays on mine but doesn’t pull it up away. After a minute I push further into her. She twitches, arches, and moans softly. But doesn’t remove my hand. My finger accelerates, guided by her moans.

She pulls my hand away only after round two, after she’s panted and thrashed through another climax. I withdraw my finger from her, brushing her clit lightly as I leave -- she gasps and jerks but I’m gone before she can object -- then slowly, ostentatiously, insert my finger into my mouth. And suck. I see her watching me until my eyes roll back.

I feel her hand on me again, intent. In no time I’m throbbing again. I look at her. She’s radiant, luxuriating in post-orgasmic glow, shoulders back, breasts jutting as she stretches like a cat. She’s hot, aroused, wonderfully wanton, and intent on reciprocation. But we’re almost to their house. Though the snores continue, Dave will wake when the car stops.

“Keep driving,” she whispers. It’s an order. Her hand picks up the pace.

I’m torn. My erection is throbbing, has been dripping for half an hour, and my balls ache. Coming would be good. But messy. And Dave is going to wake up once the car stops, maybe even if it turns abruptly, if I try to double back. If he wakes and we’ve passed his house or are going the wrong way....? Also, how am I going to get out of the car with a large wet spot on my pants? Damn.

I lift her hand off me, again overcoming her resistance. The heaviest weight I’ve ever lifted. “Meet me later,” I whisper, pleading.

“Not possible,” a snarly hiss. She’s pouting, annoyed at not getting her way.

“Please.”

“I can’t. It’s impossible.”

I think for a moment. “Can I see you tomorrow?”

“Seriously? There’s no way.”

I’m frustrated, doubly, but she’s in charge.

“How am I going to get home?” I ask, surrendering.

“Who knows? Who cares?” Still annoyed.

I get an idea. “We’ll drop Dave off, you come with me when I drive home, then drive back. He’s still too out of it to drive and it’s too far me to walk.”

“You’re young; you can walk.”

“It’s like five miles and I’ve got my viola. Please, I’m sorry if I annoyed you, but it wouldn’t take long.”

She thinks. That smile returns. “Maybe...”

Oh, God, her tongue! Parked in my parents’ driveway, held fast by the seat belts that locked at my first orgasmic lurch, it is all I can do to keep from crying out as I buck and thrash. Even after I’ve come over and over, ejaculated all I have, after she’s sucked me dry, Gina keeps at me. She has one hand on my cock, jacking up and down. Her other hand, which had first fondled my balls, now has a digit far up my ass and is finger fucking me ruthlessly. And her mouth is locked on my head, sucking hard, tongue-lashing the underside of my penis where the head meets the shaft. Feeling as coarse and prickly as a cat’s tongue on my most sensitive spot. My system keeps involuntarily responding to her, her greedy demands to give her more, but my balls have already emptied themselves, turned inside out, and the contractions she forces now are dry heaves and exquisitely unbearable.

Still she doesn’t stop. Desperate, near death, I try to pry her away from my crotch but she is stronger than she looks and keeps my pole captive in her hand, the tip vacuumed into her rapacious mouth, and my rectum impaled. I randomly realize I’d always thought that post-orgasmic torture was a myth. I finally cry out, “God, Gina, please! I can’t take any more!”

I arch and squeal -- in a manly way, I’m certain -- as she gives one more long, hard, excruciating lick up my cock, then releases me, popping her finger out of my rear and giving my balls a parting squeeze. She sits up and watches as I gasp, moan, tremble and twitch, suffering through the aftershocks of the orgasm to end them all.

She smiles triumphantly. I’d teased her, made her wait. I’d disobeyed, not let her have her way with me when she wanted. I’d been uppity and now I had been punished. Severely. Delectably.

“Oh my God, Gina! That was just amazing, too much,” I pant.

“Oh, did you come? Did you like it?” Coyly delivered as she slowly licks a drop of cum off her lower lip.

“Can you come inside for a few minutes? Please. I’d love to...”

“No way. Dave’s awake and I need to get back.”

“But I want...”

She’s flippant suddenly, enjoying herself. “I need to go. Get out now, sonny boy.” After a dismissive wave of her hand she opens her door and hops out.