The Harp
slipstream fantasy by John A. Pitts
“It’s a fucking harp, okay?” Jack said over Karen’s laughter.
He pulled his waistband back up, covering the tattoo, and buckled his belt. The Escher print on the wall over her desk accentuated their conversation: highlighted the juxtaposition of their relationship to the hand drawing itself on the wall in front of him. Does the heart know of beginnings and illusions?
Or of endings. This was their third date, but he feared it may be their last.
Karen laughed into her fist. “Why a harp? Did you date a harpist?”
Jack straightened his shirt, stalling — trying to read her face. The mirth he saw in her eyes spoke of joy, not mocking. Satisfied, he sat back on the couch. “No, but I did get drunk at an orchestral convention with a girl I lusted after. She convinced me to get the tattoo.”
“And she played a harp?”
Jack sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “No, flautist.”
He nearly choked when the left side of her mouth quirked up, and her right eyebrow rose to the top of her forehead.
“The tattooist,” he said running his hand along the arm of the couch, as if removing debris. “He dated a harpist — and didn’t have a picture of a cello, so he went with a harp.”
She sipped her wine, considering. “Did she watch you get this tattoo?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, feeling the heat rush up his neck. “She expressed her regret later — several times, actually, before running off with an oboist later in the week.”
“Ah, double reed,” Karen said with a knowing nod. “Lucky girl.”
They both drank, letting silence settle between them. It was not uncomfortable. He turned toward the television. The paused movie glowed on the flat screen like a painting. A hot, young actress sat on the edge of a settee, naked on the screen, her back to the camera. Jack thought she had the perfectly shaped body, like a cello, and the tattoo at her lower back only added to her hot factor.
Karen rocked her wine glass back and forth in her hand, smiling from across the couch. She had her legs crossed, and the creamy off-white of her skirt glowed in the light of the television screen. Her golden, tanned legs were nearly as nice as the girl’s on the screen, he thought. Of course, he’d only seen Karen’s from the knees down so far. But, the night was young.
“I’ve never dated a cellist before,” she said after sipping at the wine. “I dated a drummer once, but that was a different story.”
Jack retrieved his own wine and sat with his left leg cocked up onto the seat between them. “Drummers get all the girls.”
“They do have a certain animal magnetism.”
He watched her drink the wine, watched as she glanced at the screen for a moment, then back to him. “She is quite attractive. I can see the cello comparison, but don’t you think that’s a bit passé?”
Jack shrugged. “I’d rather date a girl shaped like a cello, than a harp.”
“Interesting,” she said, her eyes crinkling as she smiled. “But what if the girl was shaped like a harp, and you loved her. What then?”
His heart raced at the thought. What did he know of love?
She sat her wine on the table, exposing a bright yellow, almost golden, bra under the tan jacket and cream top she wore. She slid across the couch to the second cushion, pressing her right thigh against his left shin. “What if –”
she took the wineglass from his frozen fingers and set it on the table
” — this harp-shaped girl liked to be tied up and brought to a fevered pitch as you played her?”
– she drew his hand to her mouth and sucked on his index finger.
“Um….” Jack’s brain froze. He could not feel anything but the hot, moist tongue pressing his finger against the roof of her mouth.
They made love twice. Once on the couch, clothes only partially removed, with a fiery passion he’d never experienced. She laughed after, at his astonishment, and led him to the bedroom to show him her ties.
Jack woke to the most beautiful singing he’d ever heard. The full moon glowed in the window like a framed picture and for the briefest of moments, he thought he’d dreamed that voice. He tugged at the ropes he’d used to bind her during their lovemaking and smiled to himself.
He glanced over at where Karen had fallen asleep. The bed was rumpled, but empty. He sat up, glanced around the room, and spotted her in the corner, by the dresser. She began to sing again, a lovely aria accompanied by the most divine harp music he’d ever heard.
“Karen?” he asked, rising from the bed and moving to her.
Her eyes shone in the moonlight, wet with tears. He knelt at her feet, touching the cold of her left knee. In the mirror he saw that she had transformed into the harp she was, the notes flowing into the air with a gentle grace that brought his own tears.
“How?” he asked as she sang. “You are a harp?”
She nodded once at him, and sang with a sweet sadness as the moon rose across the sky. Jack sat at her feet, his knees drawn to his chest and wondered how he had ever lived before hearing that voice, those notes so delicately floating into the world.
He slept, finally, curled at the foot of the bed as her voice filled his dreams. Dreams of giants and pocket watches, hatchets and beans.
Her kisses woke him with the rising of the sun. For a moment he thought he remembered something. Some music that had carried him through his dreams. But she lay next to him, her naked form warm and inviting, her breath on his chest as she lay her head on him. He sighed once more and slept again, pleasantly tangled in the skein of beginnings.
Copyright October 2011 by John A. Pitts
John A. Pitts lives in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of numerous short stories and two novels, Black Blade Blues and Honeyed Words, both from Tor Publishing, and his fans are eagerly awaiting the third book in the Black Blade urban fantasy series — Forged in Fire — due in July 2012.