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- 11/16/2014
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
The Lonely Heart Club – a prompt story - 1. Roman I #371
Tag – The Proposition
How it began. ‘Martin I’ of ‘The Lonely Heart Club – a prompt story’ (This is a chapter of my prompt collection 'Aditus' prompts and circumstances'
Roman I
Roman watched the waitress meandering between tables, skillfully balancing the silver tray on one hand. He had given her a generous tip so that she’d made the extra tour, bringing only his request over to the piano player.
Martin’s hands danced over the keys. Smiling, he nodded at her when Anna placed the tray on top of his sheet music. The last notes of Waltz No. 1 faded. Sipping from his ever-present glass of red wine, Martin reached for the small slip of paper.
Roman’s heart beat faster.
Yesss!
He saw exactly when Martin understood. Dark eyebrows shot up almost to the hairline, before equally dark eyes scanned the bar in search of the person who had requested ‘Piano Man’. When their gazes finally met, Roman lifted his glass in greeting.
He knew Martin’s story down to the smallest detail. He knew the man had not always been a piano player but one of two partners of a small design studio. When the economy had tanked, and the orders had started to dry up, he and his partner had struggled to make ends meet.
Then a scratched mosquito bite had given Martin a severe sepsis and he had been in the hospital for weeks, fighting for his life. Out of the hospital again, he then had stood before the ruins of his existence. The design studio was closed, his friend and partner had moved to try his luck with another business on the other side of the country, and his landlord had evicted him from his apartment. All that was left to him were a few cardboard boxes in a friend’s garage. This meant couch surfing until he found a rundown apartment in the entertainment district and doing occasional jobs, such as an assistant cook for a catering service and for a few of the bars.
Then one day Martin had gotten a call from a well-established law practice in town: Smythe, Mickelson & Graff. Mr. Graff himself had presented him with the unusual proposal. One of his clients was in need of a cover, an eye candy for his arm. He had seen Martin, made some inquiries, and deemed him suitable. He would live at his house, in his own room, get to choose a car of his liking, clothes, pocket money, and any kind of material possession he’d want. All he had to do was go with him to official events such as gallery openings, dinner parties and the like, cook for them, organize his house parties and private dinner invitations, and generally pretend to be the other half of a couple, a kept man. In reality though, it would only be a non-sexual business relationship. While he lived with the client, he was not allowed to engage in other relationships of the sexual kind. Friends would be thoroughly screened and needed acknowledgement. Martin was then shown a contract, valid for one year, with a one month trial period, which regulated everything, including strict confidentiality agreements.
Roman chuckled into his glass when he remembered the abridged and polite version his colleague had given him of Martin’s answer: Martin told the attorney he could never live like that. That was not who he was.
Weeks later, Martin was walking by one of the better bars in town on his way to work, when he saw an ad on their windows. They were looking for a piano player. Besides cooking, playing the piano was Martin’s other passion. He once had even thought he could be a professional pianist, until his family had persuaded him to do something more ‘substantial’ with his life.
On a whim, he went to the audition and got the job.
Since then, he played two hours a night, five nights a week, sometimes seven, at Charlie’s Bar. Soon he became the secret star of the club. The guests came and stayed because of him, because they felt he was one of them. He had been at the bottom himself. He had been one of the lonely souls who needed a memory, a pick me up, a dash of hope, or simply to forget that they were alone again once they came home. Martin’s jar was always full to the brim when he played, because he was their piano man.
Roman wanted him to be his piano man. Roman always got what he wanted.
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17
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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