Their concert that night was in one of the - as Ciara had put it before - millions of churches in Milan - and this one - though smaller in scale than the Duomo - was no less over-the-top in its decorative effect - inside and out. The audience seemed to enjoy everything they saw and heard and the atmosphere was really celebratory. Ciara had left the green room quickly at the end and then returned, holding the hand of a nervous-looking Italian with stunning brown eyes and long, lustrous, curly hair.
'Everyone, this is Sophia.'
Everyone was friendly and none more so than Hye-won, who guessed that this was the - gorgeous Italian - that Ciara had spoken of before. She and the 2 women had a chat and 1 look at their smiles - Ciara's beaming and Sophia's warm but nervous - told her that the spark that Ciara had talked about being missing seemed to have be well and truly re-kindling between the 2. It was no surprise when Ciara and Sophia took their leave soon after, while the rest returned by taxi to the hotel, where the couple left Dieter and In-seo to their plans for a relaxing night-cap in the hotel bar.
Once in their room, Seon-jae took 1 look at Hye-won - out on her feet after their busy day and night - and placing both hands on her shoulders, steered her to the bathroom: 'there are only 2 choices for you, my love - bath and bed, or just bed - which will it be?'
She gave a short laugh of surrender: 'bath and bed, I think?'
'Fine with me but I'm going to stay with you. I don't think sleeping in the bath is safe. How about the word according to ...?'
She laughed and nodded and he seemed pleased.
---
The soak was so relaxing after all the exertions of the last few days and Hye-won could feel the relaxation settle into her bones. Seon-jae was propped on the end of the bath with his extremely well-thumbed copy of the Richter biography that Hye-won had sent him, back in what seemed now like another life-time, her original underlinings - the first parts that he read - now so familiar to him that he genuinely felt like he had been born knowing them. The word according to Richter game - that he had put the cute name on - was to open a random page and read a random entry - part of the book based on interviews, with other parts comprising diary entries of Richter's over the years. They had found since Hye-won had come to Europe that almost every day had its Richter moment, when they would play this game.
Hye-won's pick tonight - made after carefully drying her hands - was an entry of Richter's which scathingly contrasted the playing of 2 soloists, both playing suites. The first - playing the fifth French Suite - he dismissed mercilessly: a famous artist; even so, her performance is so unconvincing that I keep realising that I'm not listening.
Seon-jae raised his head from reading this first part of the entry and blew outwards, widening his eyes: 'wa - wow - he doesn't pull his punches, does he? I know it's a private diary but he was a tough audience.'
Hye-won, relaxing back against the tub - while soaping her neck and shoulders - gave a little laugh: 'he sure was but of course, he - of all people - had the right to be, considering his own level of genius, I mean.'
She gave a little side-ways smirk: 'you might become a tough audience yourself, one of these days.'
He shook his head not a chance I could be like Richter while his eye ran to the next part of the entry.
'Listen to the next part about a different player - this time playing the fifth English Suite: I'm not expecting much, but I listen to the whole Suite with interest and say to myself: 'What a phenomenal piece!' (In other words, the interpretation didn't disappoint me.)'
He raised his head again: 'so in other words, Richter's measure of a good interpretation was if it held his interest enough that he concentrated right to the end.'
She agreed, now soaping her lower leg - absent-mindedly enjoying the massaging pressure of her own hands on her tired calves: 'I love that actually because really, that's what every pianist wants in every performance, isn't it? For every member of every audience to listen carefully to every note of every piece from start to finish - to empty their minds of all other things and give themselves completely to the music. That's what Richter himself did with every piece, every time he played, so maybe he had the right to expect that from other pianists too.'
Seon-jae put his head on 1 side - his eyes following the motions of her hands on her calves, ankles and feet - only with difficulty pulling himself back into the conversation: 'uhm...the tour of La Scala today - and our audience tonight - made me think how lucky we have been - everyone seems to enjoy what we play and how we play it. Imagine those - what were they called again?'
Hye-won supplied the word that she only just learned that day too: 'loggionisti - the noisy critics in the - loggione - gallery.'
'Yes, those - what must that feel like for the performers - to have audience members heckling and jeering during the performance?'
She grinned:'but you know, my love, when Brahms played the First Concerto in Leipzig, he wrote to a friend that afterwards, only 3 people clapped, while everyone else was hissing their disapproval.'
Seon-jae's astounded look brought her wider grins: 'but you know, he actually wrote that such a disastrous reception was the best thing because it would increase his courage.'
She thought for a moment: 'actually, when you think of it in those terms, Richter was kinder than the Leipzigians hissing at Herr Brahms - imagine how awful that must have been - or the loggionisti of La Scala. At least, Richter just wrote his thoughts in his private journals and only allowed them to be published many years later.'
Seon-jae laughed and said, with glee: 'ok, my turn.'
She smiled indulgently at his enthusiasm but didn't disturb him, as he picked a page at random.
'Ok, here it is. He is describing a Christmas party at his house - as a treat - music: a discipline in its own way. And music by Mozart, angelic and brilliant. He's right of course - music is a discipline and musicians need to work really hard to be excellent.'
'That's so true and what a perfectly apt description of Mozart's music - angelic and brilliant.'
She said the words again to allow them to sift into her mind and he saw the pleasure these words brought her. It is a perfectly apt description of you too, my beauty.
His eye fell on the next lines and he gave a little start: 'wait...is this?' he checked which Mozart Sonata the entry referred to, then gave another little whoop: 'this is our Sonata, listen: the Sonata for four hands recorded at a concert with Britten. If I remember correctly, there were no more than three rehearsals! Imagine, the Sonata that we played together that night was the same piece that Richter and Benjamin Britten, no less, played together.'
She shared his amazement, as they both cast their minds back to that incredible night - the one Hye-won always called the Stolen Night - when Joon Hyung - having drunk himself into a stupor, as usual - had collapsed in bed for the night and they had played the Mozart K521 with such joyful abandon and playfulness. Their eyes met and it was clear that they were both re-living the memory of that precious night.
Hye-won eventually gave a little laugh: 'I'm completely relaxed and revived now - I'd better get out of here.'
He held a bath towel high up for her, so that it blocked his view: 'my lady,' and he heard her titter behind the towel: 'Lee Seon-jae, you really are such a brat.'
He chuckled and the sound was music to her ears.
---
Hye-won lay on the covers of the bed wrapped in her robe, gleaming like a new pin. Her hair was piled up in a loose bun, where she had clipped it before the bath. Her skin was creamy and her eyes bright and shining and she looked so beautiful in that moment, that Seon-jae was slightly stunned to gaze upon her. His eye dropped to where her robe slipped from her shoulder and hinted at the curves beneath. In an instant, his eyes turned to hers and the lust she saw there was powerful and raised an instant response in her. The moment was tense and then Seon-jae hoarsely asked: 'can I?'
She nodded slowly, in thrall to the attraction she felt. He slowly unbelted her robe and edged it from her shoulder and when a single breast was revealed, he drew a ragged breath and gazed upon it. Another short look to check with her, though he could see by how she arched her back and held herself in stillness - her breathing laboured - that she was completely in the moment with him. With painful slowness, he reached his hand to trail the backs of his nails across the top curve of her breast, then pulled his flat finger tops around the outer swell. He looked up at her in agony, biting his lip unconsciously and her control broke. She placed her hand on the back of his head and gently brought his lips to her nipple and the action brought a low, tantalised rumble, deep in his chest. The first touch of lip to nipple was electrifying for both and set them on a slow, sinuous dance, as Seon-jae slowed his breath and closed his eyes and lost himself in actions that gave him some of the deepest, most satisfying pleasures imaginable. He brought his hand around the upper swell of her breast and his fingers felt protective but also possessive there. Hye-won - also with eyes closed - felt that every suck and pull of his lips was more agonisingly thrilling than the one before, as she felt herself becoming deeply aroused and in need of Seon-jae's attentions. She adored the sensation of his hand caressing the swell of her breast and knew the scene that would greet her eyes, when she opened them - her beautiful man, in delirious raptures, loving her - and so it was. She couldn't look away once she had seen it - it was an intoxicating image to her - the expression of complete rapture on his face, the way his closed eye-lids flickered with the intensity of his response, the loving hand cupping her curves - nothing could surpass this depth of feeling or intensity of desire she felt for him in this moment.
He slipped his mouth off her nipple, just enough to lick and kiss all around it - as softly as snowflake crystals floating silently upon each other - as he whispered: 'every time I do this, it feels...like the first time.'
She gave a delirious smile of lust: 'God...I will never forget our first time.'
He gave a low moan: 'I thought I had died and woken up in a fantasy world that would never end, it was so beautiful...so powerful...so sexy.'
He widened the circle of licks and kisses, so that little fires of desire were ignited all around her breast and she was moaning and pushing her chest upwards, towards his mouth, her words coming in light puffs.
'I remember I was nervous for the first few moments, not sure what I should or shouldn't do.'
'I remember but I also remember that your instinct seemed to kick in and then you just did what came naturally.'
He closed his eyes again, as the powerful memory ran through him: 'everything was so...perfect, so...mind-blowing. I remember looking at you,' his eyes closed again and his tongue touched the centre of his upper lip, as he relived the moment in his head, 'you were naked beneath me - that was beyond sexy to me, to be honest, and I could hardly get past that - and pushing your breasts up to me,' he smiled lasciviously down at her, 'just like now, in fact,' with a sexy laugh, 'and I realised that however mind-blown I was, you seemed to be the same. I remember being amazed - but delighted - and after I could accept that, there was no holding back for either of us.'
She breathed deeply and her mind was back in that first night, in Seon-jae's special little corner of that quirky flat he had shared with his Mum, under the noise-absorbing egg cartons pasted all over the walls. It was still incredible to her how perfect that night had been. She had known that he was everything she wanted in life but she had been so nervous to go to his flat and it was a constant battle to fight her instinct to hide away and wait for him to join her. His smile when he realised that she had finally come to him - no longer hiding her feelings, willing to be honest that he was all she wanted - would always stay in her mind as her favourite smile of his - the heart-breaking joy of it and the joy it raised in her to see it.
Her whispers were taut with emotion: 'don't you realise, my love, that, for me, that night felt like my first time, as it was for you?'
His eyes were watchful, as he saw the intense emotions in these recollections but this was the first time she had referred to this and he had to know more: 'Hye-wona, why did it feel like that for you - if it's ok to ask?'
She directed her gaze to the ceiling, as though needing to not see him: 'because it was the first time that I made love with - rather than had sex with - a partner.'
She brought her gaze downwards slowly and when she rested her eyes on him again, her own were filled with tears. He saw how emotional she was and he kissed her breast beneath him, as though to convey to her core just how loved she was now and how much she would always mean to him. Between kisses - sweet, tender kisses that soothed her soul but aroused her need - he whispered intensely: 'you are...the most beautiful...cleverest...sexiest...woman, Hye-wona...I love you so much...I can't tell you in words...but I can show you.'
And this last was delivered with a short moan and he once again took her nipple in his mouth and aroused her with everything at his disposal - mouth covering, lips pulling, tongue tickling, teeth nipping, breath warming, hand stroking and body pushing - and in seconds, Hye-won's remembered delirium became a reality and she was transported to their special place where their shared love was all that mattered.