Dieter was sitting looking out over the water. He slowly sipped his beer. From somewhere behind him he became aware of an English voice speaking on a mobile phone. “Must go, sorry…..and you…..take care, you.”
In an instant that voice took him back to L'Auditori in Barcelona, several years before. Vividly he saw legs, and thighs. In his mind he played that scene again, savouring the feeling he had felt in his loins as his eyes ran up those legs and over those thighs. It was as if time had stood still. He was aware of the stage lights shining down as he watched, mesmerised by those legs. Her body gyrated in time with the rhythm she was playing on the timbales. Her legs danced tantalisingly, and every now and then he could actually glimpse her knickers. What a view the front rows of the audience must have had.
It was as if he could hear the music in his head - Mas Que Nada. Her hips swung as if she were making love to the music. And he wanted her! He was able to resist no longer. He turned round in the general direction from where the voice had come. Nobody. Life could not be so cruel! He knew he had definitely heard that voice. Oh, how he wanted to gaze on those thighs again. Toes! That was her name. Everyone had called her that after Big Lou Diaz, the drummer, had found her to replace the usual guy for a fortnight while he recovered from a car accident. To many she was the dolly bird out front of the band playing all the Latin percussion and “toys”. It wasn’t just those legs that had got her the job. To Dieter she was a thoroughly exciting musician, with a personality to match. She had been one of “the boys” from the very start. Not that she was the only woman. All the gypsies, the strings players, were birds, and all were easy on the eye. Toes, however, was easy on the eye and hard on the pants. In his mind’s eye he saw her teasing the exciting blend of Bossa Nova and jazz rhythms from the timbales. She played instinctively with Big Lou, adding an interesting dimension to the rhythm he was laying down. Against his tight rhythm she played with a triplet feel which created a relaxed and sexy feel, yet at the same made the music vibrant and demanding. As she played her legs, thighs and hips worked as hard as her hands, and her breasts jiggled provocatively. Her face was lit with a radiant smile, and it was well nigh impossible not to fall in love with her on stage there. Fall in love! If it had only been as simple as that and, of course, live happily ever after. But it hadn’t been. Fall in love? That would have been a first for him. Commitment and Dieter were not words you found in the same sentence where women were concerned. He had got further than any of the other guys in the band. He had established that she liked blokes and didn’t go for women. But that had been as far as he had got. He recalled with a wry smile that night in Barcelona, her last of the 2 weeks she was doing with them. At the back of the room, in the shade, Georgie had been sitting. She was nursing a coffee and chatting with her sister on her mobile. She had looked up and had seen the profile of a guy she thought she recognised, but was unable to put a name to that profile. As she spoke she watched him raise his beer glass to his lips in a rather distinctive way. His thumb and little finger were around one side of the glass, the remaining 3 fingers rested on the other side. The set of those fingers and his profile worked like inter-locking pieces in a jigsaw. Immediately she was taken back 10 years to 3 days in London, another 3 days in France and 3 days in Spain. She clearly saw those fingers holding a Selmer Paris instrument at the lead trumpet desk of That Band. Dieter Scholz. That was his name. She had to get out of there, but the exit lay past his table. The only refuge was the Ladies. She hastily terminated the call to her sister, and sought sanctuary in the toilet. The pictures flooding her mind were pleasant and oh so vivid. She had been depping for a guy who was in hospital. Perhaps she had been putting out a little, but in her defence the guys in the band had been round her like bees and a honeypot. Dieter had led the race, and if she was honest with herself she had actually fancied him. Since that time Georgie had done a lot of critical self-examination. She didn’t particularly like the person she was in those days. People had called her Toes (her surname was Foot). She was talented, but the problem was that she knew it. As a result she was arrogant, and perhaps a little pretentious with it. Her brain was working on hyperdrive. It recalled with graphic clarity that last night in Barcelona. She was back there in the deserted dressing room, her back against the wall with Dieter holding her tightly to him. Their lips were locked in a passionate kiss. His facial muscles and his trumpeter’s tongue mean he could kiss like Hellfire itself. He had already lifted her skimpy top and tipped her breasts from her bra, and now his hand had raised the pelmet of a mini skirt she was wearing and was reaching down into her knickers. His fingers had slid down over her mound. They took account of her shaven pussy and were opening her lips. They probed and teased her juices from her, beckoning within her and drawing the willing acceptance of a young twenty-something towards him. He had pulled against the flimsy fabric and it had torn to leave her knickers hanging around one of her ankles. Then his hand was feeling for his zip and she was pressing herself against him, opening herself in readiness to take him into her. At that very moment the quiet was shattered by a deafening bell ringing. Pandemonium broke out. People were screaming and their footfalls rang out as they pounded along corridors and downstairs. It was another suspected ETA bomb, and nobody was taking any chances. Dieter, like everyone else, took to his heels. He had shouted “Durchlauf!” As instructed she had run after stepping out of the remaining leg of her knickers. But she had lost him in the panic. Her mini skirt, with no knickers beneath, was not the right kind of thing to be wearing outside, alone and late at night. She had headed straight to her hotel and gone to her room. This had been her last night, the following day she was away to Denmark, and had not seen or even heard of Dieter since. She couldn’t remain hiding in the toilet. She emerged from the toilet and headed towards the door. As she drew level with his table he looked up, a broad smile washing across his face. “Toes! Wie geht es?” Georgie answered him in English because she knew he could speak good English. “Hello Dieter. I’m well thank you. I hope you are too. I don’t use ‘Toes’ anymore. It’s Georgie.” Dieter was comfortable speaking in English. He knew his English was better than her German. “It’s been a long time.” As he spoke his eyes took her in. Over the intervening ten years she had lost non of her original allure, if anything she was even more lovely than when he had last seen her. She now had the poise of a woman in her early thirties, a woman in her absolute prime. Oh how he liked, and indeed wanted, what he saw. He motioned her to take a seat at his table. It was impossible to refuse without appearing rude. She sat down and accepted a second coffee. “You look good,” he said admiringly. “I’m on holiday here. What about you?” She paused a moment before answering, wondering just how much to say. She couldn’t help but admit to herself that he too looked good. Ever since realising who he was she had felt that telltale moistness within her that prevented her from denying he had an effect which wasn’t unpleasant. Finally she answered “I live here.” “Still gigging?” “I have my own set-up now, a jazz quintet. “ Now the key question. “And are you married Georgie?” Her answere had slipped out before she could hold it back. “No.” Dieter’s eyes slowly moved from her face down over her breasts and from there on to her thighs and legs hidden by the dress she was wearing. “I think we have some unfinished business…..” He chose to let this hang in the air, neither turning it into a statement or a question. At this precise moment Georgie did not know her own mind. Just what was she doing sitting here with Dieter? Where did she see this going? And how the hell was she going to get out of this situation if, indeed, she wanted to do so? Dieter had said nothing since the “unfinished business” comment. She had to say something. “If you say so.” She thought that was pretty non-committal. He made no response, simply smiled at her pleasantly as he enjoyed her discomfort. “For God’s sake, Dieter, what the hell do you want me to say?” she exploded. “Hey Georgie, you look great when your eyes flash like that with a bit of temper. I definitely think now we have some unfinished business.” He phrased this last sentence like the German he was, and she found this not altogether displeasing. Get a grip Georgie, she told herself. He’s playing with you. “And what if I don’t agree? “Then I definitely have some unfinished business. What is it you English say? Oh, yes…..I’ve started, so I’ll finish.” If he had been some creep she would know how to deal with him. But he wasn’t. She still had the memory of that moment in Barcelona in her mind. How she had wanted him there in the dressing room, backed up into the corner. And now, that telltale moistness within her was becoming positively wet. “Dieter, things have changed such a lot since then. I’ve changed. I’m not…” she paused as she sought the right words. “You’re not what? Beautiful? Desirable? Sexy?” The bluntness of his reply caught her once again in two minds. Any woman would want to hear that she was beautiful, desirable and sexy. Of course she would! But at the same time Georgie didn’t want to undo all the good changes she had made to her lifestyle. No more being a notch on someone’s bedpost, no more being an easy lay, no more being a bit of a bike! All that had changed, and she didn’t want to go back to her old ways.