Passing Tones, Chapter 16

Has Kyle seen the last of Dr. Wyler? Will things be clear sailing for his relationship with Cindy?

Passing Tones
Chapter 16

by Jillian Marie

I ran as fast as my legs would take me until I felt like I was safe from Dr. Wyler. When I finally did stop, my first order of business was to save the recording I’d made of the encounter. My next step was to head directly to Dr. Caroll’s office, where she greeted me before I even had the chance to knock on the door. Standing there, somewhat out of breath, I stared at her and she quickly got the message.

“Come in, Kyle,” she bade me, moving out of the way so I could pass through the doorway and into her office. As I took a seat at the piano, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

I took several deep, cleansing breaths before responding, “I’ve just come from Dr. Wyler’s office.”

There was a flash of anger in her eyes, followed immediately by an overpowering sense of maternal protectiveness as she asked, “What happened?”

“Well, I went to rehearsal and as soon as it had ended he came up to me and pulled me toward his office.”

“No!” she gasped.

I could see in her eyes that she was on the verge of killing the good doctor at that moment, which was why I theatrically pulled the recorder from my pocket and waved it at her. When I did speak I said, “I might have enough here to do something about him.”

She took it from me and hooked it up to her laptop, where she downloaded the file and immediately started listening. There was a lot that had to be skipped over because I had recorded the rehearsal, but eventually she reached the part we were most concerned with.

When the audio clip ended, she sat there silent for a moment. Unsure what to make of that, I started to ask what she thought but was stopped by her statement, “That may just bring an end to this.”

“May?” I repeated, dumfounded by her apparent dismissal of what I had viewed as a slam dunk.

“There are a lot of loopholes that he may be able to manipulate to his advantage, but…” she allowed the thought to die, unspoken.

We then listened to the post rehearsal part of the recording once again, then she saved the file before closing her laptop, all without saying a word. It wasn’t until after she had closed her computer that she said, “You need to get this to the Dean ASAP.”

“Do you know if he’s in his office right now?” I asked. I hoped against all hope that he was, but wasn’t counting on it.

A phone call later I was on my way to the Dean’s office, recording in hand and hope in my heart. That hope however was short-lived as just before I reached the entrance to the Dean’s office I was intercepted by Dr. Wyler.

“Kyle, we need to finish our conversation,” he said with calmness in his voice that struck me as rather creepy.

“I can’t just now sir. I have an appointment with the Dean in just a few minutes,” I said, trying to maneuver past him and through the door.

“Ah, perhaps later then,” he said, a definite look of disappointment on his face.

A repeat of earlier narrowly avoided, I hurried straight to the secretary and said, “I have an appointment with Dean Thompson.”

“Name?” she asked without looking up.

“Kyle Bronson,” I replied.

She looked at the schedule and started to turn me away until she noticed a note lying next to the book telling her to show me directly in to his office as soon as I arrived. Reaching for the intercom, she buzzed his office and said, “Mr. Bronson is here.”

Crackling to life the response came from the speaker, “Send him in.”

She then looked up at me for the first time and said, “Through that door. No need to knock.” After that she simply returned to her previous tasks, whatever they were, ignoring me completely.

As I entered his office, Dean Thompson was on the phone and when he saw me enter he pointed to the chair sat opposite him and proceeded to wrap up his call. Once done, he looked at me and said, “So I understand you’re having a problem with Dr. Wyler?”

Feeling very uncomfortable, I replied, “Yes sir. He’s been harassing me sir, and I’d like to see what can be done to stop it.”

He looked at me silently for a moment before continuing, “You say harassing. In what way?”

I’m sure I turned about thirteen shades of red before I managed to squeak out, “Sexually, sir.”

“That’s a very serious charge, young man. I understand you have some evidence to back up this assertion?”

“Yes sir,” I simply said, then removed a CD on which we had burned a copy of the recording and handed it to him.

He took it without saying another word and put it into his laptop. He played through the exchange between the professor and myself several times, making mental notes as he went along.

Once done, he looked me in the eye and said, “I’m very sorry you’ve had to put up with this from someone on my faculty. I can guarantee it will not happen again.” With that he stood up from his seat and extended his hand to me, which I promptly shook. As he returned to his desk, I made my way back out of his office and started the trek home.

The apartment was empty, as I had expected, so after grabbing myself a soda from the fridge, I headed straight for my keyboard. I sat down and plopped the headphones on as I flipped on the power. As soon as it was booted up I began playing through everything I could think of, hoping that the music would help clear all the negative thoughts out of my head.

As is so often the case when I’m upset, I lost all sense of time as the music poured out of my fingers. I did eventually calm down, at which point I realized that Cindy was sitting with Sarah, looking at me with extremely concerned looks on their faces. Not knowing how long I’d been playing or they’d been there, I timidly removed the headphones and turned off the keyboard as I bashfully looked back and forth between the two of them.

Sarah quipped, “I was wondering how long it was going to take you to notice us.”

The embarrassment that had started showing itself when I realized they were there was amplified ten fold, as I’m sure was evidenced by the depth of my blush.

Once the glow from my cheeks began to subside, they both asked, “Are you all right?”

I gave them a half-hearted smile and said, “I think I am now.”

They bade me sit between them on the sofa and once there, Cindy was the first to speak, “What happened?”

I looked at her and let out a huge sigh before saying, “I got it.”

Both their eyes began to bug out before they managed to find their voices. This time it was Sarah who asked first, “What do you mean, you got it? You got the evidence?”

“Yes.”

Sounds of gleeful celebration filled the apartment, but it only took the girls a moment to realize that I was not among the celebrators. They quickly calmed down and returned all their attention to me in an effort to find out what was still bothering me.

“So what’s wrong, then?” asked Cindy.

Almost simultaneously, Sarah said, “You don’t seem all that happy. It’s over now, isn’t it?”

“Oh, believe me, I’m thrilled that it’s over. It’s just…” I couldn’t continue my thought as my voice caught in my throat.

“Just?” both girls asked together.

I sat silently for quite some time before finally replying, “Just that what happened…” Again, I couldn’t continue. Tears were rolling thickly down my cheeks as I tried to finish my thought. “It was very disturbing, getting the evidence.”

Both girls put their arms around me as the three of us sat there silently well into the night. At some point, we must have all fallen asleep sitting there, as the next thing I remember is trying to extricate myself from their grip so I could relieve myself without waking them.

With some difficulty I managed to escape their clutches and upon my return I found the two of them in a semi-awakened state. I said, “I think it’s time for bed, ladies.” Sarah started to stand up to leave, but before she could even begin the process of getting up I stopped her. “Sarah, since you’re so tired, why don’t you just sleep here on the couch tonight?”

If there was any part of her that considered arguing with me, I certainly didn’t notice it, as she merely smiled and lay down as soon as Cindy got up to head off to bed. I got out a blanket for her before following Cindy to bed. Apparently I was far more tired than I thought as well, since the moment my head hit the pillow I was bombarded by nightmares, most of which consisted of replays or permutations of the previous afternoon’s encounter with Dr. Wyler. With each one I found it more difficult falling back asleep until sometime around 2am, when I gave up and just stared at the ceiling thinking.

The longer I stared at that ceiling, the more my mind spun. I had a heck of a time getting my thoughts to settle in one place for long, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t focus well enough to reach some conclusions.

As so many subjects swirled around inside my head I found it nearly impossible o keep everything separate. The virtual pile of things I needed to think about grew, I found myself also thinking about Cindy and all the little things that I’d been ignoring but when thrown together

Considering my lack of sleep overnight it was probably a good thing we didn’t have anything planned Saturday morning, as somewhere around 6 o’clock sleep finally deemed to revisit me. By the time I woke up again the apartment was otherwise empty because the girls had gone shopping. I stumbled around, had a couple of cups of coffee, and generally did absolutely nothing other than take a shower and get dressed until sometime after noon when the phone rang.

When I answered it what I heard was a recording of the Beethoven concerto I was scheduled to perform with Dr. Wyler in just over a weeks time. My first thought was of someone from the orchestra playing a prank, so I hung up the phone little more than mildly amused. However, no sooner had my hand let go of the handset than it rang once again. Answering, it was once again that same recording.

Becoming irked, I hung up again and had barely taken two steps away from the phone’s base station when it once again began ringing. This time I ignored it and eventually the call rolled to voicemail. The ringing stopped for a few seconds, but then resumed as soon as whoever was doing this realized that I was letting it go to our voicemail.

Thus I spent a couple of hours Saturday afternoon listening to the phone constantly ringing. The longer it went on, the less certain I became that it was merely some prank by a college kid. The persistence with which they were carrying on with this little annoyance was forcing me to believe that I was dealing with something more sinister.

I did eventually just unplug the phone, which once I had my headphones on and was again practicing left me without any real distractions. Late that afternoon, Cindy and Sarah returned under the burden of numerous shopping bags to find me lost in my musical world with the phone still disconnected.

Not knowing what had been going on, Cindy plugged it back in only to find that the ringing began almost immediately. She answered it and heard the Beethoven recording then hung up, which immediately prompted it to ring again.

When I noticed that they had come in, I brought an end to my practicing. I could see that it was quickly starting to get to Cindy as it had me earlier, so I unplugged the phone once again to bring a halt to the calls.

“What the heck is going on here?” she asked as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

As I responded, I’m pretty sure she could see how red my eyes were from crying, “I wish I knew.”

Not realizing she was still present I nearly jumped when Sarah asked, “Is there something wrong?”

I turned toward her once I had again collected my wits and said, “Only if you consider someone constantly making prank calls to your home wrong.”

She looked first at me, then Cindy before commenting, “Is this just some sort of stupid prank, or…”

Knowing exactly where she was headed I jumped in, “Something more sinister? I don’t know, to tell you the truth. However, the persistence with which this has been going on is forcing me to think it’s more than just something done for a laugh.”

We all just looked at each other, wondering what to do next. Throughout the evening, none of us could prevent ourselves from just staring at the still unplugged telephone as if we expected it to burst back to life despite it not being hooked up. By the time Sarah left to go home I wasn’t certain which was worse, it ringing constantly or not ringing at all?

Every time I allowed myself a moment to think about it I became quite upset about the calls, as well as what we had to do to avoid them. So it was in that state of mind that we readied ourselves for bed.

Cindy and I lay there staring at the ceiling, neither of us saying a word, for the better part of an hour before I finally had had enough and got up, hoping that my absence would allow Cindy to fall asleep.

As so often happens, I found myself being pulled to the keyboard. I sat in that most familiar of places and before I was aware of anything, found myself headphoned and playing once again.

My mind began to wander as my fingers found their way across the keys. I wasn’t even sure what I was playing as my thoughts flitted from topic to topic without lighting anywhere in particular. Eventually things inside my head slowed down and I was able to focus on specific subjects.

I couldn’t keep from wondering just what was going to happen with Dr. Wyler. Not that I cared what happened to the creep, but if he remained in his post as conductor, how could I possibly continue with the schedule of performances that were planned? The idea of working with that man made my skin crawl.

Then the thought that perhaps he was the one who had been making the prank calls struck me. Of course, I dismissed that idea almost as quickly as it had sprung to life, as I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why he would do such a thing.

As seemed to happen every time I allowed my mind free reign, I started thinking about Cindy. There were still so many things that seemed contradictory in what she said and did, to the point that I found I was confused much of the time. I’m sure there are those who would tell me this was normal, but to me it felt like anything but.

On the one hand she has encouraged my dressing, taking me shopping to buy my own feminine things as well as showing me how to take care of my nails. Conversely, she seemed to put up a fight whenever I gave in to the pull of those feminine things, going so far as to start arguments whenever I crossed an imaginary line she seemed to arbitrarily draw. It was all enough to make my head swim. Maybe I was better off not trying to understand?

I had never questioned that she was as committed to our relationship as I, until the memory flashed through my mind of her laughing and flirting with her old boyfriend at that New Years Eve party. Then as I recalled all the times since that I would return home to find her hurriedly trying to get off the phone before I caught her, my heart began to fill with doubt.

Could there be anything going on? Could I have been wrong about her all this time? I forced myself to push those thoughts out of my mind as I continued to play.

Eventually my mind slowed down and I guess I drifted off to sleep, as the next thing I remembered was waking up with my head lying on my keyboard. I had no idea how long I’d been out, but since it was still dark I stumbled my way back to bed. Luckily, it didn’t take too long for sleep to revisit me.

Apparently I had forgotten to take off my bra and panties before I climbed back in bed, which I discovered when Cindy woke me up. Fortunately, for once Cindy overlooked this and simply told me to get up because we were going shopping.

I quickly pulled on a sweatshirt and jeans, not even taking the time to remove my feminine articles. As I stuffed my feet into my shoes Cindy was doing the same thing and just as we were heading for the door, in walked Sarah.

“Ready, guys?” she asked as we passed her in our entryway and headed straight through the door into the hallway.

Cindy did respond as I pulled the door closed behind us, making sure it was locked, “For a sale? Need you ask?”

Both the girls started giggling as we made our way to Sarah’s car, and even I found myself joining in the silliness as we pulled out of the parking lot on our way to the mall.

Shopping was never one of my favorite pastimes, but hanging out with Cindy and Sarah was, so I tended to go along when they went on one of their shopping days. Of course, frequently when I went along I managed to pick up a piece or two of lingerie for myself, so I rarely complained.

None of us had seen anything that jumped out and screamed ‘Buy me!’ until we wandered into the women’s department of Macy’s. I found a blouse that looked a lot like a shirt from Mozart’s time, which I bought intending to wear it with my tux for performances. It was frilly and over the top, and I loved it.

For reasons unknown to me I felt myself being drawn toward this display with a beautiful silk nightie on a mannequin. I stared transfixed for a couple of moments until Sarah noticed and came over beside me.

“You like that, don’t you?” she asked, not doubting the answer in the least.

Cindy noticed as well, “You really like that?” she asked me.

All I could do was stare at it, which apparently told the girls all they really needed to know. It wasn’t hard to see that while Cindy was rather upset by this turn of events, she had no intention of doing or saying anything that might dissuade me from getting something I wanted. Without saying another word, she went to the racks, found that particular nightie in my size, and headed straight for the counter.

And so it was that we made the trip home with me being the only one to have purchased anything all day. After returning home, we all sat with a glass of iced tea and tried to carry on a normal conversation, though without much luck.

Through much of the evening Cindy remained quiet and distant, speaking only when spoken to and then mostly in monosyllabic responses. Sarah and I did try to engage her in more meaningful conversation, but to no avail. I had a pretty good idea what the problem was, but had no idea how to resolve it without one of us being forced to give in to the other’s desires.

At one point in the evening we wondered if it was safe to reconnect the phone, but it only took a few seconds to determine that it still wasn’t. So after Sarah went home, we retired for the evening with the telephone once again unhooked.

I know Cindy could feel my desire to wear my new purchase to bed, just as I could feel the sadness she felt in response. After looking at each other for a few moments, neither one certain what to do, I succumbed and slipped the silky concoction over my head and let it slip down my body. The electric sensations that ran through my body at the touch of that fabric momentarily shielded me from seeing the wave of fear that shot through Cindy at that moment.

When I finally reconnected with my surroundings, I became aware once again of just how much the simple act of wearing an article of clothing seemed to hurt the woman I loved and immediately started to remove the nightie.

Before I could pull it up over my head, Cindy said, “No, don’t.”

“But you obviously don’t…”

“Wear it, all right?”

“But…”

“It’ll be fine. It just took me a moment.”

She tried her best to disguise her sadness and although her efforts were largely unsuccessful, the forcefulness with which she had implored me not remove it spoke volumes for her love for me. At that moment I nearly vowed never to don another piece of girls’ clothing, but for reasons I couldn’t pretend to understand stopped short of voicing that promise.

As we climbed into bed, I was struck by the fact that we were wearing nearly matching nighties. I giggled at the thought, which apparently made Cindy notice the same thing and she joined me in my silliness. When we finally settled back down we turned out the bedside lamp and snuggled together, both falling asleep quickly.

I awoke early Monday morning feeling more refreshed than I had in what felt like ages. Not wanting to rouse Cindy so early, I laid there watching her sleep until she woke up on her own.

My first order of business once we were up was to call the phone company and change our number to an unlisted one. Fortunately I didn’t have to go into any details as to why we wanted to make the change, as I really didn’t want to have to explain what was going on to anyone.

We went about our morning routines with little more than perfunctory conversation and as we left for our classes, I couldn’t help but feel at least a little concerned by that fact.

It wasn’t until I entered the performing arts center that it occurred to me that I hoped I wouldn’t run into Dr. Wyler. That seemed like a bit of hopeful thinking, since over the course of the day I had to pass by his office door no less than three times, but somehow every time I wandered past not only was his door closed but his message box, which was mounted to the door, was stuffed full of phone messages which by the time of orchestra rehearsal that afternoon had still been untouched.

I wasn’t brave enough to stick my head into the rehearsal, but did hang out in the student lounge waiting to see if any of the ensemble members were talking about our beloved conductor. Less than an hour into rehearsal, a couple of percussionists wandered in, talking about the rehearsal they had just left.

The first commented, “Dude, how weird was that?”

His cohort responded, “Yeah, but cool, if you ask me.”

“I wonder how long he’ll be gone?” the first asked as he got a soda out of the vending machine.

As the other pulled a bag of potato chips out of another machine he replied, “Hope it’s a long time.”

As they headed back to the rehearsal hall, I could resist my curiosity no longer and had to follow. When I opened the soundproof door to enter the large room my ears were blasted with a wall of sound, which prompted me to look toward the podium. To my surprise I saw not Dr. Wyler, but Dr. Parkinson from the Civic Orchestra leading the ensemble through their paces.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto No.12 in A Major, kv.414
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/mozart-kv414-1-bko...

Ludwig von Beethoven, Concerto No.4 in G Major, Opus 58
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/beethoven-58-1-hu.mp3
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/beethoven-58-2-3-h...

Sergei Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No.1, Opus 10
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/prokofiev-10-1-arm...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/prokofiev-10-2-arm...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/prokofiev-10-3-arm...

Franz Liszt, Piano Concerto No.1 in E flat Major
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/liszt-pc1-1-2-hu.mp3
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/liszt-pc1-3-4-hu.mp3

Frederic Chopin, 4 Mazurkas, Opus 41
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-41-1-breeme...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-41-2-breeme...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-41-3-breeme...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-41-4-breeme...

Sergei Rachmaninov, 2nd Sonata in Bb minor
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/rachmaninov-36-1-g...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/rachmaninov-36-2-g...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/rachmaninov-36-3-g...

Frederic Chopin Concert Etudes, Opus 10
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-10-1-stahlb...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-10-2-stahlb...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-10-3-grant.mp3
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-10-4-sinadi...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-10-5-kingma...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-10-6-stahlb...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-10-9-kingma...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-10-11-levin...
http://server3.pianosociety.com/protected/chopin-10-12-kingm...