Free A Little Night Music by Kathy Hitchens

finished playing out whatever fantasy he crafted long ago, he would leave. Elli knew this before she snuck into the club and dissolved into his notes. Elli knew before the night was out she would restore him back to a whole man.
                          Even if it meant losing him.
                          Once in his apartment, he suggested the quiet, which wasn’t really quiet at all— the city noise of traffic and tenants drifted in. Elli suggested music.
                          “Play me. Like you play your instrument.”
                          A bold declaration from far away. But her words hit their mark. The corners of his mouth tugged up, ever so slightly, and his eyelids lowered, ever so slightly, as they did when he played the hard-to-reach places of his low register.
                          Jon pulled up recordings he had played into his phone and docked them into speakers that filled the high ceilings and porous brick with every bit of his magical talent she had come to know. He clicked on a yellow paper lantern strung in one corner she hadn’t remembered before. Along with the moon glow from three roofline windows it pushed aside into darkness things that no longer mattered—his suitcase, the instrument, his jacket she remembered, not from the day they had spent together, but from the moment she watched him drive away. And when he had taken to every distraction she was sure he could think of and, at last, stood hesitant—sophisticated yet disheveled from a night of music—Elli removed her boots and the clip holding her hair and covered the distance between them.
                          She didn’t recognize the tune, but he played it with the same reverence with which he took her in his arms. His lips—the lips of a man whose soul lived through the notes they crafted—those smooth strong lips at her ear sent hot tingles down her spine.
                          “First, I warm my lips.” He brushed her hair aside and planted gentle kisses along her neck, alternating them with hot, slow exhales, his lips never once leaving her body.
                          His breathing turned measured, working out a rhythm in his mind for which she wasn’t privy to, but one she could feel with every new territory he covered.
                          “Then I stretch my hands…” he spoke against her shoulder, her collarbone. Her nipples ached, he had come so close, but the high neckline of her dress prevented it. Strong hands kneaded her back until they found a zipper and began a slow but effective tug. “…and they seek out their natural place.”
                          Along her vertebrae, in perfect concert with the song’s unhurried chord change, his fingers tapped out each note. Moisture welled in her eyes from the adoration seeping through her bare skin. Her feet no longer supported her. She found the answering pressure of his thigh between her legs twisted them into a clef note from which she never wanted escape.
                          The tune changed to a quicker tempo. His fingers responded—no longer a painstakingly slow journey, but a building urgency that tugged at the straps of her dress and sent it skimming her breasts to the floor. He was lost in the number, but not so far gone he couldn’t remember his way back to her lips.
    “To a trumpeter,” he whispered, “the most sacred of places.”
    Jon entered her mouth with a slant of his tongue, as dynamic and natural as if he had played her forever. They marked out their own movement, their own pitch of sighs from exploring hands, and once, just once, his tongue fell into a magic only previously enjoyed by the ear.
    “What is that called?” Elli’s words wrapped messily around her labored exhales.
    “Double tonguing.”
    “Is that