Double Team
Chapter 197
“There’s a pressure at all hours of the day only a poem can assuage.”
—Kristen Henderson, Drum Machine
FOR THE PAST TWO MONTHS, we’d been loading our instruments in the back of my truck and letting Em drive us to a high school or auditorium somewhere in Northern Indiana where we’d jump out, take fifteen minutes to set up and check the acoustics where we were performing, and then play for 200-500 people. Then we’d carry our instruments back to the truck and let Em drive us home. We got a shock when we rolled into Chicago and Em deftly maneuvered our bus and trailer into the loading dock at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. How the heck she ever got us into that space was a mystery to me.
Donna and Jo met us as soon as the door opened. We’d been relaxed getting there since our performance wasn’t until eight. We stepped out of the motorhome (dressed) at just after two o’clock.
“Finally,” Jo said. I was ready to slap her down with her first words, but I suppose she was feeling jitters. For us, it was just another performance. For her it was the start of the first tour she’d set up.
“You’ll be able to leave the bus here until we break down this evening,” Donna told Emily. “We have to be out by midnight. How are you holding up?”
“Oh, fine,” Em said. “This behemoth has a few quirks of its own, but it handles well. And it’s shorter than the rigs I was driving in service. It’s really no longer than a school bus.”
“I know you want to see Cindy and Jacob perform, but it’s two and a half hours from here to Champaign-Urbana. We’ve got a nice space there for the bus and it’s less congested than here. You might want to get a long nap this afternoon since you’ll be driving our precious cargo in the middle of the night.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be able to nap with me, would you?” Em asked as she gave our wife a quick smooch.
“Who knows? I think we have a little overkill here as far as setup goes. Jo is nervous but wait until you see what is inside. We have an entire crew of National Service corps members here to set things up and guard the bus.”
“Can we see the space?” I asked. Cindy caught hold of my arm and we followed Jo inside. Donna directed half a dozen people in identifiable staff shirts to the trailer and Emily supervised unloading our equipment.
Inside… Well, I didn’t think we were going to be performing in that many huge venues on this tour. The Harris seats about 1,500. The stage is forty-five feet wide. Balconies wrap around the orchestra seating, right up to the edge of the stage. They had a bandshell set up center stage. Cindy and I would be staying in front of the shell and not wandering across the whole width of the stage. The acoustics were phenomenal. Jo pointed out that you could hear a pin drop on stage from the farthest balcony.
“Jo, is this the size venue we’re going to be in on the whole loop? I thought the spaces were going to be more intimate,” I said.
“Most of the spaces are smaller than this one,” she said. “Big cities have big spaces. You’ll see more like this in St. Louis, Memphis, and Atlanta. But this is your kickoff for the tour. Simon has been all over promoting and getting some high-profile people in for tonight.” They might have mentioned that earlier. But I figured that was going to be the way of the tour. Probably the way of our entire two years in service. What Cindy and I had to focus on was performing. We’d performed at the White House for the President. It didn’t make much difference who was in this audience or how big the space was.
Our equipment was all moved onto stage in one go. The ‘staff’ were careful with our instruments, but I was still glad my guitars and viol were packed in hard cases.
Donna followed the crew onto the stage and directed where each piece was to be placed. We were doing different sets with different props. Over a year ago, we’d had real success with our tango series played at a small café table and danced as we played. Sophie had worked with us on our dancing and playing at the same time. We also had our cowboy hats that we’d don during our Morricone set. I guess we were happy to just sit in one place and play straight through a classical piece, but most of our touring set included some amount of staging and playing off each other. We even had a quick costume change when we did the Buenos Aires set. Between sets, I had some carefully prepared comments that I would deliver as Cindy changed clothes.
We prepared our concert so that it could be performed under flat lights. In other words, bring up the stage lights, play the music, take down the lights, and leave. But a venue like this had about a million different lights and by the time Cindy and I had unpacked our instruments to do a run-through in the space, Donna was in the light booth with a technician experimenting with different lighting. As we played through our set, we were periodically interrupted by her melodious voice asking us to please repeat a move or entrance so they could tie down the cue.
By five o’clock, everyone was satisfied that we had the program down. Cindy and I were led to a dressing room where Beca and Joan were waiting with our costumes. Donna and Emily joined us soon thereafter.
“Don’t we have to keep someone with the motorhome?” I asked when I saw Emily. I’d been concerned about her out there alone and intended to go out as soon as I’d seen the dressing room.
“National Service Security is guarding the bus,” Em laughed. “I mean literally, like no rent-a-cop ever hoped to. There are two guys at the door to the coach and two more standing at the doors of the trailer. Who knew the National Service had a Security NSO? I’m going back out to sleep after we have dinner and I couldn’t feel safer.”
“I’m still going to accompany you out to the bus and wait there until I see you safely locked inside,” I said. “We should never go around alone, at least in big venues like this. Not that I’m paranoid or anything.”
“No, you’re right,” Em said. “I don’t think we need to worry with NS Security hanging around, but I’d feel better if a couple people accompanied me to the bus and tucked me in before the show. I’ll just stay there until you let me know the equipment is ready to be loaded afterward.”
Dinner was delivered to the dressing room for the six of us. It was impressive. I expected Subway sandwiches or a pizza to be delivered. Instead, a chef with National Service insignia rolled a cart into the dressing room and served each of us perfect portions of salad, chicken Kiev with rice, and chocolate brownies for dessert. It was an excellent meal, and not too heavy for us before a performance.
After Beca and I escorted Em back to the bus, we returned to the dressing room to begin getting ready for the evening’s concert. Cindy and I were beginning the evening in a classic mode. She’d wear one of those long skintight black dresses she wore for orchestra concerts. I was wearing the soft black suit and black shirt I’d acquired to complement her. Beca and Joan fussed over her makeup.
Donna had to dress as well. She was still doing our introduction and welcoming the audience. It wasn’t part of the official program, but Beca and Joan were recording the concert and would upload it to our patrons. There were little platforms on either side of the stage beneath the balcony where they could film without being noticed. They both dressed in black jeans and shirts. I looked at my wives and thought they all looked extraordinarily cute.
Jo came to our door to announce that it was time to move to our places and we went out to face our first Grand Loop audience.
After Donna introduced us, we entered to applause and picked up our instruments. I was playing the viola da gamba for the first piece, Franz Schubert’s Sonata for Arpeggione, D821. An arpeggione is a six-stringed instrument that is fretted and tuned like a guitar, but is bowed. It wasn’t difficult for us to transpose the music from arpeggione and piano to viol and flute and it gave us an opportunity to start with a genuinely classical piece that still held some novelty for the audience. The three movements took us twenty minutes to perform. We bowed and Cindy left the stage to change into a more daring purple dress before the next piece while I spoke to the audience.
“Thank you for joining us on the first stop of our Grand Loop tour. Being Hoosiers, we’ve always looked to Chicago as being the big city and want to thank you for your gracious hospitality. Cindy and I have been performing together for about three years. Through the miracles of social media and my big mouth, we gained some notoriety for our criticisms of the National Service. Now, at the request of the President, we are out here promoting the service and the things we always believed in, like service reform.
“I’m not going to belabor the point, but we hope you will carefully consider the measure that has been proposed in congress to reform the National Service. This measure would remove the service entirely from military oversight and place it in the hands of civilians, where a civilian service corps should be. It’s a pretty simple decision when it comes down to it. Civilians under civilian management or civilians under military rule. We encourage you to vote this fall only for candidates in favor of service reform.
“Now, let’s get back to music as my lovely partner takes the lead in JS Bach’s Flute Sonata in E major, BWV 1035.”
Cindy reentered in her stunning purple dress with bare shoulders and arms to a fabulous round of applause. It was the first I really noticed that the auditorium seemed to be about full to capacity. Well, good. Cindy deserved this showing. She was beautiful and her music was inspiring. When we finished that piece of about thirteen minutes, I slipped backstage to change into a purple shirt that matched her dress while Cindy addressed the audience. I listened carefully. We’d rehearsed this piece over and over but I knew it still made her nervous to speak in public. Donna passed me with a microphone so she could be heard.
“I would rather play my flute all night than talk,” she began. There was encouraging applause. “I’m sixteen years old. You might be asking yourself what on earth a sixteen-year-old is doing out talking about the National Service. Well, I discovered something recently that you might not know. All citizens must complete two years of National Service. This is typically done as required by the 28th Amendment, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. But you aren’t required to wait until you are eighteen to serve. I plan to volunteer to begin service right after my seventeenth birthday this summer.
“Volunteering for service is especially appropriate for citizens on non-traditional education paths. In return for service, we are promised assistance in completing our high school diplomas or alternate education track before we are released. For some, that is a technical education they might otherwise receive in a trade or technical school. For others, it is merely an alternative to an education system they don’t do well in. For me, it is an opportunity to complete my diploma with a much stronger focus on music than I could have received in a traditional high school.
“That opportunity comes at a cost. Early volunteers are expected to excel at both their service and their education. It is not simply an easy out from high school. I can see myself working twice as hard over the next two years as I would by completing high school and then entering the service. But this path is allowing me to serve my country and advance my career goals while completing my formal education. That is the dream and we are here to recover that dream for youth around the country.
“Now, Jacob and I would like to turn to one of our favorite composers, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Sonata in C major, K330.”
I entered in my purple shirt and pulled my stool to the forefront so Cindy and I could semi face each other as we launched into Mozart. Twenty minutes later, we faced the audience and bowed to their applause.
“We’re about to take a short intermission, but as much as Cindy and I love our classics, we also enjoy some pretty lively alternative music that you’ll be hearing in the second half of our concert. We want you to enjoy your intermission while humming one of our favorite pieces. I think you’ll recognize it,” I said.
It had taken us a lot of experimentation before we were pleased with a version of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that just the two of us could play. It depended on Cindy switching from flute to whistle to Native American flute. We grabbed our cowboy hats and ponchos and faced off across a few feet as I began to tap out the drum beats on the body of my guitar.
When we ended the piece, we were greeted with applause. We bowed and left the stage. We needed water and to change our costumes.
And to kiss. We ended up spending a lot of intermission kissing. No screaming, though.
We entered to another round of applause. I was dressed in a pair of toreador pants with a high waist and a blousy shirt that was reminiscent of what I’d worn at the Ren Faires. Men’s clothing doesn’t make a loud statement on its own most of the time. It’s when a woman is appropriately dressed next to him that people realize how much thought went into his costume as well. With Cindy in a mid-thigh flared black dress, we just looked slightly less formal than for our first set. We launched straight into Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Sonatina op. 205. It’s a great bridge from classical to the Spanish influence we’d be going for in this set. After the thirteen-minute piece was finished, Cindy left the stage as I went forward to address the audience.
“The twenty-eighth amendment passed nearly twenty years ago with an overwhelming majority of Americans in favor. It was thought that by completing two years of service, youth would take a greater pride in citizenship because they had done something to make America better. But the dream has never quite been realized. In fact, in a very short time, the National Service became something to be dreaded and hated. It was when my sister left for service three years ago, crushed and crying, that I began to investigate what was really happening. I discovered noble intentions smothered in abuses of power, militaristic training, and negligence toward individual rights and desires.
“I have been a critic of the service since that day, a criticism doubled by the appalling conditions service corps members were forced into during the national emergency on our border and kept in for more than a year without relief. I read the manual and it was terrible. I joined my voice with others calling for a reform of the National Service. In that, I found common ground with our current president and have agreed to come on this tour to encourage voters to find and elect candidates to every office—local, state, and national—who support National Service reform.
“We will recover the dream.”
The response wasn’t quite the level of the California concert, but it was still hearty. Cindy walked out on stage at exactly that moment and the applause amped up considerably. That sweet innocent girl can sell sex appeal like water in the desert. She’d changed into her red tango dress. It was off the shoulder with lace sleeves. The dress fit every curve of her body from her firm young tits to her ripe round bottom. And just below her bottom, a ruffle fell from high on the left to nearly her ankle on her right, exposing a mile of shapely leg with feet in red high heel sandals.
We didn’t hesitate from there. She faced me and lit into the first trills of Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango. I responded with drum raps on the body of my guitar and we were off. We danced the music as well as played it, her skirt flaring out as she spun and danced.
Twenty minutes of playing and dancing at our little café table and across the stage was exhausting. It was the most strenuous portion of our performance. We bowed for the applause after the fourth movement and then went directly into Andaluza, a Spanish dance by E. Granados. It slowed things down a little and ended with Cindy leaning against me as we reprised the theme one last time. We bowed and hustled offstage as Donna returned to center stage to give one more announcement while Cindy and I changed. Donna was promoting our website and Patreon page where people could also find the popular Marvel and Hopkins merchandise.
I wasn’t crazy about having an advertisement in the middle of our program like that. It wasn’t really our message. But Cindy and I needed time to change clothes as fast as we could. And with Donna onstage, I had to help Cindy out of her dress. Oh, woe is me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t spend the time to appreciate the red bikini clad ass or the matching half-cup bra and what it contained. I had to strip out of my tight pants and blousy shirt and we were into our white linens and barefoot in time to get back on stage to do Pujol’s Suite Buenos Aires. We chose to be seated knee-to-knee as we performed this piece; we’d once done it like that in the church chapel back home. It was close and intimate after the overt sexuality of the tangos. After 20 minutes, we paused once again for applause.
Then we did what was officially our program closer, Chick Corea’s lively Spain. Three and a half minutes and our concert was finished. The applause was enthusiastic and we left the stage, only to return for an additional bow a few seconds later. We looked at each other and nodded, picking up our instruments again. The audience quieted as they realized we’d play an encore.
And like we had the first time we performed together, we launched into the first movement, Molto Allegro, of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40—what we referred to as Mozart on Fire. Our arrangement was nearly ten minutes long and we had the house rocking with us as we played off each other. This time when the applause started, the audience rose to their feet and we bowed for our first standing ovation of the tour.
We carefully put our instruments in cases and supervised loading everything on the carts that would take them back to the bus. Beca and Joan accompanied the equipment while we met half a dozen dignitaries backstage with Donna and Jo. The mayor and some City Council types were there as well as the Chicago area congressional reps and a senator. Fortunately, they were all much more important than we were, so it wasn’t long before they were engaged with each other while Cindy, Donna, and I headed for the loading dock where Em already had the motorhome warming up.
Donna stripped out of her evening gown and put pajamas on, even though we tried to entice her to stay naked and play with us. As soon as she was covered, she went to the front of the motorhome and strapped herself into the passenger seat to give Em company as we pulled away from our first venue.
The other four of us left clothing scattered through the bus as we stripped on our way to the bedroom and all piled onto the king size bed together. Beca had Cindy perched over her face in a sixty-nine at the edge of the bed as Joan vacuumed my cock into her mouth until I was stiff as a board. As soon as I was ready, she pointed me at Cindy’s upturned ass. I drove my cock into her and Cindy began to howl out her orgasms into Beca’s pussy.
Sex in a moving vehicle has its challenges and we met each curve and bump for the next two hours in physical collisions with each other. By the time Em had the bus parked at the University of Illinois we were a tangled sleeping mess that scarcely noticed Em and Donna pile in with us.
Our first of fourteen stops in twenty-one days was over.
Comments
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