Stop the Music

There were two things in this world he loved…music and women. Not always necessarily in that order. He was a lover. A lover of music and a lover of the female form. It didn’t matter what form either took, so long as he had both surrounding him all the time.

And I loved him for his music. When he played, he became this beautiful creature that seemed almost untouchable. He glowed. And I don’t mean that figuratively either. You could see the light radiating from him in big waves of color depending on the song he was playing. Sad, happy, passionate, mellow…it didn’t matter. A rainbow of color and emotion poured from him like water. And then he’d sweep me up in his arms and make love to me, still riding the high from the music, and it was beautiful. I felt beautiful and he was beautiful. He made me feel like I was the only woman in the world. You can imagine my surprise when I found out I wasn’t.

I lived in ignorant bliss for months, thinking he needed only me and his music and that he’d be content for the rest of his life. I was half right. And when I found out that it wasn’t only me that warmed his bed…and that I wasn’t his only muse…when I showed up at his loft one day and heard him telling another woman that SHE was his muse…SHE inspired him and was the one that sparked passion in him…I was crushed…and furious. I wanted to tear them both apart. I wanted to destroy everything in my path.

I stormed in. We fought. Screaming, throwing things, smashing things. I ranted and raved and then cried. I begged him to tell me why…to explain how he could do this to me. He smirked and laughed at me. He was amused by how gullible I was…amused by the fact that I believed what he said…believed him when he said I was the only one. I loved him and I thought he loved me. And in his own way, maybe he did. He just couldn’t love only me.

And I tried to reconcile that in my mind. At first, I tried to believe it was because his music needed more than one source of inspiration, and so he needed other and different lovers to give him that. Then, I tried being more for him…tried being daring, sexy, shy, submissive, dominant, demure, demanding, accommodating. Still he had other women. I became whatever he wanted me to be. Like clay that he would mold and shape every day into something that amused him at that particular moment, but still he would toss me aside when a new toy came along.

Then I tried ignoring him, denying him my touch, my body, my love. He didn’t care. He just found someone else to occupy his time until I couldn’t stand being away from him anymore and would beg for his forgiveness for being selfish and thinking only of myself. He controlled me completely.

Then I tried to blend in, pretend it didn’t bother me. That I was a modern woman and could handle an open relationship. And since he could have other women, I found other men, the same as he was doing. That was my biggest mistake.

He flew into a rage. How could I? How could I have someone else in my bed? Didn’t I love him? I claimed to love him, yet I had other men. How could I be his muse if he had to share me with others? The words and the music wouldn’t come to him if I wasn’t his and his alone. And then he cried. He didn’t mean to hurt me, he said. He couldn’t bear knowing he was driving his inspiration away. He’d change. He’d stop with all the other women. He needed me…couldn’t live without me. It was the tears that got me. I never saw him cry before, and I thought that those tears meant something. And for about a month, they did…and he did stop seeing all the others. For a whole month it was just us, and everything was wonderful. We loved, we laughed, he wrote and he played. And it was the most beautiful music I’d ever heard. And then it started all over again. But I couldn’t leave him. The music in him, the passion was just overwhelming and all consuming. And you had to love him, because, if you didn’t, you’d disappear. Music was his life’s blood and women were his sustenance.

And so I lived with it. I hated it, but I lived with it. Because I had to. Every time I tried to move on, to leave him, to have my own life back…he’d come to me, hold me, sing to me, and, God help me, play for me…and I’d go right back to him. I was both a willing and unwilling slave to his talent and his whims.
Then he was discovered and he started traveling. I knew he’d be found sooner or later. And when he started touring, the number of women grew. And the contact with him grew less and less. Sometimes, I never even knew he was in town until he had already gone. But still, I was his. Other men held no interest for me by then. It was only him. He was the center of my world. And the few and far between times I did see him, I was the center of his…or so he made me feel.

Then I found out I was pregnant. I couldn’t tell him. If I told him, things would change and I didn’t want them to change. Because, if he knew, then he might stop playing and traveling and he loved it so much…and I loved him so much…how could I take that from him? At least, that’s the reason I told myself I wasn’t going to tell him. The truth of it was, if I told him, he wouldn’t see me anymore. And if he wouldn’t see me anymore, I wouldn’t be able to live. I needed him as much as he needed his women and his music. So, he never knew.

By the time the baby came, though, he had stopped coming around. He was really famous by then and he couldn’t be bothered with his old life. I tried to contact him at first, but then I thought, a scandal like this…a bastard child…would just end his career. So, I stopped trying to find him and tried to go on without him. Tried to just be happy for him. But there was something…something inside me that didn’t surface until after the baby was born…until after our son was born.

Every day I watched our boy get older, and every day I watched him become his father. He had the music in him just like his father. He had his father’s eyes, his hair, his…everything. And I hated him. Hated him because I couldn’t have his father and he was a constant reminder of what I desperately needed and couldn’t have. I started being mean to him. Abusing him. I just couldn’t take it.

As the days went by and my mind and my thoughts grew darker and darker, the plans began to form. The plot to get rid of it. Destroy it. If it was destroyed, there would be no more pain, no more anguish…there would be peace. And then, everything seemed brighter, lighter, filled with hope. I had found the answer, it was before me the whole time, I just didn’t see it.

To celebrate, I took our boy out for a picnic in the woods. We hiked for a bit, well away from the campgrounds and the bustle of people. Out where there was peace and quiet and just the sounds of the wind in the trees and the birds and the woodland creatures. We set everything out and we started eating. And then it started. I could hear the music. The soft strains floating through the air and to my ears. It was his music. Someone was playing it on a radio somewhere. And everything came crashing down.

I don’t remember all that much that happened afterward. I was told they found me screaming in the woods, bloody knife in my hand, rocking my baby as he bled all over the ground. Ten times…once for each year I was with his father, I suppose, I don’t recall the incident at all, really. They said it was too late by the time anyone heard the screaming and could find us because we were so far hidden. They couldn’t save him. They tried, but apparently, I had done a good job.

You see, I had to. I had to stop the music. Because that was the key. If I didn’t hear the music, I didn’t feel the hurt. And…the music was just too much. I had to stop it. And, well, I figured it like this, I guess…he was his father’s boy…the music must have been in him…and he’s gone now…and the music stopped. So I was right. And now, I can forget and I can have my life back. For that, it was worth it.