The Blue Guitar - Sex Stories

The Blue Guitar

... different musicians play at dinner and throughout the evening, so he got up the nerve and asked if he could play there. He had to audition and noticed that when the owner, Julie, heard him play, her eyes widened and she seemed mesmerized by his music. She called a few of her employees over to listen and Orrin observed their reactions. Julie said she had never heard anyone play the way he did. That really surprised him. He’d hardly ever played for other people before. He had in Iraq, but only a few of the soldiers liked his music and most thought his blue guitar was weird. It was hard to describe Orrin’s music. It was a combination of classical, jazz and blues. Though he loved classical music--especially Vivaldi, he’d started listening to jazz guitarists like Django Reinhart, Larry Coryell, Kenny Burrell and a few Delta Blues guitarists like Honey Boy Edwards, and somehow he combined all that into his own music. So, there he was playing background music in Mama’s Café on Friday and Saturday nights. Julie couldn’t pay him, but she gave him dinner and he could have a beer, or sometimes a glass of wine, and he would sit in the corner and play. He had a large glass cookie jar that people put tips in. Sometimes he made forty or fifty dollars. It was nice to make the money, but what really mattered to Orrin was the way people listened. Even though they were there for dinner, or to sit at the bar and drink, when he played, he could tell people liked his music. It was amazing how the ...

... whole place would get quiet and instead of providing background music, it was like he was performing. People even applauded and Julie told him that he was the only musician playing there who got applause. She told him that her business was much better when he was playing, and that he was drawing people there. She even made a sign with his name on it which she put in the window when he played— Tonight, Orrin Star . Star wasn’t his real name, but for some reason he chose to use that instead of his true last name, Richardson. The name just popped into his head. Things like that happened to him. It was like his music. The melodies and harmonies just came to him in a way he couldn’t explain. He often pictured the way Apollo looked up at the ceiling when he was playing the music he'd composed for his dead wife. When Orrin played, he would do the same thing. He looked up at the ceiling, then his eyes would close and the music would come to him. He was playing music for the girl of his dreams. He must have been doing something right because so many of the people who heard him play at Mama’s would drop money in his cookie jar and tell him his music was exquisite, and some women said it made them cry. He started seeing the same people come back week after week, and it made him feel good to see how deeply his music touched them. One Friday night, he was playing with his eyes closed so he hadn't seen Emily sit down at a table with a tall man. When he opened his eyes, he couldn’t believe ...