Piano Bar

by Wilson Devereau

It was the first time Tom had taken me to the Jewel Room, and I was impressed with the subdued elegance and the richness of the furnishings. It was without a doubt the most posh piano bar I'd ever seen. Not that I've seen so many.

As I wheeled in behind Tom, the man playing very elegant and - from what I understand - very old- fashioned "cocktail piano" looked up and seeing me in a wheelchair raised his eyebrows and smiled a warm, knowing smile. I chalked him up then and there as an amp lover.

That's right. I don't have any legs. I left them behind in Vietnam twenty-some years ago, one of the last casualties in that absurd and tragic "politicians' war". Even so, life has been good to me.

My mother died of cancer shortly after I returned, and my dad took me in as his partner in the office supply business he ran so efficiently. My three older sisters were married, two of them to men, and the third to a woman. She and I were the - well you wouldn't call us the "black" sheep of the family, maybe "odd" sheep would come closer. A younger brother died at 19 of an overdose of drugs.

When dad died - like mother, still quite young - I not only had a firm grip on the business, but I had also expanded it into a large discount outfit competing more than successfully with a national chain of discount office supply houses.

Tom was an old Vietnam buddy. He had never married and I always assumed he was gay, but we never had sex together. Here's the picture: whenever I visit him, which is about once a month, he gives me my own bedroom and bath - the bedroom's accessible but the bath isn't, so to use the bath I just walk on my hands and ride my ass. It's a nice mini-vacation. I drive from my home in Cleveland to his nice big home in a very large city about 350 miles away and spend a long weekend - Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday - with him. It's a great relief to get out from behind the desk.

From the way he always avoids looking at all of me and never comes into the bedroom, I know that he's not only not attracted to amputees, but is somewhat repulsed by them. At least I figure he is by me because I've seen it before. In fact I run my business entirely from behind the desk so no one sees me. Oh, sure, the employees know and see me come in and out, but most of the outsiders don't always know that they're talking to only half a man. I'm so used to it I don't even notice any more.

But when the piano player smiled the way he did, I figured he was an amp lover. Hell, he might as well have been wearing a sign. I've run into quite a few, none of them amounting to anything serious. Of course, here in the Jewel Room I was second-guessing and that's dangerous, I know, but what the hell!

And all these years of plugging away making lots of money and being lonely as hell, and wishing I could at least find some man who I could fall for and live the rest of my life with! Fat chance!

The Jewel Room on this Saturday night was crowded and, as I noted, truly elegant in what must have been an old-fashioned sort of way, because I had never seen anything like it anywhere. There was something about it that I couldn't put my finger on, and then I did put my finger on it. It was quiet. That was it's secret. Quiet. You could talk without having to shout above the deafening decibelic din. And the piano

music rippled and sounded like a babbling brook. It was both soothing and upbeat and, as far as I was concerned, a thoroughly pleasant way to spend an evening.

While Tom and I talked, the piano man - whose name was Bert Scales (phony?) - kept looking at me and smiling and I kept smiling back. He saw me come in so I knew he knew that I was missing both legs and obviously he liked me that way! And anyway, there was something almost familiar about him, like I knew him or had at least met him before. I began to have little tugging fantasies about him, and Tom even said something to the effect that the two of us certainly were taking each other in! Then Tom startled me

by saying something about how attractive the guy was! To which I replied "so are you!"

Tom reddened at that, but said nothing in return.

After a pause, he said, "When he takes his break, shall we ask him to join us?"

"Do you know him?" I said with surprise.

"Oh no! I've never been here before, but it's pretty obvious he wants to meet you. So why no?"

Tom wasn't kidding. He had really noticed what had been going on.

"Yeah, I'd love it! Although I think he's only attracted to me because I'm an amp."

"What?" Tom sounded completely lost at sea. "What do you mean by that? That's a weird thing to say!"

"Weird or not, that's the way the world is. Some guys are attracted to other guys because they're missing a limb or two. Arm or leg, it doesn't matter."

"Whaaatt?? But that's - I mean --" Tom's confusion was real.

"I'll explain it some other time. Go ask him to join us." And again I had this feeling there was something familiar about the guy.

"OK." And Tom got up and went to the piano, his back turned to me, and then after a few seconds, he returned. The piano man looked at me, barely winked and smiled and continued with a tune called Star Dust which I've heard most of my life. It was my mother's favorite. She used to say, "They don't write 'em like Star Dust any more!"

At the conclusion of the number, Bert Scales turned out the spotlight and everyone applauded him. He smiled and nodded to all corners of the room, and then leaned over and picked up from the floor behind the piano a pair of crutches. With the crutches, he stood up and, smiling, came to our table on his right leg, his left one missing at the hip. I was surprised speechless.

Standing there he said to me with a grin, "Hi. From the expression on your face you obviously didn't expect an amputee. My real name's Angelo Dellascala. That's where Scales came from. Although my name has nothing to do with music, it means 'angel of the ladder.'" He paused and looked at me with interest. "You really didn't know?"

"How would I know?" I asked.

"Everyone who comes here knows. I'm the famous one-legged piano player." he answered with a grin.

Tom smiled. "Oh, please, sit down," he said, indicating a chair.

"Thank you," Bert said, and sat down still looking at me. He put his crutches under the table.

"What'll you have," Tom asked as the waiter came up for Bert's order.

"Nothing alcoholic, if you don't mind," Bert answered and said to the waiter, "Just a tonic with lime."

Bert looked at each of us in turn. To Tom, he said, "And you're?"

Tom smiled and said, "I'm Tom Watkins. Nice to know you, Bert." They shook hands. Tom turned to me.

"I'm Don Perrin," I said and held out my hand. We shook. "You were so right. I didn't expect an amp to be playing the piano."

"Better a leg than an arm!" Bert said with a grin. "I'm a Viet casualty."

I thought "Oh shit! Now I've got to hear about his experiences in that idiotic war! We'll put a stop to that!" Aloud I said to Bert, "Me too, but I refuse to discuss it."

"You too?" Bert was genuinely surprised. "So do I. It's a closed subject."

The relief was tremendous and I probably showed it. It showed on Bert's face at any rate.

"So what brings you to the Jewel Room?" Bert continued.

"One last shred of information," Tom said. "I'm a Nam vet, too! Unharmed physically. Don and I were buddies. I was sent back before he was and when I next saw him, well, there he is." He gestured toward me. "I live here, but he lives in Cleveland and runs a business there and comes over for an extended weekend now and then. We're here because I'd heard about what a nice place it is. Quiet. Pleasant."

"Cleveland?" Bert said to me.

"Yeah, but don't ask me if I know so-and-so, because I don't." We laughed at the way people do that. "You know Cleveland?"

"Oh, in a way, yes." Bert said a bit vaguely.

"Then that's a closed subject, too!" I said. "So what else? Nice day today, isn't it?"

"Don't try to change the subject," Bert said looking serious. "I want to talk about you and Cleveland and you" - he gave me a strange look - "and me."

Something said in my head: 'He doesn't waste any time, does he?'

"You got the floor," I said throwing Tom a look to see what he was thinking. Nothing that showed.

"Well, first off," Bert began, "tell me how Perrin Office Supply is doing."

That bowled me over. "Perrin Off--" I stammered. "Have we met before?"

Bert looked at me seriously. "In a way, yes. Nearly five years ago, I applied for a job at your place. I had made out an application and answered a rather long questionnaire and it was sent to you. By the way, do you still do all the hiring?" Bert stopped there.

"Yes, I do."

"Well, I waited a few minutes and then I was told you'd see me. I went into your office. Nothing fancy, but a nice comfortable place. You were sitting in your wheelchair behind the desk and I came in on my crutches and you kept and absolute dead pan, cool as a cucumber, and told me to sit down. Am I ringing any bells?"

He asked that because suddenly I remembered the entire incident and knew that was where I'd seen him before and the look on my face told him I remembered. I smiled. "Yes, you've hit the jackpot. I remember you, but I don't remember the name."

"You told me I wasn't qualified. And dismissed me."

"I remember. You weren't qualified. You were much too intelligent and too creative. It was the questionnaire that made me turn you down. And anyway, your job history showed you to be wrong for everything you ever did. Except the job you're doing now."

"When I left," Bert continued, "I asked the girl at the cash register why you were in a wheelchair and they told me you had lost both legs in Vietnam. When you came in tonight I recognized you. I've been thinking about you ever since I first saw you."

"You must really hate me," I said somewhat lamely, feeling like I'd prefer to get the hell out of there. What was I supposed to do, apologize?

"No, I really feel quite the opposite about you. You were the first person who ever called me creative or intelligent. And I know I'm both. You gave me the guts to go back to the piano and develop the style of playing you've been listening to. Without you, I wouldn't be here. I owe you a great deal and I'd like to repay you somehow."

Things had taken a new turn so fast I felt dizzy. In addition to which my balls were tingling. This guy was turning me on! Without too much thought about consequences, I said, "What did you have in mind?"

He looked at me and then slowly smiled, a big smile from ear to ear. "You asked for it. I'd like to take you to bed and make love to you until hell freezes over!"

I didn't look at Tom, but I heard him gasp, and I could feel my cock rising to the occasion. Very quietly I answered, "When would you suggest?"

He leaned in to me very closely, "Any time you say. Tonight? Come home with me. I finish here in another hour and tomorrow's my day off." He looked at Tom. "Are you two lovers?"

Tom looked surprised, chagrined, startled, you name it. He was also upset, but answered, "No."

"Do you mind if he comes home with me? I'll bring him back tomorrow. Sometime tomorrow. Maybe."

Bert looked at me and again at Tom, who said, "Don's his own boss. Whatever he wants to do is his business." Have you ever had two guys talk about you that way? As if one of them owned you and the other wanted to borrow your body for a while? It gave me the creeps and a lot of pleasure. I mean a lot. Even if nothing ever happened, this Bert guy had made my day! Or at least my Saturday night.

"Well?" Bert said with only a little patience.

"Sure," I said, wondering what the hell I was letting myself in for.

"Settled." Bert grinned at me, finished his tonic, got his crutches off the floor, and went back to the piano, getting a big round of applause.

I don't mind admitting that the hour was the longest in my life. I was really smitten with the guy, and I recall that when I had turned him down it was with regret because I figured he'd be a nice addition to the staff, but an expensive one because he wasn't the kind of person you assign to lifting office furniture and selling filing cabinets and reams of typing paper.

Tom gave me several quizzical looks and tried to bring up the subject, but I turned him off, except at one point I said, "I'm glad you didn't tell him why we aren't lovers."

This hurt Tom. I could see it on his face. So I smiled and said it was OK. "I know that people are really turned off by people who are missing limbs or are physically handicapped in some way. And I know that you're one of them. I've known it a long time and it doesn't bother me. You're the way you are and I accept it. I like you. But these years have been desperately lonely for me. I think that you can understand that. You've been lonely, too, I imagine."

Tom just looked at me and said, "Thank you. You're a great guy and I like you enormously. But, as you know, not that way."

I smiled at him and let the matter drop.

The time passed slowly, but finally Bert finished his last number and took several bows standing on his right leg, and then crutched over to our table and sat down.

He looked at Tom and then at me. "I've been pretty bumptious with my fast line, but I meant it -- every word of it. Have you changed your mind?"

He was looking at me and I smiled and told him I hadn't.

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Tom got our check and we each paid for our own drinks and Tom bought Bert's and the three of us pulled out, Tom walking on two legs, Bert on one, and me rolling along with no legs.

The parking valet brought Tom's car and we said good night and I said I'd phone him tomorrow and he pulled off. Then Bert's car arrived and I vaulted into the front seat and turned to fold my chair, but the parking attendant was already doing it.

"Thank you!" I said surprised. "That's very kind, very thoughtful." He smiled, saluted me, and turned to take care of the next customer.

We drove in silence for about twenty minutes and then went down a ramp into the subterranean

parking of a high rise apartment building.

In silence we got ourselves to the elevator and out again on the tenth floor. I wheeled behind Bert and watched him walk on his crutches. He had that wonderful flow that amps develop I wondered about his hands being messed up by carrying his weight all of the time. I told myself to try to remember to ask. Once inside and the door closed behind us, Bert turned on me and picked me up and out of the chair and held me tight to him, with me holding on for life. He hugged me and kissed me and was practically raping me with his tongue going down my throat. I didn't object in the least. I made me wild. My cock was so hard

I thought it was going to explode.

He quickly got tired and the crutches didn't help any, so he put me down and said, "Follow me!" And he started off at a gallop.

My speedy glimpse of the living room told me I was with a guy who had superlative taste in everything and apparently the money to indulge it. On my way I saw the walls covered with a large collection of really great paintings filling the living room walls. Proceeding through the room, I finally came into the bedroom, and before I knew what happened, Bert had picked me up and deposited me on the bed and had thrown his crutches on the floor and was undressing me. Then I threw my arms around him and started kissing him, my tongue down his throat and by then I was so turned on I could have flapped my arms and flown! He worked himself loose from my grasp and yammered at me to hold still so he could undress me. Then I started undressing him and he let me do the complete job, but he hadn't finished me, so with his naked body taunting my eyes and his lovely hard cock tempting my mouth, he finished undressing me. Then he stopped and just looked at me as I just looked at him. He was beautiful.

"Oh, God!" he said. "You're even more beautiful than I'd imagined, and I've imagined this moment for years and years."

Because I walk with my arms so much, my upper body is very well developed. And I have worked hard to maintain a flat belly and my stumps are well formed, although very short - much too short to be successful with prostheses.

And his body! Obviously he works out at a gym. His one leg was like marble sculpture and his shoulders and arms were magnificently well developed. He was the paragon of male beauty. Then he embraced me again and we returned to kissing. We were laying down now, our bodies pressed against each other, our hard cocks digging deeply into abdomens and feeling like they were living lives of their own. I broke from him and scooted down to his left hip to examine what was available to make love to. His leg had been removed entirely and his hip was dented and deftly covered with a large flap of skin that wrapped around it, but leaving his cock and balls out where they could breathe. I kissed the area and licked it and he lay quite still but breathing hard and his big hard wang bounced with each heart beat.

Then he broke away and went to work on both my stumps, sending me into huge spasms of sexual pleasure, and while he kissed and tongued one stump after the other, his hands were playing with my cock and balls and kneading them and bringing me delights I had forgotten existed. How to tell you how this felt after so many years without? Impossible, unless you've experienced it.

From there he crawled over me, his cock over my head and my cock in his mouth. I reached up and stuffed his fat hard dick in my mouth and we worked on each other with our tongues and throats until we both exploded at the same time and all hell broke loose and pushed me into heaven with a big bang. I took many minutes for us to recover from the extremity of the physical sensations and during those minutes we just lay there, my cock in his mouth and his cock in mine, both of them losing their rigidity and both of them screaming sensitive.

Slowly we got ourselves righted with the bed - our heads at the head and his foot toward the foot - and lay there in mild exhaustion grinning at each other.

"I just wish to God this had happened five years ago," I said with feeling.

"So do I. But it didn't so it's all the more wonderful that it's happened now. More intense somehow. Do you really remember me?" He looked curious and interested rather than prying.

"I'll tell you something, I didn't think I'd ever tell anyone," I said. "I read your app and the answers

you put on the questionnaire. The app didn't tell me much, but I got intensely interested in your answers to the questionnaire and I was afraid to see you. Your background told me - your answers in general told me - that you were the kind of man I longed to meet, and here you were, applying for a job. You know as well as I do that you can't run a fairly large company - I have 35 employees, and for an office supply house that's pretty good! - you can't run a company and shack up with one of the employees. I had no idea what you looked like, but who you were as a person really set me up and got me going! Oh brother! I sat there and argued with myself and finally decided on the "right" course of action - not to hire you because you would undermine the entire organization. So you came in. And good lord!"

I stopped talking there to gather my breath because just the memory of what that first sight of him did to me...!!

"You came in with that smooth crutch walk of yours and my cock got so hard so fast I thought I'd

explode. And on top of that you were so goddamned handsome I couldn't stand looking at you. So I got rid of you as fast as I could. I knew that was the only way to save the company. You'll never know what that cost me personally. I mean I went into a depression that lasted until perhaps a year ago. I even went to a psychiatrist and told him the entire story and the jerk went into some rigmarole about our both being amputees and that shit. I tried to explain to him that an amputee can turn me on, and he just said that I was looking for a peer. Dumb bastard!"

I just looked at him and he looked at me. He was very serious looking and I leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips.

"I had no idea you cared," I said.

He looked at me and barely smiled. It was a kind of distant look, as if I weren't there. "I remember feeling crushed and rejected. I considered suicide for perhaps five minutes. And then it occurred to me that I had never seen you before and that you were hardly worth a suicide, but the fact that you were a double amp appealed to me enormously. 'Peer', your shrink said? No. I'm like you. I didn't know it for sure until some time later when I met another AK and discovered that the sight of that guy turned me on to him like

fire. We never met, I just saw him on his crutches, but the hard-on I experienced told me everything I needed to know about reacting to amps. Since then I've met a few other amps and I've made it a point to ask them their reactions. Only one of them admitted to feeling what we're talking about. So we're two of a kind. And I've had you in my mind all this while."

"But you said that my calling you intelligent and creative started you on the piano career."

He smiled at me. "It sure as hell did! But what I didn't tell you was that when I practiced and worked to develop my style, and I was playing any kind of gig I could get, I was doing it for you. Your image was always there, sitting where I could see your face and watch your reaction. And tonight it was exactly as it had been all these five years. Only tonight it was for real, and that really turned me on. The moment you rolled in I recognized you and I got a super hard-on sitting there. And I thanked the angel that sent you to me because this is it. I'm never going to let you go." He grinned at me. "At least not until tomorrow morning."

I smiled. "There are problems that we don't have to face tonight. Tonight all we have to face is each other, and I can't imagine anything as beautiful or as wonderful as that." With that I kissed him, turned over on my back and closed my eyes. He lay with his arm above my head so that I felt it barely touching my hair and he pulled his right leg up so that it was as if I was sitting on it with my two stumps. It was comfortable and I drifted off to sleep.

When I was awakened, it was because something was poking me in the mouth and lips. I opened my eyes to curtained daylight and when I could focus, I saw Bert's hard cock tickling my face. I grinned, and I heard him sort of giggle. I opened my mouth and he pushed his cock in a short ways and I gently bit down on it.

"Yikes!" he said in mock pain, "don't, don't, don't stop!"

Then I tongued it and I could feel my own cock rousing out of it's torpor and before you could even have thought of saying "Jack Robinson" we were at it again.

Bert had swung around so we were again making soixante-neuf but he was back at my short stumps making them as erect as possible with his tongue and lips. He really knows what to do with erogenous stumps! After we'd got each other to the flash point, he turned around, and we started fucking our mouths with our tongues, our hands taking care of the crotch fuck tools. It didn't take long, but it lasted long and we lay there purring, our hands and bellies wet with love.

At long last, after drifting in twilight, we roused ourselves and showered. His tub was equipped with a seat which made me feel right at home.

He made coffee, I got into my chair, and we sat in the living room naked while we chatted and drank coffee. Again I was struck with his remarkable collection of paintings.

"I'm impressed with your collection. I would like to know where you collect such wonderful and varied pictures. There's no two alike. I like paintings and have a few at home, but certainly nothing as super as these. Are they American, French, or what?"

"You really like them?" Bert said. "Which one do you like best?"

I sensed a gift in the offing. "No, you don't. I like them all and I don't have a favorite. Just tell me where the gallery is and tomorrow I'll drop by and see if there's one I'd like to buy. How many artists are represented here?"

"Go look at the signatures," he said.

I put my coffee cup down on the cocktail table and rolled over to a large canvas and looked up at

the lower right-hand corner. No signature. I looked over at the left-hand corner and saw something so I rolled up close to it. I made out "Angelo Dellascala". It didn't ring a bell at first and then suddenly the lights went on. I turned to him.

"My God, it's you!" I yelped. "Holy Shit! Did you paint all these?" I rolled up to the next and it was high, but I could see the name clearly in the lower left-hand corner. one by one I checked the signatures. One by one I learned they were all his, although some were too high for me in a chair to read.

I rolled back to him and looked at him. "Intelligent and creative." I shook my head. "That's not the half of it. You're pure genius!" I was impressed out of my gourd.

He just sat there with a kind of modest grin on his face.

"Well, say something!" I yelped. I get noisy when I get excited. "How long has it taken to paint all these? Do you sell? Are you in a gallery anywhere? Come on, answer me!"

"What I'm going to say you've heard before. It's your fault. When you told me I was intelligent and creative, music wasn't the only thing I wanted to do. So I started painting. The first efforts were awful, so I took lessons there in Cleveland. My teacher was impressed and said I have what it takes, so I spent my days between easel and keyboard. What you see here is about a third of the result of five years of work."

I had been thinking fast. "Why haven't you taken your stuff to a gallery?"

"I don't feel I'm ready yet. I don't have the confidence I have when I play Star Dust."

"The hell with your confidence! Ship these pictures to me in Cleveland and I'll put them on view in the Perrin Galleries."

"You have a gallery, too?" Angelo-Bert sounded incredulous.

"No. And I don't know a goddamned thing about art but I know what I like. So I'm going to start a gallery with your paintings and we're going to sell all but my favorites to the public. My favorites I'll buy. And you're going to become the best known painter in the USA! Look! I can get two to three thousand dollars for each of these paintings. I know that much about art!" I was so excited I was raving! "Is it a deal?" I held out my right hand.

He crutched over to me and we shook hands, but he looked like he was going to be emotional. So I said, "Go ahead. I know how you feel. Somebody like what you're doing and it really get's to you, doesn't it?"

He smiled and his eyes were moist, but that's as far as he allowed it to go.

We had another cup of coffee while we talked about the gallery and where it should be in Cleveland - it seems he was more than familiar with the city, he had grown up there!

The talk went on through breakfast and on through what was left of the morning and finally it got around to us.

"Did we plan this?" Angelo asked. I was now using his real name.

"Sure, if you want to look at it that way, we planned it. What are we going to do about it?"

"What do you think you might want to do about it?" Angelo sounded shy.

"I think I want to go on as we've started last night and today. Of course, I don't know. But that's the way I'm thinking at the moment." I said with total honesty.

"So am I." Angelo said. "God knows I like you." He stopped and looked emotional again. Italians! "You're so goddamned beautiful without your legs and your whole person, your soul, is so goddamned beautiful. I don't think I can stand it, but life without you I couldn't stand either."

"One day at a time," I said and had the feeling I was quoting something. "And we've got today ahead of us, still." I started rolling toward the bedroom. "Back to the drawing board," I said over my shoulder. Angelo followed.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in each other's arms talking about futures - his and mine.

That evening we had dinner with Tom and the next day I drove back to Cleveland.

Within the week I had located and rented a space ideal for a gallery and had workmen in there refurbishing the place and an electric company designing lighting. Angelo and I were on the phone daily, of course.

The following month I got back to see him and Tom and he had crated his pictures and they were

ready to ship when the gallery was finished down to the last item.

Two months after opening, the gallery is a success and most of Angelo's paintings have been purchased and got tremendous notice in the papers, including the New York Times, and that has brought us a flood of other American painters who want to sell. Two museums bought five of his pictures, so he was really launched. He quit his piano job and moved to Cleveland and I bought a new house, and had it made into a wheelchair user's heaven, and added a studio for Angelo and there the two of us live happily, and I know it'll be forever after.

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