

| "The Piper" by Aspire © 2004 by Aspire, All Rights Reserved |
| He plays all year long at various venues. He plays other instruments as well as the bagpipes. He was recently involved in creating a couple of albums. One was with a rap artist who wanted the celtic sound of the pipes as background in his music. The other was an old fashioned fiddle and pipe album that will be out in time for Maritime Christmas shoppers to purchase. I wonder if John even knows I’m here this year? Likely he has seen me in rehearsals, as we have to dance up and down through the rows of the pipe band in one number. He won’t acknowledge me though. I don’t know if I want him to. Ah, there he is now. He’s doing the solo for Amazing Grace. A hush fills the Metro Center as the lone piper stands in the spotlight playing the old favorite. Thunderous applause greets his last lingering note. I’m applauding too. For me, John will always be the essence of the Tattoo. |
| The skirl of the pipes could be heard in front of us, somewhere beyond the closed doors. I turned around from chatting to a fellow dancer behind me, faced front, prepared to make an entrance. This was the Nova Scotia International Tattoo. It takes place every year and draws very large audiences for every performance. I’ve been dancing in it for the past five years. Why do I keep returning? I’m not sure. It’s the only highland dancing I do these days. I know only one or two of my friends ever drop in to watch the show. It’s not their sort of thing at all. Here we go. The International Tattoo has hundreds of performers. If you add them to the number of crew and volunteers, it comes out at several thousand people to put on this show every summer. I guess I like being one of them. I can see John with the pipe and drum band from the Gaelic College in Cape Breton. He comes here every year to play his bagpipes, just like I keep coming to dance. The difference is that John is a professional performer. |
| John and I met the first year I became involved with the Tattoo. I’d seen him around at the highland dance festivals playing for some of the competitions, but I had never met him. My first year here, each dancer was paired with a piper for a number. John was my assigned partner. At his suggestion we met off-site to practice a few times. I was soon hooked on John. For the duration of the rehearsals, as well as the shows themselves, we were always together. In fact, the whole summer became a whirl of music and dance and John. I remember the first time I realized John didn’t wear anything under his kilt. I was astounded, then thrilled to share his secret. How did I find out? That first year after the premier show, the whole cast had come off the floor. We were milling around waiting for the directors. They’d told us they wanted to speak to everyone after the first performance, so no one dared to leave. The center had a large backstage area but with so many performers plus props for the show, we were crowded in like the proverbial can of sardines. I found myself pressed up against John, as the crowd stood chatting and waiting. He had slung his pipes up over his shoulder. Someone, from some where behind me gave a push. I found my breasts squashed against John’s chest. He put one arm around me and held me tight, even after the crush had eased a bit. I suddenly became aware of a bulge between us. Looking up, my eyes met John’s. He grinned. “See what rubbing against you has done for me!” He reached his arm down, moving my hand over the plaid tent. That’s when I realized he wasn’ t wearing any briefs. My face must have shown the shock I felt. John laughed at me. “Come over here.” I followed him as he led me into a dark corner, away from the crush of people. “Put your hand in there.” He reached down, pushing my hand under the flap in the front of his kilt. My fingers touched his velvety hardness and I gasped. He felt huge. I looked around quickly to see if anyone was noticing, but they were all gathered around to hear the directors now. I squeezed gently, slid my hand up and down his cock. John leaned back against the wall with his eyes closed. “If you keep doing that, I’m going to come,” he whispered. I took that as a challenge and kept doing it. I increased the pace, tightened my grip on him. In a matter of moments hot come was running down over my fingers. I eased my hand out from under his kilt, licking each finger dry, grinned up at him. “I think we need a room,” said John. “I’ve got a sort of bed-sit for the summer, down by the harbor. It’s not beautiful but it’s private.” “Great,” said John, “I’m sharing two rooms with three other guys. There’s no such thing as privacy. 'Lead on, McDuff!'.” We skirted around the edge of the crowd and were soon outside. I took a couple of deep breaths of the fresh air. It was good to be out of melee. I wasn’t one for big crowds. I turned around to find John right behind me, still carrying his pipes. We laughed and joked as we walked down the hill to my room. We were still on the high that comes with a performance well done. I unlocked the door of the old house. We climbed the two sets of stairs to my ‘away from home’ room for the summer. John put his pipes on the dresser while I managed two cold Keiths from the bar-sized fridge. A dresser, an old armchair, the fridge and bed completed the contents of the room. John took a long a pull on his beer then sat on the edge of the bed beside me. He took off his braid-trimmed jacket and kicked off his brogues, while looking around at the room. “Not bad at all, you know. You’re lucky. My place is a dive compared to this. The other three guys are real losers. I envy you the privacy.” I should have been listening to the words but I wasn’t. My mind was busy remembering the feel of his cock in my hand. I couldn’t wait for that kilt to come off. I didn’t know it, then, but I would pay for my lack of attention to his reaction to my room. “Hey, I didn’t invite you here to spend what’s left of the evening perusing my décor.” John laughed and put his beer down. He leaned in, kissed me hard, his tongue probing, first gently, and then demanding. I was only too happy to respond. It’s amazing when I think back to that night, just how turned on I was by that one kiss. I was by no means a virgin. I’d had my share of guys, but I was no match for John and he knew it. I was the one who didn’t know. I stood up in front of John. While he finished his beer, I slowly took off my highland outfit. First, I unfastened the buttons on the green velvet vest. When I took it off, John reached up, caressing my breasts through the thin white cotton of the lace-trimmed blouse. I could see my nipples standing up to attention. I was proud of their response to him. I pulled the tail of the blouse out of the waistband of my kilt and began unbuttoning what seemed like endless little buttons. John brushed my hand away, finishing the buttons for me. He opened the blouse and traced the outline of my nipples through the white satin bra. I shivered at his touch. He smiled up at me from the side of the bed. I tossed the blouse with the vest onto the armchair, and unfastened the waistband of my kilt. It dropped to the floor, leaving me standing in my cotton briefs. I stepped out of the kilt and draped it carefully over the back of the chair. “Girl, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” I remember those words, his exact words, that first night. I blushed with pride that he found me attractive, that he was so pleased with what he saw. More fool me, I was to learn later. John stretched out on the bed. He moved over to the center to make some room for me. I climbed across his legs and sat straddling his thighs, his kilt bunched up beneath me. I could feel the wool fabric of the plaid under me. What I wanted to feel was that cock. John’s fingers rubbed the crotch of my panties. “Lord, girl, you’re wet. Is that all for me?” I nodded my head. Speech eluded me for the moment. What do you say to a virtual stranger in response to that question? All the advice my mother had given me before I left for the big city that summer didn’t begin to cover this situation, and I didn’t care. I was a big girl, with big girl needs. I could take care of myself. This was my party. My time to play. I leaned over John, unbuttoning his shirt as he unfastened the clip on the front of my bra. I wriggled my arms out of the straps and he threw it over the side of the bed. John lifted his hips so I could work his shirt out of the waistband of his kilt. I stared down at his naked chest. He had one nipple pierced. I gently pulled on the ring. It was the first time I’dseen one, except for pictures of rock stars. “Doesn’t that hurt?” “No, it feels really good.” I looked down into his eyes as he replied. I saw there a knowledge of the world that I knew I didn’t have. I was thrilled by it, knowing he was so much more experienced than the boys I’d fooled around with before. I should have been wary, but instead I was horny. I moved off him, unbuckling the two clasps on the kilt. Again he raised his hips while I stood up beside the bed and managed to get it off. It joined my bra on the floor. I peeled-down my panties, stepping out of them. For a moment I stood there looking down at his hard cock and the desire in his face. I climbed back on the bed, once more straddling his hips, his erection standing tall between my thighs. It brushed against my pussy. I reached down and began pumping it as I had backstage. John’ s hand closed over mine and moved it away. “My turn to play,” he said. His fingers opened me, found my clit. I leaned back as far as my bent knees would allow, giving him more access. I wanted those fingers strumming me. Most of all I wanted that cock inside me. “Are you ready for me girl?” In answer I lifted up and sat back down with his cock in my pussy. For a few moments I just sat still. I could feel him twitch inside me. His finger once again found my clit. Finally, feeling my self nearing an orgasm, I brushed his hand aside. I began sliding up and down on that swollen cock. Even now when I see John, that’s one of the things I remember - his cock. It felt so good that night. I don’t think I ever quite recaptured that feeling of the first time he was inside me. Needless to say, we didn’t last very long. My pussy gripped him so tightly I thought he would protest. Instead I felt him spasming inside, and the hot rush of his cum. My pussy rippled over and over in a way I had never experienced before. I felt on top of the world, as if nothing and no one mattered, but the two of us. My thighs were suddenly rubbery. I slowly slid off him. We cuddled up together on the bed. After a few minutes though, I felt John moving around. “What’s wrong?” “Well it’s after midnight. I should really be getting back to my place, such as it is. We have an afternoon performance and an evening one tomorrow. We both need some sleep.” “John, I don’t want you leave. Stay here tonight, with me.” After that there was no more talk, only sleep. Some time in the night I woke to find John hovering above me, his cock hard and pushing against me. Once more our bodies yielded up to the pleasure of cock melding with pussy. The next day John moved in. The two of us shared my room for the whole summer. I never met the three friends he’d spoken about or ever saw the rooms he’d shared with them. I didn’t care. John, the best piper in the whole tattoo and by far the sexiest man in the city by my standards, had chosen me. The rest didn’t matter. I didn’t care that he never seemed to have any money. I paid the rent for the room. I paid for the beer and the meals we ate. What was money, when we were together? After the tattoo was finished, I had a job at the tourist center for the remainder of the summer. John had varying gigs and spent some time in the recording studio as well. One day we had agreed to meet for a pizza at Rosie’s. I arrived there first. I grabbed a table and sat sipping a beer. A couple of the dancers I recognized from the tattoo came over to speak to me for a minute. “So, we hear you’re John’s fling for this summer.” “John and I are together, if that’s what you mean,” I responded, already not liking the sound of this. “You mean you’re John’s meal ticket for this year. I was ‘it’ for last summer. See the blonde over there, she was the one the summer before that. Just thought you should know.” They left and John arrived. When I told him about the conversation he dismissed it. “Yeah, Nancy and I dated a little last summer but she wasn’t my type, not like you. She’s just jealous. Forget it.” I did forget it - that is, until I got back to the room on my last day in the city. I’d already packed up to move home. I’d be taking up a position at the local school in just a few days. I needed to get home, get myself organized. I’d just assumed John would be keeping the room, staying on in the city. I had babbled on a few times about how welcome he would be to visit me. Of course I’d be back in the city every chance I got. I thought life was unfolding as it should. Then he spoke, “Look babe, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way or anything but the summer’s over and so are we. I had a great time. You’re a lot of fun Katy, but I’m not into these long distance things. “Maybe we can get together next year if you come back for the tattoo. Oh yeah, I really appreciate you letting me share the room. Made things a lot easier for me, you know. Have a nice life girl.” The door closed behind him. He was gone. Of course life does march on. I got over John eventually, when I stopped feeling so stupid and embarrassed at how easily I’d been taken in. I knew I wasn’t the only one. I used to think we should form a group, all John’s ex-girls, maybe call ourselves “The Used Girls Club.” Now I just watch from a distance, appreciate the musical talent, and feel sorry for the man. THE END Copyright 2004, by Aspire All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or in part without written permission from the author. |