He awoke with the remnants of a dream. He remembered it being dark with the distant rumble of thunder. The storm slowly came closer and the curtains on the open windows fluttered in the wind. He could hear the sound of the wind in the fir trees near his home. Now he heard the sound of big fat drops of rain on the ground outside his window, the beginning of a deluge. The rain was insistent then slowly faded as it moved on. Slowly the thunder faded as well, leaving him wondering what it was all about. It was not the first time he had such a dream, if anything he seemingly had them more frequently. But he remembered none of them fully, he always awoke wondering what it meant.

Otherwise his humdrum life of programming for a conglomerate moved on one day at a time. He shared a small two-bedroom apartment with a slob who was always leaving it messy and dirty with clothes strewn about and dishes piled in the sink. His mundane job was uninteresting and unfulfilling. In all, it was a nothing life.

His friend Darrin texted him a url which announced a concert being given in an obscure hall in town. No one seemed to know much if anything about the pianist, a woman. There was a brief mention online of people lining up for tickets. On a lark, mainly to distract him from his life, he sought out this theater. There was a line, one that seemed to stretch around the building. Shortly after he had joined the line it began to move, much quicker than he was used to or expected.

He reached the ticket window, stood there for a moment and was handed a ticket. “What does it cost?” he asked the woman behind the window.

“Nothing, it’s Free“

Mystified, he walked away. He looked around for information. Outside the theater there was no advertising, nothing to let you know what was happening. He looked at his ticket, a purple piece of paper with the date of the event and a number, his being ten. How was that possible? There had certainly been many more people ahead of him in that line. He put the ticket in his wallet, remembering the date and time.

On that day he joined a group of people waiting to get in. The doors opened and people streamed in. It was a very small theater, one he had never been in. On the stage was a piano and a stool, otherwise it was bare. At exactly seven a slight woman appeared on stage dressed in a black floor length gown that hugged her figure. She sat at the piano and the lights dimmed to near darkness. There was sound in the distance, which he realized was an approaching storm.

There seemed to be speakers everywhere as the walls and floor rumbled as well. Then there was the sound of wind in the trees, the crack of lightening followed by the rumble of thunder. It seemingly grew closer and closer and it was joined by the sound of the piano. Barely heard at first, the sound of the piano grew louder and louder, rhapsodizing with the thunder which now dominated the theater. There was a dissonance between the two that assaulted the senses.

Then there was the sound of the first drops of rain glancing off the ground outside and the dissonance faded to a sublime piano solo. He realized he had heard this before but had no idea of where. He closed his eyes and just listened to the piano solo, the sound of the rain, the rumble of the thunder. The sound waxed and waned as it surrounded him, a veritable treat for the senses. He was bathed in sound which created a new feeling, an undefined longing. He lost any sense of time, just lost in the sounds that filled the theater. In time he realized it was passing and the sounds of thunder and lightning moved away into the distance and faded away.

There was silence for a moment, followed by a haunting melody from the pianist that filled the theater with a delicate sound after all the hue and cry of the storm from before, then silence again returned with the house lights slowly rising. The pianist was gone, a wisp in the wind. He glanced at his watch and realized over ninety minutes had passed. As people slowly filed out there was quiet conversation as people tried to describe what they had heard and felt. He reached the lobby and realized there was no booth selling copies of the pianist’s music.

“Where do I get the soundtrack?” he asked the man next to him.

“You don’t,” was the reply. “There has never been a recording of any of her music. It’s just in your head.”

“I want to hear it again. When’s the next concert?” he asked.

The man gave him a URL. “Watch this site. Her next concert will be announced there. This was my tenth show. I’ve traveled all around as each is announced. You could say I’m hooked on it. It’s a feeling unlike any other. I just want more, to the detriment of other aspects of my life. I hear it in my dreams, I find myself humming it, it’s just haunting me. It grows after each performance, something about it filling my senses with light and sound washing away my concerns.”

At home he prepared for bed and lay down. He realized that it was in his dreams that he had heard those sounds. He tried to sleep but was too wound to fall asleep. He listened to other music, watched some terrible streaming show and drank steadily. He fell asleep on the couch, his head tilted back, his mouth open.

The next day brought memories of the music, it would rise and fall throughout the day, distracting him from his work of programming. This continued for weeks until his obsessive search of her site yielded a date and place of her next concert. It was three hundred miles away so he made flight arrangements and found a hotel room.

The day arrived and he was able to get a ticket, this one marked nine. The second performance was as sublime as the first. He recognized a couple of people from the last concert. They huddled together, sharing the moment. He found out her name was Portia Raimundo. There was no mention of her online, not even fan sites. There were occasional concerts and nothing else. Trying to get closer to her, he stood on the corner of the theater hoping to catch a glimpse of her as she left. After waiting over an hour he gave up. The theater door was still open so he went back inside. The stage was empty, the piano gone. It’s as if she had never been there.

At the hotel he wandered down to the bar and joined that group of tortured souls. A woman walked in and looked around before sliding onto the bar seat next to him. He turned and said hello.

“Good to see you, Jamie,” was her reply.

How did she know him? He was in a strange town, in a nothing bar sitting by himself. He wracked his brain trying to place her in his memory.

“You saw me at the concert,” she said as if reading his mind.

He had a complete blank. “Since you know my name, I should have yours.”

Instead of answering she said, “how about we have this conversation in your room,”

He gladly left with her, his erection at half mast already. Once coats were shed, he could see her more clearly. She was slim with minor curves at breast and hip. Other than the face you might think her a girl just beginning to bud a figure. The face, with her mane of brown hair, her luminous brown eyes and beautiful smile was definitely that of a woman.

“How do you know me.”

“We met at the concert,” was her enigmatic reply. His next question was silenced as she began to kiss him. The only sounds were those of clothes being discarded, kisses exchanged and sucks of his now fully erect cock followed by the sounds of two bodies on the bed, the rhythmic sounds of flesh on flesh, the slap of two bodies together. They were breathing hard as the excitement built and built to a wondrous Orgasm, a release of everything. Then there was the sound of two people tangled together breathing slowly in a deep sleep.

He awoke alone in his bed the next morning. There was no evidence of his liaison with the woman at the bar. They had come to his room, he was sure. He could remember how she felt, the noises she made, the excitement of her Orgasm and he of his. It was real he thought to himself, at least it felt real. Surely no dream could be that vivid.

He returned home and resumed his life. He felt detached from his friends and from work, realizing he and only he had experienced her music. It set him apart. Conversely it was as if he was seen for the first time, his invisible life had come crashing down. People, especially women, would talk to him unbidden. Over the next year he attended six more concerts, visiting Miami, Charleston, Portland, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and Little Rock.The music resonated in his mind and body. He remembered the guy from the first concert who said he was addicted. He smiled as he thought the same of himself. The music and the memories made his life livable.

He was informed his grandmother had died and left him an inheritance. He wondered how they found him. His parents died when he was in college and he was an only child. It was a mystery. He splurged and moved to a fully furnished apartment with a rounded wall of glass overlooking the lake. It was extravagant to be sure but it somehow felt right. He sold most of his belongings and donated the rest. His clothes and assorted photos were his only possessions. He had a steady stream of companions.

The AvantMusik site announced another concert, this one in Los Angeles. That was halfway across the country yet he made the journey. The music again spoke to him and he, as was now his want, immersed himself in it. Almost immediately after that another was announced for Chicago, his hometown. His ticket was a one. As he waited, he pulled out the other tickets in his wallet. He had kept them to remind him of the experiences. They had started at ten and decreased by one with each concert. He had great anticipation and experienced it yet again for the tenth time. It spoke to him, called to him. He could see clearly, understanding great truths.

He had one drink at the bar on the corner across from his building. It was a quiet night and Jimmie the bartender was actually standing still instead of being a perpetual motion machine. He was quietly contemplating the universe through the lens of the music he had heard over the last year. He could remember whole sections of it now, in one instance hearing two sections connect together in his mind. Someone sat on the bar stool next to him. He turned and was struck by her resemblance to someone he had known. She had eyes you just wanted to fall into together with an amazing smile.

“Hello, Jamie. How are you?”

‘I’ve heard that voice before, I just can’t remember where,’ he said to himself. “Where have we met before?”

“It was at Little Rock,” she replied. “Can we talk in your apartment instead of a bar?”

It was the second time this year that he had been picked up at a bar. As he puzzled on that the elevator rose to the thirty sixth floor. There were only two doors in the elevator lobby and he waved his card at the lock and it snapped back, allowing him to push it open and they walked in. This woman, unlike any he had brought here before didn’t ooh and ahh over the wall of glass and the view of the lake from his living room. She just turned to him and said, “make Love to me.”

Ten minutes later he was naked on his bed, flat on his back as the woman rode his cock. She was a woman in every sense: long legs, flat stomach, large globular breasts with little pink nipples and curves galore. She also had a Pussy that pulled you in like it never wanted you to leave. Fucking her was incredible, her muscles gripping his cock as she rose and fell on top of him. He could see the signs of an impending Orgasm on her as he also felt his Orgasm coming soon. He fucked her as hard and fast as he could then she put her finger to her lips and went “shhh.” Now he heard the music but louder than before, spreading into every part of his body. He was still fucking her but heard no sound other than the music. Something clicked for him as he heard the music as if for the first time. He climbed and climbed to the best Orgasm of his life as his soul rose and left his body.

_____________________

“This is the way I found him,” Carlos said to the cop. “He paid in advance with a direct deposit from his bank account. Never late, no problems, a perfect tenant. Then his direct deposit bounced. I called, I texted, I emailed and finally came knocking on his door. With no response I opened the door, walked in and saw his body just as you see it. I beat feet back to the entryway and called you.”

“Doc, when did he die?”

“I don’t know. There is no decay, no smell. Just nothing. Did someone put him in this position? Did he crawl naked onto the exact middle of the bed, lay on his back, fold his hands together and then just die? I’ll do the autopsy and I hope I find out why his body didn’t decay.”

“How long since the direct deposit bounced?”

“I called a couple of times right after that. After twenty days I really began trying to contact him.”

Edwards turned to his new partner, “get with this guy and comb through his application to find out where he worked. Call them to see how long he’s not been going to work.”

“Got it. Come on, buddy, let’s go to your office.”

Three days passed before Jacobson told him, “I called his work, he ghosted the place eight months ago.”

“So he stopped working eight months ago, the direct deposit for his rent drained his account, then it bounced and twenty days later Carlos is knocking on the door. I got a warrant to see his bank account: there’s been no activity other than the rent payment until it went negative. His debit card has no activity nor does his credit card.”

“Call Carlos and have him go through the security tapes. When was the last activity? Have him start about eight months ago.”

A few days later Jacobson called. “Hey, Dave, Carlos could do an elevator search by floor. He found his last activity on the tapes as May 10. The elevator tape shows him alone in the car at 12:04. His key card opened the door at 12:05.” For the four months before that, the elevator tapes show his leaving for work and usually coming home around midnight. He was always alone. It turns out Carlos is a voyeur and checks the elevator tapes for hanky panky. He said the guy was a babe magnet then it slowly dwindled to nothing.”

“Doc says no hair, no semen, no nothing. Said he’s completely clean like he’s been vacuumed. Other than the hair on his head there’s not a hair on him. Absolutely smooth.”

“So we have a death but no decay, no time of death but anecdotal evidence from some time between May 10 to when we found him. His autopsy is clean, no drugs anywhere.”

“Doc says one of the techs, a guy named Jason, has tried to find anything, been snooping around.”

“Nobody’s claimed the body. HR at his work gave us contact numbers but nobody answers.”

“This is too weird, this one is going to cold case.”

___________________________

Jason and his buddy Michael were at the bar celebrating the end of another week. “I heard about a concert and got a ticket to it but now I can’t go. I heard it’s unlike any other. You want the ticket, Jason?”

Jason took the slip of paper with a date and a number on it. “Sure, I’ll take it, text me the location.” The date was in a week. He said to himself, ‘I wonder what ten means?’