Violin Lessons

"I don't know," Adrienne said, "He's nice enough I guess."

"He's a sweet guy," said Jill emphatically, "You should move things along."

As Adrienne'd sat in her car on the street in front of the row of townhouses, Rafael Monetti's was the end unit, she'd thought, "There's no sweetness here. I'm going to drive home."

Now, standing in his living room, amid the litter of music, looking down at the floor, anywhere but at Rafael, her mind was empty. "If he would just play the violin," she thought, "I'd remember why I'm here."

"Undress," he repeated, then when she still hesitated, "If you have trouble with such simple instructions, you will make a hopeless student."

"Listen," he said, "This is an easy thing. How many items do you have on? Jeans, underpants, I see you're wearing a bra, shirt. Four and if you count the sandals, six. This should present no challenge."

She pulled her beige t-shirt over her head. She wore a pale pink sports bra. She hesitated, then with an easy shrug of her upper body she pulled it over her head. She looked at him to see what effect she had on him. Her stomach was pretty flat and her waist nicely narrowed. Her breasts were of a size to fit comfortably into a man's cupped hands. They made almost no concessions to gravity.

He sipped his coffee without expression.

She took a breath and held it. She undid her jeans and pulled them and her white underpants down her tapered thighs over her knees and let them puddle about her feet. She relaxed her toes and stepped off her sandals and out of the clutter of cloth and stood facing him, eyes lowered. Her face flamed red. She put a hand between her legs.

"Hold your arms out and look at me," he told her.

She bit her lip. She realized she was still holding her breath. She took in a gasp of air. She looked up and met his eyes.

"Arms out. You do seem to have a problem with instructions."

She bared her sex and raised her arms. She stared at him fixedly. With her head up, her sweet ample body was out of her vision. She felt like her nipples and pussy were glowing bright and hot.

"Turn."

She shuffled slowly around. She was stunned by the sight of the outside world through the window. There was her car. There was the row of townhouses on the other side of the street. There was the sun and clouds. A car drove past. "Something should be different out there," she thought.

It was 9:35 in the morning. How could she be standing naked in a stranger's living room? How could she be naked in any living room? It was impossible to imagine, even in her own apartment.

She hoped that it was so bright out there that no one could see in. She hadn't been able to on the way to his door, she thought, nor had she seen in the week before. She'd've turned and run.

"My fee," he said.

She picked up her purse and fumbled out her wallet and took out the money. She'd remembered to stop at an ATM on the way.

"Now your violin," he said.

She bent to open its case. She was intensely aware of how lewd her ass must look with its ample springy cheeks and her sex showing furred between her legs. And her asshole too, all but a couple feet from his eyes.

"I didn't say take it out of its case," he said, when she started to unlatch it. "Carry it and your clothes up the stairs and into the guest bedroom."

She made a bundle of her things and put them under one arm. She picked up the case.

"After you," he said.

As she climbed the stairs, she thought of how her swaying bottom and thighs looked to him. She thought of what they were surely going to do upstairs. She had known he would fuck her. It was one of the things she'd thought of all week. But not that it would happen first, before the lesson.

"I don't want to do this. I won't do this." she thought, but her feet kept taking her up.

At the top, to the left was the railing that looked down upon the living room. A bedroom was in front of her.

"That one," he said.

It was small. A bed, single occupancy, took up most of the space. A dresser stood against one wall. A single of window looked out on a narrow backyard and over a fence to where another property started like a mirror of this one. "Maybe," she thought, "My mirror me is in a bedroom in that mirror townhouse. About to be mirror fucked by a mirror stranger at 9:35 in the mirror morning."

He stepped past her and pulled a sheet off an object she'd taken to be a chest of some kind.

It was not. It was a cage. It sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. It was perhaps 4 feet long and three feet high. Its gray painted metal bars were perhaps four inches apart. It had no flooring. Any animal put into it would lie uncomfortable on the square slats.

"He has a dog?" she thought stupidly.

"Open it and get in," he instructed her.

She gaped at it and then at him. "This is insane," she thought, "I'm going to put on my clothes and get the fuck out of here."

She set her clothes and violin and purse on the floor. She sank onto her knees. She fiddled with the latch and swung the cage's door open. It was going to be a tight squeeze. She wanted her head to be near the cage door so she turned to back in. Like a snail retreating into its shell.

"Other way," he said. He bent and slapped her on the rump. The sound echoed in the tiny room.

Thoroughly shocked and embarrassed she crawled in. She could only crouch. She looked out through the bars with wide stunned eyes.

He bent and latched the cage's door. Its rattling made her feel nauseous and out of breath. If he locked it she would start screaming.

He stood and looked down at her for a minute. His expression was tired.

His doorbell rang and he said, "First student, listen and learn."

He vanished, leaving the bedroom door open. She heard his footsteps on the stairs. She heard the front door open and she heard a murmuring of voices.

She did listen at first. As far as she could tell there was nothing untoward going on with this student. It was all business.

Soon of course it became difficult to pay attention. At first she just imagined cramps and discomfort. The bars beneath her offered pain more imagined than real. Then her weight began to make the bars dig into her flesh and grate against her bones. Her arms and legs began to demand to stretch. Her neck ached. She felt a rising wave of panic. Awkwardly she rolled onto her side. With her knees up to her chin, her back was pushed against the bars behind her.

After maybe an hour, when the door bell rang for the second time, she decided she would work the latch open and squirm out. She imagined the relief it would be to straighten and reach up for the ceiling. Then the relief it would be to dress and rush down the stairs, in plain view of the surprised student and out the door into the hot real world.

She heard the student play a passage, pretty well she thought. She heard him call, "No no no. Stop! These little notes. They're fast and difficult, but they're unimportant. You want to play them exactly and well, like you did, but not like you're showing them off. This note here, this long one. That's the important note. Make a big thing of it, make it sing softly then swell."

He played the passage and she sighed and relaxed. The sound of Bach filled the space. That was why she was hunkered down in the cage.

She regretted stopping at the Dunkin Donuts after the bank. She'd been dallying.

She stuck it out through 2 students.

She heard his footsteps on the stairs. Relief swept over her. It was her turn. What she had been dreading now she desperately looked forward to.

He paused a moment to look at her, not smiling, just contemplating. Then he went to the window. He opened it. There was an influx of real world sounds. A lawnmower, a car, bird and insect sounds, children's shouts.

He slid the screen up. He stood on tiptoe and closed the air conditioning vent in the ceiling. He paused again and regarded her. Then went to the bedroom door.

"Hey," she said, foolishly embarrassed, as what could be more embarassing than her current situation? "Hey, I need to pee."

He left. He closed the door this time.

She felt the heat begin to lap over her.

The first mosquito whined as it circled her. As she squirmed trying to swat it she heard his next pupil start up. She could no longer hear his commentary.

She lost track of time. The heat built and sweat sprang on her forehead and back and under her arms and where her legs were pressed together, folded uncomfortably.

Only the moments when he played, once for 10 minutes while waiting for a late student, only those moments offered any relief.

The thought of Derek sprang into her mind. She choked out a laugh. The question of whether or not to sleep with the guy seemed completely ridiculous.

The need to pee coupled with the heat and the discomfort made it hard to breath, to think of anything but of letting herself out. The sound of his playing was muffled and far too rare.

A mosquito perched on her thigh. She stared at it stupidly. It looked like a tiny oil rig on the Arabian desert. She writhed and swatted it. Her head banged on the cage bars.

The bedroom door opened. He entered, went to the window, slid the screen back down and closed the window. He opened the vent. She immediately felt the welcome reaching fingers of cool dry air.

He stood looking at her a moment. A mosquito landed on his arm. He let it drill a brief moment then he crushed it with his index finger. It left an ample red spill. "Yours I think," he said.

The latch made a metallic chattering sound as he opened it.

"Oh God," she groaned as she awkwardly and painfully extracted herself. Joints that she hadn't noticed when crawling in all but refused to bend as she emerged.

She stood and stretched. She groaned with relief. She saw him admiring her and remembered that she was naked. She flushed and put a hand over her sex.

He laughed and handed her a fly swatter.

"I need to pee," she said, flushing even redder.

"After you deal with the intruders, unless you want them to join us downstairs for your lesson of course."

She hopped to it. It felt great to move about and it distracted her from her need. She got four where they rested on the walls and one on the ceiling. She had to stand on the bed for that. "Die you bastard," she said as she slapped it.

One escaped her and flew annoyingly about.

"Stand still," he ordered.

She did, trembling as she watched the little gray speck laze about the room. He took the instrument of death back from her.

The insect took a frustratingly long time to settle. She watched it whine close then away. She hoped it would swing over to him, but she was of course the one radiating the most vigorously. It landed on her left breast. She shuddered and it lifted off just before the plastic flap slapped her. It vanished around behind her.

"Stand still," he ordered as she started to turn.

He swung the swatter and she felt a sharp pat on her bottom.

He touched her ass and let his hand run up her back and stop halfway up. His fingers probed something and she instantly felt the itch of a bite. "This was a mistake, I think," he said meditatively, "I don't really like the way these little welts look."

"Asshole," she said, then, "I really really need to pee."

"The bathroom is just to the right." he said, opening the bedroom door. "Leave the door open"

She went in and started to close the bathroom door behind her.

"That's the door I meant," he told her.

"Shit, you're going to watch?" she asked, disgusted.

He grinned at her, "Nope. Your lesson proper will start when you come down. Though you know, I really should charge for these five hours too?"

"Good luck collecting," she said.

He grinned and turned and she heard his steps going down the stairs.

Despite her need, it was still hard to release. He could probably hear. Then as she washed her hands she looked at her face in the mirror. What a mess. She hadn't put on that much makeup, but it hadn't fared well. The bit under her eyes had smeared. There were streaks down her cheeks.

She washed her face and ran a comb through her hair and felt much better.

She returned to the bedroom and without looking at the cage, picked up her violin and her little collection of belongings and went down the stairs. She felt she was floating.

He waited, sitting on the piano bench. He sipped from his glass of water and watched her descend.

Sun poured in. It lit the rug and the music stand. She would stand there flaming in light.

Outside was a world of ordinariness. There was the thirty feet of brownish green lawn. There was the dirty white cement of the sidewalk. There was her car. A young kid wobbled by on a bicycle followed by his dad.

She hesitated at the foot of the stairs.

He said, "Close the curtains if you like."

She did and then took out her instrument. He played an A on the piano and the habit of tuning took hold of her.

He offered her a book of studies by Fritz Kreisler.

She had worked through some of them her last year in high school when she'd been at the top of her form.

Things progressed like her lessons of old. He stopped her now and then and made her replay passages. Once he stood behind her and put his arms around her and positioned her left arm and bow arm so it satisfied him. With his breath on her neck and his pants just behind her ass, she was struck by a blow of desire. It was all she could do not to push back against him.

Like her previous teachers, he wrote little notes for her to refer to during the week. Like her previous teachers he wrote them on yellow stickies. Unlike them, after writing each reminder, the page and measure number noted, he slid a safety pin through the stiff yellow paper.

The first time she watched this without comprehending.

He brought the bright yellow sticky with its pin to her. He pinched the top of her right breast and slid the pin through her pinched flesh. She bobbed at the shock and the sting. He pushed the point back through the paper and fastened the pin.

When both breasts where cluttered, he started on her bottom.

At a quarter to five he said, "You know what you need to work on for next week?"

She looked at him, her mouth open, her tongue touched her lip. Whether she was coming back or not was completely beside the point.

He said, "Dress. Your lesson's over."

When she still stood there he said, "You really have troubles with simple instruction."

"You aren't going to, going to," she couldn't manage to say it.

"Fuck you? I hadn't planned on it."

"For God's sake," the words burst out of her. Need had been swelling in her since he'd put his arms around her. She felt almost insane. "For God's sake please."

"Please what?"

"For God's sake will you please fuck me."

He sat a minute watching her. Maybe he couldn't get it up, she thought, maybe that was his problem.

She felt so wild that she figured she'd be rubbing her pussy with the back of her violin bow in a second. That would give him a show.

He said, "Put away your violin then lean over and grab your ankles."

Her eyes widened. She wanted him to take her upstairs or push the litter of music on the couch onto the floor.

"I despair," he said, "There's no chance you'll be able to follow any of my carefully written instructions."

She bent. She nestled her violin into its case, latched the bow beside it, closed the lid. Then she gripped her ankles. Her ass waved in his direction, "a distress beacon" she thought.

He stood behind her. From her position she saw his pants fall down his legs. His thighs were white. She saw his balls and his penis, still half limp. A lewd plant in a hedge of black growth. He rubbed it and ran its satisfyingly stiffening trunk between her ass cheeks.

She pushed her bottom back against him in her need. "Shit," she complained when half of the twenty or so little notes were jostled and stung her anew.

"Oh!" she cried and her eyes widened at the sensation of him running himself up into her. He gripped the bones of her hips to steady her. Each time he rammed in, she had to shift her feet to keep herself up. Each time she had to bear the pain of the pins. "God oh God oh God" she cried when she came. She went limp and would've slumped to the ground, but he still held her hips. He banged against her twice more. She was little more than a rag doll being shaken in some child's game. She felt him pulse within her and felt liquid oozing down her thighs.

After a moment he pulled out and supported her until she could stand.

"Though the lesson has run over, I won't charge you extra," he said.

She laughed weakly, "That's nice of you."

She dressed, being careful of the notes when she pulled on her underpants and bra.

She stepped onto her flipflops and picked up her violin.

"You have the music at home?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. It had been at our house, but I had insisted she take the 3 boxes when she moved in with Jill. "Recycle it if you can't stand the clutter," I'd said. Jill had bitched about the boxes but Adrienne'd not been able bring herself to get rid them.

"Too bad," Rafael sighed. "I was hoping to sell you a copy."

"Next week?" she asked.

"Same time, 9:30," he said.

In her car, she said "Shit". While it idled and the air conditioning struggled to overcome the oven the sun had created, she called Derek.

"Look," she said, "I'm really sorry, I don't feel well. A stomach bug. I'm gonna have to cancel."

His voice said more than a little angrily, "Adrienne, I'm at your apartment."

"Oh," she said, then, "Look Derek. I'm sorry. This just isn't working for me. I don't want to go out with you again."

She hung up. She looked at the phone. She felt the car vibrating as it idled. She felt the discomfort of all the little yellow notes she couldn't see, hidden beneath her clothes. "Memos that can't be read and can't be forgotten" she thought. She looked back across the browning lawn at the townhouse.

She called me.

"Hey Dad," she said.

"Hey yourself," I said. I've always been pleased to hear her from her.

She relaxed.

"Where are you?" she asked, as she usually did, it always excited her when I said I was like in Singapore or Dubai or someplace.

"New Delhi," I said.

"Really?"

"And Mumbai tomorrow."

"Why isn't it called 'Mumbai the city formerly known as Bombay'?"

"Don't know. It's really late here you know."

"Sorry. I just wanted to tell you I've started taking lessons again."

"That's great! Who from?"

"Rafael Monetti like I told you I would that night."

"I thought that would blow over."

"Well it didn't, the first lesson went great. I'm stuck with all these instructions of his and you wouldn't believe how much it hurts to start playing after a such long hiatus."

"You've made me quite happy."

"Practicing is a pain though, Dad, that roommate of mine told me to stop after five minutes. Then when she wasn't around the neighbors complained. That apartment has walls of paper. You know what I'm doing? I've been going back to the office. At 7 it's just the cleaning crew and they don't care. It's like a concert hall of cubes."

She didn't mention that that Thursday night, to see what it would be like at her lesson, at 10 when the building was deserted, she'd stripped and then played through a Bach violin sonata.

"How's that boyfriend of yours?" I asked with audible lack of enthusiasm.

"Oh he's ancient history."

"I'm a happy man. Your mother goes on about that guy but I'm not a fan."

"Don't tell Mom, I'm not feeling strong enough to deal with her at the moment."

I laughed and agreed and we hung up.

She drove home feeling happier.

------------------------------------

Wednesday, at work, Rafael called her cell. She was checking the supply of sodas in the office refrigerator.