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Violin Lessons

By: Sillyman



"No, no, no. Keep your arm up and your back straight. Posture is everything." Sarah had heard this so many times today she just wanted to cry. The violin quivered in her fingers. Mr. Lions looked over at her, then closed his eyes while running his hand down his face. He sighed. 

"I suppose this is enough for today. You seem overly tired." He sighed again, and began to pack his own violin in it's black case. 

Sarah watched him sadly. She so loved the violin. She had been taking lessons since she was 15, and after three years of practice, she was actually quite good. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hold a candle to a virtuoso like Mr. Lions. The way he drew the bow made her shiver, as did the way he could make his instrument cry and sing under his delicate touch. He moved so gracefully, like a cat dreamily curling up for a nap. Even now as he packed up, he moved with a fluid grace. He stopped for a moment and looked into her eyes.

"Does something about me interest you Miss Helens?" He said coolly, raising an eyebrow at her. Sarah realized she had been staring at him and quickly looked down. Suddenly her cheeks seemed unbearably hot. "Sometimes I wonder if you are cut out to play the violin at all and if I'm not wasting my time," He half muttered to himself.

Sarah looked up sharply. "Oh no, please Mr. Lions! I love violin more than I love anything else in the world! Please!"

"Really?" There was that look again. Sarah suppressed a shiver.

"Yes, really. Maybe I just need some more practice? Everyone says I have talent, even my Mom. You can't just let that go to waste can you?" 

Mr. Lions smiled. One of Mr. Lion's smiles was like looking into the face of a faintly amused panther. "There may be something I can do. Would your parents be agreeable to letting me teach you at my home tonight? I have better materials and acoustics there anyway." he said quietly.

"You would do that? I mean, really? For me? Thank You! I'm, I'm honored. I don't know what to say..." Sarah immediately started to babble until Mr. Lions placed a finger against her lips and shushed her.

"It will cost a little more. After all, my time is valuable. But since your parents are more than likely counting on you getting an artistic scholarship, I'm sure they will more than understand. Now I must be going. The school will be closing in an hour anyway." Mr. Lions neatly placed his sheet music into his briefcase, and then with a smile and a wave left the small dingy high school music room. 

Sarah sighed. It was like a dream come true. Alone and in private with Mr. Lions. He was so cool. She almost felt like a different person around him. Everyone else always talked about how dry he was, but Sarah knew he must have some passion built up within him to be able to play the way he did. She had had a crush on him for the longest time, although she would certainly never admit it to her friends. After all, he was, like, old. He must have been at least 30. 

Sarah drove home and told her parents about Mr. Lions generous offer. Her mom brushed her aside and went back to her paper work. Her father grinned and almost began telling the story of how his grandfather had played the violin for President, but Sarah managed to escape in time to avoid her father butchering what might have been an interesting anecdote. She went to her room. She looked at her self in the mirror.

There she was. She was too fat. Sarah sighed at her uncooperative body. She had been trying to lose weight recently, but meeting with only limited success. She teased a her hair and sighed. There was just no way of getting the straight black mop too do anything interesting. She twiddled with the ends, wondering if she had them cut too short. Still, even if her body wasn't the best, she could still try to look sexy for Mr. Lions. Sarah barely understood why she wanted to, but began to rummage in her closet anyway. She slid out of her jeans and T-shirt and put on a black miniskirt and a white blouse. She looked at herself again. She looked almost classy. Sarah smiled. She threw her panties in the dirty clothes and went to finds a fresh pair. She searched through her underwear drawer several minutes. Socks, socks, socks, that vibrator she stole from Mom, more socks...No underwear made itself apparent. Sarah sighed and moved to retrieve the underwear she had worn.

The she had a thought. A wicked smile crept over Sarah's face.

Sarah looked in the mirror. As long as she kept her legs a certain way, the skirt was just long enough to conceal her lack of panties. Sarah smiled again, and flashed herself in the mirror. She laughed and then went downstairs, carefully avoiding her parents so as to not have to answer any uncomfortable questions about her clothes.

Sarah drove up into Mr. Lion's driveway. He had a beautiful house in the historical district. Sarah walked up to the door and rang the bell. 

Mr. Lion's answered the door. He had changed too. Rather than the suit he wore to school, he was just wearing a white dress shirt and a pair of simple black pants. His long hair which he normally kept bound was loose and hung like a thick gold mane. He smiled warmly.

"Come in, Sarah." He said, and waved her into the house. Sarah followed staring at him. She could see muscle through that shirt. Mr. Lions must work out at least some. He moved with such grace and power, even when he was just crossing the living room. He was tall and while not broadly built, conveyed a sense of big shoulders that merely need to be expected, not actually exist. He turned and looked at her, with his eyebrow raised.

"Am I really so fascinating a subject Sarah?" He said with a warm smile. Sarah tried to look down, but he walked up to her and took her chin in his hands. "No. Look at me. If you let your awe of me over come you, you will never be my equal." 

Sarah felt like her body was on fire. Mr. Lions backed up and continued. 

"I notice things, Sarah. I notice the way you look at me while I'm teaching. The way you stare. The way your fingers move. The way you breathe. I'm not an unobservant man. I've watched you, and I know you have the capacity for greatness. You are holding yourself back." He said matter-of-factly. "What you need is more self control. What you need is a little more...discipline." He stared hard into her eyes as he said it, and Sarah felt the words like leather gloves running over her body. 

"The first thing you need is to acknowledge this discipline. You will not call me Mr. Lions. You will call me Master. Do you understand?"

Sarah gulped. "Um, okay."

"Say, `Yes Master'." 

"Yes, Master" Sarah said, almost choking on her words.

"Now the second thing we must work on is your posture. Stand here," He demanded. Sarah walked over to the spot. Mr. Lion's then went over to the piano stool nearby and pulled out a length of rope. He bent down at Sarah's legs, and wordlessly began to tie them together. Sarah's breath grew shallow and ragged as she felt the cool silk rope twine itself around her legs. Mr. Lions tie the rope together at her waist, then handed her her violin and bow and picked up his own. 

"Now play as I do." He moved his legs together and drew the bow across the strings slowly. Sarah copied him almost perfectly. He then went a note higher. Sarah copied him again. He went higher again. Sarah copied him with some effort. He then went much higher, and Sarah tried desperately to copy him, but the note was impure. 

Mr. Lions walked behind her and grabbed her hair. "Keep you head like this," he said coolly, without a trace of force in his voice but with an iron grip on Sarah's hair. "Now, C, G, A, B," Sarah accidentally hit D instead, and suddenly felt a sharp whap on her thigh as Lions struck her sharply with his bow. Sarah gasped. She wiggled uncontrollably, and was rewarded with another whap on the thigh, this one harder. Sarah gasped again but this time stayed still. "Now, C, A, D," she heard whispered in her ear. His breathe was hot. Sarah continued trying to hit each note as he said it, but was whacked every time she was off. Soon she was whacked when she wasn't fast enough. The whacks were growing into a steady tempo as the notes rattled on. Large red welts began to appear on her thighs. Sarah could not help wiggling, which only brought more whacks. As she wiggled, her skirt began to ride further and further up. She made a move as if to pull it down again, but Lions pulled her hair back sharply. She resumed her playing. Soon her skirt ridden up so high that her cunt and butt were completely exposed, and the fabric had wedged itself into the rope. Sara felt absolutely humiliated, but the idea of being naked in front of Mr. Lions turned her on immensely. 

"E, F, G, A," he panted into her ear. The notes were getting higher, and the tension of the strings was cutting into her fingers. Suddenly she felt Mr. Lions' bow move down between her legs as he rubbed it hard back and forth against her cunt. 

"OH!" Sarah yelled, and almost fell over. She quickly recovered. The notes were coming higher now. She did her best to concentrate on her bow throughout the enormous pleasure she was feeling. Sarah grit her teeth as she drove out each note. Lion's rubbed the bow faster. The pain in her fingers was burning, but she could hardly feel it. The notes began to escalate, soon reaching a fevered pitch. Sarah played faster and faster, torn between wishing to block the hellish pain or the agonizing pleasure. Her bow flew across the strings, shrieking out in the fury she wished she could voice herself. The violin cried and sang as the pitch grew. Sarah shuddered, and with one final stroke, her body burning for release, she pulled the bow to release an orgasmic pitch. Her body shook violently as orgasm overtook her, and she fell to the floor in a heap. Soft red liquid poured from her fingers.

Lions was on her in an instant. He brought each bloodied finger to his mouth and sucked it softly. He looked into her eyes again. "Now I am going to fuck you, and not only that, you will beg me to fuck you. Now. Beg." He said, his voice like a velvet caress.

"Please master," Sarah panted, "please fuck me. Please God, fuck me master." Sarah arched her hips off the floor. With a growl Lions pulled off his pants and grabbed her, roughly shoving his cock into her from behind. 

"Oh Yes!" Sarah screamed. "Fuck me master! Please fuck me!" 

Lions began to pound into her hard. Each thrust pressed Sarah's body against the floor. His cock felt huge inside her. His rough hands reached in front of her and grabbed her tits. Sarah moaned. She could feel his hot breath against her neck. 

"God Yes, Oh Holy Fuck Yes," she babbled as the thrusts quickened even further. Sarah desperately pushed back to meet his hard thrusts. Sarah began to scream, and her voice joined the deep throated growl of Mr. Lions and the smack of there flesh meeting as one. 

"Oh God Holy Fuck Yes," Sarah cried. 

Mr. Lions growled. "Now my beautiful slut, I want you to come for me. I want you to come for your master. I want you to scream it out as your cunt squeezes me." He grabbed her hair. "Do it for your master. Show me you are mine. Now." and with that he kissed her hard and full. 

"MASTER I'M COMING FOR YOU!" Sarah shook with orgasm, thrashing against her bond screaming. Lions held her head as her entire body shook and spasemed. The pleasure was almost painful with it's intensity. Slowly, her orgasm subsided, and Lion's withdrew his cock. 

"Now you will finish me off my little bella forte," he said, and thrust his cock into Sarah's mouth, which she hungrily accepted. Lions slowly groaned as Sarah sucked him faster and faster, desperate to do anything to please her wonderful new master. Her tongue slide across the salty shaft as she sucked her juices from him. Lions began to thrust his hips against her as he pulled her head down onto his cock, almost gagging her. "Oh, my god, oh my god, OH MY GOD," Lions shouted as a thick torrent of cum shot down Sarah's throat. Sarah gulped hungrily at it.

Lions bent to kiss her. Sarah smiled up at him. 

"Thank you Master."

"Please, call me John. Now when should we schedule the next music lesson?"

Violin Lessons



"Come with me my beloved and we'll soar beyond the moon."

"Sing for me love and I'll be ready soon."

Chorus of "Chalo Dildar Chalo" from the film "Pakeezah"

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

"I see you're having girlfriend troubles," said the oldest club member to the most melancholy.

The busty, ample assed Lilly knelt by the most melancholy with her face turned resolutely away. She had a red ball gag forced in her mouth. Her shoulders and bottom and thighs showed recent red lines. She and the most melancholy had been together but a few days and things were evidently not going well.

"She is a wretched girl and I don't know why I let her move in," said the most melancholy.

Lilly bobbled her head in a mocking manner and then bounced and clutched at her neck when the black choker which was all she wore buzzed.

The four friends sat in easy chairs that faced one of the fireplaces in their club's lounge. The fattest member sat in the chair nearest the hearth. He was busily assembling kebabs on the stomach of the girl who lay across his lap. She coated the pieces: peppers, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, and scallops with the sauce she kept pooled in her cunt and then arrayed them on her stomach. The fattest member took a skewer and slid each piece onto it. The girl squeaked nicely each time the sharp point nicked her. He handed the assemblage to her and she held it out over the coals in the hearth.

After watching the show for a moment, the oldest asked the most melancholy, "What's the problem?". Then to Heather, the woman who sat on his lap, "I'll have a drink my dear and see that I get some this time."

The oldest member's doctor had told him to cut down on the alcohol so he only drank from Heather's lips.

"She has ghastly taste in music," sighed the most melancholy, "I came home yesterday and was assaulted by the most appalling muck. I made her lie with her arms behind her back in between the speakers. I tied her wrists and ankles together.

"I started with Cream's 'In the white room with black curtains'. I played my favorite Led Zeppelin, REM and Rolling Stone cds. Loud. After 5 hours, confident I'd made my point, I told her to apologize and suck my dick. The harlot began to sing, if you can call it that, something I later learned was 'Beauty and a Beat' by that tit Bieber."

The most melancholy shook his head sadly. "And worse," he continued, "Like all women, she is not supportive. You know that I have to publish a scholarly paper soon or my position will be in jeopardy?" The most melancholy was a professor at a local college. "I've all but completed a work on the justly obscure and deservedly forgotten authors contemporary to James Fenimore Cooper? I ordered her to proof read it. You know what the bitch said? She goes: 'You throw out those shit cds and play some Beyonce and I'll correct your crappy paper.'"

Lilly began to hum in a mocking muffled nasal tone a tune that the four friends would've surely recognized if only they hadn't left the youth culture years before. Her rendition was terminated by a buzz and a choking squawk.

After a pause to allow poor Lilly to regain her composure and the proper kneeling position, legs spread, arms up, hands behind her neck, the richest member said, "That reminds me of something similar involving my daughter Adrienne. Perhaps, after another round, you'd like to hear of it?"

For amusement, they made Lilly fetch from where it stood along a near wall, a wheeled stool with a large phallus affixed to its seat. From the look on Lilly's face, as she pushed it over to them, she did not fancy the thing at all.

For once Lilly was in luck. The richest member touched the shoulder of the incomparable Janetta, the girl who knelt beside him.

She rose gracefully to her feet and crouched over the stool. The four men watched raptly as she spread her delicate pussy lips and eased herself down on the largest member. They admired the way her color heightened, her eyes widened, and her breath quickened as she sank on it to the hilt.

"Be sure to get more kebab fixings," ordered the fattest.

Then Lilly pushed the stool across the carpet to the bar. The pair drew admiring glances and comment from the other little groups of club members.

The barman assembled a heavy tray with drinks and appetizers and handed it to the lovely Janetta.

Halfway back, a group more rowdy than the club really approved of pelted the pair with bits of brioche. Others along their path followed suit in an unseemly fashion.

When they'd run the gauntlet and returned safely and the contents of the tray had been transferred to the coffee table and Janetta had lifted herself from the stool with a satisfied sigh, the richest member took the lovely Janetta to the men's room, "to attend to a call of nature".

The three remaining friends soon began, as they often did, discussing the richest member with some envy.

"Did you see," said the most melancholy in a tone of disbelief, "Where he and his entire ménage, wife, daughters, sonss, and Janetta attended that White House soiree? When was it, last Saturday?"

"How many children does he have anyway?" asked the fattest without taking his eyes off the kebab that his girl held over the coals in the hearth.

"The appropriate unit of measurement here," said the oldest, "Is the mormon. He has kids numbering one mormon. All daughters."

"The Post described Janetta as the special friend of his oldest girl," said the most melancholy, "How much do you think his wife knows?"

After brooding a moment, gazing at the fire, the most melancholy went on, "He keeps Janetta in a luxury apartment in Tysons Corner. What's that place called? The Reserve? Jesus. My wife threw me out for far less. Small potatoes really. She caught me in my office enjoying a graduate student. "

Here Lilly made muffled sounds which could be easily understood as "Served you right too, asshole."

Her choker buzzed and Lilly grunted and clutched her neck.

The conversation had reached its end anyway as the richest member and the stunning Janetta were back and were settling themselves, he in his easy chair, she kneeling by his side. A hint of wetness on an ivory cheek and a certain renewed perfection about her makeup showed that she'd washed her face.

"Where was I?" he said, "Ah yes, I was about to, hopefully, amuse you with how my daughter Adrienne came to the aid of one of the great musicians of our age. Janetta?"

He handed his I-phone to her and when he took it back, its little screen showed text.

"It is thanks to Janetta that I know the details of this. Much of what I'm going to relate is after all not the sort of thing a girl tells her father. However she and Janetta have become good friends and Adrienne divulged all, under strict promise of secrecy. Janetta of course is strictly bound to a lack of the same, at least to me.

"I should also say, that any pleasant turns of phrase that I use are Janetta's. She is the ghostwriter of my memoirs of which this is a small part.

"Adrienne, my fourth? no third daughter, is the only one of my children to take a real interest in music. In this, at least, she takes after me. Her mother, outside of a fondness for dancing when she was young, could care less.

"At four Adrienne would tell us what to do with her older sister's Raffi cds and would instead lie for hours listening to Beethoven or Mozart. Janetta, find the picture of Adrienne at five with her little violin." He handed the phone back to the lovely Janetta.

With a few deft flicks of her graceful forefinger, she brought up a photo of a serious looking child with a cute little violin.

"She took lessons and practiced and by the time she was a senior in high school she was in the all-state orchestra and had won the state's violin competition two years running.

"To my sorrow, she left her violin at home when she went off to college.

"The events I am going to relate occurred sometime afterwards. She'd graduated and taken a job some distance from home. In the valley. She shared an apartment with a friend from college. She was dating a guy from a good family who had a good job as an engineer for a firm that makes drone microcontroller firmware. I have some money invested there. In the firm not the kid of course. My wife quite liked the kid. I found him to be a bore."

The richest took a sip of his whiskey and soda, accepted a kebab from the fattest and ate it. He looked reflectively at the fire. He handed a couple of the morsels down to the incomparable Janetta, then he commenced:

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

Adrienne paused outside the door of the townhouse and listened. The sound of a violin came from inside, a Telemann fantasy she thought.

Adrienne heard a man's raised voice interrupt. She heard the man say, "Listen and watch my bow." The passage got played again, this time the sound, even through the door, was amazing, rich and full.

Adrienne waited for the next moment of silence and rang the bell.

She heard steps and the door opened. A tall slender man looked down at her. He was perhaps in his marginally healthy late thirties, perhaps in his ravaged late twenties. He still held his violin.

"Yeah?" he asked. If he liked to open his door and discover there an attractive well cared for twenty something girl with dusty blond hair that fell to her shoulders, large expressive eyes that would make the weakest among us to long to take stern measures, a taut energetic body, wearing a tee shirt and blue jeans that clung to her hips and made a nice contrast to her bare midriff, wearing sandals that showed prettily painted toes, if he liked opening his door and discovering such an apparition nothing in his face let on.

"Rafael Monetti?"

"Not here," the guy said and closed the door.

Adrienne stared at the door. She pursed her lips, contracting the soft seductive things into a tight circle. She'd gotten this expression from her mother. In her mother, it caused the canny investor to look for some safe haven in which to park his assets where they could ride out the storm that was sure to come. In Adrienne as yet, it only made one think, 'how cute she looks'.

She rang the bell again and when no one came, she leaned on it with determination.

The guy opened the door and before he could speak, Adrienne said, "Then I'd like my dad's money back."

"What?" the man looked surprised. He eyed her as if he'd discovered a new species of beetle and was considering whether science wouldn't be much better off if he forgot to report the find.

"Well, last Saturday my dad paid good money to take me to see Rafael Monetti with the Winchester Symphony. My dad'd heard him play a couple years ago in New York. My dad said Monetti was great. My dad hoped it'd get me interested again. You were the soloist. So if you aren't he, we were robbed and I want my dad's money back."

"Interested in what?"

"What do you think? Playing the triangle of course."

"Did it?" he asked.

"What?" Adrienne asked.

"Did it renew your interest?"

"Yes."

"And you and your Dad enjoyed the concert?"

"It was gorgeous. It was like I'd never heard the Beethoven before. But you know, maybe we were totally ripped off and it wasn't even the Winchester Symphony."

"There's no doubt it was the Winchester Symphony," he said dryly. "And as it sounds like your Dad got his money's worth whoever the soloist was, please get lost," he started to push the door closed but she got a knee in it and pushed it open again.

"I want you to give me lessons."

"Even though I am not me?"

"Yes."

"Even though I have no mastery whatsoever over the triangle?"

"Yes."

"Neither I, he, nor me is taking new students. Get lost."

Adrienne surprised him by ducking under his arm and all but diving inside.

She faced hard wood stairs that led up to a loft. The banister circled and became a railing. To her left was a cathedral ceilinged living room. Under the overhang of the loft, was the dining room table and beyond that the kitchen.

Books of music lay scattered about everywhere. Scores lay open on the couch and on the floor. There was a bookcase of CDs and an expensive looking sound system in a glass case. Large speakers hung on one wall. An upright piano, with music stacked on its top and dribbling over its keys, stood against the far wall. Music covered the dining room table.

In the middle of the living room, on the rug, in the only clear spot, stood a young woman, the pupil.

She stood in the classic Suzuki stance. Her left foot slightly before her right, as if she was going to start walking. Her left foot pointed forward, toward the door and Adrienne. Her right foot pointed to the side. Her knees were slightly bent. Between her legs stood a tripod on which was affixed a phallus which pushed up between her pussy lips and vanished inside her. She was quite naked.

On seeing the intruder, the pupil gasped, brought her violin down to shield her sex and covered her full breasts with her other hand. Her bow waved to one side, like she was pointing at something of interest when of course she was the only thing of interest in the room.

A silver chain with clamps on either end hung from breasts. Halfway along the its length the chain ran through a ring on the cuff on her right wrist. When she bowed, her breasts would be swing in sympathy with the music.

"Jesus," Adrienne said.

She thought she recognized the woman. She'd seen her in the third row of the first violins the week before, at the Winchester Symphony's Saturday night performance. The one she'd gone to with me.

The man, Rafael, pushed past her, a glass of water sat on the piano top. He took it, sipped, and looked at Adrienne with a tired expression.

Adrienne took a step back. Her face was as red as the student's. She had never been so shocked in her life.

"Keep going," he told her.

He took another sip of his water. The pupil started to shift, to pull herself off the dildo, but the man said "Rebecca, the lesson isn't over," then to Adrienne, he said without much force, "Get lost, I'm not taking new students."

"I phoned you know," Adrienne managed, "Like 10 times, but you never called back. I got your address. I thought you'd not be able to ignore me. Shit."

He took another drink.

She turned and hurried out the door and across the lawn to where her car was parked. Her eyes were wide with shock and embarrassment. The sun shone bright and hot on her bare arms. It glittered on the car's windows.

After a moment she heard the sound of playing from the townhouse behind her. It was the student Rebecca. There was an undefinable lack. Adrienne stared at her car for another minute.

She rang his doorbell again.

"Still not at home," he said when he opened it.

She stepped forward and he let her pass.

"You think that shit helps her play better, like with feeling?" Adrienne demanded.

"No," he replied, "The shit is solely for me. Sometimes her playing is good, sometimes it's only OK, but the shit is always good." He reached over and gave the chain and by extension Rebecca's nipples a sharp tug. The pupil squeaked. "She plays, I play."

Rebecca, the pupil, said, "I'm out of here."

Rafael picked up a lash from piano bench and struck the girl hard across her bare bottom. She made a hiccuping gasp, jerked on the phallus and then worked herself up and down a couple times before she managed to stop and blush and hide her face in her hands.

"You want me to teach you, even if I do this to you?" He struck his student again, causing Rebecca to whimper and bob about in a pitiable fashion.

"Has his teaching helped you?" Adrienne asked Rebecca.

The girl said, "Fuck yes, you think I'd put up with this crap if it didn't? I moved up to first violin this year. My own students are doing better too. Rafael's amazing."

"You don't copy all his techniques though?" Adrienne asked.

Rebecca laughed which caused her to shift on the phallus and gasp.

"Will you take me on?" she asked Rafael.

"Don't believe her," Rafael said, "My teaching is useless. It's my stimulating company she craves." He tugged harder on the chain.

"I want you to teach me," Adrienne said.

Rafael sighed. "Jesus you're persistent. Find someone else."

"No." she said, "Your playing was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."

"That's an exaggeration. I'm not Isaac Stern."

"I've only heard him on CD. Walking out of there Saturday, I was so mad at myself for having given it up. I felt I'd given up on something precious. Will you teach me?"

"How long has it been since you played much?"

"I've been practicing again this week," she held up the fingers of her left hand. They were visibly chafed. "Before that it was like maybe 5 years? When I went to college, I just said screw it. It was like too much work and I wanted to have a good time and I wanted to learn something that would employ me."

"And did you?"

"Have a good time? Mostly. Learn something employable? Maybe. I'm a marketing assistant. In honest language I'm a receptionist. I use my computer skills a bit when I'm not answering the phone and checking on the office supplies. Will you teach me?"

"Play something."

Adrienne bent and opened her violin case and picked up the instrument. She put it under her chin. She realized that she'd automatically taken the same stance as the other girl, absent the invading member of course. She glanced at the girl, met her eyes and blushed.

She ran the bow over the strings, fussed with the tuning a bit, then turned the stand so it faced her and started the opening movement of the fantasy, a Siciliana.

After a moment, Rafael stopped her by laying a hand on her shoulder which caused her to jump and him to grin.

He took up his own violin and without taking his eyes off her played the same passage. It felt like the difference between heaven and earth.

"Will you teach me?" she asked. For the first time, she said it without much hope. There was nothing that could bridge the gulf between how she'd played the music and the life he'd breathed into it.

He sighed, "Come here next Saturday at 9:30. It's a $100 an hour."

"He gives me $25 off," spoke up Rebecca, "Oh shit that hurt!" she gasped when the whip bit her ass.

"$75 then," said Adrienne.

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

"Undress," he told her.

He sat on the piano bench, cup of coffee in his hand. A glass of water sat on bench beside him. He picked that up and drank.

All week she had thought about this moment. She'd thought, "No way am I going back there!" That morning when she woke she'd thought again, "No way". In the shower she'd thought, "I'll call and say I'm not coming." Then as she'd dried herself, "I just won't go." That thought'd still comforted her when she sat with her coffee.

As she went out the door, at 8:50, twenty minutes earlier than the length of the drive'd required, her roommate Jill'd said, "You're out of here early! Where're you off to?"

"Violin lesson," she'd answered.

Jill wasn't much interested. She asked, "You're going out with Derek tonight? You want me to sleep over at Joel's? Have the apartment to yourselves?"

Adrienne had been seeing Derek for a couple months. Jill had introduced them.

Before this week, she'd spent a lot of time wondering if she'd invite him up at the end of their next date. Each next date she hadn't. A few Saturdays ago they'd had dinner at her folks. During the long car ride back she'd thought of little else. The car sound system played a CD of violin classics he'd put in to please her, normally he listened to the Dixie Chicks.

Derek'd parked in front of her apartment building. As they'd kissed in his car, the invitation fizzed on the tip of her tongue. She figured he could feel it there when their tongues met.

She'd gotten out of the car and said goodnight with it still on the tip.




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.




Violin Lessons



"Be here at 6 this evening," then he hung up.

She stared at the phone. In a way she felt relieved. Spending the week thinking about that last Saturday with the one to come advancing inexorably upon her had been difficult.

Things were difficult at the apartment too. Jill was really mad. "That was a rotten thing to do!" she'd shouted at Adrienne that Saturday when Adrienne'd gotten home. "Derek's a great guy!"

Jill's anger had allowed Adrienne to rush to her bedroom without Jill getting a good look at her.

Since then there'd been a stony silence between the two women.

In another way she certainly felt no relief. If she went back there, without the excuse of a lesson. What did that say about her?

He called again. "Bring your violin of course." Then he was gone.

When he opened the door, she was relieved though surprised when he emerged carrying his own instrument. He had a knapsack slung over one shoulder. "Come on," he said and led her to his car which was parked in the narrow driveway. A pair of garages, his and the neighbors, separated the townhouses.

Sitting in the car, he opened the knapsack and handed her a small stack of music. "Learn this," he said, "We're playing a wedding Sunday afternoon."

"What?" she asked.

"Maybe you have trouble understanding the words themselves and that's why you are so bad at instruction," he said. "Two to four. While the food's being consumed at the reception. Then the real band comes on for the dancing."

"This is kinda sudden," she said.

"Rebecca, you remember her? has an audition in Boston on Monday and's left me in the lurch."

"Maybe I have plans."

"Do you?"

"Beyond recovering from my lesson? No."

She looked at the music. It was neatly hand written.

"Arrangements for two violins of Jerome Kern show tunes," he told her. When she clearly didn't recognize the name he added, "Old guy. 1920s. 1930s. Great guy. The music's beautiful. The second violin part's not hard."

"Who did the arrangements?"

"Friend of mine," he said dismissively.

He backed down the drive.

It was only as they were driving that she remembered that before their break-up, she'd been supposed to go to the wedding of one Derek's cousins that Sunday afternoon. She thought about it uncomfortably. "What are the odds?" she asked herself.

Rafael surprised her by taking her to a Chinese restaurant. When they'd been seated and were waiting for the waiter, she asked "What is this?"

"What is what?"

"This."

"There you go again. Was English not your first language? When two people go out, what's it called?"

"A date? Is that what this is?"

"Think of it how you like. I am bent on amusing myself."

Then to the waiter, without asking her, "We'll have the buffet. I'll have a beer, Tsingtao, and she'll have a glass of white wine."

Just then her phone rang. She'd forgotten to turn it off. She extracted it from her purse and looked at the number. "Sorry," she said to Rafael and answered it.

"Hey mom," she said. She pursed her lips as she listened. She looked away from Rafael. One wall of the place was mirrored and she could see their booth with the two of them sitting like normal people. She looked away from that quickly and gazed at the kitchen door. It swung open and offered a glimpse of steamy activity.

After a moment she said, "Mom, mom. I was going to call. I'm surprised Dad ratted me out."

There was a squawk from the phone and Adrienne had to hold it some distance from her ears.

"Don't be hard on Dad, I told him not to tell. Who told you then?"

"Derek?" she said with some surprise, "He called you?"

After a moment she broke in, "Look. I'm sorry you're upset. I'll call later. I can't talk right now. I'm on a date. Right. You don't know him. Bye."

Her eyes met Rafael's and she blushed. "My mom is a bit of a terror," she said, "My two older sisters recently got married and she's set her sights on me."

They had the sort of pleasant meal that made that last Saturday morning and afternoon seem impossible.

"You know I saw you at the concert," he said, when their plates were cleared.

"What?" she asked, surprised.

He shook his head, "Simple language does pass you by. Your Dad got good seats. You were like in the second row?"

"Third," she said.

"Whatever," he waved away the detail. "When I play a concert, especially when I'm the soloist, I try to pick out one person in the audience who looks like they're enjoying themselves and're not just there for social reasons. I only find such a person maybe half the time? When I spot them, I play for them. I let their enjoyment be my guide. That concert I saw 2. You and your Dad. I played for you of course because you are quite pretty."

She looked down, feeling pleased.

"Why wasn't your mother there? Or I'm sorry, are your parents divorced?"

"No no, they're together alright. She keeps Dad on a short leash. If Mom'd been there it'd've been purely because she couldn't get out of it."

When they'd opened their cookies, he asked, "What's yours say?"

"'You will have a pleasant surprise'," she read. "Yours?"

"'You enjoyed your meal and will buy one to go.'" he said and crumpled it.

As they were standing, she managed to pick up his bit of paper. "I need to use the facilities," she said.

In the ladies room she read, "The object of your desire comes close."

"What now?" she asked when they were back in his car. With him, she had no doubt what she'd do if he drove her back to his place and asked her to come in.

When he didn't answer, she asked, "Did you put that student of yours, Rebecca, in that cage?"

"No," he said, "She took one look at it and said 'No way.'"

Adrienne frowned at the thought that she could've done the same. Except, she wasn't sure she would've spoken up even if she had known it was an option.

"Who then?" she asked.

"Who then what?"

"People don't have cages like that for no reason," she said.

"My girlfriend."

Adrienne felt suddenly truly rotten.

"In New York," he added into the silence.

"Do you still see her?"

"No, she left me for a hedge fund hot shot."

"Is that why you moved here?"

"No, it's cheaper here. I make almost the same amount of money but things aren't so expensive."

"Don't you miss New York?"

"No, things are the same here, just downscaled. I'm achieving exactly the same thing. My amusement."

He took her to a suburban house. "Bring your violin," he said as he got out of the car.

A woman, somewhat older than Adrienne, maybe early thirties, answered the door. She was slim and tall with maybe 3 inches on Adrienne. She wore a tank top and shorts. Her feet were bare. Her hair was red and her skin was very pale.

"No Rebecca?" the woman asked.

"Nope," said Rafael.

"I'm Adrienne," Adrienne said when it was clear Rafael was saying no more. "I saw you a couple weeks ago. You play cello."

"Yeah. I'm Willow. Rafael is one lucky jerk. Do you know what you're getting into?"

"An evening of quartet playing," said a man who'd just come from the kitchen. "I play viola," he added, "Let's go downstairs."

"This is my husband Steve," said Willow dryly.

In the basement in the middle of the room were four chairs arranged in a circle each with a music stand. Along one wall was a comfortable looking couch with a sturdy coffee table before it. On the wall opposite was a large flat screen.

"We'll start with the Lark," stated Rafael. He set music on two stands, "I brought a copy for you," he said to Adrienne.

Willow, as if it was a matter of course, pulled her tank top over her head. With her small breasts, she needed no bra. After her cut-offs and panties had fallen onto the carpet she was naked.

Seeing Adrienne just standing there, Willow said to Rafael, "You be quiet." Then she went to Adrienne. "Listen honey, if at anytime you want things to stop, just say 'stop'. Or 'I won't do that.' Or 'No way.' These two are jerks, but they understand English. OK?"

Adrienne nodded. Her face red.

"Here, I'll help," said Willow kindly, "I'll ease you into it and give them something to watch."

Adrienne still had on the dress she'd worn to work. A flounced chiffon thing with a red black and white pattern. Willow stepped behind her and undid the hook at the neck and then pulled the zipper down. She pulled the dress over Adrienne's shoulders and let it fall. Adrienne caught it half way down. Willow smiled, reached around and gently opened Adrienne's fingers. The light cloth floated the remainder of the distance. Adrienne's sandaled feet vanished from view.

Adrienne stood before the two men in her bra and white slip.

Willow pulled the slip over Adrienne's hips and let it flutter down.

Adrienne flushed looking down at her white underpants.

"We'll surprise them a little," Willow whispered, "We'll do these next. Men like the sight of a bottomless woman, though why they call her bottomless is a mystery". She slid her fingers between the panties' elastic and Adrienne's burning flesh and pulled the white things down Adrienne's thighs and let them fall on the pile at her ankles. She touched Adrienne's rear, "You are anything but bottomless, dear."

Adrienne put her hands between her legs, but Willow touched her under either arm and gently lifted them up. "You have to get used to it honey, if you're going to hang out with the likes of them."

Willow put her hands on Adrienne's hips and rotated her. When she'd turned Adrienne all the way round, she undid the bra's clasp and with one hand held it together and with the other encouraged Adrienne to turn again. The hand behind her back followed her round.

When Adrienne again had her back to the men and her face with it's wide stunned eyes to Willow, Willow released the bra. "Turn the rest of the way, honey," she said. Adrienne stood in her naked beauty before the two men.

"Enough of this," said Rafael. "Let's play some music."

Adrienne was grateful to sit. With her thighs closed all that showed below was a pale thatch. Willow had to spread her legs and grip her cello with either knee. She looked very lewd. Her sex was shaven and wide open. It could have been used as a sex education illustration.

"Pay attention Adrienne," said Rafael, "Tune."

She looked at the music in front of her. She had never played it. It looked to be something she could've handled when she'd been at the top of her form, her last year in High School. Now it looked hard.

She found it difficult to concentrate. Being one of two naked women with two fully dressed men made her feel very hot and bothered.

Rafael raised his bow. They were off. She messed up almost immediately.

Rafael shook his head. He set his violin down. From a bag by his side he took something. He reached over to her. He only needed to bend slightly. She saw he held a clothespin, the kind with little jaws to bite a shirt and hold it on the line.

He pinched the side of her near breast and let the clothespin grip her.

"OH!" she gasped, surprised.

"Each mistake needs to be punished," Rafael explained.

Adrienne looked down at the yellow plastic thing clinging to her flesh. It reminded her of a suckerfish on a shark. It didn't seem so bad.

"That's not that the punishment, dear," Willow said, reading her expression. "That's the tally." Then she added, "Maybe not so fast this time, Rafe."

With a slower pace, Adrienne was able to play more creditably. Willow and Steve played well and of course Rafael! Getting carried away by the sound and forgetting herself earned her her second pin, a missed entrance.

At the end of the piece, after trashing her part of the raucous finale, both her breasts were festooned and one sex lip, the right, sported four plastic hangers-on. The pain caused her to bite her lip and she now had to keep her thighs open. Though Rafael did not seem to look at her, the viola player Steve clearly liked what he saw. He missed an entrance himself.

"Hey," Adrienne protested when all that happened was they stopped and started up a few measures back.

Her protest earned her her first marker on left cunt lip.

"What did you expect, honey?" asked Willow. Willow had picked up a couple clothespins herself.

After another quartet, also by Haydn, the two women were dispatched upstairs for provisions.

Adrienne felt indescribably depraved, walking naked, with a strange woman through a strange house, decorated as she was.

Adrienne stood still in the the kitchen while Willow assembled a tray with a box of white wine, a bottle of gin and a bottle of tonic and ice and a bottle of ale and glasses.

"We have a refrigerator in the basement," Willow explained, "But somehow I keep forgetting to stock it. I find that the occasional break from those two, or from just my husband when we're by ourselves, is quite essential. How are you holding up, honey?"

"Ok," Adrienne managed. Away from the basement she could think. She wondered exactly what she wouldn't do. She wondered if she would let Willow's husband fuck her. Who had the say? Would he just do it and assume she and his wife were OK with it? Would Willow be OK with it? Would he ask Rafael for permission? She flushed even more. Would Rafael give it? She thought of asking Willow what was likely to happen, but couldn't manage it.

"You play quite tolerably," Willow said, compiling a second tray of chips and sundries. "You need to practice more of course. It's obvious that you're rusty. You'll find that evenings like these are wonderful motivators. When they started these up, they were really Steve's idea, the shit, but Rafael needed no convincing, I wound up looking almost like you. Now I can get through an evening without a single mistake. Of course that only makes them mad, so I concede them their little triumphs." Willow smiled and touched the hard red plastic thing that clung to her left nipple.

"Come on dear," Willow said. "There'll be some bad bits but hopefully you'll enjoy at least some of the remainder of the evening."

"I love the music," said Adrienne, "And I love playing it."

"Of course you do, dear," said Willow, "And so do I. Let's descend once again to their level, shall we?"

They played one more quartet. Then without prompting Willow rose and helped Adrienne to her feet. The men moved to the couch. "Help me with the chairs, dear," said Willow.

They folded the chairs and moved the music stands next to the wall.

"Stand as I do, honey," Willow instructed. She stood in the center of the room with her legs spread and her hands behind her head. Adrienne copied her.

Steve rose and went to his wife. He held a little black plastic thing that looked much like the mosquito killer except that the swatting surface was smaller and stiffer and was shaped like a small hand.

Adrienne saw Willow bite her lip. The woman watched her husband carefully. He brought the swatter down hard where the pin bit Willow's right nipple. It snapped and spun off.

"Oh fuck," cried Willow and she jumped up and down.

"Losing them is the punishment," Willow told Adrienne.

Adrienne found that this was very true. The first, one that hung on the flesh of her upper arm, hurt like hell when Rafael struck her and it and it snapped with a wicked sound.

Sometimes he missed and hit the same place twice, thrice. She whimpered and stamped and swore at the pain.

As Adrienne had three times as many markers as Willow, Steve was soon at loose ends. "It's not fair," he complained.

Rafael waved him to Adrienne. Adrienne's eyes grew wide at what this promised.

With each man taking a side it went faster.

When only the clothespins that festooned her sex remained, she couldn't take it anymore. "No, stop," she said.

Willow came to her with a glass of ice water. Adrienne drank it in long chocking gulps. "That's enough," Willow said to the two men, "We'll be gentle with these."

Adrienne looked at Rafael's face. She could not read his expression. "If I lose him," she thought, "What would be left for me?"

"No, it's alright. Finish it."

She cried out quite heartily as the last of the clothespins were struck off.

Willow took her in her arms and helped her to the couch. She forced a glass of cool wine into her hand and helped her drink.

What Adrienne wanted then was for it to be Rafael next to her. She wanted him to take her home and take her to bed.

What happened was that after a glance at her husband, Willow cooly rose and lay down on her back on the coffee table.

Steve touched Adrienne's shoulder and said "Lie on top of her, put your head between her legs and bring her off".

Adrienne stared at him then at Willow. She looked at Willow's cunt, as hairless and as soft as Willow's mouth. It did nothing for Adrienne. The thought of what she was to do disgusted her.

On her other side, Rafael pulled her arm, "You have to work on this weakness of yours."

She let herself be guided by him. She put her knees on either side of Willow's head. She bent and put her lips to the other woman's sex. She could taste excitement and soap and sweat. A firm hand pushed her own crotch down towards Willow's face. She resisted. She really didn't want that. Her ass was stung and when she looked around she saw that Steve held a cane.

She lowered her hips and felt the other woman's tongue.

"OH," she said. It felt very nice and she flushed hot all over.

She tried to imagine it was Rafael beneath her but that was difficult with him in plain view leaning against a wall, watching. He sipped from the water bottle he always carried.

Her bottom was stung again. "Get busy," Steve instructed.

"Steve will certainly fuck me," she thought unhappily.

There was another stinging strike.

She got busy and found it wasn't so bad. She tried to copy what she felt Willow doing to her. Her eyes widened and her breath got short when she felt wet fingers come into play. She copied that and felt her partner start beneath her. She tried to ignore the taste.

A microwave dinged and Rafael said, "Stop."

"Straighten your back," Steve instructed. Steve set something that rattled on the small of her back.

From beneath her Willow said, "It's an old fashioned cup and saucer, dear. Corning Ware from my childhood, quite indestructible. The cup is full of very hot water I expect. It usually is. If you bounce too much it'll spill. The saucer provides a rattle that they enjoy."

"Back to work," instructed Steve.

As her pleasure built, (the excitement mostly came from being in such a perverse situation with Rafael watching, she assured herself), the cup rattled and threatened to slide. Every time she tipped, Steve swatted her. The first time he did that she bounced in pain and the cup spilled. "Shit," she cried.

With the refill, she was more careful. She heard herself moaning. Willow sang a similar tune. She came suddenly and hard. She felt Willow buck beneath her. The cup tipped and she jumped from the sting of the heated water.

Rafael yanked her arm hard, pulled her up and then pushed her down onto her hands and knees. He slammed into her and she squeaked at the sensation. He came almost instantly.

Adrienne slumped onto the carpet, red with shame. She had been fucked, even if it had only lasted an instant, with others watching. She had wanted it more than anything.

She looked over at the couch. Steve had Willow on his lap. She had her back to him. She had helped him enter her. Her long legs were spread and her narrow feet pushed down on the couch on either side of her husband. They were both looking at her, Steve with his chin on his wife's shoulder.

Adrienne felt weak and sick.

Willow, with lazy grace, rose off her husband and went to a cabinet along one wall. Steve rose also, pulled his jeans back up and walked the couple steps to where Adrienne lay. Adrienne watched him with tired trepidation.




Violin Lessons



Steve bent and took one of her limp hands. "Take her other side Rafe," Steve instructed.

The two men helped Adrienne to her feet. They each put one hand under her bottom and the other arm around her back. They forced her to lean back. It felt oddly reminiscent of the trust exercises she'd had to do in high school, where one was made do risky feeling things and depend on partners to keep one from coming to harm.

Willow stepped between her legs. Adrienne saw that she had been worrying about the wrong person.

Willow now wore a black belt around her waist. Hanging from it were two wicked looking shiny greased black prongs, a longer one above a shorter slimmer one. Willow squirmed a bit with her hands behind her back. There was an audible click. She had finished securing the strap-on.

Willow pushed herself forward until the black plastic touched Adrienne's crotch. Willow put a hand on either of Adrienne's ass cheeks and helped support her. "Lift your legs and lock them behind my back, dear," she said, "It'll help."

With her right hand she adjusted the prongs' line of attack. "A bit higher," she said to the two men.

All eight eyes were focused on where the plastic pushed between Adrienne's cunt lips and her little rosette entrance below.

Though her mouth gaped, Adrienne felt she couldn't breath. She stared mesmerized. If she could have gathered her consciousness enough to speak she would surely have told them to stop.

Willow adjusted the prongs slightly. The men swung Adrienne as if she were riding a swing and Willow pressed forward.

"Oh God!" Adrienne cried and began gasping for breath. She felt herself doubly penetrated. It felt grossly odd rather than painful.

Willow began to fuck her with easy forward and back motions of her slim hips. "Perhaps next time you can try this side, dear," she murmured. Her eyes were closed. "It feels heavanly."

Adrienne didn't care about that. She just wanted it to stop. She looked away from the action and turned her head to look at Rafael. She had a straining arm around his shoulders, she could feel his arm behind her. She moved her hand up and gripped his head and pulled it to close to hers. She strained close to him and kissed him hard. She came then. The hit of pleasure took her by complete surprise. Even the invading member in her ass felt good. Willow cried out at the same time.

They managed to untangle themselves and lay about on the carpet. Adrienne leaned against Rafael. She felt exhausted but easy and good.

"Let's play the finale of that last one again," said Rafael, "It's fast and rousing, then we'd better be going."

Adrienne stood beside Rafael to play, feeling no shame. They made a collective laughing shambles of the thing.

Adrienne found where her clothes had been pushed to one side. She hurriedly stuffed her slip and underpants and bra in her purse and pulled her dress over her head.

Willow led them upstairs, now the only naked woman. She laid a hand on Adrienne's shoulder. "I hope you come again, dear" she said, "And do what you can to get Rafael to drink less."

That seemed odd to Adrienne, especially given what they'd been up too. He'd only had a beer and a gin and tonic after all.

It was 12:30 by the clock in his car.

Back in his driveway, she longed for Rafael to ask her in.

He did not, he reminded her to take the music for the wedding that coming Sunday, then he just carried his violin inside.

She stood in the dark a moment, feeling drained and dumb. She watched the lights go on and off. She said "Shit," and then she got in her car and drove back to her apartment.

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

The next Saturday morning, as soon as he'd closed the front door behind her, without being told, she undressed. She paid him and then led the way up the stairs and into the cramped spare bedroom.

She pulled the cover off the cage.

She sank to her knees, fumbled with its latch and opened its door. From her purse she took a small notebook and pen. She stretched, like some strange ungainly quadruped and put the notebook where she could get it through the bars. Then she crawled into her confinement. She frowned at the familiar discomfort of the bars under her knees.

"Perhaps I had something else planned?" he asked lazily.

"Did you?"

"No," he admitted. "The notebook's a good idea."

He leaned against the wall and looked down at her. He sipped from his shiny insulated mug of coffee.

"What's your purpose?" he asked.

"What?" she asked.

"Why did you want to take up playing again? What will you do with it?"

"I felt I had no choice," she said, then she added, "I felt I'd let something beautiful slip from my life and that it was almost too late to get it back."

He held his mug over the small of her back and shared a healthy sip with her.

It stung. "Shit," she complained

The time in the cage was interminable and uncomfortable. Though she'd tried to cut back on coffee that morning, she'd definitely passed the Dunkin Donuts by on the way, still she felt the need to pee grow irresistibly within her. Then there was the worry that he would once again open the window and the screen.

When her lesson proper started, she discovered she'd made another mistake. She'd figured that the lesson would concentrate on the music for the wedding reception. Thursday and Friday she'd practiced that instead of what he'd assigned.

She'd found she didn't much care for Kern. The music had a romantic sweetness that did nothing for her, there was nothing romantic about her life. The music's syncopations seemed odd and artificial. She planned to keep these opinions to herself and worked on learning the second violin part in a professional manner.

The lesson concentrated on the studies that she'd neglected. Her breasts and bottom soon looked like they'd been coated with yellow butterfly attractant.

Like music teachers around the world, he scolded, "You need to practice more."

Unlike most of his peers, he then emphasized his point by touching a nipple with the glowing orange end of the wand he'd been amusing himself with. The shock made her flinch and blow another passage leading to more constructive criticism.

When she was pulling her clothes back on she asked, "Shouldn't we rehearse?"

"Rehearse?" he asked.

"We're still playing for that wedding?" she asked.

"Oh that, yeah, come here tomorrow a little early, like at 11."

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

She spotted Derek while she was futzing with her stand and the music. She felt quite awkward at the sight of him. Before she could look away their eyes met and he started with surprise.

Derek was, she thought, quite handsome and his expression looking at her was quite sad. She felt a rise of pity. She thought, "I'm a real shit and a foolish one too. Jill's right, he's a nice guy and hot too. What am I doing?"

She looked down and shifted uncomfortably on her chair. That caused her eyes to widen and she suppressed a little gasp.

Rafael had been all business while they'd run through the music earlier at his place. But when they'd climbed into his car, he'd reached over and raised her skirt.

Around the car was bright sun, weekend sounds flowed in through the windows. She heard a car door slam. She felt she was outside her body, a silent watcher, hardly a participant. She watched him pull on her panties with one hand.

In the palm of his other hand she saw 3 gold balls, each an inch or so in diameter, connected by a string so they reminded her of an infant's toy. Each ball rattled slightly when his hand moved.

He introduced them into the gap between her warm soft belly and her underpants. Then he pushed them along so the first lay against her sex. He forced the ball into her. She heard a little gasp and realized it was her voice.

Now as she sat with her violin primly on her lap, she flushed embarrassed at the sensation. She felt alone in the crowded hall.

"Hey," said Rafael, "Show time."

She watched him raise his bow, taking the tempo from it. They were off.

After a bit of initial nervousness, she found she quite enjoyed herself. Most of the wedding guests were intent on talking and eating and getting up and visiting relatives and friends. Derek was out of sight somewhere.

Setting up the third of piece, something with the weird title, "Smoke gets in your eyes," she said. "Mine's the white haired lady at table 32."

Rafael looked a bit surprised, then he understood and he looked pleased. His tired face looked younger. He glanced over in the direction she'd indicated.

"Not too shabby," he said, "Mine's the child over there." He waved his bow negligently.

They took a break and stood and stretched. Adrienne flushed and suppressed a gasp as she'd forgotten what was hidden inside her.

The kid and his mother turned up.

Rafael let the boy hold his violin and let the kid run the bow over its strings. It made an awful sound and the boy laughed with pleasure. Then Rafael assured the kid that there were violins just his size if he wanted to take lessons. He glanced apologetically at the mother.

The older woman also made her way over, "My dad had whole stack of 78s," she told them, "When I was a girl, I unearthed them one hot summer day. They were in the basement where it was cool. I haven't heard some of those tunes anywhere else. Are you going to play this one?" she hummed a few bars.

"'The Land Where the Good Songs Go'," Rafael said when Adrienne of course looked blank. He picked up his violin and played.

"That's it," the woman looked pleased.

"It isn't in our set I'm afraid," he said apologetically.

"That's OK." she said, "I liked it as much for the title as anything."

Adrienne saw Derek hovering to one side and was grateful that right then Rafael said, "Back to work."

She carefully lowered herself onto her chair. Her eyes widened when she shifted into a better position.

"Now now," Rafael said. She looked over at him and as his bow was in motion to start them into the next piece, she quickly looked back at her music.

Sooner than she could have believed they were done. After they'd broken down their stands and'd put away their instruments, Rafael surprised her by asking if she'd like to stay and dance.

She must've looked surprised because he grinned and said, "Any savage can dance."

"I'm not sure if I think that you're a savage."

"It was a reference to Austin."

"I recognized it. I didn't think what's his name Darcy was a savage either."

"But Lizzy and her whole family were, right?"

"I guess," she said.

"'I guess' meaning you don't think they were savages and that I'm an idiot?"

"'I guess' meaning I'll dance."

She found that he danced quite well, as opposed to Derek who tended to just bob about energetically. Rafael knew some moves and she'd've joined in more energetically if it hadn't been for the artificial life moving about within her.

While the band took a break and Rafael took himself off. She saw him in the corner where they'd parked their stuff. He bent and came up with one his water bottles. She was watching him with a niggling bit of suspicion when she found herself facing Derek.

"Hey", he said.

"Hey yourself" she replied intelligently.

"You're looking good," he said.

"So are you," she said, feeling about as clever as a parrot.

"No I mean it. You have a kind of glow about you."

She flushed, "Exercise."

"You left me for that guy?" His tone meant he found it hard to believe.

"Well not exactly."

"How exactly?" with a little heat, "No don't answer. What I want you to know is that I bear you no ill will. I've forgiven you and I'm waiting."

"What?"

"I've talked to your mother."

"I wish you hadn't."

"She is only thinking of you. She says this is just a bad time you're going through. She says that you're over influenced by your father, who's a great guy and all, don't get me wrong, but your mother says he's finally going through a middle age crisis. She says he's wallowing in self pity about not having lived his life differently. She says that when she met your dad he was in a garage band."

"Dad?"

"She says she put the kibosh to that pronto and she says that it's rather hard now that he's enjoying the fruits of the choices she made for him to have him push his silly romantic regrets off on his most impressionable daughter."

"What?"

"So what I want to say," said Derek, "Is that I'm sure you'll soon come to your senses and when you do that you shouldn't have any hesitation about us. I'll be waiting. We will pick up right where we left off."

"Derek," she said, "You're a nice guy and I don't want to waste your time or have you hang onto false hope. Please believe I mean what I said and what I say. Our relationship is over."

"Adrienne, I do believe you mean what you say now. But what about tomorrow? People change."

"Not me."

"But didn't you like me and then you didn't. That's change?"

The band started up, playing the Macarena.

"Dance?" he asked hopefully.

"Bye Derek," she said, exasperated at him and mad at her mother.

"Remember that I'll be waiting."

She turned and found Rafael standing not too far away. "Let's go," she said when she'd walked over to him. She moved carefully because with his eyes on her, she was that much more aware of the balls up her cunt.

"Boyfriend?" he asked.

"Ex, he's my mother's boyfriend now," she said.

Sitting beside him as they drove, thinking of how she wanted him to ask her in, she'd been unable to stop herself from tensing and relaxing her thighs. To his amusement she came twice with choking gasps.

"Get out and bend over the passenger seat," he instructed.

He waited until she'd unhappily complied. Then he got out of the car and closed the garage door. He moved behind her and lifted her skirt. He pulled her underpants down, tapping one ankle with his loafer clad foot. She untangled her foot and spread her legs. She concentrated on looking at the floor of the car. The armrest between the seats felt very uncomfortable.

She felt him press up against her.

"Shit," he said.

"You're the one who put them in there."

She felt him fumble about till his fingers found the loop of string that protruded from her pussy, like a snake's tongue. He pulled and as the balls slid out, she wriggled her ass in sudden need.

He tossed the string of balls into the back seat. He slapped her bottom. "You should've reminded me."

Then he gripped her and rammed in. "Oh" she cried.

He held her by the hips and fucked her vigorously.

She pressed her face into the driver seat and gripped the seat back and the door handle.

She came twice before she felt him rut his hips hard against her and felt the extra wet running down her thighs.

He withdrew and pulled up his pants. He put a hand between her legs and cupped her wet sex. She pushed down against it, still hungry.

"We're going to play a dance this Friday," he told her. "Wait while I get the music."

He vanished into the house. Shortly he was back with a somewhat thick paper bound book. "You owe me $20 for this. There's also a website that'll teach you what you need to know about harmony playing. I wrote the url on the first page. Also the page numbers of about 10 tunes that you need to memorize."

"Hey," she said, "You owe me for the wedding."

"Did we discuss money?" he asked. "Think of it as educational. An extension of your lesson. I should charge."

"Like hell, how much were you going to pay that Rebecca?"

He sighed, reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. He handed her a wad of bills. "That's $180. $200 less the $20 for the music."

He vanished again, turning out the light this time. After a moment lost in the almost stygian darkness, the garage door grudgingly rumbled up. She looked out at the bright late afternoon world like she was looking at a film.

Wednesday brought a reprise of the quartet playing. This time it was Bartok which she found difficult and unpalatable. She still fared far worse than Willow but at least had the satisfaction of watching the woman make quite a few mistakes. She did not get home until 2.

That Friday, she was about to ring his doorbell when his door opened and he stepped out. He had his violin case in one hand and a plastic shopping bag with maybe 4 full water bottles in the other.

He led her across the brown grass to his driveway where his old Corolla was parked. He set his violin on the back seat. She was going to put her case besides his when he stopped her. "Play 'Bonaparte's Retreat'," he said.

With a sigh, she opened her case, took out the instrument, "Shall I tune?"

"Always."

"How about my clothes."

He smiled, "Suit yourself."

It took her a minute to get the harmonics right then she ran through the reel. It sounded small and mournful. Even dressed, she felt exposed playing it the open air. It took less time to play than it had to tune. All he did was nod and say, "Get in".

After 10 minutes of city driving he got on the highway heading north.

"Where are we going?" Adrienne asked

Rafael said nothing but pulled a water bottle from the bag behind the drivers seat. He opened it and took a gulp.

She looked at it with suspicion. She reached over and tried to take it from him but he wouldn't let go. She got another from the bag behind them, opened it and sniffed and then tasted it. "Shit! I knew it! This isn't water! I'm a complete idiot. What the fuck is this?"

"A martini."

"Like hell, that's not vodka and there's no vermouth."

"The latter's where it belongs in the state store a half mile from home," he said, taking another swig. "And martinis should be made with gin. You pour those out the window," he went on, "And I'll let you out right here."

"Don't drink any more," she said.

To her surprise he grinned and said alright and handed her the bottle. "Put it in the bag. Oh and did you bring a water bottle?"

"No."

"Christ," he sighed, "When we get there, you dump that one, it's the least full and fill it with water if that's your poison. It's hot work you'll be doing."

He glanced at her and laughed at her blush.

"Where the fuck are we going?"

"Don't worry, you'll not be the one dancing."

After an hour of driving during which she watched him closely, sweating each time the car started to drift onto the shoulder, always just about to grab the steering wheel. Each time he'd swing the car back into the lane, glance at her with a grin and reach over and pinch her on the thigh. After an hour of that, they got off the highway and drove a mile into a small town. In the center of the town was a Grange Hall. They turned into its parking lot.

There were a couple other cars parked. Behind one, a middle aged woman bent, struggling to extricate a large but thin vaguely rectangular case from the trunk.

"Hey Rafael, who's your date," the woman asked.

Rafael looked at Adrienne, but said nothing.

"Adrienne," Adrienne said, flushing.

"She wants to sit in, Mary," he said to the woman. "Here, let me help." He handed his violin to Adrienne and took the awkward case from the woman.

"You'll not get paid," the woman warned Adrienne.

"I wasn't expecting it."

"My name's Mary, you're welcome actually. We're an informal bunch. You ever play a dance before?"

"No, maybe I shouldn't. Rafael didn't..."

"Play the tunes you know or can find in that book. Just play chords or look busy when one of us is running with it."

"How will I know?"

"Listen to me or Rafael will kick you."

"He'll like that," she said.

"Hey," a familiar voice called. She looked over and Willow and Steve'd driven up in a small SUV. She did not feel too pleased.

When they popped the hatch, Adrienne saw a bass fiddle in a soft black plastic cover and beside it a keyboard.




Violin Lessons



Soon she found herself inside the hall on the stage. A short round guy had his back to them and was tuning a banjo. Mary got busy unpacking her instrument from its case. It was a harplike thing that sat horizontal on a trestle.

"What's that?" she asked Rafael. He'd given her a chair between his and Mary's.

"A hammer dulcimer," he said.

She'd just tuned when without warning Mary called out "Geese in the Bog". Though this was one of the ones on the list, she found her mind a blank. She felt disgust at herself. Rafael called out "C". She began to bow chords in time. Just when she'd collected herself and was about to join in, Mary called, "Roll her in the Rushes". Rafael said, "G". She made a face and launched into the tune with the rest of them. After twice through it, Rafael said, "Chords" and the tune passed to Steve on the keyboard.

Steve played energetically and well.

She listened to what Rafael was doing, harmony and an edgy counter melody. For the first time she felt a jolt of pure joy at the sound. Mary called, "Take it out," and when everyone hit the tune, Adrienne joined in and then they were done.

A bearded guy off the stage by a sound board made a thumbs up and she knew that that'd been the sound check.

She felt hot and exhausted. She took a bottle from Rafael's bag. He grabbed her elbow and chose for her, giving her the half empty one. She drained it in the ladies room, filled it with water, drank it down, and then filled it again.

Back on the stage she felt useless. Rafael stood in the back, laughing with the banjo player, Willow and Steve. Mary stood talking to a woman who was loitering about at the front of the stage by a microphone. The hall was filling up and it was getting warmer.

The woman spoke into the microphone and her voice filled the hall, "OK, let's get started, line up, actives cross over" and proceeded to spout gibberish.

She saw the band was getting ready to start and prepared herself. Then she flushed, "What's the tune?" she whispered.

"Geese in the Bog" Mary and Rafael said at the same time. Adrienne relaxed and they were off.

Most of that dance was a blur. A melange of growing heat and shouts and thumps and music. When it ended she was sweating and thirsty and she drained almost half her water. She looked at the bottle and thought that the night could become a long march through a drought ravaged land. Then they were off again. After an hour there was a break and she refilled her water bottle and appropriated another (now all but empty) one of Rafael's.

And all through her playing she felt a surge of hot pleasure. Her mind felt ablaze. Once she listened to Rafael's harmony run and when he took the tune, played it softly. He kicked her and she'd've retreated to chords if he hadn't called "louder" at the same time. She nearly died.

During the intermission she just sat feeling drained. Her right arm ached. The tips of the fingers of her left hand hurt. She looked at them, they were chafed but there was no blood yet.

Half way through the second half, in the middle of a tune called "Buddha's Delight" Mary called her name and said "Take it".

She froze. There was nothing inside her at all. The sound drained to just the rhythm.

Rafael and Mary jumped in and the crowd whooped, thinking it had been a dramatic ploy.

She stared at the floor aghast and humiliated. She could not even play chords.

The hall was infernally hot. The air stunk of sweat. The banter of the woman at the microphone annoyed her. Rafael taking a swig from his bottle disgusted her. She hated herself.

When that dance was done, she put her violin in its case. She got up and made her way down off the stage and went outside. It felt cool in comparison. The sound of cicadas relaxed her.

She listened to the next dance staring at the asphalt of the parking lot. All that could be heard was the thumping of feet and a tinny sound of music above it. Then there was a waltz and people flowed out of the hall, talking and laughing.

She felt empty and alone. She smashed a mosquito that landed on her arm. All she could think of was failing.

"What am I doing," she asked herself.

The band came out close to last and gathered around Mary's car chatting.

"What happened?" Mary asked her.

Adrienne shook her head.

"It can be exhausting if you aren't used to it," Mary said, "You played well. I shouldn't've called on you."

Willow put her arm around her, which Adrienne did not particularly like. "You did well, dear."

Rafael leaned back on the hood and drank from his water bottle. Mary took a stack of bills from her purse. "Since there are six of us its $180 a piece.

When Mary pushed the bills into Adrienne's hand, Adrienne mumbled, "Hey, I don't need anything."

Mary paid no attention, "If you want to join us next Friday we're playing in Grover Falls. We can't fit in a practice before then, but if you and Rafael can get there a bit early that'd be good."

"You need to work on your harmony playing," Rafael said. His gaze was fixed on a parking lot flood light.

"You did just fine and Rafael stayed a bit sober and carried his weight for a change," Mary said.

"Hey," said Rafael, "I'm partially present you know."

"Maybe," was Mary's comment. "You'll do the driving?" she asked Adrienne, "You're alright? Most times I take him back with me and let him sleep on the couch. He's not a pretty sight first thing in the morning and my husband would object if he wasn't so nice. It's my husband who's nice, not Rafael. Rafael's an asshole."

"Hey," said Rafael, "I must've driven off and that's why you feel like you can say what you want about me."

"I'm good," Adrienne said.

"Get him to drink less if you can," Mary said.

Halfway home Rafael said, "Did playing classical music ever make you feel like that?"

She jumped, she'd thought he was asleep. She thought suddenly that she herself might've been nearly dozing. She had no idea where on the road they were. They might've missed Winchester altogether and been almost to Roanoke for all she knew.

He didn't expect her to answer as he kept going, "Maybe the guys who played in the band when the Messiah first aired or maybe were in on the first run through of the Seventh. Maybe they felt like that. And maybe Handel and Beethoven and those guys felt like that when they wrote the stuff. But do you think anyone's felt the least thing playing Philip Fucking Glass? Like hell."

In a dry voice she said, "You looked happy enough playing the Beethoven that night when Dad and I saw you."

"That music is 200 fucking years old."

"Is that why you drink, why you..." she couldn't think of the word.

"Molest and torture pretty violinists?" he leaned over and pinched her again.

"I'm driving," she said grimly.

"I do that because I enjoy it," he pinched her again. When she made no move to stop him, he did lean back. "I'm just looking for something that'll pass the time," then "I wish I played the banjo or the guitar, but I've always loved the violin and I've always loved Bach, heaven help me."

And then they were at his townhouse. She felt no inclination to be asked in.

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

She woke early. Her head felt light. She sat drinking coffee until the hour was respectable.

She called Rafael at 9. "I'm stopping the lessons," she told him. "I won't be seeing you again." The phone was silent. She hadn't expected him to say anything and he didn't.

Then she called Derek, "My mother was right," she said.

She could tell from his voice that he was happy and smugly sitting on some remark of the "I told you so" variety.

"Yes I'd like that," she said, when he'd asked her to go out that evening (he was helping his father do some stuff around the house and couldn't come sooner). "You really are a great guy."

So they went out to dinner. Afterwards when he'd parked in front of her apartment, after they'd kissed a moment, she put a hand on his shoulder and lied, "It always made me sad to see your taillights turn the corner."

She kissed him again. "They'll have no glow left at all when I'm through with you."

They walked arm and arm into the apartment building, twined together on the elevator ride up, and weaved like drunks down the hall.

"You're not letting me get out my keys," she said in mock complaint as they stood in front of her door. His hands were all about her.

The apartment was dark. Jill had kept her word.

She wanted to delay things as much as possible. She got a beer from the refrigerator and filled a glass from the box of white wine for herself. She put a cd in the player, Robert Earl Keene Jr.

They sat side by side on the couch. When he started singing along, ("Feeling good, feeling good again") she stood and pulled him toward her bedroom. He had a loud not bad baritone that could never find the right pitch.

Derek proved himself an energetic lover. They undressed quickly and stretched out on her bed. It'd been some time since she'd had company, not since college a year before.

The smell of him gathered around her, the smell of soap, the smell of his deodorant, the smell of sweat under his arms, the smell of his sex, the smell of their dinner.

He kissed down her body. Spending a little time on her breasts, but not enough to be boring. He kissed up her thighs and despite herself, when he put his mouth against her pussy she lifted herself up against his face.

As he worked her, she kept one hand idly roughing his hair and the other up by her face on the pillow. Her body knew its own mind and in a short time she heard it gasping and panting and squealing. She herself stared fixedly at the ceiling, curling her hair with her fingers.

After a time he rolled on his back and she went down on him. This too she did on auto pilot.

"Watch out," he called. She pulled her face away and finished him with wet fingers.

She stood and walked out to the kitchen. Being naked did absolutely nothing for her. She brought back the box of wine and a beer.

He handed her a condom and with only a slight amount of attention, he'd hardened enough to pull it on. "A little straight jacket for you, fella," she thought looking at it shining in the light from the bedside table, "Wish it wasn't my padded cell you were headed for."

She started to roll onto her back, she felt tired and disinclined to put in any effort, but he pulled her on top of him and she complied, reaching down and positioning him and sinking down.

He seemed intent on demonstrating as many positions as he could.

"Something the porn industry has to answer for," she thought sourly as they sat facing each other bouncing energetically.

He seemed determined to prove that he was inexhaustible.

Towards midnight, after she'd dropped the third condom into her bedside trash and he had guided her fingers to him and slid on the replacement, he struggled onto his feet, lifting her with him.

"We need a freshener," he told her.

As she clutched his neck, he slid back into her and carried her pegged like some sort of trophy into the bathroom. He started the shower and stepped in. He soaped her and she soaped him and then he rinsed them by circling under the showerhead.

Out, she squirmed about rubbing him and herself with a towel.

He carried her back into her room and finally lifted her off his cock, only to turn her and lean her against the wall. He gripped her hips and she reached down between her legs and guided him back in.

"It's back into the loony bin for you, kiddo" she thought, addressing his cock.

After a few minutes they were dry and he pulled her back to the bed and lay on it, she sitting on him with her back to his face.

After an endless time like that, he pushed her forward onto her hands and knees and rutted in her from behind.

Finally at 1:30 by her clock, he rolled her onto her back and settled into a steady rhythm.

She felt as excited as cold soup being stirred. She felt she might harden up around him and be stuck with him, by him for the rest of time.

As he worked in her, his arms on either side of her chest, his face just above hers, she thought that this was like the cage, but without any hope beyond its bars. The thought of the cage lit her unexpectedly and she came of sudden, bucking under him and gasping and choking.

He paused considerately and stroked her side and nuzzled her breasts and kissed the side of her face and then around to her unresponsive lips.

"I'm learning what you like darling," he whispered, "You like this the best? So do I."

She forced out a sigh and opened her mouth and met his tongue with hers. She opened her eyes and met his gaze evenly.

When he started up again, she sighed and put her hands on his shoulders and endured.

Jill came back at a little before 10. Adrienne was up, Derek was still in bed.

"Aren't we domestic?" Jill said with a smile. Adrienne had the waffle iron out and was just starting to ladle in the batter. She had a mug of coffee beside the bowl.

Adrienne was in fact feeling alright in an exhausted sort of way. She was all aches and pains below the waist. But even that was sort of comfortable.

"Hey," Adrienne said, "What's that on your finger?"

"Joel popped the question! Isn't it a lovely ring!"

"It is," said Adrienne.

"I am so fucking happy!" shouted Jill.

"What's up?" asked Derek. He'd pulled on his pants and stood by the kitchen table.

"I'm making waffles, Jill always loses it over them," Adrienne said.

"Bitch, you look at this finger and Derek you look at this one."

"Congratulations and best wishes!" he enthused.

Adrienne found the rest of the morning pleasant enough. It was nice to sit around companionably with two happy people.

When Derek had taken himself off, he needed to help his Dad with some yardwork, Jill said, "Wouldn't a double wedding be super? I'm sure Derek is thinking about it." And she punched Adrienne lightly on the shoulder.

Adrienne thought that a lifetime of such mornings would be OK. And there wouldn't be so many nights, Derek'd enthusiasm was sure to cool itself to the once a week temperature she thought appropriate. "I will be just like my mom," she thought.

That Wednesday she and Derek went out to a bar which had Karaoke. They'd been there often as he was an enthusiast.

She realized that if you followed the road a little further you'd come to the turn that led to the development in which Willow and Steve lived. She put the thought of that out of her mind.

An hour or so later, Derek was at the mike belting out:

If I could live my life all over

It wouldn't matter anyway

'cause I never could stay sober

On the Corpus Christi Bay

Her phone buzzed in her purse. She extracted it and answered, "What! Shit!" then she listened, "Alright, I'll do what I can."

She got up and ignoring Derek's surprised and pained expression she made her way out into the relative cool of the night.

From the parking lot in front of the bar, she called me. While she waited for me to answer, she looked idly down the highway. Outside the next building down the road, maybe fifty yards, flashed the blue and white and red lights of a couple police cars. She turned away when she heard my voice.

Without any preamble, which told me that something was up, she explained that Rafael Monetti, the violinist, she added in case I was mentally deficient, had been in an accident while driving drunk.

I calmly told her I'd arrange for a lawyer immediately. I said goodbye and hung up.

It surprised her that I didn't ask how she'd come to know. She wouldn't have had a good answer, it surprised her as well, he must have friends, why hadn't he called Willow or Steve for instance?

Derek appeared then and asked if everything was alright.

"My dad called," she explained, "He's concocting a surprise for Mom and wanted my advice."

"No one knows better what a mother wants than one of her daughters."

"Right," she said, "Let's go back in."

Later, after Derek had treated her to a quick fuck and had fallen asleep thanks to the number of beers he'd had. Adrienne called me again.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey yourself," I said.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"McLean."

"Boring."

Then I explained that Rafael's accident had totaled his car, caused considerable property damage but that no one except he himself had been hurt.

Adrienne felt a rise of concern. I went on to assure her that his injuries were minor, but that he'd broken his left wrist.

Her mind ran through all the times she'd seen him with his left hand gliding up and down the violin's neck.

Back in her room, she heard the rhythmic knocking of Jill's bed through the apartment's thin interior wall. Derek rolled over and sat up. For once she didn't mind, she was feeling sad and sex would keep her busy.

"Hey, where were you?" he asked.

"Calling my dad."

"Come here," he whispered. And as he inserted himself, he said, "I'm so glad you get along with your parents."

Soon the apartment was filled with the soft syncopated sounds of two beds coming in and out of sync.

Two weeks later she was driving home from work. Derek was going to take her to his parents' for dinner. The way he was acting and Jill's suppressed excitement clued her in that something was up. She felt resigned to the inevitable.

"He's a nice guy with good prospects," she told the steering wheel. "And he's not lazy."

Then I called.

She pursed her lips as I spoke.

I told her that her boyfriend Derek had arranged for a conference call. He'd given us a special number to call. He'd borrowed his boss's code and was going to make use of his company's conferencing service. I told her that I'd been instructed, in no uncertain terms, not to warn her, but, I added, when had instructions ever applied to me? I said I wanted to make sure she was serious about the guy and was not just being railroaded by her mother.

She assured me that she knew what she was doing. I found that dubious, but kept quiet out of long experience in the pointlessness of offering advice or opinion.

As I talked and she drove, she imagined being asked to marry Derek in front of his parents, with her parents and undoubtedly his grandparents and older brother all present via speaker phone.

She had no doubt that she would accept him, but still.

She realized I was going on. I asked her if she'd seen Rafael. I told her Rafael was home awaiting sentencing. He was going to pay a fine, lose his drivers' license for a year and do six months of community service. "The local school music programs will get a real boost," I said.

"You've given up playing the violin for good?" I asked then.

She said yes. She'd thrown out her old music and that morning'd advertised her violin on ebay.

I was silent for a moment. It made me sad. Then I perked up at the thought of the conference call and I told her I expected to be entertained by the events of the evening.

She saw where she was and turned left into the straight little street with its speed bumps and lines of closely spaced townhouses.

She stopped in front of Rafael's. She stared at it a time. On the grass in the margin between the street and the sidewalk was a blue recycle bin, set out for the next day's pickup. She got out and looked down at it. She saw it was filled with spiral bound music notebooks. She picked one up, opened it and saw that every sheet was filled with neatly hand written music, clearly by the same hand that'd written out the music they'd played at the wedding, it seemed years before.

She set it back down.

She went up and rang his doorbell.

He answered the door.

"There's nobody home and I am not he," he said and started to close the door. She got a foot in it.

She saw that his left arm was in a sling. A cast covered his wrist and immobilized his left hand.