A Dance for Him

by Richard, Lara

  I like living well, it’s true, and I do live well now, very well indeed, but surely there is more to life than that!

  She never understood what I was doing. If I’d married her, I certainly wouldn’t be who I am right now, twenty years after, absurdly rich, celebrated, the music director of a leading orchestra and an opera house, with guest engagements all over the world, in New York and Paris and London and Vienna and so, so many more places …

  But enough of that. I’ve got to go look at something in the Mahler 5th, I woke up with an interesting idea and want to experiment with it. So much of music is about pacing, breathing, so that everything works up to the inevitable climax. Take your time, wind it up just right, and then unleash everything you’ve got.

  Result: maximum ecstasy, when done right.

  It’s all rather like sex, to be honest, and it’s probably no coincidence that I’m pretty good when it comes to pleasing women. At least, they seem to keep coming back for more - I’ve been getting a slew of veiled and not-so-veiled hints from Sofia and Marie-Hélène about visiting them.

  Luckily Francesca and Elsa are both on tour, or I wouldn’t have time to eat my dinner …

  It might seem odd, actually, but I haven’t been with anyone since the end of the season. I mean, I could, with just a snap of my fingers, but I don’t need any extraneous drama during my down time - so many more important things to think about.

  Like music.

  Except here’s a call from Aurelia! I wonder what that’s about. She normally knows not to disturb me when I’m in my study, so this is unusual.

  She sounds hurried, embarrassed. A scheduling mistake. How unlike her. It seems this Ms. Courtenay is here early, and she’s shown her in. Oh, I suppose I might as well. Maurizio sent her, so I ought to be nice to her …

  “Yes, send her upstairs to my study,” I say.

  It’s not long till I hear footsteps coming up the stone staircase - the familiar click clack of Aurelia’s heels, and a lighter, quieter step, presumably the girl’s. Then a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” I say.

  Aurelia opens the door and shows the girl in. She’s pretty, very pretty, a delicate little brunette with huge eyes in a thin white sundress.

  A bit young for me perhaps, but it certainly won’t be unpleasant to see her around, I find myself thinking, before I smack that thought down - she’s Maurizio’s student, I shouldn’t be behaving like some old perv around her.

  “Maestro, this is Ms. Courtenay,” Aurelia says, and I nod at her to indicate that she can leave.

  “Good morning, Ms. Courtenay,” I say, standing up and approaching to shake her hand as Aurelia closes the door behind her.

  “Good morning, maestro,” she stammers, looking at me with those huge eyes of hers as I take her hand in mine. “I - I just wanted to thank you for agreeing to work with me - it’s a great honor. Um, you don’t have to call me Ms. Courtenay, Evie will do just fine …”

  Very sweet of her, of course, but what a nervy little mouse! A very pretty little mouse, it’s true, but a mouse nevertheless. Maurizio said she was his most talented student, and yet she’s behaving as though she’s only here on sufferance. Completely lacking in confidence.

  What was Maurizio thinking? If she’s that timid, I can’t imagine what the bright lights of the stage will do to her.

  You’ve got to behave like you’re entitled to be there, young lady, I think …

  “A pleasure, Evie,” I say aloud instead. “I assume you’ve brought something to play for me today?”

  She nods and smiles - a lovely, slightly nervous smile. God she’s pretty. Nice figure, fair, with fine features, delicate bone structure, long wavy hair cascading over her shoulders. A sweet, innocent face. Probably a virgin, she has that ethereal, untouched air about her. I wonder how that could be, for a pretty girl like her - too much time spent alone in the practice room, probably?

  She’d probably be a lot less timid if she got laid, poor thing! …

  Her hand feels wonderful in mine, so soft, so warm, so yielding. But why am I holding her hand still?

  No wonder she’s looking nervous, poor thing.

  I let go of her hand and gesticulate towards the piano. She smiles and sits down, takes a deep breath, and a strange serenity comes over her as she starts playing.

  She’s picked the Chopin B minor sonata - ambitious. I like that. It also doesn’t hurt that it was an old favorite of mine back in my pianist days …

  And I’ve got to say, she’s got a beautiful touch. Everything perfectly calibrated. So easy to bang away at the opening, but she does it just right, landing on each chord with ease, playing with the contrast of the high and low registers, then lingering or pushing forward just so when the big soaring melody comes in …

  Well, that was sensual. Totally unexpected, coming from this shy little slip of a girl. Fuck, old Maurizio knew what he was doing when he sent her. She’s also completely lost that nervousness in the meantime, is radiant, knowing, sure of herself. A manner so much more fitting for one of her talent … and of her beauty.

  Because she’s gorgeous, ridiculously gorgeous. It didn’t fully register earlier, probably because she seemed so modest and timid and unassuming.

  But now … Now I can’t stop staring at her. She’s playing so perfectly that I’m free to get distracted by her, by the way her shapely, perfect breasts heave when she breathes before a phrase, by the fact that the bodice of her little sundress is both tight and not entirely opaque, so that her nipples are faintly visible through the thin white cotton.

  It also doesn’t hurt that the dress rides up slightly whenever she pedals, showing a bit more leg whenever that happens …

  I can’t believe I’m sitting here listening to this beautiful young thing play Chopin so gloriously, and all I can think of is that maybe she’ll have a bit of a wardrobe malfunction, maybe show a bit more tit or thigh at some point.

  And yes, I know I’m being completely inappropriate.

  It’s not like I’ve never looked down some hot soprano’s cleavage as she’s singing, but this is different, they were colleagues, and she’s a student of sorts, for one thing. And my hot sopranos are usually quite a bit older than nineteen, and a lot more aware of what they’re doing.

  I doubt very much if this poor innocent girl even has any idea what she’s doing, any idea what effect she’s having on me …

  An effect that I’ve having to hide by idiotically moving my Mahler score from my desk to my lap, like some stupid schoolboy with an uncontrollable erection, just before the end of the first movement, so that when she turns to me for my opinion, she won’t notice the bulge in my pants.

  “It’s very good, Ms. C-, um, Evie,” I say. “You play beautifully.”

  She smiles at me, girlish delight suffusing her sweet face for a moment before her old tentativeness reappears.

  Not wanting her to notice anything amiss, not to mention the heavy score on my lap, I make a few remarks about bits here and there, nothing huge, just little tweaks, hoping that getting all pedantic and technical will distract me enough to ease my straining erection.

  It helps, very slightly perhaps, but not nearly enough.

  What definitely doesn’t help is the submissive way in which she’s looking at me as I talk to her, her eyes wide, her cheeks slightly flushed, her soft lips slightly parted, so that the only thing I can think about is how they’d feel wrapped around my dick.

  I bet she’s never given a blowjob before, and while I’ve never really gone in for the whole deflowering virgins thing, for some reason the idea of potentially being this girl’s first is making me incredibly hard.

  Well, that and for some reason I can’t seem to stop thinking about sex around her.

  I’m not sure if the thinking about sex is causing me to get hard, or if the fact that I’m getting hard is causing me to think about sex, but in either case, this is all very awkward, to say the least.

  It’s positively a relief w
hen, after babbling on for a bit like a fool, I realise that I can plead scheduling error and send her off early.

  She’s very sweet and obliging, of course, if perhaps slightly disappointed. I stand up, carefully holding my score in front of me, and offer her my hand to shake as I suggest that she come back tomorrow instead, that she could schedule something with Aurelia downstairs.

  Her face lights up as her slender hand slides into mine, making my insides churn with longing.

  We’re standing so close to each other I can practically smell the sweet, warm, indefinable scent of her soft skin. I’m holding her hand rather than shaking it, but she doesn’t seem to mind at all.

  I’m also staring into her eyes as I talk to her, as I realise halfway through, but then she’s staring back into mine as well …

  What’s more, her eyes are dreamy, longing almost, her voice soft and low, her lips still temptingly parted as she looks at me. I don’t know what that means, or rather I do know what it means, except I keep telling myself that it can’t possibly be. What, she wants me? I’m a bit more than twice her age, old enough to be her father.

  God, I know that look so well, know what it means, know that it can only mean one thing.

  And yet …

  We say our goodbyes, and our mutual gaze lingers before she turns to leave.

  I’m barely capable of thought at this point, I must be staring like a fatuous idiot, but I can’t take my eyes off her, and my painfully engorged dick is probably cutting off the blood supply to my brain as well, which would explain why I feel stunned, dazed, as though I’ve just been hit on the head or something.

  The moment she shuts the door behind her I drop the score on my desk and practically throw myself on the piano bench, sniffing it like some old perv, hoping for some hint of excitement on her part to confirm my perceptions, as I unzip my pants and free my cock and start whacking off to fantasies of her offering her sweet little pussy up to me for my delectation. The whole thing feels utterly sick and depraved and wrong, and yet I can’t help but think that if I just relieve the tension and get it out of my system, I’ll get over the whole thing, and then I can see her tomorrow without going completely mad …

  CHAPTER TWO

  I’m not sure what just happened.

  I can hardly think, and my legs are trembling as I walk out of the maestro’s study.

  That gaze - those huge, dark, wistful eyes! It felt like he was looking into my very soul. I don’t think anyone has ever looked at me like that before.

  Or if they have, this is the first time I’ve noticed. Being at a girls’ boarding school for years doesn’t exactly accustom one to be looked at by men, and in the last few months I’ve mostly kept to myself in Milan, going between my apartment and Maestro Alfieri’s studio.

  I’ve had men try to pick me up before, and I usually don’t even realise what they’re trying to do until well afterwards - I typically smile blankly and politely, and tell them the time, or say hello, or respond to whatever it is they’re using as an excuse to talk to me, and then wander off. I just don’t notice these things, and in any case I’m usually running through some music in my head whenever I’m walking around, so I’m invariably a bit out of it.

  But then they’re not him …

  I don’t even know normally how to make eye contact with a guy. But he, he somehow caught my gaze and then it was like I was trapped, unable to look away, as time seemed to stop around us and nothing else mattered, for those seconds, perhaps for that minute …

  I could have quite happily lost myself in those eyes forever. And how he was smiling - how pink and happy he looked!

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so happy just talking to me. And it wasn’t even like we were talking about anything naughty, it was all very proper, what we were saying, although he was holding my hand rather oddly - so gently, so softly - as he stared into my eyes and leaned in, so close that I could smell that intoxicating blend of expensive cologne and his masculine scent …

  But it can’t be, it can’t possibly be. He’s so gorgeous, the most handsome man I’ve ever met, with his sculpted features and luxuriant dark hair - oh, what wouldn’t I give to run my hands through that hair!

  And he’s well-built too - tall, with deliciously manly, broad shoulders and powerful forearms, accentuated by his impeccably cut, probably bespoke shirt …

  I wonder what he looks like with his shirt off. It’s hard to look at him and not wonder how it would feel to be crushed by those powerful arms.

  But it’s his eyes that are the most arresting - soft and wistful at times, darkly blazing at others, with long lashes and an eyebrow semi-permanently cocked as though appraising what he’s seeing, which is particularly hot when it seems like he’s appraising me …

  And not only is he a total dreamboat, he is who he is, Maestro Lorenzo Moretti, world-famous conductor, and an absolutely brilliant, brilliant musician.

  Grizzled men way older than he is fall silent in awe and pay attention when he bounds onto the podium in his débonair, masterful way, which doesn’t surprise me - it’s true he looks somewhat younger than his forty-one years, but his relatively youthful looks are easily balanced out by his aura of dominance and self-assurance, which no doubt accounts at least in part for the ease with which he imposes his will on the group as a whole.

  As for the women …

  Well, he probably has the same effect on them that he just had on me. I mean, my panties were soaked when I left - I didn’t even realise how wet I’d gotten until I stood up and felt my juices gushing out of me.

  I didn’t even think anyone could ever have had that effect on me. Of course, I’ve experienced getting wet before, when reading naughty books or looking at naughty videos online, when I close my eyes and imagine unspeakable scenarios as I touch myself.

  But for an actual person in real life to cause that reaction, to the extent that he did, without doing anything more than staring at me and holding my hand … wow.

  And now I can’t think about anything but how much I’d like him to take me.

  If he’d tried to touch more than just my hand, if he’d kissed me roughly and felt me up and ordered me to take off my clothes and bend over his desk, I’d have yielded quite happily to his demands. Or even if all he’d demanded was a blowjob … oh God I’d love to have sucked him off. There’s a part of me that can’t help but wonder what his cock looks like, what it tastes like - and there’s also the part of me that longs for the exquisite pleasure of submission, of submitting to a handsome, intelligent, dominant alpha male, such as he obviously is.

  It’s weird in a way - here I am, a nineteen-year-old virgin with absolutely no real-life experience with men, and in less than an hour after I’ve met this guy all I can think of is how much I want to service him, how much I want to be his dirty little slut to play with, how much I want him to use me for his pleasure …

  Of course, he’s always been known to be a bit of a ladies’ man, so I probably shouldn’t take any of this too seriously. There’s no way he’s singling me out or anything. He probably does this with everyone, and I’m probably just blowing it up in my mind because I’m so excited to even be interacting with him in the first place. That personal assistant of his is intimidatingly beautiful, I bet she isn’t just an employee.

  Lucky girl.

  I’ve had a crush on him for like forever - it sounds odd, but in a way his recordings have influenced me more than those of the great pianists, even though it’s a completely different rep.

  Part of why I wanted to study with Maestro Alfieri was that I knew he’d taught Maestro Moretti, back when he hadn’t embarked on a conducting career yet. Of course, when he casually suggested sending me to Moretti, I was just ecstatic - ecstatic and terrified. He’s known to be quite exacting and a bit of a perfectionist - definitely not just a pretty face (although oh my God he is gorgeous, utterly gorgeous, more gorgeous in person than I’d ever imagined just from looking at pictures of him over the y
ears).

  I was so afraid he’d listen to me and then tell me that no, I had it all wrong, that I had no talent. Thank goodness he didn’t do that! …

  Oh, I’m so glad I did this.

  It’s also lucky that I’m now nineteen and don’t have any guardians to answer to any more, because I’m pretty sure gramps would not have approved of this trip. I don’t think he really approves of all this music business anyway.

  I think he’d have liked it much better if I’d gone to college and met some rich boy and become a society hostess - which would probably have bored me to death. So no, I didn’t tell him about Maestro Moretti at all, just said I was going to Venice to visit with a friend’s family.

  I know it sounds odd, it’s not exactly like I’m doing anything particularly controversial, but it just felt like it wouldn’t be a good idea to say anything to him. For some reason gramps was always a bit weird whenever I mentioned Moretti’s name back when I was a silly young girl with a crush (though arguably I am still a silly young girl with a crush, given today!). He and grandma would go all silent and everything would be quite uncomfortable until somebody changed the subject.

  Not sure what any of that’s about.

  Of course, they did use to live in Milan when gramps was in the Foreign Service, so I wondered if they somehow knew him, but that would have been when he was himself a student at the conservatory and studying with Maestro Alfieri, they couldn’t possibly have heard about him then, surely!

  I always wondered, but I never asked them why …

  In our family one doesn’t ask questions. It’s understood, in a vague but also definite kind of way, that there are just things that one doesn’t talk about, and that one isn’t even to ask why one can’t talk about them.

  It was years before I even knew about what happened with mom and dad.

  Apparently, when I was eight, apparently mom ran off with another man and then dad started drinking way too much, so I was sent to live with my grandparents. Later I was sent to boarding school, after she was in that car crash on the Riviera with the other guy.