Letters Around Midnight

by Carla Croft

  ***

  I was so looking forward to going to the US. It was so far away, so romantic. The College had a great reputation. The problem was when I got there, I hated my professor. He was dry and boring, dusty, like an old book. Technically he was superb but there was no passion, and because of that, I lost mine.

  My playing got worse and worse. The worse it got, the less I wanted to play. It was a vicious circle. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get my passion back. The professor was literally drying the soul out of me. It was all technique, technique, technique. I ended up flunking my first year and barely scraped a retake.

  In the first term of the following year, the professor had to go away but he organised a stand-in, Ben. He played for a well-known orchestra and had been one of the professor’s best pupils. I was sure he was going to be as dusty and dry as the prof. The day we first met, the class sat around in a semicircle as we usually do and this young guy walked in. Tall, slim, elegant hands, long quick fingers and this mess of curly brown hair. He was as far from the professor as you could get. I was confused when he played; he was so in love with his cello. How could the dusty old prof turn out a pupil so different to himself?

  Ben asked us each to play something for him. I had no idea what to play so I sawed my way through some half-remembered piece or other. After I finished, he didn’t say anything. He threw me a look and passed right on over to the next student. Great, I thought. Like master, like pupil. He so obviously hated me. The rest of the lesson was a blur to be honest. I was in a sulk, and could have given up right there and then and gone home. I didn’t care anymore.

  After the class, Ben pulled me aside.

  “You’ve fallen out of love with the cello.”

  He came straight out with it. No one else had said it, up to then, but it was true. I burst out crying. He asked me why so I told him.

  “You don’t get it do you. The professor was looking forward to teaching you.” He could see I didn’t believe him as soon as he said it.

  “It’s the truth.” He looked me hard in the eyes.

  “He said you could be good if your technique improved and he could tell in a year if you had it in you.” I didn’t say anything.

  “Well, I guess we know then.” It was all he said before he left. It was my lowest point.

  I went home and cried my eyes out but found something within me from somewhere. I was damned if I was going to give up. The next few lessons went better but still not great. Ben was the same as the professor. He was this technique monster. They were definitely out of the same mould. I kicked myself for having thought he could be anything else. He walked around behind me during my recital tapping me smartly with his bow, indicating points of tension. There was more relaxation in me when he wasn’t there. When he was, I got this big knot of tension in my stomach. I could not let it go.

  At one point I snapped,

  “God, will you stop having a go.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re always on my back,”

  “I’m trying to help,”

  “You’re not helping, you’re making it worse,”

  “The hell I am, it’s you, you won’t relax”

  “I am relaxed.” The argument was getting more heated, neither of us wanted to back down.

  “You’re not relaxed, you’re tense, tense, tense,”

  “I’m not,”

  “You are too. I could pluck you like a string you’re so tense.”

  It was embarrassing. We were arguing right in front of the other students. When the end of the lesson came, I let the other students pack up ahead of me, in order to apologise, but not in front of the class.

  “Sorry Ben. I didn’t mean to be rude.” He didn’t say anything,

  “Can we try again? Please? If I don’t pass this year, I’m through, it’s over.”

  It was the first time I had admitted it to myself.

  “Playing the cello is the only thing I’ve ever done. What else is there for me to do?”

  The hot flush of tears started in my cheeks. He was standing there, silent, as if he didn’t care.

  “Look,” he said eventually,

  “Perhaps we can work something out with extra lessons.”

  It was a relief, at last I had something to pin my hopes on.

  The extra lessons were difficult to work into my schedule, sometimes we met twice a day. Things were better, but something was still missing. I had all of this emotion inside me but didn’t have the key to let it out. It was incredibly frustrating. I cried myself to sleep some nights with my cello propped up against the bed. It was the last thing I saw when I went to sleep and the first thing I saw when I woke up.

  Then one day, the lesson had to be held at his house. When Ben came to the door to greet me, he was barefoot, wearing jogging pants and nothing else. He had obviously got out of the shower only moments before and stood there towelling his hair dry holding the door open. I hadn’t noticed before but he had a great body. Definitely not the pasty white body of a musician. He was slim and toned with skin the colour of burnished walnut. He was more of a surfer. I could feel the heat rising in my face.

  “You’re early,” he said.

  “Well, you said you wanted me keener.” I tried to cover up my blushing and carried my cello into the hall.

  It was a fabulous detached house wrapped around in its own garden, New England style decor, and beautiful red mahogany floorboards. There was a rich smell of wax and polish. It must be like living inside a cello I thought and felt at home straight away. Ben took me through to his music studio. It was a huge downstairs room which ran the whole length of one side of the house. Large French windows let in the fragrance and light from the garden. It was a beautiful room for playing music in and right in the centre of it was a chair for me.

  “So,” he said

  “Get yourself set up.” He padded off to get dressed. When he came back, he was still barefoot in his joggers but had thrown a shirt over his shoulders, leaving the buttons undone. He had this shaft of dark hair running down his tummy and the sharp lines of his hip bones arrowed down at his crotch. I couldn’t help but sneak a quick look as I rubbed resin into my bow, working it back and forth with my hand. The movement started to get me aroused, and I did the best I could to put his crotch out of my mind.

  “Okay, here you go,” he indicated the chair and backed off a few paces. He put his hands on hips hooking his shirt open. His crotch caught my eye again as I settled down in the chair. I coughed nervously and plucked the strings of my cello tightening the pegs fractionally to make the notes sound sharper. The room lent itself to brighter, happier notes.

  The cello scooped my dress up between my knees as I prepared to play, the wood pressing against my thighs. My mind had been so focused on the lesson I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought on the way over, but playing the cello in a dress isn’t the most elegant thing for a girl to do. It was too late, I had to deal with it.

  “What shall I play?”

  “Anything” he said.

  “Get loose first off.”

  I gripped the cello between my legs and pulled a few notes from it. No reaction from Ben. I shifted on my seat and played a few more notes. He still didn’t say anything, he kept his eyes on his reflection in the polished floorboards, tracing his own outline with his foot. I ran a few scales and snatches of a few songs. He still didn’t look at me. After a few minutes, he sat down cross-legged on the floor, his elbows on his knees cradling his head in his hands. My eyes kept drifting to his crotch as I played. The heat which had risen in my face was now rising in me lower down. The moisture between my legs started to grow. I couldn’t get comfortable and stopped playing.

  “You’re too tight” he said. He looked up at me, his legs crossed at the ankles, hugging his knees. I hadn’t noticed before how the brown of his eyes matched his hai
r. A bead of moisture tickled in my crotch.

  “I can hear the tension in you.” Without uncrossing his legs, he stood straight up like a ballet dancer. It was an unexpected movement of pure elegance, my heart jumped.

  “Why did you start playing the cello?” The question surprised me.

  “Because I loved the sound.”

  “And your teacher?” I felt uneasy.

  “Good looking?” I flushed.

  “I thought so,”

  “It wasn’t like that at all.” I was sure it wasn’t. But he had caught me off guard.

  “All students have a crush on their teachers.” It blurted out of me catching me by surprise.

  “So you had a crush on your previous teacher. You played well because you were pleasing him. Then you come here and you have this old guy. You don’t fancy him so your playing suffers, you don’t care if you don’t please him.”

  “No. No, that’s not right.” I defended myself.

  “You know, the professor said your audition was the best he had ever heard.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No, I’m not; but he said your technique sucks.”

  “Well, that sounds more like him.” It was a petulant answer that the bite of my lip was too late to catch. Ben huffed.

  “He told me your lack of technique was the only thing holding you back.”

  “But, he hates me and technique is so, so boring,” I stammered.

  “He doesn’t hate you at all.” He said it as if he was talking to a child.

  “A good teacher knows what we need, more than we do. You were too good too early and your previous teacher didn’t want to kill your passion with technique. He didn’t want to be the one to risk turning a good musician into a mediocre one. What he didn’t see, but which the professor does, is he stopped a good musician becoming a great one.”

  I was stunned. I had thought all this time the drills and mechanical strictures were put there to shackle me, when all along, they had been there to free up my playing. It was true my fingers felt stronger, more energetic. My wrist didn’t cramp up, my body was more balanced.

  “But, all this technique and I still can’t play right.”

  “Because you haven’t yet allowed your better technique to release your passion.”

  The familiar frustration was back, but the heat in my knickers hadn’t gone away. If anything the confrontation was intensifying it.

  “Well, how do I do that?”

  “I’m screwed if I know,” was all he said.

  “You’re this big tight ball of tension and no matter how much I tell you to relax, you won’t”

  “I am relaxed.” We were back to square one again after all this time. We stared mutely at each other, neither of us wanting to be the first to speak.

  “Okay, look, play again.” He shook his head as he said it.

  I sighed, settled myself in my chair, closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. Okay, relax. Thoughts raced through my mind. Was it true? Had I only ever wanted to please my teacher and loved him in some sexless, romantic way? Did I hate the professor because he was old and didn’t give me the praise my previous teacher did? All of a sudden, it hit me. Ben was right; but what could I do? I did the only thing I could do. I thought of Ben. Admittedly, he was good looking and he was making me feel hot. I fixed the image of Ben in my mind and began to undress him as I played.

  Slowly at first, allowing the technique to develop the sound, I imagined caressing his neck. My fingers entwined in those big curls of his as my left hand caressed the strings on the fingerboard.

  “Good, nice” Ben was saying. His feet padded out a rhythm on the floorboards as he walked, the peppery smell of his shower gel following him. In my mind, I edged the collar of his shirt away from the warmth of his neck and kissed his ears. The music swelled between us as I pulled more notes from the instrument between my legs.

  “Yeah, that’s good” Ben was speaking softly.

  In my mind, my fingers caressed the small of his back and slipped back and forth under the waistband of his boxers as I drew notes from the strings with my bow. I did my best to relax more but there was a block somewhere and the music started to falter. His hands pressed down gently on my shoulders.

  “You’re still tense in your left shoulder” he said. In my mind, the linen shirt fell from his back and my arm slipped around his neck, pulling his taut body to me as I cupped his hard crotch with my hand.

  “Here it is.”

  There was relief in his voice. I opened my eyes, he was standing by my left shoulder.

  “Look at your thumb,” he said

  I craned my neck back. My thumbnail was a tell-tale white, showing that I was gripping too hard. Shit, I thought. How long had I been doing that? As I released the pressure, it flushed pink and the tension ebbed out of my shoulder and neck.

  “Now play” he said. The notes grew richer, darker in tone. For the first time in over a year, I felt the unconstrained vibration between my thighs. My instrument was talking to me again.

  “Hello” it said,

  “I’ve missed you.”

  My fantasy Ben came back to me. He was standing behind me, half-naked kissing my nape. I rubbed my neck against the scroll of my cello imagining it as Ben.

  I continued to play, the music deepening and opening up inside me. The real Ben stood behind me. Gently, he pressed the palm of his hand on to the small of my back, making a slight adjustment in my posture. The last of the tension vanished sending the sound of the notes flowing through me and out of the cello. I was lost in a torrent of music. I couldn’t have stopped it if I had wanted to. A whole year of frustrated effort and longing rushed headlong out of me.

  “That’s it” Ben was saying.

  “Keep going.”

  I felt the passion of the music through the technique. Completely enveloped by the sound and vibration of the music, my inner thighs were trembling. I found it difficult to hold the cello still between my legs and wanted to wrap them around it as if it were my lover, to feel its vibration deep inside me.

  Ben was sitting in front of me, cross-legged on the floor, transfixed. My skirt had ridden up uncovering my thighs but I didn’t care. He stood up. My pulse quickened. My fingers were flowing over the fingerboard freely, finding notes and nuances I had forgotten they knew.

  The fantasy took over. I wanted Ben for real. The cello lay discarded as I rushed to him, flinging my arms around his neck and pressing my lips to his. My hands ran over his body. We stopped to stare at each other. He looked down from my face to my cleavage, letting his hands fall to my blouse. He ripped it open, buttons scattering across the floor. I unhooked my bra, grabbed his hands and put them to my breasts, yearning for the coolness of his fingers. I eased down his joggers to let loose his long thin cock, stroking its silky heat as it throbbed in front of me. The musky sack of his balls felt hot and heavy in my hands. I stepped out of my skirt and knickers as we sank to the floor. The tip of his cock rubbed against my pussy as I straddled him, and pushed gently into me as I lowered myself down onto it. A man had never felt so good inside me.

  I rode him with my hands on his chest, the head of his cock rubbing against my G spot. He was in so deep. I rode him as he stroked my stomach and the top of my pubes. And, in one ecstatic, headlong rush, I came, gulping in huge ragged gasps of air, screaming as my muscles tightened around his cock. Sobs of ecstasy caught in my throat as I tried to catch my breath, hoarse with the effort of panting. My sex let go wave after wave of tension. I was totally spent and fell forward to kiss him. It was his turn. I whispered in his ear,

  “How do you want me?”

  “On the chair” he said.

  Ben sat on the chair, guiding me by my hips onto his lap the hair on his legs tickling the underside of my thighs. He brushed his lips across my nipples. Tingles shot up and dow
n my spine as he let his hands roam free across my back, his fingers swirling in the dimples above my bum. Warm gusts from his mouth swept across my breasts. My chest flushed red as I arched my back to bring a nipple up to meet his lips. He took the breast in his hand and put it to his mouth. He pulled gasps from me as the urgency between my thighs began to build again. I bent my head forward, hungrily seeking his lips with mine, my hair cascading down over his face. Our tongues entwined. The slightest touch of his fingers on my skin elicited quivers of pleasure from between my legs. He pulled my hair gently backwards and ran his tongue up either side of my throat. Easing my hands down between us, I grasped his cock. It stood there eagerly, framed by curls of brown hair, his warm musk rising. He slipped his hand under my bum to gently massage the moist and swollen lips of my pussy. They were ready for him. I held his cock in one hand, the hard gristle of it pulsing in time with his heart. I smeared the pre-cum oozing out of its tip with my thumb and licked the salty slickness off it. I kissed him. His tongue sought out his own taste on my lips. I moaned deep in my throat.

  “I want you,” he whispered in my ear as he guided his cock forward under me. I rose up slightly and eased myself back down as he slid into me, one delicious inch at a time. My whole body was alive with the thrill of him. My head fell backwards, as I continued to move slowly up and down on his shaft. His rhythm changed so I matched him, this time pushing my hips back and forth against him. He began to groan and pant with excitement, my nipples grew erect brushing against the taught frame of his chest. Our hips continued to grind against each other, his groans getting louder and with a final short jab of his hips, he shot his load up inside me. I ground down on his cock with my pussy, searching for the very root of it. The feeling of his hot jets inside me made me tingle with pleasure. We clung to each other, our bodies moist with sweat, his rigid cock twitching gently in its final throws of orgasm. Neither of us moved; neither of us spoke; we remained joined, allowing our breathing to gradually settle.