Piano Lessons

This is a little slice of cheesy romance. It made me smile to write it and I hope you all enjoy.

Elaina had been trying to play this piece for hours. Two sharps, G, G, and two flats then the convoluted coda, 1, 2, oh ... Damn it! No matter how hard she tried the notes never sounded right. Her very undelicate hands could not do this poor piece of music justice. If she had it her way there would be a bon fire in the living room where a piano once stood instead of murdering such beautiful music with her clumsy attempts.

"Stop there, again please." Her instructor intoned behind her for probably the fiftieth time.

"Why bother?! I haven't gotten the damn thing right the last million times it's not going to work this time either!." She ask beligerently.

"It's in you, you just have to realize it. Now, do it again please." He let the words roll off of his tongue in a tone that ordered despite the request.

With a heavy sigh she began again, her heart wasn't in it and the notes became jumbled again. Elaina had stuggled with her lessons since day one. She was convinced she was too old at the age of twenty-five to be learning an instrument but at the same time a need to express herself bubbled in the back of her mind constantly. She had never found a proper outlet for the emotions and inspiration she felt surging inside of her and she thought perhaps music would offer some release from her nagging imagination. Instead she found that although she had some talent her fingers were her enemy. Her stubby, short fingers could never convey what she pictured in her head and what she wanted to show the world. What she wanted, she realized, to show her teacher. Sun was a graduate of some fancy art school she could never remember the name of where he learned to play an orchestra of instruments. The man could pick up anything and almost immediately learn it's secrets, he was a genius. They had met through a mutual friend at the last fund raiser for the arts institute in town and he had agree to take her on as a student. She could tell in the deep roll of his voice that her inability mystified him and kept him here for hours every week to unravel the mystery. She had to admit that in some part her playing failed from distraction. She had become so very curious about the tall, slender man with more confidence than she could even imagine in herself. He never smiled, only smirked and always had something hiding behind his dark eyes.

"Damn it!" She exclaimed again as the next section was mangled.

"Again." Sun ordered. He paced back and forth behind the piano bench, with one hand on his chin and a look of concentraition on his face.

Elaina was almost on the verge of tears but she bit back the feeling. Why did this upset her so much? She was used to failure but this seemed so much worse. She narrowly avoided three incorrect notes as her emotions surged but only seconds later she stopped and hung her head over the keys without looking at her teacher. Sun ached an eyebrow at her sudden silence, he was thirty years old last fall but the confusion clearly evident made him seem much younger.

"What's the problem?" He asked seemingly oblivious to her misery.

"I'm just hopeless. That's the problem." She wailed into the keys. "I can't do it, I'm not going to try to do it, you're wasting your time on me!"

At this Sun sighed, maybe he'd been working her too hard? "Elaina, you told me you wanted more than anything to play. I want to hear that in your music. I know you can." He soothed gently.

"What if I can't?" She asked. "What if I never can? I have all this passion in me and it does me no good. I can feel it but it refuses to come out." She finished pouting a bit.

As she stared morosly at her instrument waiting for his usual dismissal of her pessimism she felt him walk up behind her. Sun walked up and leaned over her head so close she could feel the warmth of his body. The fabric of his black blazer rubbed against her shoulders as he placed his hands on hers, the long delicate fingers curling over top of her own.

"Show me." He whispered quietly with a hint of throaty growl. "Show me your passion."

More than a little distracted Elaina swallowed hard, took a deep breath and attemped to play the piece again. With the weight of his finger tips he guided her hands to each note. Somewhere she could hear the music coming out perfectly from her hands but all she was concious of hearing was the measured rhythm of his breath in her ear. The intensity of this sonnatta ebbed and flowed completely correct and with astounding ferocity but all she could feel was the brush of his long black hair on her neck. Her fingers seemed to work of their own accord and spitefully wondered why he had to smell so delicious. What right did he have to be so tempting? Yet that thought was irretrievably lost when he pressed his lips to her ear.

"Good, very good." He intoned happily in her ear. He was smirking again she could tell, and then he was nibbling on her earlobe. Elaina immediatly thought she must be imagining things because he had always been so professional and had never seemed like he could do such a .... then he began to gently kiss her neck. All the blood began to rush to her face as she broke out into a verdant blush. She couldn't speak and bit her tongue lest she let out a noise, she somehow feared this might stop if she seemed aware of it. Much like consentraiting too hard on a dream makes you wake up. Sun kissed down to her collar bone leaving a trail of beautiful heat. Then delicately bit her pale skin playfully between his teeth. He let his warm hands slide up her arms to her shoulders, the right finally coming to rest as he idly played with her hair. His soft lips pressed into the ticklish crook between her neck and shoulder and she shivered slightly with enjoyment. Even without his expert guidence miraculously she finished the piece without a single error. One set of hands finished the gorgeous music with a flawless flourish and the other had slid around her waist and pulled her closer.

"Well done." He quietly growled in her ear. He straddled the bench beside her and as his sultry heat left her back she began to think whatever trance she had been in was over now. Maybe she'd had him under her spell because the way she had played seemed like magic. Slowly she turned to face him and she saw a new emotion dancing behind his eyes. Perhaps excitment? She didn't have time to wonder long as he pulled her toward him interlocking their legs and captured her lips. It was the same warmth she had felt on her neck but now it spead out from her lips to the rest of her tingling body. His long fingers that she had admired for months carefully slid up the back of her satin blouse and pressed her ever closer to him. He kissed her hard and teased her tongue until she could feel all the bottled up emotions she had fought with all this time wash over her like a boiling wave. He gave and she took then recipricated in turn touching and tasting eachother until they had to take a moment to breath. Forehead to forehead with their lips only an inch apart they sat breathing hard in the calm before the storm. Elaina's mind was racing there was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to do.

"Maybe we should end your lessons... I think you could teach me a thing or two." Sun suggested as he smirked mischivously. Elaina didn't know whether to laugh or cry or hit him for doing this to her. It seemed like so much had happened in an hour, her mind could barely process it all. Suddenly she blurted:

"But, I don't have piano hands!" and looked into his eyes with exasperation and a tidal wave of feelings she didn't know how to express.
At this Sun just began to laugh, the first real laugh she had ever heard from him since their meeting. He wiped the teariness away from the corners of her eyes and pulled her towards him once again. Devouring her lips even more deeply than before through the wonderful heat of their bodies she could still feel his amusement.

---The end of excerpt----

Author's Note

I've considered adding to this, but I've gotten some reviews that said I shouldn't. Suggestions are appreciated on all aspects.

Reviews

[Moonlit Lake]

Excellent piece of work! I enjoyed reading about a romance centered around piano.

However, I would be careful when including actual musical terms into writings (unless you are specifically targeting after musical students). I know what flats and sharps are, but I had no clue what convoluted coda was, assuming that it has to do with music. Since there was not too much centered around those terms, I think your safe. Just giving you a heads up.

I believe that you had done a great job of expressing her emotions, pulling out her frustration with the piano and bewilderment at her teacher's sudden acts.

I did find grammar mistakes, and before posting, I would recommend reading it over for any mistakes. For an example, a grammar mistake that you made was with the quotes/dialogues. When you write "she said" or anything like that after a quote, you should end the quote with a comma/question mark/exclamation point. Just don't end it with a period. For an example, you wrote:

"Again." Sun ordered.

The correct way to write that would be:

"Again," Sun ordered.

Do you see what I mean? Of course, there are instances where you are supposed to end the quote with a period. I'm not too good at explaining this and if you are confused, I recommend asking someone or looking it up. Sorry if I managed to confuse you even more.

You used very descriptive words and I liked your writing style. I like how you were able to give us a background of why she was playing piano and how she got there. You were able to incorporate that into the story nicely.

The interaction between them was very romantic and I liked the humorous ending. I think a continuation might be nice. I don't see anything wrong with it. Maybe you could write another short story about another time between them.

[spacelava]

I really enjoyed this! It's very well written and the sexual tension between Elaina and Sun is EVERYTHING!!!! In your notes you said that people have told you not to add more to the story but I think otherwise. I would love to know more about Elaina's backstory; why she chose to learn piano at the age of 25? Has it always been something she wanted to learn but never got the chance? And how about her relationship with Sun? Does she has feelings for him; has she felt this way toward him from the very beginning or is it something she developed as they got to know one another better? SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!!!

In conclusion: this story has A LOT of potential - you can see it from the excerpt itself and (if you ever feel inspired to) I would love to read the full romance. 100/100