The Proper Fingering

Vibrations are odd things. Alone in her room at fifteen, Charlotte played for herself. She played because no one was home and she could take the towel from over the strings and just play. No inhibitions, no holding back. The cello swelled with sound, and the walls of her tiny bedroom seemed to shake with the vibrations. Vibrations she could feel through her body and between her legs.

Thank you, Johann Sebastian Bach.

Her father, a tall imposing man, had been very forceful in his announcement that all of his children would play a musical instrument. A real instrument, not the guitar or some such silliness. The piano for Michael. The flute for lovely Yasmine. For Charlotte, there would be the violin.

Everyone followed father’s instructions except for the last.

The violin just didn’t feel right to her. She found the high register piercing. It sounded shrill in her hands, though she had certainly heard it attain beautiful heights. It didn’t hold her attention, not like the cello. The cello was real, with its almost human voice-like tone. Ever since the first time she sat down and had the monstrous curving thing placed between her legs, she knew.

It may or may not have had anything to do with the fact that Charlotte’s father had played the cello when he was growing up in Tehran. He eventually moved to the contrabass, which nearly destroyed his hands and back. After he moved to America, he started teaching music and left his huge instrument in the basement to warp and ruin.

It angered him that she went for the cello. Everyone knew it, but he was too proud to say anything. After all, it was a good instrument, a classical instrument and she excelled at it. In a way, it was meant to be. Charlotte seemed to be born for the cello with her large hands and powerful fingers. As her classmate once pointed out, she even had the dimensions of a cello, tall, with a large bust, a thin waist, very wide hips, and an ample bottom.

She got all of that from her father’s side, along with her dark hair and the gold flecks in her brown eyes. Her brother and sister had darker skin, like their mother, who often told them she was descended from Persian royalty.

Music didn’t end up being a part of Charlotte’s college life. Computers took up most of her studies. Some would note her particularly forceful typing style. She eventually purchased a special keyboard with little rubber dampeners so that she could work into the night without keeping her roommate up.

She tried to keep up with music. She listened to her favorite pieces, moving from huge symphonic works to chamber music. She played from time to time in the small rehearsal space her university had in their sickly music department.

After graduation, her cello stayed in her closet for a long time. A few closets, actually. Back at home, then at her first apartment, then at her first apartment that didn’t have roommates.

Being young and motivated and self-disciplined and very good with computers served Charlette well. She made her way to New York City. She was promoted in her first six months.

When she finally had time to breathe, she had her cello restrung and cleaned and got it back shiny and new looking. She played once again with the towel over the strings and found her fingers were still strong. She eventually found a flyer in her local coffee house of an amateur quartet looking for a cellist.

The organizer of the group was the lead violinist. His name was Malcolm, and he had once played in a Philharmonic, but had since retired from professional music and was an administrator at a large conservatory.

He was tall and thin, with very dark skin and very keen eyes. He was from the Ivory Coast and had a very particular way of speaking, sometimes forgetting himself and lapsing into French.

Leah was the violist. She was tight-lipped and almost never spoke, the oldest among them, in her sixties. She had a mathematical brain and an uncanny ability to play almost anything put in front of her. She had retired early from music to raise her three daughters, but had once played in a symphony out west somewhere.

Anna was the other violinist. She was nearly as intense as Malcolm, and Charlotte often wondered if they were lovers. Lovers not being a term she would normally use, but it seems right for the two of them.

Like so many things in Charlotte's life, the quartet started as a diversion, but soon took over. She hadn’t made many friends since graduating from college and moving to a big city. The company she worked for was a bit of a boys club and she tended to work hard and leave it all at the office, not wanting to follow her co-workers to the douche sports bars near the office.

She instead spent her evenings practicing, either alone or with Anna.

Anna was Ukrainian, in the US for work and hoping to eventual immigrate. Charlotte gravitated to Anna as soon as they met. She learned Anna also came from a musical family, with her father being a luthier and her mother having a brief career as an opera singer in Kiev.

There was an intensity to their friendship, something Charlotte remembered from high school when her hormones were running high and she would stay up all night talking with her best friend.

Though Charlotte was taller than Anna, she often felt dwarfed by her. Charlotte who was overly polite and seemed to hunch down and apologize for her hight and curves. Anna called her on it when they first went out for coffee, telling her to stand up and be proud. They had become fast friends after that.

Perhaps there was more to it with Anna. Charlotte, never being particularly good with romance, didn’t fully understand her attraction to Anna or her jealousy when she saw her talking to Malcolm, but she liked when Anna was around and close to her, and when they went to the little studio space the quartet rented and practiced together, Charlotte felt a kind of catharsis she rarely knew.

Anna and Charlotte had another bond. When it came to the quartet, they were both far less skilled than the other half. Malcolm and Leah had both played professionally. As much as Anna and Charlotte wanted to keep up, they simply hadn’t had the same training, which was why Anna took on a tutor and after a few months of prodding, gave Charlotte his number.

“He isn’t some kindly old teacher, he is a bit of a bastard,” Anna said over Bloody Marys one Sunday.

Charlotte wondered exactly what she meant.

“He is a grizzled old composer. He hates most of the music I bring him. I think he writes very modern stuff. I’ve never found any of his work. Anyhow, just know he is very unorthodox. You can try him if you want, but just know it may not work for you.”

Charlotte considered that, but called him anyway.

Vasiliev lived in a huge old loft in an industrial building in that seemed to be abandoned other than his living quarters. The windows took up along one whole wall and went all the way up to the twenty-foot ceiling. They were dirty and looked out over Red Hook. He had a grand piano and piles of sheet music.

He was a gray-haired man with a very tidy short gray beard. He often wore a large thick woven cardigan over a somewhat dingy white dress shirt, along with black slacks and black leather boots. His glasses had round black frames. He was in his early fifties, though his eyes were edged in far more wrinkles than would be expected.

In her tutor’s loft, with its crumbling cement floor and brick walls, Charlotte sat in an ancient rickety wooden kitchen chair and dragged the bow across the open A string. The low note hummed between her legs.

Vasiliev, her tutor, shook his head and descended on her. She wasn’t used to being touched by strangers, yet she let him adjust her grip on the bow. She listened as he commented on her posture. He was rough when he put his large hand on the small of her back.

“Up, up, tall, your power comes from your abdomen, not unlike singing,” he said in his Russian tinged New York accent.

She played the open note again, concentrating on her back. He looked down at her with his arms crossed.

“No, you must find your form, this is wrong,” he said, moving in on her again.

His hand touched her knee. She wore a simple summer dress of Robin’s Egg blue. Her eyes opened wide at his presumptuousness.

He pulled her dress, so it sat above her knees and then pushed her feet apart with his boots. He pushed the cello forward, between her thighs.

“Again,” he commanded.

In that moment she wondered if she should have said something, if she should have admonished him, but she didn’t. She played the note. Something in her heart fluttered then. She remembered the vibrations, deep and soulful. She remembered when she first played in her room as a girl.

She remembered how the cello was her father’s instrument and that she was to play the violin. She remembered how the cello was in some way forbidden, not for her, not for little girls. When she finally had it between her legs, alone in her room, how the wood felt on her naked thighs.

There it was again, cool wood on her skin. Her calves tightened. She bit her lip. The long lonely A rung out strong and true.

He sighed and nodded. He brought a dented music stand over and placed an open booklet on it. Dvořák. She was already intimidated. She didn’t like sight reading. She needed time to process the music. He didn’t care.

She tried to read through it quickly as he walked over to the piano.

He played the opening, and she was shocked by his skill. He was amazing. So much so that she missed her mark and stumbled to catch up. He hissed loudly at her clumsiness.

She fell into his rhythm though. He played and conducted with his playing. The trills and arpeggios mixed her up. Her brow furled as she attempted to figure out the music. Halfway through the piece he stopped and stood, stomping on the ground.

“I walk away and your back bends, your shoulders falls, and your legs close. I just corrected you!” He said, punctuating his words with a clap of his broad hands.

“Up!” he commanded.

She looked back at him.

“Stand up!” he clarified.

She stood and gently placed her cello on the chair.

“To the piano,” he said, standing by the smooth black open cover of the Steinway.

She walked over slowly, unsure of what he was asking of her. She felt small in the huge industrial loft and out of place. She stood by the keyboard of the piano, looking down at the white and black keys.

He stood beside her and turned the sheet music to the first page.

“You are over thinking. You are missing beats. You are all over the place.”

He played again, standing and marking each beat by stomping his feet.

“Bam, da da, bam, da da, bam. Do you hear? Where were you?” he asked.

She tried to take it in. She hadn’t had an instructor since she was a child. She tried to take in what he was teaching.

“And then the first change. Bom, da, da, da,! Bom, da, da, da, da,” he said as he played.

She nodded, understanding the rhythm and how she had been off.

“Today is just to see where you are and from what I can tell you are still playing as a child. Some form, but no passion. No understanding of what you are playing. I can perhaps teach you a little, but you must put yourself in my hands, do you understand?”

She took a step back. She didn’t understand.

“You play with your friends, yes? You play for ‘fun,’” he said, spitting the last word.

“There are no stakes,” he finished.

She swallowed. That was true. She looked back at her cello.

“In my house, there are stakes. When you fail to perform, there are consequences,” he said, his voice growing steely.

She looked back at him, trying to glean meaning from his words.

He looked her up and down. He walked around her. He walked around the piano and put down the large cover.

“If you wish my help, then I ask you to walk to the side of the piano and put your hands on the cover, palms down,” he said simply, putting away the sheet music and then cracking his knuckles.

She took one step forward, confused. She took another step and put her hands on the cool, smooth well-lacquered wood.

“Bend over and lift up your dress, then put your hands back on the piano,” he said, standing at the other end.

She looked at him in shock.

“Those are the stakes. You come into my home and play like a child, without passion, without elan, and you will be treated like a child. Spanked and sent on your way,” he explained.

What happened next was something she thought about over and over again that night and many nights after. She should have jumped up and left. She should have done a million things. Maybe it was a combination of her natural instinct to follow direction or perhaps because she really did want to learn how to play better or possibly it was that she just wanted to know what he was going to do.

She reached back and pulled her dress up her legs, then her thighs, then up over her ass, until it rested on her back. Then she leaned over once more, arching her back to keep her dress in place.

She looked across the expanse of the glossy black cover of the grand piano. It was ancient but well kept. Still, she saw little spider web cracks in the finish. She saw the reflection of the lights above in the lacquered wood. She heard his footsteps as he came closer. She felt the heat of his body near her.

For some reason, she expected some warm up, some slow start, perhaps even some cursory touching of her body. There was none of that. He hit her ass remarkably hard, once on one cheek, then the other. He paused after the first two strikes.

She stood there, bent over, in shock, her eyes and mouth wide. Her fingers spread on the smooth wood as she tried to process what was happening.

“You will count. Perhaps this simple task is not beyond you?” He asked.

“Two,” she said in little more than a whisper.

“No, you don’t get those. Only the ones you count off. Those first are yours for your ignorance,” he said sharply, seeming a bit out of breath.

He hit her again, and she had to spread her legs to steady herself.

“One!” She said, the word bursting out of her dry mouth.

He spanked her other cheek.

“Two!”

And on it went, five, then ten.

As it went on, the vibrations came back to her mind. They went right from his hand through her ass, right to that spot between her legs.

“Fifteen!”

He stepped away, seeming to stagger a bit.

“Yes, that is all. Perhaps next lesson you will not play like a fifteen-year-old. Go now. Take the concerto. Practice. We will go over it again next time.”

She stood up slowly only to see him walk away into another room and close the door.

Her ass burned and her face was hot. Her dress fell softly around her as she walked back to pack up her cello. She took the sheet music. She looked back at the door he went through. Her heart was racing.

She left.

Sunday brunch with Anna was full of uncomfortable silences. They ate quiche at Anna’s apartment, sipping mimosas.

Charlotte, in an attempt to pull herself out of her funk, drank a bottle of prosecco on her own. Anna laughed.

“What is with you today? You were out of it during our last rehearsal, and you haven't been answering my texts.”

Charlotte shrugged, enjoying the feeling of the alcohol, how it made the world a little blurry, a little less intense.

“I-well-that first lesson was just very jarring,” she said, trying to find the right word.

Anna seemed to flush.

“Oh, yes. Vasiliev is certainly-” Anna seemed to look around the room for the right words.

“He can certainly be very jarring.”

Charlotte scoffed.

“I want to be drunk today,” Charlotte said dreamily.

Anna smiled brightly. She stood up suddenly and went to her freezer.

“Then you should be drunk. We should both be drunk!” She said, slamming a bottle of vodka on the table.

An hour later they sat on the couch laughing and watching silly videos on YouTube. Charlotte was red-faced and very aware of how close she and Anna sat.

“So, you think you will stick with the lessons?” Anna asked, something in her eyes was a bit mysterious.

Charlotte thought she must know. It couldn’t be that he only did that with her. After all, Anna was the one who gave her his name. It was all very confusing.

“I think, perhaps, I’ll see how the next lesson goes,” Charlotte said, hoping for the courage to bring up the spanking.

Anna smiled widely, drunkenly, and moved even closer.

“Did he do it? Did you mess up? I think maybe he always does it, if you let him. It’s his way,” Anna mused.

Charlotte only nodded. She couldn’t say it.

“Did he leave marks? Was it only his hand?” Anna asked excitedly.

Charlotte’s eyes widened. Would he use something besides his hand?

“I-um-I think I saw some marks, a little, my skin is dark, it’s hard to see bruises sometimes,” she said, the words getting jumbled in her mouth.

“Let me see! It was only a few days ago. Let me see if you can still see them!” Anna said, laughing as she pushed Charlotte around on the couch.

Charlotte didn’t have time to think, she turned around on the couch, got on her knees and unbuttoned her jeans. She bit her lip wondering what exactly Anna wanted.

Anna pushed her friend down, pushed her so that she was leaning over the arm of the couch. Then she pulled down her jeans. She pulled them down roughly, taking her panties with them, pulling them down to her mid-thigh.

Charlotte was wide-eyed, biting her bottom lip and looking at the pretty red rug on the floor. She felt the cool air of the apartment on her ass and gasped a little as she realized she was getting very wet.

“Hm, I can see a little bit of purple I think,” Anna said as her warm hands were on Charlotte’s ass.

Charlotte didn’t know what to do. She knew Anna could see more than just her ass. In her position, with her panties down, her friend could see between her legs. Charlotte had sometimes looked at herself in the mirror like that or even a few times taken selfies like that to send her college boyfriend. She remembered liking the way the lips of her vulva looked like a split plum.

“Hah, I bet he got you good. How many times did he hit you?” Anna asked, her hands not moving from Charlotte’s bottom.

“Fifteen, oh, um, I mean seventeen. I didn’t start counting at first,” she said with a little laugh.

Anna just made a little pleased sound. Her hands rubbed Charlotte’s cheeks in circles.

“That’s a lot. I think I only got five the first time. I bet it’s because you have a much nicer ass than I do. It seems very spankable,” Anna said with a throaty laugh.

Charlotte squirmed a little. She wondered if Anna could tell how turned on she was getting. She wanted to ask her friend to touch her more, but she didn’t know how to ask, what to say.

“Are you still drunk?” Anna asked, her voice lower.

“I-I don’t think so. Maybe just a little tipsy now,” she said, wondering if it was a lie.

Anna’s hands moved, slipping off Charlotte’s ass. The absence of her touch made Charlotte pout. Without really meaning to, she arched her back, her ass pushing up, trying to maintain contact.

“Pretty,” Anna said dreamily.

“I-um-thank you,” Charlotte said, feeling suddenly very emotional, very needy.

Then there was a long moment where it seemed things were being considered. She heard Anna sigh. Then she felt Anna get up from the couch.

“Do you want another drink?” Anna asked.

Charlotte fumbled with her jeans and mumbled, “no, thank you.”

That night she practiced the Dvořák. She marked up the piece with notes. She tried to focus on her timing. She paid for and downloaded a piano accompaniment track. She kept playing it until she felt she had the piece right.

Every night she practiced harder. She wanted to learn, but certainly she wanted to impress her teacher too.

A few days later, at his imposing loft, she sat in the chair in the middle of the room and opened her legs wide, wider than she was usually comfortable.

He paced in front of her, seemingly looking for something in her form to correct. Then he went to the piano and began the piece.

She played as well as she could, but there were moments when she remembered the spanking, she saw him from the corner of her eye, she slipped, and her notes went flat. Still, he played most of the way through the piece and then stood up.

“Ah. You are a woman who wants to impress. That is a good thing to use in teaching. You have the piece in your head. You figured out the timing. This is good,” he said as he circled her like a shark.

She gave him a tight-lipped smile, that he didn’t return.

“Still, you are concentrating on the notes, but not the phrasing. The bow is the breath, but the fingers are the articulation. Your fingers are strong, but your bow is not. These lines blur into each other. The notes all have the same weight. Do you understand?”

She swallowed. She didn’t particularly understand.

“And this room! This is a big room, but you are playing for a closet. You are to play chamber music, you need to be heard through the trill of the violins. You need to be felt in the audience’s chests!”

She nodded. She knew she didn’t play loud enough. She had been thinking about it through the piece, hearing the volume of his piano.

She became aware of her heart, beating faster. She became aware of a certain heat, between her legs. As he went on about the things she did wrong, her body and mind reacted in very different ways.

He snapped his fingers in front of her face.

“You do not listen to my words, like you do not listen to my piano. It is frustrating for me. Still, you were markedly better this time. Much to improve on, but you have given me hope that there is at least something to work with,” he said with a shrug.

There was a pause.

“To the piano now. Palms down on the cover.”

She stood, perhaps, too quickly. Her bow skittered to the floor.

She saw him raise an eyebrow as she stopped and bent over to get it, holding down the back of her skirt for modesty and then feeling stupid for it.

She went to the piano and put her hands on the black wood. She reached back and pulled her skirt up, leaning down and sticking her ass out. Feeling more vulnerable even than the first time.

Her panties were pale pink. Simple cotton. She felt a wave of anxiety come over her as she realized how turned on she was. She remembered Anna on the couch. She remembered the first time he hit her. She remembered after being at Anna’s, how she went home and came hard in her bed, hand between her legs.

She wondered if he would be able to tell. As he closed in on her she felt her legs shaking a little.

“Perhaps we give you ten. Ten to remember the lessons you have learned?” he said.

She didn’t know if it was a question. She nodded though.

He put his hand on the small of her back. His palm felt feverishly hot. Her hands were so sweaty they were slipping on the piano’s cover.

His first hit echoed across the room, as did her cry.

He waited.

“One,” she said, the word forced out of her from her belly.

She had forgotten how much it hurt. She remembered the shame, not the pain. His hand came down like a bludgeon again and the sound she made was high and not one completely of pain.

She felt her face burn.

“Two.”

On it went, and Charlotte’s face only got warmer. She felt her thighs getting wet as her ass stung and ached. Her nipples were tender and hard in her too tight bra. Her clothes felt scratchy and hot. Her head swam.

“Ten,” she finally reached, and she realized she was panting.

His hand lingered on her ass for a moment. His fingers mere centimeters from the leg opening of her panties. She felt his pinky make the tiniest circle on her skin and against her will, she felt her back arch.

“We will play this piece once more at our next session. Remember to focus on phrasing,” he said, his voice gravelly.

Then, as before, he turned and left the room, leaving her to see herself out.

She stood and steadied herself, feeling dizzy. She looked over her shoulder, making sure he was gone. He was. She lifted her skirt and looked down. Just as she feared, her pink panties were dark between her thighs. A huge wet spot, exposing her.

She let her skirt fall and gathered her things and hurried out.

At rehearsal, she was off her game, though Malcolm and Anna were bickering and so no one really noticed. They were playing Mozart’s “Spring” quartet, which she had played in high school and was somewhat on autopilot through.

On her way home, she listened to a recording of the Dvořák piece Vasiliev had been having her play. The Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104. The music had been inexplicably tied to her punishment.

She squirmed in her seat on the subway as the cello and the piano sparred with each other. Her thighs clenched tightly.

She looked around, sure that anyone else in the car must know the dirty things she was thinking, but everyone was looking at their phones or books and ignoring her completely.

Anna was busy that week and Charlotte found herself distracted. She listened to different versions of the concerto at work, while she wrote boring code. She played it at the rehearsal space. She even found herself humming it and fingering the notes on her leg in a taxi.

Her next time at Vasiliev’s loft, she concentrated on keeping her mind on the music. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, having memorized a good portion of the concerto.

Vasiliev played the opening. She was almost meditative in as she let the music wash over her. She readied herself as the cello part began, then she was swept into the tune.

“Sing!” She told herself.

She played loud and boldly. She played and found his playing matched hers, his speed picking up slightly, and then they followed each other through the piece.

They played the whole thing, and the last notes were tight and dramatic with her hair brushing her back as her whole body moved back and forth with the effort.

Then silence, then a few stark claps from behind her.

Vasiliev stood and smiled.

“Where was she this whole time? Where did you hide that talent? This is the first time I heard you actually play. This is someone I can teach!”

She looked down and smiled, pride welling up inside of her.

“I will have some notes for you. I will email them to you. More detailed things for you to work on. We will move on to perhaps his rondo. But this is a good place to stop. Excellent work.”

He stood and went to her. Her body stiffened. He gave her a little bow and patted her on the shoulder.

“Excellent work. I will see you next week,” he said and as was his way, went to his room in the back and let her leave on her own.

She didn’t stand right away. The pride was there, but there was something else eclipsing it. She didn’t know what. She couldn’t explain the emotion.

She numbly got her things and left, getting a cab instead of the train.

“Are you home?” She texted Anna.

“Yes and bored. Come over, I’m ordering sushi.”

“Yes,” she replied.

She didn’t get spanked. She had been dreading it, practicing so that she wouldn’t have to face the shame again, but then she didn’t get it. She never even really considered that he wouldn’t do it, no matter how well she played. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work. Was it?

She was on Anna’s couch and nervously rocked her crossed legs. She felt flushed and confused.

Anna paced around the house, cleaning up and getting them drinks and going on and on about her week. She had been traveling for work. She looked at Charlotte oddly when she finally settled down.

“You are more out of it than usual. How was your lesson? More marks to show me?” She teased with a smile.

“No, no marks. It went very well I guess. We played the whole piece. He said I did very well. No, um, no spanking,” Charlotte said, trying to keep the longing out of her voice but failing.

Anna nodded knowingly.

“Ah, yes. That happens too. I remember,” Anna said, moving closer and bumping shoulders with her friend.

“Were you expecting a spanking?” she asked.

Charlotte swallowed.

“I suppose. I mean, he did it every other time.”

Anna nodded.

“And maybe you liked it a little?”

Charlotte’s immediate reaction was to say no, but the word got caught in her throat.

“It-it’s very confusing,” she admitted.

Anna smiled.

“It doesn’t have to be. It is a punishment, but it is other things too. Have you never had a lover spank you in bed?” Anna asked.

Charlotte shook her head, no.

“Ah,” Anna said.

And then there was silence. Anna sipped red wine. Charlotte picked up her glass, but didn’t drink.

“You just came from his place, yes?”

Charlotte nodded.

“I see, so you are still in that space, waiting to put your hands on the piano,” she said with a chuckle.

“Palms down,” Charlotte added.

Anna put down her glass and took Charlotte’s and put it down.

“Well, we finish it then. Turn around. Just like last time. No piano, but palms down on the arm of the couch.”

Charlotte’s eyes went wide. She didn’t know if Anna was serious. She looked up at her friend who gave her an expectant raise of her brows.

She kneeled on the couch and faced away from Anna. She leaned forward and like at her teacher’s loft, she pulled her skirt up.

She had worn black panties, in hopes of hiding how wet she got.

She was once again panting as Anna put her hand on the small of her back the way Vasiliev had. Her other hand rested on Charlotte’s ass.

“Hm, I think we need to move these out of my way,” Anna said, before taking down Charlotte’s panties, pulling them down to her knees.

“Mm, there is the beautiful ass I remember,” she said dreamily and Charlotte smiled to herself.

The first hit was not as hard as she expected. Anna’s hand was very different, delicate and long-fingered. Still, she was strong. It was a sharper pain, more focused.

Unlike Vasiliev, Anna rubbed Charlotte’s ass gently between each hit. The mix of tenderness and meanness made Charlotte squirm and whine.

Anna’s spankings got lower, to her thighs, and before she could stop herself, she let out a loud low whimper.

Anna chuckled as she picked up her spanking. It wasn’t the big hits Charlotte was supposed to count out, but a rhythmic barrage of little smacks accented by a harder spank everyone once in a while. It kept Charlotte on edge.

She hoped Anna would move down again. She even felt herself raising up her ass in hopes of meeting her halfway.

Anna suddenly grabbed her by the hair. Her scalp burned and she let out a yelp.

“The way you are raising your ass in the air like a cat in heat makes me think you are looking for more than a spanking,” she said into Charlotte’s ear.

“I-please,” she whined, not even sure what she was begging for.

Anna’s fingers moved from Charlotte’s ass to between her thighs. Her rough fingertips, callused from years of playing, were so close to her pussy that Charlotte started shaking with need.

“Oh you have to ask for it, my little cat,” she whispered in Charlotte’s ear, kissing her neck softly.

“P-please, your fingers, please I need them,” she begged almost hysterically.

More laughter from Anna.

“Need them where?”

Charlotte whined and cried. It was too embarrassing to say.

“I-please-”

Anna cooed in her ear.

“Should I take pity on you? I admit I like that you are such a good girl you can’t even say it. It makes me want to defile you. It makes me want to hurt you just to hear the sounds you make.”

“Yes, please hurt me,” Charlotte said, shocked by her own words.

“You want my fingers in your cunt, don’t you? You want me to fuck you with my fingers, don’t you?”

“Yes! Please! Fuck me!” Charlotte cried.

The sound she made when Anna finally pushed two fingers into her soaking wet pussy was one of exhalation, relief, and animal need.

“Good girl, push yourself back on my fingers,” Anna goaded.

Charlotte was beyond all shyness. She dropped her big ass back on her friend's fingers, fucking herself.

“Oh god, yes,” she said, letting a string of obscenities pass her pretty lips.

“Fuck me. Fuck me,” she whispered like a mantra.

Anna was amazed. Her polite and quiet friend with the amazing curvy body was rutting against her hand like an animal.

Anna enjoyed the sensation for a moment before pushing Charlotte down and fingering her hard, ramming three fingers into her while spanking her over and over again. Anna loved the feel of Charlotte’s big ass and the softness of her pussy. She loved how much pain she could take. She went harder, and Charlotte only moaned louder.

“Fuck! Coming!” Charlotte screamed into a pillow.

Oh, what a mess she made that night.

Anna pulled off their clothes after Charlotte came a second time, and the two of them wrapped themselves together on the couch, finally kissing and reveling in the intimacy they had both fantasized about for so long.

A few weeks later, the quartet met to pick their new repertoire.

Malcolm had some Debussy and Bach, even a Rachmaninov piece they had struggled with a year before.

“I’d actually like to tackle something new. Maybe something more challenging. I have some of Schönberg’s later pieces,” Charlotte said, taking out a thick booklet of sheet music.

Malcolm’s eyes widened.

“Those are very advanced pieces. I’m certainly interested, but are you sure?”

Charlotte nodded.

“Anna and I have a tutor who is willing to coach us. He’ll whip us into shape,” Charlotte said with an enthusiasm none of the quartet had seen before, except for Anna.

Anna had seen Charlotte blossom in a variety of ways. She was more confident, she was more outspoken, and her fingering was now impeccable.