Page 42 of Crescendo

She dropped her hands back on the keys. Letting gravity play the notes, not by pushing down.

She was improving her form. Played small, cycling melodies, little motifs swirling around and around, building up as she doubled them as a call-and-response on the lower register, and I was happy to oblige—moved my fingers rhythmically, small patterns around and around, building up faster and faster until I felt her body arching, desperate for more.

She dropped a dramatic trill on the upper register, and I moved my other hand up inside her shirt, slipping under her bra to tease one nipple as I kept working faster and faster over her clitoris, and she gave up holding back the sounds she made, gasps and small, broken moans falling out of her as I worked her perfect body to her unspoken instructions.

She played louder, maybe to cover her own noises or maybe to plead me for more, probably both, and I took her higher and higher until she cried out, muffled against her own shoulder, “Lydia, please, I need to come.”

“Come for me, darling,” I whispered, and with a playful touch, “You can stop playing if you need to.”

She didn’t—stopped playing intelligibly, fingers twitching into the keys and slamming down chords harder as she arched her back into me, crying out as she came, perfectly and beautifully, on my fingers.

She didn’t stop playing until her body softened back against me, petering out until she ended on a single high note, rolling her head backwards against my shoulder.

“My god,” she said, a breathless laugh, a toothless reprimand. “You are… a problem.”

I kissed her neck. “Sometimes I want dessert first.”

“I don’t understand why that was so hot.”

“Because of how much we communicate with music. And how vulnerable it feels to show it.” I paused. “Or it could just be a kink thing. Have you always gotten off on pianos? If so, it’s probably the latter.”

“Do not be difficult.”

“When it gets you this wet?”

“Oh my god.” She buried her face in her shoulder, and I laughed, leaning in to kiss her as I extricated my hand from her underwear, fastening her pants back up. “You know—” she said, speaking into my lips, and I pulled back just an inch, raising an eyebrow.

“Mm?”

“You know that we’ll have to do it the other way too once we’re back at the apartment.” She smiled at me through a brilliant, beautiful flushed face. “I mean, it would be a shame not to compare how you play like that with how I do.”

I laughed. “Might be just the ticket to unlock that inspiration.”

“Will you be able to reach the sustain pedal if I’m kneeling in front of the bench?” she whispered, bedroom eyes and sultry voice, and for a second I wondered how much more time we had before the others got back.

“I think I might just find a way.” I checked my phone, sighing hard. “They’ll be back in just a couple minutes.”

“You checked to see if we had time for me to do it now.”

“What, like I’ll get embarrassed and deny it? Of course that’s why I was checking.” I kissed her quickly and stood up, looking down at my hand. “Well, I should probably wash this. You… get to sit in the mess we made and think about how I’m going to play later.”

She blushed harder, but she gave me a dazed, dizzy smile. “That works,” she said, and I smiled wider before I licked my fingers, tasting her all over me.

“It does,” I said, and she swallowed hard, looking away.

As luck would have it, I didn’t get Ella to myself again right away—by the time I was heading back from the bathroom, I found Hannah and Dodge coming down the hall from the other direction, carrying a takeout bag, and Hannah rolled her eyes at the sight of me, hand on the door handle.

“Try not to look that fucking happy,” she said.

“Why not? I’m getting to play music. Did you know I love music?”

Dodge grinned. “And that’s the only thing you played, naturally.”

Hannah opened the door, leaning inside. “Ella,” she called. “I got us some scran. Also, did you and Lydia at least clean up?”

I couldn’t see Ella, but I could see the redness in her face from her voice. “What—clean up? From what? What did she tell you?”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “ She didn’t tell me nothing. That fucking got-laid-parade down the hall told me everything. You gonna come down to the lounge to eat, or what?”

I was a little evil, because I enjoyed the fiery-faced, hunched-shoulder walk Ella did down the hall next to me as she joined us towards the lounge. Dodge decided to take his best shot at softening the blow.

“Ah, relax,” he said. “You’re not even the first ones in this program to get it on in the practice rooms.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Ugh, please just tell me at least you didn’t have sex in the one we were using.”

“Don’t know which room it was, ‘cause it wasn’t even me. You and Clara are really alike, Ella. Both easily led astray by bad influences.”

“ Clara? ” Ella said. “She had a hookup in a practice room?”

“More importantly,” I said, “with who?”

“Florian. I think you’ve met him once in passing at most. The worst man to ever come out of France, which is saying something. Clara got a little tipsy and told me how she’d been practicing violin with him, they had a sloppy make-out, and she deepthroated him until—”

“I don’t need to hear any more of this story,” I said, a hand up.

“Just saying, nothing wrong with a little practice room romp. Now, let’s dig into this food before Hannah actually goes ahead and murders me.”

Hannah rolled her eyes as we came out of the stairs and towards the lounge.

“If I’m the only one actually paying attention to the fucking music, I guess that’s fine,” she said, but she didn’t have a lot of bite in her words, as evidenced by the way she gave a curious smile Ella’s way once we were all sat down at an old wood table by a rustic window frame in the lounge, and she said, “You know, Ella, you’re not too bad. ”

“She’s much better than not too bad, ” I said politely, “and also, I told you so.”

Hannah laughed. “Yeah, don’t get smug on me.”

Ella shrugged. “She can be a bit difficult, but…”

“But you’re into that kind of thing,” Hannah said, and Ella folded her hands on the table.

“Well, apparently, it does seem like that, doesn’t it?”

I could have gotten used to this—together with Ella, friends teasing us. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to be getting used to this—we were having a fling while I was on this side of the ocean—but I was. I was, after all, often difficult.

“If you can try not to fuck Lydia all the time,” Hannah said, “you should come around, do this again. Next time we can talk shop with our assignment pieces, see what kinds of inspirations we can get. You game?”

Ella let out a long breath, considering, looking up at me, and back to Hannah and Dodge, before she said, “I might be. I’ll… I’ll see.”

Hannah gave her a deadpan look. “Have to figure out if your girlfriend is still willing to fuck you at the session?”

Ella huffed. “I think about more than that, thank you!”

“See,” I said, “I’m just bumming off you all to try to figure out my composer’s block, but Ella clearly doesn’t have any such thing. I’ll see if I can get her to come back again, though. You know—because she plays so well.”

Hannah rolled her eyes, but she stopped, stilling with her hands over her food at something behind me, and with all the subtlety that Americans were known for, I craned my neck and looked back at where Eliza, dressed nicely like she’d been going out for something with a sleek and professional muted-red dress, came walking towards us with an incredulous air about her.

“So, I’ve been wondering where you’re running off to,” Eliza said lightly. Hannah shook her head.

“We were just talking about our assignments—”

Eliza put a hand up. “You can spend time with your friends,” she said, but that razor-sharp edge in her voice said Hannah could not, in fact, spend time with her friends. “I was just thinking it’s nice to see you.”

Hannah dropped back in her chair with a dark look. “And you had a good dinner date?”

Eliza raised her eyebrows. “You want to know?”

Hannah tightened her face. Normally this was the moment I’d drop in with some belligerent comment, but the look on Hannah’s face was genuine hurt. Eliza’s, too. Maybe I respected whatever was happening. Maybe I was just nosy.

“I told you that you’re my best friend,” Hannah said. “Course I want to know.”

Eliza’s nose twitched. “It’s cute when you’re putting on your polite face.”

“I’m not—it’s not like that.”

Eliza strained a smile at me. “Well, take good care of Hannah, then, Lydia,” she said. “You too, Ella.”

Dodge put his hands up. “What, like I’m not even here?”

Whatever was happening between them was nuclear, and I shouldn’t have weighed in, but I couldn’t help taking Hannah’s side just a little. Maybe it was about taking whatever side wasn’t Eliza’s. I strained a polite smile. “We will,” I said. “She’s a very talented musician.”

Eliza seemed to cycle through thirty different emotions in the span of a second, and when it looked like she might cry, she took a long breath and turned around. “Well, I’ll be staying somewhere else tonight, so you can have the flat to yourself, Hannah. Try not to throw too many parties. Ta.”

“Eliza, I’m not trying to start something,” Hannah said, half-standing from her seat as Eliza walked away, but when Eliza ignored her, striding down the hall and away, Hannah clenched her fists on the table, dropping back into the chair.

“Bloody hell,” she said, hanging her head. “I’m a fucking idiot.”

“If you are, so is she,” I said lightly, and Hannah shook her head, closing her takeout container and standing up.

“I’ve gotta… get back to my apartment. Thanks for the jam session and all. Talk later. Bye.”

And she was gone just like that, streaking past us and towards the front doors, food in hand. Ella half-rose, wild eyes, and I put a hand on her arm to steady her.

“Easy,” I said quietly. “Going after her’s going to make things worse right now.”

“But…”

“We let her know we’re available for her to come to us, and we wait for her to.”

She took a long breath, looking down at her food, and when she said, “I suppose,” her heart wasn’t in it.

Dodge gestured to the food. “Well, at least we’ve got curry.”

“Ever the optimist,” I said, sitting up taller, and I picked up an imaginary drink. “Here’s to curry.”