Nile had unintentionally skipped an entire section of his assigned exercise, and he didn't seem to notice. Still, Jane granted him the same privilege she granted all of her best students- the chance to claim that it was a silly mistake that would easily be remedied with another try. She had been there herself many times. It was easy to be tricked by the eyes, especially with so much on one's mind.
Usually, when she was alone, playing through technical warm-ups she had done a million and one times, she let her mind wander down to the very edge of her fingertips where they brushed teasingly over the keys. There was something terribly intimate about the touch. The smooth surface of the ivory keys was like the white, marble-like skin on a sculpture. The black keys were something different- a place she reached further for- like something below the surface of the sculpture, pulsing with life. Sometimes she couldn't help but wonder what life was pulsing in the unseen depths of Nile Palmquist.
While he played this exercise a second time, correcting his mistake, she watched his eyes. Though they scanned the music carefully this time, there was still a hint of something else there, as if he was watching with one eye and wandering through another world and checking out the scenery with the other. She wondered what it would take to be that scenery.
As the next few minutes turned quickly by, he seemed to grow uneasy. She assumed it was because he was embarassed about his mistakes. That kind of thing generally lead to more of the same- it was a beginning musician's curse. She tried to counter away his unease with an encouraging voice and a gentle demeanor while she walked him through some easy ways to avoid the strain of his nervousness. During one such crucial moment, she was interrupted mid-sentence by the telephone in the other room. She thought of ignoring it, and nearly kicked herself for almost being unprofessional. It was hard enough for a 19-year-old piano teacher to be taken seriously without acting like a silly school girl.
The phone call ended up being good news and bad news, but the good was truly good when the bad was simply a mild annoyance. She would have a half-hour's break today in exchange for one of her younger students whining about not being able to locate a proper book.
A few minutes later, while she was telling Nile about the call, she started to wonder if maybe her kind, unwavering patience was one of the things Nile was truly captivated by. Her complaints about annoying students couldn't be winning her any points.
He shocked her with a hand on her thigh. Not only was it placed there, high on her leg and near her very core, but it had an intent, possessive grip to it that nearly made her shudder. It surprised her. The man had hardly let himself be caught looking at her for the last few weeks, and now he was touching her in a way that made her think inappropriate thoughts she could not deny. She wished she had been wearing pants- then he might have been able to circle her leg with his fingers a bit more, bringing him even closer to her center.
As if her forbidden thoughts were multiplying into hallucinations, her eyes caught on his lap, where his light dress pants seemed to be bulging in one particular place of importance. At first she was sure it was her imagination, lost in wishful thinking. She couldn't look away. It wasn't until she started rambling apologies that she knew what she was seeing was the real thing. He had a full-blown erection, and it was all because of her. His hand on her leg had completed it. The air seemed to crackle with the tension and need between them.
Just as she was losing herself in that great torrent of need, he pulled his hand from her thigh and looked away from her, breaking the moment in two.
"I was afraid you'd notice that," he finally admitted. "I'm the one who should be apologizing."
She felt herself smiling, despite her anxiety. She fought it back a little, waiting.
