Musique Erotique

-1-

I'd been told that to be a successful, or at least popular musical group, you really need some sort of 'image' or 'gimmick' to catch people's attention.

Kiss, for example, had their outlandish make-up and costumes; the Mediaeval Baebes have their outfits to complement their musical style; and the 12 Girls Band from China uses traditional instruments and their cultural heritage to help promote their music.

How we ladies of St Alban's String Orchestra acquired our gimmick could only be classified as a freak of nature.

There were, and still are, eight of us. Three violinists--Eleanore, Catharine, and me, Ashlee; three viola players--Georgina, Helen, and Kleo; one bass violin, Melanie; and one double bass, Patricia.

I think all of us would be considered attractive women, but that didn't seem to be enough to generate enough listeners at our concerts. Not that the music wasn't good; it was--we are excellent, well-trained musicians.

But the beautiful concertos of Bach, Brahms, Chopin, and other great composers became harder and harder to share with a mainstream society inundated with the likes of rap, hip-hop, grunge, rock, and country.

Not that these aren't viable musical styles. It's just that so many of the classical composers evoke such romantic, evocative, exotic, and sometimes erotic music that we feel so many people are missing a vital experience.

Feeling the strains and vibrations of the chamber orchestra instruments as they fill and flow through one's body during a concert can almost be an orgasmic experience in itself.

However, I was about to tell you how St Alban's String Orchestra came by its image.

One day, last summer, we'd gathered together with our instruments for an outing to a rather secluded spot near the Rocky Mountains where we could rehearse our music in the tranquility of Nature, and perhaps get some new publicity photos taken.

That was something I usually had to do and, needless to say, I didn't manage to appear in too many of the posters. But, that didn't really bother me since I didn't think anyone was even looking at the posters anyways.

"Let's go, ladies!" I called out as I boarded the small, yellow bus I'd hired to drive for the day.

It was mid-morning, and I wanted to be at our rehearsal spot by noon at the latest.

As First Violinist, I not only acted as leader of the group, but I'd also volunteered to be spokesman. So getting things done, with the help from some other volunteer women, was primarily my responsibility.

We set all our instruments in their cases carefully at the rear of the bus, and then the ladies settled down in various seats as I took my place behind the steering wheel.

I started the engine, revved it lightly a few times, slipped into gear, and then we were on our way.

Conversation continued light and animated amongst the girls for a while until I heard Eleanore say with exasperation, "Oh, great! Look over there!"

Since I couldn't see where she was apparently pointing, I glanced to either side of me. Then I saw, in the distance, what had caught her attention.

Rain clouds.

"Don't worry," I yelled back. "You know what the weather's usually like around here. It'll probably sprinkle a bit, and then blow over."

A chorus of agreement sprouted from several of the other women, and I felt rather confident that by the time we reached out destination, the sun would indeed be shining bright and warm and clear.

Not!

By the time we were only a few minutes from our spot, the sky had grown rather dark. Spatters of rain hit my front window, and I turned on the wipers.

Probably a quick shower, I reasoned.

A few moments later, the whole sky must have opened up, as a deluge of water crashed down on the bus and everywhere around us.

I couldn't see where I was going, and the next moment, I felt the rear end of the bus sliding sideways towards the embankment. Some of the women screamed with fright, but I compensated for the movement, and then stopped the bus.

Rain drummed incessantly against the tin shell like the little hammers of the dwarfs in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Water began to seep through the windows and cracks in the roof, and I realized I hadn't hired a particularly waterproof bus.

"Listen up, ladies!" I yelled above the noise of the peltering rain. "There's a shack several hundred yards across the field. If we're going to get wet in here, we might as well make a run for the place, get wet outside, and dry off in there."

"What about our instruments?" complained Patricia. "They'll get wet, too!"

"One way or another," I replied as I glanced at the ever-widening wet spots forming above us, "they're going to get wet. Take them, or leave them. Your choice. But, if we take them, we can probably rehearse a bit while we wait for the rain to stop."

Everyone seemed pretty much in agreement, and we quickly gathered up our instruments. Then, with me helping Patricia carry her double-bass, and Eleanore toting the bass with Mel, we scrambled as fast as we could for the shack.

-2-

Drowned rats couldn't have looked more drenched than we did once we entered the shelter of the shack. Someone turned on the lights, and we looked at each other laughed. Thoroughly soaked, our clothes stuck to us like label paper, and those of us with long hair looked more bedraggled than those with short.

"I can't believe this!" exclaimed Kleo as she tried to wring water from her shoulder length tendrils.

"Can we start a fire in here?" asked Catharine. "It'd help us dry out and warm up."

"Already on it!" announced Helen as she retrieved a poker and sifted through old ashes in a fireplace. Several dry logs stacked nearby quickly became fodder with crumpled paper for a small flame from her lighter. It soon grew to a warm blaze that snapped and crackled comfortingly.

"It's going to take forever for us all to dry off," noted Georgina as she shivered involuntarily.

"What can we do?" asked Helen. "There isn't a quicker way to get dry."

Most of the women agreed with her.

Then Georgina said quietly, "But there is..."

"And what would that be?" I asked, expressing the curiosity of the rest of us.

Georgina shrugged and smiled. "Take our clothes off and hang them around the shack."

A gasp of surprise erupted from half of us, myself included.

"You're kidding, surely!" exclaimed Melanie as she gave Georgina a look of disbelief.

"Hardly," answered the other woman. "Look--there are more than enough chairs, fixtures, and couches to hang our clothes on, and they'll certainly dry a hell of a lot faster if we're not wearing them."

"Give me a break," Kleo said with exasperation and a slight shiver in her voice. "I'm not taking off my clothes in front of you lot."

This brought several nervous laughs from the others who seemed inclined to agree with her.

"We're all women!" continued Georgina. "For heaven's sake, I'm sure we've all seen other women naked in the showers at school, or university, or whatever. We're certainly none of us prudes."

That said, she started to undo the buttons of her blouse. "And I, for one, don't want to catch my death of cold."

She peeled it off and flipped it over a chair near the fire. Then she began to wriggle out of her skirt while the rest of us looked askance at her. It, too, joined the blouse on the chair.

As Georgina reached behind her back to unclip her brassiere, Patricia said, "Oh, what the hell!" and began to undress, too.

Kleo and Melanie, apparently unwilling to doff their clothes, huddled together close to the fire.

Personally, I didn't have a problem with nudity in front of other people. I modeled nude for an artists' class when I wasn't playing in the orchestra. So, I got out of my blouse and brassiere, then my skirt and panties.

I found it much warmer that way, and mentioned it to the others.

Catharine, Helen, and Eleanore soon followed. In a short while, articles of clothing hung everywhere, while six naked women huddled around the fire.

Kleo laughed, and shook her head. "You girls look absolutely ridiculous," she observed.

"But, we're drying faster than you," returned Catharine with a grin.

Melanie could see that was, in fact, true. So, she began to remove her clothes as well.

"Atta girl, Mel!" Patricia encouraged. "Show us what you've got!"

Melanie blushed and grinned as the other women laughed heartily. Then they clapped as Kleo finally gave in to what she probably deemed as inevitable.

We couldn't help but look at each other--different shapes and sizes, not only in our heights and weights, but also our breasts. Small, medium, and large. Pear-shaped, conical, round, pointed, puffy, and perky. And shaved, trimmed, or bushy pubic areas.

If we didn't know each other before, we certainly knew each other now.

I looked out the window. The heavy rain still continued to pound on the shelter. "I guess we might as well rehearse something."

Each of us removed her instrument from its case, set up a set of stacking chairs into our semi-circular string orchestra formation, and then made ourselves ready.

I glanced at the other girls. None seemed to be particularly ashamed that she was naked. In fact, as they prepared to play, they actually seemed to grow more comfortable as they joined with their instruments. That didn't surprise me. While growing up, several of the girls turned to their instrument in times of stress or fear or insecurity. It was a way to help them cope with the realities of the world; for a short time, they could disappear into the realm of music.

If anyone else had been there to see us, it would have been a surreal moment--eight naked women looking very prim and proper, preparing to play orchestral stringed instruments.

"Let's try Mozart's Violin Concerto Number 5," I suggested.

They all nodded, set their bow and finger hands at ready.

"And one, and two, and--" I began, slowly leading into the concerto.

The beauty of those few minutes as the lush string melody rose and fell, filling the shack with beautiful and romantic strains, was electric for all of us. Pure, sensuous, raw music as free and naked as our own bodies swept round us and we lost ourselves--our spirits, our souls, and our bodies--in the ecstasy of the sounds.

And for me, if not for several others, it would prove to be one of those epiphanous moments in time. But I decided I would leave that for later, at a more opportune time.

For Kleo, in particular, it proved to be a moment of ecstasy that none of us would forget. Because as the concerto drew to c close, the rest of us with our eyes closed became acutely aware of a very definite moaning that didn't come from any of our instruments.

Rather, we looked to see Kleo clutching her viola neck and bow to her breast with one hand while the fingers of the other slowly, but steadily massaged her sex.

"I--can't--help it!" she gasped. "The music--the sight of our naked bodies--!" And then, she could say no more as an explosive orgasm ripped through her body. Shaking, gasping, shrieking with delight, she brought herself to that penultimate expression of physical ecstasy.

For a moment, the rest of us could only stare in stunned silence. That we had masturbated on our own, I did not doubt; but I daresay that for most of us, we had never watched someone else do it before our eyes.

But, doing so obviously affected all of us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Catharine and Patricia had already started to caress and massage themselves.

In that moment of time, in that air of sensuality and the aftermath of the music to which our bodies still seemed to resonate--for I'm quite sure that such a display would not have occurred at any other time in such a manner--in that moment, we all found ourselves caught in the erotic ambiance begun by Kleo.

Melanie and Helen lay down their bass and viola, embraced each other in a way that made me think they'd discovered themselves long before this day (and, later I found out, indeed they had), and then carried each other to the floor to explore their bodies with lips and tongues and fingers.

I couldn't help but feel my own ardor rise, and already an aching in my groin demanded a soon, if not immediate, release.

But, as I opened my legs to touch myself, Eleanore grasped my hand and guided it to her own soft down so that my fingers could caress the wetness between her thighs, and play therein a melody upon her instrument of pleasure.

Meanwhile, Georgina knelt between my legs, put down her head to the very quick of me, and let her tongue dance an exquisite touch upon my bud, her lips sucking and tugging, her slendour fingers entering and retreating, thrusting and thrilling me, until I, too, bucked on my chair and cried out with unbridled passion.

-3-

"This could be it, you know," I said later as we ended a second concerto, and by which time the sun had started to filter its way through the parting clouds.

"This could be what?" they asked.

"Our image. Our gimmick." For I thought now was the appropriate time to reveal what I had realized earlier.

They all laughed, probably not even sure they'd heard me correctly.

"What would that be?" asked Eleanore. "Sex in the orchestra?"

Another round of laughter.

"No," I said. "But playing our music in the nude, or semi-nude at least, would certainly garner attention."

"In public?" shrieked Kleo.

"During our concerts," I suggested. "We do the first hour fully clothed, then gradually undress every time we play a new selection until by the end of the second hour, we're nude."

They looked at me.

"Certainly something artsy. Modern. Dramatic. Innovative."

"And crazy," averred Helen. "But I like the idea."

Amazingly enough, after much discussion, so did the rest of the women.

As soon as it grew warm outside, I quickly suggested we shoot a publicity photo. "How about something by the bus, since that's what brought us to this decision," I said. "Make it look like your all pushing the bus back on the road. Highly improbable, of course, but I've seen worse publicity shots."

So the seven of them lined up, and I took the photograph.

Turned out rather well, if I say so myself.

The gimmick worked, of course. People now came in droves to see us perform naked. Sell-out concerts. The occasional scandalous article. More artistic nude poses.

Our first CD was titled Nude Mood Music. We used a rather tame photo for the front cover, and the shot of the girls by the bus for the back. As an insert for the hardcore fans willing to purchase the album, we had a more revealing shot of all of us, taken by a more professional photographer so that I could be in the picture.

But in spite of the gimmick, the new image, the notoriety--for St Alban's String Orchestra, we accomplished our purpose: sharing the inspiring, delightful, joyous and sensuous music of the classical composer with modern civilization.

We wouldn't have it any other way.

-END-