There was never money for piano lessons, growing up. All her friends got to take them – or violin lessons, or clarinet or voice or whatever they damn well pleased – but Sharifa was out in the cold. She used to pretend she wasn’t poor, act like she was too cool for piano lessons. Better to be the bad girl than the poor girl. Looking back, her friends must have known she wasn’t well off. Really, it was obvious.
But that was long ago. Sharifa was a grown woman now. She’d put herself through school on scholarships and part-time jobs, graduated with glowing recommendations from her professors, and quickly secured a position in business with plenty of room to grow. She had the condo, the car, the closet full of designer shoes, and all at the age of twenty-six. She was a grand success by anyone’s standards.
Only one thing could make her life complete: piano lessons.
Sharifa bought herself a clunky apartment-style piano and signed up with Mrs Zamani, but progress was slow. She’d learned to read music a little in her school choir, but that was fifteen years ago. Plus, work kept her damn busy. Every time Sharifa stepped into Mrs Zamani’s studio after a week without practising, she felt utterly humiliated.
Last week, Mrs Zamani had instructed her to rehearse the melody line of ‘Greensleeves’. They would play it as a duet at the year-end recital, which was coming up in less than a month. Sharifa sat at the gleaming black piano bench and waited, but her instructor – or ‘Insegnante’, as Mrs Zamani said – didn’t join her.
‘Vas-y,’ her teacher instructed. The woman spoke at least five languages on top of her native Farsi, and used them interchangeably. It wasn’t easy to keep up. ‘Presto, Sharifa, baazi! Play the piece.’
Sharifa took a deep breath and turned to find Mrs Zamani towering over her. There was something terrifying about a woman who was still so beautiful at Mrs Zamani’s age. Her bleached orange hair was coiffed into a style that might have been avant-garde in the 1980s, but Sharifa thought it resembled Beethoven’s hairdo in the portrait on the wall. Her skin was perhaps a shade darker than olive, much lighter than Sharifa’s, and she wore make-up that was striking yet suitable.
And gold.
Gold on her fingers, a shimmering diamond ring, and gold bangles around her wrists which she removed and set on a tray before sitting down at the piano. Boy, could she play. Sometimes Sharifa sat beside her, taking in the dense spice of her perfume, watching those long fingers race up and down the keyboard like there was no effort involved. Her fingers danced across the keys. It was mesmerising.
But Sharifa had a sinking feeling she wasn’t in Mrs Zamani’s good books today. Insegnante grabbed a pointer – the kind an orchestra conductor would use, wood painted white with a cork bulb at the end for grip – and tapped the sheet music insistently.
‘Baazi. Play!’
Feeling very small inside, Sharifa set her fingers softly upon the smooth white keys. She stared at the notes on the page and slowly plunked them out on the keyboard. She wasn’t keeping time in any way, just playing the next note as soon as she found it. Mrs Zamani released the catch on the metronome, but that tick-tock sound only made Sharifa sweat. She was playing really badly. She’d be in trouble for sure.
Thwaaap!
Sharifa shrieked, feeling a sting across her fingers and wondering what had happened. Where had that whipping noise come from? Why was she in pain?
‘Ragazza impertinente!’ Mrs Zamani bellowed. ‘You did not practise.’
All at once, the sting made sense. Sharifa turned to see her piano teacher brandishing that slim baton like a weapon and she gasped. ‘Miss, you hit me!’
‘Madame,’ Mrs Zamani corrected. ‘Not Miss. That was your punishment, zibaa. You must practise, or why bother coming to my lessons?’
‘Don’t worry, lady. I won’t be coming back.’ Sharifa packed up her sheet music in a huff, dropping papers, picking them up and dropping them again. She was so angry she could hardly find the door handle. ‘I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but doling out corporal punishment on your students? You must be crazy!’
Sharifa stormed from the studio and drove home way too fast. She tossed her sheet music on the piano bench, turned on the TV and grabbed a tub of Haagen-Dazs from the freezer. She tried not to think about Mrs Zamani or the humiliation of being rapped on the fingers. She tried not to think of ‘Greensleeves’ or the scent of her teacher’s perfume, or the heat that passed between them every time Mrs Zamani sat down next to her.
Savouring a spoonful of rich chocolate ice-cream, Sharifa glanced at her piano. Her fingers stung with the memory of being struck. She thought about the expression on Mrs Zamani’s face, harsh, but wounded, like a mother’s disappointment. Sharifa had no idea her teacher took her progress so personally.
She placed the ice-cream back in the freezer, went to the piano and practised.
The following week, she tapped gently at the studio door and entered upon her teacher’s instruction. She expected Mrs Zamani to say, ‘Ah! So you’ve returned,’ or maybe, ‘You quit, Sharifa. You are no student of mine.’ But no. With that slim white baton, Insegnante pointed to the piano bench and uttered, ‘Setz dich.’
Sharifa could only guess she was being asked to sit, and so she did, quietly spreading her sheet music on the stand. ‘I practised,’ she said, imploring some sign of affection, no matter how slight. ‘I practised a lot this week.’
Mrs Zamani nodded, but her expression remained stone. Her eyes, lined in dark shadow, looked particularly catlike today. Like a jaguar, her ferocity was veiled in sleek feline mystique, but she was no less dangerous for her beauty. She reached forward, sending a gust of spicy perfume Sharifa’s way, and set the metronome ticking.
Sitting so straight her back ached, Sharifa began to play. She tapped out the melody line to ‘Greensleeves’ without a single mistake and then, before Mrs Zamani could comment, she started again from the beginning. This time, she played the left hand too – Mrs Zamani’s part in their duet. They were just simple arpeggios and she’d mastered them at home, but, with her teacher’s eyes burning into the back of her head, she kept tripping up. She couldn’t find the notes, even though they were right there in front of her. She struck the wrong keys time and again, slowing down, out of sync with the metronome. By the time she reached the end, she felt hot from her ears to her breasts, and so ashamed she wanted to hide under the bench.
She didn’t turn around. Sharifa simply waited for Mrs Zamani to comment.
‘Vaay,’ her teacher said. Sharifa had heard this Farsi expression often enough to know it meant ‘Oh, my’, but whether that was good or bad stood to be reckoned. ‘You have practised indeed, but you’re not ready to play my part, zibaa. Not yet.’
‘I played it perfect at home,’ Sharifa replied. She wished she had proof. She should have taped herself or something. ‘Honestly, I practised every day. I wanted to make you proud.’
Sharifa realised she sounded like a child begging for a parent’s approval, but she didn’t care. That’s how she felt with Mrs Zamani. She needed to hear, ‘You’re a good girl. You tried your best,’ or something along those lines.
Instead, Mrs Zamani said, ‘Not so good, azizam. You must kneel on the bench. I will improve your performance.’
Gazing back, Sharifa caught a flash of bloodlust in her teacher’s eyes and noted the woman’s canine grin. Sharifa wasn’t stupid. She knew that if she wanted to retain any form of modesty she’d have to leave now. But she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay and find out just how far this jaguar would take her.
Climbing up on the bench, Sharifa kneeled precariously, setting her forearms on the piano’s shiny black top. When she glanced back, Mrs Zamani was grinning.
She raised her baton and tapped it lightly against Sharifa’s bottom. The taps were barely perceptible, but they sure sent a message. Mrs Zamani traced the tip of that pointer down the outside of Sharifa’s thigh until it reached the hem of her skirt. Without a word, Insegnante pushed the fine fabric up and over her rounded ass. She gasped as the cool studio air kissed her warm flesh.
‘How you can wear this?’ Mrs Zamani asked, sliding her baton along Sharifa’s black thong.
Sharifa shuddered as the pointer took its sweet time tracing over the pucker of her asshole. Even under the slick fabric of her thong, she felt everything.
‘Thongs are surprisingly comfortable,’ she told Insegnante as the baton moved between her open legs. Could that white wood tell how very wet her pussy was, just beyond the gusset of her underwear? ‘You should try wearing one, see for yourself.’
Without another moment’s hesitation, Mrs Zamani brought a hot palm down against Sharifa’s ass. She jolted forward with the force of that spanking, nearly knocking over the still-ticking metronome. Even the follow-up slap came as a surprise – Sharifa had been expecting just a little tap with the baton.
‘Ragazza impertinente!’ Mrs Zamani growled. She sounded very put out, like she resented having to spank a student.
‘I don’t know what you’re saying. I don’t even know what language that is!’Sharifa whimpered as another blow fell against her ass. She dug her elbows into the sharp corner of the piano top, trying not to tumble ass over teakettle as Mrs Zamani issued yet another harsh slap. It had been so long, too long, and she’d forgotten how she used to crave this sort of attention. She’d forgotten how a dull sting could grow into a sharp burn in less than a minute. It didn’t take much, just a few good smacks from a well-practised palm, and she was flying.
‘Please,’ Sharifa moaned, though she couldn’t admit she was begging for more, not out loud. Oh, it hurt now. The pain was undeniable, and yet so sweet she hoped it would never end. ‘Please, Miss.’
‘Madame,’ Mrs Zamani insisted, laying another hot spanking on Sharifa’s blazing ass. The sting was so sharp she had to bite down on her arm to keep from screaming.
‘Madame,’ Sharifa repeated as she braced herself for another slap. When nothing happened, she gripped the upright piano and said, ‘Please?’
The small white baton was back between her legs, tracing up and down the crack of her ass, following her thong like a sheer black path. Every time that thin stick of wood brushed over her asshole, she seized, secretly hoping it would press into her, making room for a finger, or something even larger.
‘Setz dich,’ Mrs Zamani commanded. ‘Sit down on the bench.’
At first, Sharifa didn’t move a muscle. She didn’t want to sit. Her ass was on fire, but she still wanted more. Finally, she turned her head and met her teacher’s fierce gaze straight on. Boldly, she asked, ‘Why?’
Mrs Zamani’s cat eyes grew wide and her painted lips pursed. Smack! She struck Sharifa’s ass unapologetically, leaving a needling sizzle in her wake. ‘Setz dich,’ she repeated, spanking Sharifa once more. ‘Baazi! Play the song, both hands.’
The sleek black piano bench was cool enough that it soothed Sharifa’s blazing ass when she first sat, but the effect wore off far too quickly. Her mind was so muddled from the spankings that her eyes wouldn’t focus. Black notes blurred on the white page.
‘Begin,’ Mrs Zamani instructed. At least she’d spoken English this time.
‘I can’t,’ Sharifa stammered. Her bum burned against the piano bench. The heat of her skin seemed to have penetrated the surface and she now felt as though she were sitting on a cook top. ‘My eyes …’
That evil little baton came out of nowhere to snap against her fingers, and she jerked upright, so straight her spine felt locked in place. Without thinking, she began to play. She wasn’t even looking at the sheet music, but rather gazing over it, out the long window overlooking the vast ravine behind Mrs Zamani’s studio.
Sharifa had no idea she’d managed to memorise this piece, but she’d played it so many times over the past week that it must have taken up residence in her muscle memory. It was a part of her, and, now that she was concentrating on the blaze of her bum rather than hitting the wrong notes, she played it perfectly.
Mrs Zamani had never applauded a performance before, but she did this time. Sharifa’s heart gushed with pride, and she turned swiftly to meet the pleased smile on her teacher’s lips.
‘And you said you don’t respond to corporal punishment,’ Mrs Zamani scoffed.
Naturally, Sharifa felt embarrassed to have been proven wrong, but she could hardly deny it. Instead, she lowered her gaze respectfully and said, ‘Thank you for your help.’
Clutching her baton to her breast, Mrs Zamani bowed quite dramatically. ‘You are too kind, azizam. It was practice that paid off, so simple.’
‘Yeah,’ Sharifa half agreed. ‘But I only practised to spite you.’
A fetching gleam shone in Mrs Zamani’s eyes as she took a step closer. The joy in her smile was replaced by something else, something more sinister. Sharifa’s bottom burned against the piano bench. She wanted desperately to move, but she couldn’t. Her teacher’s predatory gaze locked her in place.
‘Do you think I spank all my studenti, Sharifa?’
She hadn’t really thought about it, but the idea made her flush. ‘I hope not.’
Mrs Zamani’s neatly pencilled eyebrows rose, and she smirked. ‘Do you think I am a bad Insegnante?’
‘No,’ Sharifa replied, shaking her head. ‘Not at all. Why would you ask that?’
She didn’t answer, except to say, ‘I reward my pupils as I see fit. When the children play their songs well, I stick a gold star on their sheet music.’
‘That’s nice,’ Sharifa said, nearly breathless with strange anticipation. She found herself turning around on the piano bench, until her back was facing the keyboard and her front was facing her teacher.‘What about the adults? How do you reward them?’
With a casual shrug, Mrs Zamani said, ‘Kind words, for some.’
Sharifa swallowed hard. ‘And for others?’
Mrs Zamani seemed incredibly tall as she lorded over Sharifa, baton in hand. That Cheshire Cat grin was so wildly arousing that Sharifa’s heart pounded in response. She slid against the bench, slipped and reached out to right herself as her back crashed against the piano, bashing the keys. She was sure the cacophony would incur her teacher’s wrath, but Mrs Zamani didn’t react to the noise.
When the discordant music of Sharifa’s fall died down, Mrs Zamani took a seat on her rolling chair – more of a padded stool, really. Sitting perfectly straight, she said to Sharifa, ‘I have been veuve for almost thirty years. Can you believe that, my dear?’
Sharifa shuffled through her mental translation guides, but couldn’t find that word anywhere. She shook her head. ‘Madame, I’m not sure what that means, veuve.’
‘Ah.’ Mrs Zamani chuckled, clapping her hands. ‘Ah yes – veuve, widow. I have been a widow since twenty-three years of age.’
The very idea gave Sharifa a shiver. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t imagine.’
‘My husband was a brilliant man – intellectual, a poet – but he got on the wrong side of the Shah.’ Mrs Zamani gazed over Sharifa’s head and out the window. ‘Now he lives only in memory.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Sharifa said once more.
‘Shall I tell you a secret, zibaa?’ Mrs Zamani asked with a keen smile.
‘Zibaa?’ Her teacher seemed to call her this at every lesson, but she couldn’t fathom what it meant.
Mrs Zamani nodded deeply. ‘Farsi,’ she said. ‘It means … beautiful.’
Sharifa’s breath caught in her chest. Her ears were burning with the pleasure of that compliment. ‘A secret?’ she stammered. ‘Yes, please, Madame, tell me your secret.’
Wheeling her little chair close to the piano bench, Mrs Zamani leaned in and whispered, ‘In all these years, in all the countries I’ve passed through, I have always been true to my husband.’
‘You mean you’ve never …’
Mrs Zamani shook her head slowly, side to side.
That couldn’t be true. Mrs Zamani was so beautiful, so vibrant in her own exciting way. She didn’t seem like the type of woman who’d gone almost thirty years without sex.
‘Not with any man but my husband,’ Mrs Zamani went on, slowly placing her hands on Sharifa’s bare thighs. ‘But no matter. In that time, I have developed a taste for la chatte.’
Sharifa could tell by the way her teacher spread her thighs that the woman was keen on pussy. It sort of bothered Sharifa, how Insegnante implied that licking another woman to orgasm wasn’t on a par with fucking a man, but she set her irritation aside. She couldn’t help herself. When she gazed at her piano teacher’s lips, all she wanted was to feel them spread across her mound, that hot tongue dancing through her cleft, pinpointing her clit like an archer striking a bull’s-eye.
Toying with the mechanism on her low little chair, Mrs Zamani descended almost all the way to the floor, stretching her legs out underneath the piano bench, pulling herself in closer. When she leaned down to kiss Sharifa’s smooth thigh, her face appeared ever more striking, ever more beautiful. Her lips sizzled against Sharifa’s skin like a brand, leaving shimmering roses of lipstick down the inside of each dark thigh.
Sharifa leaned back, trying not to let her elbows clang against the keyboard, but the strain in her shoulders was too burdensome. She let go and her body fell upon the keys for the second time that day. Mrs Zamani hardly seemed to notice, just staring at the apex of Sharifa’s thighs, at the black thong that barred the path.
‘Stand up, zibaa.’ Mrs Zamani shifted to allow her room. ‘Keep your skirt above your hips and turn around, my dear.’
Holding her skirt flush to her belly, Sharifa stood on wobbly legs. There was something about Mrs Zamani that made her so aroused and so nervous that her knees threatened to give out at any moment. She turned around swiftly, feeling quite bashful with her bum now shoved in her piano teacher’s face. Leaning down, she set both palms flat against the bench. Her skirt hung down around her belly, blocking her view, so she was quite astonished when she felt her teacher’s blazing lips against her ass.
‘Madame!’ Sharifa cried before she could stifle herself.
Mrs Zamani did not respond, except to kiss her bottom again and again, planting wet pecks on both cheeks, leaving traces of warm saliva to cool upon Sharifa’s skin. When she whimpered with want, her teacher upped the ante, pressing the mounds of her bottom together and licking all over.
‘Yes,’ Sharifa hissed. Grasping the top of her thong, she twisted the black fabric until it brushed harshly against her asshole. Sharifa wrapped the material around her fist, stretching it, but creating a perfect burn against her puckered anus. Her clit benefited too, and not a moment too soon – it was throbbing between her pussy lips, pounding like it had a heart of its own.
Mrs Zamani dug her long fingers into Sharifa’s flesh and bit her bottom indelicately. Those sharp teeth seized her skin, pressed incisively into her like a vampire, bringing a shriek up through her throat. She stifled it, biting her lower lip, squealing and squirming, but not so much as to make her teacher stop. She didn’t want this torture to end – not now, not ever.
‘Please, Madame,’ Sharifa whimpered. ‘Touch my pussy. Will you touch it? Please?’
The striking Insegnante traced a hot tongue all around Sharifa’s ass, nudging one hand between her shuddering thighs.
‘Yes,’ Sharifa encouraged. ‘Please, please, touch me!’
‘Touch you?’ Mrs Zamani whispered, her breath hot on Sharifa’s skin. Pulling the black thong to one side of Sharifa’s pussy lips, Insegnante moved lightly, dabbing her fingers into that throbbing swell, finding juice there and slathering it across Sharifa’s clit.
‘Oh, God!’ Sharifa snapped her legs together, but Mrs Zamani spared no time opening them wide. ‘Oh, God …’
‘Khosh, my dear.’ Her teacher rubbed her clit while she clung to the piano bench, moaning with pleasure. ‘Very good.’
‘That feels incredible,’ she said, trying not to move, trying only to feel. And then Mrs Zamani’s tongue met her asshole, licking it through the sleek black fabric of her thong, and her legs trembled so hard she thought she’d tumble down against the piano. The very idea of her teacher licking her ass was so embarrassing her cheeks blazed like the sun, but all she could say was, ‘Oh, Madame, please …’
‘Turn, zibaa.’ Mrs Zamani slapped her on the ass, and she whirled around, stumbled, landed with a thud on the edge of the bench. ‘Khosh, very good.’
Before Sharifa’s mind could stop spinning, her teacher’s face was planted between her thighs, lapping wildly at her pussy lips, licking her pulsing little clit. Again, Sharifa fell back against the keyboard, sending a jolting discord through the room, but her teacher only snarled and ate her harder.
‘Please!’ Sharifa grasped at the piano, swimming in the keys. ‘Yes, please don’t stop! Please make me come!’
Growling like an animal, Mrs Zamani hugged Sharifa’s hips and sucked her engorged clit into that hot, practised mouth. Sharifa couldn’t help rocking against her piano teacher’s face. Her pussy splayed wetly over Insegnante’s mouth, coating those luscious lips with juice. That blazing mouth ignited her passion like fireworks, and once the flame was lit there was no putting it out.
Sharifa forced her clit against her teacher’s mouth, rubbing it all over, getting herself off on a face that no longer scowled. In fact, Mrs Zamani seemed to enjoy being used this way. Was that a smile?
When Mrs Zamani pounced, trapping Sharifa’s all too sensitive bud between her lips, there was no more putting off the inevitable. A blast of heat exploded between Sharifa’s thighs, riding her muscles and blood to her heart, to her breasts. Even though she was seated, her legs trembled. She shrieked and hollered, banging her palms against the keyboard, which blasted ominous non-chords through the studio. She knew she was shouting, but what were the words? ‘Yes, please, yes! Lick me, Madame. Eat my pussy hard.’
The shivers of lust blasting through her veins brought her to pulpy, panting glory twice over before she begged Mrs Zamani to pull away. ‘It’s too much,’ she said, covering her pussy with both hands. ‘Oh, I can’t take it anymore!’
Her teacher laughed good-naturedly, though with a hint of something more sinister. Sharifa wished she could lie down, but there wasn’t a couch in the studio – only a bench, and it was far too small. She was sitting in a slick coat of pussy juice, and the sensation embarrassed her a bit. Would Mrs Zamani make her clean up the mess? She couldn’t picture her teacher cleaning anything, although before today she couldn’t have pictured Insegnante licking her pussy, either.
‘A challenge for the recital,’ Mrs Zamani suggested as she rose from her low little chair. She fished more sheet music from her filing cabinet and handed the piece to Sharifa. ‘Now that I know how much you can accomplish in one week, I don’t mind putting your abilities to the test.’
Chopin’s ‘Minute Waltz’. Sharifa gazed down at the labyrinth of notes on the page, and then up at her teacher in disbelief. There was absolutely no way she could learn this piece in a week – maybe not even in a year. It was way too hard for a beginner.
Still, she read Mrs Zamani’s eager smirk and imagined all the spankings she’d incur when she didn’t get it right.
With a colluding grin, Sharifa said, ‘I’ll try my best, Madame.’