The Music Teacher – Chapter One

Those who do, do. Those who can’t, teach. Miss James had dreamed of a Career in the Royal Opera. As a child she’d had the voice of an angel (or so her school choir mistress had told her parents, and who were they to argue?), so her parents had paid for her to have very expensive singing tuition. It had meant the family had to pull their purse strings even tighter than usual, but to her parents it had been worth if, if it gave their only daughter a chance at a career in the one thing she loved.

Twenty-two years later her moment of glory had come and gone. To be honest, moment of glory wasn’t exactly the way most people would have described it. A supporting role in a west end musical. A good place to embark on a successful career, but some how Miss James had never managed to make the jump from supporting role to starring role. Her voice just didn’t have enough character she’d been told. Eventually worn out from trying so hard and her voice in tatters from the effort of trying to accomplish character in her voice where there had been none before, she retired from theatre and took up singing tuition in an attempt to make enough money to live on.

Amy was waiting in the entrance hall of her Music teacher’s house. It had become a makeshift waiting room over the years. People waiting for their lessons to begin, as others finished theirs. The occasional melody hovering in the air, sounding almost melancholy amongst the faded photographs and memorabilia that decorated the room, memories of a career forgotten by all but Miss James herself.

Amy was talented there was no doubt about it. Her voice was almost perfect. Her star pupil Miss James told herself on many occasions, her protégé. In her darker moments Miss James was fiercely jealous of Amy’s talent, her natural vibrato and her near perfect pitch. A voice which was so much better than hers had even been even at her pinnacle. A voice that Miss James tried to train, but which needed little coaching to stun everyone who heard it into silence. A voice which belonged to a young girl who was more interested in boys, clothes, popular music and the like, than in singing. A voice that belonged to girl, who was turning down a place at the best music college in the country and going to University in autumn, as she delighted in telling Miss James, to study Psychology. Psychology! What a waste Miss James thought with bitterness.

Amy looked at her nails. She had a nasty habit of biting them when she was agitated, and agitated she was as she sat waiting for Miss James to call her through. The young man who had his lesson before her was just leaving. She had a good look at his arse as he let himself out. ‘Not bad’ she thought. She let her mind wander, imagining herself in bed with the man that she only ever caught a glimpse of once a week before her singing lessons. She imagined him clamping his hand across her mouth as they had sex, the way her boyfriend did whenever his parents were home.

“Amy” Miss James said, “are you ready to come through now?”

“Yes” mumbled Amy, “coming” she said, thinking of the young man making her squeal as she orgasmed again and again. She sniggered to herself at the appropriateness of her comment, and reluctantly pulled herself out of her daydream and back to the reality of the tiny music room that she was now standing in.

“Lets start with the exercises I gave you to practise last week” started Miss James. Amy groaned inwardly. She hated exercises and as a result she hadn’t bothered to practice them all.

An hour later, the last lesson of the day over, Miss James sat down at her kitchen table with her evening drink, a glass of brandy. She was raging inside. That stupid little bitch couldn’t see what she had. All that talent going to waste, how could it be fair that Amy had the chance at the career Miss James herself would have killed for, but Amy was throwing away because she had no interest in it.