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We finished with a resounding flourish and Mom threw up her hands and then turned to hug me.
"That was fantastic!" she cried. "Oh, this is going to be so great, everyone will be bowled over." Mom clapped her hands, turning to the living room where Dad's feet were just visible, propped up on the Lazy boy chair tucked out of our sight in the corner. "Drew, did you hear that? Wasn't it incredible?"
Dad's head struggled into view, peeking around the wide entrance into the living room across the hallway and into the music room.
"What's that?"
"Our first duet," Mom said. "Wasn't it beautiful?"
"Oh yes, quite," Dad replied, settling back into his chair. "Remarkable."
Mom turned back toward me. "Let's do it again," she said, settling her feet near the pedals and smoothing her skirt down but spreading her hands sideways this time, over her thighs rather than down to her knees, leaving the hem a few inches above her knees where it had settled on her agile legs as she played. "Ready?" she asked, starting before waiting for my answer.
I wasn't sure if I could remember my ad-libs but they actually came easily, leaving me lots of time to admire Mom. All of her, not just her shaking breasts and legs, but the way she switched from laughter to concentration, the arc of her neck, the delicate way she held her hands over the keyboard, and the softness of her arms. A warm glow enveloped me as I watched her play.
Mom showed as much joy the second time as she did the first, but this time she shared it all with me and didn't bother calling Dad.
"Do you want to do another piece?" I asked.
Mom nodded eagerly, then said, "But I'm playing so much and you're the one everyone wants to see."
"I'll find pieces we can both play but let's start with ones mostly by you."
Mom nodded, understanding that she needed practice more than I.
"But we'll be even in the end," I assured her.
"Oh, Jon. I don't know if I can," Mom seemed suddenly nervous.
"Don't worry. By the end of the summer, people won't be able to tell who's playing which parts."
Mom didn't look convinced.
"Trust me?" I asked.
Mom's face relaxed into a smile, "Always."
"Ok. This next piece needs a lot of footwork. What kind of shoes are you wearing?"
I dropped my hand to the side of Mom's knee and pried it toward her, looking down at her feet. Mom reacted by lifting her knee high to show me her feet, wonderfully letting her loose skirt slide high enough to show the thickening of her leg under her thigh.
"Hmmm, maybe you should play barefoot," I suggested.
Mom slipped her shoes off and placed her toes on the pedals, arching her feet with her heels held high, further slipping her dress up her legs. I nodded my approval.
That song was more difficult and we had to stop and start many times. But it was fun. Every time we stopped, Mom patted my thigh with her left hand as a kind of 'good work' signal. When we moved onto a third piece, I suggested that we each play with one hand.
At first, I let my right hand hang awkwardly between us but, with the need to sometimes reach across Mom, I curled it around her waist, holding onto her hip. Mom let her idle hand rest on my thigh and took to squeezing my leg instead of patting it when we completed a particularly successful section. In response, I pulled her toward me, enabling my hand to wrap farther around her waist, onto to her stomach just below her breast. I was in heaven.
We practiced that piece a lot, working out who should play what. At first we each played only the keys nearest us but it sounded better when we both played the full board, mostly on our own side but sometimes having to reach across in front of the other. This wasn't a problem for Mom but I found myself necessarily grazing the front and underside of her left breast quite often, an action Mom ignored even when my hand around her waist seemed to pull her forward onto my scraping arm.
For her part, Mom's reaching arm never touched my chest, I lacking the appropriate contact points, but the hand on my thigh slipped between my legs on several occasions and, eventually, Mom just left it there, her palm constantly resting near my groin and her fingers trailing down between my jeans. I was always aware of its presence, no matter now interesting the tune.
We played for a long time, barely pausing between pieces. I copied Mom and kept my idle hand on her left thigh instead of around her waist and had similarly managed to let it slip between her legs. However, unlike hers, mine rested on bare leg, not jeans. The first time I put my hand down, Mom's leg was protected by the thin material of her colorful summer dress, but I gradually worked it back each time I lifted and replaced my hand. As with my scraping arm, Mom seemed to be totally unaware.
I was deeper in heaven. It was one thing to look between my mother's legs, but to touch them, now that was real heaven. In my mind, I pictured the panties my hand was in such close proximity to. I wondered what color she was wearing. Were they yellow or red to match the colors on her dress, or simply plain white?
We stopped for a longer respite to pick a new piece to play, each of us providing one hand to hold the books, as if our other one, idle through the music, wasn't useful for any task. They remained where they were, each loosely gripping a thigh.
As we talked about one candidate piece, Mom's idle hand suddenly became less placid, her fingers idly scratching the inside of my jeans. I don't think it was intentional. I think it just happened without thought as she concentrated on what she was thinking. But my response was deliberate. Tentatively, I let my index finger, the one farthest from her panties, move the tiniest bit and, when there was no response, a little more. Soon, I was stroking the inside of Mom's thigh, not as much as she was and keeping my palm rigidly still, but scratching all the same.
Now, here's the thing. I knew Mom was aware of my shenanigans. She gave absolutely no indication that she was, but I knew, I could sense it. And she let it happen!
We had just settled on which piece to do next and had started talking about how to play it, a moment when Mom was really concentrating, when I let my little finger stroke her leg too. I knew immediately that Mom was aware, despite her concentration, by a downward flash of her eye, even though her head didn't move and her speech never faltered.
This was a clear transgression. This was no friendly pat, or flirtatious scratch. This was a definite caress no more than two inches from her panties on the softest flesh her body possessed. There was no mistaking its intent. Twice more Mom's eye flickered but my pinky kept stroking, slow and gentle, but persistent.
We kept discussing the piece. Admittedly, I prolonged the discussion with needless queries for clarification, but Mom didn't seemed annoyed. She calmly explained how she thought things should go, not once glancing down or batting her eye, and the whole time my pinky was scraping up and down near her puss.
"Are you ready?" Mom finally breathed.
"Yeah," I croaked.
We began. Incredibly, we played that entire piece without stopping, not even once. And not just because we didn't want to. We didn't make a mistake through the entire piece, not a single one. It was perfect.
When it was over, we both slumped back, in awe of ourselves, each with a hand on the keys and one between the other's legs, both drawn more tightly back than when we had started. I could now feel the edge of Mom's hand along the front of my crotch, a good inch and a half closer than when she had started playing. There was no doubt she was aware of how hard I was.
My hand hadn't slipped so close to Mom's center but my stroking pinky was in full contact with the edge of her panties, slowly scraping up and down by her leg hole, its little knuckle rubbing beside the ridge on my side. I was wondering how long I could get away with this, and how we could extricate ourselves while pretending nothing had happened, when the solution arrived.
Father's Lazy Boy sprung loudly as he levered his chair closed. As he stood and faced us, our hands rapidly jerked from between each other's legs and Mom quickly smoothed her dress down to her knees.
"Done for the night?" Dad asked.
"Mmm, yes, I think so," Mom replied, turning to look at me for confirmation, her face red.
"Just one more little ditty, Dad," I said, pointing at some music for Mom to look at with her red face.
Dad turned toward the stairs. "Well, I'm done," he said.
As his footsteps dwindled, Mom said, "I'd better go to bed, too," but she didn't make a move to leave.
"That went really well," I said, "but we should practice a lot if we're going to do it in front of people."
"When Dad's home," Mom said, looking down.
"Why?" I asked, genuinely surprised.
"Because he likes to listen, too" Mom replied. With that, she twisted away and ran up the stairs after my father, not giving me a goodnight kiss for maybe the first time in my life.
Tandem Play
I didn't get an opportunity to practice with Mom again until Saturday night. I don't know if she was avoiding me or what but she was busy every evening and would have been on Saturday too except Dad was sick and opted out of their regular dinner date. Mom made Dad something bland for dinner and spread a comforter over him after he settled back in his Lazy Boy, his favorite spot. She handed Dad the book he was currently reading but he closed his eyes and turned his head to the side.
Mom and I both sat on the couch, at opposite ends, reading. I glanced at Mom often but she concentrated on her book. She was wearing a plain summer dress, a dull, checkered gray with thin white lines, not near as bright and cheery as the one she'd worn the last time we played. The top was cut square with heavy straps that arched over her shoulders to fasten to the front with big buttons. The only redeeming feature of the dress, well two, were the openness of the bodice which, designed for the summer heat, left ample room for body-heated air to escape, leaving Mom's upper assets on display. The second redeeming feature was the lightness of the material; it clung to Mom's hips and legs when she moved and did little to conceal the shape of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist, and the flare of her hips.
Mom's elbow was leaning on the arm of the couch, distributing her weight on her right thigh so she could tuck her feet up beside her. Strangely, I noticed that Mom's feet were clean on the bottom even though her feet were bare. I was content to simply look at her.
Dad's sudden snore jarred me from my thoughts. I got up and held my hand out to Mom.
"Come on, it's time to practice," I said in response to her questioning eyes.
Mom shook her head, returning to her book.
I tugged Mom's hand. "Come on Mom. Don't you want the recital to go well?"
That got her attention. She looked up sharply, concern showing on her face. "Yes."
"Then you have to work for it," I said, pulling her arm hard enough that she had to follow.
Something about her inertia felt magically feminine. I don't know why and I have no idea how I could sense that, but I did. Mom resisted until I had her pulled forward.
"Wait," she said, struggling to get her feet onto the floor.
As soon as she did, I renewed my effort to pull her up, finally succeeding, but she resisted all the way even though both she and I knew she was going to come. She even resisted as I pulled her toward the piano, feet dragging, almost stumbling. It made me more excited to know she didn't really want to but was coming anyway. I don't have an explanation for that, either.
As we passed in front of Dad, Mom whispered, "We'll wake Dad."
"No we won't. Anyway, he loves to hear us play."
Mom couldn't argue with that but appeared ready to. Just then, Dad spoke.
"Play something long and slow for me." He didn't even open his eyes or give any other indication that he was awake.
Startled, both Mom and I said, "Sure," at the same time.
Mom stopped by the piano to slip her feet into her slippers that were tucked beneath the bench and I realized then that she had been practicing on her own when I wasn't home. She twisted around and sat on the end of the bench, slumped forward in the demeanor of a child who didn't want to play, like me years ago when I wanted to play outside but had to do my lessons with my Mom.
"It won't hurt. It'll be over before you know it and one day you'll thank me for making you do this," I parroted the exact words Mom had repeated to me many, many times.
Mom laughed but remained slumped in mock resistance. I knelt before her, lifted her foot and, slipping one hand behind her ankle, pulled her slipper off her foot. I repeated this with the other foot and then swung her legs around the bench to face the piano.
"Why don't I pick something first," I suggested sitting on the bench beside Mom.
I settled on a piece and had to pick up Mom's listless hands to place them on the keyboard. She was being a real bugger about this. I began playing. Mom didn't. I kept playing and slowly, she joined in. Halfway through, she was playing with as much joy as I.
I stuck to playing and didn't make any attempts to touch Mom inappropriately. We played several pieces before I suggested, loud enough for Dad to hear, that it was time to play the long piece we had promised Dad. I turned to an especially long and gentle piece.
"You start," I said.
Halfway down the page, I still hadn't joined in but Mom was into it now, swaying with the music. As Mom switched to the top of the next page, I dropped my hand and 'straightened' her skirt, managing to pull the dull, gray dress halfway up her thighs. Mom paid no attention.
At the bottom of the page, I leaned close to Mom and turned the page for her, slipping my arm around her waist. Mom still paid no attention, even when my hand tugged her closer to me and massaged the warm flesh underneath the thin dress. I straightened in my khaki shorts, beginning to fill them as a man should.
As the song wore on, I played a few keys with my left hand, but only enough to give the impression that I was involved. I was far more interested in the play being executed by my other hand which was sliding up and down Mom's narrow waist from the swell of her hip to the bulging bottom of her right breast.
My thumb and index finger were squeezing between the heaviness of Mom's breast and her ribs. After I turned the page again, I let my hand move outward once it had squeezed in, pushing and lifting her breast away from her chest before letting it drop as I continued brushing her waist down to her hip. I had done this maybe a dozen times before Mom acknowledged, indirectly, what I was doing.
"Come on, Jon. Put more effort into it, for your father," Mom whispered.
At that point, my hand just happened to be squeezed under Mom's breast ready to push it out. I nodded and started to slide my hand out but then twisted it up and cupped the bottom of her breast. At the same time, I began to play with my left hand, leaving my right to cup Mom's breast.
Mom was pleased to see me start playing but her pleasure was countered by the presence of my impertinent hand. Or was it? Though clearly aware, Mom didn't tell me to stop, or twist her torso away as a signal to remove my hand. I realized then that Mom was allowing me a certain latitude in return for doing what she wanted.
When I thought about it, she had always been lenient with me when there was something she wanted me to do, and she applied the same behavior toward my father. I could remember one occasion when Mom wanted something my father didn't want to do but later did. I had woken that night to the sound of intense sex and, lying on my stomach, I orgasmed into my cupped hands. I never fell asleep after that on nights my parents argued, at least those when it was my father resisting doing something for my mother. I waited until the inevitable sounds of great sex. Long sex. Sex that sounded like it was just the kind my father really wanted but seldom got.
I squeezed Mom's breast, sending a signal that this was no accident. Turning to the last two pages of notes, I dropped my hand below the keyboard to rest it on Mom's thigh. As Mom played, pointedly staring at the notes, I slipped my hand under the dull, gray dress to the greet the excitement of the warm flesh underneath. Mom closed her legs but when I whispered in her ear that she was playing so well that I was sure the recital would be a huge success, she relaxed and they opened again, enough for me to worm my fingers between and scratch the flesh barely an inch from her panties. I was impressed how Mom managed to stay in time and didn't rush to finish. She was a true professional and ignored the presence of my hands to the very end.
As soon as the song ended, I got up and went into the living room. Dad was lying with his eyes closed but opened them when I spoke.
"How was that Dad?"
"That was great, son. Fantastic," Dad exclaimed enthusiastically, but I had the sense that he hadn't really heard much of it, that he had dozed off.
"We're going to do something really different now, Dad, a duet where we both play the whole keyboard, with both hands, rather than just our own side."
"Really?" Dad asked, almost rhetorically. "I'd like to hear that."
I returned to the piano. Mom was sitting off the end of the bench again, eyeing me with a questioning look, wondering what on earth I was talking about. She hadn't bothered to pull her dress down and looked tremendously sexy sitting there with most of her thighs showing, though her knees were demurely held together, and her dark brown, full-bodied, wavy hair in disarray. I strode around her and pulled a book out that I had tucked behind the others that afternoon as Mom swiveled to face the piano.
I opened the book to the piece I wanted to play and leaned over Mom's left shoulder, my face next to hers as she leaned forward to look. As Mom examined the piece, I pulled on the bench seat until Mom partially lifted her weight, allowing me to drag it almost a foot from the piano. Mom's attention was on the music. When I pushed on her lower back she silently obliged by shifting forward until she was sitting near the edge of the seat. She noticed what I was doing when I sat behind her, my legs straddling hers.
"What are you doing?" Mom asked, emphasizing 'are', her tone indicating she thought I was up to some kind of prank.
"This piece has to be played by one pianist with four hands, so I have to sit behind and reach around you."
"Oh. So that's why there's two sets of notes through the piece?" Mom asked, turning her head partly toward me. I was so close, her ear contacted my mouth.
"Yes. It's a hard piece. It'll take a lot of practice," I whispered, my lips grazing Mom's ear.
Mom nodded. "A lot of practice," she repeated what I had said.
"Yes. Your part is in red, mine is in green."
Mom nodded looking back at the music.
"I won't play for the first few times. Just get used to me sitting behind you while you play."
Mom nodded again. "Behind me," she whispered.
"That's right," I said. I placed my hands on Mom's waist, just above her hips. "OK, let's go."
Mom placed her hands on the keyboard and began playing. I held her waist but didn't move except to flip the page for her. Although at first tense playing in this odd configuration, she relaxed soon after I turned the first page. The music intensified in this section, growing slowly, building to an emotional high that would soon subside near the end, sliding into a long lilting rhythm.
As the notes betrayed their ascending trend, I slipped my hands up to cup the bottoms of Mom's breasts, taking just a little of their weight. In response to her sharp intake of breath, I whispered, "That's it. Feed on the emotion, throw it back to the audience."
