Grey Area
CW: Inappropriate touching in voice lesson
He asked me to sing that aria again, but more gently. I tensed up, afraid to spoil its beauty with my offensive, inconvenient voice. He stood up. Someone else had to be in the room for this part, and he called the next student in. I thought I knew they were once a couple, but he once confessed to me that he started rumours about himself just to see what would happen. He shut the door, approached, cradled the back of my neck in his hand. This was for alignment and in other hands it wouldn’t be so bad. Then she watched as he wrapped my long ponytail around his fist, pressed his entire body against mine, and turned us to face the mirror together in a sudden bizarre dance. I remember thinking, “Does he do this with his male students?”
I could feel his eyes on me, one hand in my hair and the other around my neck, his lips pressed to my ear, arms braced against my shoulders, chest full along my back, the rise and fall of his lungs, the fat of his belly, his hips pressed against my bottom, even our thighs moved together, his knees touched my calves, his toes touched my heels. We looked at each other in the mirror. Surely we both knew. And I know what you might be wondering, with him digging into me like that, but no, I don’t think so.
What could I do? I could have pulled away, or asked him to stop, but another student was sitting there, so it must have been innocent. Besides, I didn’t want to pull away. I had never sung so well in my entire life. I was flying, but if he relaxed his grip I would tense up again, and so he would pull me in again, close and hard again, murmuring in my ear, as if he were holding me fast against some fierce storm and I would be swept away without him.
“It took many years to trust that this high pleasure came from my own body, not from being near anyone else’s.”
I didn’t look at the other student. The scene felt voyeuristic. But it was my best work, effortless, confident, still. I knew it was beautiful, but what did he think? What was he looking for when he gazed at me like that? I was too afraid to ask, and he never told me, and maybe it was nothing at all.
I could see her smiling, out of the corner of my eye, saying it was like a completely different voice had been released from my throat: released so long as I was held.
It took many years to trust that this high pleasure came from my own body, not from being near anyone else’s. I still do not know how to turn this into a product, a thing with a beginning and an end. Surely my voice cannot be trusted. Now I have escaped, but I cannot take back those hours when he tried to envelop my body, my voice, my will, all in his arms.
Sometimes, after the worst arguments, he would tell other students that I loved him. Or so the story goes; he talked me out of believing that happened too. Besides, they had no idea what we really spoke about. If I loved anything about him it was how much he disappointed me, how calmly he crossed the Rubicon.
It was always this way between us, never love but the deep bitter pleasure of crossed lines, sparks in darkness, the luxurious intimacy of anger.
If we weren’t fighting, we were making each other laugh. I have lost an old friend, though he should have never been one, though he never was.