The Piano Teacher's Passion
"Miss Dorothy has taught piano for forty years. When a retired music producer enrolls for lessons he doesn't need, she discovers harmony isn't just about notes."
I've been teaching piano since I was twenty.
Forty-five years of scales, sonatas, and students who range from hopeless to brilliant. I'm Dorothy Mae Washington—Miss Dorothy to everyone—sixty-five years old and nowhere near retiring.
"I'd like to enroll in lessons."
The man at my door is clearly wealthy. Clearly experienced. Clearly hiding something.
"You can play already," I say. "I can tell."
"I can play some. But I want to play well."
Marcus Price made his money in music production.
Worked with everyone from Motown to modern R&B. Retired last year to Nashville, where his grandchildren live.
"Why me?" I ask during our first lesson.
"Because you taught Donny Hathaway's cousin."
"That was forty years ago."
"Good teaching doesn't expire."
He's good.
Better than good—the man has real talent, suppressed beneath decades of being behind the board instead of in front of it.
"You don't need lessons," I tell him after week three. "You need performance time."
"I need something." His fingers rest on the keys. "I've spent my whole life making other people's music. I never made my own."
"Make it now."
"What?"
"Play something. Right now. Not sheet music—something from here." I touch his chest. "Show me what's inside."
He hesitates. Then his fingers find the keys.
What comes out is beautiful.
The piece is raw, emotional, clearly autobiographical.
When he finishes, his eyes are wet.
"That was yours?" I ask.
"I wrote it thirty years ago. Never recorded it."
"Why not?"
"Because it was too personal." He meets my eyes. "I never trusted anyone enough to hear it."
"And now?"
"Now I trust you."
The lessons shift.
Less technique, more creation. He shows me pieces he's hidden for decades. I help him shape them, refine them.
"You're extraordinary," he says one evening.
"I'm just a piano teacher."
"You're the first person who's ever heard me." He moves closer. "Really heard me."
"Marcus—"
"I know. Student-teacher. You've probably heard this before."
"I haven't, actually."
"Then let me be clear." He takes my hand. "I came here looking for music. I found something more."
"What?"
"You, Dorothy." He lifts my hand to his lips. "I found you."
We make music of a different kind that night.
On his piano bench first—his mouth on mine, hands finding each other. Then in his bedroom, where the music continues.
"You're beautiful," he breathes.
"I'm sixty-five—"
"You're timeless." He kisses my shoulder. "Like the best compositions."
He undresses me slowly.
Each layer revealing more—the body that's grown soft with years, the curves that have settled with time.
"Every line is a lifetime," he murmurs. "Let me learn them all."
His mouth finds me and I grip the sheets.
Thirty years in music production taught him rhythm. He applies it between my thighs until I'm crying out in keys I didn't know I had.
"There," he says. "That's your song."
When he enters me, we're composing together.
Building something new from old parts. His body moves in rhythm with mine—adagio, then accelerando, then the final crescendo.
"Dorothy—"
"Together."
We finish in harmony.
His album releases six months later.
Thirty years of hidden music, finally shared. I'm credited as "creative consultant," but we both know it's more.
"This is us," he says at the release party. "Every note."
"The critics don't know that."
"They don't need to." He pulls me close. "We know."
The wedding is in his home studio.
Piano music—ours—playing softly. Just family, close friends, the people who matter.
"To music," he toasts.
"To finally being heard," I counter.
We kiss while our song plays.
Some lessons teach more than scales.
Some students become partners.
And some piano teachers find that the best compositions are the ones you write together.
Measure by measure.
For life.