Music Lessons

So there I am. Sitting in a small room for a music lesson. I'm playing the clarinet. I'm ok at it but I'm lazy, and the teacher knows it. He's always disappointed that I don't try harder. At the beginning of every lesson, before I'm even in his house, he makes me take my shoes off. Just in case I've trodden in dog shit. He likes things clean. He likes routines. He used to play the clarinet in the Air Force band. He's got a moustache.

Anyway, I'm sitting in his music room. He's listening to me play. I'm facing the window, and he's sitting at his piano turned towards me. And the thing is, I haven't pissed for quite a while. I'm trying to play music for him and all I want to do is piss. It was ok at the beginning of the lesson, but now, 15 minutes in, I'm having to tense that muscle that stops the flow. All I want to do is let go. The music is coming out all wrong.

I could just ask to go to the toilet, but I'm twelve, I'm scared, and I'm embarrassed. The phone rings. Mr B gets up to answer. The phone is in the corridor by the front door. I'm sitting there and the piss begins to flow. I feel my pants getting wet. I feel the off-white seat of the old painted wooden chair getting wet. A thin film of pale yellow water lubricating its battered surface.

I get up. Mr B is on the phone, he hears me, turns, and sees me. I whisper 'can I go to the toilet?' while he's talking. He points to the bathroom. I go in, quickly undo my trousers and pants, and then piss. Afterwards I pull my pants and trousers back up and I notice a big dark wet patch right around my crotch. Walking back into the music room I feel the clammy, clingy feeling you get when you walk in wet jeans.

We finish the lesson. Mr B doesn't say anything, I don't know if he even noticed. Maybe there was a smell, I don't remember. Young piss is probably different from old piss. When I get home I put my trousers in the airing cupboard to dry, without telling my Mother. And back in Mr B's room, the next lesson must have started, the next pupil, his shoes safely by the kitchen door. Sitting in the hotseat.

 

May 2000