Author's note:
This is a story for the
Literotica Nude Day Story Contest 2025
. All characters are fictional.
The story title comes from the finale of the 1968 tribal musical 'Hair':
The Flesh Failures / Let The Sunshine In,
written by Galt MacDermot (music), James Rado and Gerome Ragni (lyrics). Quoted lyric snippets are the property of the authors. A complete list of songs mentioned appears at the end of the story, and the songs are widely available on streaming services.
My grateful thanks to
Nynah
and
PennyThompson
for their editing, for their many creative suggestions and for their advice as intimacy coordinators :-)
Written for all those who love music, whether or not you only sing in the shower!
Prelude – The Flesh Failures
The applause from the choir's second piece faded, and the church was quiet, waiting for their final number. Some audience members were leafing through the program, trying to work out if they should make a move to another of the competitions after this bracket finished, or stay and see the next choir. There were queues to get into this competition: people were lucky if they got seats.
The conductor was dressed impeccably in a black tuxedo and had long, blonde hair cascading down his back. He looked briefly around the choir, softly hummed a note, raised his hands, and signaled them in. A young man in the back row of the choir started vocalising a funky, driving bass line, the rest of the choir smiling, paying attention to him, trying to engage with the audience. The bass singer was also a blonde, wearing silver wire framed spectacles, a black shirt, tie and trousers. The others had various semi-formal outfits in black, with silver jewellery. They presented well, but some of them looked a little nervous, shifting their hands, or smoothing down their skirts or pants. There had been a notable rise in tension between the last song and this one.
The audience were watching, absorbing. The music was new for most of them: the song was from
Hair,
which had been a popular musical back in hippie times, but was an obscure piece in serious choral circles, particularly here in Europe.
A couple of men started beatboxing, supporting the bass singer with vocal percussion. They were good: disciplined, rhythmic, tight. Some of the audience members were tapping along.
A tenor started the verse of the song, building the narrative as the rest of the choir started adding harmonies and moving with the rhythm. The soloist was dark-haired, notably handsome, smiling and confident, engaging the audience with twinkling blue eyes. The solo passed to another tenor as the song continued to build.
The women hadn't had much of the melody yet, but as the song shifted into a second verse, an alto voice took up the solo. There was a slight edge to her voice: a change in timbre. She was in the front row, another woman standing closely behind her, touching her shoulder in apparent solidarity. The soloist was perhaps in her mid-twenties: thin but well proportioned, attractive face and clear expression, auburn hair piled on her head in a twist of some kind. She was wearing make-up, but a light sheen of perspiration was visible on her décolletage, peeping out from the top of her blouse.
Her voice carried across the space. The words were from the 1960s, from the famous Summer of Love, but they seemed eerily appropriate for modern times.
"We starve - look at one another short of breath, walking proudly in our winter coats, wearing smells from laboratories..."
A busty blonde woman near her joined in perfect harmony, soaring into a thrilling moment of musical
frisson
as she added her descant.
"...facing a dying nation, of moving paper fantasy, listening for the new told lies with supreme visions of lonely tunes..."
The choir swelled and built towards the chorus, the momentum growing. Something else was happening as well. Most of the choir were suddenly unbuttoning their clothing, led by the male and female soloists.
The audience started shifting, silent but on the edge of their seats as shirts and blouses were dropped to the stage, followed quickly by brassieres and other assorted tops. The curtains at the side of the church were suddenly opening, allowing shafts of late afternoon light to stab through, bathing the choir in bright sunshine.
The choir members kept undressing, shedding skirts, pants, and underwear as the music shifted into the final chorus.
"Let the sunshine in... let the sunshine in..."
Gasps and laughter started rising from the audience as the choir continued, their sounds merging and echoing as their exultant faces shone and the song reached its climax. And the conductor, still fully dressed, raised his hands and drove them ever higher as their voices soared to the ceiling.
Act One
Three months earlier
Glossary:
full choir
- a choir consisting of all voice types, including soprano, alto, tenor, and bass
The rehearsal had been intense. According to Derek, we had
murdered
Gjeilo,
killed
Whitacre, and
smashed
Lindberg. Anybody listening would think that there were pools of blood on the floor. Instead, we just had eighteen happy choristers, lapping up the praise of our charismatic young conductor.
All the better that we had earned it. Our little group was only six months old. It can take years for a choir to develop a good sound, and many choirs never attain that level where people other than their immediate family would willingly come to listen to them. We were well past that point and still climbing rapidly.
We were determined to be different. To start with, we were an auditioned choir with carefully managed numbers. With a talented and – let's face it –
attractive
leader like Derek, we were not going to be lacking for applicants. Derek didn't just select for good voices: he tested our willingness to blend, to submerge ourselves for the sake of the group in the quest for the perfectly balanced sound.
"Remember, a champion team always beats a team of champions," he would exhort us, sounding for all the world like a football coach. And to keep up the sporting analogy, he demanded that we work hard on our fitness as well, arguing that while the choir welcomed every body type and colour, we needed to show that we respected our bodies and that our whole selves were well-conditioned. It was a fair call: after six months of hard work, I felt better than I ever had in my twenty-six years.
I also felt like I
belonged
more, too. I'd been music-obsessed as a girl, coming from a music-loving family. My mother was into musicals, my father into classic rock, and they were always singing around the house, arguing over what was going to be played on the car stereo when we went on vacation, and generally having fun. I listened to the classic rock, introduced more modern music to their ears, and took my mother's side for active participation: I loved those musicals.
I'd never felt at home in the spotlight though: I wasn't one of
those
girls, lapping up the attention. I was in every school show, but as a member of the chorus rather than one of the principals. I often had a better voice, but I was awkward, gangly, uncoordinated on stage. Not pretty enough, not socially adept: no princess roles for me. It was frustrating, but I had also learnt the skills of helping make other people sound good.
I had matured a lot since then, but it still mattered that Derek didn't care what I looked like or whether I was one of the cool girls.
"Your voice is great, but you've got something even better, Angela," he said. "You listen and you blend. You have no idea how important that it is to a choir leader."
Well, at least
somebody
appreciated me even if I was never going to be a star.
It was a big commitment, and more than a few members had dropped out to join the community choir down the road. Their standards were lower, but you could have more of a life. Those of us who had stuck with it were the ones who tended to be single. Only a few of us women had had kids yet, and they treated the choir as their escape from the tough responsibilities of parenthood, while their supportive partners minded the kids at home. If the partners weren't on board, they couldn't really sustain the effort. It was a similar story for the guys in the choir as well. We were a young, pre-family choir, determined to be the best that we could be between leaving university and before real life hit us with responsibilities. And having Derek, a rising star at the nearby university, was an opportunity too good to be missed.
Derek's face was flushed as he got us to sit in a circle. His big, blue eyes were practically glowing. A light sheen of sweat covered him like he'd just been in a workout, although to be fair, conducting was hard work. His long, blonde mane of hair had just the right amount of ruffle in it to make me ache to reach out and smooth it down, but of course I didn't dare. It wasn't for lack of trying, but as far as I knew nobody in the choir, man or woman, had managed to light Derek's romantic fires yet. The guy was sex on two legs, but his private life was a mystery. Apparently, he really was married to his music.
I certainly wasn't giving up, and neither were a few others. My main rival was Christine. While she had the obvious advantage as a big breasted, blonde soprano with a voice of sparkling wine, I was still in with a chance. Of course, if you couldn't sing, it would be impossible to get Derek's attention. We hadn't worked out the rest of his secrets, but surely it wasn't an impossible task.
I admit that I preened whenever Derek praised the alto section, or gave individual praise. He always did the individual feedback one-on-one. Even if he was telling you off, at least you had his magnetic eyes focused on you while he did it, and nobody else could hear the criticism. Whenever he looked at me to ask "Angela, do you have a minute?" my answer was always going to be an emphatic
"yes".
