It is early enough in the morning to confuse.
The air is cool and slightly damp due to the warped wooden frame surrounding the large window in their flat, preventing a solid seal when the pane is closed. It seems as if the usually merry birds outside have transformed during the darkest hours into something slightly sinister - their pitch a little more shrill than average, their tune a little slower. The reluctance of the daylight to rise from it's earthly bed casts everything in various shades grey, still, unmoving as if the scene was nothing more than a black and white photograph rather than the residence of a pair in love.
It is early enough to confuse, but this is her favorite time to play.
The dark haired woman sits on a metal folding chair - the cheap kind, rusty and abused. It is her custom to perch on the seat's edge, her feet flat on the floor, knees spread wide. She is still wearing his shirt, unbuttoned, the one she had put on the night before and spent her sleepy hours tousling the sheets in. She pushes the sleeves up her forearms, catching the cuffs around her elbows, not even noticing her level of nudity as she reaches to her side, and picks up her instrument.
Her cello sinks into it's usual place, perfectly propped between her splayed legs with it's neck grazing her chest and left shoulder. She quickly tunes it, pizzicato, adjusting the knobs of the C and G strings as is usually the case - they are always flat. She takes up her bow, tightens the hair, and sets it on the strings.
She knows perfectly well that he will wake up when she begins, but this has become their usual custom. Often, he pretends he is still asleep, or he rolls onto his back, hands behind his head, listening. Sometimes, if he has a class to get to or somewhere to be, he will get up and stretch his entire body, completely naked, completely perfect, before setting about his morning tasks. He never asks her to stop, or if he does she never notices because as soon as she begins to play, the outside world tends to melt away, giving itself over to her music.
She warms into a new song, one he has never heard her play, one she has to read the music for. It is an emotional song with a slower tempo and employing the use of the lower register which he knows will rank it among her favorites.
He watches her play for a few moments, noticing the shaft of morning light that is just beginning to push its way through the window behind her, dramatically backlighting her, causing her features to appear invisible. As he looks at her now, noticing the detail of her dips and valleys, the tendons in her hands and forearms peeking out then fading away behind the thin cover of her flesh as she moves, he finds himself instantly aware of the fact that beneath the shirt she is wearing, there is nothing more than her bare skin.