The sound swelled from the atrium, waking Ludwig up from his chaotic slumber. His eyes pricked up, and a soft yawn escaped his lips before curling into a small smile.

She's back, he realised.

A faint shiver of anticipation and chilling fear ran through the sixteen-year-old's body. Her music was beautiful and so incredibly precise. Soulful. Most people wouldn't even appreciate or understand how technical, how difficult, her piano sounded.

Melody Moretti was truly the Archangel of Music.

The lad slipped out of bed, looking at himself in the mirror to ensure he looked presentable. He wasn't. Not according to her insane, ridiculous standards anyway.

His golden hair was floppy and messy, his T-shirt too big, his shorts too loose and not colour-coordinated. He didn't walk properly. His expensive glasses, which she bought for him from Switzerland, were bent because he accidentally sat on them during a seven-hour gaming session.

He looked closer at the mirror; the dark circles around his eyes were problematic. She would notice immediately that he wasn't sleeping properly. Lud scrunched his nose. That pesky head maid of hers would be in her ear, maybe even with that wicked black notebook of hers where she jotted down his various acts of mischief and ill discipline.

He stepped out of his bedroom, through the ornate hallway of the Moretti estate, towards the central chamber from where the music flowed. It had been two months since she last played. Melody had left for her world tour by February, and it was the end of March.

As he got closer, the bubbling in his belly reached a crescendo. As did she. Lud grinned. He could sense the big swell coming. He anticipated the timing of it as he reached for the door. The notes quickened... and then.

Ludwig opened the doors with a flourish as he skipped into the atrium. If his plan was to give Melody an almighty scare, it barely worked. Her electric blue eyes flickered over for just a moment, and her lips gave the barest of smirks as she continued, moving seamlessly to another piece.

"What do you call this new piece?" Ludwig asked her as he approached her. Melody looked like an actual goddess under the pool of sunlight that made her almost ethereal in her all-white attire. She had a loose-fitting long-sleeved white blouse and matching trouser pants. Her black hair was impeccably styled as if she had just stepped out of a concert.

"Hmm, Luddy's Alarm, I'd suppose?" The thirty-one-year-old hummed.

"Stop naming your music after me! Half of my class makes fun of me for calling it, Ludwig's Lullaby!" The lad complained in record time.

Melody laughed as she stopped playing, taking in her boy. "It was the perfect name. I tucked you into bed, humming that," she pointed out.

"When I was small!" he countered.

"Well, you still are small. You barely fit into those hideous clothes! Where do you buy them from?" Melody tutted, getting up.

"It's the limited edition Soul Splicer Jorek the Wise collection", Lud replied defensively. "The new video game. You must hear the Requiem theme of that!" He added excitedly, trying to change the subject and move to the piano, only for Melody to hold him by his ear. "Oww, oww, oww!" He cried.

"You can play me your silly little video game music later, Ludwig Melody Moretti!" Melody used his full Alyssian name, his proper name, after she had adopted the boy from the mainland. Her name, being his surname, signified to whom he belonged in their matriarchal nation. "First we need to have a long discussion on why you haven't been practising when I was gone!"

"Ooh, yes, Mummy, I'm sorry, Mummy," he winced, leaning to plant two soft kisses on her breasts. The traditional way to greet one's guardian. Her scent felt familiar once more, deeply comforting as she hugged him. Thankfully for the boy, Melody let his ear go as she ran her fingers through his hair.

"You reek of pizza and sweat," she complained, inspecting his face. "And you look like a raccoon with those eyes! Do you even sleep, you naughty little vampire spawn?"

"You woke me early with your alarm," he smiled. Lud liked it when she fussed over him. "I'm still sleepy; I would like to sleep more with my mummy holding me."

Lud used the cuteness technique, which still retained most of its potency even though he wasn't ten anymore. Melody bit her lip to not smile. He was still such a charmer!

"Oh, I planned on a nice long warm snuggle session with my bratty boy today. Though there's some vigorous discussion we need to get through first."

"The words 'kind' or 'you're beating my butt till I forget my name kind?"

That earned a laugh from Melody. "Second", she bopped his nose. "Now go on upstairs to my room. Prepare yourself."

"Prepare yourself," got a small chill from Lud. He quickly made his way over past his bedroom and up the stairs to Melody's big room, walking over to the bed. He peeled off his t-shirt and pyjamas, folding them neatly and putting them away. He doubted he'd be allowed clothes for the rest of the day. Melody was quite strict about the matriarchal ways of raising a boy.

He remembered when he was still young, when the prospect of being spanked felt different. He hated his strict musical superstar of a mummy who was quick to smack his butt if he played the wrong note. Ludwig was the future prodigy, the most talented one of his generation, and Melody wasn't going to let any of that talent go to waste.

The naked boy looked around, eyes going to the grand piano by the side. The instrument on which he learned how to play. He paused for a moment before sighing. The music he wanted her to hear, the one from the new video game. Lud went over to the piano and began to play. As Melody approached her room, her smile widened. Her little prodigy, her little Lud. His feel for music was beyond her comprehension; so soulful was his music. Melody opened the door, listening for a few seconds before she noticed her presence.

"It's cute and catchy", Melody smirked. "Though quite crude and repetitive."

"I liked it," Lud said with an evident pout.

"I didn't say I dislike the piece. Though I will be very upset if you have been learning video game songs instead of practising your lessons," Melody closed the door and locked it.

Panic settled in for the lad as he watched her approach him. His eyes flicked over to the wall. Mummy's "three musketeers" hung from them: a short leather tawse, the thick oakwood paddle, and the thin cane.

She called them his professors.

Lud wanted them assassinated.

"Oh, they will have their say soon." Melody walked over to give him her trademark wet, sloppy kiss on his cheek. When he was small, he would make a face and complain at length. Current Lud just melted. He watched as she slowly unbuttoned and slid off her blouse, revealing those big, heavy breasts of hers enclosed in a white strapless bra.

The boy leaned to obediently kiss each breast. His greeting, now done properly, on the bare skin. He needed to wait for the opportunity to suckle her nipples. Only good boys were allowed to, in her words. Now that he was of age, the rituals that were cordoned off from a young lad became more commonplace.

"I did practise. You heard me play them," Lud said softly. He had to play the complex music pieces when Melody called on the phone.

"And you messed up on purpose. You played badly whenever I was on call," Melody leaned close.

"You could've come home then if you wanted... wait... on purpose? You could tell?" Ludwig shivered.

"Oh, I could tell whenever my naughty boy is playing the piano wrong, so he can go over Mummy's lap," Melody said, sitting down on the seat, draping him over her knee. Her palm rested on his plump rear, where everything he ate seemingly ended up. "You are way too gifted to make such baseless mistakes. Was that your attempt to get me to come home?"

"Maybe?" He wiggled his butt, hissing at the first spank. Melody did spank hard, but Ludwig had developed a good pain tolerance from the repeated lessons across her maternal thighs, so her first dozen smacks weren't that bad.

Melody wasn't looking for pain just yet. She knew she had time. The whole day. Heck, for years, if she wished to. She often joked with her friends that Ludwig was her favourite instrument to play, the rhythmic slaps getting him to cry and moan softly. She focused on the flick of her wrist, watching his toes and how they curled up when she gave a particularly wicked smack.

"You act up so, so much when your hindquarters aren't glowing red like a baboon's!" Ludwig could hear the love dripping in her voice. "Such a high-maintenance boy!" He saw her reach for the paddle.

He bit his lip. The paddle has gotten less fearful now since he got a layer of fat and muscle instead of his soft tush. But Melody liked to get him to cry and make music even when she was doing her maternal duties. The spanks were now harder and quicker. Her unerring instinct for rhythm got the wooden paddle to strike and smack with precise timing and strength.

The moans soon turned to yelps and cries, with tears now forming. The curling of his toes got more urgent as he kicked and began to lose his composure.

"What a noisy thing! I'm certain you took a caning before I left without half the hysterics," she hummed, putting the paddle to the side and standing him up. She enjoyed the spanking dance he did, the furious rubbing of his scorched cheeks as his now partially erect penis bounced around flaccidly. She admired it for a moment. He'll make a fine catch for some young lady, she thought.

"We are just beginning, Luddy. You are still in trouble. You are still a naughty boy who needs a lot of crying and repentance to be my good boy," Melody said as she reached back to unclasp her bra. The sight of her big breasts out in the open got Ludwig to pause momentarily, eyeing them through his tears.

He knelt down, pressing his face into her soft bosom. His tears flowed onto them, soaking her breasts as Melody liked it. "You may suckle on them, kitten. I know you missed them." She kissed the top of his head.

"Missed all of you," he whispered.

"And you have all of me for a good long while," Melody replied, shifting up. She led him to the bed and climbed in under the duvet. "Come. Let's snuggle for a while. You need to be getting eight hours of sleep, and the only way you can seemingly do that is if Mummy's worn you out with a spanking and you are nursing on my breast like a babe while I sing you your lullaby."

Lud gave a smile as he climbed in and latched on. "Not nursing; you don't have any milk."

"That's for good little boys," she hummed. "You need to shed a lot more tears and show me you can play all the pieces flawlessly for that."

Her hand went to his sore cheeks, rubbing and soothing the pain. She hummed the tune, the same one she did when he was still small. She listened to the soft noises he made as he sucked rhythmically, the way he hissed and gasped whenever she squeezed his cheeks. She was home, finally.