I glanced at my watch, nearly eleven o’clock and the flashing lights were starting to make me a tad queasy. I had tried to be restrained about the drinks, but the rounds had come thick and fast. The music was hypnotic and I just wanted to dance the night away, even though my high heels were killing my feet. I grinned inanely at Trudy, who waved back at me from the bar stool she was perched on. She was busy chatting up yet another dark stranger. My friend seriously had no inhibitions.
Back on the dance floor, I was going for it. Arms in the air, waving them aimlessly, bum wiggling in time with the music. The floor was busy but not packed, the advantage of it being mid-week. Two men had been eyeing me up all evening. They had approached and started to dance alongside me, one in front and the other behind me. Before I knew it, we were doing a sandwich dance with hips jiving in close proximity. The sweat on their hair and bodies sprinkled down on me. I did not care and I felt great having the company of men all over me. I was one sexy chick and my self-esteem was sky rocketing.
Music and dancing were my passions after my love of art. My classical music tastes were the product of my father’s influence. He would plug his headphones into the hi-fi and, with his feet up on a footstool, would spend hours listening to his extensive collection of CDs. As a child, I had grown curious about what caused my father to lie there, eyes shut and face serene. It turned out he loved choral works of any era. From early music to 20th century compositions. Whether a large number of voices combined into a tumultuous sound or a handful locked in simple harmonies, he was content to broaden his repertoire with whatever he could find cheap at stores or markets.
He had joined a local choral society and attended practice sessions faithfully. A strong baritone, he flitted between bass and tenor parts according to the demands of the music or the wishes of the conductor. He had taught himself to read music and he was a proficient sight-reader. I would go to listen
occasionally and certainly made the effort to attend all of his concerts. Usually they were held in cold parish churches, school halls or if the choir was very lucky, the local civic assembly hall.
I had been a quick convert to his passion. Like my father, I was happy in any era. I had absorbed what he listened to and I would find myself switching the hi-fi on and choosing a CD from my father’s personal collection. He had not minded, moreover he had cultivated my fledging interest by filling me in with the back-story of many of the composers or helping me to translate the Latin. Operas did not interest him with their warbling sopranos and impenetrable plots. Hours of wailing voices did not create his serene facial expression.
At school I had joined the choir. Not quite the standard of my father’s choral society. The music teacher had preferred re-workings of the current chart hits, Gilbert and Sullivan plays or the compulsory Carols at Christmas. I had gone because it gave me a connection to my dad and cracking open my dad’s protective emotional shell was an achievement. At university, I had taken my soprano range to the campus choir and found their choice of programme mirrored my own tastes. A requiem or mass, the weaving of voices in a great choral work or a joyful gospel song. I had managed to work my way into a small ensemble who performed intimate works, acapella pieces or madrigals. My father came to one of our concerts and it was the first time I had ever seen him outwardly so pleased with me. The sense of pride he gave me had brought me to tears, especially when he had given me a hug at the end of the performance.
I had found other passions in my choir. A very pleasing tenor caught my attention. A freshman with curly brown hair and lanky legs. Though I had been in my final year, I could not help but be drawn to the younger man. We had met up after rehearsals in a pub and the courtship had blossomed until he had taken me to his bed. A single room in his halls of residence. I would sneak in and tip-toe up the stairs to his corner plot. Books shoved off the bed on to the floor, we had proceeded to have sex as quietly as possible. He had come so close to being my first true boyfriend.
I would spend the night curled up in his arms on his narrow bed. I had to learn to sleep deeply in another’s bear hug. His body had twitched and wriggled about me as I moved with him, coiling my body about his and turning as he had turned. A big advantage in later years because Jason was of the type who clung to you in their sleep, suffocating you with his arms and chest. My freshman had been the perfect match until I had spotted him leaving a different pub with a different girl. He had actually waved across the road at me as if it was fine and dandy to be with another woman. I had confronted him later and he had shrugged his shoulders. “It’s my first year, Gemma, I’m not interested in romance. I want to have fun.” I could not criticise his honesty. He had shared the same approach as my first year of university. For my final year, I held back from making the same mistake again - I bought a vibrator and spent a small fortune on batteries.
Dancing was a different kettle of fish. The moment rhythmic music started up I was tingling and tapping to the beat. Style did not matter. I would bop to the disco sounds, shake my arms to the house beat or attempt to street dance to the hip-hop. My real love though was the classic Latino styles of rumba, samba, salsa and mambo. I would swing, gyrate and throw my hips about on the dance floor. My friends always commented on how lost and entranced I was when I danced. It was not a social activity for me in the sense I did not use the platform to manhunt. If anything, I would brush off any admirers or pawing hands with a snarl on my lips. I was a selfish dancer and what I desired was the buzz of adrenaline as I consumed the music and spat it back out with my swirling limbs.
During my school years, there had been the discos. I went to every single one and was one of the first in the queue before the doors opened. A token coin tossed in the bucket and I was given the stamp on the back of the hand. By the end of the lunch hour or evening, the ink would have been washed off with sweat. Nightclubs came later and were a challenge since I was underage and my parents had my brother chaperone me in the evenings. On a few occasions I had sneaked in, the atmosphere had been electric. Nothing sexual came of my secret excursions with exception of one encounter. Having met him at a club I had let him, in a moment of abandonment a few days later, take my virginity. In the cold light of the following morning, I had been annoyed with myself. I swore to avoid the temptation of men in clubs. I would stick to dancing and not use my swaying body as a magnet for undesirables.
I did not smoke, take drugs and I drank in moderation. After school, I had taken on the university night life and appeared at any event that had the word dancing on the poster. Whether a sixties nostalgia night or a rave in a cramped fire hazardous location, I had gone to as many as possible. Keeping costs down, I had drank mainly water, caught the night bus back to my digs and wore the same set of sweat absorbing clothes in a repetitive cycle of wash and wear until they had holes in them. Nightclubs in the city had been beyond my meagre purse strings. A treat that I could little afford. I had gatecrashed parties, something I was not proud of and had managed to attend other university or college events by piggy backing an invite from a bona fida student.
Friends were not important when I danced. I had a few, who like me, could not resist a night of bopping and shouting lyrics at the top of our voices. What I did not seek was the company of men. It was as if the purpose of my dancing was self-gratification. If I was attractive to the opposite sex when I swished about, colliding with their hips or arms, it was not my intention. Having their company for a bop was acceptable. I liked the attention as long as all they were interested in was dancing. When harassed beyond acceptable levels of toleration, I would fob them off with an imaginary absent boyfriend, or tell them I was a lesbian or simply say, “fuck off” when their hands looped around my waist. My own mother had labelled me as a provocative flirtatious dancer as she watched me grind with my cousins at a family wedding. I had ignored her, as she did not get it - I loved to dance!
Leaving university meant the heyday of my dancing years were over. I had settled into work and had been too tired or broke to go dancing at the exotic clubs. My student friends had moved on and away. I was left on my own with a handful of longstanding childhood friends, whom I corresponded with or met occasionally including my best mate Trudy. Missing the passion, I had enrolled in dance classes when my purse strings had stretched to the cost. Nevertheless, I had to weigh up what I really wanted out of life. An art class to improve my painting skills or a self-centred jive to let off steam? Some months dancing won out, others my need to draw or paint. That dilemma had been my swings and roundabouts for many years as I learnt about the other key attribute in my life, my submissive tendency.
Pausing mid-step, I glanced out over to the chairs and tables section, lots of heads were bobbing up and down in time to the music and voices raised in competition with the pounding beat of the music. The hubbub over the speakers was barely audible as the contest between conversation and music was played out. A spotlight randomly waltzed round the room and then I saw a face and my eyes were caught in his blue ones. Right at the back of the room in one of the more secluded cubicles.
I stopped dead in mid twist and blinked. My heart skipped a beat and then went into full pounding mode. How would he know I was here and why was he? I took a gamble and glanced back at the cubicle but he was not there, or at least I could not see anyone there. I took a deep breath and reminded myself I was more than slightly tipsy. My imagination was playing tricks on me. Suddenly I was very fatigued and had had enough. It must be time to go. One of the men grabbed my arm as I headed off the dance floor.
“Come on, love, night’s young,” he yelled in my ear.
I pushed him away and pulled my arm out of his grasp. He lifted his hands up as if to surrender.
“Whoa, get the message,” he snapped back at me.
I staggered to the bar area and noticed that Trudy had disappeared. Well, there was no stopping her. Plonking my bottom in her vacated bar stool, I burie
d my head in my hands, psyching myself up for the inevitable taxi hunt.
“I think you need this.”
His voice was frosty cold and harsh. I slowly turned to face Jason. No over active imagination then, he was an imposing physical presence in the bar. In his hand was a tall glass of iced water. My hand trembled as I took the glass and without taking my eyes of him, I gulped it down. He looked sizzlingly sexy in black jeans and black plain polo shirt and that was how he disappeared in the crowd. Eyes glimmering in the dance lights, more blue than ever, blonde hair bright and slightly damp. Not a flicker of warm emotion on his face.
“You have five minutes to collect your things and then get out front, Martinson is waiting.”
He picked up a tumbler of what must be spirits and tossed it back down his throat in one go. Then he was gone, weaving amongst the crowd with ease.
I wanted to pee myself such was the impact his appearance had on my body’s adrenaline soaked tissue. Normally I would decide when I had had enough of dancing. That night I obeyed him without question. He had attached a hook to me and was reeling me in from afar. My mum would have been in awe of his power over me. Taking a massive breath, I made a concerted effort not to vomit all over the bar.
This was not good. I made my way over to the table where Nicky and Jane were deep in conversation, gesticulating and talking loudly into each other’s ears. They had been friends for a long time and had avoided the dance floor in order to catch up on old times. Nicky glanced up.
“I’ve got to go. Sorry. Out of practice, need my beauty sleep,” I spoke as loudly as my voice would let me without giving anything away.
“Are you alright, Gemma? You’re awfully pale,” asked Nicky looking up at me concerned.
“Sure, fine. I’ll get a taxi. There are always a few hanging around outside.” I scooped up my jacket and purse, quickly heading for the exit before they probed further.