Chapter 81: Ladies Dancing
The pressure from Julia’s session had become a low, constant hum in Rupert’s body, a background signal of withheld release. The cage, once a bizarre ornament, now felt like a fundamental part of his architecture, a locked vault at the centre of him. When Margot informed him he was to attend Dolores’s Christmas party as her “plus one,” he felt a flicker of normalcy. A party. Drinks. Perhaps canapés.
“It’s just the WI and their partners,” Margot said, adjusting his tie. “A little festive cheer. I can’t go, unfortunately. Prior engagement.” Her smile held a familiar, glittering ambiguity. “Do be sociable, darling.”
Dolores’s dance studio was unrecognizable. The familiar mirrors were shrouded in dark fabric. The usual soft, classical atmosphere had been eviscerated by a pounding, bass-heavy club anthem. Strobing laser lights cut through a haze of artificial fog, painting the room in sudden slices of crimson and electric blue.
And it was packed. Not with the genteel, tea-sipping village women he knew, but with a transformed version of them. Brenda the baker wore a tiny, sparkly dress, her apron abandoned. Felicity, usually in wellingtons, was in tight leather trousers. Henrietta loomed by a makeshift bar, pouring generous measures of rum into a punchbowl, her laughter booming above the music. Even Georgina from the church was there, swaying with a mysterious half-smile, a glass of sherry in hand.
Partners were there too. He saw Paolo, Dolores’s husband, grinning as he refilled bowls of crisps. Henry, looking overwhelmed, stood near the wall.
Before Rupert could orient himself, a hand slipped into his. It was Libby, December’s face, her eyes shining with festive excitement. “You made it! Come and dance!” She pulled him into the middle of the swirling bodies.
The music was deafening, a sexualised electronic pulse. Libby pressed against him, her softness moulding to his front. She wasn’t a great dancer, but her enthusiasm was infectious, her hands roaming his back, her hips grinding in a gentle, insistent circle against the hardened cage beneath his trousers. “I’ve been so looking forward to Christmas,” she shouted near his ear, her breath hot and sweet with mulled wine.
Before he could reply, he was spun away. Agnes, Miss January, caught him, her grip surprisingly strong. “My turn, Libby!” she declared. Amongst the roses, she’d been demure. Here, under the lasers, she was a marvel of rhythmic, playful movement. She backed into him, guiding his hands to her slender waist. “You keep a good rhythm, Rupert,” she said, looking over her shoulder, her eyes sharp and amused. “A valuable skill.”
He was passed again. To Felicity, who smelled of hay and perfume. “Fancy a fumble?” she yelled with a wicked grin, before dissolving into laughter and pulling him close, her strong body solid and warm.
Then Ingrid, September’s yogi. She didn’t just dance; she flowed around him, her body articulating in ways that defied his understanding of anatomy, her hands tracing his arms, her back bending until her hair brushed the floor, all while maintaining a hypnotic, sensual connection. “You hold so much tension in your pelvis,” she murmured, her voice somehow clear in the din. “A crime.”
It was a dizzying, tactile relay. Brenda pressed a mince pie to his lips, her fingers lingering. Henrietta shoved a strong punch into his hand, sloshing it over his knuckles. “Get that down you, lad!” Charlie from the library appeared, her glasses reflecting the lasers, and gave him a surprisingly passionate kiss that tasted of gin, her small, perky breasts crushed against his chest through her sensible silk blouse.
He was a ragdoll in a sea of confident, unleashed femininity. The chatter was loud, bawdy, shouts about calendar shots, about whose month was up next, laughter that was raw and knowing. He caught snippets.
“—always said he had gentle hands, perfect for—”
“—Georgina, you dark horse, I heard about your special collection—”
“—Elizabeth, let the man breathe, for heaven’s sake—”
Elizabeth was there. She’d claimed him for a slow song that wasn’t slow, her aristocratic nose in the air even as her body moved against him with deliberate, grinding friction. “Henry is watching,” she purred, nodding to where her husband stood, his expression a complex mix of anguish and arousal. “It’s good for him. And I am enjoying the architecture.” Her hand slid down and palmed him through his trousers, feeling the rigid outline of the cage. “Excellent craftsmanship.”
He was flushed, sweating, painfully hard and utterly confined. The pent-up pressure from Julia’s clinical extraction was now compounded by a torrent of teasing, unrelenting stimulation. The laser lights painted fleeting glimpses of desire on familiar faces, transforming the village women into a coven of playful harpies.
Dolores found him by the punch bowl, her fiery passion undimmed by the setting. She put her arms around his neck. “You are the life of the party, cariño,” she said, her Spanish accent thick. “All my friends are happy.” She kissed him, deep and experienced. “Paolo is happy too. Look.” She gestured with her chin.
Rupert followed her gaze to a draped mirror on the far wall. For a second, he saw only their own reflection. Then he noticed a faint, ghostly second image behind the glass: Paolo, in a dimly lit space, watching them with rapt, smiling attention.
The two-way mirror. The viewing chamber.
The revelation made his head spin. He’d been a spectacle all night, not just on the floor, but for a secret audience.
The music shifted again. Karen, the pregnant redhead for November, waddled over, her bump leading the way. She took his hand and placed it on the curve of her stomach. “Feel that?” she said. A tiny foot or elbow kicked against his palm. “He’s dancing too. He can feel the bass.” She smiled, radiant and wicked. “I was so looking forward to my month. I’ve never been with anyone but my Roger. This is my… maternity leave treat.”
The word ‘treat’ echoed in his mind. He was the treat. The communal plaything. The thought should have been humiliating, but in the thrumming, sweat-slicked dark, surrounded by hunters who laughed as they circled, it felt like a bizarre, intoxicating form of acceptance.
The party raged on. He lost track of time, afloat on a sea of rum punch and roaming hands. Eventually, the music softened. The lasers slowed. People began to collect coats, leaning on each other, giggling, exchanging exaggerated, drunken kisses goodbye.
He stood by the door, a flustered, horny mess. His shirt was untucked. His hair was a disaster. His entire body thrummed with a frustrated, caged energy that made his knees weak.
Headlights swept across the car park. Margot’s car.
She pulled up, rolled down the window. The clean, cold night air hit him like a slap. Inside the car, quiet, orderly, smelling of her perfume.
She looked him up and down, taking in his dishevelled state, the desperate look in his eyes, the obvious, unsolvable bulge in his trousers. A slow, satisfied smile spread across her face.
“Well,” she said, her voice light. “Looks like someone had a very merry Christmas.”
He slid into the passenger seat, the noise and heat of the party replaced by the car’s sterile quiet. He couldn’t speak. He just stared straight ahead, his pulse hammering in his throat, in his wrists, in the tight, unforgiving metal between his legs.
Margot patted his thigh, a casual, proprietorial gesture. “Let’s get you home,” she said, and put the car in gear, driving him away from the neon madness, back towards the quiet darkness of their ordinary house, where the pressure had no release, only