Limits

by Susie Tate

  Eleanor, Kira and Millie had just arrived and were standing at the back of the club. Libby had already been there for a couple of hours going over the new routines she was teaching the girls. Although she no longer performed (her ‘bursary’ allowing her to give up that extra money), the owner kept her on retainer as a choreographer. Millie suspected that it was a very large retainer given the affection the owner had for the woman who had made his club a real success. Since Libby had joined the dancers a few years ago and taken over the routines it had become the most famous strip club in London.

  Kira jumped up on the aisle in front of them and ran down it with her hands milling in excitement. Halfway along she fell into an ill-advised forward roll before jumping back up to her feet, swinging up onto a pole and falling on her arse. Millie had never seen anything so funny in her life. She felt it bubbling up through her chest and her mouth trembled, and then she started laughing. Once she’d started she couldn’t stop. She could hear El giggling next to her and took a deep breath in to try and control it, but then it started up again.

  Turns out, Millie’s laugh was loud. It was so long since she’d laughed properly that it came as a bit of a shock. When she finally managed to get a hold of herself she had tears running down her cheeks, and she was pressing her lips together to stop herself being set off again. The image of Kira’s inelegant forward roll after the girls’ professional flips kept replaying in her mind.

  Instead of looking annoyed, Kira was beaming at her from the stage.

  ‘Hurrah!’ she shouted, her arms going straight up into the air. ‘See, I knew this was a good idea.’ She gave Libby a pointed look and Libby rolled her eyes in response.

  ‘What are we doing here, Kira?’ asked Millie through a few giggles that were still trying to escape as she and Eleanor walked up to the stage.

  ‘You, my gorgeous girl, are going to work the pole,’ Claire told her, and Millie’s smile abruptly fell away.

  ‘Wh –’

  ‘Come on, lady,’ Kira said, jumping down from the stage and grabbing Millie’s arms so that she could move them both in a swaying motion from side to side. ‘It’ll loosen you up. Get that stage-ready mindset on the go.’

  ‘Kira,’ Millie said, attempting to halt the swaying but somehow finding herself in a dancer’s hold with Kira’s hand around her waist and her other hand holding Millie’s out in front of them. ‘There are not going to be any …’ Millie paused as Kira spun her out and then pulled her back in again ‘... poles to work on the stage at the conference. I’m not sure the same skills are needed.’

  ‘Of course they are,’ Kira told her as she continued to sway them both in a little circle. ‘Confidence, control, not being afraid of the audience: it’s all the same whether you’re stripping or public speaking.’

  ‘Have you ever stripped, Kira?’ Eleanor asked, her voice just as sceptical as Millie’s.

  ‘Um … actually she has,’ Libby put in from the stage through a huge smile. ‘It was kind of an amateur night. Kira brought the house down.’

  ‘Oh God!’ cried Claire. ‘Was that the time she crawled on her belly like a snake, then did that air-cycling on her back? I thought I’d die laughing.’

  ‘My moves may be unconventional, but they said what they needed to say, get me?’

  ‘They said that you are mentally ill, Kira,’ Libby told her. ‘Steve still hasn’t let any amateurs back up on stage and it’s been two years.’

  Kira sighed. ‘I can’t help it if that man has no eye for talent. Right, now let’s get this pony in the bridle; let the waffle see the Nutella.’ Everyone stared at Kira blankly and she sighed. ‘Let’s go, people.’ She clapped twice and Claire rolled her eyes.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, sitting down on the edge of the stage. ‘Have you ever danced before Millie?’

  ‘Uh …’ Millie shifted on her feet and her lips twisted to the side. ‘Ballet. I used to do ballet. But the teacher said I …’ she paused for a moment, then straightened her shoulders ‘… she said that I was too robotic. I don’t think she’d wanted to put it that way but my mother was pushy and wanted me to take the main parts in the performances, to be the star, and eventually my teacher had to let her know it wasn’t possible. That I could learn it all perfectly, but I would never be able to dance. Mother pulled me out after that. I was nine.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’ El asked, and Millie shrugged. She had loved the costumes. She loved being with girls the same age. It had been fun.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, remembering how devastated she’d been when her mother had ordered her to collect her stuff. The regret and sadness on her teacher’s face as she was dragged away. ‘Yes, I loved it.’ She felt El’s hand squeeze hers for a moment and then release.

  ‘Great,’ said Kira into the silence, jumping off the stage and landing in front of Millie. ‘Stripping is just like dirty ballet. You’ll be all over it in no time.’

  Millie smiled and shook her head. ‘I don’t think that …’

  ‘Come up here,’ Claire said, offering Millie a hand and staring at her expectantly. ‘We’ll start slow.’ Millie hesitated for a moment. Claire gave her an encouraging smile and Kira a small shove from behind. She drew in a breath and reached up to Claire. Tara grabbed her other hand and she was pulled up on stage.

  ‘First things first,’ Tara said. ‘You all need to chuck a pair of these babies on. Nobody can work a pole without some friction, and leggings are not going to cut it.’ Millie caught the black scrap of material that was chucked at her chest and held it up to inspect it. It was a pair of gold satin hot pants with Main Attraction written across the back in sequins.

  ‘It’s the waitress uniform,’ Claire explained. You’ve got to be able to grip the pole with your legs.’ Millie looked at the girls and then at the hot pants in her hands. Kira was already pulling off ripped jeans to reveal a pair of red pants, then pulling on the shorts over them. She pinged the waistband and jumped once on the spot.

  ‘Ready!’

  Millie looked from the shorts to Eleanor, who shook her head and smiled.

  ‘Come on, hun, we’ll find the changing room.’

  Chapter 24

  The stupidity of the Y chromosome

  ‘I told you it would be fun,’ Kira said as Libby turned down the music.

  Millie pushed back the hair from her face and smiled. Really smiled. For the first time since she could remember, her face actually ached from laughter. They’d been ‘dancing’ for the last hour and every minute had been absolutely hilarious. When Millie had eventually been dragged out of the changing room by a tenacious Eleanor, she hadn’t thought she could go through with it. Yes, it was a Saturday afternoon and yes, the bar was shut so the only people watching would be the girls – but still: she was in hot pants, with sequins on her arse. She looked ridiculous. But they’d set all this up for her; she didn’t want to disappoint them. So she’d taken a deep breath and stepped out onto the stage.

  Claire and Tara had taken the lead, seeing as Libby’s speciality was the ‘floor work’ (all the flips and balance acts) and the others were into working the pole. The three of them showed some simple spins and then Eleanor, Millie and Kira were up. All Millie had to do at first was hop up, grasp the pole between her legs, and spin. Once they’d all managed that, things became more complicated and a little more embarrassing: strutting round the pole, ‘throwing attitude’ at the crowd, higher spins, faster spins, ‘slut drops’ – Millie had been too self-conscious at first to really try any of it; but when the music was cranked up, and with Kira going nuts on her pole (following a bizarre routine that could have only been made up in her crazy mind), Millie surprised herself and actually started dancing. By the end she could get higher up the pole than either El or Kira. After her last spin she realised the others were all watching her with big smiles; they started clapping when she reached the floor.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Millie heard a low male voice from below the stage and her head whipped round to see Pav
standing beside one of the tables looking up at her with his mouth open. She felt the blood rush to her face and scrambled to stand up.

  ‘Oi, pervert!’ shouted Kira. ‘No blokes allowed. Millie, tell him to bugger off. Wait a minute, how did you even know we were here?’

  Pav didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at Kira; his eyes were glued to Millie and she started to feel self conscious in her tiny hot pants. ‘Hello? Looky Lookerson? Have you had a stroke or something?’ Kira had jumped down from the stage and was waving a hand in front of Pav’s face.

  ‘Ugh!’ Pav finally acknowledged Kira’s presence and batted her hand away. ‘You’re so annoying: like a little mosquito. How do you manage it?’

  ‘Practice and persistence, my perverted friend,’ Kira told him, poking him in the chest and earning herself a fierce scowl before he went back to watching Millie. ‘Now, let’s start again as you seem a little slow. Why. Are. You. Here?’

  ‘Well …’ Pav shrugged and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. ‘Jamie might have let slip where you guys were going and I …’

  ‘You thought you’d come and get yourself an eyeful,’ chipped in Tara, her hands going to her hips.

  ‘No, no,’ Pav protested, raising his hands in surrender. ‘Honestly, I just wanted to check that … I mean, I wasn’t sure Millie would be happy with …’

  ‘You thought we’d upset her, didn’t you?’ Libby asked as she crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at Pav. ‘Jamie told on us because he was worried and now you’ve come to swoop in and save Millie from the evil oversexed bitches pushing her out of her comfort zone.’

  ‘Er … well …’

  ‘Give us some credit, Willy Fiddler,’ Kira told him, giving him another poke, then leaping back up onto the stage to stand next to Millie. ‘She’s had a blast, haven’t you, X.?’ Kira slung an arm over Millie’s shoulder and shook her from side to side. ‘Sorry, hun, I’m sweating like a blind lesbian in a Grimsby fish market.’

  ‘Kira,’ Claire said, her voice weary. ‘Can you lay off the lesbian jokes; try not to make it so that I have to punch you in face.’

  ‘Don’t be so sensitive,’ Kira said lightly. ‘You know I only do it cause I’m jealous. If only I were a Lettuce Lover and didn’t have to deal with the stupidity of the Y chromosome.’ She turned to Pav. ‘No offence, loser.’

  Pav sighed and ignored Kira. ‘Er … are you guys done then or … ?’

  ‘We’ll be done when we’re done,’ Kira told him. ‘You can wait outside. Go on, shoo!’

  ‘Millie,’ Pav said, turning to her and his face softening, ‘you okay with … all this, love?’

  He wanted to know if the girls were pushing her too far. He wanted to know she was comfortable with what was happening, that she wasn’t being bullied into anything. A feeling of warmth spread from her chest out to her fingertips. She was starting to believe that he cared about her. Really cared.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she said and managed a small smile, which smoothed his frown of concern. ‘It was … it was fun.’ Kira turned her around and gave her a full hug. Millie couldn’t even move her arms to return the gesture as they were pinned to her sides with the force of it.

  ‘Five minutes, Big Man,’ Kira told Pav when she was done and Millie could breathe again. ‘Wait out in the lobby.’

  *****

  Five minutes, Pav thought bitterly as he paced the corridor outside the entrance to the club. More like twenty-five. He groaned and took a seat on the bench against the wall, willing his body to come back under his control. When Jamie told him earlier what the girls had planned for Millie, Pav had decided to rush down here and put a stop to it. Jamie might let his woman perform at that club (okay, well, if Libby ever heard anyone say that Jamie let her do anything she’d probably kick them in the nuts with her crazy gymnast moves) but Pav wasn’t about to have Millie made uncomfortable in that place. The last time he’d seen her there had been the night Jamie had hired out the whole bar and transformed it from strip club to theatre for Libby to perform. Millie had been visibly stressed just watching the stage then; Pav didn’t want her put in a situation that made her feel unsafe.

  And yes, Jamie said it was ‘just girls’, but who the fuck knew what bastards could be lurking about a place like that? Nobody was watching his woman prance about a pole … Ugh, he thought, when did I become such a bloody caveman? He’d never been over-possessive with a woman in the past. With hindsight he suspected that he might have overreacted a tiny, tiny amount. There were only six of them in there, and definitely no blokes allowed. He felt like a bit of a dick now, truth be known. In fact, he would have slunk away unnoticed, but he … couldn’t; not after he’d seen her up there in that outfit. Not after he’d seen her spinning round that pole, laughing. No way his body was letting him leave without her. It was his small head in control at the moment, and the bastard needed to get a hold of himself, or all those women were going to know what a state he was in. Twenty minutes (okay, more like ten, but time seemed to be moving inordinately slowly) of thinking about his yiayia’s fungal toenails hadn’t seemed to alter his Neanderthal reaction to a scantily clad Millie. He was just glad he was in jeans and not his chinos.

  ‘Hey,’ Millie’s soft voice drifted from the exit and he took his head out of his hands to smile up at her. Once he swept her body with his eyes, however, his smile dropped from his face.

  ‘Where are your trousers?’ he asked. His voice was a little choked but honestly there was only so much a man could take.

  ‘They’re called leggings, Willy Fiddler,’ Kira told him in disgust. ‘Please, get with the twenty-first century.’

  Pav swallowed and forced himself to look away from Millie’s legs, which were in what he thought looked like a pair of black tights with neon pink fireworks exploding all over them.

  ‘I thought we’d be dancing, and El … El sorts all my active-wear out. I … um … she said these were what everyone wore to … be active,’ Millie said, frowning down at her non-trousers.

  ‘They are not trousers,’ Pav said, and Kira rolled her eyes.

  ‘Pav, you’ve seen me wear leggings hundreds of times, you weirdo,’ Kira said.

  ‘Have I?’ He thought he’d remember if women were all randomly walking around without trousers on. Then again, maybe it was just because it was Millie.

  ‘Thanks, girls,’ Millie mumbled, her face a bright shade of red. Pav began to regret his questioning of her trousers’ whereabouts. ‘I’ll just be off now.’

  ‘Great, yes, me too,’ Pav said, grabbing her hand as she went past and then opening the heavy oak door for her to exit the building. He was aware that he’d made a bit of an arse out of himself, and decided to brazen it out by striding confidently past the others.

  ‘Bye Millie, bye Weirdo,’ Kira called after them, and Pav shook his head as he let the heavy door shut behind them.

  ‘Uh, where are we going?’ Millie asked after Pav had tugged her along the pavement about fifty yards. ‘And … and why are we running there?’

  ‘I’m not …’ Pav slowed his steps when he realized that he might not be running but Millie, with significantly shorter legs, definitely was. ‘Shit, sorry,’ he mumbled, drawing to a halt and turning to face her.

  ‘Listen, Millie, I really, really want to take you home,’ he told her. ‘In fact I think I’m trying to drag you home. In all honesty I’m pretty much on automatic pilot since seeing you up on that stage.’ He sighed. ‘Maybe I should take you home … to your home. Let myself calm down a bit.’

  Millie cocked her head to the side and her hair fell over one of her shoulders, an adorable little frown of confusion marring her forehead.

  ‘Calm down? I don’t understand. Why do you need to calm down?’

  A group of noisy lads passed by them at that point and Pav pulled Millie to the side of the pavement next to the entrance to Barclays. He took her face in his hands and pressed his lips against hers. She jerked in shock for a moment, and her gasp meant
that when he pressed his lips back on hers he could slip his tongue inside. One of his hands went into her hair and the other down to where her non-trousers started. After a moment she seemed to forget where they were and kissed him back, both her arms going up around his neck. When he finally broke away he rested his forehead on hers, their breath mingling between them. Her pupils were so wide that only a rim of light grey iris remained. She looked shell-shocked.

  ‘Right,’ he muttered, his mouth inches from hers. ‘So that’s what I mean by calm down.’

  ‘But why –’

  ‘Millie, I just watched you pole dance in hot pants. And now, now you don’t have any trousers on. A man has got his limits, okay?’

  ‘Oh.’ She flushed red again and then a small smile formed on her lips.

  ‘That’s why I should take you home … to your home … and leave you there.’

  Her smile dropped and she pulled her forehead from his. ‘I …’ She broke eye contact to stare at his throat and he felt the familiar bite of irritation at the loss. But then after squaring her shoulders she looked back up at him and drew in a deep breath. ‘Well, I want to go home to your home with you, and … and I don’t want you to … to … I don’t want you to calm down.’

  He stared down at her for a moment and she lifted her chin and squared her jaw, making him smile. Before she could change her mind he grabbed her hand again and started back off down the road to his car.

  Chapter 25

  Yes, I trust you

  Millie sat on the bar stool and flicked the hairband she had around her wrist. Anwar thought it might be helpful as an alternative to the pinching she normally did as a reflex to cope with stress. The bite of the band against her wrist worked nearly as well, with less bruising. Soon Millie hoped she would stop even that. But sitting here watching Pav drag the contents of his fridge out onto the kitchen island and stare at it all with his hands on his hips, she was feeling the nerves again.