Dance of a Lifetime

by Frank Downey

  "I seduced him," Sophia said with a gleam in her eye. "He didn't know what hit him."

  "True, all true." Warren agreed.

  Kate looked back and forth between them, wide-eyed. Sophia added, "There's a lesson for you, Kate. When you really figure out what you want, grab it. And don't let it go. Even if it squirms."

  "I never squirmed."

  "OK, so you flinched."

  "That was because you made me deaf." Kate's eyes just got bigger, as she looked at Warren. He just laughed. "Kate, let's just say we'd probably better make sure they soundproof that bachelorette pad downstairs because, if it's not, you're going to have yourself some high-decibel entertainment."

  Kate looked at them blankly. Sophie smiled at her. "I scream during sex."

  "Really, really loud," Warren embellished.

  Kate just shook her head. "I am way too sweet and innocent for this."

  Sophia laughed. "Are you really?"

  "Well..." Kate smiled. "I am a virgin, if that's what you mean. But call me intensely curious."

  "Just wait until it feels right, Kate. Don't rush in out of curiosity. Trust me on this one."

  "OK. Actually, I don't know if I'm actually curious to do it. Knowing what it's all about would be nice. I know next to nothing. I know what sex is, that's about it."

  "What do you think sex is?" Sophia asked her.

  Kate blushed furiously. "Well, you know. The guy takes his thing and sticks it in..."

  "Ok, that's intercourse. What about other kinds of sex?"

  "What do you mean?" Kate was confused.

  "Well, like oral sex. Fellatio. Cunnilingus."

  Kate looked up. "That last word, I asked my Dad once what it meant, and he went off on me. He said it was dirty, and never to say it again."

  "Did you ask any friends what it was?" Sophia asked her.

  "I actually don't have a lot of friends. I keep to myself."

  "Well, cunnilingus is oral sex with the female being the recipient," Sophia told her.

  "I don't get it."

  "He uses his tongue... down there."

  "HUH?"

  "Yup."

  Kate blushed furiously. "Does Warren do that to you?"

  "Frequently, and with great skill and enthusiasm, as a matter of fact."

  "Do you like it?"

  "It's fantastic. One of the best feelings a girl can have, if the guy knows what he's doing, and Warren does, believe me."

  "Wow." Kate thought for a minute. "Dad said that only dirty people did stuff like that."

  Sophie got a look in her eyes that Warren recognized-barely restrained fury, restrained because Kate was not the object of it.

  "Well, Kate, your father's wrong. What else did he tell you? Anything about masturbation?"

  "Huh?"

  "Playing with yourself."

  "Oooh, my Dad caught me doing that. I was alone in my room, and he walked in on me with my hand down my pants. I wasn't even doing much of anything... And he took my head off. Said good girls don't do that."

  Warren looked at Sophia. She was really steaming.

  "He's wrong." She looked at her glass of soda. "I'm empty. Anyone else need a refill?" Kate and Warren demurred.

  Sophia got downstairs. Dan and Ellen were in the living room. Sophia filled her glass, and walked into the living room, visibly trying to control herself.

  She walked up to Dan, and hugged him from behind. "Look, I want to make sure you know, Dan, that I've always liked you a lot, and I think you're great for my Mom, and I'm thrilled you guys are getting married."

  Dan looked at her, bemused. "Why, thanks, Sophia."

  "Good. I wanted to make sure you knew that before I took your head off. WHAT the FUCK are you doing to your daughter?"

  "What?"

  "We're up there and she's asking me about sex. She's fourteen years old, and she doesn't know jack! She's got no close friends she can confide in, she's got no mother, and she asks her Dad, the only person she can talk to, the simple definition of a word like cunnilingus, and he jumps down her throat and says 'Don't talk about that, that's dirty'? You walk in on her masturbating-and if Mom ever walked in my room without knocking I'd kill her-you walk in on her, and tell her that good girls don't do that? WHAT are you thinking??"

  "Look, Sophia, I don't need a seventeen year old girl who's too big for her britches to tell me how to raise my fourteen year old daughter! If you're going to be my stepdaughter, you're going to learn some manners."

  "Not hardly."

  "WHO are YOU to talk to me this way?" Dan's fury was almost matching Sophia's.

  "Who am I, Dan? I'll tell you who I am. I'm a peer counselor. That's a program we have at school, where kids can come in and talk to other kids about their problems. We're trained in some of this, so we can handle some of these problems, and we have advisors and a good Psychologist available. But I'm a Peer Counselor, so the kids come to me first. You know what I see, there, Dan? Rape victims. Victims of abuse, like I was. Pregnant girls who have no clue. Lots of other things."

  "Now, I was a special case when I was in trouble, because Mom was never closed about stuff like this-my problems had other causes. But 90% of the kids that I see with problems that relate to relationships or sex are repressed. They make bad decisions because they never got the information needed to make good decisions."

  "I'm just trying to protect her," Dan said, his anger cooled.

  "That's my point. You can't. You can only give her the support to protect herself. You aren't doing that, Dan. And what you're doing is only 'protecting' her from the feelings she's getting from her own body. And that is wrong, wrong, wrong."

  "Sophia, she's only fourteen."

  "Yeah, Dan, and when I was her age my virginity was two years gone and I was getting beat up and forced to have sex regularly. You know that. Look at your daughter, Dan. She's not a little girl any more. Hormones are hormones, whether you're 14 or 44. You can deal with yours. I've learned how to deal with mine, after much pain. Kate doesn't have a clue."

  "Listen. Every kid knows about intercourse. I'm sure you had the birds and bees talk with her. And I'm sure you said something about 'that's for older, married people' or something like that."

  "Something like that."

  "Right. So, now intercourse is The Forbidden Fruit. Anything short of intercourse, like oral sex or masturbation, has been defined as 'dirty'. And her hormones are going full tilt. This is a fucking recipe for disaster. Trust me. And I'm sure that you've never said a word about birth control."

  "Abstinence is birth control," Dan said peevishly.

  "Bullshit. You rely on that-especially if she thinks anything else that might get her off is dirty-and you're gonna be a grandfather before your time." She took a deep breath. "Or something a whole hell of a lot worse.

  She looked down at her hands. "I lost one, you know. One of the girls I counsel. About a month before school got out. I haven't talked about this with anyone except Warren, because it's extremely painful to talk about. But I lost one, a freshman, not much older than Kate is. She was pregnant. She wasn't completely sure just quite how this had happened. And, since she was either in denial or ignorant-I'm not sure which-the pregnancy was not confirmed until it was too late to abort it. And, faced with telling her father that she was four months pregnant, she took the easier way out. She slit her wrists. And now she's dead."

  Ellen and Dan gasped.

  "And the stories she told me of her father, Dan, I'm sorry to say, sound a lot like Kate describing you."

  The room got quiet then. Sophie stood up.

  "Dan, before you and mom walk down the aisle-and I hope you do, " she smiled, "but, before you do, you need to know something. Any question Kate ever asks me about sex is going to get a straight and honest answer, to the best of my ability. You need to know that, and you will not be able to stop me, and nothing you do to me will stop me; and if you try to stop me here then when she gets to Oceanview she can march right into the peer counseli
ng office and ask me there. I will be damned if I have to go to another funeral for a pregnant teenaged suicide and it's my stepsister."

  "Oh, and one other thing-when Kate asked me what cunnilingus was, I told her."

  "Did she ask you anything else about it?"

  "Yeah, she asked me if I had ever had it done to me, and if I liked it. And I answered her."

  With that, she marched up the stairs.

  "Damn, I knew she saw some bad shit in that peer counseling office, but not like this," Ellen said.

  "Be that as it may, Ellen, I could have used some support there. She's your daughter."

  "Dan, she's right." Dan just stared at her. "Look, I almost lost Sophia, because of my mistakes. Now, I didn't make the same mistakes you are, but I certainly recognize them-because my father made them. Sex is wrong, this is dirty, etc etc. And I ended up pregnant and married at 18 to a violent drunk."

  Dan just stared at her.

  "I never knew you treated Kate this way. I would have said something myself. I know you don't want to hear it, but Sophia is right. And she's right about something else-if you marry me, and Kate moves into this house, she will be living in the house with a sexually active seventeen year old. Sophia sleeps with Warren, in this house, that's the way it is, and that's the way it's gonna be. I came too damn close to losing her to worry about a little sex with a guy she loves. You need to figure out if you can deal with that."

  "Part of it is fear," Dan said. "Sometimes I don't know what to tell her, so I try to push off her questions. Not the right way, either, apparently. Shit, Ellen, it can be tough being the single dad of a teenage girl. Sometimes I just get tongue tied, and then I say the wrong thing. "

  Ellen smiled. "That's easy. Now you can say, 'that's a girl thing. Talk to Ellen.' Or Sophia, for that matter."

  "I guess her talking to Sophia makes me nervous."

  "I can see why, but, really, it shouldn't. Because Sophia lost her virginity way too young and for the wrong reasons, and she knows it. She won't be advising Kate to jump in the sack with some guy too hastily. She's told me many times she wishes she had saved it for Warren."

  "Yeah, but even she and Warren started too young, as far as I'm concerned."

  "Yeah, but would they have if she was still a virgin? I doubt it. Besides which, she and Warren together are special, and Kate will figure that out quick. Look, Sophia's a bit... unrestrained... I know, but she's sensible. She's been through too much, and seen too much at peer counseling, not to be."

  The kids were on their way downstairs.

  "I love the room," Kate enthused. "Dad, are you all right?"

  "Yeah, Katey, I'm fine. Did Sophia tell you she read me the riot act?"

  "No. What?"

  Sophia looked chagrined. "When I came downstairs, I took your father's head off for making you ignorant and repressed about sex."

  "WHAT?" Kate screamed. "Oh, Sophia, why did you do that?"

  "It's OK, Kate. I needed to hear it. But I need to ask Sophia a question."

  "Shoot, Dan."

  "If Katey comes to you in, say, six months, and says 'Billy wants me, should I go to bed with him' what would you tell her?"

  "If you have to ask me, then you should wait. If there's enough question in your mind to ask me, then you should wait. When you are so sure you have no doubts, then that's a different story." Sophia smiled. "And I'd remind her about all those non-dirty things you can do with a guy without actually going all the way."

  Dan had to smile. "OK, Ellen you were right. Very sensible." He turned to his daughter. "Kate, it's been very tough to talk to you about sex and stuff. I'm sorry about that."

  Kate smiled. "It's OK."

  "Well, I'm going to try. And, if I can't give you an answer, since we'll be living here, you'll have Ellen and, God help me, Sophia, to ask." Dan smiled at his soon-to-be-stepdaughter, who smiled back at him.

  Chapter 46 - Glenn Miller, Phil Collins, and a Patch of Ice

  "Right here. Pookie, you need to swing your leg right here, on that beat."

  "Right."

  Their blades cut into the ice, as they tried a move.

  "That right?"

  "Yeah, but my turn was too slow. I came out of it a half-beat behind."

  "'sokay, Snugglebear, let's try it again."

  It was the middle of August. Sophia and Warren were trying to nail down their new free dance, before they pulled their old junior-length free from last year out of mothballs for the Junior Grand Prix.

  It had been a busy summer. Dan and his buddies quickly renovated the basement, because Dan and Kate wanted to move in as quickly as possible. Sophia was thrilled with her new bachelorette pad-Ellen had even had Dan install an intercom, which anyone had to buzz before going down there--and Sophia had the pleasure of waking up next to Warren a couple of times already. Warren's parents were a little wary about that, as was Dan, but it didn't happen every night. And, since everyone knew what was going on anyway... Warren just had to call Peg and tell her, because she worried.

  Ellen and Dan were getting married next weekend. The weekend after that, Sophia and Warren were travelling to Washington, DC, to attend the wedding of John Garrison and his dance teacher, Amanda Glover. They were thrilled to have been invited, and were really looking forward to it. The créme de la créme of the figure skating world promised to be there-and John was a dear friend. After that, the school year would start, senior year for Warren and Sophia, interspersed with trips to Europe for the Grand Prix. Plus they had to do their college applications.

  So, finishing this free dance now would be nice. They wanted it done-or almost done-today. Plus, some of their family members were going to stop by for a grand preview.

  Family members-Sophia had more of them now. She smiled at that. After that big blowout, Dan and she had gotten along much better. Somehow, Dan stopped seeing her as a kid after that encounter. Now, we just had to get him to stop seeing Kate as a kid, Sophia thought. That was coming along a bit, but it was harder. As for herself, Sophia loved Dan. She thought he was a great guy. Kate had confided that meeting Ellen had been the best thing that ever happened to him, because Ellen had loosened him up.

  Kate, herself, Sophia found delightful. There were over 8 years difference between Sophia and her next oldest sister, Tara, so having a stepsister close to her own age was fun. And Kate was a wonderful young lady. She was almost as tall as Sophia, slender, with a cascade of sandy-blond ringlets hanging past her shoulders and bright green eyes. She affected a funky bohemian style, wearing long wraparound skirts and cotton tee shirts, often accompanied by beads and bracelets and something unusual in her hair, or a unique hat. Different from Sophia, whose wardrobe contained, in Warren's words, "either 'My boyfriend is a preppie and he bought me this', or basic sexbomb," but it looked good on Kate.

  And Sophia realized that Kate had a passion. It became apparent quickly after Kate moved into Sophia's room-Sophia went up there to retrieve a few things she had left, and found one corner completely given over to easels, canvas, paints, cleaning equipment, palettes, and the like. Kate was an artist-specifically, a painter. And she was good, too.

  "That's my stress relief. Anytime I'm bothered by something, I paint." Kate had said to Sophia.

  "It's always good to have an outlet."

  "Are you creative?" Kate had asked her.

  Sophia just laughed. "Who do you think choreographs Warren's and my dances? Well, both of us, actually, but, yeah, we are our own choreographers. Believe me, that's creative."

  "Yeah, it is," Kate smiled.

  Now Kate was sitting in the stands, along with Ellen and Dan, and her best friend Tanya. Tanya was also a figure skating fan, and a photographer, and Kate had asked if she could come along and take some pictures.

  "Only if we get a copy," Warren had smiled.

  Peg and Jim Kelleher joined them, and the skaters skated over to them.

  "Now, remember, this isn't 100% done. Close, but not quite," Warren told them. "We'll t
weak some, I'm sure."

  "And we're not in costume," Sophia added. "He's gonna wear a tux, and I'm gonna wear some slinky queen-of-the-dance-floor dress." Everyone laughed. "And my hair will be up, proper, not just a ponytail."

  "Anyway," Warren concluded, "here's the rough cut. Fred and Ginger Revisited."

  They took their opening positions, and June hit play on the CD player. The slinky, sassy strains of Glenn Miller's String Of Pearls filled the rink. Sophia and Warren glided around the ice, playing off of one another, sure-footed and confident. Their innate musicality shone through, as every step, every glide, every nuance was keyed perfectly to the walking bass and the gently swaying horns of the swing classic. The dance was technically difficult, with changes of handholds and difficult intertwining steps. They did very little side-by-side dancing, and stuck close to one another, which was more difficult. The ability to work their feet while skating extremely close together was a skill they had mastered early, and it was impressive. As the music gained in intensity, so did they, doing a fabulous diagonal step sequence in closed position, with perfectly timed turns and swaying hips. And, when they ice danced, they smiled. Always. They loved doing this.

  Then the music changed, to the more uptempo, harder swinging Little Brown Jug. They started that portion with their side-by-side step sequence. As the song really got going, they went back to skating close together, changing positions and holds, turning and swinging with abandon. When they got going, they were fast, and this part of the dance showed their speed, without sacrificing an iota of difficulty in footwork.

  Their cut of Little Brown Jug proceeded through a number of bars of various horn solos, with the band gently but relentlessly swinging behind the soloist. Sophia and Warren sped around the ice, swinging each other around and digging their skates into the ice in time with the swinging rhythm.

  Little Brown Jug has a Big Finish, and Sophia and Warren had choreographed for it. About thirty seconds before the end, the last soloist finishes up. At that point, the drummer switches from rim shots to a relentlessly pounding snare, and the horns swing with a vengeance. Sophia and Warren went into this section with Warren behind Sophia, his hands on her hips, her hands on his, right close together, and they swung, shaking their hips perfectly to the beat, all the while keeping their skates moving with difficult footwork and deep edges. Then Sophie turned, and they went into classic closed position, not losing their rhythm for a second. For the last series of bars, he pulled her in close, and they skated, arms around each other. There was seemingly no room for their feet to continue moving, but they did. They ended with a spin, and a big flourish.