‘Sash? Is that really you? My God! What an amazing transformation. You really are all woman under those baggy tops of yours, aren’t you?’
‘Thanks.’
He was with a professional dancer Sasha had not met before, she grinned at the woman but received a haughty grimace in return that barely sufficed as a smile. Sasha wasn’t going to let an unfriendly exchange shatter her nerves so, slamming a metaphoric door on them both, she turned away.
It was time to go on. Time to stand like a useless doll while the professional dancers did their bit and Mike vomited mindless spiel into the camera. At least tonight she wasn’t responsible for the drivel he was spouting.
‘Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen.’ He was cringingly ingratiating, Sasha closed her eyes, tried to breathe slowly and calm her hammering heart.
Mike’s lines came to an end and he gave way to his assistant, a long legged, stick thin brunette by the unlikely name of Pandora, who began introducing the contestants; ten of them in all.
Flanking Sasha were ageing politician, Audrey Penworthy and teenage soap star, Vanessa Green. Next to Vanessa came John Jordan, an ex-boxer; television host, David Hanley; girl band member, Lucy Jones; Richard Trueman, rugby star and weatherman Derek Cassidy. Tall and elegant at the end of the line stood Fiona Masters, a T.V. star from a 1960’s sitcom that most people were trying to forget and Joe Wild, a gymnast who had won the hearts of the nation in the Olympics twenty years or so ago. The audience clapped enthusiastically as the introductions were made and each celebrity said a few prescribed words.
On the other side of the studio the professionals were waiting. Their glittering costumes seeming as natural on them as they were extraordinary on the contestants. Sasha let her eyes travel along the line, noting the artificial way the women posed, one foot in front of the other, shoulders back, breasts thrust forward, heads elegantly poised. She knew they were supposed to adopt this stance also but, although Audrey was doing her best to look alluring and Vanessa looked wonderful with no visible effort at all, Sasha could not bring herself to do it. She was a chat show host not a dancer, what the hell was she doing here?
The professional male dancers stood, legs akimbo, shoulders back, hands clasped behind them, hips thrust forward; virile, handsome and strong. Her eyes trickled across their faces until they came to rest on the well-remembered features of Andrei Kovalevsky. Something fluttered in the cavity of her chest.
He seemed totally unchanged. He was not looking at her but kept his eyes fixed firmly on the audience as the lights flickered and the camera played across the faces of the professionals. There was no indication that he knew she was there, or if he even remembered her existence.
‘Not him,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t be able to stand it. Please, God, not him.’
Mike’s voice was echoing about the studio as he made love to the audience, and evoked thunderous applause and hoots of laughter. Sasha forced herself to listen but her head was light and she was stricken with a strange sense of unreality.
This couldn’t really be happening; not to her.
Suddenly applause erupted and one of the female professionals, whose name Sasha couldn’t recall, put her hands over her mouth, gaped delightedly at the crowd before flitting across the floor and draping herself over John Jordan who managed to look both proud and bashful at the same time.
Everyone was beaming and clapping so Sasha pulled herself together and did the same, trusting herself to auto pilot.
Mike spoke directly into the camera lens.
‘And next tonight, we have Audrey Penworthy. How are you tonight, Audrey? You all know Audrey, don’t you?’ He lifted a hand and, obediently, the audience applauded. ‘Do you have your eye on any of these nice young fellas, my dear?’ The onlookers roared while Audrey blushed and mumbled.
Shutting her up, Mike gripped her wrist and leaned into the camera again. ‘You, Audrey my love, will be partnered with …’
There followed an extended dramatic pause while the audience fidgeted and one of the professionals coughed, Mike took a deep breath, counted slowly before throwing out a hand and yelling, ‘…Matthew Martin.’
Again, as the audience showed their appreciation, the game old girl wriggled her way across the dance floor and threw herself into Matthew’s embrace. Matthew feigned his delight and Sasha immediately felt embarrassed for Audrey. Surely she would be better off at home knitting sweaters for her grandchildren or writing her memoirs or something. Surely her days in the spot light were long over …weren’t they?
The applause died down and Mike began to speak again, cracking painful jokes, poking fun at celebrities and professionals alike. Sasha, feeling a profound desire to be as far away from here as she could possibly get, closed her eyes.
With a growing sense of unreality she listened unseeing as the other contestants were slowly matched with their partners until just four were left. She opened one eye and squinted at those remaining. Vanessa, English professional dancer, Francis George and … Russian professional, Andrei Kovalevsky. There was just one chance left. She crossed her fingers, closed her eyes.
A sense of doom began to filter through her, she didn’t need psychokinetic powers to sense the danger in which she stood. Then, through the fog of her panic she heard her name called out and Mike was beckoning her forward, gripping her wrist, positioning her too close to his side for comfort.
He gabbled some trite comment and she forced a weak smile, her head whirling, heart banging, her mouth dry.
‘Oh, don’t be nervous, Sasha, my love. He can’t eat you.’
‘No,’ Sasha thought wildly, stifling a sob as the audience rocked in their seats, ‘but he can torture me, hurt me all over again.’
She looked up at the grid work of lighting above the glitz of the studio floor, the mantra repeating silently in her mind. ‘Please, not him, please not him, please not him.’
‘Sasha, I am delighted to announce that for the Celebrity Dance Competition 2012 you will be partnered with …’
Sasha’s heart was the loudest sound in the room. She held her breath, trying not to scream as she fought the urge to shake Mike by the lapels and rattle the words from his lips. And while the silence stretched on, Sasha was aware of Mike’s hand slipping down to discreetly stroke the satin covered contours of her hips but she was too wrapped up in his next words to have the power to move away. He could feel her up all he liked if he would only partner her with Francis. Her very life depended on his next words.
‘Please God,’ she prayed. ‘Please let it be Francis. Not Andrei, please God, don’t let it be Andrei.’
But God wasn’t listening.
‘Andrei Kovalevsky!’ The audience went wild. Their favourite professional dancer partnered with that nice young girl, Sasha, from The Mike Bywater Show.
Sasha gaped at the camera until Mike’s thrusting hand in the small of her back sent her stumbling across the dance floor to where Andrei was waiting, perfectly composed, with a plastic smile emblazoned on his face.
It seemed to take forever to float toward him. Then, halfway across the floor, she remembered the instruction of the production team. She was supposed to look delighted and run toward her allocated partner so, making a huge effort, she skipped the last few steps and, closing her eyes, launched herself into his arms.
He lifted her, spun her around in the air, her legs flapping wildly, his strong hands on her body, holding her firm, the lights of the studio blurring as if she were on a waltza at the fair. Strong fingers gripped her lower legs, forcing her into some semblance of elegance, his torso pressed against the bare skin of her back.
Slowly, Andrei came to a standstill and she slid down the length of his body until she found her feet were on the floor again. He steadied her, making sure her knees did not give away and as her head stopped spinning, she remembered to smile into the camera as if he was her dream partner.
Sasha wished it were a dream. Her mind was all over the place. His body was tight against
hers, his breath tickling her ear, his well-remembered scent filling her head. Aware only that his heart was beating as fast as hers, she fought to regain her composure. Pulling her shoulders back, pasting a brittle smile on her face, she was doing quite well, acting quite professionally, she thought, until he leant a little closer and, with the television cameras full upon them, spoke directly into the shell of her ear. Her whole body tingled as she hung on what he was about to say, her face tilted up to his.
‘Sasha,’ he murmured, so that only she could hear, ‘you have been putting on weight.’
And her heart plummeted as she looked at Andrei’s beautiful, arrogant profile and realised that, without a shadow of doubt, she was in for a very rough ride.
Chapter Three
‘You are late.’
Andrei was right. She was late, even though she had been up with the proverbial lark, plucking her eyebrows, tweaking her hair, trying on different outfits. And, in an attempt to shift some weight, she had skipped breakfast again and was starving. The traffic had been heavy through town and she arrived at the rehearsal rooms, out of breath and red faced when she had been determined to remain cool.
‘I’m sorry.’
Andrei stood, his body straight and muscular, with one hand on the barre, evidently in the process of warming up. He waited while she dumped her bag in the corner and took off her coat, unwound her scarf. Outside the air had been frigid and the sudden heat of the dance studio brought beads of sweat to her forehead. At least she pretended it was the heat. It could have been something to do with the man that stood before her.
Andrei’s face was coldly non-committal.
‘Do not be late again. A dancer should always be punctual.’
Immediately Sasha was on the defensive.
‘I said I was sorry.’
He did not meet her eye but looked instead at thin air just a little way above her head.
‘You need to warm up first, some stretching exercises. You do exercise, I take it?’
She tried not to mind when his cold gaze swept contemptuously up and down her body. Hoping he didn’t notice, she sucked in her belly and stood straighter in an attempt to disguise the extra pounds.
‘Of course,’ she lied. She had exercised regularly once upon a time, and she was pretty sure she could remember how to warm up. With as much confidence as she could muster she walked to the barre and began to perform some gentle bends and stretches, watching Andrei’s reflection in the mirror as he fiddled with the c.d player.
‘Our first dance is to be the jive which probably means we will go out in the first round.’
He threw off his hoodie and stood before her in tight exercise pants and vest, the sort that accentuated the hard, corrugated strength of his torso. Sasha looked away, stifling her awe of his beauty and began to stretch again. She decided to meet him head on.
‘With that attitude we will be sure to go out. You have no idea whether or not I can dance.’
Andrei said nothing. His silence lasted for so long that it became too much and she was forced to look at him. Immediately she regretted it, finding herself captured, trapped in the headlights of his dark, glittering eyes.
She knew what he was thinking, what they were both thinking, and he knew it too. They had danced together once, and by remembering the magic of that night, it was almost as if they might dance it again. The strains of The Blue Danube seemed to drift, ghostly, through the sterile studio.
Sasha shook herself.
Andrei bent down, switched on the music.
‘I thought we could dance to this. It is a popular tune, everyone will enjoy the music and, hopefully, they will focus on that and notice nothing lacking in the steps.’
What he needed was a good slap. How was she supposed to work with him if he was going to behave like a spoiled brat?
‘Wake me up before you go – go …’ George Michael’s voice suddenly boomed out, making her jump.
As the significance of the lyrics struck her, Sasha clenched her jaw. How can he do this? It is so childish! Maybe it would be better to go out first week and get it all over and done with. She was damned if she was putting up with this. But, instead of freaking out as she knew he’d expected her to, she pretended to contemplate the track, although every nerve in her body was enraged.
Andrei leaned casually on the wall, his fingers tapping in time, while she wracked her brains as to how to respond. When the music finally faded, nonchalance seemed to be the answer and she decided to pretend that she had no inkling of the tormenting message behind his song choice.
‘It’s fast,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if I can keep up but I will do my best.’
Andrei, nodding at her loose hair, said, ‘Tie that up. It will get in the way.’
With her fury stifled behind a I-don’t-give-a-toss attitude she rummaged in her bag for a scrunchy and scraped her hair into an untidy bun.
‘There,’ she turned toward him. ‘Happy?’
He held out his hand.
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ he retorted as he led her to the centre of the floor.
It was so hard. Sasha couldn’t master the steps, couldn’t seem to control her own body. She knew it was because of him and his coldness toward her. The scorching touch of his hand confused her and made her brain shatter into stupidity. This was Andrei, the idol of her teenage years, her first lover and she didn’t want to dance with him if he was willing her to fail.
‘Don’t stop!’ he bellowed, when she went wrong for what must have been the fiftieth time. ‘Just keep dancing.’
But Sasha did stop and, putting her hands to her brow, hung her head toward the floor, fighting back tears.
‘I can’t. I keep forgetting.’
With an explosion of fury Andrei silenced Wham! and turned on her, hands on hips.
‘Your attitude stinks, Sasha. It is a dance a baby could do. You can have five minutes break and then we begin over again. Get it right next time.’
They retreated to opposite sides of the studio. Sasha slumped to the floor with her back against the mirrored wall and gulped water from a bottle.
‘Damn it to hell!’ she thought. ‘Why can’t I get it right? What is wrong with me?’
A beep from her handbag told her that Lisa was texting and she fumbled for her phone.
How’s it going?
Sasha thought about that for a moment. Lisa was her best friend, knew everything there was to know about her but right now, Sasha couldn’t bear even her knowing the mess she was in. Briefly, she considered lying, pretending everything was fine but her life was already too crammed with half hidden truths.
A soft laugh drifted from the other side of the room where Andrei was smiling softly at some message on his own phone. Once he had looked at her like that but now he saved his smiles for other women, the sort of women she has seen him pictured with in the paper and on the internet.
With a wave of despair so deep she thought it would wrench out her heart, Sasha’s thumb flew across the keys.
She clicked the send button.
Two minutes later, bored to death at her desk, Lisa checked her messages and read the words, ‘It isn’t.’
***
Andrei stood up. ‘Come.’
He held out his hand and she came to him, her chin nobbled with the effort to keep from crying. He looked at her sideways. Maybe he was being too hard on her. It was only her first day. Her dancing wasn’t that bad, he had known worse. The main problem was that she was unfit. The jive was an energetic dance, requiring stamina and timing to pull it off properly. If they were to get anywhere at all in the competition she must improve her fitness, only then could she master the dances.
Her fingers were cold. As she moved her perfume began to wash over him again. It was difficult to remain angry with a woman when she was so beautiful and so close, even if she did keep taking the wrong steps and moving in the wrong direction.
Strands of her hair tumbled from its restraining band and, as she
spun around, it whipped his face. Andrei knew he should tell her to tie it up again but, when the dance ended and she turned to him, her face pink with exertion, the golden tendrils curling about her ears as if it had a mind of its own, he couldn’t bring himself to.
Perhaps the break had done her good, they had managed to get right through the routine that time. She was panting, a trickle of sweat running down, disappearing between her breasts.
‘That was better,’ he said, watching her throat undulate as she drank water straight from the bottle. She drew the back of her hand across her wet lips.
‘It could hardly have been worse.’
Andrei stifled a laugh and tossed her a clean towel so she could mop the perspiration from her face and neck.
‘It will be easier the fitter you become. Tomorrow you will be as stiff as a board. Here, I got you this.’
He rummaged in his bag and threw her a can of muscle soother and relaxant, ‘you will need that tonight, and pain killers probably.’
‘Let’s do it again.’
Sasha threw down the towel, challenging him and, surprised but not displeased, Andrei rose slowly to his feet and walked toward her.
‘I warn you, it could be one dance too many, you might be sorry.’
As the atmosphere became slightly less hostile, he knew she was beginning to feel the satisfaction of mastering the intricate steps. She would like that feeling.
They stood side by side, confronting their reflected image, waiting for the music. Then Andrei clicked his fingers and moved one knee as he counted them in.
‘One, two, three, four …. Jitterbug. You put the boom boom into my heart…’
As Andrei grabbed her hand and spun her away, George Michael erupted into song.
This time she did even better, although her breath sounded like a rusty chain saw and she made a few wrong turns. But she carried on, that was the main thing, and they got through it.
Come, Dance With Me Page 4
