The Dance

Unfortunately, Sally's pregnancy did not go full term. I'm not completely sure what went wrong because the doctors spout all that technical shit at you. Anyway, Sally got some kind of an infection herself and nearly died. It was an upsetting couple of months for both of us I can assure you.

But once she recovered, and with additional precautions - we added a cap to the mix -- our sex lives got back the enthusiasm they'd had when we'd first got together. The problem was that after a few months I discovered that Sally had taken an interest -- through the Internet -- in swinging. Her - or maybe it was my - problem was, that she didn't seem to understand that for it to be swinging, both partners have to be in on the plan - or should that be act? Joining a swinging club without your partner isn't really Cricket, now is it?

The divorce was amicable and very quick. I couldn't really see the point in getting all out of shape over it, especially when Sally was happy to shag my brains out, even after the divorce. Not that I did very often; I had no idea who else she was shagging. She had developed the art of giving a good blowjob by then though.

After Sally, I sort of lost confidence in women. Hey, maybe that's why I still laid Sally now and again. I knew she was a cheating slut, so I wasn't likely to be disappointed again.

But then Jane came into the picture. I met Jane at the office; to be precise we were stuck in a lift together -- in the dark - during a power failure. We sat there in the dark and talked about our lives, having no real idea what each other looked like whilst we chatted. (Boy did I get a surprise when the lights came back on!") For some reason not even the emergency light had come on when the power went out. And who the hell takes more than a quick glance at anyone else who gets into a lift with them, when there's only the two of you in there.

Yeah, if the lift is crowded, and a shapely young backside gets in, most guys will try to position themselves to have a good perv. But, when there are only the two of you in the lift together, very suddenly the floor display panel has to take on a whole new interest, or you're liable to get your face slapped.

When the lift suddenly jerks to a halt and you're plunged into complete darkness; eventually you have to start talking to your companion, to put them at their ease at least. You know we both had cigarettes, but neither of us had a working lighter. By the time the power came back on, we'd both pledged to give up the dreaded weed. We actually met again a few days later, to assure each other that we'd kept that pledge.

That meeting lead to a date, and well... eight months later we were walking out of the registry office man and wife. But, not before Jane had informed me that children were not going to be on the cards. Jane had been born with a deformity in her ovaries and they'd had to be removed almost the moment she reached puberty; because of some complication or the other, which she never did go into fine details about. I'll be honest here I get just a little queasy when folks start talking about all that medical stuff. Jane also informed me that she had to take hormone replacement pills everyday, like some women who reach the end of their menstruation do. What do they call it, the change?

Although the idea of not having any naturally born children, was a blow for me; Jane had accepted her lot many years before. We did discuss the possibility of adoption sometime in the future. And there were some unexpected benefits to living with a woman who didn't menstruate. No PMS - like Mary Beth used to get sometimes -- and no missing out a few nights every month.

The only unpredictable thing was a distinct variation in Jane's sexual appetite or libido that proved to be connected to those pills she took every day. Jane of course, had been aware of it for years and unbeknown to me until after we had wed, she changed the dose of the pills she took to take it into account. Whether it was an over dose or under dose of one particular pill, I never could fathom out. But when she got it wrong, Christ the woman would almost kill me. Still, others have had far worse crosses to bear.

Mentioning about Mary Beth again reminds me. With hindsight, I realised that a very odd thing happened concerning her. You remember, I said that when I got back from university she seemed to be everywhere that I took a date. Well, the odd thing was that after I got married to Sally, Mary Beth disappeared off the face of the earth. Only to reappear again whilst I was dating Jane, but once Jane and I got hitched... well blow me, no more Mary Beth again. I hardly ever clapped eyes on her anywhere in town, other than in the High Street sometimes on Saturdays and even then she appeared to be avoiding eye contact with me. Not that I let it show that I cared!

Working in the same building, Jane and I probably spent more time together than most newlyweds. We travelled to and from work together, and ate lunch together everyday. Our free time, when we weren't trying to shag each other to death, mainly revolved around Golf and line dancing. The golf was my pastime, that Jane took up with much more enthusiasm than I did her Line dancing, although I had to admit that it was fun once you got the hang of it.

We tried other pastimes as well. Ten-pin bowling, Yoga, horse riding one summer and water skiing another. The horse riding stopped when Jane got thrown. The water skiing stopped when I broke my leg. Yoga kind of came and went as our fancy took us, and the ten-pin bowling... well, we were both absolute shit at it, but we went once a month or so anyway and laughed at ourselves.

For the next few years, theoretically everything was perfect. I got promoted and we bought a nice little house. Jane changed jobs within the firm, but for a long time we couldn't seem to get to work in the same department. Then suddenly - and completely out of the blue - I was offered a position in the same department as Jane. I took it, although it cost me a little seniority.

Regretfully, Jane was at the time secretary to a guy called Jack Prout, Prouty to most people behind his back. Jack Prout had seniority over me, and he made it very clear right from my first day in the department that there was no way he was going to let me have Jane as my secretary. Not that that mattered really because my desk - being the new guy - was in the same office as Jane's. Although we knew that as I moved up the chain, I'd get a private office like most of the other guys.

Another unexpected flaw in Jane's and my master plan was that, as the new guy, Jim Martin the department head decided that I needed to familiarise myself with the departments clients and that led to numerous overnight trips all over the bleeding country. Instead of spending more time together, Jane and I were apart more than we had been since almost as far back as that day we were stuck in the lift together.

We had been married over four years by then, so we just sat back and bit the bullet. We knew that once I'd visited, spent some time with and got to know all the clients then I wouldn't be away half as much.

Well that was the state of play when I suddenly realised that everything wasn't quite as kosher as it should have been. Two snippets of overheard conversation were to tell me that some bastard was pulling my bleeding chain and I got really out of my pram over it. Alone they meant almost nothing; together those snippets were to lead to the shit hitting the fan in the biggest possible way

The first I overheard by the lifts one day. I was carrying three file boxes full of paper and I stepped to one side so that the people in the lift could get out before I went in. But, as the two guys exited the lift one was saying to the other.

"Christ when she gets going, nothing stops her! You know, she nigh fucked four of us to death the other..."

The guy suddenly stopped speaking when he saw that I was standing there. Him doing that locked his words into my brain.

Then about a week or so later I was going into the tearoom one morning when I heard one of the other guys saying.

"Yeah Prouty switched her bleeding pills she was fucking gagging for it when we got..."

Once again the guy stopped speaking when he realised that it was me entering the tearoom and they both avoided my eyes as they hurriedly left.

Now even if Jane hadn't been like a woman possessed, when I'd returned home from my trip the previous evening I'd have still worked out what was going on. There was only one woman who kept her handbag inside Jack Prout's office. How kind of the bugger to offer to volunteer to lock it in his safe everyday, and I still wonder exactly how long the bastard had been fucking about with Jane's pills. Come to that for how long had the bastard been laying her?

Consumed with anger I charged straight from the tearoom into Prouty's office where Jane was taking dictation from him. My unexpected and sudden appearance must have told him that I'd sussed the bugger out, because he tried to scoot his chair through the far wall. But I was on the bastard anyway. I had two hands around his neck and I was squeezing for all I was worth.

"No Tony, please don't kill him?" Jane begged me.

"Why, do you love him that much?" I spat back at her.

"No I hate him for what he did to me!" she replied.

"Then you knew he'd been messing about with your medication!" I asked.

"Oh my god, you bloody arsehole, no wonder I couldn't help myself." She screamed.

And then suddenly, I realised that I had to release Prouty so that I could restrain Jane. She'd swept up a bleeding great metal trophy he had on his desk, and she was about to brain the sod with it, when I grabbed hold of her. She needed both hands to lift it so I was sure that it would have crushed his skull. I don't know, me needing to protect my wife from doing something that would lead to her going to prison for a long time, kind-a took precedence over my need to kill the bugger myself

"You bastard, my medication has to be balanced very carefully, you could have killed me!" Jane had shouted at the top of her voice as we'd struggled with that trophy.

I - and I doubt Jane had either - had no idea whether Prouty messing with her hormone pills could have caused her physical harm. But it turned out Jane was more annoyed about that, than Prouty inviting the other guys from the office to enjoy her charms. Well to be honest, when Jane was on one of those sexual highs, I don't really expect she cared who it was, providing he was shagging her.

I learnt that it had been going on almost since I'd been transferred into the department. In fact, I had been transferred into the office with the express design on getting me out of the way. What's more, the department head was one of the guys Prouty had taken around to our house.

The net result was that Jane and I divorced quite quickly. I know that she hadn't been party to Prout's plan, actually she had always stuck so close to me because she feared what might happen if she got her dosage wrong some time. Look, it isn't like a tap, the pills govern the hormone rate, but it takes days for variations in dosage to take effect.

How Prouty found out what Jane's medication was for, we never did discover. We can only assume that he hunted through Jane's bag sometime and found them; two minute's on the internet would have told him what they were and what effect they could have. Then we assume he got some stronger ones from somewhere and made the switch. I had been transferred into the department to facilitate his taking advantage of that switch.

I didn't divorce Jane for what Prouty and the others had done with her. Well, not the first time Prout did it anyway. I knew she had little control once she got like that. I divorced Jane because she didn't tell me what had happened that first time. She had let him come back time and again; and even accepted him bringing the other guys along because he couldn't keep up with her.

As had happened with Sally, we stayed in the house and even the same bed together right up until the divorce was final. Well look, Jane got a new prescription and corrected her dosage straight away, but she was still on that sexual high and we both knew that it was going to take time for her to come down again. God knows who she might have dragged into bed with her.

Yeah, of course, we had all the STD tests done, but the cat was out of the bag by then we'd been shagging each other silly, so there was little point in curtailing our sex life until Jane was on a more even keel.

Jim Martin, the department head being involved in the debacle, really dropped the company in the shit. Jane and I cleaned up between us, so after the smoke cleared we parted on a very sound financial footing and under good terms. You know the company even asked me to take over that bloody department? But by then almost everybody in the firm knew the gory details, so I couldn't accept their offer. Besides that, there was hardly anyone left to run the bloody department, they all got thrown out within days; well, everyone who had taken part in the gangbangs or even held intimate knowledge of them. The axe fell swiftly and broadly.

A couple of times before the divorce was final Jane began to ask me if we could stay together. She never did complete the question though, so she must have been able to read my answer in my eyes.

With a good few bob in the bank, no job and with the story going around that I was the guy whose wife had been enjoying gangbangs with half guys in my office. I saw little point in staying in town; neither did Jane. Once we'd sold the house Jane took off up north somewhere and I headed for the airport. My intention was to see the world, kind-a backpack like, but on a bigger budget. I'm not really the cheap hotel or hostel type; too damned old.

So there I was, lying on a sun lounger on the patio of a hotel on an island in the South Seas and wondering what perverted twist of fate could possibly have lead to Mary Beth bleeding Thomas being there was well.

Although I tried to return to my usual pastime of watching the scenery wiggle by and imagining what I could teach them up in my room, I couldn't! Mary Beth kept popping up in my daydreams and putting a damper on things.

After another hour or so I gave up. Well, I worked at getting the daydreams going again for a while; but there was no possible way I could settle down and enjoy my imagination, if Mary Beth was in the vicinity somewhere. The memories of our relationship kept popping up and getting in the way.

I resolved that if Mary Beth was staying in the hotel, then I'd move on to pastures new. Hey, there are plenty of islands and every one of them had just as many hotels. Okay maybe not all as popular with the Ozzy birds, but there was plenty talent - and food for lecherous thoughts - staying at most of them.

I must have looked very funny - I know I looked conspicuously odd -- as I made my way back into the hotel. Without really realising it I must have been creeping along, looking this way and that, hopping to spot Mary Beth before she saw me. Had I spotted her, I would have taken off in the opposite direction as fast as my legs would carry me.

I do believe that I was surreptitiously hiding behind a pillar, trying to get a good look at everyone in the bar to make sure Mary Bath wasn't in there, when one of the hotel staff asked.

"Is something wrong; have you lost something Mr Smart?"

"No, no everything's fine, thank you Zak!" I replied, lying my head off.

"If you need anything sir, you know you only have to ask." He said, the emphasis being on the word "anything." Yeah Zak was that character; you usually find one pseudo pimp working somewhere in most luxury hotels

"Well there is one thing Zak. Did you happen to notice a redhead arrive, maybe in the last day or so? Nice figure; long curly red hair."

I was surprised to note, that I was giving Zak descriptive signals with my hands, to emphasise what I was saying. Odd really, because Zak spoke English probably better than I did.

"No sir, I don't believe we've had any red headed ladies staying here for a week or so." Zak replied.

"You haven't? Well she was on the beach about an hour ago."

"Are you sure, sir? You know when the sun is at the right angle, it can apparently change the colours of almost anything."

"Not that red hair it can't. Are you sure she's not booked in?"

"If you know the lady's name? We can check with the register sir." Zak said heading off towards the reception desk.

I followed still furtively trying to look in every direction at the same time.

"The lady's name, sir?" Zak asked opening the ledger on the desk and then looking at me expectantly.

"Thomas, Mary Beth Thomas." I replied.

Zak started flipping through the pages, mumbling the name "Thomas" repeatedly.

"No sir, we haven't had a Thomas staying here for two months now."

"What about Mary Beth something else? She could well have got married.

Zak returned to flipping through the register this time repeating "Mary Beth" over and over, under his breath.

No sir no Mary Beth's or Mary Elizabeth's this year at all. If she's here, then the lady must be travelling under an assumed name.

"Don't you have to have their real names in the register? You know, like your holding our passports."

"On the official paperwork sir but this is only a copy of the register. We have quite a few very famous people come to stay and very often they prefer t travel incognito."

"This other register?"

"I'm sorry sir, but if she is not in this register, then she is not staying here!" Zak raised his eyebrows and I understood that I'd get no more information from him, but I still tried.

"Is there anywhere that you might suggest I look?" I asked him.

"Sir, I was off yesterday. But I've been here since six o'clock this morning, mainly in the lobby here. During that time, I can assure you that I have seen no redheaded ladies."

I could think of no reason for Zak to lie to me -- he was more the type to offer to sell me the information if he had it to sell. So the thought began creeping into my head - that just maybe - I had been asleep and I had dreamt that I saw Mary Beth on the beach.

Thinking back, there was a marked similarity between Mary Beth's exit from the sea, and Ursula Andress's sudden appearance in the Dr No film. And Mary Beth's comment about my drinking, surely that dated back to my Uni days.

Feeling a little more relaxed I made my way to my chalet, or should I describe it as a pretend little grass hut? Once there I showered and then - still completely nude but with a towel wrapped around my waist -- I switched on my computer and wrote short emails to my parents and my brothers'. Attaching nice pictures of panoramic views that I'd taken on my digital camera to each. The ones to my three brothers' though, always had nubile females in skimpy bikinis tucked away in a corner somewhere. Then I switched to the BBC's site and perused the news for a long time; depressing reading most of it.

I was still trawling through the news sites, when Louise called from the other side of my windows bug screen. "Hey Tony, you coming down for dinner?"

Dan and Louise were an American couple who were staying in the next chalet along from mine. They were a few years older than me, but not many. Dan had been injured in the service of his country, but he usually got around with the aid of two walking sticks; I had noticed the wheelchair in the corner of their chalet though.

I'd made friends with them on the night of my arrival at the hotel. Well to be honest, Louise and Dan after giving me a good look over whilst I ate dinner alone. And yes, I had been aware that they were watching me whilst I ate. Had accosted me when I entered the bar and explained that Dan could no longer dance, but his lovely wife loved dancing. They asked that, as I was obviously unaccompanied, would I kindly share their table with them in the evenings and maybe dance some of the time with Louise?