A Beauteous Flower Ch. 05

After her greeting, Mrs. Selene clicked brightly into the room and as she emerged from the backlight, Mrs. Selene resolved into her full glory. She was a slender woman, and while Madison had always considered herself taller than the average woman, in her heels and her perfectly erect posture, Mrs. Selene towered like an immaculate goddess. Every eye in the room positively gaped at her statuesque presence with a mixture of awe and envy. It was immediately evident that Mrs. Selene was the epitome of style and social graces, with a body and skin that would never require the attention of a plastic surgeon.

Mrs. Selene must have been close to sixty years old, but she was the unquestioned pretty powerhouse in the room, dressed for that day's business in a soft pink blouse with a neckline that plunged dramatically to reveal a generous amount of her ample breasts and knee length pencil skirt that highlighted her tanned and toned legs. Her brunette hair was a shoulder length wolf cut and her brows arched exquisitely over a pair of opal eyes. Everywhere Mrs. Selene looked, eyes automatically averted themselves, and then returned to stare at her as she turned her gaze in another direction.

Truly, Mrs. Selene had the poised and presence of a woman who knew she was world-class pretty and that made every other woman in the room fidget uncertainly. Even Deva, who Madison thought extremely pretty, tugged self-consciously at the waistband of her tights as Mrs. Selene clicked past in a swirl her light flora perfume.

Her entry well made, Mrs. Selene paused in the exact middle of the room and surveyed the hopeful crowd of almost two hundred and fifty Lycra clad dancers. After she dragged the silence out for a few more moments to be sure she commanded the room, Mrs. Selene nodded in satisfaction.

"My, what a collection of pretty little ones we have today," Mrs. Selene observed in a tone that hinted at satisfaction and appreciation. Again, from anyone else those words might have been taken as a mild insult of the kind that someone would bestow on some inferior being they encountered in the ladies' room, but when Mrs. Selene said it, everyone took it as a compliment.

"Well, we have a lot to do, I see. Is everyone fully stretched and sufficiently warmed up? Excellent! Shall we get down to business then?" she chimed genially and even though her voice lilted up at the end of her sentence like a question, everyone knew it was a firm but gentle command. Mrs. Selene gracefully settled with a ladylike cross of her delicate ankles in the exact middle of the judges table flanked by the other five judges, three women and two men. She allowed the other judges to be seated after her and then nodded for the auditions to begin.

Each dancer had been issued a number and the choreographer lined them all up according to those numbers then divided them into groups of ten. Then she briefly taught them all a short dance routine that blended energetic hip hop and jazz steps. At two claps and a count of "and five and six, and five, six, seven, eight" from the choreographer, music with a heavy, quick down beat pumped out of the speakers and the first group did their level best to repeat the routine.

In turn each group of ten gyrated and posed as fiercely as they could before the judges' table, all of whom except Mrs. Selene made notes. For her part, Mrs. Selene gave each group her undivided attention and inspected each effort carefully, but whatever assessments she made she kept to herself and allowed the other judges to make the first cut without her input. After each group danced one of the male judges announced the numbers of the dancers who would be asked back to present their solo routines in the afternoon. By the end of the morning a group of forty-six hopefuls remained to continue to audition for one of the twenty-three open places on the dance team.

After a lunch which no dancer ate, each of the hopefuls was given three minutes to dance a solo routine. Mrs. Selene again arranged herself in the center of the table and watched carefully as each dancer performed. However, in the afternoon session, Mrs. Selene conversed with the other judges as they exchanged opinions, but always in a quiet voice that was impossible for the dancers to hear. When each dancer finished their routine and stood breathless before her, Mrs. Selene would applaud them in a polite and enthusiastic way that betrayed nothing, and then bestowed a parting compliment bundled with request that each hopeful wait in the lobby until the auditions were over.

Madison was slated to do her solo dance later in the afternoon, so she watched the other girls perform to get a feel for the competition. Some girls flaunted themselves on the floor in a semi-suggestive way, while others leaped and cavorted and still others did gymnastic stunts and splits and nodded their heads after every contortion. Their music was always high energy and fast paced. After a few auditions they all began to look the same and Madison noted that what Mrs. Selene said to each of them by way of compliment began to sound similar as well. It was at that moment that Madison decided that to make the team she would have to do something to stick out, so she changed from her up tempo jazz and tap number to a classical ballet piece she had learned once for a dance recital.

Madison had never intended to become a ballerina, but when she asked to take hip hop, jazz and tap dance lessons her mother insisted that Madison also study classical ballet. Initially she found ballet, with its precision and discipline, dull, but as she continued her studies, she came to enjoy it more and more. Soon, while she still enjoyed her hip hop, jazz and tap classes, it was ballet that really intrigued her as a dancer.

She might have even considered a career in ballet right up until she started to date boys. That activity took a large chunk out of her previous ballet dreams. Then a truly transformative moment in her life happened when she had sex for the first time. The impact of sex on Madison's life was seismic. She continued to study dance, but after her discovery of sex, her true passion became to find a man and get married.

In moments of honesty, Madison would admit to herself that it was the idea of love, with its triumphant thrills and powerfully scary emotions and sensations, that soured her on the constant disciplined and painful routine of practice that the life of a ballet dancer demanded. And when she first achieved an orgasm, which left her breathless and teary eyed and professing what she thought was love to her then current boyfriend in the back seat of his car, those thoughts a career as a ballerina evaporated like the morning mist.

That boyfriend did not last, but her desire for marriage only grew as she entered college where she studied dance with a minor in communications as a fallback plan if dance didn't pan out. She was only an adequate student because there did not seem to be enough hours in the day to be fully dedicated to dance and vie for the attention of boys. Besides, the boys were much more interested in her while she strutted and posed in skimpy dresses to high energy dance music that thumped along at one hundred and forty beats per minute.

So, ballet with its sore muscles, aching bones and long hours was, for the most part, sidelined in favor of a love life. Madison still attended ballet classes and other dance classes when the demands of her desires allowed, but despite her distraction, by the time she graduated she was ultimately a serviceable enough dancer to make a satisfactory go of it, and the requirements of survival pushed her to express her talents a little more skillfully. After a few months of celibacy, intense practice, and some hustle she caught on as a chorus tap dancer with a minor travel company for a production of "Chicago". She didn't have any lines and the possibilities for advancement were between slim and none, but the gig kept her in just enough money to let her pay her bills, enjoy herself with manicures and a bit of shopping, and continue her search for a man, the right man, with whom she could get married and start a future. For a young, single woman that was enough.

Madison found her life as a dancer a romantically sweet one, but the men she regularly met were as broke as she was, and about half the time, not heterosexual and that was a discouraging discovery for a young woman in search of marriage. Then one day a dancer friend mentioned try outs for a dance team of a local sports franchise. Madison was curious and after a little research discovered that the gig didn't pay very well, but it would put her in the proximity of some truly spectacular specimens of the male gender; tall, supremely fit and with money in the bank. Madison found herself intrigued by an opportunity to be Mrs. Sports Hero. To everyone else she remained blasé about the prospect, as a pretty young woman should, but inside she positively hummed with excitement. That tree of decisions had all led Madison to this moment, and it was also at this moment that her experience as a ballet dancer benefited her in a way she had not anticipated when she put on her first pair of pointe shoes.

Madison took a calculated gamble and, determined to stand out from the rest of the pack, removed her shoes and taped up the balls of her feet. Then she got out her ballet music and prepared her body to give a three-minute recital of classical ballet, albeit without the benefit of pointe shoes. That small handicap aside, she was confident she could perform the spins and jumps required properly. As she closed her eyes and visualized the routine in her head, this wild little idea enticed her as the right move, and she stilled her nerves with the thought that If it didn't work out for her here, there was always "Chicago" until something else came along.

At last, it was her turn, and she took her place with a dramatic pose in the middle of the dance floor. When the music first came up, she worried she had made a mistake as some of the judges looked confused and she saw a few frowns among them. Then just as she felt she was about to balk, she took one bold step and hit her first leap perfectly. Her confidence soared as high as her leap, and just as she landed with all the grace and poise ballet had taught her, something remarkable happened. Mrs. Selene held up a single slim finger that silenced all the other judges' whispers, and leaned forward to rivet her full attention on Madison. Madison's three minutes seemed to fly by and before she knew it Madison finished her routine with a deep and graceful bow to the judges. All seemed quiet and uncertain until Mrs. Selene stood up and clapped with elegant enthusiasm.

"Brava, young lady. Brava," Mrs. Selene gushed and then let out a satisfied sigh.

Madison looked up from her bow hopefully. She gave Mrs. Selene her best smile as she tried to catch her breath without unladylike gasps.

"Very well done, my dear."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

Mrs. Selene gave Madison a graceful quarter turn of her head with an inclination of appreciation. At this look, Madison positively glowed with triumph from her toes to her hair. Her gamble just might have paid off!

"Polite too. Such an endearing trait." Mrs. Selene observed with a generous dollop of admiration. From anyone else it might have sounded sarcastic, but from Mrs. Selene it made Madison feel like her favorite teacher had just complimented her deportment.

"Please, do be a dear and wait for us in the lobby?"

Madison nodded and Mrs. Selene turned to the male judge who had announced the numbers of the dancers who made the first cut.

"If you please, Marcus."

Marcus nodded his assent and Madison literally floated on her bare toes out into the lobby to wait with the other girls who looked at her with a hint of jealous ire. Madison was beyond what they thought and said a quiet thank you to her mother for the ballet lessons.

A short time later, it was not a surprise when the judges came into the lobby and Madison heard her number called very early in the list of women that had made the team. Mrs. Selene's response to Madison's solo routine made that pretty much a foregone conclusion, so no one was surprised. Envious, perhaps, in a phony congratulatory air-kiss-hug kind of way, but not surprised.

And those moments had led to this one, as Madison settled into the party with a sip of champagne cocktail.