Adult Tyrolean Dancing

Copyright Oggbashan May 2021

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

Gruss Gott! All conversations are assumed to be in Tyrolean Austrian.

"Hansel? I think Albrecht likes your sister Gretel more than me. What do you think?"

"I think you are right, Jutta. How do you feel about that?"

Jutta and I were sitting at a table after performing as part of a demonstration Tyrolean Dancing Team. She was wearing the trachten Tyrolean dance and parade costume of a tight red bodice over an ankle-length wide spreading micro-pleated black skirt and a long golden apron. I was wearing lederhosen and wide braces. Below her heavy skirt, visible when she went into a spin, were an ankle length white cotton petticoat, opaque white pantyhose under knee length white cotton bloomers and a short waist petticoat. The four of us had been dancing together since we were children. My maternal grandfather had been Austrian but had left Austria in 1935, before the Anschluss because he could see what was coming. He hadn't been a Jew but he was in the wrong political party as a town councillor.

He had been a prisoner of war in England from 1917 and had learned English. In the 1920s he had started working with a company in London that made high quality carved furniture, like that his workers made in the Tyrol. In 1935 he had sold his Austrian Factory and moved his production and employees to London, including five Jewish Families. The products had been changed to look less Germanic, and during the war had made parts for Mosquito aircraft.

But he, and our small Austrian community, had been proud of their Tyrolean heritage which is why all four of us were part of the Tyrolean dancing team. There weren't that many of us, so as a child I had danced with my big sister, Gretel, even though she had had to lead me because I couldn't see over her shoulder. Albrecht and Jutta were descendants of some of my grandfather's employees.

"I probably won't mind. We discussed at length over the last few days and agreed to stay as friends but nothing more. I have liked Albrecht since we started school. He is a nice bloke but there is no real spark between us, perhaps because we know each other too well, but..."

"But?"

"But Gretel vets your girlfriends, doesn't she? Especially after the last two? Now you are twenty-two you ought to have better judgement."

"She still thinks she is my big sister who has to look out for me. Jutta. And she was right about the last two."

"I know. You picked a couple of right arseholes, didn't you?"

"I thought, but..."

"How do you think Gretel would react if I said I wanted you, Hansel?"

"What? I am sure she would be delighted."

"And what would your reaction be?"

I didn't say a word. I just picked her up and dumped her on my knees before we kissed.

"I assume that was a yes, Hansel," Jutta said as our lips parted.

"More than a yes, Jutta. I am delighted, honoured, ecstatic..."

"OK. I get the message."

Albrecht and Jutta walked across to where Jutta was sitting on my lap with her arms wrapped around my neck. They were both smiling.

"You too?" Gretel asked. "Albrecht is now my boyfriend."

"And Hansel is now mine," Jutta replied.

"In which case," Gretel undid her apron's bow on her left hip. She pointedly retied it on her right hip.

"What does that mean?" Albrecht asked.

"It means, Albrecht, that I am yours and I have claimed you. Tying my apron at the right means I am in a permanent relationship, not looking for anyone else."

Jutta stood up and repeated the retying.

"And I claim you, Hansel. You are tied to me, just as this bow is tied."

"In ten minutes time we are performing THAT dance," Gretel said.

"THAT dance? Oh yes, of course. We can do what we have never done before," Jutta said.

Albrecht and I didn't understand. The next dance was a complicated one for a set of four couples. We had danced it many times before. What would be different?

When we stood facing the other two couples they were smiling broadly. The women had noticed the difference in the apron tying and had told their partners.

Halfway through the dance which had many complex moves, the men moved to the centre and started thigh slapping as the women twirled around the outside, splaying their skirts very wide. At the end of that section the men dropped to one knee.

Whenever we had danced before, Gretel and Jutta had stopped turning, came to stand behind their man, and pulled the man's head against the outside of the apron, holding the head in place for eight bars of the music before the men stood up and moved into a waltz. What Albrecht and I hadn't noticed was that the other couples, who were married, had done something slightly different each time.

As the married women finished spinning, instead of holding their men's head against their apron, the final spin of the skirt had ended with the man's head being covered by the skirt and apron. The women's hands dropped to cradle the man's head in the folds of the skirt and held it there, smothering him for the eight bars.

The married women were giggling as the men performed their thigh-slapping. Albrecht and I were startled to be trapped under our girlfriend's skirts. Inside the short petticoats our heads were held so tightly we were squashed between our girlfriends' panties and their thick heavy skirts, unable to breathe. When we were uncovered our faces were red from both embarrassment and lack of breath.

Our new girlfriends had demonstrated their ownership of us very openly.

As the dance continued our new girlfriends were giggling. Several of the moves in that dance, which we had performed many times before, had parts where our faces were very close together. Until now we had stopped about an inch apart. But now? Each time we came close, we were kissed, hard.

At the end of the dance the married couples were smiling at us and Albrecht and I knew we had been kissed - often.

When we returned to our chairs the women sat down.

"Sit down on the floor with your back to me," Jutta ordered. Gretel told Albrecht to do the same. We complied, but why?

Seconds later we knew why. The women pulled up their skirts and petticoats before dragging them down to cover their men.

"Hansel? You don't really understand the significance of retying the aprons, do you?"

I tried to answer. I couldn't. Jutta's skirt was gagging me. She realised and relaxed her hold around my head.

"No, Jutta. What is it?"

"We Tyrolean women own our men. They are ours. We run them. When we alter our apron ties that means we are in control, as I am of you now."

Jutta tightened her skirt around my head for a few seconds.

"Why didn't my previous girlfriends change their aprons?" I asked when I could.

"That is about the only reasonable thing about them, Hansel. That was a sign that they weren't convinced you were right for them. But I am. You're mine."

Jutta uncovered me and pulled her apron and skirt down behind my back below crossing her legs across my chest. I was nearly hidden in the folds of her skirt.

"Look, Hansel." Jutta said. "Up to now we have been dancing the children's versions of the Tyrolean dances. But those four are married couples. The men will be kissed - often, and during each dance they will disappear under their wives' skirts. It is a very ostentatious display of the women's ownership and control."

As I watched the four men dropped to a knee and their wives deliberately dropped their heavy skirts over the men's heads and held the skirts tightly across their husbands faces.

"From now on, Hansel, that will happen to you in almost every dance. You are owned and controlled. Do you mind?"

I turned my head back to look up at Jutta.

"No, Jutta. I love you and I think I will enjoy being owned by you."

"You should. I love you too, Hansel. Apart from the display of control when we are dancing, I will try to make sure that you enjoy being mine."

Jutta did. I enjoyed being Jutta's, claimed by her apron's sign.

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