Travails with My Tutu

**********

It was well after eight before Lorna commenced her now genuinely painful progress back to the tube station, still giving out envelopes as she went. She had pinned a white pashmina around her shoulders against the cooler evening air, which gave her a more elegant diva'ish look but still left her feeling slightly shivery through her tutu and tights. She hoped she didn't add a chill to her growing mountain of discomfort. Although it was late, her carriage was packed and she had to strap hang en pointe for a good twenty minutes before she could sink with an exhausted rustle of her skirt into a seat gratifyingly pre-warmed for her by its previous occupant, who had appeared completely oblivious to her unusual apparel and obvious physical distress.

Her only concession to safety and comfort was to allow Carole to pre-book a taxi to take them from her station, nearly deserted in the late evening gloom, back to her flat. She felt absolutely done in as she goose-stepped up to her front door but then she screamed with delight when she saw what was propped up next to it. Steve had ordered for her the hugest bouquet of flowers, full of white lilies, roses and carnations with a few in red and gold for contrast, she had ever seen. On the card he had written

"To my very own Prima Ballerina Assoluta. With all my love. S. XXXX.

Carole gleefully took several pictures of her as she cradled the flowers in her arms in sheer delight as if she were taking her curtain calls before a packed house in raptures at her performance.

Even after she had said goodbye to Carole with much gratitude and many sisterly hugs, Lorna still refused to give in to the overwhelming desire inside her to release her throbbing feet from the now almost crippling grip of her ballet shoes. Nor did she take the easier course of ordering a takeaway in advance of Steve's imminent return. Instead she began to hobble across the kitchen to prepare pasta. In which activity Steve found her when he finally appeared at the door.

"For goodness sake Darling, you're still going around on your points. You must be in agony by now."

He had been going to ballet classes with Lorna, as well as having special classes with their friend Irina to prepare him for achieving his own desire to go on pointe, for long enough to know just how much punishment her body had taken.

"It really isn't as bad as it looks My Love. Professional dancers feel like this all the time," she asserted. He was having none of it.

"You can't be putting yourself through all of this just to raise money for leukaemia research. What's all this really about? Please come and sit with me and tell me all about it, Sweetheart."

With the possible exceptions of her Uncle Robert and Nick, her brother closest in age and affection to her, Lorna had never known a man who was as perceptive and sensitive towards her as Steve was. She couldn't resist the imploring look in his eyes as he held his arms out to her. So as she sat on his lap and comforted herself against his body, wincing as he squeezed her feet through her ballet shoes to try and give her at least a modicum of relief, she told him what had been driving her to treat herself so severely.

"After my first boyfriend Gary left me I pined for him for years without really admitting to myself that I was. It was only just before we met that I finally decided to get over him. I'll tell you all about how it happened when I'm feeling more energetic*. But because Gary is a dancer and because I was so scared by the idea of seeing him again if I became a ballerina, I gave up the chance of a career in ballet and became a lawyer instead. It probably sounds really stupid but I wanted to feel in my body the pain that a real dancer feels as a kind of atonement with myself for letting fear stop me doing what I most love doing. Even though I'm in agony I feel good because I've finally forgiven myself for that. And I may have made my choice for the wrong reason at the time, but I know I made the right choice, because now I have you."

He kissed her tenderly and hugged her aching body as gently as he could.

"Will you go back to ballet?" he asked her.

"No Darling. I'm way to old to begin again in the corps now and I'd need to be unbelievably fitter than I already am. I'm sticking with what I've got." She kissed him again.

"Anyway, how did it go today?" he smiled.

"Fantastic. If everyone I gave an envelope to gives ten pounds and everyone who made a pledge pays up I'll have made, let's see, fifty-seven thousand, four hundred and twenty pounds. I also got lots of wolf whistles and Howard Prentiss pledged a grand for touching my bum."

Steve was indignant. "Point him out to me at your next office do and I'll bloody deck him for you."

Lorna giggled. "Steady on Tiger. He's just a pathetic sleaze and isn't worth bruising your knuckles on."

"Will he pay up?" He had decided that he could probably put up with bruised nuckles.

"Yes. If only so he can brag about it down the pub to all the other penis brains."

She laughed as she collapsed back full length onto the sofa. She waved and patted her ballet-shoed feet, still resting on his lap, as if they were making a final desperate appeal for mercy from the remorseless oppression of her ballet shoes.

"Please get these bloody things off my feet right now, Darling. I'm begging you."

He would normally have stroked and caressed her feet and ankles through the smooth satin of her ballet shoes and ribbons for a good ten minutes before undoing them and taking them off her feet. But now he produced a needle from her sewing box and carefully unpicked the tiny stitches she had sewn through the knots in her ballet shoe ribbons to keep them from coming undone. Then with reverent gentleness he unwrapped the ribbons from her sore and swollen ankles. She cried with tears of relief as he lifted the elastic away from her insteps and carefully slid each shoe away from each bruised and heavily chastised foot and her feet were finally free from their satin iron grip. She remembered what a professional dancer friend had said about pointe shoes being the most exquisitely beautiful method of torture ever designed and made by a man for a woman. She picked up her ballet shoes and flung them across the room with as much force as she could summon from her exhausted frame.

"I'm never wearing bloody pointe shoes again for as long as I live."

"Does that mean you won't be pole dancing naked in your ballet shoes for charity next year?"

She returned his look of grinning mock disappointment with one of her steely smiles.

"Do you love my ballet shoes enough to want to discover what they taste like while I'm stuffing them down your throat, Steven!"

He just failed to stop his shoulders from shaking as he held up his hands in apology.

"Oh piss off!" She laughed and then wished she hadn't as a spasm of pain shot through her ribs.

Steve had learned the rudiments of Chinese massage over the years of his regular trips to Hong Kong to stay with his sister Linda. Lorna's laughter and groaning almost merged as he massaged her feet and sent soothing impulses through all the meridians running to all parts of her body. Then, after he had freed her aching and exhausted body from the confinement of her tutu and her throbbing legs from the grip of her tights, she sighed with relief mixed with pain as she lay face down on the sofa in just her little white pants as he massaged her legs, back and shoulders. He delighted in the beauty of her dark hair as he carefully unpinned and released it from the tight discipline of her ballet bun and combed his fingers through it to let it fan out free and glorious across her neck and shoulders.

She continued to lie on the sofa as he ran a warm bath with lots of soothing and reviving bath salts thrown in for them both. He came to her naked, delighting in the sight of the soft roundness of her perfect little breast nestling between the soft, pale undulation of her prone body and the sofa cushion that softly cupped it. Her eyes were full of love and gratitude for him as she smiled up to his approach. He gently slipped her pants off her and kissed both cheeks of her bare bottom, as she lay stretched out before him sighing with pleasure. He gathered her up into his arms and carried her to the bathroom, lowered her into the deliciously soothing water and got in next to her. He lovingly washed her all over with a soft sponge and they lay in each other's arms while the soft warm water lapping against her smooth shining skin began to ease away her pain.

Having already taken note of his erection swaying in the warm water as it buoyed up from between his legs, she kissed him and looked lovingly into his eyes.

"I really want you so much tonight My Darling, but I'm too exhausted to go all the way. Please can I just lie on top of you with you inside me for a while?"

He stroked her breast adoringly. "I'd cover myself in finest melted Belgian chocolate for you if you asked me to, Sweetheart."

He held her hand as she stepped unsteadily and stiffly out of the bath. She sighed with pleasure as he wrapped her in a huge soft warm fluffy towel that enfolded her from her shoulders to her ankles. He gathered her up again and carried her as easily and gently as if she were a kitten and laid her like a precious gift offering on the altar of their bed. She sighed and sometimes giggled weakly as she felt his gorgeous touch all over her through the folds of the towel as he dried her. Then she languidly stretched herself out as he unwrapped and removed the towel from her warm and softly pink nakedness. Although her muscles still felt very stiff she felt softly warmed through and through and she sleepily enjoyed the sensation as she raised her arms to rest her hands on the pillow either side of her head and relaxed her legs now slightly parted.

She sighed and moaned with mixed pain and relief as he massaged ointment into her sore feet and blistered toes. When he had finished he sat on the bed next to her, kissed her long and lovingly as he gently stroked her breasts, lay down beside her and gently pulled her on top of him.

She was still able to feel the deep thrill inside her as his erection slid into her and she began to massage him. She could still delight in the warmth and strength of his body beneath her as she lay stretched out on him, her arms drawn up by her sides so she could rest her slender and delicate hands on his chest either side of her head. Meanwhile he delighted in feeling her gentle feminine warmth pressing down on him and enfolding his manhood in the close embrace of her vagina while she gently pleasured herself on him. He was happy to let her have her way with him and made no attempt to assert himself. As he enfolded her slender lithe form within his arms and kissed the top of her head that rested just below his chin, he marvelled again, as he always did, at how a woman's body could be so like and yet so totally different at the same time to a man's. And he also wondered at how a body that looked as delicately, fragily, vulnerably beautiful as Lorna's could contain such a vast reservoir of strength and determination, moral and physical, as that which she possessed in abundance.

"Oh Darling, I'm soooh tired," she sighed.

"At least you can have a lie-in tomorrow as you're not going to pointe class anymore," he smiled.

"What are you talking about Darling," she whispered dreamily, "Of course I'm going to pointe class."

He smiled again. It would take something quite significant to keep Lorna away from ballet class. Like Death perhaps.

She had fallen asleep. Her eyelashes danced as she danced gossamer light in her dreams and her breath drifted feather like between her rosebud lips lightly parted. He continued to kiss the top of her head and stroke her hair, her spine and her bottom while he waited for his erection to subside. She didn't even stir when his penis finally slipped out from her vagina's warm velvet cradling. He eased over onto his side to lay her down next to him and held her close.

"Goodnight Ballet Girl," he whispered to her. Kissing her between her eyes as he always did last thing at night.

**********

Several weeks later the post arrived just as Lorna finished tying the laces of her white plimsolls as she got ready to leave for her Saturday morning pointe class. She patted up to the front door in her plimsolls and ankle socks and her black leotard, and white tights to pick up several envelopes, one of which was from Leukaemia Research UK. She beamed as she read it and handed it to Steve, who was half-dressed in his football kit, for him to read while she pulled on her sweatshirt and jogging bottoms. He flung his arms around her butterfly body.

"You made more than eighty-four thousand pounds; that's amazing Darling. I'm so proud of you."

"Then it was worth all the pain for that much gain," she smiled, "Oh what's this?"

Another envelope had fallen out. The Society had sent her a special thank you for her fundraising efforts. She couldn't stop giggling for a whole minute when she saw what they had sent.

Two tickets for The Sleeping Beauty at Covent Garden.

**********

That night she was massaging him furiously in the midst of her orgasm when she had an idea.

"I'll pole dance naked in my ballet shoes next year. Carole can get me into the papers and magazines and do photos for a calendar and I can do interviews on radio and TV and maybe I'll get on Jonathan Ross or Graham Norton and ....."

Having entertained the more exciting aspects of her proposal for a few seconds, he took a deep breath.

"Er, Darling...."

[The end]

* See "What the catalogue doesn't tell".