A couple of days later I stopped off after work at the dance studio where Katie took her lessons. I hadn't been there in almost two years, ever since Katie asked Elaine and me to stop coming to her lessons and recitals. We had respected our daughter's privacy, and so my contact with the dance instructor, Madame Therese, had dwindled to little more than sending her regular tuition checks along with an occasional phone call to see how Katie was doing.
When I neared the instructor's business office, I could hear grunting and rustling from the other side of the door. It didn't take a lot of imagination to figure out what was going on inside.
"Oh, fuck! You . . ." came a muffled exclamation. A man, it seemed.
It was followed by a woman's voice saying, "Yes! Give it to . . .!" Then came more rustling, and a small clatter as something apparently was knocked to the floor. Then more muffled grunting and exclamations.
It was none of my business who Madame Therese had sex with, and it certainly wasn't exciting to listen at the door to whatever they were doing. So I spent the next ten minutes in the waiting room idly perusing months-old dance magazines. Every once in a while I got up to stretch my legs and wandered around the room looking at pictures of young girls in group portraits, the same sort of pictures that one sees for youth soccer teams and the like. Then I strolled back to the plastic chair and looked through some old American Dance Today magazines.
After about fifteen minutes the clattering and half-heard swearing and grunting died down. The door opened and a man dressed in a business suit came out, casually tightening the knot on his tie while trying to balance his computer case under his arm. When he saw me sitting in the waiting room with a magazine on my lap, he did a quick double-take of surprise, but then looked directly at me, smirking and shrugging at the same time in an "aw shucks, ya caught me" gesture. He clearly was not very embarrassed. He waved a silent goodbye to me as he walked toward the glass door that fronted on the street.
I waited a few seconds for propriety's sake, then walked up to the half-open door and knocked on the door jamb to announce my presence. Madame Therese was on her knees with her back to me, in the midst of picking up some stuff that had fallen off her desk. From behind I could see an extremely attractive, perfectly toned ass clad in a form-fitting body stocking that stretched from her waist to her upper calves. There was not so much as a gram of cellulite on her ass and thighs. She turned and looked up at me in surprise.
"Oh!" she said. "Katie's father! I wasn't expecting you."
"I should have called before coming."
"I'm sorry that you had to come in and see . . ." She hurriedly tied her hair back and knotted it in a bun on the back of her head. The few stray hairs that she missed hung loose in testament to her being flustered by my arrival. The just-fucked look that resulted looked fantastic on her long, slim graceful dancer's frame.
I held up open palms to her. "No apology is necessary. We're all adults here. How you spend your free time is your affair. I'm the one who should apologize for arriving unannounced."
"Thanks. I appreciate your attitude. What can I do for you?" She gestured toward the couch.
I sat down. "Well, it's about Katie. My wife and I have been working with her about her shyness and becoming more outgoing. In the past, we've had an understanding with you that she didn't like to be part of your recitals, but I was thinking maybe we could change that. I'd like for her to perform in public again."
The dance instructor frowned. "I wish you'd come to me a month ago," she said. "We've giving a recital next week, but we're too far into rehearsals for Katie to take even a small part and be ready in time for the performance."
She walked around her desk so that she stood facing me and leaned backward, propping her ass casually against the desk while she continued, "I'd love to see Katie take a more active role in the class. She's a superb dancer. And I'm glad to hear that you and your wife are making progress in bringing her out of her shell. But I want any increased participation on her part to be a success β I'd hate for her to enter rehearsals at the last minute, then be even more self-conscious because of lack of preparation the day of the performance."
"I understand," I said. "You're making a good point. Maybe next time." I started to get up to leave.
"Wait a minute," Therese said. "Your coming a few minutes ago at such a . . . revealing . . . moment brings up another issue." She made a show of bringing delicate fingers up to her hair to tuck the loose strands behind her ear, then she brought her index finger down the middle of her chest. The effect was that she drew my attention to her breasts. "There's an advanced class that some of my older girls attend. It's only open to the best dancers, and I only admit girls who are eighteen and over."
"Eighteen and over?" I asked, mystified. I wondered what age would have to do with dance skills.
"Well, as you said, 'We're all adults here.' This is a special class for my adult students, and it involves adult activities. The parents play a part in the instruction." Therese let one hand rest casually on her own crotch as if by accident, while the other hand scratched at an itch just below one of her breasts.