FZ - CARMEL

Years later, I was called.

"Come back now, little bird. It is late."

My eyes started open, and I felt my body jerk a bit, because I was already sitting up! Disoriented is not the word for the confusion whirling through my mind. It took several seconds to sort of remember that I wasn't at home, I was... sitting in a booth at the Greek restaurant! Sofia, my dance teacher was there, holding my hand, and I was so happy to see her! I still didn't remember what was going on, why the hell I wasn't dancing... it was night-time! Where were the other students?

Uncle Tarky was puffing his cigarette at a table across the aisle. He barely glanced over at me, as I started to question Sofia: "...Uh... what...." and then our attention was called to the front door of the Acropolis, which opened to the winter night and admitted a man... a very young man... maybe one of the waiters? I didn't know his name, but his tight curly hair was quite tousled from the March wind. He rattled out a phrase or two, and I saw him toss a set of keys to Tarachis.

He backed out again, not before smiling right at me, with a 1000-watt grin that lit up his face and stretched a little moustache wide across his winter-flushed cheeks. His eyes glowed. I tried to think of something to say, tried to think of anything, but I still felt as if I'd missed a day of school, or something, and could only lift a hand before he'd backed away out into the dark.

What a beautiful hunk! I was thinking to myself suddenly. I was "between" boyfriends just then, and I felt an instant surge of lust that I thought was hidden, til I felt Sofia squeeze my hand.

Her voice tumbled my thoughts around further... I really couldn't go on this way... what time was it anyhow?... get a grip, Carmel! I lectured myself... but Sofia was asking me if I felt ready to go, because they were closing up for the night.

"...But, but..." I sputtered, "didn't we have a lesson to do... but no, it's after dark... hey, did I konk out, or faint or something?" I seemed to remember something about my leg, and I wriggled in my seat.

"You were a wonderful pupil this night, Carmel," came Sofia's response, "but you have had a little strain and I asked you to wait here til you felt better. Do you remember your cramp?"

"...Uh, my cramp, yeah, my leg cramp, and you... oh gee, thanks a lot, Sofia, I didn't mean for you to stay here... all of you to uh, stay here and..." but there was nothing concrete there to think about! Just the fact that I'd been hurt and Sofia had... had...

Her dark eyes crinkled in her face, and the creases round them stood out as her hand clasped mine. Her hands were warm and comforting. More than that, I thought in a flash, her hands are... magical!

"Soon we will talk, little bird, but George says that he was able to... to jump your little car, and it is working fine." She shot a phrase at Uncle Tarky, and he responded in kind. "You had left your lights on, and the battery is good again," Sofia said. "Tarachis has your keys. Stand up now, let's test your leg."

I instantly pushed sideways out of the booth, and gathered my coat together as I approached Tarachis. His hand was hard and bony as I retrieved my car keys from him. He didn't look up except to glance at me when I thanked him.

I was about to turn back to Sofia, when I heard her softly say to me: "Thank him again, and wait for him to acknowlege you, my dear. He is always a little impolite."

I was embarassed as hell... Tarky was at least thirty years older than I, for God's sake! but I found that I was reaching out for his hand again, reaching out and holding it. I was looking down onto that slightly yellowing head of gray hair, and I was saying,

"Thank you, Uncle Tarky. I hope I haven't been too much of a bother to you and... to George... thanks." And I stood quietly there, his hard hand in mine, and waited.

His lined face, still set in its customary gloom, turned up, after an eternity of waiting... why was I standing there like an idiot? why was he so still?... and he mumbled to me:

"It was nothing... we stay here very late, Miss."

And those are the first words I remember ever hearing from his gravelly throat in the year I had been coming to the Acropolis. His accent was much more pronounced than Sofia's... I had another mental flash - are they married? - and the moment ended.

"Very nice," she murmured. She was standing, too, holding my purse out to me. Her cheeks were a bit puffier-looking than I'd noticed before (not that I was ever a good "noticer"), and her lips were very full. Very full, rich lips, I found myself "flashing," and they moved, and her honeyed voice came again.

"Tarachis must realize that you are his guest too!" she said, "and that was a good way of having him acknowlege you. You are quiet, polite, but your voice and body tell the man that he is to respond..." she chuckled a bit. "... we will speak perhaps of authority, and... but these are things we will discuss later. Tell me, what about our George?"

"George?" Oh, yeah, the Young Hunk. "Uh... he's cute." Something told me I should not be too casual with Sofia. "Uh... he's got a beautiful face and his uh... his hair is, uh..." I strained to find something rational to say, something organized, but I felt as if I were thinking through a cloud. "Um, it's hard to uh... to... listen, tell me, didn't I faint or something?" I was now conscious of some other things too... my upper legs felt weak and wobbly, like I'd been climbing 40 or 50 flights of stairs! And...

"...And what, Carmel?" Her eyes looked steadily up at mine, and I lost my train of thought. I found myself wondering if I had spoken out loud about the stairs... Her eyes were deep, deep and brown. Restful eyes, I thought dimly, eyes to float in... to float in... deeper and deeper into those eyes. I felt lazy now, too lazy to speak, too much trouble to think of what to say... but the strong lips were parting, and words were coming out.

I was to speak. And so I spoke, and it was suddenly easy! "I felt turned on, Sofia." Deep into the eyes sank my answer. They glowed.

"You felt sexual arousal."

"Yes."

"You might wonder how to conquer that boy, how to make him yours."

Conquer! To have control! Those words tolled in me like a deep bell, heard through miles of hazy summer sky. My head nodded.

"To control men, of women, and have them want to do your bidding..."

"My bidding." It was all so right somehow! Control, I... "I want to control them." Yes.

"Yes, and to be controlled as well."

"Yes, miss..." sinking deep into the eyes.

"Now listen to this, Carmel." And the voice said something, something in a foreign tongue, a couple of words I still can't recall to this day, and I thought of Sofia's bosom. Her deep, soft, strong breasts, hanging so softly there, so appetizing, so luscious, tipped with something I needed, something I had to have, and beneath her eyes I saw, or rather felt, that my hands were cupping her heavy breasts tenderly, tenderly but with urgency, because all I could do was think about pulling her thick, rich nipples into my soft, soft mouth, pulling them in and caressing and sucking...

"May I kiss your breasts, Sofia?" my voice begged, small and girlish, and in a moment she had nodded, her eyes released me, and I sank onto a chair, and before me my fingers had unlaced her peasant bodice, and her rich olive mounds hung there, tipped with wide, flattened delicious nipples, and my tongue preceded my wanting mouth to circle, to circle and lap them, and then my eyes had closed and her hand moved my head about as I pulled now gently, now sharply, one then another, and I sank out of sight.

Years later, I was called.

"Come back now, little bird. It is late."

My eyes started open, and I felt my body jerk a bit, because I was already sitting up! Disoriented is not the word for the confusion whirling through my mind. It took several seconds to sort of remember that I wasn't at home, I was... sitting in a booth at the Greek restaurant! Sofia, my dance teacher was there, holding my hand, and I was so happy to see her! I still didn't remember what was going on, why the hell I wasn't dancing... it was night-time! Where were the other students?

"I had the most amazing dream! I mean, like wow!" I found myself saying, but I could quite remember it, but I was suddenly blushing, my face felt very hot.

"Your car is ready for you, my dear, go home and rest now."

Yeah, that's right, time to go... "OK, thanks for..." I paused, washed by a new wave of puzzlement. I felt that thing, that thing where you've been there before... what was it?

Sofia smiled. "Do not try to remember things now, little bird," she said, and I shook my head. Better not try now, no. "You will come again to class next week, and we will talk. George has parked your car outside. Have a good night's rest. Sleep deeply."

"OK, I am real tired!" I yawned, and left, with a wave to Uncle Tarky, who lifted a hand in response. THAT was new! I thought, as I climbed into the Beetle (it was running, and the heat was on! Luxury!)

I managed the few miles home, althought the yawns kept coming, and as I picked my careful way up the un-shoveled sidewalk to my apartment, I didn't even wonder at the weight tugging my eyelids down.

I didn't wonder, as I just brushed teeth and washed my face, at the pleasant aches in my thighs, the little twinges coming now noticeably from between my legs, the twinges that wanted me to attend to them, to tickle and rub them until they burst, but the eyes were drooping, and I barely got a fingertip down inside my panties before I felt sleep settle over me almost like a thick, soft blanket.

I was soon helped to to recall all those events by Sofia, and I've tried to finally write them now realistically. Of course after twenty years, I'm inventing actual dialogue, but it's all pretty much as it happened.

Next week, I was both eager and strangely reluctant to go to belly-dancing class. I almost didn't show up, though; I didn't know why, I really had not a single waking memory of any of that sexual stuff. I told myself first that I could skip a week or so, I'd just practice the new routine, but then...

Well, you all can figure out that I went! Besides the unconscious excitement I must have been feeling, Sofia HAD given me the "suggestion," hadn't she? "You will come again next week..."

And here I was, entering the Acropolis, winding my way back through the tables and chairs, saying "hi" to the other girls there...

...and, of course, to Sofia, who was sipping coffee and munching on a small plate of olives and cheese, and chatting to three men standing near the kitchen entrance.

"Ah, little bird!" came her enthusiastic greeting, "we are all here at last! How is your auto... your 'beetle?'"

I didn't know why my heart was pounding so loudly as I looked into her glance, and felt myself shiver... in a nice way, but shit, I felt so wierd!

"Uh, it's fine, I guess." I shook myself mentally once or twice. "Yeah, I've left my lights on a few times, and it's always at the... the worst times... but..."

I couldn't figure where I was going with the conversation all of a sudden, I had a flash that maybe I'd gotten drunk or something, because there was a haze of confusion over last week in my mind, plus I was looking towards the three males who had invaded our weekly lessons.

One was a waiter, George, I think I knew, although I didn't know HOW I knew, and boy, was he a dish! He had that little boy's moustache, and his head was packed with the tightest curls, like a glossy black topiary. His eyes had a real flash, as if he knew about the effect his generous lips and small dimple in one cheek had on women. He looked just... edible... to me, and I whirled through several little internal visions, featuring myself looking upwards at that face, and feeling his weight settling down gently... but not too gently!... down onto my body... mmmm.

"Of course, you remember George?" Sofia reminded me needlessly, and I nodded, thinking I was concealing all these lustful thoughts pretty well. "He helped you with your car last week."

"Oh, yeah," I said, trying to remember the details, and faking it til I could! "Thanks alot, George," I smiled. He could be naked, on some hillside in the sun, his lean buttocks flashing as I pursued him, tickling those pumping thighs with a thin little stick maybe, making him squeal and laugh as I caught him, bore him down onto the ground, and pulled aside my...

"... Antonio, and this is a new boy here, Robin. He has been helping in the kitchen, and Gregor says he has a very deft hand with pastries and sauces as well."

Boy, I'd been into that daydream so thoroughly that Sofia's next introductions almost went right past me! I turned a little away from that curly-haired source of heat, and found myself looking at two men... not boys at all. Antonio was shy, very slightly plump with a long face and a bit of a grumbly expression that seemed to pull the corners of his black eyes down a bit. He smiled though, and I didn't feel that he was in a bad mood, he just had one of those faces. His dark hair was pulled back into a tail, and he had very broad shoulders, I remember.

But mostly I remember George, and now Robin as well. Looking in Robin's eyes was like looking into the Carribean Sea... turquoise with grey and green flecks, and a bit of brown I think, set in a sort of flattened but quite nice face really. His ears were smallish, and pulled against his head so that his light-brown hair nearly concealed them. His nose was a bit pug, and his mouth seemed slightly slanted. He had gorgeous teeth that helped his smile light him up like a candle as he responded to Sofia's compliment.

"Thanks," he said to her, and to me, "Hey, how're ya doin?" Back to Sofia again, "Things are going pretty well, I think, everybody seems to get along. I haven't worked a big rush yet, but it's a nice big kitchen..."

Sofia sort of waved me over to the other students as she chatted to Robin. I turned away from the group, and found our two housewives giggling as they wiggled at each other in some conversation or other. I did a few typical stretching things, and then we were "called to order."

"Tonight," began our teacher, "we shall dance for an audience." We murmured self-consciously and looked at each other. "No paying customers yet!" she added with a small snort. "No, we have three or four men who have graciously agreed to watch you all perform. It is important that you dance FOR someone, I'm sure you agree!"

The murmurs around me told me that some of us WEREN'T all that sure! but, for me, I felt almost instantly alert and aware, in on slidy, tingly moment, that I would feel a man's eyes on my body. The rush was like some mild uppers or something that I'd experimented with a few years earlier.

My face felt hot. Very hot, and flushed. When I looked up, Sofia was eyeing my reaction. Her own gaze was confident and comforting, I felt. I think I had begun to revisit my trance from last week, without, of course, realizing or remembering anything about it... I held her eyes with my own until she gave a slight nod and turned to the class.

Well, the class was definitely mixed. We were NOT accustomed to having to perform a routine start-to-finish. We'd NOT been pushed to remember every sequence correctly, to keep our awareness OUTWARD to the audience... to play to the eyes staring dispassionately up at us from the tables round the platform.

And for the most part, they WERE dispassionate. It felt as if I was gyrating before statues, or an oil painting, a painting titled "Amateur Night at the Greek Restaurant!" Sofia and the men just sat there, no claps, no smiles (but no frowns either, to be fair), and I think very little real interest in us. One or two of the other women nearly were in tears, as they had been "dropped into the deep end" so unexpectedly, and their psyches were not really into this command performance thing.

I, ever the exhibitionist, had few of their mental lapses, and yet, to see the eyes out there just... looking... I could read nothing in them at all! They didn't slide like those of the High School or college guys, round and round my torso, ogling the cheerleaders' thighs and tits with sweaty adolescent lust! But I did TRY to "capture" them, wriggling and swaying myself round, beckoning with slow arms, but all in all I felt disappointed when my music stopped. Kind of pissed off that these people, and SOFIA, for God's sake, couldn't even PRETEND an interest.

I toweled off and watched the others in my class stumble around. Only Zephyr had no trouble at all with self-consciousness. I'll tell you a LOT more about Zephyr in a bit. But even she didn't seem to raise anyone's temperature, either.

Finally we had all finished, and Sofia spoke to the men. George and Robin waved at us, finally smiling! and donned their coats to depart. Antonio headed back into the kitchen. We were silent and subdued.

"Why the sad faces?" Sofia asked us. No one answered. Then Zephyr spoke up.

"Well, you just sprung it on everyone, and no one else here dances for a living."

Marjorie, one of the "housewives," chimed in. "I... I didn't ever think I'd be a performer, Sofia!" She wasn't whining, though, and Sofia treated her comment respectfully.

She explained that to understand this popular art form as much as possible, the dancer should always be "on stage," at least internally. "You learn these movements even if you never show them to others," she continued, in her slightly accented contralto. "You weren't awful tonight as your faces say you were! But all of you would benefit to think outside yourselves more.

"I will continue now, I always have with other students, to bring you in front of men. This is an art for men to watch, as you know very well. You will become accustomed to dancing for others. We will not spend all our time this way, but take this week to think about... not how you felt tonight, but how you WILL feel when your husband, or boy-friend or someone else will enjoy your expert dance, should you choose to perform. And when you're used to the eyes, many of you will enjoy them... good night now."

But she turned my way. "Carmel... and you, Zephyr, wait, please." And, as she went around to the other women, patting arms, and making reassuring noises to her clucking flock, Zephyr and I exchanged glances. Mine was puzzled, and I couldn't read hers.

Zephyr was a curvaceous, tall, sultry woman four years older than I, with a lot of Afro in her ancestry, who had been a go-go dancer for a few years now. That explained her ease in dancing for men, to be sure!

There was no nonsense in Zephyr. She had joined Sofia's dance circle about three months before I had my "initiation" I spoke of, and we had communicated very little, except to talk about the "moves," as she called them. She was truly interested in dance, but had little or no real dance training. Often, while the rest of us were giggling during a rest break, or swilling the lemonade that Sofia provided, Zephyr could be seen still on stage, either practicing or trying moves that looked a bit like belly-dancing, a bit like slow go-go, sometimes a little like karate! Her long, long legs flashed and straightened and kicked with an intimidating perfection.

"I'm just showing off," she told a couple of us who tried to get friendly one evening. "I don't know shit, but I've never had a nice quiet place to just move around and try stuff." Her voice was quite husky, and there was some Southern in there, behind her large generous-looking mouth.

Zephyr could take men or leave them, was my uninformed "take" on her. But when she had danced for them, she had been smiling out to them, even when they hadn't responded. I told her she had the edge on the rest of us, even me, and she snorted.

"Men who watch tits are babies," she said wryly. "That is, unless I want 'em to watch!" She didn't say more, but I felt about seven years old in the face of such jaded experience. But all was not as it seemed with Zephyr!

While Tarachis turned off most of the lights, Sofia reemerged from the kitchen. She was dressed now in a long robe, and wore a headress, a sort of tiara, with braided fabric headband studded with pale round stones. There was silk-like material flowing down the back of her neck, and her ears were covered as well. A wide chin strap gave her the look of some sort of harem girl, only her eyes and slightly beaked nose clearly visible.

"So," she began briskly, coming up to us, "you have not changed. That is good. I wish to show you both some special things. I spoke with you sometime about these things, and you both will enjoy it, I think."

Zephyr was silent, but I was almost ready to mention that I had a job interview the next morning. Something prevented me from protesting, though. I did ask, sort of jokingly, if this would cost more.

"Ahhh, that is good!" Sofia twinkled, her eyes deep as she faced me more squarely. "You may appear a little twittering bird, but you think like a woman with sense!" She chuckled. "No, I offer you these ideas as I have one or two times before, to students who... who may think about things as I do... I will take in return, but not money, how do you like that? Zephyr, now show me the side and back steps, with again your hands behind your waist."

My fellow-student still had not spoken, but remained almost motionless, but now, off came her coat and she stepped out of her shoes. Her deeply-tinted flesh gleamed in the spotlights, and I heard the cassette as Uncle Tarky pushed a button. Subdued but shrill piping and drumming filled the restaurant once again.

Zephyr began a routine that I had only recently started, a complicated shuffle with the upper body remaining very smooth and silky for a while, until her hipbones quivered and circled once, twice and again. Her long thin arms came into view where I stood behind her. Her hands gripped each other just in the small of her back.. With each side step and reatreat, her torso bent slightly forward at the waist, and her gauzy tunic flared out from her slightly protruding bottom. Always her head remained pointed directly at Sofia, who watched her every move.

"Repeat," she ordered once, and immediately Zephyr halted, moved back across the stage and began the sequences again. "Observe her lower legs now, Carmel," the teacher cautioned me, "see how smooth the calves flow. Her body knows exactly what to do long before she does it, but Zephyr, you must have more longing."

I began aping portions of Zephyr's motions, but Sofia paid me no attention. Her gaze was fixed on Zephyr's face, hidden from me by our positions. Zephyr bent a bit more deeply, and her head circled around gently as her shoulders swayed before the instructor.

"Once again, Zephyr, that is much better," came the low voice, and again the girl stopped almost instantly, and now as she returned to the starting position, she glided there instead of breaking the mood. "Yes," breathed Sofia, "you want me, and you wish to make me desire you. Only you, you wish me to desire your body."

The torso flexed and swayed, the feet shuffled and slid forward and back, the hands always clasped behind.

"Now your hands, Zephyr," I heard, very faintly, but my companion immediately loosed her grip and the arms bobbed and glided to the front, rising and falling, opening and beckoning in a series that I knew already. The hips seemed free and loose, but I could see that Zephyr was utilizing much control to keep the motions so smooth... so smooth, like dark golden honey was her skin under the lights, under the music.

"Carmel, you must remember these steps and many others, do you see?"

But Sofia's face never left Zephyr's, so I said "Yeah, I think I see, but is she, like rotating first..."

"Later, little bird," came the instruction, so I just watched. Zephyr had been working for about ten minutes now, and Sofia merely had to gesture towards her, and she would repeat a small or large sequence without "breaking the mood."

"Very good," encouraged the older woman, then finally gestured to Tarachis, who stopped the music. Zephyr paused, then slowly lowered her arms, finally. She stood, flat-footed now, still turned towards Sofia, but I saw her magnificent torso stretch, and those large strong buttocks flexed and curved as she relieved herself from the control of the dance. Then she just stood there.

I was feeling strange now, a little strange, maybe like this was a story or something, but I'd expected Zephyr to turn, or walk off stage, but there she stood, just... standing. I walked up on stage, and came round her.

Her chin was lifted and her neck proud and straight, but her eyes seemed fixed and dreamy or something. "Zephyr," I started, and her head turned a bit, then she seemed suddenly to wake up internally, and our eyes made contact, then just as suddenly, her head snapped back towards Sofia.

"Oh, ahh..." she said, and her voice was gentle and higher-pitched, she actually had a nervous expression, "...ahh, should I... should..."

"All right, Zephyr," answered Sofia cryptically, "I did not summon you... yet."

The dancer turned back towards me, her shoulders slumping a bit finally, and she walked right past me, my hand sliding ineffectually off her arm as she went towards her coat again.

"Not yet, my dear," came Sofia's voice, and Zephyr halted with her back again to us. "Wait and rest a few moments, and then it will be time for Antonio."

Zephyr walked over to a table and sat down. She made no move toward her coat, but sipped from a glass of water, then leaned forward and, placing her curly black hair down on her forearms, seemed to deflate onto the table as if she were taking a nap in school!