I don't hang out with my girlfriends on Tuesday nights. I don't date or work late. I don't meet my boyfriend, when I have one. Because Tuesday nights are when
she
teaches ballet.
There's a community centre that backs onto the same courtyard as my flat. The window, only a few feet away from my box room, covers almost the entire wall, from ceiling to floor. There's a theatre group that rehearses, and there are art classes, and exercises for the elderly -- ironic, because it's three floors up with no lift.
And on Tuesday nights
she
teaches a ballet class for grown-ups.
I've always been very careful not to let anyone know I use the room. I never have any lights on. The window is coated in black-out foil. There are tiny holes in the material that I can peer through that give me a complete view of the room opposite.
I watch her moving around in her leotard, hair in a tight bun, arms bare, legs covered by her tights. Her back is straight, her arse is round and firm. Her legs are toned. Her breasts are larger than most ballet dancers, I think, even squeezed into the tight material. Sometimes her nipples poke against it.
The hard fluorescent light reveals every detail. The stray hair that escapes from her bun. The droplet of sweat on her forehead at the end of her class. The contours of her muscles in leg, arm, neck.
I watch her, and I become moist.
I want to be one of her students, want her to tell me what to do, want to feel her hands glide along my back or my arms or my legs to correct my stance. I want to feel her close to me, breathe her scent, hear her voice in my ear. I want to feel the caress of her breath on my skin.
Every Tuesday I watch her, and I imagine being there with her, and I tease my slit for the two hours that her class lasts. Then I bring myself to the boil while she prepares to leave, and time my climax to hit as she turns off the light. Her muscled arse is the last I see of her.
Until next Tuesday,
I always tell it silently.
It's not something I'm particularly proud of. I've never told anyone. It's just my little secret. My private moment of pleasure that no-one needs to know about, and that no-one will take away from me.
On this particular Tuesday... On this particular Tuesday, something was different. She arrived at her usual time, dressed in her usual baggy shorts and T-shirt. I was waiting by my window, as usual, naked beneath my dressing gown. I like my hands to have free access.
She had her usual large bag and portable speaker, which she placed against the wall. Then she stripped off, revealing her cream leotard. No tights today.
It was sweltering. One of those summer nights when the air feels thick, like you're trying to breathe through a silk sheet. Its warmth strokes every inch of exposed skin, teasing out the occasional drop of sweat to crawl lazily along your neck or your leg. I already felt a trickle run across my back, and shrugged out of the dressing gown.
She was feeling the heat too. I saw her draw in a deep breath, sending her chest swelling up, then she moved in my direction and opened the windows. A thrill ran through me. I loved hearing her voice, listening to the instructions she gave her class. It made me feel even closer to her, as if I could almost touch her despite the wall of glass and blackness between us.
She leaned forward into the enclosed space between our buildings and took another deep breath. Her breasts surged towards me, and as she breathed out her cleavage became more pronounced above her leotard.
The door opened, and I expected to see the usual collection of twenty- and thirty-somethings who signed up for her class. Boring, bland ballet wannabes, basking in her presence for a few hours.
But today was different. Two young men glided into the room, so identical that they could only have been twins. Dark ringlets framed slim, pale faces. Dark eyebrows stood guard over dark eyes, separated by hooked noses. Thin lips parted simultaneously in wide grins at the sight of her.
They were dressed identically in baggy sweats and tight white T-shirts. The only difference I could see was that one had a leather band around his wrist, and the other an abstract tattoo on his forearm.
She turned to greet them. They had rucksacks with them, which they flung into the corner next to her bag. Handshakes, some talking. They all kicked off their shoes until they were barefoot. A few dance moves, questions, demonstrations.
I recalled reading an item on the local news website about a ballet troupe visiting from Talinn, including a pair of twenty-year-old brothers who were the talk of the scene. These boys must be them.
She took her phone from her bag and fiddled with the speaker. A moment later strains of classical music came drifting across the thick air, and the boys pulled down their sweats to reveal black cycling shorts. They sprang onto their toes and began to move. She watched for a moment, then joined in.
It was clear that the boys were used to dancing together. They moved around the floor with grace and coordination, spinning and leaping, stretching, kneeling, rising.
She danced in between, gradually matching their rhythm. It was like watching three leaves in the wind, each following its own motion but all bound together.
Then they stopped, and she went to her phone again. One of the boys said something, I heard laughter, and the music changed. Loud, upbeat, Latin. Sexy.
The dancing became sexy too. The three of them seemed to stalk each other, she and the two boys. Slow and sensual, bodies close but never quite touching.
I'd never seen her move like this. Before, teaching her class, it had always been the stylised, sterile ballet. Rehearsed, formal. This was primal. This was hot.