Truly Madly Guilty

'Just a minute,' called back Clementine. She looked at Tiffany. 'Are you a musician?'

'No, no, no.' Tiffany began stacking plates. 'I was a dancer.'

'She was a famous dancer,' said Vid.

'I wasn't famous,' said Tiffany, although she had been kind of famous in certain circles.

'Were you a famous limbo dancer?' asked Sam, with a glint in his eye.

'No, but there was sometimes a pole involved.' Tiffany glinted right back at him.

There was silence around the table. Vid beamed.

'Do you mean you were a pole dancer?' Clementine lowered her voice. 'Like a ... like a stripper?'

'Clementine, of course she wasn't a stripper,' said Erika.

'Well,' said Tiffany.

There was a pause.

'Oh,' said Erika. 'Sorry, I didn't mean -'

'You've certainly got the body for it,' said Clementine.

'Well,' said Tiffany again. This was where it got tricky. She couldn't say, Yeah, too right I do, girlfriend. You weren't allowed to be proud of your body. Women expected humility on this topic. 'When I was nineteen I did.'

'Did you enjoy it?' Sam asked Tiffany.

Clementine gave him a look. 'What?' Sam lifted his hands. 'I'm just asking if she enjoyed a previous occupation. That's a valid question.'

'I loved it,' said Tiffany. 'For the most part. It was like any job. Good parts and bad parts, but I mostly enjoyed it.'

'Good money?' continued Sam.

'Great money,' said Tiffany. 'That's why I did it. I was doing my degree, and I could earn so much more money doing that than being a check-out chick.'

'I was a check-out chick,' said Clementine. 'I didn't especially love it, by the way, if anyone is interested.'

'Such a pity. You would have made a wonderful stripper, darling,' said Sam.

'Thank you, sweetheart,' said Clementine evenly.

'You could have made your cello faces as you spun around the pole. That would have got you some good tips.' Sam threw back his head, closed his eyes and made his eyebrows go up and down, presumably in imitation of Clementine's face as she played the cello.

Clementine looked down at the table and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. Her whole body shook. Tiffany stared. Was she crying?

'She's laughing,' said Erika dismissively. 'You won't be able to get any sense out of her for the next few minutes.'

Oliver cleared this throat. 'I read an article recently about a move to make pole dancing an Olympic sport,' he said. 'Apparently it's very athletic. You need good core strength.'

Tiffany had to smile at the poor fellow doing his level best to manoeuvre the conversation back into safe middle-class dinner party conversation territory.

'Oh yes, Oliver, it's very athletic,' said Vid meaningfully, one eyebrow lifted, and Clementine dissolved again.

Tiffany thought how much simpler the world would be if everyone shared Vid's almost child-like approach to all things sexual. Vid liked sex in the same way he like classical music and blue cheese and fast cars. To him, it was all the same. The good stuff of life.

It was just naked pretty dancing girls in a club. What was the big deal?