Madame B - Ecstasy

I threw myself into all that London had to offer, burning the candle at both ends. I spent as much time dancing in clubs at night as I did training at the barre during the day. This was no time to be shy. Within a couple of months, every club promoter and doorman in the West End knew my name and face: sixties-style long, blond haircut, with a blunt fringe across eyes loaded with eyeliner. My trademark look. In the dark of the nightclub, I stood out, a ghost under the spotlights. My newfound friends from the academy and I could turn an empty dance floor into a hot spot heaving with bodies within a three-minute house track. We had free entry into any underground club we wanted and never paid for drinks. Not that we drank much; as dancers, we had to keep our bodies in shape.

If you think my nocturnal existence was seedy, you couldn't be more wrong. If anything, those early months in the big smoke were very innocent. For me, clubbing was never about sex, it was always about the music. More often than not, the best dancers are gay, and any bump-and-grind was simply a vehicle for showing off our skills rather than for sexual gratification. I looked confident on the dance floor, but the way I swung my hips to music disguised a surprising lack of sexual experience. I'd always put dancing before boyfriends and at eighteen had yet to lose my virginity. And I was in no hurry. I was too busy falling in love with life to think about sex. The people I met in clubs were not just dancers but writers, filmmakers, artists of every kind. Most of them had been in London for years, and when I wasn't dancing I was listening to their stories of the city before my time, of other places they'd visited, wild parties they'd thrown. I soaked up their stories like a sponge and they loved having such an eager audience.

One night I caught the attention of an edgy-looking guy at a jazz club in some grimy East End basement. Unshaven, with jet-black eyes and a wild tangle of black hair, he was as dark as I was blond, and for some unex plainable reason I wanted to run my fingers through that mop, but I didn't. He was tall and skinny and wore tight-fitting black clothes that hinted at a wiry body underneath. He stood like a dancer: erect, composed, elegant. He walked up to me and introduced himself as David.

"I'm an artist," he said. "I'm looking for a muse. Would you like to be my muse?" No small talk, just the bare bones. His directness was disarming. "There's a party on at my house. Want to come?" Though totally out of character for me, it didn't even cross my mind not to go with him.

"Sure," I said. "The night's still young, and you can't really dance to jazz, anyway. Let's get out of here." And I followed him out of the basement, up a staircase, and into the night.

On the street, David turned to me. He had to bend right down to talk to me, so close I could smell his breath, sweet and salty on the cold night air. He looked younger than he had in the club: early twenties, maybe.

"What's your name?" he said.

"Charlie," I told him.

"Well, Charlie-girl," he said, giving me a sexy snaggletoothed smile that made my stomach flip over, "let me introduce you to my friends."

He lived in a building unlike anything I'd ever seen. Huge and drafty, it looked more like an abandoned warehouse than an apartment complex. We got to his floor via four flights of a rickety fire escape to a balcony that looked out across the twinkling London skyline.

"What kind of artist are you to be able to afford a place like this?" I asked and immediately regretted it, thinking how uncool and gauche I must have sounded.

David threw back his head and laughed, revealing a seductive crooked smile. His tongue darted between his lips like a lizard's. Looking at his mouth made me blush. I felt the telltale pink patches appear on my otherwise porcelain skin, and felt a vague, unfamiliar stirring between my legs.

"Oh," he said, "you'll find out about my art soon enough."

He turned his key in the lock, opened the door, and led me into another world. The place was vast. There was no other word for it. You could easily have fit my parents' suburban bungalow inside it three times over. It was a high-ceilinged loft space with whitewashed brick walls and almost no furnishings other than a stainless-steel kitchen, huge pillows, and a few battered old armchairs scattered about the place. But the walls! The walls were covered in fantastic, multicolored images on huge white canvases, twenty feet square. The paintings consisted of bold swirls of paint that seemed to writhe and whirl in front of my eyes in tangled, curved, and sensual shapes.

"This is your work?" I asked David.

"It's our work," he said and gestured to the dozen or so people who lay draped on the armchairs. I smiled shyly at the exotic creatures: a man in a harlequin suit, a stunning Latina wearing only a pair of panties, two women in men's suits, a black man clad in head-to-toe leather. There were also a few guys and girls wearing regular clothes. "These are my collaborators. This is The Collective," he said, with a sweep of the arm that took all of them in at once.

"And this," he said, placing his hands on my shoulders and steering me to face his friends, "is Charlie-girl, my beautiful ingenue. She dances like an angel." His flattering words made me nervous, but I could hardly hear him over the roar of my heartbeat, blood closer to the surface of my skin than ever before. It was the first time he touched me, and even though it was only his hands on my clothed shoulders, I felt that I had suddenly been brought to life. I used my body to dance, all day every day, I thought, but I'd never been so aware of it as I was right then.

"Hi," I said, suddenly dumbstruck in the presence of all these stylish people.

"Let me get you a drink," said David, and then, sensing that I was a little overwhelmed, with a tender glance, he added, "It's okay. They're cool."

I stayed up all night listening to their stories but reluctant to share any of my own, such as they were. Everyone had had so much life experience that I couldn't compete. Katya, the woman in the masculine suit, made everyone laugh with tales of a sex club she'd been to in her native Ukraine. Jem, the camp and witty guy in the harlequin suit had a barbed comment for all those who took themselves too seriously. Rosario, the silent Latina wearing only underwear, seemed to be doubling up as a pillow for anyone who needed a soft place to rest. At one point I saw Jem, who was nearly asleep, lay his head on her breasts. Even my dance friends would have found this a little weird, but I tried not to bat an eyelid as I didn't want to blow my cool. These confident, creative people were the kind I'd always dreamed I'd hang out with-the whole point of my coming to London. If only I could think of something to say that would make them want to invite me back. I felt very young and inexperienced among these accomplished people.

But things changed when someone walked over to the stereo and selected a CD. David had a great music system, with hidden speakers that flooded the airy loft with stadium-quality sound. It was house music with a strong beat and rushing sweeps of melody, the kind that just compels dancers to move, instructs us, takes us over. At last, I didn't have to talk. I had finally found a language I could understand, communicate in. Without thinking, I got up and started to sway. The song built to a crescendo, and I surrendered to it, throwing shapes and grinding my hips, eyes closed, feeling nothing but the music.

When I opened my eyes, everyone had fallen silent. All eyes were on me. I was used to this attention when I danced. Suddenly confident, I sashayed over to Jem and offered him my hand, inviting him to accompany me on the impromptu dance floor. Once he was up, everyone joined in. All except David, who looked at me with a totally new expression: hungry, almost wolflike. Again, my body was in a state of alertness that was alien to me. I danced for David's benefit, but he didn't join me, and I hadn't the nerve to ask him.