Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs Read Free

… move that fucking thing.’
    I pushed the inkstand to one side and leaned back across the desk. He took hold of my ankles and lifted my legs so that I could hook my feet behind his head. A small, hard object on the blotter pressed into my spine. Probably the emblematic penknife. Was it true that all critics were open to threat and bribery? I had no way of knowing. Surely Mr Lubikoff had as much influence? If not more? But then he might decide that an all-out war with Sebastian did not suit him. Despite the fact that competition, individually and collectively, was fierce – ruthless would be more accurate – a pretence was maintained by all parties that we were above petty rivalries, that the only thing that mattered was the great art of which we were the humble exponents. It was all art for art’s sake.
    Everything depended on how badly Mr Lubikoff wanted me to dance for him. It might be that he had a partner in mind for me. As with candlesticks, ornaments, occasional tables and so on, a pair was worth more than the sum of its parts. Karsavina and Nijinsky, Fonteyn and Nureyev, Sibley and Dowell, couples who struck sparks from each other’s dancing as well as looking good together filled theatres faster than anything. But Mr Lubikoff would not show his hand immediately. For the time being I could not afford to do anything that would make Sebastian my enemy. In my perplexity I almost folded my hands behind my head, the position I generally adopt for seriousthinking, but a loud hiss from Sebastian, like a train building up a head of steam before pulling out from the station, prompted me to sigh and look swooningly at his face, now in the grimace of imminent orgasm, the silver lock of hair falling forward across his high bony forehead.
    ‘Be … good … and … you can … dance with … Freddy!’ Each word was accompanied by a powerful thrust that made the boiler blow.
    As he leaned, panting, over me, mission accomplished, I added Freddy to the equation. Frederick Tone, LBC’s premier danseur , and Mariana Willoughby, both dancing at this moment with the touring part of the LBC in America, had failed to become one of those desirable partnerships. No one could say why, it was just one of those things. Freddy had a virtuosic technique with unequalled elevations. Also he had a perfect physique and was breathtakingly handsome. Poor Alex, with whom I usually danced, had no neck, narrow shoulders, a rugby-ball-shaped head and tiny pink-rimmed eyes like a French bull terrier. And although he was technically first class, he never seemed to catch fire, at least not with me. Alex was a nice boy and I was fond of him, but niceness is irrelevant in a partnership – which was lucky because Freddy was an absolute shit.
    Sebastian was already adjusting his clothing. I got back into mine with a feeling of relief that had nothing to do with the act of coitus. Though dancers are usually tremendously sexy, perhaps as an extension of the intense physicality of their lives, and will couple with more or less anyone and anything, I personally could not see what the fuss was about.
    I had lost my virginity at the age of seventeen to a sixty-year-old dramaturge who had been working with Orlando Silverbridge on a revival of Frontispiece , an eccentric ballet which combined dancing and verse. It had been my first professional engagement in the corps. The dramaturge had seemed very old to me then, almost geriatric. He was well connected, a chum of royalty, with a long and distinguished career behind him, andwas feted by everyone worth knowing in the arts. He had a bald head but, as if to make up for it, furry ears and a mass of curly grey hair growing over a stomach distended by good living. I made myself go through what was a ghastly experience by reminding myself of his promise to get Orlando, with whom the dramaturge was having an affair at the time, to kick me out of the corps if I didn’t cooperate. I knew he could because Orlando was