the wings, she could see Jerome much more clearly than the audience, the
bright spotlights directly on him, and his skin looked like slippery, coffee-coloured oiled silk. She imagined running her hand over those buttocks, confirming for herself how velvety the skin was,
stretched over those long, lean muscles like plump upholstery; her nipples perked at the thought, her lower body jerking involuntarily, a little dampness softening the thong between her legs.
Great, she thought. Take all this and use it in your act. Get as turned on as you can watching Jerome, and then slide down that pole pretending it’s his big black cock . . . the audience
always knows when you’re feeling the sex yourself, not just going through the motions . . .
She giggled under her breath, watching Jerome, who had now lifted his legs again into a handstand, and was raising one hand off the floor, tilting his body a little sideways to balance on one
palm while he ran the other one up his torso, caressing himself, flicking his fingers under the edge of his jockstrap, teasing the now-screaming spectators with a reveal.
‘Evie!’ Natalie hissed. ‘You need to get up to the gantry!’
Evie snapped out of the sexual trance into which she had fallen, just another member of the audience dying to see the contents of Jerome’s posing pouch, and scrabbled over to climb the
ladder at the back of the stage. Her act entailed her descending slowly down a pole, evoking a mermaid swimming down into the depths of the sea; it was more upper-body work than she had ever done
before, because she was wearing the elaborately-painted Neoprene tail she had spent the last few weeks sewing and decorating. She couldn’t hold onto the pole at all with her lower body when
the tail was on; everything was done with her arms and back, and if they couldn’t hold her, she’d crash to the ground and smash her face onto the stage. The sheer magnitude of the task
she’d set herself was overwhelming, and as she sat down on the gantry and pulled on the tail, fastening it around her waist with the quick-snap Velcro ties she and Natalie had devised, a
quick cold rush of pure fear ran through her at the prospect of what she was about to do.
Not just that – I have to make it look as easy as anything. As if I’m swimming without a care in the world . . .
Jerome had, like the character in the PG Wodehouse novel, formed himself into a hoop once more and rolled away to tumultuous applause; the stage lights dimmed as two techs ran on to fix
Evie’s pole to the centre of the stage, one below, one on the gantry with her, screwing it into the floor and ceiling, testing it by pulling on it with all their weight before they let go and
gave her the thumbs-up that it was safe to commit herself to it. Heart pounding, she wriggled along the gantry, rubbed her palms into the tray of resin there for maximum grip, and took hold of the
pole.
‘Hey! Baby girl!’
With a shock she looked down, over the edge of the walkway; Jerome was standing there, so tall she didn’t have that far to stare. His teeth gleamed in the darkness as he whispered:
‘Break a leg, okay?’
‘Thank you!’ she hissed gratefully. He was sweaty from his act, his skin glistening even in the dark, and the luscious scent of his body hung around him, mixing with the sweetness of
the baby oil. It was as intoxicating as the scent of rich earth after rain, fresh and ripe, and it made every nerve in Evie’s body tingle.
Jerome’s head ducked as he slipped away, and the first beats of ‘Underwater Love’, Evie’s backing track, began to play.
This is it. No going back. She manoeuvred herself into position, twisting into a shoulder stand, her legs rising to curve around the pole, her hands in a death grip on the pole as she
pushed herself off, her core contracting with everything it had to keep her in position as she began to work her way down, her legs undulating to move her tail in a slow swimming