The Dance of the Seven Veils

The Kirov Opera had made the effort to come to Melbourne for the Arts Festival - all 240 musicians and singers ignoring the dangers of flying over the Middle East to honour their commitment to Australia. So what else could we do but show our support for them, we being the gorgeous Cate and I. We went to the matinee performance of Salome, the Richard Strauss opera, choosing that session because our own friend Richard was coming around for dinner, a long-standing arrangement.

Salome was controversial when it was first performed 100 years ago. It still raises eyebrows now, especially the Dance of the Seven Veils. The question these days is not so much the morality of the work but whether the opera singer who gets the part because she can sing a bit does a decent job of what is usually a pretty raunchy strip-tease in the middle of a emotionally charged classical production.

But this performance didn't have the traditional tease ... just a muddle where the singer all too quickly ended up nude and got splashed with water. Any member of the dirty mac brigade who coughed up $200 for an A1 seat would have been bitterly disappointed.

It was one of the things Cate and I talked about as we drove home. I told her she would have done the dance much better, because she has, albeit in the privacy of our home and not just Salome's dance but a very classy and inspiring performance to Bolero. And when there isn't a lot of time for a longer piece of music she renders utterly inadequate Kim Basinger's dancing to You Can Leave Your Hat On.

As soon as we got home we jumped into clean and cook mode to be ready for when Richard arrived. Cate put on a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, both of which she filled out beautifully. One hell of a woman my wife. Richard arrived with his usual supply of wine and laughs. We've known him a long time but because of his work, don't get to seem him all that often. So a visit is always a happy occasion.

During dinner we talked a lot about what we'd all been doing since we last met up. He had been overseas when the World Trade Centre was destroyed and told us about all the security measures in place in the airports. That led to talk about how great it was for the Kirov to make it to Australia.

"What was the opera like," Richard said? "Great," Cate said. "It's a very powerful and dramatic piece but I guess we were both a bit disappointed in the Dance of the Seven Veils."

Richard asked why and Cate told him.

"I agree," I said. "It's one of those things which are part of the folklore of the story and there wasn't a veil in sight. And the alternative was just a mess. I told Cate she would have done it much better."

The conversation moved on and around, we drank Richard's wine and when I got up to open one of our bottles, I also went to put on some more music. I saw the Salome CD - Cate and I had it out in anticipation of going to the opera - and put it in the player. As the kettle drums rolled their intro Cate gave me a quizzical look and said "do you really think I could have done it better?"

"Undoubtedly," I said. "Not just the dance but the whole choreography. It's your special subject."

"I'll have to think about that," she said, then quietly excused herself and disappeared upstairs. Richard and I talked some more about the opera and our conversation was moving elsewhere when all of a sudden the CD jumped back to the start of Salome's dance.

Cate was standing by the player, no longer dressed in her jeans and white top, but in what I recognised as some of her scarves and other costume items she uses for our private dancing. She also had on an array of beads and two big earrings to give her a gipsy or Eastern sort of a look and that was enhanced by a scarf tied around her head. Moving quickly from the player she dimmed the lights, gave me one of her "watch this baby" looks and flung herself in the music.

The veils flew out wantonly behind her as she ran around the pair of us. By now Richard and I were both sitting bolt upright in our chairs just like Herod did in his throne on the stage that afternoon. Cate certainly had our attention. I smiled at Richard and he giggled back ... Cate was always good for a bit of light-hearted fun ... he knew and loved her for that. I must admit to thinking it might get interesting if she got naked like she often did when she danced when we were alone but then dismissed the idea. Not Cate, not in front of Richard, even though we were close friends.

The first veil she took off was the one around her head. She laughed wildly and then flaunted it at Richard, who grabbed it as it floated past him, then pretended to tie it around his own head.

Cate pulled back from him and flew around us again. I worked out she must have had a bikini on and the other scarves were sort of tucked into that. She did a couple of pirouettes and then turned her back on us, lent way over backwards and slowly pulled out one of the veils, dragging it up over her breasts. I felt a gentle stiffening and wondered if Richard did too. She brought the scarf over to me and draped it around my neck. I gave her a kiss as she did it and said, as Herod had done in the opera, "Dance for me Salome". I noticed a look of fire come into her eyes. She danced on and tore off a couple more veils - three to go and she's down the bikini. I took for granted that's where the entertainment would end, then I noticed there were no bikini top straps.

That's because there was no bikini top. Instead, she had a scarf wrapped around her nice breasts and tied at the back. That seemed a bit different, but I thought she would just stop after the sixth veil, if she even got that far. Kicking up her legs, flinging herself into the dance, she swirled around us again. It was ferociously energetic and starting to take on the depraved frenzy of the real thing. She moved at the two veils left tucked into her bikini bottoms, then stopped for a split second, flashed an evil smile at me and moved her hands behind her back sharply. Off came the top scarf and she thrust her breasts forward as her hands fell to her side. She was flaunting her gorgeous titties at Richard who stiffened, probably literally, in his chair. I just thought whoohoo, we're off here. She danced over to me and put the scarf behind my neck and pulled me closer to her.

She put her mouth to my ear, bit it, then whispered she would only be as good as the Kirov's Salome if she could handle doing it all in front of an audience. I had no chance to give greater consideration to what "it" and "all" might be because she pulled back, swirled again into her dance, her breasts moving deliciously in time and her eyes ablaze as she tried to get into the same mind-set as the actress. She swooped in front of Richard, grabbed back the first scarf and then fell to the ground, rolling over it twice before rising up and flinging it back at him. I was now an irrelevance. He was her audience, her test. She grabbed the last two scarves and ripped them out in an act of maniacal defiance, flapping them like wings. Then she was off again, swirling and twirling, delving deep into the decadence of the music - her frenzy always bringing her back to Richard. She pouted at him, she cupped her breasts at him provocatively, she ran her hands over her groin. It was an extra-ordinary performance that, as the music moved towards its climax, I thought would have to end at this stage.

But then, thrusting her whole body at Richard, she ripped at the strings of her bikini bottom, pulled it off and stood in front of him, utterly and clearly unabashedly naked. Richard looked quickly at me and I half shrugged. Before I had a chance to do or say anything more, Cate arched her back at him, pushing her fanny forward in a defiant yet quiet balletic pose. As well as looking good without her clothes on this lady could dance. Surely though, this was the end. But no. By now Cate was right in the part, no longer herself but Salome and she leapt through the opera to the part where the singer kisses the severed head of Jokanaan. She grabbed Richard by the back of his neck and deep-throated him, stepping back to look into his eyes as Salome had also done, then kissing him again. Now, I thought where do we go from here? Was this art, a dare or something else? I mean, I thought the whole thing would have stopped much before this. Richard, too, was gob-smacked. In between his maulings from Cate, we looked at each other for guidance. I had none to offer. Then Cate grabbed him and rolled him onto the floor. He might have been a severed head in her mind, but he had a whole body attached and they entwined on the scarves as she kissed him again and again, each time pulling back to look into his eyes.

Eventually, as it had too, it got too much for him. He responded to her frenzied kissing and grasping. He grabbed at her breasts and then I saw a hand move down towards her fanny. If she felt it, she didn't do or say anything to stop him. She just kept on kissing him and throwing herself back to look into his eyes. Poor Richard, I thought, then, poor Richard! Bullshit. He was on the verge of bonking my wife yet I didn't feel a pang of jealousy. I certainly felt no desire to stop things myself. That would have been an affront to Cate, anyway. It was her body, her performance. Richard moved a finger inside her and the next time she pulled back, kissed at her breasts.

She moaned, a sound I knew well. She was now somewhere between Salome and the randy, must-have-cock Cate with whom I shared my bed. She grabbed at his trousers and undid his belt. The rabid kissing of the lips shifted to Richard's dick. She sucked it, then lent back to stare at it. She repeated that movement four or five times. Then his back arched and he came. He must have been so worked up because white beads of semen shot everywhere. It dribbled from Cate's face, down her chest and through her own beads. The madness of the scene was overpowering and I cried out bravo, like a member of an audience. She turned to me, the look of lust filled insanity still across her face. She came to me and smeared come and kisses on my face. Her hands went for my crotch. In a flash my cock was out and she kissed at it, then sucked it hard, then pulled back, just as she had with Richard. It didn't take long for me to come.

By now the music had long ended. There was just the sweet sound of sex. Cate moved her hands to her cunt and began kneading herself to orgasm. She rolled into the scarves and pulled them into her fanny. She screamed a climax that an opera singer would have been proud off, her back arching again, before she slumped, exhausted, into the floor. I didn't have a clue about what to do next. I managed to put my deflated cock away. Richard looked lost but managed the same thing. Cate made no attempt to cover herself, or to wipe away the come on her body and face. Instead she slowly but triumphantly rose up. She looked over at Richard who was still half lying on the floor and broke out a satisfied smile. Then she stood up tall before falling gracefully into a theatrical bow in front of her "audience".

She then turned to me and said in a voice as soft as one of her silk scarves "yes much better, I would have thought". And laughed and disappeared upstairs.

Before Richard and I could say too much to each other, she returned in her jeans and white shirt. She looked at the opened bottle of wine on the bench that had began it all and said in her normal Cate voice, "Don't suppose a thirsty girl can get a nice glass of cold, white wine here, can she?" Yes, she certainly is some woman, my wife.