Trust Ch. 11

"Thanks for offering," I smiled, "but that's a pleasure I've been waiting for especially."

That evening I wished that Chloe could have been a fly on the wall to see why I had looked forward to it so much. While we watched a dvd of Swan Lake, Emma and I sat together on the sitting room floor, wearing only white plimsolls and little white tutu skirts, while she sewed the ribbons and elastic on one of my ballet shoes and I copied her with the other shoe.

From that evening from until the following Saturday I wore my ballet shoes continuously, with a range of very feminine and very girly outfits. I wore my pink ballet shoes with a Shirley Temple curls blonde wig, a little white baby doll nightdress and white satin panties with a little pink satin bow on the waistband. I wore my ballet shoes with a blonde bob wig and a white burlesque style corset with white silk stockings and suspenders. I wore my ballet shoes with a black fringe and pony tail wig, a tight little pink boob tube with tight little pale blue denim hot pants, white tights and little pink ankle socks. I wore my ballet shoes with a little white and pink polka dot bikini. And I wore my ballet shoes with a Rita Hayworth redhead wig, a white satin and lace thong, a white satin and lace bra and white stay-up fishnet stockings.

Emma photographed me in a variety of lying and semi-reclining poses, emphasising the long lines of my legs and my carefully pointed feet in my ballet shoes, and she also took lots of soft bondage shots of me while using ballet shoe ribbons to tie my wrists behind my back and my ankles and my knees together, with a rectangle of white tape over my mouth.

She also spent as much time as she could on breaking in my ballet shoes while I was at work, so that when next Saturday came and it was time for my first pointe class my shoes were ready. We had always done my one-to-one ballet classes in her little studio at home while we were both naked in just our ballet slippers; but when she came home from giving her class at the dance studio she found me in the spare bedroom looking thoughtfully at Bryony's ballet kit spread out on the bed. She was wearing a pink tee shirt and yellow cotton shorts over her black leotard and white tights along with her white Keds plimsolls and ankle socks. She came up behind me and I thrilled at the feel of her vibrant warmth pressed against my nakedness as she hugged me and rested her chin on my shoulder to observe what I was doing,

"Come on, Darcey, why don't you just go ahead and wear your black leotard over your white tights like the girls do?" she giggled. "You know you want to."

"It's just that for my first pointe lesson I want it to feel as much like it does for a girl as I can experience," I explained.

"Yes, I'll always remember what a wonderful moment my first pointe lesson was when I was twelve, she smiled. "Let's get ready and make it really special for you too." She squeezed my waist and kissed me affectionately.

I could hardly contain my excitement as I got ready. I put on a white g-string before sliding my legs into my white ballet tights. I stepped into my black leotard, pulled it up to my waist, put on my falsies under a black cotton strapless bra and pulled up my leotard over my upper body. I put on my black long haired wig with a fringe and tied my hair in a neat ballerina bun the way Emma had showed me, before putting on a pink towelling sweatband around my head. I put on some light make-up and finally slipped on my white satin soft soled ballet slippers and tied the ribbons around my ankles. I had worn them all through my year of pointe preparation classes and I would wear them during the warm up part at the start of my pointe class.

I sat on the floor to tie my ankle ribbons while Emma sat next to me and placed her lovely feet into her pale salmon pink leather ballet slippers. Apart from her slippers her outfit was identical to mine: black leotard over white tights, with a pink towelling headband. I assumed my Charlotte persona and we chattered and giggled over all kinds of girly stuff as we leaned back on our arms and shook our legs and stretched and wiggled our feet to warm them up. When we were ready I admired myself in front of one of the full length wall mirrors in Emma's practice studio as I stood with my hands on my hips and turned my body to one side and then the other while I stood with each leg bent and each foot pointed in turn. Then it was time to begin at last.

I started with a few minutes of barre exercises followed by some floor work, carrying out my positions and steps on demi-pointe in my white satin ballet slippers. Emma was as strict and as critical of me as she always was during my lessons and I concentrated as hard as I could but I could hardly wait to change into my pointe shoes and take my first tentative steps en pointe. When I was thoroughly warmed up after about half an hour Emma finally said it was time and with excitement surging through my body I sat down next to her.

As we changed from our ballet slippers into our pointe shoes and I contemplated the beautiful forms and lines of our legs and feet in our white tights I thought of all the images I had seen of ballerinas in beautiful tutus and girls in leotards and tights putting on their pointe shoes and I could hardly believe that I was about to share with them in the excitement and wonder of dancing ballet on my toes. I chattered away in girlish excitement in my Charlotte persona to Emma as we placed our toes in protective padding, pushed our feet into our pointe shoes and tied the ribbons securely around our ankles.

We stood up and as I dipped the pointes of my ballet shoes in a small tray of rosin on the floor I felt a tremendous clenching throbbing thrill of excitement in my groin under the close fitting stretch of the crotch of my leotard and tights, while my chest seemed to swell and push my tingling nipples deeper into the pliable mass of my false breasts pressed against my chest under my leotard. I took a couple of deep breaths to force down my excitement as I put my hands on my hips and pointed and twisted one foot and then the other while I gazed on the beauty of my feet in my pointe shoes.

Emma ended my heady reverie by instructing to begin by simply walking up and down with turned out feet as gracefully as I could in my ballet shoes. Then I did the same on demi-pointe before coming to the barre. I stood in first position and, holding on to the barre, rolled up onto pointe. I repeated the exercise a few times and then did the same exercise standing away from the barre. It felt amazing to be standing unsupported on the very tips of my toes. Emma and Chloe had both warned me that it would probably feel very strange and uncomfortable at first and so it proved, but I was far too excited to be put off by the growing discomfort that seemed to seep upwards from my toes into my whole frame as I began to adjust to an entirely new way of using my body.

My first exercises en pointe went on for about half an hour but it felt like only 5 minutes because I was so exhilarated. I did simple exercises like plies and tendues and forced arches en pointe for strength and flexibility and then some grapevines and bourees, which I could do easily en demi-pointe but could now carry out only in very wobbly and uncertain fashion en pointe. All the time Emma reminded me about pulling up, keeping my knees and thighs tight and getting right over my boxes.

When it was all over I was gasping for breath, covered in sweat and supremely happy. Emma beamed at me and gave me her heartfelt "Well done," as we hugged and kissed each other in best sisterly fashion. We put on dancer's wrap-around cardigans over our leotards, pulled on pink woollen legwarmers over our tights and changed our ballet shoes for white Keds plimsolls and white ankle socks and then, still absorbed in our girly chatter, we went to the kitchen to fix lunch.

We sat down together at the kitchen table with plates piled high with pasta and salad to deal with our ravenous appetites. I was taking a sip of Chianti when Emma suddenly put her hand on mine, looked earnestly into my eyes and said,

"Chas, there's something I need to ask you."

"You can have anything up to half my kingdom, My Princess," I smiled, switching back from my Charlotte persona and squeezing her hand with manly reassurance. She took a deep breath and continued,

"Well, in the first place, I really want to have children someday but I've always promised Mum that I'd never be a single mother. In the second place, I've worked almost non-stop since I started my ballet school and I fucking need a holiday. So please will you marry me?"

I looked at her carefully to make sure she wasn't kidding. She looked at me with an expression of anxious expectation and I had never seen her look as totally exposed and vulnerable as she did at that moment. There was no doubt at all that she was totally serious. I waited several more seconds before breaking out into a big grin and replying,

"Of course I'll marry you, you daft cow. Why did you take so long to ask?"

I wrapped my arms around her as she burst into tears.

''That's women for you," I laughed as I stroked her head tenderly. "You tell them what they want to hear and they're still not happy."

"Shut up and make love to me," she sniffed.

I pulled her onto my lap and cuddled her for a few minutes before carrying her to our bedroom. I was sure I was the happiest man alive.

Life became very hectic and complicated from that moment. Not only with the whole business of announcing our engagement and planning our wedding, but with my decision to aim to be sufficiently advanced en pointe to dance a solo for Bryony when she and Laurelle came over from New York for the wedding a few months hence. So in between work and organising our nuptials I worked as long and as hard as I could to become more confident and proficient on my pointes. Ballet changed from a pleasure to a passion. I knew I could never be as light and as graceful as a girl en pointe but I made considerable progress during the months leading up to Bryony's arrival. Emma suggested we dance "The Mirror" pas-de-deux that Darcey Bussell and Dawn French had sent up so memorably in "The Vicar of Dibley", but do it for real. So we spent a lot of evenings rehearsing and perfecting it, especially as I would be the one in front of the 'mirror' and therefore be seen the most.

In the midst of all that activity I agonized over whether or not to attempt to re-establish contact with my parents, who by then I had not communicated with for nearly ten years. Emma knew how much the situation hurt me and did all she could to comfort and support me, but without trying to influence me one way or the other and respecting that it was my decision. I had almost steeled myself to phone them when I opened the newspaper one morning and discovered within it my father's obituary. He had been very successful in business and therefore merited an obituary in a national newspaper. He had died unexpectedly and almost instantly of a massive stroke on the fairway during a round of golf at his club. The obituary surveyed the key events and achievements of his life and detailed his legacies to various charities, to his nephews and nieces and to his godson. But in an article covering almost an entire broadsheet page there was not a single reference to me or to Bryony.

For a moment I was crushed by the realisation that neither my mother nor anyone else in my extended family had attempted in any way to contact me or Bryony, who would have let me know straight away of any communication from our relatives. Emma saw me slumped over the newspaper and, on looking over my shoulder and seeing what I had just read, immediately understood without need of further explanation. She knew how to express the deepest care in the most undemonstrative of ways, which I had often been grateful to her for already in our relationship. I felt the lightest touch of her hand on my shoulder and the gentlest nudge of her white plimsoll against mine.

"Are you OK?" she asked in quiet concern.

"I'm all right, really," I replied as I lifted her hand from my shoulder and pressed her fingers curled around mine to my cheek as my deep gratitude for her love brought healing balm to the very midst of my turmoil. "For a long time I've thought that our parents only wanted Bryony and I to be clones of them and never wanted or even imagined us to be people in our own right with lives of our own. Now I know it for certain and I know for certain that I'm better off without them and everyone else in my family. And I'm OK with that; because I have you."

We melted together in our nakedness and our lovemaking was especially sweet and tender as I gave myself to her more completely than I had ever done before and she took me into herself to the limit of capacity of her being.

I called Bryony later that evening to tell her the news, she took it calmly and we comforted each other with the knowledge that whatever else happened to us, we would always have each other.

On the day of Bryony and Laurelle's visit Emma and I had only just finished preparing the lunch when the front door buzzer sounded.

"Hi, Chas, we're here," Bryony called up in response to my welcome through the intercom. Her sweet and gentle voice had the quality of bird song even through the crackle of the loudspeaker. I opened the door to see her resting her arm on Laurelle's powerful forearm as she struggled up the last of the stairs to our front door, the stiffness and awkardness of her right leg the all too visible legacy of the collision with a car that had ended her career as a ballerina with such savage suddenness. I raced down to help them and in a moment we were all together in the sitting room. Even in the midst of her pain Bryony's smile was radiant as she greeted Emma and I.

"It's so lovely to see you again, Emma," she beamed as they hugged each other. "I couldn't believe it when Chas told me he'd met you and that you two had become an item. And now we're going to be sisters. Isn't that wonderful?"

Emma was deeply touched and there were tears in her eyes as she kissed her old friend.

"It'll be fantastic to have you for a sister, Bry'," she said. Then she added, "I'm really sorry about your Dad."

"Yes, it's sad that he died without making things right with Chas and I but he was never willing so there you are. But never mind that; tell me all about your ballet school."

While the two of them got stuck into ballet talk I got re-acquainted with Laurelle, who I had only met once when I had last visited Bryony in New York a couple of years before. She looked very different from how she had looked then. Then she'd had a flat topped Grace Jones style haircut and wore expensive men's suits, shirts and loafers. In the meantime she had changed to a much more feminine look. Her luscious thick jet black hair now fell long and loose to her bare shoulders and her figure hugging sleeveless black mini dress showed off every curve of her magnificently statuesque body. With her smile dazzling white she had the all the female athleticism and powerful physical presence of both of the Williams sisters combined.

"Hey, you've grown your hair, and I always knew you'd look sensational if you ever decided to wear a dress," I exclaimed as I hugged her.

"Why thank you," she replied with genuine pleasure, "I'm having fun getting in touch with my feminine side."

Just then Emma came over to meet her and straight away commented on her choice of footwear, a pair of classic black canvas Nike Deuce with a white stripe around the sole and the Nike logo in white lettering on the tongue.

"I love seeing black women wearing black plimsolls, and yours look so nice with your dress."

"Thanks, Emma," she replied. "I lived in black canvas sneakers when I was growing up: Keds, Chucks; you name 'em, I've worn 'em."

"And I've got my sneakers on too," added Bryony from her armchair in which she was resting, waving her feet in her very pretty pink Converse plimsolls as they rested on a cushioned stool. I noticed for the first time how they complemented her very pretty and very feminine bright floral print summer dress and the matching headband around her long dark hair. "Laurelle got me into them and I love wearing them now. They come in such pretty colours and they're so comfortable too."

Emma poured us all drinks and announced that we would be having lunch in the garden. Then she added,

"As we are all intimately connected and as it's such a nice day and as we are blessed with such excellent privacy here, might I suggest we partake of lunch au naturel?"

I blanched for a moment, worrying that she had gone a step too far; but I was immediately reassured.

"Hey, I'm up for that," Laurelle grinned. "It'll be a blast."

"Laurelle and I love being naked together at home," Bryony added, giving her partner's hand an affectionate squeeze to emphasise the point.

"I'm worried I'll stand out a bit being the only male amongst three such lovely ladies," I half quipped to cover my lingering uncertainty.

"Laurelle grew up with four brothers and nothing you can put on show will give me any surprises, Chas." Bryony's laugh was as clear and as musical as a mountain stream. I laughed with her whilst wondering if there was more to what she had said than just a joke to ease my embarrassment.

We all undressed in front of each other. The ladies kindly refrained from remarking on my erection that sprang up in reflex before quickly subsiding. I was fascinated by the contrast between Bryony's pale, willowy and delicately fashioned body, still very much a ballerina's body, and the dark shapely Amazonian magnificence that was Laurelle. I loved the freedom of being able to appreciate their naked beauty without having to suppress prurient sexual thoughts.

We descended the stairs to the garden, with Laurelle again supporting Bryony as she carefully negotiated each step. Once at the bottom we installed her on a comfortable chaise longue under the shade of the wisteria festooned pergola. I couldn't help noticing the long livid pink tramline of the scar running the length of her leg that marked the operation that had pinned and screwed together the shattered fragments of her leg. More happily I remarked that we all wore plimsolls of different brand and colour: Emma in her white Keds champs with white ankle socks; Laurelle in her black Nikes: Bryony in her pink All Stars and me in my new navy Vans.

Over lunch Emma and Bryony caught up with all that had happened since they had last seen each other and shared lots of ballet talk while I chatted with Laurelle about work, sport and favourite music and films and such stuff. She also loved cars and as we compared our experiences of driving various performance cars and off-road vehicles I was struck by what a masculine conversation I was having with her.

After lunch Emma and Laurelle went for a tour of the garden and I was able to have some brother and sister time with Bryony. Looking into her face is like seeing a feminine version of my own in reflection. We have the same long, fine featured face with high cheekbones; high forehead; deep, dark eyes and small mouth.

"So how's life, Sis'?" I asked her.

"Life is good, Bro'," she smiled, gathering back her long, dark hair and settling herself comfortably on her chaise. "I have Laurelle for my soul mate and lover, my business is going well and my leg doesn't hurt too much most of the time."

"What would you do if you were given the chance to have your old life as a ballerina again and be without pain?" I asked.

"I had plenty of pain when I was a ballerina," she laughed. "But even though I live with a lot of pain now, and the pain of my leg is nothing compared to the pain of not being able to dance again, I would never go back because in the midst of my pain I've found true love, and to love truly and be truly loved in return is the most precious gift of all." She smiled and held my hand in hers. "And it wasn't just Laurelle who showed me true love; I'll never forget how you dropped everything and did everything you could to get the earliest flight possible so you could be with me. And I'm so happy that now you've found your true love too. It's wonderful to see how much you and Emma love each other. Especially when I remember how much you were hurt by that horrible girl who dumped you and went off to Australia."