Part 3

Outside in the main dining room, the chairs were starting to fill up fast. Samantha’s mum draped her coat over the chair next to her, saving it for her husband. In front of the general audience was a long table for the judges who were apparently to be the dance instructor, the manager of this branch of Sidney’s, the head of the UK arm of Roebuck Inc., the parent company of Sidney’s, and a “celebrity guest” who Samantha’s mum was pretty sure she’d never heard of but was apparently the winner of a music-based reality show who had grown up in the area.

“Phew, made it!” Samantha’s dad grinned, squeezing down the row of other parents and Sidney’s employees and slipping into the seat next to his wife. “Not late am I?” He gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“No, they’re just starting!” she whispered as the smartly-dressed woman in her early thirties, the manager of this new Sidney’s branch, climbed the steps up onto the stage and approached the lectern and microphone stand to one side.

“Welcome to Sidney’s!” the woman greeted the audience. “I’m Carla Erickson, general manager of this brand new branch which is,” she paused for effect, “the biggest one so far in the UK!” There was a ripple of polite applause. “But I know none of you are here to listen to me,” this was met with a polite chuckle from the audience, “so I promise we will get on with the show very soon. We will begin with the group dance then each girl will be given a chance to perform a short routine before we break for lunch, which will be provided in the form of a cold girl-meat buffet at the back of the room.” This very welcome news was met with happy murmuring. “Once we return, the girls going through to the next round will be invited to perform the group routines again, in traditional meat-girl costume this time,” a joke which prompted polite chuckling, “after which the finalists will perform their solo routines for us again and a decision will be made. So, without further ado, bring on the first group!”

Backstage, the girls had been sorted into six teams. Samantha was intrigued but also pleased to hear that not everyone had been sent the same music and routine. There were in fact three different routines that would be performed in sequence so the judges didn’t tire of seeing the same moves. In the second round, each routine wouldn’t only need to be performed once. Samantha was not in the first group so she stood around chatting with the other waiting girls in her team while the first to perform trooped excitedly up the steps and out onto the stage.

Once sorted, all the girls had been given large squares of paper with numbers on to pin to their tops so that the judges could easily identify them.

“What happens if we get through to the next round?” Samantha had asked, “When we’re not wearing anything to pin it to?”

“Smart question!” the steward had grinned. “We have washable marker pens for that. Can’t go around making holes in pretty girls’ skin can we?”

For the watching parents, the event had the feeling of a school concert – only really interesting during your own child’s performance, but all those whose girls were not on stage watched politely and clapped at the end while the parents of the dancing girls clapped and cheered wildly, many shouting encouragement.

“How did it go?” Samantha asked one of the sweaty but relieved-looking girls as they came back down the steps into the training room. The two had been chatting before the groups were divided and had struck up something of a situational friendship.

“The lights are pretty bright,” the pretty, athletic blonde pushed her fringe out of her face, “but that kinda helps. It means you can’t really see the judges or the audience. Otherwise it went pretty well! Nobody really messed up that I noticed and it wasn’t as difficult to keep in time as I thought it might be, seeing as how we’ve never rehearsed together!”

“Well that’s kinda reassuring I guess!” Samantha gave her friend a quick hug. “My group’s up next. Wish me luck!”

A little over two week’s later, naked apart from the elasticated bracelets around her wrists and ankles, made from plastic lion teeth, the matching necklace resting on her chest and her athletic young body gleaming with the oil that had been rubbed every where but the soles of her feet. On her head was a sort of headdress, more of a crown really, made with tall green leaves and brown feathers, decorated around the bottom with more of the plastic teeth, disguising the elasticated band that held it to her forehead.

“I don’t know if I’m more nervous or turned on!” Jennifer, the toned blonde she had befriended at the audition, giggled.

“I know, right!” Samantha agreed with a slow exhale. “How about you?” She turned to Rebecca, a fellow brunette who was ever so slightly on the chubby side compared to the other two but was no less talented a dancer. Girls of all shapes and sizes had been welcome to audition for the dance troupe and had been judged not on their bodies or looks but on their ability to dance. After all, the point of having a team of naked or near-naked girls on the stage was to help the patrons work up an appetite for girl-meat and girls of all body-types were welcome on the menu at Sidney’s.

“Definitely more turned on!” she laughed. “Why are you nervous? We’ve rehearsed this so much!”

“I know!” laughed Samantha. “It’s just… Well, I want it to go perfectly. It’s not like we’re going to get a second chance at this!”

All around them, the rest of the girls, dressed similarly to them and equally oiled but with grass-skirts around their waists and simple tribal-pattered headbands instead of high-plumed crowns so that the three featured girls would really stand out, were chatting excitedly about their first performance to a real audience and wondering if it would be different performing to these people than to the general public as their next show would be.

“Relax!” Rebecca put an oily hand on her shoulder, “It’s not like anyone’s going to care too much about the dancing anyway!”

“I care!” Samantha reminded her, a little sharply, “It’s why I signed up after all!”

“Yeah how did that work out for you?” Jennifer teased but not unkindly. After all, she was in exactly the same position.

“About as well as for you!” Samantha stuck out her tongue playfully, remembering the unexpected sequence of events that had brought them here. The group dance had gone well, she thought, as had her solo performance. She was actually quite pleased that none of the girls had been able to watch each other’s auditions – it meant that she did not feel like she was competing with anyone when she took to the stage, didn’t have to be better than any of the others, just had to give the best performance she was capable. Of course her parents had clapped and cheered for her and the audience had seemed generally appreciative.