Chapter 9: A New Costume

My relationship with Juanita ... or Nita, as she likes to be called among close friends ... also helps clarify my relationship with Yvonne. I’m attracted to Yvonne, and in other circumstances I think we would both engage in some sexual play together. But Yvonne and I spends many hours practising together, and neither of us need the distraction of the ups and downs of an intimate affair. Nita and I can enjoy our brief interludes of sex without worrying about how it might affect our work. Besides, Yvonne has Anna willing to provide any sexual relief that Yvonne may desire.

It’s a week since Aaliyah proposed that Yvonne and I start dancing in costume. We haven’t purchased our own costumes yet because Aaliyah recommends that we sample different items of clothing from the academy’s collection before selecting our own outfit. Given the wide variety of colours, styles and materials it’s going to be difficult to select items that reflect our own personal style.

“I can’t decide between harem pants or a skirt,” says Yvonne when we choose our costume for this morning’s practise sessions.

“I prefer a skirt like the one I wore on Tuesday,” I reply. “It’s the style of top that I’m unsure about. I tried the one with gauzy sleeves yesterday but my arms feel constrained by the fabric.”

By now we have tried a wide range of costume pieces. Aaliyah has helped us eliminate those which are not to our liking. The choice of colour for our costume is easier. My fair hair and complexion suit a white and gold outfit, whereas Yvonne’s darker hair and pinker skin look better in a dark blue costume. Unfortunately, the academy’s collection doesn’t include pieces in every colour, so we are invariably faced with a choice of colour coordination, or going with a clothing style in mismatched colours.

As Yvonne and I narrow down our preferred clothing, we start to focus on adornments. Tassels, veils, necklaces and bangles are just of a few of the items we are encouraged to consider. Before long it isn’t just the Egyptian or Turkish dancing style that separates our performances and makes them noticeably different. Our costumes portray our inner personalities and desires. Yvonne is the brasher of the two of us, adopting techniques that are designed to titillate and excite her audience. My dancing is more sensuous and alluring, hinting a hidden treasures that fire my audience’s imagination.

The biggest difference between the ways Yvonne and I dance is in the degree of spontaneity and improvisation. Yvonne learns a set routine for each piece of music, and she can repeat the same dance sequence time after time. The weakness to that approach is her inability to instantly perform to a new piece of music. I’m the opposite. I allow my mood and the audience around me to influence my dance movements. Each of my performances is unique, although they are all made up of five basic belly dance movements; circle, figure of eight, hip drop, undulation, and shimmies.

Aaliyah’s training has improved my technique. No more wobbly shoulders, bouncing tits or rigid arms. My arm movements are more graceful and expressive. When I think back to my dance performance in Rimini, I realise that it was very amateurish. However, that’s why I’ve embarked on this training.

“You are both ready to perform before an audience,” says Aaliyah. “The academy will be putting on a show in Lyon at the end of the month demonstrating all the different dance styles we teach here. You will need to have your own costume ready by then. Have you made a decision about your first costume?”

“Yes, but how do we go about purchasing a costume?” I ask. “And won’t we be limited to what is available?”

“We order what you want online and it will be specially made. Your costume will be delivered to the academy in a week to ten days later,” replies Aaliyah. “If you are ready, we can send the order now.”

I make the silly assumption that it is a simple matter of taking my measurements and picking what I want from a catalogue. I am unprepared for the level of sophistication used by the ordering software. Because students aren’t generally allowed access to any modern technology, it’s easy to think that the academy is stuck in a 1950s time warp. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The ordering system for costumes uses the latest Artificial Intelligence technology, and the process results in a unique costume partially designed by me.

The first step is a little weird as I’m required to dance naked on a circular platform while a set of cameras record my performance. Then I sit in a booth watching the video recording while I electronically add clothing and adornments. Apparently the software is able to determine my measurements from the video. Firstly, I set a white and gold colour theme, which I can fine tune later. In each case we start with a template of a particular item, and I use a device to adjust each piece to my liking. I adjust the template of my top to give greater prominence to my cleavage. To the four panel circular skirt I’ve chosen, I add the ability to detach each panel like a veil. The choice of chiffon for the skirt material is easier now that I’ve sampled some of the alternatives from the academy’s wardrobe.