Chapter Four
Slut Droping Zumba Queens and Someone Else’s
Leggings
As excited as I was
about doing something new, arriving at the Dance Centre in a pair of Carole’s
leggings was probably one of the low points in my life. Because I’d been late
cashing up my till I hadn’t had chance to go home and change, but Carole had
thought of everything and had brought a spare pair of leggings, a T shirt and a
headband with her to work. We’d changed at work and the crotch on the leggings
was round my knees (to Carole’s surprise they’d shrunk in the wash). The T-shirt
was fluorescent orange and tight, and along with the bloody headbands she
insisted we wore, we looked like Edina and Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous.
‘Please
Carole,’ I tried, standing outside the big wooden doors. ‘Let’s come back next
week.’
‘I’m
sorry, hon, but you can’t stand there in that too tight T-shirt telling me
you’re coming back next week. Your body is in the same state of emergency mine
is – and we can’t waste another day.’
She
was right.
‘Bitch,’
I muttered as her bum went in front of me through the door, and I could see in
tight leggings it had a life of its own. Walking into The Dance Centre, I realised
I hadn’t walked into a new place where there might be people I didn’t know for
years. And I was scared. I thought calming thoughts of the cream sponge in the
boot of my car waiting just for me and followed Carole across the room. I didn’t
think I could feel any worse in Carole’s version of the zumba outfit than I
already did – but looking round I could see we were the only ones in headbands.
I never was one for being different – I always followed the flock – and ripped
my fluorescent pink towelling headband off.
‘You’ll
regret that, when the sweat’s pouring off your forehead,’ Carole sniffed.
All
around me women were arriving, huge and padded in their October layers, giving
me false hope that I wasn’t the fattest there, only to cast them off – from caterpillars
to butterflies within seconds. Sadly my layers weren’t detachable... well, not
without surgical intervention and believe me – I’d considered it. The only
layer I took off were my glasses, which made everything slightly blurry and
didn’t make me feel like a butterfly at all. I felt like a big caterpillar and
wondering if I really should have said a big fat ‘yes’ to this – I moved with
everyone else to the middle of the floor.
‘Laydeez,
laydeez,’ came a loud and rather aggressive voice from the corner, as a
warrior-like woman emerged, clapping loudly with a very serious look on her
face. It was the teacher, who introduced herself as Martha, and after
announcing that our vaginas were the home to ‘deep shaman magic,’ she asked us
all to ‘roar from our core.’ I don’t
know what shocked me most, that my vagina was magic or I was expected to roar
(I doubted I even had a core). My
prevailing thought was that I couldn’t possibly roar without laughing, so while
everyone made like lions I pretended to tie my trainers. Once the roaring
stopped, Martha went off on one about
‘goddesses’ and ‘she-wolves’. She lifted her arms up and urged everyone
to ‘feel your femaleness’, which I initially refused to do, shaking my head
vigorously, until I realised it wasn’t literal, just another way of saying ‘be
aware of your body.’ I was only too aware of my body so didn’t want to dwell
too long on that one. So after she’d
stopped roaring and bestowing super hero status on our vaginas, she went on to declare
war on fat and pelvic floors throughout the region. This woman meant business,
and this class wasn’t the light-hearted Olivia Newton-John in spandex style leg-kicking
low-impact jiggle I’d imagined it was. And we hadn’t even begun yet. She told
us to brace ourselves and be ready to Zumba in five... or else? It felt like a
threat.
‘Christ
she will kill me,’ I hissed to Carole who was waving to a couple of younger
girls who had wandered over with Natalie from ‘World Cuisines’. They were all
in very tight spandex shorts and tops with leg warmers, their pelvic floors
were probably perky and I doubt they’d ever even seen fat. They looked like
something from the 70s, but they hadn’t even been born then, I smiled at them
while contemplating my escape from the zumba hell-hole. This wasn’t for me – I
wanted to be home on the sofa with my lovely cream sponge.
‘This
is Mandy and Toyah,’ Natalie said, introducing me to them. ‘You know Mandy
don’t you – she’s the beauty therapist at Curl Up and Dye.’
I
recalled a brutal waxing incident and smiled nervously. Sophie had insisted I
have my legs waxed for the wedding, and what was optimistically labelled a
‘pampering session for the mother of the bride’, turned into something tortuous
as Mandy ripped the wax strips from my flesh while giving a detailed rundown of
her last holiday (drinking, sex, followed by more drinking... then more sex).
I’d never been to a beauty salon in my life until then – and probably wouldn’t
again.
‘Is
this your first time at one of Martha’s Zumbas?’ Mandy asked, one of her
perfectly-arched, but heavy eyebrows raised.
‘Yes,
I don’t know what to expect really...but I’m worried it’s going to be agony,’ a
bit like one of your treatments, I thought.
Her
face opened up in delight and she leaned towards me to impart some pearls of
Zumba wisdom.
‘You
don’t know what to expect? Well...’ she grabbed my left buttock, which
surprised me. A lot. ‘Expect your arse
to feel like it’s exploded!’ she announced. ‘Your legs will feel like you left
’em in a car park somewhere after a hard night dogging,’ she added, nodding in
all seriousness. I found it hard to imagine that particular scene – but she’d
now left me in no doubt as to how I would feel in the morning. I really should
have gone home with my sponge cake, because it didn’t matter how much I ate it
never made me feel like I’d been through ‘a hard night dogging’.
Carole
saw my face and looked worried.
‘I
might make a run for it. Well, a waddle for it at least,’ I hissed.
‘Ha ha,
you should,’ Mandy said. ‘If you stay, I’m telling you, all that slut dropping
will make you feel like crap tomorrow.’ And she set off again. ‘I drank a
bottle of vodka and three Porn Star Martinis after an all-nighter with Kyle
Thomas last Friday and next day I still felt better than I do the day after
Zumba,’ she roared laughing. Now I was really scared and just looking at
Martha’s abs in her midriff-baring outfit was making me feel tired and sore in
the way a bag of chips and Silent Witness never had. And what the hell was
‘slut dropping’?
Before
I had a chance to escape, Martha was yelling something guttural about ‘the
power of the vagina’ and the music started up. It was one of Rihanna’s slower
songs which was promising and hopefully meant the moves wouldn’t be quite so
aerobic. I’d insisted we stay at the back which meant I could hide and I didn’t
have to look at Martha with her flexible limbs. But being behind a blur of
fluorescent tops and pert bums wasn’t much better – everyone seemed to be moving
like they’d been Zumbaing since birth and I was worried I may get left behind.
I was able to rationalise my feelings with Rihanna gently singing in the
background and reminded myself I was a woman of forty four and not a bloody
teenager. I told myself not to be so stupid and self-conscious. So I might not
know all the moves – no one did the first time. I straightened up and began
copying what the woman in front of me was doing. You could tell she knew her
stuff because she had a tiny bum and a swinging pony tail, which in my book
said Zumba Queen. Everyone was slowly wiggling their hips, it was just like
belly dancing, nice undulating movements that wouldn’t put anyone’s back out. I
took it slow, as my belly often danced without any help from me and if I gave
it too much wiggle it could gather speed and behave like a large pink
blancmange. I glanced at Carole who gave me a reassuring wink and through the
still slightly blurry rainbow of fluorescence I caught Mandy’s eye. Perhaps it
was my eyesight, but I’m sure she made an obscene (but friendly) gesture.
‘Yeah,’
I thought, moving my body with everyone else, ‘this is going to be okay.’ I was
almost (and I stress ‘almost’) beginning to enjoy myself when suddenly a
high-pitched wail emanated from the front. This was quickly followed by a heavy
bass beat that filled the hall and my head (probably filled the town it was so
bloody loud). Without warning, everyone put their arms in the air and started
whooping – I felt like I was on a rollercoaster – going down, fast!
I
clenched my buttocks in fear as everyone else began leaping to the music. They
were all in unison, all seemed to know exactly what to do like they were tuned
in to radio waves I wasn’t privy to, even Carole was holding her own despite a
difficult pelvic floor. There was much yelling coming from Martha’s side of the
room – what I could only presume were instructions but meant nothing to me.
Then I heard, ‘Drop it low,’ over the music and everyone dipped. ‘Way down
low,’ the words boomed out as bottoms almost touched the floor. This must be
the slut dropping Mandy scared me with, and I panicked – since hitting 40 I’d
found it hard to pick something up of the floor and get back up without calling
for an ambulance. There was no way I was ‘dipping’ anything that low without
medical assistance – my bum just wouldn’t go all the way down there. I made a
fist at it but opening my legs wasn’t easy in tight leggings and a crotch
somewhere around my knees. I tried hard, but no, the ‘dipping low’ just wasn’t
happening. Carole’s tight leggings were acting like a lower body hammock and I
just hung there mid ‘drop’ completely trussed up and unable to move. It was
less ‘slut’ drop, and more ‘OAP’ collapse - just not pretty. I looked around
from my prone position to see all the others back up, raising their arms and
swaying their hips and pert breasts while I remained suspended mid-descent. Why
did I ever think I could do this?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sue Watson was a TV Producer with the BBC who combined motherhood and family life with a busy career. However, one day it dawned on Sue that Cosmo magazine may have been telling porkies about 'having it all,' and her life had become a slightly crazed juggling act.
So after much soul searching (and comfort eating) Sue abandoned her TV career, bought a pink laptop and wrote a novel. 'Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes,' tells the story of Stella Weston, whose life is a constant struggle with a nasty boss at work, the weighing scales and being a mum, wife and daughter.
Originally from Manchester, Sue now lives with her husband and teenage daughter in Worcestershire. When she's not toiling over her latest novel, Sue bakes (and eats) cake and enjoys very large tubs of Caramel Chew Chew ice cream all to herself while watching 'The Biggest Loser USA.'
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