CHAPTER 6

 

Cate flew to L.A. on Friday morning; the first episode of Stepping Out was going to be filmed on Saturday evening. It was the first time she’d ever been on an aeroplane by herself. Declan had flown to L.A. on Thursday afternoon because it was one of his friend’s birthdays and Kian wouldn’t be arriving until Saturday morning because Seattle F.C. had a home match against Kansas City tonight.

The studio had kindly sent a car for her and as she settled back against the comfy black leather seat, she looked over her schedule for the next two days. It made her dizzy even just looking at it. She was going straight from the airport to the studio for her fitting. It was the first time she was going to see the dress she would be wearing on Saturday night. She might be a complete dance beginner but she’d watched enough of the British version of Stepping Out to know that the outfits for Latin American dances were usually short, sexy and very sparkly.

When she arrived at the studio, there was a camera crew waiting for her. They looked a bit bored but Cate could hardly blame them; she certainly wasn’t the most exciting contestant on this year’s show. They were probably wishing that they’d been assigned to film Vladimir and Poppy; at least they were more likely to get some juicy footage from them.

“It’s bloody boiling out here,” the camera man grumbled as Cate walked past. It was comforting to hear another British accent. “This thing weighs a ton.”

One of the production staff met her at the door and handed her a bottle of chilled water.

Cate looked back through the glass doors. The hallway was air-conditioned but outside the intense L.A. sun was shimmering on the concrete parking lot.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Cate hurried back outside and handed the camera man the bottle of water. He needed it much more than she did. He looked surprised but before he could say anything, she’d turned around and sprinted back inside. This was the first (and probably only time) she was going to be on a TV set and she definitely didn’t want to be known as the diva who kept everybody waiting.

“Welcome to the jungle,” Declan laughed, waving a swatch of leopard-print fabric at Cate as she walked into Wardrobe. “Behave,” the seamstress kneeling by his ankles warned him good-naturedly. Declan was wearing black trousers, a red short-sleeved shirt and a black skinny tie.

“Hi,” a lilac-haired pixie smiled at Cate as she left Declan and ventured into the women’s side of Wardrobe. “You must be Cate, I’m Hope.” She was wearing a black and white-striped t-shirt, black leggings, army boots and a pink tutu.

While Hope found her dress, Cate looked around the cramped space. There were floor-to-ceiling racks tightly packed with brightly-coloured, sparkly outfits. Even the industrial grey flooring was covered in excess glitter.

“Here we go,” Hope pushed her black-framed glasses up her nose.

Cate looked at the dress and her stomach plummeted to the glittery floor. It was very short.

“That’s what I’m going to be wearing?”

“I know,” Hope nodded, “it’s going to look amazing. Let’s try it on.”

Cate looked around, hoping to find somewhere private where she could get changed. Hope must have caught her looking because she put a hand on Cate’s arm, “don’t worry, nobody else is allowed in here when we’re doing a fitting.”

Mortified, Cate took off her t-shirt. The cool air-conditioning gave her goose bumps. She couldn’t believe she was about to strip down to her underwear in front of a complete stranger. She unbuttoned the front of her jeans and prayed that she was wearing matching panties. She’d slept through her alarm this morning and had to get dressed in a hurry. She hadn’t actually thought that anybody was going to see her bra and pants today.

When she had the dress on, it seemed even shorter. “Are you sure it isn’t too short?” Cate asked, trying to tug the hem down to a more respectable level. “I’ve had three children.”

Hope gave her a high-five, “nobody would be able to tell, Cate. You’ve got an awesome figure.”

The dress was white and embellished with silver crystals, the skirt finished mid-thigh but had slits at each side almost up to her panty line so she could move her hips freely. It had built in panties to protect her modesty so tomorrow she would have to be sewn into it. “You need a white thong to go underneath, anything else will show.”

Cate tried to remember if she’d packed any white thongs? Ugh, she realised with a sinking feeling that she was going to have to add another couple of chores to her already packed schedule. If she was going to have to wear a thong, she was also going to have to get waxed. She’d only gone completely bare once before. Kian liked her to have a strip of hair down there; the contrast between the inky-black hair and her pale skin always turned him on.

The front of the dress had a deep v which meant that she wouldn’t be able to wear a bra. “You’ve got beautiful skin,” Hope commented as she finished making some adjustments so that it would fit more perfectly to Cate’s body. “But you’re definitely going to need a spray tan for this dress. When you go and see Ludmila make sure she gives you at least a seven.”

“It’s got a hood?” Cate asked as Hope pinned the fabric to her hair so she could see what the final look would be.

“We’ve really tried to match what Kylie wore in the video. That dress is so iconic.”

She stumbled out of Wardrobe and was immediately whisked off to see Ludmila, a scary-looking Russian woman with blood-red fingernails. “Undress,” Ludmila snapped before turning back to prepare her equipment. Cate shrugged off her t-shirt and jeans, getting slightly more used to undressing in front of complete strangers now. When Ludmila turned around again, she frowned, “more.” Cate balked; surely she wasn’t expected to get completely naked in there?

While Cate was panicking about being half-naked, Ludmila came up behind her and deftly undid the clasp of her bra. “What?” Cate watched in horror as her bra fell to the floor, exposing her bare breasts. She quickly reached up to cover them with her hands. As her fingers touched her flesh, she winced; they felt even more swollen and tender today.

Ludmila waved away her protests. “No time,” she pointed towards the black tent.

As Ludmila finished preparing the spray tan, Cate timidly passed on Hope’s instructions. She really hoped that she wasn’t risking Ludmila’s wrath. It would be just Cate’s luck to wake up tomorrow morning looking like she’d been coated with fence paint.

As she stood in the tent with foul-smelling fake tan being sprayed all over her half-naked body, she tried to work out if this was the most humiliating moment of her life.

She thought about the night she’d lost her virginity and how Kian had looked at her afterwards. At the time, it had definitely felt like the most humiliating moment of her life but a few months later, on their wedding night, Kian had confessed that he hadn’t been horrified by her but at the thought that he’d taken advantage and hurt her in some way. Despite what she may have felt at the time, she couldn’t think badly about that night because she hadn’t just lost her virginity, she’d also conceived their eldest daughter, Lola.

Until now, she’d always thought that the most embarrassing thing she’d ever had to do was ask her GP if she could be tested for every possible sexually transmitted disease. In her naiveté, she hadn’t realised until the pregnancy test came back positive that Kian hadn’t worn a condom the night she’d lost her virginity.

Although it would still make her top-five embarrassing moments, she would rather walk into that GP’s surgery a hundred times over if it meant that she didn’t have to stand there, naked apart from her panties while a scary looking woman sprayed her with fake tan.

“Turn,” Ludmila instructed. Cate turned around to face the darkness at the back of the tent. Since nobody could see her boobs inside the tent and her bottom was covered by her panties, Cate started to relax a little. She closed her eyes and had almost zoned out the spray tan when she felt Ludmila’s cold finger tap her upper thigh. “What is this?”

Cate twisted around to see what Ludmila was frowning at. “Oops,” she giggled. There were fingertip-shaped bruises on her thigh just underneath her bottom. Kian must have grabbed her a little too roughly.

Ugh, she quickly shook her head, trying to get rid of that mental image. The only thing that could possibly make this spray tan session any more humiliating was if she was to get aroused. It would be almost impossible to hide since she was naked apart from her panties and Ludmila was kneeling down on the floor with her face just level with Cate’s butt.

“I must have got them from training,” Cate lied.

Ludmila narrowed her eyes at Cate, “no kinky sex. Too difficult to cover with make-up.”

Cate blushed, “they weren’t…”

Ludmila cut her off, “no talking.” Cate turned around again. As Ludmila resumed spraying the backs of her legs, Cate heard her mutter under her breath, “she must think I was… how do they say it, born yesterday? She got them from training, ha!”

“Done,” Ludmila announced.

Cate lifted up her arm and sniffed; her skin smelt like biscuits. She tried really hard not to gag.

Declan caught up with her as she escaped from Ludmila’s lair. “Is it normal for your breasts to hurt this much?” It was funny how comfortable she’d become with Declan given that she’d only met him a couple of weeks ago. “I think I might have pulled something.”

He tugged Cate into an empty storage room, “do you think you might be pregnant?”

“Definitely not,” Cate giggled, “Kian had the… you know, a couple of months ago.”

“You’ve been sick a lot…”

“I promise you I’m not pregnant,” Cate elbowed him in the ribs. “Let’s go.”