Chapter 16: The Can-Can
As the eight shamefaced women followed Molly off to the dressing room, Tommy turned back to the guests with a bright smile.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he called out, “I’d like to direct your attention to behind the bar. Allow me to introduce Danny, your bartender for the evening, and Michael, your lovely barmaid.”
A chorus of chuckles and catcalls rose from the crowd.
“Michael here,” Tommy continued, “got quite a kick out of teasing me a few years back when Sister Ruth made me wear the girls’ uniform. Now, that was a while ago, but as many of you know... I have a very long memory.” He let that sink in for a moment. "So tonight, I thought it would be poetic justice to return the favor. While the ladies are preparing for their performance, Michael here will be attending to all your beverage needs. Feel free to call him Michelle. Thanks again for coming, and enjoy the show!”
The crowd applauded with delight, turning their attention toward the bar. Danny was busy mixing drinks, ever so thankful that Tommy had chosen to leave him in peace.
Michael, on the other hand, was mortified. As degrading as it had been to be forced into a micro-mini maid outfit, he had at least been able to remain relatively anonymous behind the bar while the attention was focused on the eight women. Now he was the center of attention, serving thirsty guests in his ridiculous female garb, and he knew with dreadful certainty that it was going to be a thoroughly miserable experience.
The guests, eager to support Tommy’s little revenge, proved utterly merciless. They called out “Michelle!” in singsong voices, telling him how adorable he looked in his dress, how the color suited him, and how they simply had to get a picture.
The female guests proved especially brutal, their laughter sharper and their comments more biting.
Disaster struck when he leaned over a table of six rowdy, wine-tipsy women to drop off a tray of vodka tonics. Without warning, one of them reached out and flipped the back of his tiny skirt high into the air, revealing his lacy, ruffled panties to the entire left side of the room.
The table erupted in shrieks of laughter. Michael, his face burning red, quickly pushed her hand away and tried to move on.
Just as he thought he might escape, one of them called out, “Michelle, wait! Can you do a little curtsy for us?”
Michael ignored her completely and scurried back toward the bar, pretending not to hear. But through the reflection in the mirror, he watched in horror as the woman marched straight up to Tommy’s head table. A second later, Tommy crooked his finger in Michael's direction.
Michael felt the heat rising in his face as he reluctantly minced across the floor in his precarious high heels to face his tormentor.
“Michelle," Tommy said, his tone sharp with accusation. “I just received a very serious complaint. I’m told you refused to curtsy for one of our distinguished guests.”
Michael swallowed hard. “I... I didn’t hear her. I was busy with the drinks.”
“Is that so? Well, can you hear me now?” Tommy asked.
Michael nodded sullenly, his eyes fixed on the floor.
"Good," Tommy continued. “Because I want you to go up on the stage and show us all your best curtsy.”
Giggles swept through the room as Michael, cheeks flushing, climbed the stage steps. He stood in front of the curtain and waited disconsolately for further instructions, his shoulders slumped in defeat. All eyes were on him as Tommy spoke once more.
“Attention, everyone! Michelle would now like to demonstrate her very best curtsy,” Tommy announced to raucous laughter. "Let's give her our full attention, shall we? She's been looking forward to this all evening."
Blushing crimson, Michael lifted the sides of his skirt, gave a stiff little bend at the knees, and executed the clumsiest, most reluctant curtsy imaginable. The second he straightened, he spun on his heel and made a break for it.
“Hold on a second, Michelle!” Tommy’s voice boomed, stopping him dead in his tracks. "I know you're just dying to show everyone what’s underneath that little skirt, aren't you?" asked Tommy, not really expecting an answer. “Why don’t you turn around, bend over at the waist, and lift your skirt up your back for us, nice and high.”
“That’s right, show us the goods!” a woman from Table Four screamed.
"Lift it higher!" another voice joined in.
The chant began to spread. "Higher! Higher! Higher!"
Michael groaned inwardly, his shoulders slumping in total surrender. Facing the curtain, he reached back, grabbed his skirt, and hiked it up past his waist, holding it high. The frilly lace of his panties drew howls of laughter and delighted whistles from the audience, with several guests rising to their feet for a better look.
“Now give us one more curtsy to say thank you,” Tommy commanded.
Redder than ever, Michael turned, dropped into one final, humiliated dip, and practically sprinted off the stage. The crowd rewarded him with a standing ovation.
The crimson-faced “barmaid” dutifully returned to the bar and resumed taking cocktail orders from the happy patrons, his hands shaking as he scribbled on his notepad.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, in the backstage dressing room, Molly was in her absolute element.
“So!” she said, clapping her hands together. “Have any of you had any experience dancing the can-can?
The eight women, still red-faced and shivering from their stint on the floor, glared at her and shook their heads, their expressions filled with apprehension.
“Well, good news,” said Molly, opening the closet door. “After tonight, you can add it to your résumés!”
Inside hung eight flamboyant can-can costumes in dazzling shades of red, purple, and gold that seemed almost to glow. Molly continued, “As you can see, you won’t need those cocktail outfits anymore, so if you’ll kindly take them off...”
Sighing with resignation, their spirits thoroughly broken, the women once again stripped naked at Molly’s behest.
As they stood shivering in the cool draft of the dressing room, Molly reached into the wardrobe and pulled out the first dress. The girls collectively reached toward it, all hoping against hope to snatch it from her and use it to cover their nudity.
Instead, Molly casually stepped into the costume herself, pulling it up over her own clothes and zipping it shut.
"Now, have a seat," she instructed, gesturing to the floor. "Time for a demonstration. Pay close attention."
Naked and mortified, the women, who would have given anything for some sort of covering, submissively sat naked on the floor in a semicircle. They flinched as their bare skin touched the cold hardwood, crossing their arms over their chests and tucking their legs tightly together in a futile attempt to preserve what little modesty they had left.
Molly surveyed her bare, shivering audience and smiled to herself, clearly pleased with the sight before her. "Great! Okay, girls, watch very closely, because I'm only going through this once.”
She tapped her phone, and lively music burst from a portable speaker, filling the room with a high-tempo beat.
Molly began her demonstration. “Hands on hips, like this,” she said, demonstrating her stance. “A nice high leg kick is a must!"
She hiked her skirt to her waist and kicked enthusiastically, her leg shooting almost straight toward the ceiling.
“Now pay extra attention, girls. The best part’s coming up. This is where you really sell it to your audience.”
The music Molly had chosen was Jacques Offenbach’s
Orpheus in the Underworld, a piece that practically seemed to invite bawdiness.
As the music reached its signature crescendo, Molly spun on her heel, bent forward at the waist, flipped her multilayered skirt over her back, and vigorously shook her hips from side to side in time with the driving beat.
The naked women on the floor cringed in collective horror, each of them picturing herself being forced to perform that exact salacious routine in front of ninety drunk, cheering patrons.
Once the lesson ended, Molly smoothed her skirt with a satisfied smile and began pulling the remaining dresses from the wardrobe.
“Right then! Time to get dressed.”
Each woman received a black can-can dress with thin straps and layers of magenta-and-black ruffled petticoats, sheer thigh-high stockings, shiny black heels, ruffled lace panties, and a towering feathered headpiece.
Molly stood back, admiring her fleet of glowing, deeply humiliated can-can dancers as they secured their feathers, preparing to send them out to face the music.
“Okay, girls, we’ll have one quick run-through before we go out there,” Molly chirped, lining them up and tapping her phone to restart the track. “Let’s make it good and quick. The natives are getting restless, and we don’t want to keep them waiting.”
Despite themselves, their bodies moving almost on autopilot, the eight women picked up the basic steps. Their kicks were uneven, some higher than others, but it was certainly good enough to satisfy the undiscerning crowd. In any case, nobody in that hall was going to be judging them on their technical choreography.
Molly led the dispirited group out to the stage and lined them up just inches behind the heavy velvet curtain.
"Remember," she said, "high leg kicks. Lift those dresses and shake those tushies like you mean it. Give them a show they'll never forget."
Not a single woman responded. They stood as a silent, defeated bunch, utterly abashed by their predicament.
Out in the hall, Tommy caught the signal as Molly poked her head around the curtain and gave him a sharp nod. He raised a hand toward his buddy in the lighting booth. The chandelier lights dimmed, a drumroll sounded somewhere in the darkness, and a blinding white spotlight shone directly onto the center of the curtain.
Molly gave the heavy golden rope a firm tug, and the curtain whooshed open.
The hall erupted in approval as eight women dressed in dazzling can-can costumes stepped into the spotlight.
Orpheus in the Underworld blasted through the speakers. On cue, the eight women began to dance.
Their leg kicks, though not quite synchronized, immediately sent the crowd into a frenzy. But the real explosion came when the music reached its signature turn. All eight dancers spun around in unison, hiked their petticoats, and vigorously shook their lace-covered hips from side to side. The audience was floored. Gasps of delighted shock quickly turned into deafening roars.
This is what the hall sounded like as the shamefaced dancers lifted their dresses and kicked their legs:
The Can-Can
Whooping, whistling, and the rhythmic clapping of ninety pairs of hands filled the hall. The eight red-faced dancers turned back around, their cheeks burning hotter than the stage lights. Their hearts weren't in it, not even close, but they kicked up their heels with desperate energy, knowing full well that anything less than their best efforts would lead to even greater degradation at Tommy's hands.
The routine reached its finale, and they curtsied in unison, just as Molly had trained them. The crowd rewarded them with a raucous standing ovation that seemed to shake the walls.
The curtain swept shut, and the women let out a collective, shuddering gasp of relief, desperate to escape the spotlight. But as they turned to scramble toward the dressing room, a unified chant began rising from the tables, building in volume.
"ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE!"
Molly intercepted them before they reached the dressing room. “Wow! They loved you!” she gushed. “Let’s give ’em one more, shall we? They certainly earned it after a response like that!”
Groans filled the air. Defeated, the women lined up again, knowing resistance was futile.
But just before Molly grabbed the curtain rope, she paused and turned around, her eyes suddenly widening with inspiration.
“Oh! I just had a marvelous idea, girls. Let’s make this encore extra special, something they'll be talking about for years. Here’s what we’re going to do...”
She leaned in and whispered her new instructions. The eight women listened in stunned silence, their eyes growing wider with each whispered word. When she finished, all eight wore expressions of utter horror, their faces draining of color.
“And remember,” she called over her shoulder as she walked away, “when the music hits the big crescendo, lift those skirts clean over your backs and shake those hips like there’s no tomorrow! Give them everything you've got!"
Molly pulled the curtain rope, glided down the steps, and took her seat at Tommy’s head table.
The audience cheered wildly as the curtain parted and the energetic music kicked off once more. The dancers went through the motions, their faces tight with dread. About a minute into the reprise, Molly stood up from her chair and flashed them their cue.
To the absolute astonishment and hysterical delight of the spellbound room, all eight women reached under their skirts, hooked their fingers into the waistbands of their ruffled panties, slipped them down their legs, and kicked the undergarments into their hands. In one somewhat synchronized motion, they tossed them high into the air, where they floated down into the outstretched hands of eight ecstatic spectators.
The hall exploded into a madhouse of roars, screams, and booming laughter.
As the music pressed toward its frenzied, galloping peak, a feverish excitement gripped the room. Guests leaned forward in their chairs, breathless for the finale they all knew was coming.
They were not disappointed.
Offenbach’s score hit its raucous, crashing climax. On the final drumbeat, all eight dancers spun on their heels, grabbed their petticoats, hoisted them past their waists, and presented their bare bottoms to the room. They shook their hips from side to side in rhythmic humiliation, their soft flesh jiggling wildly to the driving tempo.
The sight of eight bare, beautiful asses of every shape and size bouncing in unison was a spectacle that would be burned into the memories of everyone present for decades to come.
The hall reached a fever pitch. Guests stood on top of chairs, pounding on tables, their faces flushed and hoarse from screaming.
When the song finally came to a halt, the women spun back around to face the crowd, every one of them beet red, humiliated, and pantyless. Before they could escape, the track looped into one last lightning-fast reprise, forcing them to repeat the entire bare-bottomed finale all over again, much to the exhilaration of the insatiable crowd.
When the music ended for good, the dancers received a thunderous standing ovation. A few of the mortified women covered their burning faces with both hands, tears of shame filling their eyes.
The curtain finally swung closed, cutting off the blinding lights. Shivering and still clutching their skirt hems, the women prayed with every fiber of their being that their ordeal was over.
They had no idea that this was merely the warm-up act.