HIS MUSE

Looking puzzled as to why he looked guilty

"Raymond," she asked, "have I come at a bad time?"

"Yeah,you could say that.But we might as well get it over with.I've sold this place to this gentleman"

Jodie's jaw dropped, "Sold it?" she squeaked.Then she followed the direction of Raymond's gesture.

Williams had been leaning over the legal papers spread out on the antique pine table.He straightened slowly,seeing shock and dismay chase across the woman's face and the speed of her recovery.

Her hair,the colour of the chestnuts he'd used to swirl in a string when he was a kid,while her make-up was,to say the least, dramatic.

He recognized her instantly,the dance recital lady.

"I don't think we've met...Williams Corrigan" he said formally,moving his hand round the corner of the table,extending it for a handshake.

Automatically,Jodie took the hand in hers,liking the strength and warmth of his grip.

More than liking it,she admitted to herself,taking in his height,the unrevealing slate-grey eyes set over high cheekbones,his untidy hair that had the colour and sheen of burnished leather.

She swallowed,not liking it the tenor of her thoughts and said politely, "Jodie Scott".

He dropped her hand rather more quickly than polite, "The dancer",he said,an edge to his voice.

"I'm a dancer,yes"

"I was at your recital,the name on the programme was Scott-Davies"

"I still use my married name professionally," Jodie said,and did not ask if had liked the performance.By the look of him he might ask for a refund.

Married name.The two words fell like lead into William's brain.Was she married now? In the five days that had passed since the recital his dreams had been haunted by this woman,every dream culminating in an eroticism so explicit as to embarrass him when he finally woke.

He shouldn't have gone the recital,he thought.

He recalled how he had the opportunity to decline the offer to go for the recital

"A dance recital?"

"Yes,Williams,a dance recital" Ben replied with commendable patience.

Williams pulled off his headband,running his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair.

"Are you crazy? I've never been to a dance recital before" he replied

"Real men don't go to dance recitals? Then I bet it will be a new experience for you,but Susannah's cooking dinner first,steak and chiffon pie" Ben said off handedly

These were Williams favorite,as both Ben and his wife,Susannah knew.

Williams grinned, "I'll come for dinner,then clean up the dishes while you two go to the recital"

Ben returned the grin with a bland smile, "No recital,No dinner".

Williams favoured his old friend with a thoughtful look.At fifty eight,Ben was fit and tanned, his crop of silver hair and luxuriant white moustache looks interesting contrast to the sparkle in his hazel eyes and his erect bearing.

"So who's dancing?",Williams asked bluntly

"A young woman Susannah met in the grocery store one day.She moved to Halifax two years ago,to take over as artistic director of Oceans Dance.According to Susannah,she's done wonder with a company that was just about defunct" Ben replied

Williams replied in a resigned voice, "Susannah thinks this young woman and I have a lot in common and wants us to get together"

Ben looked at him crisply knowing how hard his wife gave up trying to influence Williams' love life three to four years ago.

"Susannah gave up trying to influence your love life three to four years ago.As well as you know-and not that there was ever much to influence" Ben said crisply. "She wants to support someone whose work she respects, that's all.Stop being paranoid"

Williams looked at him as he held tightly to his temper.There were two people he loved in this world,one was Ben and the other Susannah,and he had no wish to jeopardize either of those relationship.

Ben gave a reluctant laugh. "All right,I'll drop the subject.But I'm not sorry I brought it up"

Williams exhaled in a small shoosh of air. "What time is dinner?"

"Six sharp.The recital is at eight.So will you come?"

"Yeah,I'll come" Williams said ironically.He raised a hand in salute,then headed for the men's changing room,loosening the black belt knotted around his waist,aware of the tension still lingering in his shoulders.

A brief solo by the best of a young company dancers,another very humorous jazz number,and then it was the turn of the unimaginative named Jodie Scott-Davies.By now,Williams was curious about her.He might not like her name,but he had to respect her abilities as a teacher.

The curtains parted.The spotlight shined softly on a small crouched figure in centre stage.The music started,something subtle and impressionistic,with a haunting flute melody threading its way through a shimmer of strings.

The woman's curved body made it's first tentative movement.And Williams,who had come prepared to be thoroughly bored,sat up straight in his chair,his eyes riveted on the stage.

She was wearing a body suit of mottled green that moulded her like a second skin,while her copper-coloured hair bore a coronet if leaves.In a series of moves suffused with grace and control,she slightly became the essence of a tree.

She was wind itself.And then,with a consummate artistry that held the audience in absolute silence,she mimed the lumberjack striding through the forest,the hungry snarl of the chain-saw,and the slow,tangled crash of the severed trunk to the forest floor.The sap bled.The tree died.She lay stretched out on the floor,all motion frozen,all vitality gone. The spotlight faded,leaving the stage in darkness and the death unassuaged.After a moment of perfect silence,the audience began to clap,and Williams from a long distance away saw a few people rising to their feet.

The spotlight came on again,focusing on a slim,green-clad figure that was just only a woman,a woman bowing and smiling,entirely composed amid the tumult of sound.

"That was wonderful" Susannah said with deep satisfaction

"Amazing flexibility and strength" Ben responded more prosaically. "She'd have no trouble with a scissor kick,would she,Williams?"

"I don't imagine she would.Want to stretch your legs?" Williams made a valiant effort to bring himself back to the present.

"I didn't have to stomp on you once" Susannah remarked. "What do you think of her,Williams?"

"Magic" he said,then could have bitten off his tongue as complacency and calculation flickered across Susannah's face.

As John waved at friends two rows down,Williams excused himself,ostensibly to speak to a couple of his students whom he had sighted climbing the opposite set of stairs,in actuality to be by himself.He needed to gather his thoughts, although he would have been the first to admit that the confusion knotted in his belly had very little to do with thinking.He stationed himself behind one of the concrete pillars on the far side of the reception area,where he did not think that he would be disturbed,absently scuffing at the carpet with the toe of his shoe.

Josephine Scott-Davies,alias Jodie,was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

But even as the words formed in his mind he was fighting against them.How could he possibly know what she looked like? From fifteen rows up,under spotlights, any woman wearing theatrical make-up could be made to look beautiful.

Not in a skin-tight body suit,a little voice whispered in his ear.

So it was her body.With a surge of relief he remembered how long it had been since he had had a woman.That explained his reaction.Simple.

Or was it that simple? He saw lots of bodies at the dojo.And a lots of women.None of them had ever struck him as magical.

I keep my sex life and the dojo separate, that's why,he thought savagely.If there's magic in this woman, it's only because I need to bed someone.

Into his mind flashed an image of the way she had moved.Arms flowing as though boneless,the curve if thigh,the arch of her back.Would she move like that in bed?

Sex.That's all it was.There was no room for magic in his life.Never had been.

"Showtime!" Ben shouted with excitement making Williams jolt out of his thoughts

"Now we have to watch the second half of the show" Ben said dragging him.

In his frayed jeans and leather jerkin he snaked his way through the crowd.Williams followed more sedately,and with each step that took him nearer to the door heard an insistent inner voice telling him to get the hell out of here and forget he had ever seen Josephine Scott-Davies.

He couldn't get out.Susannah would ask too many questions.

Before he was ready for the show,the curtain opened for the final number.

This time Jodie Scott-Davies' body suit was shaded from toe to shoulder all the way from scarlet to white to purple,and 'Transformation' was clearly about sexuality.White was innocence,playfulness,flirtation:the body unawakened yet expectant,knowing that something momentous and wonderful beckoned.She leaped as though there were springs in her heel and pirouettes were as artlessly joyful as the sparkle of sunlight on lake water.

If Williams had ever known that state of innocence,he could not now remember it,for there was only blackness where memory should have been-a blackness he had long ago learned to leave strictly alone.That a woman dancing on a stage should in only seconds thrust him up against that black barrier appalled him.

The music changed.Chords as inevitable as heartbeats throbbed in Williams' gut,their primitive rhythm stirring his blood,and between one moment and the next Jodie Scott changed from innocent girlhood to a woman fully aware of her sensuality.

He felt the stirring in his groin,He must be the only one to make love to her.

The words echoed in his head...the only one to make love to her.Wondering if he was going crazy, Williams fought them down,grabbing for some semblance of reality.

I have to make love with this woman.I have to.

The lighting shifted,picking up the rich purple of her body suit,and smoothly the chords that had thrummed their way into his very veins were incorporated into a richer,more subtle and more complex melody.Although her invisible partner was still with her,there were now united by ties far more intricate than those of sex alone,ties if battle fought and of long-lasting loyalties.Ties of maturity and trust.Ties of love.

By now Williams should not have been surprised by the force of his reaction.What he felt was a torrent of anger so fierce that he could scarcely sit still in his seat.

She was a fool,this dancer,a silly naive fool.She,like so many,had bought into the myth that drove people into ill-starred marriages and untold misery.She should have known better.Certainly she should have found some deeper truth to portray with all the talent and beauty at her command.

But her movement infinitely graceful,rich in undertones of meaning.Williams closed his mind.Although he might want her in his bed so badly that he still ached with that need,he was not so foolish so as to envisage anything else.

The dance ended with her standing upright,her stance one of strength and power.Again there was that moment of absolute silence,the very best tribute an artist could receive,before the applause,the whistles and bravos broke out in a roar of sound.The standing ovation was spontaneous and instant.

Reluctantly,Williams got to his feet,bending to put his raincoat on the seat behind him.Under the cover of the noise,Susannah said sharply, "Williams,is something wrong?"

God knew what he looked like.He knew how he felt.

Stunned,as though an opponent's punch had caught him on the side of the head so that he was reeling, out of balance, his blood ringing in his ears.He also felt as though he had travelled the whole length of his lifetime only to arrive back at the starting point.Striving to compose his face,he said untruthfully, "Of course nothing's wrong"

Susannah rested her hand on his arm,looking straight into his eyes. "It's all right to feel" she said forcefully,then she turned away and began clapping again as if she never said a word.

After the storm of emotions Jodie Scott had aroused in him,Williams did not need another woman,no matter how well intentioned or how well loved, commenting on the way he ran his life.Then Ben leaned over and said, "We're invited to the reception backstage-you will join us,Williams?"

Williams didn't even take a moment to think.The last thing he wanted was to meet Jodie Scott-Davies face to face in a roomful of people. "Thanks,but no,Ben...I'm going to head out.You will have no problem getting a lift home?"

Ben and Susannah were probably acquainted with at least half the audience.Ben chuckled. "Shouldn't imagine...quite the dancer,hmm?"

"Indeed",Williams said wryly. "Thanks for dinner,both of you...I'll be in touch"

He edged his way up the stairs,strode through the reception area,and went out of the side exit.The cool,misty air against his face was like the touch of sanity.He set off along the pavement,forcing himself to take deep,slow breaths just as he did before a major competition.

If he was smart,he'd find himself a woman as soon as he could and he'd never see Jodie Scott-Davies again.

Never would not be too soon.

A few days after the recital, Jodie made a routine visit to the landlord of the flat she wanted to be living in.She more than wanted that flat,she thought,as she set off down the street from her present building.She craved it,longed for it,desired it.Humour sparked her green eyes as she recognized the sexuality implicit in her choice of words.Perhaps that was what happened when you lived without a man in your life.Especially at this time of the year.

Although spring had come late to Halifax,the trees had finally unfurled their leaves.Tightly folded lilac buds promised colour and fragrance,and tulips stood stiffly in planters.Jodie had never liked tulips;their perfection had an air of unreality, their rigidity offended her dancer's eyes.If she got the flat she would plant snow drops,narcissi and bluebells.For the flat had a garden,and it was for the garden that she was willing to increase her rent payments by eighty-five dollars a month.

She was top on the list of people waiting for the flat.And the couple now living in it had mentioned to her two months ago that they would probably be leaving Halifax early in the summer.This couple had neglected the garden,only interested in it as a backdrop for barbecues with their friends.She,Jodie,would have the fun of pruning the climbing roses,weeding the rockery,dividing the perennials...smiling to herself,a lilt in her step,she hurried across the street.

The flat was not in the best area of town,This did not bother Jodie,for neither was her studio.Taxes were lower in this part of town.She turned the corner of the street and felt her heartbeat quicken with anticipation.The sun was shining,the forsythia was in bloom,and today was the day she was finally going to be offered the flat;she felt it in her bones.Which,she acknowledged,were still aching from her recital.What was it Sonya,one of the other teachers,always said? "I rent a wheelchair for the day after a concert".Five days had passed since Jodie had danced her heart out for that wonderfully responsive audience,but her muscles and joints were still protesting.

She would be thirty on her next birthday.Perhaps she should be concentrating more on choreography and administration...

She picked up her pace,refusing to allow herself to worry on this beautiful morning when all the omens were good.And then,on the other side of the street,she saw the flat.

It was on the ground-floor unit of an old brick house with square-paned windows and white trim;she loved everything about it,including the fact that she would have a fireplace.The landlord lived in the attic flat,while a strong-minded woman who would not move out until the day she died had the second floor;the ground floor was the only one with access to the small,tangled garden.She ran up the front steps and into the entrance hall with it's three doors and pushed the landlord's buzzer.

His name was Raymond.Retired from the city works department,he hid his liking for Jodie under a crusty exterior and kept the three flats in very good condition.She would like having him as a landlord.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you,Ms.Scott,but the ground-floor flat is no longer available.I'll be living in it myself" Williams said with icy precision

"But...I was first on the list" Jodie protested. "Won't you please reconsider?"

"You were first on Raymond's list" Williams said coldly. "Legally you don't have a leg to stand on"

Jodie felt disappointed.No flat.No garden.No old-fashioned rose bushes or bluebells.Now she understood why Raymond had looked so guilty.

"Sorry,Jodie...I know you had your heart set on it.But I'm getting too old to look after the whole building,and one of the conditions of sale is that I can stay here as long as I like.You'll find somewhere else,lots of places have gardens" Raymond said gruffly

Not places that she could afford.Jodie opened her eyes,all her rigorous years of training with their ups and downs coming to her rescue.She drew herself to her full height,her high chin,and said coolly, "I hope you will be happy here,Mr. Corrigan".

She knew why she had wanted the garden,because it reminded her of the garden where she and Sean had played together as children.Sean,who for five brief years had been her husband.

The harsh timbre of Williams Corrigan's voice was unmistakable. "Will you have dinner with me,Ms.Scott? If you're not married,that is"