The Dance Studio

As soon as he stepped through the door, the heavy beat of a rather generic rock song blasted Steven in a mad dash to escape, pushing him back a bit before settling. With every pulse of the rhythm, his eyes darted around the room, astounded that he had never noticed this room when he first got here.

A row of mirrors with a stretcher bar on one side, all clean and neatly polished. Mat black flooring pads over hard wood floorboard from the way his footsteps fell. A fully stocked snack bar that his mom was currently rifling through. Speakers in the corners connected to what seemed like an incredibly expensive sound system, with a full light setup for added effect. A set of lockers in the corner by the far side of the mirrors. Truly, a dance studio perfectly prepared for any sort of respectable dancer. Everything worth more than a pretty penny in general installation or tech.

With a quick jog across the rather spacious room until, when he finally was within reach of the remote to the stereo remote, he quickly turned the music down to a more reasonable level to speak up.

"Kinda cool setup," Steven was finally able to say. "Huh, mom?"

Pulling out a water bottle, Amy quickly stood up as she ripped the cap off of it.

"I'd say so," Amy said before taking a quick sip. "You know I used to be a dancer, right?"

Steven nodded, as he held out his hand for a swig. Amy handed it off as she looked around the room.

"So, this might have been a bigger gain than we thought. I gave up dancing for Charles. And yet here we are, in a house with a fully decked out dance studio. His loss, my gain, I say!"

Handing out the bottle towards Amy, Steven had to admit he hadn't seen his mother this energized or excited in a long while. It made him smile to see her feeling better after all that his father... That Charles had done to them both.

"Well," he began as he started to walk back towards the door. "We should take a full evaluation tomorrow. We've done a lot in one day, and I only have a couple days off. So we should probably get something to eat before we settle back into the swing of things."

"You're right," Amy replied quickly keeping pace. "We've still got a lot to do, and this room can wait. So, how about this: pizza? Maybe a large half pepperoni, half sausage, onion and olive? That way, we have leftovers for tomorrow."

Steven couldn't help but appreciate that no matter what, his mom was always there for him.

"You're the best, mom!"

Going for a quick hug, he rubbed her shoulder reassuringly before letting go and leaving the room to grab the phone. Amy wanted to follow suit, but as she stepped through the door, something bothered her. Turning back as she reached for the lights, something that had caught her attention when she first found the room, but had somehow avoided Steven's, had bothered her the entire time.

And that thing in question was the raised stages with the three poles that dominated the room. For some reason, she couldn't bring up the stripper poles at all with Steven. So she just let it go for now. But she was of two minds about them.

One was that Charles was absolutely a pig for demanding this sort of thing.

The other was that, deep down inside, some weird urge was starting to build inside her to let go, and climb up on stage and give it a whirl.

Shaking it off, Amy quickly turned off the lights, and closed the door before she decided to follow through on her urges.