Penelope Fairlie had never faltered. 'Faltering is for amateurs and the mentally ill', she would say.
At fifty-two, she was the embodiment of composure. That rare breed of Englishwoman who moved through life as if time itself obeyed her schedule. She was a beacon of virtue and as disappointing as a soggy digestive, though no one would ever tell her due to her ability to petrify anyone within her orbit, even other people's dogs in Hyde Park.
She lived in a tall, ordered house in Belgravia with her husband, Charles, a respected tax barrister, and their Pomeranian, Bertie, whose coiffure was definitely worse than his bark, styled by an expensive personal dog groomer from Hampstead. There were no children, a fate that had become a new normal many years before.
If one dared to asked Judge Penelope Fairlie when she last felt the surge of a carnal wave, she would probably tell you it was when she saw Julio Iglesias in concert for her twenty-first birthday
Charles Fairlie was a man of professional eloquence and personal grooming.
He had spent their thirty years of marriage perfecting the art of absence while being perpetually present, a skill much admired in the legal profession.
Their relationship had long ago settled into the comfortable civility of two people who shared mortgage statements, mutual respect, and an occasional bout of influenza. They dined well, travelled seasonally, and never raised their voices.
Their lives read like an "at Home on Sunday" newspaper spread fused with Pomeranian Monthly.
But one Tuesday Penelope returned home early, having adjourned court for a witness who had fainted theatrically in the dock.
She let herself in, hung up her Burberry coat, popped her golfing umbrella in the stand, and followed a peculiar, yet vaguely familiar sound. It was somewhere between a gasp and a whimper and reminded her of the 80s.
As a woman of the world, well familiar with the peculiarities of human behaviour in her court, the vision before her was of something more unique in her own personal catalogue of 'seen it all befores'.
Charles was on all fours in a gimp mask making woof sounds, and Barry, the groomer from Hampstead, was saying something along the lines of, "you are a very naughty boy," dragging him along with Bertie's best Chanel dog lead.
A long pause preceded the events that unfolded. Bertie himself had been sitting on his velvet cushion watching things in a confused state, just glad that now Mummy was home. He had always hated the groomer and would regularly bite him.
"Your toupee has slipped, Barry." Penelope said curtly, "along with your reputation as a my dog groomer. Get out of my house. " And you, Charles, you can leave too, I never want to see either of you again. You belong in a kennel, and I hope you get fleas."
The following weeks were tortuous. Deep pain and menopause slushed up Penelope's brain to such a degree that she had taken some time off work and visited and old school friend in Bath.
Unbeknown to Penelope, a deep current of change was about to take her to new shores.
"You will Love Bath," said Cecilia. "Stay as long as you need. Take up some classes, you can come to mine! Paletes, ballet barre, aerobics, and hot yoga."
Cecilia was optimistic and gleeful. Penelope was tired just thinking about it.
"Art then," said Cecilia."
"Art." answered Penelope for no good reason, the word fell out like a sigh.
"YES!" Cecilia was being gleeful again. "You were so good at school."
It was on the third afternoon and Penelope meandered through the town whilst Cecilia was doing something sweaty. At the Assembly Rooms, she was drawn by the sign: Life Drawing Class – All Welcome. Knowing it would get Cecelia off her back, she popped in to find out more.
Within two minutes of enquiring she was shuffled into a room and guided towards an easel with rudimentary materials.
An artist next to her passed her something.
"Here, it's my spare."
Now fashioned in a smock and still wearing the beret she had left the house in, Penelope was not unaware of the fact that she had become a slightly ridiculous stereotype.
She picked up a pencil and looked behind the easel wondering if anyone heard her mumbled expletive.
The artist next to her giggled and whispered, "it's a schlong and a half isn't it?"
The model stood on the platform with the unselfconscious ease of youth.
Broad-shouldered, wiry, beautiful in that careless, provisional way some men are before life edits them down.
His name, she later learned as he did polite rounds to view each insult to art, was Leo. He was twenty-six, recently moved from Brighton, “a performer, mostly.”
She assumed “performer” meant actor and imagined him performing Shakespeare, glad he had robed up.
"Oh how lovely." She said, smiling and avoiding eye contact, as well as nether region staring.
When their eyes met, something ancient sent a small electric shock downward. Penelope's body remembered it still existed.
After the class, he approached her.
"I really liked your drawings of me," he said. "They are precise and ordered. You should see some of the artworks I see," he laughed.
"Would you like them? Honestly, I won't keep them. I am only here on holiday, killing time really."
Leo was ecstatic and handed her a leaflet. Performance Art Showcase — The Velvet Room, Friday 8pm.
"I know it's short notice," he said...."
“Come,” he begged. “It’s experimental. It will be very inspiring, freeing, and give you a real sense of the place. Please say you will come, it would be an honour to have you in the audience."
Leo seemed so sweet so eager that Penelope agreed. After all, she needed to get used to going out alone now that was old, free, and single.
The Velvet Room was tucked down a narrow lane, unmarked but for a faint boom of thumping bass and the smell of incense and beer. Inside, the lighting was so intimate Penelope couldn't see a thing. People were arriving dressed in clothes she had never seen, with body parts on show that should not be seen.
A woman with green hair was throwing questions into the air. “You here for the showcase?”
Penelope nodded. “I believe so.”
The girl was holding something, "where dya wan' it?"
Penelope looked confused, "wrist or hand?" The green haired girl blew a pink bubble from her black lips and Penelope reminded herself to be....more artistic.
"Oh, hand I think," she said, still confused.
"Take yer glove off then," demanded the girl.
Before Penelope knew it there was a black smudgy tattoo inked on her well manicured hand and the girl was blowing another pink bubble and saying 'NEXT!"
The stage was a shallow platform backed by velvet curtains that had known better centuries. She found a seat near the back, removed her other glove, and tried to look as though she attended avant-garde happenings regularly.
The music began, low, slow, and full of promise. There was a pulsating boom and African rhythms emanating from all around then a tall figure stepped into the light.
It was Leo.
Dressed in nothing but metaphors.
Penelope froze. She recognised at once the calm, unhurried posture, the deliberate movements, this was not theatre, nor dance. It was… a naked exhibition. A performance of skin and hair that began to move under strobes and beats.
Around her, the audience applauded softly, reverently, as if this were Mass and he the officiant.
He spoke — low, assured, words that might once have been poetry before they undressed.
“We are bodies before we are names,” he said. “We perform to be believed.”
Penelope felt the strangest vertigo. She was blushing with embarrassment. But she took a few deep breaths and focused on the art message which to this day, she has no understanding of.
When the lights came up, she remained seated to compose herself and get over the shock.
There was a five minute break until the next performance. Time to make a subtle exit.
But Leo was running over.
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
"Thank you for getting dressed," she said. He laughed and she noticed for the first time his beautiful face as it lit the room.
"Let's get out of here...Let me buy you a drink." Leo said in a convincing tone.
She almost declined. But politeness, that old reflex, and possibly some other old reflexes, betrayed her.
That was the start, she would muse when looking back. The time his skin and presence was so charged she could feel it in her stomach.
“You don’t talk like my usual audience,” he said, over red wine.
“Your normal audience has piercings.”
He laughed, and it broke something in her.
The laughter, the wine, the gentle disarray of being unobserved, each loosened a burden she hadn’t realised she carried. The coat of propriety was left at the door.
He spoke about leaving Brighton, about performing to survive, about wanting to write.
She listened, surprised by how much it mattered that he wanted to be understood.
When they finally stepped back into the night, the rain had softened to mist.
"I'd like to make love to you." Leo declared.
"Let's get a hotel room," said Penelope, excited and sexually awakened in a single afternoon.
The walk to her hotel was brief, almost quiet. Neither of them suggested what would happen next; neither pretended not to know.
Leo was considerate and both domineering and submissive in passionate waves as they explored each others bodies in the finest detail. They made love four times, and then once again, before breakfast in the shower. It was more than she had made love to her husband in twenty years.
As they parted at the taxi rank Leo kissed Penelope's cheek. "I will never forget you." he whispered.
"Thank you dearest, charming boy," she answered.
For the first time in years, Penelope had faltered and tiptoed into the dark side.
But, more importantly, she discovered hat it would not kill her.
Judge Penelope Fairlie returned to London as if she were the heroine of her own parole.
Bath had washed her clean of stigma, expectations, and an imaginary birdcage.
Her hair was shorter, deliberately so, an unspoken rebellion against the helmet she had worn for thirty years. She had bought dresses that kissed her figure in linen and silks. Men would look longingly at this beautiful modern woman who knew herself. Women would watch in disgust.
"Who does she think she is, a woman of her age wearing that?"
Penelope was a Belgravia scandal, albeit, a small one.
Even Bertie seemed confused by her new scent of freedom.
Within weeks, she was back on the bench, a leaner, luminous, version of herself, possessed of an unnerving calm. Courtroom 7 had missed her efficiency, if not her warmth. The clerks whispered that she smiled now, occasionally, which was far more disconcerting than her old froideur.
But fate, like a malicious court usher, was waiting to file an unexpected motion.
The case was Regina versus Leontius Ryder.
Penelope glanced at the list and thought the name familiar, but it wasn’t until he entered the dock, hands folded, curls tamed, that her heart performed a most un-judicial leap.
Leo.
The naked philosopher of The Velvet Room now stood before her in a borrowed suit, accused of public indecency and the destruction of a civic sculpture valued at £100,000.
“Your Honour,” said the prosecution, “the defendant’s so-called performance involved squirting cream over the marble bust of Sir Robert Peel while entirely unclothed.”
Penelope inhaled sharply through her nose. The vision of cream was inconveniently vivid.
Leo looked up. Recognition was hard as a lightening streak. His eyes widened, then softened, as if to say forgive me, muse.
Penelope composed herself, rearranging her face into its most neutral expression, the mask of a woman who could sentence her own libido if required.
“The court,” she began, “is not a theatre.”
A pause.
“Though I appreciate some of you may find the acoustics similar.”
A ripple of laughter broke the tension.
The trial, inevitably, was adjourned. She could not preside; conflict of interest, emotional and otherwise.
Outside, the press had gathered.
Judge Sees Defendant Naked! shouted one speculative headline the next day. It's the Naked Truth Your Honour! said another.
Charles sent a curt text: You’ve become quite the spectacle, Penny. I am suing for custody of Bertie.
She deleted it and ordered another martini.
When Leo appeared again, weeks later, she attended discreetly, a mere spectator in civilian clothes. He was represented by a nervous young barrister who clearly adored him.
When the verdict came — guilty, with mitigating artistic intent — Penelope almost smiled. A small fine, community service, and an interview on Channel 4.
When the fuss had died down, and it didn't take long, Leo waited in the rain outside chambers.
"I am so glad you messaged," he said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” He was looking down like a schoolboy, but then he looked up and was the man she had longed for all these weeks.
“You didn’t,” she lied. “You reminded me I’m still flammable.”
He grinned. “That’s not a bad epitaph.”
They walked together through the wet London streets until decorum dissolved again. But this time it was bigger than passion. It was a longing that both needed to satiate in the knowledge that however long it lasted it would be time treasured with the lust and companionship of two people who could escape their scripts. And that it was nobody’s business but their own.
“Perhaps I’ll paint you next,” he said.
“Don’t,” she replied, “you’d only end up in court again.”
But her smile, that new, dangerous smile, said otherwise.
©2025 Sarnia de la Mare
