I can’t even speak. I just shake my head like
I’m not sure I can ever be like that.
And I wonder if he’s able to do this with any girl. Every girl. Not just me. I don’t want to picture it.
“You have to leave your heart and soul here,” he tells me. “Every night. Every time. It’s your job to make the audience
feel
something.”
I definitely felt something. Mission accomplished—for him at least. “How?” I ask. I’m used to being instructed on my technicality, not the sentiments behind my movements.
He rests an elbow on a metal rung, and his deep gray eyes penetrate me, a mystery behind them. The kind that leaves me unprepared for what’s to come. “The easiest way is to draw upon personal experiences,” he says. “Think about the times you were in love.”
I sway uneasily and unglue my eyes from his. I wait for it…
“You’ve never been in love,” he states.
There it is.
“I’m only twenty-one,” I defend. “I still have plenty of time to fall in love after I pursue my career.”
He nears me, only a couple steps closer, but his body heat radiates and warms my skin. “Then evoke the same passion you feel when you have sex.”
I internally cringe.
As if the times I had sex were filled with wild, hot fervor. “I’ll try,” I say under my breath. That’s all I can do.
Awkward silence gathers between us, and I sense him reading my features. I just wonder how outwardly I’m cringing. I attempt to relax my facial muscles, but it’s too late.
“You’ve never had sex,” he deduces.
“No,” I say with the shake of my head. “No, I’ve had sex. Twice, actually.”
“Twice?” His brows rise like
that’s it?
Why did I give him a number? I would face-palm myself if I wasn’t frozen solid. “They weren’t memorable.” Just lame stabs at crossing off “to-do” lists. It took me some time to realize the list shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
He remains quiet, mulling this over, maybe. His lips in a thin line, his eyes more narrowed.
It dawns on me. “You’ve never had terrible sex, have you?” My heart pounds, and a light bulb triggers. “Is that why they call you the God of Russia?”
His expression morphs into an unamused,
don’t be ridiculous
one. “If your past relationships aren’t enough to help you, then you’ll need to find something that will. An image that’s moved you, a book, a song—anything that you can focus on while you perform. If you’re too concentrated on your actions, on the next move, that’s all the audience will see.”
I have passion for the circus. It’s my greatest, life-long love. Even if it’s a figment, a dream—more than reality. I still feel from it.
I’m just not sure how to show what’s in my heart.
And I can’t take forever to learn this skill. I have a deadline.
“We’ll work on it,” he tells me.
My pulse jumpstarts, and I watch him watching me. “You…want to help me feel passion?”
“I want to help you express passion. I’m sure you feel it. You’re here, aren’t you?” It’s strange how one person can see the hidden parts of you in a short amount of time that others don’t even understand in years.
He rests his warm hand on the back of my neck. “This way, myshka.” As he says it, he’s looking straight through me.
This way.
To him.
His hand slides to my spine, and he redirects me to a new apparatus, as though nothing really transpired. But my body is tight. My muscles bound together.
Be professional, Thora,
I tell myself.
I think back to our first few encounters. When he said, “Our relationship is unprofessional.” Even though he’s training me, I have a feeling that still stands. There is a line that cannot be uncrossed. We’ve leapt over it from day one, and now I just have to bury this tension.
Or draw upon it.
Act Sixteen
Tuesday night and I’m in the air.
Lights flicker around me as I twirl upside-down, my body supported by the aerial hoop. I tuck my legs around the steel and continue to spin and spin and spin, all the while maneuvering my torso, contorting into long lines and elongated shapes.
When the music hits a faster tempo, I grip the top of the ring, stretching out as the hoop rotates in quick circles. Being high, in the air, frees me completely. The slight prick of fear heightens my adrenaline, setting a fire beneath me.
Who can explain the drum of their heart or the burst of their lungs? Give me that person. I need them because words fail my senses.
A second passes before whistling breaches my serenity. It pricks my ears and pulls me out of the moment.
“Show us your splits, baby!”
“Yeah, spread your legs!”
Phantom isn’t a strip club, but some of the drunker patrons act like it is. I ignore their catcalls and do the opposite of the splits in spite, tightening my legs together. I drop to the bottom of the hoop, hooking my arms around the frame. And I twirl faster and faster, speeding my momentum with my strength.
Proud clapping fills my head, not the room. I don’t much care if I’ve imagined applause for myself. I’m still my biggest cheerleader and possibly even my biggest fan.
When I slow, my mind dizzying, the lights blanket me in a dark purple hue, my one minute cue. I gather up the last of my momentum to hoist my legs outward, as though I’m sitting down in the air. I release one hand and support my entire weight with my right bicep.
I let out a breath from my nose, keeping the line straight and steady and symmetrical.
The purple light blinks to white and the aerial hoop begins to descend. Faint, almost bored applause trickles in the room. What can I really expect from this crowd?
My heels hit the stage, and I take a quick bow, trying my best to cold-shoulder the two men in the front who howled for splits.
“You didn’t even show us your pus—”
Ignore.
I tune him out and hightail it behind the stage, slipping through a black door. Some of the waitresses, in lingerie costumes, decompress with cocktails while others reapply makeup at vanities.
I’m about to head to my wooden locker when I run straight into the manager, his mop of red hair and sinewy arms. Fantastic.
Roger’s green eyes become lasers, burning holes in my forehead. “Virgin Mary,” he calls out and gestures me over with a plump finger.
As much as I dislike Roger, if I have any chance to move to an apartment and support myself, I need this job. I’m sure people can smell my desperation a mile away.
I approach him at a safe distance. My corset lifts my boobs, nearly spilling out. It’s not a look you’d talk to your boss in, but he has no problem loitering back here while girls change.
Roger’s eyes flit from my breasts to my face. “Look,” he snaps, his throat scratchy like he smokes a pack a day or yells far too often. “I know you’re fucking flexible. I see it out there. And that’s exactly what I want. Men
love
flexibility.”
I can feel myself scowling. I don’t want to listen to Roger generalize the entire male population, picking out their likes and dislikes.
“It’s what they rub one out to,” he continues. “Girls doing the splits
on
their faces and all of that.” He lets out a heady breath, like the image turns him on. Okay, I did not sign up to hear Roger’s personal fantasies.
I internally cringe. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, hoping to end this here.
He points that plump finger again. “You need to stop trying to make it so artsy. Make it more sexual, Mary. This is fucking Vegas, not Kansas.”
“I’m from Ohio,” I mutter. I’m also pretty positive he no longer remembers my real name.
“Same thing.” He waves me off, and he hones in on my breasts. “And I’m tired of seeing this same costume. Go buy more. I want a different one every night. Change it the fuck up.” He glances at his phone, the screen glowing from an incoming call. “Also, try a red lip next time. The pink is too virginal.” He walks off at that, leaving me to calculate the price of seven more costumes in my head.
My teeth ache from clenching them.
At least…he didn’t say that I completely sucked. There were some positives there, right? Layered beneath disgusting comments, sure.
I exhale slowly.
Temporary.
I have to repeat it over and over in order to retain my sanity.
This is temporary.
* * *
I swipe the keycard into the slot above the door, entering Nikolai’s hotel suite. Yes, I have a key to his place. Yes, it feels weird. But after our marathon night—chasing Katya and chaperoning Timo—Nikolai feels less like a stranger and even less like an acquaintance.
Still “friends” may be a strong word. Maybe he’s more like my trainer.
A trainer that’s hot enough to bang
.
“Unprofessional, Thora James,” I mumble under my breath. I walk further into his place, setting my purse on the barstool and slipping into his bedroom. Then the bathroom.
I’m also using his shower.
“And as far as unprofessional goes,” I say to myself, releasing my boobs from the corset, “this has to be high up there.” I try not to waver or second-guess my actions.
I’m here, right now, and I need a shower, no matter if I’m naked in my somewhat-friend’s or trainer’s bathroom. So what. Right? “He already pinched your nipple,” I mutter. This is a good fact to keep me moving.
I swing open the glass shower door and turn on the hot water. I step in, the hot liquid raining on me. In a couple minutes, the steam mists the mirror.
Soothing. Until I catch sight of the male body products—the men’s shampoo and soap. If I wasn’t being doused with hot water, I might’ve frozen again.
“Thora.”
I jump. And knock over the shampoo bottle and a washcloth. I carefully set them back in their proper places. My heart performs a death-defying acrobatic routine without my permission.
“Thora,” Nikolai calls again, muffled behind the door. The shower is loud enough to drown out most noise, including him returning from Amour tonight.
“Yeah?!” I call back.
“I have to wash my face,” he tells me, his deep voice hard to hear. “I left my remover…” He’s drowned out by the splash of water on tiles.
I whip my head to the rack of gray towels nearby. I can snatch one and spread it across the fogged glass, but it’s misted enough that he’d only see my body shape, nothing more. I think.
The brazen side of me, the one that I’ve been tapping into, says
what if?
What if I stay put? Just like this. I’ve been satisfied being the unsexy friend in Shay’s eyes, but my stomach drops at the thought of Nikolai ever awarding me that title.
I channel my confidence and run my fingers through my wet hair, able to see a blurry outline of the door as it opens. Nikolai slips inside, shirtless, I can tell. After shutting the door behind him, he takes a few lengthy strides to the sink.
“Sorry,” he apologizes in that low tone. He wipes fog off the mirror with the side of his fist. “I would’ve washed my face backstage, but I needed eye drops…
fuck
.”
I instinctively wipe the glass like he did—a clear streak by my face so I can see him better. His eyes are tightened shut like makeup got in them. He fumbles around for his eye drops and remover, searching through the cabinet and cupboards for the bottles. Frustration lines his forehead and binds his shoulders.
I’m about to step into the most fearless part of myself. Without hesitation, I shut off the shower, secure a towel around my body and go to his aid.
He knocked over his eye drops in the sink, and I find his remover in the lower cupboard. I quickly gather them. When I rise fully, he squints in my direction, his eyes incredibly bloodshot. Dark purple shadow is smudged beneath both lids and black liner swept above. He has dots of silver paint by his hairline and brows.
I’d think he wore it well if he wasn’t in pain. “You must be allergic to something,” I say softly.
He gestures to the purple shadow. “I bought a new brand…” His face contorts. I wonder if his eyes burn. Before he rubs them, he turns away from me and rinses his face with sink water, gripping the counter with white knuckles.
I soak a cloth with the remover, and after he dries his face, the makeup horribly smeared across his eyes and forehead, he rotates back to me.
“I can help you…if you kneel,” I tell him, a lump rising to my throat.
His brows knot while he contemplates my offer. He scans my body, covered in only a soft gray towel that stops at my thighs. Beads of water roll down my neck to the tops of my breasts. I breathe heavily, as though his gaze depletes my energy.
I didn’t have time to dry off. My sopping dirty-blonde hair is splayed over one shoulder, and a pool of water collects at my cold feet.
The tense quiet grows, and I’m about to open my mouth and retract the offer. But he slowly drops to his knees, his face much closer to mine, his reddened eyes never deterring from me.
The washcloth feels heavy in my hand. “Stay still,” I tell him.
The corner of his lip nearly lifts. “That’s my line.”
I recall the bet at The Red Death, when he pierced me. “Okay, then close your eyes,” I say. “That’s not yours, is it?”
He smiles now, even as his lids shut. “I’ve used it before, but it’s cuter coming from you.”
I absorb this compliment right before I press the washcloth beneath his eye, gently rubbing the makeup off. His hands ascend to my hips, holding onto me. I hone in on the pressure of each fingertip, only a towel away from my skin. I wonder if I can even concentrate enough to remove the purple shadow.
Focus, Thora.
I’m trying. But there is a six-foot-five Russian athlete kneeling at my feet, clutching onto me, shirtless—while I wear
only
a towel. My body responds with rhythmic pulses between my legs. And I do everything I can to shut out these feelings.
Small talk.
I’ll make small talk. “Thanks for letting me stay here,” I say first, applying more remover onto the cloth before I dab at his forehead.