Perfection

by Kitty Thomas

  I nod, managing a weak smile. The orchestra starts warming up. Oh god, I'm going to die.

  “Breathe,” Frederick says. “Do you want to run the first part again?”

  I shake my head. “It's too late. We don't have time.”

  “You know this. It's all in your muscles. Don't think. Just let it happen. You do this every week.”

  I do not do this every week. This is very much a different thing from what I've been doing every week. It's a special sort of tragedy that I’m only realizing this now, moments before going onstage.

  A few minutes later, the music starts, and I go on. Once I'm out there, the nerves do diminish. I feel the energy of the audience feeding me, supporting each leap and each turn. I relax into the role. I'm no longer Cassia. I am the firebird, and somehow I know everyone in the audience and in the company knows it. If there was a single doubt about me, it's erased in my opening solo. As I move, I feel a heat rise off me as if I'm made of actual flame. It's a living energy, and I’m sure right now that the audience can see this, too.

  At the end of my solo, I glance up at the box, and my heart sinks to find it empty. He's not coming, I realize. I fight back the tears that he isn't here to see this. Did I do something wrong? Did something happen? Is he hurt somewhere?

  I can't stop the endless chattering in my mind, even as Frederick's promise that my muscles will remember proves true. They don't let me down. Frederick has an introductory solo, and then there’s a piece from the corps.

  Then I'm on stage again in my favorite scene in this re-imagined Firebird, the capture. The audience gasps at my blindfold. It wouldn't occur to them that of course I can see through this material. Not well, but I can see enough.

  I move easily through my part. I'm nervous again about the leaps. I remember being pushed in the old opera house through grand jetés across the floor, and I'm worried it won't be spectacular enough. It won't be dramatic enough. I won't do this choreography justice. But he isn't in the audience anyway. This performance doesn't have to please him. He won't punish me for any missteps. And I've already won the hearts and minds of everyone who is watching.

  But I'm still so hurt. He isn't here to watch me perform his choreography. Why wouldn't he be here?

  The music changes, and I feel Frederick behind me. Then his hands are on my waist and the pas de deux begins.

  But it isn't Frederick. It's him. I would know his hands on me anywhere. This is not how Frederick dances. The difference in dance partners is absolute and distinct. He guides me through the dance, the blindfold still in place.

  The orchestra reaches a crescendo, and he rips the blindfold off and turns me to face him. It's all in the choreography, but it’s also so much more. I see him, and I flinch. I know him. I know who this man is. His dark intense gaze ensnares mine.

  I have to fight the gasp, though I don't know why I should. The audience will eat this up, thinking this is some amazing acting ability on my part. He pulls me in toward him and says, “Don't disappoint me, Firebird.” He propels me away from him, launching me in a series of spins and turns.

  Then I run. Not off the stage. In the choreography, I run from him. Run run run grand jeté across the stage. But he's there, ready for me. Then the other direction. Run run run grand jeté across the stage. But he's there. He captures me, and we dance together. Each lift is precise. Each turn sharp and perfect.

  He never wavers in his support, and I do everything in my power not to think about who he is because I'm on a stage, and there’s no room for being anything other than the firebird in this moment.

  The pas de deux ends, and with it, the scene. I'm locked in his embrace. We're staring at each other, breathing hard. It isn't customary for an audience to give a standing ovation during the middle of a performance. But the people who have become spellbound by me and my partner do not care. They've lost all sense of propriety and etiquette. They've been swept away by this primal act played out before their greedy eyes in the glare of the spotlight.

  Everything they know about the appropriate time to clap, the appropriate time to stand... It all fades away. The orchestra has to actually stop, and there’s silence except for this thundering applause. It goes on forever.

  No one seems to care that my dance partner was just switched out mid-performance. No one has missed a single stride. Not me, not my new partner, and not the audience.

  He leads me off the stage, and before I can question him or say anything, I'm engulfed by the other dancers in the wings as he slips away. Congratulations and excited exclamations about how magical that was pour over me in a wave. They gush about how they've never seen anything like it.

  I look around, but I can't find him now. He's disappeared somewhere into the shadows like the phantom of the fucking opera. What about our next scene? Will it be Frederick back on stage again? How will the audience react to that?

  “Oh. My. God!” Henry says. He's not in this next scene, so he pulls me back away from the wings out of the way of another string of dancers who are about to go on. “Oh my God,” he says again. “Do you know who that was? Do you know who you just danced with? Oh my God.”

  I nod, my body shaking from all the adrenaline. Yes. I know who I just danced with. Sebastian Trent. He was possibly the top male dancer in the entire ballet world—and I mean internationally—until a motorcycle accident ended his career a couple of years ago. No one saw him after that. He just disappeared.

  And I understand why. While he dances as beautifully as he ever did, he has a severe scar on his face that makes him look intense and frightening. I couldn't help the flinch.

  “Are you sleeping with him?” Henry asks.

  “W-what?” I have to fight not to shriek that. There is a live performance going on just yards away after all. And I have to go back on soon. Someone hands me my next costume, and I start stripping down while Henry helps me change and continues to talk.

  “I mean... I'm sorry, but that looked like fucking on stage. It was seriously intense. That kind of chemistry doesn't just happen. Are you seeing him? Have you danced with him before?”

  “I...” I don't even know what to say to this. So I don't say anything. I don't have time anyway. Instead, I ask, “Where's Frederick? We have to go back on in two minutes.”

  “He fell and hurt his ankle. He's on the way to the hospital.”

  “What about the understudy? Who the fuck am I dancing with?” I hiss.

  I haven't practiced this recently with the understudy. I don't know how to do the rest of this performance with the understudy. I move to the wings, and nobody has miraculously appeared. Moments before we're supposed to go back on, someone is behind me, his hand in mine.

  It's Sebastian. I let out a sigh.

  He doesn't say anything to me; he just leads me out on stage, and we dance. We dance the rest of the ballet together. Maybe the director and choreographer thought it would be a bad idea to have three different Prince Ivans for one opening performance. Besides, the audience might have launched a full-scale mutiny if Sebastian didn't return to them. So deep is their love for him... and the thrill of his unexpected return to the stage.

  If they noticed the scar, they don't care about it. If I thought the standing ovation after our initial scene together went on forever, the one at the end of the ballet goes on so long I actually want them to stop because I'm getting hungry. I need to eat. I need to rest. I need to be off this stage. And I need to talk to Sebastian. Maybe not in that order.

  Actual roses are thrown on the stage. I've seen this happen a few times before, but it's usually at really high profile performances. Though I guess we just became high profile. New Firebird and Sebastian Trent all in one night. There’s a sense of breathlessness in the air about all this.

  As we take our final bows, Sebastian's gaze locks with mine. His intense expression is inscrutable. I wish I knew what he was thinking right now. He grips my hand so tightly, and for a moment, I'm not sure whether he'll take me away and lock me in a towe
r, or if he'll slip out of my grasp forever.

  When we get off stage, Sebastian runs. Like runs. He moves so fucking fast I could never hope to catch him. In this moment, I'm so afraid I'll never see him again, but I'm swept up again in a chorus of cheers and congratulations. Henry drags me to the opening night after party. And of course, Sebastian isn't there. He is a ghost.

  14

  It's Wednesday night. I've barely eaten anything the past two days. The company hasn't settled down from the buzz of excitement over Sebastian's mysterious appearance at the show followed by his subsequent disappearance and what it might mean and if he'll be joining the company, and what in the fuck is actually going on?

  Literally everyone has asked if I'm sleeping with him. This question has made me blush more times than I can count because clearly that entire audience had some sort of voyeuristic experience with Sebastian and me. If everyone in the company thinks we're sleeping together, then the audience definitely did. It feels as though they've intruded on our privacy, our intimate moments on our private stage.

  I've spent the past two days rehearsing with Shane, the understudy for Prince Ivan. Shane is nice enough, and he's a good dancer, but he isn't Frederick. And he's definitely not Sebastian. But I’m polite and professional, and when he nearly dropped me on a lift yesterday, I bit back the urge to scream at him—to ask if he wanted me in the hospital, too! Difficult prima donna is not a good look, and I don't want to become a ballet monster before Natalie's spot at the barre is even cold.

  I've asked Mr. V. and Morgan about Frederick. When he's coming back. How long he has to be off the foot. When he can dance again... but they've been tight-lipped. No one is talking about it.

  I reach the old Opera house a few minutes before nine. The spotlight lights up the stage and the barre as usual. But there’s silence. It's a silence so loud and oppressive I find myself looking over my shoulder, wondering whether I'm alone, wondering if someone else or something else might lurk in the shadows watching me instead of the man I'm hoping to find.

  “Sebastian!” I call out. It's the first time I've spoken his name out loud. No answer. He's not here. I feel a tear sliding down my cheek at the thought that he would abandon me after everything. Why? Because I saw his face? What difference can that possibly make now?

  “Sebastian, are you here? Please, answer me.”

  I walk down the darkened aisle and climb the steps of the stage. I'm about to get ready for our weekly ritual, but I don't know which shoes to wear. I don't know which he wants. I don't even know if I'm alone right now. A choked sob escapes my throat, and I crumple to the ground and start to cry.

  His voice booms over the speaker. “I'm surprised you're here.”

  I look up and around, as I always do, never quite sure where he actually is. I feel relief. “Of course I'm here,” I say. “I have to come here or you'll ruin my life.”

  He chuckles at that. “Oh, Ms. Lane. That's not why you come here. You knew after the first few weeks I wouldn't report you.”

  “I did not!” Did I know that? I'd stopped thinking about it or caring about it because I started to crave this... thing between us. This secret.

  “You kept coming here because you need this. You need the pain. You need the judgment. You need my eyes on you, demanding your obedience. You dance to obey. You stand at that barre every day obeying the commands of the ballet master because you need that thrill you get when you please him.”

  “It's not sexual.” But I don't deny the rest of it. There's no point. That’s why I dance. I need the control. I need someone else besides me to be in control and tell me what to do. I need to just worry about executing the steps perfectly and nothing more. I need the peaceful space it creates inside my brain.

  Another chuckle. “Isn't it? Isn't it just another kink, cupcake? I took your dark little needs out of the shadows and made them explicit. I made you exist for me on my stage. And you kept coming back for more because I saw you. I saw what you needed, and I gave it to you. But if I'd met you in any normal way, you would never have done it. You needed permission. You needed just a little threat to push you over the edge into my arms.”

  I don't have an answer to any of this. I know he's right. And if he could read me so easily, could others? I'm blushing furiously now.

  “There's nothing to be ashamed of. Most dancers are masochists. Did you know ballerinas have a pain threshold three times higher than the general population? I wonder if that's training or if it's self-selecting. Maybe only the strong survive. That's why you were drawn to Conall.”

  “No! I never wanted him to hurt me.” I don't care who Sebastian is or how much power he has to destroy me, he will not imply that I somehow asked for the things Conall did to me. The way he hurt me, abused my trust, made me live in so much panic that the only safety for me was the sanctuary of the studio or the stage—where everything was controlled and nothing was unpredictable.

  “Shhhh. I know. You thought you saw a kind of dominance that you needed. It's so easy for the young and uninitiated to think they see dominance when it's really just abuse. I know what you need. But if I had come to you, you would have run from me. You would have taken one look at my scarred face and...”

  “It doesn't make you ugly,” I say. And it doesn't. His photograph used to be splashed across every dance magazine in the world. So I know what Sebastian Trent looked like before the accident that ended his career, but the scars don't lessen his beauty. I guess there’s a level of attractive nothing can touch.

  “But they make me look dangerous. And after Conall, you never would have come to me on your own.”

  I sigh. I can't deny it. That's probably true. And he does look dangerous. He looks lethal. Not that I can see him right now. He's hidden in whatever shadowy nook he lurks in.

  But though he may look dangerous, his hands on me feel like home. Is that why he thought I wouldn't show up tonight? That look on my face on stage? That flinch?

  Did he think it was revulsion? That all my little fantasies were shattered in a moment at the reality of the scars marring his perfection? Did he think the world he'd created for us on this secret stage was shattered now as clean beautiful lines were replaced by sharp broken ones?

  “What happened Sunday? How did you end up on stage with me?” I ask because I have to know. No one knew much the night of the performance, and the decision makers at the company who do know seem to have taken a vow of silence on the issue.

  Even though Sebastian is a disembodied voice, even though he's still hiding from me, our typical formality is broken in the wake of this revelation which I haven't been able to stop thinking about for three days.

  “I was backstage, careful not to draw attention to myself. I stayed in the shadows and out of your path. I wanted to watch your first principal performance from the wings. There are so many unique things to see from that vantage point: your quick costume changes, you working through your nerves before going onstage, your elation coming off stage, words of congratulations and great job from the other dancers waiting in the wings to go on. It's something I can't get from a box seat.”

  I warm up at the barre in my soft canvas ballet shoes as he speaks.

  “Frederick was showing off in the wings five fucking minutes before he was supposed to join you on stage. He fell and broke his ankle, though we didn't know it was broken at the time. He's out for the season. The understudy couldn't be found with only minutes to go on stage. I was there. I knew the part. I wasn't going to just leave you out there without a partner. I made Frederick strip and took the costume. Apparently while we were dancing, the paramedics took him out of there naked. I was fucking furious, so I hardly cared. And you know the rest. We danced.”

  What we did was so much more than dance. My breath catches in my throat at the memory of the moment when his hands spanned my waist with such certainty I knew exactly who had me.

  “I-I didn't know you could still dance,” I say.

  “Of course you did. You've b
een dancing with me for months.”

  “But I didn't know it was you. I thought you retired because you were too injured.”

  Sebastian sighs. “There was a lot of rehabilitation, and I'm not sure I'm quite back where I was technique-wise. But it was mostly the scars on my face. It's not exactly a ballet aesthetic. You know? And I didn't want pity or people to come see me out of some morbid fascination like some sideshow freak.”

  I understand this. The world of ballet is all about beauty and the illusion of perfection. A beautiful top male principal dancer, lusted after by nearly everyone who watches him, suffers a disfiguring accident... There’s pity and shock. And he's going back on stage? Not in this lifetime. I get it.

  “Who will I be dancing with for the rest of the season?” I ask. I don't hate the understudy, but I'm not nearly as comfortable with Shane as I am with Frederick on stage.

  “Me,” he says. “Apparently, after Sunday night, you and I are the talk of the dance world. So, I guess I'm back.”

  “The company hired you?”

  He laughs. “I own controlling interest in the company. Trent is a name I invented to perform under and hide my family money. My real name is Sebastian Grant of Grant Enterprises. After I retired, I found this company struggling and offered to help. I wasn't planning on performing again, even though I was asked to. Now, after Sunday night, people are a lot more insistent.”

  A giddy thrill runs through me at the prospect of being partnered on stage with THE Sebastian Trent for the rest of the season.

  “But if you're dancing with me, why have I been rehearsing with the understudy the past two days?”

  I can almost hear the shrug in his voice. “Because it took the company that long to convince me to come out of retirement. I'll be dancing with you tomorrow night.”

  Sebastian Trent and me, up on the big marquee in front of the theater for the entire run of the Firebird.