Slow Satisfaction

by Cecilia Tan

  “It was great!” she whispered. “You’re really good!”

  Then it was Natalie’s turn. Her music began before she was even on the stage, and she came bursting forth from the wings into a leap and a split in the air that defied gravity. She came down and went directly into a slide along the stage, effortless and mind-blowing, as she flowed right into the next upright spin and then another leap. I heard dancers around me gasp. It was a serious “wow” opening, and it kept up like that for the full two minutes, ending with her all the way at the front of the stage, as she slid into one final dramatic pose.

  There were claps and a couple of male voices in particular shouted “yeah!” as she hit that last pose. But I think the clapping had been louder for me. It was hard to tell.

  I brought her a towel and we hugged. “You’re really an acrobat!”

  Natalie grinned. “I figured I may as well go all out. You were really good, too. Good luck.”

  “Good luck,” I said. I knew if James was picking on his own, he was picking me, but I really wasn’t sure how this was going to go.

  Chandra collected the score sheets. James did not look up at me. He appeared to be checking something on his phone.

  Chandra handed him the score sheets and whispered something in his ear. He began to look through them. Now that I was closer, I could see the dark circles under his eyes. He had been traveling for what, fourteen hours?

  Ferrara walked to the edge of the stage. “You can’t seriously be trying to choose between them based on that alone.”

  James looked up from the scores. “Why shouldn’t I? Is there something in particular you wish to see?”

  “Well. If one of them is going to be a principal, we need to see what kind of compatibility she has with you.”

  James sighed.

  “Don’t you agree? If you’re going to do this mad idea of a production, you don’t need a soloist. You need a partner. You remember Sabine’s exercise she calls ‘pass de deux’? The one with the cross-stage improv?”

  “Ben, Pascual,” James said, calling for his two look-alikes.

  Ferrara clucked her tongue. “You should do the passes yourself. You’re the one the girl needs to be compatible with.”

  James glanced at me, but I couldn’t read his expression. He addressed the group then. “I’ve come directly from the airport. I had to be on the shuttle to Heathrow at five in the morning, London time, and it’s, oh, almost midnight there now. But, she’s right. I should do it. Who’s got a dance belt to lend me?”

  There were laughs, but then someone threw one that landed on his head, and that set the entire troupe laughing, James included. He took it and held it up to examine it, and nodded as if he approved of it. “Thanks for your support,” he quipped, and that prompted more howls of laughter. “Be right back.”

  He went to change clothes, and the dancers and crew fell to chattering among themselves. Ferrara stalked off, probably to harangue him. I wanted to text him a quick warning, but my phone was still plugged into the sound board. By the time I reached it, she’d have found him anyway. Well, I might as well get it, I thought. I went up to the board and found it.

  The phone was blinking to get my attention: a video call coming in. I clicked it.

  On the screen I saw the green room. James had set the phone down and was changing his clothes. At another time I would have thought it was him winding me up by showing me his body, but this time I got the feeling he wanted a witness for the conversation he was having.

  “James,” Ferrara said. “I really think it’s time to abandon this insane course.”

  “I know you do,” he said. He wasn’t visible in the frame now. I could hear rustling sounds.

  Her voice was smooth and reasonable. “There simply isn’t time for the company to learn an entirely new show.”

  “Ferrara, I’m tired, I’m at the end of my rope, and I didn’t come back here so you could harass me about it one more time.”

  “And I told you you’re being ridiculous, dear. In fact, it seems you’re being even more ridiculous than we first discussed. What is this new music you sent to Bogovich without my knowledge? We don’t have time to learn a whole new production. The whole point of returning here, returning the same cast, and doing the same show, is that it’s doable in two months’ time.”

  “You underestimate how talented this group is.” Something flew past the camera. His shirt, perhaps.

  “And you forget who is in charge of your career.”

  “Would you excuse me, please?” He cleared his throat.

  She clucked her tongue and then purred, “I own you, James. I have every right to look at what’s mine.”

  He was silent, and so was I, my hand over my mouth. Although she’d probably seen him make costume changes plenty of times, this was open ogling, open harassment. My cheeks burned scarlet again as I imagined how mortified James might be. When he was relaxed and open with me, like at his house on the Upper East Side, he wandered unselfconsciously naked. But I had almost never seen him like that. He was always covered, always discreet.

  Maybe this was why. Had she been getting an eyeful of him since he was eighteen years old and too young and powerless to say no? Was this why he was so controlled, so closed, so wary? It might be why he was so touchy about certain things.

  He picked up the phone and the video cut off. A few moments later the two of them came onto the stage.

  “Karina,” he said, gesturing for me. “You first again.”

  He was in plain white spandex tights that only came to below his knee, his chest bare. Under the tights I could clearly make out both the outline of the borrowed dance belt and the sizable package it held in place. As I made my way to the stage, he called out to Ramon for some appropriate music. “Five passes. Make each one faster than the previous.”

  “No problem,” Ramon said, hurrying back to the board from where he had been sitting.

  The first piece of music was some kind of soundtrack, the music swelling and sweeping but without much rhythm. I followed James’s lead and we floated across the stage, circling each other like two leaves on the eddies of a lazy river. Next came a classical waltz, and we zigzagged back to the other side like two marionettes being made to dance in time. The third pass was some kind of funk, and though neither of us was really a hip-hop dancer, we clapped and strutted and popped our way. James was easy to dance with. It was like the music suggested the same ideas to us both, and then it was a matter of staying in synch, reading each other’s cues. On the second to last pass the music was worldbeat, with bursts of horns and washes of marimbas, and James lifted me on a horn hit, then spiraled me around him as the marimbas took over again. And the last pass was to a rousing section of the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky, the part with the cannons going off. James swept me off my feet and let go of me at the top of the lift, my arms flying wide like a swan, and then he caught me, and swung me around, almost like ice skaters do. We were both grinning as we ended, and took bows to the enthusiastic clapping of the company.

  Then it was Natalie’s turn. I sat down with a sinking feeling. What if they could do so much more? She was such a daring, athletic dancer, and they had danced together before. Would it be obvious to everyone that James was choosing me only because of how into me he was?

  On the very first pass, though, I could see they weren’t in synch. She tried too hard to keep control of what they were doing, to show off her athleticism, and they had some moments of disconnect. As the music got faster, she pushed harder and that only made it worse. On the final pass she took a leap and he tried to catch her, but the catch wasn’t completely clean and they both went down.

  Thank goodness as the music cut off they were laughing. James was flat on his back he was so exhausted, and Natalie was cracking up. “Oh, that wasn’t how that was supposed to go!” she said, poking him. “Karina, you win! You can have him.” She kicked him playfully and climbed to her feet.

  James got up more slowly, looking exhau
sted but still smiling. “Very well. I would say we have a definitive winner.”

  And it’s not Ferrara, I thought, as I stood and took a bow, to the applause of the rest of the company.

  Ferrara, who had been standing at the edge of the stage, shook her head and left.

  James spoke to the group, still seated in the tables. “Thank you, all, for being here. I know I said good-bye last time, and I truly meant it. But circumstances are such that here I am, here you are, and the opportunity to put on a damn good show is in our laps.”

  He hopped down and went to the sound board, then continued. “We’re not doing Bride of the Blue,” he said. “We’re going to do a new rock opera that incorporates my greatest hits, with a few new songs and a new storyline. Ferrara was afraid we wouldn’t have time to learn it, but the band is already cranking on the new material, and we have two months, people! That’s more than enough time to work up the numbers where the whole ensemble is needed. There will also be opportunities for each of you to feature if that’s something you want. Alicia and I will both be working with you…”

  A huge yawn cracked his face then, and he had to wipe sudden tears from his eyes. “… Tomorrow. I’ll be working with you tomorrow. Right now… it’s been almost forty hours since I slept. I was in the recording studio all night, on the plane first thing this morning…” He sat down on the stool at the board. “I’m sorry. Alicia.”

  Alicia clapped her hands for attention. “Listen up, everyone. Take the rest of the day off. It’ll be your last one for a while, so enjoy it.”

  Chandra was already moving to help James to his feet and push him toward the van back to the hotel. I grabbed my bag and joined them, as did a few others. As the van crept through the backstreets toward the hotel, James slept with his head on Chandra’s shoulder and I couldn’t help but feel envious. But now wasn’t the time to reveal our relationship to everyone. I knew that.

  I consoled myself with the thought that when he woke, no matter when it was, Chandra wouldn’t be the one he turned to. I considered whether I should sneak into his room, and into his bed, entirely naked, to wait for him to wake up. It seemed a good bet.

  I took a shower. As I closed my eyes under the flow of the water, moments from our dance improvisation played in my mind. We really were great together, so in synch, so perfect. I remembered dancing with him in that Cinderella dress at the society mansion, how perfect that had been, too. What would the first dance at our wedding be like? I wondered.

  I could almost hear my conscience in Becky’s voice: First dance at your wedding? Really? Karina, aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?

  Maybe I was, but at that moment it seemed really possible. We could be partners in synch forever. He’d called me the love of his life, as if anyone else there had been before paled in comparison. He had used the word forever. He was moving slowly because he was trying his best to preserve the relationship, not ruin it by rushing. But once the concert series was over, we had our whole lives ahead of us. Together. The mere thought made my heart pound and I felt like singing in the shower. Heck, even though I was a much worse singer than I was a dancer, I let loose with a few bars of the 1812 Overture. That was how excited and amazed and ready to explode from happiness I was.

  I got out of the shower, put on the luxuriously thick hotel bathrobe, and was combing out my wet hair when a knock came at the door. I could hear a muffled female voice saying, “Karina? Karina, I know you’re in there.”

  I looked through the peephole.

  Standing there was Ferrara Huntington.

  Twelve

  Made of Lipstick

  I opened the door.

  “May I come in?” she asked, her face quite sober and serious.

  “Ferrara, what’s this about?”

  “Please, Karina. I… I promise I won’t bother you about this again. I have some things to tell you, and show you, so you don’t have to take my word for it. Just give me fifteen minutes of your time, and then I will never speak of this again.”

  “Speak of what?”

  “There are things you don’t know about James.”

  I prickled to hear her use his name and suppressed the urge to look around the hallway to make sure no one had overheard. “Fine. Come in. Fifteen minutes.”

  She glided in, head high like a swan, and I closed the door behind her. She went to the small table by the window, sat down, and then pulled a laptop computer out of her voluminous shoulder bag. It was some fancy designer brand, but once she had the computer on the table, she tossed the bag aside like it was worthless.

  I sat in the other chair, my hands folded on my knees, telling myself to count the minutes until she’d leave. Then I’d get in bed with James and that would be the end of it.

  “Pardon my presumption, but you have to realize how obvious it is that he’s sleeping with you. One new dancer comes along and all of a sudden he wants her to be the star of the show? Oh, perhaps I shouldn’t be such a cynic. Maybe he hasn’t started sleeping with you yet. Either way, you need to know what it is I’m about to tell you,” she said.

  I said nothing, waiting for her to go on.

  “If you’re already sleeping with him, then you know all about the whips and chains. He talks a great game about consent, doesn’t he? About boundaries and all that? He makes you feel completely safe, even when he’s menacing your cunt with a straight razor.”

  I swallowed, my thighs clenching involuntarily, as I remembered the first time he shaved me. I hadn’t been scared at all. No, wait, I had been kind of nervous, but then he made it obvious he’d been making me nervous on purpose, and then he made it all better, so much better…

  “I know I was harsh with you before. I was upset. You can imagine how I felt, can’t you? I arrive in Vegas thinking I know what’s going on and then, wham, Alicia Bogovich drops a bomb and tells me, oh by the way, we’re not even doing the show you commissioned? But that’s the kind of coward James is. He wouldn’t tell me directly.”

  I still said nothing. I’d had no idea if James hadn’t spoken to her, but I could easily believe he’d told her and she’d dismissed it, the way she had dismissed his request for her to leave him alone so he could get undressed earlier.

  “Anyway, I apologize for being so bitchy today, but unfortunately, what I said was true. You probably know that he gets off on hurting you. Nothing makes his cock harder than seeing you in pain or seeing you helpless. Am I right?”

  I couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer. “You know, I haven’t tested the hardness to see how it compares to him seeing me in pleasure or in ecstasy.”

  She smiled and I realized I’d given her an advantage by confirming I was having sex with him. But then her look softened, turning sympathetic. “Oh, dearie, I know. He can play normal when he wants to. And you know what? You’re probably a great lay. And James, well, his dick gets hard if the wind blows. That’s just how he is. But back to what I was saying. The thing that will excite him to the next level is when you start to resist. And the thing that he’s waiting for, the thing he can’t fucking wait for, is the day when you actually say no.”

  “He and I have discussed it,” I said.

  “You think you have,” she shot back. “You’ll see. You’ll say no, and he’ll keep right on going. He won’t stop until it’s full-out rape.”

  “No,” I said, before I could stop myself.

  “Yes. He’s pumped you so full of talk about consent and boundaries and stuff, but you know what? You’ll probably blame yourself at first. You’ll blame yourself for miscommunication. Or worse, for disappointing him. But that’ll just build up a nice wall of resentment. Eventually you’ll resist because you have to find out if you’re really a prisoner to that cock of his, or if you have the free will he claims you have. He claims he’ll let you go so that you’ll come back to him, and prove that you love him. But it’ll happen. You’ll say no. He’ll fuck you anyway. You’ll fight and scratch and claw to prove to him you’re serious, and that�
�ll just excite him even more. And if it looks like you might actually win the fight or hurt him, well, he’ll just put you in bondage, and then you’ll truly be fucked.”

  I tried to argue with her. “But… but I offered to him that he could take me anytime, anywhere. I wanted to give him that. I did that myself, without him prompting me.”

  Her eyes were misty with sympathy. “Oh, darling, I know you did. And it’s a great romantic notion. That’s so Romeo and Juliet, that level of devotion. And I know you truly believe it. But when push comes to shove, there’ll be a day. Maybe you’ll feel ill or you had a death in the family or maybe you just want to test the boundaries, and you’ll refuse. And he’ll say so what.”

  “Ferrara—”

  “I told you you wouldn’t have to take my word for it. I brought proof.” She woke up the laptop and pulled up a video player that filled the screen. The thumbnail image, I could see, was of someone’s bare ass. She hit play.

  James’s bare ass. He was walking past the camera toward a bed, where a woman lay sleeping atop the covers in a sheer nightgown. He looked younger here, slimmer, but he moved the way I expected. He eased himself slowly onto the bed at the woman’s feet, and then gradually separated her knees. He pulled the nightgown up to her stomach, showing that she was shaved down below. He slid the back of one knuckle up and down her seam while he stroked his cock with the other hand.

  I felt myself growing slick and tried not to squirm in the chair.

  “You’re so wet,” he murmured to the woman, and any thought I had that maybe this was one of his body doubles vanished. That was his voice. I was certain. “You must want me, eh? Even in your sleep, you want me.”

  He plunged into her suddenly and she screamed, making my hair stand on end. She fought him and he laughed and kept on fucking her. At one point she managed to maneuver so that he wasn’t inside her, and he got a hand around her throat. “Lie still and let me fuck you,” he growled. “If I choke you unconscious, then nothing will stop me.”