by Violet Blue
When he tugged on the tendrils over my neck, I came, startling myself. I arched back, helpless, loud, letting his cock bounce out of my mouth. I covered him with my mouth again, breathing hard, letting my tongue slip over the satiny head. He smoothed my hair with his heavy warm palm, murmuring softly down to me.
He wrapped my hair in his fist as he came. I swallowed everything.
My eyes were closed but I felt his body lift off the bed. I rolled onto my back. My lips were salty. I didn’t want to open my eyes and see him go. He fit his palms over my cheekbones. I turned my head to suck on the wet leather.
His mouth was on mine. I hadn’t realized I was crying until I felt the tears sliding over my temples.
I swallowed. “Hurry back.”
“You know I will.” His hand squeezed over my throat once, slid down to my stomach, and he was gone.
It feels like he’s been gone for months. His conference will be over in early January, just after New Year’s. At first I was relieved we’d be apart during the holidays; as new lovers, for us the questions of families and gifts would have been fraught with awkwardness. Now I have to admit to myself that I feel a bit lost without him.
I hear a noise in the hallway and I’m back in the present, blinking at myself in the mirror. Someone’s opening the dressing room door. I tuck Christian’s note away and sit upright, clearing my throat, fussing with my makeup kit.
Trinh bursts in, panting. Her dance bag is wider than she is.
“Hi, baby-doll.” She hugs me from behind, leaning her cheek against mine. Her young face is still shining with mist. She squints in the makeup mirror’s lights.
I squeeze her hand before she lets go. She’s trying not to look nervous. Which makes her look more nervous. This is her first year with a solo, Drosselmeyer’s doll.
“I’m going to totally suck in the solo today. Just so you know.” Trinh will leave for a performing arts college this spring. This is our last performance together. Our first was the year I joined the company; she was cast as an angel along with the other intermediate girls.
“Totally suck,” she repeats gaily, dragging a chair up next to mine, tucking her bag under the counter.
“Ah, no,” I answer, on cue. I’m lining my eyes but I watch her in the mirror, my head tilted and motionless. “Rather you will, in fact, rock like a big rock-star-resembling ballerina.”
She hugs me again, squeezing my shoulders. Her eyes are narrow and wet. The pressure makes me exhale sharply.
“Okay, ow.”
“You’re just saying that ’cause you love me.”
“That too.”
I open my powder box, smiling carefully. I realize I’m still in the habit of keeping my face pleasant and peaceful around the other dancers in the company. The ghost of my marriage has troubled this haphazard family deeply, and for longer than I had ever expected. Mark and I had been the only married couple in the ballet company, at least ten years older than most of the dancers in the corps. We never fought. Mark especially was adored by the kids. The cheekiest of the little ones would call us ma and pa.
It’s been over two years since Mark and I officially divorced. As his technique slipped, as his dreams of national-level success faded, he found comfort in chemically manufactured happiness. He started with prescriptions but street supplements were more powerful, and cheaper. At first, everyone else still saw the sunny, winsome Mark, but at home it was becoming a nightmare—absurd and terrifying and never-ending. Alcohol I could justify to myself, maybe pot, but heroin made him into a monster with raw, colorless eyes. Meth made him scream at things that weren’t there.
I didn’t know how to tell anyone. Soon I didn’t have to. The night Mark was arrested for DUI, I packed him an overnight bag, posted his bail, and dropped him off at his brother’s. I told him to stop using or leave. I couldn’t quite believe it was me saying the words. That was the last time I saw him.
I slept long and often in the quiet cottage after he left. Everyone tried to assure me that, at thirty, I still had so much to look forward to, but somehow the future ceased to be a part of my thinking. My life just narrowed down to a series of discrete moments, like mismatched beads on a thread: class, coffee, sunset, phone call. I stopped looking for any pattern, any meaning that would unite it all and give it momentum.
A few more sleepy dancers are wandering into the dressing room. I’m almost finished putting on my makeup. Dark brown shadow, silver highlights just under the brows. The tiara is lopsided again, and I try to straighten its tiny plastic wires, holding it up and squinting. It’s supposed to suggest the crystals of a snowflake, yet be regal enough to indicate that I am in fact the Snow Queen. Instead it’s looking like a souvenir from a bachelorette party.
I’m humming to myself. I love the snow scene.
Mark and I used to dance the Snow pas every year. Paul, our company’s director, was in a panic when Mark left. There was suddenly no Snow King, three weeks to opening night. He tried to reassure me but I heard him in his office, his genial, effete voice growing strained, as he telephoned all his old contacts. Good male dancers are hard to come by in this season.
“I can rework it into a solo,” I said, and showed him.
Paul stood up when I was finished and gripped my shoulders. He kissed my wet forehead as I panted. “Oh, thank god, Kathryn, I knew I could count on you.”
It’s been a solo ever since, I suspect because it’s cheaper that way. I’ve come to enjoy it more than any other show; being onstage alone is like opening a swift, lightning-hot current of excitement. There’s a feeling of control, mastery—and possibility; I could very well ditch the choreography and do whatever the fuck I’m moved to do. It’s spurred me to finally start working on my own pieces.
Last year, when I finished the winter season, Portland was having one of its weird, early springs. I noticed the new bookstore, just at the end of my street. Cherry blossoms and holly branches crowded the entrance, hanging rich and low. The inside was full of dry heat, scented with tea and caramel. Books—new, secondhand, and antique—were stacked to the ceiling, heaped like a miser’s gold. I stopped in nearly every evening on my way home.
Christian, I guessed, was the owner. It was his stillness that I noticed first, a serene, focused energy that made him seem the center of any space. People gathered around him unconsciously, bright eyed. He was tall and slender, with a voice so deep and soft you felt it more than you heard it, an almost subsonic resonance that always distracted me and made me want to stop moving and listen. His hair was light blond, streaked with white, waving to thick autumn gold curls at his neck. When he smiled, his russet brown eyes sparkled like burgundy. I started looking forward to his smiles.
I didn’t admit to myself, at first, that I was dressing carefully before going in, that I really didn’t need so many books. I eavesdropped as he chatted with customers, closing my eyes and imagining myself alone with that voice, that smile, somewhere shadowed and secluded.
I kept telling myself I would stop visiting the store, stop plaguing this poor stranger with my melancholy, eager self. I kept stopping by. Piles of books started spilling over onto my couch and my carpets.
One evening, I felt him standing behind me. My back warmed as if a swath of sunlight had fallen on it. I had a crazy urge to lean into his chest. My palms were tingling.
“I’ve been trying to find some kind of pattern in the books you choose, but I can’t.” He sounded amused, but his voice dropped low, as if he were sharing an urgent secret.
“Oh, I just take whatever seems to jump out at me. I don’t want to be systematic.” I was proud of myself for sounding so casual. I even turned and glanced at his shirt buttons, then up to his face. “It’s more fun when you let things surprise you.”
“That’s true.” His voice was softer, and careful. I tried very hard not to stare at his mouth. “But then sometimes something will really speak to you, and you have to find the courage to follow it.”
I turned back to
ward the shelves. My heart sank. I put back my book while I waited for him to continue, to segue into the patronizing editorial that I would interrupt with the closing door. It was really time for dinner anyway.
He was silent. I turned around. His mouth was a tight, solid line, but his eyes were bright. His pale golden freckles gleamed.
“But you know that, of course.” His smile spread from his eyes. He was radiant.
“I’m going to be taking all these.” I gathered up an armload of paperbacks, without breaking his gaze.
“Wait for me to close and I’ll help you carry them home.”
The memory recedes and I bite my lip. It might be a bad idea to let myself remember Christian so vividly here in the dressing room. My cunt is waking up, swelling fitfully against my fresh pink tights. My nipples are tightening. I’m stroking powder over my forehead, my eyes going dull.
Trinh has been singing low for a few moments now, watching me in the mirror. The dressing room is filling with anxious bodies and the scents of peppermint oil and deodorant. My hair is finished, the last wisps plastered down. I shake my head quickly and add a few more bobby pins. I put in rhinestone earrings.
“Working at the car wash,” Trinh sings, wrapping her toenails. She looks at me again, knowing I’ll laugh soon.
“Work, and work,” she’s singing more loudly. “Come on, Kathy. Do the car wash with me.”
“Oh, for god’s sake.”
She jumps out of her chair, swiveling her hips so that her tutu swishes loudly. “The boss don’t mind if you play the fool,” she sings. I roll my eyes. Laughter wells up around us.
“Yeah, not right now.” I’m the perfect straight man for her shtick. I grab my coffee. “I have to go. Old people have to actually warm up.”
“Do my bun later?” Trinh calls after me. There are a few echoes of “Mine too?”
“Okay.” I pad up the metal stairwell. I’m wearing thick wool over my legs, oversized socks over my pointe shoes, an old flannel shirt. The older dancers, the principals, are already out on the cool, empty stage, lying on their stomachs or in splits, rubbing their hips with Ben-Gay. Their children play school in the empty seats.
I smile but I don’t join the conversation. I pretend to need the solitary barre in the wings but in fact I just want to relive memories of Christian on my own. I feel like a greedy little girl sneaking the last slice of cake into her room to eat in private. I lift my leg on the barre and lean my forehead into the scratchy leg warmer, closing my eyes.
We kissed that first evening, standing just inside my door, clinging together. His kisses were deliciously thorough. I slid my belly against his until I felt his cock pressing against my pubic bone. I giggled with my own daring, skittish and out of breath. He held my temples and rested his forehead on mine, whispering goodnight.
I went to bed quickly. Making love then would have been too much. Instead I held his memory and scent close, reaching into my hungry sex until I came very quietly.
Six weeks later we still had done nothing more than kiss. I didn’t know how to tell him I wanted him; it seemed too obvious for words. I began to suspect he was playing a game, waiting for me to make a fool of myself. My stomach was cold with uncertainty but my cunt was always restless, neglected, and seething.
One night, as I kissed his warm fragrant neck, drawing my tongue over the wiry stubble, I caught his wrist and fit my breast into his palm. He pulled back, inhaling. My frustration flared. I stood clumsily, then looked down at him.
“Maybe you’d better go, Christian.”
I turned off the video player and the wind moaned, shoving and rattling at the windows. The firelight pushed faintly at the heavy blue shadows, guttering in the draft.
He was a black shape, unmoving. I sat again, just at the edge of the couch, uncertain.
His breathing slowed.
“Kathy, will I ever know you?”
I was silent. What kind of game was this?
His hands moved over my shoulders, closing tight. I reached for him, but he pressed me back into the sofa, sitting up and turning toward me. His cheek and temple glowed amber in the firelight. The more quietly he spoke, the more I felt it like a low current in my skin.
“I don’t want to just be pleased and then sent away.”
I was pissed off now. I looked at the ceiling, watching the crisscrossed shadows wave. I assume there’s a point you’re trying to make, I thought. But I didn’t trust my voice not to shake.
“I want more than that, Kathy. And I know you do, too. I want to feel all of you, even the parts that scare you. Kathy, believe me, I want everything you have to give, everything you are.”
I sat upright, looking away, holding my palm rigidly toward him—a wordless, shaking imperative. I let it settle on his chest, unsure whether I was resting on him or keeping him away.
He let one hand fall through my hair and rest, gently, against my throat.
“I want to know where you would go if you weren’t afraid. What you think about in private when raw, selfish lust finally wins out.”
His voice dropped. I felt his breath on my cheek. My feet twitched.
“I want to know what knocks you sideways, what makes your cunt wet.” My mouth opened. Heat filled my chest, tight and heavy. My sex pulsed as if his lips were on it.
His fist closed in my hair, just at the crown of my head. He pulled gently at the scalp until tears came to my eyes, and let his fingertips sink deeper into my neck. Desire made the flaring ceiling go dim. I could smell my own wetness as it bled through my panties.
When he leaned back, I saw his eyes.
“Stay here, Christian. I want you to stay here.”
“Do you want to stand up and get undressed, Kathy?” A rush of icy sweetness followed his voice down my spine. My nipples burnt like coals.
I swallowed against his hard palm. “Yeah.”
I did, quickly, before my mind could catch up to my body. The fire was warm on my back. He asked for my stockings.
He caressed my wrists.
“Kathy—”
“Yes, yes.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as he stood and tied my wrists together, stretching the nylon tight. I heard him get up on the coffee table to bring the ends over the ceiling beam, pulling away the ivy and pothos vines. As he stepped down, I turned and leaned my forehead into my cool upper arm. My legs shuddered. I bit the inside of my cheek and willed my heart to beat more quietly. Any thoughts I tried to form were torn and sucked away swiftly, like dead leaves in the first winter storm.
I didn’t know where he was. My skin contracted and tingled over my stomach, my thighs. I wondered where I would feel his touch first.
“Kathy, look at me. It’s all right.” He was in front of me. He brushed the hair from my face.
“Look up,” he said. The nylon was twisted over the rough wood, knotted and filled with splinters. My hands were pink and half-curled.
“Pull. Try to pull your hands away.” He moved behind me. My hair cooled as he blocked the fire’s heat. Sweat was pooling at the base of my spine.
“I want you to pull, Kathy.” He stepped back. A streak of pain blazed across my ass. I think I cried out. I struggled to breathe in. He must have put the full weight of his back into the blow. I was pulling instinctively now, desperate to cover myself. My wrists were raw. My throat was cold and ragged as if I had swallowed sharp ice. My cunt was on fire.
“That’s right, beautiful Kathy, hold on, hold on, and pull.” He laid his palms flat over my ass. The pain turned to stinging warmth that washed down my legs, making them weak. As he moved in front of me again, he trailed three fingers over my hip. My labia squeezed painfully between my tight, slippery thighs. I couldn’t stop panting. The dim room was going black.
“Hold on, it’s all right. It will be all right, Kathy, I promise.” He sank to his knees.
I came twice with just his fingers. Heat seared through me so violently that I started to panic. When the stars started sparking and
flying in front of my eyes I gripped the nylon to keep from falling. I looked down at him as he lifted my thigh and rested it over his rumpled, heated shoulder.
“Don’t make me come again.” The small, slurred voice slipped out of me before I could control it. “Don’t. Don’t. I can’t take it.”
He turned and kissed the inside of my thigh, as it tensed over his shoulder. He murmured so low I could barely hear him. His touch became almost chaste, soothing; he ran his palms over my lower back and let his lips fall softly over my thigh.
When my breathing quieted, he rested his cheek on my leg and looked up at me with strangely serene eyes. His smooth fingers followed the swell of my ass and tickled into the slick cleft, delicate as kitten paws. My stomach rippled.
“Shh, Kathy, shh. It’s all right.” His breath played over the black glossy curls but he kept his eyes on mine.
When he dragged his tongue between the fat, burning labia, squeezing the clit between two patient fingers, I came again, shrieking, pulling the beam so hard it creaked.
He stood, resting his hands on my hips. His chin was shining and his eyes were dilated.
I thought he would fuck me then but he reached for my wrists, finally pulling them free. I fell forward and clutched at his shirt until the placket tore and it slid from his wide shoulders. My knees gave way and I knelt, shaking, working the thick wool off his legs.
Christian, naked, was golden all over. His skin was the color of heavy cream, smooth and gleaming along the supple length of his back. The twin swells of his cool ass caught the light like white gold. Over his chest and belly, auburn and white hair curled, thick gilt fur. It glittered with his sweat, diffusing the firelight around him like a halo.
His balls trembled in my palm like a captured bird. His cock slid into my impatient mouth, smooth as sun-warmed marble and clinging soft as velvet.
When his balls tightened under my fingers, he gently pulled my head away. My mouth was still open as I fell back on the carpet. I pulled on his hips until he tumbled after me, breaking his fall with his hands. I locked my ankles behind him, digging my heels into his back as I lifted my hips. My cunt drew him in, clenching; my hands couldn’t get enough of his skin. I cried when he finally dipped his head down, resting his sweat-drenched forehead on my breastbone, pushing into me until my heart ached.