by Violet Blue
Every time I remember that night, I find myself dragging my fingernails down the back of my neck, just enough to hurt. I let my nails sink into the tender flesh under the hairline. When I hear myself suck in my breath with an urgent hiss, I jump a little. The memory recedes quickly. I hear voices; utility lights are warming the stage.
Warm-up class is already starting. I’m standing here, hogging a barre, leaning my cheek on my wool-covered thigh. I carry the barre over toward the others as we set up for the first exercises. I hope I’m not blushing too obviously.
I think again of Christian’s wadded note, now probably lying at the bottom of my dance bag. I still haven’t read it. It’s not like him to write something for me.
I try to shake the dread and promise that keep crowding my thoughts of him lately. Together, we seem to create a perfect circle of understanding, passion, and discovery. But I can’t help the way my imagination keeps running ahead of itself, as if trying to find ways we can give each other even more. I think it’s the season, all the gifts and celebrations—the relentless hinting that there will always be something hidden in the frozen dark.
Thankfully, class is starting and I’m distracted.
When I return to the dressing room, it’s packed. A thick steam of hairspray and nervous sweat hangs just under the ceiling. Jeff, our newest dancer, has wandered in and he’s reclining on the love seat, his thick legs splayed out. The girls are arranged around him, already in costume, like a nest of rippling, giggling, candy-hued tulle. Even those who pretend to ignore him have shifted closer.
“I’ve taught myself a song,” he says, hefting a guitar into his lap. He’s wearing a faded hoodie over his costume. He loves the eyeliner; he looks more like an eighties rock star than a ballet dancer.
He strums, nodding gravely. He makes a valiant attempt to sing along but his hands can’t keep pace with the rhythm in his mind. Most chords take three or four tries.
“I wanna fuck you like an an—wait—an—wait—ani—wait—muuuuuhhhl.”
The others scream with laughter. Crystal, an apprentice, glances in my direction and bites her lip. She thinks that, as an old lady, I’ll be offended by the fuck word.
I sit with my back to them, furtive and skittish, and reach into my bag. I won’t read it now. Yes, I will. A small breath of silence settles over my shoulders as I unfold it.
Kathy, I need to tell you that the love I have for you is transforming me. I want to try and make you understand this, and it feels as though it would take a very long time to do so properly. Please let me.
I read it three times before it even starts to reach my mind. I press my hands over my face. His wording is so labored and so utterly sincere at the same time, so much like him it makes me want to hug myself.
The overture music is starting, piped down from the house on a tiny, cracked speaker. Everyone is motionless for two quick beats. This moment always brings a rush of terror, like the hot wind before a forest fire. I hate to stew in all that panic. Before the chaos can ramp up again, I slip upstairs to watch from the wings.
The shadows offstage are chilly, but nervous tension warms me. I take off my flannel shirt. I strip off the rest of the wool and jump in place, swinging my arms. The harp arpeggio starts; eight more bars. I check my tights. I clench my fists and shake them out, lifting my abs up toward my ribs.
This is when the wave of panic hits. I usually fight it down, like nausea, but tonight I let it rise, crest, and then spread through me. When it washes away, there is nothing but stillness. The light changes, that’s my cue.
It’s one of those nights when the stage is warm as a mineral bath. Time distends strangely; the variation seems to last for hours. I’m startled when it’s over, as if I expected to end up somewhere other than the center of the first panel, under the blue spotlight, with fake plastic snow sticking to my false lashes.
The snow scene finishes Act I, and we’re expected to come out into the lobby and have portraits taken with the children. I smooth on another layer of powder and run up the steel staircase.
The crowd is a mass of red and green velvet, shimmering gold jewelry, brisk new perfumes and steam from the espresso bar.
I can tell by the way my neck tingles that Christian is here. He doesn’t seem surprised when I turn to him.
I lean my cheek on the front of his sweater. His chest lifts. He rests his hand on my tacky head.
“You’re back early.”
“I am.” His voice is so quiet when he’s happy.
The costume mistress is frantically gesturing me over to the photo set. I have to leave. I sit on the fiberglass chair and a series of toddlers scramble into my lap, one after another. They stare at the fake jewels on my tutu, grin wildly at the camera, show me their arabesques, and tell me as much about their lives as they can before their mothers pull them away. Their dusty little boots make tracks on my tights; I’ll have to change when I’m done.
I’ve lost sight of Christian in the crowd, but it seems I can tell where he is by the soft, constant pull at my heart.
VICARIOUS
Lee Skinner
Pete, my chef d’equipe, is cheating on his wife with a woman he met on Amtrak. It started innocently—they shared a cab home one night in February after a storm shut down the train midway, at Roseville. The evening after that, the woman—Natalie—took the seat beside him, feeling obligated, Pete figured at the time, because he’d insisted on paying the whole fare. The third evening, they got off at a stop just outside the city and shared a hotel room for a couple of hours. Easy as that.
Easy for Pete, that is; impossible—unfathomable—for me. I like to tell myself it’s because of my post; that a governor simply cannot do such things; that a life in the public eye precludes even the contemplation of anything requiring that degree of moral flexibility. But the truth is, I simply don’t know how to go from hello to horizontal with a woman in less than, say, five actual dates. I haven’t got that kind of game. Never have had, never will have.
I told Pete as much, over Chinese takeout in his office.
He frowned at me, fork in the air, uncomprehending. “Whaddaya mean? We’re not talking about finding your soul mate, here. We’re talking about sex.”
I smiled, wryly. “Not been there, ain’t done that.”
“Ain’t done what?”
“Casual sex.”
“Oh, come on.” Pete rolled his eyes, then looked closer into mine, and saw that I was telling the truth. He whistled sympathetically, shaking his head.
When Pete met Natalie, he’s quick to claim, sex was all that was on the agenda. He’s married, she’s married; the fact that sex was all either wanted was what had initially made the relationship so safe, and so honest. Until that same honesty—which neither of them had ever found with anyone else in their lives—gave the thing staying power, and made it complicated. Now Pete talked about her a lot.
I was the only person who knew, the only person he trusted. That exclusive honor meant Natalie came up in almost every private conversation we had.
I could see that he couldn’t help it. Natalie-of-the-Amtrak, once a simple balm for the stress of Pete’s job—which I’ll freely admit is often more challenging than mine—had become someone who mattered. One lunch hour, when we’d had extra time and we’d scored the quiet table at Babur (the one where I can sit with my back to a bank of palms, and go the whole meal without shaking a single hand) he tried to explain it.
“It’s being wanted again.” He put his fork down, leaned against his side of the table. “Not that Pam doesn’t want—I mean, things at home are good; I’m lucky, but…with Natalie…”
I waited, patient, for him to find the words. When you talk for a living like I do, you learn to love to listen. “Yes?”
“I thought I’d never be wanted in that way again. Loved, sure. But desired…”
He lowered his voice and leaned forward, and he looked younger, more vital somehow, than I’d seen him in the seven years we’d worked
together.
“It’s just good, Hal. Good for the soul. I feel like I’ve stolen a second helping of something I finished my fair share of long ago.”
His words stayed with me all afternoon. On my drive home that night, he called me on my cell about a question he’d forgotten to ask. I was alone in the car, driving, the only time of my day that affords me any privacy. My wife, Katy, who thinks I need the rest, has been hounding me to hire a chauffeur. I won’t. I need these forty minutes twice a day, with no one watching, no one waiting.
Pete waited on the other end of the line. “Hal? You there?”
“Huh? Mm-hmm. I was thinking about your girl.”
“Nat?”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “I think you’ve got to cut me off. I’m starting to feel like a voyeur.”
He laughed. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t be so free…”
“No. Not at all. We’re friends. What would I do if I couldn’t live vicariously through you?”
“I dunno. Cruise the Amtrak?”
I smiled wanly. “No can do.”
“I know, guv’nor.”
The next week the storm hit, and we were hip deep in disaster relief claims. We were on the road sixteen hours a day, visiting the communities that had suffered the worst of the flooding. It was an exhausting time, trying to be visible to our constituents, but at the same time needing to do the real work of negotiating the relief settlement with the feds.
I didn’t envy Pete then. When I’d finally put my phone away, often after midnight, I imagined him in his own hotel room, still talking. I knew he was exhausted, weary with the weight of other people’s misfortune. But he still had two lonely women to call; women he’d neglected for weeks now, who needed reassurance of his love.
No. That’s not for me. I don’t have the room in my life. I’m still young, I have a long way to go yet in this business. I can’t afford to break any hearts. I’ll make enough strategic mistakes as it is, without leaving behind disgruntled mistresses for my opponents to flush out.
And I won’t risk hurting Katy. I need her support. I married a woman with the brains to back me up, and the independence to wait for me when I can’t be there. I can’t do anything to undermine her loyalty.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not coming from a high moral place. I’m a man like any other. Some days, I swear, I could fuck every woman I see. I could enjoy each and every one. If I were Pete, I’d be squeezing every last drop of pleasure out of what he has, this second chance of his. But I closed that door the day I threw my hat into the ring.
The greatest thing about the idea—the one that had Pete squirming in the limo seat across from me, two weeks after the flood crisis—was that it came not from him, but from her. Natalie.
Sweat was literally beading on his brow. He cleared his throat. I waited for him to continue.
“And?”
“And…” he wiped his palms on his pants. “Hal, you’ve known me for seven years. You know I don’t talk. What you say to me doesn’t go any further.”
I nodded. Of course I knew it.
“But she knows that you know about her. And the other day I was saying…well…that I don’t envy you your careful life. That you can’t have someone like her.”
“And she said?”
He looked me in the eye. “She said maybe you can.”
The plan was that we—the three of us—would have supper. Pete and I were on the road again, in a large town in the northwest part of the state. We would dismiss the staff, order in, and eat in his suite. Natalie would drive up and join us.
If I didn’t like her, that would be it. She’d have supper with her lover and the governor; a pleasant evening, a night to remember. But if I did…
My hands shook a little as I loosened my tie. I slid it off in front of the mirror, watched the gray silk slip through my hands like a dropped lifeline. The comfort of my persona. The convenient excuse for a life of restraint. I dropped my cuff links into a clean ashtray; I rolled my sleeves. I looked for Pete’s room key, but my eyes stopped on the minibar. I poured myself a double scotch; no ice to stand in its way when I knocked it back. Harsh—but I hoped it would ease the knot that was my stomach. I rapped firmly on the door to Pete’s room.
She opened the door herself.
I grasped her hand, looked into her face. I’ve trained myself to be a quick study, to apply a name to a face so that it sticks. You wouldn’t believe the power, in this business, of simply remembering someone. They’ll all remember YOU; you’re the governor. But if you can return the compliment—if you can pull the right name out of the mental file the next time you see the face—then bingo. She’s on your team. Or getting there.
Natalie had olive skin, which caught me by surprise, although it shouldn’t have. I knew her mother was from Sri Lanka, her father from Baton Rouge. She had long dark hair. One lock of it kept falling across her face as she ate, uncurling its way from behind her ear and tumbling across her cheek as she bent forward over her plate. She had good table manners. She ate slowly, waited until she was done chewing to answer a question. But there was nothing stiff about her. One time, when she thought I wasn’t looking (I’m always looking) she speared an endive and touched it to Pete’s lips, just for the pleasure of hearing the crunch of the delicate leaf between her lover’s teeth. She smiled at him and I felt my own lips part, hungry. Oh yes, I thought. I like you. Yes.
I found myself staring at them, trying to read even one sign of the nerves that I myself felt, that I’d spent years of my life training myself to hide. But Pete was at ease; he was himself. He was no different around her than he was with me. He was my go-to guy, my trusted friend. And when Natalie spoke, her voice was steady and rich. When the conversation required it, she let her brown eyes meet mine.
We never talked about it. Not one word. The deal was done in a single glance: a question in her eyes, a formality. I could see that she knew the answer but I gave it anyway, for the honor of accepting her extraordinary offer. Yes I will, my lovely girl. And thank you.
She smiled back, stood, and called room service to clear our meal. I busied myself with some snifters and brandy, my back to them on purpose. I knew her mind but I wasn’t positive of his. I thought I’d give them a moment to deliberate.
Pete sat at the edge of the bed to tune the radio. I heard her move across the room, heard the bed creak as she lowered herself to his lap, heard him moan softly as her lips left his. They were less than six feet away.
I realized I was holding my breath and forced myself to exhale, inhale, exhale. The porter came in and took an eternity loading his cart. I was hard, obvious in my thin wool trousers; so I stood awkwardly, trying to casually keep my back to him and them at the same time. I was grateful for the excuse to go and put the chain on the door when he left; except it meant I had to walk directly back toward them.
When I turned, her eyes were on mine. We took three steps each, in synchronicity. I felt like I was on a treadmill, drawn forward by a commitment already made, a line already crossed. Natalie put her fingertips on my shoulders, stood on her toes like a dancer, and kissed me lightly on the mouth. And then she waited.
I looked past her, to Pete. He stepped forward in answer, and his hands moved to the zip at the back of Natalie’s skirt. He pulled it down and she leaned back into his arms, letting the skirt drop to the floor as he kissed her ear, then lifted her hair to kiss the back of her neck.
She had stockings on, with stays and a garter belt. Worn for me, I knew. My taste, not Pete’s. I knelt and lifted the edge of her blouse, looked for the ties at the sides of her panties that I knew would be there. In the morning, when I come to my office, the day’s paperwork is organized just so, with the things I like to deal with first on top. Pete’s handiwork. And here too, under Natalie’s skirt: two little bows to untie so that the panties come off and the rest—stockings, belt, heels—stay on. A tiny detail from a rambling fantasy, disclosed once, years ago, the hour late, the bottle empty. This is
why, if I have my way, Pete will always work with me.
I left the bows intact a moment. I hadn’t even touched this woman yet. I put a hand on each ankle, trailed my fingers upward. She stood perfectly still, smiling. Her arms were over her head, entwined with his. His chin was buried in her hair.
Her panties were silk, bubblegum pink, eye level to me as I knelt. As my fingers left the thin mesh of her stockings for the warmth of her thighs, I watched a shadow begin to bloom there, a little heart-shaped watermark, a shade or two darker pink. I pressed my nose to it. She smelled of sleep, like a rumpled bed, pulling me in. I pulled the ties and the slip of fabric dropped away. I opened her with my tongue. She gasped. I felt Pete’s eyes on me.
I licked her once more, my tongue wide and flat, and she crumpled to her knees, giggling. “Oh…! I can’t. Not standing up. I’m sorry…”
We knelt together in a heap between the two beds, laughing, her hair half over her face. Pete sat on the bed behind her. She guided me to my feet, pulled the tails of my shirt free, worked the buttons expertly, then pulled her own blouse over her head. Her breasts were small; plum-colored nipples visible through the black lace of her bra. She had both of her small, cool hands around my cock. Pete watched.
Natalie guided me with her hands, sliding me further back on the bed. I reached up, unhooked her bra, the fabric catching for a second as I swept it across her nipples. She took my chin in one hand, turned my head so I could see myself in the headboard mirror. Then she knelt between my legs.