Page 56 of The Failed Audition

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 beuncrossed. 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 bottomof 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. Menloveflexibility.”

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 splitsontheir 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.

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