Page 86 of Dance of Ruin

This isn’t about perfecting technique. Or prepping for opening night.

It’s about chasing a feeling…or maybe trying to erase one.

My mind keeps returning to the night before.

Withhim.

The dark pleasure of his mouth and tongue. The way his hands felt on my body. The silk ribbon biting into my wrists. The filthy things he whispered like prayers.

Then I told him I was a virgin and it all stopped, like a record scratching.

And I can’t stop thinking about what that means.

Maybe the dark games we’d been playing lost their appeal to him the moment he discovered I'd never had sex before. Maybe he thought he’d have to “teach me” or something, and that was a turnoff.

Or maybe it was that fucking video being brought up again. Maybe he was disgusted by that. MaybeIdisgust him.

Maybe I disgust myself.

I should begratefulthat nothing further happened last night, right?

But try as I might—and Ihavebeen trying—I can’t escape the wildly inconvenient fact that when Nico touches me, it has a way of simply erasing everything else.

It takes away the rawness of what happened at that "photoshoot". It quiets the screaming in my head that still wakes me most nights.

There’s a certain comfort in the brutal, ultra-dominant way he touches me. A surrender in the submissiveness he brings out in me. It’s an addictive rush that he alone can give me. And for that reason, maybe Iamdisappointed that he didn’t keep going last night.

Until he’d taken all of me.

My mind drifts as I do a series of piqué turns from one corner of the stage to the other, spinning closer to the dark shadows of the theater wings, the black feathers on the shoulder of my costume fluttering.

I should just tell him what the video he’s lording over me really is. That it wasn’t some fuckingpornshoot, but an assault.

That I was drugged. That I didn’t say yes.Couldn’tsay yes.

In a way, it feels like I’m weighing one sort of darkness against a different kind.

If itwasa porn, I’d feel shame about it. It actually being a video of my assault brings shame, too, butthatshame is somehow worse. Heavier. Deeper. Sticky and raw and swallowing.

Let's face it: I was stupid for going there in the first place. For trusting a stranger. Maybe I was weak for not fighting harder.

So given the choice, I’m choosing the shame of him thinking I did a porn with two men over the reality. Somehow, that’s easier. Cleaner.

For me, being reckless and foolish is more forgivable than beingweak.

I pull my mind back to the choreography. Pirouettes that should be effortless feel jerky. Transitions that should flow, don't. I push myself harder and faster, until my thighs seize up and the stage blurs.

And finally—my body gives out.

I collapse to the floor with a dull thud, my breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps.

“You’re very good.”

My body jolts and my head whips toward the house, my chest still heaving.

Nico is sitting in the front row.

Not moving.

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