Page 13 of The Virgin's Dance
Grace smiled. “You like him.”
“I do, but this is a working relationship.” He’d made that clear, she thought sadly. She tried to smile at Grace. “But he’s going to be working with all of us, and so I would hate for any rumors to get back to him, embarrass him. Untrue rumors.”
“You’re sweet, but I think Scamo can look after himself. He is a phenomenal photographer.” Grace was flicking through some of Pilot’s images on her phone. She smiled at her friend. “If anyone can capture you, Boh, it’s him. I can’t wait to see what he does.”
“With all of us,” Boh corrected but couldn’t help the little smile that escaped from her. Grace laughed and squeezed her arm.
“You know what, Boh? If you have a crush, that’s okay. You can date who you want. You should date, at your age. How come you never have?”
Boh felt the usual dread seep into her chest, the fear that always followed when someone questioned her solitary life. But before she could answer her, their attention was caught by the elderly woman walking slowly into the room, her gaze wheeling around, her expression one of confusion. Grace and Boh were up immediately to go to her side.
“Madam Vasquez? Are you okay?”
The elderly woman smiled at them both. “June, Sally, how lovely to see you.”
Grace and Boh exchanged a glance. Eleonor Vasquez was a former prima ballerina, one of the world’s greatest, with one of the longest careers of a dancer ever, her career mercifully unhampered by serious injury. What ended her career eventually was the scandal of her lifelong love affair with Celine Peletier becoming public in an age when homosexuality and lesbian relationship were still taboo.
Vasquez, a firebrand from Argentina, had made a public statement about her love for the Frenchwoman. “My dancing career was my passion,” she told reporters, “but my love Celine is mylife.”
The two women had been together for over 50 years now, but time had caught up with Eleonor a decade ago. Dementia. The ballet company, loyal to her to the last, allowed her to live with Celine in one of the company’s apartments next to the studios, and even allowed her to “teach” still. A few of the dancers would give the extra time to be taught by this living legend, Boh and Grace among them. They didn’t mind being whoever she wanted them to be for that hour.
Serena and some of the others wouldn’t give that time, dismissing the elderly woman as a “demented fool.” But the love Eleonor and Celine shared was an inspiration to most of the troupe, and their support, Boh knew, meant the world to Celine Peletier.
She and Grace walked Eleonor back to her apartment now, where they were met by an exasperated looking Celine. “You wandered off again?”
Eleonor beamed at her lover. “How lovely to see you, Petal,” she said, using her pet names for Celine. Celine rolled her eyes and steered Eleonor into the apartment. She smiled gratefully at Boh and Grace. “Thank you, girls. Now, my little white swan, let’s get you to bed.”
Grace closed the door quietly and the two women walked slowly back down to the studios.
“Puts any little annoyance into perspective, doesn’t it?”
Boh nodded. “It does.” She recalled the way Eleonor and Celine looked at each other and her heart ached. To have so much love and to risk losing your partner to the relentless horror of dementia … she couldn’t imagine. Their love made her crush on Pilot seem even more ridiculous. He was a grownup and she was just a kid … no matter if their attraction had been so palpable it was insane.
“What’s on your mind?” Grace asked her, but Boh just nodded.
“Nothing. Let’s go dance.”
Serena snorted the ivory white line from the table and wiped her nostrils, grinning at Kristof as she laid back on top of him. “That was a particularly cruel trick you played on little Miss Perfect this morning, but I have to say, I enjoyed it.”
She straddled his naked form and reached for his cock, stroking it, trying to get him hard again. He was smoking a joint, watching her carefully. She knew this look in his eyes; it was spite. His cock remained limp, and she gave up, rolling onto the side of his bed and getting up.
“Where are you going?”
“To pee.”
She went into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet. Sex with Kristof had been thrilling at the start. The first day she had arrived at the company, already an established member of another rival company, he had singled her out, asked her to stay after the final class of the day.
He’d fucked her in his office, bending her over his desk and thrusting hard. Since then, two years ago, they’d continued to screw each other but Serena had been disappointed that it had gotten her no further than soloist. She’d begged Kristof to make her principal after the former lead had moved on, and she had thought she was close to it. But then Kristof had seen Boheme Dali dance and promoted her to principal instead.
He’d pacified a furious Serena with even more sex, and as many appetite-suppressing drugs and cocaine as she could handle, but still, it rankled. Serena knew Boh was the superior dancer—hell, Serena secretly loved to watch the other girl dance—but her upbringing meant she expected nothing to be denied to her. So she made Boh’s life a misery.
And she knew something about Boheme that no one else did. Crashing a party at Boh and Grace’s apartment, she’d seen a handwritten letter addressed to Boh and had pocketed it on a whim. She hadn’t imagined the contents of that letter would be so salacious, souseful. Boh’s daddy was a bad,badman. Boh’s pure virginal act was just that, anact, even if she was the victim of her pedophile father. Serena had kept Boh’s secret, not out of charity, but she was waiting for the opportune moment to drop it on her.
Maybe that moment was coming sooner than later, Serena pondered now as she washed her hands. She toyed with telling Kristof about the letter but decided against it. Her erstwhile lover was already too damn preoccupied with Boh as it was. She looked in the mirror, seeing her strawberry blonde hair was messy and was sticking to the sweat on her forehead. She splashed water on her face and smoothed down her hair. As she walked back in the bed, Kristof was scribbling in his notebook, working out choreography, she knew.
She laid back beside him on the bed. “Finally decided on the playlist yet?”
Kristof nodded. “We’re doingThe Lessonwhether Liz likes it or not. It’s the perfect ballet for a sex and death theme. Darkness, obsession. For Chrissake, Nureyev danced it, so I don’t understand Liz’s reticence.”
