Page 5 of Scent to the Feral Cowboys
The madame, who had no children, despite transitioning to teaching two decades earlier.
Her voice was a gentle murmur, brushing across my skin. I wasn’t processing a single syllable. I gave myself a gentle shake, forcing myself to refocus.
"You have more to give," she was saying now, reaching for my arm. I stepped back, avoiding her touch. Her kindness would send me spiraling far faster than any cruelty. Yet, I felt awful seconds later when she frowned. God, I didn’t mean to hurt her. I was a walking, hemorrhaging wound these days. Bleeding out, unable to control what I stained red.
“Apparently not,” I finally managed in a brittle, bruised voice as I slightly raised the sealed letter into view before dropping my arm back limply against my side. “I’m a liability now. They can’t trust I won’t be injured again. I did everything right, but it wasn’t enough.”
"Not enough?" Madame Belova's voice sharpened, scent shifting, taking on a note of spice. "You think this is about your ability? About your talent?" She stepped closer, her dark eyes blazing and her thin lips drawn back from her teeth as if she was about to snarl. Her hands raised, clutching my upper arms tightly, and too quickly for me to shift out of reach.
Her eyes were too wide. The pupils blown with emotion. "This is about money, chérie. Insurance premiums. Board members who see dancers as investments, not artists." She titled her head to the right, slightly down, and pretended to spit thrice on the floor. The habitual gesture almost made me smile even though my world was falling apart again. The threatening smile did not last long; I sobered quickly as Madame gripped my arms even tighter, as if sharp pain could bring the world back into focus. Not even pain could make everything make sense now though. I’d been deeply caught by physical agony for so many months…and my life was still this creature that I no longer recognized.
She lifted one hand from my arm, cupped my cheek. I didn’t shrink away from her touch.
“Do not let this destroy you, Nelly. You have more talent in your right pinky toe than Geoff and the others have in their entire bodies.” Her hands fell away from me then, and she took a step backward. Why did the lingering pressure of her touch feel like a wound? “Geoff,” she said his name coldly, “flaunting that imposter around, as if she is half the dancer, you were…are… the dancer youare.” She corrected herself quickly, yet the pasttense was already spoken out loud and irretractable. I added this small hurt to the growing pile of pain.
“Someday, he will realize what he has lost. I hope he is a fat old man living a miserable life by then.” she said with conviction. She’d always hated the idea of me dating Geoff, though she’d kept her remarks to a minimum. Apparently, she wasn’t holding back on the subject anymore.
Part of me felt like melting against her. Letting all my sorrows out to soak into her thin, sky-blue blouse. It would be easy.
It would also be weak.
I managed to keep the tears back. Managed to face her head-on, though I couldn’t produce any words in response. She was right, of course. Not about the talent in my toe, but about the insurance and board members. Director Madoff made that abundantly clear during my exit interview. He’d been clinical, detached, like he was discussing a faulty piece of equipment rather than my life’s work, my body, my future.
“You’re being kind,” I finally managed. “You know Geoff is absurdly good. And,” I had to inhale deeply, gathering up the words before I rushed them out, like ripping off a bandage, “Lisette is amazing.”
“Fuck, Geoff,” she growled. “He has flat feet! And that Lisette has the face of a donkey!”
“Madame Belova,” I sputtered out a startled laugh of shock. “I’ve never heard you curse.”
In all my years with the Imperial Dance Company, she’d always stayed cool, collected, unflappable. Seeing her elegant façade crack was almost worth hitting rock bottom. Almost.
I didn’t address the flat feet thing; we both knew it wasn’t true. Geoff could do no wrong while dancing, which made me hate him more now, though I used to worship the floor he performed upon. No sickling. No pronation. His footwork wasdivine. Attacking Lisette’s looks, instead of her talent, only meant that the madame had no dance criticism to offer.
"There is a place and a time for foul language.” Madame gave a graceful hop of shoulders, an elegant approximation of a shrug. “Chérie, where will you go now?" Her voice turned impossibly gentle. The shift made moisture prick in my eyes. I blinked rapidly, wishing I could use my fist to beat the rising lump in my throat away. “What will you do?”
Silence stretched between us. Her gaze never faltered. False words began tumbling out of my mouth, as if I couldn’t stand letting Madame Belova know the truth—that I had nowhere to go, no backup plan, no ray of hope lighting a path.
“Well, I’ve got my grandparents’ home still. I can’t imagine leaving it. There’s a dance school near Serenity House, where Grandpa and Grandmother are living now, that needs teachers.” The half-truths and outright lies came easily. Ballet has been my entire world since I was six years old. What did former principal dancers do when they couldn't dance anymore? They taught, just like Madame Belova It was plausible. She wouldn’t question it.
“So, you will stay in the city? You will work near?” Her gaze lit up, as if the idea of me staying nearby was comforting to her. “We will have to schedule lunch dates!”
Her enthusiasm weighed on my heart.
Suddenly, my lies felt too heavy. This woman had always treated me well, always supported me. She deserved honesty, at the very least.
“I’m sorry,” I began, but then I found the words I wanted to say faded in my throat.
“For what, chérie?” Her aged face crumpled as she tried to discern the ‘why’ behind my sudden apology. “You have done nothing wrong. Fate was cruel, and Imperial was crueler.” She faux spat again towards the floor. Quick little tuts of air, her face twisted and vehement for a split second. Though we’d knownone another for years, though she was important to me and a mentor, I did not know until now that she truly cared in this way. To be angry for me. To defend me. To honestly hate I was leaving.
"I’m actually planning to move to Seattle," I admitted in a whisper, watching her expression shift from anger to confusion to weariness. "I just didn’t want you to know. It feels like really giving up, but I can't... I justcan'tstay in Tacoma. What if I run into someone? They’d ask how I was doing. They’d askwhatI was doing. They’d… they’dpity me. They’d do the same thing you’re doing right now, only not out of real care. It would be morbid curiosity. I’d be a cautionary tale. A failure that made them feel better. I didn’t work this hard to lose my career and my dignity.”
God, I couldn’t handle it. Not with Geoff already parading around with Lisette, my replacement both on stage and in his bed. I'd seen it coming—the way he'd begun critiquing my recovery those last months we were together, suggesting I might never be the same dancer again, mentioning Lisette and how her turns were sharper, her extensions better—but my irrational heart ignored the truth until it slapped me in the face. Geoff had toxic Alpha energy through-and-through, thinking he was God’s gift to Omegakind. He’d never stay with someone he considered spoiled goods.
"Seattle is not so far," she said, but her voice had thinned with disappointment. She wrung her hands together, trying to force a weak smile. "You will call? You will let me know how you are settling?"
“Of course.” I paired the words with a firm nod. Another lie.
I wouldn't call. I couldn't bear to hear the updates about Imperial, about who was dancing roles which could have been mine, about how life continued perfectly well without Nelly Shaw, the shooting star who burned out too quickly.
