“What?” I gape in confusion.
He puts his fingers underneath my chin, physically pushing my jaw closed. My plump bottom lip meets my top. “You’re up first in the audition.”
A short, round man with glasses and peppered hair lingers off to the side, arms crossed, and he interjects with a flurry of Russian words.
Nikolai replies back easily, still staring down at me. Then he breaks into English. “Do you want to audition, Thora?”
I nod.
“Then bark like a dog.”
What. The hell? I feel my eyes darken. “Is this a joke?” He’s planning to humiliate me, for payback or something?
He wears a new expression, one full of severity. No curved lips. No theatrics. His tough exterior intensifies by ten-thousand degrees.
I can’t shrivel. I’m solidified to stone by his change in demeanor.
“I take my job seriously,” he says with force behind each word. “You want to be a performer? Then bark like a dog.”
I hesitate, my gaze flickering to the table of directors. Some of them share furtive whispers, but for the most part, they watch us, poker-faced. They won’t intervene then. He’s taken over my audition and turned it into a crazy one.
I step forward once, closer to him, and say under my breath, “This isn’t a game to me.” This whole audition is so much more important than a bet.
His hand flies to my mouth, silencing me. His large palm practically fits across my entire face. “How badly do you want this?”
Badly.
What am I willing to do then? Barking like a dog isn’t that horrible, in comparison to other things he could’ve said. Okay.
Okay, Thora.
When his hand falls, he waits for me to do something more. We’re only a foot apart now, and I look up at him, silently hoping he’ll give me a reprieve, an out at the last minute.
He doesn’t.
I clear my throat. “
Woof woo
f,” I say, sounding as awkward as I feel.
Nikolai stares without a single ounce of humor. No one laughs. He just says, “A dog that has rabies.”
I bite my tongue, hopefully suppressing a scowl. Then I think for a second. “
Grrr…arh arrhhhh…
” I find myself actually crinkling my nose too. I wonder if this is being videotaped. In the back of my head, I hear Shay laughing hysterically at me.
“Now,” he says, not missing a beat, “crawl on the mat and pretend you’re a cat in heat.”
Kneejerk reaction, I shake my head.
“No?” he questions with a deadly stare. “You’re going to quit.” It’s a statement. An assumption. I don’t want him to be right.
I swallow a lump. “I meant yes.”
“Get on your knees then,” he commands.
The older man observing the audition suddenly points at me and speaks in rapid, hasty Russian. It flies in one ear and out the other.
Nikolai replies back gruffly, gesticulating with his hands as he talks.
The older man waves him off, his thick brows pulled together in a giant one. My stomach twists as I stare between them. The way the older man jabs his stubby finger in my direction—it makes me think he’s not pleased by me. That he hasn’t been on my side since the start.
To rectify this, I drop quickly to all fours, and their argument ceases like I chopped through it with my movement. I tilt my chin up.
A cat in heat.
I channel the most lustful look I can muster, my mouth partially open as a heady breath escapes. And I slowly crawl on my hands and knees, slinking around his shins.
I circle languidly, licking the side of my palm. And then I rub my hip against his calf, all the while a swelter boils in my body. But I do it again. And again, my arm brushing up against his skin.
His quads tighten in response. I tense just as much, and I catch a peek of his features, which haven’t changed since the beginning.
“Purr,” he tells me.
I freeze at the new command. Purr? How does one even
purr?
I’m going to try to attempt it. I have to. As soon as I open my mouth, the sound that leaves is nothing short of a moan, one that happens in private—not during an audition.
A job interview.
That’s what this is. With directors in sight.
The other gymnasts are most likely crossing me off their lists.
One competitor down.
Nikolai appraises me but makes no statement whether I’m succeeding or failing at being a horny cat. “Stop,” he says.
A pit wedges in my ribcage, and I slowly stand to my feet, hot all over. I brush my hair into a tight ponytail. I can feel him scrutinizing my actions, and what’s worse—he won’t fill the empty air with talk. Not until I snap the band and plant my hands on my hips.
He has to stare down at me as he speaks. “I’m a marble statue,” he declares. “You’re obsessed with it. You dream about it, erotic fantasies that make you come at night. You see this statue, what do you do?”
Holy.
Shit.
He said all of that without balking.
I open my mouth, about to play into this pretend, weird scenario. The girl would probably grind against the statue. Right?
He cuts me off, “Show me.”
I hesitate for one second.
And then the other man yells again in Russian, spitting as gruff words pour from his mouth. Nikolai shakes his head at him, and he shouts back, making another hostile hand gesture that I read as:
wait a minute.
I inhale, about to go into girl-obsessed-with-statute mode, but the moment I near Nikolai, the Russian man charges onto the mat and physically separates us. He wedges his short, stalky body between me and him, and he spews Russian words straight to my face. Like I understand.
I don’t.
Not one word.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” I tell him softly, my stomach practically convulsing with nausea. I have no idea what’s going on. Maybe he’s upset with Nikolai for putting me through a strange audition. By the snarl on his wrinkled face, he clearly hates me.
And if my hunch is correct, he’s the choreographer for the aerial silk act.
He gestures to me and then to the mat with all the other girls. Nikolai tries to talk above him, but this only sparks another verbal shouting match.
Helen struts to the mats, approaching from a safe distance. “Thora, that’s it for you,” she says. “You can take a seat and wait for the other girls to audition. We’re making the first round of cuts at the end of the day.”
Her words knock me backwards a bit. She might as well have said:
you failed so much that we only gave you five minutes instead of fifteen.
My legs feel heavy as I trudge over to the girls. They shift nervously and none make snide comments or laugh and jeer about my cat-in-heat routine.
I plop down beside Kaitlin, who remains quiet. And I watch Nikolai and the choreographer come to a somewhat peace, their hands raised like
let’s end this and move on.
When they separate, Nikolai rubs his jaw and takes a few extra paces behind Helen. The older man stays on the sidelines of the blue mats. And it’s Helen who calls the next girl forward.
“Number 1,” she says.
Elena, the bleach-blonde, gracefully rises to her feet, nearly gliding to a halt in front of Helen. In her green leotard, her limbs seem thinner and her chest flatter.
I don’t even want to watch, my insides stretching to their limits. I fiddle with my fingers, pushing down my cuticles while I cross my legs.
“You’re a flower in a meadow,” Helen says.
What?
My heart stops.
“The winds are strong,” Helen continues, and Elena begins to sway back and forth, like she’s performing a lyrical dance.
This whole time, he wasn’t messing with me? Nikolai observes Elena with a stiff, rigid posture. While the young gymnast pretends to be blown over, I try to make sense of my audition.
He was really trying to help me.
From the beginning, maybe.
Trust me.
He said that last night. Trust. I was supposed to do as he said, without question, because he’s supposed to be my partner.
If
I get this role. It’s looking grim now.
“Purr,” Helen instructs. She might as well have kicked me in the gut.
And apparently humans
can
purr. The sound that Elena produces is like a vibration off her tongue.
Fuck my life.
I tuck my legs to my chest, and I plaster my gaze right on Nikolai, hoping he’ll feel the heat off my stare. I’m not looking for reassurance. I think, mostly, I want to apologize. I should’ve stepped out of my box today. He was trying to pull me out of it, and I fought back. I resisted.
He concentrates solely on Elena.
“You’re madly in love with the blue mat,” Helen tells her.
And that’s when Nikolai has enough of my penetrating gaze. He finally turns his head and gives me a look like
I’m working, Thora
before I can offer an apologetic one.
I mouth,
I’m sorry.
I wish I could have a redo. I’m not sure I’d be a better horny cat or a more vicious dog, but I wouldn’t have faltered so much.
I would’ve barreled forward, no matter how awkward I felt.
He shakes his head at me like
it’s over now
. But his eyes seem to soften a fraction before he returns them to Elena.
I can’t believe this is how it’s all ending.
Act Four
After each girl auditions, the directors go into deliberation and Helen says that we can look around the gym while we wait for first cuts.
I end up in the locker rooms, scanning the names on the blue metaled doors. I don’t think I was the worst one at acting. One girl was asked to be fire and water, and she ended up doing the worm. But I definitely didn’t possess Elena’s grace or Kaitlin’s head-first, no-holds-barred gusto.
Honestly, I think I faded into the background.
I skim my fingers over a worn name scribbled on the locker label:
Dimitri
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I jump at the deep voice behind me. Nikolai leans his shoulder on a blue locker, arms crossed, his dark hair spilling over his red bandana. His intensity doesn’t diminish.
“You never asked me anything,” I whisper, even though it’s already quiet here.
He blinks a few times and lets out an exasperated laugh before shaking his head like he can’t believe this happened. I can’t either. “At The Red Death,” he begins, “did you even know what I was going to do?”
“I told you it was my first time in Vegas.”
He rubs his lips, upset it seems. “I assumed you heard about what happens from a friend.”
“No,” I say. “I knew nothing.”
His face turns grave, and he stares at the concrete floor, processing what this means.
“You never asked,” I reiterate this.
“Because I thought you were no one!” he shouts at me, frustration lining his forehead. “I don’t ask
anyone
at The Red Death
anything
, Thora. I don’t want to hear about their lives while they’re in Vegas for the weekend. There’s no point. It’s exhausting and I’d rather assume…” he trails off, realizing he assumed wrong this time.
“I should’ve said something then,” I tell him. “You’re right.” I can’t even recall why I stayed quiet. Maybe because I was ticked off by his lack of questions. Maybe because I was overwhelmed. Mentally, emotionally—last night is far off compared to today.
I find myself sitting on the wooden bench between the lockers. Silence stretches between us. I expect him to leave, but he stays in the same place.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I say softly, my eyes threatening to well with defeated tears. “You won’t see me around anymore.”
He lets out an exasperated noise and walks deeper into the locker room, nearing me. He stops a few feet away. “Look at me, myshka,” he says lowly.
I lift my gaze to his.
“Don’t count your losses before you see the scoreboard.” While encouraging, he still looks agitated. “It’ll plague you with insecurities that aren’t worth your energy or emotions.”
He just passed me an ounce of hope. Maybe out of pity. I’ll take it though. “Thanks for helping me, before,” I suddenly tell him. “I didn’t realize what you were doing…”
“The choreographers usually judge easier on the first person who auditions. They know you’re blindfolded for it unlike the others.” He drops his gaze again, something he rarely does, I’ve noticed. “I’m not going to lie. I was angry when I first saw you, and I still am.”
“Yeah, I can tell,” I whisper.
He nods a couple times. “But I wanted to give you a better shot because I felt like I put you at a disadvantage, and that wasn’t fair to you.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
His eyes rise to mine again. “Our relationship,” he says, “is unprofessional.”
I sway back a little. “I wasn’t aware we had a relationship.”
He still towers above me. “Whatever you want to call it—it’s not right. I don’t shit where I eat. I pierce and tattoo people looking to have fun in Vegas. I give them an experience. You were here for a job.” He shakes his head. “I
regret
what I did. More than you can possibly know.”
“Don’t,” I tell him. “It’s just a piercing. And I said it was okay.”
“We may work together,” he says. “It’s not just a piercing to me.” He gestures to my small frame. “And how old are you?” He grimaces some. “Please tell me that you’re not eighteen.” Maybe because he supplied me shots all night. Or because he fondled my boob, and that’d mean we’d have a significant age gap than the one that already exists. I’m going with the latter.
“Twenty-one.”
Relief floods his face, and he exhales deeply.
“What about you?” I ask.
“Twenty-six.” He scans my body for a second, as though he’s reading the language of my movements. “Despite the control I had at the auditions today, I have almost no weight in the final choice. They can pick any one of you, even if I say otherwise.”
The tiny hope he’d given me might have been false after all. “The choreographer dislikes me,” I recognize. He was introduced at the end of the auditions, so I’m certain he’s the man who’ll arrange the aerial silk routine.