There’s another bar in sight.
I think I can reach that and do a handstand or a double (unlikely).
“Drop down,” Nikolai suddenly says, the music cutting off. I obey his command instantly, my feet hitting the mat.
He’s beside me in seconds, his hand on the bar above my head. “That’s what you feel?” He says it like I might as well have been a soulless ghost.
“I’ve never been on this apparatus before…” I throw out an excuse.
He shouts a few Russian words at the lady near the office again. The song replays, and I watch him closely. He breathes as though he’s inhaling intangible things. Love. Magic and beauty. And then he climbs up one of the vertical beams with ease, standing on the top of the structure.
He saunters across it like a tightrope, and his gaze—it never leaves my body. As though he’s performing for me. As though the music is mine.
And then he drops straight down, my stomach plummets like he just fell from a forty-foot-height, but he catches one of the bars, channeling the power to do a double between the rungs. It’s effortless, like he’s slicing through air. He comes to an abrupt stop on top of a bar, squatting.
He slowly stands, power radiating in this one action, and his stormy eyes bear down. He walks closer on the bar. So swiftly, he drops again. He clasps another beam, and I soak in his dominant, precise movements—that fill with life and…something greater.
When he finally lands on his feet, beside me, the song is near its end. He’s trounced my mind with carnal, euphoric things. He pulls me strongly to his chest. Like whiplash, my head floats off my body. My lips part, and his hands cup the back of my head, his muscular body welding against my small frame.
I melt in ways I never have before. Beneath that look.
Beneath his passion.
“That,” he says lowly, his eyes dancing across me, “is what I feel.” As soon as the music shuts off, he drops his hands from me, steps back. Demonstration over. He just balled my emotions and fucked them, hard.
I can’t even speak. I just shake my head like I’m not sure I can ever be like that. And I wonder if he’s able to do this with any girl. Every girl. Not just me. I don’t want to picture it.
“You have to leave your heart and soul here,” he tells me. “Every night. Every time. It’s your job to make the audience feel something.”
I definitely felt something. Mission accomplished—for him at least. “How?” I ask. I’m used to being instructed on my technicality, not the sentiments behind my movements.
He rests an elbow on a metal rung, and his deep gray eyes penetrate me, a mystery behind them. The kind that leaves me unprepared for what’s to come. “The easiest way is to draw upon personal experiences,” he says. “Think about the times you were in love.”
I sway uneasily and unglue my eyes from his. I wait for it…
“You’ve never been in love,” he states. There it is.
“I’m only twenty-one,” I defend. “I still have plenty of time to fall in love after I pursue my career.”
He nears me, only a couple steps closer, but his body heat radiates and warms my skin. “Then evoke the same passion you feel when you have sex.”
I internally cringe.
As if the times I had sex were filled with wild, hot fervor. “I’ll try,” I say under my breath. That’s all I can do.
Awkward silence gathers between us, and I sense him reading my features. I just wonder how outwardly I’m cringing. I attempt to relax my facial muscles, but it’s too late.
“You’ve never had sex,” he deduces.
“No,” I say with the shake of my head. “No, I’ve had sex. Twice, actually.”
“Twice?” His brows rise like that’s it?
Why did I give him a number? I would face-palm myself if I wasn’t frozen solid. “They weren’t memorable.” Just lame stabs at crossing off “to-do” lists. It took me some time to realize the list shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
He remains quiet, mulling this over, maybe. His lips in a thin line, his eyes more narrowed.
It dawns on me. “You’ve never had terrible sex, have you?” My heart pounds, and a light bulb triggers. “Is that why they call you the God of Russia?”
His expression morphs into an unamused, don’t be ridiculous one. “If your past relationships aren’t enough to help you, then you’ll need to find something that will. An image that’s moved you, a book, a song—anything that you can focus on while you perform. If you’re too concentrated on your actions, on the next move, that’s all the audience will see.”
I have passion for the circus. It’s my greatest, life-long love. Even if it’s a figment, a dream—more than reality. I still feel from it.
I’m just not sure how to show what’s in my heart.
And I can’t take forever to learn this skill. I have a deadline.
“We’ll work on it,” he tells me.
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 be uncrossed. 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 bottom of 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.