Part 20 (1/2)

Once in the green room, I changed into dancing clothes, black tights and bodysuit with a wisp of a light blue gossamer skirt around my hips.

When I got to the stage I found Ferrara terrorizing Alicia, or trying to.

”You've got to be kidding me. You hate my guts, Bogovich.” Ferrara was wearing a black leather jacket over a catsuit studded with rhinestones. ”You think I'll accept you as an impartial judge?”

”Ferrara, contrary to your self-centered fantasies, I don't give a f.u.c.k about you,” Alicia shot back. ”All I care about is how the show looks. If Jasper wants my opinion, he's going to get it, no matter what you think.”

”I want all of your opinions,” came a voice from the balcony box immediately to the right of the stage. James stood at the railing, looking down at us all. ”Chandra. Give everyone a score sheet.”

Ferrara looked like she was shooting laser beams out her eyes at him. ”This is not a democracy!”

”No, it isn't. Because my decision will be the final one.” His voice, and the authority in it, carried easily through the auditorium. He turned on his heel, then disappeared through the archway. A moment later he reappeared at the foot of the stage in the orchestra. ”Now, let's get this under way.”

But for Ferrara, the argument wasn't over. She loomed over him from the edge of the stage. ”I'm the producer. You need my input.”

He looked up with a mild expression on his face. ”No, I don't. A producer might have some say if she threatened to pull her financial backing, perhaps, but I don't need your money, Ferrara.”

”You're being ridiculous.”

”I'm not the one who insisted on a ridiculously strict interpretation of our recording contract.” He lifted himself onto the stage with his arms and swung his legs like a gymnast onto a vault horse, then stood close enough to kiss her. She refused to back away. ”Why don't you try reading the production and performance agreements I signed? Auteur clause. I get complete creative control of all sight and sound in the production. Every detail.”

”You-”

”Right down to the length of the false eyelashes on your face.” He knew exactly how to push her b.u.t.tons.

She snapped. ”You're a monster! You put the freak in control freak!”

”Of course I do,” he said mildly. ”Now, come on, people. Everyone into the seats.” He looked up into the catwalks overhead. ”Hey, Barnaby.”

”Yeah?” came a voice from above.

”You know anything about dancing?”

”A little.”

”Can you even tell my dancers apart?”

”Not really.”

”Excellent. Get down here and serve as an impartial judge.”

”A'right.”

Everyone but me, Natalie, and Ferrara took seats in the VIP section of the orchestra, the posh tables closest to the stage, James included. Ramon went back to the sound board. Ferrara looked at me, then, examining me. I think until that moment she couldn't have picked me out of the group of dancers. Now she was looking at me with an expression of hate and disgust, like she couldn't believe she was even bothering to sc.r.a.pe me off the bottom of her shoe.

I tried to keep my chin up. But the sheer force of her disdain for me brought all my worries to the surface. What if I really was about to make a fool of myself in front of everyone? What if I was kidding myself and James was just besotted with me, he was no judge of whether I could do this, and everyone was going to see how pathetic a dancer I was?

Then I remembered that was the point of this audition. To find out. To prove to myself that I could hold my own, or to find out that I had no business there. That was why James wanted everyone to see it. Because if I really, truly sucked, he would know from the reactions of the others.

He cleared his throat. ”Karina, why don't you go first? Natalie, take a seat.”

”I'm happy to go first,” I said.

”Fine. Ramon?” James called as Ferrara went into the wings.

”Almost ready, boss. Karina, don't forget your stool.”

”Ah! Right!” I ran into the wings where it was stored.

Of course, when I found the stool, Ferrara was sitting on it. I decided to try the polite approach. ”Excuse me, but I need that.”

She had a compact in one hand and was putting on a fresh coat of lipstick, focusing on herself in the tiny mirror. She looked up at me slowly, her gaze taking a leisurely path up my body, her nostril flare increasing the longer she looked. ”Who. Are. You? I don't recognize you.”

”I really need the stool now.”

”What are you? Are you his latest f.u.c.k toy? Is that it? Am I being tossed aside for a new piece of trash?”

I'm sure I blushed.

”Ahh, I'm right, aren't I?” She brightened suddenly. ”He is a master of manipulation, isn't he? So that's why he insisted on this charade. I know what he's doing now. This is all some kinky humiliation game, isn't it? He's going to make you go out there and make a spectacle of yourself, and then what, spank you for doing a terrible job? Or just f.u.c.k you raw in the restroom? f.u.c.k you until you're so sore you come out bowlegged and everyone knows what you've been doing?”

The longer she talked the more desperate I got, my face redder and my breath shorter. ”Please,” I begged. ”I need the stool.”

She uncrossed her legs and stood with deliberate slowness. ”You're not the first little chickadee he's ravaged,” she said. ”I know you think you like it. I know you think you love the attention. Maybe you even like pain. But just you wait until the day you say no to him.”

She stepped aside and I grabbed the stool.

”It'll happen. He'll keep pus.h.i.+ng you until you say no, and then he'll get what he really wants. Then he gets to rape you.”

I clamped my mouth shut tight and wished I could do the same with my ears.

”He'll rape you and then leave you by the side of the road, and his money will shut you up...”

I hurried back onto the stage, banging my s.h.i.+n on the leg of the stool as I did. I put it down where I wanted it, panting and trying to keep from crying. She was full of it. She had to be. She was saying any outrageous thing she could to mess me up.

I remembered Stefan telling me once that he'd seen James do that, f.u.c.k a woman and then leave her.

But that had been a lame attempt to scare me off. And you know what? Ferrara was trying to do the same thing. Had to be. Had to be.

I heard Ramon's voice through the PA. ”Whenever you're ready. Take your mark.”

Right. The performance. I took a deep breath. I had to put everything out of my mind. Remember what the dance in London had been like. The whole audience had been rapt. And the audience of one I'd intended it for had reacted just as I'd hoped, cracking his sh.e.l.l and giving in to his l.u.s.t for me.

I could do this.

I went to the back corner of the stage, opposite the stool, and nodded to Ramon. The music began, and I crossed the stage almost in a ballet-like pa.s.s, coming to the stool, dancing in front of it and around it as if James were sitting there. As the drums kicked in, my moves became more sensual, as if I were teasing the man sitting there. I flowed across the stool with two kicks in the air as if I had taken a quick pa.s.s on his lap, and then straddled it with my back to the audience for a circular hip grind that Sabine would have called ”stirring the cake batter.” I'd made an edit of the music so that it was exactly two minutes long, and the ending slipped into another minor mode, almost a mournful one. Here's where I had to sell the idea that the stool wasn't only empty; it was permanently so. Maybe I relied on too much mime, but I hugged myself and wiped a tear, then danced away from the stool, and back, away, and back, until finally running off the stage entirely as if too grief-stricken to even look at the stool anymore.

They clapped. Hard. A few of them even whistled! I tiptoed back onto the stage and they got louder. I took a small bow, then ran down into the audience to sit next to Annika, who hugged me.

”It was great!” she whispered. ”You're really good!”