“Stay,” he says. I feel his retreat. Several minutes pass before I hear his voice again over the sound system.
“You can take off the blindfold. Put on the costume and the shoes.”
I remove the blindfold to find a gorgeous flaming red costume with layers and layers of wispy material, lying across the table along with a pair of red pointe shoes resting on top of the pile of fabric.
I'm about to protest that I need more time because you can't just put on a new pair of pointe shoes straight out of the box. As a dancer, he must know that. But as I pick up the shoes from the pile of red material, I see he's already done the requisite ripping of the satin at the toes, the scraping, the beating of the boxes.
I'm sure he's had these made for me in my exact specifications. All this information is on file with the company after all. With every other string he's pulled, getting that information would be nothing.
“You can test them to see if they're how you like them,” he says.
The ribbons and elastics aren't sewn in yet. Dancers always sew these in ourselves. We are very particular about exactly where to put them for our particular feet and comfort.
I slip into the costume even more aware of the plug in my ass, blushing at the thought of dancing this way. The fairy-like costume fits me like a glove. I twirl in it. “It's beautiful. Is this for the show?”
“No, cupcake. It's simply a gift. I'm not in charge of costuming. I don't have that much power.”
I actually laugh at this.
I try the shoes and test them, surprised that I'm happy with how he's broken them in. I try to imagine him sitting on the stage before I got here, beating the toe boxes against the floor. The image in my mind is comical.
I sit on the stage and sew the elastics and ribbons in. Then I put the shoes on and do a few experimental tendus, jumps, and pirouettes. Everything is as it should be.
“Good girl. Now go to the barre and put the blindfold on.”
I obey his orders, trying to calm the excitement rising within me.
A few minutes later, he's beside me again, his hand kneading the back of my neck. I lean into him, a soft moan leaving my mouth.
“We're going to do the pas de deux you learned this week for Firebird,” he says.
“Do you know it?” I ask, shocked that he would.
He laughs. “Know it? Of course I know it. I choreographed it.”
I stiffen even though I know the choreographer's voice was different. It wasn't him. I know it wasn't him.
“He doesn't have the same voice as you.” I can't help voicing my small doubt.
“No, I'm not the man you met Monday. I taught the choreography to someone who is now teaching it to you.”
“Are you ever going to let me see you?” There is a kind of comfort behind the blindfold. But still, I want to see him. “I-I won't tell anyone.”
He has to know we are well beyond the possibility that the revelation of his identity to me could pose any threat to him. But he doesn't respond to my question.
We dance. Almost every movement creates greater awareness of the toy he pushed inside my ass.
I try to imagine what I must look like on this stage in this swirling fire costume and red shoes, and the black blindfold. When the music stops, we're breathing hard. I want to reach out and touch him so badly, but I know he'll never let me see his face even with only my hands.
I try not to let it bother me, this fuzzy layer between us, the guard he always keeps up. I want him to trust me. I need him to let me in. His mouth is on mine suddenly in a feverish demanding kiss that takes my breath from me. I gasp into his mouth. He rips the costume off me, and I can't stop the tears.
“I... I loved that...”
“I'll buy you a new one,” he snarls, impatiently shoving my tights down past my hips. He picks me up and carries me a distance away. I shriek when he drops me, but the soft mattress catches my fall, and I didn't fall far anyway.
And then he is on me, his teeth biting and scraping at the sensitive flesh of my throat just above my collar. He grips the platinum band and pulls me closer to him, his mouth again finding mine, then he shoves me away, and I fall on my back on the mattress.
He curses as he struggles to untie the knots of the ribbons helping to bind the red shoes to my feet. “Goddammit,” he says again. I think he'll destroy my shoes too, but he finally gets one off, then the other. I hear them crash against the stage far away where he tosses them.
