The music warps and blurry faces fade to black, weaving the silk in methodical loops to cocoon my body and prepare for flight.
Each drop, I kind of hope to be my last.
It’s a morbid fantasy I entertain for my sanity. But when Idrop, and the silk locks around my body and catches my plunge, the sick obsession I have with leaving just feels like a dream staining my heart.
The audience claps and some bravos slip up to my stage, like they’re congratulating me for not ruining everyone’s night by falling on my head hard enough to end the misery.
Is it selfish that I want that, though?
Most likely.
My chest becomes heavy, flooding my neck with constriction that wrings out the emotions I have to hide.
I hate crying with this on.
Adjusting myself and climbing back up to continue appeasing them, the plastic catches the rivers of my dread, drenching my face in the reminder that I’m still on display like a circus animal.
Beaten and forced to perform.
Once I flow through the languid motions of the last of my routine and the song fades out, the curtains close around me and blanket me in darkness.
Even with whistles and claps and chairs screeching from abrupt movement—I feel alone.
There is no bow or appreciative gesture from me. I’m left to hang in a seated position until the tent clears, so that no one notices the true face behind the mask.
“It’s okay to cry… It doesn’t ruin anything.”
Razor’s gentle voice runs tingles up my back. But being swollen with angst negates the silver lining of performing.
Him watching me.
“No. It does. The noxious morose bleeds onto the audience and makes them feel pain,” I say quietly.
His tall presence looms closer, lingering over my skin like precipitation slipping down a glass. “Isn’t that what you feel? Pain?”
My chin drops. “It doesn’t matter what I feel. I’m not the one paying for a show.”
I sniffle, catching the humiliating drips of being insufferable, and my mask starts lifting over the back of my head.
I don’t wanna wear it anyway. I let him remove it from me by the big bunny ears and encourage the rapid streams to run free with a long blink.
His fingers glide underneath my chin, instituting flickering stars to tickle my stomach, my eyes cracking open to his boots standing between the dark silk wound around me. “Look at me, Bunny.”
Falling under his compulsion of soft masculinity, I pick my head up, looking at the streaks of sweat running through the black and white makeup on his face.
Somehow, the variety of skulls and clowns he insists on wearing beneath his helmet stay mostly intact after his own performance in the Globe. If anything, the smears enhance the faces we’re conditioned to fear.
And he wears them beautifully.
Catching the twinkle in his eyes, everything becomes so silent—I can hear each breath fueling my heart.
His thumb brushes my cheek, and he smiles, the adoration appearing unsettling through the black shadows contouring a clown mouth. “You ready to get out of here?”
I nod, but I’m not sure he’s able to see the despondent motion through the darkness.
Regardless, he’s attempting to unknot me with concentration wrinkling his makeup.
“I got it,” I laugh softly, relaxing my shoulders back to relieve some of the tension in the silk.
