Your cheeks flushed and you focused again on the path of your feet along the sidewalk. It was then I noticed you were avoiding the cracks. Superstition? Or perhaps it was a test of agility. Your precision of step was impressive as you appeared to perform a one-sided waltz. You moved unlike any other creature I’d ever encountered.
“I meant about me being gay,” you said, hardly above a whisper. I wondered if you’d been bullied because of your sexuality. Humans could be quite small-minded.
“I had a male companion once,” I said. “A human lover.”
Your eyebrows drew together in deep reflection and what looked like more than a few unspoken questions. As you were momentarily distracted by my admission, you didn’t notice the young men waiting ahead of us like the four horsemen of the apocalypse. But to me they were scrawny, two-bit hustlers, barely old enough to shave their sparse facial hair. I had gleaned countless of their kind, bodies riddled with bullet holes and knife wounds, gasping out their final, terrified breaths in a drug den or the backseat of a car or behind a dumpster.
I could pity them and still despise them for causing you to jump like a mouse at every loud noise.
“Orlando,” I said, interrupting your reflection.
Your head snapped up and your eyes widened in alarm. And fear. I could eviscerate them in the time it took them to cry for their mothers, but I’d already sworn not to do that.
“Shit. That’s them.” You halted your step and your sneaker fell on top of a crack. Bad luck. Before uttering another word to me, you dashed off in a completely different direction. I followed close behind, unsure of what course you were taking. Dreading how this might play out, I saw the thugs take chase.
“Or-laaan-do,” one sang in a sickly-sweet way. Your name was mine to call and mine alone. Well, and perhaps also your mother’s. “Come on now,” the youth said. “Don’t make this hard.”
You were fleet-footed, even with your backpack and gym bag weighing you down. You cut through a convenience store parking lot, only to be met with an eight-foot, chain-link fence. You scaled it easily, struggling for only a moment under the weight of your bags, then slung your other foot over the top and spider-climbed to the concrete below. I thought the boys would give up, but three of them were fit enough to mount the fence in pursuit. The one who’d taunted you looked even more enthusiastic for the chase. Judging from his pupils and heart rate, I suspected he was on some kind of amphetamine. Regardless, the hunt was on.
“You’d better run faster than that, pretty boy.”
They weren’t far behind, and the backpack was like a cement block on your shoulders. I thought you might turn around and confront them, but you shrugged the bag from your body as a spirit sheds its mortal coil and sprinted down a busy city street in downtown Miami like a gazelle. I forced wind at a speeding car to slow its trajectory and narrowly miss your fleeing form.
I didn’t care for your recklessness. Getting struck by a car seemed more hazardous than whatever these cretins had in store. I didn’t know where you were headed, but I trailed you dutifully. After another five blocks, the boys finally gave up chase.
Bent over and panting, their leader shouted, “When I catch you, I’m going to beat your ass so bad your own mother won’t be able to recognize you.”
I dared him to try it.
You dashed into a building fronted with glass windows. The difference in atmosphere from the street was jarring—heavy midday traffic to something that sounded like Tchaikovsky. You leaned your forearm against the barre and gripped your side while trying to catch your breath. Your heart raced. Blood rose to the surface of your dermis and gushed through your veins with only your sweat-soaked skin as a barrier, thin as a grape peel. Thank goodness I couldn’t smell it.
The dance studio’s instructor was in the middle of a class with young ones all lined up like pretty little flowers, mouths agape at your entrance.
“Get yourself a drink, Orlando,” the instructor said with a note of concern but not much fanfare. “Warm up on the barre until I finish here.”
You disappeared into a back room and came out a few minutes later without the flannel. I was correct in predicting a unitard would be more flattering. You were thin but not as scrawny as I’d initially thought. The muscles in your thighs and buttocks were well-defined, and the rest of your physique needed only a few more years to mature. Your long curly locks of hair were pulled back into a high ponytail, highlighting the shape of your face. For some humans, the light seemed to always favor them, and it adored you. You possessed a beauty that could be a blessing or a curse, depending on who coveted it.
I watched you warm up at the barre—pliés, tendus, frappes, and ronds de jamb,names I didn’t know at the time but have since learned. You made such exquisite shapes with your body, arms extended, toes pointed outward, limbs rising and falling with sweeping grace, head tilted at an angle like a bird listening to a mate’s trill. You lost yourself in movement. Your mind was finally at peace while your muscles executed sequences they knew by heart. My own seduction was little more than the repetition of a phrase with intent behind it, and as I watched you move, so focused and deliberate, your body bewitched me. I both admired and envied your grace. What a strange feeling. To want to be you and possess you simultaneously.
I now understood why you’d called for me. Your body had a purpose—you had been gifted with both talent and ambition. Just as Roger had tried to hobble you in your formative years, those street thugs were now trying to stunt your development as an artist. It was a crime of the highest order. My job was to ensure you met your potential. I was a bit deluded, but I’d dealt in so much death, pain, and sorrow that I relished the idea of helping a soul to soar. There could be no nobler campaign for someone with my skill set.
I swear to you, Orlando, I only had your best interest at heart.
The dance class ended, and your instructor stood in the corner of the studio smoking a cigarette, a light shawl wrapped around her narrow frame. Her face looked ancient, but her body moved with the suppleness of a much younger woman. For the longest time, she simply watched you, reveling in the satisfaction of a student whose talent exceeded expectations. In another lifetime, I was that instructor, gazing with pride upon my pupils. She taught dance, and I’d taught mortal combat, but both were arts of a physical nature.
She began calling out instructions on how to distribute your weight and extend your limbs. She adjusted your stance, told you to loosen your neck, and demonstrated with a dramatic sweep of her head, like a swan. Then she took you to the center of the room and drilled you on turns and jumps by calling out complicated combinations in French. She was relentless, and you thrived under her steady, uncompromising tutelage. From my time as a warrior, I knew the human body had its limits, but watching you leap through the air, so light upon landing, it seemed you were more bird than man.
“Bravo,” Madame Lavoie called, clapping her hands and signifying the end of your practice. You toweled off your neck and shoulders and disappeared again into a back room to change. I hovered over your instructor’s shoulder and whispered in her ear.
“Such a beautiful dancer.”
She nodded in agreement and stared vacantly out the windows at the cars passing by. Cigarette smoke curled from between her painted lips. “Such a beautiful dancer,” she said aloud.
I didn’t plant any ideas that weren’t already there. I only knew that your present situation was precarious, and I wanted you to be kept safe. To thrive. If Madame Lavoie had connections in the dance world, I wanted her to use them on your behalf.
“What did you think?” you asked when we were back on the busy city street again.
“You show promise,” I said noncommittally for fear that you might grow lax in your practice or develop an ego about it.
