I didn’t know what the fuck a mystique was, but it didn’t sound good.
“What’s that?”
He shook his head as if I was too dumb to understand. “You are a very talented dancer—though a little raw in some respects. I think you’ve grown quite a bit in our time together, don’t you?”
“I do,” I said honestly. Despite busting my balls every single day, Sergei had made me a better dancer, if only because I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me fail. I wanted to make it impossible for him to find anything to criticize.
“I had hoped to consider you for the company, but there are some rumors that concern me.” He sighed like he was disappointed. “About your behavior.”
“What rumors?” Was it the weed?
“There are so many stories attached to you, it’s hard to know where to begin.”
He paused, perhaps waiting for me to fill in the blanks, but I wasn’t going to give him ammunition to use against me. Been there, done that. I wanted a spot in the company. I even believed, my recent episode aside, that I deserved it. No one worked harder than me. I didn’t do anything besides train. My birthday was the first time in months I’d actually gone out with friends. Watching soap operas with my mom and masturbating in the bathtub with you were the literal highlights of my week.
When the silence became uncomfortable, each of us staring down one another, he continued, “They say you have a much older lover.”
That rumor must have started when you visited me during auditions. If they only knew how old you really were. When I didn’t comment, Sergei said, “They also say you’ve made some deal with the devil in exchange for your talent, that you hear voices, and most recently, you seduced a service worker with witchcraft.”
I was screwed. But where was his proof?
“That’s crazy. You know how people around here talk. I mean, you should hear the stories they tell about you.”
He tilted his head and smiled. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said as if the rumors were fact.
“Please, by all means.” He made a gesture with his hands inviting me to elaborate.
“Well, there’s one that you have ties to the Russian mafia. Another that you’re a recovering alcoholic. That you once arranged a hit for a role. And…” I stopped myself. I wasn’t going to mention what you’d told me about his obsession.
“And?” Sergei asked.
“That’s it.”
Sergei smiled like I’d given myself away. “We are both victims of rumor, aren’t we, Mr. Bell?”
“Yes, we are.” I tried to sound indignant.
“And I might even believe that were true if I hadn’t found this.”
He reached into a nearby cabinet and pulled out a shoebox, one that I instantly recognized. I’d brought it with me from my mom’s house because I didn’t want her to accidentally stumble across it.
“I should tell you I’ve already questioned your roommate, and he claims to have never seen it before, so now I must ask you, Mr. Bell…”
Sergei opened the box and showed it to me. Derek’s finger had shrunken quite a bit and taken on a nutty brown complexion. Rigor mortis made it looked hooked. I’d changed out the potpourri, so it only smelled a little like death, but it was still pretty obviously a human finger.
“Why do you have this in your dorm room when I can plainly see it’s not your own?”
I stared down at my hands, frozen. My breath felt shallow and my vision blurred. How the fuck was I supposed to explain that? Where would I even begin?
“Why would you search my room?”
“After I visited you over the weekend, I became concerned that you might have a drug addiction. Several of our dancers have been abusing cocaine, among other things, so I did a sweep of your room. The good news is, I didn’t find any illegal substances.”
My skin crawled at the thought of Sergei putting his hands all over my stuff. Did he, like, rummage through my dirty laundry? I really wished you hadn’t told me what he liked to do in his free time. It made everything so much harder.
“I’d be happy to get rid of it,” I said, hoping that might fix things.
