Later he would not be able to describe exactly what he saw, or how it affected him. A slender gracefully extended arm, an expression contorted with longing and yearning of the truest kind. Eyes flashing like lightning, lips parted with vulnerability.
The woman’s feet moved across the floor with such ease and liquidity that he could have believed she was flying. Yet when they hit the ground after certain spins or jumps, he could hear the solid sound they made, even over the enchanting volume of the music. Those long, slender, girlish legs were deceiving in the strength and flexibility they possessed.
She danced power. Yet there were moments of such tenderness! She would pause, and hesitantly beseech the audience with a pleading look. It was heartbreakingly poignant—as though she were seeking wisdom to correct the error of her ways. Then she would suddenly be fierce, and her movements would be so sudden and quick and sure that he had to hold his breath to properly absorb her furious, vengeful sequences.
Absorb he did, and consumed he would have if it were possible.
Oddly enough, he recognized the first two of the songs she danced to. One was from the opera Rusalka, and another was from an opera called Undina, which must be her namesake. Trevain’s mother had loved obscure pieces of opera, and on any given day in their household when he was growing up such songs could have been heard playing as Alice Murphy had gone about her housework.
He was startled as the woman on stage fell quite suddenly to a lowered position, and continued to dance from her knees. She was sometimes so still, stationary, and quiet, and then she would be explosive—she would be everywhere at once. Every single moment of her dance had him fully engaged, and he could not have looked away if he tried. He did not even realize that he was craning his neck for a better view.
When she gracefully lifted her dress to slowly remove her lace panties, Trevain was again surprised. She did it in a manner which was so relaxed that she could have been in her own bedroom, yet so careful that no skin was yet exposed. She was fulfilling the requirement of removing an article of clothing during the second song, he knew. However, the article she had chosen to remove showed nothing. As she continued to dance without her panties, her skirt swirling around her thighs was suddenly tenfold as tantalizing.
He found himself staring at the glittering red fabric as it billowed in the breeze created by her motions. He found himself staring at her smooth tanned thighs, illuminated by the flashing lights, and hoping for a glimpse of more of her skin. He found his lips had become very dry, and he licked them to moisten them. Trevain thought he imagined for a moment that the woman, Undina, cast a smug and proud look in his direction, as though she knew how impatient he was to see more—as though she knew the effect she was having on him. She was far too young to exhibit such confidence. Also, there was no possible way she could have known the true extent of what her dance made him feel. It was beyond anyone’s comprehension, including his own.
Before long—it certainly felt like an instant, the woman on stage was removing her dress. Trevain felt his heartbeat quicken, and almost thought he should look away. She was too young, too young for him to behold in the nude! Yet it was the nature of the establishment, and although the girl had perhaps taken refreshing liberties with her choice of music and her style of dance, she conformed to the basic rules of the job.
As the melody played, whimsical and feminine, Undina stood with her back toward the audience. She glanced back at the enrapt onlookers as she slowly, achingly slowly, slipped one scarlet strap of her dress off of her right shoulder. Her fingers were extended to emphasize the drama of the gesture. She smiled then, one of those carefree smiles of youth, and her once stormy eyes seemed to twinkle with mischief and delight. She did the same with her other shoulder, yet it was somehow different. The subtlest change in her expression seemed to change the mood from light and airy to somber and sultry.
She tossed her impossibly long dark hair to the front of her body and began sliding the crimson dress down her back. Trevain watched closely, drinking in each new inch of velvety tanned flesh that Undina exposed. Her skin was flawless as it hugged the sinews and contours of her back, and in the atmospheric lighting of the club, almost luminous. The contrast of her skin against the bold burgundy hue of the fabric was striking. She arranged her dress around her hips before slowly turning to face the audience. She crossed her arms over her chest in a display of modesty as she moved forward, gentle steps in time with the music.
Then her arms were gone, and her face was proud and bold as she bared her breasts—unbearably round and firm collections of flesh. As she moved back into her dance, using one hand to hold her dress around her hips, Trevain wondered at how impressively young her body was. He marveled at her athletic silhouette when she arched backwards with extended arms, and he marveled at how she seemed conscious of her motions to the perfectly extended tips of her fingers and pointed toes.
She danced not only shamelessly, but proudly when she was nude, and had cast the dress completely aside. Her motions were not as wild and powerful, but they were careful and precise. Her steps were so controlled and gentle that her breasts did not shake when she moved. She moved as though her limbs were cutting through a substance far more viscous than air—almost as if she were underwater.
She was dancing the nighttime. She had taken them through the course of a full day, through energetic mornings, brilliant noons, mellow evenings, and now it was the quiet, peaceful night. Or perhaps she was dancing the winter. Having already paid homage to the midnight sun, she now saluted the midday moon.
Then it was over, as solemnly as it had begun. Undina stood completely nude, with a hauntingly serene and satisfied expression on her face.
The crowd erupted in applause, in thundering, most appreciative applause. Undina inclined her head in polite acknowledgement. In the midst of the loud clapping and cheering, she looked up at the audience, and her eyes met with Trevain’s. She gazed at him, and he gazed back at her, enraptured. Their eyes were locked for a moment in a quiet, private intensity. As the music and applause subsided, her expression darkened once more and her eyes lowered. She quickly gathered the garments she had disposed of, and in an instant she had disappeared backstage.
Trevain used his tongue to moisten his dry mouth. He exhaled. He mused at how shaken and affected he was. It was a work of art, he told himself. It was just as if I had entered any museum and observed… some work of art.
He felt emotionally drained. Grasping his beer once more, he brought it to his lips and poured the remaining contents down his throat. As he lowered it to the table, he noticed a particularly large droplet sliding down the glass. A tear.
He moved his hand to his eyelashes to scrape away any others that threatened to fall. One tear is acceptable, Trevain reasoned, considering that a man just lost his life. One tear is acceptable.
He knew quite well that Leander had not crossed his mind for what must have been over fourteen minutes and forty-six seconds.
* * *
Her cheek grazed her knee as she waited backstage, doing simple stretches. A woman with large fake breasts tottered by shakily on towering heels, sending her a suspicious glare. Aazuria was stricken by the disproportionate size of the woman’s breasts with respect to the rest of her emaciated body; she remembered something her personal doctor had told her about new procedures which augmented certain physical attributes. It was fascinating, but not really of much significance to her, and she returned to pressing her forehead flush against her leg.
The carpet under her bare legs was rough and abrasive. She imagined that it was already leaving ugly scratches on her newly-tanned skin. As she straightened slowly from the stretch, she stared at the unfamiliar color of her knee. She missed being underwater. More women strolled by, sending her more distrustful and disdainful looks. Aazuria sighed to herself, and continued to pull her muscles taut. She focused on the comforting ache in her tendons as she tried to bury her homesickness and override the upsetting images from her re
cent past which flashed just behind her eyes.
A redheaded woman burst into the room, strutting buoyantly on her six-inch pumps as if they were springs. Her whole body was finely toned and her height was intimidating; at six feet tall she towered over the other women in the room who barely came up to her chin. Her pleasant laughter rang out loudly in the dressing room.
“For Sedna’s sake! Zuri, you really don’t need to stretch. Don’t bother giving this any effort! It’s supposed to be a low-class, inferior form of entertainment.” The redhead turned to the women who had been watching Aazuria with airs of superiority and glared at them. She flung her hand towards the exit as she barked an order, “Skedaddle, bitches.”
The women quickly complied. Aazuria smiled up gratefully at her protectress. “It is not worth doing unless it is done properly, Visola.”
“Then show me how it’s done, Princess,” Visola said with a wink. “Just be careful not to overexert yourself. Those lovely legs of yours aren’t used to these ghetto conditions.”
“Are you referring to the club or the land?” Aazuria asked as used a knuckle to knead her thigh.
“Both. I’ll be watching.”
“You have always been watching,” Aazuria said fondly. She heard the first few notes of her song begin, and she rose to her feet nervously. She took a deep breath, feeling the unfamiliar air fill her lungs—it felt extraordinarily empty. The muffled voice of the DJ filtered backstage:
“Now gentlemen, get ready to be blown away by our mysterious newcomer. She’s the girl you’ve always dreamed of, but never thought you’d actually meet in the flesh: Undina!”
Visola smiled. “Not a bad introduction. Why did you choose to use your mother’s name?”
“It was the first thing that came to mind when they asked.” Giving her friend a gentle shrug, Aazuria glanced at the exit with foreboding. “Well, here I go.”
“Break a le—”
“I would much rather not.” When she pushed past the beaded curtains, Aazuria immediately felt the vibrations of music seeping into her bones. Her fingers twitched with the desire to move before she had permitted them to do so, and she exercised discipline to quell them. To do this correctly means moving precisely when the music commands me to—I will not waste a single motion. Her eyes were downcast as she ascended the stairs, feeling a strange sense of simultaneous nervousness and excitement. She had always been confident in her dancing technique—she had studied various styles on various continents, and she had practiced for hundreds of years. She usually trained in water, and it was far more difficult to dance in water than it was on land. By all accounts, this should be a cinch.
The familiar vocals began, and Aazuria finally surrendered to the yearning of her limbs and plunged them into motion. A burst of energy began in her chest, and visibly traveled throughout her every cell. Indescribable sensations of loveliness washed over her, as they always did when she began dancing, reaching her lips to settle there in a subtle curve of pleasure. Once she had expertly commenced her art, she turned to gauge the reaction of her onlookers.
The audience was a sea of eyes. Adoring eyes of those seeking something from her dance which she would never be able to give them. They were seeking the things which they did not really need. They sought sex and excitement or momentary stimulation, but her every gesture and expression, her every step, was dancing in homage to something transcendent and everlasting.
Slowly, the audience was pulled out of the realm of their own expectations and into the realm of her creation. Yes, she could hold them spellbound with a little help from the haunting sound of her sister’s recorded voice. Aazuria was strong enough to guide them all—she had always been in a position of leadership, and this was no different. She created the atmosphere; she poured her personality and her principles into it, and she invited them inside for a moment to glimpse the décor of her soul. She felt like she was challenging their roughness with her grace, and ultimately, she was winning. She was overpowering them.
She spun, and spun, until she felt windborne. There was an impossible fire within her which seemed to radiate forth from her center. All of the elements coalesced in her emotions, and as always, she felt far greater than herself when she danced. Aazuria felt a memory of her father’s face return to her, but she flung her head to the side, casting it away from her thoughts before it could cause her harm or interrupt the flow of her kinetic thrill.
There might be other moments of her life when she was twisted into various uncomfortable shapes by exterior forces, but for now, at least, she was in complete control. The stage was hers, the audience was hers, and time was hers. She could bend it and make the moment last an instant or a lifetime, depending on her whim. She could manipulate all of their hearts like putty, just as long as she kept moving—and as long as the poignant music played, she had no intention of stopping. Each moment was a crescendo, overpowering the last.
She revelled in this complete control until he looked up from his drink. Aazuria paused for a millisecond, nearly missing a beat. She felt shame at what had almost been a misstep, but certain that no one had noticed. Turning her gaze away, she tried to focus on the perfection of her lines. But she could feel that the dramatic expression on her face had lost some of its conviction, having been replaced by curiosity. She hoped that the flaws in her dance were imperceptible.
Aazuria did not mean to make eye contact again, but she could feel the force of his scrutiny like a warm stream gushing toward her. Even from a distance, she could discern a hue of sadness in somehow familiar jade irises. In the midst of this strange new environment, and this even stranger establishment, something shone in that expression which she felt she knew. She was suddenly safe in the comfort of a warm lagoon as she beheld the unmistakable intelligence glinting at her from across the room.
She had to remind herself to keep moving—for her hand had paused without her consent for a fraction of a second. The eyes had seemed to notice even that tiny hesitation, for they flitted to her fingers vigilantly before returning to her face. What did it mean? Admiration? Loneliness? Loss? Her chest constricted as she tried to explain the connection—the man’s contemplation hit her like a tidal wave and nearly knocked her off balance. All she could do was hang on for dear life, as she pushed her body onto automatic mode. At the same time that she moved thoughtlessly, she was doubly conscious of her postures. She tried a little harder because she knew that there was at least one person in the room who could distinguish the quality of her execution.
The rest of her dance flew by in a blur that she could barely remember. Her heart was beating unusually quickly under the keen inspection. Every moment she could justifiably spare was spent glancing at the sharp gleam unnaturally present in those olive green eyes. The person they belonged to was the furthest away from her, concealed in an extremely dark-lit corner. Luckily, her vision, especially in the dark, was better than most. There were dozens of men, probably handsome young admirers, clustered around the stage; she was not sure why her attention was held rapt by this distant, intense gaze.
As the world churned about her in a mess of sea foam, those green eyes were a solid island. How sweetly they shone, and how firmly they were grounded. She could not resist being drawn to them as a windswept ship eagerly seeks a harbor. She could not resist the immediate intimacy that was provoked in her chest, completely unbidden and unanticipated.
When she had finished her dance and retreated backstage, she stood naked against a wall, trying to calm her racing heart. She sucked in gulp after gulp of the air which no longer felt empty. Each breath was laced with electricity. A surge fizzled through her scalp and neck, and she reached up to touch her skin soothingly. Underneath her fingers, her skin still tingled with triumph. The audience had loved her; she had sensed it. She felt strangely affirmed by this—she was by no means a young woman anymore, despite her smooth skin and physical appearance.
But that man! She closed her eyes as she leaned her head back against the wall, remem
bering his gaze. Imagining that she might never again feel such an intent and private gaze, she tried to commit the feeling to memory.
“How was it?” came a soft voice from the shadows. It was Visola, of course. The red-haired warrior woman never strayed far from Aazuria’s side.
“Oh, Viso,” she said, her chest heaving with exhilarated breaths. “It was divine. There was a man…”
“There were many men, darling.”
“Yes, but this one… I saw the sea in his eyes.”
Visola released an incredulous grunt before scowling. “Princess Aazuria! I have never known you to spew such a load of romantic whaleshit.”
“I am not being romantic, General! You know that I have a knack for judging people.” Aazuria had straightened her posture in order to defend herself. “There was a unique quality—something that I have never seen before, and yet it was familiar...”
Visola reached out and grabbed Aazuria’s naked shoulders. She gave her a violent shake. “Listen to me. I know that home is a distasteful memory you want to escape right now, but you can’t deceive yourself with fantasies about this place. This is a cruel, disgusting world. The atmosphere isn’t the only thing you need to get acclimatized to—it’s the people. You must stay on guard.”
“I have lived among land-dwellers before,” Aazuria argued, reaching up to remove Visola’s hands from her shoulders. “I know how to interact with them.”
“Things have changed in the last hundred years that we’ve been cooped up in Adlivun. Culture, technology, weaponry…” Visola was speaking in a low voice, but when a dancer walked by with a heavily painted face, she relaxed and hit Aazuria in the arm. “You should go talk to this guy! And for Sedna’s sake, try to smile a little. You look like someone died.”
“Someone did die.”
Visola waved her hand casually. “That’s irrelevant. We’re here to collect copious amounts of this nation’s currency with minimal interaction. We make our money and get out.” Visola’s voice was stern, and she raised a finger to add emphasis to her next words. “You cannot get attached to these land dwellers, Princess. We have a mission to complete.”
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