Kelsey woke up alone, with no idea what time it was. The drawn blinds admitted only thin slivers of light on either side, and at the bottom. She had enough light to see that Theo was gone, the space beside her a mess of rumpled sheets.
She picked her clothes up from the floor and stumbled to the bathroom. Her body felt uncharacteristically heavy and sore. She tried to clean up as best she could, and dressed quickly. She twisted her hair into a severe knot on top of her head in an attempt to regain her composure, and washed her face again. She could still taste him on her lips. She could still feel the pressure of him between her thighs.
She had to leave. She had to get out of his place, run home and shower it all away and figure out what the hell had transpired between her and her gypsy king.
Where was he anyway? It was silent in the house, but she smelled the faint odor of cigarette smoke. She walked down the hall to the living room, past blank walls, over cold hardwood floor. He sat at a table near the kitchen, next to a window. Those blinds were drawn too. The orange flare of his cigarette was the only color in the scene, the only color in his bleak, dark home.
“You shouldn’t smoke.”
He looked over at her but didn’t acknowledge her words. Instead, he gestured to the chair across the small table. “Come. Sit. I have toast and café au lait.”
Wow. It seemed weirdly domestic, him gesturing her to coffee and slightly charred bread. Café au lait. She remembered irritating her tutor at the gym, oh, years ago. Flabbergasting any and all efforts to teach her anything useful. She’d only ever learned the food names in French. Café au lait. Croque-monsieur. Crepes Suzette. She’d spouted them off in a heavy accent in answer to any lesson questions. She’d found it hilariously funny. Her tutor, not so much, but that hadn’t mattered to Kelsey.
From the age of four, she’d trained and competed in gymnastics, and that was all she’d cared about. Now, at twenty-four, she was seeing the world from new, unbalanced angles, like the angle of Theo Zamora’s muscle-bound chest and thrown-back arm as he lounged and stared at her. She put a hand to her hair and sat across from him, feeling his gaze on her like prodding fingers. The smell of coffee was edifying, and he had those big wide mugs that were more like bowls. They still looked small in his hands.
Kelsey waited for him to speak, wondering what he had to say after the night before, but he said nothing, and Kelsey stubbornly decided not to talk either. Two could play at that game. She drank the coffee and milk and had toast with some kind of maple butter that tasted sinful. Nearly as sinful as last night.
In the silence, her inner voice screamed. He’s there, right there. After masturbating relentlessly to the thought of him...after stalking him around the practice facility like some lovesick puppy, here she was, sitting at a table with him. She’d actually slept with him last night--the reality a hundred times more intense than her fantasies and daydreams.
“You eat a lot for a little girl.” His murmured comment drew her from her thoughts. She stopped with her third maple-butter-slathered piece of bread halfway to her mouth.
“I’m not a little girl. And yes, I eat a lot. I have a crazy metabolism. I’m enjoying it while I can.”
“While you can? It’s going to go away?”
“Maybe. Sometimes things change without warning.”
“Yes. I know.” There was nothing in his lackadaisical tone or distant expression to signify he was thinking about Minya, but all of a sudden, Kelsey was. She desperately wanted to ask what had gone wrong, what had happened in those last moments when they’d grasped for one another. She thought about bad hands and falling trapezists, and her throat felt tight and hot. She choked down the last bite of bread and brushed the crumbs from her fingers.
“Thank you for breakfast.”
He nodded slightly, not looking pleased or displeased. Just...looking.
Kelsey took a sip of coffee for fortitude and squared her shoulders. “I’ve been thinking about this, and I’ve decided. I’ll work with you,” she said in a rush of breath. “I’m not afraid and I’m not superstitious about your bad hands or whatever. I’ll work with you if you want.”
Theo pushed away his coffee and stretched his legs out. His dry, brittle chuckle landed like a boulder on her ego. “You are the last person on earth I would work with, if I even wanted to work. Which I don’t.”
Kelsey’s face flushed with humiliation. “That’s a pretty rude thing to say, especially to someone you fucked last night.”
He shrugged, avoiding her gaze. “Yes, we fucked. Sorry, I owe you nothing else.”
His words hurt, but they didn’t surprise her. What surprised her was the fact that she kept poking at him. “I’m not talking about you owing me anything,” she said. “Mr. Lemaitre said he would hold a spot for your act for two months. You can come back. I’ll work with you.”
“Yes, you said that already.” Theo moved fast, up and out of the chair, and grasped her by the arm, lifting her to face him. “Why are you bothering me about this? About going back to work? Who cares? You got what you came for, no? And you liked it.”
She tried to wrestle away from him but he held her even tighter. She stared up at him, both angered and aroused. He took her chin in his free hand and stroked a thumb across her cheek. “You did like it. I remember.”
She pulled away and he let her go this time. She brushed at the invisible marks of his fingers. “You already did the scary-intense act last night. And yeah, I liked it. It was okay. Nothing to write home about.” She knew it for a lie, and he probably did too from the mocking look on his face.
Her breath was coming fast and hard all of a sudden. She could still feel the ache of his grip on her arm. She rubbed it and felt a similar ache between her legs. It annoyed her that he still--still--turned her on with just a look. Just a touch, the forcefulness in the way he handled her. She glared at him, trying to hide it all. “Do you have some kind of syndrome that makes you act this way, or are you just a rude, socially inept asshole?”
Theo turned away to clean up the breakfast things, handling her dishes as if she’d sullied them by touching them. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said over his shoulder. “You don’t have the skills to work with me.”
“I could do it. I could learn.” Kelsey snatched the cup out of his hand and carried it to the kitchen herself. “I watched you and her, many times. I--I imagined myself--” She steeled herself in the face of his withering gaze. “I imagined myself flying up there with you. I thought it was...just beautiful. The dynamic between you two.”
“Which dynamic? The public or the private one?” he asked. “And why do you imagine I care what you thought about us? Who are you anyway? Some second-string acrobat, nothing more.”
“I’m in the show now.”
“For a few minutes, doing some very unimpressive tumbling and stunt work.”
“How would you know that?” She crossed her arms over her chest, fending off his blistering appraisal of her. Second string. Unimpressive. Fighting words to an overachiever like her. “Did you find me unimpressive in bed last night? Cause it didn’t seem that way.”
“You’re a good fuck. But you’re a poor acrobat. You are a gymnast still. Too tight, too worried. You still try so hard to please, like judges will give you scores after the performance. You have no grace, no creativity, just bluntness and...how do you say? Duty. You are dutiful. No performance. No soul. No grace.”
“I have plenty of grace!”
He thought a moment, staring off into the distance. “You are like an acrobatic bulldozer.”
Kelsey gasped, outraged. “Oh, really? But you cared enough to watch me, enough to notice my work is ‘dutiful,’ whatever that means. Acrobatic bulldozer, my ass.”
He dropped the dishes in the sink with a clatter and spun on her, backing her against the fridge. “You know what? Can I be perfectly honest? You’re nothing to me and I feel nothing for you. There can be no partnership, no trust without a connection.” He fixed her with a
scornful gaze. “I’m sorry, but you’ve wasted your time in my bed, if this is what you were after. Keep working on your craft. Make friends with the right people and pay your dues. Maybe then you’ll get your own act.”
Kelsey stared at him, stupefied. “Really? You think this was all some ruse to advance my circus career?” She felt something, some lingering shred of lust or admiration for the man disintegrate to dust and fly away. “You know what? Suit yourself. Sit here in your dark house with your bad hands and be an asshole to anyone who offers to help.”
“I don’t need any help.”
“Maybe you don’t, but I obviously do, since I actually admired you once. I thought you were an artist, someone special. Now I see you’re just a self-centered asshole. I would appreciate--if you ever do come back to Cirque--if you would not mention last night to anyone.”
He laughed. “You are worried about your reputation? The circus is full of sluts. It’s okay.”
“I’m not a slut. I don’t need your shit, and I don’t have to concern myself with your problems. I have a lot of other things going on and I don’t need negativity like you in my life.”
“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself. And for the record, I never asked to be in your life.”
“Ugh!” Kelsey threw up her arms and went in search of her bag. She turned back at the door, planning to fling some cool one-liner to put him in his place, but he was already sitting back at the table, pouring whiskey into a glass. In the dim light she could barely make out the look on his face...or perhaps it was just that his expression was unreadable.
Either way, she left saying nothing. She felt like that was all they’d done from the start--said nothing to one another in the cruelest way possible. She wasn’t about to start talking now. She let the door slam behind her to communicate how felt.
*** *** ***
Theo waited for her, one day, two days. Waited for the knock. Rap, rap, rap.
He wanted her to come back. He needed her to come back, but she stayed away, three days, four days, five days. A week. He’d thought her fearless, but she wasn’t fearless after all, only reckless and stupid the way so many young women were. Or maybe he had been reckless and stupid in chasing her away so cruelly.
He feared her. She was a spinning tornado, out of control. He had called her dutiful and graceless, and she was. But she was still a ball of intensity, and she called to him somehow. He’d despoiled every inch of her nubile young flesh, stroked and pinched velvet skin over hard muscle. He could still remember the feel of her body, the energy that emanated from her. Minya had been so fragile, a wisp that had slipped, literally, from his fingers. This girl, Kelsey...she was strong and stubborn as an ox. He wanted to feast on her life force. Drink her down and get intoxicated. Kelsey. Kel-sey. Kelz-zeee... He repeated her name over and over like a mantra, testing the foreign syllables on his tongue.
Theo had to sober up. He had to go find her. He had to apologize and explain everything he was dealing with. Minya, his confidence, his life’s work that couldn’t possibly be at an end. The world didn’t make sense anymore, but he knew one thing absolutely. He wanted to fly with her. He’d told her she couldn’t do it, but he knew she could. He could take tight and dutiful and twist it in undulating silk ropes until she was flowing like water. Baptism, for him and for her.
How long since he’d worked with aerial silks? He’d dreamed for three nights now of binding her wrists with the silk, binding her so tightly she couldn’t fall and she couldn’t let go no matter how hard she tried. Climbs, wraps, foot locks, dramatic drops, red silk against pale skin and white-blonde hair fluttering as she flew. Or perhaps black silk. Silver. New colors crowded his subconscious. Light hair, red lips. White straight teeth, ocean-blue eyes, and the rose flush of skin in ecstasy. Red welts and lavender bruises...
No, he wouldn’t hurt her. She would bulldoze him long before he could cause her any real harm.
On the tenth day he showered and shaved. He dressed and walked to the Cirque headquarters to request a meeting with Michel Lemaitre.
Reckless. Stupid. Kelsey. Kelz-zeee.
Heal my bad hands.
*** *** ***
Kelsey hugged her knees during a training break, watching the other acrobats and performers. She had three sugar straws clutched in her right fist, no matter that Jason would lecture her about it. She needed them. She tore the end off the orange one and tipped it back. She winced and made a face as the tart candy locked up her jaw for a moment.
“What hurts?” Jason asked, hurrying over.
“Nothing. Sour candy.” She waved the remaining two straws and got the expected frown.
“Sugar during practice?”
“Just a little. Everything in moderation.”
Her coach couldn’t argue with that, so he took a seat beside her and joined in watching the other performers.
“Jason,” she said after a moment, “is my tumbling...dutiful?”
“Dutiful? I would answer you if I knew what the hell you meant by that.”
“Am I good at performing? Am I stiff? Do I have personality and presence during the show?”
Jason paused, which didn’t reassure her. Then he shrugged. “You’re doing fine. That stuff comes in time, and you’re relatively new. Why are you asking me this? Has someone complained?”
“I got a summons to Mr. Lemaitre’s office. To a meeting later today.”
Jason looked surprised by that. “No one told me. I doubt it’s performance related, or they would have talked to me first.”
“Maybe it’s not about my physical ability. Maybe I’m just generally not up to snuff.”
“Stop doubting yourself. And give me those damn things.” He grabbed the last straw as she upended the second one. “The meeting is most likely about your unhealthy addiction to Licky Stix.”
“Happy candy for happy circus performers. Give it back.” Kelsey held her hand outstretched until her coach surrendered the candy straw. “Better than being addicted to meth or crack.”
Jason cringed and shook his head with a chuckle. “What kind of crowd have you fallen in with here in Paris? Everything okay?”
He couched the question in a joke, but Kelsey sensed he’d wanted to ask it. In the two weeks since she’d left Theo’s house, she’d felt like she was swimming through a sea of conflict and emotion that hadn’t troubled her before. She was two different people now, split down the middle by competing desires.
One side of her still wanted Theo, and still daydreamed about the intensity of sharing his bed and the pleasure of his rough hands on her. That side was shouted down by the side of her that recognized him as a mentally unstable and downright dangerous influence. Then there was her new self-doubting side. That made three people all together. Thanks, Theo, for that.
Kelsey sighed and downed the last sugar straw. “Everything’s fine, as long as I don’t get fired this afternoon.”
“Would you feel better if I was at the meeting?”
“Could you stop them if they wanted to fire me?”
“I don’t think they’re going to fire you, but if they tried, sure, I’d do my best to stop them.”
At five o’clock, during the down time between practice and the show, Kelsey made her way through the maze of headquarters to the mysterious upper sanctum of Michel Lemaitre. His office was appropriately large and filled with a variety of circus art and artifacts. She took them in with a quick glance and then became aware of the five faces at the table. Lemaitre, Jason, another man and woman she didn’t know, and Theo Zamora, sober, groomed, and coolly composed.
Oh my God, they were really going to fire her. She felt blood rush to her cheeks as she wondered what Theo had told them. He looked different in real clothes rather than training sweats. She couldn’t take her eyes off the mole on his clavicle, visible through the open collar of his pristine white button-down shirt. It took her back to that moment when he’d pressed her against the wall by his door. Choose wisely, girl.
She’d always prided herself on making responsible choices in life. And now, just when it seemed that her dreams might be coming true, here she was, facing five people across a table. Not one of them wearing a smile.
Jason’s frown scared her most of all. Whatever they were going to do, Jason wasn’t happy about it, and since he was on her side, it didn’t bode well for her.
“Please join us, Mademoiselle Martin,” said Mr. Lemaitre with a crisp French accent. He indicated the lone chair on the opposite side of the conference table. Something about the assessing way he looked at her unsettled her. He looked at all the performers that way, like useful objects rather than people. If he didn’t like someone’s act--if they were no longer useful--they were cut.
If he cut her... Kelsey couldn’t handle failure. She’d always been a perfectionist, always been the one the coach praised and told others to emulate. She’d never failed at anything. Hell, she didn’t know how to fail.
She couldn’t look at Theo, although she felt him watching her. She couldn’t look at Jason either because of the dark look on his face. Instead she smiled at the strangers. The one in the middle, the woman, held her hand out to Kelsey.
“Miss Martin. I’ve heard a lot about you. It was brave of you to fill in during the aftermath of the recent tragedy.”
Kelsey sensed Theo shift slightly to her right. On her left, Mr. Lemaitre steepled his hands together and leaned forward. She’d never seen him so up close and personal before. Michel Lemaitre had piercing blue eyes, a beaked nose, and wavy black hair he pushed back behind his ears. His skin was slightly florid, his stature more compact than she remembered when he was judging her audition.
“You know, the circus is, by nature, a fluid thing,” Lemaitre said. “In this company we are always growing, always changing. Acts come and acts go, and I have always thought, you know, the most important thing is the audience. What do they feel? Are they entertained?”
Kelsey could barely understand his lilting accent, the panic in her head was so loud. “Mr. Lemaitre,” she burst out. “I know I’m new. I’m going to learn to do better, I swear. It’s just a matter of transitioning from the world of gymnastics to the world of Cirque du Monde--”
Cirque Du Minuit Page 4
