Stripped

by Allie Juliette Mousseau

  She sets her delicate finger against the play button and the intro to 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop” comes detonating through the speakers.

  I warm myself up as I perform with some arm work—pop, locks, and robotics—and then bring it into my feet—easy moonwalk, classic foot grooves. Soon, my body begins to flow with the rhythm. I touch the side of my face and create a wave that moves up and down through me. A crowd is beginning to form around us.

  This is when things get good! Performing juices me up—live here on the pier it’s spectacular because, hell, who doesn’t like a good show? The crowd is already psyched to be entertained.

  I’m warmed.

  Graduating to hard hip hop street moves. I work my feet in sequence with the music. Soon I break it down and bring it to the ground—bouncing my form while balancing on my hands, my body straight as a two by four. The crowd cheers. I halt mid movement, and lift my legs over my head into a modified headstand while I work my legs and feet—it mimics dancing on air.

  God I love this! When I dance I feel so alive. It’s the closest thing I can imagine to flying. Every limb, every movement, is under my control. My body floats above the ground. The music and my body are one. Every negative emotion is released—all my fear, anger, frustration, stress—doesn’t exist once I hit the dance floor. Everything in my world comes into focus.

  Whistles of appreciation press me on—always do. Lowering myself onto my shoulders, I spin my body before rolling to my spine in classic, showy breakdancing style. That’s just the reel-in though, because then I spin up on each shoulder alternately, come back up fast and erect, only to give the illusion that I’m falling. I catch myself at the last moment, rotate once around on my elbow, come over on one hand, press my entire body up with that one hand, spread my legs over my head and change position to each beat of the music before landing two back flips.

  The audience combusts—people love the tricks and acrobatics.

  Dropping backwards onto my hands, I sensualize the dance, piston my hips, spider my legs, twist and grind, walk and dance while horizontal as I use my hands and arms for leverage.

  Smoothly, I pull myself up onto my feet as if I am attached to a string.

  I execute a full sequence actually on my feet. I shake my body as if zapped by electricity; then slow it to a sexy grind with my hands folding over my head. I turn and spin, wheel my arms in the air, bring them to my sides, and slide into the big finish.

  The entire boardwalk goes wild.

  But while I stand there catching my breath and recovering my equilibrium, I realize only one face matters—and hers is beaming with pride.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Emelie

  Wishes, surprises, and thwarted orgasms

  (Oh my!)

  Spectators are throwing money into the empty coffee cup Stone set out as he takes his bows and soaks up the glory.

  When the fervor dies down, and the crowd disperses, he shoves the boom box back in the pack.

  “You’re incredible, you know that.” It’s not a question.

  “I like hearing you say it—especially when you’re naked.”

  “Really, you have no fear or nerves—you thrive off your audience. You’re a natural entertainer, creating this shared experience. I loved the performance and the hip hop stuff. So skilled,” I add.

  “Promise you’ll say that skilled part when I’ve got you on my tongue later.”

  “Stone! Focus.”

  “Not a chance, baby.” His eyes embrace me with a hungry grin that makes my knees weak.

  When it’s obvious to him that I’m flustered, he continues, “I thought that would be a fun way to show you the second number I have prepared for the contest.”

  “Nice! I think if I can help you incorporate some moves from other styles, you’re totally going to get in.”

  “How about I crank that machine back up and you dance with me, right here.”

  “In front of all these people without a choreographed dance? You’re crazy! Not a chance. Plus, I haven’t danced in public since the accident happened onstage.”

  “You’re all healed up now; you could do it.”

  “You didn’t hear the part where I told you I have nothing set up. I’d look like an ass.”

  “People would be too busy mesmerized with your arse to notice.”

  “Stone. I’m not ready for an audience. So don’t even bring it back up.” I point my finger into his chest in an enough is enough gesture in hopes to end the conversation and he lets it drop.

  As we’re walking away to put the equipment back into the Jeep, he passes off the coffee cup full of dollars and change to an older homeless woman. It’s done so naturally and without ceremony, like that’s what he always does.

  Stone affects me. Like gravity.

  We have a terrific afternoon—as in, the most fun I’ve had for as long as I can remember. We walk along the famous Pike at Rainbow Harbor Boardwalk—so named for its rainbow shape. We ride the Ferris wheel and the roller-coaster, eat lunch at an ocean-view restaurant, and play games at the arcade. There’s a cool mix of 1940’s design—a throwback to the pier’s original heyday—and the modern. It’s a lazy, carefree, zero-pressure day. We talk about favorite foods and movies, binge TV shows and YouTube. He tells me stories about growing up in Australia—camping with his family, his wild cousins, whom he refers to as a herd of brumbies, and the culture differences between our countries.

  He makes me laugh, keeps me burning hot in all the best places, and is wild and exciting. I come to understand a few things about him—he speaks his mind, is generous, and he doesn’t let anything stand in his way. If he encounters a setback, he makes a detour. If he wants something, he goes and gets it.

  On the way back, he drives up the coast and through dynamic beach towns with exotic names like Redondo Beach and El Segundo. He makes me like it here.

  He makes me like him.

  “It’s almost midnight and I have no interest in going home,” I admit when I see the lights of LA coming closer.

  “No? Then I’ve got the perfect spot.”

  Twenty minutes later, we’re pulling into an abandoned lot. It’s dark with a swath of chain link fence around part of it.

  “What is this place?” I ask him as he parks and turns the engine off.

  “Somewhere I like to come and think.” He looks over at me with this expression I can’t quite read. It’s romantic and thoughtful, or maybe I’m reading it the way I want to and it’s really hunger and hysteria.

  We get out of the Jeep and he rummages through the back, fishing out the blanket he uses as a cover for his backseat, and then lays it over the hood of the Jeep.

  “This should protect your legs.” He holds his hand out for me.

  I take it and he boosts me onto the hood and climbs up after me. We lay back, gazing into the night sky.

  “Look!” I’m thrilled as a huge airplane lifts over us and soars above our heads, its lights blinking and shining.

  Stone regards me as if I’m so cute. “LAX.”

  I nod. All of the lights and expanse around us are from the large international airport.

  “It’s the optimum vantage point to watch the planes land and take off. I love coming out here, especially at night—the lights make it look otherworldly.”

  “I can see why you’d come out here to think.”

  “Airplanes are made of dreams, you know—the collective dreams and aspirations of the people who ride them and of the people who created them—they’re fueled completely by human desire, and they connect people to loved ones and beloved places. That makes them magic.”

  “Planes are magic?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You saying that makes me think of the song about making wishes on airplanes.”

  “That’s a great song. Because shooting stars—especially here in the city—are so hard to come by.” He fits his fingers between mine. “So make a wish.”

  “What?”

 
“Make a wish, Em.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “It’s not trigonometry.” He laughs. “What do you want? What does your heart want? Yearn for? Desire? That’s what a true wish is about.”

  My eyes follow the lights. “Do I have to say it out loud?”

  “I don’t think it’s a prerequisite for activation.”

  I roll my eyes. “Alright, smartass.”

  He chuckles lightly.

  We’re both quiet as we wait for the next flight.

  I can’t believe I’m asking this. “Do you think it’s a stronger magic if they’re taking off or landing?”

  “Sounds like a pretty important wish,” he comments. “Take-offs have a lot of hope and expectation. Landing wishes are stronger if you know your target and are closing in on a goal.”

  Guess that means take-off for me. My newbie life is too much in the infantile stages to think I’m even close to understanding what’s coming next or even what I want.

  We both seem pensive as we wait for the next plane to either come in for a landing or barrel down the runway. I wonder which airplane Stone will wish on.

  It takes only a few minutes before the blinking red and white lights and steel belly—I can clearly see the nuts and bolts and smooth metal sheets—of a plane are directly above us. I hold my breath, close my eyes, and make a silent wish.

  Somehow, it hurts and feels good, all at the same time.

  “Hey, you’re crying.” Stone reaches over and, with a delicate hand, wipes away a stray tear falling down my face.

  “How did you even see it? It’s so dark.” I swipe quickly at my face.

  “Caught the light.” Stone rolls over and faces me. “You alright?”

  “I’m good,” I answer sincerely. “I had a wonderful day. Thank you.”

  “Glad to know, and you’re welcome.” He twirls a strand of my hair around his finger. “Of course, I can’t let it end with you crying; you know that, right?”

  “I’m not really crying, more like, thinking… hard.”

  “No, I think hard. You think deep.” He considers that a moment. “Fuck, guess I think deep too.”

  His innuendo makes me laugh and he smiles with a sigh of relief.

  Without warning, he suddenly slides off the hood, nearly taking the blanket and me with him. “I can’t take it anymore, woman—you have to dance with me.”

  “What?”

  He holds his hand out for me to accept. “Dance with me, Emelie.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, here. Now get that little arse in gear and let’s go.”

  I look around me as if invisible people are watching us. “No way.”

  “I’m not asking for Swan Lake here.”

  “It’s too dark, I can’t even see where I’d need to step.”

  “I can fix that.” He leans into the driver’s window, and a second later the lighting tracks on the Jeep illuminate the night.

  “Stone…” His name falls off my tongue in a whiny protest.

  “You’re running out of excuses, Princess.”

  I am. But still I shake my head no.

  He rolls his eyes dramatically. I’m surprised his entire head doesn’t lop off and roll away.

  Stone leans in through the window and tinkers inside the Jeep again.

  A second later, he’s posed in front of me with his hand up like a stop sign, his profile turned to the side in a mock ignoring.

  Music comes floating through the car speakers—40’s big band—Tony Bennett. I know the song the moment it begins. It’s a classic.

  When the lyrics start, Stone croons along with Tony. “I won’t dance, don’t ask me.”

  Of course, he sings too.

  “I won’t dance, don’t ask me.”

  He sings each line while he acts out the song—folds his muscular arms over his beefy chest and shakes his head at me; waves his upright index finger in a no-no gesture—turns, and spins away. “I won’t dance, Madame, with you.”

  In a second, he gives up his rigid stance, slides in so he’s kneeling before me, holds his hands to his heart and sings that I’m lovely.

  Stone sways in a very old fashioned MGM musical kind of way and woos me like a black and white film star the likes of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelley.

  I love this song! And I’m in such danger of falling in love with him—on an unstable cliff kind of danger—oh, what he does to me!

  Lady Gaga takes her part in the duet portraying a man and woman who keep trying to not dance with one another because they know dancing always leads to romance.

  I’ve almost given in. I inch my bottom to the last inch of the car hood and I’m nearly to my feet.

  Stone, who is dancing and leaping about, keeps coming over to see if I’ve changed my mind, cozying up to me every few steps.

  Maybe I can surprise him, for a change of pace. I lay back and stretch across the car hood all seductively and half-sing, half-lip sync Lady Gaga’s part.

  Stone freezes, dazed like a deer in headlights, with his mouth hanging open in shock. I extend my leg straight up to the sky then stretch it towards my head.

  He gets his game back, fans himself with one hand and pinches at his shirt with the other, trying to generate air flow, as if the temperature suddenly spiked.

  I roll up, stretch out my arm and present him my hand.

  Oh God, I love his boyish smile.

  The warmth of his grasp in mine feels so incredibly good as he takes hold and pulls me to my feet. Stone wraps me in his arms, and I meld easily into the pattern of his steps—letting him lead.

  “You can swing dance?!” he asks, happily astonished.

  “My mom made me go for an entire year with her when she and my dad split. She didn’t want to take the lessons alone.”

  His smile shines brighter than the Jeep floodlights.

  “And you sing!”

  “That’s debatable.”

  We dance about the old abandoned lot; I feel giddy as he spins me around with an outside turn, releasing me from his arms so I twirl away before he reels me back in again; we execute many of the advanced moves, like the sidecar—where I jump and he lifts so my legs go first to the left side of him, climbing above parallel to his hip, then the right side, and then finishing with a split over his waist.

  He holds me and shifts back and forth with the music.

  I’m actually dancing.

  Dancing, laughing, lip sync singing, and being sang to—hella romantically.

  And dancing.

  Stone dips me low, and I bend at the knee, feeling the muscles at his ribs near my inner thigh.

  It’s been so long since I’ve danced, but my muscles and bones remember.

  I remember.

  It feels like waking up.

  He brings me back up, fingers sunk into my hair. Slowing the groove, his left thumb and bent index fingers come up to cradle my chin. His mouth meets mine, and I’m positive the San Andreas Fault rocks the ground beneath us because I’m trembling, shaky, and dizzy.

  Lit up by a million lights, under the sound of jet engines, enveloped by the young night and big band, he kisses me—and we dance.

  Wish granted.

  “YOU SLUT!” Violet comes bouncing onto my bed early the next morning, hurling insults—or rather her compliments—waking me from my scarce sleep. “Gone overnight Sunday, disappear Monday until the wee hours of Tuesday morn—I hope you’re using birth control.”

  “VIOLET—SHUT UP!” I chuck a pillow, but it’s a weak toss and she deflects it easily.

  “Oh my God, slay me already! I bet he’s fucking awesome in bed, am I right?”

  I inch my blanket over my mouth and nose, smile and nod.

  She screams, “I KNEW IT!!”

  “Stone is so…”

  “Yummy, dreamy, live porn… take your pick.”

  I laugh.

  “But why the hell are you home? You must have gotten in late because it was after two when me and Raph finally finished ou
r iZombie marathon. Why didn’t you sleep at his place?”

  “That’s sort of a loaded question.”

  “Fire away.” She throws the corner of the covers to the side and crawls under next to me. “’Fess.”

  “I danced.” The words tumble out in a small voice.

  My best friend’s expression goes soft and she looks like she’s going to cry. “You did?”

  “Yeah.” I nod. “Outside, beneath the lights and planes of LAX, in this old abandoned parking lot. Just him and I.”

  “Oh, Emelie.” Her arms come snaking around me and she begins to cry.

  “Please don’t cry.”

  “It’s been so fucking long.”

  “I know.”

  “I always believed you’d find it again, but everything that happened was so fucking awful and you got buried so deep…”

  “Are you referring to me dancing or having sex?”

  She blubbers, “Both!”

  “I heard everything!” Now Raphael is in the doorway, and wet lines stream down his face too. “Now that Dirty Aussie’s had you, he’s never going to go gay.”

  “Thanks for the love, Raph.”

  He climbs into the bed with us, so now I’m sandwiched between the two of them.

  “Not that I don’t like being the cream in the center of an Oreo, but this is only a full size bed and the two of you are crushing me,” I cheerfully complain.

  They don’t care, they only squeeze in harder.

  “I’m happy you got your groove back, babygirl.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go so far to say that, but…” I close my eyes, remembering the feel of his hand in mine, the way he held me around my waist, and how my body felt moving again. “It was so nice.”

  Raph asks, “Then, what are you doing home, sugar beet?”

  “Yeah! Why didn’t you sleep over a second night?” Violet shoots me a glance of suspicion.

  “He’s great. It’s me,” I affirm. “Because I’ve only ever been a one-man, exclusive kind of girl—and I don’t want to put that condition on Stone. He’s having fun, you know? I want to have fun too. Keep things light and sexy. He’s not playing for keeps,” I reason. “When it ends, I don’t want it to hurt or leave a scar—I want the memories later to feel as good as the present does.”