by Jordan Bell
“Don’t worry. The girls will walk you through it.”
“These girls?”
She shrugged sympathetically. “You’ll only do it wrong once.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” The room was the after effects of a tornado of beauty products, the whole thing making me feel uncomfortable like I’d never imagined before. I didn’t wear make-up, had never owned lingerie. Had never had anyone to wear it for. I didn’t own stockings or spend more than two minutes on my hair. But around me girls of all ages and types and skin colors hurried from one station to the other, transforming themselves from nice and average to exotic courtesans, wicked teases, Asian slaves, and pure, pretty spinsters ripe for seductions. They embodied their acts and became someone brand new.
I envied them. I would never have admitted it to a soul, but I envied their bodies, their identities, their confidence.
My new boss kept talking. I tore my attention away from the fascinating sirens around me.
She straightened up and puffed out her clipboard proudly. “Princes, viceroys, archdukes, even queens have traveled to book shows with Imagiare’s Midnight Temptations. They can make men and women fall in love with them in a single look.” She sighed and glanced around the horrible mess at our feet. “Even if in here they enact Jonathan Swift’s The Lady’s Dressing Room to the letter. Follow me.”
We left the land of panties and pasties through a small fabric corridor to a dressing room off the stage. It held a single green couch, many racks of costumes, and a wall of vanity tables. Unlike the previous dressing room, this one was very neat and clean and orderly.
“This is where you’ll work with four other dressers. Don’t lose anything, don’t go slow, and don’t screw up.”
“Tell me you’ve found the damn gloves Isobel.” The heavy, burgundy velvet stage curtain parted and framed the very beautiful Courtesan, who startled when she saw us. “Ah, Elena, pardon my intrusion. I didn’t realize it was you.”
Elena smiled and all the anxiety rushed out of her twitchy eyes. She curtsied a little, an awkward but charming gesture. “No intrusion, Lily. I was just showing the new girl what to do tonight.”
“The new girl.” She said it like it was a name rather than a temporary title. “You must be girl Eli was telling me about. The Corazon’s girl. Serafine, I believe?”
In a ruffled maroon dress, Lily looked like a Victorian lady, not a burlesque dancer, despite the half-moons of cleavage that topped her brocade corset. Her arms were bare, but upon each tiny wrist she wore bracelets of diamonds I doubted were fake. She smiled lazily and I couldn’t tell if she was being charming or wicked. She crossed her hands in front of her and waited for me to stop ogling her long enough to answer.
“Cora was my mother, yes, that’s me.”
“Was.” She looked aside. Her eyes frowned. “I was sorry to hear of your loss. Cora was a trusted friend, once, a long time ago.”
A trusted friend she never, ever mentioned. I didn’t answer, reminded again of how uncomfortable this moment was every time someone brought it up.
Oh, I loved your mother, we played rummy at night in her wagon after the shows when we were too jazzed up to sleep.
Your mother predicted my first born would be a girl.
The Corazon was the most beautiful lady I’d ever seen.
How had she managed to keep this place such a secret?
Lily might have been small in size, but she commanded the room with a sharp intensity that kept us all waiting for her next words. After her morose moment passed, she returned her very blue eyes to us.
“Elena, Serafine will dress me tonight. Send Isobel away.”
Elena loosened her hold on her clipboard, looked between it and the Courtesan with such unhappiness I thought she might cry. “Change the schedule?”
“Yes. That won’t be a problem for you.”
“No,” she admitted sulkily. “But she’s never dressed before. She doesn’t know how to lace a corset.”
“She’ll learn.” Without asking me for my opinion, which I somehow doubted would matter anyway, she snapped her fingers for me to follow her. “Come, Serafine. Tonight, you’re mine.”
* * *
The Courtesan’s private dressing room felt like something from the boudoir of a French mistress, pink and maroon brocade walls, fluffy pillows on a small bed I had a feeling was not meant to be slept in. There were great big ornate mirrors and a vanity bigger than my tent. Everywhere there were feathered hats and jeweled headbands, garters hung by color, jewelry boxes open and displaying all manner of decorations. I stood terrified by the door, counting the many ways this was the worst idea in the world. I didn’t even know what half the items hanging in her closet were.
Lily removed the pins from her hair and set her hat upon the head of a hat stand on her vanity. In the mirror she watched me while she took down her curls.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
Her long blond hair fell in shiny ringlets. It took all my strength not to tuck my stray hair from my face and collected it so it wasn’t quite such a mess around my shoulders.
“Honestly? I’m wondering why you’d want my help when it is very clear I am out of my league.”
“Well,” she scoffed affectionately and stood. She waved me over and turned her narrow back to me. “Nothing like drawing the line right from the beginning. Yes, clearly, we do not play in the same league, but I doubt you’d want anything to do with my game, right? Please, loosen me so I can change.”
Despite my reluctance, I took her laces and loosened them so that she was able to part the snaps in the front of her corset. I looked away when she handed the stiff material to me.
“You mean, because you’re a courtesan?”
She laughed, a quiet sound. She shimmied out of the long satin skirt and hung it across the back of a chair. I set her corset with it and tried to ignore the nearly naked dancer while she paraded fearlessly around her dressing room. Lily was so thin, curvy only at her hips but still, two of her could fit into one of me. I felt like an ogre in a china shop and had visions of knocking priceless jewelry cases over and stuffing feathers in my mouth. I was a gorilla in the paradise of feminine charms.
“Eli said you have a problem with tact.”
At his name, I blushed and gave all my attention to a rack of hats from every decade, all styles and colors, so she wouldn’t see. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. And he doesn’t count. He brings out the worst in me.”
Lily laughed again and came to stand next to me. She smelled like gardenias and baby powder. “That’s the opposite of what most women say.”
“What?” I jerked my hand back from touching a pretty wool cloche. The whole stand rattled as if it were annoyed with my burly handling of its delicates. “No, it’s not like that. Not even a little bit like that.”
She shrugged her tiny shoulders and chose a mini top hat bedecked with feathers and ribbons. “I think I’d like to wear the purple ball gown tonight. Get it from the closet?”
I approached the massive closet cautiously, as if it might pull me into another dimension of petticoats and ruffles from which I might never escape. Fortunately all her costumes were labeled. Elena’s doing, I guessed.
“He doesn’t give most of his women names, let alone details about their personality. I only assumed that if he bothered to remember you, you must be his new paramour. Admittedly, you’re not what I pictured.”
I froze, my hand on the garment bag of her purple ball gown, then whirled around to face her.
“You mean, because I don’t look like you.”
She hesitated, held my gaze in the mirror, then set her lipstick down. “Well, yes, but not like how you’re thinking. I didn’t mean to offend you. It was a pleasant surprise. That’s a compliment.”
“Sorry.” I carried the bag to her and between the two of us we got it open and unwrapped. The costume was a smaller version of a heavily ruffled Victorian dress with crisscross ribbons at the thro
at and short, puffy shoulders. The dress would only cover half her thighs with corset-like boning in the bodice. “You’re right, I have a problem with tact.”
“I find it interesting that you were offended that I might not think you were good enough for his tastes, but not offended that I compared you to a courtesan. I don’t bother you?”
“Oh,” I hesitated as I held the dress up for her to slide her body into. “Not really. Sex doesn’t freak me out, even if I’m not currently having any. You go on with your bad self if that’s what you like. I have my own issues and there’s no room for worrying about anyone else’s.”
She grinned into the mirror as I laced up the back of her dress. “We could change that, you know. You’d be surprised how many men are looking for your type. If you worked on being a little more demure and submissive, you could be a top billed performer.”
“Ah, no. No thank you. There, how does that feel?”
Lily took a step back and inspected herself in the mirror. “Not bad, considering it’s your first time. I think we’ll get along well.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer her so I busied myself putting the empty garment bag back on its hanger. She watched me work and I tried not to be so aware of her calculating blue eyes.
“I’m maybe stepping over a line by saying this, but you should know something about the Magician.” I turned on her, ready to make her stop talking, but she held up her small, narrow hands to keep me from interrupting her. “He’s damaged, Sera. Irreparably damaged. With him you’ll find physical pleasure you couldn’t discover with anyone else in the world, but he’s got nothing else. He’s incapable of it. Do you understand what I am saying? There are some moments in a person’s life that destroys them and they can never come back from it. Eli hit that line once and kept right on going over the edge. And I don’t think we’ll ever see the real him ever again.”
17
__________________
Four performances with more costume changes than I dared to count, more ribbons and zippers and breakaway buttons, silks and velvet and corsets, and it was after one in the morning when I finally ran out of the burlesque tent and into the crisp night air.
Lily’s warning frazzled me all night long. She spoke as if I were headed right for his bed, a trajectory I couldn’t stop. She made it sound so inevitable and for the first time I wondered just how many women he took casually into his bed. I wondered what they found there and it made me jealous, yes, but also protective. There was something about the way she spoke that made me think his women were half monsters and he were in danger every time he let one in.
I dared not run and catch anyone’s curious attention, but it was hard not to sprint for the Magician’s tent. Many tents were dark already, but I lucked out when I reached the final path on the edge of the grove. The lanterns still lit the blue carpet leading up to his stage. Even as I hurried up the path I could hear the audience gasp and sigh together, like music.
The ticket taker nodded when I approached and pulled the curtain back for me to duck beneath.
It was standing room only, the tent overwarm, most of the women on the edge of their seats, clutching their hearts and their arm rests. I smiled and slipped between shoulders to maneuver to the front of the standing crowd made up mostly of men who did not complain when I snuck ahead of them.
Eli stood center stage with Katya knelt beside him. Her hands were bound by thick hemp that wound in tight coils up her arms from half way to her elbows and knotted at her wrists, leaving her hands free. She held them in front of her, cupped to turn three clear balls between her hands with a fourth sitting on top of the three giving the appearance that the one on top was static while the three on the bottom carouselled through her fingers.
He still wore his top hat and dress shirt, though he’d lost his coat. His mask hid the dark circles beneath his eyes, but he seemed stronger than he had earlier. He held his hands cupped in front of him as if he were about to reveal something to his audience.
I felt him find me immediately.
“On second thought, I’d like to tell you a story.”
Katya held her dramatic gaze better this time, but her eyes narrowed a little, enough to cause a fan of wrinkles to appear to give away her annoyance that he’d gone off script again. The Magician clapped his hands, making whatever he was about to reveal go away.
“Earlier today a lovely girl showed me a card trick I’d never seen before. She’s no magician, so naturally I was a little skeptical.” He paused dramatically and some people in the audience laughed, particularly the men. I blushed. “I watched her hands. She moved the cards like a magician, or a fortune teller, someone who has spent too many hours with a deck. I didn’t notice the sleight of hand trick she used, though I was sure she’d used one. When it came time to reveal my card, it was the club version instead. When I told her this, she explained that it was my card’s lover, and she revealed my five of hearts.”
He paused again, snapped his fingers and made a perfectly square piece of silver paper appear between his fingers, and he started folding it while he talked.
“I was about to show you an impressive trick involving pulling a dove from my hat. A very traditional magician’s trick, but not spectacular. Instead, I’d like to end the night with a trick called the Origami Crane. I don’t know why, but it reminds me of her.”
He finished folding the crane and held it on the palm of his hand for the audience to see. I pressed my hands against my stomach, remembering the way he felt touching me, thinking that there must be a flock of origami cranes inside my chest right at that moment, flying around, making me feel dizzy.
“Normally, this trick involves a single crane made from a love note I’d ask a member of the audience to write for someone in the audience, a stranger, that they’d like to meet after the show for a clandestine moment in the dark. Instead I want everyone to think on someone in the audience they are attracted to. Think hard, hold them in your mind,” he paused and swept his heady gaze across his audience. Everyone was looking around, meeting gazes, blushing, giggling. I didn’t look anywhere but at the Magician. “Imaging holding them to your body. Do you have them? Now, watch closely.”
The lights dimmed but did not go out. The spotlight made the silver wings sparkle.
Then, the wings began to move, just a little.
No one dared breathe.
No one dared blink.
Eli stared with all his power and the slow movement became stronger until its tiny paper body lifted off his palm and floated magically above the crowd. All eyes stayed with the crane, all hearts fell in love over and over again with the Magician. The crane soared over the heads of his audience, sparkling like a star.
The Magician swept his hat from his head, flipped it over, and held it out in front of him. He reached in and scooped a second crane out, this one made of green glittery paper, already folded. He held it on the tips of his fingers and blew a slow, long breath into its wings. It floated off his fingers, lost buoyancy for a moment, then beat its tiny paper wings until it joined the first on an invisible current around the tent, flying in formation.
The two cranes hovered, then parted, and floated lazily down into the hands of a man and a woman across the theater from each other. Their eyes met and I swear I could hear their hearts skip.
“Her trick got me thinking,” he said as he set his hat back on his head and stuffed both hands in his pockets. “Perhaps everything is better in pairs.”
* * *
Hours later when I couldn’t sleep, I found myself on the curved steps leading up to the Magician’s wagon. My tent was perfectly adequate, as tall as I was with a soft futon style mattress and clean sheets and a new pillow. Like usual, I couldn’t sleep when I was supposed to, but tonight I was plagued by the memory of soft raven curls as they sifted between my fingers.
I didn’t bother knocking and I found the door unlocked anyway. The curtains along the length of his bed were closed, though parted just enough that I
could see a sliver of bare arm in the moonlight. I nudged off my shoes so I wouldn’t make any noise and tiptoed across the wagon to the edge of his bed and edged the curtain open enough to peer inside.
His blanket lay across his hips, low enough that I had a remarkable view of his naked chest. Across one half of his chest was a large tattoo of a dragon. I followed its shape with my eyes all the way down to the cut muscle lines urging me to look lower.
Before I could lose my nerve, I slid onto my knees on the edge of his bed and knelt beside his body. He had one arm draped across his eyes and his breathing remained slow and even.
“How did you do it?” I whispered.
He sighed, giving away that he wasn’t asleep at all. He lowered his arm but did he bother to cover himself.
“How did I do what?”
“Make them fly.”
He traced my shadow with his eyes, lazily touched his fingertips along the side of my bare knee and up along the back of my thigh to the edge of my shorts. A sleepy smile touched his mouth as he tugged on the hem of my boxer shorts covered in pirate ships.
Then he reached for me.
“Come here,” he urged. “Lay down.”
He slid his hands behind my knees. I climbed into his bed and settled into the dented spot in the mattress where I’d been snuggled when I woke up after my arrival. My head hit the pillow so close to his. He reached the edge of his quilt across my hips and tucked me in with him.
I could not describe the comfort I felt when I laid beside him in his bed. He settled a hand across my hip, didn’t search for my naked skin this time. He squeezed a handful of my fleshy waist and let his eyes drift closed.
“Won’t you tell me how you did it?” I pressed. My fingers ached to reach out to touch the dragon’s scales and trace them down the length of his body. I resisted the pull, it seemed like I was already getting away with too much.
The corner of his mouth turned up again, but he didn’t open his eyes.
