Baylee Wright:
Starting tomorrow, you will practice with machetes for the opening number. Clubs are over. (You will still perform with fire for your juggling act and use balls for the trampoline act.) I expect a completed, pristine performance with machetes on stage in one week.
Don’t fail this show.
Geoffrey Lesage Infini Choreographer [email protected]
I have no reaction. None at all.
I spin my screen to Luka, the soft blue glow illuminating his angered eyes.
It’s a rare sight, his anger. I keep soaking in his features. He’s twenty-one now. He looks older, but more so from stress.
I pre-ordered the Hamilton soundtrack on vinyl for his birthday, August 21st. He’s been obsessed with the musical, and the soundtrack is releasing soon, so he was happy and surprised I remembered.
But I wish I could’ve done more. Hamilton just moved from Off-Broadway to Broadway this month, and he would’ve loved to go.
It’s not even the price that stops me. We don’t have time. I mean, we celebrated his birthday in Verona, the club. Not the city. And even then, Luka and I had to leave early.
Geoffrey had the costume department make miniscule changes on our “nightmare” outfits. He scheduled us for fittings on that particular day, at night.
Luka shakes his head. “We’ll get Perrot to change this.”
“Perrot hasn’t fought Geoffrey on anything. Even Nikolai called him spineless.” I can’t be surprised anymore that this is happening. I can’t even be mad. I feel like I’m reserving all my energy for an apocalyptic scenario where Geoffrey attacks Luka.
Luka looks away, thinking.
“You know what’s weird? Months ago,” I whisper, “machetes seemed like the most dangerous, worst thing that could happen.” I shrug. “Now they don’t seem that bad.”
Luka gapes at me. No one ever asks if I’m being serious because they always know I am. “Come on, Bay.”
“What?” I frown.
“They’re bad.”
“They’re dulled, and I can put rubber on the edges while I practice.”
His nose flares. “What happens when you drop the machete on your head and the blade hits your skull? You’ll need twenty stitches, and you may form a stutter.”
So that happened to one of my instructors when I was eleven. I shouldn’t have told him that story. “Will you still love me if I form a stutter?”
“Bay,” he forces.
“You better,” I say. I already know he would.
Luka hugs me again, and he presses a long, warm kiss to the top of my head. As though healing a wound that hasn’t arisen yet.
FALL
Act Forty-Eight
Baylee Wright
A moan tickles my throat, my lips parted in an O-shape, and I accidentally thwack the handle of the shower for something to hold onto. Hot water cuts off, steam vanishing from the glass inside Luka’s bathroom.
My mind is on an earth-shattering ascent while my bare body is in Luka’s possession, my right leg hoisted over his shoulder. He kneels on the tiles, his fingers pressing in the soft flesh of my thigh.
I tingle all over, and my hand finds his thick hair, gripping as he kisses me right between my spread legs. As his tongue flicks and laps my sensitive clit, I tremble against him. Oh God.
Oh God.
I cry out, and I pinch my eyes closed, losing sense of place and time. I force my eyes open for one reason. To see him.
Breath tight in my chest, I look down.
His mouth encloses my pussy, kissing deeper, harder. His tongue is a force that I know intimately now. And his gaze, locked on mine, almost sends me over, soulful grays devouring me whole.
My muscles tighten, and I clench and clench. My pulse dives straight down. Throbbing. God, I’m throbbing so badly. In the best, best way.
He hits another sensitive spot, and my back arches. I feel myself slipping, my legs shuddering, and I’m unable to hold myself upright. Reaching out, I knock over a shampoo bottle and soap. I clutch onto the tiny ledge with one hand, the other, I fist his wet hair.
“Luka,” I moan. Luka.
Luka.
I can feel his smile against my heat. And then his fingers slowly fill me, pulsing in and out. Slow and firm. I inhale a sharp breath.
Holy shit. My world rotates, and I tighten around his fingers. My moans turn inwards, caught deep in my throat. I shudder and shudder, my body bowed towards Luk.
And then the door flies open.
My face drops as Dimitri and I look straight-on at one another. The glass shower isn’t fogged anymore. There’s no more running water, and he can easily distinguish me from waist-to-face. Nipples, boobs—all exposed. And Luka’s head is between my legs.
Great. Just great. I have the shittiest luck. Thankfully, Dimitri growls a curse and spins his back to the shower.
Luka casts a quick glance over his shoulder before rising. Both of my feet are now on the tiles, and Luka snags a towel off a shelf in arm’s distance and wraps it around my body.
“I saw nothing,” Dimitri says, solidified in the doorway. “That’s a lie. I wish I saw nothing. I saw Baybay’s tits.”
I cringe. Is this karma for that one time I saw his dick in my peripheral?
“Dude, you can leave now,” Luka says.
Dimitri adds, “This would’ve never happened if I heard the motherfucking shower.”
So now it’s our fault. I refute, “You need to fix the bathroom lock.” It broke yesterday when Dimitri said the wood couldn’t handle his brute strength.
“My bathroom lock. Not the. You’re the one crashing in my suite. You’re my guest—”
“She’s my guest, my girlfriend,” Luka interjects, “and seriously, leave.”
“I can’t.” He rotates towards the mirror, but he trains his gaze on the sink.
I secure my towel and squeeze out my wet hair. Luka opens the glass door, completely naked. His tattoos just barely stop at his ass, and he doesn’t even bother cupping a hand around his dick.
“Why not?” Luka asks.
“Tell me what I just saw aren’t bruises from work.” He’s worried.
Luka and I exchange a look, and our eyes travel down each other’s body. Yellowish and blackish bruises mar Luka’s back, waist, legs, his pale skin dotted with them, and I’m not any better.
Big purple and blue welts bloom across my brown skin, saucer-like patches around my hips, knees, and my shoulder.
I shrug at Luka. Neither of us wants to lie to family and friends. We were forced to, and now that we have the choice, we’re choosing honesty.
Luka explains, “We were having trouble with her standing on my shoulders—the timing, and this past week Geoffrey has been running us in drills off the mats. Look, I combatted him, got Perrot on the phone, but he said, it didn’t sound bad.”
I tighten my towel, a chill in the air. It’s known that Perrot mostly sits behind a desk, not very knowledgeable about the ins-and-outs of disciplines and athletics. If asked what a burpee is, I question whether he’d know the answer.
Dimitri looks out of the corner of his eye, noticing me covered, and he faces us. Luka still stands unabashed and naked in the shower doorway.
Taking in the welts all over his younger cousin’s body, Dimitri cocks his head. “I never saw you two off the mats. When was this?”
“At night.”
“How much sleep—”
“Don’t,” Luka starts. “There’s nothing we can do but deal with it, and we’re dealing.” We feel trapped, but in a different way than when the contracts loomed over us. Luka already went to medical on my behalf.
And coincidentally, I went to medical on his behalf.
We were both called in. They examined our bruises and said it’s normal in our profession. They don’t feel the harshness or cruelty in each one. So I’ve become more and more resigned.
Dimitri glowers. “This shit isn’t work. That’s abuse. And it’s ending.” He storms out of the bathroom, but he calls back, “Get dressed! We have plans to make!”
Act Forty-Nine
Luka Kotova