“Do you believe this?” she hissed.
“I know.” I’d never been anywhere like it. At least Clarissa, with her rich folks and her trust fund, would feel at home. “We’re in your world now,” I told her.
Clarissa shook her head. “This is not my world. This is a long, long way from my world.”
“Clarissa,” Darrell asked, “Are you going to wait? It might be a few hours.”
Hearing him say her name, I was suddenly jealous. I wanted to hear that deep, bass rumble wrap itself around “Natasha.”
“Yes.” Clarissa was keeping a very careful eye on him, as if he might pull out a ski mask and a hunting knife at any moment. “I’ll wait.”
“Great.” He showed us into a breakfast kitchen. Everything was either spotless white tile or gleaming stainless steel. I wondered if he actually lived in the house, or just rented it out for photos.
On the tabletop were three catering pots of gourmet coffee and a basket—an actual wicker basket straight out of Red Riding Hood—crammed full of pastries. There were three different newspapers, a Vogue, a Time and a People.
“You knew she’d bring someone?” Clarissa asked.
“I thought she might,” he told her. “We’ll be downstairs.”
“Downstairs?” My voice was almost a squeak. Three stories, and there was a downstairs, too?
“In my workshop.”
I looked at Clarissa, but she gave me a nod. Whatever vibes she was getting from him, they were good ones. “I’ll be right here,” she told me.
She sat down, already reaching for the Vogue, and Darrell led me back through the hallway to a door at the back. It looked like a normal, white-painted wooden door, but when he opened it, we were looking into the bare steel walls of an elevator. He pressed the button at the very bottom: we were going three floors underground.
***
I wasn’t ready for the sense of space.
I guess I’d prepared myself for some small, dark, claustrophobic room, maybe with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
It was one huge, cavernous space. I realized that the cellar must run the entire length of the mansion, maybe even beyond. The ceiling must have been a good fifteen feet high, but because the lights hung down from it, the ceiling itself just disappeared into blackness. The floor was smooth, flawless concrete.
The elevator had deposited us midway down the room’s length. To my right was heavy engineering gear: huge machines whose function I could only guess at, big tanks of compressed gas and a crane’s hook hanging down on a chain.
Right in front of me seemed to be where he did most of his work, and I could see immediately where his muscles had come from. There were workbenches littered with hunks of metal almost as big as me, and tools for pounding, cutting and welding it into shape. Farther on, there was a big, open space and then a sort of office area with a chair and desk and several large monitors. Was that where he’d sat and messaged me on Facebook? Directly over the desk, there was a poster for a local band I’d vaguely heard of called the Curious Weasels. I could see whiteboards full of math, too, and a coffee pot. I remembered the spotless kitchen upstairs. How much of his life did he spend down here?
This was no hobbyist’s garage. This was a workplace, the modern equivalent of a blacksmith’s forge. He must have spent millions building this place, constructing his perfect environment in which to build...what, exactly? I’d never heard of Sabre Technologies. Planes? Cars?
He didn’t rush me, letting me take it all in. Then he led me over to the large open space.
“I figured...here. If that’s okay.” He looked around, as if checking there was enough space.
At the back of the room, I saw a big, wheeled cart some eight feet long. He’d draped whatever was on top—his latest creation, presumably—in a white sheet, and then pushed it aside to make room for me.
I looked down at the bare concrete floor and traced the surface with the toe of my sneaker. “It’s fine. Floor’s going to be a little hard.”
There was absolutely nothing sexual in that. Not until I glanced up. Suddenly I was looking straight into his eyes and something there made me catch my breath. It had been a perfectly innocent remark...so why was I the one flushing?
“For dancing,” I explained. “Normally the floor’s sprung, so that we get some bounce.”
He looked at the concrete and nodded sagely, as if filing that away.
“It’s fine, though,” I told him. “It doesn’t matter.” And I started to unbutton my jeans.
He started, and sort of half-looked away.
“I’ve got dancing gear on underneath,” I told him.
He nodded. Disappointed? I couldn’t tell. There was a part of me that wished I had needed to get changed. Would he have turned his back? Would he have tried to sneak a peek?
Would I have wanted him to?
I felt that dark twist again, spiraling downwards between my thighs. For once, I didn’t feel like things were slipping away from me. Here, in this crazy, rich man’s world, three floors below a mansion, I actually felt grounded. I wasn’t in the past or slipping towards it; for once, I was right there, in the moment. And it wasn’t the place or even what I was doing that was making me feel that way...it was him. It was the way his attention was so completely focused on me, like I was the only thing in the world—I’d never been looked at so hard in my life. And underneath that cool, professional gaze, I could sense something else, something raw and sexual that made me heady and weak. Suddenly, the thin sweater and jeans I was wearing seemed insubstantial. What was it going to feel like in a leotard?
Time to find out.
I pulled off my sweater. Light from above cascaded down my body, making the black leotard shine. There was something weird about it—it wasn’t like the harsh flicker of a fluorescent light. I looked up, squinting.
“It’s called a light tube,” he told me. “It’s daylight, reflected down from the roof.”
I unfastened my sneakers and kicked them off, and then I couldn’t delay it any longer. My hands gripped the waistband of my jeans...and I stopped.
I told myself not to be stupid. I had tights on underneath, and I’d danced a million times before wearing the same outfit. I’d even danced in front of him.
But not like this, a little voice inside me said.
How could I dance just fine in front of a crowd, and yet just one person could reduce me to helpless mush?
I pushed down my jeans and stepped out of them. The tan tights where thin enough that I could feel the cool air of the cellar. I felt his eyes on my legs.
Of course he looked at your legs. He’s a man. That doesn’t mean—
“What would you like me to dance?” I asked, as much to silence my own thoughts as anything. I took my pointe shoes from my bag and then dumped it and my clothes out of the way.
“Your choice,” he told me. “Nothing that’ll be too uncomfortable on the floor.” He stepped back and stood against the wall.
That threw me. Him choosing would almost have been easier, because now I had to pick between pieces I knew solid choreography for and could do really well and the ones I truly loved but wasn’t as good at. I debated as I sat on the floor wrapping the ribbons around my ankles. In the end, I picked something in the middle. I loved it, I was pretty good at it, and there wasn’t too much that would be problematic on the concrete floor.
He handed over his phone, set up like a remote for his music system, and I scrolled through until I found the piece I wanted. A few seconds later, the first bars filled the room, the notes drifting and echoing in the huge space.
I was moving, almost without thinking about it. This wasn’t like the audition. There was no pressure to be the best and there were no inscrutable judges watching. I could almost have been on my own, dancing for pleasure.
I stepped, sank into the plié and glided into the turn, pushing harder than I normally would because of the concrete’s friction. And then I made the mistake of looking at him.
And suddenly, it was different again.
It wasn’t that he was looking at me with lust—at least, not on the surface. His eyes were as pure and clear as they’d been before, drinking in the movements and the flow. It was that he was watching me so intensely, relying on me to deliver...something. Inspiration? I couldn’t imagine inspiring anyone.
It wasn’t like a rehearsal, because I was alone. It wasn’t like solo practice, because when I got a step not quite right or didn’t nail a turn, I couldn’t go back and try it again. I was performing. For him.
It wasn’t the most challenging dance, especially that first section. So why was my heart racing? Why could one person make me nervous, when I’d danced for full theaters in our end-of-year shows?
I could feel his eyes on the shape of my extended leg as I leaned into a six o’clock arabesque, on the line of my arm as I straightened up. He wasn’t just watching, he was absorbing, in some way I couldn’t fathom, and whenever I messed up I felt like I was feeding him false information. It shouldn’t be like that! It should be like this!
I felt like I was in a spotlight, in the very center of a massive stage and instead of an invisible audience I could forget about, I was being watched by the one guy I wanted—needed—to impress.
Yet something made it bearable, kept me teetering on the knife edge of tension without tipping over. When I made a mistake, he never did that little hiss of breath, never made me feel I’d got it wrong. He just watched, without judging and without commenting. I’d never seen someone so lost in the beauty of dance.
And gradually, I started to relax. My steps became more assured, my moves more graceful. When it came together, I actually felt lighter, the little glides of each bourrée almost effortless. I risked a few small jumps, careful on the concrete but wanting to give him something he’d remember. For the first time in my life, I was dancing not for an audience or for a judge or to play my part in a group, but for someone.
I was doing it to please him. A little flutter in my chest.
I was doing it to give him pleasure. A sudden, darker heat, lower down.
I realized I was only an arm’s length from him. My last few steps had taken me forward, and normally I would have been near the front of the stage, staring out into the blackness. But here, in this underground room, it put me right up close to him. We locked eyes, and I was breathing harder than I should have been.
I sank down into a grand plié, and instead of just watching he crouched, his movements so harsh and cumbersome compared to my own, like watching a giant made of stone. He settled there, huge and hulking, and we stared at each another.
I rose, turned, feeling his eyes burning into my back. I pushed off into a pas de chat, airborne for just a second as both legs folded under me, then flowing into a turn as I landed. He was still watching me just as intensely, and he’d taken a step forward. I started to move towards him and something flickered down my body, like darkly sparkling starbursts that set every nerve humming. The dance called for me to take just a single step forward.