Other Colors - Ch. 17 - Sex Stories

Other Colors - Ch. 17

... between them. and I had to leap out of the way to avoid decapitation. “Va falloir te bouger le cul, mademoiselle!” the latter hollered at me as they made their way past, and disappeared through a set of swinging doors into the auditorium. I flushed red, and followed them sheepishly inside. I had not the slightest idea of what was going on, but I clearly wasn’t going to learn anything more from the workers. The stage itself was scarcely any less chaotic than the atrium. Right in the midst of the fray, a corps de ballet of lanky dancers was rehearsing on stage, each one of them outfitted in a white hard hat to match my own. I shook my head in disbelief, and stifled a shriek as flash of sparks came raining toward them from a welder’s torch near the rafters. They kept right on dancing. The sparks died out just before sprinkling down overtop of them. I narrowed my eyes, and spotted Marie in the middle; the coryphée in a sea of long, graceful limbs. I stood in the aisle, watching her cabriole, and fouetté , and whirl into her tours chaînés déboulés. I couldn’t help it. I thought of Dmitri’s dream—the ropes, and the music; the dark ballet I’d danced for him on the stage of the Théâtre du Palais Royal. And what he said he’d done to me at the end… My toes curled up inside his little suede flats. I watched for maybe a full half hour before she caught sight of me, and called for a break. She hopped off the stage, and came scrambling toward me, beaming. “Penny! I am so glad you are ...

... here,” she threw her arms around me, “C’est incroyable, no?” “Yeah,” I blew a strand of her hair out of my face. “Yeah. It’s insane. But,” I pried myself free from her grip, “what on earth is going on here? I thought you were locked out…” “We were,” she stepped back, almost shaking in her excitement, “But can you believe it? Oh, it is the most remarkable thing, Penny!” I shrugged and raised my brows, helpless at least until she could collect her thoughts. “Just this morning, Penny,” little by little, she caught her breath, “we were all ready to go through with the protest. We called some of the newspapers, and the radio stations. I don’t know if we ever heard back. But it didn’t matter,” she clapped her hands over her mouth. “Because we got here, Penny, and the locks were gone. All gone!” Gone? I narrowed my eyes at her, “But…how?” “C’est fou, je sais. Mais c’est vrai,” she lowered her hands, “Someone bought the theatre last night, Penny. They settled the arrears. They let us back in. Look, they are even having the place renovated, and paying time-and-a-half to have it finished for our opening night! Can you believe it? Can you believe our luck?” “No,” I squinted up at the rafters, where three men were installing new spotlights. “I um… I really can't." Someone bought it last night… I could already feel my heart, slowly spelunking its way up into my throat. No. There’s no way. He didn’t. “So… do you know who it was?” I swallowed thickly, “Do you know who’s behind all of it?” “Mais ...