I find myself longing to dance that way, to feel my limbs flex and stretch into beautiful curves and lines. I want to be lifted and carried by the music, to become a moving, living embodiment of art and grace. I cannot believe that my parents, my doctrine, ever insisted to me that something so beautiful could be sinful.
Tears streak down my face throughout the entire four-hour performance, and unlike at the opera, Andrei remains at my side the entire time, holding my hand. After the final curtain closes and we head back out into the cold New York City night, he turns to me and asks what I think.
“It was beautiful,” I gush, leaning on him and wiping at my eye gingerly.
“You were crying. Are you alright?” he asks, stroking my hair. His face remains hard, but his voice is tinged with just the sweetest hint of softness.
“I just… I have never seen something so amazing in my whole life, Andrei. I never knew how moving it could be to see something like that. I can only imagine how much more wonderful it must be to dance the way they do. I wish I could.”
Andrei stops suddenly, causing me to look up at him quizzically.
“What is it?” I ask, cocking my head to the side.
“I think I know someone who can teach you.”
17
Andrei
“You just hold your shoulders like so, keep all the tension away — it will only hold you back. There, that’s good, lovely! You’ll be sliding across the dance floor like water in no time.”
Sonya stands back and lets Cassie go through the short routine she’s been practicing all week once again. Both of them are happier than I’ve seen them in a long time.
I made sure that Sonya had a place of her own to start teaching ballet on her own terms. It’s a quaint but very classy place in SoHo, downstairs from her new apartment. I used the money her mother paid for the hit to pay for it, calling it a favor for an old friend. There was a little publicity in the high culture community over her late coach’s murder, but that only seems to have helped her get her studio up and running successfully.
Cassie, meanwhile, has been flourishing beyond her expectations. Her moves are still unrefined, but she has the natural grace of a bird, her body becoming more used to the fluid motions with every passing day she trains.
And the look on her face when she moves so freely makes it worth all the work that’s brought us to this point.
I sit near the door as I watch her finish her lessons to the gentle, elegant music. The two of them are totally enraptured in the activity; I made sure to pay Sonya for private sessions.
As the lesson comes to an end, Cassie turns her attention to me, and her face brightens up even more than it was before. With the grace of a gazelle, she bounds over to me and throws her arms around me, and I lift her up to a delighted giggle.
“I didn’t even realize you were there, you’re too sneaky!” she said as I planted a kiss on her cheek. “Sonya says I’m making leaps and bounds! I mean, I am literally, but you know what I mean.”
“Of course,” I laugh back as I set her down. “You seem like you were born to do this, the way I see it. I can’t wait to see you in a performance of your own, before long.”
Cassie’s cheeks go pink, and she beams up at me, embarrassed. “I don’t know about that, I’m only just getting my body used to the kind of flexibility this stuff takes. I can’t imagine how Sonya’s gotten as talented as she is.”
Cassie’s instructor gives me a wave from across the room on her way into the office, and I return it with a smile. We haven’t spoken much since her getting set up here, but I hear about her appreciation through Cassie.
Sometimes I wonder whether she suspects anything about my involvement in everything that’s changed in her life over the past few weeks, but I try not to think too far into it. I’m already following up on one person linked to a past target; I can’t keep up a network of them.
“A lot of training,” I say simply, “but she will be the first to tell you that a well-deserved rest is just as important. Come on,” I say, suddenly reaching down and sweeping her off her feet. She yelps and throws her arms around my neck, curling up into my embrace as I head out the door and start walking towards my car. “Your legs must be awfully tired, so it’s only right that I give you a lift home, don’t you think?”
* * *
Back at home, I push open the door to our room as Cassie’s lips press into mine, and my hand squeezes her ass as I draw her closer into me, my manhood hard against her as she grinds up against me needfully.
I lift her up and toss her onto the bed, and she lands gracefully, rolling onto the sheets and spreading her limbs with a satisfying stretch as she rubs her body into the soft mattress.