It’s a wonderful, faraway dream that I crave so desperately. I’m willing to work as hard as I can to live it.
Nikolai rotates abruptly, his back to us, and he starts speaking in hurried Russian to some of the art directors, choreographers, and whoever else is lined at the table. He grabs a few file folders and urgently flips through them. Only once does he glance over his muscular shoulder—and his eyes land on me again.
“Did you sleep with him?” Kaitlin asks me under her breath, anger wrinkling her forehead.
“What?” I frown deeply. “No. No.” This isn’t like that…but maybe it is. I don’t know. Is it that bad? Rare negative thoughts latch onto me. He’s going to throw me out. Tell me to pack my bags. My one shot is gone before it’s begun.
These jumbled fears jolt me to my feet, a string of excuses popping into my head. “I can explain,” I start. The room tenses, the silence deadened, my voice echoing in the cavernous gym. Everything is heavy and uncomfortable.
Nikolai says something rapidly in Russian to the directors, and then he sets the folder on the table.
I continue, “I didn’t know who—”
“Be quiet, Thora,” he says, spinning around and walking straight towards me with a lengthy stride. His eyes narrow like shut the fuck up.
That look has permanently ripped out my vocal cords.
He steps onto the blue mats, only a couple feet from me. And then his voice lowers. “You’re up first.”
“What?” I gape in confusion.
He puts his fingers underneath my chin, physically pushing my jaw closed. My plump bottom lip meets my top. “You’re up first in the audition.”
A short, round man with glasses and peppered hair lingers off to the side, arms crossed, and he interjects with a flurry of Russian words.
Nikolai replies back easily, still staring down at me. Then he breaks into English. “Do you want to audition, Thora?”
I nod.
“Then bark like a dog.”
What. The hell? I feel my eyes darken. “Is this a joke?” He’s planning to humiliate me, for payback or something?
He wears a new expression, one full of severity. No curved lips. No theatrics. His tough exterior intensifies by ten-thousand degrees.
I can’t shrivel. I’m solidified to stone by his change in demeanor.
“I take my job seriously,” he says with force behind each word. “You want to be a performer? Then bark like a dog.”
I hesitate, my gaze flickering to the table of directors. Some of them share furtive whispers, but for the most part, they watch us, poker-faced. They won’t intervene then. He’s taken over my audition and turned it into a crazy one.
I step forward once, closer to him, and say under my breath, “This isn’t a game to me.” This whole audition is so much more important than a bet.
His hand flies to my mouth, silencing me. His large palm practically fits across my entire face. “How badly do you want this?”
Badly.
What am I willing to do then? Barking like a dog isn’t that horrible, in comparison to other things he could’ve said. Okay. Okay, Thora. When his hand falls, he waits for me to do something more. We’re only a foot apart now, and I look up at him, silently hoping he’ll give me a reprieve, an out at the last minute.
He doesn’t.
I clear my throat. “Woof woof,” I say, sounding as awkward as I feel.
Nikolai stares without a single ounce of humor. No one laughs. He just says, “A dog that has rabies.”
I bite my tongue, hopefully suppressing a scowl. Then I think for a second. “Grrr…arh arrhhhh…” I find myself actually crinkling my nose too. I wonder if this is being videotaped. In the back of my head, I hear Shay laughing hysterically at me.
“Now,” he says, not missing a beat, “crawl on the mat and pretend you’re a cat in heat.”
Kneejerk reaction, I shake my head.
“No?” he questions with a deadly stare. “You’re going to quit.” It’s a statement. An assumption. I don’t want him to be right.
I swallow a lump. “I meant yes.”
“Get on your knees then,” he commands.
The older man observing the audition suddenly points at me and speaks in rapid, hasty Russian. It flies in one ear and out the other.
Nikolai replies back gruffly, gesticulating with his hands as he talks.
The older man waves him off, his thick brows pulled together in a giant one. My stomach twists as I stare between them. The way the older man jabs his stubby finger in my direction—it makes me think he’s not pleased by me. That he hasn’t been on my side since the start.
To rectify this, I drop quickly to all fours, and their argument ceases like I chopped through it with my movement. I tilt my chin up. A cat in heat. I channel the most lustful look I can muster, my mouth partially open as a heady breath escapes. And I slowly crawl on my hands and knees, slinking around his shins.
I circle languidly, licking the side of my palm. And then I rub my hip against his calf, all the while a swelter boils in my body. But I do it again. And again, my arm brushing up against his skin.
His quads tighten in response. I tense just as much, and I catch a peek of his features, which haven’t changed since the beginning.
“Purr,” he tells me.
I freeze at the new command. Purr? How does one even purr? I’m going to try to attempt it. I have to. As soon as I open my mouth, the sound that leaves is nothing short of a moan, one that happens in private—not during an audition. A job interview. That’s what this is. With directors in sight.
The other gymnasts are most likely crossing me off their lists. One competitor down.
Nikolai appraises me but makes no statement whether I’m succeeding or failing at being a horny cat. “Stop,” he says.
A pit wedges in my ribcage, and I slowly stand to my feet, hot all over. I brush my hair into a tight ponytail. I can feel him scrutinizing my actions, and what’s worse—he won’t fill the empty air with talk. Not until I snap the band and plant my hands on my hips.
He has to stare down at me as he speaks. “I’m a marble statue,” he declares. “You’re obsessed with it. You dream about it, erotic fantasies that make you come at night. You see this statue, what do you do?”
Holy.
Shit.
He said all of that without balking.
I open my mouth, about to play into this pretend, weird scenario. The girl would probably grind against the statue. Right?
He cuts me off, “Show me.”
I hesitate for one second.
And then the other man yells again in Russian, spitting as gruff words pour from his mouth. Nikolai shakes his head at him, and he shouts back, making another hostile hand gesture that I read as: wait a minute.
I inhale, about to go into girl-obsessed-with-statute mode, but the moment I near Nikolai, the Russian man charges onto the mat and physically separates us. He wedges his short, stalky body between me and him, and he spews Russian words straight to my face. Like I understand.
I don’t.
Not one word.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” I tell him softly, my stomach practically convulsing with nausea. I have no idea what’s going on. Maybe he’s upset with Nikolai for putting me through a strange audition. By the snarl on his wrinkled face, he clearly hates me.
And if my hunch is correct, he’s the choreographer for the aerial silk act.