run run grand jeté across the stage. But he's there, ready for me. Then the other direction. Run run run grand jeté across the stage. But he's there. He captures me, and we dance together. Each lift is precise. Each turn sharp and perfect.
He never wavers in his support, and I do everything in my power not to think about who he is because I'm on a stage, and there’s no room for being anything other than the firebird in this moment.
The pas de deux ends, and with it, the scene. I'm locked in his embrace. We're staring at each other, breathing hard. It isn't customary for an audience to give a standing ovation during the middle of a performance. But the people who have become spellbound by me and my partner do not care. They've lost all sense of propriety and etiquette. They've been swept away by this primal act played out before their greedy eyes in the glare of the spotlight.
Everything they know about the appropriate time to clap, the appropriate time to stand... It all fades away. The orchestra has to actually stop, and there’s silence except for this thundering applause. It goes on forever.
No one seems to care that my dance partner was just switched out mid-performance. No one has missed a single stride. Not me, not my new partner, and not the audience.
He leads me off the stage, and before I can question him or say anything, I'm engulfed by the other dancers in the wings as he slips away. Congratulations and excited exclamations about how magical that was pour over me in a wave. They gush about how they've never seen anything like it.
I look around, but I can't find him now. He's disappeared somewhere into the shadows like the phantom of the fucking opera. What about our next scene? Will it be Frederick back on stage again? How will the audience react to that?
“Oh. My. God!” Henry says. He's not in this next scene, so he pulls me back away from the wings out of the way of another string of dancers who are about to go on. “Oh my God,” he says again. “Do you know who that was? Do you know who you just danced with? Oh my God.”
I nod, my body shaking from all the adrenaline. Yes. I know who I just danced with. Sebastian Trent. He was possibly the top male dancer in the entire ballet world—and I mean internationally—until a motorcycle accident ended his career a couple of years ago. No one saw him after that. He just disappeared.
And I understand why. While he dances as beautifully as he ever did, he has a severe scar on his face that makes him look intense and frightening. I couldn't help the flinch.
“Are you sleeping with him?” Henry asks.
“W-what?” I have to fight not to shriek that. There is a live performance going on just yards away after all. And I have to go back on soon. Someone hands me my next costume, and I start stripping down while Henry helps me change and continues to talk.
“I mean... I'm sorry, but that looked like fucking on stage. It was seriously intense. That kind of chemistry doesn't just happen. Are you seeing him? Have you danced with him before?”
“I...” I don't even know what to say to this. So I don't say anything. I don't have time anyway. Instead, I ask, “Where's Frederick? We have to go back on in two minutes.”
“He fell and hurt his ankle. He's on the way to the hospital.”
“What about the understudy? Who the fuck am I dancing with?” I hiss.
I haven't practiced this recently with the understudy. I don't know how to do the rest of this performance with the understudy. I move to the wings, and nobody has miraculously appeared. Moments before we're supposed to go back on, someone is behind me, his hand in mine.
It's Sebastian. I let out a sigh.
He doesn't say anything to me; he just leads me out on stage, and we dance. We dance the rest of the ballet together. Maybe the director and choreographer thought it would be a bad idea to have three different Prince Ivans for one opening performance. Besides, the audience might have launched a full-scale mutiny if Sebastian didn't return to them. So deep is their love for him... and the thrill of his unexpected return to the stage.
If they noticed the scar, they don't care about it. If I thought the standing ovation