Act Twenty-Six
Luka Kotova
29 Days to Infini’s Premiere
“Stop! Stop!” our choreographer yells.
Inside the performance gym, I deaden my momentum on the trampoline, Bay on my shoulders. I clutch her legs, and she catches her last ball on its descent.
She can now successfully perform an eight-ball, seven-up pirouette while sitting on my shoulders, so I have no clue why he shut off the music at this spot.
My brother and six cousins come to a full stop on the net, just as perplexed.
Baylee leans her head down to me, and I look up. “Did I screw up?” she asks, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, four balls gripped methodically in her palm. “I didn’t, right?”
“No,” I assure her. “It felt good.”
She nods but starts smiling as my own lips rise. I’d kiss her if I could, and I really don’t want to set her down yet. I run my hands discreetly up her legs, and she unconsciously tightens her thighs around my neck.
I shut my eyes in a tight blink, just for a split-second. My muscles flex, cock aching to harden.
The past two days we’ve been meeting in the Masquerade’s twelfth floor maid’s closet. (I stole the keys.) We make out but we also talk a lot. I caught her up on my family issues, and she caught me up on her brother. Who’s stressed about his own act.
Geoffrey just trashed the new aerial straps choreography that Zhen and Brenden learned. Baylee said that Geoffrey called it “lackluster” and now they have to start from scratch again. With less than thirty days until the premiere.
There is a chance that aerial straps could be pulled off the program completely.
Baylee’s lips lower, and I see that she’s worried our act will have a similar fate as her brother’s.
“All nine of you,” Geoffrey calls, “come down here.”
Gently, I hoist Baylee off my shoulders, setting her feet on the net, and I hold her hips while we wait for my cousins to descend the poles to the ground. She almost leans back into my chest, but she catches herself and straightens up.
I stand beside Bay, waiting for a free pole. Our hands skim, pass each other by, brush again—and I don’t even realize I’m holding her hand until I feel her quickened pulse against mine.
We separate almost instantly. “Do you need help?” I ask as she clasps the pole.
“No, I’m okay.” She drops down, better at this than when we first started.
When we’re all on the ground, Geoffrey tells us to form a horizontal line. This can’t be good.
We all stand stiffly, my hands clasped in front of me, and I try not to think about the last time we were in a horizontal line.
How he almost forced Baylee to start training with machetes.
I can’t think about it. I’ve never been in a blackout rage, but that might push me somewhere I shouldn’t be.
Geoffrey paces the length of the line, clipboard beneath his arm. “There is a reason you’re all called an artist and not just an athlete. Your job is more than just juggling tricks and technical gymnastics. You. Must. Emote.” He grips the air like he’s trying to wrench our hearts out of our ribcages.
My family has never struggled when it comes to acting.
Which is probably why Dimitri back-talks. “Your point?”
Geoffrey walks backwards and stops in front of my older cousin. Right beside me. “You think you’ve given enough to this performance?”
“When the curtains are drawn, we give our all,” Dimitri professes. “You don’t have to concern yourself with this.”
“I don’t want what you’ve always done, and I don’t care if it was good enough last season or for another show. I want unexplored, untapped passion.” Geoffrey eyes each one of us. “You’ve all done acting warm-ups with the troupe.”
It’s not a question. On Wednesday mornings, all the AE artists form a circle in the performance gym, and we do silly and fun exercises. Like pretending to be a teapot or tossing an imaginary ball to one another. Sometimes we freestyle dance in the center.
Those mornings bond us together and create an uninhibited, non-judgmental atmosphere. It’s why I love my job.
We’re all family at the end of day.
Even those of us with different last names.
Pacing again, Geoffrey tells us, “Now you’re going to do my acting exercise. And I’m going to pull something new out of you.”
Half of my cousins roll their eyes. Baylee shifts her weight. I lean back on my heels, nonchalant.
I catch Baylee’s gaze and smile, which upturns her lips for the briefest second.
“When I stand in front of you,” Geoffrey says, “you must share an excruciating moment in your life—and don’t say the words like you’re reading from someone else’s diary. Claim it. Use it. Feel it.”
Abram mutters, “No exceptions.”
I laugh.
Geoffrey zeroes in on me. (Yeah, I’m still smiling—but not dryly or in defiance.) The choreographer inches towards me, and Baylee almost clasps my hand. I hook one finger with hers.
And then Sergei steps forward, obstructing the choreographer’s path.
“You want to go first?” Geoffrey asks.
“Yes.”
I stare fixatedly, never thinking Sergei would do that for me.
Geoffrey faces my oldest brother. “Go.”
Sergei, with all his stoicism, takes one breath, and pain grips his eyes in ways he’s never displayed before. “I hurt my brothers and sister.”
“How?” Geoffrey prods.
“I left them when they needed me,” Sergei says. “And I didn’t even hesitate.”
I stare off. I don’t want to care right now.
I don’t want to care.
But the impact behind his words rip through me, he didn’t even hesitate. He didn’t even think about us in his decision. He couldn’t have.
I hurt more for Timo. That would’ve gutted him, and I’m never repeating it. (No fucking way.)
Baylee squeezes my hand, but she has to let go as Geoffrey glances at us.
He saunters down the line. Attention hot on me like a million spotlights. Before he reaches my place, Dimitri steps forward.
I expected that one.
“Dimitri,” Geoffrey says. “Go.”
He runs his tongue over his teeth before he lets out, “I was in love with my best friend’s girlfriend. Now ex-girlfriend. Tatyana.”
I didn’t know he actually loved Tatyana. By the shock on his brothers’ faces, neither did Robby or Anton.
“I not only had to watch Tatyana be with him—knowing she’d never love me—but I watched her break her leg and leave permanently for Russia.” He has to pause here, his nose flaring. “So I lost a friend too.”
Geoffrey scrutinizes his features for an extended moment. “You’re holding back.”
“I’m not,” Dimitri growls, his chest puffed out in offense.
“That’s better.” Geoffrey nods once and then eyes me. Again.
Baylee is about to step forward to the left of me, but I clench her tank and pull her back. Geoffrey will reach me no matter what. She doesn’t need to go before me.
Geoffrey faces me. “Luka.”
(What’s up, Geoffrey? Relax, dude.) I think of the sex doll in his office, and I try hard not to smile.
“Go.”
I unbury a raw place inside of me—just through my eyes. “When I was young, my girlfriend died.” I let out a heart-breaking breath, and I think I would’ve gotten away with it if Abram and Robby didn’t lean forward with shit-eating grins.
Geoffrey eyes them, brows furrowed. “You’re lying?”
“I spoke figuratively.”
My younger cousins laugh.
I can’t help it—I smile.
Geoffrey steps forward, only a foot from my face. I remain calm and cup my hands in front of me again. He searches my eyes feverishly for truth, I’m guessing.
I am full of truths and heartache and pain.
Half belongs to people I care about. Me hurting for them. And the half that belongs to me, I’m not allowed to express.
If he’s aware of my past with Baylee, then he already knows this, but he still seems oblivious. Even if we caught him chatting with Vince one time.
“Are you ever angry?” he asks me.
“What?”
“Do you ever get angry?” he wonders. “I’ve seen these ones”—he gestures to my cousins—“argue and become frustrated, but you…you just let everything roll off your shoulders.”
Is he serious? “Can I ask why you’re saying this like it’s a character flaw?”
“I want feeling. What makes you tick?”
(Motherfucking Corporate.) I shrug. “I don’t know.” He’s literally staring me dead in the eyes like we’re in a Western and he’s about to draw a gun from his holster and shoot me.
“I’m glaring at you, and you’re relaxed.”
“You don’t scare me.”
“I don’t?”
“No,” I say just as casually. I seriously believe Geoffrey wants to provoke me into a fight right now.
Dimitri, Sergei, Matvei, and Erik—the oldest four—turn towards me in anticipation of something that I don’t even want to happen. I’m not even tensed up. If I touch our choreographer, I could be fired on spot.
I see Baylee out of the corner of my eye. She’s trying to angle her body to catch his attention and draw his interest off of me.
I angle my back to her. Hiding her from his sight.
Geoffrey follows my shift. Still right up in my face. (His goatee is ugly, in case you were wondering.) “When’s the last time you sobbed?” he asks.
“I don’t remember,” I say the truth.
“When’s the last time you jerked off?”
“You can’t ask him that,” Baylee says passionately, pretty much pissed off for me.
Geoffrey barely acknowledges her. “I just did. Does it make you upset?” he asks me.
“Yesterday,” I answer his previous question. “And no.”
“What were you thinking about?”
I almost laugh. It’s absurd how much I can’t actually say because of Corporate, which he works for. Irony. I think that term fits here. The answer, of course, is Baylee Wright. I imagined wrapping my arms around her waist and chest from behind. Then I bent her over a bed and pushed into her pussy.
She came instantly.
“Don’t laugh,” Geoffrey says. “Don’t smile. I want severity.”
Severity. “Fine,” I say, suppressing my humor. “But asking me what I jerk off to isn’t exactly serious.”
“You have a sister? Don’t you?” (Welcome to the worst segue in the history of segues.)
I’m already feeling overprotective of Katya. I took her to the ER with Nik, and the doctor said if she came down any harder on the beam, she would’ve fractured three ribs. Luckily they were just severely bruised.
Geoffrey snaps, “It’s not a hard question. Do you have a sister?”
I immediately glance at Dimitri—who’s scrutinizing the choreographer with narrowed eyes.
“Don’t look at him. Look at me.”
I obey.
Geoffrey smiles. “There’s a glare.”
If he wants me to glower like I’m seconds from ripping out his large intestines, I can do that, easily. Anger just leads nowhere good. I’ve been the angst-ridden fifteen-year-old banging at Corporate’s brick walls until my fists bloodied. I don’t do that anymore.
“Tell an excruciating moment,” he says, “that involves your sister.”
“No,” I say like someone would say yes. No harshness.
“No?”
“No,” I say just as simply.
His nose is one centimeter from touching mine. (I’m not exaggerating.) “Then I’ll list out various scenarios involving your sister that will bring something out of you.”
I blink a few times, and he studies the way I literally process two aggressively painful situations. I lick my lips and breathe, “Stop.” It slipped.
“I didn’t catch that.”
My nose flares, and I blink rapidly before I rake my fingers through my hair. I’m in control. (Am I in control?)
“Lay off of him,” Baylee interjects, trying to side-step around me, but I block her again. “Luka.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“He’s not?” Geoffrey tilts his head at me, almost challengingly.
“My sister is a minor,” I suddenly inform him.
Geoffrey actually flinches.
(Yeah, fuck off.)
I am compacting too much shit I’m not supposed to say and feel into drawers and (parentheticals) that my heart pounds at an abnormal speed.
“If you’re not willing to participate, then you’re officially out of this act,” he threatens.
“I am participating,” I say. (You just don’t like my responses.)
“A story about your sister—”
“I was ten,” I retort, stepping towards him, hands cupped behind my back. Can’t touch him. He’s forced to back up so our noses don’t hit. “In Minnesota for the month. I stole a pair of sunglasses and gave them to my sister. Thought it’d be nice. She wanted a pair. Store clerk saw, called the cops—couldn’t get ahold of Mom and Dad.” I grimace out my feelings. “No matter how many times I told the cops that I stole the sunglasses, they didn’t believe me. They just kept scolding my sister. Who was little and sobbing on the ground.”
“More,” he says.
“What more?” My voice nearly shakes in ire. I think of Baylee and me. How we always search for more—it’s not a feeling you can capture. It’s intangible. Unquantifiable.
I’m not giving him what I can’t even give myself.
“Why do you steal?” he asks.
Not, why did you steal. Why do you steal. As though he knows it’s ongoing. It’s never left. A demon in my drawer.
Rumors. People talk about me. I know.
I’m tense. On edge. But I’m quiet. So quiet that Geoffrey does something—he swiftly steps at me, our noses hitting and he fists my shirt.
(I’m not kidding.)
(I’m still not exaggerating.)
I shove him with two forceful palms to his chest, and as he stumbles back, almost tripping on his ass, all four of my cousins swarm me. Yanking me back.
“Stop,” I tell them, my right arm raised. “I’m cool, dude.” Erik is wrestling with my fucking arm for no reason, and Dimitri grips my shirt so tight, the collar digs into my neck.
Here’s the thing: when people think you’re a doormat, they try extra hard to walk all over you. Then they get surprised when you fight back.
Bay knows what it feels like, too. We’re the ones minding our own business in a corner quietly, and then someone comes over and tries to poke at us.
This is what happens.
Every time.
I rip out of my cousins’ protective hold. They’re saving me from being fired, just in case I go at him again.
“Take a break in the locker room,” Sergei suggests, his tone unreadable.
I nod, and on my way out of the gym’s backroom, I hear Geoffrey speak to my brother. “If he’s not willing to be vulnerable and honest in front of nine people, how can I expect him to be in front of three-thousand, twice a night?”
“Was that not vulnerable enough for you?”
“No. He’s still holding back.”