The Dancer and the Dom by J.A. Bailey Read Free Book Online Page B

had. If everything broke, well, she could study to be a bookkeeper. No
ankles needed for that, after all. No need for knees that bend without creaking
or for pretty feet. Right now, she just needed to dance and let all the emotion
drain through her.
    Four
hours later, practice was over.
    The
piano came to an end, limbs were stretched and water bottles were emptied into
mouths and over faces. Emmeline laid her foot onto the bar and leaned into the
stretch, felt her breasts press into her thigh. She hated that she was the only
dancer who needed a sports bra. Sarah, one of Emmeline's oldest dancing
friends, had always laughed that if she had a rack like Emmeline's, she would
be like a tomcat, out on the town every night to get laid. Sarah didn't have to
leap about with them on her chest, Emmeline noted wryly.
    She
felt the pull of the stretch and the relief that coursed through her thighs but
still there was the residual tension in her limbs like tangled elastic bands
twisted into her muscles. That and the pulsating knot of nerves in her stomach.
Nausea curled around her abdomen as the memory of her call back returned.
Emmeline’s pulse hammered as she watched the other dancers file out of the
room, glancing back at her with barely concealed curiosity. All too suddenly,
the studio was empty. Even Madame Dusolier had gone. The door clattered shut
and Emmeline was alone with Bartoli.
    He
stood, disinterested, polishing his glasses with precise, rhythmic swipes
before putting them back on, pushing them up his nose and looking over the
balcony at her.
    Matthieu
Bartoli. Matthieu Bartoli is looking down at me.
    He
looked at her much as a professor might observe a particularly interesting
butterfly pinned to a display cabinet. She took a step from one foot to the
other. Then to the other. He still did not speak, holding his chin between
finger and thumb and began walking the length of the balcony, appraising her.
Moments passed. Already very nervous, her knees started to tremble and she
wondered whether this silent treatment was some sort of test.
    “M-Monsieur
Bartoli, it is a real — ”
    “Speak
when spoken to.”
    Curt
and clipped and no possibility of misinterpretation. She shut up and looked at
the floor, aware of his continuing pacing in her peripheral vision.
    “Your
performance today. You have some natural ability. You are also — ”
he rolled each syllable in his mouth like a boiled sweet “ — undisciplined.”
    Her
eyes, still looking towards the floor, flashed wide. That was surely a
provocation and she should absolutely not allow herself to respond. She
couldn’t help but bristle though. How on earth could eight hours a day, five
days a week, fifty weeks a year be considered undisciplined?
    “You
imagine that ballet is any less a source of expression than speech. You danced
this morning with an attitude that was painful to watch. You ended today with
much more promise. A professional would not have found herself in such a
position, offering such inconsistencies to the audience.”
    Emmeline
continued to look at the floor, face heated with shame. She knew she had been
distracted but she did not think it could have been that noticeable. He
continued to pace. She bit her lip as her eyes welled up.
    “Do
you imagine that if you don’t apply yourself, if you just turn up and
approximate the moves, that somehow your dancing ability will magically be of
the standards required in this company?”.
    “No,
sir,” she whispered, voice shaky.
    He
stopped pacing and turned on his heels, with all the grace and elegance of the
retired prima dancer, a look of smug triumph on his face. “We are going to need
to apply some training methodology to you. Some additional training that I am
not so certain that would be suitable for the other dancers. And yet. And yet I
have a feeling, an instinct, that you have the necessary potential. You have a
natural grace and a reverence, a submission to the music. These can