Page 24 of Slow Burn

‘ Ciao , Mama,’ I said, putting my feet up on the dressing table and letting myself relax.

I had a little while until I had to be on stage, and speaking to my mother might be good for me.

At least it would stop me worrying about not having any friends who wanted to come and watch me perform in the biggest show of my career.

‘Is now a good time?’ asked Mama, sounding more subdued than usual. Something was wrong.

‘What’s happened?’ I demanded to know, sliding my feet back onto the floor, sitting up straight. ‘Is it Papa?’

There were a couple of beats of silence. It was Papa, then, and whatever it was my mother was about to tell me was not going to be good.

‘He had a fall,’ she said. ‘Out in the vineyard.’

I swallowed hard. ‘ Cazzo. Is he okay?’

‘He’s been checked over by a doctor. Apparently, he needs to ease up – they say he’s been working too hard.’

‘Right,’ I said. I knew where this was leading.

‘Can you come home, Gabriele? Just for a night or two? A day, even, to give him a little time to recover?’

I was about to go out on stage – there was no way I could make decisions like this right now.

‘Mama, I’m about to perform. Can this wait until later?’

My mother went quiet for a second or two. ‘We wouldn’t ask you to come if it wasn’t necessary. We know how important this show is to you, but we need you here, Gabriele.’

‘What did the doctor say, exactly?’ I asked. ‘Is there something else, something you are not telling me?’

My mother sighed. ‘It is not for me to say.’

‘You called me! The least you can do is give me all the facts. If it is an emergency and I need to come home, I will have to put measures in place. Get the understudy to take over. Is that what you want, Mama? Is that what you need me to do?’

I thought I probably sounded more frustrated than I meant to.

And it was selfish of me to be thinking about myself at a time like this.

But I could not help hoping that there would be some other way.

If Papa was going to get better, then surely he could find temporary help for the farm?

Did I really need to give up on this role, this show? My show.

‘Gabriele, we have let you follow your own path all of these years. Papa never wanted you to dance, you know that. He could have forced you to work on the farm years ago.’

‘Forced me?’ I said, confused. ‘And how would he have done that, exactly?’

‘Do not speak aggressively to me,’ said my mother. ‘I won’t have it.’

‘This is my life, Mama. My choices. Why are you holding my dancing career over me? I didn’t realize I had to choose between my job and my family – I thought it was possible to have both.’

‘It was, for as long as we could. But now we need you. It’s what any son would do.’

‘You sound just like Papa!’ I said, raising my voice again and putting my head in my hands.

Why could they not understand that their demands had been unreasonable?

Living in rural Tuscany, running a farm, I would never have been happy.

And I disputed the idea that it was what all sons would do – most of the dancers I had met over the years thought only of themselves and their careers, and I had always been envious of their freedom.

My parents were wonderful in lots of ways.

I just did not agree with them on this one – admittedly very big – thing.

‘It’s time, Gabriele. Time to put your family first. I’m sorry, I know the timing is bad, but your father is getting sick – he wouldn’t want me to say this, but that is how it is.

And he needs you. We both do. And we would like you to come home to run the farm with us as soon as Slow Burn has completed its run. ’

I let this sink in. The realization that this was it, the moment I had been dreading and hoping would never come, but knowing deep down that it would. It was looking increasingly likely that this was going to be my last tour.

The entire cast were in costume, made up and waiting in the wings.

Mama’s phone call had thrown me, but I had put it to the back of my mind for the show.

Our only brief tonight was to do what we did best: entertain people; transport them to another place for an hour and a half and ease their worries away.

If we were engaging enough, they would be thinking only about what was on stage and not about the difficult things that were going on in their own lives.

I wanted them to be completely captivated, and I had every confidence that we – particularly Lira and I – could do that for them.

The stage manager gave the five-minute call.

I stole a glance at the auditorium through a gap in the curtains.

Carlos had been right, it was packed, and there was an air of excitement, the anticipation of being one of the first to see a show that would soon be talked about in newspapers and online, and if it proved to be a sell-out, they would be pleased that they had taken a risk on booking tickets.

If we played it right, they would be the first to tell everyone at work about us, to buy tickets for their in-laws, to gush about it to their friends.

Word of mouth could not be ignored – if we wanted the show to be a success, we needed people all over the country to be talking about us.

I felt a shift in energy as the house lights went down. I knew I said I would not, but I snuck a quick glance at Lira, and she must have had the same idea, because her big brown eyes, shining even in the semi-darkness, met mine.

She nodded.

I nodded back.

We did not need words. We knew what we had to do. And there was no going back now.

Out on stage, I let the audience drive me, my fears waning as I glided across the floor, spinning Lira, lifting her, finding the spotlight, performing moves that I knew were daring and thrilling to watch.

The audience were enraptured, and broke out into applause and cheers after each and every number.

We were doing it. They loved it; it was working.

I pushed myself even harder, made every step even more perfect, because I wanted that for them, I wanted them to come away feeling the emotion that I was feeling with Lira in my arms.

It was only as I pulled her out of our final position at the end of our Argentine tango that I let myself look at her as anything other than a dance partner.

It was not true to say that she could have been anyone before that – it had almost entirely been about the particular spark that we generated together.

But as we stood at the front of the stage to take our first bow, and the audience were on their feet, I took her hand and linked my fingers through hers.

When I glanced across at her, she was beaming, enjoying the moment, just as I was.

And I felt proud of her for deciding to say yes to performing again; for even showing up to that audition after years away from competing.

And if this was my last tour, I was happy that my very last professional dance on stage would be with her.

Carlos had instructed us to go straight to the bar after the show, where he would likely want to introduce us to some of the influential guests he had invited this evening: producers, tour managers, agents and journalists.

A glass of champagne was pressed into my hands and I lost sight of Lira as Carlos took me by the arm, congratulating me in my ear.

‘That was magnificent, Gabriele. We will have the press eating out of our hands.’

As I met person after person, all of them on a high and exceptionally complimentary about the show, I found myself dropping Lira’s name into the conversation. It felt only right that her performance should be equally as lauded as mine.

Lira James is a protégé of Carlos Torres.

Lira James is a former world champion who has been out of the industry for a little while and now she has come back with a bang.

Lira James is the most phenomenal dancer I’ve ever worked with.

I kept catching Lira’s eye as she worked the room, hanging mainly with Luca, but occasionally Carlos would pull her across to talk to a producer or a particularly influential member of the press.

I wondered what she was saying about me.

Was she as complimentary about my dancing as I had been about hers?

I guessed I would find out when the reviews came out.

When we finally had a moment alone together, I wanted to keep hold of it.

‘Come to my dressing room,’ I said to her on a whim.

She nodded, following me to my room, stepping inside after me.

When I turned, it was like she had been frozen to the spot; as though she was unsure about being here in this room with me.

I was not sure, either, given our track record for being alone together, but I decided for her, reaching past her to press the door shut.

She looked at me, her face shiny from the exertion of the last couple of hours, her eyes bright and animated, as though maybe she had never had a night as wonderful as this.

Physically, we were close. Closer than we had been for a while, if you did not include the dancing; if you did not include that night at her studio.

She pressed her back against the door, although her eyes never left mine.

Before I could stop myself or think better of it, my mouth was on hers.

She responded quickly, deeply. It felt… like nothing I had ever experienced.

Her lips were so fucking pillowy and satin soft, like I could just fall into them and never come back out.

A moan coursed through my body; I could not hold it in.

She must know now how much I wanted her.

‘Lira,’ I said, enjoying the way her name bounced around my mouth, kissing her neck, running my tongue all the way up to her earlobe. She arched her back away from the door. She wanted me too.

Good. A relief.

I found her mouth again because it was just too delicious not to.

She parted her lips and I slid my tongue inside.

Jesus, it felt so good. Everything about me felt more alive than it ever had; every cell inside of me was begging for more.

Whatever it was she was doing to me, I needed her to keep doing it.

Suddenly she put her hands on my chest, pushing me lightly away.

‘We shouldn’t—’

I hesitated. Nodded. ‘I know,’ I said.

There were a few painful moments of longing before I plunged my mouth onto hers again. It was no good; I could not keep away. I was frantic with longing. Threading my fingers through hers, I pinned them above her head as she ground against me.

Of course we should not do this. It was a terrible idea, especially after the conversation I had just had with my mother.

Much like our first meeting, there would be a definite ending to whatever this was.

I would be in Italy after the tour had ended, most likely, and Lira would be beginning a new chapter of her life elsewhere.

And yet, still I wanted her.

I let her arms drop, sliding my hands into her hair, gasping with pleasure as my fingers became tangled in her soft curls.

For the show, she had worn her hair slicked off her face and held in place with a shiny bun, but now strands of it were breaking loose and I buried my face in it, breathing in the scent of her.

I moaned again, completely involuntarily, and this time I did not care how loud I was, or who might hear us.

She cried out, too, seemingly not caring either.

I pulled her towards me. Effortlessly, she wrapped her legs around my waist. I carried her across to the dressing table, gently placing her down on the edge of it. Removing one hand from her body, I swept all my things off the table, sending everything clattering onto the floor.

She was still wearing her final costume, a red satin dress that clung to every curve.

I eased the thin pieces of fabric off her shoulders.

She found the zip herself, reaching behind her back, letting the dress fall forward to reveal a black lacy bra that barely contained the full, round breasts I had thought about repeatedly over the years.

I unclipped her bra, wanting it out of the way, throwing it to one side, and then I ran my thumb over one nipple and then the other.

She threw her head back, laughing with delight. How lucky I was to have found her again when I had thought that one night was all I would ever have.

I was so caught up in how beautiful Lira looked half-naked, the baby-soft skin of her back pressed flat against my mirror, that it took me a moment or two to register the knock on my door. And Carlos’s voice outside in the corridor.

‘Gabriele? Are you in there? There is somebody you must meet!’

Lira looked at me with fear in her eyes – she knew as well as I did that Carlos would not be happy to find us together.

With no words needed, we instantly began scrabbling to get dressed, to right ourselves, to put on the clothes that had been peeled off and flung aside.

She put the back of her hand against her cheeks, hoping, presumably, to calm the flushed skin there.

I ran my thumb under her chin, desperately wanting to kiss her again but knowing I could not.

‘Rain check?’ I whispered.

She nodded, an unreadable smile forming on her full lips as I sighed, straightened myself up and headed for the door.