Click, click, click, click went the metronome. Counting out the time that was in my head.
I was having the kids do the images that were coming to me in fits and starts.
I'd picked her to be one of the figures that float around the light, but she'd have none of that.
"I wanted to be the lead," bellowed the crying girl. "If I can't be her, I want to go home."
She's going to be a Prima someday, I thought to myself. I watched her pouting in the corner, wiping the snot off her face with her forearm. She's got the tantrum down pat.
I remember the Prima that helped me blow out my knee. She was way past her prime, but she still had drawing power in the U.S. . That was why the company hired her in the first place. They were in need of a quick influx of cash and she'd just eaten her way out her job in Paris.
The ticket sales on that tour doubled what the troupe would normally have received.
"If not for me," she would say, chicken leg in hand. "You'd all be looking for work. That is why the Kitrina does not have to go on this ridiculous diet."
She always talked about herself in the third person. "The Kitrina wants this, the Kitrina wants that."
I became one of her many wants.
I think I was third on her list, right after the Cornish game hen drumsticks and the imported chocolates.
But I was happy when she told our artistic director that she would only dance with me as her stage lover.
"If this one..." she said, pointing at me. Her fingers all covered with chocolate. "...is not my lover for 'Don Juan,' the Kitrina will take her talents elsewhere."
Needless to say, I got the part.
But to help the great Kitrina prepare for our epic on-stage romance, I'd have to screw her doggy style before warm ups.
I did what I did to keep the part. It was my first lead. So I made love to her every night for the first two months of our tour. Until...
I was late to her dressing room since I was doing some press interviews. She was not pleased.
That night she jumped early and caught me off balance. My knee exploded.
She stood over me as I screamed in pain and mumbled, "You are...no longer Don Juan."
