Read The Tease (The Darling Killer Trilogy) for Free Online

lights dimmed. He grinned at me and held the curtain open. I squared my shoulders, strutted onstage, and posed, heels of my hands in line with the tops of my glutes, my back to the audience. I drank in the last quiet, expectant moments between the applause and the lights.
    Tom Waits’s drawl poured through the speakers, and the lights rose. The drums thunked punctuation, and I bumped my right hip up.
    “YEAH!” shouted someone in the audience. Good.
    The drums thunked again, twice, as I contracted my right glute and released it while contracting my right inner thigh, which created a sharp lock in my right hip and drop in my left. The song took off, and the audience was cheering, howling, whistling. I rolled my hips as I pivoted so the audience could see me and grinned at them. Then I moved my hand to the zipper on my skirt, and started playing with it, half-unzipping and re-zipping the skirt. I turned to face the back curtains, opening the skirt out so it was flat to the audience, just hiding my butt. I winked over my shoulder, sliding it side to side. They cheered like mad. No one expects you to take the skirt off first. I tossed it aside and strutted towards them, hands on my hips, showing off the lace slip and garter stockings. Next, I slithered my leather jacket down my upper arms, rolling my shoulders at the audience. Looking over your shoulder subconsciously makes people think of a breast’s curve.
    A lot of burlesque is in illusion. Dark eye makeup and fake eyelashes make your eyes look bigger, mimicking the pupil dilation of arousal. Blush mimics the blood in your face. And lipstick mimics – well. There are any number of reasons you want your mouth to look good. Despite the illusion, though, there was something sincere about it. I’m a woman, I have a body, and there’s nothing shameful about this moment of sharing it with you.
    I started to meld with Tom Waits’s gritty voice and strange vignettes. I tossed the jacket and pulled my shirt off slowly while I spun in place. It took me a long time to learn how to spin in heels, and I could keep it going for forty seconds without drifting, so I did.
    I turned so I was in profile, standing with my ankles about two feet apart. Knees straight, I slid my hands down to my ankles. Then I abruptly bent my knees to a ninety degree angle, rested my elbows on my thighs, and bounced my hips to the drums. I always thought that move looked really down and dirty from the side, and the audience agreed, cheering until they almost drowned out the sparse vocals.
    It was happening. I was immersed in the music, the audience was engaged, and the chatter, which my dad would call “illusion of self,” started to subside. The quiet burgeoned in my mind, a tiny warm glow gathering its energy.
    I grinned out at the audience, and I noticed someone in the fourth row wasn’t moving or clapping. He was leaning forward, chin in hand, studying me intently.
    Max.
    The glow fizzled.
Oh God a client and he’s seeing me onstage and this is Oh GOD—
    Sometimes things went wrong on stage. Sometimes a strap would snap, a pasty would come off, a heel would catch in an uneven stage. That’s part of why I practiced for an hour a day. My fingertips went cold and numb, and I thought my heart would explode, but I kept going. Wicked grin still on my face, butt still bouncing to the music, I let muscle memory carry me through the song.
    I avoided looking at Max as I hooked my thumbs through the top of the slip. I moved my hips in a tiny circle while rotating in a full circle. I slid the slip down my legs and stepped out of it, revealing the rhinestone-studded black G-string underneath. I slipped my bra strap down my shoulder, then put my fingertips to my ear as if listening, batting my eyelashes. The cheers swelled even louder.
    I turned my back to them, unhooked the bra, then shimmied my hips while twirling the bra around over my head. I could barely hear the song end, but I released the bra and turned