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The door behind me opened, the sound made me gasp and my heart jump into my throat. I could feel my face grow hot with embarrassment. Luckily it was only Leslie, but the damage was done. As I stared at Leslie—who was laughing at me—the look on my face had to have been priceless. It was a cross between panic and complete mortification.

“Oh…holy-fucking-wow,” eloquently escaped Leslie’s lips as she joined me in watching the vampire dance.

“We…we should probably”—I paused and took a deep breath trying to compose myself—“we should probably go.” I somehow managed to finish.

“Oh no, no, no, no, Autumn. You do not get to keep this to yourself.” Leslie snickered out as she gazed at the dancer with lust darkened eyes. Watching him with someone beside me seemed awkward and so very wrong.
Leave.
I glanced between Leslie and the dancer. I turned to leave and as I reached for the door… the music ended.

I couldn’t stop myself from glancing over my shoulder at the danseur. Our eyes locked and I felt myself being sucked into a wave of warmth in the depths of that ocean blue gaze. I shook my head to clear it and he wickedly smirked at me; it was like he knew what I had been fantasizing about moments ago. My fingers nervously traveled from my pearls than downwards to smooth my skirt, and then fluttered back upwards to make certain my hair was still in place.
Leave.
Then, I finally listened to Miss Manners and left.

Once outside of the doors I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and started down the hall. I was terrified. All I could hear in my head were the lectures about vampires that we were given in high school. It had been roughly ten years, but like the images of VD riddled genitalia from sex-ed, the images of bloodless bodies also lingered.

“Autumn!” Leslie yelled down the hall. I stopped and glanced back to the door. Beside her stood the danseur, still nude from the waist up with a towel around his neck. “Get back here!”

I was frozen. I couldn’t bring myself to actually walk back to stand with them. I could feel his eyes on me, and that sent my heart back into my throat again and then elsewhere…lower. I had felt desire before, but this was the strongest I had felt it without being minutes away from sex.
You’re being rude.
Drawing a shaky breath I turned and headed back to them.

“Autumn, Aleksi. Aleksi, Autumn.” Leslie introduced us with a wide smirk.

“A pleasure to meet you.” I somehow managed to say with an even voice—though it was slightly higher than normal.

“The pleasure is all mine, Autumn.” His voice was softer than velvet and smoother than silk. There was also an accent there, it almost sounded British. He held out his hand and without a word I placed mine in his. He brought my hand to those cold, supple lips and lingered after a gentle kiss on my knuckles. That simple brief contact sent a shiver down my spine that was almost visible.

“Are you cold?”

“A-a little.” I stammered out as I pulled my hand back from his, and pulled the stole tighter around me. As soon as the words left my lips he was offering the towel to me. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”

“I insist.” The way he said it made me press my knees together.
Refuse it
. I nodded in consent and he draped the thick towel over my shoulders. It wasn’t even damp, it smelled of nothing but fabric softener. Did vampires even sweat?

“Aleksi is a Principal Dancer for Danse du Nuit—The Vampire company. Their star male Principal pretty much. Every production of theirs I have seen has him in the male lead.” Leslie exposited with a wide sparkling smile as her eyes ate him up, but that Caribbean blue gaze was all for me.

“Oh? That’s…”—
Say something intelligent for fuck’s sake you’re a graduate student
—“impressive.”
Really? That’s all you could come up with?

“I never dance Swan Lake.” He spoke, answering the question I wanted to ask.

“He told me the company was asked to stay for the run of another show. They’re doing Le Diable Amoureux after we finish Cinderella.” I stared blankly at Leslie. I had read the novel, but I had no clue there was a ballet. The thought of a vampire dance company performing it sent shivers down my spine again and my eyes darted to Aleksi once more.

“Are you Satan or Alvaro?” I asked, my voice sure and clear and brimming with interest.

“Satan, but there is no Alvaro. We have changed it slightly to match the music Tristan picked. The seduction is more clearly defined in our interpretation, and Fredric—or as you know him Alvaro—is now Freda.” My mind wandered. I could almost see him sliding over some female dancer as he had the space on the floor. I swallowed again.

“They’re even considering a human for the female lead,” Leslie energetically interjected. “Kendra is going to literally explode when she finds out.”

“Oh, that seems like it will be… interesting.”
You sound like a fucking moron.
“A-and rather controversial.”

“We like to push our limits. After all, art is about pushing one's boundaries. Don’t you agree, Autumn?” As he said my name, I shivered again as that amazing voice licked over my body.

“C-certainly,” I bit my bottom lip.
Stop it, you’re doing it again. That’s very unladylike.
I stopped biting my bottom lip.

“Shit! Autumn, we have to go it’s fucking three in the morning.” Leslie grumbled checking her watch.

“It was nice meeting you, Aleksi.” Leslie grabbed my hand and started pulling me away.

“It was truly my pleasure. I hope to see you again soon, Autumn.” He called down the hall.
Don’t look back at him.
I kept following Leslie with my attention ahead of me. I didn’t look back, but I could feel that heavy gaze like a ton of bricks.

We were in the back of a cab headed to our apartment building before all that had happened finally sunk in. I smoothed my skirt and tilted my knees to the side as I turned to Leslie.

“What just happened?” I asked as I adjusted my stole.

“I don’t know… but I’d like it to happen again. Only with the hot vampire drooling over me instead,” Leslie giggled out.

“I don’t know if I’d say he was drooling over me,” I murmured out shifting uncomfortably in the seat. “And if he was, he was probably just hungry.”

“Oh, I bet he was hungry alright, but what he wanted to sink into you wasn’t in his mouth.” I could feel the blush rise in my cheeks at the salacious accusation. Nervously I went through that appearance checklist again, skirt, hair, nails.

“Well… you know I don’t do…” I trailed off and swallowed.

“Anything,” Leslie teased.

“That’s not true.”

“When was the last time you had sex?” Oh great, the inquisition. Who knew it was Madrid, Spain in the fourteen hundreds and not Florence, Oregon in the early twenty-first century. “Seriously when was it? A year? Two?”

“Why does it matter?” I smoothed my skirt again. “Is it really any of your business?”

“Yes, it is and it does. So… three years? Fuck! Three years! Was it Garrett?”

“Yes, Torquemada. Yes, it was Garrett. And yes, it was three years ago.”

“Franklin and fifth,” the cab driver said, interrupting the third degree I was about to get.

While Leslie paid the cab driver, I slipped out of the door and practically ran into the building. I dashed up the stairs, all the way to the seventh floor and stood panting at my door as I fumbled with my keys.

“You forgot I dance for a living, Autumn!” Leslie yelled as she cleared the landing. The three of us had the only apartments on this floor. She advanced on me swiftly, but I still managed to open the door, slip in and lock it before she could get her foot in.

“I don’t want to talk about Garrett. I’m going to bed, you can torture me more tomorrow when I meet you for dinner.”

“Garrett’s coming back.” I blinked at the door.

“What?”

“Oh, you heard me.”

“Are you serious?”

“As a fucking heart attack.”

“When?”

“End of the month. He’s our Prince Charming.”

“Oh… that’s….” I trailed off. “That’s great.”

“Not for his career. It could have been worse though, at least he didn’t tumble all the way down. He went from London to Paris, to New York and now he’s back where he started. Dmitri would call it a lateral move. He’s hard to work with now.”

“I don’t…” I trailed off and sighed. “I’m going to bed, Leslie. I enjoyed the Ballet.”

“Good night.”

I waited by the door until I heard Leslie’s close.
Don’t cry about him.
I slapped the door and turned away from it. I had cried enough over Garrett. There was however, one good thing about Leslie bringing up Garrett—it distracted me from Aleksi.

The next night I found myself climbing the back steps to the theater. I continued back through the grayscale of the rehearsal studios listening to the faint conflicting melodies drifting through the air. Then I saw something which caused me to stop dead in my tracks. Garrett, all six foot four of him gliding down the hall and beside him the equally tall and blonde Anna. They looked how Cinderella and Prince Charming were supposed to look. He danced around her with a charismatic smile on his lips as he attempted to get her attention. I swallowed hard, remembering how he used to try to get mine.

Those green eyes fell on me and he smirked. The actual acknowledgment of my presence: a wink and a hastily blown kiss.

I was on a mission then as I stormed down the halls, my open red pea coat billowing around me. Leslie and Kendra were coming out of the dressing rooms when I found them.
Don’t yell at them this is a very public place.

“Hello, my two lovely, dearest, closest friends.” I grinned at them.

“I can see by the deranged Donna Reed meets Stepford smile that you saw Garrett,” Kendra quipped.

“He isn’t supposed to be here, but no one is going to tell him to leave. Unfortunately.” Leslie sighed.

“Tell who to leave?” A very familiar voice said behind me. My stomach sunk as I felt hands on my shoulders, his thumbs trailing over the back of my neck. I shivered and shrugged out of the touch.

“Hi, Garrett. How was Europe?” I turned and beamed at him, I actively tried to tone down my smile which by this point bordered on deranged.

“It was very European and yet I found myself missing our little Florence here. And my three best girls, of course.” He turned that charming, dimpled smile on all three of us. I too continued to smile, even as my stomach turned. “I take it the three of you are heading out for dinner. Be careful out there, there are a lot of vampires out tonight, and you three have the most delicious necks in town. I know this intimately.”

“Garrett, go… fuck a mirror or something,” Kendra sighed out stepping around him. Leslie followed and I stared at him for a moment.

“I missed you, Angel Face.” He purred as he took a step closer.
Don’t hit him, you’re in public.

“Autumn!” Leslie yelled.

“It was nice to see you again, Garrett. Good night.” I stepped around him and went to join my friends. I could almost feel the little voice in my head doing a happy dance.

“So who is pissed Garrett didn’t stay in fucking Europe?” Kendra raised her hand followed by Leslie as we made our way down the street. “Autumn?”
Fuck yes.

“I… don’t want to think about it,” I said shaking my head.

“Really?” Leslie cocked her head to the side and made a bit of a face. “He essentially ripped your beating heart out and then served it as tartar to fuel an orgy…almost literally.”
And you didn’t walk in on him in your bed in a tangle of limbs comprised of most of your fucking Ballet Company.

“I’m actually surprised how close to literal that is,” Kendra added.

“We just didn’t mesh. The past is the past.” I started buttoning up my coat against the late winter chill.

“If you say so. I don’t know about Leslie, but I remember picking up those pieces.” Kendra grumbled out as we reached the diner where we had eaten dinner at every night for the last five years.

We were quiet after that. We ordered our meals and fell back into comfortable silence until the plates arrived. I stared at what Kendra and Leslie had ordered for a moment. There is a myth that Ballerinas starve themselves. They didn’t, they did however eat a very strict diet. Everything organic, GMO and hormone free. The hole in the wall diner catered to the ballet dancers and even had a special menu just for them.

“Oh! Before I forget, we’re celebrating this weekend,” Leslie managed to get out between bites of a thick tuna steak.

“I got it!” Kendra interjected with a giggle, leaving me to look up from my salad with a rather confused look on my face.

“It?”

“The human part they wanted for the performance of Le Diable Amoureux. I danced for Aleksi and their director Tristan, and they were impressed. So impressed that they talked about taking me with them to tour as a guest Principal,” Kendra gushed. My mind went directly to Aleksi and the dance from last night.
Smile, don’t be petty.
I forced myself to smile.

“I’m happy for you! Next thing we know you’ll be off in Britian dancing at Covent Garden.”

“The Bolshoi if she plays her cards right. Aleksi has connections in Russia,” Leslie nodded out.