Dressing the House, Paid Off in the Dark

Chapter VI

Now the centerpiece of the lavish playroom, Adeline could have been any one of Dandy's impeccably crafted toys, remaining entirely motionless, waiting. She concentrated on the dark red of her fingernails, face cast downward, intent upon ignoring him until he sat down on the bench to pay attention. He had stopped beside a mirror against the wall, and while she could not see his face, she was quite aware of his eyes on her and his hands on his hips. Then he was strolling.... prowling, rather, towards the stage. She was aware of a glint out of the corner of her eye as she drew breath in her costume and the beads on her bodice sparkled in the glow of the stage's floor lights. In many a hurricane she had seen the way that tent canvases had of billowing and flapping, and by the sensation she now felt in her chest, she thought her lungs might have looked just the same should someone carve into her chest and cleave apart her ribcage. He had drawn nearer now. Still unable to make out much out of the corner of her eye save for general colors and outlines, Adeline was yet aware of his hands now in his pockets as he rocked back and forth on his heels a few times, watching her, seemingly in appraisal. After what seemed to Adeline an eternity, he moseyed over and turned about, seating himself on the bench. It was at this point that Adeline slowly turned her head to face forward and reward him with attention. With a gracious smile and a flutter of her eyelashes, Adeline raised her knees to carefully lift the balls of her feet inside the gold scalloped lip by the lighting and place them on the stage floor in front of her, pushing off to stand upright with practiced fluidity. She was frightfully unnerved. He was terribly, leathally handsome for such a brat. He had been awful to his poor mother in the few short moments she had observed of them together, and she should have been disgusted by that behavior, but she found herself wondering exactly how wonderful he smelled and how soft his cashmere sweater vest would feel against her cheek. She spun, walking the few paces to duck behind the curtain and crouch by her record player.

Dandy had his doubts, at first, that she was real. She hadn't moved at all, it seemed, since he and mother had entered the room. And now that mother was finally gone, he could examine his new playmate. Drawing nearer, he took in every detail. Her ghostly skin looked to him like a doll's...and he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from her perfectly painted pleasantly plump mouth. Such exquisite potential. She had to be real. Her chest was heaving slightly and was she...trembling? How delightful. He sensed that the atmosphere in the playroom was entirely changed. It was not simply the slight rearrangement of the layout, which had not gone unnoticed, and with which he was mildly irritated, but the palpable change in the charge in the air itself. She fit in perfectly with his collection. Where had mother found such a creature? Certainly not at that wretched Freak Show. Mother had said she was going to entertain him. Could it be possible that she was...herself...some kind of freak? Or...a thespian? Dandy had the impression that she was waiting for something. She certainly looked ready to perform. He decided to play along and let her attend to his boredom....if she had any other function than simply looking like something he would readily, permanently possess.

Adeline carefully placed the record, noting the label to be sure it was the correct one.

"No. 13 V Pas d'action - Second Dance of the Queen (Andante) - Swan Lake"

She had ten seconds before the track would begin, so she ducked, elegantly, back out onto the stage and avoided Dandy's gaze, kneeling carefully in the center of the stage arc, sitting back on her heels. She breathed in and out a few times, clearing her mind of any lustful thoughts that might have been creeping up in the pit of her belly. She put her hands together in a prayerful pose, tipping them, and her arms, down and to the side so she could lean forward and place her cheek upon them, pretending to have fallen asleep. Then she waited.

This performance was once carefully choreographed under the guidance of her mother, which they had worked on, modified, and perfected over the years, but which she would now alter on her own once again, based on the response she received. She did, after all, have a single audience member. It was an obvious choice, given her deformity. A variation on the Swan Lake story from which the composition came, it depicted Adeline as an adaptation on Princess Odette, awakening to have found herself turned into a "swan," much to her surprise. The feathers she used in tandem with the prominent display of her deformity to suggest those characteristics of a real swan. Her hands were not meant to be noticed by the audience until she herself noticed them, and thus were cleverly disguised in her movements until the moment of revelation. The choreography was designed to be excruciatingly slow, and thus it was not a performance she was always able to give in a packed tent of individuals hoping to experience a lot of action and excitement as part of a ten in one or a complete circus lineup. She was pleased to be able to present it once again.