Performance
I can feel it. The heat rising from the audience beyond the curtains. The artificial smoke curling up, crawling across the stage, circling my ankles, pulling at me to hurry up. We want to see you. Hurry up and perform for us.
I re-adjust my bra top. The sequins are scratching against my skin. I lick my lips. Strawberry bubblegum gloss sticks to my tongue like a leech.
The girl on stage is bending backwards over a chair. Her silver stiletto catches the lights and casts a shimmer of diamonds towards the audience. The man in the front, mouth open, is breathing in every kiss of light, from her to him. Just for him.
Her song is reaching its climax. I feel a hand on the small of my back.
Ready. Someone whispers in my ear. Not a question. An instruction.
The girl is twirling a curtsey to whistles and applause. The lights dim. She slips past me, her mascara melting from the heat. Her perfume fermenting.
2…4…6…8… I count upwards in my head. No countdown. Only up. Up, up and away…
The music is inside me. I am spinning, swaying. Controlled… uninhibited… illusory contradiction. My eyes burn as I turn, hips swivel, heels click, Hot Chick… smile, turn.
The heat is rising. It consumes me…look out to the crowd, from side to side I move. Look into my eyes; I can hypnotise.
I am not naked. You are naked. I am not the show. This is the show.
I can see in every look, in every hesitation, in every step closer. The jaded fantasies, the wistful what ifs, the ‘well-adjusted’ light appreciation, the amusement, the shame, the malice, the lust, the go again, again, again. The if onlys, the disgust… with who, me, or you?
The last beat is thrown. I bid goodnight with thunderous ovation in my ears, in my heart. I can feel the heat.
It carries me home.
Vikki Gemmell is thirty years old and lives in Renfrewshire. She is a careers adviser by day and likes to write short stories, flash fiction, poetry and novels by night. Some of her short stories and novel-length pieces have won prizes at the Scottish Association of Writers annual conference. Her observations about life can be found at Through the Looking Glass.
