EntangledTrio (8 page)

Colette dropped by David’s dressing room before curtain on opening night. Between here and San Francisco he’d seen her in makeup and various costumes countless times before, but tonight there was something different about her—an inner fire that blazed forth from her eyes and made her skin glow beneath her bronzy, gypsy-colored foundation.

“What do you think?” She pirouetted, showing off her billowy calf-length black skirt and dark wig. Its thick, wavy tresses hung all the way to her waist. “Do I look like Carmen?”

“You
are
Carmen.” So much so, he couldn’t stop staring. “I’ve never seen such an amazing transformation. Adrienne did a fantastic job with your costume.”

“Yours too.” She looked him up and down with an approving nod.

“Yeah, well…at least now it fits.”

“In all the right places.”

Oh God.
Definitely not the right time to start blushing. Her stepping closer for a hug didn’t help either. “If I drop dead of a heart attack out there, I’ll know who to thank,” he joked weakly.

“Oh stop. You’ll be wonderful, and you know it.” She flashed him an encouraging smile. For a second he was tempted to kiss her, but then he remembered not to muss their makeup. “I’ve thought of a few little bits of business to add tonight. Promise you’ll follow my lead?”

As if he weren’t terrified enough. “Look, just don’t pull the rug out from under me, okay? I’m barely holding it together as it is. Besides, won’t Sophia throw a fit?”

“Let her. This is our show.” She moved toward the door. “See you onstage.
In bocca al lupo.
”

In the wolf’s mouth.
The opera world’s version of “break a leg”.

“How fucking apropos,” he muttered, then sat down at the piano to finish warming up. It was either that, or run in the bathroom to
throw
up.

The stage manager called places fifteen minutes later. David marched to the wings, waiting for his cue as the orchestra struck up the overture, and then it was off to the races—damn near literally. The first twenty minutes flew by in a blur until Colette made her entrance. She swept onstage with a haughty toss of her head, laughing and mocking the men’s chorus, all of them pleading for Carmen to love them. Then came the
Habañera
, more overtly sexy than he’d ever heard her sing it before, each note a smoldering, seductive purr. It was all he could do to keep up José’s façade of feigned disinterest until the moment she sashayed up to him and flung the fateful red flower in his face.

Heat rose in David’s cheeks, but luckily the duet with Nicole acted like a bucket of ice over his head—five minutes of sweet, insipid crooning with a woman he wasn’t the least bit attracted to. Then came the act’s final scene, with José charged to look after Carmen, now under arrest for attacking a fellow cigarette girl. Looping rope around her wrists brought back vivid memories of their last night together in San Francisco. When Colette’s gaze locked on his, he knew she was thinking the same thing.

With a wicked smile, she launched into the
Seguidilla
, backing him into a corner, then onto a chair, all the while never missing a note. True to his word, David tried to play along, even when she climbed into his lap, her firm, round ass bouncing against his crotch.

Holy shit, did she
want
him to get a hard-on onstage in front of everyone? In front of
Aleks
?

Just as she got up, he spied an officer’s uniform cloak hanging on a peg within easy reach. He snagged it and slipped it on, though he wasn’t supposed to. Well, too bad. If she could go off-script, so could he—even if it did look weird for her to be seducing a guy who’d just put on
more
clothes.

He got through the rest of the act on sheer adrenaline, nearly collapsing in relief when the curtain rang down. Then he swung around to face Colette. “What the hell were you doing out there? I thought you said ‘little bits of business’. You changed the blocking for the entire last scene!”

No sooner had he said it when Sophia emerged from the corridor leading from the control booth, stamping and snorting like an enraged bull, bearing down on both of them.

Colette took one look and fled, skirts lifted to her knees as she sprinted to her dressing room. Sophia shot him the world’s sourest glare, spat out a few choice words in astringent Italian, and followed suit.

He stared after them for a long moment, then sighed and retreated to his own dressing room. No way was he getting in the middle of
that
.

Fortunately, José didn’t make his entrance until halfway through the second act, so he had plenty of time to rest and regroup. When they got to the scene where Carmen dances for José’s pleasure and amusement, he was ready. Colette swung her hips and beat a small tambourine, skirt hitched at her belt, showing off her shapely calves and bare feet—all perfectly fine and according to plan.

Then she lifted her foot, tracing it along the inseam of his right leg from knee to fly.
Jesus.
Evidently she’d made it her mission tonight to drive him absolutely fucking crazy—and damn if it wasn’t working! A few people up in the balcony probably saw him mouthing, “You bitch!” through their binoculars, but he didn’t care. Colette usually went the extra mile to give her performances a feeling of authenticity, but this carried method acting a bit too far.

Finally it came time for the
Flower Song
—and a chance to get some of his own back. As scripted, Colette sat in a chair with him standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders, both facing the audience. But halfway through the aria he slid to his knees and sang the rest from that position, gazing imploringly up at her. She hid her startled expression well, but the fresh roses in her cheeks told another story. He ended with his head in her lap, her fingers tangled in his hair, combing through gently—until she dug in hard with her nails.

“Bravo,” she whispered once the curtain had fallen again, giving him a sly wink before dashing offstage.

If Acts One and Two were the good times, Act Three was a distinct about-face. No more dancing, laughter and seduction. José and Carmen, now living as fugitive smugglers, not only fall out of love but actively despise each other, snapping and spitting with every exchange. Thankfully, Colette left off with the ad-libbed horseplay and delivered an incredibly moving fortune-telling scene, the cards laying out the tragic end of Carmen’s and José’s love affair. David drifted into the shadows upstage and listened, marveling at the depth of her interpretation, every phrase revealing fresh new colors. She really was an amazing singer and actress. And to think he’d almost turned down the opportunity to work with her again.

The third and fourth acts were both relatively short, so this production performed them together with a short break in between to change the scenery—which meant the principal singers had to stand in the wings and let their dressers do a quick-change. David blinked hard when he turned around to see Colette in a strapless black lace gown with a striking slash of scarlet down the front and a delicate matching mantilla perched atop her wig. He’d seen her in it once before at dress rehearsal, but damn if it still didn’t take his breath away.

“One more scene,” she murmured, giving his hand a squeeze. “Be sure to kill me gently.”

When it was over, David wasn’t exactly sure what happened. From the moment he’d stepped back onstage, the music ripped through him like wildfire, an uncontrollable surge of frustrated passion and lust. He begged, pleaded, fell to his knees again, all to no avail. Colette stood before him, a remote, beautiful statue, unmoved by his plight. “Between us, all is finished,” she sang in French. “You will never have me again.”

It was enough to drive a man insane—and so he went insane, brandishing a knife in her face, wrestling her to the floor, his cock a steel bar in his pants. “I was born free, and I will die free,” Colette sang. “Kill me now, or let me go!”

He let her up, but no sooner had she moved away when she pulled off the ring he—no, not he, José—had given her, flinging it in his face. And that was it. A red veil of rage washed over his field of vision, and he drove the knife into her.

The stage went pitch dark, the audience bursting forth with applause and bravos.

And there was Colette’s hand again, grabbing hold of his, pulling him to his feet. “Well done,” she said, giving him an all-too-brief kiss on the mouth right before the curtain came back up.

At first it was just the two of them standing there while the audience clapped and stamped their feet, throwing flowers and ripped-up programs. Then the rest of the cast joined them, followed by Sophia, now evidently quite happy to take credit for Colette’s improvisations, and at last by Aleks. David got called back for two more bows, Colette for three. It was closing in on midnight by the time the cheering stopped and everyone staggered back to their dressing rooms, exhausted but jubilant.

David got out of his costume and took a quick shower, emerging a few minutes later in his towel to find Colette waiting for him. Wrapped in a plush white terrycloth robe, she sat at the piano, playing a few notes from the score laid open on top of it.

“You were brilliant tonight,” she said softly, rising to come over to him. “Especially in the final scene.”

He considered asking her to step out until he got dressed, but what was the point? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t already seen him in a lot less. “I can’t take credit for that. Felt as if I blacked out or something. I cruised through the last few minutes like I was in a trance.”

“That’s good! It means you were really feeling it.”

“I don’t know what I was feeling. It was like somebody else took over. Like José…possessed me, I guess.”

“In that case, I should be grateful it wasn’t a real knife.” She smiled. “Was this your first time?”

Eyes widening, he sank onto the couch. “You mean this happens to you often?”

“Not always. But when it does, that’s how I know a performance is going well. Of course,” she added, sitting down beside him, “I knew it was going well for you long before the last scene.”

His laugh sounded more like a nervous cough. “I had a feeling you were enjoying my predicament a little too much.”

“You enjoyed it too. Don’t pretend you didn’t.” And then she peeled off her robe to reveal herself wearing nothing underneath—well, nothing except a sheen of fresh perspiration and the faint scent of talcum powder left over from three costume changes. All of which he was experiencing up close and personal, since she was now straddling his lap. “You still want me, David. You’ve wanted me from the day you arrived. And I want you.”

God, he couldn’t
believe
this—except one part of him could. The part she’d been teasing all fucking night. “Have you lost your mind? Anybody could walk in here—”

“I don’t recall that being a problem for you when it was
my
dressing room.”

“But what about Aleks, for Christ’s sake?”

“Oh don’t worry about me,” came Aleks’ voice from the doorway—and thank God he’d already closed it. “It was my idea.”