Page 24 of Rise of the King (Checkmate 5)

And then it hits me: it’s not that she’s never here, and it’s not that she’s never noisy. It’s that she has this place insulated to within an inch of its life. I live in an ice-box one flight down, and she lives in a tropical paradise up here.

What the fuck kinda bullshit is that?

I close the front door with a quiet snick and step into the living space as sweat beads on my brow. I’m freezing down there, so I wear two or three layers of clothes around the clock, but in here, I have to shed my coat straight away or risk dying of heat stroke. I tug my beanie off and run a hand through my short hair, then, moving further into her apartment, I stop when I catch sight of exactly what was in my fantasies.

But better.

So much fucking better.

She’s not in sleep shorts, but in a leotard with a soft, see-through skirt that floats to her knees.

Her hair isn’t hanging loose, but in a tight bun on the top of her head.

She’s not wearing cotton socks today, but real-life,legitballet slippers as she twirls by her windows. The city splays out in front of her as though she’s dancing for all six-hundred-thousand residents.

I was coming here with a rock-hard cock and a plan to ask for ten minutes of her time. I’d leave again with a load taken off my… shoulders, so to speak. She’d be pleased. I’d be ecstatic. And we could go on with our lives.

But now I see her when she doesn’t see me. Her eyes are closed, her right arm extended as she does a slow spin on the very tips of her toes.

Because I wasalwaysthe kid who needed to try shit for himself, I push up to my toes just so I can feel what she feels, but drop down again in an instant.

She makes it look so easy, though I doubt it is. She moves her arm around so it almost looks like she’s plucking grapes from a vine. One grape, lift, extend, elegant as fuck. Then another. Her head is back; her eyes remain closed, and the muscles in her calves fire up and do their thing.

Fuck me, please, little dancer.

I glance around her apartment and smile at the way her music booms perfectly – she’s set the acoustics up so that the music is almost a living thing. It fills every inch of space of her apartment; it swirls, but it’s not tinny.

I cast an eye over a bright yellow couch on one end of the living room, a flat screen TV opposite it, and what must be her prized stereo system beside that. I see no wires, but I see speakers set up in every corner. She’s gone high-tech. Following the line of the room, I glance over a large, V-shaped desk that bears three large monitors and two keyboards. It’s all switched off, the screens black.

We live in the shitty end of town, in shitty apartments, and she says she’s in customer service. But her insulation, heat, tech, and ballet slippers tell me she might have a trust fund she doesn’t mention.

Next time a blizzard slams against our windows and I’m downstairs sleeping in every scrap of clothing I own, I’m dragging my sorry ass up here and mooching her heat.

I’m not too proud.

Instead of running forward and fucking her against the windows like I want to, I slowly move back until I stand against the wall. Sliding down over the top of a heating vent, I sit on my ass, let the heat defrost my balls, and I watch the show she puts on.

The music swirls in my blood.

In her blood.

It makes me smile that we’re both experiencing the same thing right now.

I was always the curious kid, the impulsive kid, the kid who was booted out of eighth grade science way too often because I couldn’t be trusted with a Bunsen burner. But above it all, my impulsiveness was born from curiosity. I wanted to know how something worked. Why it worked that way. What would happen if we tweaked it just a little bit.

I needed to understand the inner workings of whatever I was studying.

So now, instead of running at the beautiful Sophia, I sit back and figure out her inner workings. Her slippers are a soft cream color, lighter than her actual skin tone. Her tights are a matching cream, and her leotard a midnight black. Her skirt is baby pink, and her arms bare. Not a single hair falls out of her bun, but a few strands at the front, the strands she would consider bangs, stick to her sweaty brow and tickle her lashes.

Her arms seem longer today, her torso narrower. Dancing, in her element, she takes on this ethereal appearance that adds length to her every limb.

She’s tall and elegant here, though she’s only five-seven,maybefive-eight, when she’s that other girl in Ginnie’s diner with her purse slung over a chunky coat.

Fuck if I don’t love the contradiction.

I’m not sure regular prima ballerinas are allowed ink, but I doubt the chick willing to stab me for a piece of waffle gives a damn about rules. Sophia’s right arm is almost covered from wrist to bicep. It’s not heavy ink like mine, not a sleeve, but an intricate swirl of flowers and musical notes. Her art is delicate, pretty, where mine is crass and lacks subtlety.

Following the music, she spins, lifts her leg until her foot points straight to the ceiling –don’t be dirty, man. Pull it together and enjoy the dance for what it is– and when she releases, she spins and leaps. She’s a swan, or perhaps a dove. She floats, then touches down with the barest thump. Her trim legs are all muscle, from her bulging calves, to her defined thighs. I can count the tendons, the muscles, the veins. Her shoulders have definition too, but she hides it all under heavy coats in that diner, and shows the world only her eyes.

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