Audition for Mind Ballet

Her mailbox was a hand-made ballet school, one tiny wall entirely glass, hand-engraved. Every time someone dropped some mail in, the pocket orchestra struck up and little costumed sprites ran through their signature performance number, which carried all the way to the house.

Until the day some child hand-delivered a pile of faeces. It choked the ballet school to overflowing, so that dark shit-sausages hung drooping from the side windows because the mounting pressure had burst them open, and the damp sausages just hung there, bobbing in the wind, giving the mailbox a whole new look — the look of a slimy marine wreck, something primeval, a little like a Phoenician galley with its oars sagging after dissolving for millennia in the most unspeakable sea-bottom bog. Of the ballet dancers there were no signs apart from a ruff of swan feathers, and a fairydust wingtip or two poking out of that muddy bog.

Following that tragedy, her family thought hard about what type of mailbox they should get next. They chose to build a little café staffed by the offspring of Belgian dwarves; the kind who normally opened Matryoshka dolls then lashed them together to form cheap-rent capsule hotels, but remained otherwise frustrated with the lack of kitchen space. This new café of theirs would be entirely candle-powered, with the meals all wood-fired. Whenever the Special of the Day sent its puissant aroma out to the house, it would signal the arrival of fresh mail. And this time there’d be a special metal grille latch too heavy for any passing brat to lift, nor any openable windows to allow in shit scraps.

Or air, as it turned out on the sad occasion of their big opening day.

After that, Fusae didn’t want to receive any more mail. “I never knew having pen pals meant such bloodshed,” she wailed, her voice collapsing in grief. She wanted to stay in her room and never poke her head out again. Too much hurt out there.

Until she received a card with her name embossed in vermilion on its glossy black face, a card with no address on the reverse side, just the sender:

Mysterious Dream Talent Agency.

Over the years, the card did not change in condition. In its black and gold-flecked depths her reflection always strafed back at her perfectly clear and sharp, a ghost-silhouette etched laser-tight.

* * *

He didn’t notice her so much as her poor form in the gym. Mr Game had been rotating between the different workout machines when he’d winced at something flashed at in passing. He went back to check what had upset his gut instinct so.

She was going through her reps in haphazard crescendos. Born without rhythm. Nothing, he sensed straightaway, anyone could do to teach that out of her.

Leaning over her bench, he said, all quiet and natural, “You’re looking for something else. Book into a punch-punch kick-kick class.” He flipped her a cheery grin and continued on. The ice collected on her body language aura looked terminal. Ice Queen, he diagnosed. No doubt, wherever she went she kept a quick-spring wall of ice close at hand. But my, that wall wanted breaking.

As soon as he dropped down towards the mat he’d chosen – catching his fall by going straight into the first of forty push ups – he heard her calling out to him.

“Can you show me? I mean, tell me what you mean? What’s so great about … ” As she lay on the bench, she hooked her legs up into a pretend crouch, showing off her bum, and went into a clumsy kick-kick punch-punch routine. Oh, the ideas it put into his head … to be the first guy to show her how to smooth out her clumsiness. To be the guy to reintroduce her to her body until she woke up to herself, then watch her put her true sexiness through a full workout.
Oh, to be that guy, the guy still with her when she’s peaking; that briefest ripening, that special nova-flash when the combination of one’s innocent excitement with sex peaks along with one’s body at maximum sexcellence, at its sharpest condition, every major trick of moan and grunt busting to be called upon. No wonder the Nihonese revere cherryblossoms so.

Show her? He just stuck his bum in the air and began a gymnastic routine.

Some curious agitation passed through her breast. “Hey. Stop that. Talk to me.” She tilted her head with exquisite indolence.

“Well, you take the gym too seriously, that’s the first thing. It’s here for fun; nothing more. If you’re having the time of your life, the rest’ll look after itself, trust me.”

She said, “Sounds good … but I’d be happier with some solid tips.”

“My sets take thirty-six minutes,” he said. “Can you wait that long?”

His half an hour took thirteen minutes.

Each showered and towelled, they stood side by side in the lobby before a glassed trophy shelf with a few prizes and prize-worthy training manuals on display.

“I can’t afford these. These, I want to steal.”

“A gentleman would steal them for you…”

Her face lit up all strange.

“You’d like me to think you’re … a gentleman? Got a cape ready to spread on a puddle?”

He leaned closer and winked. “Nope. Don’t mistake me for a gentleman, whatever you goddamn do.”

“Dear … you sound so happy I asked that!” She looked like she wanted to grab his jaw in her fingers, hold him. “So, you going to steal them for me or what?”

Mr Game flashed on her. What an admirable idea!

He slipped something out of his bag’s side pocket and popped the glass window open. Then he wiggled his eyebrows to point: “Go on, do the bizness.” Tentatively, like a fawn taking stupid first steps, she reached into the cabinet, fingering the items one by one.

“Yeah yeah that’s good, grab Incompetence for Beginners and let’s go eat somewhere, huh?” She didn’t move. Couldn’t decide. “Just don’t make the mistake of grabbing Incontinence for Beginners…!” That did it. She picked one out and slipped it into her canvas bag. They strode out, smiling to themselves.

“I’m Mr Game. Hi. Hey, what do you get up to? I mean, what do you do for a crust?”

“Me? Oh, I road-test lubricants for the sex industry. Yourself?”

He pressed back on his chin to hold in any vagrant exaggerations. “Assistant Poverty Marketer for a leading concern.” He shrugged, looked around, acting a little like he was checking whether anyone was in earshot. “Hope to make Executive Panic Teamleader one day.”

“Oh you will, you emotionally stable lime sponge, you will,” she said encouragingly.

“Takes one to know one, doesn’t it? Anyways, what’d be your name then?”

She promptly bowed. “Fusae.”

He reached up to the base of her left thumb and circled the flesh there, giving it the smallest massage she’d ever heard of, smudging her nerves to numb transparency. A sample, before getting her hooked on the good stuff? she wondered. She let go a huge smile. “And getting ahead in your company, is it just a matter of ambition?”

“Aww, forget that awready. Listen, though; as a bonus for learning how to ooh and ahh so quickly, I got a First Class Scholarship to this dinner table I heard of. Why not join me, y’know, take advantage of me?”

She shrugged out another smile. “Nothing I’d like more.”

He merely spread his fingers over her, as a mechanic examined a tool of pleasure, barely hearing her add, “But I only drink alcohol at voice-training classes. I think you call them ‘karaoke’ … ”

*

In the enchanted taxi, the resident backseat Love Saucier prepared the buttery potions with which he intended to anoint their bodies for the night. “None for me tonight,” she demurred. “Still ’ave enough love for three summers and an orange full moon.”

They pulled up before the Boney M Karaoke Hotel. Fusea seemed overwhelmed already, eyes superficially touching everything. Where had she sprouted from? Sapporo?

He hazarded a guess about what she was chewing over: “Nope, they don’t let people of restricted currency hang around in eyesight.”

“Who?”

“The poor, the poor.”

“Do you find pity sexually attractive? Why are we talking about the poor?”

He led her into the hotel diner a floor above street level, where they could look down on everyone passing by. Splendour often repelled her. Not tonight though. She smacked her lips at the décor dividing each long dining booth from the next. Musical designs engraved right into the glass, backlit by candles. Beetle designs. Interpenetrating friezes à la M. C. Escher, except finished in a really organic style, asymmetries everywhere shooting out from the basic tessellation grids.

“Can I take your order for you?” The sommelier was outfitted with dark and gleaming goggles and designer-embroidered flight jacket, with comparatively little legacy-quality dust still clogging the seams.

“Let’s see. I’ll have the faux pas carpaccio. She’ll, uh, have the appealingly girlish aperitif and a napkin carpaccio.” The sommelier backed out and away, praising his exquisite sense of taste in a dignified murmur.

While they waited, Fusae looked all about, absorbing the scene. Then she abruptly settled on the tablecloth and wouldn’t look away.

“I think the tablecloths must be depressed in a place like this,” she said. “No one to help take their burden … ” She made a decision. She raised the salt and pepper shakers and the tea saucer above the table, holding them there. She turned her gaze back to him and observed patiently, awaiting his turn in the conversation.

That was just passive/aggressive. “—Just because they’re a dark baby blue doesn’t mean they’re depressed! God! Look, they have people for these things—” He snapped his fingers and two Hawaiian dwarves came forth and stood discreetly by the table, holding aside their gaze while extending the palms of their hands to support her tea saucer and shakers. “See? They’re expressing themselves at last.” The dwarves coughed modestly whenever they heard something they shouldn’t. Their expert coughs could have covered up state secrets.

The sommelier came back and uncorked a flute of meat and with exquisitely balletic gestures poured a serving onto his dinner plate, where it quivered nice, red, bloody. Dining on raw meat with a bow tie, a heap of jelly crystals on the side? Outstanding work, Red Leader. The faux pas were complete.

Hers came a moment later, a bundle or raw fish and sauce served in a folded napkin. She looked for a plate to dump it onto, but it wasn’t served that way. Not in an exclusive establishment like this.

Although there were plenty of Boney M songs, the clientele only seemed interested in the hits. “Rasputin” was already on its eighth performance, and not particularly improved by the queer accents of Tuvan throat-singing.

Mr Game found it actually took some time to master the complete portfolio of faux pas. The etiquette semaphored by the tables surrounding them kept adjusting to compensate for his gaffes. Hemming him in. Hampering his standing in the anti-kudos market. He had to find some way to embarrass himself, and quick.

The slipper she dangled before him took on wilder and wilder swings as she watched his attempts to botch up his social graces. He made desperation look cute.

He motioned her to ignore him, just keep going with her life story. She explained, “I used to perform with the Enchanting Mystery Dance Troupe. These days, though, I gun down the hours at the Origami Appreciation Society.”

“The…? Isn’t that a little hard to get into? I mean–” he glanced around “–this place is a touch exclusive, sure, a touch precious, but nothing like your … ” He leant back in his seat and whistled, awed by her social prowess.

She shrugged. “Evidently I have the right build for origami appreciation.”

“Oohhh.” He nodded. Of course. Why hadn’t he spotted the tell-tale signs? Was he losing it?

“That’s not the only thing though. No, not nearly enough. Recently I signed with Bizarre Actress Studio as well.”

“It’s Bizarre Actress Studio 51, actually.”

“You’ve heard of them!”

“Naturally. ‘Buy into our Single Euphemism Dream!’” he recited. “Pity they haven’t heard of me, though. My CV just didn’t shout loud enough. I had to sign out my Thirty-month Loan Wife through their big marketshare rival, the Exciting Life Profession Talent Agency, but that went okay I guess. Ended up enrolling in their Injury School (death is such a dramatic disappointment). Lemme think. Anything else…? Aw yeah, became a Fourth Level Mendelssohn Fanatic at the time, yeah, that too. But I thought plenty a times about jumping ship. Plenty of times. Having an ulterior motive doesn’t hurt.”

“Which is?”

Before he answered, a look flashed across his face, a look she read easily. The face of a human being constructed exclusively of ambition. Higher aspiration the most pissweak feeling he’d ever known. Her nostrils fluttered, her eyes leapt larger. She leant towards him to listen to the inevitable: “To get to know you of course.” This dashed off with a wink. “Anyway,” he added, leaning back in his seat now, sprawling casually, with all the arrogance of someone who didn’t care about how many faux pas he’d perfected, “what’s your go with BAS 51?”

“Oh, not as much as you might imagine. I graduated in Sublime Protagonist Training. It wasn’t long before I got a major part.”

“Oh wow! Full on!” (In shock and awe he whispered, “‘Major Part’.”) He came to, a moment later, and asked: “A film, I bet?”

“Uh…? The movie’s called Tenacious Love Story. But, no, uh, I went for the part. Had it for a while, but bad luck caught up with me. I’d gotten the part of Tenacious Matriarch but … ” She shrugged unhappily, her lips tight, pulled back. She didn’t want to open up on that one. Hmmn. Store that one for later.

“Didn’t fancy getting typecast in a Mills and Boon? Can’t blame you, right as rain. Nothing sells better than a tearjerker about tenacious love, but you don’t want your face to be stuck to those … ”

Or to Unrequited Bondage films, for that matter. “A Romance of the Whips and Restraints”, he reminisced, shuddering.

“It wasn’t my face I was worried about being typecast. My tits.”

“Ooh, what’s that now? Were you a clotheshorse for some line a swimwear...?”

“Come off it. It’s not the bikinis that are commodities but what’s in ’em.” Again she motioned towards her breasts. He noted with approval that she was impatient with his having pretended not to notice them. Store that for later too.

The ballet-sommelier came by and uncorked the lead swan. Its sudden gasping squawks buffeted the whole restaurant. Fusae accepted an experimental sip of the swan-steeped wine and the waiter had to make an effort to stifle tears of joy. He skipped all the way back to the linen cupboard.

Someone with a vocoder stuck on “Cylon Cyborg” began crooning “By the Rivers of Babylon”. Sensing this was the perfect moment to hit on her, Mr Game went in for one last faux pas, and detoured to the bathroom instead. The mirror there had the decent grace to purify itself of his image so he would be able to go on drinking all night without ever facing his ugly conscience.

She went to the bathroom too, and discovered the mirror sweating out bad thoughts. She was furious when she reclaimed her seat. “The mirrors in this place are thinking bad thoughts,” she growled. “You can see them.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” he lied, suddenly one faux pas too many.

“If you like, I’ll offer you an opportunity to comfort me…?”

“Baby, you could have a part-time career as an atom bomb.”

“Look … Mr Game is it … I know it’s traditional to offer a bribe at this stage, but I can only pay you in guardian spirits.”

“Oh baby my sweet, if only you truly knew what you spoke of.”

“Pardon me?”

“I know what you really need, remember. It isn’t any punch punch kick kick class.” He rocked forward on his heels, emphasizing his big I know.

“I should switch to a bigger letter-of-introduction school?”

“Hngh. Don’t be rash. Try these guys instead.” He produced a card, gleaming gold and black. “The Mysterious Audition Company”.

Twice in one lifetime? What was the cosmos trying to tell her? She recalled what her uncle’s tax accountant had advised her: “There’s a strong demand for Divine Intervention in the Marketplace.”

Spellbound by the future, she looked out the windows at the traffic hustling by. How fast the horizon hypnotized her. She saw right past the current horizon to all the stage-lights that would one day march over the skyline towards her, ready to light the way for her so the world would get its chance to see her scrubbed bare, clear, pure. “Sometimes exaltation and escape are exact synonyms,” she announced firmly.

All that remained was to settle on an expectation.

“How can I get an audition?”

“What’s where I come in.”

The hum of belonging. It moved every inch of the offices of TMAC. Pressure eddies built up around the ankles of all the secretaries swishing past, not to mention the fresh platoon of graduates being corralled ahead by the Executive Despair Manager.

As Fusae Lamiya sauntered through at a clip, the office secretaries one by one showed their deference to the visiting beauty by swooning and passing out on the floor, escorting her across the office with the soundtrack of their bodies thudding on the carpet or against office furniture. Two had to be hospitalized with cases of weakness in the presence of beauty. Fusae waded in her glow. It was her due. The first homage owed her by mass fame. At last, at long last, she had been discovered, finally discovered.

Her bum wagged even more insouciantly. This created instant lesbianity in seventeen of the office staff present. This, just because they presumed it might have some chance, any chance, to catch her eye … catch her favour.

Try harder girls, her look said. If this was what power was … and she thought getting head was mindblowing.

The girls divined her soul, tried to lure her over with collective demonstrations of great toe-sucking expeditions. “Please consecrate us with your attentions!” they cried. Fusae flushed a bit, and almost bit her lip, which would’ve panicked the girls into wetting their pants simultaneously, undoubtedly melting the entire floor right out from under them. “Please savour our nuances!”

Fusae found her steps slowing down. She shed emotions as if expending a surplus. “To be irresistible is something frightening!” she realized. But she didn’t realize she’d muttered it out loud. Mr Game closed in in a heartbeat. Lips close to her ear, he caressed her with the most tender phrases at his disposal: “Look sweetie, you’ll ace it with flying colours. Easy as too easy. Just commit to the part that says tell the truth and nothin’ but, and we’ll take you from there.”

“What am I doing?”

“You’re going to talk to your soul through our patented questionnaire. Psychological tests are paper mirrors y’know. Truth-mirrors. Arrow straight to your heart, babe, they speak to the truth of who you really are, sweet as toot sweet. The rest is a cinch. Shazam, you start living at rocket speed. Too easy. And it’s just as simple as reading our patented questionnaire.”

* * *

-- Do you like to read your favourite novelist?
-- Do you have a part-time friend of some sort?
-- Have you ever been a tv star in your spare time?
-- Do you like to smile for us?
-- Can you smile like a Korean barbecue?
-- What are your ten million best attributes?
-- Are you tempted to experiment with UFOs?
-- Which foreign countries do you visit every day?
-- Can I ask you to stand up and walk across your boyfriend?
-- Should the Three Tenors be allowed in the sex industry?
-- Do you consider sleep paralysis beautiful?
-- What vintage rock bands do your pets listen to?
-- Have you ever been tempted to experiment with marriage?
-- Which of the Three Tenors do you particularly dislike?
-- Have you ever considered working in the UFO industry?
-- Do you burn a newspaper every day? Which section do you burn first?
-- Can you describe a vivid sleep paralysis you’ve had recently?
-- As a child, what animal did you want to be when you grew up?
-- What foreign country do you think would work better as a classical symphony?