[49] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • SHOWTIME [iii] (Patreon)

No one can hear me, the music is at its loudest and I’m right next to a speaker.

My mind shudder-snaps through a rapid series of bad options. Staccatos over and over on SOMEONE IS COMING TO OPEN THE DOOR to the first edge of doubt, of WHAT IF NO ONE UNLOCKS THE DOOR– What if you literally cannot get out. It’s quite literally out of your control.

Nowhere in my mind did I think I could bend or break that big and thick a piece of plexiglas. I couldn’t squeeze out through an inch-wide gap between door and frame.

A microsecond image flashes: me, stuck sitting in the bottom of this Tower as the cue for the finale entrance came, and went…and went…and went… and then entire finale of the show falls apart as I’m nowhere to be found.

A microsecond judgment: that could actually be what happens here–

Another in response, forcefully: NO.

I’m just about to start rattling and banging on the door as loudly as I need to, to fling myself against the wall when–

SCHLACK.

Not Luke. A sliver of Sam’s face peers around the corner of the Tower, mirroring a panic I’m sure as shit is showing in mine. THANK FUCKING GOD.

Sam’s fingers are scrabbling at the upper lock. Too much time. Lost too much time. No time. And I’m forcing myself out the widening gap in the door before she can fully get the upper bolt slid out of the way too.

The sharp edge of the door panel digs into the outside of my thigh, gouging deep. OW. FUCK.  

And then I’m out, nearly stumbling over the black elevated plinth the Tower hulks atop. I barrel over the edge of the stage. Practically slide down the ladder. Under the best circumstances we have two minutes to do this quickchange. How many seconds was I trapped in the Tower?

I run to the backstage, pray no wires or cables have been jostled upwards into snagging loops, burst into the side room where the scrum of consumers wait. Nimbler fingers replace my scrabbling ones at the back of my neck, undoing the plastic fastener keeping the maillot’s halter-style front in place.

GO GO GO GO GO–

All the ruminations I’d been chewing on up until this moment–stripping down nearly naked in front of a small group of new coworkers–are burned away in this inferno-intense race against time. I –or someone else, I don’t know– peels the maillot off and I’m down to a skin-tone g-string, stepping into the fly harness prepped and waiting on the floor. Yank it up to my waist. Pull the straps as tight as I can before handing them off to the rigger, who’s already crouching down eye-level with my naked ass to make sure the D-rings are cinched as tight as possible and taped off.

I’m stepping into the silver shorts we’ll pull up over the harness momentarily. Then up and onto the 8” platforms of the clear heels. Someone’s fingers whip the ankle straps around, coax the ends through the tiny silver buckles that will hold these things onto my feet as I fly up into the air. I can’t see them– the starburst dress is being folded around my body, its iridescent geometry obscuring the lower half of my body in crisp silver vectors. Arms out to the side so it can be zipped. Holding my neck as stiff as I can while another pulls the wig down firm over my skull.

“GO,” Mindy says as four pairs of hands spring off of me in unison. My eyes register a frozen moment of the universal fingers-wide, palms-forward expression of [DONE] and I’m spinning back out the door to the staircase leading to the stage.

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Your next instalment of Tournelle du Soleil arrives tomorrow at 7am EST / 1pm CEST!

Until then, stay strange and wonderful - XO, ess