[50] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • SHOWTIME [iv] (Patreon)

The bottom edge of the LED screen, aligned with the lowest step on the staircase up to the stage, drops down to around 4’10” high. The 8” heels have made me 6’3” tall. And the crown atop this wig adds another 6", easily.

The dress is architectural – stiff enough that I can’t actually bend at the waist or hips in any direction more than a couple of inches. There’s only a few bars left until it’s my cue to be getting up those stairs into the crucial finale sequence–

I hold onto anything and everything I can (except the LED screen) to try to maneuver my legs into a baby-giraffe position that will get me low enough to fit beneath the edge of this damn screen. I squeeze myself under, feeling the dress creak and resist creasing (please don’t be damaged please don’t be damaged) and end up splayed out like a crime-scene chalk outline across the lower half the staircase.

I physically can’t crouch. I’m tall enough that the audience will see my sparkly little tiara poking up over the edge of the stage if I try anything other than this position. Can I even stand up from here? How the fuck do I make this graceful? They probably can’t see my first few movements– oh god, please let that be true–

And then I’m rearing up, tottering to my feet on the clear platforms and channelling an instantaneous transformation to a cool, collected supermodel ice-drag-queen. The lighting system rakes the room and pans down to direct all eyes on my entrance as I float up and over the edge of the backstage. Chin high, expression ethereal, legs criss-crossing over one another, willing it to be fine.

I’m three steps away from my end-mark.  I glide down the corridor formed by my kneeling cast-mates. The music crescendos.

Two steps away from my end-mark. Almost there. Come on.

Strike the pose.

My traitorous hip flickers off into oblivion.

Time slows.

I feel my leg start to buckle under me. Shift my weight to the other leg as smoothly as I can. A quick enough reaction that it looks like I’ve only just fumbled walking in these giant heels. Matthew is surely somewhere in the crowd dying silently. It’s a better alternative than completely wiping out but it’s everything I hoped wouldn’t happen.

There’s no time to be distraught–the rest of the cast has risen behind me, we’re all raising our arms, all pointing across the room to direct the crowd to see the trampwall team standing high above us all. About to take their first flying leaps.

Hold. Hold. Hold.

The lights on our side of the stage go dark. The rest of the cast pours off the stage. I turn and walk sedately back to centre-stage, to my mark. Turn back to face the crowd. Their backs are all turned now, watching trampwall. Good. I wait there, posed like some gigantic Barbie doll, knowing the aerial point is dropping out of the sky just behind me.

I feel an unseen pair of hands at my waist: the rigger. Clack. I hear the weight being unclipped from the point. The carabiners are about to clip into place on either D-ring of my fly harness. Almost there. Almost there. Almost there.

There’s no click. Fingers dig frantically at the keyhole cut into the dress. Oh FUCK.

He can’t find the D-rings to clip me in. He can’t find the D-rings.

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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