[51] TOURNELLE DU SOLEIL • SHOWTIME [v] (Patreon)

The quick change– We didn’t tease the D-rings of the fly harness through–!

They should've been fed through the layer of the shorts and out the keyholes carefully cut and waiting in the starburst dress. Now there’s only moments left in the trampwall act. Shit shit shit shit-

I feel the rigger shift into fuck it mode: he begins trying to tear through the fabric of the silver shorts covering the harness. Cirque doesn’t use cheap fabric. The fabric doesn’t want to tear.

The lights are about to pivot back to this side of the room. The crowd is about to turn around. Come on, come on– I will the stitches to give way. This rigger’s biceps are bulging. I’m trying to resist the force of the tugging and pulling, not get knocked over in these god damn high heels–

A small ripping sound. Another. CLACK. CLACK.

The stage lights up. The rigger is scurrying off the stage and down the steps as the finale begins. The other artists begin their march up into place as I sink my weight into the harness.

I begin my slow spin, just like I practiced back at Cirque HQ. I don’t have to hold up my own weight anymore: my hip and knee can’t betray me any further.

I drive the toe box of my one heel into the surface of the stage for one final rotation, arms extended, everything squeezing, and feel the winch pull me up high, high into the air until I’m far far above the crowd erupting in unison with the final burst of music.

* * * * * * *

We tumble downstairs for water and are hustled back upstairs in scant moments. One last burst.

A handler for the client shepherds me from artsy set to artsy set, little modules dotted across the luxurious room for photo ops any of the influencers whose names I don’t know want to snap. Kim Petras pouts behind bug-eyed sunglasses in a raised corner DJ booth, beats thumping out across the space.

The rest of the cast is doing short stints of animation – dashing through the crowd to surprise guests, pop handstands, instigate ten-second dance battles, dash away again. I’m still in the finale costume. Not able to do much other than be impossibly tall, a sentient photo op swimming through a dense crowd of people smelling of perfumes and colognes that cost more than my groceries for the month. Businessmen in suits more expensive than two months of my rent. I beam, pose, tilt my jawline to the lights however the next person in line wants it.

I’m a full head taller than anyone else in the crowd. Beautiful faces full of filler and botox turn my way, beam, are replaced by the burst of a camera flash. Moment captured, they turn away for the next moment that needs seizing, freezing, pinned to the digital board of their swelling camera reels like so many momentary butterflies.

Last one, the handler mouths to me as she beamingly ushers me onto a final photos set. Three or four of the other artists join me. We take the phones of the guests clustering around, bring them in, ham it up for their selfies. “Okay time to go!” I hear from behind the frontline of the gathered guests. The other artists start to peel away and I’m about to follow, but then I see the handler, eyes wide and miming for me to stay in place. I’m confused but I hide it and stay put.

A trim businessman in a slim-cut light grey suit beelines towards me from the edge of the crowd. I catch the handler's eyes. She’s mouthing something else that I can’t quite make out. A couple of the other artists have boomeranged back and are glued to my side, huge smiles cracking their faces open ear to ear. They seem to know who this person is.

Must be someone with Cirque, or someone with the client, I figure. Everyone here tonight is someone important, though. Or everyone collectively thinks so, and so it’s true (for the moment).

The businessman has almost made it all the way over to me now–


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Until then, stay strange & wonderful - XO ess