It was real. I was really there.
And this was my shot. This was my chance to at least get my foot in the door.
“Ash, can you read off Mary’s lines?” Sam directed from below the stage. Ashley exhaled through their nose, the sound like a steam engine huffing out its annoyance to the world. They flexed into an older woman, with gray hair and a kind face aged by a lifetime of experience. When Ash spoke, the voice was the sweet, gentle voice of a grandmother.
“Annibell, is that you, my dear?” Ash, as Mary, put her hand on my arm. “My stars, you look beautiful as ever.”
Ash was good. Damn good. Even Mary’s eyes were a little more bloodshot, a bit teary, and her voice was soft and dusty.
I couldn’t shift into a female to match Annibell’s description: a short woman in her twenties with black hair and green eyes. Instead, I stayed as I was, put my hand on Mary’s, and looked at her like she was my long-lost relative.
“Mary, I’ve missed you so much. These years have simply raced by.” I glanced at my lines. “Tell me, how’s Henry?”
Mary’s eyes winced with pain as she gave a watery smile, turning her gaze away in misery. The gesture was enough to shout her grief across the auditorium without a single line read.
Damn, Ash was good.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered loudly, clutching her hand in mine. My eyes welled up at the pain in Mary’s expression, so I ran with it. “How long?”
“Past summer,” Mary whispered loudly, squeezing my hand. “He...left something. For you.”
“Me?” I barely managed to croak out. “Why me?”
“You know why.” Mary gazed into my eyes, pleading with me to understand. I got lost in them, forgetting to look at my lines, and broke the spell. Mary snorted and shifted back to Ashley’s previous form, shaking me out of my trance.
“This amateur can’t even get through one scene,” they scoffed, and disdainfully looked me up and down before glancing back to Finny. “You’re not seriously considering letting this novice act with us, are you?”
The rest of the cast hardly seemed impressed, but Finny came to my rescue.
Finny stepped onto the stage and gave me a gentle smile. “Listen. If you’re going to be in one of our productions, you need to bring everything you have.” They took my hand and closed theirs around it, making me hold tighter to the script. “Take this, learn it, and come back next week. We’re going to run through the play then.”
“We have to wait on her for a week?” Ash snapped. Their voice was becoming worse than rusty nails on a chalkboard. “Fin!”
Finny pointed one finger into the air in their direction, motioning for them to be quiet. Their eyes didn’t leave mine. “Understand?”
I nodded quickly, taking a calming breath. “I understand.”
“Alright.” They gave my hand a pat. “I’ll see you in a week.”
Chapter Six
By the gods do Satyr men have style.
Danny was waiting for me by his saloon later that night, dressed in a perfectly fitted heather-green button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The gray vest he wore over it matched the cropped trousers that were cut just above his hooved ankles and molded over his ass like they was painted on. His tail was showing, a perfect little dollop of black right above his glorious backside.
His curls were wild around his horns, which caught the setting sunlight in their ridges. The fireflies danced in his eyes as he swept his gaze over me. The handsome devil had even brought me a rose.
It matched the shade of my dress perfectly.
I had taken the time to curl my hair, get my makeup the correct balance of sexy but not too whorish, and made sure to wear my best lacy panties for when he finally got me naked.
I was going to blow his damn mind.
Well...and other things.
“You look….” He hesitated just a heartbeat before taking a breath and continuing. “Breathtaking.”
In my line of work, I had been ogled plenty, told I was beautiful, lovely, and all manner of things right before someone paid me money to fuck them. After a while, the words lost meaning completely. But when Danny said them, it felt like I was floating on a cloud made of pure sunshine. I had never felt so goddamn beautiful.
Because he meant it.
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” I teased back with a wink, taking his arm as he offered it to me. I smelled the rose he passed me and kissed his cheek. His skin was warm and smelled like spice and velvet musk. I could have crawled into his skin and lived there. My lip stain left a little behind, which looked amazing on his olive complexion.
“Scarlet, you have a preferred way you’d like me to address you?” He began leading me down the street, his hooves echoing on the cobblestone. Danny was about my height, but when I wore my nice heels, I stood a little taller than him. Normally I swooned for the tall, brawny types, but Danny carried himself like he stood ten feet tall.
I kinda loved that I was a little taller in my dolled-up state.
“Why, you got a pet name for me, sugar?”
He slid me a grin. “I might just. But in this context, I mean ’sir’ or ‘ma’am’”
“I respond to either, but I prefer ‘sir.’” I batted my lashes. “Now, where are you taking me tonight?”
“Someplace fun and a little dirty.” He gave a casual little shrug.
“Just my style.”
“Yes, sir.”
Our pathway took us through Uptown, which gained us some nasty stares, since Danny was still in his shifted form. Satyrs normally stayed in their forms, no matter what. One of the reasons why I loved them so, but people still had the audacity to seem put out by it. Danny didn’t give two shits and kept my arm linked with his while we passed by the clothing boutiques.
“That’s the one,” I breathed as I touched the glass. “My world domination dress.”
Danny gave a low whistle. “I would sell my left horn to see you in that.”
“Your horns are too precious for that, even if I could take over the world in it.” I steered him toward the men’s suits and pointed out the black three-piece with the silver accents. “That would be mercilessly sexy to see you in. Cropped of course, so you’re comfortable. Maybe a touch lighter so we can see your tail.”
“You think they’d let me try it on?” he teased, waving at the attendant inside who was sneering at us. I acted like I was adjusting my nonexistent breasts to scare him away, making Danny snicker. “C’mon. Let’s go somewhere fun.”
Past the glitz and frills of Uptown, he took me into the grit and grime of the New Haven underbelly. These were the honest places, the ones that flanked the markets and working gears of what kept a town alive. The places where the rich and the frilly didn’t like to go; where honest people went.
I was happy to see a lot more shifted forms. I thought Danny was too. There was music bubbling up all around, and there were more saloons, taverns, and brothels than what I had seen so far.
The buildings were small, mostly made of brick with simple signs, all hand-painted. Each had their own flair and uniqueness that made me simply adore it. I could see the Old World cultures bleeding through. When we arrived at our destination, Danny held the door for me like a proper gentleman. Inside, the bar was cramped and filled with all sorts, shifted and not. Hell, I thought a couple of them might have actually been human.