There was no need, anyway. This morning he’d proved he could handle Mr. Lemaitre—and her—just fine.
* * * * *
An hour later, Jason got the call from Lemaitre to bring Sara to practice. Baat was on board. Lemaitre had all but promised him Cirque Brillante in Vegas to get him to stay.
When Jason told Theo during practice, the other man shrugged. “I always assumed she would go to Brillante. They’ll love her there.” He gave Jason a searching look. “Will you go when she goes?”
Jason watched Sara and Baat working through intricate tricks on the trapeze, as if they’d never been apart. He wanted to be happy for her, but he felt unsettled. Anxious. “I don’t know. It’s early to think about it.”
“Michel told me you’re no longer on the act.”
“I’m not.”
“He also warned me to be careful with Sara’s ass this morning,” Theo added under his breath.
Jason wasn’t in the mood to be drawn into this conversation. “She’d probably appreciate it if you were. Not that it’s any of your business, or Michel’s.”
“She’s my artist, my business.” With that remark, he approached the trapezists to give directions and request improvements. Sara relayed his suggestions to Baat in Mongolian. He acknowledged them with a sullen expression.
Theo wasn’t cowed. One thing about Theo, he didn’t give a shit what anyone thought about him and he wasn’t afraid to piss people off. At one point he made Baat get down so he could show what he meant, and partnered Sara through some moves they’d practiced while Baat was still in Mongolia. Now you see how I feel, thought Jason as Baat frowned from the sidelines. How it feels to deal with an interloper.
Jealousy. Jason had never experienced jealousy like this before, never fallen so hard and fast for a girl. He hadn’t been joking about wanting to keep her in a cage. But he couldn’t and he wouldn’t, because she had crazy potential and a hard-earned career to pursue. He had a career too, artists to train, acts to develop. It wouldn’t be healthy for either of them to get too lost in their dynamic.
Eventually Theo returned to his side, irritation tightening his features.
“What do you think of Baat?” Jason asked.
He waited a moment to answer. “I think he likes to do things his way. He likes her to do things his way. But this is the challenge of coaching, no? To get past the personalities to the talent beneath.”
“Some personalities are worse than others,” Jason joked, giving him the side eye.
Theo grinned. “My diva days are done. Kelsey made me grow up. It’s good. Now maybe this is karma, that I have to work with this jackass.”
“Karma’s a bitch.”
Theo nodded, but his gaze remained on Baat and Sara. “It’s strange,” he said after a moment. “They don’t like each other. It’s very bizarre, for trapeze. They work together, but it’s very strained.”
“Up until now, they probably had no choice but to work together. Mongolia’s not a hotbed of circus schools.”
“But if they don’t have fun working together?”
“From what I understand, they grew up together. It tore her apart, leaving Mongolia without him. She wept from the guilt of it, and when I told her he’d come...”
She’d cried then too, great happy tears that he couldn’t understand, except that Baat was her partner, and partners, especially trapeze partners, developed an iron bond.
“It’s a Mongolian trait, this fidelity,” said Theo in a pedantic tone. “Because their people’s history is so steeped in communal herding. The interdependence of nomadic groups.”
Jason snorted as Theo laced his fingers together, demonstrating his comment. “Since when do you know so much about Mongolian interdependence?”
“I make it my business to know, so I understand them better,” he said, flicking a finger at the dark-haired couple on the trapeze.
Jason watched Sara, feeling chastened. He hadn’t done any research on Mongolia beyond plane schedules and finding the BDSM club. All he’d researched about Sara were her pleasure points and her pain tolerance, and that she was amazingly good at the Master/slave thing.
He silently vowed to spend the next few weeks learning everything he could about her, not just what turned her on in bed. She was his slave, but more than that, she was a fascinating, complex woman. Before the end of summer, before they had to make a decision about Vegas, he needed to know her inside and out.
Chapter Seven: Stress
Sara heard the tap on the door, saw Baat stick his head in.
“Sarantsat?” he said, his own nickname for her. He refused to use the English derivative.
She considered not answering. She’d taken to hiding from Baat during breaks, hiding in the locker room or empty conference spaces. They’d been here four weeks now, and he’d spent all four of them behaving like an ass. She was so tired of his complaining and negativity. She was tired of dealing with his unhappiness. Baat hated Jason, he hated Theo, he hated everyone he met, even Mr. Lemaitre. He claimed to hate everything about the Cirque. He cycled between wanting to go to Las Vegas and wanting to leave, in between blaming Sara for all his unhappiness. He spoke often about abandoning all their work to go home.
Because at home he could drink. At home there were no trainers, no artist dorms, no Cirque personnel checking on his well-being. Everyone in Mongolia drank, and so Baat drank, but here heavy drinking was frowned upon, and his habit was ballooning out of control. He knew it, she knew it. When she asked him to get help, he turned it back on her. This is your fault. It’s your fault I’m drinking, because I’m so miserable here.
“Baat,” she said. “Sain uu.”
He located her in the corner of the room and flicked on the lights, and returned her greeting. At one time it was a pleasure to speak to Baat because they both spoke Mongolian, but now all she ever heard were gruff, complaining words. “Why are you hiding here?” he asked.
There was accusation in his tone. You, Sara thought. I’m hiding from you. It was frowned upon to hide away, to be anti-social in their culture. European manners, he groused, angered by the hours she spent closeted at Jason’s house. If he knew what they were doing there...
But it was none of his business, and the only way to spend time with Baat was to drink and complain, and Sara didn’t enjoy either activity.
“Stupid Theo,” he said, coming to flop in a nearby chair. “He treats me like an idiot.”
“He treats you like a coach. He’s trying to help. He’s trying to make us better.”
“I’ve been doing trapeze fifteen years now.”
“He’s been doing it longer.” She’d anger him if she kept up. Then he’d start cursing at her and verbally abusing her, and he’d threaten to leave for the millionth time.
“Of course you defend him,” Baat said, gazing at her through slitted eyes. “You’ve become such a slut. Are you sleeping with him too?”
Sleeping with Theo? Was Baat drinking during the day now? He usually saved the slut accusations for his drunken night time phone calls. “Don’t say such things,” she muttered. “It’s not appropriate. Theo is very nice, and so is Kelsey, his wife. I’ve talked to her a few times after practice. You should chat with them too, get to know them better.”
“How would I do that? I don’t speak English or French or whatever they speak.”
“Human Resources hired a translator for you,” she pointed out. “You sent him back.”
“Because he was a spy, not a translator. I didn’t like him following me around.”
“Then you should learn some other way to communicate. You can learn any language you want here. The Cirque has tutors who’ll teach you for free.”
“The Cirque this, the Cirque that.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “You’re obsessed with the Cirque, with your success and your artistry.” He punctuated the words with effeminate flips of his hand. “You think any of these people care about you?”
“They care more than you.”
“Because they chat with you after practice? I’d love to talk to you. Why don’t you ever come to my place?”
“And watch you sit on your couch getting drunk and playing video games?”
He scowled at her. “I don’t get drunk.”
“You get drunk all the time.”
“Never when I’m working. When I work, I work hard. What I do on my own time is my own business.”
Except that his drinking would affect his fitness and eventually his ability to do their act. “I’m cooking for Jason tonight,” she said. “Lamb and dumplings. Do you want to come?”
“And be a third wheel?”