My stomach is in free fall now, but no one could ever tell. I won’t fail, I’ll never fail, even if this feels like the bravest thing I’ve ever done. I catch the beat and haul myself back into it, prowling across the stage, stroking the length of my glove, easing the fingers off one by one, slide it off slowly with my teeth—why does satin have to taste so terrible?—and swing it into the air.

“YES!” someone shouts, and it fills the room. I don’t even know who, but it’s a voice full of triumph, and my glove is now a flag of victory.

And there it is, my naked arm, skin glowing in the spotlight. Yes, just an arm, but right here, right now, I decide it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever seen. I let the roar of the crowd, the roar of my breath in my ears, the roar of my heart in my chest, fill me up, as I strip off the second glove too.

“YES, GIRL, GET IT!”

I throw both naked arms in the air and spin, do that thing where I just take up all my space.

Oh yes.

The rest of it, it goes so fast, but every second is burned in.

A sequence of pirouettes to the dubstep beat land me at the chair. I shimmy down into it and stretch one impossibly long leg up to the ceiling. The audience knows what’s coming as I give them a wink and begin to untie and unwind the ribbon of my dance shoe. I playfully kick it off, and next is the thigh-high stocking. I roll it down and there it is, the ballerina’s strong, naked leg and wickedly arched foot. And it shouldn’t be sexy, that bare foot, with its calluses and blisters and misshapen toes. It shouldn’t be sexy, my normal, naked skin, not airbrush smooth, not model-thin, too many muscles, so many white-and-pink scars, beauty marks, and ordinary dents and bruises, cellulite and pores and realness. But here we are. Under a spotlight, and goddamn perfect.

“WOOOOOOO, YEAH!”

I repeat the reveal with the second leg, then jump lightly to the seat of the chair.

Grinning at the audience, I move my hands down my sides, along the waistband of my tutu, unfasten it in a flash, and whip it off with a flourish. I’m in my corset now and a short tulle petticoat, but I don’t let the audience catch a breath. Leaping off the chair and bounding across the stage, wrap skirt a banner in my hands, I’m spinning and whipping the skirt around my body like it’s a bullfighter’s cape.