There was little luxury backstage. It pissed him off. Not so much for himself, as for Hannia.

He stepped out into the dimly lit hallway.

From the other end, she walked. Briskly, full of effervescent life. Her dancer's body lithe and lyric.

She grabbed him as she passed, looked around, and pushed him into a small closet. Her mouth fell hot on his, her kisses warm, deep. He could feel her blood pulsing through her.

His body ached. He pulled her closer.

"Hannia," he whispered.

"Shhh!" she warned, a slight giggle panic to her voice. "They will hear us!"

Secrecy. How he hated it. He wanted the world to know about them.

They called her name.

"I have to go rehearse," she said, pulling herself away. "I have my audience to prepare for."

He watched her walk to the stage. Her long brown hair pinned up in braids, her slender form encased in her leotard. He wanted to grab her, make love to her then and there. Especially in front of Jon. To show him whom she really belonged to.

Gregor started to approach the stage himself. He worried that it would be suspicious if he, also, were late. He was only one of the coryphées, and his solo was short, but the divertissement he danced interrupted the scene Hannia was rehearsing.

Hannia, and her husband, Jon. The prima ballerina and the premier danseur.

Secrecy. Gregor hated living the most joyous part of his life in secret. But Hannia insisted. She still felt insecure in her genius; unable to comprehend how flawlessly she performed. She felt obligated to Jon, who had recommended her to the company.

Gregor wondered what time it was exactly. He had lost his watch – another irritation – and needed to go on seventeen minutes after Hannia danced her piece.

He stepped towards the stage. Something moved on the dark, wooden floor. Little legs clicking on dry floor. Gregor looked down. A large cockroach. He crushed it underfoot, thinking of Jon as he did so. White meaty matter oozed from the insect. It was enough to put him off lobster for a while.

She was practicing a pas de deux with Jon. It was an elaborate and flamboyantly choreographed piece, full of daring, acrobatic lifts. There wasn't much Hannia could do at certain points, save trust Jon's strength to carry her elegant frame.

Gregor settled back onto a stool standing in the wings.

The music picked up, quicker in tempo, its volume loud and furious.

Hannia danced, jumping a little at the beginning of the lift. Jon stretched out his arms, carried her up. There was a rush of wind, as she sped upwards.

Then Jon's arms retreated, failed, buckled.

Hannia went crashing to the floor, awkwardly attempting to correct her fall.

Gravity and momentum were not on her side.

She hit the ground with a sharp cracking noise. Then she screamed, howls of pain that shook the walls.

Gregor rushed to her, cradling her head in his arms. Crying, "Call an ambulance! Call an ambulance!"

He liked to keep his workshop clean. It was one of the few things in life he could control.

Gregor looked up at the ceiling, high and fitted with long fluorescent tubes that gave the room an odd blue tinge. There were black, stringy spider webs beginning to fill the crevices of the ceiling again, he noticed. Good. Spiders to kill, he thought.

He pulled out a neat wooden box, caressed its carefully stained and polished top.

An hour to myself, he thought happily, awaiting the catharsis. The witch will be busy, entertaining herself, for an hour. Perhaps she'll be dancing on that pathetic little stage.

Hannia never disturbed him in his workshop, or his courtyard. She didn't like the smell of sawdust and congealing paints and varnishes. It was understood that when Gregor worked in his shop, she stayed away.

He looked admiringly at his space. The neat shop, with its tools and supplies, adjoining the little garden with its high rocky wall and two towering pines.

Fall was coming. He could smell it. He loved the fall, because he loved the winter, and the former heralded the approach of the latter.

He thought of Hannia, dancing on her little stage. She could still dance, but it was like watching a very talented amateur dancing. Her broken leg had never healed back to professional quality.

I was once a dancer, he rued, anger flushing his cheeks. Now he tended her stage, making scenery, painting backdrops, fixing lights and repairing the old red and gold velvet curtain.

He opened the box. Inside, neatly arranged, were skulls. Animals he found dead by the side of the road. He picked them up, brought them home in a pail. There was a little wire box in his garden, where he left the carcasses for the insects and small birds to clean. In a few weeks there was nothing but bones.

He recollected his epiphany, after a disappointing night of receipts. Hannia howling that had she a competent corps de ballet she would be a star again. The frustrated dancers stood and endured the tantrum, assessing the advantage of putting her name on their resumes.

He remembered an evening after a poorly attended performance.

She had thrust a prop into his hands. A basket of wooden apples, painted gold.

"They look cheap!" she complained. "They do not look gold – they are yellow like piss! Make some more, or repair these. People were laughing at them. I could see them laughing! How do you expect me to make a success of my theater when you provide me with trash like this to work with!"

He painted them gold, again, as sparingly as he could. The gold paint was more expensive than the rest, and he did not have the budget for flamboyance.

As he went into his garden, to place them on a ledge to dry, the bitterness welled within him. Hannia blamed him for her failure. She said it in everything she did.

But he had given up everything for her! Surely she owed him at least a modicum of civility.

And as he stomped, carrying the props, he felt a snap beneath his feet. A delicious sound that broke the silence in the air. Something that gave in to him.

Bird's bones, brittle and aged. Hidden in the leaf litter.

The relief was so instantaneous, as if his heart had been momentarily purged of its shadows. He had found a remedy to his own emotions, as unspeakable as that self-discovered therapy was.

He smiled after remembering, taking out a squirrel's skull. It had fallen from a tree, into the garden. It was dead when he found it, its eyes eaten out by the ants. Now it was nothing but cleaned, whitened bones.

He took the skull out, placing it on a small stump. He picked up a club, and with a mighty, heart wrenching swing, crushed the skull into a hundred bits of flying bone.

He listened, hearing the little bits of bones settle into the yard.

The pain was gone, even if he knew it would be back. And he had done no violence, really. His present anger against Hannia receded, like an angry tide swept underneath itself.

Now, he could work. Finishing up some background painting for a theme-less ballet Hannia wanted to dance. No theme! He laughed, his humor returning. She thinks that dancing aimlessly will bring success.

He moved the brush methodically. Up, down. Smooth strokes. I used to be a dancer.

There was an echo of music in his mind. Building in tempo.

The other dancers scurried around, backing away from Hannia's broken body, as if it were full of a contagion that would infect them.

Gregor comforted Hannia, letting her grasp hold of his hand. She whimpered now, heaving sobs occasionally rising and falling in her chest. She shivered.

He held her close.

"The ambulance is coming," the ballet mistress said. She crouched close to them, wrapping a blanket loosely around Hannia. "She is going into shock. You must keep her warm. And keep her head up."

The ballet mistress wrapped a towel into a wedge, and propped up Hannia's foot. The one not attached to the grotesquely broken leg.

The répétiteur came over, applying a pressure bandage to Hannia's leg, trying to stem the flow of blood. His old face wore the mask of concern, not just for the extent of the injury, but what it forebode. He looked around. For the principal dancer. For Jon.

Jon finally approached, composed, stiff.

"She must have slipped," Jon said, flatly, without emotion.

"It is a terrible injury." The répétiteur assessed. In his day, he had married a fellow dancer. Now a widower, his life revolved around the little ballet company. He had always treated them all like family. He kept pressure on Hannia's upper leg, the blood slowing, but still seeping out of the many wounds made by the explosion of bone fragments out of her leg. "It will be many months before she dances again. If at all."

"She must get care," Jon agreed. He stepped in, sat down, took over the job of holding the pressure against the flow of blood.

Gregor looked dismay around them.

There were voices behind them.

Two days to opening. Would they make it?

"We must go on," the director said. "We have investors."

"Gennifer can dance the part," the ballet mistress replied. "She has been a diligent understudy."

The director grunted. "Where the hell is that ambulance?"

As if summoned by his agitation, the theater doors swung open, and two paramedics with a gurney entered the building. They wheeled their gear down the theater aisle.

"I will follow them in my car." Jon told the director.

The director nodded, breaking up the rehearsal. "We'll meet tomorrow morning." He announced. "Someone call the janitors to clean up this mess!"

Jon picked up his bag, retrieving car keys and pulling out street shoes.

He approached Gregor.

Jon pressed something cold into Gregor's hands. "You must have lost this," he said. "I found it in my bed." He spun around, walking towards the door.

Gregor opened up his hand. He had, at least, found his missing watch.

"I think we need a permanent audience," Hannia said. She was standing on the stage, in an elaborate tutu. Extra money had gone into purchasing the indulgent fabrics that made it. Receipts had been picking up modestly.

"A permanent audience?" Gregor asked. He finished cleaning off a chair. Another row done.

"Yes," Hannia said. "Psychology. If you think other people are here, you'll be more likely to be here yourself. You could paint it, Gregor. You're good enough."

He did not reply.

"I want a variety of people – men, women – of all ages. From all ages. Joining the real audience. It would give the audience something to look at before curtain rise and between acts."

Gregor looked at the walls. The theater, as small as it was, still presented a challenge for such a scheme.

"Go, get some paint and start this afternoon. I think the novelty will attract people."

She walked off stage. Her supporting dancers followed her. Bryce, the man, and Gretchen, the girl. They were last season's additions to the company, presently learning the interpretive dance Hannia herself was largely choreographing.

She still has connections, Gregor acknowledged. She had been great in her day, expected to be among the best. That credit still was worth something.

I used to be a dancer. He assessed his body. It was older and less nimble.

Whatever he had done, his decline was Hannia's doing. She had been under funded, once her living expenses were accounted for. The theater was smaller, more run down, in a less desirable neighborhood than it should be. Ballet! He laughed, cynically. Perhaps if she danced on a pole she would do better in this neighborhood.

He sat down, resting a while, surveying the blank walls.

He began to imagine. The rows mirrored backwards, towards profitable oblivion. Opera glasses, feathers, fancy dresses with fake jewels. He could do this, although the task was daunting.

And she would probably not be satisfied, no matter what the finished product looked like.

He had a bitter taste in his mouth. Anticipating the paint fumes, anticipating her displeasure. She was never happy with what was. Always wanted what was next.

The pianist started to practice, an oddly compelling piece, given its discordance.

"What are you playing?" Gregor asked, as he resumed cleaning the theater seats.

"A Song for Athene," the pianist replied. He was a harried young man with wrinkles he did not deserve yet settling into his face.

She was never happy with the pianist, either. She told him his timing was off.

It's her who's off, Gregor thought. "It's beautiful." He said aloud. "You play very well." He knew how little praise was allowed anyone but Hannia. It was a satisfying dirty little sin, praising someone else.

"Thank you. It's a funeral song. You have to imagine an eight-part choir belting it out. It's magnificent then."

A funeral song. "Hannia will dance to it?"

The pianist shrugged. "Not something I would dance to, but she's choreographed something for it. Some sort of going to the grave bit. Nothing says art like romantic mortality."

Gregor smiled. "Well, painters do better after they're dead. Why not dancers?"

The pianist laughed. He resumed his practice.

Gregor looked at the walls. If Hannia could dance at her own funeral, he would take care of the arrangements afterwards.

Jon and Gennifer had danced very well together. Some said Gennifer was as good as Hannia.

Gregor visited Hannia every day in her hospital room. His own performances suffered from time spent by her side, and a new junior soloist was eagerly waiting in the wings for his spot.

At first, Hannia received many visitors, many flowers. In time, these dwindled, until all that was left was Gregor's self-destructive attention.

She progressed beyond expectations in physical therapy. It was prognosed that she could dance again, albeit never at the level she had before.

She was released, on a cold gray day. Gregor picked her up.

"Home?" he asked.

She got into his car, pulled her coat around her. "No," she replied. "I really don't know where."

Gregor looked confused.

Hannia smiled weakly. "Jon has told me he knows about us. He has asked for a divorce. He says if I agree to his terms, he will not destroy me."

"It is all my fault."

"I can not take the humiliation," Hannia replied. "I must dance again. And you – you, my faithful Gregor – you will make me a theater to star in. The people remember me. They are my public. They will come back to me."

"But the company . . ."

"The company? They put Gennifer on stage and say she is as good as me. She will never be as good as me!"

Gregor drove, aimlessly, but in some direction.

"Take me to the Hotel. When I am divorced, we will open our own company, and I will dance. My first dance," she paused, "will be La Sylphide."

She settled down, seemingly satisfied. "This will turn out alright, my darling, faithful Gregor. We will move on from this."

He drove, towards her hotel.

At least the world would know, at long last, that she was his.

Gregor stood in his little garden. A cat's skull perched on the stump. He swung his club. It shattered the bones. He paused, letting the anger and the pain ripple out of him.

Hours before, he had sat in darkness. Waiting for her to arrive.

He sat in the cold night air, across from Bryce's apartment building. He watched Hannia enter.

Gregor knew that excitement in her eyes, that fire in her veins.

And now he knew Jon's feelings, also. A bit late for empathy, he thought bitterly.

He watched their shadows embrace, like passionate Polynesian shadow puppets against Bryce's blinds.

At least I was smart enough to turn off the lights, Gregor remembered. Not smart enough to keep track of his watch, but that had fallen off of him accidentally. Perhaps it was fate.

Fate! He snorted. I'll give them fate!

He had happened upon the cat's skull quite by chance, a few weeks earlier. Driving back from the lumberyard. One of the businesses along his route had a marquee. The board complained about the small city's sanitation department. "Dead cat, one block ahead – two weeks, not picked up!"

So he had picked it up. Doing a civic duty, he remembered. It didn't smell as much as he had feared. He placed the carcass in his bucket, and drove on.

It was a prize. He was glad he had it when he returned from seeing Hannia and Bryce. No doubt presently in Bryce's bed.

His initial flush of jealousy evaporated as the bones shattered. Then he picked some of the fragments up. Considered them, bleached and lifeless in his hands. All its life, the cat's body had poured energy and calcium into knitting this bone. And now it was just spent shrapnel.

He was infuriated that Hannia had made Bryce her premier danseur, then her lover. Gregor she had unmade, from the beginning. First her hidden lover, then her loveless husband, finally not even a dancer on her stage. Jealousy at Hannia's new tryst was secondary; that he had been made little more than a footnote in her history filled Gregor with a queasy, vindictive rage.

A curse upon her! Gregor thought.

He held the bone fragments in his hands, and spread out his arms. He twirled, and released the bones from his fingertips. His body ached to be dancing again.

When the bones were dispersed he stopped spinning.

He picked up the paint cans. They could all go to Hell, he thought, happy at the notion. Hannia, Bryce, Jon, even himself. Where was it illicit lovers went? The first level? Damned to fly about in some stupid circle for all eternity, caught up in each other's ways. We dance in Hell as on Earth.

He had painting to do. A curse to put upon them all, to help the Devil take them in his time.

It was raining, great drops of water tumbling from the sky. Hannia sat in the lobby of her hotel, her luggage by her side.

Gregor entered, his heart pounding. Hannia was beautiful, her long brown hair swept up elegantly around her head. She wore a lavender silk dress, her dancer's body radiant and firm. Amidst the sage colors and bamboo fixtures of the lobby, she appeared like an exotic flower in a secret garden.

He sat down beside her. "Well?"

"It is done," she smiled, pulled a tri-folded set of papers from her purse. "I am a divorced woman."

Gregor opened his mouth to speak, and she placed a fingertip on his lips. "Shhh," she said. "These are the terms." She opened the papers. "I am divorced. I am to leave the company. I have received a settlement, between Jon and the company, which is sufficient." She smiled, brightly. "I can open my own company now!"

She posed herself on the edge of her chair. "Now you may ask me to marry you."

Gregor started painting in the middle of the back wall. Best seat in the house. He smiled.

He was a good painter. Better than he had imagined he would be. Perhaps inspiration had something to do with it.

He wanted the first figure finished while the image of Hannia dancing into Bryce's arms still burned hot in his head. The rest would follow, around this character. Two, three rows deep. She will have an esteemed audience, he thought.

His first figure he painted sitting in a large, regal chair. The figure wore an oversized coat and hat. To hide his true form, Gregor admired. He painted subtle shadows and highlights into the garments. Horns hidden by a hat, tail secluded under a long coat, cloven hooves sequestered in soft felt boots. If the Devil is to pay for my troubles, Gregor pondered, I'll include the price of admission. Lucifer, Angel of the Cursed.

He was startled to hear soft footsteps.

Hannia? It sounded like her . . . before.

He turned around.

"You are a good painter," Gretchen admired.

Gregor felt suddenly embarrassed. Silly. Ashamed. "I'm okay."

She smiled. "I like the idea of a court," she said.

"Court?"

"Isn't it some sort of royal scene? With the throne and all?"

Gregor nodded, standing in front of the picture. "That was my idea," he said, stumbling over the words.

She paused, biting her lower lip. "Have you seen Bryce?"

Gregor's veins welcomed the return of ice at the sound of Bryce's name. It lifted his embarrassment. This scene was for Hannia and Bryce! Gretchen was not his intended audience. "No, I have not seen Bryce." He lied. And told the truth.

"Oh," she said. "He was supposed to run through some steps with me. It's okay. I'll catch up with him."

Her crestfallen face and tone betrayed her.

Gregor had told the same lie once or twice, seeking out Hannia. Long ago. When it was his arms she was falling into.

I might be the only person not sleeping with Bryce, Gregor thought.

Gretchen left, quietly. Gregor knew her routine from his own heart. Fumble around slowly, hoping the lover shows up. Realize nothing was going to happen tonight. Fight dejection, go home. Feel empty. Dream about tomorrow.

Gregor felt sudden energy, a need to expand his creation. He started to sketch, penciled figures filling the false rows of painted patrons. Men, women. From all history. Ancient Rome. He painted in a contemplative Caligula, brow furrowed. Forward in time. Elizabeth Bathory leaned over to whisper in the ear of the Marquis de Sade. Murad IV glanced into a program held in his hands. Dictators, despots, murderers. Every nationality was represented. By their worst, dressed their best.

Gregor took care to disguise them, ever so slightly. If there was a signature moustache, it was not painted. If there was an infamous uniform, the character wore a different outfit. Glasses went on and off in opposition to what had been worn in real life. He painted for hours without pause. The work progressed at an astonishing pace.

It was an infamous and sordid gallery that filled the walls. There to sit and watch Hannia dance.

Gregor stood back, pleased with his work. He doubted Hannia would ever recognize the figures. She would see only their furs and jewels and nice clothes.

He had brought the deeper levels of Hell up to see how they do it in the first level.

Let Hannia dance for them.

Gregor stood in the shadows off stage, his club in his hand. He had rummaged through his boxes, finding nothing satisfactory to smash. He had to find something. Now he was scouring the backstage area, looking for rats caught in traps.

He was filled with unquenchable anguish. The police had called, to inform the theater that they had taken Gretchen to the hospital. She had swallowed bottles of pills. Sleeping pills, tranquilizers, and anti-depressants. Washed them down with a fifth of scotch. Cheap stuff, not even worthy of her pantry.

Gretchen also had figured out what was going on between Hannia and Bryce.

Gretchen was being worked on, but it was unlikely she would make it. Even if she did, she probably would suffer brain damage. She would never dance again, like she had. Before.

Gregor had cried. Cried like he never had before. Tears held back from Jon's release of Hannia onto that cold stage floor. But they did not wash away the grief or the rage.

He had to smash something. Something to answer for the dying.

There was a sound at the front of the theater. Doors unlocked, opened, locked. Footsteps in the foyer.

Bryce entered the theater clumsily. Gregor sat in silence and watched.

Drunk. Gregor assessed. He could smell Bryce from across the room. On good wine.

Bryce took off his scarf and coat, laid them across the back of a chair.

"Gretchie!" he called out. He surveyed the dark theater with lascivious delight. "I'm sorry I'm late, my Darling. I had things to do." He smiled, subtly.

Like Hannia, Gregor thought.

"Gretchen. I know you may be a little upset. After all, I laughed at your little marriage proposal earlier. But I can't be tied down right now. The ladies – the ladies in the audience want to fantasize, my sweet. They need to think they might have me. If I got married . . . Well that would spoil the illusion. The only reason anyone comes here is to see me."

He looked piqued at the darkness. "Gretchen. Now come on. Come out of wherever you are." He sniffed the air. "It smells in here. Has that coddled old man been painting?"

He turned around; saw the figures, freshly painted on the walls.

Gregor frowned, but watched. He watched Bryce inspect the paintings.

Bryce went up to the first figure. "You're an ugly old fellow," he said "And you dress funny. But, got to admit, the old man did a good job painting you. You look almost real sitting there."

He reached out, touched the side of the painted figure. There was a small smudge of paint on his finger. "Not quite dry," he snorted, wiping his hand with a handkerchief from his pocket.

He looked at the figures, eyeing them all intensely. He began to look displeased. "What the Hell?"

He was recognizing them, Gregor suddenly realized. Hannia would not have – but Bryce . . . Bryce's recognition was not something Gregor had counted on. But Hannia has to dance for them!

"First," Bryce said, wine still fueling his tongue. "I'm going to find the old man, send him packing. It's time Hannia fired him anyway. Then Gretchen – our night is still young, my sweet. Are you hiding up there? I am coming to find you . . . "

He stepped up onto the stage. The backlights illuminated him against the darkness, making him a walking silhouette.

Gregor nestled in the wings, remembering the club in his hands. Panic flooded his mind. How could he explain the club? No one would understand his habit!

Bryce sauntered about, issuing threats to Gregor, lewd comments to Gretchen.

Gretchen, who lay dying, her flesh succumbing to the poisons she had embraced.

A curse upon us. A curse upon us. Gregor whispered. There was no outlet for his emotions. He could not purge this desperate fear and hatred from his soul. He tried to push the panic and anguish out with whispered incantation.

Bryce heard the buzz the chant made. He started towards the wing, where Gregor crouched.

“A curse upon us! A curse upon us!”

The mantra filled Gregor with fire, a spell woven from sorrow and rage. Jealousy and despair. Rejection and loss. Vengeance and retribution. Yesterdays that should not have happened, tomorrows that should have been.

The buzz continued, Gregor's lips racing to keep up with the words. “A curse upon us. A curse upon us.”

Bryce followed the sound to Gregor, crouched in the darkness. "You crazy old man."

Gregor smiled, his hands embracing the readied club.

He whispered and whispered, long into the night. “A curse upon us! A curse upon us!”

Basking in the sultry smiles of the damned.