Little Nothing by Marisa Silver Page A

her forever.
    As Danilo speaks, his eyes glisten and his voice trembles. There are evenings when something unmistakable passes between them, and despite her mortification at being unclothedbefore the shivering onlookers, she feels she never wants the play to end. But she knows he is only acting.
    â€œYou don’t have to work so hard,” she says to him one evening as they clean up the tent. The night’s crowd was particularly violent. A man not preselected by Smetanka stormed the stage and grabbed Pavla from behind, grinding himself into her. “You don’t have to convince anybody. They just want to see me strip.”
    â€œYou’re making fun of me.”
    â€œI’m just trying to save your wasted effort.”
    â€œIt’s no effort. And it’s not wasted,” he says quietly.
    His intensity is unnerving. He starts toward her and for a moment, she forgets who she is. But then her terror overwhelms her, and just when he is close enough that she can smell his breath, she lets out a roar and he backs away.
    Danilo does not walk her to the caravan. She supposes he has gone to the tents Smetanka visits to drink and perhaps find a woman he can pay to do what she is too scared to do. Nights are freezing now, and once she is inside the caravan, she lies down, still bundled in her coat. She worries about what will happen to her. The towns are shuttering for winter. Most people will not earn money until planting season, and when even the most debauched and desperate citizens can’t afford the price of a ticket, Smetanka will not be able to pay her even the few coins he does now. She can’t go home and make her parents’ lives more difficult. She has nowhere to go. Maybe she could trade her services as a housekeeper in exchange for a room until the season begins again. She laughs at her preposterous optimism. Who would hire her? She will have to sell herself to the lowest kind of men whowould find her an erotic thrill. She has heard women complain about the treatment they receive at the hands of their drunk husbands and lovers. And the carnival whores. Women with bruised faces. Women who cannot walk properly for a week after a rough night. She remembers her mother’s stories about the monster and the sausage. She begins to drop off to sleep. With Danilo, it would be sweeter. Such intensity to his gaze, as if he were always on the verge of telling her something she wants to hear. She closes her eyes and lets herself imagine his hands on her face, the face of her girlhood, when she was the pride of the village with her azure eyes and golden hair. His hands pass over her shoulders and her chest. And then they move down. She unbuttons her coat. She pulls up the hem of her dress and finds the warm skin of her belly. Her fingers slide beneath the waistband of her underwear. She lays her hand on the fur that is meant to be there, that all women have. For she is a woman, isn’t she? Isn’t she? She closes her eyes. The caravan door squeaks open. She hears footsteps, the rustle of cloth. Her Danilo. He’s forgone the prostitutes. He’s come back.
You will find love
, Františka told him. He must realize that he already has, that she is here, that she has summoned him with her thoughts! His hand is on her arm.
    â€œDani,” she whispers. He moans. She feels the warmth of his fingers on her skin. When he runs his hands over the numbed scars at her armpits and around her groin, she feels nothing. But that insensitivity only makes the feeling of his fingers on the undamaged parts of her all the more exquisite. She feels the weight of him as he moves on top of her, as his leg parts her thighs. He exhales heavily, his breath smells of—
    She opens her eyes just as Smetanka grabs her crotch. She screams and tries to push him off her, but he is too heavy. She cries for Danilo, but he does not come. Smetanka spits into his hand and reaches down then pushes himself at her,