Virgin Enraptured

Chapter One

The stage manager called through my warped dressing room door, "On in five, Miss DuPont. Best shake a leg."

I shook more than a leg during my high-kicking routines, but I always did so with class. Indeed, the dancehall's marquee out front boasted of me:

"Tonight's can-can show stars classy Mademoiselle Daphne DuPont, coming to you all the way from Paris, France."

That last was a bit of an exaggeration. Abandoned as a baby and raised in an orphanage, I actually had no idea where I was born. Sadly, the "City of Light" was no more than a pretty picture on a postcard to me.

My foreign accent?

Pure invention. Just like the rest of me. An ear for dialect, a knack for acting, and a secondhand wardrobe that mimicked haute couture helped me pull off the charade. Not that my all-male fan base paid much attention to such props. My audience was only interested in my shimmying. Nevertheless, the devil was in the details - like stage makeup.

I hated greasepaint. The grainy texture. The cloying smell. The fixed look of it, like a death mask sealed to my skin. On stage, I worried alternately about my face cracking during a performance and the hot spotlights melting the stuff, particularly the carmine rouge slashed across my lips. Yet, here I sat, balancing precariously atop a rickety three-legged stool squinting into my tiny dressing room mirror while repairing my fake smile, all because I wanted to be somebody someday...even if it took assuming a false identity to get me there.

The irony of that reasoning was not lost on me.

Succeeding as a professional dancer meant the whole world to me. Yes, I performed in a rundown dancehall in the worst part of town, but I was still principle dancer in this company and I took that responsibility seriously. My demanding attitude might be considered snooty or snobby but there it was...I held myself to high standards. Taking the easy way, doing the least to get by, was not what I was about.

And that was a problem.

A hardworking, take-charge attitude earned men respect. Women got called bossy. Or a prima donna. Or a diva. And not in a complimentary, lead operatic singer sort of way, either. Here, behind my back, I was called all three. By management. By my fellow dancers. At the very least, I was regarded as disagreeable. All because I rehearsed until my feet bled and expected others to do the same. After starting out with nothing I felt a tremendous sense of urgency to make something of myself, and that something was a ballerina.

I finished plastering makeup on my face until it was thicker than French buttercream frosting on a cake and hid my sun spots. Freckles were unknown to Parisian women. Parisian women protected their perfect complexions by wearing Basque berets sewn of the finest wool. To the French, everything was about quality.

No one had ever adopted me but I had adopted the French way of thinking. Even in Boston's seedy Red-light District, I had my fraudulent reputation to consider. Non, non, non! Call me a phony, but never call me anything less than a first-rate phony.

For stage costumes, I insisted on exceptional fabric, sewn with the highest degree of craftsmanship. Not just for me, but for all the girls. And that meant each piece, insignificant geegaws - buttons and bows, and so-forth - included.

Quality did not come cheap. When I explained to Milton, the penny-pinching theatre owner, that increased ticket sales would more than justify the additional expense, he balked. Eventually, though, I wore him down, and he relented. And ticket sales shot through the roof.

No matter. He still branded me a rabble-rouser. A troublemaker.

And that was before I suggested unionizing the troupe to the girls.

Instead of banding together and demanding respect from management that would translate into better wages, treatment, and working condition for all of us, someone went and snitched on me to Milton, who clamped down on any additional revenue-producing changes.

Frustrating.

Long and short, the girls returned to wearing cheap costumes - tawdry tassels and coy peek-a-boo reveals during their acts and Milton wanted me gone from the dance company. Especially when I also refused to wear lewdly split drawers beneath the ruffles of my abbreviated can-can skirts, an alteration that awarded Peeping Toms a better view all-around...

...of body parts best left to the imagination, in my opinion.

But Milton ignored my opinion. He insisted peek-a-boos convinced voyeurs to buy pricier, first-row seats, perhaps for the entire season, a financial investment of no small amount.

There was just no arguing with Milton. He was the theatre owner and that was that.

Well...the other girls could do as they pleased but, as for me, I intended to succeed on talent, not titillation. When I high-kicked up on stage,

I clucked my tongue at my conceit. I was not saying I was better than the other dancers in the company. Not precisely. But I did know this much - some can-can dancers deserved their bad reputations.

Where was their pride? Their self-respect? Their dignity?

Stuffed inside their fat tip envelopes. My tip envelope was very nearly flat. Though principle dancer in the troupe, I earned far less than girls who showed their nether regions to dirty old men in Aisle A, seats 1-30. Those greenbacks tossed up on stage added up fast.

I secured a bracelet around my wrist. When the jewels caught the light, the pretend precious stones were even glossier than the genuine articles. At a distance, few could tell the difference between real diamonds and paste. Certainly none of the men in the audience would notice. Or particularly care. Their gazes were directed elsewhere.

Legs first, bosoms second.

My necklines revealed little. Queen Victoria would have seen worse during her royal visit to the Palace of Versailles thirty or so years before. However - as was the custom amongst certain highly-placed European female aristocrats - I did sport gold hoops beneath my demure décolletage, and those gold hoops were scandalously attached to my nipples.

My little secret. Not even a golden glint showed. I made sure of it. Not that I was a prude. Or particularly modest. And growing up a foundling had pretty much killed any naiveté I might have ordinarily possessed. But as an aspiring ballerina, I had to be less obvious than the other girls in the troupe.

After all, I had my fake French name to protect.