Vixen - Jia Lissa - Travelling Alone -

Jia should have been offended. Instead, she felt seen in a way that terrified and thrilled her. She thought of the stage lights, the hollow roar of applause, the way her body belonged to everyone and no one. “Something like that,” she whispered.

Jia turned from the window. For the first time in weeks, she looked another woman in the eyes without performing. Without choreographing her expression. “And what’s your story?” Vixen - Jia Lissa - Travelling Alone

“You’re travelling alone,” Vixen said. It wasn’t a question. Jia should have been offended

Vixen reached across the narrow gap and gently turned Jia’s face back toward the darkening landscape. “That’s the wrong question,” she murmured. “The right one is: what’s our story for tonight? ” “Something like that,” she whispered

She’d told herself this trip was about “finding material.” A dancer’s sabbatical. But the truth was simpler and sharper: she needed to be a stranger. In Prague, in Budapest, in the tiny, unpronounceable town whose name she’d booked on a whim, no one knew her stage name. No one expected the arch of her back or the practiced softness of her gaze. Here, she was just a girl with a heavy suitcase and a passport full of empty pages.

The compartment door slid open with a hydraulic hiss.