Possession Read Online Free PDF Page B

flesh at her waist quivered with each Boom . . . Boom, and the watching males sent out a kind of tension that made Lureen step back and cross her arms over her breasts. She'd seen a pack of dogs once circling a cat up a tree and the men reminded her of the straining, growling animals.
    The music stopped in mid chorus, and Lila dropped her arms to her sides and stepped back into the line of dancers. All the life disappeared from her body; she didn't look at the crowd, but turned and walked back through the flap in the tent behind the stage.
    "She wiggles, she jiggles, and she bounces, men. And she does more, but that's all for now. Line up over here and get your tickets. Fifty cents. One half dollar for a full show inside. Don't tell your wife, and don't tell your girlfriends. The show starts in two minutes; so have your money ready."
    A couple of the men grinned with embarrassment and moved away into the constantly surging midway, but most of them dug into their pockets for coins and passed through the ticket stand. Lureen watched the last of the dancers disappear behind the stage and saw that there were spots in the sparkling net stockings that had been darned with heavy black thread.
    She stood, hesitantly wondering where to go next. Part of her wished she had the fifty cents to go inside; she was curious about what more Lila could show the crowd that she
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    hadn't done outside. She wondered what it must be like to have so many eyes watching you when you danced, admiring you. And she wondered how you could make your stomach do all those rolling movements that made it look like that.

    "Hey! You! Hey, girlie!"

    Lureen jumped. The man in the white shirt who'd sold the tickets was leaning over his stand and calling to her. He smiled and she could see white lines in his tanned face as the skin pulled tautly across his cheekbones. She walked a little closer, and his eyes were so blue they were almost white. He was older than she'd thought—maybe about thirty, but she found him the best-looking man she'd ever seen in her whole life.

    "You mean me?" she asked.

    "Yeah, sweetheart. You." He jumped off the platform by placing one arm on the stage and vaulting over the footlights. His biceps stood out on the supporting arm, and his body moved as effortlessly as a leaf in the wind. He was short and that surprised her—hardly taller than she was. He stood so close to her that she wanted to step back. She couldn't.

    "You with it?"

    "What?"

    "You with it?"

    "I don't understand," she murmured, trapped by the clarity of his eyes.

    "You with the show, I mean. You work here?"

    "Oh. No—no. I was just watching them dance. I guess they have to study a long time to do that."

    He laughed, a sharp rasping bark of a laugh. "Yeah. Oh my yes, a long time. You dance?"

    "Not like that. A little—at school, and ..."

    "How old are you?"

    "Sixteen."

    "Naw," he drawled in disbelief. "You're kidding me. You're eighteen at least. You don't look like no sixteen-year-old girl."

    "Really. I'm sixteen."

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    "I'd say you're eighteen." •
    She couldn't look away from his eyes, and she shivered.
    "I say you're eighteen, and you can dance like a dream." She didn't answer.
    "We've got a place for another girl. With your looks, and your figure, you'd be our star attraction. On-the-job training, free eats, free costumes, thirty-five bucks a week, and you get to travel all over the country. Get you out of this town. I mean some of our girls are on television now, in the big time."
    "I can't dance like that," she murmured.
    "Sure you can."
    "Do you really travel all over the country?"
    "You bet. Tomorrow Harrisburg. Pittsburgh. Detroit. Cleveland."
    "Memphis? Do you go to Memphis?"
    "Why not?"
    She stepped backward, tripping over a snaking coil of extension cord, and he darted out a tattooed arm to steady her.
    "I have to go home now," she stammered.
    His eyes still held hers, and he was still smiling. He pointed to a silver trailer parked in