The Dancing Dancer

My name is Jolene Croft, I am a dancer.

I was dancing on stage tonight. It was my fifth performance of the day.

I asked Lilith, the stage manager, if I could take the nights off to go to night class. I was sick of dancing. She said no. I said what about days. She said no. I told her I quit, but she locked all the doors and wouldn’t allow me to leave.

I reported her to security, but they didn’t want to get fired or punished so they enforced her rules.

I was treated like a slave. I was promised fame and fortune when I first became a dancer.

I had no such luck. I’d always dance to a lackluster audience. I was lucky if I got one person to pity clap for me. The other audience members just boo’d.

When it was time to sleep, I was told to sleep on the cold cement floor. Dinner was dog food and rice.

Lilith would wake me up early every morning and make me shower for the days performance. The water was either scolding hot or freezing cold. Lilith would laugh hysterically the more I screamed or cried. I had burn scars from all the times the water had been too hot.

This was abuse on a massive scale, but nobody cared and without my cell phone that Lilith took from me, I had no way to contact the outside world.

When I refused to dance, Lilith would beat me with a stick. Never on the face, people would see. Always on my back and stomach.

I tried showing all my bruises to the audience, but they all thought it was part of the show. Even after I explained I was a hostage and being beaten, they applauded. My punishments they’ll applaud for, but not for my dancing.

One night, I waited for everyone to go to sleep. I tried escaping. I grabbed a hammer and tried smashing the locks off. It was difficult and made a lot of noise, but they broke off before anyone woke up.

When I attempted to push the doors open, I was electrified with such force it blew me back ten feet.

I couldn’t move and eventually saw Lilith standing over me and smiling.

“You’ll never escape here. You’ll be punished for trying,” Lilith said.

Lilith dragged me to a large pit and threw me in. I heard a slithering and looked around. I was surrounded by snakes and screamed as each one bit me.

An hour later Lilith dragged me out of the pit and threw me on stage.

“I can’t dance anymore. I’m tired and in pain from snake bites,” I said.

“You’ll never stop dancing. Where do you think you are?” Lilith asked.

I shrugged.

“You’re in hell, sweetheart. Your punishment for being a bad girl when you were alive.”

I started to cry.

“Dance,” Lilith screamed.

I am a dancing dancer who danced a dance for Lilith in Hell.