A year went on quicker than I had thought at first and I was able to resist Sadiq's charms during our daily lessons. He taught me how to play the zills at the end of my performance, and also how to put them on, as I didn't even know what a zill was. He slowly slid one of them on my right middle finger and then my thumb, letting his fingers linger over mine and making me blush as he did the same with the fingers of the left hand. He taught me the importance of floor work and how it enhanced a performance. How to "dance with my hands" moving them in elegant circles over my head while holding my veil over my shoulder, how to slide through the floor after finishing floor work and stuff like that that made me the professional dancer that I am now, well not now, as the only stage that I could step a foot on is in my dreams. The most important lesson he gave was the "snake dance" as I called it, because when I danced moving my tummy, I looked like a snake. It was, also, the most difficult lesson and it took me six months to learn how to belly dance properly. Sadiq would put his heavy hands over my thin hips and help me stick my tummy in and out in an unnatural manner which he mastered so well, after all, he had been a belly dancer in his youth, and a very famous one. I hoped to be as famous as him one day. And I was. I had to always invent an excuse for my delays to my sisters when I arrived home late after one of my lessons and terribly tired until they finally discovered my veil under my bed and asked me about it. I had to confess and Ekaterina didn't accept it at first, but then I told her that I had been my dream for a very long time and that it made me happy. After a few days, she hugged me and told me that if it made me happy, then it made her happy too and she was glad that the General had hired such an exclusive teacher for me to learn from.

"It seems like he estimates you"

Ekaterina said after hugging me and looking into my violet eyes the day she was forced to accept that her little brother wouldn't become a doctor like she had dreamed of. I chuckled, knowing that the General estimated me more than he should.

"More than you would think"

I said, without thinking. When I realised I had said that, she looked at me questioningly as I blushed. Her hands slid down from my shoulders and it made me remember how the General would always slide his hands down my shoulders to my backside after one of my many performances. The General hadn't ask me to dance for him ever since I started dancing with Sadiq, because he said he wanted to see me dance as a professional and he would wait patiently for a year, but we were till intimate with each other, more than a little. He hadn't given me much work to do, as he wanted me to focus on my lessons, but he sometimes called me to his office and locked the door.

"What does that mean, brother?"

Ekaterina asked me, finally, after a moment immersed in thoughts of how could possibly the General esteem me "more than she would think of". I shrugged it nonchalantly as I turned around and left to do something.

"Never mind, sister"

The day of my final lesson came in a cold December day, when it would also be the night of my first performance in public as the General had invited several members of the Imperial Court to a "spectacle never seen before". I was so excited and nervous at the same time. Sadiq said that he would be there to see me dance and share my triumph along with General Winter, who didn't even suspect of the crush that Sadiq obviously had on me. Even the musicians knew about it, but they had made a silence pact with Sadiq and would never tell anything to the General about how he ran his tanned hands over my pale skin when I did the snake dance, or how he would look at me up and down when I did floor work, admiring the sheer beauty of my skin on display, as he would later tell me. I found myself enjoying Sadiq's looks and touches, more than I enjoyed the General's.

Sadiq entered the ballroom dressed in nothing but his semi-transparent red pants with gold speckles as I waited for him under the intimidating gaze of the musicians who were talking among themselves I didn't know what they talked about, but every time I walked through the double doors of the large ballroom in nothing but my violet pants that showed my underwear to everyone who saw me, they started mumbling some things while keeping his eyes trained on me.

"Well, Ivan, this is your last lesson. You have been a great student, I tell you and it has been a pleasure to teach you the art of belly dancing"

I smiled and thanked him with a nod while twisting my veil in my hands. I could never shake my nervousness whenever Sadiq looked at me with those piercing eyes, even if a year had passed since we first met. He had this advantage over me, whenever he would look at me with those deep, soulful eyes, I would melt.

"You need a name"

I didn't know what he was talking about, so I asked him, with my head tilted to the side.

"But I already have a name. It's Ivan"

Sadiq laughed, a sound that went straight to my heart and made me feel warm inside. I blushed a little.

"I mean a stage name. You can't perform if you don't have a stage name"

I thought for a while and I couldn't think of anything better than "Sunflower", a flower which I loved since I was a little kid, but Sadiq sensed that I couldn't think of anything, so he decided to help me out, with a smiling face.

"I would suggest Menekşe, for the colour of your eyes"

He put his hand over my cheek and in a fraction of a second, his face was inches apart from mine. He pulled away suddenly, when I closed mine, waiting to feel the pressure on my lips.

"I want us to practice tonight's routine one last time"

That night was the night and I was so excited that we had been practicing for several days already. I started to dance right away when Sadiq told the musicians to start playing that sinful sound I had grown addicted as months went by. I began with my routine, it was a simple routine, but a routine, after all, and it had to reach the standards of perfection in order to please myself, Sadiq, the General and his friends of the Imperial Court. I was so nervous.

Suddenly, I found myself dancing in the makeshift stage of the large, exquisitely decorated ballroom, where most of the Russian Imperial Court was watching me in awe as I gyrated my hips, enjoying the tinkling sound of my hip belt moving as I fell to the ground and started doing floor work while moving my hands in the air, tracing imaginary patterns while my veil had been discarded on the same floor I was dancing onto. I stood up slowly and picked my veil up, twirling around several times with my veil up in the air, shaking my hips to the beat of the music that was being played by the same musicians who had seen my progress throughout that long year. When I finished my routine, I fell to the floor on my knees at the front of the stage and clicked my zills when the musicians stopped playing, providing the necessary end to my perfect routine with my fingers placed elegantly and my arms crossed one over the other as I sighed in content when I heard the roaring crowd applauding.

I scanned the room full of pleased, clapping people, looking for my sisters. I found them in the corner of the ballroom: Ekaterina looked happy but slightly embarrassed and Natasha... looked like she wanted to jump me at any moment. Sadiq was smirking at me and winked, making me blush a little. I saw the General, who was clapping with a content smile on his face and I bit my lip nervously, as I basked in the applauses.

It had been the first time I had danced in public, and it had been perfect.