I see that almost hidden glimmer of amusement again, but behind it there is something in his expression that tells me, despite his soft words and calm manner, that my would-be partner is just as stubborn as I.
‘The lead is not a command, but an invitation. All you have to do is accept it, surrender to the music, and forget about everything else for a while.’
My ears prick up. That, at least, sounds appealing.
My hand is still in his, warm and encased. I realise I don’t want to let go.
I slide off the stool, watching my feet, then meet his gaze when I have my balance. There is no look of triumph in his eyes, as Gareth would have given me—he always was a bit too competitive for his own good. Instead this man just leads me away from the shadows at the edges of the room and to the fringes of the softly lit dance floor.
My heart begins to pound inside my ribcage as he pulls me close. I’m not sure if it’s nervousness at not knowing the dance or because it feels strange, and maybe just a little thrilling, to be in the arms of a man who isn’t Gareth.
Like the other couples on the floor, our upper bodies are close. His right hand is firm on back, resting at the bottom of my left shoulder blade, and my left arm rests snugly on top of his, my hand on his shoulder. He clasps my other hand and I find my forehead rests naturally against his cheek. He smells wonderful, of sharp citrus and clean cotton.
‘What’s your name?’ I whisper. If we’re going to be this close, I really ought to know his name.
‘Cristian,’ he replies simply.
‘I’m Sophie,’ I say, even though he doesn’t ask.
We begin to move. I have no idea what I’m doing, but somehow I don’t trip us both up. We keep going like that for a while. We’re so close it’s hard to look down at my feet. And he’s right: while I’m busy concentrating on not causing a five-couple pile-up, I haven’t room to think of anything else. It’s delicious. I wonder if I can take him home and hide him in my wardrobe, get him out so I can tango down my landing when things get too much.
‘Sophie?’ he says huskily.
I hesitate, putting us off-balance momentarily. ‘What? Am I doing it wrong?’
‘No…’ he says, and I can hear the humour in his voice. ‘But you are not yet doing it completely right.’
‘Give a girl a chance,’ I mutter under my breath. ‘I’ve only been learning for five minutes.’
This time his laugh is audible. ‘I like it when you speak that way,’ he says into my ear. ‘It shows you have natural fire. Much better than the wet dishrag I met at the bar. And tango is all about emotion—about passion.’
I want to bristle at the dishrag comment, but I can’t really argue with the truth. We carry on dancing in silence for another minute. Somehow I know he’s going to carry on with what he had started to say, that I just need to be patient.
We reach a point where he turns me around him. It’s very clever. I don’t even know it’s coming, but somehow, the way he places his feet, the way he blocks his leg with mine, make the next step clear. He does it again. But this time the movement is larger, more sweeping, and then at the end we both seem to grow taller, hover on the balls of our feet. The moment stretches way longer than feels comfortable, and I move before he does. He tuts softly in my ear.
‘Do not be afraid of these moments,’ he tells me. ‘They are necessary, time to feel the music, work out what it is telling you to do next. You cannot rush them. They reflect how it is in life… There are moments of great complexity and busyness, great drama and emotion. We need the pause after such times, and it is the same with tango.’
I nod, even though I’m not quite sure what he means. The skin of his cheek feels both rough and smooth against my forehead. I feel just the hint of stubble at his jaw. I used to get annoyed at Gareth when he didn’t shave, telling him I didn’t need sandpapering when we were that close, but somehow I like the feel of it right now.
I concentrate on not wrenching the lead away from him, even when the moments of stillness stretch on forever. I concentrate on trying to work out what’s coming next. Now we’ve been dancing a while, my feet are recognising the patterns. I want to be more than a lump that he’s dragging round the floor. For some reason it’s important I am a good partner.
‘You are thinking too much,’ he mumbles as he turns me once again, and then he steps across and blocks my raised foot with his own, uses his weight to send me in an unexpected direction. Suddenly, I feel as lost and off-balance as I did when we first started. I look down to try and work where his feet are going.
‘Ciera los ojos,’ he says. I don’t understand the words but the tone is a command.
‘I don’t underst—’
‘Close your eyes,’ he repeats, just as plainly. I know this is not a request. Nor is it an invitation. I keep my eyes wide open and glare at him. He stares back at me. Neither of us back down. I feel a flash of anger, although I don’t know where it has come from or why. It changes the way I move, and Cristian somehow knows this and changes his steps accordingly. Suddenly, this is more than arms and legs and torsos moving in unison. It becomes something primal. Something I am more than a little bit scared of.
I turn my head away, refusing to look at him, but my act of contrariness becomes part of the dance too. Or is it a conversation our bodies are having while our mouths are closed? I really can’t tell.
‘We call it entregar,’ he says. ‘It means to surrender. It is what a good follower in tango must do.’ His voice grows softer. ‘You almost have it, Sophie… Close your eyes.’
This time I do it. Not because I have been told to. Not in a fit of pique. But because I want to. I have seen the couples around me, even the silver-haired pair, lost in a place where the outside world doesn’t exist any more. I want that too. I want it so badly it’s like an ache deep inside me.
As we carry on I see what he means. Without my eyes I have no choice but to listen to what his body is telling mine. My whole frame becomes hungry to hear from him. He uses his weight, his legs, even the fingertips resting so, so lightly on my back. I feel the way he wants me to move and I just go with it. And he’s right—I’m not a lifeless puppet being directed. I am part of it and it makes me feel alive in a way I just can’t describe.
The feelings I’ve been stuffing down all week, those I’ve been too scared to let out come spilling out. There are moments of anger and moments of sadness. Times when I want to howl and times when I want to punch and scratch, yet the dance contains it all. Each emotion follows the next, working its way out from deep inside me, through my torso, my arms, my legs, even through my fingertips, and there they are exorcised. Set free, like doves that fly off never to return. I feel that Cristian knows me now. Knows all my secrets, for he has felt them reverberate through me and into him as we have moved as one body.
We dance on and on, from song to song. I can’t let go. I don’t want to. I feel as if I was meant to do this, to learn this dance, and that I was meant to do it with him. Something hot and warm slices through me, a wish that we’d met in a different time or a different place. It’s both surprising and terrifying.
Finally we come to a stop. I realise the music is dying away. We stand there not moving. I can tell his eyes are closed too, but I don’t know how. A strange energy pulses around us. With a reluctant sigh, he pulls away. I feel cold air rush in where his body just was and I open my eyes.
The way he’s looking at me makes me want to cry. It’s the way I always imagined Gareth would look when he turned to watch me walking down the aisle.
‘You are a quick learner,’ he tells me, and I can hear a slight tremor in his voice.
‘Thank you.’ I want to walk back into his hold again, lay