"This is amazing!" I say to him, breathlessly smiling up at his big brown eyes. "What's your secret? Who taught you to dance like this? Come to think of it, what's your name?"
He doesn't reply but smiles shyly back, and that's when I realize that his English is almost nonexistent. He speaks three words in a soft voice that makes me shiver from head to toe.
"Guapa," he says, stroking me, his tanned hand tracing the skin just above my cleavage and making my breasts tingle with desire. "Snow White." He must have learned that from the Disney film. I look at him and realize he's very young-he can't be more than nineteen or twenty. I press against him, trying to know his body and encounter the slim hips that only young men on the threshold of adulthood have. I let my hands wander down to firm, skinny buttocks and sink my face into a hard, warm shoulder. And all the while we're dancing, but it's something that might stop being dancing if we let this go on much longer, because I feel the kind of sexual arousal that I've only ever known after about six dates and twenty minutes of foreplay. Here with this boy, this stranger, I am shrugging off ideas I've held all my life about what's wrong and what's right because my body is taking over. I'm slowly realizing that there are a lot of amazing things I might be capable of tonight and that dancing is just one of them.
That's when the doors to the bar burst open and in throngs another band of people enter waving banners, carrying castanets and guitars, singing, and packing the dance floor tighter than ever. Before I have a chance to object, a guy pulls me into the middle of the room, where I carry on moving to the music, allowing myself again to be shoved from one partner to the next. But I don't lose eye contact with my favorite dancer, always making sure that I know where he is, not wanting to break the spell, knowing that I'll come back for him later. But then there's another crowd surge, and the dance spills out into the street. I can't believe an alleyway this tiny can contain so many heaving bodies, but it can and it does. I'm getting farther and farther away, and then I lose him, his wavy brown hair just another head in the surging crowd.
At that moment I see a face I do recognize. Lara, flushed cheeks beneath her tan, one of her shoes in her hand, a broad grin plastered across her face.
"Helen," she shouts, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me toward the edge of the crowd, "I've made a new friend! Come and meet Paco." She gestures toward a burly young Spaniard in a grubby T-shirt. "I know, he doesn't look like much," she says sotto voce, "but you should see the way he moves. There's something about a boy who can dance, don't you think?"
"Oh, yes," I say, more to myself than to Lara.
Paco leads us back through more crowds. Street lighting is poor and intermittent, so we have to rely on the odd light from a bar or club spilling into the street, illuminating just a few feet. It's hard for me to make out the features of the faces that pass by me in this half-light, and despite the size of the crowd, none of the men I pass are him-the only one I want. I pray for him to find me. I will it to happen. I feel that if he is near me I will know, that our bodies will draw together like two magnets. Now that he has awakened something in me, every body I touch as I pass makes my flesh tingle when they touch me, but none has the power to set my skin afire, not like he does.
We end up in the main town square, which has been turned into an al fresco disco for the evening. Dance music blares out, and some very dirty dancing is going on: The lambada and the tango are performed to chart hits. I watch the couples as they all move together in perfect time, reading each other's bodies and knowing when to turn, when to step forward or back, when to lead, and when to let their partner take over. I'm jealous because I want to move with someone like that. I look around to see if he's there, but somehow I know that this public, brash, dirty dancing isn't his style. I perceive that he is sensitive and private.
There's nothing sensitive and private about Lara and Paco, though, as they move together, taking center stage and dancing on a stone plinth in the middle of the square. From my position leaning against an olive tree, I'm half aroused, half embarrassed to watch their gyrations, which cross the line between dancing and foreplay. She slides her hands up underneath that greasy T-shirt of his, revealing a surprisingly firm belly underneath, while his hands are on her breasts and then playfully slapping her ass. I feel another stab of jealousy. Lara has boys after her like this all the time. I never get to meet anyone who turns me on, and now that I have, I've lost him in a crowd. I envy Lara's casual sexuality and her confidence. When Paco slides a hand between Lara's thighs and she tilts her pretty head back with a sigh of ecstasy I feel jealous and also a little aroused. I watch them, imagining that it's my pussy being stroked through my panties, that it's my body being pressed up close to a man who makes me feel alive, horny, feral.
When Lara drags Paco over to me and asks me if I mind if they go back to his place for an hour or so, I'm not surprised. I don't begrudge her, either. I'm happy for her, and, besides, it's five a.m. and I'm tired. The walk back to our hotel is short and well lit, and I don't mind walking at all. The music still booms as I take a left into the cobbled narrow alleyway that leads to our accommodation.
I step over empty wine bottles and bend down to pet a stray cat who shoots out of a hidden door in a wall to see if I'm carrying any food. I have no food to offer, but the cat is beautiful. I'm stroking her soft gray fur when I feel something like a magnetic pull in my body, an awareness of the heat of another person. I hardly dare to look up, but when I do he is there, standing in the doorway with his legs crossed and his arms pressed against either side of the door frame, his shirt riding up to reveal a lean stomach and a pair of lean hips. He has a soft, gentle face and a heart-melting smile. When he extends his hand, I don't hesitate to take it. He pulls me through and gently closes the door behind him.
I find myself in a tiny courtyard garden where we can still hear the music from the square. He pulls me to him, and we dance, moving together as though we had never been parted. In my heels, I'm almost as tall as he is, so that our hips are perfectly level. As his bony pelvis grinds into my slender body I feel the growing bulge of his dick swelling and hardening between his legs. But he doesn't force himself on me; he lets the gentle undulations of his body teach mine how to move, slowly, slowly rekindling that fire that I felt before. Gently, he places his hands on my buttocks, using them to guide me, and my body turns to liquid as I sway with him. He puts his hands on mine and raises them over my head. We remain joined at the pelvis, swaying together, our bodies communicating in a way that no words ever could. I feel the lean flesh of his chest press into my small breasts and they begin to stiffen and harden. Slowly but surely the heat rises in my body and my pussy starts to pulse and flutter.
His kiss is a natural progression. It starts soft and dry, and then, slowly, he slips his tongue between my lips and begins exploring my mouth and gently nibbling, probing, wanting to know me. I feel a surge of desire between my legs and a seeping wetness. He kisses me again, the soft stubble of his chin scuffing my lips. He tastes of red wine and seafood and olive oil. I kiss him back urgently, growing more confident and passionate by the second. In response, his hands travel up my thighs and, with smooth and nimble fingers, he grasps the waistband of my panties and slides them down my legs in a fluid, sexy motion, all of this while we are both still moving in rhythm with the music. Then his hands move to my breasts, pulling my dress down so that my nipples are exposed. My pale skin shines in the moonlight, but my pink nipples harden and darken as he strokes my breasts, my neck, my shoulders. I unbutton his shirt with trembling hands, desperate to feel his skin against mine. When my breasts press against his chest, the heat from his body warms me and shoots bolts of pleasure through my veins. Still we sway together in time to the music, in no rush, content to enjoy the sensation of my budding breasts rubbing against his skin, the light dusting of hair on his chest creating a delicious friction between our two bodies.