The West Wind

by Morgan Douglas

“Come off it, Jaimie. We talked for a minute the other day, that’s all.”

  “A minute? What, at the coffee shop?”

  “No, after.”

  “And you didn’t tell me? You bitch! Bathroom, now.”

  “Not now, Jaimie.”

  “Now, Hero, or you’re never getting these clothes back.” Jaimie was once again dressed in an outfit from Hero’s closet. Tonight she was made up to look like Rosie, a famous vintage ad of a woman in a red bandana and blue, button-up shirt flexing her muscles with the words, “We can do it,” across the top.

  Hero rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Fine.” She stood up and followed Jaimie into the women’s restroom, looking over her shoulder every few feet. Just as the door swung shut behind her, she saw him step into the room and saw Jessica Crowley fling herself onto him.

  * * *

  Xander walked into Hellespont, money already in his hand when the bouncer started to ask. He told him to keep the change, as an apology for his entrance last week. The bouncer, who turned out to be named Mike, became much friendlier after that. He asked Xander a few questions about what Carolyn was like. They chatted for a while, but Xander made his excuses as soon as he could do so politely. He moved into the club, craning his neck in search of Hero.

  He hadn’t been looking long when out of nowhere a warm, soft form melded to his and nearly knocked him off his feet. It was Jessica, in a tight red dress that left little room for the imagination. He hoped she was wearing bloomers, but thought it unlikely. She didn’t seem like the kind of girl who cared for that kind of etiquette. The dress wasn’t particularly ideal for swing dancing either, nor the four-inch tall matching stilettos. He hugged her back and put her back on her own feet quickly.

  “Xander, come dance with me,” she begged.

  “I just got here, give me a minute.”

  “Oh come on,” she wheedled. “How can you say no to me when I look like this?”

  He didn’t tell her that as sexy as she looked, it was part of why he wanted to say no. It bothered him when people didn’t bother to change their paradigm at least a little to match the event they were attending. The dress would have been fine for a night out or a different kind of club dancing, but for swing it made no sense. She pouted at him with big eyes and an equally big lower lip. He rolled his eyes and gave in.

  In the bathroom, Hero turned around immediately to open the door again and found her way blocked by Jaimie as she slipped between her friend and the exit. Hero sighed.

  “What? I want to go dance.”

  “You talked to Xander?” Jaimie asked as if Hero hadn’t spoken.

  “Yes, it wasn’t a big deal. He apologized, we joked a bit, he walked me to the boat.”

  “And you flirted.”

  “What? No.”

  “I know you, Hero DiBenedetto, and you don’t spend an hour trying to separate your head from your neck to look at the door for nothing.”

  “I just want to try again, that’s all.”

  “Try what again?” Jaimie looked at her friend suspiciously.

  “Dancing! We’re. At. A. Dance. I want to go dance.”

  “With him.” Jaimie stated.

  “Yes, jaimie, with him. With Xander. With Adonis. Now will you move? I want to grab him before Jess attaches herself to him like a leech and we have to burn her off him.”

  “Why don’t you just let her have him? You can do better. Dance with Brian.”

  “Brian’s gay, Jaimie.”

  “What? No, he isn’t.”

  “Are you kidding? Haven’t you seen him staring at Jeremy?”

  While Jaimie stood flabbergasted, her mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air, Hero slipped past her and out of the bathroom.

  Hero strode past the Coven’s table and straight to the edge of the dance floor. Xander was twirling Jessica about ten feet away. She watched them as they danced, annoyed. How was her dress staying on, anyway? Glue? The hem, which Hero would have described as “barely covers her ass,” somehow defied the laws of physics and refused the awkward climb anyone would have expected it to make. They were dancing East Coast Swing, which meant Xander was dancing to Jessica’s level. She smiled. It was the right thing for a good lead to do, and gave Hero the satisfaction of know he would never be forced to do so with her. She waited patiently, hands clasped in front of her while the song seemed to go on and on.

  Xander caught Hero’s eye as soon as she stepped up to the floor. He grinned at her and nodded. Jessica beamed up at him, thinking the look was for her. As Xander spun her, her face changed and she glared at Hero. Xander dipped her as the song ended, and she held onto him as he brought her back up.

  “Dance with me again,” she pleaded.

  He shook his head. “I promised the next dance to someone else.”

  “Please, don’t dance with her.”

  His eyes grew hard and his voice firm. “Jess, you’re a great girl and a lot of fun, but don’t tell me who I should or shouldn’t dance with again. Ever.” Before she could answer he left her standing in the middle of the floor, alone. She watched him go, hurt.

  “For a minute I thought you were going to need surgery to get free,” Hero joked as Xander walked up to her and took her hand.

  “Hero DiBenedetto, will you dance with me?” he asked formally.

  “I’d love to,” she responded, letting him lead her to the middle of the floor.

  Metisse’s ‘Boom Boom Ba’ started to play over the loudspeakers. Xander took her up into a close, almost intimate position. His arm snaked around her back, the back of his right hand turned to catch her beneath the shoulder blade. Thumb and forefinger of his left wrapped around her wrist, which he held low, level with her hip, a hold she was only familiar with in the Blues style of dancing. He was so close she could feel the heat between them, a charged cushion of space that provoked more of a rush of desire than if they had actually been touching. She swallowed and bit her lip.

  “What are we doing?” she asked, trying to determine what style he intended to dance. She was used to dancing West Coast Swing to the song, like most of the dancer’s around them were preparing to do as the intro wound out.

  “Dancing,” he said with a mischievous grin.

  “Brat,” she replied with a smile.

  Then there was no more time for words. Leading from his chest, Xander took a step forward. At the slightest pressure Hero slid a step back, just slightly behind the beat. Almost as if ice-skating, they skimmed across the floor, their steps sometimes recognizable as belonging to a specific dance, sometimes the movements of a dance all their own. When Xander lead her in steps she’d known for ages, each set ended pregnant with a pause. The pause they filled with a pose, hungry eye contact, or the final movements of a turn as they spun together. His deep blue eyes bored into hers, undaunted by the intensity of making contact in a dance as passionate as this dance that was sometimes the tango of American ballroom schools, sometimes the tango of Buenos Aires, and sometimes a tango that transcended labels. For a brief moment as she matched his stare, she was tempted to laugh. The temptation passed quickly. Hero gazed as far into him as he seemed to be gazing into her.

  Xander opened to a promenade, a move thousands of playful pairs knew and mimicked whenever they imagined what it meant to tango. As Hero and her lead glided past a couple dancing in their West Coast slot, he drew her left hand across her face. She snapped into a tight turn within the circle of his right arm and his fingers trailed across her ribs as she spun. As she came out of the turn, he caught her again with the back of his palm against the curve of her shoulder blade. The narrow space between them almost crackled with the tension and passion the dance awakened with every slide, turn, and footfall. Hero could feel it as if it were a physical thing. She marvelled at the gentle, firm strength of his frame. He never forced her through any of the steps. His hands, his arms, his chest simply moved, shifted, and as they did, so did she. It reminded her of having someone whisper a foreign language in her
ear in dark corners and she swallowed at the thought. They had gone beyond dancing, ascended movement and combined it with unspoken conversation. If she hadn’t been dancing for so long she would have sworn their communication was psychic instead of physical. This is body language, Hero thought.

  The Coven watched as Xander and Hero wound across the floor in their tango, gracefully, sensually weaving through the other dancers as if they weren’t even there.

  “What do you call THAT?” Evan asked.

  “Tango, silly,” Leana said.

  “Foreplay,” Jeremy remarked, no snideness in his voice.

  Jaimie, who had been watching with a rapt expression of mild irritation broken only by the occasional suspicious sideways glance at Brian, nodded. “For once, I think Jeremy’s right.”

  Jeremy smirked and stood, offering a hand to Leana. “Would you like to dance?”

  Leana looked surprised. Jeremy had been coming to Hellespont for ages and rarely, if ever, left the table. “Sure!” she agreed as they went to the floor.

  Jaimie looked at Evan, “You, me, now.” She turned to Brian, “Sorry to abandon you.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll just enjoy the show,” Brian encouraged her with a wink.

  Hero and Xander stalked a languid circle around each other, right palm to right palm. Xander grinned at a thought and said, “You know, palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss.”

  Hero pressed her teeth into her lip for a second before saying with a smile, “Just dance, Romeo.”

  Xander nodded, twirling her to the outside before spinning her back into an inside turn and a dip, one arm threading hers around the back of his neck while the other supported her waist. She arched her back as he brought her out, her skirt flaring high as he sent her out and away from him. He twirled her in again without letting go of her arm, twisting it gently around her back and pulled her into him in a variation of a lunge called a corté. Her free hand pressed against his bicep and her knee slid up until her thigh locked into place on his hip. She leaned into him with her entire body, and everywhere their two bodies could make contact, they did. Xander didn’t move, looking down at Hero while she lifted her chin to meet his eyes. He watched her thoughts spill across her face, so caught up in the moment that she was an open book. Hero bit her lower lip yet again and swallowed while they held the pose for a moment. Someone on the sidelines whistled and she realized the song was over.

  They separated like the last drop of water from a rainstorm clinging to the tip of a leaf. They parted as if the air had become molasses, slowly melting away from each other as if it was impossible to move faster. Hero spun out one last time to unwind her arm from behind her. Xander watched as her dress swirled gently, rose and settled as if it were going to take all the time in the world to rediscover the law of gravity.

  Around them, the world hadn’t stopped, though a few couples who had come to the floor for the next song, which had already begun to play, eyed them strangely. When time resumed its normal flow, Xander offered Hero his arm. She took it, slipping her through his until her shoulder almost touched his arm.

  “Thank you,” she said, bumping him gently.

  He laughed. “Thank you. That was amazing. You were amazing.”

  “You weren’t half bad yourself. Do you tango like that with all the girls?”

  “No, only the protagonist of the story.” He winced and grinned.

  “Did you just make a joke about my name?”

  “Me? I’d never.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “There’s only one thing I know about your name.”

  Her expression dared him to make another joke. “Well?”

  “Far above the loveliest Hero shined, and stole away th’ enchanted gazer’s mind.”

  Hero was taken aback for a moment, though a smile stole across her face. “What’s that from? It’s not Much Ado about Nothing.”

  “You know Shakespeare?” he asked, pleased.

  “Well, that’s where my mother got the name, it’s her favorite character.”

  “I see,” Xander said. His answer was short, but heavy, as if there was more he wasn’t saying.

  “Is there something wrong with that?” she asked.

  “No, just thinking about the character.”

  “What about her?”

  Xander was saved from having to answer by Jessica’s approach. “Unless Hero is going to hog you all night, will you dance with me again, Xander?”

  “We’re in the middle of a conversation, Jess. Go away,” Hero answered for him. “Besides,” she said to Xander, “I want you to meet my friends.”

  “What, one dance and you suddenly make his decisions?” Jessica snapped and took a step toward Hero.

  Xander put himself between them. “Woah, easy. I’m right here. And perfectly capable of speaking for myself.” To Jessica he said, “I’m going to take a break, but I promise I’ll come find you for a dance later. Okay?” The last word was a statement, not a question. She pouted, and nodded.

  “As for you,” he said to Hero, “I’d love to meet your friends. Lead the way.”

  Hero smirked her victory at Jessica, who glared at her.

  “Everyone, this is Xander,” Hero said when they finally arrived at the table. “Xander, this is my best friend, Jaimie, who you’ve met.”

  “Encountered, at least. It’s nice to meet you,” Xander said.

  “Charmed,” Jaimie said in a flat, unconvincing voice.

  “I’m Leana!” Leana said, introducing herself with her usual vigor.

  “And this is Evan, Jeremy, and Brian,” Hero finished.

  “Leana, Evan, Jeremy, Brian,” Xander named them, nodding a greeting to each in turn. “You’re all pretty good dancers. Do you come here every week?”

  “Since we were Freshmen, pretty much,” Jaimie answered, unable to help herself. “It’s the thing to do in Vista Bay.”

  “Hard to imagine you’d be anywhere else then,” Xander smiled. Jaimie frowned. She wasn’t certain he meant it as a compliment. “It definitely means I moved to the best place in California,” he continued.

  They all grinned and nodded. Of course they agreed.

  “So where’d you learn to dance?” Brian asked. “You’re obviously pretty good yourself.”

  “Rock step. Kick. Step. Kick. Up. Kick. Step,” Sarah McConnell said as she taught her six year old son the Charleston in the living room. The coffee table had been moved off to one side and Zachariah watched his wife and child over the top of a collection of John Donne poems from where he sat in an overstuffed recliner. A slow swing song played in the background. One of Sarah’s mantras was, ‘It’s harder to do something right slowly than quickly. But if you can do it right slow, you can do it right fast.’

  “Yeah, and what’s your favorite kind of dancing?” Leana piped in before Xander’s memories overwhelmed him.

  “My mom taught me, and we used to go to The Century Ballroom in Seattle, for as long as I can remember.”

  “Aww,” Leana said.

  “Where’s your mom now?” Evan asked.

  Xander was quiet for a moment. “She died last year,” he said, barely loud enough to hear over the music.

  Hero took his hand and squeezed it comfortingly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, dude,” Evan said.

  Xander changed the subject before the atmosphere could get any more uncomfortable. “So, you all know the Jitterbug Stroll, right?”

  Even Hero gave him a curious look, which he hadn’t expected. “The what?”

  “Is that like the Shim Sham?” Leana asked, referring to a choreographed line dance usually performed to Duke Ellington’s ‘Take the A Train’ or Bill Elliot Swing Orchestra’s ‘The Shim Sham Song’.

  “Yeah, it’s similar. Easier though. You guys want to learn?”

  “Yeah! Sure thing,” came a chorus.

  “Nah, you guys go ahead.” Jeremy excused himself, leaning farther back in his chair.

  Leana dragged him out
of it. “Come on, Jer. We’ll all learn it!”

  “Ugh, fine,” he complained.

  Half an hour later, they had it down as well as Xander thought they would for the moment. A small crowd had joined them, first to satisfy their curiosity and see what was going on with the impromptu lesson, then to learn. While Xander went up front to talk to the DJ, the others stood at the back of club, talking.

  “See, he’s not so bad, is he?” Hero asked Jaimie.

  “I still don’t like him,” Jaimie told her friend. “But he’s a pretty good teacher,” she admitted grudgingly.

  “I think he’s great,” Leana said.

  “Leana, you think anything that breathes is great,” Jeremey remarked.

  “That must be why I like you so much,” she returned with a disarming smile. Jeremy looked at her warily, trying to figure out exactly what she was implying. Jaimie and Hero both gave her silent thumbs up, at which she dimpled and curtsied slightly.

  A voice came out of the speakers over the top of a bass line, as Xander gestured vigorously from the middle of the floor, inviting them to join him.

  “Alright, all you jitterbug strollers, come on out on the floor.”

  * * *

  Xander stood outside, leaning his elbows on a railing that separated Hellespont’s parking lot from the pedestrian boulevard. He took a deep breath of the cooler evening air. It was hot inside, though the club was better air conditioned than many places he had danced. It was a good night. He had danced with Hero another four times, Jessica two, and with Leana. He thought he might have softened Jaimie’s opinion toward him a little, between teaching the Jitterbug Stroll and the one dance they had shared. He shook his head in amusement. Even then, Hero’s friend had berated him and given him a very explicit description of what would happen to him if he insulted Hero again.

  He could not get Hero out of his head. The scent of her, the vision of her in that dress, the fullness of her pressed against him in the final moment of their tango. A short blast of air escaped from his nostrils as he remembered a line from Heinlein’s Number of the Beast, “After a tango like that the couple ought to get married.” He smiled. He would happily be John Carter to Hero’s Dejah Thoris.