You’ll Do

Sylvia, without care or reservation, nuzzled me close for all of a second.

"I'm-- I'm from Scotland."

Her brow rose. Intently surprised.

"Is that important?"

Her arm pulled out.

Parting our fingers and I parried my feet into what I was sure was a terribly awkward rotation.

Hers blistering and full of raw vigor.

Her forearm now perpendicular just below her breasts.

Other hand up and making a swishing queen's wave.

Copying the pose was easy enough.

And so was a furious, rushed scurry towards each other.

I'd made to reach for her hand. And for a moment I'd expected to touch her cold palms and feel the warm buzz of her chest.

Only for her to glide instead.

"Years ago when I was younger..."

Rotating. Rotating.

I continued a ballerina's pirouette. And she didn't seem to mind.

"...we were sweethearts..."

Before in sudden succession she clasped my fingers.

Once again at an insatiable, unacceptable distance.

Without her I was quite literally floundering.

But this time, as panic rose to it's peak on my face...

"I'M IN LOVE WITH A FAIRYTALE."

She didn't let me.

Securing me tight, spinning in a protective embrace.

I wondered how she wasn't green.

"I DON'T CARE..."

"I'm...

She let me whip apart to her side, before clasping my shoulder.

"ALREADY CURSED!"

We swept across the floor our feet making wide arcs and turns of it.

And then as one turned heads and our hands out for the judge's table. Making a march, her red dress swishing in time.

Such a beautiful mysterious red.

Her legs in scant moments, fluttering out of their skirts.

"Spin," she murmured.

I did, with a nod, her gentle hand letting me dance. A music box ballerine for her pleasure.

"Now you lead," she whispered again, the heat of her breath like a brush of fire on my cheeks.

And so I did.

Slowing our steps.

As the next verse matched my pitch.

By now I knew what story she was telling.

And eloquently, lips curling and round at each vowel richly savored, did she sing the song.

"Every day we started fighting

I slowed our steps. Turned them into the slow, wandering walk on a partition of moonlight upon the path.

"Every night we fell apart--

How her feet moved, why she twirled, why there was so much spinning and tracing and back-tracing.

And though she tried to retake control, for us to glide as we did, in bliss and enamored...

I didn't let her.

"No one else could make me sadder."

In my lead I pulled her, demanded her closer to me.

Nearly letting her tumble my body.

Which she turned into an artful dip.

Rising in a sweep of long, coiffed hair.

With a simple black clip with a glass jewel at it's center holding her whole sweep together.

"But no one raises me high above."

And in a suck of air I was just two inches of the ground but by God!

She'd looped her arms around my waist, she was holding my waist, holding me aloft.

My heart hammered.

The lights turned into the merciless brow-beating sun of these South summers.

Now when she held my body, the sheer electricity in my hands, buried in hers warned... just before that she would.

She'd let me go again.

Letting me wander down the other side of the floor.

"I DUNNO WHAT I WAS doin'"

"When SUDDENLY WE FELL APART."

And we continued apart.

"Nowadays I cannot find her."

"But when I do, we'll GET a BRAND NEW START."

This time we briefly gravitated towards each other, but otherwise kept to our own orbit.

Until, as it would look quite by accident, she'd caught me again.

In a brief one-armed embrace and dipping me with all the passion and force of a cougar.

Face ever closer to mine as the ballad screamed again: "I DON'T CARE. IF I LOSE MY MIND!"

"EVEN THOUGH IT HURTS!"

And raised me at her whim.

Ending the dance how we began, arms linked but apart by an intolerable two feet. Or something like that.

We were both heaving, our chests compounding, ready to burst.

Sylvia looked a mess with her hair slowly coming unfurled and softly caressing her face.

And her eyes.

Her eyes gleamed, growing almost blinding the way she turned to the spotlight head on. Smiling almost cheekily.

I must have looked terrible too.

The crying and hollering of the school was intoxicating as it was horrifying. They'd gone absolutely wild, mad even.

Bouncing and squealing, hands flapping. Some were definitely talking lewd. Groooss.

Sylvia was handed her trophy. Not spectacularly huge but still, a sizeable wide bowl painted gold that I'm sure would find a comfortable spot on her mantle or night table.

__________________

The song was called Fairytale.

By? I don't know.