Salsa at Ryles in Cambridge can also be applied to salsa at Union Station in Newton Corner...
Those six short Latin steps did it. The aesthetic ideals I apply to women were laid waste last night. I fell hopelessly in love with several women at a salsa dance. Women of all shapes and sizes, women who wouldn’t have been laser beamed into my radar in the workaday world, skyrocketed like roman candles into my consciousness, dislodging my notions of sculpted playboy beauty. They were chunkier, plainer of face, unremarkable in proportion. But on the dance floor they were wet dreams in motion, Utterly transformed into graceful, commanding, sinuously moving creatures who found a fourth dimension hitherto unseen by this Yankee boy. I could not keep from staring at them from the perimeter of the dance floor.
One heavy set blonde woman, anti matter as far as cover girl proportions go, wearing a black outfit, jiggling midriff-baring top and short skirt, was transformed into a goddess with agile feet, perfect balance and a megawatt smile. She attracted the most amazing posse of men, young and old, who vied for her attention on the parquet. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. Textbook salsa, upper torso remaining upright under her feet and her hips, my god, her hips swiveling in a way to make Fidel proclaim salsa as the national dance. More powerful than sexy, this was sensual. And fun. Are epiphanies accompanied by eight beats sounded out in six steps?
I have vowed to learn this dance, to commit it to muscle memory. I dream of the day I can take one of these goddess's hands in mine and lead her in this dance of love. I want to see her eyes light with anticipation when she sees me walking toward her with my extended hand.
There’s mystery afoot, too. I don’t want to seduce these women, I want to dance with them. Very well. I want to express my masculinity by leading them in ways that bring us both pleasure - sensual kinesthesia.
How many women are walking down the street who can make the Clark Kent quick change into black smooth soled pumps and suck the hearts out of unsuspecting partners within sight lines on a dance floor? And how many men? In time, at least one more of them. Maybe I’ve been transformed into a Yanqui Boy.
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