Things get worse when we’ve learnt the basic moves.
Now I have to twirl and shimmy in front of Jake while he lightly holds my waist. Obviously the premise of the dance is that I’m doing itforhim, and, watching the way his eyes follow my body and he swallows, hard, as I go for a particularly vigorous shimmy, it doesfeelas though I’m putting on a show just for him. And – horrifyingly – I find myself liking it.
As we do our moves side by side, and then he holds my waist as I do my thing, and then he twirls me round before we resume our side-by-side moves, I’m consumed with a definite sense of huge achievement (when the two professional dancers demonstrated the moves for us at the beginning I had a strong I-can’t-ever-do-that feeling) but also a definite sense of extremelust. Like… Jake ishot. And he’s makingmefeel hot.
He’s looking at me as though I’m the only person – thing – anything – in the world that he’s interested in right now, and it’s making meglowinside.
I realise – when a tiny part of my brain tries to analyse it as we stop for a moment while our instructors talk to us – that this is maybe a knack he has. Maybe this – not just his ridiculously classical handsomeness – is what causes so many people to blossom in his presence. He just hasn’t exercised this particulartalent on me until now, because until sometime during the assault course we had our whole mutual loathing thing going.
‘Jake and Freya, you two have been doingverrrrrywell. Why don’t you demonstrate this new move for us?’ says Vince, one of the instructors.
Eek. I wasn’t paying attention atall.
‘Could you possibly show us one more time?’ I ask.
‘Of course.’ Vince and his partner Rosetta clearlylovetheir job; they’re more than happy at any given moment to dance, and they’re almost falling over themselves to impart as much knowledge as possible to us.
And this is arealeek now. Vince is running his hands up and down Rosetta’s sides. I’m getting flustered justimaginingJake doing that to me.
And, oh, okay, we’re up. Here we go.
We do some of the little forwards and backwards steps, feet going diagonally in front and behind each other, next to each other, all good, and then we turn to face each other and Jake pulls me in and does the hands up and down my sides thing and oh my goodness I ammelting.
Jake’s eyes are on mine the whole time, and we maintain that eye contact until I pirouette round in a twirl. When I get back round, he’s still looking at me, and I feel something inside me give a gigantic lollop.
When we finish the routine, it feels entirely natural that he pulls me in for a lingering hug. I can feel his heart pumping where our chests are pressed together, and I feel as though I don’t ever want him to let go of me.
And that is clearly the power of Latin dancing and the reason for theStrictlycurse. I mean, ofcourseif two people do this day in day out alone in a dance studio the weaker-minded of them might succumb to the obvious physical temptation. It’sintoxicating.
Rosetta claps. ‘That was wonderful, Jake and Freya. And now, everyone all together.’
And now I’m not thinking at all, I’m justdoing. The moves are coming more naturally; our bodies seem to be working together in perfect harmony. Everyone in the room has a slight sheen of sweat to them, which should be disgusting but actually isn’t; it just adds to the atmosphere, and we’re doing nothing but dancing, as though we’re communicating a story with our bodies. And the only way of interpreting that story is that we’re performing for each other and that we’re bothlovingit.
We continue with the shimmying, twirling, fast footwork, mutually admiring (devouring) looks, and it’s one of the most blissful experiences of my life.
‘More?’ asks Vince when we finish and there’s a chorus ofYesfrom all corners of the room.
We continue with the lessons for a while, and then Vince and Rosetta tell us that the rest of the evening will be us improvising. They start their playlist and join us on the floor, and we all dance late into the night, focused almost entirely on our partners, with only minimal interaction with the others.
Eventually, several of us begin to stumble with tiredness, and we decide as a group that we’re all going to head to bed.
Our own clothes and shoes have been taken to our rooms by the staff, so there’s no need for us to get changed now.
Jake and I are standing with our arms round each other’s waists as we finish the last dance, and, somehow, maybe because after such an intense experience we can’t juststop, we walk like that, still linked, our hips brushing each other, all the way back to our suite.
And when we get inside the door, we’re still, basically, entwined.
‘That was fun.’ Jake pulls me against him in a salsa move and then twizzles me under his arm, round and round, until I’m dizzy and fall against him laughing.
He steadies me with a hand on either side of my waist as I land with my hands planted against his chest.
I look up into his face and see that he’s gazing intently down at me.
We’re so close, it’s as though we’re almost one. The way his hands are resting on the bare skin just above my waist, as though they belong there; the way our chests are rising and falling to the same rhythm; the way, as he moistens his lips with his tongue, I do the same.
I feel him move his thumbs very slightly against my lower ribs and it’s as though his touch reaches deep inside me. I take a deep, juddering breath as he moves his head closer to mine until our lips are almost touching.
We hover there like that, for a few unbearably long moments. Jake caresses the top of my waist again with his thumbs, and I clench my hands against his chest.
