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“I’m new at this, so hopefully I can keep up. I saw you dancing earlier, and you look like you’ve been doing this for a while. You looked great,” I told Bianca as we began.
In my experience, flattery got you everywhere with women. You tell them what they want to hear, and they become putty in your hands.
Bianca and I danced a few songs together, and I had to admit, I was really getting into the groove of this salsa dancing thing. It had a particular structure to it, but it still left a lot of room for improvisation with the spins and the moving around. It also had the potential for being a really sexy dance, getting as close to the dancing partner as one would dare.
After the end of the third song, Bianca took my hand and led me off the floor opposite the side of the room that Zia still sat in at our table.
“So, can I get your number? Maybe we could hang out again sometime,” Bianca requested with a light-hearted smile.
“Yeah, that would be great. But I’m in the process of changing phone carriers. I’d hate to give you a number that won’t work soon,” I lied. “How about I get your number instead?”
“Sure,” she agreed, and then recited her phone number to me as I entered it into my cell phone.
I had to be really selective about who I gave my number to. Handing it out freely was how I got myself some obsessive stalkers in the not-so-distant past. Not that Bianca seemed like the crazy type, but I couldn’t be too careful.
Before I walked away, I took Bianca by the hand and gave her one more spin. “Talk to you soon,” I told her as I headed back over to Zia and our table.
“She seemed nice.” It seemed more like a question than a statement from Zia as I sat back down and grabbed my drink.
“Yeah, I think so. Looks like maybe you know what you’re talking about after all, huh?” I answered.
“We’ll see. Don’t just settle for the first girl you meet. You see where that’s gotten you so far,” Zia teasingly gibed.
After sitting a few more minutes with Zia and my Dos Equis, I shared a few more dances with a couple of other girls. Each one had their own style, which I adjusted my own style to, and that helped me to really hone my dancing skills before the night was through.
Of course, I could not resist asking Zia for a few more dances in between. She moved so gracefully, her hips swaying in perfect synchronicity with the upbeat music, and her footwork on a whole other level from the other girls I danced with.
About halfway through the night, I had noticed a guy who had his eyes on Zia a little too intensely as she danced or milled around the room. Not that he was the only guy I could see eyeing her, but I could tell this particular guy had really set his sights on her from the way his eyes followed her around the room as he would smile as though he’d accepted a challenge and run his tongue over his lips.
The guy had a sort of exotic flair about him. He was definitely not American, but maybe from a Middle- or South-American, Spanish speaking country. I could see how the girls in the room were attracted to him, as he had a sensual way that he moved his whole body when touching them and looking into their eyes when he spoke to them.
Needless to say, I didn’t trust the guy.
When he finally made his way around to talk to Zia, I panicked. I wasn’t sure why; whether it was out of concern that he was some type of con artist or sexual predator, or the more likely reason that I was scared as hell she would be attracted to the guy. Either way, I had to act, so I did the only logical thing I could think of at the time.
In mid-song, I walked off from the girl I had been dancing with at the moment without so much as a word or explanation. I walked over to Zia and the attractive, skeezy, exotic guy, tapped Zia on the shoulder, and asked, “Mind if I cut in?”
Did I seriously just do that? I mean, what kind of jealous, overbearing, controlling, territorial jerk was I being at that moment? As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I imagined Zia being annoyed with me and telling me to bug off, after she had watched me dancing with girl after girl tonight.
But it was too late. I had already stuck my foot right into it, and all I could do at that point was commit to the follow-through.
Needless to say, I was shocked when Zia smiled up at me, looked politely over at Mister Exotic, and told him, “Maybe another time, Hector.” She said his name, Hector, in a Spanish accent that made it sound completely different from how I would have probably read aloud from a book. Ayk-torrrr, as she made almost a rolling R sound at the end.
It made her about ten times hotter than she already was right at that moment.
As she took my left hand and I placed my right arm around her with my right hand at the small of her back, she asked me, “What’s up, Dylan? Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yes, everything is great. I was just getting a little tired. I wondered if you might be about ready to call it a night,” I told her, and it was only a lie in that it was not the entire truth.
Zia agreed, so she grabbed her jacket and hand bag and we made our way out the door. We waited outside for a cab, and thankfully it arrived quickly, since it was a chilly night and I felt like a jerk making her wait out there with me in the cold air.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked me as a hint of fog hovered in the air from her warm breath. Great, I really felt like a jerk. I didn’t even have a jacket to offer her, and I was at least glad she had her own jacket to wear at the moment. It was touching that she was concerned about me, too, though.
“No, I run hot most of the time. It feels good to be out here after dancing the past couple of hours,” I explained.
Once the cab pulled up beside us, I opened the door and stepped aside to allow her in first. Once she got in, she moved across to the other side of the back seat and I got in beside her.
“I don’t think you live far from me. I’ll have the cabbie drop you off first and I’ll pay the cab fare, if that sounds good to you,” I offered.
