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- Dancer
-
- I've seen her many times, since then. I have seen her,
- watched her in a trance, as she executes beautiful,
- skillfully timed jumps, leaps, and twirls. Sometimes when
- I see her, I am in the balcony of an empty auditorium, the
- sole partaker of her grace. Other times I am watching
- television when static fills the screen, and suddenly,
- there she is, torturing me, burning me, making me writhe
- with longing for her. And once (the first time) I saw her
- in the street...
-
- I do not know who she is.
-
- I was on the sidewalk. It was a long, wide, deserted
- street with industrial buildings lining both sides. It
- was around two in the morning, and the late night/early
- morning chill sucked the warmth out of each of the cells
- in my body. The one lamp post shone light on the street,
- slanting it through the ethereal mist. I could see street
- vagrants, dirty people wrapped in blankets, lining the
- sidewalks, sleeping with their backs against the cold red
- brick or thick concrete mortar walls. Broken window panes
- glint with wide, gaping mouths in the cold.
-
- She was in the middle of the street. Dancing. She had
- no clothes on.
-
- I could hear no music, but she kept time perfectly, with
- as much precision as if she were a robot, or as if she had
- a metronome built into her head. The smooth liquidity of
- her motions made my head spin, but the bums did not seem
- to notice. I cannot convey the chill I felt in my bones,
- yet she seemed to take absolutely no notice of the cold.
- She twirled, spun, and lept in the middle of the street
- for an eternity before I moved.
-
- I walked forward, plodding, so unnerved, I was shaking
- uncontrollably. I had not one single thought in my brain.
- She suffused all my thoughts and actions. I was not me.
- But still I moved on, controlled, compelled by her body
- and the soft sounds made by her feet on the pavement and
- her sharp intakes of breath.
-
- She stopped suddenly, coming out of a spin with her arms
- spread out like wings, her long hair splayed out in all
- directions, stopping to face me. I can see her as in a
- picture, her body, silhouetted by the light and mist, the
- building behind her out of focus. Her expression was not
- one of surprise, as if I had frightened her, or startled
- her, but as if she were inviting a guest into her house.
- She was not smiling, but she looked overjoyed to see me.
-
- "I can see it all, now," she had said, breathing heavily
- from the exercise. "Now I understand everything."
-
- She extended her hand. I numbly took it, and her warmth
- flowed into my hand, and up my arm...
-
- ****
-
- All I know is that she dances beautifully, that she
- warms me when I am cold. She shocks me when I am blas^Fe;
- she tortures me when I am comfortable. She feeds me when
- I am hungry. And she weakens me when I am strong.
-
- I have looked for her, in school, among my friends who are
- female. I have looked for her in ^SCosmopolitan^S, ^SElle^S,
- ^STeen^S, and ^SPlayboy^S. I have searched for her exhaustively
- on the television.
-
- But she does not come to me when I need her. She comes to
- me when I am weak, vulnerable, unable to fight against her
- attraction, her dominance. She comes to me when she knows
- I cannot resist... when I am asleep.
-
-