Page 18 of Forbidden Dance
“Livia, you are a breath of fresh air after all the contestants on my show,” he says. His grin is infectious, happy and full of charm.
I’m completely lost in it. But we’re so close, pressed all the way tight. I can feel each part of him. Chest, belly, and below.
Fear stabs me. Twenty women, I remind myself. He slept with twenty women from his show.
I’m not afraid of things that could happen, I remember them too well. I’m afraid of the after. How many paternity suits had he mentioned? Fifteen? How many were true? He says he has no kids, but how does he know?
I step back. “I’m pretty clumsy,” I say.
“Are you kidding?” He still has my hand, and he twirls me. “Look at you. Dancing like a pro.”
The music is still going, and he walks with me, not pulling me to him, but holding only one hand. His steps are still in waltz time, one-two-three, and I instinctively walk with him, matching his stride.
We remain apart, and I calm down from my thoughts about paternity suits, falling back into the dance, turning in, then out, facing, apart, following his guide. He’s an amazing teacher, but of course he is, guiding all those contestants week after week, taking dancers of all skill levels into competition with each other for his approval.
“How would I do?” I ask without thinking.
“You’re doing fine,” he says.
“On your show, I mean.” I want my mouth to shut up, but it just keeps talking. “If you were teaching me to perform with you.”
His expression is thoughtful. “Well, I would be impressed by your ability to follow me so soon. But…”
Without warning, he turns, slides his hand beneath my back, and takes me off balance. I’m in a dip, weight on his arm, my face inches from his again.
“We’d probably dance more like this,” he says.
He holds the position, and I’ve forgotten how to breathe. I’m completely at his mercy, gripped by him, my hair streaming toward the floor.
His lips are paralyzingly close. He’s going to do it. He’s going to treat me like the women in his competition. Kiss me. Give a good show.
“For the audience,” I say.
This breaks the spell. He lifts me back to standing. “For the audience,” he says, a confirmation. “It’s all about the ratings. It has to seem as though every girl has a chance or they won’t keep watching.”
He releases me and heads back toward the stereo.
“Do they all have a chance?” I ask. “Or is it scripted?”
He stops the waltz and the room goes silent. “You’re asking trade secrets,” he says.
Of course he wouldn’t tell me things like that. For all he knows, I’m the type to sell my story to one of those sketchy magazines at the checkout line. Blitz is a favorite topic. He frequently makes the cover. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure some of the links I saw yesterday involved the paternity suits.
I wonder what a story like that is worth. Enough to get an apartment of my own?
God, I’m horrible. I could never do that.
Could I?
Blitz puts on a tango, and I think about that scene from his show with the girl on the red satin bed. How she stripped for him.
“This is a more challenging dance,” he says. “Latin dances have so much more passion. It’s a good test for the, well, compatibility of a woman with my style.”
Now he looks like Blitz. His walk has that predatory quality, as though he is coming for me, and there is no escape. The song begins, and he circles me, stepping in time with the music. First slow, then fast. Slow, then fast.
My heart hammers. There are so many sides to this man. Are they all real? Or are some an illusion, such an integral part of his image that he no longer separates it from his real self?
I’m no different. I’m naive, I know, about culture and current events and how to act in social situations at my age. But I’ve seen plenty, done plenty, broken some of the most powerful rules of society.
