Summer Flings and Dancing Dreams by Sue Watson Page B

magical, the chemistry, the passion in the movement and the way they flowed together was just magical, mesmerising. I would watch it again and again online to try and understand the steps, the emotions, but so far the magic had eluded me. The Argentine Tango is a sensual dance, telling the passionate story of a prostitute and her lover (or customer, depending on your interpretation) and involves intimate, hip to hip contact and for the woman to open herself up to her partner physically and emotionally. I found this difficult. I didn’t know why, but I felt stiff and awkward and just couldn’t relax into it like I could the other dances.
    ‘Jesus Lola, you’re dancing like a bloody truck driver tonight,’ Tony said after everyone had gone home.
    ‘I know, I just find it really hard to let go,’ I said. So he took my arm and pushed his hips against me and I squirmed. ‘I’m really uncomfortable,’ I said, pulling away.
    ‘Come on Lola, you’re about to have mind-blowing sex with your punter... he’s probably paying you a fortune, if the sex isn’t working, think of the money.’
    ‘I’m sorry, I feel self-conscious. I find this dance so... intimate, so personal. Dancing in front of people is hard enough as it is and I can only do it in front of our class because I know them all now.
    ‘You won’t know your audience when you’re dancing in that ballroom girl... under that glitterball.’
    ‘Mmmm I don’t know about that. Doing the Argentine Tango is like foreplay – which is something I won’t be doing in a big ballroom with an audience - or glitterballs!’
    He laughed; ‘Oh Miss Prissy, just let go of Laura and bring on Lola the showgirl.’
    ‘I don’t really see myself as a Lola... a sexy woman. It’s not in my nature to flaunt my sexuality in front of others...’ I explained, wondering if I still had such a thing as a ‘sexuality.’
    I’d had a difficult and painful love life which started at sixteen when I met the love of my life Cameron Jackson. He was tall, blonde, and just a little wild without being dangerous. I’d loved the way he wore his school tie around his head like a bandanna (it was the eighties). Life was difficult for me at home and Cameron saw me through sixth form, hugging me when I felt low and providing me with a wonderful sex education. He was insatiable, but I suppose at sixteen everyone is – and there was nowhere we didn’t have sex. The back row of the cinema, his parents’ bedroom, up by the wall at the back of our house, and everywhere and anywhere in between. It was more than just lust though and even when he left to go away to university and dumped me after the first term I still thought about him. He’d been my first love and I’d been devastated at the time, which had led directly to my next traumatic encounter with love, which is why I was still single.
    It was hard to explain, and I didn’t want to share it just yet with Tony, but I hadn’t had sexual contact with anyone for years. In fact, I hadn’t had much human contact, the only time I’d hugged anyone was Sophie or my mum and sometimes I even found the waltz a little overwhelming. That’s why I was able to dance easily with Tony, it wasn’t about sex, or intimacy, it was about friendship, and our mutual love of dance.
    We tried the Argentine Tango many times over the next few nights, but I just found it impossible. Perhaps it was just all too much too soon, and given my history with men I wasn’t ready to flaunt myself, to see myself as a sexual being again. Perhaps I never would?
    ‘Okay, we don’t have to start so close, let’s try and do the leg hooks again, if we can do that the rest will fall into place,’ he said. ‘I’m going to hook my leg around yours like this,’ he slowly moved one leg under my leg and lifted it, ‘now go with it,’ he said, moving his legs around mine. And I tried, so hard – I concentrated while attempting to let myself go which was just impossible and