Dare to Love

by Penny Dixon

  ‘We can cover over the sofas, buy different colour rugs and paint the walls if we need to.’ I notice the “we” but let it pass. ‘Secondly,’ she continue, ‘things aren’t always what you see.’

  ‘So tell me cause I’m not seeing a need just from looking.’

  ‘I’ll tell you if we agree the deal.’ She look uncomfortable.

  ‘Let me get this straight, you know everything about me before the deal but I get to know about you after the deal?’

  ‘Well, it’s personal. If you say no then you take all that information with you.’

  ‘My business is very personal too.’

  ‘Shall we just see how this week goes?’

  There’s still a lot you can learn about a person even when they trying to hide things. Like how trusting she is handing her car keys over to me every day. Like how she like to cook for somebody at night, like how much of her time she spend in the salon, shopping for the salon, talking about the salon, the customers in the salon, the bills at the salon, plans for the salon. Like how jealous she can get if somebody else invite me to a party, even if its one of her friends from the salon.

  The week goes quick. If I have a job and don’t have to spend too much time with her it could work. But if Darron have the spare room where she expect me to sleep? After a week I’m still not feeling it for her in that way.

  I spend six weeks in New York, should be two month but Jeanette ring me to tell me she need some papers from me for the divorce. Look like she want to cut the ties pretty quick. I think her folks pushing her, telling her she can’t stay with a violent man. She don’t know how it hurt. One mistake. I bet she don’t tell them her part in it. Well, I’m going to need a divorce anyway if I want to take this thing with Sophia any further.

  As the extensions finish, I tell Roxanne I need to go back. She want me to make a decision about Sophia. I tell her there’s still things I don’t know about her. She say there’s things Sophia don’t know about me.

  ‘Like what?’ I challenge her.

  ‘Like you’re living with some girl nearly half your age who might mess up the arrangements.’

  ‘It’s not really about Mel. What she hiding?’

  ‘Trust me Grant. I’m your sister and I care about you. It’s nothing big but I promised I wouldn’t disclose it until you made a decision to go ahead. I have to keep that promise. I like her Grant, she’d be good for you, give you a stable base to build a life here.’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘And she likes you.’

  I look at my sister and wonder if she know me anymore. She want the best for me but I don’t think this is it.

  She think the trip was a ‘huge success’. By that she mean Sophia can see herself married to me even if it’s by arrangement and she getting paid. She like the sound of my children, will be happy to look after Derrick and Marcie when they came to visit in the summer. Darron sound ‘delightful’.

  I feel like this is a long computer date, where someone else did the matching. I wonder what system they used to put me and Sophia together when her profile read like this:

  Name: Sophia McQueen

  Age: 45 (but like to think I look younger)

  Height: 5ft 6ins

  Weight: 160 pounds

  Eyes: Light brown

  Skin: Light brown

  Hair: I’m a hairdresser so it changes often, braids, weave, twists, relaxed

  Occupation: Business woman (owns hairdressing salon)

  Hometown: New York

  Current Home: New York

  Travelled to: California, Miami, Orlando

  Interests: Hair, beauty, eating, dieting, eating. Partying occasionally if I believe the right kind of man is going to be there.

  Looking for: Man to marry, will consider arrangement for a fee. Will respect arrangement unless he happens to look fit and has the ability to earn good money. In that case I will be possessive, demanding to know where he’s going and with whom whenever he’s not with me.

  Special skills: I’m very good with children. I would have loved some of my own. Happy to look after yours.

  And mine like this.

  Name: Grant Spencer

  Age: 36 (but lately looking older due to stress)

  Height: 5ft 10ins

  Weight: 165 pounds

  Eyes: Dark brown

  Skin: Dark

  Hair: Shaved

  Occupation: Civil Engineer, Quantity Surveyor, Construction Site Manager

  Hometown: Guyana

  Current home: Silver Hill, Barbados

  Travelled to: United States, Canada, Jamaica, St. Kitts

  Interests: My children, football (passionate about it) cricket, track and field, partying, y wife.

  Looking for: A job so I can take care of my children, less pressure from my children’s mothers.

  Special skills: Football, I play a mean game of snooker. I’m a loyal friend.

  By the time I land back at Grantley Adams Airport, I still don’t know what to do. But it’s hot, life is slower, I have some money in the bank, can stop relying on Mel so much. And for now its home.

  Two weeks later, I get another call from Jeanette. They suspect Marcie have sickle cell. She need some urgent test. She need money. I feel like I’m in a giant game of snakes and ladders and I just gone back to square one.

  Grant

  I tell Mel I’m going to shoot some pool. Truth is, the house stifling me. I’m here all day. I take Mel to work, wait for her call, pick her up. I chase HR managers, chase contractors I give quotes to. I’m trying to go it on my own, set up as self employed. I get cards printed. Surveying and Construction Services. Make myself look as versatile as possible. I’m a Managing Director. It look good, it take money to print the cards and I don’t get a single job from them yet.

  I find myself sipping on too many Hennessey and coke. I need to do something, but I have to watch the dollars. On the way to pool, I realise I don’t want to spend time with guys. I need some female company, need to feel a woman in my arms who’s not paying my bills, somebody who don’t want anything but a dance. I think about the Gap but it expensive, full of tourists and the clubs full of young people. After spending so much time with Darron and Mel, I feel like being with people my own age.

  Then I remember The Plantation. Is a while since I go there. Is twenty dollars to get in but it won’t be full of seventeen year olds trying to look like twenty-five and still sounding like fifteen. Don’t want to meet my son’s friends. I can relax and enjoy the music, get one or two dance and forget everything for a few hours.

  I’m at the bar chatting to a man I used to manage on my last project when I see three women walk in. They’re definitely women, the way they carry themselves, straight, elegant, confident. One wearing a pair of tight white pants and a pink top. She have a nice arse. One in a orange strapless dress, nice shoulders. But there’s something frisky about the one in the very high heels and the short grey rara skirt. Something about the way she swing her hips, about the way her skirt swish from side to side. She have on a tight black see through top and long curly braids to the centre of her back. Sophia flash in my head. The hairstyle not cheap. This woman have class but she dress for fun.

  I watch them try a few tables before they find the one with a good view of the floor. A good sprinkling of couples on it doing ballroom dancing to the old time music. I sip my drink and wait to see if any man join them. I watch her go to the bar with the one in the white pants. She have athlete’s legs, strong and muscular. I like the way she move her hips, like her little waist. I can tell from her arms, her shoulders, her back that she work out. I pray she not with a man. ‘Dear God be nice to me tonight. I need a break.’ I take another sip of my Hennessey and coke, scan the room for the exits in case a jealous man show up at some point.

  I decide to make my move quick. If it’s a no go area it leave me time to focus somewhere else. Though from what I can see, anything else tonight will be second best.
I put down my drink and tell the guy I going to try my luck. She have her back to me so don’t see me coming. I lean over, put out my hand and say, ‘Can I have this dance?’ I hold my breath. She look up into my face then look at her friends. I’m hoping she not one of those women who won’t dance with a man unless her friends like him. I still holding out my hand, still holding my breath. The one with the strapless dress wave her hand like she telling her to go on. She look back in my face.

  ‘I don’t know how to,’ she start to say, but her friend say, ‘Go on!’ and do that wave again.

  ‘OK.’

  She take my hand and stand up slowly. As I lead her to the dance floor, she look back at her friends as if to say, ‘You sure this OK?’

  On the floor I take her other hand and spin her round to face me. Soft uncertain hands. There’s a lot I take in about a woman in a short space of time. Her braids frame her face and hang down under her chin. She have a oval shape face and oval shaped eyes, hardly any lashes, and perfectly shaped arched eyebrows; a little round nose and lips like Jeanette’s. She look a little uncomfortable, a little stiff.

  I lean forward. ‘I’m Grant,’ I say close to her ear. I find it helps to introduce myself early, put women at ease, at least they know who they talking to and have a name if anything go wrong later. They usually feel obliged to tell me theirs. Of course there’s always one or two exceptions.

  ‘I’m Joosee,’ she say, ‘and I can’t do this ballroom thing.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ I try to put her at ease. Maybe that’s why she feeling tense. ‘We don’t have to do what they doing. Just follow me. You’ll be fine.’

  I start with some basic steps, keep it really simple. I feel her relaxing. I love playing teacher. They usually stay for more than one dance if they learn a few steps in the first one. I look at her shoes and figure she’ll need to sit down after two or three dances, women in them high heels can’t dance for long.

  ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ I say at the end of the dance. I keep hold of her hands, let her know I want the next one.

  ‘No, I enjoyed it.’

  ‘Because you relax,’ I say quick because I feel her tensing again.

  The other track starting. I let one of her hands go and slide my hand to her back. She don’t resist. Begin to flow with me.

  ‘Where did you learn to dance like this?’

  ‘My mother taught me.’

  ‘Is she a dance teacher?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So how did she…’

  ‘When she was learning she needed someone to practice with. I didn’t mind. So I learned the moves.’

  ‘And very well you do them, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘You English, right?’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Your accent.’

  ‘Spot on.’ I can feel her smile even though I can’t see it. Is she laughing at me? I step back so I can see her face. She smile at me, soft lips part, show me nice even teeth. I just meet this woman but I want to kiss her lips, want to taste her teeth, want to feel her body close to mine, want to wipe the sadness out of her eyes that’s there even when she smile.

  I feel my cock stirring, waking up. It’s a good thing I’m wearing proper underpants; boxers would be giving me away big time. I’ll bring her in close next song.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be taking a break here to listen to the karaoke finalists. We’ll be back later for more dancing. In the meantime, enjoy the show.’

  The lights come on, people leave the floor. I’m so mad at the DJ. I’m still holding her hand, don’t want to let her go. How can he do this now? She wriggle her hand like she reminding me I’m still holding her. She look a little embarrassed so I let go.

  ‘Why don’t you come and find me later?’ she say, already walking back to her friends.

  I can’t stand karaoke. I go outside to make a couple calls. One to my friend to let him know I’m not going to make it to play pool, the other to Mel to let her know I’m down The Plantation. Not to wait up because I might be late.

  ‘You want me to come down?’ She don’t realise that is partly she I need to get away from.

  ‘No, I just want to hang out tonight.’ I sit in my car and listen to some reggae and try to reason with myself. Tell myself it’s the stress why I just meet a woman and want to kiss her. Maybe I should leave now, go and play my stress out somewhere else. But I know I’m going back in there, soon as the karaoke finish.

  I misjudge the time because when I go back she on the floor with another man dancing to a calypso song. I find my seat at the bar. ‘Look like you miss you chance there,’ my ex-employee say. ‘Pity, the woman move like a snake.’

  I watch her skirt flick from side to side, like she don’t have any solid bones in her hips. She doing something slow and sexy with her hands. The man right. She moving like a snake for true. The man she dancing with, about forty, six foot, short hair, stripe shirt and white pants loving it. He staying there for the next one, she letting him. I almost convince myself to walk away. I don’t need any more complication in my life.

  ‘Pity,’ my drinking mate says again. It’s like a little voice in my head say ‘fight for her.’

  For what, for a few dances, for a little escape for a night? But the voice still there. ‘Fight for her.’ I drain my glass and say to the man. ‘The night no done yet.’

  I go on the floor and make sure she see me. I dance close by her. Her friends on the floor too, dancing with other men. She smile at me but keep dancing with the man. Next dance I move a little closer. Let her know I would like a dance but I don’t want to move in because that might be her man. I have to let her show me she want to dance. I keep smiling at her. At the end of the second dance I hold my hand out to her in a way that she can ignore or step to me if she want. She look me straight in the eye, part those lips again and step to me.

  All her shyness gone. She lively, teasing, really into the music, She’s a little wild, not the way some people from England get, arms and legs all over the place. She really feeling the music. A slow track come on, I pull her in gently, my hand in the small of her back, she step easily into me. I’m not one of those men who start whine up on a woman as soon as they start to dance, like they trying to get everything before the three minutes up. Most time it put the woman off and she don’t want to dance with them again. Too familiar too soon. I always start with a gentle sway, a few steps if she know them. If she don’t resist I start to probe with my hips. Next I slide my crotch across her front, all the time I check for her reaction to see how far I can go. It can take two or three dances before I get to that stage. If I get there, it worth the wait.

  Once in a while I find a woman that ‘fit’ me, can sense and respond to my moves. When I rock forward she lean back, when I dip she dip with me, when I slide she slide with me. When that happen I get rock hard. I’m rock hard now.

  I want to know more about her but she more interested in dancing than talking. She here from England for three weeks on holiday. She here tonight with her friends. I don’t know if she mean just at The Plantation or on holiday. Her friends sound Bajan so she probably mean the nightclub.

  I play with her wedding ring when the DJ play “Wok Up Pon Me” but she don’t say anything about it. For true the song might have been written about her. I see her friends pointing and laughing, but she don’t notice. She lost in the dance and she dancing with the same hip movement I was watching before.

  She can make her hips move separately of the rest of her body. Circle them left, circle them right. She hot and wet with sweat but she don’t leave the floor for a sit down. She on those shoes all night. She apologise, say it’s really hot but she came out to dance. I don’t mind. I’m hot and wet too. I don’t leave in case somebody else try to muscle in.

  One song she stand in front of me, make big circles with her hips, then with her belly, her breasts, and her head, then she do it the opposite way
. It’s like I’m watching a giant corkscrew, winding up and winding down. I can’t take my eyes off her and neither can half the men in the room. I’m sure I’m not the only one hard.

  She can feel my hard on when we dance close. She know I want her. She pull me into her smile, pull me right into her eyes. She say, ‘I want you’ in little ways people can’t see. She slide her breasts across my chest, squeeze my hands tight, stroke my fingers, breathe hot breaths in my ear. I’m lost in all this when the house lights go on.

  I’m shocked. It just feel like half an hour we dancing yet three hours pass. Her friends waiting for her. She whisper, ‘Thank you,’ in my ear and start to walk away. Shoot, she can’t just walk away like that.

  ‘Can I see you again?’ I don’t want to sound too eager, but I think I do.

  She don’t answer, just smile.

  ‘Do you have a phone number here?’

  The sweat on her skin in the light look like she rub down in baby oil. She shining. If she was wearing make-up it all wash off. I have to see her again. She look into my eyes, like she trying to make her mind up.

  ‘Give me your number.’

  There’s just the two of us on the dance floor, everyone else leave. Her friends waiting by the door for her. She look up and they wave at her. That code women have. ‘We’re here if you have trouble getting rid of him.’ We don’t have pen or paper. ‘It’s 249 65…’

  ‘I’m not going to remember it,’ she cut in.

  ‘How you getting home? I think I have a pen in the car.’

  ‘My friends drove here tonight. I think they’re a little impatient. I need to go.’

  Then I remember I have some business cards in my pocket. I still forget I have them sometime. I hold back a little because the cards have on my address, but is a gamble I have to take. If she find out about Mel I lose, but if I don’t give her the card I lose anyway. At least this way I have a chance. I give her the card. She drop it in her little black bag.

  ‘When you going to call?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’