@@DESCRIPT="`And We Danced..' By TS"
                    And We Danced and Danced


     The memory of that night forever rests for me at the tip of
my memory like someone who sits at the edge of a pool allowing
only their feet to feel the taste of the pools moisture lick at
their toes.  Any time I want to remember that night I can grab
the memory that stands in front of me and pull it before my eyes
and watch like a movie or a dream that replays everything that
happened.
     Before the night began I knew already that tonight would be
the night I asked her to marry me.  I had seen in her eyes the
future that told me she would say yes.  Like the teenage boy who
buys the rubber before every date, I was confident and arrogant. 
The night would be so perfect that if she refused me, the world
might come to an end.  Nothing was going to make this night go
wrong.
     (Shut up bitch!)
     I went to her house to pick her up but it was I who was
lifted by her beauty.  A dress so white she could have been an
angel who had come to answer all my prayers.  Hair the color of
light that swayed down across her shoulders.  She was everything
I would have been looking for if I could have imagined something
that beautiful.  And when she came into my arms and kissed me I
felt invincible but yet vulnerable, almost to the point of tears. 
Because in my arms I held everything I would ever want and I was
so afraid I would let it go.
     (Stop twisting your hands! Your only making it worse!)
     I couldn't understand how her father would allow something
that precious to go out with a bum like me.  If she was my only
daughter, I don't think she would have seen the sun.  Maybe when
I wanted to impress my associates I might bring her out to show
them the thing that meant the most in my life.  And they would
look at her and wish that she was there's and before they looked
too long I would have had to take her away from their eyes
because one look at her could put you in a trance that made you
love her and wish she was yours, I swear. 
     We went to a club, The Jade, I believe the name was, a
lovely little place in the middle of nowhere but always packed
with love birds who had flown away from the unromantic city into
the dust of the wilderness where The Jade Club rested alone
beneath the stars.  I held her hand as we walked in, and the
moment we entered I could feel their eyes looking at her, wanting
her, loving her.  Woman or men, it didn't matter, her beauty was
too sexual to define a certain gender that could be attracted to
it.  I held onto her hand tighter, hoping I wouldn't lose her to
them, knowing they would do anything to take her away from me.
     (Stop it! The ropes are making you bleed, not me!)
     They all watched us dance, they loved her and hated me.  But
I didn't care, she was with me, not with them, and she would be
leaving with me, not them.  The dance floor was almost empty,
like a bar on a Tuesday afternoon.  She let me lead, I held her
soft hands over mine and we danced.  Every song was ARE song,
every rhythm beat only for us.  That night we were magic 
together, both of us knowing the other ones moves before we did
anything.  She held onto my forearms as I lowered her into a dip,
catching a glance at the curve of her breast underneath her
dress. 
     The slow songs were what we waited for.  That's when I could
hold her close, close enough so that I could hear her heart
beating under my own.  I could feel the softness of her breast as
she pressed it against my chest.  Her perfume like lilacs under a
morning dew filling my lungs.  My face touching her own, kissing
the smooth skin with my lips and blowing across her ears.  And it
was time.
     (Stop screaming! Stop screaming!!)
     I leaned my head forward until I could feel her hair
tickling at my nose.  I put my teeth around her ear and tugged a
slight bit and she began to giggle.  "Sylvia" I whispered slowly,
making sure every letter was a breath that she could feel
tickling her ear.  She smiled and pulled away from me for a
moment and I brought my arms around her and pulled her closer
again.  "I want to ask you something" I said. 
     (I have to, damnit! Stop fighting me!)
     "What?" she said behind a smile that made my veins run hot
with desire to taste her lips one more time.  I ran my tongue
across her lips and this time she laughed and pulled her face
away from me.  Goosebumps were forming across her arm.
     I lowered my head into her hair again until I was just a
whisper from her ear.  "Will you marry me?" I said.   
     She pulled back from me, surprised, more surprised then I
thought she would be.  I was sure she knew I would be asking the
question sooner or later.  She looked at me with lips opened
wide, watching me to see if I was serious.  She lowered herself
back into my arms and I pulled her closer again.  "Yes" I heard
her whisper.  I nearly jumped out of my suit, I think I may have
squeezed all the life out of her as I hugged her for as long as
she would allow. 
     Then we separated and kissed, long romantic kisses across
the lips, kisses that you could taste and asked for seconds.  And
the music grew louder 
     (Stop screaming!)
     around us and it was all I could hear.  I couldn't feel
there faces watching us, I could only feel her in my arms and the
music that flowed around us.  I found myself smiling even more
than she did that night, as I was truly the luckiest man in the
world.  I received what every man could ever hope for, what I had
been searching my entire life for and thought I would never find. 
But here she was, in my arms, and she was all mine.  And the
music played on and are love grew stronger every moment, every
beat.  And we danced and danced. 
     But the years went by and I could feel two things.  One was
their eyes, watching her, always looking at her trying to take
her away from me.  And number two was her looking back at them
searching for something new.  And these two things made me angry. 
Every time we went out I could see them looking at her beauty and 
where once I was confident that they would never mean a thing to
her, now I was sure they would all become a part of her life.
     I won't allow it.
     (Stop screaming! You want me to use this knife? Huh?)
     I'm not a man you want to cross, you might say.  I don't
have a high tolerance level and when I get mad I sometimes go
crazy.  But I couldn't get angry with her, it was them I was
angry with, they were the ones who were looking, they were the
ones who were tempting her away from me.  
     And so the first time I saw her with one of them I took care
of it.  She was in his house, I watched from across the street,
they went into his bedroom and the light went off.  I didn't need
to see anymore.  I met him in the elevator the next night,
holding my knife.
     The same one I hold now.
     I told him who I was, he denied knowing my wife, and I made
him see the light.  Everything went as planned, except for one
thing.  I went there that night to take care of one person, him,
but I couldn't have considered before hand that someone else
would be riding the elevator down with us from his floor.  She
had to go to.  Small set back, didn't matter to me.
     (Stop screaming! That's it! It's over!  AHHH!)
     And that should have been the end of it, but there were two
others.  She told me earlier tonight, after I had her tied to the
ceiling, that she was only trying to make new friends, and that
she started going to these two new people, one a man, one a 
woman, because she needed someone to share her grief with over
the loss of her friend.  I could see in her eyes that it
surprised her that I had been the one who had taken care of her
first friend.
     And now as I look at her, her arms above her head hanging
from the ceiling fan I almost feel guilty.  I made her wear the
same dress she wore that night when I asked her to marry me but
tonight it looked different.  That night it had been white, white
like snow covered fields.  Now it was a mixture of red and black,
as her blood had left stains that would never come out.
     No one was going to have her, no one but me.  I tried to
tell her that but she wouldn't listen to me.  She kept leaving
me, leaving the house, looking for someone to tempt her away from
me and lead her to a different life.  I had given her the
warning, but she insisted on leaving the house, to meet people
she said, but I knew the real reason she left.  She was looking
for someone new to run away with and to leave me here feeling sad
for myself. 
     Not me.  Never again.  Now she will always stay with me,
down in the basement in the dress her mother had made her for
that special night when we went out with marriage on my mind. 
Her blood makes me feel dirty as it drips from my skin but I
don't mind.  I will never have to worry again about her trying to
escape me.  
     I turn on the record player and watch as the needle finds
the grooves and the sound begins to play from the speakers I have 
put on either side of the room.  I hold her once again in my arms
and around the circle of the ceiling fan we go in an odd dance of
death.  But for me nothing is different from that first night I
held her knowing she would be forever mine.  And with the music
showing us the way, we danced and we danced until I took the
knife and ended the song that played in my mind.

The Stranger  SAZ

