Azul - Bailame

Azul: Bailame by Lee Benoit

Torquere Press www.torquerepress.com

Copyright ©2010 by Lee Benoit First published in www.torquerepress.com, 2010 NOTICE: This eBook is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution to any person via email, floppy disk, network, print out, or any other means is a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. This notice overrides the Adobe Reader permissions which are erroneous. This eBook cannot be legally lent or given to others. This eBook is displayed using 100% recycled electrons.

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Azul: Bailame by Lee Benoit

Azul: Bailame by Lee Benoit Havana, 1992 When the lift went wrong, Lola did his best to set Charliz properly on her feet without injuring himself in the process. A fraction of a second later his partner staggered upstage gracelessly but under her own power and Lola set his teeth against the searing white bloom of pain in his shoulder. His momentum was carrying him toward the floor and his only thought was to avoid letting his shoulder take his weight. He let his knees land first and rolled to his good side, curling up against the three-pointed pain. He must have blacked out for a few seconds because his awareness jumped to Julio's worried face very close to his. His lover looked into his eyes and Lola knew he was assessing the symmetry and reactivity of his pupils rather than anything more personal. Julio was like that. Not cold, exactly, but strategic, able to put all but the most important consideration out of his head. Right now Lola's pain and fear weren't Julio's most important considerations. Assessing his level of injury was. And not only for Lola's sake. Lola was briefly aware of Charliz fluttering nearby, sounding terrified and begging him to forgive her the bad jump that had caused the fall. She was a sweet girl, talented, but undisciplined, like so many of the younger dancers. Training, discipline, were so much laxer than they had been when Lola and Julio and their cohort were coming up. He tried 3

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to call out a reassurance to his young colleague, but his voice came out a reedy gasp that shocked him into silence. "Fuck, man," Julio said when Lola dragged his attention back to his lover's face. "We need the doctor." Lola closed his eyes against the tears that threatened. The pain, he could suffer. The look of loss, almost of betrayal, in Julio's eyes? That was insufferable. All their plans, their future, grounded because of one bad lift. The screaming pain in his shoulder and the aches in his knees receded before the soul-deep agony of knowing his life was over. **** "Your life isn't over, Senor Montez." The company had called a very distinguished doctor to see to Lola's shoulder and that august professional made no bones about his irritation over making a house call. Lola averted his eyes so he wouldn't be tempted to smirk. In this post-Soviet Special Period, with shortages everywhere and the balance of power shifting, it was really something if the company's director could still command the presence of a highly placed man of medicine. If Lola's dancing career was over, the least they could do was usher it out with full honors. "You hear him, do you not, Lola?" That was the heavily accented voice of Maestro Illyevich, far too close for comfort and wafting expensive vodka across Lola's face, bringing his queasiness to the fore, though it had been present since his fall. Where did the man get vodka, anyway, when everyone else subsisted on rough bread and cheap rum? "You will be well in a couple of months. This is good news, no?" 4

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Lola tried to smile as Maestro kept talking. So he'd miss the overseas engagements. There would be others, yes? "Yes, Maestro. There will be others." If any of the company returned from Europe. No one knew who was planning to stay behind. Everyone feared exposure, and in the Cuban dancing world, spies were thick on the ground. Hell, the eyes of the Revolution were everywhere, and circumspection was a way of life well into its third generation, now. Lola didn't have to think twice before shuttering his expression or freezing his tongue. Maestro and the doctor postured at each other for a while, the doctor insisting that Lola receive follow-up care at one of the state polyclinics, and Maestro demanding the doctor's personal attendance. Julio leaned against the door jamb of Maestro's office where the examination took place, his expression unreadable. Lola didn't look forward to their conversation later. **** The conversation, when it came, was pretty one-sided. Lola couldn't explain it, but by the time he and Julio returned to the flat they shared with two other dancers he was oppressed by the need to apologize, as if the ruin of their plans was his fault. Maybe he couldn't explain it, but he knew how to fix it, so no sooner were they through the door than he dropped to his bruised knees and awkwardly opened Julio's fly with his good hand. The makeshift brace the doctor had fitted cramped Lola's style a little, but dancing through pain 5

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was something dancers in the Bolshoi style learned to tolerate. Sucking head through pain was nothing. As usual, and as if nothing were amiss, Julio didn't refuse to ram his cock down Lola's throat. While he gripped Lola's hair and thrust, he talked. Blood rushed in Lola's ears with each unbelievable utterance. Julio was going through with their plan. He would stay in Barcelona, with friends, would disappear, wouldn't come back to Havana. Maybe, someday, Lola could find a way to join him. "Julio," Lola gasped when Julio pulled out and zipped up. He wrapped his hands around his lover's powerful thighs, trying to pull himself up with his good arm so they could discuss this face to face. But Julio refused to meet his eyes, refused to help him up. Lola was still on his knees in the entry hall when Julio stalked off to pack. Lola told himself the burn in his throat was from the vigorous fucking and not the acid tears he swallowed. **** Lola was at the hospital getting x-rayed when Julio left their flat, and he was at the polyclinic waiting for a follow-up exam when the company's plane took off from Jose Marti International Airport. The clinic was a bustling place, but Lola felt he'd never been more alone. "You look like you lost your best friend." The cliche surprised a laugh from Lola, if the dry, bitter sound could be counted as a laugh. He looked up to find the source of the comment, and found it in a very young face. 6

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Innocent concern shone from deep blue eyes shielded by a pair of battered wire framed glasses, and Lola bit back the unkind comment he'd been about to make. "I have lost a friend. Now I need to know if I have also lost my career. Where is the doctor?" The young man who'd spoken smiled, which took years he couldn't spare off his looks. He reached up and, with slender fingers, adjusted the earpieces of his glasses. Lola thought he might be blushing. "Well, Senor Montez," he said, "I'm the, that is, your, doctor." Lola raised an eyebrow, fully aware of the effect this trick usually had on young men. He wasn't disappointed. The young doctor blushed deeper and looked away from Lola's eyes. Of course, in the small cubicle there wasn't much to look at besides Lola's shirtless body, which flustered the doctor even more. Lola waited a few long beats before taking pity on him. "So, this clavicle brace the other doctor mentioned?" That snapped the fellow into professional mode, though the blush didn't entirely disappear. Interesting. "Yes, of course, Senor Montez." He reached past Lola to a tray covered with instruments and unwound a contraption of straps. "Have you ever worn one of these before?" He held up the brace. Some demon caused Lola to reply, "Not for medical purposes, Doctor..." He raised the eyebrow again. This was proving far more fun than he'd anticipated. "Misael," the doctor supplied absently. "Not for... oh, I see. Um, well, you put it on from the back and fasten it in front." 7

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He offered the brace to Lola, who, with deliberate disregard for his shoulder, sat on his hands. "Perhaps you should show me," Lola said and batted his lashes. It was really too much, but this was the only pleasure he'd had since the accident. "Since I've never done this before." "Right, yes. Here." Dr. Misael stammered as he reached around Lola's shoulders, doing his best not to touch more than absolutely necessary. He smelled of betadyne solution and boy. Lola inhaled appreciatively. "Does that aggravate your shoulder? These AC joint injuries can be painful." His nervous fingers danced over Lola's sternum, buckling the strap and tightening it more skillfully than Lola had expected. Lola's skin was darker than the doctor's, and Misael's pink fingernails made an attractive contrast to Lola's brown nipples, so much so that Lola tried to shift to get that nipple into contact with Misael's fingernail. The move pulled his shoulder, though, and the doc peered up over his glasses frames, which had slipped down his blade of a nose during the fitting, to fix Lola with a look of equal parts concern and exasperation. Lola gave a one-sided shrug. "I'm a dancer," he said, refusing to wince as the brace pulled his injured shoulder into place. "We're used to pain." It was a point of pride. "I'm aware," Dr. Misael said. "But please, Senor Montez, don't mistake the severity of an acromioclavicular joint injury. Don't dance through it. It needs rest." Maestro Illyevich's mantra—"You can rest when you're dead"—sprang to Lola's lips but he bit it back. Dr. Misael was 8

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so earnest that the jaded words seemed glib, almost dirty. Instead, Lola voiced the true fear in his heart. "Will I dance again? Professionally, I mean?" Now that Julio was gone, that was everything, all he had left. Dr. Misael looked startled by Lola's change in attitude and visibly relaxed. "Most certainly you will. Anything that involves upper body work will take time, but you were lucky. Nothing was torn, the x-ray shows no fracture. Think of it as it is—a very bad sprain. Respect your body, Senor Montez, and it will heal on its own. Patience." Relief brought the mischievous demon back. He grinned, tilting his head to flash his dimple at Dr. Misael. "Respect my body, Doctor? I will indeed. Will you?" Just like that, the blush deepened and Misael stared unabashed. If someone were to wander by the curtained cubicle, it could be bad for the young doctor. That thought sobered Lola. Flirting was pleasant, but could be expensive. "Thank you, Doctor Misael," he said with all sincerity. "I will see you again?" He tried to leave any innuendo out of his words, but to his surprise hope warmed his voice. He looked forward to seeing the young doctor again. Lola knew his dark skin didn't show a blush, but the warmth in his face brought him up short and he looked away. Doctor Misael appeared unaware of Lola's state. "Yes, of course. I am your family doctor now, taking over for my predecessor who, er, retired." Sure, Lola thought, the previous doc had 'retired' just like Julio planned to do, someplace far from Cuba. Misael didn't seem to mark Lola's skepticism. "Come to the neighborhood clinic in a few days 9

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and we'll see how you're getting along. I assume your company can fill your prescription?" Unspoken was the fact that the polyclinic dispensary had no anti-inflammatories on hand. Also unspoken was the truth that dancers were privileged, as privileged as anyone in this strange and straitened time. Doctors couldn't get medicine, but dancers could. Lola nodded. Doctor Misael nodded back and without asking moved to help Lola with his shirt. Their dance, tentative though it was, felt natural to Lola and when the young doctor stood before him and solemnly buttoned the shirt over the brace, Lola made sure his eyebrows stayed level. **** "It's not your turn!" Lola protested. He made a grab for the string bag his flatmate held. "Ay!" He'd forgotten—again—that his shoulder was hurt and the grab wrenched it painfully. At once Iddi was by his side. The younger dancer's attention hurt almost as much as the shoulder. "Ay, Lolito, poor thing! Your shoulder! I told you I don't mind going out shopping." Iddrisu Samora was a good dancer—going to be great one day. He was a good friend and a considerate flatmate. He'd learned Cuban ways well since arriving as a teenaged dance prodigy from Angola. Perhaps he'd learned them too well, and from the wrong people, Lola thought uncharitably, for sometimes Iddi was an insufferable queen. "You were out two days ago," Lola protested, gritting his teeth as the pain worked its way through his bones. He shook 10

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his fingers to get rid of it. "If the police don't spot you, the 'eyes' will." Like every apartment block in Havana, theirs had spies. Julio had often speculated that because their block housed people beholden to the state—dancers, students, lowlevel ministry officials—it was more closely watched than the poorer neighborhoods or the really upscale zones where highflying Cubans rubbed shoulders with foreign diplomats and expatriates. Maybe he'd been right. All Lola knew was that Iddi risked too much by going out again so soon, even if the wryly regarded gray market they called 'sociolismo' was the only way they'd get anything but bread and, in a good week, a bit of cooking oil and coffee. He couldn't stand to lose anyone else, and young Iddi was his responsibility. "I'll go. Being cooped up here is making me crazy, and I have to drop by the clinic anyway. I'll be careful," he promised. At Iddi's frown he added, "With only the two of us here, there's less to carry." That thought alone was depressing. Julio, Lola knew, planned to defect while overseas. Neither Iddi nor Lola discussed the plans of Virgilio, their fourth flatmate, but neither did they anticipate his return. Iddi snorted, but relented and kissed Lola anyway, once on each cheek. "Fine. Can't have you getting blue instead of better. It's not as if there's anything to buy anyway, not even barter for. Good luck." It didn't take long to prove Iddi right. There was nothing to be had in the government shop, and little to buy on the street, so that after an hour all he had was the usual brown buns, a bit of soft cheese, and a half pound of the sawdust 11

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that passed for coffee these days. They'd have to find a way to barter soon. With most of the company gone on tour, what modest extras they usually had through the company, like fruit and fresh meat, were a thing of the past. And dancers, like students, risked a lot trading illegally. Their status as government darlings meant their feeding themselves the way so many other Cubans did constituted a betrayal of the fatherland. Lola's mood was grim when he found the family clinic on the bottom floor of an older apartment building—having to come here at all was something most dancers regarded as beneath their dignity. Not Lola, who'd been plucked from a rural backwater when his talent manifested itself, and not Iddi, who saw Cuba's decentralized and universal access to health care as the height of development. The prerevolutionary splendor of the clinic's foyer was somewhat dimmed, but the colorful tiles on the entry floor and the high ceilings lifted Lola's spirits a fraction. What a great city Havana had been! The clinic door was open, so he walked right in. "Hello? Doctor Misael?" he called. "A moment!" a voice called from behind an interior door Lola hadn't noticed right away. Lola heard muffled crash and a less-muffled curse before the doctor appeared, blushing furiously and offering breathless apologies. In his haste to enter the consultation room, his hair was in disarray and his shirt mis-buttoned. Lola was debating with himself whether to mention it when the doctor's full attention finally landed on 12

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Lola. He knew the moment it happened because something unexpected and not entirely welcome fluttered in his gut. "Why Senor Montez! It's you! I, well, that is, welcome." Misael performed that adorable two-handed glasses adjustment and gestured Lola to a seat beside an old oak desk. Evidently the only things in the place that were younger than the Revolution were the doctor and Lola himself. There was no examination table that Lola could see, and very few instruments. "Have you just opened here?" he asked. Normally the company doctor would attend the dancers at the studio, but he had traveled with the company so Lola hoped he could be forgiven for his ignorance of the developments within the Family Doctor Programme. Doctor Misael waved his hands at the placket of Lola's shirt. "Last month," he said. "I was training in green medicine, the use of herbal therapies, in Mexico. Oaxaca. My mother's Mexican, and when I wasn't accepted for medical training here, I joined her there." Instead of replying to Misael's ramble, Lola frowned at his shirt buttons and made a great show of difficulty before raising his eyes to the doctor and showing his dimple. Honestly, he didn't know what got into him around this guy. Misael caught on right away and frowned severely, though his blush heightened and the corner of his mouth quirked as if he were suppressing a smile. "Senor Montez, I think you're teasing me." When Lola didn't reply right away, he rushed on. "You are, aren't you?" Whatever the doctor thought of Lola's playing, he reached forward and began to undo Lola's shirt 13

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buttons. Lola would have sworn that he did so more slowly than was necessary. "If I am?" Lola finally said. "Teasing you? Are you offended?" All semblance of amusement left the young doctor's face as he dropped Lola's shirt tails and looked him in the eyes. "No, I'm not. But think how it would be if I were." "I'm pretty good at reading people," Lola said. "Especially young men." "I'm not so young," Misael muttered. "I can't believe this." He plucked at the fastening of Lola's clavicle brace. "Can't believe what?" Lola discovered in asking that he really was curious, interested in more than teasing his doctor. "That I read you so easily? That I knew you were safe? That I'm attracted to you?" Misael got the brace off and rested his hand on Lola's shoulder. "All of it," he said, and squeezed gently. Lola reached up with his good arm and covered Misael's hand with his own. "I'm safe, too, you know." Their eyes held for a long beat and Lola felt his breathing slow like it always did just before a performance, like something momentous was happening and he had to be very, very present. "Do the exam, make your notes. I'm mixing things up too much for you." Doctor Misael muttered something else that Lola thought sounded like, "I don't tell you how to dance," but he got on with the exam. So what if his hands moved slowly, rested warmly on Lola's skin? So what if those guileless eyes 14

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flickered into and out of Lola's reach like the little blue butterflies of his provincial Matanzas home? Lola listened to the doctor's account of his healing injury— doing well but would take more time. He kept teasing comments at bay, kept a rein on his glances, until a question bubbled up and spilled forth before he could stop it. "What's your name?" The look Doctor Misael gave him spoke clearly that he understood this question crossed a new line. They were beyond teasing now—Lola had issued an invitation into territory that was real. "Adan." "Lola." "I know." And then they kissed. As kisses went, it was tiny like a distant star is tiny but like a star it flickered with a promise of heat. It ended and neither of them seemed to breathe. Lola nodded and Adan nodded back. They made no plans, no follow-up appointment, and said not one word before Lola gathered up his shirt and his flaccid shopping sack and left. Lola knew he'd be back, and he knew Adan knew it, too. **** Three days later. Lola was restless. All of the good things in his life had disappeared in a swathe—dancing, sex, his lover, his future. He stood on the narrow concrete balcony of his flat and stared out over the city. Havana looked like Lola felt: tired, scruffy, finished. What a revolting thought. He sipped his miserable coffee and drew himself up. His shoulder twinged, but he used the 15

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brace to maintain his posture, let the pain come. There, in the distance, the ocean sparkled and stretched out to another world, one not hamstrung by embargoes and shortages. That world danced, Lola was sure of it. His heart slumped, but he forced his body to stand straight. He needed to get out. Maybe he could meet Iddi on the way back from his studio work and shopping. Maybe he could go get cleared by Adan Misael to exercise a bit. The idiot Maestro Illyevich had left in charge wouldn't even let him stretch without a doctor's note. He found a few pesos in his pocket, along with a contraband dollar or two. Maybe he and Iddi could go to the Parque Central for ice cream. Maybe he'd invite his sexy little doctor to come, too. The thought sparked the first genuine smile since the day he and Adan had kissed. Lola found he could stop concentrating on his posture without losing his form. He drained his coffee, rearranged his hair a bit, wrote Iddi a note in case they missed each other, and headed out. The state shop would be a waste of time this late in the week, and anyway Iddi had their ration book, so Lola went past the market stalls nearby. Iddi wasn't there and there was nothing to buy, so he kept his dollars out of sight and walked on. Being active beyond the necessary felt pretty good. Dancing, even in limited fashion, would feel even better, Lola decided, so he directed his path toward Adan's family clinic. Even though it was off hours, Lola hoped Adan would see him. As he approached, he saw Iddi speaking to a slender, welldressed girl in Adan's doorway. When Lola drew close enough 16

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to be heard, he called out. The girl glanced his way and immediately ducked into the doorway and out of sight. By the time Lola reached his friend, Iddi was scowling. "Did you see her?" he demanded. "Prettiest girl I ever met, and you scared her off worse than the CDR." "You like girls?" Lola wasn't stalling. The idea that his flamboyant Iddrisu swung both ways was a revelation. Iddi glared. "I came here to see if you'd come to get cleared to dance. I thought we could—" "Get an ice cream!" Lola finished for him, and just like that, they were all right with each other again. They linked arms and stepped into the cool dark of the old building's entryway. "Will you wait?" Lola asked. "Shouldn't be long, and this late in the day, I was hoping to get Adan to join us." "Adan?" Iddi batted his eyes. "That's the doctor? Familiar, aren't you?" "Might like to be more so," Lola granted under his breath, wary of watchers from the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. Mentioning them the way Iddi had done tended to bring them forth, like malcontent spirits. "I'll wait here," Iddi said. "Maybe my girl will come back and she can join us, too." Lola didn't say what he was thinking, that fair, welldressed girls like the one Iddi had been chatting up usually had minders with sharp eyes and bad attitudes about dark men, especially dark men with foreign accents. Still, he wished his friend well as he opened the door into Adan's consult room. 17

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Just like the last visit, Adan was not present but responded with a frantic "momentito" when Lola called out. When he finally entered the room—which took longer than the last time—he was sweating more than the heat of the afternoon warranted and he wouldn't meet Lola's eyes. "Got a secret lover back there?" Lola teased. He knew he'd misstepped when Adan's blush drained so completely that his face went gray. "No, I, of course not." Adan still wouldn't meet his eyes, and Lola couldn't tell whether Adan was angry or frightened. Maybe both. He couldn't have explained the overpowering desire to wrap Adan in his arms and soothe him. But he could see that backfiring in enough ways that he was able to refrain without too much effort. Instead he reached out with his hand and gently turned Adan to face him. "I was joking, Adan. Just trying to make things light." Lola reached up and straightened Adan's crooked glasses with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "You were so upset when I came in. Is it me? Did my arriving upset you?" Rather than answer, Adan shook his head and ran his hand up Lola's arm to the join of collarbone and shoulder. "You're healing well," he said. The news Lola would have been delighted to hear even an hour before merely brought a sigh of acceptance now, with Adan's soft, warm hand running up and down his arm. It was more distracting than any touch he could remember, even Julio's. 18

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Only Iddi's voice at the door brought him back to himself. "Would you come have an ice cream with us? Maybe invite your neighbor?" Adan's slow blink betrayed distraction equal to Lola's, which Lola found captivating. "Neighbor? I don't think Senora Ramirez has left the building once since I've lived here." "No, the young one. She was talking to my flatmate when I arrived." Immediately Adan's face shuttered. "I don't know who you mean. Perhaps another time." He dropped his hand and busied himself with the papers that would clear Lola to reenter the studio for light exercise, as long as he retained the brace and maintained his follow-up schedule. He handed them over with no word, and wouldn't even step out of the clinic to meet Iddi. Lola left confused and bereft of a kiss. Leaving the flat today hadn't worked out as he would have liked. He and Iddi went for ice cream as planned, but the expensive treat tasted like paste. Not even the prospect of the barre tomorrow lifted Lola's spirits. **** Rumor had it that Irina Krasskova had been a Soviet Army sniper before the Maestro discovered her. Lola was skeptical, though. The woman's voice was like machine-gun fire, which he imagined wouldn't serve a sniper well at all. Still, everybody called her La Teniente—Lieutenant—and she seemed to take it as her due. Lola thought of her more like a drill sergeant. 19

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Lola was not La Teniente's favorite person, so when she smiled upon his arrival to the studio the morning after his frustrating meeting with Adan, he was wary. Instead of speaking to him, she spoke to her class of intermediate children. "Why Senor Montez! Look, little dancers, it's our own Senor Montez, back from medical leave." "Good morning Senor Montez," the children chanted, dutiful as soldiers on parade grounds. None broke ranks, but several of them grinned at Lola and he gave them a wink in return, careful to keep it behind La Teniente's back. The children felt very differently about Lola than the Maestro's second in command. Lola duck-footed toward the door to the small interior studio reserved for the principal dancers and turned the brass knob. "Senor Montez!" La Teniente's bark carried across the salle and Lola spun about at attention, which earned him titters from the children and a salute from Valdez, the venerable fellow who accompanied classes from the battered upright piano in the corner furthest from the windows. Irina rolled up on Lola with a grace that contradicted her voice and betrayed the prima ballerina she'd been three decades in the past. She laid her hand atop his on the doorknob. "Irina, is there a problem?" Lola did his very best to relax his posture even as La Teniente glared at the use of her given name. He and she were of a height, and the glare stretched and grew brittle between them. It took effort, but Lola didn't snatch his hand away from hers. Finally Lola conceded defeat 20

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by speaking. "I gave my doctor's clearance to Chicha in the office. There's no problem with me dancing." He tried a version of the smile he used to charm fruit sellers. Irina was immune, evidently, for she smiled back the way a fox smiles at chickens. "But you know this room is reserved for principals, and all of them are overseas at the moment." Oh, she was a slimy one all right. Lola amended his assessment of that smile. She was a snake charming a mouse. "You know full well I am here only because one of your girls' bad jumps injured me." He would never in a million years have hurt Charliz with that assessment, and he sent up a hasty prayer that she never heard of his statement or if she did, that she understood it was a move against La Teniente. Krasskova didn't flinch, but swayed, snakelike, in the opposite direction. She quoted her mentor. "A principal who cannot dance is no principal at all." "Maestro will expect me to maintain my training," Lola said as silkily as he could while avoiding Irina's snake eyes. Let her fret that her boss would hear of her obstruction and reprove her. That got a reaction. With a slight narrowing of her reptile gaze Irina released Lola's hand and, by extension, the doorknob. "We shall see. You'll never be a Russian dancer, no matter what you do." Then she changed direction again, leaving Lola slightly nauseous from trying to evade a strike. "While there is no production in rehearsal, I will expect you to teach your share of classes." Irina hated teaching and everyone knew it, especially her young victims, er, students. 21

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Rather than give her the satisfaction of arguing, Lola made a show of thinking it over and scowling. Finally, he let his shoulders droop and gave La Teniente a reluctant nod. "Whatever you say, Irina." As she stalked back to her students, Lola mugged for the kids and gave a thumbs up to show he wasn't really annoyed at having to run classes. The little ones had the good sense to remain stone-faced as their snake returned to her den. With a sigh, Lola entered the stuffy little principal's studio, stripped down to his tights, slipped on his practice shoes, and addressed the barre. **** Lola stretched and swore and sweated during all of Irina's classes that day, dismayed at the ground he'd lost during his convalescence. Even his breathing was off. When he heard Valdez switch from the mannered etudes of the classroom to a flowing danzon, he knew the coast was clear and entered the salle. The larger room was much cooler and Lola battled a shiver by dancing his way across the empty floor. Valdez switched to a bouncier salsa and sang out "mueve la cintura, mulato!" as Lola shimmied and spun his way across the room to drape himself on the old piano, diva-style. The old guy laughed and so did Lola, his exhausted, uncooperative body forgotten for a moment. "Lolito, it's good to have you back. The children, they miss you and Iddrisu is too scared to have fun when you're not around." 22

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The children missed him? Lola hadn't imagined that they might, though he knew Iddi was more subdued on his own. "I've missed everyone here, except for La Teniente." He batted his eyelashes as the old man covered the old piano. "Especially you, Compay Valdez." To his everlasting surprise, the piano player rested his hand on Lola's good shoulder. Never in the fifteen years Lola had danced here, first as a student and then as a professional, never had the old man touched him or looked at him with anything other than avuncular indulgence. When he spoke, his old tenor quavered. "This place needs you, Lolito. Never forget it." What could Lola do but answer in kind? "I won't, Senor Valdez. I won't." Something besides the sweat from his workout made Lola's eyes sting. As if they'd reached some kind of agreement, Valdez nodded and dropped his hand. "You should come out, Lolito, come dancing for fun." Valdez had a second job playing at a cafe, not a tourist trap like the ones down in Varadero but a gathering place for serious musicians and a modest trickle of the more discerning tourists. Places like that didn't tend to admit Cubans below ministerial ranks, no matter what they did for a living. But Valdez invited him and Iddi often, knowing they could pick up tips by dancing with foreign visitors. "You want me to dance with the tourists?" The old man chuckled. "It's not like I'm trying to pimp you out or marry you off!" 23

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"Same thing," Lola cheeked back. "You want me to show some German tourists how to do a proper danzon, who am I to refuse you?" Maybe a night out was just what he and Iddi needed. "The regulars miss you," Valdez said. "We could use a pair of pretty young things as honey on the dance floor." "I knew you were trying to pimp me out. Those cute guys from the Barclay's office still come around?" "And some well fed new boys from the American Interest Section," Valdez said with a grin. He knew he'd won, but in an instant the serious look was back. "Sometimes I need to make my country dance to a Cuban tune, no matter who is present to hear the music and follow the steps." He said it as if this was something important, something Lola should remember. "All right, compay, I'll come tomorrow night." Lola thought of Adan all the way home, wishing things had been different last time they'd met, wishing he could wander by the clinic and invite his friend to come dancing. **** Iddi stood shirtless and hipshot in the arched alcove that passed for a kitchen in their little flat. The water wasn't running, so Lola was hurrying through a birdbath in the kitchen sink, using water from the drum they kept full when the water trucks came by or on those occasions when the Havana water supply flowed. Those times were rare enough that they incited something like a party atmosphere in the 24

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building, with even the most staid of their neighbors dashing about filling anything they could with water. "Special Period," Iddi scoffed. "I say special. Period." Lola grimaced fondly as he scrubbed his sweaty armpits over the sink. His friend might have a stranger's respect for Cuba's revolutionary ideals, but he hadn't let that stop him from enjoying the comparative luxuries of the Soviet era. "You sure we should go out tonight?" Iddi shifted his weight to the other hip and spun Lola's shoulder brace in a circle on the end of his finger. "Why wouldn't we?" Lola said as he tried to wet down his hair without flooding the floor. "I am cleared for dancing, so let's go dancing!" "That's it exactly, you're cleared to practice. Not to go ply tourists for dollars in an illicit cafe," Iddi said. "You see what I mean, why it's different now than before your accident?" Iddi's wide brown eyes drilled Iddi's meaning into Lola, as if he knew something about Lola's city that Lola didn't. Iddi's meaning slid into Lola's brain at the same moment as soap slithered into his left eye and he swore. "Valdez, he's been playing with his cronies forever, right, like on their front stoops or in their backyards. Now he does it for money, in a place tourists go. If we do that, being dancers for the state, and we get caught..." Lola didn't need to finish the sentence. Iddi shrugged eloquently and set about trying on Lola's brace. "Maybe it's worth the risk, though, for a chance at a fat German sugar mami or Canadian daddy-o?" The English words in Iddi's Portuguese-Angolan accent made Lola smile. 25

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He took advantage of Iddi's playing with the brace to snatch the towel off Iddi's hips. They definitely needed to negotiate a load of laundry with somebody, and soon. "We might be the only Cubans there besides the musicians, but old Valdez won't let anything happen to us, not if he can prevent it." For all his bluster, Lola was well aware that Iddi was far more interested in meeting interesting people from all over than he was in binding himself to one person, no matter the benefits they could provide. Iddi made a grab for the towel and Lola neatly sidestepped him. They chased each other down the hallway to their shared closet—at least they went out seldom enough that their good clothes were almost clean. If, in choosing a shirt, Lola spared a thought or three for what Adan might think of this one or that one, he wisely kept it to himself. **** There had been an afternoon rain, so the evening was fresh enough that Lola and Iddi didn't even discuss finding a taxi. Iddi looked every inch the brash young militant in a dashiki Lola was certain wasn't native to Angola. Iddi had nagged him to wear his blue guayabera—rich tourists seemed to expect it—but Lola had resisted and donned a silk dress shirt with French cuffs. He left his brace at home. After all, he'd worn it all day for the really strenuous dancing. The dancing he planned to do tonight was entirely different. Besides, though he could imagine Adan's disapproval, he wouldn't see him until his next follow-up visit, so why worry? 26

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As they neared the arched entrance to the courtyard that held the Cafe Montuno, Iddi started to bounce. "Listen, Lola! They have a trumpet tonight!" "Horn dog," Lola shot back, infected by his friend's excitement. For all his flighty manner, Iddi was a staunch friend. Lola opened his mouth to say so, but Iddi would only tease about what he was fond of calling Lola's "Latin sap." Though its chief custom came from overseas, the Cafe Montuno was no tourist trap. The musicians were the real thing, old school guys from Oriente province and young Nueva Trova pioneers. Lola recalled Valdez' words about dancing to a Cuban tune, and let his hips start to sway like breeze-kissed palms in response to the trumpet's blatted call to move, man, move. Valdez at the piano wore the same clothes he'd had on at the rehearsal the day before, and his companions were no better attired. No mambo shirts, not even matching jackets and ties, but the motley group hung together in a way Lola had to stop and think about. Old, young, handsome, homely, and playing their hearts out for a scattering listeners, they were essentially, inescapably Cuban, right down to their dusty shoes. Iddi sashayed to the "bar" which was little more than a big aluminum cooler on a wheeled stand, and chatted up the bartender while he waited for their drinks. There were empty tables, but Lola didn't want to sit just yet. He loved the music of the ballet, and the modern classical compositions that accompanied the more avant garde choreography his company was known for. He enjoyed the overproduced salsa 27

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and cumbia the DJs used to spin in the clubs before most of them closed. But this raw, street-level music, only a beat or two away from Santeria rites and sugar-cane slaves? These earnest comments on the beauty of a woman or the plunging faces of the Sierra Maestra? Listening to it, letting it move his body in a subtle dance, felt to Lola like coming home. "But I've been here all along," he murmured to himself. Iddi pressed a drink into his hand. "They're making mojitos tonight!" he exclaimed delightedly. Even after several years in Cuba, Iddi was still infatuated with the cocktail. Lola took a sip—it was the real thing, made with fresh mint and cane juice. The band took a break and circulated a bit or sat smoking at a small table beside the low stage area. Iddi and Lola said hello and then found a table for themselves. While Iddi tried to remember the names of particular songs he wanted to request, Lola watched the crowd grow from sparse to respectable. "What's that song about the two mountains?" Iddi asked. Lola turned to answer when Iddi interrupted with a gasp. "There she is!" "Who?" "The girl, the one from outside your snooty doctor's office." "He's not snooty," Lola said. How ridiculous to defend the man who clearly wanted nothing to do with Lola besides heal his shoulder. But he kept talking. "He's shy, and new to the job, that's all." His words trailed off when he saw Iddi's girl.

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"I'm going to ask her to dance," Iddi said and sailed away. The band wasn't even reassembled yet, but that wouldn't matter to Iddi. Lola smiled as he watched his friend frantically signal Valdez, who smirked and nudged one of the guitarists, who laughed out loud as he reached for his instrument. Who but Iddi could call a bunch of jaded old troubadours back early from a break with nothing more than calf-eyes? Lola settled back in his seat to watch. The guys struck up the intro to "Quiero Estar Cerca de Ti" just as Iddi reached the girl, who was every bit as lovely a slip of a thing as a boy could desire. Sipping his mojito, Lola was forced to admit to himself that he felt a tug of desire. He shook his head and drank deeper. Iddi's feelings were infecting him, that was all. The girl inclined her head as she extended her slim hand to Lola's friend. A few other patrons joined Iddi and his girl on the floor, but by unspoken agreement left the pair more than their fair share of the center. Valdez and the guitarist nodded together as one of the singers joined them. Slowly, the full complement of players finished their drinks and their smokes and waded into the sweet chorus. Their raspy voices lent the sentimental lyrics a bittersweet tinge, and Lola found himself singing along under his breath, alone at his table. "Yo no puedo estar lejos de ti, tus besos, tus carisias..." Iddi danced well, without showing off, solicitous of his companion. The girl danced much more hesitantly, holding her shoulders very square and her head very straight, as if she were unaccustomed to dancing at all. It was too bad if 29

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that were true, for she was slim as a willow and graceful as one, too, in her simple Mexican blouse and trim dark skirt. More than once, Lola saw his friend move to say "it's okay, relax." She wasn't really Iddi's type, Lola thought, but then until very recently he'd had sworn Iddi's type was boys, so what did he know? As long as his friend was happy. Enough! Annoyed with his maudlin turn, Lola scanned the room for a likely partner. A pair of white men sitting together caught his eye. Both were young, beefy, and well-dressed. Something about the way they spoke together convinced Lola his advances would be welcome, as long as he didn't ask them to dance with him. Even in a not-quite-legal nightclub like the Cafe Montuno, such things would be too great a risk. Lola rattled the ice in the bottom of his glass. He must be drunker than he thought—or more hung up on Adan than he cared to admit—if he was thinking of dancing with a man here, especially some European who probably wouldn't think twice about joining him in a danzon or two. While Lola chided himself for an idiot, the song ended and Iddi squired his girl toward their table. Lola made a detour to the drinks cart, trying to move smoothly to cover his indecision about approaching the two men. He gathered drinks for himself, Iddi, and the girl, pasted a friendly grin on his face, and returned to the table. "Lola Montez, meet— " "Adina," the girl supplied. Lola reached to shake her hand and was brought up short by the feeling that he'd shaken that very hand before. 30

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Unsettled, he shifted his grip and shook again, but the feeling wouldn't let go. Then he looked into Adina's face. What he saw there put the eerie familiarity of her hand out of his mind and sucked the breath from his lungs. Her lips smiled but her blue eyes were wide and frightened when she said, "You should be wearing your brace, Senor Montez." Mind racing, Lola sought an explanation for the very strange feeling gripping his middle, and his lower bits, too. There was something about this Adina. Something off. "How did you know—" he began, and saved himself from an embarrassing accusation only belatedly. Of course Iddi might have mentioned his injury to his dance partner. Act normal, he counseled himself. "My doctor assures me light exercise is fine. Right Iddi?" He appealed to his friend, seeking some assurance that Iddi had told his dance partner about Lola's injury, though why he would when he could be flirting instead struck Lola as distinctly unlike the Iddrisu Samora he knew, no matter who Iddi was attracted to. "Eh?" Iddi looked up from pulling out Adina's chair—or ogling her tight little bottom, whichever. No help there, Lola thought frantically. He cast about for a way to reconcile what his eyes saw and what his heart was screaming. His whirling brain settled on the one thing that usually calmed him. "Dance?" A wicked gleam lit Adina's eyes as she took his hand again. "Well, if you're sure your doctor would approve." "I'd like to see him try to stop me," Lola shot back. Dancers came by their bitchy reputation honestly, and he 31

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could give as good as he got. This Adina wouldn't get the better of him. The European pair Lola had checked out earlier had found a pair of older women to dance with, and one of them was whispering to Valdez and slipping him a bank note. What would such a fellow request? "A tango!" Adina said sharply. "No, I forbid it. The strain on your shoulder!" Lola reeled her in until she was pressed along the front of him. The pleats of her blouse hid a very flat chest indeed, and was that—? He looked deeply into her twilight blue eyes. "I knew it!" he crowed, amazed he had experienced even a moment's doubt about "Adina's" identity. "Adan, you bastard! What's this about?" He heard the heat in his own voice, but would have been hard pressed to say whether anger or astonishment fanned the coals. "I can explain, Lola. Please." The way Adan let his eyes flutter closed and slide away in vulnerable acquiescence inflamed Lola. "Perhaps you should explain to my friend," he growled, and even his own cock stirred at the fierce tone, half angry and half aroused. He wrapped one arm low around Adan's back and pulled their hips together, but felt no answering bulge. Curious. "But first, my dear Adina, we dance." The tango Valdez and his men had chosen was one of the more mournful ones, full of lyrics about absence and grief. It was also, thankfully, a slow example of the genre, and Lola found he had no trouble at all with the steps. The turns, which should have been awkward because of his shoulder, 32

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weren't. The reason was Adan, who deftly took over the lead whenever the dance would have required Lola to take any weight on his upper body. It was a comforting partnership, and did nothing at all to discourage Lola's rampant erection. "Why Senor Montez," Adan purred as they danced, "what a talented dancer you are. Almost as if you had three legs instead of two!" Adan's sly grin and filthy innuendo made Lola chuckle. "Don't think you can escape my wrath so easily, Companera. You have deceived me and my friend and must answer for your transgression." He wrapped one hand around Adan's slim waist and spun him away gently before pulling him back with more force. Their chests bumped and Lola canted his hips so the bulge in his trousers brushed Adan's hip. He took advantage of Adan's breathless gasp to dip him low just as the music ended. Lola righted the two of them easily and Valdez called out, "You have found our Oaxacan beauty, then, Lola?" Lashes fluttering like the most outrageous of flamenco divas, Adan tipped a wink to the band but somehow managed simultaneously to glare at Lola. "Your shoulder will never forgive you for that stunt!" Lola laughed, curiously comfortable with his little doctor in drag. Iddi might feel cheated of his slip of a Cuban girl, but the look on his face as he chatted up the bluffer of the European pair reassured Lola that Iddi's heartbreak would be short-lived. For good measure, Lola threw Valdez a jaunty wave to acknowledge the old man's compliment to his dancing partner and led Adan toward the table. 33

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No sooner had Lola slid Adan's chair under his fetching little bum than the band was striking up again, this time with something like a heavy-bottomed samba Lola hadn't heard them play before. "This certainly isn't Cuban," he said to no one in particular. Iddi, in mid-sip of his mojito, popped up as if his rear end were fitted with a particularly unpredictable spring. "Ooh!" he gushed. "They practiced!" He turned a mock-stern gaze on Adan. "I've no one else who will dance the Semba with me, Senorita. A dance from my home. Won't you try it?" With a helpless look at Lola, which Lola mischievously pretended to ignore, Adan followed Iddi onto the dance floor. Lola thought about getting another drink, but didn't want to miss the show, so instead he chewed the stem of his mojito's mint sprig and settled in to watch. Iddi stood behind Adan and, with one hand pressed to Adan's belly, showed him the basic step. Adan appeared to be a natural—before the band reached the first chorus, Iddi had abandoned the lesson and took up a position in front of Adan. In front of Adan and very close, Lola noticed with a thrill of jealous longing. The pair moved in wavelike counterpoint, bellies touching and retreating, touching and retreating in a mesmerizing rhythm. By the end of the tune, Lola was hard again, which was no real surprise as he'd softened the merest fraction when Adan went to dance with Iddi. There was no telling how Iddi would react to the news that his crush wasn't quite what he expected. But there was no danger of a dance floor revelation, not with this African ancestor to the samba, with its kissing stomachs but distant chests and hips. 34

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As Iddi reseated Adan at their table, he leaned in to kiss his ersatz sweetheart on the cheek, and Adan allowed it with a sly cut of eyes in Lola's direction. Lola rolled his eyes in response—he was starting to look forward to revealing 'Adina's' secret. The evening progressed with Iddi none the wiser and much comradely jostling for Adina's attentions. They danced with every woman in the place, even the ones who seemed to be perfectly content to dance with only each other. The number of drinks Valdez and the other players stood Iddi and Lola told them it was a very good night for the Cafe Montuno. It didn't escape Lola's notice that Adan danced with no one but Lola after that one dance with Iddi. It didn't escape Iddi's notice either. "You're horning in on my girl," he accused good-naturedly during one of Adan's brief absences. Absently, Lola wondered which restroom he was using. "Come on, companero. I couldn't horn in unless I was allowed to." Iddi drew breath to argue, but a shout from Valdez interrupted him. "One for our Oaxacan beauty, eh, before we all go home! The Masked Dance!" 'Adina' entered from behind the band and held one hand out to Lola, who approached without question, though Adan wore a mask of exaggerated feminine features and a wig of two thick braids. The tingle in his loins that had spurred Lola all evening drove him forward, and he gave no thought at all to refusing his maddening, mesmerizing partner. 35

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The steps were simple enough, almost a stylized quadrille, and Lola followed easily. In the short intervals when their steps brought them within whispering distance, Adan told him the story of the dance. "Oppressors came from across the sea and had to be driven back. When they were, we danced their dances our way, to ridicule the invaders and take back our land. In this dance, men take both the women's and men's parts." That last made Lola laugh out loud. A man, dressed as a woman breaking the rules by dancing a female part intended for a man. Lola's head spun with more than the mojito. Very soon, the audience was clapping in time to the music and he risked raising his voice. "So you are even more transgressive than I imagined!" for some reason he couldn't name precisely, Adan's boldness and subversion delighted him. He let it show by taking Adan into his arms as the strains of the song wound down, and kissing him in full view of every patron, every musician, and his best friend. The band always ended the evening with their Nueva Trova rendition of "Guantanamera," and Lola, Iddi, and Adan waved farewells to the band and left while the tourists were still singing along. Once in the dim street, the moment of truth arrived. "Iddi, Adina has something to tell you," Lola started. He turned Adan to face him and was surprised to see his friends cheeks shining with tears. "Come on, Adan, Iddi will understand," he soothed, chagrinned that his jest had gone too far. 36

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Adan shook his head. "No, idiot. It's the song. How can it not move you?" Lola gaped. "That cliched old folk song? They only trot it out for the tourists. I never really thought about it. Now let's let Iddi in on your little joke." "Adina's right, Lola," Iddi said. "Guantanamera is a song of the revolution as we should still wish it to be, not this..." "Shh! You may think no one's around, but if you finish that sentence, someone will hear you." Lola was annoyed that he'd lost control of the conversation, but at the same time, he wondered what his friends would say next. Adan quoted, "'Con los pobres de la tierra / Quiero yo mi suerte echar.' I throw my fate in with the poor of the land. What could be a better basis for a life, or a nation? That's the reason I became a doctor." Iddi nodded enthusiastically and Lola cried, "I have the best dish of the year, and you two are exchanging rhetoric?" At the same moment, Iddi exclaimed, "You're a doctor?" Adan grinned and bobbed a curtsey at Iddi. Then he pointed at Lola. "I'm his doctor, in fact. You have found me out, sir. Are you surprised?" Iddi boggled a bit, and then began a leisurely, but very thorough, once-over of Adan while Lola watched with a knot in his stomach. Lola didn't want Iddi hurt, nor did he want his friend angry. Adan, for his part, endured Iddi's examination stoically. His stance, in the trim pencil skirt and peasant blouse, appeared relaxed, but Lola wasn't imagining the stiff neck and squaredoff shoulders. He didn't relish seeing Adan so vulnerable, and 37

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disliked the possibility that this situation might divide his loyalties between his best friend and his... what was Adan? Lola's crush? His boyfriend? Yes, boyfriend had a satisfying ring to it. But for now, holding his breath seemed the safest course. He needn't have worried. Iddi reached over and punched Adan lightly on the arm. "No wonder I was so attracted to you!" He laughed. "No girl has turned my head since, well, ever! What's this all about, then?" Iddi looked between Lola and Adan. "You didn't know either, before tonight, did you Lola?" Lola shook his head. Now that the matter of Iddi learning the truth was out of the way, the questions about Adan appearing at the cafe tonight in women's clothing returned like blood to an unbound limb, prickling and demanding attention. Adan's voice intruded. "This isn't a joke to me, boys. I want to explain, but..." "But nothing," Iddi said, taking charge in a way Lola wasn't used to from his friend. "This is no place to discuss this, joke or not. It's late, it's dark, and you two need privacy. I'll get a lift home from Valdez, or maybe that hunky Swede is still inside." Iddi darted back toward the dark door of the club, calling back over his shoulder, "But you'd better tell me everything tomorrow!" Lola peered after his friend until he was sure Iddi had found Valdez. When he turned, he was mildly surprised to discover that he was holding Adan's hand. He couldn't 38

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remember reaching for Adan, but now that he had hold of him, Lola was loath to release the grip. "Your place?" he asked, and Adan smiled and squeezed his fingers. **** The night was soft as Lola drew Adan along. They were taking the long way home, through the narrow streets of Old Havana and down to the Malecon, where Adan gazed at the lights on the blue-black water as they walked, hand in hand. His expression was far away, but his hand was snug in Lola's grasp, warm and present. While they walked, Adan talked and while Adan talked, Lola watched Adan. "I guess you've figured out by now that those times you came to the clinic and I wasn't ready, it was because I was... changing." Lola didn't reply, except to adjust his grip on Adan's hand. Adan continued. "I think I always knew I liked men," he said, quietly and slowly, almost chanting. "But it wasn't until I went to train in Oaxaca that I figured out the other piece." Lola knew his fingers tightened around Adan's and he tried to relax them as he waited for a revelation that Adan was a woman in a man's body, or something else that would doom their relationship. After many steps, many crashes of waves against the Malecon's seawall, Adan spoke again. "I'm not a woman, but I have a feminine spirit. Do you understand?" Lola didn't, and he let his silence speak for him. "I have a masculine spirit, too." 39

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Was it Lola's imagination, or did Adan seem to be speaking faster now? Perhaps hastening to reassure Lola that he was really a man, no matter the kitten heels that clicked hollowly against the esplanade. Lola waited. "You've heard of muxe?" "No." Lola wanted to stop walking, turn and face Adan, and kiss him until nothing he said mattered anymore. But something about the tense fingers he held made him keep quiet, keep walking. He counted waves until Adan spoke again. When he did, the words came in a rush like an impatient tide rolling in. "My mother, she's Zapotec, right? A Mexican citizen, but not, you know, Mexican. Men who like men, or who have some aspect of the feminine, they're not persecuted in Zapotec society. You get that men like us and men who are really women are two different things, right?" Lola was glad to hear it. "I'm trying," he said, and the tightness in his voice dismayed him. He dropped Adan's hand. At Adan's gasped "no" he rushed to step in front of Adan, let the other man walk right into him, into his arms. "I don't want it to matter." He tried to look into Adan's eyes, but Adan wouldn't look up. They just... breathed together. Four waves crashed. Five. Adan's clenched fists came up to rest on Lola's chest. It was a curious gesture, both angry and pleading. "When I first saw men dressed as women, doing women's work, and not being hounded, something clicked. The first time I put on a blouse and lipstick, I cried. I came home to myself, and I could be known, proud." 40

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What could Lola do but accept that? It was the same way he felt when he danced. "And then you came back to Cuba? Why? Knowing what you'd lose." "Cuba needed me, especially after the Soviet disintegration. I thought I could do good and keep myself to myself." Adan finally looked up. The jolt when their eyes met was like sudden starlight, and the glow of the moon settled low in Lola's belly. Closing the distance between them meant that Adan's next words ended up pressed against Lola's lips, the words blowing like a sea breeze right into his mouth, over his tongue, down his throat. "I didn't expect you." Adan's eyes seemed to beg some response. Lola could have answered with words, but a kiss said everything so much better. They might have stayed on the Malecon, trading kisses and counting waves until the sun rose. Lola would have been content with that. But the wind picked up and Adan shivered, and Lola suddenly wanted Adan's shivers to be of a very different sort. The remainder of the walk to Adan's little flat above the clinic was short, even at Adan's high-heeled pace. They accomplished the distance with Lola's arm draping Adan's shoulders and Adan's hand wrapped around Lola's hip. They reached Adan's door and Lola felt the moment of truth settle even as Adan removed his hand from Lola's hip. Lola shivered, cold without his friend tucked close to his side. "Well?" Adan asked. He didn't meet Lola's eyes. 41

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Lola took a deep breath. He'd been thinking about what to say since they broke their last kiss, back by the Malecon. "If I say it doesn't matter, I refuse part of you. If I tell you the sight of you in women's clothes turns me on, I miss the point, right?" He didn't wait for Adan to nod. "All I can say is, everything about you calls to me. I want you. Can you wait for me to catch up on the rest?" The midnight glimmer in Adan's eyes would have been enough response, but when he also handed over his house keys and tucked himself back under Lola's arm, all Lola could do was laugh and play the gentleman. He unlocked the door and led his date inside. There was more to say. More to ask and more to figure out. But not tonight. Tonight was about the magic dance of their first time together. Getting into Adan's pants—or rather, his skirt—proved more of a challenge than Lola anticipated. "A dance belt?" Lola asked, laughing incredulously. Even in the dark of the flat, Lola saw Adan's color deepen. "It's more comfortable than tucking," Adan admitted as he wriggled out of the tight thong. Mesmerized by the way Adan's long dick bobbed as its owner undressed, Lola almost missed the other unique feature of Adan's foundation garments. Adan's hands smoothed over the bones of a deep blue waist cincher. "Should I leave it on?" he asked slyly when he noticed Lola's fascination. Lola placed his hands on either side of Adan's waist and pressed gently, framing Adan's body. Then he started 42

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unhooking the row of fasteners along the front, talking in a low voice all the while. "I love it. It's sexier than I can say. But this is our first time, and I want it to be just us, nothing between us." With a nervous twitch, his fingers stuttered as he thought of another possibility. "Unless you... need it on? Do you?" Adan smiled and reached under Lola's hands to continue the unhooking. "No, I don't need it. It feels sexy, though, and I'm glad you like it." Back on firm ground, Lola grinned. "I definitely want to fuck you in this someday." He drew away the cincher and took his first, full look at a gloriously bare Adan. He couldn't stop himself from running a quick tongue up one of the grooves the cincher left in Adan's soft skin. Adan grinned back like a fox in a chicken run. "You're so sure you're fucking me tonight?" Lola hadn't really considered another possibility, not after seeing Adan dressed for dancing. But the idea of flexible roles had definite appeal. Julio had always penetrated Lola, never the other way around, and now Lola wanted more balance. "Oh, yes, little fox," he said. "Tonight I'm fucking you. Tomorrow, who knows?" Adan appeared to pout. "You're not fucking me yet," he said. "Why not?" "Because you haven't shown me your bed yet." Lola was used to exposing his body, whether in leotards or at fittings or during quick changes at performances. But nothing had prepared him for the way he felt when he bared himself for his lover. 43

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"You're so perfect," Adan breathed, just when Lola was about to say the same thing. They rolled around Adan's squeaky bed, laughing and trading compliments with their voices and hands and mouths. Until they lay down, everything had felt reverential, momentous. After a few minutes of playing together, naked and delighted, Lola realized he'd never had so much fun during sex. "I never want this to end," he said, and Adan rewarded him with a really enthusiastic blowjob. Well, the reward was most of a blowjob. Adan pulled off with an obscene pop before Lola came, and reached for a condom. Actually, he reached for a handful of condoms. "You give me a lot of credit," Lola said, still panting his way through the denial of his orgasm. "And you have a lot of condoms." He and Julio had always had to ration their condoms pretty carefully. "One of the few benefits of my position," Adan said. "Being a doctor has perks, eh?" Lola said. "Now, about your position..." Adan rolled atop Lola, in deference to the shoulder, and they were off to the races. It was athletic and joyous and a fair bit louder than Lola was used to, and he loved every minute of it. Sadly, there weren't very many minutes involved, what with the abbreviated blowjob and the inordinate length of time since the last time Lola had been inside a lover.

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By the time a sweaty Adan collapsed into a warm puddle of his own come on Lola's belly, Lola couldn't remember any other lover. They slept wound together like ivy on a wall. **** Two weeks later, after a morning of practicing his jumps, Lola and Iddi were demonstrating a classic Afro-Cuban rumba for the intermediate students, trying to get them to drop and loosen their shoulders just so, when La Teniente's strident voice interrupted from the doorway. Lola held up a hand to stop Valdez and the drummer friend he'd brought in, and walked to the center of the room. "Kids, say good afternoon to Senora Krasskova." La Teniente endured the pro forma show of respect with pursed lips and a tapping foot. "Outside, Senor Montez. Please." "Problem, Irina?" Lola asked as he closed the door behind him. "I've spoken with Maestro Illyevich about your teaching native dances to the students." "It's good for them, to dance from their heritage," Lola replied. It was becoming a familiar argument. "I teach them ballet fundamentals, too. They're coming along well." He was insanely proud of his students, and no one was more surprised than Lola himself by how delightful it was to teach eager and talented youngsters. "Well, you won't be teaching them for much longer," La Teniente said with obvious satisfaction. Her expression soured 45

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as she continued. "Maestro says several of our company have... disappeared between Seville and Lisbon." She paused, clearly expecting an expression of outrage. Lola schooled his face. "How unfortunate," he said as dryly as he could manage. So they'd done it. Julio and the others, they had defected and wouldn't be coming back. Lola felt torn between mourning their loss and celebrating their success. He sent up a brief prayer for their safety and happiness—even Julio's. La Teniente waved away his concern. "Maestro has asked that you join them before they cross to Morocco. Your shoulder is healed, no? Here are your ticket and travel papers." She slapped a folder into Lola's hand and swept away. Panic set in, and his face must have betrayed it when he re-entered the salle, for Iddi hastened to his side and Valdez called merrily for the students to show him their classical routines. After a brief explanation during which Iddi kept having to break in and say, "Quit rambling and just tell me what she said," Lola finished speaking and put his hand on Iddi's shoulder, trying not to look as though he was sagging against his friend. "How can I go," he whispered, "when I've just found all this?" He gestured to the kids, who were pretending to show Valdez their ballabile while sneaking looks at him all the while. "How can I leave Adan?" There, of course, was the crux of the matter. The dizzying, delicious, maddening crux. 46

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"I'd love to say I'll take good care of Senorito Adina while you're gone," Iddi said, his puckishness with the honorific bringing a wraith of a smile to Lola's mouth. "But somehow your hand curling into a fist on my shoulder tells me that's the wrong course." He rubbed his chin in exaggerated thought for a minute while Lola sought consciously to relax his hand. Finally, Iddi snapped his fingers in that attention-grabbing African way he had, where his wrist flicked and one finger rang against the other like a bell's clapper. "I suppose I'll have to devise another solution." And with that, Iddi plucked the travel folder from under Lola's arm, kissed him on the cheek, and swanned out of the studio. Deeply confused and still watching his friend, Lola called to the students, "Come on, little ones, let's show compay Valdez your rumba one more time." He signaled Valdez to start playing and made it through the rest of the lesson like a clockwork mouse, all action and little awareness but for one thought that pounded through him like surf. How would he break this news to Adan? **** Adan reacted to Lola's news with a sort of stricken equanimity. Lola reacted to Adan's reaction with desperate lust. He needed to memorize every line and texture and flavor of his lover before his plane took off the next day. He was in the midst of nibbling a ring of tiny love bites around the upper edge of Adan's waist cincher when a knock sounded on the door. 47

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"Ignore it," Lola said, his voice distorted because he refused to release his delicate mouthful of skin and satin. Adan combed his fingers through Lola's hair, tugging. "It might be a patient," he said. He rolled from the bed, slipped into a dressing gown, and padded to the door. Iddi hurried in clutching the string bag he and Lola used for shopping. He bussed Adan's cheeks and then Lola's. "Ay, Lolito, I'm interrupting farewell sex, I know, but I have something to say." Adan spluttered at the frank talk and Lola opened his mouth to defend his honor, but Iddi kept talking a blue streak. "When I was leaving Luanda, my boyfriends were furious. Well, some were. Others were sad. 'How can you leave us, Iddi,' they said to me, but I didn't listen. I knew an opportunity to dance for Maestro Illyevich wouldn't come again. So I left them, all of them, and I have no regrets. Adina, dearest, is there coffee, maybe?" Lola towed Iddi into the tiny sitting room and sat him down while Adan moved to the kitchen to get the cafetera set up. Iddi seemed so upset, Lola wanted to comfort him. So he wrapped Iddi in his arms and petted his friend's short curls. "So you think I won't get a chance to dance internationally again, and I should go no matter what?" "He means," Adan called from the kitchen, "that no boyfriend is worth sabotaging your career." Iddi lifted his head from Lola's shoulder and actually gasped, a sharp, indignant intake of breath. "I meant no such thing. Ay, my Spanish." 48

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"Your Spanish is fine, Iddi, just tell me what you meant, and why it brought you out so late at night." Iddi shot a pettish look Adan's way. "What I meant was that you already dance for Maestro Illyevich." "You've lost me, dearest," Lola said. "What does Maestro have to do with anything? This is about me and Adan and how we only just found each other." "Idiot," Adan said fondly, and it wasn't clear which man he was accusing. He set down a tray with the coffee things. "Drink your coffee and maybe one of you will start making sense." Lola and Iddi shifted to include Adan in their cuddle, which Adan joined only after a pause that twisted Lola's heart. My Adan isn't sure of me, he thought. Slowly, Iddi explained himself. Lola had his dream job. He was dancing, and he was a credit to his people wherever he danced. "Even in the studio, teaching the kids the rumba and danzon. You don't have to go far away and leave everything you love to make your dream come true. I did, and I'd do it again. Wouldn't you, Adan?" Lola hadn't really thought that Adan's return to Cuba represented a choice to hide the muxe part of himself, but he realized that Adan had given up a lot to come back. "Would you, Adan? Would you choose to return to Cuba, knowing what it's like for people like us here?" Adan sipped his coffee and smiled. "I knew what I'd lose if I came back, just like Iddi did. I left Mexico with my eyes wide open, knowing that my work was here. I change the 49

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world one patient at a time, I really believe that. And I also believe that Cuba needs me more than Mexico does." What could Lola do but hug him for that? "I need you, too," he whispered against the unruly blue-black curls. "Now you see, don't you, Lolito?" Iddi said. "Not really," Lola admitted. He sucked down the dregs of his sweet, strong coffee and waited for it to clear his lust— and sleep-addled—mind. Since his injury, defecting no longer seemed imperative to a happy, good life. Teaching his students, making them better dancers and showing them the joy and richness of their own culture, that work felt important. He was still a principal dancer, no matter when the next production might come. And there was Adan, the crux of the matter. The dizzying, delicious, maddening crux. He turned to his friends. "Even if I wanted to stay, the ticket is bought and the travel is authorized. If I don't show up at the airport tomorrow, there will be worse than hell to pay. Maestro will never keep a shirker in the company." He suspected he sounded like a coward. He dropped is head to Adan's shoulder. "It's goodbye tomorrow, Adan. I'm sorry." Iddi made a rude noise and cursed in his native Kimbundu. "Adan's right," he said. "You are an idiot. Of course you must go to the airport tomorrow." He reached to the coffee table and snatched up Lola's travel documents. With a wicked grin he said, "But no one will know it's not you boarding the plane. Not in time to stop me." ****

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The hour was too late to send Iddi home safely, and Lola found that the sexual urgency of the evening had dissipated with the emotional tide of their plans. However, Adan's modest bed slept three easily, and the sun rose the next morning on three well-rested, if keyed-up, men. Lola did indeed go to the airport, carrying 'his' luggage and making a show of exuberant farewells to Iddi and Adan. He must have carried it off beautifully, because both Iddi and Adan's eyes glittered with tears as they cleared the final checkpoint and crossed the tarmac to the big old Russian jet. Uniformed men watched their progress, and Lola's heart thumped painfully hard. Tense minutes later, as the plane taxied toward the runway with Iddi safely aboard, Lola burst into tears. Adan clapped a manful hand to his shoulder and turned Lola to look at him. "He'll be back." "I know," Lola sniffled. "He'll be brilliant out there and he'll come back and Maestro will storm for a few days before he realizes he needs us both. We'll be fine. I know we will." He was trying to reassure himself, but it wasn't working. He looked into Adan's eyes, bluer than ever in the dazzling sunshine. His mute appeal must have come across, for Adan said firmly, in his best doctor voice, "Iddi will be fine. So will you. So will we." Lola mustered a wobbly nod and watery smile, but Adan wasn't finished talking. "I, for one, will be more than fine once you take me home and get me out of this cincher." His 51

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gaze heated to gas-flame intensity. "Or leave me in it." He turned with a smirk and headed for the terminal. "You always know just what to say," Lola replied, and followed. **** END If you liked this book you might like: Lee Benoit's other Cuba story, "The Hustler Prince;" Lee's other Color Box, "Smoke: Askari;" ****

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