ReaderGift 005 --salsa implicate e-mail

--------I am fortunate enough that now and then circumstances permit that I receive a little e-mail through my appropriate machine. An e-mail is a message wrapped in a gift. What one wouldn't give for an e-mails

---names changed to imagine something bigger than us, where there is no creed, no height differentials, no strange smells, only SALSA DANCERS


"I went to salsa the other evening, and it was pretty good. I very nearly didn’t get there, because the road I would normally have taken turned out to be closed, forcing me to take a scenic detour through unfamiliar territory, but I just got there in time.


The classes were held in the dining area cum function room of a pub, and I was surprised to find that most of the people were dressed for a night out, rather than for an exercise class as I had expected (I was wearing my trusty £6.99 brown cords and a long-sleeved T-shirt, so I was probably rather underdressed). The instructors split us off into two groups, beginners and intermediate, and I joined the other beginners in the corner.


We started off by forming two lines, one of men and one of women, and practising the most basic steps (forwards, backwards, side to side). Once that was done with, the two lines converged as we each picked out a dancing partner. I made a beeline for a very pretty girl wearing a nice dress and lots of make-up and grabbed her round the waist to claim her for my own, but my triumph was short-lived as she quickly showed herself to be stiff and awkward, and seemingly quite unhappy to be there at all.


Luckily, we swapped partners after a couple of minutes, and I was presented with a well-covered middle-aged lady, who was much better to dance with, if less easy on the eye. The instructor stood in the middle of a circle we formed around him, dancing with each of the women in turn and talking through each new move while he demonstrated it. We changed partners again, and I found myself clasping a girl of about my age who seemed almost entirely made up of bosom; I really didn’t know where to look because every time I looked down at her I got an eyeful of heaving feminine chest, which is quite welcome at times but less so when you’re trying to concentrate. But she was soon replaced by another girl, and another, and many others fat and thin and tall and short and pretty and pugilistic.


After forty-five minutes there was a break, and I made conversation with The Bosom while drinking a glass of water. Then we were back into it, doing strange turns that left ones arms all twisted about one’s partner, and which every moment presented the men with the opportunity of dislocating a womanly elbow by clumsiness or design. Each time a new partner appeared we said a cheery hello, exchanged notes on how clumsy we were and how sweaty our hands were getting, before being drilled into the strange undulations required of us.


By the end I was quite weak, and fortified myself with a beer bought for me by The Bosom. It turned out that by day she was a solicitor named "Moloch", and that she and her friend "Serendipitous" had just started coming to classes the previous week. I chatted away to them for half an hour or so and then made my way home, promising to buy "Moloch" a drink the next week, and congratulating myself on having avoided breaking anyone’s toes or putting a hand somewhere inappropriate by mistake. The next day my legs were very tired."