Authors: Elaine Lowe
The rain had started the next morning and it hadn’t let up since. It didn’t help that the stream of water from the heavens reminded him constantly of that damned shower and made it almost impossible not to pick up the emotions of everyone around him.
He knew he was being a bear, complete with growl and vicious claws. He’d sat dejected through a merry dinner on Wednesday. He’d found Alan in the hallway outside June’s apartment, holding a wilting bouquet of daisies and a large bag. Reluctantly, he rounded up Hester from Ixchel’s room where she was helping with the mending and opened up June’s apartment. Alan entertained Hester for half an hour before June showed up, dirty from work and wet from the weather. It didn’t take someone with Daron’s powers to know that the man was a knife’s edge away from falling in love. Strangely enough, June’s face lit up when she saw Alan but she’d asked Daron to stay and Alan had pulled out boxes of takeout fettuccini and breadsticks from that bag he’d been holding. Serving as chaperone to a budding love affair did not improve his mood. The next day, he’d even barked at Hester when she’d come to watch him repaint the walls on the fourth floor where the Giacomini boys had decided to practice their A-B-Cs and F-U-C-Ks. He’d not wanted clever Hester to read what had been scrawled there but he’d yelled far too loudly and sent her scurrying.
Not even his sister Simza would have put up with how he’d snapped. She’d have sat him down and scorched his ears in four languages until he was thoroughly chastised and impressed by the breadth and eloquence of her vocabulary of oaths. He missed her more than he would have ever believed. Part of him wondered if he should just get on the next ship back to France and live out his lonely existence working his brother-in-law’s little winery, forgetting he’d ever met a little American strumpet. Ah he could almost feel the sharp kick Simza would have given him, calling his
ashavi
such a name. If only he could talk to her.
Everyone had their own problems. Irene had Michael to deal with. June had Hester. Carlos and Ixchel dealt with living on the fickle tourist trade and worked too many odd jobs to count. Giuseppe may have listened but his English only went so far and Daron’s Italian wasn’t good enough to bridge the gap. He didn’t want to burden anyone. It was a tale that he’d told no one of his little clan. They all held fast to an older path, one older than the written word. But he’d not told anyone of his heritage. Only Sophia. And she’d rejected it completely.
He felt empty. Hollow. Something he’d never really believed he was missing managed to hurt so deeply it was as though he had lost a limb. There was an ever present ache in his chest and his teeth hurt from where they ground together, even in his sleep. He looked out the front door of his building, out into the downpour that had people dashing around under umbrellas and cast the world in a pall of damp gray. It was Saturday and Harlem came alive on the weekends. Couples walked by hand-in-hand, on the way to some house party or one of the clubs. Daron just wondered if it was worth it to walk in the rain to find which bar Tommy had installed himself in and how much it would take to get drunk enough to find some nameless woman to sate his need.
One of the passing umbrellas paused in front of his building, its bright yellow a glowing contrast to the navy and black that dominated the majority of floating domes passing by. The owner turned and with a stately grace, made her way up the steps and into the hallway he’d just finished mopping clean. Closing her umbrella, Mary Pinckney, grandmother, root doctor and formidable priestess, fixed him with a determined stare.
“You, mister, you be needin’ a change of surroundins and I be needin’ an escort for de evenin’. Do ya gots any bettuh britches? Dem rags won’t be fine enough to see my granchil’ do his
moco
.” She swept back her coat, revealing a regal dress in a dark purple.
He stood blinking for a moment until she began tapping her foot.
“We don’t gots all day, boy! De Savoy gets full up righ’ quick. Go gets your dancin’ shoes ’fore I ’ave a mine to drag you ovah my achin’ knee!”
He laughed. Taking his mop and bucket, he turned up the stairway to do as he was bid.
Why the hell not?
* * * * *
He’d never been in a place like this before, one with thousands of people packed into a building solely for the purpose of dancing. There had been large gatherings of the
Romani
and the
Sinti
, huge colorful meetings where serious business was done and serious celebration was the result. But those were still out in the open, under a vast sky and lit by countless fires. But as a
Magi
, he was always an outsider, whispered about as he walked past. Here, in this massive building the length of a city block, he was anonymous. The walls of mirrors, the elegant curtains and the polished wooden floor, all of this was devoted to dancing every day of the week from morning to deep into the night. This was purely American.
The floor shivered under his feet, pounding out the rhythm of a couple of thousand dancers swaying to the brash brass of the band. Daron didn’t know if his father would have covered his ears in terror at the sound or have been eager to learn the new style of “Swing”. His mother though, she would have been right at home, twisting and turning, learning each new step and making up her own, feeding off the surging energy of the happy crowd and feeding back to it her brilliance.
Mary whistled next to him, perched primly on her chair, a purple hat set jauntily over her ear. She might be old but there was rhythm in her blood and she would not have missed the chance to see her grandson’s first show as a clarinet player with the Savoy Bearcats. Daron had been proud to escort her and puzzled that she’d asked him instead of one of her children or grandchildren. He supposed it was high time he saw this aspect of the city, this crazy exultation of the throbbing life of Manhattan. And the Savoy was the place to do it. It had just opened a month earlier. Daron remembered cleaning up the handbills from the sidewalk in front of his building. Everyone who was anyone was welcome to dance at the Savoy and everyone seemed to be there tonight. It took all his powers of concentration not to lose himself in the waves of emotion coming off the dance floor, as wild moves gave way to wilder impulses. This was the first place where every skin color, white, brown, black, green or purple was allowed to dance the night away.
Mary had been exultant when they walked in the neon lit entrance and up that marble staircase under that giant chandelier to the second floor, where the ballroom stretched as far as the eye could see. The cold wet April night was left behind in memory and the heat skyrocketed. Dancers coasted around the floor, buoyed by vibrant energy and music that made your feet want to move. Charlie, Mary’s youngest grandson was blowing his clarinet with a fire and passion that Daron could easily recognize from Mary. She was proud and rightly so.
Still, Daron had no real idea why she’d insisted that he escort her tonight but Mary had a talent for timing, for knowing just when to be in the right place at the right time. When he’d first been in New York, a bit shell-shocked by the overwhelming freight train that was The Big Apple, he’d taken refuge in Central Park, meeting the sun’s rise on Midsummer’s Day as he had every year of his life, with an offering of fire. Next to that small campfire, burning the sage leaves he’d bought from a grocer still blinking sleep from his eyes, he’d seen her dark figure step up out of nowhere, as though called from the heavens by his offering. She’d taken an interest in him ever since, helping him to find his job as apartment custodian and introducing him to Giuseppe and Carlos and Ixchel, other people who remembered the old ways, even if they used different names for the forces of nature.
He could feel primal forces in the air of this place, the push and pull of the fire of energy and the heavy breaths of thick air, the water of sweat and the pounding of the earth under the shoes of the revelers. He was tempted, more than tempted, to take off his gloves and pass through the crowd, stealing bits and pieces of excitement and joy until it filled up the hollow ache inside him. But it would be temporary. It would all drain away, leaving him even more empty than before he’d stolen happiness that was not his own. It was the eternal temptation of his power, one that he utterly rejected.
It would be better just to pick out one of the countless girls in the crowd and dance the night away with her. Or pick three, rotating between that redhead with freckles who was smiling at him with a gap in her teeth, that sexy black girl with the green velvet dress, or even that beautiful Chinese girl he saw shimmying with abandon in the crowd. There was no reason not to go and have a good time. Not when he was so cursed.
But he didn’t move. He felt a finger poke him in the ribs and he turned incredulous eyes to Mary, who was drinking discretely from a little silver hipflask in this definitively dry club. No one would deny a woman not a day younger than eighty her whiskey, no matter what the law might say about the evils of alcohol.
“Git out dere, Daron West. Git out dere ’fore I’s ready ta tip your chair ovah. You needs to dance.”
He grimaced. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked sullenly back at the crowd. The he felt his chair move and before the thing fell he was on his feet, his jaw slack with dismay.
“Git!” Mary pointed at the dancing maelstrom.
He sighed, defeated. He rolled up his sleeves over his blue suit jacket and trod out onto the dance floor, prepared to try to lose himself for a while. The song was fast and loud and having a partner seemed thoroughly optional at this point. People were stomping back and forth, moving their arms in sinuous patterns. The latest dance craze no doubt, something to replace the Charleston. He moved into the crowd, trying to imitate the rhythm of the crowd. He’d only skirted around the edge of the mass, testing the waters for finding a partner, when he’d seen her.
Sophia Hunter was dancing not five feet away, laughing with some man that Daron instantly wanted to throttle. Her skirt was short, showing glimpses of her knees and the long sweep of her calves down to those dainty feet that were trotting along in quick time. There was a fine sheen of sweat across her skin and the top of her chest glistened in the low light of the chandeliers high above, forcing his eyes to take in the low neckline of the dress as shining skin transitioned to pink shimmering silk the color of a ripe raspberry or a woman’s most private flesh. He snorted at modern American fashion, which forced a woman to try to flatten her breasts. He had memorized every sweet curve, from the shape to the weight to the taste of her. It was a travesty to try to cover them up but at least the rest of the slavering males drawn to her brilliant, unquenchable vigor had no idea of the treasures underneath that silk sheath.
With the flare of his lust, the barriers that he’d built against her started to crumble and he could see the darkened room light up with the sparkling energy of thousands of souls. He could see her steps falter, her eyes flare open into swirling silver pools as she looked around searching. He retreated, hiding behind the crowd and leaning against one of the dark orange pillars separating the massive dance floor from the refreshment lounge. It wasn’t time to be found. He wasn’t sure it ever would be.
He probably should have taken her that night in her apartment. Sweeping her up in passion and flowing over her until she had no choice but to stay with him. He knew the connection they would share would be undeniable, as intense as an addiction to a drug. He could already feel the lure of her, just feet away inside the throng. He was half hard, picturing her glistening wet, her hair plastered to her neck and the flower of her sex earthy rich under his tongue. Once he’d felt her envelop him, once he’d known how they would fit together and soar, he knew he’d be powerless in her presence. And she would probably be the same.
He could break her, make her need him. But it would be a sorry excuse for a mating. She was wild and opinionated, skillful and passionate and he wanted her whole and willing or not at all. He bent over, the breath knocked out of him with the thought that he could lose her completely if he left things as they were. Hands on his knees, staring at the painted orange and blue chevrons of the lounge floor, he wasn’t ready for the appearance of strappy heels, silk stockings and a long length of leg to lure his eyes steadily upward.
Her arms were folded across her flattened chest, her hair starting to curl in the humidity of the ballroom. Her head was tipped to one side and she looked at him, her lips pursed in an affected moue. The band changed the tune from a fast beat to a slower number and Sophia bent forward, grabbing his gloved hand in hers. She made to pull him on to the dance floor but turned, giving him a hard look before yanking off one glove and then the other, leaning into him and stuffing them into the pockets of his second-hand jacket. The shock of sensation was briefly overwhelmed by the sweet earthy sent of her, lavender and rose and something distinctly her own. But then her bare hand was in his and the rawness of her need became all too evident. She was angry, intrigued, sad, scared and every bit as full of desire as he was. He was pummeled by waves of confusion, the rhythm of the crowd and the blood draining from his brain to his cock.