Cloud Dancer

Dancer moved with the grace of a cat. His long limbs transported him from one side of the room to the other. Cloud watched in amazement, as she had done every second since meeting this amazing man a mere four hours ago. She marveled at his grace; his smooth, casual confidence that glittered around him like an angelic aura. She melted in his warm eyes, filled with such gentle kindness that she knew him, really knew him, in a single heartbeat.

"A drink?"

A simple question, yet the silk of his voice flowed across the air and poured into her senses.

"Yes, please."

Cloud lowered her eyes. She felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment. She felt her voice was an unworthy match to the beauty that his embodied. She felt a drop of moisture trickle between her breasts, beneath her light cloth blouse. Though natural, and indeed it had been happening all day in this heat, this particular drop of perspiration chilled her and sent a small shock through her body.

Her cheeks flushed even redder from the thoughts she now had. Her mind wandered into the realm of lust. It was an emotion that would have carried her over the brink with her tribe.

She was Lakota. And this man, this marvelous man with the liquid moves and the searing blue eyes, was a white man. Her father, her brothers and the elders all spent years telling her that the white man was wóanapte to her. Forbidden. But now her body was telling her something else.

Ever since he had offered her a ride on the way into town, her own car still smoking, a final gasp of breath giving into the relentless heat that pounded the South Dakota desert, her body had been gasping from its own heat wave. A heat wave created from her burning desires and his obvious smoldering passion.

"Here."

Cloud looked up. Dancer was before her, offering her a respite from the heat in the form of a glass filled with ice and water. As the cool liquid on the outside of the glass dripped to the floor, Cloud stood up and took the glass from his hands. The heat she wanted respite from was within her. And the only quenching force was within his.

Slowly, without taking her eyes from his, Cloud placed the glass on the table beside the couch. Then she moved her arms around his neck and drew him in. Their lips inched together, their eyes never departing from the other's. His sleek body moved closer and closer to her own slim form. Dancer's arms encircled the young woman's waist, drawing her body harder against his own. Then, with a single-minded force of passion and desire, their lips met. The heat and fire contained within that kiss, forged two hearts and souls into one.

Years later, as a slightly paunchy woman looked at her overweight husband, the memory of that kiss caused the air before her fleeting eyesight to wither. And an amazing transformation took place. No longer did an aging man with sullen eyes and a gait from an accident sit before her, but a man whose cat-like grace and inner passions captured a young Lakota woman's heart and soul for a lifetime.

"A drink," Dancer's voice called from the living room. For a moment, the old man returned. Then, turning slowly, he looked at her with love and desire once more.

A caramel voice flowed across the room and poured into her senses. "Yes, please . . . my love."

Cloud smiled, nodded and began to fill up a glass with ice and water. And wondered if it would be consumed before the ice melted. Or would it sit, undisturbed, as a similar one had done so many years ago.