A/N: The first time I saw The King and I, I never thought that it would strike a chord with me. I watched it for most of it's duration without really watching it - and then it got to Shall we dance? And I can honestly say that I've never seen any two people display so much chemistry with such little physical contact. And I got to thinking about it for some reason tonight, the song, and the looks he give her, and the disagreements, and this is what came out of it. So, I guess, bear with me, because I wrote this at about eleven at night, and I can't promise there aren't any typos/complete misjudgements in here. I just wanted to write this down somewhere, because I can never get enough of the end of this movie. I really only wrote this for me. I can't say I own anything.
We've just been introduced
I do not know you well
But when the music started something drew me to your side
So many men and girls
Are in each others arms
It made me think we might be similarly occupied
Shall we dance?
On a bright cloud of music shall we fly?
Shall we dance?
Shall we then say goodnight and mean goodbye?
Or perchance
When the last little star has left the sky
Shall we still be together with our arms around each other
And shall you be my new romance?
On the clear understanding that this kind of thing can happen
Shall we dance?
Shall we dance?
Shall we dance?
He attempted to explain his views to her - a man is a bee, a woman his, and only his, blossom. Yet, this strange foreign girl did not understand what was so simple to most. And she called herself a teacher, a wise one! Such puzzling things that he could not comprehend - monogamy. He had heard that word before, and its alien connotations would never make any form of sense to him. Never.
Yet, he pondered, that strange look that had washed over the teacher as she spoke of her native country - young girls, hands touching and dancing, unmarried. Such strange customs those English had! And however, that look. As if it were magic, or at least it was to her. He had heard the stories of love, etcetera. But surely a man could love more than one woman at a time? Women were all different, of course - some were tall and some were short, for example. Could one not love one for her tallness as another for her shortness? Or was that not the purpose of love?
She described to him the excitement, the terror of going to a first dance, unsure of what would happen. She spoke of the anxiety these English girls experienced over not finding a man to dance with. Why, in Siam a girl would be told of when a man was prepared to marry her, no worry whatsoever. Here, rules made sense, and were not so...nonsensical. Etcetera.
Monogamy. Such a silly foreign tradition.
Etcetera.
Then again, listening to her talk was entrancing in itself. Many women could of course satisfy a man's appetite, but he had never considered that one woman could offer him the entire banquet without even trying that hard. And Anna spoke of strange things, of meeting a stranger and spending the night in his arms.
With an unexpected shower of fear, he wondered if she had done that.
Why should that shock him? She had been married. She had done far more than dance at night with a stranger - the proof of it was somewhere else in his palace. And yet, he wondered how many men she had danced with. How many men had put their arms around this girl, and thought that for the night, and only for the night, she was his? Had she worn this dress, or another like it, and twirled in it with another? For some reason, he abhorred the idea. He had seen her dance earlier that evening, with the English man, and an indescribable emotion had risen from his stomach. There was no better name for it than jealousy.
And so he asked her to teach him. He had no intention of asking, yet he had every intention of dancing. If only to experience other things, as a cultured man would do, and as no barbarian would. She had taken his hands in hers, and he had only paused for less than a moment to appreciate his ring on her hand. She was warm, yet in a different way - there was almost such thing as a barrier between them, holding them apart. Or rather, pushing them apart. With his wives, no barriers of the like existed. With Anna, he could not be certain that it ever would not.
But one, two, three, and one, two, three. Etcetera.
And they sprung about, keeping the barrier between them. This English polka was a funny dance. There was a lot of what felt like jumping in it - and a strange amount of buzzing in his hands. But it wasn't right. He stopped the dance, and when she asked why he felt awash with a bizarre clarity. He looked at her puzzled face, and explained that he did not feel it was right, sounding peculiar even to himself.
They should be closer together, he felt.
All of a sudden, she'd gone quiet. Perhaps there was a barrier between them, but maybe the guard could come down for a night, as it did for men in England and the West. He wanted her to think all these things too, yet could not understand even himself why. This feeling was never before felt by him. As she moved to hold her arms behind her back, he never once looked away from her eyes. They looked back into his with an equal determination - and the word caught him. Equal. Never had a woman looked at him with such fire, or had expected more of him than she. And never before had he wanted to give one more.
Every step he took felt as a millennia. They felt too long, and he was unsure of where to stand. However, that quality in her eyes spurred him on, and he didn't walk too ungracefully, as he feared he could have. His outstretched hand suddenly found her waist, and she made no appearance of feeling uncomfortable with it. She just continued to look at him. He slipped his hand onto her side, and he marveled at how such a small point of contact could inspire such heat within him. He had never looked at a woman, least of all her, in this way before. Such passion, such longing he felt, that he almost felt as though he could never move again and be just as engaged in her.
He wanted her, in any form of the word. Perhaps every form of the word. Etcetera.
There was nothing left to do but dance. He held her as they danced around the room, and he stopped faltering with his feet. When she spun out of his arms, she was quite breathless. She held on to the column to support herself, and for once did not disagree with him when he placed his hand back in it's rightful position on her waist, and danced with her again.
He thought of that night now, and the words she had spoken. For a moment he had dared to imagine that they could have stayed that way until the morning, when the stars had hidden themselves away for the sun to arise. Perhaps, he could have been the man she did not wish to say goodbye to. Surely, from that look on her face, that hot fire that burnt her cheeks pink, she had considered it too.
But, for that moment he had not been a King. And now he was, and he was a King she would never agree with. Her words, calling him heartless and a barbarian, were supposed to make him want to beat her for insulting him, yet they only made him yearn for her not to think that.
Never had he felt this weak, this wretched. He had not seen her in months. For the first few days he had asked where his annoying teacher was, and would only receive the response that she did not wish to see him like he did her. And seeing his Prime Minister returning that ring, the one he had given to her, was not right. It was less right than them dancing far apart. It was not a ring of promise, not of enticement or of sworn chastity. Yet he had considered it a ring of hope. Hope that maybe she would not remove it as it reminded her of him, and the kinder aspects of his character. It should not have been tossed aside as it was, in a rage and a flurry of skirts as she despaired that she'd ever met him. Had he not felt her warm beneath his touch? He had seen her defy him time and time again, and that defiance she had maintained as he'd put his hand on her side. He had felt her want something from him - perhaps only to dance, for a night, but he could not bring himself to believe that. If he was certain of anything, it was of the passion between them, that had manifested itself quite against both of their wills. Yet she cursed the day she came to his palace, and accused him of being a cold and unloving barbarian. She had used that word, and now he lay in his chambers, hoping that she hadn't truly meant anything of those things - hoping as he never had before.
And perhaps, in it's breaking, he could show her that he did honestly have a heart.