Author's Note: This was intended to be a stand alone but I sense a series coming on. So, consider this the first in "The Courtship of Helen Magnus" series. Thank you for reading! And PLEASE (begging intended) review! Thanks again. Peace. NCS
Tango
(Copyright 2011, NoCleverSig)
Helen Magnus hadn't anticipated this, a fact which in and of itself surprised her. Still, she couldn't say she found it disagreeable. On the contrary, it had been some time since she'd been so physically close to a man. She considered the sensation quite splendid, and if she were truly honest with herself, disturbingly arousing.
James Watson removed his hand from around Helen's waist and stepped back, breathless.
"And those, my dear, are the basic steps of the Argentinean Tango."
Helen reached her gloved hand up to her hair presumably to check the combs but in reality to provide herself a moment to recompose. A bead of sweat trickled from her brow to her cheek.
"This is all the rage in Paris you say, James?" she asked with a slight waver in her voice.
"Indeed it is. Imported from the brothels of Argentina, or so I was told," he waggled his eyebrows at her playfully. As intended, Helen smiled coyly in return.
"Well," she started. "It is rather…sensual in its movement."
"It is," he agreed. "Shall I play the record again?" James inquired, eyeing the Victrola eagerly. He was like a boy with a new toy. It added to his enduring charm. A new discovery for James Watson, be it a species of Abnormal or a dance, was like a Christmas present wrapped and full of promise just waiting to be plundered and explored.
Helen sighed inwardly. James' lesson in this new, 'scandalous' dance had gone on far longer than she had expected. They really should return to the project at hand. Tesla would be arriving soon, and the cell structure had yet to be properly analyzed. Her notes were scanty at best. Still, James looked at her with such keenness she hadn't the heart to deny him.
"Once more," she acquiesced, glancing around the parlor at the furniture James had shoved to the edges of the room and the carpet he had rolled up to make way for their hasty dance. He smiled broadly at her, his hazel eyes shining. Helen paused. Hazel? She'd known Watson for years and had presumed them green. Strange she should look at them so closely now.
James turned the crank on the wooden cabinet, set the needle on the record, looked Helen in the eye, and inclined his head slightly to the floor. She held his gaze, never breaking contact, and nodded faintly in return. The invitation from a man to a woman to dance without uttering a single word, the cabeceo, was complete.
The Mi Noche Triste streamed out of the internal horn of the Victor phonograph bathing the parlor in its warm, Latin rhythm. James held Helen in a close embrace, their faces lightly touching, the contact flowing down from their chests and trailing into their hips and thighs. Their steps were in mirrored contrast to one another. The position of their bodies was intimate, low, and suggestive. They had been this close before; Helen reminded herself, her breathing slightly uneven. James and she had danced at least a hundred waltzes together, and they had held each other as friends many times. But this…this felt different. This was almost carnal. Dangerously so.
James led her across the wooden floor in a counter-clockwise motion, his strides long and dramatic. The dance was dominated by "walks," but performed in such a manner as to make Helen feel as though she was being hunted, prey to James' predator. He turned her. They crossed. She spun. He pulled her back catching her foot, teasing and taunting one another. Both of them improvised from the basic steps he'd taught her to express the sentimental music that flowed from the far corner of the room. A lover scorned…a bed now empty…a guitar sitting silent and dusty.
The afternoon sun streamed in as they became lost in the flirtatious rhythm of the song, sometimes slow and slinking, then suddenly furious and sharp, like sex itself. They moved with a passion, an urgency, which the elegant waltz lacked. They were stalking, seeking, exploring one another. Somewhere in the midst of the dance they became the lovers in the song.
James tightened his embrace. Helen's heart pounded. His breath was hot against her neck, his larger hand enfolding her smaller one. Goose bumps rippled down her side. The combs in her hair loosened as her head swayed in rhythm to the music. Her cheeks were flush from the heat of the movement, the stillness of the air. Her bosom was heaving with sweat.
He turned them again, reversing direction, the song nearing its crescendo.
La guitarra en el ropero
todavia esta colgada;
nadie en ella canta nada
ni hace sus cuerdas vibrar...
Y la lampara del cuarto
tambien tu ausencia ha sentido
porque su luz no ha querido
mi noche triste alumbrar.
With a final and sudden movement, he dipped her, hooking his leg around hers, bending her back low and suggestively. The combs fell out of her hair and landed on the wooden floor with a high-pitched 'ting' behind her.
The record ended. The needle bumped back and forth against the center, the rhythmic scratching sound echoing through the room. Helen looked up at James, holding him tight along his firm arms, her blonde hair cascading down around her shoulders almost to the ground. He breathed heavily, his eyes flicking from her face to her breasts and back up again. Sweat lined his forehead and trailed down into his sideburns. His hands trembled slightly.
James had never been more than a friend and a colleague to her, courteous and genteel. He had never made advances. Part of her was glad for it, knowing their friendship would remain intact. Another part of her, the part that held her vanity, was vaguely and inexplicably disappointed.
But right now…now he looked at her with a hunger in his eyes that both startled and aroused her.
He lifted her back up, still clutching her waist, pulling her closer to him than propriety allowed outside the dance. She could see the hesitation in his eyes, the internal conflict warring within him. He was weighing the pros and cons of whatever action he was considering next, the calculation evident in his expression.
Suddenly his eyes cleared, his mind having reached a solution. He pulled her towards him, leaned in, and tilted his head.
The kiss was soft and gentle, in stark contrast to their dance. He was testing his theory for its soundness, curious as to how she would respond. Cause and effect. Action and reaction. Even immersed in passion, his mind never ceased thinking. She knew he was noting her every response, the slightly elevated feel of her heartbeat, how her hands clutched at his shirt, the way her lips parted in acceptance and invitation.
When her tongue tentatively touched his, all thinking ceased.
James tightened his grip on her, his hips unconsciously pushing against hers. His mouth opened in kind, kissing her with a passion she'd only witnessed in his work. His tongue reached out for her, tracing her teeth, her cheeks. She answered him equally, moving her hands up and around his neck, pulling him closer, willing him against her. He removed a hand from her waist and reached up to find her breast, squeezing it, making Helen moan with surprise as well as pleasure.
Suddenly he pulled back, breaking off the kiss. His mind had recalculated this latest action and had found it wanting.
"I'm…so sorry, Helen," he stammered, stepping back from her, dropping his hands to his sides. "I don't know what came over me. I offer you my profoundest apologies."
She stared at Watson standing there handsome, stammering, and ashamed. In an instant the niggling that had always been there for her dear friend transformed into a rush of desire and a possibility she had admittedly toyed with through the years, but had never found the courage to pursue.
"It's all right, James," she said softly, stepping toward him. "Really," she added to reassure him.
He looked at her skeptically.
"But what about…"
He stopped, leaving his friend, her lover, John Druitt's unspoken name, hanging heavy in the air between them.
Helen blinked. John was the last person she wanted to think of at this moment. "He's dead to me, James. You know that."
Watson narrowed his eyes at her and tilted his head, a slight smile forming on his lips. "So you say my dear, quite regularly and with deep ferocity."
Helen breathed in deeply and looked away, caught in her lie. She watched as the setting sun shone off of the record slowly spinning to a stop on the phonograph. The room fell silent except for the ticking of the mantle clock.
"Regardless," she agreed after a moment, stepping toward him. "You and I are here now. Perhaps that is enough?" she asked shyly, lightly reaching out her hand toward his.
James looked at her, considering, his mind in rapt calculation once more.
"Enough to start," he answered after a moment, pulling her towards him.
END