My wife loves dance performances. I don’t. I find the whole affair of people prancing around in their skimpies rather embarrassing. Men in tights? Don’t get me started. My wife knows perfectly well how I feel, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to embroil me in some event or other. I have developed a nice repertoire of excuses for not attending. Nature being what it is, my wife has developed her own repertoire of moves to counter those excuses. Which is the reason why I didn’t find out until I was already inside the restaurant that our ‘dinner date’ would include flamenco dancers
It was warm inside the establishment with a cozy atmosphere thanks to old-fashioned light fixtures, and the liberal use of wooden tables, chairs, counters, walls, and ceilings. A large fireplace flickered at the far end, near where I could see a group of performers setting up musical instruments on a small raised stage. The men were dressed in simple but exotic attires, while the two women that accompanied them wore long colourful dresses with many frills and ruffles.
“Are those flamenco dancers?” I said turning to Emma.
“Oh, are they?” she said looking across the room. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“It didn’t say anything about it in the website when you made the reservation?”
“Nothing at all.”
"How curious," I said.
"Quite."
A man has to know when he's been checkmated and just enjoy the beating.
Conveniently, our reserved table just happened to be near the stage where the dancing festivities were about to take place. I remarked to Emma what a nice coincidence it was to be seated so close to the stage, and she agreed with me that it was “very lucky.”
We ordered some tapas and a jug of sangria, which I promptly began to imbibe, fruit and all.
The performers took their place around the stage, and the event began with a nice introduction by a man with a slight accent. He talked about flamenco, and its history back in Andalusia region of Spain. He introduced his companions, who were received with warm applause by the audience. The man then took up a guitar, strummed a few strings, and began to sing in Spanish in a slow melodious voice.
The younger of the two women stood up and walked to the middle of the stage. She wore a large red flower on her hair, which was tied back in an intricate manner. Her body was lean and strong wrapped in the long frilly dress that accentuated her sinuous proportions. She began by clapping then stamping her feet as she grabbed her dress, raising it above her knees, and engaged in a rhythmic stamping and swaying of hips.
I poured myself another glass of sangria.
I don’t consider myself an expert on dance and only absorb its intricacies by osmosis through my wife. So perhaps it was the sangria, but in spite of all the stamping, I was beginning to enjoy myself. The dancer was flawless; her techniques seemed refined to my own amateurish eye, and the way her dress hugged her frame was truly visually stimulating.
When the young dancer finished her routine, the audience applauded, and she took her seat beside her companion.
The other dancer was older and her body was more fully cocooned in her dress. Although she was not as lean as her companion, her body was fit and still possessed the feminine graces of her youth.
The music was silent.
She stood up and walked calmly to the stage, then putting one foot slightly behind the other, she took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. Her face underwent a sudden transformation. Her brows furrowed as if in great pain. The fire flickered on her pained countenance. Pain of life. Pain of memory. Pain of the heart. I could not discern.
There was a soft clacking sound, insinuating, dangerous like a rattle snake. I realized she had castanets in her hands.
She stopped, and the only sound was the flickering fire. Then again the castanets rattled menacingly.
The creases on her brow smoothed over, and her eyes were cast downwards.
The man with the guitar began to sing mournfully. Visions of old misty towns came to mind.
The dancer looked up in a flash! Her eyes ablaze, reflecting the flames from the fire. She stamped her feet rhythmically, and in rapid succession like a machine gun, she waved her hands with the castanets, clack-clack-clack! She swayed to the rhythm of the guitar and drums that were rapidly raising in tempo and loudness. She twirled in a cascade of embroidery and lace, spreading outwards like a peacocks fan, framing her face and her glistening breasts. Stamping and clacking. Olé! Olé!
Putting aside the castanets, she clapped her hands and stamped vigorously to a thunderous rhythm that was mesmerizing and bewitching. With each clap, strands of her hair came undone so that she was becoming wild and disheveled, her eyes like black pearls floating hauntingly in the air.
She worked herself up to a frenzy, her hair came completely undone, flowing in the atmosphere of the discordant notes as she clapped her hands, stamped with her bared her legs, and looked as if possessed by an ecstatic mystic inspiration.
She clapped her hands three times, and there was silence.
The crowd broke into applause and cheers. There was no question who was the undisputed mistress of the dance.
The younger girl applauded too, not a trace of jealousy, as she shouted words of encouragement to her more experienced and skillful companion on the stage. The dancer thanked the audience and did a sweep with her extravagant dress. The light fell on her face from the hearth, and she beamed with a breathy smile.
I became suddenly aware of my surroundings. I turned my head and saw that Emma was looking straight at me with a bemused little smile on her lips. A dangerous little smile. She raised an eyebrow then looked down with a nod of her head.
I followed her gaze and realized that I was tightly gripping a butter knife with one hand.
“I didn’t know that you were so enamored of the dancing arts, darling,” Emma said.
“Oh you know me,” I said. “I don’t mind dabbling now and then.”
She laughed, drank some sangria, and shook her head.
“I’m glad,” she said. “Because you’re going to be doing a lot dabbling from now on.”
I realized that there would be no clever excuses to avoid the ballet or whatever post-modern cringe-show she happened to be interested in seeing on any give day of the week. I would spend the rest of the year, and possibly beyond, attending dance performances.
Checkmate indeed.
The showed continued with the two dancers sharing the stage and putting on the most delightful performance.
When dinner was over, and as we were on our way out, my wife took my hand and led me straight to the performers.
“We just wanted to let you know how much we loved your music and dance,” she said to them. “It was very special and lovely. Right, Adrian?”
“It was wonderful and truly enjoyable. Muchos grrrracias!”
The performers laughed at my broken Spanish and answered in their own Andalusian dialect.
Outside the restaurant, the night was crisp and cool; the full moon was rising above the bridge in the bay.
Emma looked at me with a glow on her cheeks and smiled.
“Olé!” she said, stamping her foot and clapping her hands like a flamenco dancer.
“Si! Olé! Olé! Senorita!”
By the time we arrived at the bridge, the moon was splendid in the sky.
Epilogue
While I am not officially submitting this tale for the InkWell challenge, it is based on the prompt "Delight."
I created the images and animations using an animation extension for Stable Diffusion. The process entails many hours of work. I was generating one animation every one to two hours for a number of days, changing parameters to get the right feel and style. Most animations were complete disasters, so the ones in this short story were the ones that worked best with the plot. I hope you enjoyed the tale and the dance.
Images and animations generated by @litguru using generative art software