Sensual Bachata NYC

The hardest part was figuring out Lionel's goal in life. Nobody had seriously talked with Lionel about that. Phoenix asking and proposing options made him think deeply in a supportive conversation. Lionel didn't care about riches. Lionel didn't fancy the wife, kids, picket fence, and dog - too conventional. Lionel didn't have it in him to be a celebrity. He knew that he would ever only be another faceless in the masses of people. But there was that space, that state, and that emotion that he sometimes reached dancing bachata, like when Sara had given him a dance when he was deeply depressed. He wanted to find a way to live in that space. Vaguely, it looked to him like a deeply connected relationship. And then he pivoted to something more catchy: "I want to become the king of bachata in NYC!"

Threading the father's emotional destruction and the king of bachata into a personal statement on why Hunter College should admit Lionel, Phoenix typed away on his phone with Lionel looking over Phoenix's shoulder. The rest was a lot of forms to be filled out. There was a Hunter college application, a financial aid application, an ethnic background application, a math application test, and an English application test. They labored for a couple hours on the application, completely oblivious to the bachata social. None of the women noticed. And Lionel realized that you don't have to chase the hottest girl. You can have a great time with whoever is in your company.

Sunday, two weeks later, at 10am, Lionel was sitting in a plastic chair with a plastic writing board in front of him. The weekend class at Hunter for intro to programming was about to start. The room had about seventy seats, three-quarters of which were filled. The instructor typed away on the projection computer. The instructor was in his fifties. His hair was white already and cut into a square shape that made him look like a soldier. He looked like a man who had lost against his midlife crises and wondered what he was doing with his life. The students were in utter silence. Nobody spoke. They appeared to be young ones fresh out of high school and intimidated by college.

The professor started with a roll call. A group of three Chinese students (one female and two male) stood out because before answering to their name called, they'd have a group discussion. While the instructor watched them discuss with a puzzled face, one of them would stop and raise the hand. The instructor had to patiently take corrections for the many ethnic names that he mispronounced.

Ten minutes in, the door opened. A blond student walked in casually, slowly sauntering past the instructor without addressing her tardiness, clad in pajama pants that hung loose on her hips, in fact so loose that the waist was rolled up so that they wouldn't slip all the way down her hips because as they were, they hung barely over her pubic bone, for a top, she wore a soft tank top without a bra, her full-sized boobs freely swinging and sending fat ripples across their surface and nipples in full pokiness, and finally her feet in fashionable, white bunny slippers full of fluffy fur with the face of the bunny smiling in front of her toes. The instructor took note of the breathtaking entrance and said nothing, but Lionel wondered how the instructor could not have a boner the whole class, having her in full view.

Thirty minutes in, the instructor started a YouTube video explaining how to turn a computer on and off. In painstaking detail, the presenter explained how to log into the operating system by entering an e-mail and password. The video went on for a good half hour. Lionel could not comprehend how grown-up considered his generation digital natives but then felt like explaining how to log in were college-level instruction. For some relief, a guy walked in the door, asked if it were biology class, and then was corrected by the instructor that the guy had indeed signed up for intro to programming instead of biology.

Forty minutes in, another girl drew Lionel's attention. Her zipper was very audible at a quiet point of the presentation. Lionel looked over his shoulder at her. Despite summer, she was wearing a thin leather jacket. She seemed to be hot and pulled the zipper all the way down. He could see the side boob under the black leather because she didn't seem to be wearing anything underneath. A silver playboy bunny necklace rested on her skin. Her face was very cautious like she had been trying to be quiet by pulling the zipper slowly, but that only stretched out the rip-tick of the zipper clicking past each joint. The rest of her outfit were jeans shorts and white Converse sneakers. Various black and white tattoo motives ran all over her legs. She seemed to have collected them over a length of time because there was no theme. She seemed to be a bad bitch. On her wrist was a red, white, and dark purple braided wristband, the same as Gaston was wearing.

Lionel couldn't understand how the teacher could function looking at women less than half his age in such revealing outfits. Students came and left the classroom as they pleased. Every five minutes, the instructor had to ask a student to stop talking. The instructor had to re-seat frequent offenders to keep them apart. When the room filled with the aroma of chicken, he had to ask the student with the takeout kung--po chicken to eat outside. A constant mayhem ground through the whole class. The young woman with the bunny slippers eventually lost control her ring that she was spinning on the writing top. Clattering, the ring hopped across the floor. She got on her hands and knees and started crawling after it under the chair of another classmate. Her pajama pants dropped to the middle of her butt crack. She was wearing no underwear. She had the juice tender ass of someone barely come of age. When her head re-emerged above the writing tops, she called out with pointed surprise, "You didn't see nothing, did you?" Nobody responded.

After class, he hurried after the young woman with the black leather jacket, "Hey! Hold up! I'm Lionel."

The woman stepped to the side of the stairway to let the stream of other students pass. She seemed nervous and shy. Somewhat bitchy, she replied, "I'm Caramel."

"I saw your wristband," added Lionel. "How do I get one?"

"Oh, it's just something I made. Get yourself some string from a crafting store," Caramel turned to walk away.

"I know that's not true," insisted Lionel grabbing her shoulder. "I want to get in on the bachata society." When he had grabbed her shoulder, the jacket on that side slipped open and revealed one of her boobs - a tender tear-drop-shaped one, just at the perfect size where it feels like a full boob without any weight - all youthful.

"Piss off asshole," hissed Caramel in anger, pulling her jacket back and zipping it up.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," apologized Lionel.

"I don't give a shit who sees my tit," insisted Caramel covering her embarrassment, walking away swiftly.

Almost losing her into the ocean of students pressing to the front door, Lionel sang out "mal caliente," the refrain of that earworm at bachata socials. It meant "bad, hot" in Spanish. The song was something that randomly popped into his head. She paused in the crowd to listen to it. Seeing the effect, he repeated the call. Seeing her still pause, he put more fervor into the melody of it. She couldn't resist the call.

She turned around, walked back to him, and grabbed him tightly by the collar. The grip stretched his t-shirt to the point of the seam bursting with a loud crack. Both her fists right under his chin, holding his collar, her face glared at him, still angry - actually more at ease with him now to show her full fury. "You get one dance. Right now. Outside," she pushed him back, sending him reeling into two students behind him. She came in a small package but was intense.

He couldn't see her but hurried outside as fast as he could, pushing his way forward, past the students moaning about his impatience when everyone wanted to leave. He found her in a little gap in the crowd between the stairs, the sidewalk, and a perimeter wall. Her leather jacket was zipped up to the top. She was holding for him one of the white earbuds with the other in her ear. Partly due to the short length of the earbud cables and because she was intense, he ended up right away in a close embrace. He bent his knees to fit his right knee between her knees. He swooped her up in his arms and started a turning basic step. Her hips ratcheted intensely left and right like she had a furious rhythm in her body. He met her energy. Then he recognized the song was the one that he had been singing to her. It seemed loaded on her music app like she listened to it as frequently as her theme song. She was mal caliente.

After the song ended, she stepped away from him to appraise him. He had enjoyed the song a lot and was still savoring the highlight moments when her body and the music had perfectly blended. He was happy ear to ear, not thinking about the next part of the interaction.

"Okay. Your bachata is not bad, "she judged him. "Here is the deal. You know that joining the crew means that you vow absolute obedience to dancing with anyone, anywhere, and under any circumstances who shows this wristband. Membership is through an apprentice program. I'll put you through tests to test your allegiance to that pledge. When I'm satisfied, I'll anoint you with a wristband. Any trial, legal, illegal, costly, and injurious, is fair game and must be passed."

"Are you willing to enter into my apprenticeship?" she asked.

"Yes," he said.

She took his hand and tied a single white strand around his left wrist. The strand was so snug that it almost cut into his skin, but only almost.

"I'll be in touch," she said and walked away.

When Lionel rode the subway home, he felt a new sense of pride every time he focused on the feel of the string on his wrist. He was no longer one of the mass but at the entrance step to a crew. He thought he caught the eye of a tall, black girl popping a little bit when she saw his wrist. "Do people know?" he wondered. Gaston gave Lionel a big pad on the back and encouraged Lionel to always carry extra-strong spearmint gum during the pledge. At first, Gaston thought the gum was to freshen his breath, but then it dawned on him that Gaston meant it more to recover the taste in Lionel's mouth. Either way, Gaston handed him a pack on the spot.

The next class, Lionel observed Caramel. Caramel was terribly shy. She avoided talking to people. When she had to speak in class, she only reluctantly spoke as little as possible. She didn't seem to like attention at all. While her social interactions were withdrawn with a prickliness that recalled a porcupine, her visual appearance was absolutely badass. That day in class, she wore fishnet socks that went over her knee and had a broad black band on top. Attached to their top were clips that fastened them upwards to a band that ran out of her short skirt and probably attached to a lingerie belt underneath her skirt. Her top was a little, pink crochet jacket that left her midriff exposed - a beautifully slender belly - and the plenty of crochet holes exposed her boobs, but a cross of black electrical tape covered her nipples. Her face was covered by dark, black punk makeup of deep eye shadow and pitch-black lips. She seemed to struggle with the contradiction of drawing intense visual attention but being tormented by any direct attention. That inner conflict made her unpredictable and act out in sudden surges, like when she snapped at a student talking back to the instructor, "shut up or die!" The whole class was quiet and realized that she wanted no further attention. So the instructor moved on.

Lionel wondered how to approach her again to avoid triggering her. Then at the end of class in the hallway, Leslie Grace's bachata song popped into his musical ear, and he sang out across the student body, "Tonight your mine completely. Tomorrow will you still love me?" The students ignored him. She paused and raised up her index finger to signal: one dance.

He hurried after her outside to find her in that little gap in the student crowd streaming out. She offered one earbud again. He snuggled in between her legs right away, knowing that she was comfortable embracing him closely. As they started moving to the romantic music, he noticed that, unlike other girls who held their crotch away from the top of his thigh, she had placed her crotch right on top of his right thigh. He could feel the warmth streaming out of her pussy, through his jeans, and onto his skin. She accepted him to touch her body more intimately. He gave into the song, let go of straining his brain for patterns, and simply enjoyed the movements of their bodies together for the sheer pleasure. The way how she responded, she seemed to share the sentiment in her quiet way.

After the dance, she tore off the strand from his wrist. She picked two new strands, twisted them, and tied both around his wrist. He appeared to be making progress. He asked her when the tests started. She told him that patience was a test of its own and walked away.

At the next Friday social, he saw her in the dancefloor beyond his reach. It was another social of standing around for hours and being proud to get five dances. When he left the social, he thought he heard footsteps behind him. He didn't think much, but when he was out in the empty streets of midtown at 1am, he looked behind him. Caramel froze. He could tell that she didn't want him coming closer. So he kept walking, continuously hearing her footsteps behind him. He walked down the subway, paid at the turnstile, and entered deeper underground to reach the track, the footsteps always following him. Waiting for the train on the empty platform, he turned to look at her.

She was sitting on one of the benches that were usually occupied by the homeless, sleeping on them. Being so close to filth was unusual for a woman like her. Her index finger beckoned him to come. He walked over to her. She was dressed pretty tame for her standards in a skirt that mimicked a cheerleader uniform and top with white trim and purple as the main color. She wore big white sneakers that made her feet look unexpectedly large compared to her slender frame.

"Kneel," she ordered him with a single word pointing at the dirty subway floor in front of her seat. She was sitting slouched down with her legs wide. He'd be able to see her panties but sensed that they were part of the cheerleader uniform and designed with the expectation of flashing during summersaults. Despite his reluctance about the filthy floor, it was a relatively easy request, so he complied and got on his knees in front of her.

"Do you swear absolute obedience?" she asked.

"Yes, I swear," he replied.

"Then drink!" she ordered.

She slipped her panties to the side to reveal her sex two feet from his face, which shocked him. Then he saw drops of liquid flying out and towards him. He knew what had to be done. He quickly leaned forward to latch his lips around her urethra. Her piss streamed in his mouth faster than he could swallow. The buffer space in his puffed cheeks filled up. He had to push away to get a breath to swallow. She punished him by directing her urine all over his face and t-shirt to cover him as much as possible in her piss. He quickly lept back onto her pussy to keep sucking on her piss. Apparently, she had planned this. So much liquid came out of her that his belly felt like bursting. He was struggling to push the piss down, which caused his lips and tongue to squirm on her sex. She seemed to enjoy the stimulation on her pussy because she pushed his face down on her by pushing on the back of his head.

When she was done, he took one lap from the bottom to the top of her slit to get the last drop. She was completely clean because she had carefully positioned herself on the edge of the bench with her feet pulled up wide and next to her. At the same time, his face was soaking wet, his t-shirt was black, and he was sitting in a puddle of spillover.

Numbed by the intensity, he sat quietly while she tore off his two wrist strands and replaced them with three braided ones.

"That was an easy freebie," she said. "Don't feel bad if you give up on the next one. Most don't make it through the apprenticeship," she said before leaving on a separate train car from him.

Lionel didn't take a piece of gum from his pocket. He liked the memory of Caramel lingering on his tongue as putrid as it was; the intensity only called the memories back more vividly. He relished the replay the whole night.

11:03 PM was the next time he heard from her again. The number 11 03 has since taken on a new meaning. That was the timestamp on her message. It only said, "NOW: 430 E 34th St, New York, NY 10016 parking lot next to the side driveway." Gaston warned Lionel to only wear clothes that he didn't mind getting destroyed and to leave anything of value at home. Put a spare metro card with one fare into your sock!

Lionel left right away with a light jog, knowing that Bushwick was quite a bit away from the city. The L-train stormed into the station as he arrived. So he had to jump on right away. But before he transferred at Union Square to the 6 train, he got a metro card out of the machine and stuffed it in his sock, all the way under his sole. It felt a little odd to walk on the piece of plastic but also comforting to know that he'd get home as long as Caramel let him keep his socks.

The early weeknight was quiet. The sidewalk was empty. As he walked farther out towards the East River down 34th Street, he noticed that he was getting close to the hospital complex that lay on the cheap property far out from the center of Manhattan. His suspicion only grew that he was called to a hospital as the street numbers indicated that he was getting close. When he saw the giant statue of a dalmatian balancing a real-life-size cab on its nose, he knew that he had been summoned to the Langone NYU children's hospital. He walked past the main entrance to the side entrance. There was a parking lot for two ambulances. Next to the door, he found Caramel standing near the door. She was wearing green scrubs. As soon as she saw him, she walked directly to him.

"I only want one dance," she said with tears at the edge of her eyelids.

As he looked at her clothes without saying anything, she shook her head, "No, those aren't mine."

"Only one dance if you have it in your heart. My daughter is only two years old and already on dialysis," she pleaded with openness to him saying no as if she were at his mercy for kindness.

He wrapped his arms around her right away. She hungrily pulled the hug in closer to press her eyes into his shoulder as the tears let go. Behind her back, he picked a soft bachata song. He gently rocked her with bachata steps. They never let go of the hug embrace, but he moved her body around to the wave of the music. He let their steps race across the two parking spots with the staccato of a subtle guitar solo. Then he pulled her into a big embrace and held her closely in a turn with the singer bemoaning his broken heart.

"May I have another," Caramel asked coyly when the song ended.

"Of course," replied Lionel.

Song after song, they danced across the parking spots in front of the hospital side door. He played one soapy, romantic, warm song after the next. A nurse patiently waited on them for the song to finish before the nurse touched Caramel's back tenderly and said that her daughter was doing well and solidly sleeping.

Little by little, Caramel revealed her story one sentence at a time. She had gotten pregnant. The guy had promised to stop drinking, taking drugs, and to get a job, but in a fight, he had pushed her down to the floor even though she was pregnant. When she got away from him, she realized that she needed to protect her daughter and cut him out of her life. Being there for her daughter had given her urgency to step up like she had never felt for herself. And Lionel realized the contradiction that she was struggling with. She was still wild at heart, but she also had more responsibility than she was ready for.