Sensual Bachata NYC

"Why did they keep repeating the same song for hours," asked Lionel.

"They are rehearsing for a performance tonight," explained Gaston. "You should come to the dance studio tonight. There are lots of hot girls. And the dance gives you a reason to interact with them."

They transferred to the N train to go downtown. When they popped up at the surface, they were at the heart of Wall Streets. The groups of men in expensive suits marked the territory of the banker and traders. They passed the vaunted front of the stock exchange. Lots of tourists posted in front of it to take photos. The area had been closed off to car traffic. Pedestrians were roaming everywhere. Women with gray office pencil skirts and heels strutted with a long straight sharp gait. Goofy tourists with oversized t-shirts lined up to take a photo with the fierce girl statue that used to confront the Wall Street bull statue.

Gaston took Lionel by the shoulder to push Lionel into the rotating bronze door of a narrow office building. The short hallway lead to a bank of half a dozen elevators. They pushed in with male and female office suits. The elevator wouldn't have fit the length of a regular desk, but they were standing nose to back with nine other people in silence and suffocating summer heat without any ventilation, cautious to not touch anyone in front, behind, and to either side. A thirty-year-old woman had a white shirt with too-long sleeves that stuck out five inches past her suit in an awkward way that young, inadept people stand out. A short, big-bellied man with a yarmulke wasn't afraid to push on people, having gotten used to that his body took up too much space.

They got out on the twenty-third floor. The narrow hallway barely had enough space for a receptionist counter. The receptionist was squeezed in so much that she couldn't push her chair back to stand up. She'd have to squeeze out sideways to get off the chair. A sickly palm tree was squeezed in the corner, where barely any artificial light shone in the dim room. Two narrow guest chairs faced each other with dogeared magazines piled on them. Gaston pushed Lionel in between the chairs and the palm tree and handed his phone over.

"Put my phone into your back pocket. I can't bring it inside. I'm going to find out if you have a job. You might have to stay a while. Stay here," Gaston told Lionel.

Then Gaston pushed off to another elevator and disappeared. The office had a steady stream of suited workers going past the reception counter. They tended to rush in with a stern face and walk out casually with their ties loosened or jackets over their arm. It seemed like they usually walked in groups of two or three. Every time they had to brush past Lionel in the way, there was an awkward bit of eye contact. Lionel tried to smile and look away to be polite, but the discomfort of being in the way and out of place made him feel hot and sweaty.

"Are you being helped?" asked the receptionist, a dark-haired woman in her forties, who was definitely hired for her work ethic rather than for being a charming showpiece. She had a tense wiry look and her eyes were focused on the checklists in front of her. The golden cross over her revealing cleavage was a strange contrast between religious adherence and sexuality.

"I'm alright. Gaston told me to wait for him here," Lionel replied politely.

"Who the fuck is Gaston?" replied the receptionist tersely. She clearly didn't feel the need to impress him. There was an impatience to her voice like she considered him a nuisance to be kicked out.

"Ah," Lionel realized that the receptionist wouldn't know Gaston because Gaston definitely didn't work in a serious place like this, "he said that he'd talk to someone to help me get a job."

The receptionist eyed Lionel over in disbelief. It wasn't disbelief of her finding disbelief for herself but her telling him with the gesture that Lionel was out of his mind. "Do you have any experience in trading or blending securities?" she asked him rhetorically.

"Well, you see what you get with me. I got two arms, two feet, and a smart brain. If you name it, I'll do it," Lionel tried to sell himself, noting her facial reaction that every additional word he uttered only marked more that he was out of place and clueless.

Three black-suited guys came out of the office. Their suits were solid black in comparison to the stripes and shades of greys of the other office workers. They had curly earpieces. Their shoulder width was daunting. They came straight for Lionel. The receptionist pointed at Lionel to confirm their trajectory.

"Bro, what are you doing here?" said the guy with the broad, black face.

"I would leave, but I don't know where to go without Gaston. I'm so sorry. He told me to wait here," exclaimed the flabbergasted Lionel.

"We are going to call the FBI to have your identity confirmed. You realize that you are in a security trading office?" stated the guy with a lawyerly tone. The three had circled Lionel in the narrow hallway. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't leave anymore. A tear dropped from his right eye because he felt overwhelmed. His face was disheveled with emotions and confusion about what to say. His right arm limply flopped around like a fish in an errant impulse to react because words weren't coming to him.

"God damn it, motherfucker," cursed the receptionist. "Look at him! He's some poor kid that's trying to get a messenger job. If he had any competence and dignity, he wouldn't be standing around for an hour waiting on a guy who probably went on lunch break and forgot about him. Give him a break. He can have my leftover sushi."

She pushed a supermarket plastic box of a six-piece sushi roll set that had two pieces left behind to the edge of the reception counter. The interrogating guy shook his head and turned around to walk back into the office followed by the other guys.

Hour after hour ticked away. Lionel got into a daze of non-thinking that let the time pass faster. Gaston seemed to have left him stranded there. The receptionist was a speed freak with her fingers flying on the keyboard and the pen ticking through rows and rows of checkboxes over pages and pages. She'd pointedly call people and mumble a code of numbers. In the afternoon, the coming and going of workers slowed to a trickle. Then a bell rang followed by a stream of people rushing out with cigarette packs in their hands. The whole hallway got stuffed with people waiting their turn to press into the full elevators. Gaston appeared in the middle, grabbed Lionel by the hand, and pulled him into an elevator without saying anything.

They got out of the elevator and pushed outside. A tight gaggle of smoking office workers lingered right outside the building, eagerly pulling on cigarettes that seemed to burn half an inch with each pull. Gaston rapidly pulled Lionel behind him to the J-Train subway entrance. They hobbled down the stairs fast and sprinted towards the waiting train. The door already started closing when they jumped over the chasm between the platform and the train.

Luckily the train was mostly empty. They sat down. Gaston sat wide-legged with a satisfied smile on his face and pressed a bundle of dollar bills into Lionel's hands. "That's your take, man! Welcome to NYC!" celebrated Gaston with glowing eyes.

"What's that for?" asked Lionel confused. He weigh the bundle and started counting the twenties. They seemed to be roughly in the range of $500. "That's a month's pay back in Buenos Aires!"

"I told you that I'd try to get you a job. You did your job. Here is the pay!" explained Gaston.

"But I didn't do anything. I was simply waiting!" exclaimed Lionel.

"That was the job!" said Gaston with a twinkle in his eye. Then Gaston leaned forward and whispered. "Don't tell anyone or we go to prison. You were holding my phone. It had an app running that listened to ambient sounds. All the conversations of people from the office passing you were voice printed, analyzed, and sent to this guy. This guy when he hears little office chitchat, he makes guesses on what trades the traders are executing. Based on that, he makes countertrades. He probably made $10K off the information that he got from you."

Pausing for a moment, Gaston added, "Don't take this the wrong way. They would have caught me for doing it. They got tight security checks. But you have just the clueless newcomer look that they might genuinely think you are lost there. You gotta work with the assets you have, right?"

"What the fuck! I did corporate espionage?" exclaimed Lionel.

"No, cousin! They fucked up talking about shit they shouldn't talk about in public. I'm taking you to a place to take the edge a bit off your shoulders. You gotta relax!" assuaged Gaston.

They switched to the F train, running across the platform past a churro vendor to the waiting train. The F train was packed, standing room only. They stood in silence not facing each other. Gaston tried to appear relaxed with his shoulders hanging back, but his feet shifted frequently, betraying anxiety. Lionel stared ahead vacant like a ghost. The train wheels did their eerie, echo song, squealing like a whale in pace, crying about the futility of life. An old Asian woman was sitting behind her fire red cart that was stacked full of large fish wrapped in newspaper. An albino boa calmly slithered down the arm of an Indian guy with gel slicked curls and a brown hippie jacket.

They got off at Bryant Park. The moment, they emerged up the stairs to the surface, a mob of people enveloped them. The NYC office women were wearing suits and sneakers because they slipped their heels into their purses the moment they left the office for more comfortable footwear. The giant office towers had spewed all the workers into the street, which were pressing to get home while actually being super conscious of not touching anybody no matter how thick the crowd got. Only hapless tourists bumped into people, something that Lionel quickly learned to avoid because of the glaring eyes that he received for the slightest brushing on someone's coat.

Keeping up with Gaston was hard because people constantly pushed in from left and right. Groups hugged together and created walking walls. Lionel had to swerve around people obstacles only to run into a knot of people trying to untangle each other. However, it got better once they left Bryant Park and got onto a lesser East-West street. Lionel caught up to Gaston's side. Gaston had seemingly relaxed through the immersion of the crowd. Being in the middle of bustle and action seemed to relax Gaston, like he had an inner antsiness that drove him to be active. When Gaston grabbed Lionel by the shoulder, Gaston's face lit up.

They pushed through a little glassdoor into what seemed to be a boutique that was packed up to move. The decadent sign said "Chateau Angelina" with swirling letters shrouded in sparkles and the 'G' had fallen off a long time ago. Inside were brown moving boxes stacked onto each other. The boxes were battered by weight and handling. They no longer held the shape but the contents held the shape. The flaps were partially ripped off. Fabric lurked out in between the stacks. The floor was filthy grey and covered with paper and carton snips.

In the midst of the decay stood a woman in a skin-tight purple dress that hugged her so tightly and was of such sheer material that the outline and details of her belly button were visible. Her breasts were flat but unprotected by a bra. She clearly had two barbel nipple piercings. Her face was caked white with a makeup foundation to make it perfectly smooth. The features of her mouth, nose, lips, and cheeks were superbly highlighted to make her sexy and young. Her feet with spring green toenails were small and juicy in see-through plastic platform high heels. It was almost like they were naked hovering in the air.

"He needs a top for little paradise," said Gaston matter of fact to her.

She pointed at Lionel and winked with her left eye like she was a master painter about to do the magic touch. Despite her small frame - she was skinny as hell but proportionate like she was brimming with youth and health - she grabbed a huge box, heavy with clothes, and threw it across the room like neither the weight nor its value mattered to her. She reached into the revealed box, elbow dip, and fished like a vet fishes for a calf in the cow's vagina - focused, determined, and unquestioned expert.

"Try this," she pressed a shirt to Lionel's body while she walked away, completely convinced of having found the match, not even looking back.

"Uh, where is the changing room?" asked Lionel.

"You want fancy amenities? Go to Soho and pay Soho prices. Nobody beats Angelina on price or quality. Get fucking changed already. I don't have all day, asshole," Angelina flicked a paper clip from the counter into Lionel's face. She said all that with such speed that she finished it in the same time that it took Lionel to ask the question.

Gaston smirked with enjoyment, "Cousin, you gotta get faster. This is NYC!"

Reluctantly but even more afraid of being rushed by the two, Lionel pulled his shirt overhead, bearing his skinny bare chest to the whole showroom, which was really the size of an LA walk-in closet. So it wasn't too many people, but he felt uncomfortable. Even though he knew that he was a guy, he tried to cover his nipples. He worried about them looking at his skinny belly. As quickly as he could, she slipped into the new shirt.

It was a combination of black and gold. The gold was like a wave or flame rushing onto the black. The material was very shiny. The arm sleeves were tight like a tube sock. The top three buttons were missing. The slight amount of curly hair on his chest lurked out. The collar was standing up and couldn't be folded down. He looked like some kind of dazzling Elvis Presley.

Angelina walked up to him with a straight-legged gait, a provocative strut that made him stand more upright, tighten his butt, and suck in the belly. For a moment, her face hovered right in front of his. She chewed on her chewing gum like a challenge. He swallowed. Her long-nailed fingers rose up and went straight for his nipples. A hard twist made Lionel scream out and double away from her. While he was in motion, she grabbed his other nipple with the other hand and pinch-twisted it just as savagely. With the air screamed out of his lungs on the first pinch, Lionel could only whimper on the second pinch.

"Check out the sheerness of the fabric. You can see his nipples through it! Top quality! $120 for you," praised Angelina.

While Lionel considered the staggering high price, she looked at Lionel leaning forward. Without warning, she slapped him across the face. She had a good reach. She held her hand flat. The slapping sound cut through the store and echoed back from the back wall. The sting was intense and sharp. She followed up on the other side.

Cooly, Angelina added, "you should teach him to apply rouge. Look how he looks better with a little color than that pale face."

Gaston enjoyed the exchange. He was semi-aroused by Angelina and entertained by the cluelessness and innocence of Lionel. With approval, Gaston nodded and ordered Lionel to pay.

"But the most I've ever paid for a shirt was $20!" protested Lionel.

"This is NYC. You made plenty today to afford it. You're gonna wanna have that nice shirt for where we go next," pushed Gaston.

Lionel handed over the money. When Lionel wanted to change back, Gaston stopped him. Let's wear it out. Lionel felt exposed in the street. He felt like he was drawing attention. He felt like he was giving off a vibe to people of who he wasn't. The shirt was so prominent and cheesy. Gaston put his arm around Lionel and was smiling cheek-to-cheek about the new fashion and Lionel's discomfort.

A couple blocks down, they entered another dingy entrance. A long skinny hallway led deeply into the building. A security guard set in an office chair with his feet on the desk. The desk was really more three rows of security camera screens than an actual desk. The security guard didn't have a uniform, but the comfort with which he sat in the worn-out chair and the way that he held his hand out to be slapped by Gaston showed that he was essentially living right there on the spot. He seemed Mexican with a slight smirk, button eyes, and short, spikey hair.

"8th floor," the security guard said to Gaston unprompted.

The elevator was blockaded by a dozen rolling fashion wardrobe holders. A crew of two workers was packing two at a time into the elevator to send it up for some kind of creative project. Gaston led the way through a steel door to a dark staircase. The staircase was narrow and steep like none that Lionel had experienced before. Pipes and cables hung everywhere in a state of dilapidation like they were going to tear at any moment. Near the second floor, a rat came running towards them down the stairs. It seemed like it was in panic and in panic it could only run straight. It half fell and bounced down each stair. It kicked into Lionel's right shoe, which made him scream out in horror before it rolled over and back on its feet to continue its race down the stairs. Lionel looking back saw it disappear in a crack in the wall.

"Central Park hot dog meat," said Gaston with a smile to tease Lionel.

Lionel's thighs and butt wanted to give out when they reached the eighth floor. Gaston seemed to have no problem running up eight floors without even slowing down. The floor was a ten-yard-long hallway. There was no decoration on the wall. The floor, wall, and ceiling had been neglected so long that cleaning could no longer clean it. Not even a fresh coat of paint would have been enough because chunks had fallen out. The plentiful doors in the hallway suggested that the floor was packed with rooms.

Gaston carefully opened room 802. Gaston put a finger on his lips for Lionel to be quiet. Then Gaston slipped through the barely open door. Lionel followed carefully to keep the door closed so much that he had to squeeze himself inside. Bright harsh light almost blinded Lionel. After the dark hallway, he had stepped in front of a stage light. When he saw a little, he felt Gaston's guidance to stay close to the edge of the room and follow Gaston to some foldout chairs.

In the center of the room were about twenty ballerinas in leotards with point shoes. They were tightly stacked and moved in unison through a combination of step, turn, step, turn. Their heads spotted perfectly with each turn. Their body positions were perfectly the same down to each muscle. The old lady in front only clapped for them to reset to the starting position and repeat the same over and over. There was a tall black woman in the front. Lionel had never seen such a slender black woman with such a refined face and exquisitely painted, colorful highlights of candy pink and jungle green eye shadows.

More people filed into the room and cautiously stayed to the edge like they couldn't venture more than a foot into the room to not disturb the ballerinas. The newcomers were dressed in casual street fashion, not simply casual but very on point casual. When the old lady double clapped her hands, the ballerinas dropped to the floor and unravel their pointe shoes. There was something bouncy and cheery about the ballerinas like levity came back to them after the tense practice. They were also quite industrious in how they hurried to get the shoes off and gather their belongings. A twenty-five-year-old guy with smooth hair and slick shoes gathered twenty dollars from everyone waiting including Gaston and Lionel.

The smooth guy, whom Lionel didn't like because he didn't like smooth guys, tapped on his phone to turn on the music over the speakers. Latin island music started playing. The smooth guy stood at the front facing the mirror. Everyone lined up in three rows behind him. After waiting for the intro of the song to finish, when the main beat kicked in, the smooth guy started dancing to the left: side, side, side, tap and then in the other direction side, side, side, tap. "That's the basic," he announced. Everyone followed him. There was a cacophony of movement quality among the students. Some stepped stiffly as a stork. Others moved their body like a whole orchestra started playing. The hips started swinging. The shoulders beckoned. The legs moved with grace. The spine swayed like a snake.