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pock, come see us on Saturday evening, please.” Spock raised an eyebrow at Nyota. They had eaten dinner and were seated in the “living room” of his Officer Quarters. Why it was called a “living room” he did not know; the entire apartment was given over to various aspects of living …. He and his … teaching assistant … were nearly finished marking student assignments and he had - since before dinner - been aware that she was vibrating with a high level of energy. Higher than usual, that is. “Saturday evening,” he pretended to muse. “And I am being invited to …?” “The dance performance,” Uhura said rather plaintively. “The one we’ve been rehearsing for two months.” “
“Ahh,” he said. This is a little ritual of theirs, like that which his parents had performed, much to each other’s amusement and often resulting in hints to young Spock to go make scientific observations outdoors, or practice his current lesson on the lyre – out on the terrace – or otherwise make himself scarce. “You’re teasing, aren’t you. You do remember? 2100 hours at the auditorium?” “These rehearsals which have claimed your attention for so much time … rehearsals for which you have forsaken my company? … hmmm …” he looked away, pretending to consider, then gave her an impassive look. “I should hope I will find it an adequate use of my time, Cadet Uhura.” “Of course you will! Well … it is strictly entertainment, but I would like for you to see what I’ve been working on; after all, the choreography is extremely complicated and Gaila and I have practiced outside of our group practice hours too because we
want it to be perfect, we love doing this dance, it’s an old dance out of the South Asian tradition, and it’s very physically demanding, but we –” “You appear to be quite excited about the prospect of performing this dance. I do not believe you inhaled during that recitation.” “I am excited! We have worked very hard to make it as wonderful as possible. Not just me, of course, Lieutenant Dixit and Lieutenant Merchant have taught us everything! And it’s beautiful. As you know, Gaila is a very good dancer and Dixit and Merchant grew up doing this dance, and Dixit teaches intercultural dance and ritual, and …” she took a breath, “I hope you haven’t forgotten what a proficient dancer I am.” She gave him a certain look, her eyelids lowering to display her long eyelashes, then flashing up so her intense eyes made contact with his. He fixed his gaze on hers, his pupils dilating. “I make it a point to remember things, Nyota, especially where you are concerned.” She smiled, accurately receiving his signal, and bounded to her feet, extending her hands. She danced him into the bedroom. He moved to her; Nyota’s arms slid around his waist and she looked up at him, love making her face radiant. Spock pushed her hair away from her shoulder, tracing a finger over the contours of her clavicle. His voice came out a little rough. “Still, you will not show me your costume?” “It’s in my locker in the dorm. It will be a surprise! And I hope you’ll like it.” “My Nyota, if it is covering you, I may in fact be envious …, although I prefer it be a
modest costume. I would not like to see many of his students in the audience, you uncovered in the presence of others along with a great number of instructors …” and Academy staff. Her eyes smouldered with desire. Perhaps she was distracting him. There are about four young men in the Nevertheless …. troupe too, and at the loud claps of some He cupped her chin and slowly kissed drums, they leap out from the wings her mouth. When they broke the kiss wearing loose white outfits which allow a smile stole across her lips. “I know them to jump into handstands, springing you sometimes are a stereotypically back and forth in an arch forming in front possessive Vulcan, but mightn’t I dress of Madhuri Dixit and Pahlavi Merchant, like all the other dancers …?” who begin the dance …. “… Only in my presence,” he whispered, Two words, whispered in rhythm, his voice smoky. begin the song: “janaki, janaki”. dhol, oboe-like, states the “Well … we’ll see “You appear Amusical pattern, with some beats about that, my dear to be quite behind it on tabla and the sharp, Commander. May I drums, and another uncover you right now?” excited about clapping tonal rhythm, then lyrics, sung “By all means, Nyota; the prospect in a flirtatious way by a female you remove my uniform voice. No dancer is singing, with even more alacrity of performing though the leads are moving their than I.” this dance. I do mouths to the words. The singer (Cadet Suni, from his Interspecies not believe you Ethics class) is in a small spotlight The dance stage is on the edge of the stage, to the inhaled during topped with elaborately right. The music is coming from that recitation.” the orchestra pit. patterned inlaid wood. Two groups of nine The better to highlight the women – Academy dancers, he supposes. With some part cadets and some staff, all of whom Spock of his mind he does not usually use, he recognizes from disparate disciplines and takes in the colors and sensuality of the offices – file on from the wings, led by two women’s costumes. The lead dancers lovely South Asian women, Lieutenants wear waist-length tops of silk over Dixit and Merchant, who come to the matching full skirts, Dixit in turquoise center, dip into elaborate bows, and rise blue on black, Merchant in deep pink. As to speak in unison: they turn, their bare backs are revealed, crossed with thin cords tied in the middle, to him a very suggestive arrangement. “Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome The other dancers, who are all dressed in you to our performance! We present the the same fashion, wear sleevless tops of Aaja Nachle Academy Dance Troupe!” various hues ... but Spock’s gaze is riveted on Nyota. There is applause. Spock recognizes
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er silken top and skirt are similar in color to his science blue uniform, a hue she calls “azure” … is this a subtle message of allegiance only to him? The fabric clings to her bust and upper back but leaves her torso bare down to the hipbones. Spock feels a tightening sensation in his deepest gut; it is sexual and possessive at once; he is re-experiencing sensations of 7.23 hours ago, when she kissed him all over his face and stroked the tips of his ears and tongued the base of his throat and combed her fingers through his hair; how he laid his cheek on her ribs and traced his fingers down over that muscled, warm golden brown abdomen, and heard her heart speed up as his fingers excited her sex and scent, how he kissed his way down her torso to spend minutes deepening her excitement, hearing her breath catch, her vocalizations, and skimmed his lips up to kiss her budded breasts and upward to find her mouth with his as he …. He has to stop thinking about that, if only while in public. Now her torso – my woman’s, he briefly cannot help but think – is bared for any and all to see, and is moving sensually ... He breathes deeply to draw in calm. It seems I am a stereotypically possessive Vulcan, indeed. The tight band of the skirt nestles just below Nyota’s hipbones, and layers and layers of light, filmy, colored fabric bell out, banded halfway down and at the wide hem with decorative beads (for weight, he surmises, as he observes the flow and whirling circle of the fabric). He focuses wider now, caught by the pattern of the skirts, the dance, the women moving in unison, twirling and dipping, gyrating and switching their hips to the beat. Their feet are bare, their ankles circled by bracelets with tiny bells that chime with each step – not something Spock has seen en masse like this – and it subtly disturbs his equilibrium. Spock doesn’t know a great deal of Hindi. The song lyrics concern a man and a woman meeting in a market and flirting, the woman losing some jewelry, and the man bringing it back to the her, and “… dance with me, dance with me, one, two, three …” These are sung by Cadet Suni, who maintains a playful expression, but nothing compared with the faces of the women dancing. Lieutenants Dixit and Merchant are mouthing the lyrics with flirtatious expressions as they circle and turn and
dip their heads and raise them up, and accentuate the beat with their beautiful, lightly muscled arms, and the drums and dhol make hypnotic sounds … but now is not the time to think of lieutenants, this is a time to appreciate the women … as women …. For this dance is a distillation of femininity. According to historical records, ancient Vulcan women danced like this, but they do not now, more’s the pity, for Vulcan women are graceful as these women are graceful … he almost sighs aloud. Spock realizes he is decidedly not in his rational mind. He is
one, then the other. Dixit and Merchant each lead a small circle of women, and at one point, Uhura and Gaila take the lead in their respective circles for twenty-one beats. Their gift for dance is obvious, with this dance so complicated it took months to learn. Nyota’s eyes are sparkling, her skin is moist, yet her physical labor is hidden by the grace in the dance. Is this not the essence of the Terran female before the recent past, the Vulcan woman of ancient times? The feminine mien that hid the difficulty of their work, lost, the dignity that hid their suffering, the grace with which transported to a they lived, that hid a steely He is caught in the rhythms like a fish in time not his own, determination to make good lives for their families and a net. The rhythms a time and place community; grace that either not just of the music, but of the dancers: made by women, celebrated their connubial love or, masking, pretended it their graceful arm the time of the … the moving beauty that had gestures done with protected them precision, the arcing dance, the place of sometimes from primal male rage. Or, sweeps of their feet, womanly graces appreciated by the male as a the swirling of their woman’s celebration of her life skirts, the undulation and seduction. and capabilities, an attractant and occasional hard …. beats of their hips, the gentle roundness Heads dip in unison, hips of their stomachs over the bands of circle and switch, skirts flow and hems their skirts, the colors of the women’s rise and settle, ankles are exposed, and skin – many shades of brown and ivory faces wink out from behind delicately and golden beige and black … blue (an gesturing hands and are momentarily rd Andorian cadet 3 /class), green (Gaila), hidden, emerging with broad smiles. the caramel color of Nyota’s … her navel, Torsos, variously curved and softly a jewel winking from it … her hair, in its muscled, undulate, and the dance is fast, usual style, but with jewels woven in to yet somehow leisurely in its sensuality …. her crown, is swinging out with the beat He is lost, transported to a time not his … her neck, moving left, right, swaying own, a time and place made by women, like a reed in a breeze, even her eyes the time of the dance, the place of communicating the beat, flicking this way womanly graces and seduction. and that, her brows playfully rising, first
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he comes to him afterward, glowing, perspiring, blushing, eyes alight with enthusiasm and accomplishment. “So … what did you think?” “I think,” he says slowly, as under a spell, “that you had better get your cloak and slippers.” She looks down, hesitant, thinking rapidly, and the sound of his next words makes her eyes come to his. “… And come with me. Immediately.” The rasp in his voice brings out her radiant smile. “Right away, Commander,” she says, and bounds away for the outer clothing that will temporarily hide her beauty. He is hers, completely – he knows this now – it is irrevocable and probably has been since the day they first “locked horns” in his Discourse Analysis class. He is possessed by her, in both senses of the word. Spock sighs inwardly, the same sort of sigh he used to see from his mother, one of loving exasperation, an expression of surrender and unity and adoration.
Author’s Note: I wrote this to honor of our sensuality as women, of the various ways we bind ourselves in sisterhood and in relationship to our significant others. If you liked the story, please let me know! Reviews really keep us writers going. If you have constructive suggestions, those are equally welcome. You can find “Aaja Nachle” on You Tube. Just google the title and Madhuri Dixit for one version (the HD one from the movie is best) and then have a look at the one from an Indian variety show featuring Pahlavi Merchant, with a surprise guest! (Look for “Aaja Nachle, Pahlavi Merchant on ….”) Dixit and Merchant, and this sensual, exciting dance, inspired this story. I have watched this dance a hundred times and haven’t tired of it yet. “If only,” I think, and wish I had learned to dance like this (unlike Nyota, it would take me a lot more than a couple of months). Illustration Credit: Viisual design, ilustrations and formatting by Linstock.