Belly Dancing Poem by Lonnie Hicks

At forty, she learned belly dancing because she wanted to get back in touch with her body after two kids. It felt dead to her and she wanted to see if the young girl inside could come alive again. It was, too, that she wanted to see if the belly dance instructors young lover would find her attractive, if her allure, too, could be re-captured, if life could seem like that first date again, if romance could happen after forty.

It was also, exerise, but the kind that she needed since moving her body, was remincient of the days when she dreamed of being a ballerina. It was a revisiting.

The last of the kids were almost through college and it felt like it was her time. Now she could put down sacfifice, maybe even quit her job and look to recapture some years lost in rowing the boat for everyone else.

And, it had been that way all through the marriage and even through the divorce and now she would look to see what she had missed from her 'mom' days. It was a halting beginning, but a beginning.

She made the drive, over fifty miles because she didn't want word to get around, didn't want to run into anyone where there would be polite nods and days later made up stories about what she was doing. She liked not knowing who the people were and they not knowing who she was. She liked not having a dull dry history that everyone she knew shared. She liked the idea of being able to re-invent the her she knew long ago before she was somebody's mom, somebody's husband, somebody's friend who was always there and supportive, the one who could always be relied upon to be dependable, bake the cakes, organize the parties, make sure the kids had what they needed. Who was that anyway.

She was sick to death of being reliable. Over time it sucked the life out of you.

And one day her friend described quietly and secretly her 'toys' which helped with the lonely nights. It grabbed her and she thought about it never daring to ask, but it did not take much to guess and she would never do that, too shy, but she did think about it, it started her to think about her body and it's needs for the first time in a long time.

Did she have the right to be loved, to be made love to at her age? Should she put these things behind her and get on with being divorced, even if no longer needed by those who had depended upon her for so long.

She cooked for months after the divorce, even though there was no longer anyone to cook for other than herself; she knitted little sweaters for children who were practically grown, all this out of habit, and yes needed because these things made her feel connected. And doesn't every one need to feel connected, needed, loved?

Those needs don't go away just because the kids go away and there is a divorce.

Yes she would take belly dancing lessons. That now made sense. The pregnancy didn't matter.

To be continued

Oct 4,2010

The drive that first week to Hearldsburg was relaxing, the autumn leaves swirled roadside and she felt she was leaving, getting away, not only from the house, (she had taken to spending too much time alone in that house) bu, instead, she felt she was leaving behind an old life, getting on with it, and moving, even, toward being a new person. No, maybe an older new person, her young girl might yet have a chance yet to dance, recapture a little of the excitement she once knew.

Or maybe she was just an middle-aged woman driving along making up a fantasy life that was never to be.
She thought about her high school boyfriends, besides John, whom she married (it was expected) Roger and James. Roger was divorced and living about a hundred miles away and James was married, but as everyone knew, not necessarily happily.

Her mind wandered to the belly-dance instructors lover, she was sure they were lovers. He was from Argentina, and my god she thought to her self, he looked like he was from Argentina.

She caught a glimpse of him when she came to Hearldsburg to sign up for the class. She had walked toward him in the corridor. (the class was in a school) and he watched her approach down that long corridor, leaning against the student lockers, never looking away, watching her every approaching step, dark eyes fixed upon her like dark moonbeams. It was like she was back in school the way he looked at her, every fiber in her body started to quiver, a feeling she used to have back then when the boys looked at you, naked looks, not-looking away looks. She did attract some attention then.

And now he was doing it. She was feeling it, the same old feeling as she drew closer to him and the classroom where the belly-dancing class sign-ups were proceeding. No one, no one but just the two of them in that corridor. Nevously, she glanced at her watch. She was early, she was always early. That was her.

She slowed as she approached him and he fixed her with his eyes, those unrelenting eyes, and she could not, did not look away as she normally would. His eyes would not allow that. The closer she came to him the slower she walked. Time seemed to slow down.

She caught herself not breathing and finally took a gulp of air, more like a gasp because as she came closer and closer she became devastated by how handsome he was. 'My, my' she thought 'now that is a man.'

Maybe that moment was the moment. Maybe that moment was the moment of no return. Maybe at that first shock she was gone. Gone over. No turning back.

Chapter Three

The voice was quietly booming, polite, soft, sensual and it bore into her.

'Hello.' He said

That was all but it was enough. She had heard that a woman knows if she is interested in a man in the first fifteen seconds. She didn't need that long. Her body knew in the corridor and her mind only confirmed what her body had already knew and responded to.

She had to move past him to get to the door of the classroom but he didn't more very much. He just slightly adjusted position; slightly such that she had to come very close to him to get by, very close. She hesitated and thought to her self 'Am I crazy? '

She liked being that close to him. She could smell him. He had a smell. It was like a manly kind of odor mixed with a very light cologne and he was tall with massive shoulders. She attempted to glide by, pretending to peer into the class room but her hesitating brought her squarely beside him, inches away. She feigned preoccupation with seeing into the class room. In reality she wanted to stay near, explore, maybe even relish being close to him.

After alln it was innocent. She was not actually flirting. He was flirting with her but she was not flirting with him. At least she didn't appear to be flirting with him.


But them he touched her arm. He touched her arm. It startled her.

He touched her arm guiding her as he opened the door for her.

'Here you go he said, in an accent which reverberated in the corridor like thick molasses pouring on toast. Everything seemed to slow down while it made it's way down the corridor. She fell in love with the voice.

And, she could feel her nipples tighten.

Chapter Four

She moved past him, hoping to conceal from him that she was trembling, her hand extended toward the door know which was there. He he had opened the door for her and in doing so shrouded her with his sheer size, his manly, yes manly, trite but true; his presence was so strong. She felt little a little girl, no swept up, or about be swept up by the energy which seem to swirl out from him and engulf her.

Can this happen she thought feverishly. Can a person's mere physical presence overwhelm a person, overwhelm a person's senses? It could. It did.

She didn't dare look up. To look up would be to risk being taken up, physically engulfed, swept away, reveal his impact on her. To look up would be to never be able to go back to who she was or had been. She didn't look up. She didn't want to be taken away. She wanted that to be her choice. But maybe that was illusion. Maybe she had already been taken away and was refusing to look up, look into his eyes and see the truth of it.

But there was something more. It was not just that that she was trembling, disoriented and astounded. It was too, there was something else. He wanted her. Just that simple. He projected, silly sounding, he projected a hunger, which reached out and pounded into her her chest and wrapped itself around her heart, caressed her breasts, made her tingle down there.


That need was powerful. Powerful because she liked it, was mesmerized by it. Who doesn't what to be needed, needed that way? Who can resist?

She couldn't. All this is an instant. Yet he made no advance. All he was doing was opening a door for a lady. Was all this in her mind, she was thinking but the thought shattered.

In the open door his full frame standing sideways faced her frontally as she turned sideways to go inside the room. She faced him and she he and the sliding by so close in the tipple-the-nipple space made a jumble of her mind.

She was losing it. This was crazy, but it was also, probably, Crazy's Last Chance.

To be continued.