Havana Heat
"Salsa school owner Mercedes has trained champions across Cuba, but when British accountant Oliver arrives with two left feet and an honest heart, she finds a student worth keeping forever."
Oliver's firm sent him to Havana for a week. His nights were empty. Salsa school filled them.
Mercedes watched him stumble through basics, thick and amused.
"Yuh terrible. But yuh try hard. Mi like that."
"I like your teaching."
"Yuh like more than mi teaching." She smiled. "But first, yuh learn to dance."
Private lessons. Every night. Her body guiding his through figures and spins.
"Feel the music," she instructed. "Feel mi."
He felt both. The music was intoxicating. She was devastating.
"Better. Again."
Always again. Always closer.
Night five. After the other students left.
"Yuh ready for the advanced lesson?"
"What's that?"
"This."
She kissed him. All heat and rhythm, her thick body pressing against his like the final move of a complicated routine.
"Mi been waiting all week," she breathed.
Advanced lessons happened in her apartment above the studio. Cuban music through the floors, her moans rising to meet it.
"Yes! Oliver! Right there!"
That thick body moving with him in perfect time, every step, every thrust, every rhythm synchronized.
"Don't stop! Yuh dancing perfect now!"
His week became two. Then a month. Then a transfer request.
"Yuh staying?" she asked.
"If you'll have me."
"Mi already have yuh." She pulled him to the floor. "Now let mi have yuh again."
Oliver does accounts remotely from Havana now.
Mercedes still teaches salsa.
Their demonstrations are legendary.
What they do after class? Even more so.
Havana heat.
Never cooling.