Salsa Sisters | Hermanas de Salsa
"Two women who meet in a salsa class become dance partners and then something more"
Salsa Sisters
Hermanas de Salsa
We were the only two women in class who came alone.
"Partner up," the instructor said.
Everyone found someone. Except us.
"Want to dance together?" she asked.
"Women can lead?"
"Women can do anything. You want to lead or follow?"
Her name was Gloria, and she'd come to learn salsa to prove something to herself.
"Prove what?" I asked during our third class.
"That I'm not too old. Too stiff. Too single." She laughed. "My therapist suggested hobbies. This was the boldest option."
"You picked salsa to be bold?"
"I picked salsa to feel something."
We practiced outside class. Her apartment, then mine. Learning to move together.
"You're a good lead," she said.
"You're a better follow."
"I've been following my whole life. It's what I know."
"Then lead for once," I challenged.
She took the role hesitantly. Then confidently. Then brilliantly.
"See?" I said. "You can do anything."
"I needed someone to show me."
"I just held your hand. You did the rest."
We entered a competition. Two women, amateur division, expecting nothing.
We won.
"They can't stop looking at us," she said afterward.
"Is that bad?"
"It's new." She squeezed my hand. "I like new."
The kiss happened in the parking lot. Victory high. Both of us trembling.
"I didn't expect this," she said.
"Neither did I. But I'm not sorry."
"Me neither."
We became known in the salsa world. The women who danced together. The partnership that defied expectations.
"People talk," she said.
"Let them."
"Some of it's negative."
"The dancing is positive. We can control that."
We dance professionally now. Teaching, performing, proving that partnership comes in every form.
"To the salsa sisters," people toast us.
"To the woman who asked me to dance," I reply.
"To the woman who said yes," she adds.
Salsa sisters—where partnerships evolve, leads change, and love follows its own steps.