Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Topaz Tango

The man flourished a sword, then wrapped his scarlet-lined cape around it and wafted it to and fro, frowning at the circling woman, who seemed to spit disdain and seduction at him in equal measure.

Her skirts swirled to match the cape as he advanced threateningly. With a grand gesture, he flung sword and cape to the floor, and seized her to flourish instead. He swung her from side to side like a ship’s sail in a storm, took her from standing to skating across the floor, a fallen heap of limp skirts and suddenly—she was an uprising figure of spine and spitfire, challenging him again.

José and Olivia made the perfect pasodoble couple, as lean and wired as whips, gliding in a lethal mating dance that picked up pace and tempo until they were coming together like lightning even as the moves of the dance had them spinning apart; she was thrown down and sliding across the floor like a fan of limp lace, only to rise when he drew her up for an anguished embrace.

Their pasodoble was a dramatic battle of the sexes, their fingers flaring as they caressed each other’s faces, looking as if they’d like to scratch each other’s eyes out after a passionate kiss.

The live audience was already standing and hooting and applauding before they took the final pose, him bent over her like a conqueror, but she rising up from her prone position, a serpent ready to strike.

“That was awesome,” Mariah shouted, hardly able to be heard over the enthusiastic hooting of Los Hermanos boys and screams of junior dancers. Even Rafi and Molina applauded.

Zoe Chloe Ozone kept strangely silent among the whistling, hooting, and screaming teens.

What had she got Matt into? They didn’t teach that in seminary, for sure.

Olivia was so winded it looked like she’d do a Marie Osmond dive before the judges let her vanish backstage to the greenroom cameras for a postmortem on their scores and the dance. José managed to uphold her and swoop up his abandoned cape and sword en route to the judges’ table.

The judges rained praise down on the couple, Danny incisive and urbane, Savannah Ashleigh making a total fool of herself rhapsodizing over José, who offered a deep bow and sword salute to the only female judge.

What a showboater!

“Fabulous,” Danny (the traitor) said. “Perfect tempo, perfect intensity, a thorny rose of a pasodoble, totally flammable.”

Leander was already nodding. “What can I add to that? I was utterly absorbed in the dance and the emotions. You both have outdone yourselves. The ideal partnership and you two are the ones to beat in this competition.”

“Well,” Savannah said, and then paused. Of course everyone held their breath. She was always contrary. “You two were shocking . . . shockingly good. Olivia, you are my ‘vamp of Savannah,’ and you make the real one look like an ice cube, if I say so myself.”

The results: nine, nine, nine.

Temple calculated. Matt had drawn either Glory B. or Wandawoman as a partner. She prayed it was Glory B. As Matt had reported that Danny had noted so naughtily, Matt was used to slinging a petite woman around and this was what the pasodoble asked of the man.

The seriously muscular Wandawoman? She’d been a rhythmless lump in her dances so far. Given the small number of contestants, it was too likely they’d draw each other again.

So, fingers crossed: Matt and Glory B. And then . . . Dancing With the Celebs glory. It would take a lot to overtake José and Olivia, but Matt and Glory B. could do it. Maybe.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, our third scintillating couple,” Crawford announced. “The Cloaked Conjuror and Glory B.”

No! Matt had drawn Wandawoman.

A hand pushed down on Temple’s shoulder. “Take it easy, Ms. Ozone,” Molina’s husky voice whispered in her ear. “You’re hyper-ventilating.”

In the greenroom, the clustered Los Hermanos Brothers rooted for CC, liking his massive masculine presence. None of them looked en route to massive. They were clean-cut teenage boys who could attract tween-age girls’ ecstatic devotion, with the only sexual pressure being in everybody’s heads.

Temple remembered that stage of girly development well.

So she would have to sit there, subdued, and watch CC flourish his usual cloak and toss Glory B. around like a graceful handkerchief. It would be his best dance, because his partner was so easy to handle.

The Cloaked Conjuror’s usual cloak lined in crimson satin was now the toreador’s cape. Glory B., a tumbling leaf of scarlet burnt black around the edges came hurtling and spinning and sliding into the center spotlight. Her blond hair had morphed into a dead-black, high-piled wig edging her face with a wrought-ironlike mask of brunet spit-curls. She looked small and poisonous, like a teen pop tart Medusa, with a long-stemmed rose in her small white teeth.

A mere webbing of black laces held her costume to her torso and the skirt was a peacock-tail grand swoop of scarlet ruffles overcast with spiderweb black lace.

The routine began slow and sultry, CC’s bulky masked persona more suited to the role of bull, but making a commanding toreador.

CC and Glory B. did not fight the battle of the sexes, but rather went through the motions with intensity, if not passion. The audience’s applause announced that they were pleased but not bowled over.

“This dance,” Danny told the couple before the judges’ table, “is a paean to power. There is a ritual stalking element, which you both captured well, but beneath the controlled moves lies guts and glory, a life-and-death drama, and you danced right over the top of it.”

Savannah jumped in out of turn. “Well, I thought the rose in the teeth thing was just too ‘cute.’ And when he tore it away and stomped on it, all I could think was those thorns must be hell on lip gloss.”

“The thorns had been stripped off,” Glory B. interjected.

“No pain, no gain, honey.” Savannah shrugged to display her ruffled off-the-shoulder neckline of scarlet silk roses, in case anybody viewing the show didn’t know who really ought to be out there shaking her flounces and stomping her high-heeled jackboots, so to speak.

In the greenroom the girls giggled nervously.

“She is so lame,” Mariah said.

“So old for that dress,” Sou-Sou added. “Her shoulders look fat.”

“And her mouth is just a funny blob,” Patrisha pointed out.

Zoe Chloe resisted making a crack that obviously Savannah’s collagen had shifted to her collarbones. After all, she was the “older” woman in this youthful bunch and didn’t need to pile on here.

Leander Brock shifted magisterially in his seat when he commented.

“Of course I favor our masked friend the Cloaked Conjuror. He has deliberately handicapped himself by wearing disguises that limit his vision, and I do understand that problem. A stirring rendering, sir, but unfortunately the pasodoble is a stern, fast, sharp, stiletto-lethal dance, and you are a broadsword. Your partner couldn’t match your onstage strength.”

Still, the pair walked off the set with two eights and a seven (from Danny), a respectable score.

“ Booring,” was the chorus from the greenroom kibitzers, boys and girls together.

At least, Temple thought, CC wore a mask and any criticism that stung wouldn’t show.

Temple was almost in cardiac arrest. Why had she encouraged Matt to enlist for this crazy, accident-haunted competition? Nothing had jinxed any contestants yet tonight. Matt was on last. He had Wandawoman to squire around in the most demandingly macho male role in all the dances, except for the final tango.

Temple cringed inside Zoe Chloe. No one was going to outmacho José Juarez tonight. Matt was toast.