The Dance of Love

Excerpt by Kiini Ibura Salaam

The whisper of air against flesh was a new sensation. I had never been nude outdoors, not since I had breasts and hips, not since I had something to hide. V and I joined a line of women outside a smaller dwelling similar to the one we had left our clothing in. I shivered and dug my fingers into my forearms. V let me enter before her. At first, I could see nothing. Then I made out the eyes, then the curves of elder women wrapped in dark indigo cloth. They sat on a stone bench and beckoned me gently. The amusement on their lips made me feel safe. Still, I stood before them shyly.

The soft clucking of conversation swirled around me, but I couldn’t understand the words. One of the women grasped me by the hips and guided me to a large wooden bowl. I watched her hands leave my body and dip into the bowl. I drew back slightly when her hands emerged, cupped, full of a dark red oil. She opened her hands at my waist. I watched as the oil dripped over my belly. The woman’s fingers caught the drippings and rubbed the oil over my abdomen.

My eyes drifted to the ceiling as the hands picked up a rhythm. Their palms circled the oil into my skin. My eyes slid closed. The other woman’s hands pressed oil into my shoulder blades and down my back. I bit my lip trying to keep track of the stroking. Fingers wiggled between my knees and tripped up the inside of my thighs.

By the time the women reached the back of my legs, my body was humming. I wanted to spread my legs and will the women's fingers to reach inside me. I spread my arms instead. The women coated them from shoulder to wrist. Oil slicked down both sides of my torso, then brushed over my nipples one two three times. Their fingers flew over my face.

Before I knew it, I was pushed out of the opposite side of the hut. When I turned back, the women had returned to their stone bench. I caught a glimpse of V stepping into the hut. She flashed me a wicked smile. The women bent over the wooden bowl to fill their palms with oil and I backed away.

More indigo-clad women waited outside the hut. They tied my wrists with soft pieces of leather and crisscrossed leather beads across my chest. They circled around me, wrapping a rope-like adornment around my waist. I could feel something heavy like a talisman or a pendent resting right above the crease of my buttocks. I grasped the whip the women placed in my hand and took a few steps forward.

Around me, women were now similarly adorned. I watched them eagerly rush ahead, buttocks shaking, breasts bouncing, whips swinging. I felt the quiver of anticipation pierce me. Dizziness swooped down on me as the oil-laden hands flashed through my mind. I imagined twelve of them pressing on my body. Heat rolled over me. I staggered. The earth dipped. I almost gave way to a swoon, but V grabbed my arm and held me upright.

"Follow me," she whispered.

I grabbed V's hand and ran across a field to join a cluster of women. V nudged us close to the center. I was surrounded by sound. It was a deep, droning, throbbing hum. All around us women swayed, heads thrown back, voices joined in song.

Without warning V squeezed her way out of the singing throng. I heard a snap and looked toward the outskirts of the group. V was standing, legs spread, arm lifted overhead swirling her whip high in the air. An echoing swooping noise issued forth. The women punctuated the sound of V's whip with a high-pitched yelling.

On that cue, dust began to rise in the distance.

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My work has always been ripe with sensual elements, but I didn't start writing full-out erotica until 2000. A random meeting led me to an erotic publisher. I sent her a few stories I thought were erotica. She replied that she liked the writing, but the stories didn't have enough sex in them. In mainstream literature, she explained, writers usually stop when they get to the sex scene.

In erotica, that's when the action begins. For a moment, I was taken aback. Could I represent actual sex on the page? Then I started thinking about it. Sex, too, is an aspect of a healthy life. It doesn't really make sense that writers are urged to describe everything in detail, but sketch over sexual encounters.

As I began to explore the genre, I found writing about sex flowed in perfectly with my stories. It didn't seem like an interruption or a trip into left field. Ultimately, the publisher found all of my character building to be too much. Her readers, she said, are eager to get to the sex.

But as a writer, I'm interested not only in the sex, but also in the context of the sex. Who are these people? Why are they having sex? Where are they having sex? What was the seduction? What is the result? Kiini Ibura Salaam © 2000

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updated 7 October 2007

Kiini Ibura Salaam is a realistic woman.

She likes the feel of a warm bed, understands the necessity of food, so she works. At her day job, she corrects inconsequential errors while remembering mornings spent wrestling with words and sucking meaning from images. She frets, knowing her 9-to-5 threatens her fragile relationship with writing.

Yet she always manages to coax writing back into her graces. She begs writing’s absolution with essays published in Colonize This, When Race Becomes Real, Roll Call, Men We Cherish, Utne Reader, Essence, and Ms. Magazine. She prostrates herself obediently with fiction published in Mojo: Conjure Stories, Black Silk, When Butterflies Kiss, Dark Matter, and Dark Eros. She tithes her art form with the KIS.list, a monthly e-report on life as a writer. She produces www.kiiniibura.com as an altar, an online offering of words.

Writing, expansive and forgiving, responds with a flood of inspired embraces. Whether she be in her native New Orleans, her adopted Brooklyn or her beloved Bahia, the writer unabashedly bares herself to the caress of words. She writes with holy gratitude, forever in love with her craft.