Domenica, 04 Aprile, 2004 | Posted by Lionel Gerkin at 18:07

Silvia tried her best to change, to mellow. I felt I was a calming influence to her personality. I tried to provide a foundation, to be the rock she needed to help her feel grounded and safe.

We'd see each other in the hallway at the Dance factory. No one yet knew about our relationship. She would smile at me.

That smile seemed to light up the whole facotry. Suddenly it shed its drab appearance. It's corrugated walls shone like stainless steel. The concrete floor felt like carpet under foot. The swallows that often got inside via cracks turned into nightingales and sung a quiet harmony.

We would sometimes sneak into the broom closet and have sex. Her skin glowed white. It was smooth and it had a fragrance that was of grassy medows and warbling streams.

I would often be lost in the thought of that moment for the rest of the day.

"Hey, Lionel, come over here and give us a hand. You look like you've got your head stuck up your arse."

"Oh, no, that's silly," I would laugh coyly. "It may be a broom, but it's not my head." My co-workers never really understood what I meant. Did I really care?

Silvia seemed to enjoy this new life of hers. We stayed together at night. We held hands and watched television. We'd talk.

She bought some new cardigans. She talked of her ambition at work and about children. She wanted children.

As our first anniversary started to approach, I noticed some odd things.

At work, I knew when she was approaching as she started to wear her tap shoes around the office. That tap, tap, tap pounded in my ears everytime she walked past.

Underneath her long dresses, she took to wearing fishnet stockings. The ones she loved wearing when she would go dancing.

I could feel them in the dark of the broom closet. I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. She began to come home later and later, claiming that work was getting busier and busier.

I bought her a couple more cardigans, I went out and puchased a wardrobe full of Laura Ashley in the hope that it would have the same effect as a nicotine patch for a smoker, the same as methodone for a drug addict.

I cooked, I cleaned, I bought her trinkets of devotion. Mountains of pearls, I lay diamonds at her feet. I was hoping that it would cure her of her desire.

But what I never accounted for was that it was all ingrained in her personality. Like an alcoholic that burns for a drink, she burned to dance.

She longed to hear the music. To be lost in it. To allow it to transport her to another world, far away. To carry every molecule in her tiny, frail frame to a land where freedom is not merely a word but an expression that's shouted in every note of the rhumba.

I tried to keep her with me. Maybe my aim was to hold her down. I never knew how long it would last.

I was the most excited man in the world when I heard that Silvia Rose was pregnant.