Hye-jae: Book 2 - New Loves

Happy Days Part 32

The featured band - Philip had told Dieter they hailed from Cuba and were on a summer concert tour of Europe - was in keeping with the overall vibe of the club - effortlessly sophisticated and cool.  From the first rhythmic swish of brush stick across snare drum, the quartet - led with lifting energy by the female vocalist, sporting an impressive mohawk and numerous tattoos - produced a seductive soundscape of cool jazz through the prism of the latin lens - technically impressive with chilled-out tempos and a layered tone.

As one luscious tune followed another, the audience warmed to the group and their clapping and calling between songs became more animated, as the set began to take on a more eclectic blend.  The percussionist was using a range of Afro-inspired drums which deepened the exotic vibe and the influences were wide-ranging, with different genres - folk, rock, even pop - being given a cool lustre in their rendition.  

The group were enjoying the gig immensely, not quite believing their luck in coming across such brilliant musicians with such a slick, but winning, sound, each song offering new moments of brilliance and interest.  

Seon-jae - jacket-less now - felt each note and beat enlivening his spirit. The blend of rhythm, harmony, melody, tempo was intoxicating in this live setting with vibrations rippling through him.  He gave himself over to this seduction, his seated body swaying to the pulsing groove, his head nodding, slightly, as each new tune wove its enchantment.

Throbbing beats on the conga drum - standing tall, narrow at top and bottom, belling-out in the centre - signalled an intensifying of the musical mood to an even more sensuous assault, as the band took a well-known pop song Young and Beautiful and invested it with a latin jazz feeling. The guitar and bass entered on single down-beats together and the timbre of the first low notes from the singer was deliciously mellow, all blending in a rhythmical dance, whose sensual lure was impossible to resist.  

Hye-won felt the music seep deep in her soul, the musicians' skill and attitude a heady mix.  Instruments she hadn't heard live before and songs that were new to her were conjuring a passionate response within her body too, which was taking on a life of its own.  Her shoulders rolled, her hips swayed, her thighs lifted and dropped and her feet tapped repeatedly.  One look around the club showed that she was feeling the same effects as everyone else in the room.  Though they were in a seated space, more than one person was dancing - singly, in couples, in groups - unable - maybe unwilling - to resist the infectious, pulsing rhythms.

When Young and Beautiful began, the layering and building of the sound and the swaying rhythms stirred her even more deeply.  Like the other dancers, as though spell-bound, she also couldn't  - or wouldn't - resist and, in a single movement, rose to her feet and pulled Seon-jae to his.  He needed no persuading to take her in his arms and fit to her beat, undulating his body with hers, in a release of the powerful response that had built in him too.  

The singer sang of an obsessive - even compulsive - love -hot summer nights, mid July, when you and I were forever wild - and Hye-won eyed Seon-jae, the wildness of their many hot summer nights dancing in her eyes.  That's us, lover.  He licked his lips and his tongue slid to the corner of his mouth, as a sexy side-smirk showed her how well he remembered those nights and how close to the surface that wildness was in him at that moment.  That will be us again tonight as soon as I get you home, my sexy Goddess.

The chorus was an aching expression of the universal doubt of all lovers everywhere - will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful, will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul? - answered by a mantra-like incantation, as though the singer was trying to conjure the longed-for devotion - I know you will, I know you will, I know that you will.  

For Hye-won, these words ricocheted inside her powerfully, as she remembered the aching sourness that had gripped her soul when she imagined that Seon-jae's eye might - for just a moment - be directed away from her.  Each time the singer posed the question, her heart was gripped with an after-taste of that bitterness, only to have that same bile eased away with the invoked I know you will.  These feelings were deep-seated, feeding her emotional response to the song and under their influence, she could feel her inner rhythms taking over, rippling from shoulders down and feet up, her limbs rolling in time with the tune.  

As the singer recounted - hot summer days, the way you'd play for me at your show and all the ways I got to know your pretty face and electric soul - the resemblance with her and Seon-jae's story brought a bubbling laugh to the surface which signalled her feelings, as clearly as if she had expressed them in words.  Your playing, your pretty face, your electric soul - you are my obsession, Lee Seon-jae. 

The potency of the memories she summoned caused her to close her eyes and let her feelings take her.  Seon-jae feasted his eyes on his precious woman gyrating so rhythmically and it fed his aroused soul, making his dancing take on a more suggestive tone too, his hips revolving and his body swaying under the influence of such a sensual display.  

The devastating love that the singer conjured was fated to last even beyond death - dear Lord, when I get to heaven, please let me bring my man, when he comes, tell me that You'll let him in, Father, tell me if You can.  Hye-won thought of how it might feel - being separated from Seon-jae for all eternity and begging her maker for an exception to allow them to be joined forever - and her eyes were tortured.  Seon-jae saw it and releasing one of her hands, placed his open palm in the small of her back, urging her inwards towards him...closer, closer...until her hips were in contact with his and she was forced to feel the strength of his bond to her and the impossibility of their being separated, in this life or the next.  

The singer brought them back from the heavens to the corporeal realm - all that grace, all that body, all that face, makes me want to party - and Hye-won's look became dangerously sultry, as the truth of those lines hung between them.  Your grace, your body, your face, all that, you are all that.  These looks were deeply arousing to Seon-jae and an insistent rhythm took him over, so that their rolling movements and sensuous snaking were perfectly in sync. His eyes devoured the angles of her face and neck, as she leaned her head back, relishing the feelings their movements were bringing her.  With the poetic declaration - he's my sun, he makes me shine like diamonds - she revelled in the sheer joy of feeling so stimulated and so freed at once and - transported to her own private joy, eyes closed - her aroused smile was a laser to his heart.  

Her response couldn't fail to raise his and he pulled them even closer together, like 2 magnets, inseparable in nature.  He gazed down at her, his breath coming heavier, with the exertion and exhilaration.  His eye raked her, settling now on her lifting smile, now on her shimmying shoulders, now on her rippling torso, now on those snaking hips.  He dropped his gaze to the floor and a visceral thrill rippled through him, as her gorgeous feet - in all their strappy glory - took their place in this potent visual.  At that moment, her eyes flickered open and beheld his lustful regard and the fire in their depths flared. His luminescent beauty as the flickering lights criss-crossed his high cheek-bones and jaw-line elevated him to a level of charisma too strong to be withstood. Her eyes flashed her innate response to his powerful aura and her smile just for him was breath-taking. He saw her and wanted her and she saw it and loved it and her dance took that powerful attraction and poured it all back to him.  

When the song died away, they stood - slightly swaying, panting, smiling, midriffs still touching, his arm still around her back, their eyes devouring each other passionately - while around them, the audience exploded in a orgiastic out-pouring of appreciation for the Caribbean spell that had seduced them all so mercilessly.