Giving the game away

We spoke, not quite as easily as we have done, but somewhere just beyond our normal mode of arm's length... It was a surprise to see her... she wasn't supposed to be here today. She mentioned something about not quite being a hundred percent... a little out of it... she had mixed up her travel arrangements... out last night more or less until she was due to come here... a new milonga. "You know what a milonga is?" She asked, presuming my answer would be "no." But in my rush to look confident, I answered "yes," which is the truth. She was surprised, and it was only then that I realised the answer she wanted me to have given. Of course, then I was on the spot... had to tell her what I thought it was, since her surprise invited my definition. I always feel on the spot with these things - anyone would, right? Or maybe not. Anyway, since I fear myself to be utterly Britcentric, I always feel exposed when in the face of the foreign, particularly when I'm with someone who I know knows more about it than I. I told her roughly, nervously, what I thought... it's a place to go to tango, no? I know it's where you go (you go) to dance. How do you know? she asked...I just know.

I blushed.

I felt the heat build on my cheeks and prayed for invisibility.

But she saw.

She told me: "You've gone all red."

And then it was out. Without me wanting it to be. It doesn't matter how hard I try to cover up - sometimes I give myself away. "It doesn't take much to make me blush," I explained.

"You've done some research," she replied. An air of joking, slight teasing perhaps, maybe thinking I'd spent any time finding out about these things.

Of course I have.

"No I haven't!" I responded, somewhat indignantly. Heaven forbid.

But I squeaked that response. An utterly, painfully, shamefully girly response. Blusing and squeaking. Eugh!

Nothing more came of it, so maybe I got away with it this time. At the very least, I haven't yet had to have that horrible conversation, where I truly get rumbled, and all my protestations are for naught.... uncomfortable ... GO.

No, I have not yet been dismissed. But I can't help feeling it will come. It always has done before. Why should this time be any different from the last two?

More significantly, is there any way of truly hiding myself? What about, I can't see you so you can't see me? That might work, but the only way would be for me to withdraw, retreat, cut myself off from her. Not such a bad thing, maybe. Olga says I need a new crush. Of course in a way she's right, but it'll probably just get me into more trouble. Why would the next time be any better? So, withdrawal, retreat... maybe. Maybe it's the only way.

In the meantime, while I derive any joy from it - as tinged as it is with torment and alwaysalready loss - I find mysefl returning, always returning. And whenever I return, I open myself up to betrayal by my own body. My own stupid fuckwit "English rose" cheeks that insist on displaying my embarrassment for all to see at the most inopportune moments. Damn them. Much of my body I can control. My actions I have some power over. I don't do anything suddenly "inappropriate." I can control my urges, or at least the manifestation of those urges... But my desires? No, they're not for controlling, and nor are the symptoms of those desires. I will retire to bed now, and maybe dream. Almost certainly, since I have been drinking again. I always dream when I drink. And it's rarely pleasant. I am exhausted by my own tension and the trauma of my dreams, and I drink to obscure them.

Why do I think it'll be different this time?