Day 9 - Stripping - The Road to El Dorado

“Well how do the girls in Europe dance?”

Miguel and Tulio looked at each other a moment before each broke into their own dance. One of them mimed lifting the hem of a long dress gingerly and doing little kicks from behind it, the other mimicked waltzing with himself. After a moment, she stopped them.

“So some girls try to pick up their own feet and some girls spin around while looking at their hands?”

“Not exactly,” Tulio cleared his throat.

“Lots of spinning, yes,” Miguel added. “Everything else is sort of… make it up as you go.”

“Unless it’s one of the high-society dances.”

“Yes, then make nothing up. Never make anything up.”

“High society?” Chel tilted her head, “Is that a euphemism?”

“No, it means the rich, the powerful. You know,” Tulio glanced at Miguel and his partner gave him a confusing series of gestures in return, “Chiefs and… chief-ettes.”

“Hm? That’s weird.” She lounged on the pillows, “The chief here dances too, but he dances like the rest of the normal people. Don’t your priests and priestesses have their own dances?”

“No, uh…” Tulio looked to Miguel again.

“Not really dancing people, our priests. Not a very dance-y religion.”

“But don’t they heal people?” She had a golden cup which she had filled from a jug of cream-colored chicha, and it burned sweetly on the tongue.

“With leeches, yes.”

“Leeches?” Chel screwed up her face, “How the hell is a leech supposed to heal somebody?”

“Well, how is a dance?”

“Well,” Chel turned over lazily on the cushions, “Most of the time it’s a whole ritual. The dance lifts the spirits while the herbs and mushrooms do the actual healing. The sabia chants lullabies and ritual songs, and at the end of it she can tell if the person is going to die or not.”

“She sounds like a very wise woman,” Miguel raised an eyebrow.

“Well, if they still have parts of them missing afterward, her guess is usually pretty easy.” Chel took another sip of chicha and looked at the jug. Considering Miguel and Tulio still found it a bit too intense, she was looking forward to a lazy afternoon of getting swaggeringly drunk.

“Are you a sabia?” Miguel sat down across from her, seemingly too genuinely interested to let her get drunk in silence.

“If I stay until I’m very old, I’d be next in line.” She sighed, “But I’d really rather not. For now, I’m one of the dancers she uses for her rituals.”

“What does a healing dance look like, exactly?” Tulio sat down across from Miguel.

“Lots of clutching at the wounded part and cursing?” Miguel added.

“It’s got to be the most boring dance we do, just a lot of swaying in place and making pleas to the heavens while an old lady chants and rubs leaves on the person.” Chel glanced at the jug bitterly, “We don’t even get any of the mushrooms. And since we’re not supposed to taint our lips with alcohol, you have to stand in a room completely sober while somebody is in awful pain and try to act like you wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.”

“That sounds awful,” Tulio and Michael shared a grimace.

“Well, it could be worse I suppose.” She drained her glass and poured another, “We could be putting leeches on the poor soul.”

“Hey, I won’t hear anything bad about the leeches,” Tulio straightened up.

“He’s right, they’ve saved thousands of lives… so I’m told.” Miguel nodded.

“Just so long as what’s hurting you isn’t a broken bone.”

“Or a stab wound.”

“Or the plague.”

“Or… most things, now that I think about it.”

Chel giggled and slid down into her seat as she felt her head starting to swim.

“You said you did other kinds of dances?” Tulio leaned in, “Let me guess, wiggling your arms while somebody gives birth?”

“Stamping your feet to announce the passing of a loved one?”

“That’s the only one I do for the sabia…” Chel groaned, “The rest are for the priests. Trying to entice the gods for favor or to come down and bless our harvests, those kinds of things.”

“Well, I guess one of them worked.” Miguel smirked.

“I guess,” Chel snorted into her cup.

“Would you… perhaps… dance for us?” Tulio gestured nervously with each word.

“Really?” She couldn’t help but feel a hint of a smile trying to break through, “They’re all pretty boring.”

“Boring to you maybe,” Tulio countered.

“Of course, to us gods, anything meant to appease us will be pleasing,” Miguel added in his faux-divine voice.

“Wellll,” She dragged it out as she swirled her glass around, “There is this one dance that I never get a chance to do… one celebrating when the gods have been good and the priests feel that a celebration is in order.”

“And have we not been good?” Miguel added, gesturing to the palace around them.

“I’m sure if you look, you will find the harvests have been most plentiful since we arrived,” Tulio nodded, “At least for us.”

“Oh, certainly,” She also lapsed into her performatively religious voice, “Indeed, I cannot recall a finer harvest of fermented corn and cassava in my lifetime… or proximity.”

“Right then,” Miguel clapped, “Dance for us. Show the gods your gratitude.”

“Keep asking like that, and I’m going to show the gods the back of my hand,” Chel rose and tossed one of the pillows at Miguel.

Chel quickly drained the glass of chicha and set it next to the pitcher. Moving into the center of the ring of cushioned couches where both of them could watch her, she raised her arms up above her head and started to sway her hips from side to side. The motions made the long cloth that hung from her waist move like a pendulum, the motion never sharp enough to uncover the highest and most intimate regions of its coverage, but always enough to threaten that it might. Chel bit her lip softly as she started to sway a little more, bringing the whole of her center of mass from side to side like it was really her chest and head which were moving while her legs remained planted on the ground. She closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the feeling of just moving freely, and when she opened them again it seemed like both Miguel and Tulio were about to pass out.

“What?” She frowned and slowed her hips to a gentle rock, “I’ve barely even started.”

“There’s just a… good deal more shaking than I’m used to seeing.” Tulio shook his head.

“And bouncing…” Miguel added, “And… jiggling.”

“Well yeah, dancing to thank the gods is supposed to be fun. You’re showing them how wonderful they’ve made your life.”

“And the gods… how do they usually feel about this?” Miguel shifted in his seat and tried to bury himself further in the cushions. “Is there a desired reaction?”

“The gods are usually expected to look but not touch.” She smiled and went back to swaying her hips.

Chel turned her body to the side and started to roll her hips forward and back now, bringing her leg up slightly each time her loincloth would kick up and bringing it a step back each time it would swing the other way. She mimed a great rolling wave passing from the tips of her toes up through the top of the head, then threw her hands up into the air and pitched forward onto her knees dramatically. Kneeling on the ground she wrapped her arms around her shoulders and lifted up and down, swirling her hips and rising like a plant springing from the soil in high speed and then wilting and rolling back down to the earth, only to rise again. She set her hands on her heels and pumped her chest forward and then back, bringing the whole of her flat stomach forward to make a flat diagonal line with her body from knees to the bottom of her ribcage. At that moment, she turned her head dramatically to her audience and smiled. A dancing girl learned from early on that dances like this were more for the priests than the gods, so one got good at knowing the direction of the real audience.

She suddenly rocked back and took a moment’s discomfort on her toes to bring herself into a low squat on the balls of her feet and turn to her audience fully. With her legs wide, her hips low, and her hands on her knees she started to roll her shoulders and her hips in the opposite direction of one another, trying to mimic either a snake-god or a river depending on how dire the circumstances had been and now were. She ran her hands up her hips and stomach, over her breasts and neck and up into her hair, which she tossed out behind her performatively. Easing the motions of her shoulders and focusing on showing off how well she could bend and sway her hips even while crouched low on the balls of her feet, shifting her weight in the kind of way that would result in either a clumsy fall or a badly injured ankle for a less-talented dancer. Barely stifling a grimace, she rolled back over her toes and brought her knees down to the rug while turning her back to her audience.

Arching her back so that her feet and her ass were what stood most prominently in view, she lowered fully until she could feel the fabric of the floor on the insides of her thighs and waved her hands above her head for a moment before settling them on her hips. She began to flex with her butt, bouncing one cheek and then the other in the rhythm of the imagined song, a motion which had caused more than one priest to seek employment in a less stimulating and restricting line of work. She could only imagine the expressions on Miguel’s and Tulio’s faces, quite literally. While she kept them looking down below, working her hips into it now and seeming to make her whole body bounce one side and then the other, she reached up behind her and untied the knot holding her top on. Communion with nature was a part of many dances. That it wasn’t traditionally part of this one was something only she had to know. If they thought that somebody moving their hips in a dance was scandalous, the world was both far bigger and far more delicious than they could imagine.

Chel straightened her back and turned it in time with the bounce of her ass, giving very brief glimpses of the sides of her now uncovered breasts but keeping any good looks as purely imagined or flashing glimpses. She held her arms out to either side and slowly moved them up like the branches of a growing tree, then froze with them raised fully above her and slowly, only barely moving, started to tilt backward. She picked up speed, like she had been felled, before laying her back flat and bringing her hips together with her feet near her hips underneath her, back arched like she was stretching. She could see her audience now, albeit upside-down, and the sight of her bare breasts and her in a position which likely hurt them just to look at had put their jaws on the floor. Swinging her arms down across the floor to her sides, she slowly brought her feet under her knees and bridged her stomach, keeping her loincloth pinched between her thighs but letting her hair pool around her head. She had worked up a sweat now, and as she lowered and then raised her hips again, pumping them in the air, she fought the urge to go back and get another cup of chicha before the dance was done.

Lowering her butt back to the carpet again, she suddenly burst up off the ground. She may have had more to drink than she thought, as she nearly put too much behind it and had to stumble to keep from face-planting, but standing again now she turned her back to them again and started to resume the roll of her hips. Bringing her hands first to her cheeks she moved them down her chest and stomach until they found the knot of her waist tie. She unfastened it as subtly as she could and slowly started to bring it higher around her body, making each sway of the hips reveal higher up on her body until it rested around her neck, the motion of her hips giving just enough sight of her pussy to glimpse but not so much as to expose her. Then she turned and stopped her hips, bringing a knee up like she was trying to cover herself and holding her hands in front of her navel. Turning gingerly on her heel, she extended the leg fully above her head and dropped facing away into a split. Her whole body was going to ache for this, but she was having such genuine fun in the performance now that she ignored it. Bouncing her ass like she had before, she ground her crotch semi-purposefully as she made several gestures and poses with her arms alone. Hiding her face in her hands, suddenly throwing them out at her sides and taking a great deep inhale like she was greeting the dawn, swelling her chest proudly. She finally lifted the rope from her shoulders and brought it up over her head, leaving her bare but for whatever creative ways she could conceal herself. She finally lifted a hip enough to bring her rear leg around to meet the front, sitting facing away from them.

Finally, she lifted one leg from sitting up and over her head, tucking her ankle back against her hair and only barely keeping her balance in the process. This had always been the step to kill the performance. But when she brought the other one up she found her body loosened enough by the alcohol and her arms in the right position to keep herself upright. She kept a handle on her discarded loincloth as she fell backwards, draping it over her sex as she looked up between her legs from her back at Miguel and Tulio. When she felt their eyes veins were sufficiently about to burst against their foreheads, she untucked her legs and rose to standing without looking back at them, tossing the loincloth up and over her head as she popped a knot in her neck and threw herself back down on the cushions naked, resuming her glass of chicha.

“So… any dances like that in Europe?” She asked smugly.

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