The Beat Goes On

The night felt different to Don. The sounds from the street followed a different rhythm than what he was used to. The language he heard as people walked by was difficult to follow with his rudimentary understanding of Cantonese. The smells of the cooking from street vendors, while they made Don's mouth water, reminded him of how far from home he was.

At the same time, though, it all seemed so familiar. Muscle memory, Don told himself, It's still Xue Li's body, and all of this is what she was used to.

Music began to play out of a nearby building, heavy bass driving the melody. In his twenties Don had enjoyed going to the bars and watching the women dance. He, of course, never had the courage to put himself out there and get on the dance floor. No, that was Mike's thing. Soon after the pair had met in college it became established that Mike was the showboat while Don was the cautious one. Mike loved to dance, party, flirt, and was successful. Don was great at putting a presentation together, and answering technical questions. Mike could land the sale, Don could make the deal work.

Unconsciously, Don's new hips began to sway back and forth to the beat of the music.

That's why they had always made such a good business team. When Don had come up with the idea of their new file-sharing platform, Mike had been the perfect partner. Don could build it, Don could work the technical side, but there was no way he could woo the level of investor that they'd need. For Mike, though, it was no problem. That's how they had gotten to China, in fact. With 70% of the capital raised, Mike had gotten an introduction to a group in China who wanted a piece. They caught the first flight they could, wowed them with the presentation, and the rest was celebration.

The rest until the accident, of course.

The beat changed as a new song started, Don's body adjusted the rhythm of the movements to match. His left hand began to play with his long brown hair, twirling strands of it with his long-nailed fingers. His shoulders began to bop.

Maybe they could still salvage the company. Mike and Don were, so far, were majority shareholders. With Don technically dead, his shares would be passed on to his next of kin, Don's sister Danica. Maybe she could be convinced to pass them over to Don, and things could continue more-or-less the way they had. He would have to convince her, of course..

Unknowingly conforming to the movement of his hips and shoulders, Don's torso began to move, his breasts swaying to the music, his whole body moving in a subtle but sexy dance on the balcony.

No, Don realized, that would be far too suspicious. First of all, Danica wouldn't trust that this whole thing wasn't some kind of ploy by Mike to take over the company. She'd never trusted him. Secondly, the more people who know the truth, the more chance that Immigration would clue into the fact that Mike and Don's marriage was a sham to get him into the country. No, for now at least, Don would have to play along. He'd have to work on his Chinese accent. He'd have to pretend that he was Xue Li, a sexy but uneducated woman who just happened to fall in love with Mike.

Some whistling and hooting from the street brought Don's mind back to the present. He looked down and saw a group of five young men smiling up at him, hooting and hollering. He couldn't catch exactly what they were saying, but their tone and actions made it feel lecherous.

Then he realized what he was doing.

Don's body froze. Had he been dancing?! He didn't even know how to dance! All he had been doing was thinking! How had his body done that?

Muscle Memory, he reminded himself again. Even now that he was aware, Don could feel the beat of the music washing through him, tempting his body to move. I'm going to have to be careful of that. It could get him in trouble.

Turning back to the sliding door, Don went inside. He couldn't escape his new life, but he could at least escape that music.