The erotic is not a luxury: it is the pulse of being fully alive, in music, in skin, in sunlight, in love. Your body is not a vessel to be endured but a site of possibility and joy. It has been waiting for you.

The music was Amr Diab. The air still carried cumin and roasted lamb. Dinner was done, the wine was open, and my friends were pressing me to show them what I'd been learning at belly dance class. I laughed it off, shy. They kept at it. Finally I tucked the hem of my top into the strap of my bra, pressed play, and repeated my teacher's words to myself like a prayer: belly dance is not for the gaze of others. It is for you. Go inward and let it spill outward.

I closed my eyes. I traced slow figure eights with my hips, the music thudding low and insistent. At first I was stiff with self-consciousness, and then the rhythm loosened me, and something deep and unspoken rose up: a current moving through my arms, my spine, my hips, a language my body seemed to have known all along.

Then silence. The music cut.

I opened my eyes to find the man I was seeing standing in front of me.

"I think you should serve dessert," he said flatly. "You're making a fool of yourself."

The shame was instant and searing. I wanted the floorboards to open and swallow...