Morning Star

"Let's take a break," said Sitara with exhausted voice as the last tones of the song died out.

"OK, ten minutes," I replied, grabbing two towels from the nearby chair and throwing one to Sitara.

"I was thinking more like couple of hours," she complained, wiping sweat off her face and arms.

"No, we don't have time for that," I said calmly, loosening up my legs. "The shooting starts on Sunday already, and..."

"Excuse me!" she interrupted me, "But if I drop dead before Sunday, it will not be that helpful for the video either!"

Here we were again. For the last 5 days I have been living in her house to do my job, I heard nothing but complaints. The moves were too hard, she was not a professional dancer; the spins were making her dizzy, could I come up with something else instead; she can not jump that high, she has bad knees.... It appeared sometimes, as if Sitara just didn't care about the quality of her work, but I think it had more to do with her stubbornness and not being willing to follow anybody's orders.

"C'mon, don't be dramatic," I said, trying to dry my short hair as much as I could. "And stop feeling sorry for yourself."

"Don't patronize me!" she said with repressed anger in her voice, taking a look at me.

"As far as it goes for choreography, I was hired to patronize you," I went on with my usual calmness. "And it would be really helpful, if you would stop complaining all the time."

"Oh yea?" I could tell by her voice she was getting really upset... again. "Well, it would also be helpful," she went on, "If you would just... shut up! Who do you think you are anyway?"

"Certainly not some drugged up pop... person, who thinks she a star!"

She was not doing drugs and WAS a star, so I knew I was getting off line as well, but there were limits as to what I could still bear.

I have been told that her name, Sitara, meant 'morning star' in Sanskrit, but by the expression in her eyes right now I would say it rather meant 'morning meteorite'. Even if we never spoke personal things I figured by her name and darker skin, that one of her parents must have been an Indian. Her long black hair and dark eyes were in favor of my theory.

While we were staring at each other, I recollected myself and said more calmly, "You do have an unbelievable temper, don't you?"

"And you have unbelievably none!" she shot back.

The heavy silence hanging in the air was interrupted by the phone, that started to ring from the corner of her gym. Sitara went to answer it.

"What?" she barked into the receiver and returned her gaze at me. "Hey Mike!... Today?... What time?... Sure... No, I said it's OK... Yea, everything's fine... Later. Bye!"

Mike Hanney was her manager and whatever he told her on the phone, did not make her happy, even if she did calm her anger down a bit.

"That was Mike," she said needlessly. "The dance group is coming at 6, and knowing you, that means at least three more hours of work today. So, can I PLEASE have some rest now?"

In moments like this she appeared as a helpless child, and she was aware of the effect it had on me. I indulged her each time.

"OK, you win," I said.

"Thank you!" she exhaled, still not breaking the gaze. Countless moments passed before she finally spoke again. "Listen, I'm gonna take a dip in the pool. Wanna join me?"

"Thanks, but I think I will hit the shower instead," I replied.

She nodded and turned towards the door, finally breaking up our staring. But as she opened the door she faced me again, saying, "Look.. I know I have a terrible character, but it has nothing to do with me being a pop... person."

We smiled at her repeating my earlier words.

"I've been like this since forever," she went on, "So I guess it's in my nature." She paused again and finally added, "I'm sorry!"

"I'm sorry, too," I replied. "Especially about the drugs remark."

She smiled again and headed to leave, but faced me once more.

"You know, Cynthia," she said, "It's a good think we behave ugly towards each other. We would have nothing to apologize for otherwise."

Then she finally left the gym and I followed her to refresh myself as well.

She was right. If I thought back on these last few days, all I could remember was constant apologizing to each other. And apart from this last fight, which was still fresh, I could not remember a single reason for any of the previous ones. Maybe it had to do with both of us trying to give the impression of strong personalities, proving our authority in what were doing, while from the emotional side we were just as insecure about ourselves as any other human being. Still, even if these fights produced some really hard words, neither of us was taking them too seriously. I could not really tell why, but somehow I always had the impression, we were only toying with each other.

When her manager first called my agency to offer me the job, I was a bit hesitant about it. Not that I would not want it, but I did not want to compromise my own reputation. Namely, in one of the gossip magazines I heave been reading recently Sitara has been marked as 'slightly difficult to work with' and that could be a good obstacle for me in performing my job well. Still, from my own experience I knew those magazines would print just about anything to increase the edition. Furthermore, I liked Sitara's music a lot and this prevailed my decision.

Since our houses were almost on the opposite sides of the city, her manager suggested it would be easiest if I would just move in with Sitara. As I have been told she had a very big house, so my privacy, as well as hers, would not have to suffer. Furthermore she had a big enough gym where we could rehears.

About a week later I have moved in with her, and couple of hours after that I have learned, the gossip magazine was not lying about her compatibility with other people. I anticipated very interesting and nerves wreacking10 days.

I was thinking about all this while taking a shower. I had to smile within myself, because they were the very same thoughts I was having after each of our fights. It had nothing to do with regrets for my decision, it was more confirming, my gut feeling has not deserted me yet.

After I finished the shower I decided to check out the kitchen for some healthy food. Kitchen was the only room in the house Sitara and I were sharing, but I knew she would be at the pool, so I took the liberty of feeding myself in a bathrobe only. But as I walked into the kitchen, Sitara was there, preparing lemonade.

"Want some?" she asked as she noticed me.

"Sure. Thanks!" I replied, feeling slightly uncomfortable butt-naked under the robe.

"OK." Sitara didn't seem to notice my uneasiness, since she returned her attention to the squeezer. Apparently she just got out of the pool, because her well shaped body was dripping water all over the floor.

I readjusted the bathrobe to make sure it would not reveal anything unplanned, and headed for the fridge next to Sitara. I opened it and leaned forward to see what we had in it, inhaling Sitara's coconut sun-tanning oil, that reached my nostrils.

"You know," her voice reached me then, "I was thinking..."

"Did it hurt?" I could not resist the chance to be sarcastic.

But Sitara decided to ignore me this time and just went on with, "If this video turns out good, we could maybe prolong our collaboration. What do you think?"

I turned my head towards her to see if she was joking or actually meant it. But while speaking, Sitara turned towards me and I found my face almost in her breasts now. I could not help but notice her brown nipples through the yellow bikini she was wearing. Startled by the feeling going through my body, I raised myself from the fridge.

"I will not argue with a woman who has a knife in her hand," I tried to smile in order to cover up the mess that was going on inside me.

She looked at the knife she was still holding in her hand from cutting the lemons, smiled and put it on the counter.

"Okay. NOW what do you think?" she repeated her question, observing me closely with eyes one could drown in.

"Uhm... yea... sure... why not..." I stuttered and hated myself for it.

"I mean," Sitara went on, "I know a lot of papers and contracts need to be done again, but first of all you would need to agree with it, of course."

While speaking she lowered her gaze on the cleavage of my bathrobe. I followed her eyes and noticed, while leaning over the fridge and going through its contents, the robe has slightly separated and was exposing the beginning of my breasts now.

"Just think about it, okay?" Sitara's voice picked a hoarse tone and she quickly re-engaged herself with preparing the drinks.

Noticing her perplexity helped me calm down and even made me feel amused. Why, I couldn't tell, and I decided not to ponder over it.

"Okay," I finally replied and returned my attention to the fridge.

At 6, Mike Hanney arrived with four women from Sitara's usual dancing group. They were all professional dancers, but this would be the first try of all of them together, so I knew Sitara would be causing me some more problems before the end of the day.

"Hey girls, didn't kill each other yet?" Mike said laughingly entering the house.

Since he was never present during our fights, he was either very intuitive, or just trying to be funny, not knowing how close to the truth he was.

"Shut up, Mike!" snapped Sitara at him and greeted the girls like they were best friends.

"Yea, yea, yea," Mike went on laughing and then added, "Well, you all have a fruitful evening, I gotta run. Call me tomorrow Sitara, we have some business to do." He left and we headed for the gym to get busy.

To my surprise, Sitara was very cooperative this time. I was wondering what caused the change, the presence of other people, or she decided to be more reasonable after the fight earlier that day. Or maybe the two hours break simply relaxed her enough to stop being annoying.

I was showing the group the correction of some moves, Sitara requested during our earlier practicing, when I noticed she was observing me. She was sitting on the bench at one end of the room, leaning against the mirror behind her back. Her head was bent slightly to the right, and she was absorbing every move I did. In some way her gazing was resembling the one from the kitchen in the afternoon, and I felt warm shivers going down my body. With a lot of difficulties I finished the demonstration and then went to join Sitara.

"OK ladies, let's see the result. One, two, three, four..." I said loudly, clapping my hands to provide the rhythm. Supervising the action on the improvised dance floor I asked Sitara more quietly, "Enjoying yourself?"

"Oh, yes! Very much!" she replied amused.

"That was good," I returned my attention to the dancers. "Let's try the whole song now."

I hit the play button on the stereo and sat down next to Sitara. Sitara's newest song filled the room and while the four women were working their butts off, I turned to Sitara.

"Are you just going to sit here and be lazy?"

"Yep!"

"Don't you think you should join them?" I motioned to her dance group.

"Nope," she went on with the same amused voice.

"And what's so amusing, if you don't mind asking?"

"You are," she laughed. "The way you explain things, the way your body moves when you dance, the way you supervise everything... Even the way you interrogate me now... You know," she shrugged her shoulders, exploring my eyes with hers.

"Why?... I mean... What is amusing about that?" I smiled.

"I just like to watch you, that's all," said Sitara more seriously and brushed her finger against my shoulder.

It was not the first time we touched. When teaching someone dance moves there is often a lot of touching involved, like holding up a leg or straightening an arm, but there was something different about this particular touch. I don't know what kind of reaction she was hoping for, but it sent pins and needles down my spine. I wanted to run away, but at the same time I wanted her to touch me again.

"You know," she went on, approaching her face so close to mine, I thought she would kiss me, "You are a very beautiful woman, Cynthia. Even if you drive me crazy sometimes."

And with rising astonishment in my eyes she DID place a gentle kiss on my mouth. I felt butterflies rising up in my lower abdomen and my heart missed a beat. My head started to spin, but instead of slapping her, and asking her about what did she think she was doing, I kissed her back. That caught her off guard, because her eyes opened wide, asking silent questions.

"You know," I started in the same voice she was using on me, "I know you are just trying to distract me from my work, but it's not working. Now go join your group and show me what you've learned this week," I added more jokingly and motioned with my head to the temporary dance floor.

"Slave drover," she exhaled, but obeyed.

While sitting on the bench watching them all dance, I tried to collect my thoughts to figure out, what did just happen. To begin with, I felt uneasy about the four women witnessing our little game, but since they did not seem surprised, my uneasiness refocused. Did their indifference mean they have witnessed Sitara in moments like this before? Was it all just a game for her then? I felt a patty attack of jealousy of all the people that might have been in my position before, and this feeling was telling me it was not simply a game for me. Suddenly, all of our fights were starting to make sense. From the very first moment we met I was feeling Sitara was attracting me, and since I was afraid of letting her become aware of it, I was hiding my insecurity behind being rough on times. Was she having the same reasons for her impatience and harshness? My head started to spin again, because of too many heavy thoughts this time, so I returned to happenings in the gym and the job I was hired to do.

As I got to learn a moment later, I have made a bad decision. All the time while dancing, Sitara had her eyes glued on me, sending more powerful shocks through my body, forcing my breathing to accelerate. I closed my eyes to avoid those piercing eyes, wondering how much more of this desire I could stand, when the song abruptly stopped. I opened my eyes to see what happened, and noticed Sitara next to me, with her finger on the stop button of the stereo.

"Let's call it off for today, gang," she said out loudly, never moving her eyes off me. Her breathing was heavy, the sweat pouring off her face, a consequence of the activity she was occupied with just moments ago.

I was unable to move, afraid to even blink an eye in fear, I might miss an important signal from Sitara's direction. I was unable to greet her dance group goodbye, and only partly perceived one of them telling me, they would call the following day to set the next rehearsal. But I was very much aware of Sitara and myself, eating each other with eyes.

As the door of the gym closed, Sitara kneeled in front of me, and took my hands in hers, gently rubbing the back of them with her thumbs.

"Cynthia..." she whispered and leaned forward to kiss me again.

"Hold it right there," I stopped her maybe a bit too roughly and moved away from her.

Her eyes widened again in surprise.

"What's bugging you?" she asked, not knowing how to understand my reaction.

"You are. I will not become just another trophy on your list," I explained myself with trembling, yet firm voice.

She let go of my hands and jerked standing up, apparently upset.

"Is that what you think?" she raised her voice at me.

"I've been reading things about you, Sitara."

"And you prefer to believe THAT over what I am telling you?!"

"Well, they didn't seem very surprised over our kiss," I tried to justify my behavior, motioning with my head towards the door through which her dancers just disappeared, "So I wonder how many times have they experienced it before."

"Shit, Cynthia!... I'm not the only person they work with! Maybe they have seen it elsewhere before! Maybe they consider me extravagant, and therefore expecting I do what I want whenever I want! Maybe they actually enjoyed it! I don't know why they didn't react and I don't give a shit about it, actually!" Sitara was almost yelling by now. "And I can't believe we are fighting over the reaction... or rather non-reaction of my dancers, like I was responsible about what they do or not do!"

"Will you just calm down?" I tried to stop her flow of words and resolve the situation, I knew I was solely responsible for. And realizing her words were making sense just made me feel even more stupid.

"I will not calm down! I will calm down when I will feel like calming down!"

"Well, you can't say my suspicion is completely off!" I raised my voice as well. "We all know about singers and their wild bed adventures!"

"You don't know shit about me, Miss.... Miss Perfection!..."

"Oh, calm down!"

"What gives you the bloody right to put me in the same basket as every other singer you ever knew?..."

"Calm... down!"

"IF you ever knew anyone personally in the first place! And even if I was who you apparently think I am, what gives YOU the right to judge me?!" Sitara went on raging.

"I'm in love with you!" I yelled, "And I don't want to wake up in the morning realizing, you broke my heart when you left!"

My sentence cut like a knife through our screaming. In a split second the room got so quiet I could hear our hearts beat. We were staring at each other, both trying to comprehend what I have just said, and then Sitara's mouth was all over mine, her tongue in my mouth. She was kissing me almost violently and I was embracing her so strongly I could hardly breathe. We completely lost ourselves in desire, that has been adding up ever since we have met.

It took us several minutes to calm our kissing down and even longer to finally break the kiss. Sitara moved her face slightly away and looked me in the eyes.

"Cynthia... baby... I will not break your heart," she whispered.

I felt a tear slide down my face, and Sitara kissed it off, her eyes not being completely dry either. We embraced again, gently this time, and I felt her softly kissing my ear, whispering my name with it. We just stood there, inhaling each other's sent, absorbing each other's closeness, sharing a moment of complete surrender to the other. I have never in my life felt that warm at heart.

Our love making that night was magic. We explored every inch of each other's body. She lifted me up in heights I never knew they exist. She was holding me close in my moments of ecstasy. She gave herself to me unconditionally, letting me experience what complete satisfying means. She made me feel alive beyond description. She was my friend, my lover and my guardian angel. She was a promise for a new meaning to my life.