Tango Quotes

Magnus, remember what happened the last time you tried to tango. Your shoe flew off and nearly killed someone." "It was a metaphor. He's a Shadowhunter, he's a Lightwood, and he's into blonds. He's a dating hazard.

Do you play football?' Brandon asks. 'No.' 'Baseball?' 'Nope.' Brandon is on a roll and won't stop until he's found the answer he's looking for. 'Tennis?' 'That would be a nada' 'Then what sport do you play?' Carlos puts down his food. Oh, no. He's got a rebellious gleam in his eye as he says, 'The horizontal tango.' ...Alex stands and says through chlenched teeth, 'Carlos let's talk. In private. Ahora.' ....Brandon turns to my dad with big, innocent eyes. 'Daddy, do you know how to do the horizontal tango?

I am the twentieth century. I am the ragtime and the tango; sans-serif, clean geometry. I am the virgin's-hair whip and the cunningly detailed shackles of decadent passion. I am every lonely railway station in every capital of Europe. I am the Street, the fanciless buildings of government. the cafe-dansant, the clockwork figure, the jazz saxophone, the tourist-lady's hairpiece, the fairy's rubber breasts, the travelling clock which always tells the wrong time and chimes in different keys. I am the dead palm tree, the Negro's dancing pumps, the dried fountain after tourist season. I am all the appurtenances of night.

Dancing is creating a sculpture that is visible only for a moment.

Daddy, What's the horizontal tango?

I flush,and my inner goddess grabs a rose between her teeth and starts to tango.

Kizzy wanted to be a woman who would dive off the prow of a sailboat into the sea, who would fall back in a tangle of sheets, laughing, and who could dance a tango, lazily stroke a leopard with her bare foot, freeze an enemy's blood with her eyes, make promises she couldn't possibly keep, and then shift the world to keep them. She wanted to write memoirs and autograph them at a tiny bookshop in Rome, with a line of admirers snaking down a pink-lit alley. She wanted to make love on a balcony, ruin someone, trade in esoteric knowledge, watch strangers as coolly as a cat. She wanted to be inscrutable, have a drink named after her, a love song written for her, and a handsome adventurer's small airplane, champagne-christened Kizzy, which would vanish one day in a windstorm in Arabia so that she would have to mount a rescue operation involving camels, and wear an indigo veil against the stinging sand, just like the nomads. Kizzy wanted.

Hamish's right arm was around Angus's waist as the two of them tangoed past.

We dance to seduce ourselves. To fall in love with ourselves. When we dance with another, we manifest the very thing we love about ourselves so that they may see it and love us too.

Repression speaks about sex better than any other form of discourse / or so the modern experts maintain. How do people / get power over one another? is an algebraic question

Unwrapping the paper carefully so it doesn’t tear, I find a beautiful red leather box. Cartier. It’s familiar, thanks to my second-chance earrings and my watch. Cautiously, I open the box to discover a delicate charm bracelet of silver, or platinum or white gold—I don’t know, but it’s absolutely enchanting. Attached to it are several charms: the Eiffel Tower, a London black cab, a helicopter—Charlie Tango, a glider—the soaring, a catamaran—The Grace, a bed, and an ice cream cone? I look up at him, bemused. “Vanilla?” He shrugs apologetically, and I can’t help but laugh. Of course. “Christian, this is beautiful. Thank you. It’s yar.” He grins. My favorite is the heart. It’s a locket. “You can put a picture or whatever in that.” “A picture of you.” I glance at him through my lashes. “Always in my heart.” He smiles his lovely, heartbreakingly shy smile. I fondle the last two charms: a letter C—oh yes, I was his first girlfriend to use his first name. I smile at the thought. And finally, there’s a key. “To my heart and soul,” he whispers.

Nix to Declan: Begin transcript— Testing. Hello, hellooo, anybody out there? Check, check, one, two. Soft pee. Puh, puh. Resonance! Sooooooft pee. Alpha bravo disco tango duck. This is Nïx! I’m the Ever-Knowing One, a goddess incandescent, incomparable, and irresistible. But enough about what you think of me. It’s a beautiful day in New Orleans. The wind is out of the east at a steady five knots and clouds look like rabbits … But enough about what you think of me! Now, down to business— Squirrel! Where was I? [Long pause] Why am I in Regin’s car? Bertil, you crawl right back out of that bong this minute! Oh, I remember! I am hereby laying down this track for Magister Declan Chase. If you are a mortal of the recorder peon class, know that Dekko and I go waaaaay back, and he’ll go berserk (snicker snicker) if he doesn’t receive this transmittal. … Chase, riddle me this: what’s beautiful but monstrous, long of tooth but sharp of tooth and soft of mind, and can never ever tell a lie? That’s right. The Enemy of Old can be very useful to you. So use him already. P.S. Your middle name’s about to be spelled r-e-g-r-e-t. And with that, I must bid you adieu. Don’t worry, we’ll catch up very soon. … [Muffled] Who’s mummy’s wittle echolocator? That’s right—you are! —End transcript

If you get all tangled up, just tango on.

You used to say. "Desire doubled is love and love doubled is madness." Madness doubled is marriage I added when the caustic was cool, not intending to produce a golden rule.

-'I don't see what good it's going to do for you to waltz back in there and--' -'Can I tango back in there, instead? So much sexier than the waltz.

For no man would have touched her like that before. Eventually, she would be eager and responsive to him. Oh, so responsive. They would kiss, and it would be electric — intense — explosive. Their tongues would tangle and tango together desperately, as if they had never kissed before.

The Argentine tango isn't here to play nicely with the other children. The Argentine tango is here to seduce your women, spill things on your rug, and sneak out your bedroom window in the middle of the night.

Philosophers say man forms himself in dialogue.

Never invest in any kind of relationship with anyone who is not willing to work on themselves just a little every day. A person who takes no interest in any form of self-improvement, personal development or spiritual growth will also not be inclined to make much of an effort building a truly meaningful connection with you. A relationship with only one partner willing to do the work ceases to be a relationship. And as anyone who has been there will tell you - it's pointless to try and dance the tango solo.

Caution not spirit, let it roam wild; for in that natural state dance embraces divine frequency.

You don't know what you can accomplish if you never try.

Dance is the timeless interpretation of life.

I'm so glad you're okay." "So, how do we celebrate my okayness? It's my day off. Let's go crazy. Glow-in-the-dark bowling?" "No" "I'll let you use the kiddie ball." "Shut up. I do NOT need the kiddie ball." "The way you bowl, I think you might." He grabbed her in an exaggerated formal dance pose and whirled her around, backpack and all, which didn't make her any more graceful. "Ballroom dancing?" "Are you INSANE?" "Hey, girls who tango are hot." "You think I'm not hot because I don't tango?" He dropped the act. Shane was a smart boy. "I think you are too hot for ballroom or bowling. So you tell me. What do you want to do? And don't say study.

Maybe they're out doing the tango and drinking tequila shots." He sent Eve a grin. "As we will be when we reach their age. After which we'll come home and have mad sex." "For God's sake. This is on the record." "Yes, I know." He stepped off with her on Var's floor. "I wanted those future plans to be official as well.

Then what sport do you play?" Carlos puts down his food. Oh, no. He's got a rebellious gleam in his eye as he says, "The horizontal tango." ------------------------------------------- "Dancing really isn't a sport," Brandon tells Carlos, oblivious to the shock at the rest of the table. "It is when I do it," Carlos says. ------------------------------------------- Brandon turns to my dad with big, innocent eyes. "Daddy, do YOU know how to do the horizontal tango?

In a restaurant, tangoing couples circled past, and the look in Hale's eyes was especially mischievous when he told her, "Oh, I see. You brought me here so you can have your way with me on the dance floor.

Sometimes in life confusion tends to arise and only dialogue of dance seems to make sense.

I discovered there was something else I had never considered-Plan C- don't turn to mush, don't leave, stay and resist. Tango's entire point.

Dance less in motion and more in spirit; awaken the dreamer within.

Our evening-long tango of stares had my head spinning.

You cook?” Alfred asked Martini, clearly shocked. “I can dress myself, too. And sometimes I can handle all Field Operations for the entire Centaurion Division. Amazing, isn’t it?

If movements were a spark every dancer would desire to light up in flames.

A wound gives off its own light surgeons say. If all the lamps in the house were turned out you could dress this wound by what shines from it.

Dance as the narration of a magical story; that recites on lips, illuminates imaginations and embraces the most sacred depths of souls.

It takes two to tango”; one dictates the steps and the other executes them effectively. That is how a great show is made.

It takes two to tango but just one dance with the devil to bring the house down.

Boys, the longer you wait to get my requested prehistoric attack dogs, the more chance we have of people we care about getting hurt, more hurt, or killed. Oh, and don't hurt the alligators--they're a protected species.

If spirit is the seed, dance is the water of its evolution.

Paper balls? You were throwing balled up paper at an alligator?

I can't dance, remember?" I whispered. "It's just a tango. It is like sex, except with clothes on." Then, squeezing me closer: "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot, you do not know how to do that either.

Show me a person who found love in his life and did not celebrate it with a dance.

Dance is the ritual of immortality.

If you opened the dictionary and searched for the meaning of a Goddess, you would find the reflection of a dancing lady.

Don't breathe to survive; dance and feel alive.

Sometimes it seemed that she and rudy were two people attempting to tango, sweating and trying, long after the orchestra had grown tired, long after everyone else had gone home.

Tango Down

What do I do?” “Give me a chance to catch up.” I just stared at him, trying to keep my cool. Took two to tango, yada yada. “I’m serious.” His shoulders heaved up and down. “Just give me a chance to catch up and I promise, Lizzy, I will have your back.

All myth is an enriched pattern, a two-faced proposition, allowing its operator to say one thing and mean another, to lead a double life. Hence the notion found early in ancient thought that all poets are liars. And from the true lies of poetry trickled out a question. What really connects words and things?

Life is an affair of mystery; shared with companions of music, dance and poetry.

Es agradable ser feliz, pensó. Y saberlo mientras lo eres.

Music does not need language of words for it has movements of dance to do its translation.

Dance to inspire, dance to freedom, life is about experiences so dance and let yourself become free.

Through synergy of intellect, artistry and grace came into existence the blessing of a dancer.

It takes two to tango, and if you dance too long, implosion is inevitable.

I've done tangos with men who thought my ass was a squeaky toy.

DANCE – Defeat All Negativity (via) Creative Expression.

Ik zit, m'n benen bunglend, op de waterkant En in een bootje hoor ik ginds een tango spelen; Verdomd! Ik wist niet, dat er in dit land Nog zoveel aards geluk viel weg te stelen.

Es la duda la que mantiene joven a la gente. La certeza es como un virus maligno. Te contagia de vejez.

...tango is art, not sex. Yes, it is art made with your body and someone else's. But not sex.

Soar like an eagle beyond skies of heavens reach; as wings of dreams dance with winds of reality.

Dance resides within us all. Some find it when joy conquers sorrow, others express it through celebration of movements; and then there are those... whose existence is dance,

She who is a dancer can only sway the silk of her hair like the summer breeze.

I hope that's working like we wanted it to." "It's a plan of yours, Kitty. I'm sure it's going to go haywire somewhere.

Human beings used to be molecules which could do many, many different sorts of dances, or decline to dance at all --as they pleased. My mother could do the waltz, the tango, the rumba....

In our every cell, furled at the nucleus, there is a ribbon two yards long and just ten atoms wide. Over a hundred million miles of DNA in very human individual, enough to wrap five million times around our world and make the Midgard serpent blush for shame, make even the Ourobouros worm swallow hard in disbelief. This snake-god, nucleotide, twice twisted, scaled in adenine and cytosine, in thymine and in guanine, is a one-man show, will be the actors, props and setting, be the apple and the garden both. The player bides his time, awaits his entrance to a drum-roll of igniting binaries. This is the only dance in town, this anaconda tango, this slow spiral up through time from witless dirt to paramecium, from blind mechanic organism to awareness. There, below the birthing stars, Life sways and improvises. Every poignant gesture drips with slapstick; pathos; an unbearably affecting bravery. To dare this stage, this huge and overwhelming venue. Squinting through the stellar footlights, hoping there's an audience, that there's someone out there, but dancing anyway. But dancing anyway.

In the talcum on the floor around him he could see the imprints of his mother's feet. She had moved from side to side, propelled by an over-eager partner, perhaps one of the Japanese officers to whom she was teaching to tango. Jim tried out the dance steps himself, which seemed far more violent than any tango he had ever seen, and managed to fall and cut his hand on the broken mirror.

The desert doesn't care who you are, and neither does anyone or anything who lives in it.

One step, two steps, three steps; like winds of time experience joy of centuries, when movements become revelations of the dance of destinies.

When the melody plays, footsteps move, heart sings and spirit begin to dance.

India is constipated with a lot of humbug. Take modern Indian music of the films. It is all tango & rhumba or samba played on Hawaiian guitars, violins, accordions & clarinets. It is ugly. It must be scrapped like the rest.

Tak długo byliście antykonformistami, aż wreszcie upadły ostatnie normy, przeciw którym można się było jeszcze buntować. Dla mnie nie zostawiliście już nic, nic! Brak norm stał się waszą normą. A ja mogę się buntować tylko przeciw wam, czyli przeciwko waszemu rozpasaniu.

If you really want a woman to love you, then you have to dance. And if you don't want to dance, then you're going to have to work extra hard to make a woman love you forever, and you will always run the risk that she will leave you at any second for a man who knows how to tango.

If this were a musical, this would signal the start of a dance number. Angry girls sexy danse in unison around the bull pen. Men stride up and grab a partner to a choreographed tango." Nolan held his hand out. "Give me your man card. You have never sounded more like a girl than right now.

التانغو تعبّر بشكل صائب عن الصفة الأساسیة لشخصیة الأرجنتیني: المرارة، النوستالجیا، النزوع إلى التأمل، خیبة الأمل، الأسى

Es de los demás de los que hay que tener miedo, de los que te dejan adivinar hacia qué lado están mirando. Ésos son los que siempre miran en la dirección contraria a la que tú te imaginas.

A history of nightlife!--what an interesting concept. A history of a people, told not through their daily travails and successive political upheavals, but via the changes in their nightly celebrations and unwindings. History is, in this telling, accompanied by a bottle of Malbec, some fine Argentine steak, tango music, dancing, and gossip. It unfolds through and alongside illicit activities that take place in the multitude of discos, dance parlors, and clubs. Its direction, the way people live, is determined on half-lit streets, in bars, and in smoky late-night restaurants. This history is inscribed in songs, on menus, via half-remembered conversations, love affairs, drunken fights, and years of drug abuse.

It takes two to tango” isn’t even true on the dance floor. One person can do a lot of evil all on his or her own. But the Theory of Mutual Blame arose sometime before Doc was even born. Perhaps it was a takeoff on Freud’s seduction theory or the more generic practice of blaming victims for being alive. Its origins were unclear, but no one had ever had to take full responsibility for their own actions since.

...And another item from the growing file of people who voluntarily wear dunce caps... You'll be talking cordially to someone and make an offhand reference, 'I recently read where--' and they'll cut you off and say, 'Oh, I don't read'... This is a tragedy on so many different levels. First, because they don't read, they don't know enough to keep it to themselves. Next, and this is the most amazing part, they use a demeaning tone like I'm the stupid one for wasting time with books.

Burdened no more is soul for whom life flows through dance and not breath.

You are not going to like what I have to say,” Sean said. “Just give it to me fast, I’d rather have you kick me square in the nuts then squeeze and twist on them all afternoon.

Love, after all, beats Death. Every time.

DADI protocol (deflect attention, discourage inquiry).

Dance is that delicacy of life radiating every particle of our existence with happiness.

Reading is the quiet rebellion of the mind.

He vivido casi medio siglo, he pasado por tragos mucho peores, y he aprendido que sólo cuentan dos cosas. Una, y esto es lo más importante —se inclinó hacia delante y tomó mis manos para apretarlas entre las suyas—, que nadie te va a poder quitar en tu vida lo que has bailado ya. Y dos, que a pesar de las apariencias, no pasa nada. Nadie mata a nadie, nadie se suicida, nadie se muere de pena, y nadie llora más de tres días seguidos. A las dos semanas todos vuelven a engordar y a comer con apetito, te lo digo en serio. Si no fuera así, la vida se habría extinguido en este planeta hace varios milenios. Piénsalo y te darás cuenta de que tengo razón.

She was old enough now to read the secret meaning embedded in all real advice: that the giver has fallen short of it himself, and that falling-short still rings in him and shapes his soul.

And what about for the first eight, ten years of his life, when loving parents encouraged his obsession with dragons and secret worlds and animals in vests who poured tea and drove motorcars and who gave him to read Tolkien and Susan Cooper and the Brothers Grimm and Madeleine L’Engle and C. S. Lewis? Is a boy supposed to leave his imagination on the side of the road when he boards the bus to manhood?

His kiss was like no other! His kiss was enchanted and fairy-tale like. He applied pressure, but just enough to feel his tenderness and warmth. I could feel his heart beating wildly as he pressed his chest against my chest all the while his loving lips brushed up against mine with a care-filled affection. His tongue lightly licked the outer edges of my mouth, and then searched for my tongue. The pursuit allowed a marriage of both tongues to meet - inspiring a mingling tango of hot and heavy French kissing to manifest profusely. We kissed like two hot and horny teenagers, our mouths moving and craving each others lips, in animalistic desires!

And isn't that strange, she thought, the way one city can swirl inside another; the way you can be in one country yet carry another country in your skin; the way a place is changed by whoever comes to it, the way silt invades the body of a river.

Sometimes, I recall the little things in life that make the journey more joyful, like the cheerful guy playing the accordion in Paris, on the way to Versailles. Of course everyone has their own perspective, but I believe that music does indeed provide more substance to life, so I dare imagine that one day I could walk through life as in a movie scene, with a soundtrack accompanying and enriching my every emotion, slowly dancing a tango towards one of those "and then they lived happily ever after" endings.

You’re a beautiful mess to me,” he said. “Like wildflowers, growing up in the middle of a tire, along the side of the road. You’re not like prize roses, carefully planted in the right soil and pruned back at the right times. You’re wild, and you’re free. And you smell like heaven. When I look at you, I believe in… I don’t know. I just believe.

Diagnoses —such as ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, an autism spectrum disorder, reactive attachment disorder, the newly coined disruptive mood regulation disorder, or any other disorder—can be helpful in some ways. They “validate” that there’s something different about your kid, for example. But they can also be counterproductive in that they can cause caregivers to focus more on a child’s challenging behaviors rather than on the lagging skills and unsolved problems giving rise to those behaviors. Also, diagnoses suggest that the problem resides within the child and that it’s the child who needs to be fixed. The reality is that it takes two to tango. Let there be no doubt, there’s something different about your child. But you are part of the mix as well. How you understand and respond to the hand you’ve been dealt is essential to helping your child.

He was like some prophet of old, scourging the sins of the people. He leaped about in a frenzy of inspiration till I feared he would do himself an injury. Sometimes he expressed himself in a somewhat odd manner, but every word carried conviction. He showed me New York in its true colours. He showed me the vanity and wickedness of sitting in gilded haunts of vice, eating lobster when decent people should be in bed. 'He said that the tango and the fox-trot were devices of the devil to drag people down into the Bottomless Pit. He said that there was more sin in ten minutes with a negro banjo orchestra than in all the ancient revels of Nineveh and Babylon. And when he stood on one leg and pointed right at where I was sitting and shouted "This means you!" I could have sunk through the floor.

She helps me to the bathroom, helps me wash, then helps me put a gazillion tangles in my hair while she shampoos it. And she actually thinks we’re going to leave it that way. “I’m not going downstairs looking like a hobo,” I tell her. “We have to comb it.” “That thick mess will break this flimsy comb. Can’t you just run your fingers through it?” It’s weird to be arguing about my hair when we still haven’t discussed my wound, how I got it, and how I came to be snoring in Galen’s bed. We both seem to appreciate the bizarreness at the same time. Mom raises a brow. “Don’t think you get special treatment just because you can make a whale do the tango. I’m still your mother.” We both laugh so hard I think I feel a tiny rip in my newly dressed wound. Without warning, Mom throws her arms around me, careful to avoid touching it. “I’m so proud of you, Emma. And I know your father would be, too. Your grandfather can’t stop talking about it. You were amazing.” Ah, the bonding power of tangled hair and dancing whales. She releases me the second before it gets awkward. “Let’s get you dressed. We have a lot to discuss. And I get you’re starving. Rachel made you…uh…Upchuck Eggs.” “She gets an A for effort.

It is always said that we may take no earthly treasures with us when we die. No money or possessions, none of our beauty or power. That is correct. Some who have switched worlds have been intensely bewildered at first that they were unable to carry anything tangible with them. But there's a second truth. We can take anything with us that we could not hoard during our lifetimes because it could only be felt, sometimes for a few brief heartbeats, sometimes only in secret. We can take joy with us, and love. Every beautiful moment from our lives. All the light we have peacefully admired, all the lovely scents and laughter and friendship we have collected. Every kiss, every caress, and every song. The wind on our faces; tango; music; the rustle of autumn grass, stiff with frozen dew; the twinkle of the stars; contentment; courage; and generosity. All those things we many take with us. All that is in between.

There is a storytelling element in there. The tango form is a little like the blues in that you have a kind of structure. It’s not as rigid as twelve bar, but it's very much a storytelling medium -- and there’s an element of call-and-response, and a particular arc in the musical form, that suggest a story. It's about being in the moment, with the music; and responding to your partner, and the particular feeling and momentum in her body in any one moment. It’s a very concentrated thing; you can’t think about anything else while you are doing it. If you try to hold a conversation, it just kind of falls apart. The music was what really drew me into tango. Everyone knows a few of the more popular tango classics, but once you get into it, there’s such a rich field. It’s astonishing, this kind of miraculous musical form that developed in a very small locality: two cities on either side of the River Plate, in Argentina and Urugauy. It started in the 1880s or '90s, and there are all kinds of mysteries, myths and stories, about how tango started and developed. It was first of all considered really low-life, almost reptilian. Something to be avoided and not talked about. And then it became this word wide phenomena. . .and I could go on talking about tango forever. . . . but its also to do with movement. I try to get that into my pictures: a sense of movement, something flowing through. A while ago, I realised how much I'd been drawing dancing figures in the corners of my sketchbooks for years before I discovered tango!

Forget about that and kiss me," I say. I weave my hands in her hair. She wraps her arms around my neck as I trace the valley between her lips with my tongue. Parting her lips, I deepen the kiss. It's like a tango, first moving slow and rhythmic and then, when we're both panting and our tongues collide, the kiss turns into a hot, fast dance I never want to end. Carmen's kisses may have been hot, but Brittany's are more sensual, sexy, and extremely addictive. We're still in the car, but it's cramped and the front seats don't give us enough room. Before I know it, we've moved to the backseat. Still not ideal, but I hardly notice. I'm so getting into her moans and kisses and hands in my hair. And the smell of vanilla cookies. I'm not going to push her too far tonight. But without thinking, my hand slowly moves up her bare thigh. "It feels so good," she says breathlessly. I lean her back while my hands explore on their own. My lips caress the hollow of her neck as I ease down the strap to her dress and bra. In response, she unbuttons my shirt. When it's open, her fingers roam over my chest and shoulders, searing my skin. "You're . . . perfect," she pants. Right now I'm not gonna argue with her. Moving lower, my tongue follows a path down to her silky skin exposed to the night air. She grabs the back of my hair, urging me on. She tastes so damn good. Too good. !Caramelo! I pull away a few inches and capture her gaze with mine, those shining sapphires glowing with desire. Talk about perfect. "I want you, chula," I say, my voice hoarse.

The glow lasted through the night, beyond the bar's closing, when there were no cabs on the street. And so Mathilde and Lotto decided to walk home, her arm in his, chatting about nothing, about everything, the unpleasant, hot breath of the subway belching up from the grates. 'Chthonic', he said, booze letting loose the pretension at his core, which she still found sweet, an allowance from the glory. It was so late, there were few other people out, and it felt, just for this moment, that they had the city to themselves. She thought of all the life just underfoot, the teem of it that they were passing over, unknowing. She said, 'Did you know that the total weight of all the ants on Earth is the same as the total weight of all the humans on Earth.' She, who drank to excess, was a little bit drunk, it was true, there was so much relief in the evening. When the curtains closed against the backdrop, an enormous bolder blocking their future had rolled away. 'They'll still be here when we're gone,' he said. He was drinking from a flask. By the time they were home, he'd be sozzeled. 'The ants and the jellyfish and the cockroaches, they will be the kings of the Earth.'... 'They deserve this place more than we do,' she said. 'We've been reckless with our gifts.' He smiled and looked up. There were no stars, there was too much smog for them. 'Did you know,' he said, 'they just found out just a while ago that there are billions of worlds that can support life in our galaxy alone.' ...She felt a sting behind here eyes, but couldn't say why this thought touched her. He saw clear through and understood. He knew her. The things he didn't know about her would sink an ocean liner. He knew her. 'We're lonely down here,' he said, 'it's true, but we're not alone.' In the hazy space after he died, when she lived in a sort of timeless underground grief, she saw on the internet a video about what would happen to our galaxy in billions of years. We are in an immensely slow tango with the Andromeda galaxy, both galaxies shaped like spirals with outstretched arms, and we are moving toward each other like spinning bodies. The galaxies will gain speed as they draw near, casting off blue sparks, new stars until they spin past each other, and then the long arms of both galaxies will reach longingly out and grasp hands at the last moment and they will come spinning back in the opposite direction, their legs entwined, never hitting, until the second swirl becomes a clutch, a dip, a kiss, and then at the very center of things, when they are at their closest, there will open a supermassive black hole.

I was extremely shy of approaching my hero but he, as I found out, was sorely in need of company. By then almost completely blind, he was claustrated and even a little confused and this may help explain the rather shocking attitude that he took to the blunt trauma that was being inflicted in the streets and squares around him. 'This was my country and it might be yet,' he intoned to me when the topic first came up, as it had to: 'But something came between it and the sun.' This couplet he claimed (I have never been able to locate it) was from Edmund Blunden, whose gnarled hand I had been so excited to shake all those years ago, but it was not the Videla junta that Borges meant by the allusion. It was the pre-existing rule of Juan Perón, which he felt had depraved and corrupted Argentine society. I didn't disagree with this at all—and Perón had victimized Borges's mother and sister as well as having Borges himself fired from his job at the National Library—but it was nonetheless sad to hear the old man saying that he heartily preferred the new uniformed regime, as being one of 'gentlemen' as opposed to 'pimps.' This was a touch like listening to Evelyn Waugh at his most liverish and bufferish. (It was also partly redeemed by a piece of learned philology or etymology concerning the Buenos Aires dockside slang for pimp: canfinflero. 'A canfinfla, you see,' said Borges with perfect composure, 'is a pussy or more exactly a cunt. So a canfinflero is a trafficker in cunt: in Anglo-Saxon we might say a 'cunter."' Had not the very tango itself been evolved in a brothel in 1880? Borges could talk indefinitely about this sort of thing, perhaps in revenge for having had an oversolicitous mother who tyrannized him all his life.)

Scared?” Terrified. “Of you? Nah. If you grow claws, I might get my sword, but I’ve fought you in your human shape.” It took all my will to shrug. “You aren’t that impressive.” He cleared the distance between us in a single leap. I barely had time to jump to my feet. Steel fingers grasped my left wrist. His left arm clasped my waist. I fought, but he outmuscled me with ridiculous ease, pulling me close as if to tango. “Curran! Let . . . “ I recognized the angle of his hip but I could do nothing about it. He pulled me forward and flipped me in a classic hip-toss throw. Textbook perfect. I flew through the air, guided by his hands, and landed on my back. The air burst from my lungs in a startled gasp. Ow. “Impressed yet?” he asked with a big smile. Playing. He was playing. Not a real fight. He could’ve slammed me down hard enough to break my neck. Instead he had held me to the end, to make sure I landed right. He leaned forward a little. “Big bad merc, down with a basic hip toss. In your place I’d be blushing.” I gasped, trying to draw air into my lungs. “I could kill you right now. It wouldn’t take much. I think I’m actually embarrassed on your behalf. At least do some magic or something.” As you wish. I gasped and spat my new power word. “Osanda.” Kneel, Your Majesty. He grunted like a man trying to lift a crushing weight that fell on his shoulders. His face shook with strain. Ha-ha. He wasn’t the only one who got a boost from a flare. I got up to my feet with some leisure. Curran stood locked, the muscles of his legs bulging his sweatpants. He didn’t kneel. He wouldn’t kneel. I hit him with a power word in the middle of a bloody flare and it didn’t work. When he snapped out of it, he would probably kill me. All sorts of alarms blared in my head. My good sense screamed, Get out of the room, stupid! Instead I stepped close to him and whispered in his ear, “Still not impressed.” His eyebrows came together, as a grimace claimed his face. He strained, the muscles on his hard frame trembling with effort. With a guttural sigh, he straightened. I beat a hasty retreat to the rear of the room, passing Slayer on the way. I wanted to swipe it so bad, my palm itched. But the rules of the game were clear: no claws, no saber. The second I picked up the sword, I’d have signed my own death warrant. He squared his shoulders. “Shall we continue?” “It would be my pleasure.” He started toward me. I waited, light on my feet, ready to leap aside. He was stronger than a pair of oxen, and he’d try to grapple. If he got ahold of me, it would be over. If all else failed, I could always try the window. A forty-foot drop was a small price to pay to get away from him. Curran grabbed at me. I twisted past him and kicked his knee from the side. It was a good solid kick; I’d turned into it. It would’ve broken the leg of any normal human. “Cute,” Curran said, grabbed my arm, and casually threw me across the room. I went airborne for a second, fell, rolled, and came to my feet to be greeted by Curran’s smug face. “You’re fun to play with. You make a good mouse.” Mouse? “I was always kind of partial to toy mice.” He smiled. “Sometimes they’re filled with catnip. It’s a nice bonus.” “I’m not filled with catnip.” “Let’s find out.” He squared his shoulders and headed in my direction. Houston, we have a problem. Judging by the look in his eyes, a kick to the face simply wouldn’t faze him. “I can stop you with one word,” I said. He swiped me into a bear hug and I got an intimate insight into how a nut feels just before the nutcracker crushes it to pieces. “Do,” he said. “Wedding.” All humor fled his eyes. He let go and just like that, the game was over.