Jesse moved with me. His body was leaner, tight. The leotard and tights no longer sagged at the folds of muscles he’d developed. I touched his head. He touched mine. I bent in plié and he lifted me high on relevé. My knees turned out in harsh precision. I was in the air briefly, his arms tight at my waist, his feet firm on the polished floor. The song continued. My whole body was an ear opening up to sound and movement, sweat and space. Simone, Cuney, Jesse, and me. I bent and opened. Jesse bent and opened. We were dancers simply dancing. I wasn’t talking now in borrowed words, but in my own language of arms and hands, of delicate and expressive fingers, of head and waist and twisting torso. I told another story. Jesse answered with his movement connecting to mine as mine connected to his, and we circled through the words of song and light, airy motion. He told me in those arms and contractions of stomach, lifting chest and tight pirouettes, bullet jetés, that he could be a tree or a flower and still be strong, that his brown body had glory in movement, in music, even in the pain from somewhere deep that boys named after their mothers are different. I said I understood. His arabesque and grand plié told me that some boys take glory in their difference, have grace too, and the promise of wings. I extended forty-five degrees, then ninety. Which said, women too could be different and could fly. He angled closer. He called me Rooms for short. Rooms for all the spaces we created where he could dance to several tunes at once, then rest.

Later, I would let him touch me here and here, holding each breast and pushing tenderly between my thighs, on point. Point of finger, tongue. His wide hands would be copper autumn leaves falling around me and onto me, covering me as if I were the earth. I gathered them in from the cold. Jesse danced in my room. He called me Rooms. Phillip called me Lil’ Sis and Lady, which I liked even more. Everybody called me something other than my real name. What was I going to call myself? How would I move in my own dance? “If she could dance. Naked under palm trees. She would know…” The song continued and I continued bending and opening and bending and opening. One-two-three-four. Two-two-three-four. Step five, bend six, leap seven, down eight. Hold, two-three-four. Hold.