I feel at once unwieldy and yet at the same time so flimsy. I don’t have anything to hang my self-worth on anymore. I’m a ghost of myself.

“I think you’re beautiful,” he says, but now I think I hear pity in his voice, and it makes me squirm. I take his arms off my neck.

“I’m fine. Anyway, tell me about Horatio.”

“His father was a dock worker, like a lot of the people around here. But Horatio always had an artistic soul. He loves to sing; he’ll do a set for us later. When the neighborhood became a tourist attraction during the day, he started his café, and he hired some of the best dancers around to lure people away from the Caminito. The man has vision, I’ll tell you.” G pivots to face me and leans in closer. I take what I hope is an inconspicuous deep breath to take in the smell of him. “During the day, he covers his little patch of sidewalk with a specially made temporary dance floor, much nicer than most of the ones on the main street. And so many great dancers love him: they’ll come perform. So,” he says, leaning in a fraction closer, “the wide-eyed tourists will be wandering down the Caminito, with all of these hucksters in their faces saying ‘Sir! Madame! Come, come, best lunch special on the Caminito, best tango in Buenos Aires!’ And these cheesy dancers doing bullfighter impressions, and then, they glance down an alley and what do they see but Horatio’s little oasis? The canny son of a bitch. Of course, then it got listed as ‘the best kept secret’ on the Caminito in a half-dozen guidebooks, so now there’s usually a long wait during the day. But his milongas are the soul of the place.”

The next set begins and while Cali is scooped up by a younger dancer, G leads me to the floor and pulls me into a close embrace. The breaks between songs barely exist and when the set ends, G pulls back from me and looks into my eyes. I’m shocked by his expression because he looks as drugged as I feel. He puts both hands on my face and pulls my ear to his lips.

“Oh Tiger, Tiger. You’re my special little project, you know? The way we dance, it makes me so badly want to fuck you, but I want to keep you too.”