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| "If you finish your blog, you can come to the practica." |
Margarita and Elena let me have the keys to my cell today, and they are now allowing me to tell my friends and family where I now live.
Santa Fe, New Mexico. I like it here. I dance a lot. The community is caring. I really did not mind being enslaved by two tango-hungry women in their basement for over a year.
Well, let me explain.
It all started back at the Denver Tango Festival in May 2011, more than a year ago. I was dancing with Margarita. She was sure she knew me. Then it dawned on her that she had been reading my blog. She was introduced to my blog through her friend, Elena, who had danced with me in Austin, Texas. Elena shared my blog with Margarita back in November 2010.
So Margarita had been reading my blog for a while, and knew way too much about me: My tango philosophy, my military service, my passion for music, and how I was using tango as therapy. Suddenly she found herself dancing with the guy who was writing the blog -- the Tango Therapist.
So Margarita had been reading my blog for a while, and knew way too much about me: My tango philosophy, my military service, my passion for music, and how I was using tango as therapy. Suddenly she found herself dancing with the guy who was writing the blog -- the Tango Therapist.
We hit it off, and danced several tandas over the course of the Denver Festival. We sent each other a few messages on Facebook, but then I never heard from her again.
A month after I returned from Denver, unexpectedly Elena and Margarita announced through an email that they were coming to DC, and I agreed to introduce them around at local milongas. What I didn't know was that they had decided to enslave me. Tango slave. Human trafficking.
Elena drugged me with Ambien and I slept in her back seat all the way to Santa Fe. They put me a basement cell. But to tell you the truth, being a free slave (slave to tango) and a captured slave was very much the same. Really, it was an easy transition.
Okay, this enslavement thing quickly developed into the Stockholm Syndrome. I started siding with these criminal dominatrices. It was brainwashing I am sure. But at the time the washing felt cathartic, you know. Sure, I considered escaping the prison they had made for me in the basement, but then I was unsure what freedom would bring me. It wasn't so bad. They let me out sometimes. They were kind to me at times.
So it didn't look too suspicious, they allowed me to dance with other women. It was just like living in DC. I was dancing a lot. I only came out from my apartment to go out to dance. Really, nothing new at all to my regular routine. They even would take me to tango festivals and one trip to Buenos Aires to be their tango-slave-taxi there. Life was good. You would have never caught me humming Negro spirituals, or mumbling about freedom.
So it didn't look too suspicious, they allowed me to dance with other women. It was just like living in DC. I was dancing a lot. I only came out from my apartment to go out to dance. Really, nothing new at all to my regular routine. They even would take me to tango festivals and one trip to Buenos Aires to be their tango-slave-taxi there. Life was good. You would have never caught me humming Negro spirituals, or mumbling about freedom.
But what about all the rest of the time? There's more to life than tango, right? Well, they gave me a TV . . . but I never turned it on. They allowed me to continue writing my tango blog from the basement cell. They edited everything I wrote before sending it out on the Internet. This was great. Yes, they were checking to see if I was giving out my whereabouts to family and friends, but the positive side was that I now had two editors. They caught typos and awkward sentences. All in all, I was gaining more than I was losing, although I did miss my children. Elena and Margarita let me talk on the phone with my kids. On Skype, Ben and Toby even said they liked the way I had fixed up my cell.
This is my first unedited blog since being enslaved. So now you know my story, and why I disappeared from DC. I will tell you later about how I was finally freed. The short story: My blog readers started a "Find Tango Therapist Committee" on Facebook. Some wonderful tangueras from Germany, Santa Monica, DC, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio came all the way to Santa Fe to free me. They all showed up at the same time, and Margarita and Elena invited them in for tea. We all went to a milonga that night. One of the committee freedom fighters is offering me my own second floor room, better food, two trips to Buenos Aires a year and the same freedom to dance with other tangueras at milongas. She says she adores me, but I am not sure. You see, most men just have one loving dominatrix and I don't know if I can go back to just one now. Two make it easier because they sometimes get into a fight, and take out their frustrations out on each other rather than me. It works quite nicely. I am starting to understand the Mormons.
By the next blog, I hope to make a decision about my future enslavement. Your comments are welcome. Should I go with the adoring slave-owner, or the two rather frisky tanguera slave-owners? I'd appreciate your opinions, dear Readers.
Sincerely,
Esclavo Tanguero
a.k.a Tango Therapist
PS: I am going to try REALLY hard not to write anything more bizarre than this story in my blog. I promise. And for a few who didn't look carefully at the dates: No, this did not happen. Yet.
Photo Credits:
3 comments:
Two is better than one Mark.. That's my call.. After all tanguera's do get sore feet what with dancing in high heels all the time.. So a spare is good value ;-)
A great story.. I've been a laughing all the way thru'
Bill
Bill: I am glad you read it as humor and for what it is. I have had a few private conversations and Freud has come up. You know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. A joke is just a joke.
I knew the inventor of the Lear jet, and after the first time he flew the jet, they asked him what it was like. He said, "I had already flown it a thousand times." An active imagination is fun and doesn't have to be lived out. So after a year of enslavement, I am free, back in DC with a great job and many friends, my children coming to see me in a few weeks. Life is best in the real world (as long as I can have an active imagination too). Now, off to find a hack saw to get the handcuffs off. :-)
Post script: "A Modest Proposal" was an ironic essay by Jonathan Swift, written about how babies should be sold to be eaten and make nice purses. (It is worth reading: http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html). This ironic essay's purpose was to say that people would take better care of their babies if they could sell them to be eaten. Men would not beat their wives if it would harm the baby-as-food! People were outraged and missed the point. My essay here was a fiction, of course, and neither as clever nor ironic as "A Modest Proposal.” However, in spite of starting the essay with the words, “September 2012” (which by my calendar has not happened yet), I had a grown woman asking if it were a fiction! Also, thanks to Sigmund Freud, I have friends sure that it is my inner need to be enslaved. Let me assure you: (1) I would not do well as anyone's slave. (2) I do not see any benefit in having two women complicating my life. (3) I already have one woman blocking me from seeing/contacting my precious sons; I DO NOT need three women doing this. (3) I really have NO delusions that two women would want to share ME or that a committee of women would come rescue me. (4) Lastly the most delusional part of the whole story, that they would all go happily together to a milonga and happily share this old tanguero bone is clearly bizarre fiction. My essay is a lampoon. Only you can figure out if the shoe fits me, someone you know or even your own foot – or perhaps every pair of well-worn tango shoes contains a bit of this ironic wisdom hidden within the essay.
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