Raunchy Cowboy

Sweet Sarah showed up not long after I did. We stood by the door and waited for RC (Raunchy Cowboy) to get there –our dance instructor. I’m calling him Raunchy Cowboy (RC) because that’s the name of his favorite line dance where he gets to move his hips around as much as is humanly possible. Sweet Sarah once told me, while blushing, “I thought RC stood for Rosy Cheeks, not Raunchy Cowboy”. She is the mother of the really bad dancer who, by the way, hasn’t come since then. Darn!

Each week, she comes up to me with The Look – it’s a look I’m no stranger to – it’s the look that says, “I want you to be my daughter-in-law”. The Look makes you feel extremely flattered, yet slightly uncomfortable, while occasionally wanting to scream “Leeet goooo; it's not gonna happen”. She always mentions her son and fishes for something, anything from me that she can go tell him to encourage him to come back, because "he thinks you don't want him to come back". I try hard to not make any comment that if relayed to him would ever prompt him to return.

This week, Sweet Sarah said she had something she just had to tell me. It was about RC. She said she was worried sick about me and couldn’t sleep this week. She said RC was living with another girl in the group, but liked to get around. “I’ve never met anyone like him in all my 61 years.” She’d seen four marriages fall apart throughout the course of a couple years and every one of the women had had a fling with RC. Some of them stopped coming; some still came, seemingly unbothered that RC went on to the next woman.

“How could they keep coming? Wouldn’t they feel awkward?” I asked.

“It’s the power of the dance,” she whispered. “I just wanted you to know. I want you to be careful.”

I could tell there was something about RC. . the way he spoke, the way he moved, and the way he’d walk by and put his hands on my hips to move me aside and “excuse himself” . . ew. I knew he was a womanizer. I love dancing with him, because he’s so good at it . . and a great teacher. . but that’s it!

I laughed. “You don’t have to worry about me, Sarah. For one thing, he’s OLD (as in probably early 40s). And he’s not attractive. And he’s not refined! I don’t know how he gets so many women.”

She leaned a little closer to me and whispered again,

“It’s his mojo”.