When my partner didn’t show up for our 8 p.m. Thursday Latin Ballroom dance class, I thought of putting my street shoes back on and leaving the studio.

I didn’t want to be the sad girl dancing all by herself, arm around an imaginary man as I pranced through my steps. I had already retreated to the row of chairs to grab my phone from my purse when one of the instructors stopped me.

“Don’t leave just because Jarred didn’t show,” Deirdre said.

“I don’t — ” I stammered, unsure of how to continue. I’d seen dancers taking the class solo, and I didn’t want to be one of them, but I also didn’t want to sound rude. Jarred and I were not romantic partners, merely dance partners. We’d been friends for years, and I knew if he hadn’t shown up he had a good reason. While Deirdre stood at my side, I checked my messages, and there was one from him apologizing for the late notice and promising to meet me the next week.

“He can’t make it,” I said to the redhead.

“Really, Cici,” she insisted. “You don’t have to leave.” I heard a hidden message in her statement, and I found myself gazing at her in wonder. Deirdre was, in my opinion, the most beautiful instructor at the studio. She had the perfect posture of a longtime dancer, with an elegance and grace that I craved. But she also possessed an undeniable sexual intensity. With her fiery hair tucked into a bun, and her dramatic blue-green eyes outlined in turquoise kohl, she was like a rare specimen of some exotic creature.

The class was starting, and I looked at her in surprise when she put one hand out in an obvious offer.

“You want to partner with me?” I asked to be sure I wasn’t making a fool out of myself. I knew the instructors at the school were well trained enough that they could dance either role — women could lead, men could follow. But still, I was caught off guard.

“Practice is important for every skill level,” she said matter-of-factly as she led me onto the polished wooden floor. I understood the sentiment, but I’m a novice’s novice. Jarred and I had only been taking classes for a few months. Why would Deirdre want to dance with me? She must have had many other more talented dancers she could practice with.

The music started, the class’s instructor began to explain the lesson, and I forgot to be worried. I simply danced, letting Deirdre dip me and twirl me and show me the way. My polka-dot dress flared out with every turn, and when I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror, I almost didn’t recognize myself. Because Jarred and I are both beginners, I wasn’t accustomed to dancing with someone so exquisite on her feet. I actually felt as if I were rising to the challenge, dancing better than I had in all of my previous classes.

But there was more to my pleasure than fancy footwork.

As we danced, I started to feel an attraction build within me. I wasn’t simply enjoying the class, I was reveling in Deirdre’s touch, in the way she steered me around the floor, in the way her hand felt at the small of my back. I’d never experienced this sort of synchronicity with Jarred. We had no romantic spark. But I’d also never been with a woman before. What was going on?

By the end of the hour, I was breathless. In the mirror, I saw that my cheeks were flushed a bright pink and wisps of my black hair had come loose from the inexpert updo I’d attempted for class. Deirdre looked at me, and I saw a glow to her eyes that made me pause. “You were good,” she said as we walked over to the chairs. I sat down and slid off the pretty blue heels I wear for class, switching to my street flats and ducking my head as I blushed at her compliment. She sat at my side, set her hand on my knee and looked meaningfully at me. I felt a connection once more, one that made me think I hadn’t been imagining our bond on the dance floor.

“Do you want to get a — ” we both started the same sentence the same way at the same time. Then we both stopped. We started again, simultaneously, and I put a hand up. She had led us on the floor. I took the initiative to speak. “You dance brilliantly,” I said. “But now we’re stepping on each other’s toes.”

She laughed and motioned for me to continue. In a quiet voice, I said, “Do you want to get a drink with me?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” she said, “but I was going to suggest my place.”

I grabbed my bag and followed her to the garage, and we agreed that I’d drive after her to her apartment. All the way over, I replayed our dance moves in my mind. She’d dipped me so low, and I realized her strength. I wanted her to dip me again, to spread me out, to kiss every part of my body. My heart started beating faster once more, so that by the time I pulled into a parking space in front of her place, I was in a heightened state of sexual anticipation. I could feel how wet my pussy was in my bikini panties.

I guess Deirdre had been thinking similar thoughts because as soon as I closed my car door, she was pressing against me, kissing me and touching me through my clothes. She began to slide the hem of my dress up to my waist, right there against my car, where anyone driving past could see us. Honestly, I didn’t care. If she’d wanted to take down my red knickers and start finger-fucking me against the hood of my car, I would have let her. If she’d flipped me around and begun grinding her crotch against my ass, I would have whimpered with pleasure. Luckily for me, she had a clearer head, because after a few moments of kissing and petting, she said, “Let’s take this party inside,” and herded me to her building.

We stopped outside the door to kiss against the row of metal post boxes. We stopped at the elevator button to make out some more. I felt as if a switch had been turned on inside me. No, I’d never been with a girl before, but I suddenly couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t. This was too sexy for words. In fact, we hardly spoke at all as we slowly made our way to her place.

Our elevator ride gave us a few more seconds of rapturous kissing that seemed to last a gloriously long while. This time, however, as we locked lips, she unfastened the bodice of my dress — one button at a time — and revealed my small breasts in their scarlet lace bra.

“Christ, you’re beautiful,” she said as she pulled the cups down to expose my nipples, and I leaned back against the wall of the elevator as she took turns sucking first one and then the other into the warm, wet heaven of her mouth. I felt a delicious jolt all the way to my clit. Deirdre seemed to sense my inner wiring, because she pressed her palm in the perfect spot against the front of my dress and let me rut against her hand as she frantically suckled my breasts.

Before I even knew what was happening, I came. My climax was accompanied by the sound of bells ringing. That had never happened before! Then I realized that the ding of the bells had announced our arrival at the fifth floor. Deirdre slid a hand out to hold the doors open for me. I was in a daze. That climax had momentarily robbed me of my sense of speech and thought. I didn’t even bother doing up my dress. I walked with her down the hall, my bra back in place but clearly visible. We didn’t run into any of her neighbors, which was a good thing because I looked positively indecent.

There was fumbling for her key at the door, and then finally we were in, and stripping like wild things. I tried to help her with her outfit. She pulled fruitlessly on my dress. Ultimately, we got our heads together and took off our own clothes. That made more sense. I reached out to pull the clip that held her bun in place. Her hair cascaded past her shoulders in shimmering waves of copper and foil. She did the same to me, so that my ebony curls dripped down to the middle of my back. I surreptitiously glanced between her thighs to see if her red hair was natural — but she was shaved down there, her secret safe. Seeing her bare only made me hotter for her. I wanted to know what it would be like to press my tongue to her nether lips. She seemed to sense my urgency.

Now that we were naked, we fell against each other on her plush, black carpet. I didn’t have much time to take in the atmosphere of the place. But I felt the luxury of the soft shag beneath me as she positioned me on my back in a sixty-nine.

I loved that Deirdre led even off the dance floor. She took total charge, diving into my muff, letting her long hair tickle my thighs as she dined on me. I followed her as I had on the floor. This was my first taste of a pussy, and I didn’t hold back in my excitement and enthusiasm. I used my fingers to part her shaved, slippery lips and I began to lick her clit in fast strokes, mimicking exactly what she was doing to my pussy. And, oh, the things she was doing to my pussy. Deirdre really knew her way around a clit. She sucked hard and then retreated, making little designs with the point of her tongue without ever touching my center. Then bam! She resumed the sucking motion that had me rocking on the floor and murmuring her name. “Oh, Deirdre. Oh, God. Oh, yes.”

When I spoke, she moaned, loudly and I realized that she liked the vibrations of my voice and my breath against her sex. So I continued to engage in a dialogue with her sweet cunt. “That feels so good,” I whispered, and she responded by talking back to me: “You’re so sweet,” she said. So that’s what it felt like. Her words, muffled against my skin, brought me to my second earth-shattering climax of the evening. I came hard, pressing my pussy to her lips and shaking all over with pure bliss.

Before I could even catch my breath, Deirdre was in motion, rolling us so that I was now on top and she was beneath me. It was her turn to come, and my turn to make her. I took my job seriously. I was a quick study — all the teachers at the dance studio had said so. And how hard could it be to make a girl reach her peak? I’d been in charge of my own satisfaction plenty of times. I leaned down and resumed my oral ministrations on Deirdre’s sublime snatch. I tongued her clit, thrust a finger up her hole, and then kissed and nipped at her inner thighs. She was squirming below me, giggling when I inadvertently tickled her, and then groaning when I found a rhythm that she liked. I corkscrewed one finger over another and plunged in and out of her pussy while I worked her clit in a thorough manner. It was as if I could feel the very second when she reached her limits. I saw the vision in my mind, as if Deirdre was posed on the edge of a diving board, about to cut cleanly through the water. Then she came. Oh, yes, she came. Deirdre came like she danced. With finesse and agility, her hips beating a pattern onto the soft plush carpet below.

I didn’t let up through her entire climax. I slurped up every drop of her honeyed juices, and I held her hips firmly and kept my tongue busy until she pushed me away from her body, obviously unable to handle any more stimulation. I was proud of myself, and I slid off her and lay at her side, waiting to see what would happen next. She spread her arms over her head and her legs wide, as if making snow angels on the carpet. Her sighs filled the room. We both relaxed for several moments, basking in the echoes of our pleasure.

But then my mind started to run away with itself. Should I dress and leave? Would the connection between us fade? I needn’t have worried. As soon as her breathing had returned to normal, Deirdre said, “Stay like that.”

I stayed.

She stood and headed down the hallway, and when she returned I saw that she was holding a floral-covered box. She set the box on the glass-and-chrome coffee table and began to bring out different toys. My heart started speeding up all over again. There were dildos and butt plugs, a blindfold, a pair of cuffs. Deirdre seemed to be looking for something in particular. “Oh, here it is,” she said happily, showing off a dildo and a harness set.

My mouth wasn’t the only thing to water.

I watched hungrily as she slid the sleek leather harness into place and buckled the straps. Then she attached an electric blue dildo and ran her hand up and down the length of it, as if manhandling a flesh-and-blood cock.

I leaned forward automatically without her offering a word of instruction. I parted my lips and took the head of the toy into my mouth, sucking on the bulbous head. Deirdre stroked my hair off my face and crooned words of encouragement to me. I bobbed my head up and down on her cock, starting to blow her the way I would a man. Sucking on a dildo had never even occurred to me before. But all I could think about was how the toy would feel when she bent me over and slid it in me. I wanted to get the thing nice and wet.

I guess that’s what Deirdre was thinking, too, because as soon as I had that image, she pulled back and said, “Bend over the sofa.”

I hurried to obey.

She held on to my hips from behind and pressed the head of the toy cock to my pussy lips. “Are you ready?” she asked.

“Yes,” I told her. “Yes, please.”

“What are you ready for?”

Oh, my God. She was teasing me. I looked at her over my shoulder, and I saw humor in her eyes. “I’m ready to get fucked,” I said as forcefully as I could. At my words, she thrust, and the cock slid all the way inside me in one long push.

My moan reverberated throughout the room. I felt lifted up by the toy, transported, somehow. I hadn’t known that girls could fuck like this. Isn’t that silly? When I’d imagined women together, I’d only thought of hands and tongues. Somehow, even though I own my share of sex toys, I hadn’t really considered what it would mean to be taken in this manner.

Deirdre knew exactly what she was doing. As she slid her dick in and out of my pussy, she spoke to me, encouraging me with her words and her actions to come for her. To come again. The way she was fucking me pressed my clit firmly against the edge of her loveseat. The friction was divine, and in seconds I was doing exactly what she said: climaxing in an explosion of shimmering white lights behind my shut lids, losing myself in the thrilling sensations that ricocheted through my whole body.

“Oh, baby,” she sighed, obviously feeling the shivers as they wracked me from head to toe. “You are so beautiful when you come.” I saw that she was gazing into the mirror across from us, so that she could see the expression on my face change as the sweet sensations blossomed within me. I wondered what would happen next. Did she want to keep fucking me to her own climax? Could she come with the toy attached to her like that?

To my utter delight she unbuckled the harness and handed the contraption to me. I had never used something like this before. This was definitely a night of firsts all the way through. I fastened on the device and then looked at Deirdre, waiting once more for her to lead. She did so in an excruciatingly sexy way. She dropped to her knees and deep-throated the toy, sucking off every last bit of my own sweet juices. Then she positioned me so that I was seated on the couch, and, facing me, she straddled the toy dick.

With a hand on each of my shoulders, Deirdre began to power herself up and down the sex toy. Her delightful breasts were right in front of my mouth, and I latched onto one and sucked hard while she rode me. Up and down she went, flexing her wondrous thigh muscles to power her journey. I moved back and forth between her erect nipples, biting them gently, and then sucking to soothe the sting. I watched her face, waiting for the moment when the orgasm would break within her. She surprised me by sliding off the cock and turning around so that she was facing the coffee table. She offered herself to me in this fashion, ass toward me, and now it was my turn to take the reins.

I grabbed the swell of her hips and positioned my dickhead at her slippery opening. Without warning, I thrust deep, and she sighed. Oh, how well we danced together. I knew instinctively how to fuck her pussy. She’d ridden me cowgirl style as some delicious foreplay, but she was ready by this point to be taken firmly, taken rough.

While I slid the cock inside her, I toggled her clit. The noises Deirdre made were catlike — hisses between clenched teeth. I could feel her body growing hotter, and I sensed the moment of climax. While I stroked her clit, she shook on my dick, calling out my name as the flames of ecstasy lit her up. With her fiery hair loose and floating in soft curls all around her, she appeared like a firecracker come to life.

In a flash, she was off me, unbuckling the harness and tossing the toy aside. She curled me in her lap on the sofa and said, “Next time, I want to fuck you up the ass.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, wet at the thought.

“And we’ll play with the plugs and the vibrator,” she continued.

I nodded, truly excited by the thought. We were going to have so much fun. There were so many ways we could enjoy each other, so many methods to give each other pleasure. That first step onto the dance floor had sparked a connection much stronger than a cha-cha or a fox trot.

After we’d spent a few more minutes kissing one another, she eased me off her lap and walked to the cabinet along the wall. I loved the way she moved. Didn’t matter that she was nude. Her body had rhythm all the time. She turned her stereo on and music filled the space. She motioned for me to join her, and I hurried to her side. Deirdre took me in her arms and we danced naked in the living room, pressing against one another in a sweat-slicked embrace. “I’m so glad Jarred couldn’t make it tonight,” I said in between kisses. “And I’m even more glad you partnered with me.”

She smiled and dipped me low before whispering, “You know what they say, Cici — it takes two to tango.”