1. The Dance


    Date: 8/23/2017, Categories: Interracial, Author: BethanyFrasier, Rating: 15, Source: LushStories

    Jon Garden had disappeared. No one knew his whereabouts. His family had gone into hiding, having fallen out of favor with the political elite of a corrupt African government. They were being hunted by the authorities. The belated news came from half a world away, through an old email message in an account I had all but abandoned. The message was sent nearly three years before by his cousin to everyone on Jon's contact list, and had sat unopened in my inbox all that time. Had I not decided to check through dozens of pages of messages before I deleted the account, I would never have received the news. He disappeared nearly four years ago, with no word since, but the tears I shed for his unknown plight were still drying on my cheeks, as I remembered our time together. We were close friends for many months while we were both students at the university, years ago... Shortly after the fall quarter had started in my second year at Ohio State, I received a message from the chair of the history department, asking me to come to his office. This wasn't too unusual, as I was one of the departmental majors who tutored underclassmen in world history, and helped the instructors as a teaching assistant. The meeting wasn't what I expected, however, and I soon came to understand that it was in the nature of being a request for a favor. One of the foreign students here at the university was the son of a high-ranking military officer in the Mugabe government of Zimbabwe. His father had sent ...
    him to the United States for an education in history and political science through a special arrangement with the State Department, but while he was supposed to be here in Columbus studying politics and history, young Mr. Malembwe had apparently been utilizing his time in America to study interpretive dance in the fine arts department instead. I had seen him around before, in Sullivant Hall, where the Department of Dance was located, as I had a class there in American Indian studies, and worked in a building nearby on the East Oval as a life-model for a couple of drawing classes in the Art Department. He impressed most everyone as a very affable fellow who spoke English fluently, but with a pronounced east African accent. He was dedicated to dance studies, and not even remotely interested in the disciplines his father had sent him overseas to learn. Consequently, he had fallen behind in his history courses, and I was asked to tutor him to catch him up. Unfortunately, his stipend didn't provide funds for a private tutor, so I suggested an alternative, in lieu of my usual fee, wherein we could work out a trade. Jon could teach me African dance, in exchange for me tutoring him in history. The arrangement seemed to work out logistically too, as we were in the same building together at the same time, three days a week. I could audit the dance class, while he had daily history classes in Dulles Hall, where we could work in one of the offices in the history department. The first time ...
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