The room is dim and big . Almost like a night club, but it is calmer here. No disturbing music. Soul music.
This was where I first fell in love with Sade. The first performance was a music artist. She was really slim and she looked like Diana Ross, in that huge Afro . When she began to sing I began to feel something that I've never felt before.
At first I wasn't really making conversation with Curtis, but I turned to him at that point. He only smiled at me.
"Like a Tattoo" He said. And I didn't notice how melodious his voice sounded.
I recover. "What?"
"That's the name of the song she's singing, Like a Tattoo, by Sade"
I breathe. "Oh. It's beautiful" I say. "Who's Sade?"
"She's an artist. Mostly Jazz"
I listen to the girl a bit more, and then someone comes up, and starts to speak, with beautiful words.
"The song is about a man suffering the aftermath of a war he fought in"
It was as if I'd found myself in a community of people just like me. I turn to Curtis. He has that smirk on his face.
"Mostly artists and poets come here. The musics are covers, but the poems, are mostly self written"
"This is heaven!" I exclaim. "Wait, how did you even know that I'd like this?"
He stares at me deep in the eye. "I know one when I see one"
I blush, then. No one really acknowledges this side of me, but it's not their fault, I haven't read or written in years. I'm surprised that he could notice this almost immediately.
"I wouldn't take you for a soul artist, or a poet"
He laughs. "I'm not much of a poet, but I'm into Jazz, or Soul. I'm not really into other genres like that. Could blame my mum for that"
I smile back.
"I think I'm in love" I say and he smiles again.
*************
And so that was the activity of our date nights . Every Tuesday and Saturday, we would go to the open mic. Mostly just there to be entertained , I was to scared to perform there because it felt like I didn't know much. But Curtis encouraged me.
I had started to get attracted to him. And I knew it was the same for me. After the sixth dates, I started hanging out with him often, mostly going over to his place.
There would be soul music playing. Mostly 99's, the Likes of Luther Van dross, New Edition, and Lauryn Hill and so much more. He never liked smoking, so I didn't smoke around him. But I'd hang around in his room, over tea, we discussed, talked a lot.
He was in his final year, studying Engineering, which he hated at first but began to love, and I'd watch him talk about his passions and smile because I loved that he always had something to do. He worked part time at a men's store, always forgetting the name.
At the end of the second month, I know I liked him. He had basically gone from friends to partners in a matter of time.
It was during one of those open mic nights that while slow dancing, he leaned in and kissed me, and we went back to his apartment, continuing, sharing the heat on our skin, although it was cold outside. It was as though he was perfect, I thought he was the one for me.
We started dating officially before his twenty second birthday. And that weekend, he flew us out to Paris. I thought he was being extra, but anyway, I liked it lowkey. He always assured that nothing, was the problem.
