“I didn't really have any options.” She squints. “It's kind of a long story.”
She nods slowly. “I worry about you.”
“I know how to handle myself.”
She's unconvinced, but doesn't push the subject. “So Ilkay took off, huh?”
I roll my eyes. “He was like a shark out there. I didn't even get a goodbye.”
“Neither did I. You'd figure he'd want to spend some time with his friends because he's going to be gone for, like, a month. He's so fucking inconsiderate sometimes.”
She is quiet for a moment. I can feel my voice growing hoarse because of the volume of the music, and the pause in conversation is tacitly welcomed. We look to the human shapes dancing to a standard two-thirty-in-the-morning jam without much in terms of substance propelling them along. There is the reoccurring theme of sex (or, rather, the anticipation of sex with a desired object) in the lyrics, but the rhythm patterns convey the drudgery of orgasmless fucking. It's very Libertarian, very free-love without the love. Faces and voices are difficult to make out, so one can only read a body language that has a lexicon consisting of consent or rejection. It's usually straightforward enough, though there are a few people probably looking for “innocent” fun, the types who wear their wedding rings in their jeans or purses. Pragmatics rears its ugly head even in binary, evidently.
Vinati seems like the dancing type: tiny, cute, and friends with Ilkay, who habitually frequents places that refuse to grant you admission if you're not wearing the right shoes. These are the types of places guarded by men behind velvet ropes, men who give you the once over as though you are a cut of meat, men who tell you whether or not you're cool enough to pay thirteen dollars for a bottle of Amstel Light after waiting at a bar for over half an hour to get it. The real problems with places such as these, of course, are those you encounter once you pass through the gates of Elysium: guys without necks try to pick fights with you, girls without grace try to convince you to buy them drinks, dipshits run into you, thereby sending about three-dollar's worth of beer down the only shirt you own that has a label reading dry clean only. Wealthy E-Harmony couples and blind dates attempt to be delicate as they explain themselves above the music that throbs like a bad case of priapism. The people around them drink in a communion of decadence that will ultimately lead to intoxication, conquest, crabs. The dance floor is an orgy of egos. Things are going on in the bathroom. Bad things. Speed freaks scan the room with fidgety eyes and try not to jump out of their skin. The people who are rolling hard are accepting resumes for fondling positions. The few people too humble to jump into the whirling madness stick out like anchorites in Caligula's court.
Maybe I misjudge her, though. There are certainly those who simply like to dance without all of the hedonism that usually gets attached to the club scene. She's here with me for whatever reason, gazing to all of the people lost in the sea of light and sound with a less than sober grin and an unusually reticent demeanor. “Do you dance?” I finally ask.
She smiles. “I've been dancing all night.”
“Do you want to dance?”
“My feet are killing me,” she responds. “This douche-bag Mexi-goth wouldn't leave me alone, and he kept crushing my feet with these, like, Doc Martin boots. Who wears fucking Doc Martins out to a club?” I shrug. “To be honest, I was hoping for someone to just talk with.” I watch the people on the dance floor rubbing against each other with increasing carnality, sweat beginning to appear on the bodies that suffocate in air redolent with stale breath, booze, sex, and excessive recirculation. “I thought I knew more of Ilkay's friends,” she eventually says. “Speaking of which, where are all of your friends?”
“Out of town. The only two I've really gotten to know tonight are over there.” I point out Angelica and Teddy, a tangled mess of left feet, stiff joints, and whale-belly skin. There's a substantial ring around them. The black guys are trying their best not to laugh. The Puerto Ricans are mesmerized. “They seem nice.”
“The lush and yuppie?”
“Well, if you want to be cynical about it, yes, the lush and the yuppie.”
She laughs. She laughs a lot.
We talk for a while. Her hands keep finding their way to my shoulder or knee. My eyes keep falling down her dress. She eventually takes a sip from an empty bottle, which prompts the following: “Do you want to do a shot?”
“Sure,” I beam. “Howzabout a butt-fucking cowboy?”
“Won't Ilkay be jealous?”
Being that it's three in the morning, the place has cleared out somewhat. We are the passing shower's concluding drops. Table service has been discontinued, so most of the people for whom dancing is not a joy have either left or gone up to the bar. This is not to say that the area surrounding the bar is packed; most of the patrons are still dancing, thereby leaving both of the bartenders with relatively little to do for first time of the night. The faithful are nursing their drinks by this time; even the contingency of terminally drunk habitués still trying to abandon the last semblance of sobriety have slowed their pace.
Brandy presents the shooters with an almost demonic grin before I can even place an order. There are three of them. “L'chayim,” she toasts. I am familiar with the taste of the drink by now, so I only make a grimace as I take down her concoction. Vinati's face turns a shade of sour that portends trouble. Brandy looks to her own drained glass with something like a wince. She turns to me: “Is it better on the rocks?”
“I have to run to the restroom,” Vinati says as she begins for the undulating crowd, a sea that even Moses would have had difficulty parting. Suffice to say, she doesn't make it to the other side.
“Your girlfriend can't hold her shit,” Brandy proclaims proudly.
“Oh, she's not my girlfriend.”
“Well, in that case, the girl you were going to bone tonight can't hold her shit.”
“I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the cards.” A crowd of women encompasses Vinati. They whisk her off.
“Well, looks like the deck's being put away,” she says as her eyes point towards the exit sign that hangs above a parting velvet curtain. “You should go help her out. It'll prove your good intentions.”
“I don't want to look like I'm trying to take advantage of her.”
“What?” she yells above the music.
“I said I don't want to look like a sexual predator.”
“You?” incredulously.
“Yes, me.”
“No offense dude, but I've seen more than enough sexual predators in my time here; I can tell you're a good guy.”
“Thanks.”
“Look, I just want to tell you that opportunity is walking out the door right now. Sure, you're not going to score tonight….” She scratches her chin absentmindedly. “Do people still say that word? 'Score.' It sounds forced.”
“It's a bit archaic, in terms of slang.”
“Whatever. The point is if you don't stick your neck out, you're never going to get anywhere.”
“Yeah, but I'll be sure to keep my head.”
Caesura
“You have a mind of elf,” she says after taking down a large sip of dark beer.
“What?”
“I said, you remind me of myself.”
“How so?”
“You won't allow yourself to be vulnerable.”
“That's a pretty big assumption to make about someone you barely even know.”
She explains what she means, but the music pilfers her vowels and softer consonants. I ask her to repeat herself. “Look, there's no need to get all defensive about it,” she yells. “For some people it's easier to be alone than to be seriously involved with another person. It's certainly a lot easier than being rejected. You know, a dock is a chain.”