Glimpse
By Karen KalbacherThe dance floor was hot. Bodies slick with sweat. A beat like a wild African drum on steroids pounded through the skin of every dancer. People stomped, gyrated against each other feeling the pure sex of being together in a contained space. Eileen watched it with a drink in her hand. The beat ran around her like water around a rock. She couldn't feel what they were feeling.
Yearning was plastered across her face. Her body couldn't even tap along. It was always like this for her, a rock in the waves, solid unmoved. Inside she felt hollowed out and empty. The wonder of the scene and the skin to skin contact as the people on the floor glittered like peacocks and diamonds made her heart ache with longing. Sparkle, sweat, dance, fuck...right?
Eileen chugged the Long Island Ice-Tea. Was it worth it to go get another one? Her friend Amy came off the floor her brand new leather corset soaked through with the heat of her dancing. "Coming out on the floor?"
"I'm not feeling it." I feel hollowed out, she thought, watching the melting ice clink against one another in her glass.
Amy put a hand on her hip, "I didn't dress you up so you could just stand here and watch everyone else have a good time. I'm tired of your wallflower act lately. I'm getting you another strong one and you're going to shake your ass or I'm going to kick it."
Eileen managed to pull her lips up slightly at the corner but the effort was exhausting. Her eyes felt hot with tears that just wanted to explode out of her. No reasons for it. She was single, successful and normally upbeat but after her split with the last, 'Prince Not-So-Charming,' she hadn't been feeling whole and if she told herself the truth she had been feeling empty for years and luck had kept her busy enough to control it. Now... Now...The need to cry punched her in the chest. She turned to see where the bathroom was. It was worse than needing to relieve herself. Tears were already leaking out the edges of her eyes and she couldn't control them either. Her body was feeling things without her mind.
Scared in her mind but unable to feel it in her heart, Eileen stumbled forward like a miserable automaton. The beat was all around her, pounding, pounding, not in time with her heart. Never ever in time with her heart...The bathroom was so far away. Dancers were everywhere stomping, touching, and feeling with heat, mind and body. She was a short circuit, sparking little drops of pain. As she passed she saw people bounce away from the cold inside her as if bitten. Push, jump, push, jump...the path was clearing. The music changed and the pounding changed and like a tumble lock falling into place the beat lined up with her heart. Everything opened up at once. Her heart exploded with joy. Her body moved with the lightening energy of the crowd and finally her mind fell into place and felt right.
The beat was thumping, alive, African with American influences. The music, the lyrics, who cared? She felt the beat. She let it pul her back away from the safety of the bathroom doors. Alive with it, she started her own pounding with her feet and let a dark man decorated entirely in his own sheen pulled her close and moved her with him. Dizzy with it, the liquor from the last four hours of straight drinking finally hit her. Wild, she pulled at the man daring him to move closer, hold tighter, dance freer. Her hair sprang free of its holder and flowed out around her in a golden rainbow. Sweat replaced tears as the contained space became her open world.
Inside the bubble of life, Eileen gave herself wholly to it until she was one with her partner, one with the music, one with herself. Her feet moved nimbly beneath her. Her stance straightened. She felt defiant. She felt alive. Her skin was their skin. She was a dancer now, hot slick, and wild, free.
The song changed. The tumblers slid and didn't match up. Eileen dropped to the floor. Locked out. Her partner helped her up and tried to dance with her. She was limp. She was useless. Her legs stayed where they were. Her mind did a face plant into depression but her body only felt tired...disconnected again.
"Here's your drink." Amy handed her a new Long Island Ice-Tea.
The dance floor was hot. Bodies slick with sweat. A beat like a wild African drum on steroids pounded through the skin of every dancer. People stomped, gyrated against each other feeling the pure sex of being together in a contained space. Eileen watched it with a drink in her hand. The beat ran around her like water around a rock. She couldn't feel what they were feeling.
End.