Monsters—from the Id!

I see him on the dance floor every weekend. He has his own distinctive moves; he doesn’t do the “sway in place and kind of gyrate” thing that dominates the other dancers. His dance is the kind of fun freestyle that I like to do—no pattern to it, just a raw response to the music. Sitting up in the gallery, I love to look down at him and watch him do his thing.

It doesn’t hurt that he’s cute, too. He’s gotten a haircut in the past week. No more shoulder-length tied-back locks for this guy. The cowboy hat and vest make me wonder if he’s been listening to a lot of country music lately.

And then it comes on.

Every week, the DJ plays “Venus” during the night, and there’s something about Bananrama’s version that gets my feet moving. I step away from the table. My friends know what’s up, so I don’t need to tell them where I’m going as I descend the stairs and step onto the floor. But this time, I’ve decided it’s going to be different.

I start dancing with him.

As soon as I catch his eye, we move together like we’ve been practicing for a show. We take turns playing “seducer and seduced,” pulling each toward the other with invisible lines of temptation. People clear the floor for us as he and I tango without touching. When the song changes to “You Spin Me Round,” he plays up his outfit and becomes a cowboy circling me and roping me with an imaginary lasso. We never touch each other. There’s nothing erotic about our dance. But it’s still obvious we’re dancing together, and we’re impressing the hell out of some of the most snobbish queens in the club.

Then the song’s over. Without a word, we leave the dance floor as one. As we step off the floor, we shake hands, say to each other, “Good dance,” and head to the separate tables where our different groups of friends are sitting.

We never even traded names, just two guys moved by the same music.