Speak Easy Boogie
Mar. 30th, 2013 03:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonIt's not the sex I miss, but the minutes after. Not the echo of the rush, for that can be found in solitude easily enough. Rather I speak of the intimate details that can only be unveiled to the satisfied eye by a lover's grace. Ritualistic cigarettes lit in the dark. The boundless depths of the ceiling above. The rhythmic tide of our breaths cast along the shores of exhaustion as a second wind gathers. The weight of a face resting against your shoulder and the shape of her shadow melting into yours. Fingers marching lost in a jungle of chest hair as the eyes of a cat who's name you forgot watches from a window sill. The room in those dwindling moments belong to the geography of Twilight and Autumn. Everything revealed, even if only to be forgotten immediately after. A time for confessions, jokes, anecdotes, dreams and second hand stories with the plot holes patched over with motley wishes.
And it's a realization I have when a young woman taps me on the shoulder and without a word pulls me up on the narrow dance floor. The scene was last night. I was at the bar of the Speak Easy with two buddies. We were on the last stop of our Edgewood pub crawl and I wasn't expecting any trouble. I register the song as some old 80s pop ballad. I get a good look at her. Brunette with long hair. Angelic of face with a drunken smile you only see on people who've just gotten past the initial boot camp stage of drinking. She's in jeans and a dark tight t-shirt and she's on the skinny side of wow.
I'm drunk myself actually and it's been ages since I've gotten to dance. Even longer was an invitation to do so from a delightful stranger. So with a self-conscious laugh, and at the lady's request, I bust a move.
And I do that club thing I do sometimes where I just close my eyes and let my body find the rhythm. BPM radar activated. I glide in and hit the beat. When I open my eyes again, the young lady is laughing excitedly and shouting very kind words in praise of whatever it is I think I do out there.
She's no good, she apologizes, she can't keep up.
It's easy, I replied, just have fun with it. I take her by the hand, I give her a quick spin and slide back across the floor. Bearded hipsters and her gal-pal contingent double take impressed. But then the song ends and though the DJ's good enough to segue smooth into something new, I bow out with a flourish and return to the empty stool between my friends.
They didn't even notice I was gone.
For a moment I'm tempted to chalk it up to one of my dream sequences. Yet whenever I look over my shoulder I catch her looking at me.
If I was twenty years younger, I whisper, knowing full well that when I was twenty years younger I couldn't dance half as well much less have been asked to do so by a beautiful woman. A time when I was too blind to see the details, much less appreciate their worth.
Another, I tell the bartender via nod to my empty drink and light a cigarette. Around me the world focuses into view, sharper and richer and stranger than it was a minute ago. Then, right then, I slide back into the conversation and join my friends for another round of laughs.
And it's a realization I have when a young woman taps me on the shoulder and without a word pulls me up on the narrow dance floor. The scene was last night. I was at the bar of the Speak Easy with two buddies. We were on the last stop of our Edgewood pub crawl and I wasn't expecting any trouble. I register the song as some old 80s pop ballad. I get a good look at her. Brunette with long hair. Angelic of face with a drunken smile you only see on people who've just gotten past the initial boot camp stage of drinking. She's in jeans and a dark tight t-shirt and she's on the skinny side of wow.
I'm drunk myself actually and it's been ages since I've gotten to dance. Even longer was an invitation to do so from a delightful stranger. So with a self-conscious laugh, and at the lady's request, I bust a move.
And I do that club thing I do sometimes where I just close my eyes and let my body find the rhythm. BPM radar activated. I glide in and hit the beat. When I open my eyes again, the young lady is laughing excitedly and shouting very kind words in praise of whatever it is I think I do out there.
She's no good, she apologizes, she can't keep up.
It's easy, I replied, just have fun with it. I take her by the hand, I give her a quick spin and slide back across the floor. Bearded hipsters and her gal-pal contingent double take impressed. But then the song ends and though the DJ's good enough to segue smooth into something new, I bow out with a flourish and return to the empty stool between my friends.
They didn't even notice I was gone.
For a moment I'm tempted to chalk it up to one of my dream sequences. Yet whenever I look over my shoulder I catch her looking at me.
If I was twenty years younger, I whisper, knowing full well that when I was twenty years younger I couldn't dance half as well much less have been asked to do so by a beautiful woman. A time when I was too blind to see the details, much less appreciate their worth.
Another, I tell the bartender via nod to my empty drink and light a cigarette. Around me the world focuses into view, sharper and richer and stranger than it was a minute ago. Then, right then, I slide back into the conversation and join my friends for another round of laughs.