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It's Saturday night and the Princess has us hanging out in a crowded little lesbian bar over in East Terminus. We're there to see her friend Boydonna perform in a lip-synch dance-off competition with an act she helped choreograph. Initially I was hesitant to attend, unable to imagine what joys a man could find at the Disco of Sappho. But then I figured - fuck it - the Princess was a bit flush and had offered to cover the door along with my tab which beat the hell out of option number two - periodically clicking refresh on Facebook until I passed out. So, like one of those tales of brave Ulysses I've been told, I fastened myself to the mast of my resolve to try to have a good time on my brief odyssey away from home.
To my surprise and delight however, the bar turned out to be the perfect fit for my mood. Unlike my usual watering holes, I was presented there with the inescapable conclusion that my getting laid was an outright mathematical impossibility. All around me were beautiful women of many different shapes, shades and sizes and I didn't have to worry about hitting on a single one of them, much less beating myself up when I couldn't find the words or the courage to do so. For the first time in a long time, I was able to just relax and enjoy a drink completely free from my normally frustrated primal urges.
We weren't there long before we caught Boydonna's act, a riveting Britney Spears cover that he pulled off with a camp explosion of guy-liner fury and goth sexy pathos. Boydonna was accompanied on stage by a sweet schoolgirl innocent ginger and a raven faux-hawked bombshell who grinded on each other with a lasciviousness both ruthless and hungry. The audience erupted into wolf whistles, applause and drunken wails. The Princess beamed a big little girl smile. She rushed up immediately after their show to congratulate her friends and left me stranded there in the crowd. All around me a dance of wild chemistry and raw gravity abounded, sweaty couples pulled tightly into each other or broke apart with a shrug only to recombine moments later across the smoke haze into different couples. A collective body heat, infused with electrified pheromones and charged need, began to radiate across the floor. I found myself getting light headed. I squeezed my way through the mob with that crab walk you do when you're holding a drink while maneuvering through a packed night club. The patio was closed off - so that ruled out a much needed breath of fresh air. Luckily though I found a table to occupy solo over in this remote corner tucked in a dark corridor that separated the main floor from the pool room.
Now maybe it was the whiskey on an empty stomach, the hash laced joint I smoked prior to arrival or the poor ventilation of that darkened corridor but I began to quickly slip into my own private Phantom Zone. Televisions mounted on the walls around me mutely flared nonsense. They illuminated stagger drunks that passed by as grim and quiet as ghosts or revealed briefly smiling psychopomps that led their initiates by the hand through the Dionysian frenzy. Across from where I sat, directly above a small auxiliary bar, hanging off the ceiling, a projector mechanically sprayed a bouquet of tight green light beams through the gloom.
Stupid in my bliss, I sat transfixed watching those beams work their way through the amorous masses. My imagination unleashed science fiction visions of invisible time traveling cyborgs and extradimensional visitors analyzing the heated multitude for reasons unfathomable to the paltry limits of the human mind. At one point the beams froze in place around a pair of hugging silhouettes that stood in the center of the corridor. The beams formed a laser corona around the couple as they closed into a kiss forming before my bloodshot eyes a massive hooded cobra made of solid shadow or a Valentine Heart carved out of pure dark matter. I blinked amazed..
... and it was then a bulge eyed face bolted between me and shattered the vision.
"You like what you see?" She demanded through a snarl just inches from my face, her beer breath slapping the senses hard with a fetid heat blast.
"I'm ... sorry." I stammered confused not sure how my reality tunnel got channel surfed from trippy to agro in the space of a blink.
"That's not what I asked." She kept her face steadily up in my own causing me to recede back into my chair.
"Okay, I uh, really have no idea what's going on here. Do I know you or something?" I raised my hands up diplomatically. After all this isn't my first rodeo and whether we're talking cowboys or cowgirls there's always an asshole in every scene looking to make sure they don't have a bad time alone.
"No." She leaned forward and began to speak louder. "In fact my bet is you don't know anyone here. I'm guessing you're just some aging frat boy who decided he wasn't having any luck at any of the other bars and decided to get an eyeful of some 'bitches dyking out'."
I scanned the corridor for help. The security guy glanced my way, sized up the situation and shrugged at me helplessly. As for the rest of the corridor I was acutely aware that the music had suddenly stopped and the ambient room chatter had drained away to a steady mumble. Bad drama at a club is just as attractive as a car wreck on the commute home. No one wants to see it, sure, but no one can seem to look away either.
"Ma'am," I slipped into my 'doorman' voice and smiled disarmingly, "I'm just here with a friend waiting for her to get back. I really didn't mean any disrespect..."
"Oh, so staring at people while they're trying to be intimate just comes natural to you?"
I weighed this last statement with a nodding of my head set to the internal rhythm of my reasoning process. I took my drink, downed it in a single gulp and smiled again. "Okay, I'm really going to need you to get out of my face now."
"Or what?" she snorted defiantly, her snarl finally curling into a cruel smile.
I pushed back my seat and rose up out of the chair. Still smiling and arms thrown wide in a symbol of crucified defiance.
She cast her arms out in the universal sign of 'Come at me Bro!"
I scanned the scene again. All eyes were on me, the bartender reaching a cautious hand towards whatever deterrent she had stashed beneath the counter, the security guard making his way towards us but clearly not ready to intercede until the first blow would be thrown. I sized up my opponent, she was short but with wide shoulders, one look at her stance and you could tell she's been in a scrap or two - and by stance I don't mean some Karate Kid bullshit - I mean a confident loosening of the body with all the tension visibly draining towards the fists.
So I reached into my back pocket for my secret weapon...
... and the angry drunk slid back and drew for hers.
She drew first: a beer bottle snatched out of the hand of some awe struck gawker. She smashed its bottom across the table and spun to wave the bottle menacingly at the closing security guard. The guard was just a scrawny kid really, so it was no surprise when he took one glance at the jagged bottle before about facing to get back-up.
She turned back around on me but it was too late... for I had reached my secret weapon: a thick black fake moustache that I had slapped above my mouth.
Now it was my opponent's turn to stare stupidly with her mouth slightly ajar.
"Wuhheh-ellll, now." I bellowed into the awkward silence between us with a theatrical flourish and added with a stage whisper - "Relax!"
"Don't...," she responded but I cut her off to finish her sentence with a melodic, "do it."
Before she could respond I rose out of my bow and pivoted with a move I learned from dancing the Noir Shuffle at countless darkwave and fetish themed nights to circle around her. The whole time I kept singing along - "When you want to go to it. Relax, don't do it."
As I spun around her, my opponent lowered the bottle baffled and tried turning around to keep up with me but she was always a few moments too slow. I used this gap to catch eyes quickly with the bartender and motioned with my brows for the stereo system she had rigged there. "When you want to come."
"Hey, whaddya think you're...," my opponent advanced towards me and I backwards danced like I was fucking Shark or a Jet with snapping fingers - "When you want to come" I repeated. Around us the room began to fill with giggles and nervous laughter.
"Quit fucking around and act like a man." She barked.
"Relax, don't do it." I rose up and spun towards her with hands swaying around like a stage magician on ecstasy - which is how I happen to dance sometimes - "When you want to go to it."
And my opponent looked around at the crowd, whose laughter had started to grow, and with her free hand gave me a mighty push off my torso - one that took me off guard as I was sent plummeting backwards on to my ass.
Silence hit the floor as soon as my ass hit floor. I scanned the doorway hoping to see the security guard back with back-up or failing that at least maybe the Princess so there would be somebody to call me an ambulance. But no, the doorway was mob shut and those ladies weren't letting anyone interrupt the spectacle.
"Relax...," the bartender shouted in a nervous sing-song. Both my opponent and I, as did the rest of the crowd, glanced up at her.
"...don't do it." She continued and I joined her as I scrambled up to regain my composure.
"When you want to come. Relax, don't do it. When you want to suck to it..." I began dancing again and even through the nicotine haze I could see that a few of the gawkers were beginning to sway with me. I made my way towards the bar with a move I could only describe as a Peter Murphy Bob Fosse hybrid: "Relax, don't do it. When you want to come."
"Come, come, come, come!!!" The whole corridor chanted and the bartender quickly hand me a fresh beer and I nodded thanks and the sweat was beginning to sting my eyes and I ricocheted towards my opponent.
"But shoot it in the right die-rec-tion!" I roared as I came to a stop just inches away from her. I snagged the broken beer bottle from her and when she went for me with her free hand I quickly placed the fresh bottle into her it just as it folded into a fist meant for me. I bounded back -"Make making it your inten-tion!"
"Ohhhh-yeahhhh." The room sung along and everyone just went crazy, dancing furiously all around us. I swayed playfully up to my opponent and she backed away until she was stuck against a wall of dancing flesh. The green light beams locked on her. I slithered up and whispered just loud enough for her to hear me over the crowd.
"Live those dreams. Scheme those schemes. Got to hit me. Hit me. Hit me with those laser beams!"
And with all the showmanship of a veteran burlesque dancer I tore off my fake moustache and with ninja speed laid it above her lips. The laughter was deafening and by now the DJ on the main floor was cranking the original out and I watched my opponent touching the moustache and looking at me as if she was dreaming. I vanished into the dancing throng the last thing I saw was her sipping the beer flummoxed... right before getting nabbed by security.
Two songs later and I was up at the bar on the main floor just a few sips deep into a fresh whiskey. The Princess sidled up to me sipping a sugar free Red Bull on the rocks. She was all excited - "Oh my god. You are not going to believe what just happened."
"Yeah, what's that then?"
"I was just talking with Boydonna - and by the way you two need to meet - well anyway, I was talking with him and just had the most amazing idea for a number."
"Let me guess - Frankie goes to Hollywood?"
The Princess looked at me confused, thought about it a moment and finally shook her head: "Nah, too obvious. No but listen, you're going to love this..."
And so I listened. To her and her idea and the music blasting the darkness back and the uproarious good time of the crowd. And so I smiled as I took another sip of Jack and lit up a fresh smoke. Behind my silent lips, I patiently folded away another tale of brave Ulysses.
To my surprise and delight however, the bar turned out to be the perfect fit for my mood. Unlike my usual watering holes, I was presented there with the inescapable conclusion that my getting laid was an outright mathematical impossibility. All around me were beautiful women of many different shapes, shades and sizes and I didn't have to worry about hitting on a single one of them, much less beating myself up when I couldn't find the words or the courage to do so. For the first time in a long time, I was able to just relax and enjoy a drink completely free from my normally frustrated primal urges.
We weren't there long before we caught Boydonna's act, a riveting Britney Spears cover that he pulled off with a camp explosion of guy-liner fury and goth sexy pathos. Boydonna was accompanied on stage by a sweet schoolgirl innocent ginger and a raven faux-hawked bombshell who grinded on each other with a lasciviousness both ruthless and hungry. The audience erupted into wolf whistles, applause and drunken wails. The Princess beamed a big little girl smile. She rushed up immediately after their show to congratulate her friends and left me stranded there in the crowd. All around me a dance of wild chemistry and raw gravity abounded, sweaty couples pulled tightly into each other or broke apart with a shrug only to recombine moments later across the smoke haze into different couples. A collective body heat, infused with electrified pheromones and charged need, began to radiate across the floor. I found myself getting light headed. I squeezed my way through the mob with that crab walk you do when you're holding a drink while maneuvering through a packed night club. The patio was closed off - so that ruled out a much needed breath of fresh air. Luckily though I found a table to occupy solo over in this remote corner tucked in a dark corridor that separated the main floor from the pool room.
Now maybe it was the whiskey on an empty stomach, the hash laced joint I smoked prior to arrival or the poor ventilation of that darkened corridor but I began to quickly slip into my own private Phantom Zone. Televisions mounted on the walls around me mutely flared nonsense. They illuminated stagger drunks that passed by as grim and quiet as ghosts or revealed briefly smiling psychopomps that led their initiates by the hand through the Dionysian frenzy. Across from where I sat, directly above a small auxiliary bar, hanging off the ceiling, a projector mechanically sprayed a bouquet of tight green light beams through the gloom.
Stupid in my bliss, I sat transfixed watching those beams work their way through the amorous masses. My imagination unleashed science fiction visions of invisible time traveling cyborgs and extradimensional visitors analyzing the heated multitude for reasons unfathomable to the paltry limits of the human mind. At one point the beams froze in place around a pair of hugging silhouettes that stood in the center of the corridor. The beams formed a laser corona around the couple as they closed into a kiss forming before my bloodshot eyes a massive hooded cobra made of solid shadow or a Valentine Heart carved out of pure dark matter. I blinked amazed..
... and it was then a bulge eyed face bolted between me and shattered the vision.
"You like what you see?" She demanded through a snarl just inches from my face, her beer breath slapping the senses hard with a fetid heat blast.
"I'm ... sorry." I stammered confused not sure how my reality tunnel got channel surfed from trippy to agro in the space of a blink.
"That's not what I asked." She kept her face steadily up in my own causing me to recede back into my chair.
"Okay, I uh, really have no idea what's going on here. Do I know you or something?" I raised my hands up diplomatically. After all this isn't my first rodeo and whether we're talking cowboys or cowgirls there's always an asshole in every scene looking to make sure they don't have a bad time alone.
"No." She leaned forward and began to speak louder. "In fact my bet is you don't know anyone here. I'm guessing you're just some aging frat boy who decided he wasn't having any luck at any of the other bars and decided to get an eyeful of some 'bitches dyking out'."
I scanned the corridor for help. The security guy glanced my way, sized up the situation and shrugged at me helplessly. As for the rest of the corridor I was acutely aware that the music had suddenly stopped and the ambient room chatter had drained away to a steady mumble. Bad drama at a club is just as attractive as a car wreck on the commute home. No one wants to see it, sure, but no one can seem to look away either.
"Ma'am," I slipped into my 'doorman' voice and smiled disarmingly, "I'm just here with a friend waiting for her to get back. I really didn't mean any disrespect..."
"Oh, so staring at people while they're trying to be intimate just comes natural to you?"
I weighed this last statement with a nodding of my head set to the internal rhythm of my reasoning process. I took my drink, downed it in a single gulp and smiled again. "Okay, I'm really going to need you to get out of my face now."
"Or what?" she snorted defiantly, her snarl finally curling into a cruel smile.
I pushed back my seat and rose up out of the chair. Still smiling and arms thrown wide in a symbol of crucified defiance.
She cast her arms out in the universal sign of 'Come at me Bro!"
I scanned the scene again. All eyes were on me, the bartender reaching a cautious hand towards whatever deterrent she had stashed beneath the counter, the security guard making his way towards us but clearly not ready to intercede until the first blow would be thrown. I sized up my opponent, she was short but with wide shoulders, one look at her stance and you could tell she's been in a scrap or two - and by stance I don't mean some Karate Kid bullshit - I mean a confident loosening of the body with all the tension visibly draining towards the fists.
So I reached into my back pocket for my secret weapon...
... and the angry drunk slid back and drew for hers.
She drew first: a beer bottle snatched out of the hand of some awe struck gawker. She smashed its bottom across the table and spun to wave the bottle menacingly at the closing security guard. The guard was just a scrawny kid really, so it was no surprise when he took one glance at the jagged bottle before about facing to get back-up.
She turned back around on me but it was too late... for I had reached my secret weapon: a thick black fake moustache that I had slapped above my mouth.
Now it was my opponent's turn to stare stupidly with her mouth slightly ajar.
"Wuhheh-ellll, now." I bellowed into the awkward silence between us with a theatrical flourish and added with a stage whisper - "Relax!"
"Don't...," she responded but I cut her off to finish her sentence with a melodic, "do it."
Before she could respond I rose out of my bow and pivoted with a move I learned from dancing the Noir Shuffle at countless darkwave and fetish themed nights to circle around her. The whole time I kept singing along - "When you want to go to it. Relax, don't do it."
As I spun around her, my opponent lowered the bottle baffled and tried turning around to keep up with me but she was always a few moments too slow. I used this gap to catch eyes quickly with the bartender and motioned with my brows for the stereo system she had rigged there. "When you want to come."
"Hey, whaddya think you're...," my opponent advanced towards me and I backwards danced like I was fucking Shark or a Jet with snapping fingers - "When you want to come" I repeated. Around us the room began to fill with giggles and nervous laughter.
"Quit fucking around and act like a man." She barked.
"Relax, don't do it." I rose up and spun towards her with hands swaying around like a stage magician on ecstasy - which is how I happen to dance sometimes - "When you want to go to it."
And my opponent looked around at the crowd, whose laughter had started to grow, and with her free hand gave me a mighty push off my torso - one that took me off guard as I was sent plummeting backwards on to my ass.
Silence hit the floor as soon as my ass hit floor. I scanned the doorway hoping to see the security guard back with back-up or failing that at least maybe the Princess so there would be somebody to call me an ambulance. But no, the doorway was mob shut and those ladies weren't letting anyone interrupt the spectacle.
"Relax...," the bartender shouted in a nervous sing-song. Both my opponent and I, as did the rest of the crowd, glanced up at her.
"...don't do it." She continued and I joined her as I scrambled up to regain my composure.
"When you want to come. Relax, don't do it. When you want to suck to it..." I began dancing again and even through the nicotine haze I could see that a few of the gawkers were beginning to sway with me. I made my way towards the bar with a move I could only describe as a Peter Murphy Bob Fosse hybrid: "Relax, don't do it. When you want to come."
"Come, come, come, come!!!" The whole corridor chanted and the bartender quickly hand me a fresh beer and I nodded thanks and the sweat was beginning to sting my eyes and I ricocheted towards my opponent.
"But shoot it in the right die-rec-tion!" I roared as I came to a stop just inches away from her. I snagged the broken beer bottle from her and when she went for me with her free hand I quickly placed the fresh bottle into her it just as it folded into a fist meant for me. I bounded back -"Make making it your inten-tion!"
"Ohhhh-yeahhhh." The room sung along and everyone just went crazy, dancing furiously all around us. I swayed playfully up to my opponent and she backed away until she was stuck against a wall of dancing flesh. The green light beams locked on her. I slithered up and whispered just loud enough for her to hear me over the crowd.
"Live those dreams. Scheme those schemes. Got to hit me. Hit me. Hit me with those laser beams!"
And with all the showmanship of a veteran burlesque dancer I tore off my fake moustache and with ninja speed laid it above her lips. The laughter was deafening and by now the DJ on the main floor was cranking the original out and I watched my opponent touching the moustache and looking at me as if she was dreaming. I vanished into the dancing throng the last thing I saw was her sipping the beer flummoxed... right before getting nabbed by security.
Two songs later and I was up at the bar on the main floor just a few sips deep into a fresh whiskey. The Princess sidled up to me sipping a sugar free Red Bull on the rocks. She was all excited - "Oh my god. You are not going to believe what just happened."
"Yeah, what's that then?"
"I was just talking with Boydonna - and by the way you two need to meet - well anyway, I was talking with him and just had the most amazing idea for a number."
"Let me guess - Frankie goes to Hollywood?"
The Princess looked at me confused, thought about it a moment and finally shook her head: "Nah, too obvious. No but listen, you're going to love this..."
And so I listened. To her and her idea and the music blasting the darkness back and the uproarious good time of the crowd. And so I smiled as I took another sip of Jack and lit up a fresh smoke. Behind my silent lips, I patiently folded away another tale of brave Ulysses.
