“The Dance”

“On the dance floor, teenagers did somersaults across the slick wooden boards.  One man walked on his hands.  Heavy bass notes reverberated from somewhere outside the room, as though another band were playing close by, a possibility I knew to be false.  Straight men hugged one another with the affection of couples.  So profuse was the affection that I suspected tableted ecstasy of being the real matchmaker.  One young girl had taped odd shapes of aluminum foil to her rear end as a kind of stub costume.  Another college-aged woman stood to the side, motionless, watching the band, apparently not knowing anyone in the crowd.  On the sofa next to me, a young Natalie Wood type sprawled on her back, legs spread and hanging over the sofa arms, clad in an outfit that was really nothing more than dressed-up underclothing.  Her proximity and posture were so intimate that I almost felt as if we were in bed together.”