Steel & Ice Read Online Free PDF Page B

anything, it got old quick eating the same thing every day. I
liked going, and I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t really trying to
analyze it in the club bathroom, and I wasn’t ready to talk about
it with anyone, even Chris.
    Once Chris and I were good and high, we made
a quick exit from the bathroom. We hustled to get away from the
smell that would no doubt be lingering in the hallway. This was the
time of night we made our second grand entrance, the best entrance.
We both had five or six drinks in us, and the joint of the sticky
icky icky had just put us over the top. We were flying high. As we
entered the main club, it was like we hadn’t been there all night.
The high and drunkenness altered our perception to the point that
we were able to look upon the club with new eyes. When we walked
back in, I always thought of the scene in Dazed and Confused where
the guys walk through the Emporium in slow motion, Hurricane by Bob
Dylan playing in the background. Everything slowed down a bit and
you felt like you owned the place. It was such a rush. I spent the
week waiting for this moment each Saturday night, when the crowds
would part as Chris and I walked by. A path would open through the
sea of bodies, and it became our runway. And honey, we worked it
like RuPaul taught us.
    Chris grabbed my arm and leaned in to yell
over the music, “Dance?”
    “ Fuck yeah!” I
replied.
    She knew where I liked to dance. There was
no way you were getting me on that dance floor in the middle of the
room. It was too open, too exposed. I wasn’t trying to be seen by
anyone. I just wanted to let the music permeate my senses and move
my body. One of the things I loved most about Eight Oh Eight was
there were various nooks and corners where you could dance. My
favorite was by the DJ box. It was in the corner by the arch,
raised from the floor by three steps. It was small enough that only
twenty people could fit in the area surrounded by railing. The
railing was a nice place to sit or grind on your boyfriend, if you
had one. It also provided a wall of bodies around the area. People
dancing up here didn’t want to be seen like on the main floor.
    I found a spot in the corner by the DJ and
the wall. I let the music take me away. Chris and I danced, feeling
it even more seeing one another get into the beat. I had a bad
habit of closing my eyes when I danced. I knew it was unsafe but
sometimes I couldn’t help it. I wanted to forget everything and
just be in that moment, on that dance floor, with that bass line
instructing my body how to move. It was a release of all the stress
and bullshit I had lived that week and every week of my life. Time
stood still when I closed my eyes and gave myself to the music. I
was deep into it when I felt a body behind me, causing me to tense
and stop moving.
    “ Don’t stop,” a familiar
voice crooned into my ear. “You looked so sexy lost in the music
like that.”
    I knew it was my giant hottie. I felt his
voice in between my legs when he whispered in my ear. He pushed his
hips against me and started moving to the beat. God, he felt good
and could move. I let him lead and closed my eyes. There was
something about him, his voice, the words we had exchanged earlier,
and his easy demeanor that put me at ease. Letting a man grind on
me from behind with my eyes closed made me feel vulnerable. I
didn’t give up control often, but it felt liberating having him
behind me, protecting me, moving with me. We swayed back and forth
to Wale’s Love Hate Thing. I leaned my head back onto his chest,
and reached one arm up to wrap around his neck. I put my other hand
over his that was on my hip.
    Together we were lost in another realm,
where time had stopped, and we were no longer at Eight Oh Eight. We
were floating in space, just the two of us. There was no one else
dancing a foot away as far as I was concerned. In that moment,
nothing existed except me, the music, and this man. I gave myself
over to it all, letting