I always loved watching her dance. There was something about it that always got to me. It wasn’t just the fact that she was unattainable- sure that was always there- it was something else. The way it made me feel. Sexual, but no, more than that. Greater.

It sounds typical. A male gaze cast in a shadow of lust, want, and entitlement. Maybe it is. I’d apologize, I would, really, but, I’m not sorry. And even now, I don’t think she was either. She liked it. It gave her power. It didn’t matter who owned the club, who paid the bills, who brought in the biggest tips, when she was there she owned it. She may have known whoever ran the place, but if she did they knew well enough to stand aside and simply watch from a distance.

The way she would swing, using nothing but the illusion of her body to highlight the spaces she was, where she could be. It was…it was like tracing an electron. You could see her, see the way she moved, the way her smile lit up, like the room was on fire and she just didn’t care. But then there was where she might be. Anywhere. Literally anywhere. Sharing a drink. Smiling, kissing you, kissing someone else, watching you kiss someone else. Always smiling, always swallowing the world in the same hymn to creation. She didn’t need gods. Didn’t need spirits. Didn’t need excuses. It was all just part of the show, a part of her. She’d look at you, gaze into those eyes, it was like staring into caged starlight, little pieces of heaven that seeped through the cracks and ended up trapped behind her pupils. Simultaneously kissing and sundering the world like it was always on the brink of being reset and made right again.

But it never went wrong.

That was the hell of it. For her, nothing ever was. I wonder if a man could ever feel like that sometimes, whether it would hit the same. Whether I’d be able fall into him the way I did her. Probably not. Maybe that’s sexist. Maybe that’s the wrong way to answer that question. Maybe it’s not a question. That’s probably it.

A fifteen hundred dollar tab and migraine will leave you with a lot of questions, but even now, gazing into the heat-printed paper baring my signature I still see her dancing, hips sing-songing to the lyrics like a forgotten chorus, praise to something eternally out of reach, I see her…

As I work, slobbering away on cost estimates and probabilities, she’s still be out there. Smiling. Taking in any and all who would deign to worship at the altar of all things.

What a world…what a fucking world.