“Hooooo-wee!” cries Jimmy in my ear, laughing. “Now if this isn’t a total change of pace …!”
Bodies, that’s all I see. Not faces. Not people. Just bodies with glittered shirts, tank tops, and nothing at all. Legs with underwear and heads with leather-daddy caps. Loose gold chains. Sweat and shiny muscles that look made of wax, or actual bronze, or pure oil.
“C’mon! Let’s go out onto that dance floor and live it up!”
I shoot him a look. “Let’s not.”
Jimmy grabs my hand, and like some sad, forlorn dog being dragged on a leash, he yanks me through the room until the pair of us are surrounded on all sides by dancing bodies.
I haven’t been in this kind of environment, ever.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing with my hands or my legs or my hips.
I’m a soccer player, not a dancer.
Yet there Jimmy goes, having the time of his life, feeling right in his element in the middle of a sea of sweaty gay men, dancing his tight tushie off in those stylishly ripped-up skinny-leg jeans. Whenever Jimmy dances, he puts every part of his body into it: his arms as they pop with the beat, his legs as they bend in and out, his feet as they twist and do all this crazy cool shit—hell, even his face gives this total stank-eye to nothing in particular as he gets his moves on and grinds the space like he’s fucking it in his mind.
It’s totally intoxicating. Well, whatever is the equivalent of intoxication by drinking through one’s eyes.
“You aren’t movin’!” he shouts at me. “C’mon, Bobby!”
I start nodding my head to the beat, glancing to my left, then to my right. Guys are looking at us. Sweat is already creeping up my neck. Or is that some heavy-breathing dude behind me?
“Don’t worry ‘bout no one else. Just move. Dance.”
“I …” My throat’s closing in. I’ve never been around so many gay guys before. I can’t even focus my attention on a single one of them, let alone move my damned hips. “It’s …”
“What?” shouts Jimmy through the noise. “I can’t hear you!”
“I can’t … I just—”
The next instant, Jimmy grips me by my hips.
I snap my eyes to his at once, startled.
Then he starts to guide me, rocking me with every four-count to the throbbing trance music that aggressively fills our ears and threatens to make them bleed. He tugs me one way, then tugs me the other.
He never looks away from my eyes.
“You got it!” he shouts at me encouragingly. “C’mon, get your hips moving! Yeah, like that! Like that!”
And indeed, just like that, Jimmy’s got me dancing with him. With each step, I gain confidence, With each bob of my head and thrust of an elbow or arm, my heart warms to the music.
Suddenly, I’m another dancing fool in the sweaty crowd.
And it’s all thanks to Jimmy who, once again, finds a way to pull me out of my own head.
Didn’t I already say Jimmy always gets his way in the end?
About four songs later (It’s difficult to say when one song ends and the next begins; they’re all sort of expertly blended together by the DJ.) Jimmy and I take a seat at the bar where we order a pair of sodas, since we’re both a year shy of the drinking age.
The energy between me and Jimmy tonight is something I am not used to. My being gay isn’t ever something that’s so—how do I put this?—spotlighted as it is right now. I feel strangely attended to, and I’m not sure yet whether it’s a pleasant thing.
As we sit there sipping our lame sodas, Jimmy surveys the bar with his keen eyes, then nudges me when he thinks he’s found me a guy to approach. Three times, I give said prospect a look across the smoky haze, then shrug, or shake my head, or sigh and look away. “You’re so picky,” Jimmy keeps muttering at me, then looks around for some other handsome dude with potential.
This hunting routine goes on for the better part of an hour.
During which, the pair of us get hit on. Several times, in fact.
But they all go something like: “Hey there, boys.” That came from a thirty-something with a flat, greasy part, a silver button-up shirt opened halfway down his chest, and a unibrow.
Jimmy was quick to say: “He’s taken, and I’m straight.”
Five minutes later came an older man who put a hand on both our shoulders. “How about I treat the sexy pair of you to a drink?”
Jimmy shot him a deadly look over his shoulder. “How about you buy yourself a pair of glasses and see that we ain’t your age?”
“Age is just a number,” the man returned with a soft smile.
“And so’s ‘one’,” Jimmy retorted, “which is the exact number of times I’ll punch you in the nuts before you fold in half.”