Checks and Balances

Originally written Sunday, December 18, 2005 (continued)

“Nope,” I agreed. And then as she turned to start back up the stairs, I added, “But while we’re down here, I just want to take a peek around to see if maybe Patrick and his boyfriend are here. I haven’t seen them all night.”

“Marya!” she scolded. “And even if they are, you can’t give ‘em some privacy and wait til they get back up?” Not wanting to arouse suspicion (although it was unlikely she’d guess I was trying to spy on untrustworthy vampires, she might begin to think I was a creepy pervert), I was about to relent. Then she said, “Oh, isn’t that your friend Trudy?”

I followed the line of her gaze. Trudy was straddling the tall kid on one of the couches nearby, her head buried in the crook of his neck. His facial expression was near orgasmic, which surprised me for a moment until I saw how rhythmically her hips were moving above his lap. The skirt she was wearing was of full black crinoline, very “Borderline”-era Madonna, and it kept the private things private. It was impossible to see Trudy’s face, but Jeanine must have recognized the Libra sign tattooed on the back of her neck, which Jeanine had commented on earlier (she being a Libra as well).

“Oh my god, is she really doing that?” Jeanine continued. I snapped to attention and looked at her. What did she mean? Could she somehow see her sucking the young man’s blood? “I mean, isn’t she with that guy Moshe?”

Phew. “No, they’re just friendly as far as I know. But speaking of him, do you happen to see him down here, too?”

“Wow, you really are the voyeur, aren’t you? Or are you this posssessive of your friends? Imagine what you must be like with your girlfriends, huh?” Her hand crept up my spine from just above my bustier to my neck. I felt goosebumps rise in the wake of her touch. Moshe or no Moshe, the sexual charge of the room was contagious, and I had no complaints. “I really do have to pee, though. Maybe we can stop back down here afterward. You know—for another look.”

I scanned the room one last time before we returned up the stairs. There was no sign of Moshe or the well-endowed woman anywhere. I probably need not say that this troubled me, but there was little I could think to do about it except to keep an eye out for them. I interlaced my fingers with Jeanine’s, gave her a flirtatious half-smile to let her think she’d regained my attention, and led the way back to the dance floor.

There was, of course, a line for the ladies’ room on the upper floor, which was essentially a broad balcony encircling and looking down on the dance floor. And when my turn came, there was, of course, pee on the seat. In a place like this, hovering (as opposed to covering) becomes the norm fairly early in the evening. The paranoia that women who hover have about making direct contact with the toilet seat seems to be multiplied by one hundred at bars and dance clubs. I marvel at it, myself. Do they not realize how much less sanitary doorknobs are compared with toilet seats (even after the seats get urinated on, urine being sterile)? I grabbed a wad of paper, wiped off the surface, and then lined the seat with more. As I sat on my layer of toilet paper, I thought about how the construction of the restroom toilet in the public imagination holds a particularly taboo place that constructions of less private items like doorknobs do not. At some point along the line, there will be the opportunity to write scholarly work on the subject that will be taken seriously. Unfortunately, I admitted to myself as I finished up and flushed, that time is not now. I washed my hands while thinking about how interesting it would be to see whether hovering vs. covering correlated in any way with hand-washing and how the U.S.’s highly individualistic culture makes it more likely for someone to hover (because it allows her to avoid someone else’s germs) than to wash her hands (because it’s done in the interest of preventing the spread of one’s own genes to others) and wondering why I’d decided to go into philosophy in this re-gen and not social science.

It was just as I was walking out, trying to figure out how to carry out this research ethically (since people are probably more likely to wash their hands when others are present), hoping to take a look over the balcony onto the dance floor in case Moshe had come into sight before Jeanine came out of the restroom, when I felt hands sneak their way around my waist and a body press against mine from behind and hold me against the railing. Lips found a spot between my ear and my jawline, and my eyes closed almost involuntarily as the gentle mouth brushed its way lightly down my neck. It ended where my shoulder began; I felt a light nibble, and one of the hands was then cupping the other side of my neck, as if to hold it steady before tracing a line down my throat and the notch in the breastbone. The next moment, the hands and body crept away as quickly as they’d materialized.

Wondering why Jeanine had pulled away so suddenly, I turned around to see her only then emerging from the ladies’ room. Frisson hit me at the sight of her eight feet away when I thought she’d only a second ago been right behind me. It felt like alarm, but the alarm only fed the erotic charge of the moment.

“How’d you do that?” I asked her, just in case she had indeed performed an act of illusion. At the same time, I glanced around to see if someone else might be watching or paying attention or sneaking away. The crowds were so thick, however, that she (I had been so certain it was Jeanine that I couldn’t imagine the brief visitor had been male) could have been a foot away or back downstairs by then and there was no way to tell. I wished I knew, at the very least, whether it were a random interception or if I’d been sought out.

“Do what?” Jeanine said.

The events of this day to be continued...