The Disappearing Wrist

I sat in a booth on one side of a dance floor littered with harlots in tight dresses and boys pretending to be men. I didn't even want to be there, but it was New Years Eve and some of the people I was with decided that clubbing was the way to go. It was dark save for a few spotlights and reflections from the surely tacky-by-now mirror ball dangling from some unseen rafter above us. The music blasted so loudly and through such a terrible speaker system that I couldn't tell what type of music we were listening to, much less the song. Bass pounded, I knew that, but any frequency higher than it was lost. I alternated between my beer and a string of whiskeys, both of which were bought for me, and a steel water bottle full of wine that I had smuggled in.

Marie and her sister and Kris stood on the other side of the booth wall, on the dance floor. Occasionally they danced, so to speak. Mostly they laughed and wiggled and laughed.

I sat with John in the dark, staring into the abyss of a life style that neither of us quite understood. Every girl on the floor wore tight, short dresses. Most of the girls were far too overweight for them, and spilled flesh wherever the dress just couldn't take the goddamn pressure any longer. I watched a young man who may have just turned twenty one cram most of his hand into a particularly obese girl who had apparently given up all together on pulling her dress down as it rode up. I watched in awe.

"Do you see that?" I asked John.

He looked at me and raised an eye brow.

"I said..." I shook my head and held my phone up and pointed to it. Then I pointed to John. He looked curious for a moment then I repeated the gesture and he nodded and took out his phone.

I texted: "Is that guy fingering that girl?" Send.

John's phone lit up. He read the message and typed. My phone lit up.

"Where?" He asked.

I looked at him and pointed out across the floor. There was no question about it now. The beast was blocking the young man out of my vision almost completely. Only his arm was showing as it bravely circumnavigated the planetary monstrosity and then just below the wrist it disappeared again, far into her underwear. I imagined whale songs far under the sea and the look on the behemoth's face only reenforced the idea. I was in this club. But at least I wasn't that fucking guy.

I looked at John. He was still watching.

Marie swung her legs up over the half-wall and slid into the booth. She was good and drunk. Smiling for no reason. Puckering her lips and in every direction giving her smoldering supermodel look that she swear she doesn't give. She leaned over me and kissed me. "Hey!" She said.

I smiled.

Kris came over the wall and slid in between Marie and John. Marie's sister went off to dance with a man in a cowboy hat and suspenders.

"I fucking love you!" Marie said.

"I love you!"

"What?!"

I kissed her and she kissed me. It morphed into a nearly adolescent display of tongues and indifference to onlookers. Hands, grips, gropes and grinds. I went with it. While we were kissing, two girls stood against the wall. I looked up. One looked good in her tight, ridiculous dress. The other was the fat friend.

"Hey!" I said to Marie. "You're drunk! Poke her ass!"

Marie looked. "Her?! In the silver dress?!"

I nodded.

Without hesitation, Marie turned around, and grabbed the girl's ass. A fucking handful. Apparently satisfied, Marie whipped back around and began putting on makeup in the mirror of a compact.

"Who the fuck just grabbed my ass?!" The girl asked, loudly.

We all looked up at her, except for Marie.

The girl looked at me. Her face wasn't much to celebrate. "Did you just grab ass motherfucker?"

What luck. In my left hand, I still held my phone. In my right, my beer. I held them up. I shook my head and shrugged. She looked around our booth. "Queers."She and her friend waddled down a few feet.

I looked at Marie. She was laughing.

I sat back in the booth and finished my beer, then my whiskey, then my wine. My body was warm and my head pounded. I wondered if there was a three-way in my future before the night was up. I doubted it.