He was wearing a red & black headband with the number 23 emblazoned on the side, a strange accessory, she thought, for someone so straightforwardly pressed against her. She took him for underaged despite his success at battling for position inside this seething adult playground, searching like so many others for a much needed inhibition killer.
“Jordan or Lebron?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.
He smiled, lips parting to reveal an even row of smooth charm.
“My name’s Larry,” he offered, presuming her question to be an introduction.
“I think you’re 18, Larry, not old enough to be in here.” She is careful to control her demeanor as to reveal nothing, though her voice melts into that dangerously hypnotic timbre that can drown a weaker man.
“I’m 24 but I…I get that a lot.” His bravado stumbles a step but makes a commendable midair recovery.
He wants to know about her, his questions tentative yet polite as though engaged in a two-way interview. But she does not see it that way. She does not see most things the same way. She sees him as articulate, though having not yet developed a crafty man’s mask to hide an honest boy’s straightforwardness, and it evokes something gnawingly tender in her, a faint memory of some faraway loss. She is suddenly troubled that she can’t see his face–the room is dark, his face is dark around that little boy smile presenting possibility as a question mark, and her eyes have not been able to consistently separate color from form for hours.
She takes out her camera and without feeling a need for forewarning or permission, she snaps a picture, blinding him with the sudden explosion. She studies the captured image, his boyishness having nowhere to hide from an all too harsh light.
“You’re high,” she says, to which he sheepishly nods. She likes his transparency. She likes the way it tastes on her tongue. She likes the way he can smile at nothing in particular, just because he is happy.
He wants to see her. He wants to see how far the night can extend. He wants to hold on to whatever he believes is happening here tonight, because he is believing in magic the way a young boy believes in the magic of entire invisible universes in the darkness of a childhood bedroom. But when he leaves her for a split moment to retrieve his drink, the large Dominican who had been taking everything in leans over and whispers into her ear, “Whenever you’re ready.” He has danger in him, danger in his smooth caramel skin and in his light touch on her bare shoulder. Danger in his eyes and in his lips so close to her ear, in the long, crooked blunt tucked behind his own like another braid in his hair. She takes his rough, powerful hand and lets him lead her through the crowd, past the bouncer in black into the cool, biting night air that is eager to remind her that tonight, you make up your own rules.
But then again, she already knew that.