Just for Me
I SHOULDN’T BE HERE, ESPECIALLY alone like some creeper. Lady Marmalade is set up like an old-school night club. The tables look like they’re floating in the dark room, draped in white on the main floor with two to four chairs around each one. They are all filled with people out on a Saturday having a fun time drinking and being entertained by the beautiful women and men (I was surprised momentarily when I saw a dude dancing when I first got here—then not because it’s San Francisco, anything goes.) I’m up in the balcony area at a table tucked into a corner, barely visible from the stage. Am I hiding? Maybe. It’s silly really, I’ve already seen her dance a little and I’ve seen all of her goodies. She’s invited me to come see her more than once. Clearly, she is proud of what she does and would be jazzed to have a friend here.
Unfortunately, I’m a crap friend. I’m on my second gin and tonic, watching a man and a woman dance together. It’s super hot. It starts as a pretty traditional tango and then the music morphs into a more modern Latin pop song, they lose the majority of their clothes and they start to mimic real sex. Not even the pretense of dancing, just erotic positioning of each other and a lot of grinding. I’m sitting here with a half chub, by myself. I should definitely go. As I make to get up and leave the music changes to a familiar low thrum of one of my favorite songs. Portishead’s Roads.
On stage, the couple slows their frantic simulation to match the sultry music. The male dancer picks his partner up and drapes her, tits to the audience, over his shoulder and glides off the stage winking at us. Once they are gone, I notice the dancer that replaces them. She’s all I see with a laser focus. It’s Betsy, but she’s almost a different person. Her hair is a cloud of lavender beyond the tight braids around the crown of her head, her makeup dramatic. She is wearing a dark green corset, black satin booty shorts, and fishnets. Her shoes are also dark green and delicate, and she teeters on the sky-high stilettos. Her breasts are spilling obscenely from the corset and her tattoos look like they’ve been amplified in some way.
The music is loud and pulsing, yet she just stands there still. The crowd is hushed, waiting. Finally, Bets slowly raises a hand and then gently and seductively caresses down her body until she’s squatting. She stills again, then spreads her legs, hands on the inside of her thighs. I’m sweating, mesmerized. She maneuvers around the stage like a gazelle on roller-skates. It’s hard to notice if she even hits the floor or if she’s floating just above it. For the next four minutes or so I watch my friend dance. It feels like too plain of a thing to call it. There are times during her performance where I think she sees me, is dancing just for me. She doesn’t just dance, she draws me in, seduces me, shows me what life really means, and then leaves the stage. I’m still sweating but also cold. I can’t fully explain what has happened to me but I feel . . . altered.
The applause for her is thunderous and long-lasting. She deserves it. I’m sitting in stunned silence trying to process what just happened to me. I know I’m an asshole for being here without her knowing but I feel like I have this special secret, just for me. There are a few more dancers left but I pay for my drinks and leave. In the Uber on my way home, I am still in a trance. My mind goes to Betsy and the way her body moved and didn’t move. She was more expressive in her stillness than in her movement. It was erotic and felt like a private dance just for me.
The house is quiet and I know Jack is out for the night and probably staying with a friend closer to campus. I drink two tall glasses of water, walk in a daze to my room and drop into my reading chair after getting rid of all my clothes. I put my feet up and place my hand gently on my still half hard dick. Doesn’t take me long to get it to its full glory. I close my eyes and lean my head back onto the chair. The vision of Betsy dancing fills my mind and I see her, full red lips, incandescent skin with its floral bounty, those eyes, and that hair, that decadently long froth of hair that would be ridiculous on most people but is perfect on my Betsy. That’s how I think of her now. My Betsy. I know I’m in trouble. My friendly feelings for her are very much on the naughty side, far from the platonic brotherly way I’m sure she sees me.
I mean, she thinks I’m hot, I’m me for Christ’s sake. She just hasn’t realized that she’s not going to be able to live without me. I bite my lip as I lazily stroke myself thinking about her caressing herself, pulling the corset down to reveal her tits. My mind moves to the full-frontal vision I got earlier today. Was that today? Feels like eons ago. Her soft curves dance through my thoughts, teasing me as I tease myself. I’ve seen her naked but I keep returning to her steely eyes and how they see through me, whether we are just talking about nothing or she’s disrobing in front of me in my kitchen.
My hand longs to touch her soft skin, explore her curves and hidden spaces. I fantasize about stroking her plump pink pussy, pinching her clit as I bring her to the edge. My mouth goes to her nipple and I bite where the snake doesn’t quite make it. Dragging my lips to her other peak I nuzzle my face there. She grabs my hair and I close my mouth over her nipple and draw it in as far as I can into my mouth, tasting her sweetness and bringing her pleasure. I explore down to her abdomen, kissing her navel. You think I’m heading south, but instead, I go east and turn her so her peachy ass is now level with my face. I bite her cheek, realizing that my view of her from behind was so brief that details are lacking. My mind doesn’t care as I bend her forward and get a view of what I want. My tongue finds her clit and I eat her like I’ve been training for it my whole life.
Back to reality, I feel my balls tighten as I come all over my hand at the vision of Betsy bent over the ottoman in front of me. What a sight it would be. I use a ton of tissues from the table next to me and clean myself then head to the bathroom to wash my hands and flush the evidence. I look myself in the eye and feel okay about what I just did. Fantasy very rarely holds a candle to reality so I feel no guilt, just a sort of longing now. A longing for the last person I should. A client, my roommate, my friend who wants nothing to do with a relationship. Look at me, I’m Fucking Frank, king of the unrequited.
I get into my bed, my favorite place in the world and stare at my canopy. It’s a dark gray linen and I love it. When Jack was little, he and I loved to play blanket forts and this gives me the essence of that with more comfort than lying on the floor in the living room with my mom’s favorite throw blanket draped over the couch and coffee table. That throw has a permanent place on the couch and Jack and I use it all the time. I pretend she’s in the kitchen sometimes making her famous enchiladas (they weren’t really, but we loved them) while I sit and watch baseball snuggled up in the blanket. It’s been 12 years but I still miss them with a sharpness that feels new every now and then. I drift to sleep thinking about my family and my friends who feel like family. Finally, I think of Betsy and how her dancing will haunt me for a long time.